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You know: you don't have to buy or use any of the stuff outside of the core. Now, don't get me wrong: I agree that combat especially is a little baroque for my tastes too. But it seems weird to me that most of your reasons for abandoning the game are the optional parts that my friends and I...

I think that worlds where the laws of cause and effect are completely different, depending on whether the PCs are watching are worlds of postmodern, solipsistic excess that I want no part of. While I agree that a physics is possible that works one way when a special person or special people...

Excellent point. I find that riddle-asking and other folkloric monsters don't work in D&D without an unacceptable amount of railroading.

Sold!

I don't see how D20 Modern or Call of Cthulu, the only two I've seen used, have significantly different physics from those Victorians believed in. As long as the GM doesn't let limb-severing come up, we're pretty much good to go. Is it easier to reconcile a continuous series of clashes between...

I feel really repetitive at this point. It seems like the people with whom RC and I are arguing, rather than coming up with new arguments, just parrot what the last person in the argument said and we spent two pages refuting. There is a simple test as to whether the rules of the game are...

They're not in the MM (maybe you could use Gnolls with a few adjustments like no default alignment and slightly higher INT) but the cynocephali (dog-headed men) were very popular in ancient and early medieval geographic and ethnological books.

How fortunate D&D doesn't take place on earth, what with its Tempests, Air Elementals, etc. So the rules of Toon simulate our falling physics? The spell Feather Fall is part of a simulation of our falling physics? I haven't followed this part of the argument closely. But I will say that Masque...

My elves wouldn't end up in this situation, for a variety of reasons. The elves in the world I've just built and will start running in August are in a bad way, no doubt. But my worlds tend not to have the same style of history as yours does. It's just a GM flavour difference. But my general...

Wow! That's some lovingly-created setting history you have come up with. I can see your reluctance to abandon it; it's dramatic and detailed. It sounds like there are some things you could stand to change in it if you want to elves to do better; but it's certainly a fun narrative as it stands...

FIFY In my worlds, wizard means physicist. But yes, if you want to look at the study of magic before the 18th century, alchemists and magi understood themselves to be studying physics and making discoveries about physics. That's, in part, why Newton did so much alchemical work: he saw it as...

mmadsen, Edena has conceded the debate twice. I think it's time to stop baiting him and move on.

It is clear that, as far as literary genre goes, the RAW are Applied Physics not Theoretical Physics. But Applied Physics, as a discipline, is no less physics than Theoretical Physics. Both are concerned with and describe the rules of cause and effect. But whereas Theoretical Physics is more...

Why not? Physics is the rules of a world not of our world. Physics means physical laws. That's all it means. The definition you presented from wikipedia says exactly that. I see that I was right in my suspicions. You believe "physics" means something other than "physical laws" (or our best...

Doug, you have offered two different definitions just in your reply. I'm working with the wikipedia definition here and not the second definition. What RC and I are stating is that if one "discovered and characterized the universal laws" of a D&D world, these laws would be different from the...

Well, the problem is that the very idea of "religion" does not get on with polytheistic systems. Although we use the Western word "religion" when we talk about Shintoism, Hinduism or Buddhism, there isn't really a comparison between polytheistic worldviews and monotheistic worldviews. The idea...

I've been away from ENWorld for a while but how long has it been like this? Is there always some kind of new thread about elves being too weak? Or did I just come back at a strange time?

Edena, I hope that you will proceed with the extra abilities for elves in your own setting. It sounds like an idea that will make you happy as a GM, whether it is objectiely necessary or not. Don't let the rules get in the way of your vision for your campaign world.

The awesomeness of Vic is almost inexpressible. I'm working on an awesome stable of NPCs some of whom you may recognize.

Well, let's do it. I'm thinking that the interesting issues here are what races correspond to in D&D. Are they like human societies, human phenotypes, human lineage sets or like radically different species (a la Empire of the Petal Throne/Glorantha)? What kind of generalizations can we make...