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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
A discussion of metagame concepts in game design
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7470473" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Premise: we can't learn scientific truth simply by imagining things, or examining things that we imagine.</p><p></p><p>Premise: if something is conditioned by, or exemplifies the workings of, scientific laws, then by examining it we can learn scientific truth from it.</p><p></p><p>Conclusion: the things that we imagine are not, or at least need not be, conditioned by or exmemplifications of the workings of scientific laws.</p><p></p><p>Thus we can imagine giant humans, giant arthropods, flying dragons, etc which are neither conditioned by nor exemplifications of the workings of scientific laws. Throughout history, many people have done this on the basis of ignorance of scientific laws. <em>Fantasy stories</em> do this not on the basis of ignorance, but as a literary device.</p><p></p><p>D&D is a form of fantasy story. It uses the same literary devices as other fantasy stories. One of those devices is to imagine things that are neither conditioned by nor examplifications of the workings of scientific laws.</p><p></p><p>I'm sure it is possible to play D&D as a sci-fi game, adopting the conceit that things like giant humans, giant arthropods, flying dragons etc <em>are</em> conditioned by and exemplifications of the workings of real world scientific laws - and hence (eg) have biological properties very different from the earthy creatures they resemble, or live on worlds whose atmospheres have radically different fluid compositions from the earth that they resemble.</p><p></p><p>But nothing in the rulebooks that I'm familiar with suggests that the default approach to D&D is as a sci-fi game rather than a fantasy one.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7470473, member: 42582"] Premise: we can't learn scientific truth simply by imagining things, or examining things that we imagine. Premise: if something is conditioned by, or exemplifies the workings of, scientific laws, then by examining it we can learn scientific truth from it. Conclusion: the things that we imagine are not, or at least need not be, conditioned by or exmemplifications of the workings of scientific laws. Thus we can imagine giant humans, giant arthropods, flying dragons, etc which are neither conditioned by nor exemplifications of the workings of scientific laws. Throughout history, many people have done this on the basis of ignorance of scientific laws. [I]Fantasy stories[/I] do this not on the basis of ignorance, but as a literary device. D&D is a form of fantasy story. It uses the same literary devices as other fantasy stories. One of those devices is to imagine things that are neither conditioned by nor examplifications of the workings of scientific laws. I'm sure it is possible to play D&D as a sci-fi game, adopting the conceit that things like giant humans, giant arthropods, flying dragons etc [I]are[/I] conditioned by and exemplifications of the workings of real world scientific laws - and hence (eg) have biological properties very different from the earthy creatures they resemble, or live on worlds whose atmospheres have radically different fluid compositions from the earth that they resemble. But nothing in the rulebooks that I'm familiar with suggests that the default approach to D&D is as a sci-fi game rather than a fantasy one. [/QUOTE]
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