A Thought

[jgbrowning]

The scientific properties of elements in D&D are different from the scientific properties of elements in our world.

So, just to be absolutely 100% clear, what I am saying is this:
1. Scientific laws arise from empirical observation of data
2. Empirical data in the world of D&D is different from empirical data in our world
3. Therefore, the world of D&D is governed by different scientific laws than our world
4. The rules document some of the unique scientific laws of the D&D world but not all of them

That's assuming there are laws at all concerning regulation of "the universe" in a D&D world.

I have no problems assuming that both air and oxygen are "elements" even though it is a contradiction. To me, contradictions are magic.

I guess in short, I don't think magic worlds need scientific laws, because magic itself can be taken as "that which breaks the laws and therefore renders them invalid" not "that which creates a new set of laws through its existance." I don't know how clear I'm being, but I hope clear enough to be understood.

joe b.

 

[Storyteller01]

But that example has nothing to do with rules.

It does, in a way. The first is comparing worlds by just the rules (said goblin is X HD critter. you can assume by Y chart that it has Z treasure). The other goes beyond the rules into the dynamics of said world. It uses them as a means of describing something larger.

To be honest, operating by the rules can be rather restrictive, as opposed to 'giving options'. There are a number of story arcs and concepts I'd love to explore. Some are based on stories read, others are based on curiosity (what would happen to X race if this happened?). Attempting this with the current system in a pain in the arse, as there are few rules that represent the ides well, and creating new ones means a heavy re-tooling of the entie system.

Using reverse psych: Why are prisoners in some penal systems refered to as a number, as opposed to their names?

 

[mythusmage]

... doesn't the Monster Manual contain creatures that are invulnerable to various types of attacks for just this purpose?

I'm more concerned with creatures that are much tougher than the characters. Critters with immunity present problems, true, but they are not the whole of it. It's a matter really of expectations. As it stands people expect any opposition to be equal to them, if not worse. So they do prepare for superior opposition in any substantial manner. As iron golem is coming down a set of stairs, the party pelts it with arrows and spells. Cast a Rock to Mud on the steps themselves? Why, that would be clever and even useful, we can't have that.

And never underestimate the power of wet laundry to blind and confuse.

In other words, never put your faith into one solution.

 

[mythusmage]

The difference between proscriptive/prescriptive and descriptive is a matter of point of view, rather than the structure of the rules themselves. What seems like an entirely descriptive set of rules suddenly becomes proscriptive when the player wants his character to do something the rules do not allow.

The difference is in the heads of the players (and GM). When players look at the rules, figure out the kind of world they describe, and then act as part of that world, everything is descriptive, because they've chosen to use the rules as description. When the players try to do whatever they please without worrying about what the rules say (like playing a 4-color superhero in a grin-n-gritty game, f'rex), they'll see the prescriptive nature of the rules.

Of course, how people see the rules affects how they use the rules, and as consequence, how they play. I am aiming at a change in how RPGs are played. You take on the part of a person living in an imaginary world who gets caught up in dicey situations. You survive you may become a hero. You die you have a better chance of becoming a hero, but people won't be buying you drinks at the local tavern.

People will use the rules as prescriptive/proscriptive when appropriate, but (one hopes) they will think of them primarily as descriptive.

Player: That's not how lightning works in real life.

DM: It is how lightning works on Oerth. And since your character lives on Oerth he has to live or die with it,

But that example has nothing to do with rules.

Actually, this thread has nothing to do with rules. It has more to do with perception, how one sees RPGs. Remember, you are not playing the hero in a story, you are playing someone caught up in events who might become the hero in a story.

 

[fusangite]

That's assuming there are laws at all concerning regulation of "the universe" in a D&D world.

I guess in short, I don't think magic worlds need scientific laws, because magic itself can be taken as "that which breaks the laws and therefore renders them invalid" not "that which creates a new set of laws through its existance." I don't know how clear I'm being, but I hope clear enough to be understood.

I think you are mistaking miracles for magic. Worlds in which people cast magic spells are populated by magicians; magicians are people who believe that they understand magic enough to be able to make certain things happen. If magic were completely lawless and random, there would be no magicians; there would be no replicatable spells. In D&D, you can predict what the effects of a spell will be. You can predict how long it will take you to cast the spell. You can predict whether you will be capable of casting the spell. The reason predictions can be made is because magic in D&D conforms to laws and governing principles.

Now, it may be that magic, in this world, does not follow laws but the world of D&D, it does. Magic, in fact, is one of the most highly predictable areas of D&D physics. D&D magic is coherent and systematic. D&D posits a highly mechanistic ordered cosmos with stable rules and outcomes that can be duplicated. Thus, a physicist measuring the D&D world would be able to determine that a Xorn was made of pure unadulterated earth, that magic missiles unerringly hit their targets, etc. D&D magic is in no way hostile to empirical examination and, as such, doesn't meet the definition that you have established for magic, above.

The original point of this thread is that the rules represent the physics of the D&D world; if this is true and the rules contain the magic system, then...

 

[jgbrowning]

I think you are mistaking miracles for magic. Worlds in which people cast magic spells are populated by magicians; magicians are people who believe that they understand magic enough to be able to make certain things happen. If magic were completely lawless and random, there would be no magicians; there would be no replicatable spells. In D&D, you can predict what the effects of a spell will be. You can predict how long it will take you to cast the spell. You can predict whether you will be capable of casting the spell. [my emphasis]The reason predictions can be made is because magic in D&D conforms to laws and governing principles. [/my emphasis]

What if the laws and governing priciples change every time, but the effect remains the same? What if there are an infinate number of methods of change that respond to the same stimulus (codified, replicatable spell) in the same manner? This would mean that the laws are not laws, only the effects, not the mechanics, are replicatable.

In effect, a world that seems deterministic, but is based upon laws that never repeat themselves, but always have the same effect. Gravity is not consitantly caused by mass, but by little green men on mars one time, then by solar wind the next, then by a new X every other time after than. Never repeating. Hence, no laws, only consistant effects.

Now, it may be that magic, in this world, does not follow laws but the world of D&D, it does. Magic, in fact, is one of the most highly predictable areas of D&D physics. D&D magic is coherent and systematic. D&D posits a highly mechanistic ordered cosmos with stable rules and outcomes that can be duplicated. Thus, a physicist measuring the D&D world would be able to determine that a Xorn was made of pure unadulterated earth, that magic missiles unerringly hit their targets, etc. D&D magic is in no way hostile to empirical examination and, as such, doesn't meet the definition that you have established for magic, above.

Again, what if the underlying priciples change every time, the methodology in which something occurs changes everytime, but the effect is the same? You're making an assumption that because the effect is the same, the mechanism is the same. I'm postulating a system in which the effect is always the same, and replicatable, but that the mechanism causing the effect is a black box.

Your assumption, "because effect is the same, mechanism is the same" is scientific thinking. My assumption "because effect is the same, mechanism is not the same" is magical.

The original point of this thread is that the rules represent the physics of the D&D world; if this is true and the rules contain the magic system, then...

I'm um... hijacking.

joe b.

 

[Storyteller01]

Methinks we have overshot the posters original intent...

 

[fusangite]

What if the laws and governing priciples change every time, but the effect remains the same? What if there are an infinate number of methods of change that respond to the same stimulus (codified, replicatable spell) in the same manner? This would mean that the laws are not laws, only the effects, not the mechanics, are replicatable.

Joe, I think you misunderstand what a scientific law is. A scientific law has no physical existence. All scientific laws are are human-created predictive systems, half math, half metaphor. A scientific law is nothing more or less than a predictive system. It is an idea not an object.

Newton's laws of gravitation don't cease to be true just because we know that action at a distance does not take place. The law remains predictive even as our understanding of why it is predictive continues to evolve.

So, D&D is governed by empirically observable scientitic laws.

In effect, a world that seems deterministic, but is based upon laws that never repeat themselves, but always have the same effect.

But laws only come into being when we observe, catalogue and predict phenomena. All that exists in the universe are phenomena. Scientific laws are human constructs.

What we know about D&D magic is that we can predict it. These predictions characters record/comprehend as scientific laws -- expectations about how things will go in future based on empirical evidence about how things have gone in the past. As long as there is empirically-grounded predictability, people make scientific laws.

Gravity is not consitantly caused by mass, but by little green men on mars one time, then by solar wind the next, then by a new X every other time after than. Never repeating. Hence, no laws, only consistant effects.

So, why, then, can we predict what it will do with such accuracy? What is going on in the universe that makes this seemingly randomly caused thing act the same way every time it operates? Whatever that thing may be, telos, divine intervention, fortune, you name it, that's the thing that the scientific law is attempting to track.

RPGs can only be set in predictable worlds. Otherwise the players have no power. Play arises out of choosing a course of action because you believe that it will succeed. All rational play arises from players comprehending or internalizing predictive models for the universe their characters inhabit.

If D&D magic worked entirely by DM fiat, people would not play spellcasters because they would have no sense that their own choices and actions had meaning.

Again, what if the underlying priciples change every time, the methodology in which something occurs changes everytime, but the effect is the same? You're making an assumption that because the effect is the same, the mechanism is the same.

I'm not. I'm saying that the scientific laws that are relevant here are the ones measuring the effects. In real world science, predictive models routinely outlive the mechanistic explanations for the phenomena they predict. Evolution was designed based on gemules, not genes. Modern kinematics was premised on action at a distance. The list goes on.

 

[fusangite]

Methinks we have overshot the posters original intent...

I'm still trying to piece together just what that was.

 

[jgbrowning]

I'm still trying to piece together just what that was.

So am I. I think I failed to express myself very well. So I'll try again.

I know all laws are are codified behavior, or an explaination of "what happens" not really "why it happens". In other words, gravity works because it works and we're trying to find out more of "why" even though we're pretty good at predicting whats going to happen and what has/will happen.

What I'm postulating (and what is different than the gravity anology) is an unknowable "how" that unlike our world constantly changes reasons for "how."

Its like this. There is level A where players interact with magic and things work based upon laws and principles, but underneath that layer, the layer of "do this and this happens" there is an unpaternable series of events that causes the above layer. Layer A is understandable by us, but layer B is forever unfathomable, even though it's obvious that layer B somehow always makes layer A work in the same way.

I guess I'm questioning the basic scientific concept of cauality when applied to magic- perhaps every action doesn't have an equal and opposite reaction and only the single layer the players understand as magic is predictive, but beyond that, magic itself cannot be understood because there's simply no pattern of cause and effect.

To make an extended example: Fireball requires some bat guano and some words and some gestures. Perhaps those words and gestures aren't the same everytime (one wizard's fireball is different than another wizard's or even one wizard's casting of fireball is different from one casting to the next), perhaps the magic is really transforming (i know it's evocation) the bat guano into the fireball one time, but is opening up a planar rift another time, and yet something different the next time and the next.

Perhaps there's only one layer of understandability that's based solely on trial-and-error, not upon logic concering cause and effect, or the concept of scientific laws and priciples (consistant, predicable action).

Hrm, here's an anology you'll probably get. It's like blacksmithing for someone in the middle ages, but with the idea that there is no replicatable molecular interactions occuring although the result (say a higher quality iron) is achievable. The only way to get a better iron (better spell) is through trial and error and not through understanding the underlying priciples of metalurgy because they are not replicatable, although the result is once the trial-and-error turns into trial-and-succeed. There's no using science to understand the underlying priciples to make a better iron, since the underlying principles are utterly random, even though the results that occur from the utter randomness are predictable.

OK, this is slightly off topic, but relates in that the predictability of magic in the game system makes all other magics a matter of trial and error and not one of scientific investigation because all other layers are random. There's many ways to read the systems magic rules as "how things work" without extrapolating that things work the same way up and down the ladders of causality.

joe b.