A Thought

[mythusmage]

Thank you, Edena.

Another suggestion: Dramatize your fights. Make them engaging, exciting. People tend to feel better about losing a character when that character dies in a battle that heats the blood, that rouses the passions.

"Yeah, Snargblog the Reaver died, but that kobold was reellin' at the end."

 

[jgbrowning]

People would take whatever empirical data they did have and construct, intellectually, a theory, a pattern of patterns that united all the data based on patterns apparently common.

I'm trying to say there is no patterns, yet it works consistantly for repitition, but provides no information for experimentation. It's like things falling at the same speed regardless of weight. There's no reason to assume that all "fire" spells share common traits which can lead to postutlating a "theory of gravity" based upon observable "firey" actions. Any knowledge one gains about "fireball" is useless for any other spell. There's nothing that "transfers over" because there's no pattern connecting each individual spell (and each individual caster's version of the spell) to each other. And when I say no pattern, I don't have to mean "no observable pattern" I can really mean NO pattern.

Just like they always do. The theory would not be "true," just as Newtonian physics is not "true." But it would, to use history of science language, "save the appearances" -- in other words, the theory would cohere because it simultaneously explained multiple pieces of empirical data.

I'm saying that there is no bit of information that explains multiple pieces of empirical data because there is no shared causility. In order to have a pattern (of anything) there has to be a shared causility or you're dealing with coincidence. To me, magic never works in the same way twice, although you can use it in the same way twice. Magic is always causaly coincidental, yet works like a pattern as long as exactly the same words/movements/materials are involved. Change even the tiniest bit, and it wont work unless you change it into a different caster's version of the same spell.

People don't make models of physics by going down a layer because they new technologies or strategies of observation that permit them to do this. People make systems of physics to explain the data they already have. For people to develop a system of physics in D&D, no further investigation would be necessary beyond what the rules already say. Things not described in the rules would logical entailments of the theory used to unite the empirical data.

I'm trying to say that the data set you have obvservable doesn't have to have a pattern outside of each spell working as described. There doesn't have to be a pattern connecting any spell to any other spell— no Harry Potteresque "Leviosa!" connecting levitation/flying/air spells —no shared movements or componants. Just because one can cast a spell the same way everytime doesn't mean that anything you just did has any connection to any other spell in the game (that's an assumption based upon the idea that things which work consitantly cannot be coincidentaly caused-I argue that magic breaks that). Worse than that, you can get the same exact effects using different words/movements/materials.

Above and below that data set is no pattern either. It seems like your arguement is that there's a pattern (which is completely rational, there's always a pattern in the real world when dealing with non-quantum things and even then there are some patterns/probabilities) but my argument is that there's really not a pattern —that there's really no shared traits that have any similiar/shared/paternable effects.

No. I'm having no difficulty comprehending your argument. I'm disagreeing with it. Comprehension is always partial and relative. The mere observation of a pattern indicates partial comprehension; you cannot assign the attribute of incomprehensibility to something that is already comprehended to some degree. People comprehend that doing Y always causes X; that is something they know from empirical data. The functioning of physics is always comrehended in this partial way.

Again, you seem to be working under the base assuption that there's a pattern because magic works. If I'm understanding properly, you think that if there was no pattern, it would only be conincidence and magic couldn't work in the way it works in D&D if it was only coincidence. I'm saying, yes it can, because its magic and it doesn't have to follow logic, rationality, or anything anyone else thinks about how something should work.

joe b.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I'm trying to say there is no patterns, yet it works consistantly for repitition, but provides no information for experimentation.

Which is, in and of itself, a pattern, and provides enough data for experimentation.

We don't really know, on any measurable scale, how stuff down in the quantum foam actually works. And yet, we know, up here in the non-foamy levels of reality, that every time I breathe a certain way and use a particular set of muscles a certain way, I talk. We know that stuff falls, even if we don't completely comprehend how gravity works.

It is theoretically possible (though very, very unlikely, and to use a patently ridiculous example), that in our universe gravity is caused, in this moment, by gravity fairies, and in the next moment, by the curvature of space time which is replaced, in the next moment, by a one-legged bird-like creature hopping on Mars.

And yet, we still have predictive theories of gravity.

 

[fusangite]

I'm trying to say there is no patterns,

Yes there are. Whenever I cast X spell, Y effect happens. The relationship between my actions and the outcome are the pattern. The fact that different things connect my actions to the outcome each time does not nullify the pattern's existence. That fact is simply an additional piece of information about the pattern that eliminates certain kinds of explanations thereof.

A pattern is simply one thing having a high degree of correlation to another thing. How that correlation is effected informs the nature of the pattern; it does not speak to whether the pattern exists. The existence of the pattern is self-evident.

I'm saying that there is no bit of information that explains multiple pieces of empirical data because there is no shared causility.

If a model is predictive, it is predictive. It doesn't stop being predictive because of a misapprehension on the part of its designer about the "true" nature of reality. The model remains a viable system of physics as long as it predicts and explains outcomes in the real world.

You are getting hung up on the idea of a correlation between a predictive model of reality and some kind of meta true reality. You are arguing that a system of physics is impossible unless these two things are identical. But the history of science shows that this is not the case.

In order to have a pattern (of anything) there has to be a shared causility or you're dealing with coincidence.

No. A system of physics requires a model of shared causation. A pattern requires only correlation.

But you are missing my essential point here: changing or different agencies do not nullify cause and effect. The fact that doing X causes Y is cause and effect regardless of the agency connecting these two events.

In Aristotelian physics, an object has a telos -- it has a place that it is meant to go, a set of things that are meant to happen to it based on its intrinsic nature. How this telos is effected is not always the same; but the object is nevertheless causally linked to outcome. The same is true in Taoist Chinese physics; change inheres in matter itself. The matter needs/wants to change and this change is predictable even though the agency of the change is unknown.

What you are doing here is this: you are saying that present-day, modern physics=physics; whereas other systems of physics=magic. This is why I really recommend you read Yates. The stigma attached to the term "magic" during the enlightenment is creating a false dichotemy in your thinking making you unable to conceptualize teleological models of physics with variable causative agencies (what you are describing) as a kind of physics.

Again, you seem to be working under the base assuption that there's a pattern because magic works.

No. I am arguing there is a pattern because the correlation coeficient between casting fireball and having a fireball go off is 1.0.

Maybe this will go better when we discuss this in person. Truce?

 

[fusangite]

Which is, in and of itself, a pattern

Thanks Patryn. Thanks for backing me up on this one despite my tendency to try and rip your head off with minimal provocation.

 

[fusangite]

How well the players get into the world depends in large part on how engrossing the GM makes the world. A lackluster GM can make even the most compelling worlds dull and uninteresting. A good GM can take something dull and bring it to life.

However, when an RPG setting is thought of as just a playing area, it becomes easier to make it dull and uninteresting. When it is thought of as a world where people live, then it becomes easier to bring it to life. Not just in play, but more importantly during design and development.

This is like saying that free verse will always be more creative than sonnets. The fact that when I design a D&D world, I have to take into account the need to generate satisfying opportunities for role-playing, storytelling and miniatures gaming forces me to be more creative, just the way the imposition of rhyme and metre on a poem does.

Now that doesn't mean I want to write sonnets all the time but I'm not sorry that the sonnet exists and I don't attack the existence of sonnets for limiting people's opportunity to write other kinds of poems. Because it doesn't.

Lacklustre GMs can exist anywhere and use any system. Systems that demand a GM balance a bunch of potentially conflicting requirements facilitate creativity as often as they inhibit it.

RREG also points out the price many pay for getting deeply involved, loss. People lose a character they tend to grieve after a fashion.

Well, it depends. If they are more invested in story than character and their character's death enriches the story for them, the death may, in fact, be a rewarding culmination of their work and a fulfilling event. It really depends on the values and priorities of the player.

When somebody loses a character give them some time to compose themselves, then work out a way to introduce his new character. One possibility you might try is having him "take over" one of the party's NPCs. A henchman or hireling for example.

What is going on here with your continuous pedantry!? What gives you the feeling that you are some kind of authority to advise the gaming community in the tone that you are using? You have demonstrated your total ignorance of the existence and terminology used in the 20+ year debate about the issues you are raising. And now you presume to present yourself as some kind of authority not only on RPG theory but on how to deal with individual players who are inappropriately attached to their characters!?

If you didn't keep treating us like idiots who know nothing about GMing, I might start feeling bad for how you keep embarassing yourself.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

This year will be my first-ever trip. So, a beer is definitely on. It will be a pleasure to meet you.

Sorry for the hijack, but hopefully I'll run into you guys. It's my first year as well.

 

[Kanegrundar]

As I read the thread I keep thinking: "man, people put waaaaay too much thought into a game." I don't care if you play D&D as wargame or as a deep immersive story, just as long as you have fun and don't come down on anyone else for missing an opporotunity. I tend to play between the two styles, but I lean a bit more towards the "wargamey" side of the spectrum. There's a storyline, plot, characterization, etc., but there is also a good deal of action and by that I mean combat. If that's not your style, great. What I do care about are people that look down their noses at those that don't have fun they way they do. That's so snobbish it's not even funny. Who became God of the Games and proclaimed the "one true way to play?" We're all playing games here, just have fun and don't worry about how others are playing.

Kane

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Thanks Patryn. Thanks for backing me up on this one despite my tendency to try and rip your head off with minimal provocation.

Hey, when you're right, you're right.

 

[Ranger REG]

Ranger REG brings up an important point in the posting above. How well the players get into the world depends in large part on how engrossing the GM makes the world. A lackluster GM can make even the most compelling worlds dull and uninteresting. A good GM can take something dull and bring it to life.

Then all we have to do is help [first-time] newbie GMs to be better in their role as a storyteller and in the many NPC "speaking extras."

Do we have a product for that?