A Thought

[sword-dancer]

This is, in essence, how I tend to approach things. However, for many intents and purposes, the two are nigh synonymous. In the real world, the laws of physics restrict what I can do. In the game world, the rules say what is and is not possible.

The rules are the physical laws of the game world.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

My question is: Why all the rhetoric of religious punditry? Who died and left somebody in charge of passing judgement on how or what types of games people play?

--fje

 

[SweeneyTodd]

My question is: Why all the rhetoric of religious punditry? Who died and left somebody in charge of passing judgement on how or what types of games people play?

I'm hoping that the rhetoric can get toned down a bit, too.

mythusmage, see if this is basically what you're saying, in simple words:
1) immersion is good and fun
2) following (1), rules should act in the service of immersion
3) following (3), rules should describe the physical laws of the game world.

Is that your argument? I disagree (I don't think (1) is very important, so the rest is kind of irrelevant to me), but I'd like to know if I understand your argument.

And I can disagree with those tenants without being a wargamer, anyway. If I'm playing a roleplaying game to explore (whether it's exploring a fictional environment, or exploring themes and issues), I'm not wargaming.

I'm still trying to see how this is a dramatic paradigm shift. People have been playing heavy-immersion style since at least the '80s.

 

[fusangite]

I'm postulating (c) Their is no way to ever determine causal relationship even when one does X, Y always happens. This is a contradiction—this is what I'm thinking magic is—contrary to our understanding of how systems work.

I would accept this argument about magic in a different game system. But D&D is a fundamentally modernist system that does not accept paradox. The whole premise of D20 is to rub out paradox and grey areas. If we were designing a MMS:WE game, I could buy into this argument. But 3.x D&D is about paradox-proofing.

To wit, casting Fireball always produces a Fireball except under clearly articulated conditions. Also, I think you are missing my point. You are confusing the inability to explain why things cause to eachother with the inability to observe the causation. The fact that you can't explain how casting Fireball causes a Fireball doesn't mean that you can't know that casting Fireball causes a Fireball. There is no option C. Either the perceived pattern is predictive or it's not.

The rules tell us unambiguously what causes something to happen. The fact that they don't cover how the thing happens does not alter the fact that they unambiguously delineate causation.

There's no way to apply knowledge (of x then y) to form a framework about the "inner workings of magic" because the working (the magic) is a permanent black box since things never work the same way twice even when the results are the same.

But most theories of physics, that were highly predictive, weren't just premised on unknown or unknowable things, they were often premised on false things. The fact is that the Ptolmaic model of the solar system was largely predictive, as was Newton's idea of gravitation through action at a distance. Physical models can store predictive physical laws, even if the models, themselves, are un- or incompletely true.

You're postulating that since the magic is predictable and replicatable, all things concerning magic are predictable and replicatable. I like to think that magic, by its very nature is counter to such laws, not just a "new" set of laws. Something completely different.

First of all, no, I'm absolutely not stating that all magic in D&D must operate like the magic rules described by WOTC so far. I don't know where you are getting this from what I have written.

I think that you have become hung up on how the word "magic" was used during the 18th through 20th centuries to come up with an ahistorical view of the term. In your MMS:WE research, I'm sure you got the sense that this is inconsistent with how medieval and early modern people thought about magic. The only place you are going to find anything like this "black box" theory is in 16th century discussions of the "supernatural."

Furthermore, we're talking about D20 here. We're not talking about a mystical, metaphysical, paradox-ridden game. Your ideas about magic, while possibly appropriate for some other game system, are completely at odds with everything the rules tell us about D&D magic.

One transhistorical truth I am going to stick with, though, is the idea that human beings like to order the universe around them. We like to assume events around us are predictable even when they are not. Theology, galenic medicine, the list is near-infinite. People build theories of causation to explain events around them. The need to do this is so powerful that people will insist models are predictive despite scanty evidence and repeated failures. That's because it is in our nature to intellectually order the phenomena around us. So, in any fantasy world worth its salt, the inhabitants will have at least one (and probably more) theories of physics. Now, I have faith in the inhabitants of these worlds that however profoundly their particular models differ structurally and rhetorically from one another, all of these models will include physical laws that reflect easily replicable empirical data. The spells in the PHB are practically the very definition of this kind of data.

Of course the world still has physics is so far as is related to game play because its not fun playing in a game with no boundries (I killed you! No you didn't! Yes I did! No you didn't!). But there's no need to assume that even though the game boundries function like scientific physics that they are scientific physics.

I don't know what you mean here.

"Gravity is caused by something that is never the same thing twice" completely shuts down any form of real scientific study because the causality cannot be studied.

Alright, we now know the first property of this force: it is actively hostile to observation. Now, we know two things about gravity in this hypothetical game world.

My point is that you can still have physical laws without the ability to investigate precisely how they operate. Most physicists today would tell you that in this respect, despite our great gains in knowledge, we are still in that situation.

Which is what science continually does... A does B because of C and C does D because of E. When C become X (a non repeating variable) figuring out the remainder of the chain becomes imposible, and hence scientific thought become effectively useless.

The scientific question remains, thought: why does A always cause B? There are only two available classes of answers: pattern or coincidence. The fact that A seems to cause B in a different way every time does not nullify the existence of a pattern -- it just poses new and interesting questions about the pattern's nature.

There's a third answer, none of the above. Magic. Magic can be the contradiction-can be both total random chance that functions as an incompletely comprehended pattern.

Sorry but we are moderns. Koans don't count as answers. Noam Chomsky will tell you that just because you made that sentence does not mean that it conveys appreciable meaning.

I'm saying that magic doesn't have to make sense because it's magic, not reality, not a "different reality with it's own set of paramenters" but something that, although it can function repeatedly in the same manner (ala fireball spell), isn't restricted by our thoughts that repeatability indicates causality.

Magic is reality. The real is things that really happen. Magic really happens in the D&D world. It can't be separate from reality because it's affecting and being affected by reality all the time.

What you are doing is talking like a 16th century Italian theologian about the supernatural. And you are hitting the same problem they did. Once you acknowledge that the supernatural is directly or indirectly affecting everything all the time, physics/natural philosophy has no place. Everything is contaminated by that which is not subject to investigation.

A society cannot sustain thinking about its environment in this way. Other systems of thought inevtiably supplant one like this because people wish to comprehend and order their world.

Imagine that magic really works backwards in time. Players are caused to cast a fireball spell because it's already gone off.

I'm fine with that. That's still causation.

The next casting will have a different causility.

But if fireballs always go off when someone casts the spell and never go off when no one casts the spell, one of two things must be true: casting the spell has a causal relationship to the fireball OR it's just random chance. Come at me with more examples. Every single one of them will fall into one category or the other. Nothing will fall outside them. And the physicist will simply ask: why does this keep happening? He will contruct an explanation to the best of his ability and this explanation will become part of a model of physics. The model will be incomplete but it will be predictive and physics will be born.

This type of thought makes magical studies something like someone's taste in art. Entirely subjective, and not quantifiable.Think of the consistancy in magic like the consistancy that everyone will have some art they like better than others. The bits and pieces are uncomprehensible but the effect (liking something better) is the same every time for different people.

Psychologists, anthropologists, art historians and various others do study people's tastes in art and do develop weak predictive models from these studies that allow them to deduce things about cultures that turn out to have predictive value.

To be human is to think systematically, to order and predict. People will develop systems of physics that explain empirical data because they are members of the human race.

Imagine if the universe and magic was a preference, not a subjective reality that can be causaly studied.

Well, if things cannot be empirically studied, then they have to be studied Platonically, through the construction of thought experiments and dialectical reasoning. Empiricism is not even a requirement for physics at the investigatory stage as long as the outcome of the investigation helps to create predictive models. Many systems of physics have been developed in just this way.

I'm challanging the idea that consistent, predictable action must come from a consistant predictable universe.

Nope. People doing quantum physics today would argue that the operation of consistent, predictable physical laws is in no way inconsistent with an anarchic, unpredictable universe.

I'm saying that magic breaks that concept because it's magic, not science.

I really think you are getting hung up on a definitions of magic and science reflect neither historical understandings of the terms nor modern academic understandings of the terms.

You should read Frances Yates on the scientific revolution. The magic-science dichotemy is torn to shreds in her works. She makes the compelling argument that the Scientific Revolution was caused by an increased elite belief in magic.

At a basic level yes, but to make modern metals, you need our modern concept of metalurgy to produce high-tech products.

And as our understanding of chemistry, physics and metallurgy becomes more complete, we will learn to produce metallic products we cannot today produce. But that won't mean that we didn't have a functional set of physics with which to practice metallurgy today any more than the fact that we know about atoms and molecules now erases the fact that people in the past made metal products with a less complete idea of physics than we have today.

Not true, the DM can fiat whatever he wants because it's magic.

No. That power comes from being DM, not because of the special power of the word "magic" -- he has exactly the same power over parts of the rules that refer to magic as he does over the parts that don't.

Only the player works within a deterministic system. When I need a flying city, I just *poof* there's a flying city. When a player wants to make a flying city, I just *poof* here's how the flying cities work.

As a GM, I find it useful to know what the general physical principles of my world are. It helps me make coherent places and stories. It also gives my players an incentive to investigate things because they can rely on me to be producing a coherent product. It doesn't take that much work to figure out the general physics of your world and, once you know them, it allows you to improvise more easily and consistently.

As long as I don't openly contradict any existing rules (at least to the detriment of the players or at least without informing the players first that I do things this way), there's no need to assume that there's a set physics concerning magic in the world the characters operate. A determinsitic system is used to provide players with guidelines in interacting with the environment that I non-deterministically created.

And this takes me right back to the point I was making at the start of the argument. Your style leads to the risk that the players will begin to observe that the things near them are governed by one set of physical laws and the things further away are governed by a different set. Unless you want to make subjectivity and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle the themes you are foregrounding in your campaign, this is something to be avoided.

 

[jgbrowning]

I would accept this argument about magic in a different game system. But D&D is a fundamentally modernist system that does not accept paradox. The whole premise of D20 is to rub out paradox and grey areas. If we were designing a MMS:WE game, I could buy into this argument. But 3.x D&D is about paradox-proofing.

Heh, that's a good argument (the fundamentally mondernist system). I think we agree.

But if fireballs always go off when someone casts the spell and never go off when no one casts the spell, one of two things must be true: casting the spell has a causal relationship to the fireball OR it's just random chance. Come at me with more examples. Every single one of them will fall into one category or the other. Nothing will fall outside them. And the physicist will simply ask: why does this keep happening? He will contruct an explanation to the best of his ability and this explanation will become part of a model of physics. The model will be incomplete but it will be predictive and physics will be born.

Imagine if everytime there is a different reason and there is no repitition of causation. I don't think one could even conceive of a physics that could have any use based upon that knowledge of causation. ie. not saying there isn't causation just saying there's no repeating causation.

joe b.

 

[fusangite]

Imagine if everytime there is a different reason and there is no repitition of causation. I don't think one could even conceive of a physics that could have any use based upon that knowledge of causation. ie. not saying there isn't causation just saying there's no repeating causation.

That's why I requested examples. Examples would allow us to conduct a thought experiment to see if your third category really exists. If the fact that you're doing the identical thing every time to produce the identical result does not indicate any causative similarity, then it indicates coincidence. I believe that if we used examples, you would see that the middle ground you are positing is illusory.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Imagine if everytime there is a different reason and there is no repitition of causation.

To the disinterested observer, however, they look exactly the same.

If, every time I say "Blamfg!," fire appears in the palm of my hand because of a unique, unobservable chain of events, it looks the same if every time I say, "Blamfg!," fire appears in the palm of my hand because of a vast array of constantly changing, unobservable chains of events.

 

[jgbrowning]

That's why I requested examples. Examples would allow us to conduct a thought experiment to see if your third category really exists. If the fact that you're doing the identical thing every time to produce the identical result does not indicate any causative similarity, then it indicates coincidence. I believe that if we used examples, you would see that the middle ground you are positing is illusory.

I can't use examples because my thought experiement is based upon an infinite string. Or, let me rephrase that, I don't know if there's a way of doing it because my math skills aren't too hot. Imagine if every time you did something you knew it worked because of X. Imagine that everytime you did it, X changed and never repeated. How would it be possible to develop any physics around such occurances? How could you go "one layer deeper" to find the next causal event (that which makes science possible)? And to be honest, why would anyone want to since the next layer could be just as random as the previous one.

It seems to me that you're having a hard time thinking about a system which is irrational producing rational results. A system that is incomprehensible but still predictable on one level. To me, that's what magic is. Anything that's rational and comprehensible isn't magic, it's science and technology.

To the disinterested observer, however, they look exactly the same.

If, every time I say "Blamfg!," fire appears in the palm of my hand because of a unique, unobservable chain of events, it looks the same if every time I say, "Blamfg!," fire appears in the palm of my hand because of a vast array of constantly changing, unobservable chains of events.

Yeah, there's no difference in effect at that level (the game mechanic level). However there's a tremendous difference between assuming there's a rational causal connection between the casters actions and the effect and my infinitely changing causal connection once you start talking about magic in general.

I'd go with fusangite's idea for D&D just because the creators of the game probably had the "fundamentaly modern system" (ie. a rational one) in mind when creating, but there's no reason that magic must work that way.

joe b.

 

[jgbrowning]

Nope. People doing quantum physics today would argue that the operation of consistent, predictable physical laws is in no way inconsistent with an anarchic, unpredictable universe.

Here's an analogy that may help explain my view a bit more.

Assume that the quantum level of physics is what's operating one level below the "fire and forget" level of magic. Assume that the quatum level of physics is operating one level above the "fire and forget" level of magic. Given that situation, how could one make a physics of magic that would have any real use?

Ie. the step above and step below are irrational yet produce consistant results and make any attempts to formulate an understanding of the workings of magic itself rather pointless.

joe "i'll keep trying " b.

 

[jgbrowning]

Heya fusangite, you going to make GenCon? A beer and some conversation would be a lot of fun.

joe b.