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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgbrowning" data-source="post: 2419419" data-attributes="member: 5724">So am I. I think I failed to express myself very well. So I'll try again. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />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 <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> 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.</blockquote>

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