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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dethklok" data-source="post: 6261599" data-attributes="member: 6746469">Incantations may be poetry, but all poems are not incantations. In any event, nothing is wrong with poems as a magical aid per se, but it's the way Mystics already worked magic in the world I used; the power came from within them, but they would often use a word or poem to direct their focus. In other words, the split that the game world had between mystics and wizards doesn't make sense.Spoken like an engineer. The science underlying the technology you regard as "not mysterious at all" confounds the most brilliant thinkers this world has ever produced. Simple inconsistencies do not create mystery, merely implausibility.You have to accept the premise that there is a problem to be worked around before trying to work around that problem. By analogy, saying "What? You want to get out of the handcuffs without the key or cutting off your hands? Therein lies madness!" is not likely to be regarded very positively by someone stuck in a set of handcuffs. (Although in your defense, I admit that when I posted this thread, it was with every expectation that eventually I would be roundly insulted!)Granted. The game world in question didn't have anything like that in its history.It's definitely a tough problem if you restrict the world to having no supernatural elements at all. The world that prompted this discussion did have supernaturalism (just not gods).OK, but over time wouldn't those who worked magic by snapping their fingers win out over those who needed lengthy incantations? And wouldn't new practitioners notice that those who were doing this were always more successful, thereby building greater conviction in finger-snapping rather than longer rituals? It is an interesting idea, and I can see magical practices being created over time by type-I errors, but wouldn't they tend towards extreme simplicity? Morrus, the laws of physics may be different in other worlds. Evilbob proposes a world where conviction is echoed by effect; I've heard some people even propose that the physics of our own world follow this convention.Moreover, there is a vast body of research regarding the existence of parapsychological phenomena in our very own world, and a lively debate in the scientific community as to how this research should be interpreted. See for instance:Bem, D. J., & Honorton, C. (1994). Does psi exist? Replicable evidence for an anomalous process of information transfer. Psychological Bulletin, 115(1), 4.Milton, J., & Wiseman, R. (1999). Does psi exist? Lack of replication of an anomalous process of information transfer. Psychological Bulletin, 125(4), 387.Storm, L., & Ertel, S. (2001). Does psi exist? Comments on Milton and Wiseman's (1999) meta-analysis of Ganzfield research.Milton, J., & Wiseman, R. (2001). Does psi exist? Reply to Storm and Ertel (2001).If you prefer to side with the skeptics on the issue of psi, you can. But I see no reason to declare, a priori, that the supernatural isn't possible, especially on grounds that it is unphysical. Quantum entanglement, waves that travel without a medium, and time dilation were all complete nonsense by classical notions of physics, but are all regularly taught in current science curricula today. Science as I know it does not offer absolute or inviolable laws.Hm; I have trouble squaring that with the two novels and several shortstories I wrote on this world, but fine, whatever you like.No, no. It can be supernatural.Even if they were few and far between, others could observe them doing this and then mimic them with conviction. Moreover, just as languages drift over the generations without any individuals being aware of them, so, too, would I expect the incantations of these wizards to change very slightly over time, giving rise to a plurality of rival schools and theories. After a thousand years new wizards would very quickly notice that the longer incantations produced no stronger effects than the shorter ones, but were much more difficult to learn and less effective in a pinch.<a href="http://all-encompassing mystical entity" target="_blank">Om</a> originates from the Hindu religion, where it describes "an all-encompassing mystical entity."Fine, but I'm not really wanting ancient civilizations seeding the atmosphere with nanotechnology so my wizards can call lightning from the clouds.</blockquote>

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