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Can you use misty step to arrest a fall?
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<blockquote data-quote="Ancalagon" data-source="post: 8433781" data-attributes="member: 23"><p>I think you need to re-read my intro more carefully. I said "not in the lore". </p><p></p><p>Of course most D&D games have <em>thousands</em> of fantastic elements. Dragons fly. Giants don't collapse under their own weight. Elemental planes. Slugmen. That's great.</p><p></p><p>.... but chickens lay eggs, wood floats and so does ice, humans grow older with time... and there are <em>millions</em> of such examples. The ratio of "reality" to "fantasy" is <em>quite high</em>... but it doesn't feel that way, because we don't tend to notice the ordinary, it's the extraordinary that sticks out.</p><p></p><p>Of course, ANY of the "normal" examples above could be changed in a particular D&D campaign. Perhaps in your game humans claw themselves out of the grown, slowly become healthier, start shrinking... and if you want that, that's fine! And as a GM, it is your job to tell the players things that their players would know but they don't. If, for example, ice is heavier than water in your game, almost everyone who grew up in a cold or temperate environment would know this. But the <em>players</em> don't (that's why I made that "grow up in the world" comment), so you have to inform them <em>and</em> remind them. We all know that the sun rises in the east, but if it rises in the north in your world, the PCs would have that same ingrained knowledge, but the players might forget.</p><p></p><p>To be able to interact with the world, the players need to understand it to some degree. And for a lot of things that are mundane, reality is a pretty useful guide - we know it works, and we know - mostly - how it works. If the players can't make basic assumptions about the world, then they become very uncertain and hesitant, like very small children who don't know anything. (yes, some small children who don't know anything are not hesitant at all, and they break stuff and hurt themselves. )</p><p></p><p>I invite the readers to ponder the saga of "how far can a torch be seen".</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ancalagon, post: 8433781, member: 23"] I think you need to re-read my intro more carefully. I said "not in the lore". Of course most D&D games have [I]thousands[/I] of fantastic elements. Dragons fly. Giants don't collapse under their own weight. Elemental planes. Slugmen. That's great. .... but chickens lay eggs, wood floats and so does ice, humans grow older with time... and there are [I]millions[/I] of such examples. The ratio of "reality" to "fantasy" is [I]quite high[/I]... but it doesn't feel that way, because we don't tend to notice the ordinary, it's the extraordinary that sticks out. Of course, ANY of the "normal" examples above could be changed in a particular D&D campaign. Perhaps in your game humans claw themselves out of the grown, slowly become healthier, start shrinking... and if you want that, that's fine! And as a GM, it is your job to tell the players things that their players would know but they don't. If, for example, ice is heavier than water in your game, almost everyone who grew up in a cold or temperate environment would know this. But the [I]players[/I] don't (that's why I made that "grow up in the world" comment), so you have to inform them [I]and[/I] remind them. We all know that the sun rises in the east, but if it rises in the north in your world, the PCs would have that same ingrained knowledge, but the players might forget. To be able to interact with the world, the players need to understand it to some degree. And for a lot of things that are mundane, reality is a pretty useful guide - we know it works, and we know - mostly - how it works. If the players can't make basic assumptions about the world, then they become very uncertain and hesitant, like very small children who don't know anything. (yes, some small children who don't know anything are not hesitant at all, and they break stuff and hurt themselves. ) I invite the readers to ponder the saga of "how far can a torch be seen". [/QUOTE]
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