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<blockquote data-quote="Thomas Shey" data-source="post: 8618790" data-attributes="member: 7026617">And this becomes more and more of an issue as a game's lifespan goes on.&nbsp; To move to another aspect of D&amp;D, fire and forget spells are an oddity in fiction; once you move back before fiction that was influenced by D&amp;D, there's only one example of magic that looks (vaguely) like it, and when D&amp;D got started, there was no explanation for it at all, even in-game; it just worked that way.&nbsp; A lot of people extrapolated from bits of phrasing (&quot;memorizing&quot; spells in the old days) but its not clear it was every supposed to represent anything other than a mechanically simple way of limiting spellcasting ability.&nbsp; More modern games come up with some sort of vague explanation, but as you note, at this point they're more post-hoc justifications for the mechanic rather than the mechanic existing to simulate much of anything.(Which doesn't mean someone couldn't have come up with a setting fire-and-forget spells wouldn't be a proper representation of, just there's little sign D&amp;D is that game.&nbsp; Like a lot of things in D&amp;D, it appears more of a gamist tool, and unless &quot;game&quot; is a dirty word to you (which it is to some extent for some people) there's nothing intrinsically wrong about that.&nbsp; I'm not terribly fond of some of the gamist choices in D&amp;D, but that's absolutely just a matter of taste, not a criticism of them because they're gamist).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Thomas Shey, post: 8618790, member: 7026617"] And this becomes more and more of an issue as a game's lifespan goes on. To move to another aspect of D&D, fire and forget spells are an oddity in fiction; once you move back before fiction that was influenced by D&D, there's only one example of magic that looks (vaguely) like it, and when D&D got started, there was no explanation for it at all, even in-game; it just worked that way. A lot of people extrapolated from bits of phrasing ("memorizing" spells in the old days) but its not clear it was every supposed to represent [I]anything[/I] other than a mechanically simple way of limiting spellcasting ability. More modern games come up with some sort of vague explanation, but as you note, at this point they're more post-hoc justifications for the mechanic rather than the mechanic existing to simulate much of anything. (Which doesn't mean someone couldn't have come up with a setting fire-and-forget spells wouldn't be a proper representation of, just there's little sign D&D is that game. Like a lot of things in D&D, it appears more of a gamist tool, and unless "game" is a dirty word to you (which it is to some extent for some people) there's nothing intrinsically wrong about that. I'm not terribly fond of some of the gamist choices in D&D, but that's absolutely just a matter of taste, not a criticism of them because they're gamist). [/QUOTE]

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