Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="VelvetViolet" data-source="post: 7636767" data-attributes="member: 6686357">So I was discussing the article "<a href="http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/magic/antiscience.html" target="_blank">breaking out of scientific magic systems</a>" in another thread. The title of the article is misleading, as it isn't about the scientific method or the philosophy of science as it would apply to fictional magic systems. The article describes the contrasts between modern tabletop game magic systems versus magic as described in mythology/folklore/religion and provides suggestions for more closely emulating the folkloric styles of magic. Another article, "<a href="https://www.baen.com/magicsystems" target="_blank">Magic systems aren't magic</a>", addresses a similar contrast between magic systems as depicted in mass market fantasy fiction and real world belief systems.Since the terminology is extremely misleading, I'm going to describe the difference as one of "holistic" versus "gamist" magic systems. What qualifies as "magic" <a href="https://www.mdpresley.com/single-post/2016/11/10/The-Three-Components-of-Fantasy-Magic" target="_blank">is an out-of-universe distinction made by us the audience</a>: anything that would be impossible in reality is defined as "magic." In a holistic magic system, the fictional universe is built from first principles with magic integrated into it; although people in that setting may be capable of things impossible in reality, in their world such is allowed by their laws of physics and is no more "magic" than technology is in reality. In a gamist magic system, the writers first writes the rules for the mundane world and then tacks on a magic system to let mages cheat the mundane rules as desired. (So whenever magic systems are introduced, they typically compose the bulk of rules.) This is a product of the people writing magic systems growing up in an environment where they are taught about science in school, and then retroactively applying their modern worldview to their readings about magic described in myths and fairytales. But the pre-modern cultures that told these myths and fairytales didn't have a distinction between magic and science!During the discussion, I encountered this carefully crafted critique of the first article:I also encountered other critiques, like <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/6fvbti/breaking_out_of_scientific_magic_systems/" target="_blank">this reddit thread</a>.I agreed with the premise of the original article. I wanted to follow the suggestions, but I wanted to see if examples already existed. Yet I can't seem to find magic systems that implement these. The various critiques suggest that this isn't possible and the article is nonsensical.Is the article's premise a sensible one? How would you go about implementing the magic system it describes? Are there detailed examples published anywhere?</blockquote>

Verification