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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8828652" data-attributes="member: 29398">When you're designing a setting you're not playing the role of a person living in that setting, instead you're the omniscient being that knows everything.&nbsp; You know how the setting's physics work because you're the one designing said physics.And IMO just saying &quot;physics work like the real world except there's magic&quot; (which I don't think you have, but I've seen it elsewhere) is rather lazy design, and leaves too much room for later inconsistency if and when you're for some reason forced via the run of play to figure out the physics behind your setting's magic.&nbsp; Better, I think, to figure this out ahead of time...even if you only do it once and then apply that reasoning to every setting you run, which is what I did.To the non-GM participants in the game and the inhabitants of the setting, perhaps.&nbsp; But you-as-GM know more than they.It's not a rule anywhere, just like the existence of gravity that works kinda like Earth's isn't a rule* or the existence of the strong and weak magnetic forces isn't a rule.&nbsp; It's a baseline assumption, mentioned only if it doesn't apply much like gravity is only mentioned if it doesn't work as expected.&nbsp; The difference is that unlike real-world physics it's on the setting designer to incorporate magic into the physics somehow, as we don't have a real-world version to default to.* - space-based games excepted, of course; but I think most of those would qualify as sci-fi rather than fantasy...and even there the same ideas would apply, only you might also have to redefine some real-world physics as well (e.g. gravity) to suit the setting.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 8828652, member: 29398"] When you're designing a setting you're not playing the role of a person living in that setting, instead you're the omniscient being that knows everything. You know how the setting's physics work because you're the one designing said physics. And IMO just saying "physics work like the real world except there's magic" (which I don't think you have, but I've seen it elsewhere) is rather lazy design, and leaves too much room for later inconsistency if and when you're for some reason forced via the run of play to figure out the physics behind your setting's magic. Better, I think, to figure this out ahead of time...even if you only do it once and then apply that reasoning to every setting you run, which is what I did. To the non-GM participants in the game and the inhabitants of the setting, perhaps. But you-as-GM know more than they. It's not a rule anywhere, just like the existence of gravity that works kinda like Earth's isn't a rule* or the existence of the strong and weak magnetic forces isn't a rule. It's a baseline assumption, mentioned only if it [I]doesn't[/I] apply much like gravity is only mentioned if it doesn't work as expected. The difference is that unlike real-world physics it's on the setting designer to incorporate magic into the physics somehow, as we don't have a real-world version to default to. * - space-based games excepted, of course; but I think most of those would qualify as sci-fi rather than fantasy...and even there the same ideas would apply, only you might also have to redefine some real-world physics as well (e.g. gravity) to suit the setting. [/QUOTE]

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