Do "they" exist in your world?

[Planesdragon]

If you accept as a general principle that no information can be transmitted faster than the speed of light, then there are a whole host of divination spells that you suddenly can't cast. The minute you say that "these are physical laws, but with these exceptions" you have re-written physics on a fundamental basis. To put the fact simply, you can either choose to have a world in which science is "realistic" according to our modern standard models -- which implies philosophical materialism -- or a world in which magic works. If you think you have both, you're kidding yourself.

Not quite.

It's entirely possible to have a science-based world with magic. The important part is to either determine that there is something fundamentally different in the play-universe from our own, or to conceptualize some kind of exotic method wherein the magical effects can be scientifically explained.

A good example is science fiction and FTL travel. As far as we know, it's "impossible" to do--so SF needs to either invent a new aspect of reality (hyperspace) or an exotic method to achieve the desired result ("warp speed", out of pure blind luck, is actually plausible--once you figure out how to warp space/time, that is.)

 

[Sejs]

Yep, in my games they do, but I use the Pratchet Model for how to deal with them and how magic interacts with them.

Physics are physics are physics. Magic just lets you cheat some... put a thumb on the scales of the universe. 99.9n% of the time it's a non-issue, though. Who cares about microbes and atoms and such - if you get sick you don't need to worry about if it's a bacterial or viral infection; if it's bad enough to actually need a cure, go to the temple and get a cure. Don't worry about molecules being agitated until they cause a material to combust - fire is fire.

 

[Dogbrain]

Kinda, A and B do not make AB but an A and a might make an Aa. Thaats the genetics

Wrong. Flat-out wrong. It is very possible that a single gene could end up having A, B, C, D, a, b, c, and, d as alleles. A, B, C, and D are all dominant over their respective a, b, c, and d, but have mixed dominance over each other or possibly A might be dominant over B, C, and D, while B is dominant over C, and D, or it could actually start to get complicated, wherein A is dominant over B but recessive under b while is recessive under both A and a, however, both A and B are mixed dominance with C, but b is recessive under c and A is dominant over c. D can only appear in a heterozygote because DD is automatically lethal. Likewise, ab, bc, and dc are also automatically lethal.

Or, it could actually be far less simple than that.

 

[Solauren]

They exist in my campaign worlds

Just how often are you gonna find anyone in a medieval setting with anything close to the resources needed to use them beyond recognizeing a few of the basic periodic-table elements?

 

[SpuneDagr]

Remember this site?

http://www.mimir.net/essays/planarphysics.html

Actually, there was a series of books by Piers Anthony, called The Incarnations of Immortality. The world was a mix / balance between the powers of technology and magic. He described the universe as having five fundamental forces: Strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic, gravity, and magic.

According to (what little I know about) physics, gravity is the weakest of the forces, but it is so far-reaching because it is always attractive. In PA's books, magic was even weaker, but even more far-reaching.

I know physicists are trying to unify all the forces into one. More power to ya.

 

[Voadam]

Claiming that your elementals are somehow "scientific" in the modern sense is just so much handwaving, in my opinion. And handwaving is good in terms of speculative fiction -- so long as the handwaving is internally consistent it isn't so blunt or obvious as to interfere with enjoyment of the story.

But it's still handwaving. And it's still not really science...just another form of fluff.

Daniel

Most people aren't practicing science in playing their games. Even a d20 modern game about physicists doing physics problems with no magic is not really science, it is storytelling and game playing. It is all "fluff" whether you are using magic in your game setting or not.

I'm missing your point, are you saying that D&D magic is not consistent with the total current scientific understanding of how the real world works? That seems self evident.

The question was whether the D&D world you run has at some level genetics, evolution, atoms, etc. or does it not. Fantasy worlds can run fine with them or without them.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

In most fantasy campaigns I go with the idea that everything on the Prime is formed from the interaction of the Inner Elemental Planes.

 

[Gez]

In a world where you can cast a spell and ask the gods? Well, assuming that the gods know, their clerics are likely to know.

They are likely to know if they cast commune spells to learn about the nanoscopic structure of matter. Which is unlikely. And why would the gods know? They are embodiments of concepts, they know about their portfolios and domains and general divine stuff (like "Cursing Mortals Over 49 Generations for Dummies", "How to Get Believed", "Kill Them All, Let Their Own Patron Deities Sort Them Out", and "The Kinky Polymorpher's Kamasutra" -- typical deific activities); they wouldn't be interested in nuclear physics unless it's part of their portfolio.

Furthermore, the existence of physical laws in a magic world does not mean that they are the most interesting things to know. The incentive to learn science is that it allows to make stuff that can be replicated without needing a minimal level in a given character class (like wizard or cleric). But when you reach a given level of complexity, where it becomes as expensive, time-consuming, and brain-requiring as magics... You go with magics. Let's face it, the practical application of knowing that light is both a wave and a corpuscule is limited compared to the practical application of being able to turn invisible, fly, teleport, and hurl fireballs at those pesky door-to-door salesmen that thinks you really need to buy brooms and corkscrews.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Didn't expect my thread to be so popular.

Well, I generally assume that such things exist, and could be known about somewhere in the world. Although such things do not often come up.

 

[Whimsical]

But this IS science!

"they" don't exist in my campaign world, and the reason is this: D&D is based on medevial life and fantasy, proposing "what if what people of that time thought was real was indeed real?" Magic, dragons, elves, undead, etc. I just take that line of thought further. What if what was regarded as scientific fact during that time period is how things really are in my campaign world? So, people get sick because an evil spirit invaded their body. Everything is comprised of the four elements. The world is the center of the universe. You can use alchemy to transform lead into gold and prolong your life. Your health is determined by the balance of your four humours. The universe was created by the action of divine beings. Etc. I haven't started a D&D game yet, but if I did, I would get a book on the history of science and use medival science (and the intertwining elements of faith) as the basis of my campaign world's reality.