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Do you design worlds according to fantastical physics?
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<blockquote data-quote="Immortal Sun" data-source="post: 7574705"><p>I think people largely overestimate the value of "fantastical physics", from a DM perspective, it can be fun and engaging to try to think of how everything <em>could</em> work, but after a while, you start to realize that a lot of how the world <em>could</em> work is pretty much how the world <em>does</em> work.</p><p></p><p>Disease caused by spirits? When it is one or two diseases that are relevant to the story, this is creative an interesting. Perhaps the Great City was once ruled by another people, who were besieged by the current rulers. The current rulers uleashed a magical plague upon the denizens and they all died, thus why the current rulers are well, the rulers. Now the vengeful spirits are back, bringing with them the magical plague to infest the descendants of their conquerors. THAT is interesting, fun and creative, but when you start analyzing a world-wide concept of disease caused by spirits, it starts to become mundane.</p><p></p><p>At first, it's the Big Diseases, that's still kinda interesting. But suddenly the flu, or the sniffles, or the common cold are all now spirits, and <em>functionally</em> you haven't really changed anything. "Germs" are replaced by "spirits" and instead of being cured by medicine, they're cured by spells (though lets be honest even germ-based disease is cured by magic in most parties). Maybe the "big deal" of this approach is that you can reason with a spirit, but then really the outcome is the doctors are replaced by spirit-speakers and "Medicine" checks are replaced by "Diplomacy" checks.</p><p></p><p>People aren't inherently stupid. Most of the historical stupidity we European-descended folks who make RPGs was perpetuated by historical authorities through suppression of education, destruction of literature and execution of the intelligent. The problem we in the West here have is that we don't have a recent or ancestral tribal history to draw upon for an alternative approach to things. We apply a regression back to about the dark ages and then kind of generally assume people got <em>dumber</em> from thereon back. Even in highly animist cultures where "a spirit did it" may very well be the answer to a question, it wasn't <em>left</em> there. There was an answer for how you could go about dealing with that spirit and many of those approached involved <em>basically</em> primitive medicine. Without an overarching authority to reinforce the idea that you are helpless and removing those who would counter that idea, even "primitive" people are capable of understanding problems and developing measures to counter them.</p><p></p><p>What I find, even in reading this thread, is that it doesn't really sound like these "mytholog" DMs are "letting players in" on the secret that this world works different...until the players attempt to resolve a situation using their common sense, only to discover the world is incredibly nonsensical. Which strikes me a silly because the <em>characters</em> would know this already. It's sort of like a gaming jump scare. HA HA! Oh I got you good! Oh wait you tried the thing it doesn't work like that! Haha! Got you again! A player may not know which spirit is causing this disease in question (unless they're trained in Heal, then I'd say they might) but they would have a general understanding that <em>spirits cause disease</em>. </p><p></p><p>Ultimately, you end up with two types of players:</p><p>A: Players who just say "screw it" and stop caring about the world. Their approach becomes jaded and cynical, they assume they cannot understand the world because it is designed in a way to impede their attempts at understanding. So when a situation comes up they stop caring.</p><p>B: You get players who try to be scientific about the world, attempting to understand ever element, but you've designed a world that belies understanding. Sure, a giant may throw the sun into the sky every day but when either of them get asked "why" the whole system breaks down. EX: who held up the sky before Atlas? Anyone? Anyone? That's right: there's no answer. Why? Because Atlas was a story designed to teach a lesson. If you start to <em>analyze</em> the situation it breaks down. It doesn't operate on a logical basis.</p><p>-You may say: why is that a problem? Because <em>we do</em>. And when Player B can't sit down and start to figure things out, they eventually become Player A.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Immortal Sun, post: 7574705"] I think people largely overestimate the value of "fantastical physics", from a DM perspective, it can be fun and engaging to try to think of how everything [I]could[/I] work, but after a while, you start to realize that a lot of how the world [I]could[/I] work is pretty much how the world [I]does[/I] work. Disease caused by spirits? When it is one or two diseases that are relevant to the story, this is creative an interesting. Perhaps the Great City was once ruled by another people, who were besieged by the current rulers. The current rulers uleashed a magical plague upon the denizens and they all died, thus why the current rulers are well, the rulers. Now the vengeful spirits are back, bringing with them the magical plague to infest the descendants of their conquerors. THAT is interesting, fun and creative, but when you start analyzing a world-wide concept of disease caused by spirits, it starts to become mundane. At first, it's the Big Diseases, that's still kinda interesting. But suddenly the flu, or the sniffles, or the common cold are all now spirits, and [I]functionally[/I] you haven't really changed anything. "Germs" are replaced by "spirits" and instead of being cured by medicine, they're cured by spells (though lets be honest even germ-based disease is cured by magic in most parties). Maybe the "big deal" of this approach is that you can reason with a spirit, but then really the outcome is the doctors are replaced by spirit-speakers and "Medicine" checks are replaced by "Diplomacy" checks. People aren't inherently stupid. Most of the historical stupidity we European-descended folks who make RPGs was perpetuated by historical authorities through suppression of education, destruction of literature and execution of the intelligent. The problem we in the West here have is that we don't have a recent or ancestral tribal history to draw upon for an alternative approach to things. We apply a regression back to about the dark ages and then kind of generally assume people got [I]dumber[/I] from thereon back. Even in highly animist cultures where "a spirit did it" may very well be the answer to a question, it wasn't [I]left[/I] there. There was an answer for how you could go about dealing with that spirit and many of those approached involved [I]basically[/I] primitive medicine. Without an overarching authority to reinforce the idea that you are helpless and removing those who would counter that idea, even "primitive" people are capable of understanding problems and developing measures to counter them. What I find, even in reading this thread, is that it doesn't really sound like these "mytholog" DMs are "letting players in" on the secret that this world works different...until the players attempt to resolve a situation using their common sense, only to discover the world is incredibly nonsensical. Which strikes me a silly because the [I]characters[/I] would know this already. It's sort of like a gaming jump scare. HA HA! Oh I got you good! Oh wait you tried the thing it doesn't work like that! Haha! Got you again! A player may not know which spirit is causing this disease in question (unless they're trained in Heal, then I'd say they might) but they would have a general understanding that [I]spirits cause disease[/I]. Ultimately, you end up with two types of players: A: Players who just say "screw it" and stop caring about the world. Their approach becomes jaded and cynical, they assume they cannot understand the world because it is designed in a way to impede their attempts at understanding. So when a situation comes up they stop caring. B: You get players who try to be scientific about the world, attempting to understand ever element, but you've designed a world that belies understanding. Sure, a giant may throw the sun into the sky every day but when either of them get asked "why" the whole system breaks down. EX: who held up the sky before Atlas? Anyone? Anyone? That's right: there's no answer. Why? Because Atlas was a story designed to teach a lesson. If you start to [I]analyze[/I] the situation it breaks down. It doesn't operate on a logical basis. -You may say: why is that a problem? Because [I]we do[/I]. And when Player B can't sit down and start to figure things out, they eventually become Player A. [/QUOTE]
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