Dwarves don't sell novels

[mhacdebhandia]

The trouble with attributing science to magic argument lies in the answer to my second question, not my first, which you haven't addressed. Perhaps the image of heroes riding horses doesn't fit your view of fantasy. In your conception, they ride magic-powered motorbikes. You can use that as your fantasy setting if you like (you certainly don't need my permission). It's just not for me or, I suspect, the majority of D&D players.

No, no, you're assuming things that simply aren't so.

Should a world like Eberron have bicycles? I don't see why they would have developed something like the bicycle chain, you know? It's not a technological world. They don't light their cities with networks of gas pipes leading to publicly-maintained lamps, they paid magewrights to install everbright lanterns and replace them when necessary.

You buy a horse - or a horse improved beyond the possibilities of natural development by the magical breeding techniques of the dragonmarked House Vadalis.

It seems like you're assuming people who don't have a problem with these things in fantasy are doing so from a standpoint of "any excuse to get science-fiction stuff in fantasy is acceptable". Rather, I look at it as something like "anything inspired by science-fiction that can be cleverly and reasonably explained by magic is reasonable in fantasy".

I consider the magical "spaceships" of Spelljammer acceptable, because they're not only reasonably explained by magic but also placed in the context of very different and much more fantastical spacefaring than is found in science fiction.

Something like Dragonstar is not, to my tastes, as clever or reasonable when it comes to fantasy. It's a crossover game; Spelljammer, despite the spacefaring and whatnot, is nothing but fantasy. It's just a nontraditional kind of fantasy - and I happen to really be sick of traditional fantasy.

 

[Infernal Teddy]

From dictionary.com:

Science
- The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.
- Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena.
- Such activities applied to an object of inquiry or study.

Mathematics
- The study of the measurement, properties, and relationships of quantities and sets, using numbers and symbols.

Science uses maths, but maths itself isn't a science. Maths per se doesn't explain phenomena. It allows you to measure and describe them.

Maths is a science. Just not the kind of maths normally considered by the layman to be "maths". Good bye.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Tolkien cautioned against the introduction of science and technology in fantasy.

Tolkien was wrong, and his style of fantasy has choked the genre with terrible imitations of what was never a particularly revolutionary product in the first damn place.

I'm deeply grateful that Wizards of the Coast is willing to continue TSR's exploration of what fantasy can be beyond the narrow confines of pseudomedieval Tolkien pastiche, thank you very much.

 

[rounser]

Tolkien was wrong

Sure he was.

his style of fantasy has choked the genre with terrible imitations of what was never a particularly revolutionary product in the first damn place.

Spoken like a true revolutionary. Show them how it's done, buster.

 

[SWBaxter]

Maths is a science. Just not the kind of maths normally considered by the layman to be "maths".

Karl Popper, by no means a "layman", disagrees with you. He believed that pure mathematics was not a science because it was not falsifiable via the experimental process, and that's one reason why the notions of "theory" and "proof" are used differently in mathematics than they are in the physical sciences. Generally, the "closer" a given field of mathematics is to pure math, the less likely the practioners are to see what they do as having any relation to the physical sciences, and the more likely they are to see it as something akin to logic and/or philosophy.

Not exactly sure what this has to do with Dwarves selling books, though.

 

[Turjan]

Whether math is science or not is completely irrelevant to the discussion, because of several reasons.

First, all examples given for "science" in the discussion so far deal actually with the use of technical inventions in fantasy, not with the scientific process per se. A flying car is not science; it's a tool. And tools get invented, whether you know something about scientific theory or not. Some very important inventions were made during the Middle Ages, inventions that allowed the power center in Europe to shift from the Mediterranean to the North. This means that technical progress is not inconsistent with a purely medieval setting, even if fantasy tends to portray static worlds that never change their tech level.

Second, D&D has always treated magic as science. You can learn it like math or writing. You don't have to have supernatural abilities, you just need some basic intelligence to understand it. If you use it, it works like a tool, in a completely predictable manner, even if the prediction just involves statistics. You can research new spells. Which means, in the context of traditional D&D, magic is the leading scientific subject of the time. In this light, any claim that science doesn't belong into D&D is somewhat ridiculous.

 

[Anti-Sean]

Should a world like Eberron have bicycles? I don't see why they would have developed something like the bicycle chain, you know?

Well, the goblinoids of the Empire of Dhakaan favored chain weapons. I can see a squad of Marguul bugbear shock troopers swinging bicycles around before them in both hands, laying waste to their foes in wide, sweeping arcs.

 

[OblivionSiege]

Here's something I had posted elsewhere but I have no problem with pseudo tech in my fantasy. The Mighty Servant as described in the 1e DMG looked like a telephone booth on tank treads. The Machine of Lum the Mad is an insane computer.

.I had a high powered group in 1e. The leader was a Magna ALumna Bard with maxxed Fighter and thief levels. He had a vorpal sword. The rest of the party was able to hang out with him.

They met Leuk-O and his Mighty Servant, who had a thing against druids, druidic aligned bards and trees in general. The main defense of the Servant was the 'not affected by metal'. This negated the vorpal sword which was a serious pain in big fights. This permitted the liberal use of shillalagh among other things by the druids and Leuk-O finally died.

In my campaign background there was a star that did not appear to move like normal stars across the night sky. They party was investigating how to destroy the artifact by researching how they were made. They found that it was something to do with a special place and clues led them to look up.

The group then used the Servant to travel to this 'star' and they found a magical space station in geo-synchronous orbit over the ancient ruins of the capital city of the evil empire where most magic had come from in the past.

The group had lots of clues and riddles to work out to get the artifact in the right place, power up the base - A negative energy being and a positive energy being (xan-yi, xin-ya I think it was) had to battle over the energy portal (special mirror of life trapping) and then they took positions to handle the processing of the changes. An error occurred where they were making it slightly more powerful and still evilly aligned so they started again, with the Magna Alumna Bard losing two bard levels to accomplish that.

They eventually got it to be The Mighty Servant of the Druids and that took the lead character out of the campaign because possessing the Servant caused a druidic quest to be imposed to undo the damage the servant had caused before to a particular place called the Great Devastation.

It was a fun adventure, the players were satisfied at the result, even the player of the Bard, because it made a good change in the world. They never tried to alter any other artifact even though they knew how to do so.

At least a couple players later learned there were 5 dungeons around the capital ruins that formed a star pattern with the space station located so that it was a massive Circle of Protection trapping some great evil - the ancient Emperor, the most powerful lich in my world.

Making funky alterations to science so you can do something fun/funny in the fantasy is fine by me. The Invoked Devastation and Rain of Colorless Fire were the fantasy equivelent of Mutual Assured Destruction. It's all good.

 

[Zander]

First, all examples given for "science" in the discussion so far deal actually with the use of technical inventions in fantasy, not with the scientific process per se. A flying car is not science; it's a tool. And tools get invented, whether you know something about scientific theory or not. Some very important inventions were made during the Middle Ages, inventions that allowed the power center in Europe to shift from the Mediterranean to the North. This means that technical progress is not inconsistent with a purely medieval setting, even if fantasy tends to portray static worlds that never change their tech level.

I agree to an extent. 15th - 16th century Europe had technology (quite advanced in some fields) with little or no science. A society can develop its technology that way but only up to a point. It becomes increasingly difficult to make technological progress without the scientific mode of enquiry and the resulting findings.

Second, D&D has always treated magic as science. You can learn it like math or writing. You don't have to have supernatural abilities, you just need some basic intelligence to understand it. If you use it, it works like a tool, in a completely predictable manner, even if the prediction just involves statistics. You can research new spells. Which means, in the context of traditional D&D, magic is the leading scientific subject of the time. In this light, any claim that science doesn't belong into D&D is somewhat ridiculous.

Just because magic is internally consistent or even can be learnt in the way that science can doesn't mean that it is science or can survive scientific scrutiny.

 

[Turjan]

I agree to an extent. 15th - 16th century Europe had technology (quite advanced in some fields) with little or no science.

Much more important for the advancement of medieval power were the main inventions of the time between the 5th and 9th century, like the heavy plough or the horse collar, which allowed the population of central and northern Europe to rise. Though quite a lot of Roman technology got lost in the so-called Dark Ages, this was nevertheless a time of technological advancement. It was not particularly quick (the development of different types of mills is a good example), but steady. Some technology imports from China helped, of course.

Just because magic is internally consistent or even can be learnt in the way that science can doesn't mean that it is science or can survive scientific scrutiny.

Sorry, but I don't see your point in the case of magic in D&D. D&D magic follows the modern definition of the scientific method. Spellcasters have labs and research new spells. This empirical approach is the main difference between modern science and antique or medieval natural philosophy. It's not necessary to understand where a specific power comes from in order to apply the scientific method to research involving that power (our understanding of, e.g., gravity is not very high; nevertheless we use it in science). You may point with fingers at D&D that it treats magic as science, but that's the way it is.