Fantasy world maps and real world geology

[hong]

I'm not arguing about the reason that the game universe is this way;

Isn't it fun arguing with yourself?

I am arguing that the game universe is this way.

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other -- bourgeoisie and proletariat.

From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed.

The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development.

The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolized by closed guilds, now no longer suffices for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were pushed aside by the manufacturing middle class; division of labor between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labor in each single workshop.

Meantime, the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufacturers no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionized industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, MODERN INDUSTRY; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.

 

[Raven Crowking]

A bad analogy of how both can exist is how Newtonian physics doesn't work once you get small, or big, enough. Magic breaks the "standard" but still follows it's own laws.

Newtonian physics supplies a model that is close enough, and is useful in its own right. The same with Relativity and QM. All three systems cannot be true, but there might be a potential model that successfully explains the observations that led to all three being formulated.

Similarly, while both magic and selected portions of modern physics (those not done away with by game rules) seem to work within the game environment, that doesn't mean that either theory is actually correct within that universe.

Observations can be factual. Insofar as our observations match the predictions of our model, our model can be said to be a good predictive tool. Other than this, we have no way to determine how factual any model is from within the confines of the system being modelled.

I'm trying to say that because there is magic, you believe that real-world physics isn't applicable in a D&D world.

Routine observations that violate the predictions of a model are contraindicative of that model's accuracy.

This doesn't preclude elements of that model from being useful when creating a new model, but it certainly means that your model isn't applicable as-is.

You then decide that, because D&D uses elements, to apply a real world system of elemental physics (Aristotle, et al) to use in the D&D universe. I don't think using elemental physics to model a D&D universe is any better as so much of the D&D universe is not magical, and elemental physics models are utterly magical.

The terms "magical" is used in more than one way in the RAW. For example, does detect magic detect a magical beast? If not, the D&D universe clearly has "magic" that is not "magical" in nature....certainly a question for the game world philosophers!

I was thinking about this as I went to sleep, trying to figure out what was bothering me most with viewing a D&D world through any predictive system except modern physics: the PCs won't know why something happens. Why does water flow downhill? Why is the air thinner a top a mountain? All of the everyday effects that we, as modern players, understand (be that intuitively or just because we were educated about it so long ago that it seems intuitively to us) suddenly occur for reasons we don't understand and the simple idea that fire is released from wood during combustion as opposed to effects of real combustion means that every little thing in the world is magical.

Why is this a problem?

If we assume that the players can know that water flows downhill, air is thinner atop a mountain, and you can make a fire with wood, what difference does it make whether or not the world works using a physics different than our own? Especially since, as opposed to the real world, there is a set of books that can tell you what model is correct, which we certainly don't have.

The RAW uses a different set of physical rules for the purpose of playability. It makes the changes in rules explicit in many cases. Thereafter, how the DM frames the world determines the remaining laws. In any event, the players know more about the physics of the world than 90% of its inhabitants......in many cases, more about D&D physics than about their real life counterpart.

When Spelljammer appeared in 2nd Edition, alternate rules appeared for all sorts of physical problems, including gravity, atmosphere, and the presence/qualities of celestial bodies. These rules were based off of older theories about the universe, and were determined by taking what occurs in D&D already and playing "what if?". Gravity planes not only meant that ships in space have gravity, they were invoked to explain flying dragons and hollow worlds. The darkness of the night sky was really a crystal sphere, and those glittering lights might be billions of lanterns or holes to the phlogiston.

I take it you were not a fan.

When that's the case, you also get into predictive problems. Can I now as a player drop a heavier object and have it drop faster than a lighter one? What else has changed that I as a player, because my knowledge of non-scientific predictive systems is partial (at best), will have to find out that the world I'm playing in doesn't work the way the real-world works?

The same as any other inhabitant of the world? Except that you can check the rulebooks, which the NPCs presumably cannot do?


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Isn't it fun arguing with yourself?

Your clever and to the point arguments blow me away, as always, hong.

 

[hong]

Your clever and to the point arguments blow me away, as always, hong.

Exactly.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Which means that, in all likelihood, "PC" and "NPC" are quantifiable states in the D&D universe, and are therefore open to study by the D&D scientist (should such a being exist).

And particularly noticeable in Eberron where PCs have action points.

It's postmodern, like the characters in a novel discovering that's what they are. That their lives are governed by the rules of plot and drama rather than the rules of the real world. In the rpg Over The Edge, Jonathan Tweet suggests a plot in which the PCs discover that they are characters in a roleplaying game. I don't think it would work very well.

You and fusangite seem to have slightly different views. You both agree that there should be a tight connection between rules and game universe. But it seems you believe universe should take precedence. Ie that where it is discovered that the rules don't accurately represent the universe, the rules should be changed. Whereas fusangite seems to hold that the rules have precedence and that as the depths of the rules are plumbed, the universe can actually change as a result. Is this correct?

If so it seems the rules-as-physics analogy holds more true for you than fusangite as in our world physics (in the sense of the human endeavour) doesn't control the real universe, it's the other way round.

 

[Doug McCrae]

If you argue that one set of physical laws applies when the characters are present and a completely different set of physical laws applies when they are not there, you don't have a very coherent or sensible universe.

And yet are the rules coherent? The rules on XP don't seem to square with the rules on demographics. If coherence is the aim, we can't find it in the rules.

In fact as you pointed out before, the laws of physics aren't coherent yet because quantum theory hasn't been reconciled with relativity. However science is striving to reconcile them, I think it's the #1 goal in physics, whereas game designers don't seem too bothered if there are discrepancies here and there, so long as their rules work.

I think the rules-as-physics analogy fails. Game rules aren't like physics. As rules for modeling reality there is a monstrously huge gulf in quality between the rules of D&D and the works of science. The laws of physics are as close as humanity can get to the truth. They are a great and noble body of work.

D&D is just a game.

You're absolutely right that there's an issue of coherence when the rules used for PC action do not correlate with the game universe. For me it isn't much of a problem though. We just accept that those rules are approximations. So long as what happened by the rules doesn't break the laws of universe (as perceived by the GM and players) there isn't any difficulty. So long as what happened could have happened, it's ok.

For me, the universe comes first, and rules are modified or ad hoc rulings made where there's a plausibility issue.

Isn't there an issue of coherence for you too, when all the cats the PCs meet are mutants? I don't feel you really answered the ranger problem either, as your answer doesn't explain how the wizard could have a con of 3, or how the same could apply to any 90-year olds.

 

[jgbrowning]

All three systems cannot be true

With magic, they could be.

joe b.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Can you explain how these are operationally different? Are there ever moments in your game when the rules say that one thing will happen but what happens is different than what the rules say? Because if not, like it or not, the rules of the game are the rules of your game world.

I sometimes break my own rules if I feel they have led to an implausible result, so for me setting trumps rules.

I think that the rules should be evaluated on their own terms.

How are they to be evaluated? My understanding was that for you the game rules are axioms.

 

[Hussar]

Which means that, in all likelihood, "PC" and "NPC" are quantifiable states in the D&D universe, and are therefore open to study by the D&D scientist (should such a being exist).

Really? And you don't think that would be reaching really, really far to try to defend your point?

Fusangite said that the RAW provides the physics of the universe. But, the RAW contradicts itself frequently when dealing with PC's and with everyone else. Either the RAW XP rules are universal or the Demographics are, because both cannot be.

Because of that contradiction, as well as others, suddenly we find that RAW doesn't work too well as physics. After all, there are absolutely no rules for pregnancy to be found in RAW. None. Should we then surmise that nothing can become pregnant and that the world is very short lived as the current generation is the last?

The RAW provides a framework to interact with our imaginary worlds. It is not the imaginary world itself. I believe that you guys are mixing the media with the message, to borrow a metaphor. The rules do not explain a great deal of how the universe works. And, the rules are often contradictory, because we don't need a framework for how peasants gain levels. It's not important.

 

[Raven Crowking]

And particularly noticeable in Eberron where PCs have action points.

True.

It's postmodern, like the characters in a novel discovering that's what they are. That their lives are governed by the rules of plot and drama rather than the rules of the real world. In the rpg Over The Edge, Jonathan Tweet suggests a plot in which the PCs discover that they are characters in a roleplaying game. I don't think it would work very well.

Overall, I would agree with you. The PCs could discover that they are "favoured of the gods" without too much hassle, though.

(In one game I ran, waaayyyy back in high school...1982, I think...the players were shocked when NPCs were sitting in the corner table at the inn because that's where PCs sit!)

In any event, my D&D scientist was hypothetical. I would imagine that a D&D world has many theologians and philosophers who argue about things like this, though, but who do not draw the same conclusions because of their differing observations/philosophical outlook.

But it seems you believe universe should take precedence. Ie that where it is discovered that the rules don't accurately represent the universe, the rules should be changed.

That would be correct. I can't speak for fusangite.

If so it seems the rules-as-physics analogy holds more true for you than fusangite as in our world physics (in the sense of the human endeavour) doesn't control the real universe, it's the other way round.

Perhaps.