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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 3573802" data-attributes="member: 18280">No.As a thought experiment, imagine that you were living in a universe in which the D&D rules were true, and in which there existed one individual from outside the system (the DM) whose choices determined how those rules would be applied.Now imagine that you understood the scientific method, and attempted to use the philosophy of science to understand the universe you were living in.The first important thing to learn would be what was quantifiable, and how to quantify it, in order to begin to explore the relationships between those quantifiable things.  The existence of spells would help in this.  The various healing spells cure different amounts of hit points, and the existence of a spell that cures 1 hp would make "hit points" exactly quantifiable.  Likewise, levels would be quantifiable by observation, and one could determine that there was a relationship between levels and hit points.  Because levels would be quantifiable, it would be possible to learn that there exists a relationship between killing things and levels, and the existence of magic item creation and spells that affect this relationship would also make XP quantifiable.  This would, no doubt, take longer than quantifying levels and hit points, but it could be done.Ability scores are all quantifiable, as is the fact that any attack has a 5% chance to miss and at least a 5% chance to hit.It would take far, far longer (human generations, in all likelihood) for D&D scientists to discover that certain individuals were able to act in ways that violate the general rules, or that the general rules acted in different ways around them.  Considering the number of NPCs vs. PCs in a given world, there would simply not be enough data to draw such conclusions easily, but it would be possible.Some might argue that these "special people" could not exist because a large enough breeding population was not possible.  Others might claim that these "special people" could not exist because there is no possible mechanic for them being able to affect the general laws of physics in the way they would be described as doing.  Still others would demand proof in the form of repeatable clinical trials, which is something few PCs would agree to do (instead of fighting monsters).  In the D&D world, PCology might be a psuedoscience!   <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /> Why isn't it possible that neither is?</blockquote>

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