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<blockquote data-quote="robertliguori" data-source="post: 4046729" data-attributes="member: 47776">What do you mean by contradictions?&nbsp; Does it interfere with your suspension of disbelief for a wizard to wiggle his fingers and then be able to fly, despite this not having an analogue in reality?How about a gold dragon doing the same thing with its wings?As a thought experiment, imagine that every single corner-case ruling was supported by fluff.&nbsp; Not with &quot;This is why people don't need to eat but every three days.&quot;, but &quot;People don't need to eat every three days.&quot;&nbsp; This is a world that, even in its mundane components, works differently than our world.&nbsp; There's no holes to be filled, no endless list of rationalizations; the world is just different.&nbsp; Why can dragons breed with everything? Well, we can posit strange things about dragon gametes and chromosomes, or we can say &quot;The nature of this universe is such that sentient manifestations of planar energy can get it on and have babies.&nbsp; Obviously, genetics as we understand it does not apply to this universe.&quot;Running a game like this requires a strong level of unconscious rules mastery.&nbsp; In our world, we have lifetimes worth of experience telling us that falling from horses is generally bad, and that people who claim to be able to strike us down with an unerring missile of magical energy&nbsp; can't back up their threats.&nbsp; If the D&amp;D rules were meant to be a simulation of our world, then allowing for either always-nonlethal falls or magic missile would indicate that it is a bad simulation.&nbsp; Because of this, intuition and common sense are poor judges of how the rules system of D&amp;D will behave.Moreover, there is no guarantee that your players will share your assumptions about how the world should behave.&nbsp; If I imagine a level-20 fighter to be a (not-D&amp;D-term-of-art) demigod akin to Hercules, who actually can transcend the limits of our universe just like the magic brigade, and another player imagines him to be just a man, then the problems of this thread arise.&nbsp; How are the players supposed to know what to expect to behave as akin to our world, and what not?Now, if these expectations aren't a problem, because you don't mind telling your players &quot;It's plot.&nbsp; It's not supposed to work like the rest of the world.&nbsp; Oh, yeah, none of your characters find it at all odd or incongruous.&quot;, this isn't a problem.&nbsp; However, if players value a consistent world over a dramatic story, and value their ability to interact with and shape the story through in-game world-supported action, you pretty much need new players.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="robertliguori, post: 4046729, member: 47776"] What do you mean by contradictions? Does it interfere with your suspension of disbelief for a wizard to wiggle his fingers and then be able to fly, despite this not having an analogue in reality? How about a gold dragon doing the same thing with its wings? As a thought experiment, imagine that every single corner-case ruling was supported by fluff. Not with "This is why people don't need to eat but every three days.", but "People don't need to eat every three days." This is a world that, even in its mundane components, works differently than our world. There's no holes to be filled, no endless list of rationalizations; the world is just different. Why can dragons breed with everything? Well, we can posit strange things about dragon gametes and chromosomes, or we can say "The nature of this universe is such that sentient manifestations of planar energy can get it on and have babies. Obviously, genetics as we understand it does not apply to this universe." Running a game like this requires a strong level of unconscious rules mastery. In our world, we have lifetimes worth of experience telling us that falling from horses is generally bad, and that people who claim to be able to strike us down with an unerring missile of magical energy can't back up their threats. If the D&D rules were meant to be a simulation of our world, then allowing for either always-nonlethal falls or magic missile would indicate that it is a bad simulation. Because of this, intuition and common sense are poor judges of how the rules system of D&D will behave. Moreover, there is no guarantee that your players will share your assumptions about how the world should behave. If I imagine a level-20 fighter to be a (not-D&D-term-of-art) demigod akin to Hercules, who actually can transcend the limits of our universe just like the magic brigade, and another player imagines him to be just a man, then the problems of this thread arise. How are the players supposed to know what to expect to behave as akin to our world, and what not? Now, if these expectations aren't a problem, because you don't mind telling your players "It's plot. It's not supposed to work like the rest of the world. Oh, yeah, none of your characters find it at all odd or incongruous.", this isn't a problem. However, if players value a consistent world over a dramatic story, and value their ability to interact with and shape the story through in-game world-supported action, you pretty much need new players. [/QUOTE]

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