D&D General Introducing a Scientific Mindset to Dungeons and Dragons

[Marandahir]

Didn't Game of Thrones have Ned Stark using a Punnet square to figure out King Baratheon's sons weren't really his sons?

And punnet squares are bunk science, only really relevant to pea plant phenotypic traits…

 

[Oofta]

I make the assumption that aether is real, it's a property of nature that, when tapped into allows for overriding the standard physical model. Similar to current real world theories of dark matter, it exists, it's all around us, but for the most part we don't interact with it.

Except of course with magic, we can tap into the energy of the aether to alter reality. Some creatures (giants, ghosts, aberrations) absorb the energy of the aether into their physical form which is why they can still exist in an anti-magic zone. A truly null magic zone would be one where the aether is somehow blocked, what would happen to a vampire that enters a null magic zone is unknown as none have volunteered.

When it comes to spells like lightning bolt, lightning bolt doesn't work like regular lightning because it's not naturally created. It's simply lightning brought into existence in a straight line for a brief moment of time. Same with a fireball, a fireball is not a grenade or an explosion in the sense we think of it. It's just an area where magic is used to instantaneously bring fire into existence. It doesn't require oxygen so you can cast a fireball in a vacuum or underwater in my campaign if you wish. It's also why you can stand adjacent to the edge of a fireball and be unhurt, you may feel a bit of residual heat after the fireball goes off but that's it.

Vancian magic just assumes you can only hold so many magical patterns at anyone time. Spell slots are just game constructs which we use to approximate the reality of how powerful a caster is.

 

[Corinnguard]

For those of you who wanted to know the answer to age-old question of how many celestials can dance on the head of a pin.

 

[R_J_K75]

When you assume real-world science, you often create arguments about what real-world science says about things.

I had a friend of mine that played D&D 2E, 3.x, and 5E with us. He grew up on a rural farm, was well-read and just knew a lot about a lot of things. Problem was that he was prone to try and equate real world things to fantasy situations which sometimes weren't really relevant or just didn't apply. From a real-world standpoint, it was hard to argue with his logic, but they didn't matter in a fantasy setting and ended up being a way to get around game mechanics or lack thereof. I usually gave in just to avoid a long protracted debates. Its a fine line when incorporating science and technology in D&D, how much is too much or not enough is usually the question.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It also doesn't need to be internally consistent! "A Wizard Did It!" is a perfectly reasonable excuse for just about anything in fantasy, as long as it stays fun.

For some tables, yes. How acceptable what you're suggesting actually would be varies quite a bit.

 

[Stormonu]

I jettisoned science out of my D&D a long time ago.

Instead, believe is king. If enough people believe it, it becomes real. If a powerful enough being has a powerful enough belief, it becomes real. The world was brought into existence when the first being willed it so. Gods exist because the populace believes in them. Wizards create fireballs because they are powerful enough to believe they can do so. History? It literally reshapes the past when enough believe it to be true. DNA? Thermodynamics? What's all that? Some claptrap some madman made up that no one believes and can't prove ...

 

[Fanaelialae]

It also doesn't need to be internally consistent! "A Wizard Did It!" is a perfectly reasonable excuse for just about anything in fantasy, as long as it stays fun.

That's fair, although I don't really view "magic can break the rules" as being counter to internal consistency. I was more referring to the idea that if it's been established in the setting that RW science doesn't apply, but then you suddenly introduce firearms that are based on RW science, then either something exceptional is occurring (someone opened a portal to Earth and is importing them from there) or your setting is no longer internally consistent.

If a player tried to invent RW guns, made all the right checks, and came to the conclusion that it's impossible in the setting, it would be crappy to suddenly introduce bad guys that invented guns by the exact same methods but succeeded. The player might conclude that the setting is nothing more than a one dimensional backdrop for that DM's whims. IME, many players find that sort of thing off putting, and I've seen players drop out of games because of it.

Internal consistency is important, IMO, so that players can interact with the setting in a coherent manner. Magic being the exception to that consistency isn't truly inconsistent, because it's an established fact of most fantasy settings that magic works that way (one might argue that this is one of major factors that makes magic... magic). Even magic has rules that follow internal consistency (for example, spells don't function in an anti-magic zone).

 

[Corinnguard]

Instead, believe is king. If enough people believe it, it becomes real. If a powerful enough being has a powerful enough belief, it becomes real.

I believe the unofficial term is Belief Made Manifest. I first heard this term in an episode of the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. In that episode the belief from millions of people in the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes made him a real person for a short while.

 

[Bitbrain]

Reply to OP.

As far as a scientific mindset goes, I mostly use it to help with the “backstage” construction and expansion of the various campaign settings I use in my home games, usually with regards to the monsters. It’s still a fantasy game at its heart though, so magic and supernatural forces can and do supersede natural selection.

To give just one example, I’ve often mentioned that my dragons don’t have wings and can’t fly without the aid of magic. This is because most draconic species in my home games are actually descended from a fictitious group of rauisuchians that first developed a venomous bite and then later the ability to spit a flesh-dissolving toxic fluid. These lifeforms caught the attention of Tiamat, who made supernatural improvements to every aspect of their physiology, giving rise to the brown, green, red, and white dragons.

 

[Aldarc]

I definitely prefer a mythic mindset over a scientific one. The moment we get into discussing genetics or DNA, I feel pulled out of the fantasy setting.

I don't necessarily mind a scientific mindset when it comes to D&D but I think that one issue is that it feels a little too modern. From antiquity through the middle ages and even onwards into the modern period (hi, Sir Isaac Newton) we can know what "scientific" studies of magic, alchemy, and astrology look like. There are TTRPGs that show this side of the pseudo-scientific approach to supernatural phenomena (e.g., Ars Magica, Magonomia, etc.).

And punnet squares are bunk science, only really relevant to pea plant phenotypic traits…

Fun Fact: the term "bunk" (albeit short for "bunkum") as well as "debunk" are originally Americanisms that trace their etymological origins to Buncombe County in western North Carolina. (Asheville, NC is located in that county.) In the 1820s, a representative from that county insisted on delivering a long speech on behalf of Buncombe regarding an issue that had already been debated for about a month and was on the verge of being called for a vote. His exasperated colleagues, who shouted him down, began using "bunkum" as a term for meaningless political chatter or claptrap, and over time it shortened to "bunk" and also came to refer to any nonsense, with "debunk" first coming into use a century later in the 1920s.