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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7370906" data-attributes="member: 996">Some concept of a reality, yes.&nbsp; This reality, not necessarily.&nbsp; Keep in mind that in the historical time periods analogous to the societies we see in fantasy, people had little clue of the 'scientific' reality we take for granted.&nbsp; The learned might even have some ideas we'd find laughable - in another thread, I was talking about the theory that people see by emitting rays from their eyes that touch objects to allow us to seem them.&nbsp; In a fantasy world with a pre-Newtonian grasp of reality, that could be a fact.&nbsp; In a world where magic-users conjure monsters from the elemental planes, the 4 classic elements could be /all/ the elements of creation - no atoms or molecules.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; Or he can fight 20 men - or 100 men, or an army - because he's that much better than they are.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; It varies with genre.&nbsp; A great deal of fiction, even when not explicitly fantastic, plays fast and loose with reality.&nbsp; Especially with the improbable.&nbsp; Heroes out run explosions, hold their breath for 7 minutes of screen time, dodge bullets, and generally do a bunch of wildly improbable crap that, were a game to try to model PCs with a 'realistic' chance of success for each task would result in nothing but messily dead PCs.&nbsp; Ultimately, genres have conventions, not realities.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7370906, member: 996"] Some concept of a reality, yes. This reality, not necessarily. Keep in mind that in the historical time periods analogous to the societies we see in fantasy, people had little clue of the 'scientific' reality we take for granted. The learned might even have some ideas we'd find laughable - in another thread, I was talking about the theory that people see by emitting rays from their eyes that touch objects to allow us to seem them. In a fantasy world with a pre-Newtonian grasp of reality, that could be a fact. In a world where magic-users conjure monsters from the elemental planes, the 4 classic elements could be /all/ the elements of creation - no atoms or molecules. Or he can fight 20 men - or 100 men, or an army - because he's that much better than they are. It varies with genre. A great deal of fiction, even when not explicitly fantastic, plays fast and loose with reality. Especially with the improbable. Heroes out run explosions, hold their breath for 7 minutes of screen time, dodge bullets, and generally do a bunch of wildly improbable crap that, were a game to try to model PCs with a 'realistic' chance of success for each task would result in nothing but messily dead PCs. Ultimately, genres have conventions, not realities. [/QUOTE]

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