D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[Pedantic]

Right, that makes sense. In terms of what I was asking it'd fall under reasonable inference from fiction and genre. This seems to be more than not purporting to be grounded in scientific reality but, as you put it, encouraging incorporation of fantastical features.

The mechanism of this doesn't yet seem entirely clear. Picture an array of fictional facts, some as yet not appearing or untested, others extant or in mind. An intuition I've been pursuing is that the former are not fantastical until in joining the latter they are said to be so. That they be fantastical is not resisted, but neither is it automatic: a myriad of details are accepted as being just like they are in the real world until they are modified (as encouraged.)

I think something like that likely because although we can easily pull out fantastical facts -- dragons etcetera -- in truth they are the minority of facts implied in play. Of course the minutiae is largely elided, but when we do scrutinise it the real world supplies the common experience which is our go to. I suppose in saying so, you might remark that a scientific appreciation of those details isn't encouraged (suggesting, were it not already obvious enough, the presence of tacit principles that guide us) so the "grounding in real world" may be impressionistic.

It definitely is impressionistic, but I think the most useful way to understand that is to look for how it breaks. What causes players concerned with "realism" to find pieces of the fiction dissonant or to reject them? You're not going to get to a universal principle that way, but I think you can approach a reasonable set of norms.

I tend to find consistency and causality are most important. You can set exceptions to the common understanding of reality, so long as they remain consistent, even as the circumstance changes, and so long as they don't break the flow forward in time. Casting a spell is a cause that leads to an effect, the scope of spell effects is knowable, if not known.

Parsimony is important, as you note. That anything can be changed doesn't establishing the expectation that any specific things will be changed, and established fantastic facts are subject to repetition and testing; once established they continue to be normative and must be reliable as norms.

 

[pemerton]

Absent them I still expect gravity to work as expected, air and water to be necessary for most forms of life, and so on. I have the same expectation in science fiction (Earth physics with exceptions).

By "gravity" do you mean objects fall to earth if unsupported, or do you mean universal gravitation - in my experience a lot of ENworlders who talk about "gravity" in the context of "real world physics" don't really mean gravity at all, but simply the common-sense point about unsupported objects falling to earth.

Likewise the dependence of life on air and water. Are you talking about common sense (which human beings have known for tens of thousands of years)? Or are you saying that you assume an oxygen-carbon-etc cycle driven by biochemical and atmospheric processes of the sort that first year science students learn about?

I am talking about science, not common sense.

 

[pemerton]

this does not only defy physics, it defies logic and math

Yes, this is why I described D&D worlds as not being rational.

 

[Micah Sweet]

By "gravity" do you mean objects fall to earth if unsupported, or do you mean universal gravitation - in my experience a lot of ENworlders who talk about "gravity" in the context of "real world physics" don't really mean gravity at all, but simply the common-sense point about unsupported objects falling to earth.

Likewise the dependence of life on air and water. Are you talking about common sense (which human beings have known for tens of thousands of years)? Or are you saying that you assume an oxygen-carbon-etc cycle driven by biochemical and atmospheric processes of the sort that first year science students learn about?

I am talking about science, not common sense.

I see no reason why a fantasy or science fiction setting can't operate on a scientific basis (including an Earth-like atmosphere and universal gravitation) with fantastic/science fictional exceptions. Probably a good many exceptions, but exceptions nonetheless. Obviously it doesn't have to, but it can.

 

[Derulbaskul]

(snip) It is common knowledge that the Bible depicts a flat Earth with a firmament from which the stars are hung above it. With Matthew 24 having Jesus say that the stars will fall to Earth at the end of times and Revelations 6 repeating that, so not much progress over the 1500 years the Bible books were written in (snip)

Sigh.

In other words, your source is a recent graphic rather than the biblical record. Even what you quoted does not indicate that the biblical author considered the world to be flat; it shows that there are things above and things below. There is no mention of flatness.

This is also the issue with mechanics vs playstyle: It is too easy to read into something the author did not intend. AD&D was particularly "good" at this because Gygax didn't know how to write rules with any real clarity. (Of course, parsing Gygax in your teens was good practice for reading contracts later in life.)

Of course, if he had written with clarity, perhaps this site and the discussions it has seen would not exist?

 

[Autumnal]

Likewise the dependence of life on air and water. Are you talking about common sense (which human beings have known for tens of thousands of years)? Or are you saying that you assume an oxygen-carbon-etc cycle driven by biochemical and atmospheric processes of the sort that first year science students learn about?

I am talking about science, not common sense.

I remember when I started wondering whether my characters had cells. It seemed safe to assume they have tissues and organs - people see such things in the course of injury and death, and battlefield anatomical knowledge accumulates. But cells? Microscopes don’t seem to be much of a thing in most fantasy RPG worlds, either mundane or magical.

At about this point I started getting World of Darkness writing, so my attention shifted.

 

[AlViking]

I remember when I started wondering whether my characters had cells. It seemed safe to assume they have tissues and organs - people see such things in the course of injury and death, and battlefield anatomical knowledge accumulates. But cells? Microscopes don’t seem to be much of a thing in most fantasy RPG worlds, either mundane or magical.

At about this point I started getting World of Darkness writing, so my attention shifted.

I assume cells exist but it doesn't really matter if they do or not. In a typical DnD game it will never come up and the characters will never have a reason to ask the question.

Dragons flying and breathing fire have fantastical reasons for their abilities but they are supernatural creatures. Somehow magic has created loopholes for them to exist. Just like most sci-fi creates loopholes so that they can have FTL spaceships.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I see no reason why a fantasy or science fiction setting can't operate on a scientific basis (including an Earth-like atmosphere and universal gravitation) with fantastic/science fictional exceptions. Probably a good many exceptions, but exceptions nonetheless. Obviously it doesn't have to, but it can.

I rather feel that at some point these exceptions become so common that different underlying metaphysics is more parsimonious explanation.

 

[mamba]

In other words, your source is a recent graphic rather than the biblical record

it is the biblical record, that is why I referred to Bible passages. That the picture is newer has nothing to do with it.

The Bible is not a book describing the Israelite understanding of the world in detail, but it reflects that understanding in what it describes throughout the various books, and it invariably is a flat Earth with a firmament, just like all their neighbors did believe at the time.

The closest to them outright saying it is flat are probably Daniel 4:11 ‘The tree grew large and became strong And its height reached to the sky, And it was visible to the end of the whole earth.’
and Matthew 4:8 ‘Finally, the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain. He showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.’

If you want to look into it, google it, as I said. Having an argument about you denying established facts is not something I am interested in, esp. something this off topic.

 

[Autumnal]

Look, if you’re going to be reasonable about this, there’s no point in continuing.