D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[Crimson Longinus]

so a scientist could (at least in theory) build machines to replicate any of the cleric and wizard spells?

In theory, yes. Besides, isn't that what the magic items are?

 

[Aldarc]

Watching Bob World Builder talk about the 2024 DMG. He posted an interesting quote from the book:

The rules of the game are meant to provide a fun experience, not to describe the laws of physics in the worlds of D&D, let alone the real world.

Just an interesting note of some relevance to this thread.

 

[Micah Sweet]

so a scientist could (at least in theory) build machines to replicate any of the cleric and wizard spells?

Technology is very often used in exactly that way, yes.

 

[AlViking]

so a scientist could (at least in theory) build machines to replicate any of the cleric and wizard spells?

I have some techno magic in my games.

On a related note, if you want a world where the world runs completely on magic, that's fine. I don't and don't see running completely on magic as being a requirement.

 

[Mort]

Sure, but you can't deny that magic sometimes allows things science wouldn't. That's what I'm getting at.

In a world where magic works, magic is simply a part of science.

Science is the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained.

If magic works, it would be studied and applied just like anything else.

 

[pemerton]

Do you believe that because a movie has Godzilla that nothing else can work the same as the real world?

What do you mean "work the same as the real world"?

Fictions that involve departures from what is possible in the real world necessarily entail that, in those fictional worlds, the rules that govern our real world don't apply. Whether there are other possible rules that explain the fictional world is a further question. Generally, I don't expect the fiction to offer such rules - rather, I expect it to gloss over the inconsistencies and impossibilities.

Thus, if a movie has Godzilla in it, then I would expect it not to also include an elephant falling a couple of metres and breaking a limb as a result - because that would draw the audience's attention to Godzilla's impossible biodynamics.

More generally, I would expect the movie to handwave any biochemistry or physiology - again, to avoid drawing the audience's attention to the nonsense that is Godzilla.

To come back to D&D, it is full of impossible animals doing impossible things. That is enough to show that it does not treat actual biochemistry, biodynamics, physiology and fluid mechanics of flight, etc as default assumptions.

Or to put it more simply: in D&D, both birds and dragons fly. That's an obvious truth of the gameworld. Bernoulli's equation can't explain the dragon's flight, and so it makes no sense to suppose that it is nevertheless the default explanation for the bird's flight. The worlds of D&D have not scientific explanation of how animals fly - they just do, in the same way that mortals just have souls that can survive their bodies, contain their thoughts and memories, etc.

 

[Aldarc]

Do you believe that because a movie has Godzilla that nothing else can work the same as the real world?

I believe that Godzilla films* are fundamentally not concerned with realism or how things work but with depicting a monstrous representation of the horrors of atomic warfare. We are meant to suspend our belief and better judgment simply to take in the spectacle of it all as a form of visual media.

* Excluding the era of more family friendly Godzilla between roughly 1964-1984. But those even more so didn't care about reality.

Like I would also say that there are a LOT of science fiction books out there, particularly among the classics, that aren't particularly concerned about depicting reality or things working like they do in the real world. Many of these books are more interested in exploring speculative themes, ideas, issues, questions, and the human condition. The premises of many of these books would absolutely fall apart at the seams if you critically evaluated them in terms of their physics or notions of realism or believability.

 

[mamba]

In theory, yes. Besides, isn't that what the magic items are?

no they are not, they are magic items, not mundane but complicated machinery to replicate magic. A magic sword is still magic, not physics

 

[mamba]

Technology is very often used in exactly that way, yes.

generally not in fantasy though, this was more a world building question, there is no right or wrong answer

 

[mamba]

In a world where magic works, magic is simply a part of science.

Science is the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained.

If magic works, it would be studied and applied just like anything else.

or it would result in scientists throwing the hands in the air and saying ‘there is no consistent principle here’