D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Don Durito]

You're agreeing then, that this abandons the pretending of things to be true that aren't true that is necessary to imagine fantasy worlds at all?

What is "this" supposed to refer to?

 

[clearstream]

Because the actual behavior I see is not simply that W' is problematic very specifically because it conflicts with W. It is that W' must be eliminated and replaced with the alternative W" that does not have the Fs alleged to be invalid, specifically because the replacements, cal them Gs, are taken from W and only from W, not, in any way, from the initially-asserted W'.

In other words, W is privileged over W' in order to assert that the alternative W" should always be used instead. This is not possible if we are presuming that it is always true that W' is privileged over W in all possible states of affairs. There could never even be the start of such an argument, specifically because the (claimed) absolute superiority of W' over W entails that W cannot ever, for any reason, be used as a reason to argue against W'.

I think that is a cognitive move people appear to sometimes make, that on surface stands in contradiction to the attitude necessary to accept imaginary fantasy worlds at all.

 

[clearstream]

What is "this" supposed to refer to?

"the avoidance of what you know to be unrealistic"

 

[Don Durito]

"the avoidance of what you know to be unrealistic"

Do I agree that in order to imagine fantasy worlds you need to be willing to imagine things you know are unrealistic?

That's what you are asking?

I'm going to assume that either you have an actual point you are not stating for some reason or you think I was making some kind of implied point which you have also not stated.

 

[clearstream]

So, because the DM is free to narrate anything he or she pleases to justify any result that the mechanics give you, that makes it simulationist? Seriously?

FKR REQUIRES an expert judge. Unless you are claiming that D&D also requires an expert judge, then your comparison falls apart.

To me this runs into at least two challenges (that I've already outlined). Foremost, how much is enough? TTRPG isn't played to the standard of scientific investigation, nor of expert consultation or testimony. Not all subjects matter equally. Lack of expertise in quantum mechanics is unlikely to make a difference to the experience of living in the Inmost Sea. Strong knowledge of the Earthsea texts will matter more. Secondly is that when the imaginary world is one created by people at the table, those people are its foremost experts.

Sorry, edit to add. I thought you were referring to the original FKR rules that predate D&D. More modern versions? I have no real opinion. Haven't read them, know virtually nothing about them. My completely uninformed opinion though would be that a system that just uses the GM to fill in all the details of any result is not a simulationist system. You might get simulationistic results if you have an expert enough GM, but, for an average GM?

I'm thinking of the original FKR practice as well as the so-called Revolution. I don't think FKR adherents will mind that you think they must be above-average GMs I would agree with a sense that successful FKR simulative play is more achievable where GM's knowledge of subject is stronger than players'. That allows players to immerse and not worry about upholding the "pretended realism" of the imagined world.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think that is a cognitive move people appear to sometimes make, that on surface stands in contradiction to the attitude necessary to accept imaginary fantasy worlds at all.

Okay...so if it only appears that way, what are they actually doing when they explicitly say such things?

 

[clearstream]

Do I agree that in order to imagine fantasy worlds you need to be willing to imagine things you know are unrealistic?

That's what you are asking?

I'm going to assume that either you have an actual point you are not stating for some reason or you think I was making some kind of implied point which you have also not stated.

I outlined that an implication of avoiding what I know to be unrealistic (I take "avoiding" to include not pretending it to be realistic) is that in achieving that I am prevented from imagining a fantasy world. Because the latter requires me to pretend that things that are unrealistic (in our world) are realistic (in that world)... i.e. to not avoid that sort of knowledge.

I'm curious to listen to your thoughts on whether you would agree that the one (avoiding what I know to be unrealistic) blocks the other (pretending what I know to be unrealistic is realistic in the imaginary world)? In part, because there is ample room for semantic ambiguity in relation to these sorts of concepts.

 

[clearstream]

Okay...so if it only appears that way, what are they actually doing when they explicitly say such things?

To me this is a strange question and I am not sure what you are getting at. Suppose that I insist that the imaginary fantasy world contain nothing that isn't realistic in our world. Then in what sense is it a fantasy world, seeing as it must be a mirror of our world?

Or let's take the weaker demand, and insist that everything that is realistic in our world is realistic in the imaginary fantasy world, while allowing whatever additions are made for the sake of our fantasy. This seems to commit us to accepting all manner of inconsistencies (including frank paradoxes), or at least treating them as epiphenomenal (by which I mean, exempted from the effects of anything real in our world, such as gravity.)

One move that can achieve that is to asset them as "magical". However, it seems they're not consistently "magical" because reasoning about them based on their real-world counterparts is sometimes observed. Holmes may be reasoned to have an amygdala even though its never established in the fiction and Holmes doesn't exist; but what can be reasoned about dragons and flying? I wind up with (at least) three sorts of "facts" - i) facts from our real world, ii) fictional-facts that are unrealistic and can't be reasoned about, iii) fictional-facts that are para-realistic (of a kind found in our real world) and can be reasoned about. The mode of reasoning here accepts or rejects the "unrealistic" based on preference, seeing as any fictional-fact in iii) could easily be migrated to ii). However, uncanny valley or doppelganger-like effects could be predicted to apply (e.g. that it should be less tolerable to see a person survive a 100' fall than a dragon.)

(Again, I'm not offering any conclusion here, only highlighting what I think are some facets of the phenomenon.)

 

[Don Durito]

I outlined that an implication of avoiding what I know to be unrealistic (I take "avoiding" to include not pretending it to be realistic) is that in achieving that I am prevented from imagining a fantasy world. Because the latter requires me to pretend that things that are unrealistic (in our world) are realistic (in that world)... i.e. to not avoid that sort of knowledge.

You did note I was referring to the context of running a historical game right? I bring this up because I have the strong impression you think I was making some kind of broader statement.

I mean obviously I know that mice with swords are unrealistic and that you have to not avoid mice with swords if you want to a game where mice in fact have swords.

I'm curious to listen to your thoughts on whether you would agree that the one (avoiding what I know to be unrealistic) blocks the other (pretending what I know to be unrealistic is realistic in the imaginary world)? In part, because there is ample room for semantic ambiguity in relation to these sorts of concepts.

Well obviously avoiding any specific thing blocks you from utilising that thing.

You could if you want to, for some reason, have mice with swords and agree that you want to take sword fighting extremely seriously and avoid any swashbuckling shenanigans and try to stick to an approach to fencing which is as historically accurate as you can make it in this specific domain.

(And that broad approach - strict realism in one domain combined with the fantastic elsewhere can make for an extremely effective aesthetic approach).

But the point I was making was about expertise. And I think if you take away realism as a goal then things just get murkier.

I can be an expert on Rokugan but that still only makes me an expert on the part of Rokugan that is in the books. How do I judge the likelihood that a samurai can climb a cliff? What is the reference point that provides the knowledge here?

Again we are in the same territory. Knowledge of Rokugan helps me avoid things that I know are not appropriate in Rokugan. But what about all the situations where my knowledge of Rokugan has no bearing?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

To me this is a strange question and I am not sure what you are getting at. Suppose that I insist that the imaginary fantasy world contain nothing that isn't realistic in our world. Then in what sense is it a fantasy world, seeing as it must be a mirror of our world?

No idea! But I've seen things that certainly look a lot like it.

Or let's take the weaker demand, and insist that everything that is realistic in our world is realistic in the imaginary fantasy world, while allowing whatever additions are made for the sake of our fantasy. This seems to commit us to accepting all manner of inconsistencies, or at least treating them as epiphenomenal (by which I mean, exempted from the effects of anything real in our world, such as gravity.)

Yes, precisely! That's precisely what infuriates me about it. Like...you've just made the argument I've been making for...uh...~1700 posts now?

One move that can achieve that is to asset them as "magical". However, it seems they're not consistently "magical" because reasoning can be observed to apply to them based on their real-world counterparts if there are any. Holmes could be reasoned to have an amygdala even though its never established in the fiction and Holmes doesn't exist; but what can be reasoned about dragons and flying? I wind up with (at least) three sorts of "facts" - i) facts from our real world, ii) fictional-facts that are unrealistic and can't be reasoned about, iii) fictional-facts that are para-realistic and can be reasoned about.

(Again, I'm not offering any conclusion here, only highlighting what I think are some facets of the phenomenon.)

An excellent question.

My experience of discussing this with a number of people--as amply demonstrated by this thread--is that there are a number of what one might call "grandfathered" type-II facts that are simply accepted as if they were type-III facts without any explanation as to why, other than "well of course everyone knows THAT" (even when...they don't. Like genuinely they actually don't because these facts can be changed...and frequently are!)

Any other type-II facts are rejected as unacceptable because they don't conform to type-I facts. Type-III facts are often a subject of debate, with many (many...many...many) pixels spilled over whether any given fact is actually type-III and thus totally okay, or actually (non-grandfathered) type-II and thus totally unacceptable.