D&D 5E Science Fantasy and D&D

[TheCosmicKid]

This is just a quick attempt to write down some of the criteria that make up my own personal "I know it when I see it".

This is where I'm at too. I know it when I see it (or I think I do), but I'm trying to analyze what I'm responding to.

To take another example, Shadowrun is pure fantasy dressed up in cyberpunk clothes. But if you removed 90% of the magic from the game, so the main "magic-users" were actually hackers, then you could run a good science fantasy game with the system.

See, I'd call Shadowrun pure SF dressed up in fantasy clothes -- the opposite of Star Wars, if you will. Star Wars is about a hero's quest in a struggle between metaphysical forces of good and evil. Whereas Shadowrun is exploring the impact of the magical awakening on society as though it were any other technology, very much a metaphor for the Information Revolution. When magic becomes industrialized, I feel like you're entering the thematic territory of science fiction, regardless of the fact that you're using the word "magic". And conversely, if you have a pre-industrial attitude towards your characters' extraordinary capabilities, I think you're in the thematic territory of fantasy, regardless of the fact that you're calling it "the Force" or "psionics" or something else besides "magic".

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't really dig either extreme.

I like Numenara, but I ignore all pretense of "magic". IMO, Numenara isn't a fantasy setting. It's a really good "weird sci-fi" setting.

I dont know know Mage Ascencion, at all. Can't comment.



My preference for sci-fantasy is for a mix of elements. I kinda don't like settings or shows or whatever where there is basically just one type of thing. Everything supernatural is a "Fay", all magic is just advanced tech, etc.

I'm building a sci-fantasy world RN wherein physical magic, like pyromancy, is "completely" scientific, within the conceits of the setting. Ie, the universe left the formless infinite mass of hot density because a conscious Will existed, and all matter and physical reactions and states are effected, to some degree, conscious will (which is why observation changes stuff on a quantum states/processes). There is a whole thing with Thaumatological Particles which are Force Carrier Particles related to the Thaumatological Field, which completes the Grand Unified Theory. It's a whole thing that is more awesome than it sounds in the short post I'm willing to do on it right now.

So, if you wanna burn stuff, you must, as Harry Dresden puts it, do business with physics.

Summoning and binding magic is fairly similar, with some aspects being exceptions.

Gods, however, as well as Faith magic, shamanism, and a lot of the magic inherent to creatures, is fundamentally illogical.

Doesnt need to be one or the other.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Sure, but what does that actually mean? What makes technology "just the magick" as opposed to something else? What would make technology not magic?

In M:tA, reality is created by belief, and that process, when used by an individual aware of it ('awakened') is what the game calls 'magick.' Technology (and more traditional ideas of magic, that the game labels 'static magick' or 'sorcerery') that enough people believe in just work the way people expect them to. Technology that hasn't been sufficiently accepted is still magick, working only for the Technomancers inventing it. The backdrop of the game is a 'war' between the Technocracy and the Traditions for control of the mass belief that shapes reality. Obviously, a war that the Technocracy had been winning for some time.