Science/Natural Philosophy, Electricity and DNA

[fusangite]

I found myself wading into an interesting discussion in the Plots & Places forum that I thought warranted a discussion here. Someone suggested that DNA exists in the D&D universe. The suggestion immediately reminded me of an incident in my campaign where someone was reluctant to use a shocking longsword underwater.

Not to worry, I explained -- electricity isn't something that is conducted through substances in D&D, certainly not through water.

I had much the same reaction to the idea of Mendelian genetics working in D&D -- given the types of species that exist, it seems to me as though the basic tenets of genetics couldn't possibly apply to the D&D world.

What are people's thoughts on this?

Because D&D appears vaguely based on Aristotelian physics, I generally fall back on the natural philosophy of the age of Thomas Aquinas if I want to explain how things in the world work and there's no rule on point. What do other DMs do?

Added in a subsequent edit:
So, if your players were to ask you if their shocking longsword works any differently under water, what would you say?

 

[shilsen]

I make it very clear to my players that in the D&D world as written (in the core rulebooks), most of what they regard as "natural" or "real" does not apply, and that's not just where magic is concerned. Physics, biology, economics, etc. are not the same as they are used to, and they should not assume it is. Takes them a little getting used to, but it saves a lot of trouble with unnecessary assumptions in the long run. When a question comes up, I generally make a ruling extrapolating from the rules, and try to stick with it consistently.

 

[Mercule]

The closest to this discussion that we've had in my group involved when we were low on food and had killed some apes. As a player of a LG character with definite opinions about the treatment of the dead, my OOC comment was "I'm sure glad there's no theory of evolution in Greyhawk."

Beyond that, I think it is very world specific. I know some people who have done their level best to use real-world physics in their settings, even creating some unwieldy house rules to do so. On the other extreme, I've toyed over the idea of creating a world in which the wind really is the movement of air elementals, etc.

I think that, given the basic assumptions in D&D, you're dead on the money for the vast majority of logic. Not surprising, considering that D&D (consciously or not) is essentially built to mimic those philosophies.

 

[Mercule]

I make it very clear to my players that in the D&D world as written (in the core rulebooks), most of what they regard as "natural" or "real" does not apply, and that's not just where magic is concerned.

Actually, this triggerred a thought for me. I frequently refer to game rules as "the laws of physics". That's what they really are, after all. They are a description of the way the world functions and they set the expectations for the responses and actions of the environment the characters participate in.

 

[s/LaSH]

I, on the other hand, would describe my world as largely reliant on real-world physics and stuff, except that there's magic involved, which can screw around with the aforementioned baseline. Genetics and evolution are important. At least for Prime Plane organics, that is; certain outsiders may have DNA, or they might have some kind of metaphysical parameters that serve the same function but are incompatible with organic life. (Or are compatible; hence half-celestials.)

I've even remodeled the Planes of existance. Now, the Astral Plane is space - that starry thing that you see at night. Other planes are other worlds, often orbiting different stars. The exceptions are the Ethereal and Elemental planes, which are still 'parallel' to every point on Earth and other worlds. (Not in the Astral, though.)

However, this doesn't really change anything. Teleport simply dissipates you to a vast size (three light seconds (half a round expanding) is, what, six million miles across?), then collapses you back down to another location within your boundaries (the other three seconds in a round). Plane Shift, I haven't ruled on yet, but I guess it would dissipate then create a space warp with powerful energies (like the warp drives physicists have been talking about for years) and reconstitute your particles on another planet. Thus accounting for slight inaccuracies in targeting. You still can't have children with gnolls, but you can with orcs (gnolls are canids, orcs hominids). Anything unusual can be explained by 'magic'.

Of course, this doesn't mean the players know all of this - as far as they're concerned, I might be running a model based on classical Greek mechanics (things like a thrown object moving in a straight line until it runs out of energy and falls). Which is, naturally, crazy, but it is possible to build a world around it - there was a work of fiction, but I've forgotten the name, involving a Greek space expedition using these physics, and it's weird.

 

[Fenris]

You still can't have children with gnolls, but you can with orcs (gnolls are canids, orcs hominids). Anything unusual can be explained by 'magic'.

I would have put orcs in the Suidae family

 

[s/LaSH]

I would have put orcs in the Suidae family

Porcines, huh? Well, I suppose a pig would bite your leg off given a chance. They're certainly deadly enough. But pigs are clean animals by nature. Orcs aren't, at least by stereotype. They also wouldn't have sweat glands, which would give them some interesting behavioural qualities to compensate (like relying on ready sources of liquid, which I suppose could manifest as orcs actively carrying satchels of sloppy mud around to smear on themselves when it gets hot)...

... if we were using modern scientific theory, that is. Big IF on this thread.

Cool idea now that I think about it, though. Doesn't allow for half-orcs, but very cool idea.

 

[Wormwood]

So, if your players were to ask you if their shocking longsword works any differently under water, what would you say?

I'd say what I usually do: don't extrapolate game effects from flavor text.

 

[jabberwocky]

Which is, naturally, crazy, but it is possible to build a world around it - there was a work of fiction, but I've forgotten the name, involving a Greek space expedition using these physics, and it's weird.

the book is called 'celestial matters', though i've forgotten the author's name. great book. the war between the greek and chinese empires, with the greeks using aristotle's physics and the chinese using the laws of physics according to chi is a beautiful thing. i took a lot of inspiration from these books for deriving how society/natural laws/philosophy evolves in a magic high world.

 

[Alzrius]

From what I've seen, D&D is content to use the most basic of "real-world" sciences, and leave the rest behind. This holds true from microcosms of DNA to macrocosms such as space.

I can't remember if it was Aristotle or Ptolemy who said that our world was surrounded by a large crystal shell, which is what we saw at night...but that became the basis for Spelljammer. Likewise, Darwinism isn't out-and-out said to be untrue, but most races, such as elves, orcs, dwarves, etc., all hold that they were brought into being in the image of their deity/deities. Humans, for the most part, seem to hold vaguely true to this also, although there are still examples of more primitive humans about, but nothing that'd be called truly sub-human.

For issues such as a shocking sword underwater, I'd modify that to be that electric attacks underwater are like fireballs...they take effect as a sphere that damages everyone in, say, a 30' radius or so with electric damage. Likewise, fire attacks can't be used underwater, etc. Beyond that, simple is best.