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Spells that "ruin" your campaign setting
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6291571" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>You have affirmed otherwise elsewhere.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm saying you are in charge. The default setting, the marketable settings, the economicly viable settings have nothing to do with whether the system works. They aren't meant to be internally consistant, so the fact that they aren't internally inconsistant is no evidence at all of whether the system can hang together. When I make changes to the system, it's never out of a belief that an internally consistant setting couldn't be created from the rules, but either out of a desire for a slightly different setting, or out of a desire for a slightly different game.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This argues against your claim that your highest priority is internal consistancy. In particular, you've modified the game world and in my opinion not thought through the consequences of that. Rather, what you've actually done is thought something like this, "I want the world to look much like our own. If people can be regularly raised from the dead, it probably wouldn't look much like our own. But if I made that resource more difficult to use in a world which looked a lot like our own, then in a world that looked much like our own it would have less impact." But what you haven't actually asked is, "Why does the world look much like our own in the first place." My feeling is that your change does nothing to enforce a world being superficially familiar to us. Rather, your change would likely have encouraged society to organize itself from the beginning in radically different ways so that the temporal limitations of being raised from the dead were mitigated. Now of course, you could argue that within the setting they didn't do because most people didn't want to return from the afterlife, or because of the social implications of bringing back the dead, but those arguments largely hang together without your changes to the time frame of hours or minutes versus days or years. </p><p></p><p>So your change doesn't really address internal consistancy at all, and in fact in my opinion undermines it. IMO, in that world - sans other explanation - the world would have been constructed architecturally, culturally and socially such that important people were never far from a revivifying source. Palaces and temples would likely be identical. Church and state with simply become closer and more entangled than ever. Revivifying sources would be placed in a sheltered position akin conceptually to a castles well, and be transported along with the priestly-king as part of his entourage - the revered shelterer of life. You claim to be prioritizing internal consistancy above everything, but in fact you've prioritized expediency. You've done what is easy, and what isn't easy, you don't want to think about.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Fine, but you want it both ways - in your setting but without big impact on your setting. Either remove it so that it can't have impact, or deal with the big impact by creating the social structure and complexity that results from it.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Sure, but if what you really want is internal consistancy and "high correlation to the real world" the inescable result is complexity. You can't both say you want "high correlation to the real world" and also you don't "want to be bothered" with complicated politics and deep ramifications, and also claim to prioritize internal consistancy. You either need a world that is vastly more simple than the real world, or you must deal with the deep ramifications, or you must say "I can't be bothered". So when you see me going, "<complexity complexity complexity>", don't respond to me, "Or you just could cut it." particularly when you darn well haven't done that either. I'm embracing ludicrously detailed complexity, intricate politics, and complex and at times alien social structures precisely because I actually do prioritize internal consistancy over "I can't be bothered". I was bothered; THAT is the result.</p><p></p><p>Are there downsides? Sure, and a empathize with people who just say, "A pox on internal consistancy and all her children; I'm just trying to enjoy a bit of escapist entertainment." I get that. More power to them. A setting doesn't half to be internally consistant if that isn't part of your aesthetic goals of play.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6291571, member: 4937"] You have affirmed otherwise elsewhere. I'm saying you are in charge. The default setting, the marketable settings, the economicly viable settings have nothing to do with whether the system works. They aren't meant to be internally consistant, so the fact that they aren't internally inconsistant is no evidence at all of whether the system can hang together. When I make changes to the system, it's never out of a belief that an internally consistant setting couldn't be created from the rules, but either out of a desire for a slightly different setting, or out of a desire for a slightly different game. This argues against your claim that your highest priority is internal consistancy. In particular, you've modified the game world and in my opinion not thought through the consequences of that. Rather, what you've actually done is thought something like this, "I want the world to look much like our own. If people can be regularly raised from the dead, it probably wouldn't look much like our own. But if I made that resource more difficult to use in a world which looked a lot like our own, then in a world that looked much like our own it would have less impact." But what you haven't actually asked is, "Why does the world look much like our own in the first place." My feeling is that your change does nothing to enforce a world being superficially familiar to us. Rather, your change would likely have encouraged society to organize itself from the beginning in radically different ways so that the temporal limitations of being raised from the dead were mitigated. Now of course, you could argue that within the setting they didn't do because most people didn't want to return from the afterlife, or because of the social implications of bringing back the dead, but those arguments largely hang together without your changes to the time frame of hours or minutes versus days or years. So your change doesn't really address internal consistancy at all, and in fact in my opinion undermines it. IMO, in that world - sans other explanation - the world would have been constructed architecturally, culturally and socially such that important people were never far from a revivifying source. Palaces and temples would likely be identical. Church and state with simply become closer and more entangled than ever. Revivifying sources would be placed in a sheltered position akin conceptually to a castles well, and be transported along with the priestly-king as part of his entourage - the revered shelterer of life. You claim to be prioritizing internal consistancy above everything, but in fact you've prioritized expediency. You've done what is easy, and what isn't easy, you don't want to think about. Fine, but you want it both ways - in your setting but without big impact on your setting. Either remove it so that it can't have impact, or deal with the big impact by creating the social structure and complexity that results from it. Sure, but if what you really want is internal consistancy and "high correlation to the real world" the inescable result is complexity. You can't both say you want "high correlation to the real world" and also you don't "want to be bothered" with complicated politics and deep ramifications, and also claim to prioritize internal consistancy. You either need a world that is vastly more simple than the real world, or you must deal with the deep ramifications, or you must say "I can't be bothered". So when you see me going, "<complexity complexity complexity>", don't respond to me, "Or you just could cut it." particularly when you darn well haven't done that either. I'm embracing ludicrously detailed complexity, intricate politics, and complex and at times alien social structures precisely because I actually do prioritize internal consistancy over "I can't be bothered". I was bothered; THAT is the result. Are there downsides? Sure, and a empathize with people who just say, "A pox on internal consistancy and all her children; I'm just trying to enjoy a bit of escapist entertainment." I get that. More power to them. A setting doesn't half to be internally consistant if that isn't part of your aesthetic goals of play. [/QUOTE]
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