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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6566956" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I don't understand what the problem is - keep them in a dark room, put bags on their heads, hold them in rooms with no openings - it's not as if any of this is very challenging, and much of it is a fairly typical feature of human techniques of imprisonment.</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure what you mean by "plot hole", especially given that you are not an advocate of plot.</p><p></p><p>When [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] says that most fantasy worlds are not logical or consistent, I don't think that he is talking about overt contradictions in the surface descriptions. Avoiding those is fairly easy, and 4e has only one that I can think of (confusion over Asmodeus's backstory).</p><p></p><p>He is talking about whether or not the surface description describes a world that is actually feasible, from the point of view of history, sociology, economics, technological development, etc.</p><p></p><p>The classic example of this in traditional D&D is dungeon and wilderness ecology - what do all those dragons eat?</p><p></p><p>The standard 3E example is demographics and economy.</p><p></p><p>In Tolkien, the economy of the Shire is a mystery to me. They live surrounded by wolf and goblin-infested wilderness, and seem to have no mines of their own, so where do they get all their metal from? Likewise the elves of Lorien, or the dwarves of Erebor - what do they eat?</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure what fantasy worlds you have in mind as "mostly making sense", but none of the D&D ones I'm familiar with (the B/X "Known World", FR, Greyhawk, Kara Tur) fit this description. Greyhawk and Kara Tur come closest, because they are basically bits and pieces of real-world history and geography with the number plates changed, but even then the role of routinized magic is not adequately accounted for, and there is still the puzzling biology and ecology of monsters.</p><p></p><p>I think AbdulAlhazred's point, which I agree with, is that treating fantasy worlds as coherent models of possible human realities is hopeless from the start. Better to do what authors like Tolkien, Ursula LeGuin, REH, etc do and recognise that they are backdrops for fictional events - that the proper frameworks for thinking about them, from the point of view of design, are <em>literary</em> and <em>authorial</em> rather than <em>scientific</em> and <em>causal</em>.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6566956, member: 42582"] I don't understand what the problem is - keep them in a dark room, put bags on their heads, hold them in rooms with no openings - it's not as if any of this is very challenging, and much of it is a fairly typical feature of human techniques of imprisonment. I'm not sure what you mean by "plot hole", especially given that you are not an advocate of plot. When [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] says that most fantasy worlds are not logical or consistent, I don't think that he is talking about overt contradictions in the surface descriptions. Avoiding those is fairly easy, and 4e has only one that I can think of (confusion over Asmodeus's backstory). He is talking about whether or not the surface description describes a world that is actually feasible, from the point of view of history, sociology, economics, technological development, etc. The classic example of this in traditional D&D is dungeon and wilderness ecology - what do all those dragons eat? The standard 3E example is demographics and economy. In Tolkien, the economy of the Shire is a mystery to me. They live surrounded by wolf and goblin-infested wilderness, and seem to have no mines of their own, so where do they get all their metal from? Likewise the elves of Lorien, or the dwarves of Erebor - what do they eat? I'm not sure what fantasy worlds you have in mind as "mostly making sense", but none of the D&D ones I'm familiar with (the B/X "Known World", FR, Greyhawk, Kara Tur) fit this description. Greyhawk and Kara Tur come closest, because they are basically bits and pieces of real-world history and geography with the number plates changed, but even then the role of routinized magic is not adequately accounted for, and there is still the puzzling biology and ecology of monsters. I think AbdulAlhazred's point, which I agree with, is that treating fantasy worlds as coherent models of possible human realities is hopeless from the start. Better to do what authors like Tolkien, Ursula LeGuin, REH, etc do and recognise that they are backdrops for fictional events - that the proper frameworks for thinking about them, from the point of view of design, are [I]literary[/I] and [I]authorial[/I] rather than [I]scientific[/I] and [I]causal[/I]. [/QUOTE]
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