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Message: <blockquote data-quote="J_D" data-source="post: 2920464" data-attributes="member: 20956">An unusual combination of free time and piqued interest have prompted me to insert several random replies...  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I of course agree that different gamers have different tastes and styles, and many (but not all) of my comments are just my personal tastes.That's not my view of fantasy.  To me, fantasy represents what's impossible in the real world - what explicitly violates known natural laws of the real universe.  Fantasy can still have its own 'make sense' in the form of internal consistency even if it doesn't 'make sense' in the real world sense.Aren't you assuming that there is a probable or necessary disconnect between a 'consistent functioning world' and a 'world that really pushes their or their players buttons'?  It's certainly not a universal taste, but I'd say that at least for some people a 'consistent functioning world' IS EXACTLY what 'pushes their buttons'!  I'm one of them!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Similarly, a skilled engineer who can build skyscrapers and 'summon' several sorts of giant hands (i.e. massive cranes) to aid him in that work, yet be completely unable to perform neurosurgery 'because only a doctor can do that' feels really contrived.  Hmm.It's not contrived, it's only a matter of specializing in one's field.  No one can do everything, and the better one gets at any specific thing the less time he has to learn anything else.Similarly, every group of vacationers above a certain level of wealth flying everywhere on airlines because it's faster than driving feels painfully contrived.  Or not, to both of them.When people want do to something and they have the opportunity and resources to do it faster, better or more efficiently, they generally do so.  That's sort of part of human nature.  I see no reason why that should be different in a fantasy world.  If you don't want it to be common in your world, then make it harder and more expensive to do.If you want to insure a certain feel (e.g. Authurian or Viking) to your world, then you need to jigger the rules to make it difficult to do non-Arthurian or non-Viking things.If that's your style, then it's fine for you.  For myself, though, I'd adamantly disagree with that statement.  If that's your definition of a muggle, then I'm a muggle and proud of it!  Gearjammer, meet the gear-head!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Quoted for profound truth.  The more it deviates from reality the harder it is for a person born and raised in the real world to wrap his head around it, unless those points where the deviation takes place are well-defined and well-described.  For anything that is not thusly defined and described, though, 'it works just like the real world' is the standard and default assumption.It's important to note that "generic D&D" is nebulous, because it has drawn inspiration from a great many sources of which Vikings and Arthur are only two.  You're going to have problems with some part of the D&D system any time you try to narrow the concept of the world to any specific subset of those great many sources.  "Generic D&D" has drawn so many bits of inspriation from so many varied sources that it's become its own genre, and if you want to try to emulate just one or two of those varied sources you're going to have problems.It doesn't bother me.  For the split to bother you so carries the underlying assumption that they're really the same thing just dressed up with different robes and accoutrements.  I think of them as two genuinely different things.  The arcane/divine split makes just as much sense as the medical sciences/physcial sciences split.  It doesn't bother me that engineers and surgeons have their special stuff, and in the same way it doesn't bother me that clerics and wizards have their special stuff.If you're going to ask that, then you need to ask a broader question: why would anyone ever trust anyone who has power over them?  The answer is varied, and the same with wizards as it is with anyone else with power - pharoahs, emperors, kings, popes or presidents: some people want them to do their thinking and deciding for them, some people seek safety under their protection, some people seek a little power or advantage of their own as minions under them, some people simply bow down in fear of their power.If this were truly how people reacted to others wielding greater power, then we'd have never had pharoahs, emperors, kings, popes or presidents.  While the specific mechanism of a wizard's power is quite different, at the heart if it power over others is power over others and it all works by the same rules.In my opinion, that's not human nature.  That's just the Christian church stamping out competing belief systems.  Those old men and women got along with other just fine for a long time until the Christians came around.  If it were truly part of human nature to hang, drown or burn anyone with a little herbalism and learning, then they would have always been burned long before the Christians came around.Quoted for truth.If that's truly the way most people think, then we'd never have had pharoahs, emperors, kings, popes or presidents.  Why do you think wizards would be taken down before they became powerful, but not any other people in positions to wield power?Funny, I could have sworn that my history book had a fairly good list of all sorts of kingdoms and empires that lasted hundreds or thousands of years where the ruler had routine use of power that not every citizen or subject could control.Quoted for truth, and allow me to elaborate on that thought.Magic has to work that way.  People in the fantasy world pursue magic for the same reason real-world people pursue technology - because it works!, and people who know it can use it to improve their lives!  If it weren't reliable and reproducable no one would pursue it.  Show me a world where magic is unreliable - a few words, a handwave and a bit of guano might produce a fireball today but the same words, handwave and guano won't work next Tuesday - and I'll show you a world that has never seen and will never see an archwizard.  People will pursue something that works instead.You will always find a few cranks and crackpots in any society who pursue things that will never work, of course, but if the larger portion of people did that then we wouldn't have cars, comupters, airplanes and MRI machines today.  The same applies to wizards in a fantasy world.  If magic didn't work reliably and repeatably, then the only 'wizards' you'd find would be assorted con-men and fortune-tellers in carnival sideshows.I know this isn't to many people's taste - they want magic to be mysterious and think my view makes magic too much like technology - but to make it fundamentally mysterious and unpredictable even to those who use it would shatter all suspension of disbelief for me.  You can make it mysterious to the average person in the game world by raising the bar for entry to the art - say by making the minimum intelligence 16 instead of 10 thereby making wizards and magic much rarer - but to those who actually use it it has to be understandable and reliable to use or they wouldn't bother using it.  This means the game has to have consistent rules for its use, and that will inevitably lead to comparisons with technology.  Think of it this way - if your DM changed the game rules regarding magic every session - requiring that you relearn how to play a wizard every session - would you ever want to play a wizard?  No?  So why would characters in the game world approach magic any differently?  If characters still did pursue such mysterious and unpredictable magic, wouldn't you have a believability problem with it?People like jasin may accuse me of overthinking in all this, but I've got this little personality quirk that I am simply not capable of turning off my brain.  Some may view that as a disadvantage, but if so it's one that I rather enjoy!  Things that don't engage my brain - my analytical and rational power - and prompt me to think simply bore me.That's an interesting point.  There isn't a single level of suspension of disbelief that applies across the board even in a single gamer.  One's level of suspension of disbelief will vary depending on one's real-life expertise in the subject at hand.  A professional economist might have a great tolerance for inaccuracies in weapon rules but have a low tolerance for inaccuracies in game monetary systems and town wealth charts, while a master metalsmith might be picky about the details of game weapons but not give game economics a second thought.Agreed.  JohnSnow made the mistake of taking a specific historical situation and trying to apply it out of context as a broad general rule about human nature.</blockquote>

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