FrogReaver
The most respectful and polite poster ever
one is fake. The other is real.
D&D General What Is Magic, Even?
- Thread starter doctorbadwolf
- Start date
one is fake. The other is real.
FrogReaver
The most respectful and polite poster ever
@doctorbadwolf
Just so it’s clear. The above is a religious statement. Why? Because religion (many of them) claim that there are forces not of nature.
I post this in the context of dnd, because I am not satisfied with divine magic in dnd. Now, it is my opinion that IRL religious/mythological miracles are magic. Full stop.
TheCosmicKid
Hero
If I tell you to pick a card, and then correctly guess the card you picked, that's a real result. In the real world, I can do that in any number of distinct ways, using sleight of hand or mathematics or chemistry or optics. What these ways all have in common, what makes them all "magic", is that you don't understand how I did it. In the D&D world, there are a few more ways, such as communicating with spirits or reading your mind or peeking into the future. Again, you ("you" in this case being a generic commoner) don't understand how I did it. From a real-world perspective, of course, there is a clear difference between using mathematics to determine a card and using spirit communication, because one works and the other does not. But in a world where they both work? Where's the dividing line? Are D&D characters somehow aware enough of the real world to know when they're doing something that is possible here and when they are doing something that is impossible?
Card tricks may not be the best example here, because the result is trivial and the real-world methods are limited. Let's take another that might actually come up in a typical D&D scenario. In the game, an alchemist can mix up one compound that can explode in a highly destructive fireball and another that can close a wound in seconds. In the real world, a chemist can't do the second... but they can definitely still do the first. Is a cure potion magic but a bomb mundane? Does the alchemist know the difference?
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
No, it isn’t. It is a statement about scientific understanding.
“The world is billions of years old.” Is likewise not a religious statement.
You chose to make it about religion.
Incorrectly, I might add, because there very much are physicists who both believe in god and would posit that there is no force outside of nature. You don’t get to determine what everyone who believes in gods believes in the specific. I myself am a theist who believes that it is impossible to exist without being part of nature, and I’ve physicist friends who are the same.
Anything more specific than that certainly breaks the rules, but simply clarifying the above shouldn’t.
Either way, Umbran didn’t make a religious statement. He made a statement about what many scientists would say about what is natural vs supernatural, and you decided to make it into a religious debate.
FrogReaver
The most respectful and polite poster ever
Saying all things are natural is a religious perspective because it also means that God is natural.
But more importantly, he shouldn’t be making points that can only be rebutted by mentioning the belief in god.
If the topic can’t be discussed then especially as a mod shouldn’t be bringing something up that requires a mention of god to discuss
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
It doesn’t require it, though.
It certainly doesn’t require a full blown theological discussion about real world faiths.
In one sense, the game rules tell us - the flavor text in the class descriptions lay out what is mundane, and what is magical.
In another sense, you're asking a question that sits outside the rules. What you are asking is, ultimately, "What are the metaphysics of the game world?"
You could imagine two worlds:
World 1 - "Magic" is merely "any process with fundamental principles not known or understood by the viewer". The slight-of-hand card trick is not magic, because, while I may not know the details, I know the fundamental principles behind careful physical manipulation and misdirection. If I am an alchemist with knowledge of chemisty, I can have a bottle of stuff that, when exposed to air, becomes a thick, visually impenetrable smoke. To the commoner, this is magic, because they don't understand the principles of chemistry. To the alchemist, it is not magic, as they have understanding.
You could have another alchemist, for whom the cloud is still magic - they have memorized a recipe by heart, and can reproduce it, but htey don't know the principles by which it functions.
World 2 - There is an element to magic that is ineffable, and cannot be described in words. While many arcane details may be written down, at some point in the process of producing magical effects there is a thing that cannot be learned merely by taking in inforamtion. Maybe it is a connection to a deity. Maybe it is a metaphysical connection to the Weave, or whatever. No amount of reading books can develop this connection - there is something in and about the individual person that allows energies to be wielded.
Both are entirely acceptable approaches. Or, you can have a world in which the approach is not specified. Magic works as it says in the PHB. How or why, is a matter of argument in the game world, but with no resolution.
Unless the nature of magic is going to be a plot point in the game that the PCs are going to interact with, you don't actually need to decide.
The same could be said of any process affected by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
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