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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8239380" data-attributes="member: 42582">Yes. I can also imagine songs in my head. I suspect I am not as musically competent as you, but if I try hard I can imagine two- or sometime three-piece harmonies.This is contentious. For instance, the existence of some music doesn't implicate the existence of a space. Whereas the existence of a castle does.If I think of a melody, and I then play it on the guitar, there is a strict correlation between the notes I imagined and the notes I play. I have reproduced, in the &quot;external&quot; physical world, the music that I thought of.If I think of a limed over abbot skeleton and then write down that idea, there is no such correlation. No limed over abbot skeleton has been brought into being - rather I've written down some words that might cue me on a later occasion, or some other reader, to imagine the same thing that I first thought of.Of course it would be different if I actually built the castle or created the limed over skeleton that I imagined. But that's not part of the process of RPGing.I will note that I am not the poster who is arguing that imaginary worlds are real.I believe I was the first poster in this thread to make that particular point. [USER=23751]@Maxperson[/USER] is disagreeing with it.This is not what the typical mental model is like.The typical GM does not have an image of those things. Anymore than the typical geometry student doing a problem about an icosahedron (let alone a chiliagon)&nbsp; has a literal image of one in his/her mind. The GM has various sentences in mind, like the ones you have written down. And then there is a map which captures some of that information via standard conventions for drawing floor plans, elevations etc.In any event, I don't believe that any of this is contentious. Gygax and Moldvay set it all out very clearly. Everyone posting in this thread has done it. But for some reason there are some posters who seem to think it is &quot;dismissive&quot; or &quot;reductive&quot; to point any of this out.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8239380, member: 42582"] Yes. I can also imagine songs in my head. I suspect I am not as musically competent as you, but if I try hard I can imagine two- or sometime three-piece harmonies. This is contentious. For instance, the existence of some music doesn't implicate the existence of a space. Whereas the existence of a castle does. If I think of a melody, and I then play it on the guitar, there is a strict correlation between the notes I imagined and the notes I play. I have reproduced, in the "external" physical world, the music that I thought of. If I think of a limed over abbot skeleton and then write down that idea, there is no such correlation. No limed over abbot skeleton has been brought into being - rather I've written down some words that might cue me on a later occasion, or some other reader, to imagine the same thing that I first thought of. Of course it would be different if I actually built the castle or created the limed over skeleton that I imagined. But that's not part of the process of RPGing. I will note that I am [I]not [/I]the poster who is arguing that imaginary worlds are real. I believe I was the first poster in this thread to make that particular point. [USER=23751]@Maxperson[/USER] is disagreeing with it. This is not what the typical mental model is like. The typical GM does not have an [I]image[/I] of those things. Anymore than the typical geometry student doing a problem about an icosahedron (let alone a chiliagon) has a literal image of one in his/her mind. The GM has various sentences in mind, like the ones you have written down. And then there is a map which captures some of that information via standard conventions for drawing floor plans, elevations etc. In any event, I don't believe that any of this is contentious. Gygax and Moldvay set it all out very clearly. Everyone posting in this thread has done it. But for some reason there are some posters who seem to think it is "dismissive" or "reductive" to point any of this out. [/QUOTE]

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