Is "scientification" of fantasy pretensious? I mean

It's kinda bad, but there are much worse things.

I find it rather fun.

>>48606826
I like it, but its an easy rabbit hole to fall down because alot of people would make small mistakes trying to make things realistic.

>>48606826
The "its just magik lol xD" fags are much worse.

>>48606826
There's amounts of it that work and add depth, and amounts that are just people being up their own ass. Don't try and science the shit out of everything, but certain amounts works fine.

The Witcher universe does a decent job, at least in terms of the "don't listen to the peasant folktales" stuff. There are plenty of magical monsters, but they're rarely as magical as common folk make them out to be and they're generally more reasonable as well.

>>48606826
to put more thoughts in world building for the purpose of consistency is not wrong.

this becomes an absolute statement when people realise settings can follow different consistencies.

Yes. We know magical shut wouldn't work in real life. Let us enjoy it without getting scientific about how goblins breed or some insignificant shit you decided to go on a tangent about.

In a lot of my settings there is at least one mad wizard trying to industrialize magic with science and is a major threat in the world.
It's an addiction.

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I like it where it adds verisimilitude to the setting and gives the players in an RPG consistent logical methods of working fantastical creatures and their weaknesses out. Like calculating a Dragons hunting ground range the gestation period of Basilisk eggs , or the accelerated molecular rate of trolls. If anything it's cheap to hand wave it as magic and not think about it as it removes player agency.

>>48606826
Its a follow up of the "all sufficient advanced enough technology can be considered magic" meme.

Now everyone thinks its cool to try and explain the unexplaimable.

>>48606826
I like it as long as it's not taken too far. Sometimes it ends up being a lot dumber than "It's magic". Personally, I'd make highly magical creatures have a thoroughly supernatural biology which works very differently from ordinary lifeforms.

>>48606826
it's not pretentious, but it's sometimes symptomatic of the kind of people who like to hierarchically organize genre, usually with science fiction at the top and fantasy at the bottom.

it can be really cool if done well though.

>>48606826
I think it's cool. Just because it's worked by forces that isn't constricted by physics or standard biology, that doesn't mean no logical system can be applied on it.

>>48607099
Having things that you can't explain is just lazy worldbuilding though.

>>48607130
I do what OP described and I like both fantasy (high, low, and anything in between) and sci fi equally. They are two different genres with two different goals. I do believe that if you just handwave shit with technobabble or "its magic" then you are just a bad worldbuilder though.

I don't care, as long as there is internal logic and consistency. If it's science, you better explain that shit in a meaningful way. If it's magic, boy you gotta explain what your magic is and how it works, not just say it's magic and move on.

Not really, it's just the application of logic to storytelling which is necessary. Nothing is more frustrating for a reader (and especially a player) than having logic thrown completely out of the window because lol it's magic.

>>48607184
it's true that handwaving with magic or technobabble is essentially the same thing.

at the same time, one of the tenets of fantasy is mystery, so there is value in keeping some rules either hidden or wholly unknown. but i agree - good worldbuilding in fantasy will often have some underlying rules, but keep them hidden, rather than resort to handwaving.

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I can't stand it. It's turned monsters from unnatural embodiments of evil forces to just predatory fauna that's higher on the food chain.

>>48606995
How does working out the exact molecular structure of trolls add player agency?

You say, "troll regenerate, they do so at this rate, acid and fire stops it." That's all the players need. Similarly, you can say, "Basilisk eggs take this long to gestate," without working out the exact bioscience behind pseudo-reptilian embryo growth in macrolecithal eggs.

Your examples are the worst possible ones, because that's exactly the kind of the thing the GM should handwave and say happen just because that's how they happen. Not because it's magic, but because a GM has way better things to do with his time than crank out endless theses on the ins and outs of every fake creature in the fake world.

>>48607154
>Having things that you can't explain is just lazy worldbuilding though.
Not really.
If it's consistent with ITSELF, it's awesome.
Adding mystery and unknown variables is ok, and in a lot of cases even makes the world better.

>>48607241
I agree. While I'm more of the person that wants to know all the rules to the setting (even the hidden ones) it's good to have all your internal logic figured out so the setting is consistent. Having magic that is just MYSTERIOUS just so that the worldbuilder can be look smarter than they actually are is retarded.

>>48606826
It's only pretentious if you act pretentious. The point of a lot of fantasy stuff is that it can't be explained. There is nothing wrong with inexplicable phenomena, as long as there is a degree of consistency within the world itself.

It does not matter how dragons fly, so long as there are rules that they must obey.

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>>48606826
Scitentim is pretentious. You being on 4chan means you are likely a scientism worshiper.

>>48607345
Not in my opinion. Internal logic is fantastic and every setting should have it, but if that isn't conveyed to the reader/player it's worthless because it may as well not exist if only you know about it. Now, this is different if you are writing a book since taste is a thing but for a tabletop I expect you to explain the logic of the setting and not just handwave shit with technobabble or "its just magic motherfucker"

>>48607388
>Scitentim is pretentious
Please explain your reasoning.

>>48607258
>It's turned monsters from unnatural embodiments of evil forces to just predatory fauna that's higher on the food chain.

I like the idea, but yes; this is where it has to stop. Evil is evil, and good is good. Divine and abyssal things are only done well if it is beyond the scope of what mortal science can achieve.

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>>48607413

>>48606826
How exactly is that "pretentious" in any way?

>>48607421
Reminder that morality is relative and that except in high fantasy dreamland things are only evil or good by those whom determine what is moral and what isn't.

>>48606826
Eh.
I know an extremely autistic dude who sincerely believes that all creatures from myth can be explained with evolution, and I'm really holding back on screaming in Morbo's voice that evolution does not work that way.

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>>48607476
>Reminder that morality is relative

>>48606947
Settings should be internally consistent, it should also be filtered through what the people in the setting know.

In your setting there might be some internally consistent reason for fire breathing dragons, but for the average peasant flying fire breathing lizards might as well be magic.

>>48607429
Oh you're right, there is no cause and effect. All of life is just an incomprehensible chaos impossible to fit into any pattern.

>>48607429
I don't get it.

>>48606826
I don't know if it's pretentious, but...

I guess it's appropriate in the context of contemporary fantasy genre fiction, which has abandoned any desire to draw on the principles of the tradition of symbolic communication that is mythology. Because in contemporary fantasy, a dragon breathing fire is just to make a big scary impressive creature that is "cool".

It doesn't have anything to do with the concepts being communicated symbolically by dragons in myth like Python, Tiamat, the dragons of the book of Revelations, Fafnir, etc.

And that's why Tolkien is the best and contemporary fantasy fiction is garbage. Especially ASoIaF.

>>48606826
Not necessarily, but it often goes too far.

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>>48607398
This depends heavily on what is meant by 'conveyed'.

It's entirely possible for a setting to hang together perfectly, but players don't understand it because they aren't paying attention/don't investigate phenomena. There's a reason that some creatures can breathe fire and some can't, but if the PCs never bother to find out which can and which can't they have no chance of figuring it out. I wish I had the cap of the GM of the Red Sails, who played through much of a campaign before the PCs finally realised that the pirate ships with the red sails, which had been dogging them throughout the campaign and featured into the background of at least one player, were in fact affiliated with each other.

The GM is not required to explain how all of the setting works in a textdump, because that leads to >>48604814. The players should sit up, listen, and ask questions if they want to know more, or accept that some things are just magic.

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>>48607497
>>48607503
>circular reasoning is OK when I do it

>>48607488
>>48607525
>Damn he showed me with that very clever and well-thought out comic! Damn I better re-think my position despite him never addressing or questioning my reasoning/thinking at all!

>>48607398
as long as that magic doesn't break it's own rules, no problem.
>>48607413
Science is awesome.
Scientism is the parody of it people who's main interaction with it is facebook posts, while not understanding it's underlying mechanisms.

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>>48607537
>never addressing or questioning my reasoning/thinking at all
l a m o

>>48607388
>>48607488
>>48607525
Is this a new meme that I missed?

>>48607525
You are legitimately damaged, there is no point in arguing with you if you can't understand as simple a concept as observation, deduction, theory, testing and induction cycling to catch inconsistencies and improve theories.

>>48607514
While I agree that not everything should be told in an infodump, crucial details that most people in the world would know should be already should be told to them. Info that a person's character should know should be told to them OOC and new info should be told to them IC.

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>>48607598
el ay
em oh

>>48607586
Don't mind him, it's just a retard thinking he's so smart because he can post shitty comics.

>>48607585
>>48607614
Nice bait but you are fucking retarded

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>>48607640
>nice bait but I use circular reasoning to justify everything I worship haha joke's on you
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/

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>>48607605
Is 'how dragons fly' crucial info?

'Dragons fly because they are magic' seems like it would be enough for most people- they don't need (or have the opportunity to get) a lesson on the metaphysics of dracoforms and their inherent subconscious use of mana fields to sustain themselves in physically impossible acts by performing symbolic gestures like flapping wings.

Most people accept 'birds, planes and bumblebees all fly in different ways, but it's OK because physics.'

I agree with the broader point that PCs should be automatically given the life lessons anyone in this world would learn growing up, but for the subject of the inner workings of magic or ecology of fantastic beats, that doesn't seem to be in the same category.

>>48607690
>posts the same image 3 times in a row as if that will refute anyone's point.
not even the anon you were replying to in the first place, bro

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>>48607728
>poi
>not refuting scientism
ayyyyyyyyyyy

>>48607627
Is it too much to hope for that it's "Fusion is impossible" "literal horsefucker" anon? That guy always makes threads great for a giggle.

For the actual point of the thread: a setting needs to be self-consistent. It doesn't need to be consistent with our world. Other than that, provide exposition to taste.

>>48607725
I mean I personally care about that stuff but that's just me. The majority of my friends are worldbuilders as well so they care about the settings I create. I get what you're trying to say but in my experience I find that people are more satisfied when you show them that there is an internal logic at work in the setting and a method behind the madness.

>>48607776
What do you mean it doesn't need to be consistent with our world? Since most worldbuilders use our reality as a basis for their fictional ones, shouldn't it stand to reason that their settings follow Earth-like rules and foundations?

>>48606826
Is it a thing like "there are different breeds of dragons that have adapted to different environments" or is it a "this is the biological explanation of how a dragon breathes fire" thing?

The former is fine, it adds some flavor to the world and can be used to build something with (these mountain dragons are more dangerous than the forest dragons but rarer and more territorial; they will attack you on sight, while forest dragons will attack only when provoked). The latter is only important if it factors into the world you're creating. (The dragon has a weak spot here that if you stab hard enough you'll rob it of its ability to breathe fire.)

Peasants probably do believe a lot of dumb shit, but you can use that to your advantage as well as a storytelling device. They have superstitions and believe in ill omens for a reason, even if the reason isn't as fantastic as they believe.

>>48607829
The key here is that the world is Earth-LIKE, I suppose - similar but dissimilar in whatever ways are needed to let the setting function properly. If it must follow rules that contradict our own (magic that violates the laws of thermodynamics, etc.,) then it can't be entirely consistent with our world.

>>48607829
He said it doesn't NEED to be consistent with our world. Large parts of it probably will be, for sake of convenience, but so long as whatever is different is consistent within itself (the existence of magic being the obvious example) then it doesn't need to relate to our world at all.

>>48607829
Read what various past cultures thought the laws of physics were. The one I know the most about is the nearly-ubiquitous western "4 elements make up the world, with a fifth governing the heavens which move around on a finite number of perfectly spherical crystalline spheres." It's weird as hell, but now that it's established, we know roughly how any relevant things will act under most circumstances.

>>48607488
he said mortal, not moral.

>>48607476
While the barrier can be pushed trough the roof in a High Fantasy setting, it is advisable for it to be there.
Like look at an oyugh. Scientifically it's just a weak slab of flash, with way too many orifices.
Put it beyond the understanding of logic, and BOOM, it's liquid chaos.

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>>48607960
>he said mortal, not moral.

No he didn't

>>48607476
>Reminder that morality is relative

Don't stoop to his level of retardation

>>48607910
>>48607914
>>48607944
I guess what I'm trying to say is that since our only knowledge is of Earth cultures and histories, then how can we make a new set of histories and cultures that are so far away from Earth ones that we can just throw those rules out the door? I understand and agree with the statement of "small details can be different but the underlying fabric follows our same rules" but how can the building blocks of a setting be different to such a degree that it just ignores Earth laws since all we know are Earth laws?

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>>48607960
>he said mortal, not moral
>>48607476
>Reminder that morality is relative

>>48606826
not if it at least kinda makes sense
makes world more believeable

>>48607985
Absolutes don't exist anon. Just deal with it. No one is absolutely 100% good or evil except in fairy tales and high fantasy, which are designed to have absolutes.
>>48607960
I get what you mean about people changing the nature of something through ignorance but if you say something is 100% that thing then that doesn't make for much internal or moral conflict, especially within nations(see: DAH EVIL EMPIRE) or people/figures (see: DAH DAEMON LORD)

>>48607266
>Basilisk

If you want to run a casual, gamist game that's fine too and I understand, some players just want to eat cheetos and make basic attacks. Nothing wrong with that. Some groups just appreciate the added realism and role playing that a thought out monster ecology brings and GM'S who favour this approach tend to be superior at crafting more logical, consistent and in depth world's.

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>>48608044
I think you misunderstood, I was calling the guy who thought 'mortal' instead of 'moral' was said a retard. I wasn't arguing about moral relativism vs absolutism.

I think you're wrong about that, but I'm not going to get into a theological debate, I've got sausages to grill

>>48607996
Here's how I do it:

>look around yourself (metaphorically)
>say something inane that sounds convincing
>>Examples: everything in the world is made of 3 parts, sunlight is how God talks to us, dragons fly through aether, not air
>figure out how that makes sense
>figure out how it making sense makes sense
>ad infinitum

It wont give you a complete Principia Mathematica for your new world, but it helps with general details.

>>48608044
>Absolutes don't exist anon. Just deal with it.

Is that a 100% absolute statement?

>>48608102
Nice try, smartass.

>>48607586
No, he's referring to an academic discussion that's actually a thing.

http://www.academia.edu/18650015/Six_Signs_of_Scientism_2013_

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>>48608108
He's not a smartass, you Sith-ass busta.

>>48607614
If you want off the merry-go-round, the law of causality is also a principle of deductive logic.

It's also non-falsifiable.

Yet still rational. More rational in fact, than induction, where there is always doubt.

>>48608108
Still a valid question. Your absolutist spin on your initial statement was called to the carpet. Then your dismissal and failure to "deal with it," makes it all the worse for you.

If absolutes do not exist absolutely, then that's a logical contradiction begging the question. If that's true, then you're either an existentialist, lying, or insane. A reasonably sane existentialist (absurdist) wouldn't dare make an absolute statement, unless they were stupid or willfully ignorant.

Seeing that "there are no absolutes" is absurd, we can rationally conclude there is at least one absolute. Even a dilettante like Ayn Rand understood this.

>>48608297
>a pseudo-intellectual tries to argue philosophy with someone on an anonymous imageboard
Pray tell then: is there an absolute evil in our world? Because everyone has a different idea of what is right and wrong. Just look at politics.

>>48608337
>using human moral positions as the basis for determining absolute morality

theresyourproblem.jpg

damn you /tg/, my sausages are going to burn

>>48608357
If human moral positions can't determine absolute morality, then it is impossible for it to exist in our reality as we know it.

>>48608148
No, he's not. "Scientism" refers to people putting too much stock in anything perceived as scientific even if real science doesn't pretend to cover it, like claiming science proves/disproves the existence of god when deities, by their very nature, exist outside the laws that govern the observable universe. We're not talking about epistemology here, we're talking about fiction writing.

>>48608108
This whole thread reeks of "I got a C+ in Intro to Philosophy and that means I know EVERYTHING"

>>48608175
Deductive reasoning does not utilize cause and effect.
Besides, it's mostly the uniformity principle that you have issue with.
Deductive reasoning doesn't utilize the uniformity principle, while inductive reasoning requires it.

To illustrate, given I expect hardly anyone to actually understand the situation given you're philosophical laymen:
"All bachelors are unmarried" is an a priori true deductive statement. It doesn't not require the uniformity principle. It does not require causality.
"I am a bachelor" is an inductive claim - it needs to be tested against experience in order to confirm its truth or falsity. This *does* require that the world and our experience be consistent, because if they weren't then we would be incapable of saying whether or not I am, in fact, a bachelor.

>>48608337
It doesn't matter what people think. Their subjective opinions are irrelevant to the objective morality laid out by the Almighty God. Burn in hell cocksucking degenerate.

>>48607525
I genuinely dont understand what "sientism" is meant to be

>>48608421
Someone has to make the rules for an objective reality to exist or be made apparent to all. If you can lay out the qualities of what an objective morality is, then I will believe you.

>>48608337
>a pseudo-intellectual tries to argue philosophy with someone on an anonymous imageboard

Which, I must admit, is a waste of time and I apologize. But then again, I didn't shit all over the thread. I'm just here to clean it up.

>Pray tell then: is there an absolute evil in our world?

Which would imply a converse moral absolute. So I need to address that first.

And there is a tie-in here to what I previously wrote.

If there is at least one absolute, let's say the law of identity ("A = A"), then we can know through reason that this is absolutely true by default.

IF absolutely true, then moral truth can be demonstrated mathematically. Which, when one realizes it from that perspective, is kind of "duh" obvious. But it's not obvious to the majority who ignorantly and forcefully assert, "There are no absolutes!" Thus, it is necessary to press on.

Therefore, if there is at least one absolute moral truth, then there is at least one absolute evil we can point to, being anyone who violates this one (objective and absolute) moral truth.

Which is more commonly known as lying.

Therefore, "yes." That is how to recognize absolute evil. Anyone who wishes to force doubt upon at least one absolute is lying, just as those who wish to re-create reality in some other form, or who "self-identify" something that doesn't exist in reality.

>>48606826
>pretensious
No.

>fun
In my opinion, also no.

>>48607585
>>48607614
Laughing... ass my off?

>>48608394

You do realize that everyone else here can see you deliberately ignoring my direct academic citation, which includes a much more rigorous definition of scientism than your opinion here.

>This whole thread reeks of "I got a C+ in Intro to Philosophy and that means I know EVERYTHING"

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

>>48608469
I know God causes your fedora to tip uncontrollably, but that doesn't make the morality He has laid down for all reality stop existing.

>>48606826
> Is "scientification" of fantasy pretensious?
My players will experiment so I am kinda forced to do so. They're awesome.

>>48607985
>>48608024

>he said mortal, not moral.
well damn, now I feel stupid. I'll go to the corner of stupids if you'll excuse me.

>>48608607
This literally makes no sense.

>>48606826
>depends on the setting

>>48608400
>>48608400
>Deductive reasoning does not utilize cause and effect.

Ignorant fallacy of assertion. Note how he steers away in the very next statement here.

>Besides, it's mostly the uniformity principle that you have issue with. Deductive reasoning doesn't utilize the uniformity principle, while inductive reasoning requires it.

Yes. Which is still subject to doubt. Inferring a predictive claim doesn't mean for certain one's prediction will necessarily come true. Thus, it's not in a law of knowledge in and of itself, no matter what your professor may have inferred otherwise.

>To illustrate, given I expect hardly anyone to actually understand the situation given you're philosophical laymen:

Dat smugness.

>"All bachelors are unmarried" is an a priori true deductive statement. It doesn't not require the uniformity principle. It does not require causality.

Causality isn't limited to inductive arguments alone. You seem to be missing the classical law of causality within classical deduction, which is simply law of identity in motion. "Every effect requires an antecedent cause." Cats like Bertrand Russell fucked this up, and early in his life too, I might add.

>This *does* require that the world and our experience be consistent, because if they weren't then we would be incapable of saying whether or not I am, in fact, a bachelor.

Yet the consistency you're assuming is, of course, assumed. Therefore, ever and always subject to doubt. This includes your own statements. That is, if you're going to be dogmatic about it.

>>48606826
I think its a social trend. Being able to explain something makes it feel legitimate or deep, and the people who play ttrpg games are typically nerds who like to mine things for explanations because in real life that is a smart thing to do. It's about not being able to "suppose".

We are talking about people who legitimately do not understand the concept of negative possibility space. There are lots of them in ttrpg gaming for obvious reasons.

>>48608729
You are a laymen who thinks he understands way more than he actually does - thank you for showing everyone.

>Yes. Which is still subject to doubt

>"All bachelors are unmarried"
>subject to doubt

Just kill yourself you cringe-worthy autist. I swear hardly a soul with a fucking brain or any understanding of first order logic frequents this cess-pool of a board.

>>48607525
>Kant
>God is perfect, guys, so he exists
What a retarded fucking asshole. He shoulda stopped at Solipsism.

>>48608878
>missing the point entirely - the post

>>48608780
>You are a laymen who thinks he understands way more than he actually does - thank you for showing everyone.

I admit I'm a layman. But no one here has actually demonstrated exactly how I'm wrong. All contrary responses to my posts have been foaming-at-the-mouth assertions. Which are worth nothing without actually taking on the burden of refutation.

>"All bachelors are unmarried"
>subject to doubt

Your doubt in this case, is forced. You believe doubt can be waved around like some magic wand, and if someone points out your dogmatic use of doubt, you get all triggered.

"Bachelor" by definition. . .

bach·e·lor
ˈbaCH(ə)lər/
noun: bachelor; plural noun: bachelors

1. a man who is not and has never been married.
"Mark is a confirmed bachelor"

Therefore, you're forcing doubt on the very definition of the very term in question.

Some would even call it lying. :)

>Just kill yourself you cringe-worthy autist. I swear hardly a soul with a fucking brain or any understanding of first order logic frequents this cess-pool of a board.

Wow. Even more hubris here. I was just looking for tips on my game when I came across the lol-worthy, "There are no absolutes" absolutist assertion.

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>>48606826
I believe it can be very useful in a campaign. If nothing other than to make for a great setting to introduce more NPCs.

Pic related. Maybe their day job is wizardry.

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>>48608914
I'm not going to bother wasting my time on someone who's so obviously an austistic cringe-worthy nerdshit. You types are better left to rot in your cloistered shitty circle-jerk world of like-minded autists so the rest of the world doesn't have to deal with you. Wasted so much of my life trying to explain things to people like you.

You *literally think* "all bachelor's are unmarried" is a proposition of which there can be doubt. You don't know *JACK SHIT* about logic, since that is *ABSOLUTELY WRONG*.

Bai bai~

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>>48608988
>Maybe their day job is wizardry

Doubt it. Their beards are on point, but the hat game is seriously lacking. How can you be a wizard without a pointy hat, I ask you?

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>>48608571
>You do realize that everyone else here can see you deliberately ignoring my direct academic citation, which includes a much more rigorous definition of scientism than your opinion here.
My point was that your citation is irrelevant, and that wasn't an opinion, it's what the paper fucking says. I wouldn't go around pretending to be the "one eyed man" in this situation when you apparently believe being able to copy and paste a link to something you probably didn't read (and definitely don't understand) is some kind of trump card.

>>48606826

My dragons are just regular animals (like humans) that can sometimes do magic (like humans). They breath fire in the same way a mage shoots fire from his hands; mana (internal spiritual energy) is channelled and converted into a different form of energy (fire). Anything with a soul, which is almost every animal, has potential to have enough mana to "cast spells".

That was real fuckin easy. It's still magic, but it doesn't need to be a bunch of inconsistent handwaving.

>>48608988
Maybe they're studying how a zombie or a ghoul works. This academy of monster scholars would like to hire your adventuring party on retainer to obtain some chemical elements to preserve their monsters for further study. They will gladly pay 5 florins per ounce of formoxating catalytic methanol you bring in. That is, if you are able to find it. They believe there is some that can be found in the old dwarven mine 12 miles out of town.

Do you accept their offer?

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>this thread

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>>48608995
IOW: "Baww, I'm going to ad hom and run!"

That, and you failed to actually read my post because you were too triggered to "deal with it." lol

>>48608914
>But no one here has actually demonstrated exactly how I'm wrong.

Yeah, he did. Then you babbled about "FALLACY" like every autistic pseudo intellectual in the 21st century now has to do.

>Protip: don't argue about shit you don't understand

>>48609204
>Then you babbled about "FALLACY" like every autistic pseudo intellectual in the 21st century now has to do.
I honestly miss the days when internet arguments were mostly namecalling. That was at least fun. The current shit is just tedious and masturbatory

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>>48609197
That's interesting. Many different ways of getting to the same point.

>>48609051
You cited #5 on the list when your original summary definition violates #3.

So yeah, I did read the paper. If you read it (which I doubt), I imagine you'd be choking on much more than the mere definition of scientism (re: Feyerabend).

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>>48609130
Alternatively
>1 million hours in MS paint

Depends on how far you go and how you present it. If it's "oh my setting is so clever because I made up a bunch of bullshit that doesn't make any sense anyway" then it's fucking lame. If it's you're fleshing something out because you think it's interesting or cool, then it's aight.

Really comes down to whether it's something you do to look clever or if you genuinely just like the idea.

Anyway, I really dig the way Reign of Fire explained fire breathing dragons. I actually also really like the way Skyrim handled it. Actually, their dragon culture and shit was GOAT.

>>48609281
Not him, but you still haven't explained what the fuck scientism has to do with any of this. If you truly understood the paper you'd be able express why you're right, or at least be able to cite relevant quotes that demonstrate your point.

Frankly, you're both idiots and should be ashamed of yourselves.

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>>48609253

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>>48609253

>>48609408
Not him, but you still haven't explained what the fuck scientism has to do with any of this.

Because someone else asked. lol You can follow the thread instead of being an asshat next time.

Direct quotes are minimal because "Feyerabend" is more than enough to trigger anon's fedora.

>>48609571
The problem is that even if you do explicitly refute the central point, Dr. Anon accuses you of autism.

While we can look to philosophy for truth, we can look to science for the simplest model that explains our current observations.

Since we care more about experiencing a setting than checking if it is self consistent, we should use models that are just complex enough to be enjoyable.

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>>48609253
Well, no. Because it really is an actual error in reasoning. http://www.toolkitforthinking.com/critical-thinking/anatomy-of-an-argument/deductive-logic-arguments/bare-assertion-fallacy

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>>48609654
>While we can look to philosophy for truth, we can look to science for the simplest model that explains our current observations.

. . .until falsified.

Oh, and you're assertion your philosophy of science as dogma. You can stop doing that now.

>>48609773
>what are unstated implications?

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>>48606826

I like it. It's what drew me into The Witcher.

The ONLY places I've seen it have been The Witcher and that Breath of Fire dragon apocalypse movie thing. That's it.

I have this sneaking suspicion that the people only want "internal consistency" because they're interested in why a dragon can breathe fire and how it can fly, because they spend an inordinate amounts of time trying to harness the dragon's unusual characteristics, not because they actually care about the worldbuilding. They'll propose some EBIN! way to bring about the industrial revolution by using common spells that no one in history has thought of even though the world is lousy with magic men, and feel enormously smug about it. These are the same people who will scour the books to find a way to break the game's (usually) flimsy economy and then post their greentexts all over the place.

>>48610293
Not really.I hate powergaming/character optimization and yet I love/almost require internal consistency in all my settings.

>>48606826
It's what happens when autistics aren't bullied enough

>>48607476
But that's wrong you twit

>>48607525
>I just discovered Existential Comics

I don't know if it's pretentious but it always felt like it was missing the point to me.

>>48610293
A work that doesn't have "internal consistency" is a world that's actively fighting against me immersing myself in it and thus caring about it. No information it presents me is worth a damn cause there'd be no logic to it. No one, not the characters inside the work, not the readers, not even the writer would understand what the fuck is going on. I'm sure there's a market for this out there but I personally like the stuff I read to make some kind of sense.

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>>48606935
>>48610002

I'm with these anons: Witcher does it best in the sense that "scientification" is less about explaining the magic away and more about just fleshing the habits, context and lifestyle of a monster.

It can still be fantastical, but it has it's reasons for doing what it does.

>>48607725
>Is 'how dragons fly' crucial info?
It definitely could be.
If "Dragons fly because they are magic" then are their wings even necessary for flight?
If the players try to destroy the wings to bring the flying dragon down into range is it a waste of time?

I mean you could have it be whatever you want for your personal setting and it doesn't necessarily have to be common knowledge for every peasant but it's pretty stupid to think it's completely irrelevant. Not thinking things through is also a quick way to accidentally give the players something overly exploitable that you'll either have to deal with or be the bad guy taking it away.

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I think it's done best with an in-universe examination
Like, if you're in a medieval world, the understanding of the body none the less a monster body, should make sense but also be within the setting's limits
My favorite example is Ignaz Semmelweis's idea of "cadaverous particles", he didn't completely understand what germs and microbes were, but he understood that touching dead bodies and other dirty stuff lead to disease
Shit like that
>>48606935
>>48610002
The Witcher is also a good example

>>48606826
It is what it is.

I like or dislike on a case-by-case basis.

It may sound off until you see the art a guy did, or the description someone wrote, and realizes it's awesome.

>>48612129
>If the players try to destroy the wings to bring the flying dragon down into range is it a waste of time?
The wings are the Dragon's external radiators of its internal magical organ system, responsible for their various breath abilities. By destroying the wings, you neutralize their ability to use magic to keep themselves aloft.

>>48606826
>Science of magic
I fucking love this shit, especially considering there's supposedly mage guilds and academia on the subject so it's just fair we actually get some sensible explanation on why this motherfucker can make it rain ice shards from clear blue sky and why it's possible for this other guy to teleport across the continent without shitting himself.

>Fantasy creatures
It definitely depends on what the fantastical creature ends up being. If all dragons, trolls, wyverns, wyrms, giants etc. just happen to be monster hunter creeps, I see no issue. I agree that if you wish to maintain some actual mystery, then it is counterproductive to bring too much explanation into it.

>Designing creatures more natural
I believe that taking more inspiration from the real world than not adds an endearing amount of detail to your monsters. Naturally the constraints of "realism" potentially stunts the creativity or truly inventive designs, but this only makes your design stand out all the more once you do a more unconventional take on it.

I see no direct issue unless you make it an issue.

>>48606935
I liked that about the series.
It's not that magic didn't exist, it's just that the details were one more thing for the common man to be completely misinformed or wrong about just as they were about most other things in life.

>>48607525
I can't fucking read the text in these things like goddamn

>>48616806
Yeah I mean they can have "magical mecanics" or just be normal wings, or completely vestigial and dragons fly with a magical orb-organ somewhere in their body or their very nature as beasts of the element of air lets them fly like fish swim, but it's the kind of thing that you should think about.
If the players spend a bunch of resources and time and health trying to destroy the dragon's wings and manage to pull it off then they'll be pissed if you say "no effect, cause magic lol I don't gotta explain shit, stop being such a science bitch :^)"

It also helps to really put some thought into these sorts of things rather than improvising something quick when they ask since you can bet if there's something like a magical flight orb-organ then some players are gonna wanna cut it out and try to power an airship or something and while you shouldn't let players do everything they want the whole idea of stuff is to allow them to pursue goals.

>>48620085
The best kind of science magic is the kind that goes logically with the setting, rather than any explanation for its own sake. Especially with table top games, where there's an objective for people to do.

A dragon's got wings. And it flies. If you attack the wings, it shouldn't fly. Whatever explanation you want to come up with for it is fine, as long as it doesn't lead to the kind of shit you described (not that I could ever really see that happening, to be honest). Maybe it's magic. Maybe it's "we'll pretend this is accurate science" and it has some air-bladder filled with flammable, lighter than air gas and it uses it's wings as propulsion and maneuvering. Whatever. It's all subjective by that point.

The only time it's bad is when someone insists that a giant firebreathing lizard is a wyvern because it has two legs and two wings with claws on them.

Those people literally don't deserve to have fun.

>>48606826
>Is "scientification" of fantasy pretensious?
I would never call it "pretentious" (what the fuck is pretentious about it?), but I will make the argument that more often than not, it's simply a BAD HABIT.

The thing about majority of fantasy is that it's rooted not in speculative fiction (like sci-fi is), but rather, it originates from MYTHOLOGICAL narrative. And mythological narrative is not speculative in the slightest: it's symbolic - at best allegorical. Mythological concepts like dragons, magic, gods, monsters, are symbolic representations of (usually clusters off) real-world concepts wrapped up usually in very evocative package. And it's the symbolism that makes them so appealing to us, especially nowdays, when we sorely lack better popular mythological stories.

Forcing "scientific" explanations (that is transforming them into speculative concepts, rather than symbolic ones) for these mythological concepts very frequently actually undermines what made them so appealing in the first place. In fantasy, world-buiding and the so called internal consistency is frequently very overrated in fantasy, where symbolic and evocative vision and good, relatable storytelling with solid characters is difficult to come across.

"Scientification" of fantasy is more often than not a sign of certain degree of cluelessness about what you really want to do. It's VERY often used to try to give "generic and worn out" ideas a new coat of pain and make them look fresh again, but that is really not going to fix it. The ideas are tens of thousands of years old for a REASON and trying to repaint them is pretty damn vain and naive most of the time.
There are, of course, exceptions, and the rule is not perfect. First of all the balance between the speculative and the mythological quality of the story will always be different and difficult to measure, and at times even hard to separate. Second of all: just the pure skill in storytelling alone can make a world of difference.

>>48619298
Humefag here. Keep fighting the good fight, brother.

>>48620516
Uh, this was aimed at
>>48607525

Relevant to this thread:

I once made a wizard based off of your typical philosophy student. He constantly quoted the founder of his favorite school of philosophy of magic, and tried to argue about the nature of magic with anybody who would listen, be they peasant, or orc, or demon.

He had a persecution complex about his school because it wasn't popular in academic circles, since it basically amounted to idealism (the philosophical definition, that physical things do not exist, only mental things. The opposite of what most scientists believe). He believed that material and somatic components only mattered because of the incredibly specific mental state that they created within the caster, and that if the caster could somehow create these mental states through other methods, then he wouldn't need the spell's components.

Of course he cast spells with components just like everybody else. Because all good philosophy has no bearing on real life, which is why even other wizards didn't give a shit about his pet philosophy.

>>48608044
>Absolutes don't exist anon. Just deal with it. No one is absolutely 100% good or evil except in fairy tales and high fantasy, which are designed to have absolutes.
Perhaps too late to the party, but if absolutes exist in language and fiction, that alone should give you a clue that they exist in the sense of them being relevant and useful concepts in some context.
When it comes to morality, by the way, you are very much wrong and a pretty damn solid theoretical framework postulating existence of absolute evil as a meaningful notion can be provided. At least one great modern scholar has already done that, and his theory is consistent with modern scientific understanding of the world.

>>48620697
>the philosophical definition, that physical things do not exist, only mental things. The opposite of what most scientists believe
No offense buddy, but that is probably the most misguided understanding of Platonic idealism I've ever heard. It's also very wrong to claim that Platonism is "pretty much the opposite of what scientists believe".

>>48620697
>not taking Eschew Materials
look at this pleb

>>48620706
Didn't want to get into a big description as I thought my post was too long anyway, but I was referring to Berkeleyan idealism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_idealism

>>48620752
Unfortunately, the campaign was in 5e and we never got past like level 5.

>>48609614
I mean who one the argument at that point, the guy that actually refuted the point or the guy that posted
>being this autistic.

>>48609102
Fuck the methanol !! They'll pay you to bring fresh specimens !!

>>48620778
Goddamn, I just can't click the right fucking post today. This is supposed to be aimed here:
>>48620739

>>48608485
There is no working alternative to the law of identity, so it is axiomatically true. The same isn't true for any given system of ethics - working alternatives can be logically derived from a myriad of conflicting views. One can say stealing to feed the poor is right or wrong - such is an opinion, but no one can honestly believe anything to not be the same as itself - there is no alternative.

>>48620778
OK, that makes sense. It's just that few people consider Berkeleyan idealism to be the "mainstream definition" of philosophical idealism. In fact very few people consider Berkeley's arguments to be worth anything.
As Borges so aptly wrote:
"Hume noted for all time that Berkeley's arguments did not admit the slightest refutation nor did they cause the slightest conviction." I have no idea if Hume really said that, or if it's just Borges being Borges, but I think it actually sums general philosophical views on subjective idealism nowdays.
Absolute majority of idealists - before and after Berkeley had a far more sophisticated stance on idealism than he had.

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>>48620192
>as long as it doesn't lead to the kind of shit you described (not that I could ever really see that happening
If you mean the "dragon flight orb organ to power air-ships" I can totally see that happening since players are always looking for stuff to exploit.
There are countless stories of games getting fucked up by dms introducing things they didn't think through enough or the players feeling like they're getting railroaded by not being free to pursue the things they want.
>Maybe it's magic. Maybe it's "we'll pretend this is accurate science" and it has some air-bladder filled with flammable, lighter than air gas and it uses it's wings as propulsion and maneuvering. Whatever. It's all subjective by that point.
It's hardly subjective when there could be different results and the players rightly ask questions. If it's magic then the wings might be vestigial and useless as a target, if it's gas the players might wonder if it's an exhaustible supply or, again, if it could be harvested for some purpose like a hot-air balloon or dragon-fire bombs.
You might as well say everything is subjective and doesn't matter because it's a fantasy world with imaginary monsters but the players want to know if they're fighting a dragon or a demon even if they both fly and claw and throw fire and when a dragon uses a breath attack it's all subjective whether it's fire or fire/magic or godzilla-lightning/fire but the players will rightly want to know what kind of protection spell is actually going to block it.

Of course, you can say "no, just fight the dragon the "normal" way, you can't harvest magical organs or scales or anything if you win because it all just melts away and if you keep asking questions then rocks fall" but that's not a recipe for players to have fun.
That's obviously hyperbole but it's not unusual for players to seek exploits and advantages and you WANT players that are interested and curious about the world enough to ask questions.

>>48606826
I prefer suspending logic and modern knowledge of physics in favour of emulating a world that works on the more primitive notions of our ancestors; the kind which might lead a person to conclude the existence of shit like gryphons and dragons and manticores and ogres and gods.

>>48620697
>>48620778
Idk about 5e but obviously if he made it to the equivalent of 3.5 epic his goal should be to abandon as much physical illusion as possible and become a demi-lich, or just get rid of the need for all spell components.

>>48620916
I got my bachelors in philosophy and I didn't get that impression. Could just be a result of the professors I had or where I chose to put my focus. I paid little attention to ancient philosophy and Platonic Idealism seems like a historical footnote to me. Like Berkeleyan Idealism nobody actually believes in Platonic idealism. Unlike Berkeleyan Idealism, arguments for Platonic idealism aren't useful or relevant to contemporary debates. At least that's my impression.

It is true that nobody really gives a shit about Berkeleyan Idealism as far as actually believing in it, which is why I chose that school of thought for my character. If that quote is true, then even Hume admitted there was no real refutation to Idealism, and Hume was one hell of a fucking hole-puncher. That specific character absolutely had to be right, so a philosophy that is particularly hard to refute would be particularly attractive to him.

>>48621083
His real goal was to give more credence to the school by becoming a great wizard. He got sidetracked into creating a sort of extranational organization with the secret goal of manipulating governments and putting power in the hands of the wisest of men. When the campaign fell apart he was in talks with a demon, with the implication that there would be a proliferation of a new and deadly kind of magical weapon. It was like a bet on human nature, where my character believed that mutually assured destruction would bring about an age of peace, while the demon believed it would cause unprecedented destruction and suffering.

>>48620960
The guy is just using the word "subjective" wrong, like most people do these days.
It's actually normative and therefor arbitrary: defined and determined by the "norm" presented by the fiction itself and it's internal rules. Which means that it differs from fiction to fiction (or just from different person assuming the role of an authority on the fiction), but set firmly within the domain of authority on the fiction / the fiction itself.

>>48621083
Part of what I enjoyed about the character was that, as obsessed as he was with his pet philosophy, the whole thing was so technical and removed from the real world that it couldn't really be meaningfully acted on. He was working on casting spells without components, and we probably would have worked something into it later in the game. But it was really just a way to flesh out the character and give him some notable traits.

It was also really fun to play a low-Cha character who wasn't quiet all the time. He just liked to argue, wasn't very subtle, and had trouble seeing things from other people's points of view. Example:

>run into a family going to bury their dead son
>right in the path of some bandits a few minutes out
>tell them "whatever happens, just remain calm"
>party hides
>pretend to use necromancy to make the dead child move, speak, and start threatening the bandits
>family does not remain calm
>I told them to remain calm
>what the fuck

>>48606826
In a good 75% of cases, it comes off as extremely pretentious, yes.

I personally dislike it but can tolerate it if it doesn't attempt to treat the audience as though believing in raw magic is puerile, like any sense of wonder and mystique has to be crushed out of them by force because -they're having fun wrong-.

I don't believe that you need to be able to explain everything, because it's all handwaving at the end of the day anyway (Because trying to have a 'realistic' explanation on hand for supernatural materials with incredible properties is inherently impossible unless you have recently invented Adamantium in real life and are now a quadruple trillionaire), trying to put yourself on a 'higher level' of handwaving is only useful so far as your audience finds it interesting, and anything beyond that is a waste of time unless it assists you in creating something else your audience finds interesting.

Internal Consistancy is important. Realism ain't shit.

>>48608055
Oh christ, you're drinking your own kool-aid.

Are you seriously unaware enough that you espouse this sort of pretentious twaddle in a thread specifically asking whether the thing you are supporting makes you pretentious?

>>48621300
>I personally dislike it but can tolerate it if it doesn't attempt to treat the audience as though believing in raw magic is puerile, like any sense of wonder and mystique has to be crushed out of them by force because -they're having fun wrong-.

You mean like most of this thread?
>b-buh if I can't dissect a dragon I can't have fun. What do you mean I can just attack the dragon like a hero in a story? I need to optimize my attack patterns!

>>48621300
>In a good 75% of cases, it comes off as extremely pretentious, yes.
And why is that?
> it's all handwaving at the end of the day anyway
Literally what? If you provide logical explainations for things that make sense in the context of the world, that's not handwaving. This is the main difference between high fantasy and low fantasy. High fantasy emphasizes the magical and fantastical. Low fantasy emphasizes the realistic and normal.

>/tg/
>everything about how medieval combat and society works in fantasy should be 100% realistic and historical. No unrealistic armor or dual-wielding allowed, everything should be exactly how it is in muh history books and HEMA
>but trying to explain how magic and dragons may logically work is hella pretentious. It's fantasy, it doesn't have to have realism, it's all about the rule of cool
holy fuck you people

>>48621508
That's right, anon, you figured out that I, the only other person on /tg/, has self-contradicting opinions. This is certainly what is happening, and not the result of you thinking that a large group of people must have identical opinions because they're all in the same place.

>>48621562
You aren't the only other person. You're the same person. We're all the same person.

We're all an autistic kid staring into a snow globe and imagining shitposting.

>Is "scientification" of fantasy pretentious?
>Yes, it is. Now excuse me as I tirade about philosophy of science for 165 posts, finally my degree has come in handy
hue

>>48621142
>Like Berkeleyan Idealism nobody actually believes in Platonic idealism. Unlike Berkeleyan Idealism, arguments for Platonic idealism aren't useful or relevant to contemporary debates. At least that's my impression.
That is a very, very, VERY wrong impression, on just about every level. Ironically enough Platonism (which had always a MASSIVE amount of supporters at every single given historical period, to a point where multiple theoreticians of history and philosophy claim that virtually all history of western philosophy is nothing other than an endless conflict of platonic idealism and aristotelianism in different coats of paint.

Platonist idealism is also extremely popular among any philosophers who fool around semiotics, and it's of particular interest to psychologists and cognitive scientists. It is actually a very, very clever doctrine, perhaps the single most useful of all classical philosophy to modern cognitive sciences.

As for Berkeleyan Idealism, the problem is that you cannot refuse something that has no relevance, no meaning to begin with. It's a perfectly self-sustained circular argument that cannot be poked holes through because its literally unrelated to any actual critical analysis. Being true and being false are not relevant ideas to Berkeleyanism: it's a perfect reasoning circle. More importantly, it does not mean anything and it's not worth anything, which is why Hume would not touch it with a ten foot pole.
Berkleyeism really just isn't interesting. There is no way to make it interesting or relevant to modern perspectives either.
Classical Platonic idealism needs to be reconstructed in different terminology, and it's metaphysical and ontological tone to be understood as an epistemological framework, but it's still very much a relevant way of looking at world. Scientifically relevant, actually.

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>>48620288
I actually want to make dragons with two legs because four legs are not scientifacally accurate
The difference between dragons and wyverns
>Dragons have horns
>Dragons can breath fire and wyverns use poisoned tail
>Dragons have bigger spikes on spine
Is this good?

>>48621888
>Platonist idealism ... it's of particular interest to psychologists and cognitive scientists.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just because it seems there are a few somethings like "forms" or "a priori" notions, does not mean cognitivists anywhere stand up for Plato.

Most in the cognitive sciences or neurosciences fall inside the scope of representationalism. It doesn't take "forms" or any such abstraction to be a most accurate reality; ideas, and sensations in general, are just as close to concrete reality as we can get to, not reality itself. Philosophy before and philosophy after Occam are two different planets, dude, and Plato is on the rock we left behind.

>>48622040
>Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just because it seems there are a few somethings like "forms" or "a priori" notions, does not mean cognitivists anywhere stand up for Plato.
A lot of them do. If for nothing else then for interest in the fact his ancient intuitions fit remarkably well with their own empirically based observations and presumed models. Cognitivists don't talk about ideas and DEFINITELY not sensations: they talk about models and meanings. And what else is a Platonic idea if not a model, a concept of meaning. No cognitivist will ever tell you that they are "as close to reality (where I pressume you conflate "reality" with material world)" as they can get. In fact absolute majority of them will happily go on an endless lecture how poor our cognitive models are married to material world, and how heuristic our cognition is in it's nature.

Platonist will tell you that ideals are more true than material world.
Cognitivist will tell you that meanings and models are more relevant and more accessible to us than the material world.
Both basically say the same.

The biggest difference between the two, of course, would be the matter of origin of these meanings, as classical Platonism works with the idea of "anamnesis", that means that the origin of all ideas is embedded in us (Plato would probably through our soul), while most cognitivist would admit that only a limited collection of our basic models of reality and patterns of meaning are inherent to us, while many more can be acquired through conditioning of various sorts.

Still, the functional model of Platonic and modern cognitive epistemology is remarkably similar. Meanings are indeed more real to us than the material world. And they are indeed abstractions and have the property of shared level of identity among objects we encounter in the material world. And in terms of our cognition, they actually pre-date empiric observations.

>>48606826
I like it. I believe it's called "reconstruction" or something

>>48611056

Exactly. It makes it feel a bit more real.

Like in Blood and Wine, that dude who was begging him to spare the subspecies because it was on the verge of extinction.

I like it, personally. Specially when used for

>Justifying behaviors
The dragon attacks human cattle over wild game because animals like cows carry much more gas in their intestines and fat in their bodies, which they methabolize into their ability to breathe fire
Or
Dragons mark their territores by placing small bonfires all over it and pissing on them, letting the smoke carry their musk. A dragon that is not used to being around humans might think their chimneys are the result of a rival dragon and attack

>Aesthetic choices
Their diets rich in metals that they scrape from the rocks, or steal from settlements, gives them a metallic shine all over their scales
or
The variety of colors and the composition of their hoards are used as mating displays

>Allowing alternative strategies
Dragonfire is made when the dragon spits a thick glob of saliva that they ignite with a click of their rough tongues. Perhaps there is a way to avoid that and rob them of their range advantage? Maybe, to make their main asset backfire and burn their mouth?
or
Their wing membranes are too resistant to be damaged by your weapons because of the massive weight they must support. So heavy, in fact, that a relatively short fall could leave them severily crippled

>Logical rewards
Apart from their hoard, an adventurer might take a number of scales from the slain beast. The mixture of metals in them makes for an adequate lamellar armor when worked by a blacksmith
or
As the beast lays dead before you, you reach for his tongue and manage to squeeze some saliva into a container. You gain two dragonfire bombs.

Stuff like that. Just the right amount of realism to make them believable and just the right amount of fantasy to make people suspend their disbelief

>>48622749
For me, it's reductive, calculated, and ultimately, pretty damn boring. If I compare your description of a dragon to Smaug, the embodiment of greed and threat itself, it just boring as hell, taking everything really impressive about the creature away and making it so much less of a basis for an interesting story to tell.

I'm really surprised that some many people praise The Witcher for it's worldbuilding in this thread as well. Like:
>>48622342
Worldbuilding was aways the weakest part of the entire Witcher franchise (be it books or games): the beauty of the books lied in very crisp, funny language, great and witty dialogues, tons of playful jabs at the genre, history, other works of fiction, and some amazingly likable and funny characters (sadly, the two main protagonists, Geralt and Ciri not being one of those).

The games introduced new aspects of folklore aesthetics and arguably some even better and stronger characters and character-driven aspects of the story (hell, they managed to make Geralt fun in the last game!).
But the worldbuilding itself was always almost intentionally weak: it was a pastiche of deconstructions, references, gags and silliness that felt - on it's own, deprived of the language of the books, or the visual and musical brillance of the games - completely uninteresting.

Even the most powerful things in the games - the story of the two sisters in the first game (ark 4), the Crones and Tree Spirit in the third game were moments where all attempts at "scientification" of the world were completely abandoned in a persuit of the original, mythological and folklorist primary fears and impressions.
The characters like mages or knights who refuse to kill monsters because it may endanger the ecosystem: those were fucking JOKES poked at the genre, nothing more.
Like when he spends 50 pages making an elaborate M.A.S.H. reference in the last book.

>>48621367
>What do you mean I can just attack the dragon like a hero in a story? I need to optimize my attack patterns!
>you're not supposed to ask questions or try to be creative with your own playstyle! you're just supposed to fight the dragon how I want and charge and full attack them and despair when you get it near death only for it to fly away again for my next pre-planned choreographed fight!
Wow, with such masterful dming why even waste time with players.

>>48623195
That's fair.
It is just that "Majestic, incomprehensible to humans, mysterious" fantasy never did much for me anyway. I could play that, hell i could enjoy that, but it feels really dull.
Even as a kid, when i was being told fantastic tales and myths, the moment the "i don't know"/"No one knows for ceirtain"s started coming i just lost all interest and awe.
In my mind, that is what feels pretentious, or worse, plain.
I want "monsters" to be what inspired the legends, not be the legends themselves

Now, you are probably going to think i am a hypocrite, but in the setting i used to write in, Dragons (capital D) pretty much were humans that became so obsessed with something that they become embodiements of said obsession. Monsters that defy any logic or explanation in how they work and what they want.
But they are meant to evoke wrongness, a feeling that those creatures don't fit in with the rest of the world, even when compared to the other fantastical creatures. Like the difference between a Komodo and a mythological dragon.
The dragons i described before were the "animal" dragon that is a bit more grounded in "reality" and way more common. They behave like "fantasy" dragons, but it is for a reason. The other Dragons? They are made from pure, undiluted "nope"
>How unicorns can use healing magic magic with their horns? We have a very good idea of how it works, eve-... How can that dragon fly with wings so small? Nope, no idea

>>48623195
>the embodiment of greed and threat itself
Yet vulnerable to good-natured chatting.

>>48623581
I don't think Smaug is in any way incomprehensible. In fact, he so bloody intuitive that even children immediately understand what he is about - which is one of the reasons fairytales and children stories conserved mythological imagery so efficiently and for so long time, even once mythological narratives almost entirely faded out of all other mainstream fiction, and why later, fantasy was aimed at young audience for such a long time.

I think everything about Smaug is pretty certain and pretty comprehensible. It's just also very strong and evocative, precisely because it's rooted in intuitions a images that are so damn old, so relatable. It's almost like a genetic memory. Jung would say "shared unconsciousness", I think.

>Now, you are probably going to think i am a hypocrite
I don't, but I do think you contradict yourself and that at least part of me actually agrees with me here. What you describe as a Dragon (as opposed to a dragon) is very much close to the thing I'm describing, which I really belive is the root of the appeal of fantasy. You just have the juxtaposition somewhat different. In the story as you have described, I would be very much interested in learning more about Dragons. But I could not give two fucks about dragons. I would think it's a waste of a term, really. It's just an animal, why would you identify it with the dragon Archetype? Aside from the neat little subversion of expectations, I guess, that is just a gag to me...

Don't take this as some kind of harsh criticisms, I'm just interested in the discussion.

I don't want to be that guy but I will

>depends on the setting

Does the concept of the scientific method exist in-universe? Experimentation? Are people literate enough to write this down?
If so, science away.

The reason high magic games and fantasy games are based on medieval Europe 9 times out of 10 is because it was a period of history in which all those aforementioned factors weren't prevalent. People didn't question much, and those who did went about it in ways that seem occult and mysterious to us today, like alchemy.

Neither the player nor NPCs would actually know any scientific knowledge, so it's not necessary to exposit.

This is also the reason TTRPG's in this time period are so popular: GMs can handwave things as magic. Not that it's a bad thing, internally consistent magical dark-ages universes done right have a hell of a feel. But it's easier than going 20 layers of links into Wikipedia to give background info.

I don't even know why I come on this board any more, except maybe to enjoy the once-in-a-week RPG discussion and remind myself that there are people more autistic than me.

>>48623654
>Yet vulnerable to good-natured chatting.
Actually, LITERALLY killed by his own Vanity and Pride.
There is a lot of Bible in Tolkien, by the way.

>>48606919
Yeah, fuck Howard and Lieber for making magic and weird shit in their universes mysterious instead of Sanderson-level of explanation of the scientific laws of magic and how they have their own magic Einstein who figured it all out and shit, right?

>>48606826
It's only pretentious if you think it's better than just normal fantasy. Coming up with scientifically plausible explanations for fantastic stuff can be very interesting, but it's not better or worse than not doing it. It's just different.

Anyone remember the animated film "Flight of Dragons?" Really good fantasy film, and happened to include an explanation for dragon flight and fire breathing based on them being filled with hydrogen.

>>48623781
>Does the concept of the scientific method exist in-universe? Experimentation? Are people literate enough to write this down?
I think you have the causality somewhat backwards here. It's primarily about what kind of story you want to tell, and then you only determine if the concept of scientific methods exists in the world, and THEN decide whenever it really works the same way as in our world and how common and prevailent in the settings it is.

For an instance, in my own humble world building efforts, concept of scientific literacy exists, but has never became widespread and always existed as a niche philosophy next to far more common and stronger mythological and metaphysical philosophies. It does exist, and the world, while being superficially similar to fantasy (most of my players still believe we are playing a fantasy world), it is at it's root much more akin to a post-apocalyptic soft sci-fi.
And while I have the sci-fi-esque explanations available for myself, there are very few - virtually no - people in-world who have access to them, and most of the people view the world in a mythological, magical way - which I also encourage my players to think with.

>>48623818
I'm pretty sure he was LITERALLY killed by an arrow.

>>48624602
>I'm pretty sure he was LITERALLY killed by an arrow.
He was killed because he quite literally showed Bilbo his videogame weakspot, which he did because A) he was so arrogant he did not even register the little thing as a threat, and B) because he was so vain he felt like he has to show off to him anyway.
In a story where symbolic and figurative are nearly indistinguishable, that is as literal as it gets.

>>48624657
He didn't show off the weakspot. I don't think he even knew it was there.
And that still doesn't make him LITERALLY killed by pride. I don't think you know how to use the word literally properly.
Protip: no one is ever literally killed by a concept.

And this:
>in a story where symbolic and figurative are nearly indistinguishable, that is as literal as it gets.
This statement makes no fucking sense.

>>48624772
>He didn't show off the weakspot. I don't think he even knew it was there.
He did not know of it. He was showing of how great he was, boasting the golden armor that supposedly made him invincible.
And I don't think you have the faintest clue of what the word literally means, especially in the context of a FUCKING. SYMBOLIC. FICTION.

>>48624974
>I don't think you have the faintest clue of what the word literally means
Literally means 'as written'. As written, he was killed by an arrow. FIGURATIVELY, he was killed by pride, but literally, it was an arrow.

File: 1465625019718.jpg (1004KB, 1000x1042px) Image search: [Google]

1004KB, 1000x1042px

>>48608024
>mfw mortality is relative

>>48622219
>Cognitivists don't talk about ideas and DEFINITELY not sensations: they talk about models and meanings. And what else is a Platonic idea if not a model, a concept of meaning. No cognitivist will ever tell you that they are "as close to reality (where I pressume you conflate "reality" with material world)" as they can get. In fact absolute majority of them will happily go on an endless lecture how poor our cognitive models are married to material world, and how heuristic our cognition is in it's nature.
That's the point. You can never "feel" concrete reality. Your perceptions are as close as can you get. Your models can only be more or less compatible/consistent, not "real" in the concrete sense.

>And they are indeed abstractions and have the property of shared level of identity among objects we encounter in the material world. And in terms of our cognition, they actually pre-date empiric observations.
No, our abstractions derive from exposure to particulars, predating experiences there are only the mechanisms through which abstractions are derived from experiences and prior experiences still. It's a brutal difference. Building up from Hume would land you closer to cognitivism. Go with Democritus, if you need an old timer, he is both a materialist and a representationalist - Plato actually landed further aside from modern thinkers than some of the dudes before him.

>And what else is a Platonic idea if not a model, a concept of meaning.
This I need to stress: to Plato, ideals were extant externally. They were world removes from what a cognitivist means from "model" - btw cognitivist will use terms like ideas (thoughts) and sensations (=experiences) both in a lay sense and borrowed from non-cognitivist thinkers.

>>48606826

I find it to be among the lamest of things to do to a fantasy setting unless it is already Low Fantasy.

>>48626934
What do you call Dungeon Meshi? It's kinda high fantasy but it goes into detail on ecology, biology and so on.

>>48623654 here, I was just shitposting but this shit >>48624602 >>48624657 >>48624772 >>48624974 >>48625242 is hilarious.

>>48620960
>>48621167
I was actually being retarded and not fully explaining my point. Subjective was in reference to which position was better: explaining the magic or explaining away the magic. Both can work, and there's no real solid foundation for one being objectively better. It's all taste.

I skipped over it because my central point was more about it's important to allow the players to engage with the setting and how things work, no matter the specifics of how things work. Because doing otherwise renders them impotent and is unlikely to lead to much good times.

>If you mean the "dragon flight orb organ to power air-ships" I can totally see that happening since players are always looking for stuff to exploit.
Nah, The idea itself there sounds rad, and is an example of what I mean by a logical extrapolation of the setting. I was referring to a DM going "no, the dragon still flies without wings because magic and fuck you." It seems like a particularly over the top example, because the idea of anyone letting dragons fly without their wings (unless it's a dragon without wings to begin with like Eastern dragons) seems insane without prior elaboration. I like to believe no one would actually pull that and think it's fair.

This goes back to the point about it's not what the logical progression is, magic or no magic, but that there is one. As long as you can have not only a sensible chain of cause and effect, and you're sure you and the players are on the same wavelength, the specific chain isn't important. The game itself, the player and DM enjoyment of it, is the most important goal and everything is in service of that.

>>48626981

I guess I call it Dungeon Meshi.

>>48626786
To a fly who's life is measured in days, are we not like immortal gods? To the man who's life is measured in decades at best, is the elf not an immortal unmoving constant? To the elf, who's own fleeting etc. etc. ....