Complex, highly ordered systems (like a 21st-century power grid or global transportation networks) defy natural entropy. They cannot randomly spontaneously assemble; they require deliberate foresight, engineering, and execution.So what is responsible for all the conveniently floating magical runes and circles and the redundant not! button pressing nature and effects of spell lists?
>>981055911. Extradimensional (or intra-dimensional and hella powerful) beings can just DO shit.2. Apparently there are ways to act/arrange matter than consistently get such beings to do things. This implies the beings may not necessarily be intelligent, as their behaviour is both simple and predictable.3. There is a HUGE amount of abstraction in the game system, so the finicky and varied actions required for outcomes are waived. Being a wizard is much like being a plumber or software engineer: it takes a huge amount of work to get stuff to happen and when you do it right everyone thinks it was easy and rote.
>>98105591>Complex, highly ordered systems (like a 21st-century power grid or global transportation networks) defy natural entropy. They cannot randomly spontaneously assemble; they require deliberate foresight, engineering, and execution.Not actually true in the general sense, spontaneous self-assembly can get some rather extreme complexity. And indeed such is part of natural entropy, as these highly-complex systems are less orderly in the sense of low information required to describe that is what entropy degrades. Additionally, this is only a law given a fairly long list of assumptions regarding conserved properties that fantasy settings have a habit of throwing out the window without even noticing; any humanly-visible spatial distortion wrecks utter havoc on the symmetries that appear to underlie them, for example. And without that conservation so too is "hard" determinism out the window.>So what is responsible for all the conveniently floating magical runes and circles and the redundant not! button pressing nature and effects of spell lists?All that said, Wizards and the occasional intellectual deity passing their notes around the pantheon. The very things that make them convenient gameplay, artistic, and narrative features also make for good tools, and that's just what a spell list is, a collection of tools devised by intelligent creatures for convenient use of magic that are able to be used by people trained in a given way. It's just that the substrate is usually formed of ambient magical stuff on varying time delays from desired effect instead of integrated into physical objects."Spontaneous" casters, meanwhile, don't have such visual effects, instead getting weirder and rather noisier manifestations that are frustratingly opaque in internal function, often overlapping heavily between different effects even when there's not any clear relation.
Magic/fantasy is always way too convenient for the sake of the story/narrative. Mermaids evolved to look like mermaids? This is not normal. Nature cares not for your masturbatory Disney fantasies. Something is responsible for itMermaids evolved to look like fat hairless blubbery walruses with sharp shark teeth to survive the cold depths? Completely natural and expected. Evolution.
>>98105655Are you REALLY arguing that the 21st century (or something like it) could just come into being without first producing intelligent life to conceive of it and then build upon it? What the fuck is infrastructure to you? NOT what it is? If nature can’t produce something, it will force something to produce something. Nature does not create Apache attack helicopters. They do not grow on trees or sprout out of the ground. It does however create the lifeforms to create it. Create-to-create.Otherwise nature is just Azathoth. It’s an overly sophisticated blind idiot. It has no real conscious or intelligent direction.
>>98105591My system doesn't have spell lists, spell slots, or any of that shit. It operates on a Mana system, where each part of the spell (range, damage, effects, areas) compound the cost, and a class's maximum Component Level is tied to their class level/2, rounded down minimum 1 for full casters, /4 for half-casters. Cantrips are utility magic rather than any sort of combat magic.Each Spell has circles to it, concentric with runes and specific details to signify the spell's components. The higher the strongest component of the Spell, the more circles that make it up, with a maximum of 10 circles for a 10th Circle spell. Wizards can use their Spellbooks to sort of cheat the system, marking down the proper structure of specific Components to make them more efficient (lowering their cost, and each Specialty aka subclass/archetype within the class gets one Tag at Level 1 that they treat as a 1st Circle tag instead of its normal amount and adds to their book immediately).
Magical elements/sources are academically known as the magical constituents and work in pairs. Normal humans cannot wield opposing types of magic at once or they will fickle out on the best case or overflow on the worst case. The 4 Pairs, or The 8 Constituents are:Fire-WaterEarth-AirLight-ShadowLife-DeathOnce someone has understood one of these elements enough they will find themselves unable to properly learn and understand the teachings of the opposing element. To undestand unlife one cannot understand life. To learn the always mutable and present water one cannot properly fathom the fire. (in universe there are very edge and rare cases of people that can use both at the same time, so most people if dedicated their lives to learn the elements would be able to learn a max of 4, which already is a lot)Now, the magical arts are commonly divided between 8 Schools, yet some spells might borrow a bit about some of them, it is usually better to learn each school as it's own and later apply it together.The schools are:Malediction: To curse, to HexBenediction: To bless, to aidDivinatio:To see, to seekObscuro: To hide, to concealEvocatio: To bring forth, to manifestConjuro: To make, to createTransmutatio: To alter, to changeEncanto: To bewitch, to BindMost basic spells consist of only one element and only one school, a simple fire bolt is Fire and EvocatioMore advanced spells might use either more schools or more elements. To summon a Lava Elemental one would need to know Fire, Earth, Conjuro and Encanto.Master Level spells often make use of 4 elements and how many school the sorcerer is proficient in
>>98105668Elfgame does not HAVE to respect our world in any way, shape, or form, the mermaids could just as well be the product of some Druid going heyaheyahoyo to replace a woman's ass with a gar.>>98105697Note the use of "in the general sense"; just because OP compares the geometric patterns to large-scale infrastructure does not make the comparison accurate, as the combination of relatively simple short-term rules can create very detailed and useful structures. Just because the fancy patterns are some part of turning the fabric of spacetime inside-out to teleport does not logically entail that every tiny detail of them is well-understood and tightly-defined by an intelligent actor; sometimes, the fantasy world just makes ridiculous bullshit easy due to additional or altered laws that often don't quite qualify as "physical".
>>98105785Well. The alternative is assuming that nature, causality, HAS a mind or intent for the outcome. How is that not cool? That’s basically nature if it were alive. Not all too separate from the fantasy mindset. That of animism, the spirits, the gods, etc. If nature could direct itself into shape, then you’d have straight up fantasy, or the stuff of nightmares.
>>98105817>Well. The alternative is assuming that nature, causality, HAS a mind or intent for the outcome.A Telos does not imply a consciousness nor truly an intent, merely a directionality, and rather a lot of how we understand causality in our world to work is dependent on conservation laws a LOT of fantasy settings pretty blatantly ignore.That said, it DOES fit in well with animism, almost like such an assumption is where those old myths come from.
>>98105829>A Telos does not imply a consciousness nor truly an intent, merely a directionalityDirection without intent is precisely what we have in the real. Convergent evolution and such. >and rather a lot of how we understand causality in our world to work is dependent on conservation laws a LOT of fantasy settings pretty blatantly ignore.Conservation laws, yes. Polymorphing someone into a frog in the real world would in reality blow up France from the leftover mass to energy. This means any fantasy world’s causality that involves the ability to shapeshift others will obviously skirts such an explosive “paradox”.
>>98105844>This means any fantasy world’s causality that involves the ability to shapeshift others will obviously skirts such an explosive “paradox”.If you're the anon I suspect, it is important to note the validity of a world-model that doesn't have such a paradox in the first place because it doesn't have mass-energy equivalence anywhere near that magnitude if at all. And also correct your use of "causality", that term is only for the laws regarding the way events flow into eachother rather than the specifics of exact consequences.
>>98105591Magic.
>>98105877By “causality” I am referring to any fictional reality where things happen, get caused, etc. By “paradox” (the quotations were intentional in that it’s questionable) I am referring to the notion that conservation of [insert energy stuffs here] always has to be explosively counterproductive, rather than seamlessly viable. Clearly some sort of “conservation” is afoot preventing such explosive notions from being relevant in Fantasyland. In Fantasyland, energy isn’t explosively conserved or distributed, it’s seamlessly exchanged; polymorphing someone into a frog won’t nuke all of not!France in the process. The amount of energy unleashed might be non-existent, or sent elsewhere, or something else entirely. The reality might be artificial. It could be a dream.
>>98105697This is like arguing that nature doesn't create intelligent life, it creates cells (that create intelligent life). It's splitting hairs in the most pedantic way possible.Tell me how much foresight and engineering went into the construction of a main road. Not a human main road, but an ant one. Go on.>>98105591>So what is responsible for all the conveniently floating magical runesThey're literally just fundamentals of the universe. Like how you find the fibonacci sequence in everything from human proportions to pleasant-sounding music to play structures. Once you start looking, you can see runes everywhere - language patterns, geographical features, biology, etc. Pic is some of the most obvious examples, as theyre magically charged crystalline structures; energy given form. The only real difference between a crystal and anything else is the amount and combination of energy. Everything in existence is just different variations of that, so of course the runic patterns are still gonna manifest, to varying degrees.Had a fun moment in a recent session where my druid was trying to get inside a magically sealed room in some catacombs (it was a kind of snare built to trap souls for study), and he realized the maze of passages around them were actually a giant rune. Flooding the place with energy replicated a soul passing through, and unsealed the room.
>>98105960> It's splitting hairs in the most pedantic way possible.If you think intelligence is an insignificant thing. Sure. If you think discovering ruins of roads and skyscrapers on mars wouldn’t be a major and significant discovery. Sure.
>>98105668Monsters that don't obey nature because their inherent magical/unholy power allows them to survive predators and cold don't need sharp shark teeth and thick blubber to survive.Demons and magic care not about what's natural.Said monsters who feed off human souls or eat humans, who again have magical/unholy powers, would sensibly take forms to bait their prey of choice to oblivion. They take the form of beautiful women to tempt lonely boatmen, because lonely boatmen want companionship, and will usually fall for such tricks as a result.Said monsters are killing loads of normal fishermen/sailors, because their magical/unholy power keeps ordinary weapons from causing too much harm? Completely sensible, especially when you understand these are demons meant to prey on mortals or monsters who crave human flesh.A peak human is no match for a tiger based on strength alone, so a monster that's stronger than an apex predator could reasonably resist or brush off attacks made by ordinary men.
>>98105960I don’t think those are the same sort of artistic runes and circles they’re talking about, anon. Math symbols (“runes”) aren’t Nordic runes. Although I do still agree with you. Vital geometrical symbols are everywhere, be they constructed or ambient. Snowflakes will always, predominantly, have six sides. Modern mathematical diagrams would look more esoteric than Hermetic tapestry from antiquity. The table of the elements is a collection of “runic” symbols for us to understand. How is science not bloody magic? All scientists are sorcerers to some shade. That's why they seek theories of everything to unify different layers of reality. It's as if scientists believe as-above-so-below and as-within-so-without. Scientists believe in summoning entities that transcend the body like AI and wish to become transhuman themselves. Don't forget scientists' quest for immortality either…and think about their obsession with seeking patterns, their inclination to turn patterns into geometrical representations, and their wish for theory to be beautiful! Scientists might as well wear robes and dissect bodies on altars- no, wait, they're already doing that… Christ, they might as well sacrifice materials in rituals to gain a material back with transcended properties. Oh wait…
>>98105960Holographic mathematical equations don’t materialize and rotate above the heads of mathematicians whenever they do a math problem like you see in anime when wizards cast spells. The point OP is making is that the variables and parameters that go into the magic are too, well, conveniently flashy. Constructed. Artsy fartsy. Artificial. It’s more advanced than science fiction. It’s very much a technological air. Like tugging at an invisible machine. Spells are too specific.
>>98106335How is cooking not bloody magic?All chefs are sorcerers to some shade. That's why they seek recipes for everything to unify different layers of taste. It's as if chefs believe as-sauce-so-seasoning and as-filling-so-topping. Chefs believe in heating surfaces that transcend the body like stoves and wish to become hot stuff themselves. Don't forget chefs' quest for deliciousness either…and think about their obsession with seeking patterns, their inclination to turn patterns into gastronomical representations, and their wish for dining to be fine! Chefs might as well wear tall hats and dissect animal bodies on cutting boards- no, wait, they're already doing that… Christ, they might as well sacrifice materials in rituals to serve a three-course meal with nourishing properties. Oh wait…
>>98106350> Holographic mathematical equations don’t materialize and rotate above the heads of mathematicians whenever they do a math problem like you see in anime when wizards cast spells. Don’t tell me what to hallucinate
>>98106231It would, but finding microbes would also be just that.>>98106350Is it that they're too specific, or is that survivorship bias in effect? Like for example, in the system I outlined, there's a rune for everything. Every. Thing. There's a rune for Tuesday. For the girl next door. For the act of curing semolina. For a specific shade of blue. No one's going to be memorizing the pattern for The Dragonfruit Jim Bought Off Terry Last Week, if the rune for Dragonfruit (Generic) is known and easily replicable. That's not convenient specificity at play (in fact in this one instance you could call it convenient un-specificity lol), it's just natural selection. >Like tugging at an invisible machineThat's literally what it is, though. You're altering the source code of the universe. It's just that the source code is written in abstract art instead of Turing machine language. The invisible machine is reality and its fundamentals. >>98106357Kek
>>98105591I've wanted to make an extra complex magic system involving either runes or magic circles, but I know I'm the only person who would bother to learn my stupid system so I just keep it in my head.
>>98105591Incantations and stuff
>>98106769>but finding microbes would also be just thatFinding microbes is cool and all, but finding signs of actual sapient life, and the leftovers of their works, is even cooler.
>>98106769I think the point anon is making is that magic in 99.99% of fiction is closer to a machine, rather than ambient physics. If glowing blue goo, AKA mana, allows one to shoot magical energy from the tips of your fingers, or eyeballs, etc, then you’ve got a case of something artificial.
>>98106769No. It’s 100% convenient. These are games, remember. Real life isn’t fair for the sake of gaminess. Although religion is certainly a game.
>>98106769>it's just natural selection. >The invisible machine is reality and its fundamentals. Nature, evolution, causality itself, would not produce a magic system the way you want it to. If you still looked 100% human while having the ability to shoot lightning from your hands, then you’ve got a case of something artificial, not natural.
>>98105591This is /tg/, not /a/.
>>98107134Cry moar
>>98106769>>98107111Even magic in fiction is convenient for the sake of the story, not necessarily the game. Magic has arbitrary rules and limitations in whatever fiction, and can’t do X or Y, but in another fiction it CAN do X or Y. Deus ex Machina.
Imagine if the barrel of a shotgun fired a dragon shaped stream of fire if you yelled ‘CUM DIABLO’. Nothing else. Imagine thinking that this is normal chemistry. “Totally physics”. Yeah. No. It’s clearly some fucking joke.
There are secretly holes in reality itself. Holes to where? Unreality. The unreality comes in through the holes. This is (largely) fine. It functions mostly as excess energy that naturally fights entropy and stops reality from becoming unreality again. It's not really energy cause it's NOT REAL. Nothing existed before in any way that makes sense. It's raw [something] coming through. You need to be pretty high on esoteric literature to know that much. It's not even taught to apprentices anymore. Nothing about it is recorded in a way that makes sense anyway. Mages just say magic to keep it more sensible. References to mana are more a measure of how much work a person can do with the seeping in unreal before they're too tired to do more. You use the unreality to dictate to the world that YOUR way of doing things is easier than the way it's currently doing it. Reality always seeks the easiest path. That's entropy. You're just forcing reality to acknowledge a different path. Yeah, that takes power. Is it raw imagination? Sort of. You need a lot of it to go off vibe alone. If you know how the mechanical nature of the world's order and how specific parts work, you'll have a much easier time fudging a different pathway. Some can intuit it very well. Learning at length is more typical. Observing natural order is a valid means of study either way!But this does make most magic feats innately temporary. We're spending effort to make water go back uphill. Once the effort is gone, it'll resume going back down the river. This is where artifice comes in. That's typically required for permanent effects. Just keep in mind, such objects or structures are anchored both in reality and unreality at once. Take care.
I don’t think it’s even possible for anyone to write magic that isn’t alive or intelligent or at the very least intelligently considerate. It all starts in the author’s head.
>>98107131>Nature, evolution, causality itself, would not produce a magic system the way you want it to.In our world. In the internal context of Elfgame, every single one of those issues can in fact be defined out of existence by the counterfactual premises.>>98107165>>98107198Your crippling inability to engage with the concept of a counterfactual has no bearing on their internal logic diverging from that valid in our world. The author is not inside the counterfactual, so no matter how absurd to our world's rules those of the counterfactual are or how overtly stated the purpose of them this actor is not actually relevant to said internal logic.I do not care what mental gymnastics you attempt, so long as you reject drawing a line between the internal context of Elfgame and the rules of our world your position fails to meet basic logical validity for the subject, because the entire fucking point is pre-conditioning on things that are not true.
>>98107174Just for fun, some more off the cuff.> You need to be pretty high on esoteric literature to know that much. It's not even taught to apprentices anymore. Nothing about it is recorded in a way that makes sense anyway. One particularly famous researcher made great strides in magic from studying the nature of the holes in to unreality. The texts he left behind get more bizarre and difficult with each volume. After penning his final volume, and revolutionizing magic for the next several hundred years, he vanished. No, he didn't wander in to the wilderness in a fit of psychosis. His colleagues at the time say he was in the middle of a particularly difficult to understand fit of rambling when he just.. wasn't there anymore. Gone. No means fair or foul has located where he went to. It is now widely held that vanishing with his final revelation unspoken is the best result anyone could hope for.
>>98107228>In our world. In the internal context of Elfgame, every single one of those issues can in fact be defined out of existence by the counterfactual premises.Sure. But you’re just proving my point. It is the alternative. Causality either has intent or it doesn’t. If mermaids evolved to look like actual mermaids then this means nature has intent. They’re intended to look like that.
>>98107228There is no way for any fiction to avoid the fourth wall, anon. All fiction breaks down the more you analyze it. It all starts in the author’s headspace. All magic systems are are intelligently considered, and even just considering something magic requires intelligence.
>>98107276>There is no way for any fiction to avoid the fourth wall, anon.But the fourth wall typically remains present. There is in fact a barrier defining separate logical frames. Again, I do not care about your mental gymnastics, so long as you insist your conclusions from our world must be applied to counterfactuals your argument is not even wrong, but instead outright invalid.
>>98107484I think you just don’t like thinking outside of the box. To transcend. Everything comes from somewhere, anon. Even magic.
>>98107592>I think you just don’t like thinking outside of the box.No, I just recognize that keeping track of the boxes is rather important to understanding the relationship between different things, which is a prerequisite to understanding counterfactuals. Until you can let go of your nonsensical conflation of everything into some indistinguishable all-thing, you will never hold a position valid for discussing the nature of things inside particular fictional settings.
Wonderfag 2: Magic Boogaloo
>>98105591Those floating magical runes are to magic as, electronics are to electricity, or as technology in general is to physics. They're a way humans have developed to usefully harness a force or a natural law that just exists. I feel like /tg/'s had this exact discussion more than once before, though.
>>98107081It would be equally cool, because nature doesn't create either skyscrapers or cells, right?>>98107111Oh, well looking at it from a meta perspective then yeah, it's absolutely a game convenience abstraction. But even then, I kinda think >>98107098 is just a failure at suspension of disbelief instead of any inherent flaw in the system. >>98107131That's not what I'm saying, though. My world is "designed" as fuck (it even has explicit laws to maintain a status quo), it's just that a natural selection process (not evolution, that's different) is still present and in effect. Lightning bolt hands get used more than lightning bolt deletion, because it's more useful. That creates a "magic system" that appears contrived unless you understand that only the creme de la creme being used. This is a great example of why >>98107267 is retarded, because even a purposefully designed system, left to run on own, can have non-designed effects (although I suspect that anon is actually just having yet another problem with separating realities).>>98107276>>98107592>It all starts in the author’s headspace>he can't imagine something coming from nothingSkill issue. You're confusing your perception of a reality with the reality itself.
>>98107605>No, I just recognize that keeping track of the boxes is rather important to understanding the relationship between different thingsOkay, but this is like arguing that 2 isn’t a number because 2 isn’t 1. They’re both numbers. It’s like arguing a box isn’t a box because it contains something else.You’re just taking the required steps back, to see how it all connects. Sort of line how all magic comes from ignorance.
>>98108882>It would be equally cool, because nature doesn't create either skyscrapers or cells, right?Are you really saying that a UFO would be equally cool to finding some microbes on Mars? I’m not so sure about that. The implications of one beat out the other.
>>98108882>Skill issue. You're confusing your perception of a reality with the reality itself.It’s actually an intelligence issue. If you think all fiction doesn’t eventually break down, you’re sadly addicted to escapist brain rot, hoping that your favorite fiction is out there somewhere. It would not be on the same level. We are the creators of your favorite fiction. Maybe an alien can simulate it for you.And no. Something doesn’t come from nothing. That’s anti-deterministic diarrhea and Bohr lost. Einstein won. Believing that something comes from nothing is no different from believing that nothing came before God.
>>98109438>nothing came before GodIt might be possible if God is Everything and it loops around or curls in on itself to support itself. Maybe. Loop of turtles.
>>98109438Something has to either come from nothing or to just exist without a beginning in order for anything to exist, though. Both of those are nonsense but one of them has to be the case.
>>98109417>Okay, but this is like arguing that 2 isn’t a number because 2 isn’t 1.No, you're making the inverse argument that because both 2 and 1 are numbers they are "basically" the same thing, by saying that because the same string of letters spoken with the same sound refer to completely different things those things MUST be boiled down to common factors that are the "real" meaning of the word.Once again, so long as you refuse to recognize these world-spaces are separate matters, your position is Not Even Wrong because it refuses the basic premise.>Sort of line how all magic comes from ignorance.Words can have multiple separate meanings, you insufferable midwit. Just because that's the only definition you can construct covering the wide breadth does not make that construction accurate, because it completely ignores the vital property of language that words' definitions quite routinely have contextual variation.>>98109438>If you think all fiction doesn’t eventually break downIt doesn't matter if it eventually "breaks down", the internal context of the fiction still remains separate.>>98109528Both of those are axiom, there's also infinite regress of no actual start and circular causation where for whatever reason the universe is on repeat.
>>98109579>there's also infinite regress of no actual start and circular causation where for whatever reason the universe is on repeat.Infinite regress doesn’t actually imply no objective beginning. It can absolutely curl in on itself, to support itself. It is its own beginning and ending.
>>98109602That's circular causation, not infinite regress, midwit.
>>98109579>No, you're making the inverse argument that because both 2 and 1 are numbers they are "basically" the same thing1 and 2 are both numbers. But not of the the same quantity. However, they are both quantities, AKA numbers, nonetheless. It’s kind of like arguing that magic isn’t based on wonder, mystery, enchantment, ignorance, etc. It absolutely is. Magic and religion have lead ups. Recipes. Baser and baser essences. It all starts from somewhere. Drop a shiny and chrome candy bar wrapper into the past and you may very well have just started some mystery cult.
>>98109636Both can be true. Infinity doesn’t have to conform to your singular reasoning. It can absolutely stand on top of other infinities, which in turn stands on top of itself.
>>98109579>It doesn't matter if it eventually "breaks down", the internal context of the fiction still remains separate.Not really. It’s fiction. It’s not real. For it to be consistent it would have to be an an actual reality, and for it to be an actual reality, it would have to be entertained by something, since it’s an artificial creation. By such a point it might not even resemble the fiction. It might quickly devolve into fan fiction. “That part was dumb.”.
>>98105591I take a healthy page from Numenera. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
>>98109636If everything everywhere, every-when, is happening all at once, as Einstein had envisioned, then this is surely unavoidable.
>>98109640>1 and 2 are both numbers. But not of the the same quantity. However, they are both quantities, AKA numbers, nonetheless.Like I said, you're arguing that they're basically the same thing. So long as you keep arguing that explicit counterfactuals must be engaged with as part of the same set as our own reality, you will not have a valid position for discussing them, because you refuse the basic premise.>It’s kind of like arguing that magic isn’t based on wonder, mystery, enchantment, ignorance, etc.That's only entailed by one of a rather long list of meanings, not the sole meaning of the word, midwit. I don't care about your constructed definitions, because people use the word "magic" for phenomena of objective character within the internal context of fantasy fiction vastly too often to dismiss from the definitions.You can rant and rave all you like, your apparent priors are just a solipsistic tautology that has retreated from any possible falsifiability because you literally re-defined the jargon for the matter in such a way that you can't be wrong if your definitions are accepted. And so they won't be, no matter how you try to justify their construction.
>>98109661Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science & technology. Magic is too convenient and considerate to not be an artificial creation of something for the sake of the narrative, be it the gods, or the author himself. Two sides of the same coin. Even wibbly wobbly woo magic that makes no sense is still relative. Some higher dimensional alien will be able to assess it, if it exists at all. If wibbly wobbly woo exists, then there is something there to it. It’s our inability to assess it that makes it wibbly wobbly woo.This is the beauty of magic. It can be anything from a set perspective. Dropping a candy bar wrapper into the past.
>>98109645They. Are. Two. Different. Things. Midwit.>>98109652>For it to be consistent it would have to be an an actual realityNo, for it to be consistent merely requires that it not contradict itself. Contradicting reality as we understand it is the definition of a counterfactual. Again, until you can accept this separation, your argument is outright invalid.>>98109663>as Einstein had envisionedShut up about your horrible mutilation of Einstein's metaphysics, the man's opinions on quantum phenomena are outright disproven.
None of this gibberish is even remotely related to actually playing traditional games.
>>98109672>Magic is too convenient and considerate to not be an artificial creation of something for the sake of the narrative, be it the gods, or the author himself.The author does not exist inside the context, and so if it is solely the author's work then within said context it is not artificial. Until you can accept this separation, and that words can mean more than one thing that must be distinguished by context, your argument is outright invalid.
>>98109665>That's only entailed by one of a rather long list of meaningsNot really. It’s all based around nuances of understanding. Anything you don’t know is automatically everything else out there. It sounds like you don’t like certain words. Try telling a Christian that God is an alien, and they’ll hate it. Even if you’re technically correct. They don’t like the word. But God is by default an extraterrestrial - external to the terrestrial sphere. God wouldn’t even consider his miracles all that miraculous. Magic and wonder are relative affairs.
>>98109685>The author does not exist inside the contextIrrelevant. It’s impossible for a fiction to avoid the fourth wall. It all breaks down. It is all eventually sourced back to beyond the fourth wall. The author.
>>98109685>and so if it is solely the author's work then within said context it is not artificialFiction is a form of art.
>>98109689>Anon doesn't understand what fiction isLol
>>98109686>Not really. It’s all based around nuances of understanding.Again, I do not care about your constructed definitions, the dictionaries list several separate ones for a reason. Yours isn't even under the word "magic", it's a horrible distention of the derived "magical" that doesn't have a verb form to be grammatically valid to apply in this way.>It sounds like you don’t like certain words.No, I do not like midwits mutilating language because they cannot tolerate not having an answer for something. You are in this most crucial capacity absolutely no different from bible-thumping young earth creationists, because you cannot accept "we don't know for sure" as an answer, nor that answers may be limited in applicability. The counterfactual of a sign-flip deep in physics formulae can be very tightly adhered to for a highly internally consistent science fiction setting that is nonetheless wholly irreconcilable with our reality.>God wouldn’t even consider his miracles all that miraculous.Unless He accepts the commonplace English use of the word "miracle" that establishes the very clearly objectively real difference between His mode of action and that available to humans. Just because you can construct a meaning that says this "should" be the case does not mean that is how language actually works, midwit.>>98109689>Irrelevant.It doesn't matter if you don't accept it, it remains a requirement for logical validity of a position pertaining to counterfactual fiction, and so your refusal of the separation is a surrender.
>>98109711>anon doesn’t understand the limits of fiction Lmao even
>>98109713>Unless He accepts the commonplace English use of the word "miracle" that establishes the very clearly objectively real difference between His mode of action and that available to humansVery well. Then an alien UFO is magic. You’re not even wrong. It’s all exposure logic. Again, wonder. A time traveller or an alien would absolutely understand why they’re seen as, and called, a wizard.
>>98109714>wonderfag trying to dictate definitionsrofl
>>98109714It. Does. Not. Matter. Midwit. Because the fiction is a separate thing, no matter what vagaries you spew trying to define that boundary out of existence. Shut the fuck up about definitions, you're wrong about them, and no amount of ranting and raving will remove all the other ones for the relevant terms from dictionaries.>>98109721>You’re not even wrong.No, that's you for utterly refusing any non-relative definition of "miracle" or "magic" no matter how many dictionaries or how much common use you are pointed to that only function with an objective definition. Words in the English language simply do not work this way.
>>98109738>Words in the English language simply do not work this way.Semantics simply does not work that way.
>>98109819Semantics can, in fact, be ambiguous.
>>98109869And as such, words can be ambiguous. Hence semantics.
>>98109424I guarantee you, the microbes would not care.>>98109438On the contrary, I'm an active proponent for the separation of reality and fiction. Let it be impossibly beyond our bounds, I say. You're the one trying to shoehorn it all under one absolute umbrella.>it would not be on the same levelYes. Correct. A parallel unreachable paradigm, beyond everything. Even the "causality" of out perception of it would be mere coincidence.>Something doesn’t come from nothingCan you do something for me a second? Imagine something that came from nothing. Go on. Give it a try. You probably can't, because you sound like a pseudointellectual retard. But prove me wrong.
>>98109689If it's impossible for a fiction to avoid the fourth wall, where is the proof (from within the fiction) that it was created? Surely the author would have to exist in order for the causal chain to be traced back to them, and as the author does not exist, it would be impossible to find proof.
>>98105591>What’s behind your complex magic system?The majority of the complexity is just worldbuilding fluff that nether players nor readers of mine actually have to worry about.Usually to super simplify it for players I explain that all spells/magical effects have two components to manifest. Psychoreactive energy directed by will + material components. There are exemptions but that is basically it. Mechanically it's why spells have to be prepared in advance and outside of combat, why a mage can't just do whatever they want whenever they want, and why healing magic requires the proper healing skills to use both healing items and spells rather than them being something anyone can pick up and use like potions in a video game. In my written stories it also works with my style of story telling. Can be broken down simply enough to show without telling how it works quickly, is easy for me to keep in the back of my mind when writing scenes, but if I need to slow things down or really draw attention to something I can go full flowery detail and prose to describe the preparation of some plot important piece of magic. If you want the more complex lore, that I am not sure I will ever even include in detail in my written stories and I am almost totally certain would never come up in a game. The reason material components are required and must correspond to the effect is because they contain the essence of a manifestation of reality. So to make the spell objectively "real" then there must already be a corresponding "real" component to the spell for it to manifest it's effect in objective reality. The exception to this are spells that only effect subjective interpretations of reality, and thus have mental/subjective "material" components. But as you can probably guess using parts of your subjective reality and chunks of your mind as material components usually has pretty serious risk and side effects which is why nearly all "mind mages" are mad to some degree.
>>98105591Traditional games?
>>98111029It's just wonderfag wasting people's time again.
Fuckin Time Magic, how does it work? If you want to rewind time, are you targeting yourself to move backwards through the fabric, or on the world to turn it all back?
>>98105591Speaking of runic magic systems, does anyone know of any particularly good ones, and/or advice on creating one? I just saw the Witch Hat Atelier opening and I’m going to binge the episodes this weekend, so I’m kind of obsessed with the idea of runic systems right now, lol.
>>98111037Why do you hate magic/wonder? This is kind of the point of fantasy.
>>98111639Pathetic attempt at a straw man aside, I don’t hate the concept of magic. I hate losers like wonderfag who just come to here to jerk off to their own false sense of superiority on a Mongolian basketweaving forum. There’s already enough people wasting bandwidth avoiding talking about tabletop games on here without losers like that joining in. Though with how many years you’ve wasted being here wonderfag, you’d know all about that.
>>98111639It's because this is the board for games. Wonderfag has never ever been able to answer how you would run a tabletop game without at least 1 person at the table knowing the rules for how magic works. Pointing out that a magic system feels like a set of intelligently designed rules when you're playing a game where everything is represented via a set of rules that the author designed isn't clever. The GM needs to be able to tell the player how much damage they take from a dragon's breath in the same way that they need to tell them how much damage they take from a sword or a gun.Anyone complaining about how magic ends up as numbers in a dice-rolling game needs to fuck off to >>>/lit/
>>98112030>Pointing out that a magic system feels like a set of intelligently designed rules when you're playing a game where everything is represented via a set of rules that the author designed isn't cleverThat you think it’s trying to be clever is funny to me. That you think intellectuals in-setting wouldn’t notice the suspiciously mechanistic nature of their world is funny to me.
>>98105697>Are you REALLY arguing that the 21st century (or something like it) could just come into being without first producing intelligent life to conceive of it and then build upon it?It did so BY first producing intelligent life to conceive of it and then build upon it. We’re part of the process of spontaneous self-assembly, an intermediate step.
>>98112090>That you think intellectuals in-setting wouldn’t notice the suspiciously mechanistic nature of their world is funny to me.This is not any kind of novel observation, this is NORMAL throughout history, to the point that EXACTLY this is a commonplace creationist argument TODAY! That you think this leads anywhere remotely proximate to the actual out-of-setting author instead of the incredibly frequent explicitly-active deities or the likes of THE VAST MAJORITY OF HISTORY once again demonstrates you are a fart-sniffing smug prick of a midwit who does not remotely understand the topics he insists on blathering about.
>>98112137That’s kind of his point. Yes. There are steps to take. You can’t just assume that nature will randomly make the thing you want it to make alone, without first creating the necessary intelligent background to manifest it.>>98112141Some things were overly artificial or jokey or mechanistic even to the ancient Greeks. Some of them even had very early concepts of aliens to justify how stupid magic systems were. “Clearly some sort of demon made it this way; it’s just that stupid”. They weren’t even denying the existence of demons or aliens. They just thought a magic ritual had too convenient of an outcome, and too specific of a step by step process, to be anything but a joke. It won’t work if there’s no demon or force around to enforce it. This is similar to how there won’t be a miracle without God to enforce it. The ancients weren’t stupid anon. They absolutely knew when something was too good to be true/natural. The implications. Nature wouldn’t erect the Parthenon on its own. That’s too good to be true. The Greeks did it for nature. Nature wouldn’t erect a magic system (the superpowered kind you see in anime and Dee en Dee). That’s too good to be true. The demons, the gods, etc, did it for nature. Underlying, ambient magic/nature like math or chemistry aren’t considerate or convenient nearly the same way.
>>98109689Sorry mate but "something fictional can't come from nothing because I made it irl" is fundamentally the same argument as "elves can't be real in this setting because they don't exist irl". It's breakfast-test-failing levels of retarded.
>>98112461>Some of them even had very early concepts of aliens to justify how stupid magic systems were. “Clearly some sort of demon made it this way; it’s just that stupid”No, their reasoning for this has absolutely nothing with your smug midwittery, you ignoramous projecting a malformed misconception of monist materialism into absolutely everything no matter how nonsensical nor explicitly excluded. They genuinely believed that large swaths of "natural" forces were the work of conscious actors to begin with, to the point of devising myths proposing reasons for said actors' clearly visible patterns of behavior.Until such time as you can wrap your head around logical validity of literally any alternative priors, your "arguments" shall remain invalid altogether, not even simply wrong.
>>98105591Everything in the universe rolls down hill in a literal sense. The Higher Dimension where the energy that encompasses psychic powers comes from this place and is present in all matter.What set Humanity, and our Solar System, apart from most is that it evolved and developed in a bubble with less exposure to HD energy then other parts of the universe.Because of this, most of it's manifestation has a physical component to it which is why the majority of the powers requires physical touch with telekinesis being the only power to extend beyond one's body and requires technology to achieve this.The existence of HD energy and powers also incidently proved the existence of souls.
>>98112090Go ahead and explain how to run a tabletop game with a world that has a non-mechanistic nature.
>>98112561> They genuinely believed that large swaths of "natural" forces were the work of conscious actors to begin withEh.>to the point of devising myths proposing reasons for said actors' clearly visible patterns of behavior.“Did the Greeks really believe in their gods?”Didsh thshe Greeksh beleevh in thsher godsh?https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vpHhPdYYo6U&pp=ygUrZGlkIHRoZSBncmVla3MgYmVsaWV2ZSBpbiB0aGVpciBnb2RzIHNsYXZvag%3D%3D&ra=m
>>98112622That you can’t separate natural mechanisms from artificial mechanisms by way of natural mechanisms says a lot. Lightning naturally strikes the dry foliage, naturally causing combustion. Humans can artificially replicate that natural process through artificial methods, like rubbing two sticks together at its most basic and simplistic, or by the making and firing of sophisticated firearms.
>>98112864Way to prove his point by not attempting to answer the question, lol
>>98112838>Didsh thshe Greeksh beleevh in thsher godsh?I believe you lost your fedora, gud saar.
>>98112540Exactly, it's not fiction that can't escape the 4th wall, it's he. Like I said, skill issue.
>>98112916Fiction is fiction. By default it has a fourth wall around it. Whether its interior acknowledges its exterior is a separate matter altogether.
>>98112997>Whether its interior acknowledges its exterior is a separate matter altogether.The relevant thing you keep refusing to accept that leads you to keep making outright invalid arguments is that the exterior does not necessarily apply to the interior.
>>98112997Yeah, but wonderfag is saying that the causal chain somehow passes through the wall, which while not impossible is very rare for most fictions we see (and it's debatable whether any links between realities are causal or coincidental).
>>98113075> but wonderfag is saying that the causal chain somehow passes through the wall, which while not impossible is very rare for most fictions we seeDo you realize how retarded you sound? Most fictions are caused. Self contained causalities are still causalities.
>>98113276>Do you realize how retarded you sound? Most fictions are caused. Self contained causalities are still causalities.For the internal context to be self-contained, it necessarily must not reference the author, and thus the causal chain for said context in fact does not pass through the fourth wall. I repeat:>>98109579>Once again, so long as you refuse to recognize these world-spaces are separate matters, your position is Not Even Wrong because it refuses the basic premise
>>98112090And yet they don't notice, because I (the omnipotent god of their existence) have made it so.
>>98105591what complex magic system?
>>98112090You are, in fact, trying to be clever. Stop arguing.
>>98112030Also, people in real life have noticed that the rules seem improbably fine tuned, but of course if they weren't, we wouldn't be around to notice. There's no mystery.
>>98113636The rules aren’t improbably fine tuned except for the math (see the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics by Eugene Wigner). Otherwise it’s incredibly unfair. The universe hates you. Physics, and in turn life, are not fair or balanced except for the equilibrium allowing them to function.
>>98113695No, not at all.
>>98113276You're delusional. Fictions very rarely refer to an external reality.
>>98113735So you think real life is a balanced game? It’s not. The only “game” is survival. Religion is also a game, for the purpose of coping about nature being a ruthless asshole.
>>98105591Well, in the system I was planning all magic would ultimately be derived from one of the elements. Does that kind of system need something intelligent behind it, and if so what do I need to remember?
>>98111427Probably the former, 'way' less energy needed for that. In fact, picrel's plan was to get enough energy to rewind time to when his family was alive (despite that being supposedly impossible), using the rewind to justify numerous atrocities because they'd be undone soon after, only for him to have underestimated the energy needed by a few orders of magnitude and ending up less than half and hour back when he was looking for 'centuries'.
>>98111427You’re stepping into a completely different universe(timeline)
>>98115056Do you see the words "balanced" or "game" in my post? Retard? Why don't you try replying to what I actually said, instead of shit I didn't say? Is that too difficult for you?
>>98115105You need to remember to kill yourself, bumpfag.>>98115336OP is basically a public urinal with how everyone pisses all over him. No intellectual engagement, just gurgling objections.
>>98115433To be fair, I don't think anyone has even pretended this thread is on-topic to traditional games in even the vaguest sense.
“It’s a fantasy game; it doesn’t have to involve wonder or mystery or discovery”LMAO the absolute state of tg
>>98105668>Mermaids evolved to look like fat hairless blubbery walruses with sharp shark teethSex.
>>98105591>>98105668These posts sure triggered the escapist rotted
>>98106357>food analogy
>>98115697Comparing mages to cooks is pretty apt. Recipes are like spells and rituals with their own ingredients. Home cooks are like hedge mages while professional chefs are like guild mages. Even professional mages can be in total awe at how well some hedge mage prepares something in some little rustic village in the middle of nowhere. Individual like Auguste Escoffier are legendary archmages who defined modern day culinary arts as a robust, professional, army-like system.
>>98115627Correct, because those are not required to belong to the "genre of speculative fiction set in a fictional universe, often inspired by real world myth and folklore" category, among other definitions the word "fantasy" in the term "fantasy fiction" has.>>98115683It's not escapist rot, it's quite the opposite of being very insistent that the boundary between reality and fiction be recognized, you daft blathering midwit.
>>98115683>crying and pissing and shitting himself so badly he can't even spell properlyLet's take a look at some of the posts refuting your bs that you're bravely ignoring:>>98109677>>98110460>>98110507>>98112881>>98113005>>98113591>>98114396Dude... You got BTFO so badly that your author probably felt it.
>>98105591>Complex, highly ordered systems (like a 21st-century power grid or global transportation networks) defy natural entropy.They absolutely do not. Not how entropy works.
