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aquaticrna
2011-03-29, 02:42 PM
Inspired by the killing catgirls thread; i propose an alternate theory of dnd physics. My goal is to devise a theory that is based on the properties of the dnd universe rather than trying to mix dnd and real-world physics.


The properties to be explained are:
1. There is no "speed limit" in the universe, and object can be moved any distance in a set amount of time (that time is always 6 seconds)

2. Location is quantized, there are discreet 5 ft steps

3. Projectiles arrive instantaneously and can only travel set distances in strait lines.

4. There is no momentum or acceleration.

So first off the easiest one to expalin: #2. We simply must accept that dnd is quantized on a macro-level. There are discrete locations that can be occupied and no space in between these locations can be existed within. Simple right?

This first assertion is also helpful in explaining #1, there is no speed limit because there is no speed. I propose that there is no such thing as velocity in dnd. Moving between quantized spaces happens in a manner similar to electrons moving between energy levels, it's not so much that the object moves as that it's "positional state variable" is altered basically teleporting the object between two locations. The reason that movment is limited is because there is an energy barrier associated with transitioning between locations. The energy required to move is input by the creature, or by another creature or force that is capable of influencing the object in question. This energy is represented as "move actions" so any given creature has a set amount of energy they can use to move themselves. A consequence of this is that "no additional movement from going up in size" now makes sense, just because you're bigger doesn't mean that you have more energy to spend moving yourself.

So now that those first to points are clarified we see why the commoner railgun works as it does, each commoner is spending their movement energy on changing the stick's location by one. The grappling move thing is also explained because each member of the grapple is simply spending energy on transitioning everyone in the grapple. Additionally #4 is now explained, there is no momentum or acceleration because there is no velocity, things never really "move" so they never increase in kinetic energy.

The final point #3 can be explained now, in terms of the ideas presented above. Ranged attacks aren't so much launching projectiles as they are sending a packet of damage to a specified square within a set range, so the arrow isn't traveling, just arriving, where it ceases to exist and reduces the recipients hp.

There are more implications of this idea, and more things to explain, but this post is already long enough, so i'll leave it here and say more later as things come up. I'm curious to see what the playground thinks.

edit: grammar

TroubleBrewing
2011-03-29, 02:45 PM
I propose a simplified version of your theory.

"A wizard did it."

OR

"Magic."

Sacrieur
2011-03-29, 02:47 PM
http://media.animegalleries.net/albums/userpics/128889/CatGirl%20Nurse.jpg?=123

Give the poor cleric a break would you?

aquaticrna
2011-03-29, 02:51 PM
I propose a simplified version of your theory.

"A wizard did it."

OR

"Magic."

Technically wizards did it... but that's besides the point

Magic actually fits quite nicely (for the things i've thought about so far) into my theory. Things like teleport just allow the caster to "skip" the intervening locations and change their location to any given location in range

Edit: To Sacrieur: NEVER!!!!! the catgirls population must be cleansed!

Lord Raziere
2011-03-29, 03:16 PM
Save the catgirls. Stop bringing up physics in fantasy.

the widely accepted theory is "magic" or my own personal one, "ambient arcane energy" its everywhere, it screws with physics in ways that are incomprehensible and will you make you go crazy trying to figure them out, they are just there, they just do things and actually trying to solve how they screw with things is a path of madness and insanity.

aquaticrna
2011-03-29, 03:47 PM
Save the catgirls. Stop bringing up physics in fantasy.

the widely accepted theory is "magic" or my own personal one, "ambient arcane energy" its everywhere, it screws with physics in ways that are incomprehensible and will you make you go crazy trying to figure them out, they are just there, they just do things and actually trying to solve how they screw with things is a path of madness and insanity.

Bah, bringing physics into fantasy and figuring out the physics of fantasy are two very different things. The latter is a fun and interesting thought experiment and can make thinking about how ill defined things should work a little more consistent, while the former leads to the commoner railgun. Also, i find "it just works" to be horribly unsatisfying; it's far more fun to attempt to derive a new system of physics from a set of properties (see also erfworld) than it is to never think about it.

Xanmyral
2011-03-29, 04:02 PM
Well, this is certainly an interesting theory, and quite well thought out it seems at it makes quite a few things make sense. What would you say about squares on a larger scale however, such as on a map where a square might represent fifty miles, instead of five feet? I suppose it might not change anything, as the smaller, five foot squares are still there and the traveling is the same.

Falling would be another thing, I think the amount of feet traveled increases the longer you fall. Would this energy be coming from the environment, or is the universe treating you like a projectile that doesn't vanish?

NichG
2011-03-29, 04:04 PM
The problem with justifying D&D rules with underlying physics (of the atomistic/mathematical sort at least) is that you're going to get a system that has a large number of arbitrary constants that don't have underlying explanation. Physics as a science works because the universe seems to be fundamentally very simple, and the complexity we see is all emergent. If you have a physics which is internally information rich, its hard to actually make theories (because there are no unifying concepts) - string theory runs into this problem somewhat because it vastly expands the number of constants required to describe the system, without providing any way to reduce that number (basically, its mostly untestable because with the right set of constants you can fit any result you might see, so its unpredictive).

Or to put it another way, the physics you get will fundamentally not be simple, so you're not going to be able to unify very many D&D phenomena under one rule - you'll end up with a rule for every phenomenon, which is what you already have.

For example: macro-quantization into a grid implies that the D&D universe lacks rotational invariance and translational invariance. That means that planetary orbits, for example, are impossible unless there's an additional rule that makes it okay for planets. The loss of translational invariance is going to cause you to lose inertia as a meaningful concept, since that comes from a conservation law associated with translational invariance. The loss of rotational invariance means no conservation of angular momentum, so orbits don't exist as stable features.

So you've already introduced one constant: the scale of the grid, and five gauge fields: the absolute x,y,z offsets of grid sites and the theta/phi rotation that sets grid orientation. Add in time quantization and you get another constant and another gauge field, and you lose conservation of energy (but given magic, that had to go anyhow).

The distinction between projectiles and non-projectiles is perhaps something you can connect to the loss of inertia as a concept in this universe, but it requires that projectiles basically all be composed of a fundamentally different kind of matter than, say, trees, which means you then need a set of fields that govern the coupling between that matter and itself, and that matter and other kinds of matter, and so on.

I think its better to justify D&D 'physics' using a sort of meta-rules that allows for inherently complex rules to fall out through non-mathematical logic. For instance, the meta-rule: the D&D universe is actually the dream of a cosmic entity of some sort, and so macro concepts are fundamental (i.e. a projectile is thought of by the entity differently than a person). Or another way to put it is, if you propose that 'Literature' or 'Psychology' are the fundamental sciences of a D&D universe instead of 'Physics', you get a lot more efficiency in unifying observations and rules into underlying simpler principles.

ffone
2011-03-29, 04:15 PM
Simple fix for everything:

What we see at the table (and the feedback we give that influences the world's next time increment) is a lossy projection of the actual world. Round-offs of distances to 5' and speeds to 5'/6s, turn-based actions, and so on.

There is a consistent physics (about the same as our own, + magic); most quantities are continuous but we observe discretizations of them.

It's like when you see a small digital picture and one of the person's eyes is 1 pixel and the other is 2. You know their eyes aren't rectangular or that one is 2x the size of the other. You don't watch a movie digitally and decide that it takes place in a digitized world.

IIRC the DMG sort of encounters DMs to narrate encounters in this way - you look at what happened that round, and then you narrate continuous-world action which is consistent with that. The spatial and numeric conventions of the rules don't dictate the world, rather they are a summary of it.

If this sounds trivial/simplistic/obvious - exactly.

Taking the rules as an overly literal description of the world is like that phase kids go through where they show their cleverness by taking everything you say literally, and pretending they don't recognize idioms, etc. Extrapolating the rules literally is an interesting thought exercise, but other threads where they whine about lack of realism can be very silly this way.

Fouredged Sword
2011-03-29, 04:24 PM
Objects exist in probibility field locations of 5ft by 5ft.

An object has a 50% probibility of being in any one point inside a location field at any given second. Unless observed the object is completely unpredictable and any atempt to interact with it has a 50% chance of failure.

Objects fall to the lowes posible energy state unless prevented from doing so. Uncontroled falling capacitates energy in the object at a fixed rate of d6 per square.

Wings or other such implements apply a field that resists or removes the tendency to fall for a given set of weight with restrictions. Some effects require linear motion, others simply fully negate the tendency to fall.

Skorj
2011-03-29, 04:34 PM
The problem with justifying D&D rules with underlying physics (of the atomistic/mathematical sort at least) is that you're going to get a system that has a large number of arbitrary constants that don't have underlying explanation. Physics as a science works because the universe seems to be fundamentally very simple, and the complexity we see is all emergent. If you have a physics which is internally information rich, its hard to actually make theories (because there are no unifying concepts) - string theory runs into this problem somewhat because it vastly expands the number of constants required to describe the system, without providing any way to reduce that number (basically, its mostly untestable because with the right set of constants you can fit any result you might see, so its unpredictive).

Just wanted to point out: the RL universe is full of these constants. The Standard Model currently has 26 "fundamental" dimensionless contstants, all of which are arbitrary. It's comforting to imagine that the universe might have simple rules and all complexity is emergent, but for decades now no one has found any such model to replace the baroque complexity of the Standard Model.

String "Theory" started out as quest for simplicity and produced perhaps the most complex math anyone bothers to study (and as you point out it still hasn't actually succeeded as a hypothesis - "theory" is a bit of a misnomer).

But then, maybe I'm just agreeing with your point: RL physics is quite complicated, and it's unlikely that any system that incuded D&D magic would be less complicated. I think there's real value in having some sort of consistent rules for how magic works, so that a DM can rule on situations not covered by the rules and keep versimilitude up - but I'm not sure you can get there starting with D&D.

aquaticrna
2011-03-29, 04:48 PM
Originally Posted by Xanmyral
Falling would be another thing, I think the amount of feet traveled increases the longer you fall. Would this energy be coming from the environment, or is the universe treating you like a projectile that doesn't vanish?

Flying/Falling is something i'm still working on... i think it's making most sense that the energy barrier moving from a higher point to a lower point is negitive, so energy is required to stay aloft... but that doesn't quite explain why you only move a set distance per round... still working on that (open to ideas)


The problem with justifying D&D rules with underlying physics (of the atomistic/mathematical sort at least) is that you're going to get a system that has a large number of arbitrary constants that don't have underlying explanation.

So agree that this is a potential problem, but my hope is to unify things as much as possible, for instance all forms of movement should be by thinking about things in terms of 5ft squares, their relative energy levels, and the barriers between them. Like i said, work in progress, but i hope to be able to explain everything in terms of a few properties like location, ability to interact with adjacent squares and things of that nature. Luckily the only properties that need considering are mechanical ones, nothing else matters as far as rules go =P



For example: macro-quantization into a grid implies that the D&D universe lacks rotational invariance and translational invariance. That means that planetary orbits, for example, are impossible unless there's an additional rule that makes it okay for planets. The loss of translational invariance is going to cause you to lose inertia as a meaningful concept, since that comes from a conservation law associated with translational invariance. The loss of rotational invariance means no conservation of angular momentum, so orbits don't exist as stable features.

There is nothing in dnd that suggests that there are other planets or orbits, i'm going with a non spherical world, the edges connect, but it's all flat, and the changes in the sky also happen on a level plane, and aren't the effect of other objects.


The distinction between projectiles and non-projectiles is perhaps something you can connect to the loss of inertia as a concept in this universe, but it requires that projectiles basically all be composed of a fundamentally different kind of matter than, say, trees, which means you then need a set of fields that govern the coupling between that matter and itself, and that matter and other kinds of matter, and so on.

I'm not sure that i agree that it requires fundamentally different types of matter, i think that you could model it as the destruction of the arrow can be linked to the target's "hp variable" thus destroying some of the hp. If that is the case it has odd effects on what it means to try to hit something... but i think that given the system as is it would be safe to assume that each number in a stat block is a specific property of the thing that is being described, thus ac, would be an inherent property of all things, just like mass is an inherent property of all the objects on our world


if you propose that 'Literature' or 'Psychology' are the fundamental sciences of a D&D universe instead of 'Physics', you get a lot more efficiency in unifying observations and rules into underlying simpler principles.

I like this idea... having a world where literature is the underlying fundamental property would be so much fun... the first law would be "rule of drama" and the second law would be "rule of cool" it'd be a great system :smallbiggrin:

Lord Raziere
2011-03-29, 04:51 PM
so basically physics itself is starting to resemble a game system of unrelated rules and such, a bunch of rules but no way to tie them all together.

weird.

aquaticrna
2011-03-29, 04:54 PM
if you're opinion boils down to "this is a waste of time" i really couldn't care less... it's a thought experiment, a bit of mental exercise to make an otherwise dull day at work more interesting, take your opinion elsewhere please, it would make me quite appreciative

Edit: (to avoid double post)


Objects exist in probibility field locations of 5ft by 5ft.

An object has a 50% probibility of being in any one point inside a location field at any given second. Unless observed the object is completely unpredictable and any atempt to interact with it has a 50% chance of failure.

Objects fall to the lowes posible energy state unless prevented from doing so. Uncontroled falling capacitates energy in the object at a fixed rate of d6 per square.

Wings or other such implements apply a field that resists or removes the tendency to fall for a given set of weight with restrictions. Some effects require linear motion, others simply fully negate the tendency to fall.

I like these, especially the probability field one... that makes a lot of sense in this interpretation

jvluso
2011-03-30, 01:45 PM
Planetary orbits don't even exist within D&D, so we don't need to justify them, the planet simply becomes daytime for 8 hours, and then nighttime for 8 hours. In a world where sleep always takes 8 hours and you can't work for more or less than 8 hours, the idea of planets rotating around a sun which can't be seen make much less sense. If we say that people teleport themselves on a grid, the world simply changing once every eight hours starts to make more sense than the world spinning.

Sacrieur
2011-03-30, 01:52 PM
(1) Without acceleration everything is frozen because there is no way for force to exist.

(2) Velocity is movement, without velocity, there is no change.

---

Better stick to, "magic!"

Fouredged Sword
2011-03-30, 02:03 PM
No, think the other way. Redefine the terms until things work, then extrapolate. If something can't function then it simply doesn't work the way you think it does. Even magic must have some laws.

randomhero00
2011-03-30, 02:05 PM
No, think the other way. Redefine the terms until things work, then extrapolate. If something can't function then it simply doesn't work the way you think it does. Even magic must have some laws.

Doesn't logically make sense, chiefly because anything and everything is defined as a projectile.

Shademan
2011-03-30, 02:09 PM
narrativium

and magic.
and gods.
and beer

Sacrieur
2011-03-30, 02:40 PM
Moving between quantized spaces happens in a manner similar to electrons moving between energy levels, it's not so much that the object moves as that it's "positional state variable" is altered basically teleporting the object between two locations.

Electrons don't instantly appear or reappear, they do move through space to change energy orbitals. Furthermore, this requires energy. You're speaking of electrons absorbing quanta. However, to this is a gross oversimplification of the issue. A quantum is no so easily defined, and I could not explain it to you, because I don't even understand it myself.

Saying it works like it does in quantum mechanics has untold implications. Quantum mechanics is completely incompatible with Newton's motion equations, which are bastardizations of Einstein's equations (which are equally incompatible).

---

You cannot possibly design a new physics system and retain logical consistency. It's beyond the intellectual grasp of any human.

Zaranthan
2011-03-30, 02:44 PM
Doesn't logically make sense, chiefly because anything and everything is defined as a projectile.

Logic, eh? *cracks knuckles*

Premise: All things are projectiles.
If all things are projectiles, then no things can move.
Some things move.
Therefore, some things are not projectiles.

The idea is to change the rules until they DO work, rather than naysaying everything.

evirus
2011-03-30, 02:50 PM
So now that those first to points are clarified we see why the commoner railgun works as it does, each commoner is spending their movement energy on changing the stick's location by one. The grappling move thing is also explained because each member of the grapple is simply spending energy on transitioning everyone in the grapple. Additionally #4 is now explained, there is no momentum or acceleration because there is no velocity, things never really "move" so they never increase in kinetic energy.

The final point #3 can be explained now, in terms of the ideas presented above. Ranged attacks aren't so much launching projectiles as they are sending a packet of damage to a specified square within a set range, so the arrow isn't traveling, just arriving, where it ceases to exist and reduces the recipients hp.



According to these rules the railgun does not work. It has no kinetic energy and since the item is not a weapon it will not deliver damage to the target. If we use it as an improvised weapon it will only deal improvised weapon damage since there is no additional energy gained.

olentu
2011-03-30, 02:54 PM
You cannot possibly design a new physics system and retain logical consistency. It's beyond the intellectual grasp of any human.

Er if that is the case then how did the current physics system come in to being. I mean someone had to design it.

But perhaps I get what you are saying i.e. physics systems are not the creation of just one person but rather a sum of the work of several people, shoulders of giants and the like. Though that might presumably be why this was opened for discussion so as to combine the ideas of a group.

NichG
2011-03-30, 03:07 PM
This is getting a little off track, so I apologize, but I felt I had to respond with a counterpoint to the following:



You cannot possibly design a new physics system and retain logical consistency. It's beyond the intellectual grasp of any human.

This kind of bugs me, because the physics 'system' we use now to understand the world has been designed by humans to model what we see in our environment. Most of it is a combination of lucky intuitive leaps by humans, combined with mathematics, a tool that lets you maintain logical consistency (or at least check to see if you've lost it).

It's not so much that its hard to design a new physics system that is logically consistent; its that its hard to make one that models a particular desired outcome. It's a testament to something - maybe human ingenuity, maybe the power of mathematics, I don't know - that we've as a species done just that.

Some detailed responses to quantum mechanics stuff that I'll spoiler since its probably of less general interest.



Electrons don't instantly appear or reappear, they do move through space to change energy orbitals. Furthermore, this requires energy. You're speaking of electrons absorbing quanta. However, to this is a gross oversimplification of the issue. A quantum is no so easily defined, and I could not explain it to you, because I don't even understand it myself.


The easy way to model the absorption of a quanta of energy is to take the external input to be an environmental driving force, which is then modeled as a perturbation. The perturbation mixes the stationary states of the electron, allowing it to transition between them. When the external driving force is then cut off, the electron's wavefunction has been mixed up between the two states, and so it has a chance to end up in the higher state.

It's somewhat analogous to taking, say, a vibrating guitar string and putting your finger on the middle. Normally the string is (for the most part) a linear oscillator, so whatever frequencies are present don't change, but putting your finger in the middle causes that wave to go away - the energy gets shoved into higher frequencies/shorter wavelengths to fit on the two parts of the string to either side.



Saying it works like it does in quantum mechanics has untold implications. Quantum mechanics is completely incompatible with Newton's motion equations, which are bastardizations of Einstein's equations (which are equally incompatible).


These are actually all pretty compatible. You can back out Newton's equations from quantum mechanics once you get to a large enough scale that the energy levels form a continuous band. Newton's equations can also be derived as the limit of Einstein's equations when the speed of light goes to infinity.

You can even do relativistic quantum mechanics (well, I should say 'you have to do...' for a lot of cases). One of the famous results is that the color of gold derives a relativistic correction. If you don't include relativity, you find that gold should be the same sort of silvery grey that a lot of other metals have, but when you do you it shifts the bands so you get the yellow color.

You get real incompatibilities when you try to model a quantum-sized gravity source though. Thats where the current theories break down. Essentially when you naively do the math you get feedback loops that generate infinite results.

aquaticrna
2011-03-30, 03:08 PM
According to these rules the railgun does not work. It has no kinetic energy and since the item is not a weapon it will not deliver damage to the target. If we use it as an improvised weapon it will only deal improvised weapon damage since there is no additional energy gained.

My point was that the rail gun simply moves a stick very quickly from point A to point B, which, by RAW is all it should do...


Electrons don't instantly appear or reappear, they do move through space to change energy orbitals. Furthermore, this requires energy. You're speaking of electrons absorbing quanta. However, to this is a gross oversimplification of the issue. A quantum is no so easily defined, and I could not explain it to you, because I don't even understand it myself.

Saying it works like it does in quantum mechanics has untold implications. Quantum mechanics is completely incompatible with Newton's motion equations, which are bastardizations of Einstein's equations (which are equally incompatible).

Talking about the way electrons move isn't all that valid... their wave/particle nature makes the idea of them moving around like a ball tenuous at best. The energy involved in moving something is coming from the characters... seeing as how there is no conservation of energy in dnd that energy can basically come from nowhere.

Also i'm not saying it works like quantum mechanics, just using the idea of quantized properties from quantum mechanics because so far that's the best fit that i've found for describing movement. But along those lines we all know that dnd is a 100% probabilistic universe, so the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics is useful in understanding it.



(1) Without acceleration everything is frozen because there is no way for force to exist.

(2) Velocity is movement, without velocity, there is no change.


You're trying to keep things matching real world physics too closely... there is no acceleration in dnd only moment rates, so it makes no sense to try to force acceleration into the picture... thus alternate explanations.

Also, the concept of velocity doesn't make any real sense if you don't have a contiguous travel path it's like asking what the velocity of information transmission between two entangled particles is, there is no velocity, it's instantaneous. This type of "movement" is what i'm proposing for the quantized grid.

edit: typo

evirus
2011-03-30, 03:40 PM
My point was that the rail gun simply moves a stick very quickly from point A to point B, which, by RAW is all it should do...



I'm ok with that. I'm curious how your new physics handles items being non weapons that do no damage (dropping a gp on the floor) to being improvised weapons (throwing a gp at someone).

Sacrieur
2011-03-30, 04:27 PM
Er if that is the case then how did the current physics system come in to being. I mean someone had to design it.

But perhaps I get what you are saying i.e. physics systems are not the creation of just one person but rather a sum of the work of several people, shoulders of giants and the like. Though that might presumably be why this was opened for discussion so as to combine the ideas of a group.

Someone simply tried to model rules based on what we all ready new of physics, that's a far cry from making an entirely new way for physics to work. Additionally, that system does create problems, or doesn't try to deal with them by saying, "this is what is really happening, this is what the rules say is happening." Arrows do fly in arcs in D&D, it has just been simplified for sake of simplicity.

I'm not saying modeling a physics system is necessarily hard. I'm saying that creating an entirely new way for things to work is insane.

---


This kind of bugs me, because the physics 'system' we use now to understand the world has been designed by humans to model what we see in our environment. Most of it is a combination of lucky intuitive leaps by humans, combined with mathematics, a tool that lets you maintain logical consistency (or at least check to see if you've lost it).

It's not so much that its hard to design a new physics system that is logically consistent; its that its hard to make one that models a particular desired outcome. It's a testament to something - maybe human ingenuity, maybe the power of mathematics, I don't know - that we've as a species done just that.


intuitive leaps? Hardly, more of incredible amount of experimentation and some very bright people. Very few discoveries came by virtue of intuition, a bulk of the most important came from mistakes.

We did not design our physics. We simply studied it and attempted to understand it. As we learned more we refined our understanding. It was all ready there, we just had to observe it.

Allow me to explain logical consistency. Logical consistency means that it is possible for every statement within a given set to be true (i.e., no contradictions). For a physical system, this means whatever rules you make up need to be consistent with all of the other rules you've made up, and not violate logic.


The easy way to model the absorption of a quanta of energy is to take the external input to be an environmental driving force, which is then modeled as a perturbation. The perturbation mixes the stationary states of the electron, allowing it to transition between them. When the external driving force is then cut off, the electron's wavefunction has been mixed up between the two states, and so it has a chance to end up in the higher state.

It's somewhat analogous to taking, say, a vibrating guitar string and putting your finger on the middle. Normally the string is (for the most part) a linear oscillator, so whatever frequencies are present don't change, but putting your finger in the middle causes that wave to go away - the energy gets shoved into higher frequencies/shorter wavelengths to fit on the two parts of the string to either side.

That's all fine and dandy, but it has nothing to do with my points.


These are actually all pretty compatible. You can back out Newton's equations from quantum mechanics once you get to a large enough scale that the energy levels form a continuous band. Newton's equations can also be derived as the limit of Einstein's equations when the speed of light goes to infinity.

Yes, large enough scale... Newton's nor Einstein's equations can explain movement at the subatomic level.


You can even do relativistic quantum mechanics (well, I should say 'you have to do...' for a lot of cases). One of the famous results is that the color of gold derives a relativistic correction. If you don't include relativity, you find that gold should be the same sort of silvery grey that a lot of other metals have, but when you do you it shifts the bands so you get the yellow color.

You get real incompatibilities when you try to model a quantum-sized gravity source though. Thats where the current theories break down. Essentially when you naively do the math you get feedback loops that generate infinite results.

In other words, they're not logically consistent.

---


Talking about the way electrons move isn't all that valid... their wave/particle nature makes the idea of them moving around like a ball tenuous at best. The energy involved in moving something is coming from the characters... seeing as how there is no conservation of energy in dnd that energy can basically come from nowhere.

1. Whether wave or matter, it still moves through space.

2. I don't even...


Also i'm not saying it works like quantum mechanics, just using the idea of quantized properties from quantum mechanics because so far that's the best fit that i've found for describing movement. But along those lines we all know that dnd is a 100% probabilistic universe, so the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics is useful in understanding it.

I am so confused... How is D&D probabilistic?


You're trying to keep things matching real world physics too closely... there is no acceleration in dnd only moment rates, so it makes no sense to try to force acceleration into the picture... thus alternate explanations.


... So things don't slow down or speed up, they simply jump from one velocity to the next?


Also, the concept of velocity doesn't make any real sense if you don't have a contiguous travel path it's like asking what the velocity of information transmission between two entangled particles is, there is no velocity, it's instantaneous. This type of "movement" is what i'm proposing for the quantized grid.

So you're introducing quantum entanglement to explain motion? I am failing to see how this helps your cause. All it does is cause confusion. I don't know how quantum entanglement works, and I don't know of a single person on the planet has a firm grasp on it.

evirus
2011-03-30, 04:47 PM
I think some people have missed the point of this thread.

Imagine the 3.5 universe acted exactly as by RAW. The effects of this system no matter how bizarre become our "real" world.

Much like actual physicists, we are trying to explain with science the rules of the universe based on observation.*

This seems very similar to erfworld (www.erfworld.com), where Parson is trying to figure out the physics of a world based on game rules.

Shyftir
2011-03-30, 04:48 PM
I like this idea... having a world where literature is the underlying fundamental property would be so much fun... the first law would be "rule of drama" and the second law would be "rule of cool" it'd be a great system :smallbiggrin:

So you mean Discworld and Warhammer40k respectively? Because Narrative Causality is indeed the most powerful rule on the Disc and "Rule of Cool" is indeed the only consistently functioning law of Physics in WH40k.

evirus
2011-03-30, 05:06 PM
Since combat happens in rounds, that all rounds are 6 seconds long and all rounds happen at the same time... Wouldn't that mean if you start a combat you would have to wait for that 6second window to begin before starting combat?

Having said that wouldnt that also mean that any number or participants in a combat would complete all their actions in order in 6 seconds? That means that 2 people fighting could each take 3seconds to complete all their actions and the same round fought with 12 combatants would each have 0.5 seconds?

That means army battles would happen faster than the eye could see...

Maybe time would be super relative. Where The world freezes in time to complete large combats without breaking the 6 second rule?

NichG
2011-03-30, 05:08 PM
intuitive leaps? Hardly, more of incredible amount of experimentation and some very bright people. Very few discoveries came by virtue of intuition, a bulk of the most important came from mistakes.


Taking quantum mechanics as an example, the connection between observing a difference in the emission spectrum of a black body and figuring out that it must be because the energy of electrons is quantized is an incredible intuitive leap. Realizing that this could be captured by the spectrum of eigenvalues of linear PDEs was another huge intuitive leap (i.e. wave mechanics). At the time those things were proposed, we had no scanning tunneling microscopes to observe the wavelike nature of particles, no direct evidence to say that we should write down a wave equation for single particles - that was all an intuitive jump.

Or with relativity, figuring out that a constant speed of light regardless of position implies that time is not special, and that all physics expressed as 3 space + 1 time rules could instead be expressed as a single 4 dimensional rule under the right metric - thats an intuitive leap.



We did not design our physics. We simply studied it and attempted to understand it. As we learned more we refined our understanding. It was all ready there, we just had to observe it.


What we had was a series of observations of the natural world. Physics is a set of mathematical propositions that seek to explain all such observations (or subsets of them) with a small number of necessary rules. Basically, we tried to create an underlying system that would give us the outcomes we observed. That's essentially what the posters in this thread are trying to do (design an underlying physics that explains the observed outcomes of the RAW).



Allow me to explain logical consistency. Logical consistency means that it is possible for every statement within a given set to be true (i.e., no contradictions). For a physical system, this means whatever rules you make up need to be consistent with all of the other rules you've made up, and not violate logic.


That's not really a problem. You only run into Godel issues when the system is allowed to be self-referential, and you probably shouldn't be doing that for physics. What you want out of the physics of a thing is to be able to say 'this is the state of the system now, what are the states or distribution of states of the system for all future times', or more generally 'here are all of the degrees of freedom that must be specified externally, what is the universe or distribution of universes that results from these?'.



Yes, large enough scale... Newton's nor Einstein's equations can explain movement at the subatomic level.

In other words, they're not logically consistent.


They're logically consistent within the modern understanding that each of them describes a mathematically defined limit of an underlying theory. That is to say, one can state Newton's equations in the following way: 'when the ratio of the velocity contrast of the involved objects to the speed of light limits to zero, and the ratio of the size of the object to the Planck scale limits to infinity, the behavior of the object limits to Newton's equations'. This makes them perfectly 'consistent' with the other limits, because they're clearly defined as a mathematical limit with a condition on their validity.

olentu
2011-03-30, 07:43 PM
Someone simply tried to model rules based on what we all ready new of physics, that's a far cry from making an entirely new way for physics to work. Additionally, that system does create problems, or doesn't try to deal with them by saying, "this is what is really happening, this is what the rules say is happening." Arrows do fly in arcs in D&D, it has just been simplified for sake of simplicity.

I'm not saying modeling a physics system is necessarily hard. I'm saying that creating an entirely new way for things to work is insane.

---


Er yeah so someone simply tries to make a model of physics based on what we already know of the workings of the D&D world. Really no one is "making physics" work in a new way since we are not actually creating an alternate reality with variant dynamics that we would then describe. I suppose someone might actually be trying to do that but I don't think alternative universe creation is likely or even a goal of this thread.

No what seems to be the goal is to take a hypothetical reality (not a real one mind you) and then make a model that coincides with how said world functions.

Ravens_cry
2011-03-30, 08:51 PM
I love this as a theoretical exercise as well as a charachter concept, I got a bounty on catgirls, the only trouble with trying to do it for real is I personally do not think the D&D rules precisely model the hypothetical universes we are playing in, just like D20 Modern or GURPS do not precisely model Reality, despite being possible settings. In all cases, it is an abstraction, a way of playing the game without needing rules sets that would make even the most simulationist simulation lover cower and run away in tears.
But hey, this is all geeky good fun and I love it all the same.

Sacrieur
2011-03-30, 10:15 PM
Taking quantum mechanics as an example, the connection between observing a difference in the emission spectrum of a black body and figuring out that it must be because the energy of electrons is quantized is an incredible intuitive leap. Realizing that this could be captured by the spectrum of eigenvalues of linear PDEs was another huge intuitive leap (i.e. wave mechanics). At the time those things were proposed, we had no scanning tunneling microscopes to observe the wavelike nature of particles, no direct evidence to say that we should write down a wave equation for single particles - that was all an intuitive jump.

Or with relativity, figuring out that a constant speed of light regardless of position implies that time is not special, and that all physics expressed as 3 space + 1 time rules could instead be expressed as a single 4 dimensional rule under the right metric - thats an intuitive leap.

Maybe, but I hold that most discoveries were not intuitive and the result of hard work (or by mistake).



What we had was a series of observations of the natural world. Physics is a set of mathematical propositions that seek to explain all such observations (or subsets of them) with a small number of necessary rules. Basically, we tried to create an underlying system that would give us the outcomes we observed. That's essentially what the posters in this thread are trying to do (design an underlying physics that explains the observed outcomes of the RAW).

Go ahead and read what they wrote, and you tell me if it makes any sense, you do seem to know way more about this stuff than me. All of this talk about quantum entanglement and such is just out of my league.



That's not really a problem. You only run into Godel issues when the system is allowed to be self-referential, and you probably shouldn't be doing that for physics. What you want out of the physics of a thing is to be able to say 'this is the state of the system now, what are the states or distribution of states of the system for all future times', or more generally 'here are all of the degrees of freedom that must be specified externally, what is the universe or distribution of universes that results from these?'.

I am forced to concede on virtue I am ignorant of the topic, and that you raise good points.



They're logically consistent within the modern understanding that each of them describes a mathematically defined limit of an underlying theory. That is to say, one can state Newton's equations in the following way: 'when the ratio of the velocity contrast of the involved objects to the speed of light limits to zero, and the ratio of the size of the object to the Planck scale limits to infinity, the behavior of the object limits to Newton's equations'. This makes them perfectly 'consistent' with the other limits, because they're clearly defined as a mathematical limit with a condition on their validity.

Ah, I see. It certainly does make sense that way.

NichG
2011-03-31, 12:44 AM
Entanglement is probably not the best example, since the sort of information transfer you get with entanglement is like the information 'transfer' you get in the following scenario:

You have a red stone and a black stone that you place in identical boxes. Your friend picks a random box and goes to the far side of the world. You then open your box and thereby instantly know the color of the stone in his.

Entanglement is that plus quantum weirdness that makes it so that the color of his stone wasn't actually determined until one of you looked, and that the way you look determines something about what the result is.

I think a better quantum analogue for the instantaneous movement of things on the grid or whatever is that the universe is being periodically observed every six seconds by an external observer (in the quantum sense) that chooses to measure things to a resolution of 5ft. As such, velocity is never observed, only the final positions of things after 6 seconds to a resolution of 5ft. This means that things only have well defined positions up to 5ft resolution every six seconds, and in between those variables would be described by some evolving wave function.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-31, 05:47 AM
I would like to posit my alternate theory: Things Just Happen, What The Hell.

evirus
2011-03-31, 06:54 AM
I think a better quantum analogue for the instantaneous movement of things on the grid or whatever is that the universe is being periodically observed every six seconds by an external observer (in the quantum sense) that chooses to measure things to a resolution of 5ft. As such, velocity is never observed, only the final positions of things after 6 seconds to a resolution of 5ft. This means that things only have well defined positions up to 5ft resolution every six seconds, and in between those variables would be described by some evolving wave function.

That's interesting, so it's only in the minds of people that the world is fluid. It actually plays out in frames 6seconds apart.

Fouredged Sword
2011-03-31, 11:15 AM
That would solve the time dilation problem you get with lots of actions existing in the same initiative line.

As is time dilates to an order of (total initiative time)=(6 seconds)/(total number of actions) in combat. Leaving a time dilation effect of 1/(number of characters acting).

evirus
2011-03-31, 12:19 PM
That would solve the time dilation problem you get with lots of actions existing in the same initiative line.


I guess time actualy flies when you are having fun/in combat.

Fouredged Sword
2011-04-01, 10:55 AM
Actualy time slows down in combat relative to the rest of the timeframe, as you have a large number of 6 second long consecutive actions occuring in a liner fashion, all in a 6 second window relative to the outside world.

evirus
2011-04-01, 12:32 PM
Ok, so far we have:

- No speed limit
- No acceleration
- Terminal velocity is set at 200sq/round (is that right?)
- Everything is in flux and only measured/preceived in 6 second "frames", everything else is the mind filling in the blanks
- Time is super relative and based on how many actions need to fir within a 6 second frame

What else?

Silverlich
2011-04-03, 01:35 PM
The entire universe of any D&D game simply exists as an idea. Objects are a specific way because that is how the entities perceiving the Universe think of them.


All the choir of heaven and furniture of earth - in a word, all those bodies which compose the frame of the world - have not any subsistence without a mind. George Berkeley

nedz
2011-04-03, 07:27 PM
You all seem to be missing the big picture.

All entities (PCs, NPCs, Monsters etc.) are just Finite State Automata moving across an elaborate chess board.

grimbold
2011-04-04, 12:52 PM
this looks largely correct to me
however it sshould be remembered that D&D wwasnt written byy physics majors so yeah
give em a break

CarpeGuitarrem
2011-04-05, 06:24 PM
Erfworld, anyone?

DragonOfUndeath
2011-04-05, 11:59 PM
I like the idea of 5x5x5 cubes with energy barriers between them.
Falling could be put as the world is constantly moving up, this way the falling thing is not actually falling, the ground is literally rushing up to meet her.

It would also solve the AC10, there is a 50/50 chance your attack teleports to the original square, not the square currently inhabited by the target, misses could be the world moving up as the attack is happening and it impacts deep beneath the earth. BAB and Magical bonuses could be the attacker (or the weapon) adjusting the moment of transfer to avoid the movement.

It isn't hard to make it an infinitely looping track that the world is on. This way the world stays in a semi-costant place, giving Teleport a sense of accuracy while still allowing for mishaps and Teleport-Without-Error would include something similar to the Gates from SG1 where they auto-compensate for movement to a degree.

Icewraith
2011-04-07, 02:26 AM
If you bound an area with N observers (anything capable of moving on its own) in it, every six seconds there are N iterative movements. Each movement is completed in 6/N seconds. Therefore, the larger the number of observers within the bounded area, the faster the actions are performed. However, no matter how fast the observers APPEAR to be moving, their actual velocity is still distance traveled/six seconds (by RAW). Alternatively, multiple local observers have 2 simultaneous velocities, the velocity measured by all outside observers and the velocity measured by all local observers. I'm tempted to use the relativity "reference frame" terminology here due to the difficulties of describing the effect, but I much prefer the "local" and "exterior" observer idea since it describes what's going on with mapsheets better.

What is interesting is the larger you make your bounded area, the faster the sequential movements happen. Observer movement therefore appears to be a function of how much you can perceive and how many other observers are in the area. What's interesting though is that an observer external to the other observers sees the same set of sequential movements as the observers in the local area. However, the 6/N limit applies even if some of the observers are unaware of other local observers. (Invisible or hiding creatures)

Never mind movement, I'm thinking of how the quantization of time affects all of the perception and measurement tools one would use to define such a universe.

Time doesn't "slow down"- the six second interval is absolute- but the local (I suppose you could call this instantaneous) velocity of observers speeds up when there are other observers in the local frame. However, observers spend 6(1-1/N) seconds not moving after their 6/N portion of the six seconds. Therefore you should be able to tell approximately how many observers are in the area based on what percentage your motile portion of the six seconds takes up.

NichG
2011-04-07, 03:48 AM
Drop velocity entirely, and make it a universe with two time dimensions, one local and one global. The local time dimension is the well-ordered sequence of actions within initiative. The global time dimension is the sequence of six-second rounds. These are semi-dependent on eachother - this corresponds to something like a light cone, in that if you increase the value of Time-2, that will always correspond to an increase in the value of Time-1, but increases in Time-1 do not necessarily correspond to increases in Time-2.

Since Time-1 is a local measure (two combats may be occuring simultaneously in different parts of the setting without experiencing a shared initiative order), creatures joining or leaving initiative are basically entering the local time dimension. A creature moving directly from one Time-1 reference frame to another causes the two to merge (their fight joins into the initiative order).

This does imply that certain interactions between creatures have a special status in that they generate a Time-1 dimension that did not previously exist. One could draw analogies to small extra dimensions in string theory, whereby certain types of actions (e.g. combat) provide impetus for the extra dimension to expand.