Magic does not break the laws of physics

[Drolyt]

Often I hear, especially in debates about how overpowered magic is and particularly in regards to Dungeons and Dragons, the claim that magic basically tells physics to shut up and sit down. Which is funny when Vaarsuvius says it, but it is (imo) a terrible mistake to think that way in game design. Magic does things that are impossible in our world, but in a world of magic it is simply normal. A magical world has different laws of physics and therefore different limits in regards to an individual's ability to influence their environment, but there still are laws, and there still are limits, and casting a spell does not break them. Magic should be powerful and interesting, but it shouldn't be a "do whatever I want" button.

Related, if there are wizards who cast spells and dragons who breath fire in a fictional world, it does not make sense to divide the world into "magic" and "not magic". For example, I think "anti-magic fields" and "spell resistance" are bad design, not only from a balance perspective but because they only make sense in the context of this arbitrary division. This amounts to laws of physics where objects have a "memory" of their past; somehow these effects can distinguish between two identical situations where one was caused by magic and one wasn't even though for all other purposes they are identical. That isn't how physics works in our world, and while you could imagine physical laws that allow it I don't see the advantage.

Finally, if you have not only spellcasting, but explicitly non-magical creatures who nevertheless obviously would break the physical laws of our world, then it only makes sense to allow PCs to break those laws (since those laws don't exist in the world they live in) and do amazing things. This is relevant because too many people expect non-spellcasters to be completely mundane. This isn't explicitly contradictory, maybe humans are inherently squishy wizards who can only survive in the world using spells, but in that case you would expect non-spellcasters to simply not exist due to natural selection. A self-consistent world necessitates that non-spellcasters be able to contribute meaningfully. One could imagine that non-spellcasters fill menial labor roles, but in that case it wouldn't make sense for them to be adventurers. Fighters, rogues, barbarians, monks, etc. should be able to do things that are supernatural in relation to our world, even if they can't cast spells.

[Golden Ladybug]

Yeah, gonna have to disagree with your premise here; when someone says that Magic breaks the laws of Physics, and you respond with "well, in a world with Magic, the Laws of Physics would be different" you might be technically right, but you've missed the point.

Magic does things that break the Laws of Physics as they exist in the real world. It doesn't matter if they don't break the Laws of Physics in the fictional, Magic compliant, world, because those Laws of Physics aren't THE Laws of Physics.

Get me?

And to respond to your other point, Internal Consistency has never been the strong point of any setting that has magic and wants to balance it against anything that isn't equivalent to magic. Because, just as you said, why would there still be non-magical/mundane people if Magic users can do it all effortlessly? Some settings have their explanations for this, but some don't. I suppose we just have to chalk it up to the Willing Suspension of the Disbelief.

[Another_Poet]

Drolyt, you've made one of the most salient and important points a gamer can make. You have one of the fundamental building blocks of worldbuilding: that magic is endemic to the fantasy worlds we create.

Golden Ladybug's point is mostly academic. Fantasy magic may break the laws of physics of Earth, but D&D doesn't take place on Earth, so eff that noise.

[Drolyt]

Yeah, gonna have to disagree with your premise here; when someone says that Magic breaks the laws of Physics, and you respond with "well, in a world with Magic, the Laws of Physics would be different" you might be technically right, but you've missed the point.

Magic does things that break the Laws of Physics as they exist in the real world. It doesn't matter if they don't break the Laws of Physics in the fictional, Magic compliant, world, because those Laws of Physics aren't THE Laws of Physics.

Get me?

I'm not sure I see your point, and I'm not sure you see mine. Perhaps I worded it poorly; I probably shouldn't write rants at this time of night, but I was thinking about the issue. My problem is with people saying that wizards/clerics/druids/spellcasters break the laws of physics and fighters/barbarians/rogues/non-spellcasters don't. That doesn't make sense to me; why would we have a system where some people follow the laws of our universe and others don't?

And to respond to your other point, Internal Consistency has never been the strong point of any setting that has magic and wants to balance it against anything that isn't equivalent to magic. Because, just as you said, why would there still be non-magical/mundane people if Magic users can do it all effortlessly? Some settings have their explanations for this, but some don't. I suppose we just have to chalk it up to the Willing Suspension of the Disbelief.

It would be fine if non-spellcasters can contribute, but for that to be true either the spellcasters would have to be much weaker than they are in Dungeons and Dragons and similar games or the non-spellcasters have to have abilities they could not have in real life. It isn't just a matter of mechanical balance, if you give non-spellcasters enough arbitrary plusses to compete with spellcasters but still treat them as mundanes then all you've done is make the game more nonsensical.

[huttj509]

Golden Ladybug's point is mostly academic. Fantasy magic may break the laws of physics of Earth, but D&D doesn't take place on Earth, so eff that noise.

However, when the comment is made, it's normally in discussions involving how some classes/roles ARE expected to obey the laws of physics of Earth. The whole point is that some classes follow different rules. Also known as "why can't martial have nice things?"

[Drolyt]

Drolyt, you've made one of the most salient and important points a gamer can make. You have one of the fundamental building blocks of worldbuilding: that magic is endemic to the fantasy worlds we create.

Golden Ladybug's point is mostly academic. Fantasy magic may break the laws of physics of Earth, but D&D doesn't take place on Earth, so eff that noise.

Yes, this is exactly what I am trying to get at, or at least one of the points I was trying to get across. I understand the temptation to think of a fantasy world as being basically earth with wizards, but that doesn't create believable worlds unless magic is either very weak or very rare. Given that magic exists it doesn't make sense to suppose that anyone would choose not to augment their abilities with "supernatural" abilities if they can. This doesn't necessarily mean spells, but could be "Ki" or the "The Sublime Way", but regardless it means competing with spellcasters. If these abilities are not available then it doesn't really make sense for non-spellcasters to exist, although there may be something like the Eldritch Knight.

However, when the comment is made, it's normally in discussions involving how some classes/roles ARE expected to obey the laws of physics of Earth. The whole point is that some classes follow different rules. Also known as "why can't martial have nice things?"

And I agree with the sentiment, but I think that even talking about the issue in such terms reveals a problem with how we tend to think about fantasy worlds, that is, that the world works just like ours except for some mysterious thing called "magic" that occasionally changes the rules. If we think about it in this way it is very easy to see some abilities as "magical" or "supernatural" and say that non-spellcasters like fighters and rogues shouldn't be able to do that stuff because they aren't spellcasters, but I don't think this makes for either an internally consistent world or a fun game. In a magical world the only thing separating a magic-user from a non magic-user is skill, so I don't see why we should seperate classes into "supernatural" and "not supernatural"; everyone should be supernatural after a certain level, even if they don't use "magic" in the sense that they don't cast spells.

[Rainbownaga]

I agree with the sentiment. I always assume that in fantasy game settings that the mundane classes are actually supernaturally augmented. Even in default d&d thinking of level 12 plus non-magical heroes as being completely slaved to the laws of physics hurts (especially where hit points are concerned).

This reminds me of a book I read once ("The longing ring" I think) where a character becomes a thief by learning thief-magic from another thief.

Personally, I really like the idea and it makes the most sense to me.

In defense of anti-magic and spell resistance, it might be better to think of it in terms of covert and overt magic. After all, the Draconomicon points out that a dragon is quite capable of breaking the laws of physics in an AM field- by flying.

[icefractal]

I'm in agreement on this, it's the kind of setting I use when I run fantasy. In a world of high-magic fantasy (as most D&D settings are), why would everything else by the same?

So for example, IMC:
* The sun really is pushed across the sky by a giant beetle.
* The world is flat and infinite in extent. You can walk to other planes - keep going into the desert, it gets hotter and hotter, eventually everything around you is fire and you've reached the City of Brass. The gods live on high mountains, deep fissures, or other hard to reach locations.
* Disease is caused by malevolent spirits. With the right ritual, you can force them out of the body, but then you've got angry disease-insects running around - better step on them before they scatter.
* There is no magic/non-magic divide. You can make a zone that disrupts spellcasting of a particular type, that forces incorporeal things to be solid, or whatever, but there's not a general "anti-magic" field.
* Being astoundingly good at a skill will let you do things that unquestionably exceed the "ordinary". Weaving a cloak out of moonlight just requires a skilled enough weaver. Riding the lighting is so hard and dangerous almost no-one would even try it, but it is possible.

[Knaight]

I'm going to disagree. In many cases, magic basically works on its own rules, which don't really connect to anything else. It's a discipline into itself, and as such can ignore the basic rules of other disciplines - which makes it entirely consistent for there to be a world where mages can do everything they can in D&D, while non-mages can do little else. However, it is also entirely consistent for magic to be a handful of highly limited tricks, which exist alongside full on high powered wuxia.

An analogy would be Newtonian physics and chemistry. Newtonian physics dictate the basic actions taken due to interactions of forces, but chemistry can throw a wrench into that and operate by its own rules. Sure, normally projectiles fly in nice, simple parabolas, because the force is imparted briefly. A little bit of rocket fuel, however, messes that up entirely. Sure, the energy of a collision is normally fairly predictable. If the collision also happens to involve potential reactants, and conditions in which they will react things are going to behave oddly. Newtonian physics represents the non-magical world, chemistry magic. And while magic has rules, they may be very different (note how chem and physics are usually noted as different fields).

As such, a dichotomy between magic and not-magic is entirely reasonable, and insisting it just go away as it is somehow invalid anything but. With that said, demanding that the rules of not-magic mirror reality really only represents one possibility, and excludes others, as such making a terrible baseline. We have three sets of rules: Setting Magic, Setting Mundane, Real Mundane. They may overlap to some extent, but treating any of these as if they are the same is a headache waiting to happen.

[Kalmageddon]

If we are talking about D&D magic I disagree. The rules of magic are never fully explained and are often broken when the setting feels like it by bringing an artifact to the table that says "you know that limitation magic has? this one overcomes it".

For short: magic does break the laws of physics and even it's own laws because magic is just a game element that goes wherever the setting, the DM and the writers feel like it should.

That said it's mostly true for every science in fiction, physics in science fiction can do things that we believe to be impossibile and "break its own rules", like faster then light traveling speed for spaceships.

So why is magic a worst offender then fictional science? Because there is no preconception to consider, with magic you are pretty much already open to the idea that it can do anything. Science fiction has to consider suspension of disbelief much more closely and thus the end result is something more subtle. With magic you don't have any of these problems.

Also, regarding the idea that a world with magic has different laws of physics... No it doesn't. Because then you wouldn't really need magic to obtain extraordinary effects, would you? No first law of thermodynamics? Whan'ts preventing me from generating infinite energy trough a perpetual motion machine? Why would I need to study magic in the frist place? Most of the laws of physics are things very close to the ordinary, a commoner would find a way to obtain all sorts of extraordinary effects by just baging two rocks togheter.

There HAS to be ordinary laws of physics in order for magic to be viable, else magic would be just a more complicated way of doing mundane things in a wolrd where the laws of physics allow magical things to happen.

Do you follow me?

[Ashtagon]

On the issue of antimagic fields being bad design...

We have devices that can block electrical fields, radiological fields, and thermal emitters. Is it that much of a stretch of the imagination, in a world where magic is known to exist, to postulate something that can block a magical field?

[Eldan]

Also, regarding the idea that a world with magic has different laws of physics... No it doesn't. Because then you wouldn't really need magic to obtain extraordinary effects, would you? No first law of thermodynamics? Whan'ts preventing me from generating infinite energy trough a perpetual motion machine? Why would I need to study magic in the frist place? Most of the laws of physics are things very close to the ordinary, a commoner would find a way to obtain all sorts of extraordinary effects by just baging two rocks togheter.

There HAS to be ordinary laws of physics in order for magic to be viable, else magic would be just a more complicated way of doing mundane things in a wolrd where the laws of physics allow magical things to happen.

Do you follow me?

The laws of physics are postulated by observing how the world works and by theory and experimentation upon those laws. If we observe that swallowing a spider lets us walk on walls, then that is a physical law of the world we are in.

Why can't we build thermonuclear intercontinental missiles by banging two rocks together? We need to study first, and we need theories, experiments, cooperation, technology, prototypes. Just as with magic.

Magic is as you observed, a complicated way of achieving certain results. These results can maybe not achieved without it, but we can also, in our world, not send pictures from Europe to America in milliseconds without electronic devices.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Related, if there are wizards who cast spells and dragons who breath fire in a fictional world, it does not make sense to divide the world into "magic" and "not magic". For example, I think "anti-magic fields" and "spell resistance" are bad design, not only from a balance perspective but because they only make sense in the context of this arbitrary division.

But what if the dragon's fire-breath ISN'T magical? I disagree with your idea here that they're both the same, on the grounds that the dragon's breath could be a bio-chemical reaction. (I know this missing the main point, really, but this is the only thing that jumped out at me. Also, it's early in the morning.)

[erikun]

I have to agree with the point that Golden Ladybug first laid out. While it is true that a character inside a magic-infused world would include magic in their laws of physics, when a person critiques a system or setting with "Magic does not follow the Laws of Physics", they are not saying that magic is internally inconsistent. (Although it could be.) Almost always, they are saying that magic is not consistent with the laws of physics as we understand it.

Of course, in most of these same systems and settings, "mundane" activities will frequently not follow the laws of physics as well. An argument that melee characters should follow the laws of physics falls apart when we're talking about characters who can throw an object to the moon and back in under six seconds, or swing a 15-pound chunk of metal ten times at full strength within the same time frame, as many times as they'd care to do so. And by "should follow the laws of physics" in this case, I'm clearly not referring to the laws of magical creation.

[prufock]

I'm not going to disagree, because frankly there is nothing with which to disagree. This is a silly, nonsensical argument, for two reasons.

1. You argue that in a world where magic is part of physics, magic is part of physics. It's circular and pointless. In a world where "gravity" pushes masses apart instead of together, reverse gravity is just "part of physics." If we speculate a world where X is true, then say that in that world X is true, [i]that is not an argument[/i/].

2. Mixing a real-world concept like with a fantasy concept like magic is pointless anyway. The designers of the system did not consult with physicists to ask if their magic was reasonable. They did not try to explain magic in a real-world, physics-friendly way. When they try to offer up explanations, they rely on even more fictional concepts ("the energy is drawn from another plane of existence," etc).

If we want to use a semantic argument, the designers even gave some magical abilities the descriptor "supernatural," which means, literally, above and beyond the natural physical world.

That doesn't mean that magic doesn't follow rules, but trying to explain how it works using physics is a dead end. What interaction is taking place for verbal and somatic cues to pull energy from another plane in a coherent way? Down this path lies only madness.

It all boils down to setting. Does the DM want magic to follow certain rules and interact properly with physics in his own world? If so, then it does. Does the DM instead want magic to be a supernatural system that ignores physics and follows its own rules? If so, then it does.

[boredgremlin]

I think it depends on how you explain magic.

I always used magic as energy channeled from another dimension that briefly causes the conditions of that dimension to supersede the basic dimension of the setting world for a set period of time.

I find it simple and easy to explain most magical things using the dimensions in the great wheel cosmology that way.

Why doesnt everyone do it? Because not everyone can. Its a talent not a skill. Like art or music. Some people are naturally great at it, some people couldnt do it to save their life and most people could work really, really hard for a long time and get mediocre at it but they have other things they need to do in their life and naturally pursue basic survival and natural talents they do actually have rather then spending many years slaving away just to become a piss poor wizard sometime in their middle age.

Anti-magic is an area where the wall between dimensions has been artificially thickened to prevent energy from those other dimensions from coming in. So magic doesnt work there.

Psionics, just to throw a wrench in the works is INTERNAL energy compared to the EXTERNAL energy of magic. Although that requires tossing out large chunks of the 3e psionics book, but whatever because doing that is a good idea no matter how you look at it.

Essentially magic is elemental and outer planes with a minor touch ethereal plane and nothing to do with the mind.

Psionics is the mind interacting with the ethereal and astral planes to affect the physical plane.

I find having an internal non-campaign specific explanation for these things has helped myself and players have a better inherent understanding of how my fantasy words work and increases verisimilitude.

[Jay R]

In the last game I ran, the players' introduction included the following:

"A warning about meta-knowledge. In a game in which stone gargoyles can fly and people can cast magic spells, modern rules of physics and chemistry simply don’t apply. There aren’t 92 natural elements, lightning is not caused by an imbalance of electrical potential, and stars are not gigantic gaseous bodies undergoing nuclear fusion. Cute stunts involving clever use of the laws of thermodynamics simply won’t work. Note that cute stunts involving the gross effects thereof very likely will work. Roll a stone down a mountain, and you could cause an avalanche. But in a world with teleportation, levitation, and fireball spells, Newton’s three laws of motion do not apply, and energy and momentum are not conserved. Accordingly, modern scientific meta-knowledge will do you more harm than good. On the other hand, knowledge of Aristotle, Ptolemy, medieval alchemy, or medieval and classical legends might be useful occasionally."

[Among other things, this included the first two very obscure clues to the scenarios, which involved the seven planets according to Ptolemy (moon, Mercury, Venus, sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) and their legendary powers (love with Venus, war with Mars, heat and life with the sun, etc.). The hints started as extremely obscure, and grew slowly more obvious, until late in the sixth session, when they finally realized that their artifacts had the powers of the planets about 20 minutes before they lost them forever.]

[Eldan]

Supernatural is a very silly word anyway, we already had a similar argument once, and I went to track down the dictionary definitions of supernatural, then the words that make up supernatural, and then the definition for those and so on. In the end, you end up with "not part of" for "super" and "everything that exists" for natural.

Which is, of course, a non-definition for a world where the things thus described actually exist.

Edit: Good point by the poster above me. My D&D worlds tend to run off a wild mix of antique Greek, 17th century scientific and alchemical ideas. Harmony of the spheres, panacea, homunculi, vis vitae, atomism, male and female forces, spirits of matter,the transformation of the soul, same attracts same and so on.

[Frozen_Feet]

"Magic" and "Supernatural" are, essentially, empty buzzwords without further definition. You can't talk about either in general, because there really isn't a general definition of either - what "magic" and "supernatural" actually mean vary greatly from setting to setting.

That said, my opinion is that "supernatural, once it becomes a fact of life, is just extension of the natural". To realize what this means in practice, take a look at several real-world religious and magical practices, where people pray to things that are, by their own admission, intangible and ineffable, for all sorts of minor everyday things.

That said, I do agree with the idea that "non-magical" doesn't have to mean "obeys IRL physics". I'm perfectly fine with giant dragons flying and breathing fire, despite that running counter to our modern understanding of physics and biology. It does not pain me to say "yes, it's perfectly in line with laws of nature, your limited understading of them just doesn't tell you how".

After all, there was a time when people though aeroplanes were impossible. Heck, we went to the moon, and there are still people who think that is impossible. Just because it does not make sense in the context of your limited understanding, doesn't automatically mean it is "magic" or "supernatural". It's not like Quantum mechanics make a lick of sense in context of General Relativity, either.

Finally, I think there's an useful definition of "supernatural" for worlds where such co-exist with the natural: supernatural is the superset for natural and natural a subset of supernatural. In practice, this means all of the natural world can be extrapolated from the supernatural, and it governed by it, but all of the supernatural can't be extrapolated or affected from the natural.

[Partysan]

I basically agree, but I think using the word "physics" here leads the discussion in a wrong direction.
Fact is: Magic has rules. These rules are essentially arbitrary, since there is nothing but fantasy to base them on, but each setting has rules for its magic. Although we tend to call magic "supernatural", this stems from our world. A world that contains magic has laws of nature governing it, magic is part of the world's nature. This does, and will cause things to happen differently than in our world, although how strong and frequent this influence is going to be relies on the specific laws governing the setting's magic.

Knaight has a point when he says that magic while part of nature is a different field than physics (as long as you don't use the very very braod definition of physics as "study of all laws of nature"), but these two fields do exist, have laws, and will interact. Since they interact, physics will be different than in a world without magic.
It is difficult to make concrete assertions about this, because the rules of magic will vary greatly in different settings. A setting can have magic be extremely powerful and easy to do, but then either everyone in the world will use magic (which in D&D is one reasonable conclusion) or, if for some reason magic is very rare, it is not suited for a player character in a mixed group.

Talking about D&D 3.5 specificly, the problem is basically a disconnect between the assumed fluff and the crunch's logical conclusions. This has been discussed time and again. The rules of nature, including those of magic, when taken to their logical end, would produce a world different from that which D&D tries to portray and closer to a Tippyverse, purely magical society, or whatever one might construct along those lines, it's beside the point here.
The point is that there is no rule which says that magic, by definition, has to be more powerful than anything that does not explicitly use magic. Why? Because there are no predefined rules of magic. The author of each setting makes them up. If the way it works does logically conflict with the setting we're dealing with bad writing.
The way a lot of D&D players think is that all which is not explicitly magic should work exactly like in our world with all its limitations and magic can do whateverever it wants to without any cost-return balance. This has problems on several levels. Number one, the D&D rules present a world that even without magic already works differently from ours, hence high-level characters surviving being submerged in lava. Number two, even in the context of our world numbers are not taken to their conclusion. If a human with Strength and Dexterity 30-40 could exist in our world, they could to things decidedly superhuman, yet some people will deny them even feats only logically following from their abilities because it wouldn't be "mundane" anymore. Well, then any character with an ability score over 18 is not mundane anyways. And number three, if magic can do anything, is easy to learn and use and does not have any significant cost thenb not only is there NO rule that ever said so but the result would also be a setting which would at best be different and at worst wholly uninteresting.

The point of the discussion is that while Vaarsuvius may crack a joke about real world physics, the laws of magic are part of D&D's natural laws. A character may not know them, but they'll be aware of their existence. As such, magic is not "rewriting reality" (only Wish and Miracle are) but part of reality. There is no reason whatsoever that magic should be limitless. It could be, but why should it? In the context of a game such magic is wholly detrimental and it does not add much to the setting in return. No one is disputing that magic should be able to do things that nonmagic cannot, that's its point. But the whole reason for its inclusion into the game world is our desire for a specific, and interesting kind of world to play in, and for mechanics that make the game fun. As such, the rules that govern magic in games and D&D specificly should be tuned for that purpose.

Addendum: I for one do not have a problem with antimagic fields. If magic does have laws and works in a defined way, then it can be stopped from working. If for example magic is based on the manipulation of elementary particles called Pseudons (yes, I am using that in one of my settings) then inhibiting those can make it unusable the area of that effect.

[valadil]

I'll agree that magic doesn't always break physics but I don't think that this meanings magic and physics should mix. I also don't think it's safe to assume that a world with magic is still functional. I'm not going to point fingers but I'm sure there are fantasy world that would implode under their own self contradictory physics.

[boredgremlin]

I'll agree that magic doesn't always break physics but I don't think that this meanings magic and physics should mix. I also don't think it's safe to assume that a world with magic is still functional. I'm not going to point fingers but I'm sure there are fantasy world that would implode under their own self contradictory physics.

eh, Forgotten realms has imploded what 3, 4 times now? Everyone there seems to be okay with it. They've had more apocalypses then buffy the vampire slayer and superman combined and no one seems to care.

[hiryuu]

"Magic" and "Supernatural" are, essentially, empty buzzwords without further definition. You can't talk about either in general, because there really isn't a general definition of either - what "magic" and "supernatural" actually mean vary greatly from setting to setting.

That said, my opinion is that "supernatural, once it becomes a fact of life, is just extension of the natural". To realize what this means in practice, take a look at several real-world religious and magical practices, where people pray to things that are, by their own admission, intangible and ineffable, for all sorts of minor everyday things.

That said, I do agree with the idea that "non-magical" doesn't have to mean "obeys IRL physics". I'm perfectly fine with giant dragons flying and breathing fire, despite that running counter to our modern understanding of physics and biology. It does not pain me to say "yes, it's perfectly in line with laws of nature, your limited understading of them just doesn't tell you how".

After all, there was a time when people though aeroplanes were impossible. Heck, we went to the moon, and there are still people who think that is impossible. Just because it does not make sense in the context of your limited understanding, doesn't automatically mean it is "magic" or "supernatural". It's not like Quantum mechanics make a lick of sense in context of General Relativity, either.

Finally, I think there's an useful definition of "supernatural" for worlds where such co-exist with the natural: supernatural is the superset for natural and natural a subset of supernatural. In practice, this means all of the natural world can be extrapolated from the supernatural, and it governed by it, but all of the supernatural can't be extrapolated or affected from the natural.

This. Very much this.

Just because a different world obeys a very different set of physical laws does not mean the inhabitants are aware of them. I mean, not only are our physical laws basically arbitrary because there isn't (as far as we're aware) an agency devoted to making sure they're obeyed. They simply are. They don't have any definition until we try to describe their functionality in terms we can use. And not every physicist or scientists agrees to not only those laws, but also the terms used (as an example, I've now seen fistfights erupt over a) whether a set of postage-stamp-sized fragments of maxillae belonged to reptile-like mammals or mammal-like reptiles and b) Higgs boson vs. quantum gravitation; now imagine two wizards debating where they're evoking all these magic missiles from).

Same as it is with a world that has a different set of laws: the inhabitants may only know enough to get a fireball going, and even that's probably got some guesswork involved. You don't have to actually know how and why it's happening to note that a ball of wood and a ball of iron fall at the same rate, all you have to know is that they do, and you can do some pretty amazing things. "Stuff falls down" and "stress is even throughout a contiguous structure" is about all you need to know in order to infer and start designing arches.

I think the issue here is that in our culture, it's very common to see physics and science (not to mention magic) as forces. Physics and science, at least, are NOT. They are methods of description. They are basically systems about how to investigate things in a methodical fashion. Magic, on the other hand, is very often depicted as a force. Saying magic and physics are opposed is like saying that Sean Connery's morning schedule and inertia are opposing forces.

[Shadowknight12]

Oh, it's this argument again. Nice to see the undead remain vigorous even after repeated burying.

Let's address the root of the issue: In any system this particular problem ("magic" vs. "non-magic") applies, the problem is always the same. Authors sought to create a system to emulate stories and legends from different creators, cultures and time periods. They sought to put, in the same world, Arturian fantasy, Tolkienesque fantasy, steampunk and things from Simbad to Beowulf.

You cannot have Internal Consistency (magical or otherwise) when your game design is a lazy* fantasy kitchen sink.

This argument goes nowhere because the goalposts will keep endlessly shifting as someone cites examples from one source, where magic is *meant* to be precisely that which defies the laws of physics, and then someone else cites an example where magic is commonplace and natural. And then we touch upon the fact that what's "magical" and "supernatural" in one setting might be utterly mundane in another. And when someone brings Balance to the table, things just get ten times muddier.

So really, people. Stop for a moment and think about what you're debating. Well, unless you find it amusing to argue past each other for twenty-something pages.

*: You could have Internal Consistency in such a fantasy kitchen sink, but you'd need far more work than any popular game designer has ever put on their product to date.

[bloodtide]

Yeah, gonna have to disagree with your premise here; when someone says that Magic breaks the laws of Physics, and you respond with "well, in a world with Magic, the Laws of Physics would be different" you might be technically right, but you've missed the point.

Magic does things that break the Laws of Physics as they exist in the real world. It doesn't matter if they don't break the Laws of Physics in the fictional, Magic compliant, world, because those Laws of Physics aren't THE Laws of Physics.

This is commonly said by most scientest types. Anything that does not fit into their 'safe box' of reality, or anything they don't like ''breaks the laws of physics''. And what 'laws' are they again? The laws everyone thinks they know? Well, physics does not work that way.

For example, humans only discovered radiation in the last two centuries. So radiation was around for the 6,000 years of human history before that. Humans just did not know about it. But it did not break any 'laws of physics'. Though if you went back to 1700 and told a scientist about radiation he would laugh at you and say 'that would break the laws of physics''(as HE knows them). He would be wrong, of course.

Magic is the same way, just as we can't explain it with our current laws, does not ake it law breaking,

[Tyndmyr]

Magic does things that are impossible in our world....

Precisely. This is known as "breaking the laws of physics". That's what we're talking about.

This is commonly said by most scientest types. Anything that does not fit into their 'safe box' of reality, or anything they don't like ''breaks the laws of physics''. And what 'laws' are they again? The laws everyone thinks they know? Well, physics does not work that way.

For example, humans only discovered radiation in the last two centuries. So radiation was around for the 6,000 years of human history before that. Humans just did not know about it. But it did not break any 'laws of physics'. Though if you went back to 1700 and told a scientist about radiation he would laugh at you and say 'that would break the laws of physics''(as HE knows them). He would be wrong, of course.

That seems rather unlikely. The idea that certain things emitted something roughly akin to radiation seems to be a popular theory long, long before it was shown to exist. Certainly, it has many parallels, like a fire emitting heat. Your entire argument here appears immensely suspect.

What, are you saying that magic really is physics, we just haven't discovered how to cast Wall of Iron yet? Because that seems really implausible.

[hiryuu]

This is commonly said by most scientest types. Anything that does not fit into their 'safe box' of reality, or anything they don't like ''breaks the laws of physics''. And what 'laws' are they again? The laws everyone thinks they know? Well, physics does not work that way.

Scientists know this very well. They know the safe box does not exist. That is why they rewrite the laws all the time. That is why they experiment and poke and prod. That's why they are scientists.

For example, humans only discovered radiation in the last two centuries. So radiation was around for the 6,000 years of human history before that. Humans just did not know about it. But it did not break any 'laws of physics'. Though if you went back to 1700 and told a scientist about radiation he would laugh at you and say 'that would break the laws of physics''(as HE knows them). He would be wrong, of course.

Magic is the same way, just as we can't explain it with our current laws, does not ake it law breaking,

Who was it that was steeping out of their safe box and trying to figure out what this whole radiation thing was all about in the first oh right it was scientists. Most of that, though, required apparatus and tools that simply weren't available until much later. Röntgen, for example, couldn't make his discovery at all without vacuum tubes. I would imagine the same would be true for magic: that artifact/phenomena/monster isn't breaking the rules of magic, they just haven't figured out how it works yet.

As for the real world, we know perfectly well that our understanding of the universe is incomplete, thank you. To quote Dara O'Briain: "Science knows it doesn't know everything, otherwise it would stop."

On the other hand, science lets us make predictions based on inferences. Predictions based on knowledge of the laws of physics as we know them allowed us to find things like Hawking radiation, infer principles of momentum, and even produce computer technology. I would imagine in a D&D setting, it's similar predictive capacity that lets artificers act like in-universe engineers.

[GolemsVoice]

The problem with magic in some settings probably is that it is a "get out of physics free" card. So physics might work normally, but as soon as magic is involved, literally anything goes. So magic isn't a law unto itself, but rather an addition to every other law. "Gravity works like.... bla bla... unless magic is involved." "Light works like... bla bla... unless magic is involved" and so forth.

If magic is a raw force that one can use to achieve any desired effects, what would be it's laws other than "It can be used to break all the other laws?"

[RedWarlock]

I like to think of it like programming. (stop me if you don't get this)

Science as we IRL know it is like programming with a fixed API, being unable to write your own methods or classes.

Magic is being able to program in full, with variables, methods, classes, etc at your disposal. You just have to watch out or you'll write yourself into a memory leak or crash the system with the code on line 002.

I like to say this a lot in the programming jobs I've done. You can do anything you want, it's just a matter of how long you're willing to take to get there, and how much training it takes to be capable of doing that.

I agree with the OP, magic does has in-universe limits, it's just a limit of time and training. If magic were really limitless or operating outside of 'physics as we know them' the way some people think, you'd have 1st level wizards being able to kill every 20th CR fighter with a glance.

[Drolyt]

First I'd like to say that I think a lot of people are misunderstanding my point. This is my fault because I was tired and I used a line of reasoning that focused far too heavily on semantics making the whole thing somewhat incomprehensible. I also failed to properly distinguish between the various points I was trying to make, so it all just blurs together. I shouldn't of wrote that while I was tired. Nevertheless, let's continue...

I'm going to disagree. In many cases, magic basically works on its own rules, which don't really connect to anything else. It's a discipline into itself, and as such can ignore the basic rules of other disciplines - which makes it entirely consistent for there to be a world where mages can do everything they can in D&D, while non-mages can do little else. However, it is also entirely consistent for magic to be a handful of highly limited tricks, which exist alongside full on high powered wuxia.

An analogy would be Newtonian physics and chemistry. Newtonian physics dictate the basic actions taken due to interactions of forces, but chemistry can throw a wrench into that and operate by its own rules. Sure, normally projectiles fly in nice, simple parabolas, because the force is imparted briefly. A little bit of rocket fuel, however, messes that up entirely. Sure, the energy of a collision is normally fairly predictable. If the collision also happens to involve potential reactants, and conditions in which they will react things are going to behave oddly. Newtonian physics represents the non-magical world, chemistry magic. And while magic has rules, they may be very different (note how chem and physics are usually noted as different fields).

As such, a dichotomy between magic and not-magic is entirely reasonable, and insisting it just go away as it is somehow invalid anything but. With that said, demanding that the rules of not-magic mirror reality really only represents one possibility, and excludes others, as such making a terrible baseline. We have three sets of rules: Setting Magic, Setting Mundane, Real Mundane. They may overlap to some extent, but treating any of these as if they are the same is a headache waiting to happen.

I think I kind of see your point. Chemistry and mechanics still follow the fundamental laws of our world, but in practice we can treat them as separate sets of laws that interact with each other resulting in a good approximation of the more fundamental laws of quantum mechanics. We could view magic in this way, but I don't see how this solves my problem.

If we are talking about D&D magic I disagree. The rules of magic are never fully explained and are often broken when the setting feels like it by bringing an artifact to the table that says "you know that limitation magic has? this one overcomes it".

For short: magic does break the laws of physics and even it's own laws because magic is just a game element that goes wherever the setting, the DM and the writers feel like it should.

That said it's mostly true for every science in fiction, physics in science fiction can do things that we believe to be impossibile and "break its own rules", like faster then light traveling speed for spaceships.

So why is magic a worst offender then fictional science? Because there is no preconception to consider, with magic you are pretty much already open to the idea that it can do anything. Science fiction has to consider suspension of disbelief much more closely and thus the end result is something more subtle. With magic you don't have any of these problems.

Also, regarding the idea that a world with magic has different laws of physics... No it doesn't. Because then you wouldn't really need magic to obtain extraordinary effects, would you? No first law of thermodynamics? Whan'ts preventing me from generating infinite energy trough a perpetual motion machine? Why would I need to study magic in the frist place? Most of the laws of physics are things very close to the ordinary, a commoner would find a way to obtain all sorts of extraordinary effects by just baging two rocks togheter.

There HAS to be ordinary laws of physics in order for magic to be viable, else magic would be just a more complicated way of doing mundane things in a wolrd where the laws of physics allow magical things to happen.

Do you follow me?

No, I don't. In part I think we are talking past each other, you seem to have a very different idea of what the "laws of physics" are. What you are saying is like saying that quantum mechanics or relativity somehow breaks the laws of physics. If we were to discover that dragons were real and had magical powers no scientist would say they broke the laws of physics, thy would study the phenomenon and modify our understanding of physics.

On the issue of antimagic fields being bad design...

We have devices that can block electrical fields, radiological fields, and thermal emitters. Is it that much of a stretch of the imagination, in a world where magic is known to exist, to postulate something that can block a magical field?

Only if you suppose there is a "magical field". The problem is that most games are very arbitrary about what counts as magic for this purpose.

But what if the dragon's fire-breath ISN'T magical? I disagree with your idea here that they're both the same, on the grounds that the dragon's breath could be a bio-chemical reaction. (I know this missing the main point, really, but this is the only thing that jumped out at me. Also, it's early in the morning.)

My example only really stands if we assume a fire breathing dragon would violate real world physics. My point is, if both a wizard and a dragon (or a Minotaur or whatever) breaks the physics of our world then how do we determine which is considered "magic".

I'm not going to disagree, because frankly there is nothing with which to disagree. This is a silly, nonsensical argument, for two reasons.

1. You argue that in a world where magic is part of physics, magic is part of physics. It's circular and pointless. In a world where "gravity" pushes masses apart instead of together, reverse gravity is just "part of physics." If we speculate a world where X is true, then say that in that world X is true, [i]that is not an argument[/i/].

2. Mixing a real-world concept like with a fantasy concept like magic is pointless anyway. The designers of the system did not consult with physicists to ask if their magic was reasonable. They did not try to explain magic in a real-world, physics-friendly way. When they try to offer up explanations, they rely on even more fictional concepts ("the energy is drawn from another plane of existence," etc).

If we want to use a semantic argument, the designers even gave some magical abilities the descriptor "supernatural," which means, literally, above and beyond the natural physical world.

That doesn't mean that magic doesn't follow rules, but trying to explain how it works using physics is a dead end. What interaction is taking place for verbal and somatic cues to pull energy from another plane in a coherent way? Down this path lies only madness.

It all boils down to setting. Does the DM want magic to follow certain rules and interact properly with physics in his own world? If so, then it does. Does the DM instead want magic to be a supernatural system that ignores physics and follows its own rules? If so, then it does.

I think we are talking past each other here. To be honest, I'm not at all positive what you are trying to say in this post, and I'm pretty sure you didn't understand what I was getting at. I'll take the blame for that, since looking at my first post now that I'm more awake I think I did a terrible job of explaining myself.

I think it depends on how you explain magic.

I always used magic as energy channeled from another dimension that briefly causes the conditions of that dimension to supersede the basic dimension of the setting world for a set period of time.

I find it simple and easy to explain most magical things using the dimensions in the great wheel cosmology that way.

Why doesnt everyone do it? Because not everyone can. Its a talent not a skill. Like art or music. Some people are naturally great at it, some people couldnt do it to save their life and most people could work really, really hard for a long time and get mediocre at it but they have other things they need to do in their life and naturally pursue basic survival and natural talents they do actually have rather then spending many years slaving away just to become a piss poor wizard sometime in their middle age.

Anti-magic is an area where the wall between dimensions has been artificially thickened to prevent energy from those other dimensions from coming in. So magic doesnt work there.

Psionics, just to throw a wrench in the works is INTERNAL energy compared to the EXTERNAL energy of magic. Although that requires tossing out large chunks of the 3e psionics book, but whatever because doing that is a good idea no matter how you look at it.

Essentially magic is elemental and outer planes with a minor touch ethereal plane and nothing to do with the mind.

Psionics is the mind interacting with the ethereal and astral planes to affect the physical plane.

I find having an internal non-campaign specific explanation for these things has helped myself and players have a better inherent understanding of how my fantasy words work and increases verisimilitude.

This works, and I like it, but it doesn't address all of my concerns. Chiefly, it doesn't explain why mundanes are going on adventures with supernaturals and trying to compete with them, and it doesn't explain why the only available supernatural powers for PCs involve spellcasting. If you do in fact allow non-spellcasters to have mythical abilities (or conversely limit spellcasters in such a way as to allow non-spellcasters to compete) you would dodge most or all of my points.

Supernatural is a very silly word anyway, we already had a similar argument once, and I went to track down the dictionary definitions of supernatural, then the words that make up supernatural, and then the definition for those and so on. In the end, you end up with "not part of" for "super" and "everything that exists" for natural.

Which is, of course, a non-definition for a world where the things thus described actually exist.

Edit: Good point by the poster above me. My D&D worlds tend to run off a wild mix of antique Greek, 17th century scientific and alchemical ideas. Harmony of the spheres, panacea, homunculi, vis vitae, atomism, male and female forces, spirits of matter,the transformation of the soul, same attracts same and so on.

This is kind of my point. When "supernatural" or "magic" is defined as "anything that isn't possible in our world" you are going to have problems.

The problem with magic in some settings probably is that it is a "get out of physics free" card. So physics might work normally, but as soon as magic is involved, literally anything goes. So magic isn't a law unto itself, but rather an addition to every other law. "Gravity works like.... bla bla... unless magic is involved." "Light works like... bla bla... unless magic is involved" and so forth.

If magic is a raw force that one can use to achieve any desired effects, what would be it's laws other than "It can be used to break all the other laws?"

Yes, that is my point. Such a way of viewing magic is, in my opinion, detrimental to gameplay and to story.