Is your world Scientific or Mythic?

[Trask]

Fellow worldbuilders, what is your setting like, scientific or mythic? Now, by scientific I don't necessarily mean to ask if your world has science fiction elements, nor by mythic do I necessarily mean to ask if your world is based on mythology.

Rather, is your setting based in the vaguely understood scientific material principles in the mundane world or does it use geography and cosmology that is based entirely in fiction and myths? Is the world a planet in a solar system orbiting a star? Or is the world a wide disc suspended by a golden chain held by God where the oceans plunge down into the great waiting hellmouth of a gigantic dragon?

And on top of that, what do you prefer and why?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Fellow worldbuilders, what is your setting like, scientific or mythic? Now, by scientific I don't necessarily mean to ask if your world has science fiction elements, nor by mythic do I necessarily mean to ask if your world is based on mythology.

Rather, is your setting based in the vaguely understood scientific material principles in the mundane world or does it use geography and cosmology that is based entirely in fiction and myths? Is the world a planet in a solar system orbiting a star? Or is the world a wide disc suspended by a golden chain held by God where the oceans plunge down into the great waiting hellmouth of a gigantic dragon?

Those are two totally orthogonal questions. You're conflating "matching known real-world physics" with "works in a predictable, self-consistent way" and "incorporating real-world mythological elements" with "handwaves the details of anything not matching the real world" and positing a dichotomy between the two. Really, there are at least two axes there: "realistic" vs. "fantastical" and "operates on consistent scientific principles" vs. "operates on religious/mythical/literary/etc. logic."

To use your "planet in a solar system orbiting a star" example, any setting in which the sun appears to function as it does in real life (constant motion across the sky, seasons arise from axial tilt, etc.) is a realistic one, while any setting in which it doesn't is a fantastical one. Any setting in which the sun functions on something resembling physics (even if those are e.g. arcane physics rather than real-world ones) is a scientific one, and any setting in which the sun operates otherwise is a mythic one.

Eberron is a realistic, scientific setting for this particular purpose. It has a sun that works like ours does in pretty much every respect, without even a demonstrably-existent sun god to throw a wrench in the works.

Westeros is a fantastical, scientific setting for this particular purpose. The world's years-long summers and winters obviously derive from some unknown other mechanism with no relation to the planet's axial tilt; however, the Maesters are able to observe, analyze, and predict the seasons' onset and duration, so it must operate on some principles that are known and consistent in-world.

Egyptian mythology is a realistic, mythic setting for this particular purpose. The sun is Ra's royal barge, Atet, and travels around the world every day, and if you were to somehow divert or destroy his barge you could theoretically make the sun travel in loop-de-loops or not rise again the next day...but that's the theological explanation, and on a day-to-day basis the sun works exactly as you'd expect in the real world (which makes sense, as their mythology was developed based on that behavior).

Discworld is a fantastical, mythic setting for this particular purpose. The sun rises whenever it wants to and moves however it wishes, sunlight flows at a paltry few hundred miles an hour, and everything functions on story logic, being neither realistic to out-of-setting readers or consistent to in-setting scholars.

Settings can obviously be a mix of these for different purposes and just lean in one direction or another. Eberron's sun is quite realistic but its moons are wacky and more like portals to other planes than physical celestial bodies, for instance, and Spelljammer has a bunch of worlds which vary highly in their degree of realism and consistency but generally leans towards the fantastical end because it's deliberately based on disproven Renaissance-era physics principles.

And of course you can break things down much more finely than those axes: for instance, you can split "fantastical" into "passively fantastical" (e.g. the sun is a portal to the Plane of Radiance, and will be subject to various wibbly wobbly magical effects on occasion) vs. "actively fantastical" (e.g. the sun god is temperamental and strange solar phenomena are just a fact of life in the world) for varying levels of intrusiveness into the plot, "realistic" into "layman's realism" vs. "scientist's realism" for varying levels of attention to detail, and so on.

All of that said...

And on top of that, what do you prefer and why?

I much prefer things on the scientific and fantastical end of the spectrum. For the former, mythic logic can be great for stories where you can figure things out ahead of time and paper over any problematic edge cases, but trying to GM things by mythological logic or story logic on the fly can be fiendishly complex the moment a player tries to dive into (or worse, take advantage of) the different metaphysics.

For the latter, I find that using a set of metaphysics that resolves to "basically like the real world" on the surface but has built-in explanations for magic and gods and such is much more comprehensive and satisfying than trying to treat magic as some unnatural thing stapled onto real-world physics, because the lore is easier to work with when it all fits together and, again, players picking at the holes in the real-world-plus-magic explanation can cause lots of headaches.

[MrStabby]

I like a bit of both and personally I love the tension between the two.

In a world of "science" even if "arcane magic science" there are theories and meta theories and reasons why. Given that there are these reasons why, and nearly universal principle there is a bit of friction around the world's elements that don't fit. And friction like this produces pearls. If there is a reason behind things, why is it that things unfold in the most dramatic way? If a sense of drama and story is baked into the universe, it says something about the unknown rules and points to something additionally mysterious going on.

[Max_Killjoy]

Largely scientific.

Even if the underlying mechanisms aren't identical to our world, they are coherent, consistent, and objective.

I do not like "just so stories" for the most part, I don't like a setting or story to tell or show me things that are inherently contradictory, inconsistent, or incoherent.

[NigelWalmsley]

I would tend to agree that the distinction you're making is not particularly meaningful. Any fantasy setting is going to include fantastic elements (because that's what makes it a fantasy setting), but is going to largely rely on real-world scientific principles (because the alternative requires an intractable amount of work). Even if the world is a giant tree, or balanced on some turtles, or the dream of the frog god, the baseline physics are going to be pretty similar to reality, because you are not Greg Egan and you are not going to work out an entirely new set of physics for your stories (not to mention that you then have to explain it to several other people, and you have to pay enough attention to not revert back to the default of "everything works like the real world because that's the only thing people have any experience with").

[Trask]

I disagree that the distinction I'm making isn't clear, mythic realities don't diverge wildly on things like gravity because even if mythic stories didn't know what gravity was they still felt its effects. But in the assumptions of the things far removed from human experience (what is the sky? is it an atmosphere with layers like ours or is it a gigantic bronze dome with gems set into it thats turned by giants?) I think nitpicking about stuff like the very basic rules of physics as they affect human motion and habitation are clearly not what I mean, but I'll specify.

Is your world more scientific or more mythic in how it explains the phenomena of the world like weather, the sky, the creation of the world, the origin of species and so forth

[jjordan]

Scientific. Cause and effect are important to me.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I disagree that the distinction I'm making isn't clear, mythic realities don't diverge wildly on things like gravity because even if mythic stories didn't know what gravity was they still felt its effects. But in the assumptions of the things far removed from human experience (what is the sky? is it an atmosphere with layers like ours or is it a gigantic bronze dome with gems set into it thats turned by giants?) I think nitpicking about stuff like the very basic rules of physics as they affect human motion and habitation are clearly not what I mean, but I'll specify.

Is your world more scientific or more mythic in how it explains the phenomena of the world like weather, the sky, the creation of the world, the origin of species and so forth

Those still aren't two opposing ends of the same scale, though. "The sky is (a) vast crystal sphere(s) in which the sun, moon, planets, and stars are embedded and travel along in their appointed paths" is both a mythical explanation for what the sky is and an early astronomical theory at the same time, and the answer to "is that setting more scientific or more mythical" is "yes."

You can have a setting that's completely scientific and secular and still bears no resemblance whatsoever to the real world, and you can have a setting that's based precisely on historical Earth but is full of hidden gods and spirits and such that run the world on magic and rainbows and the dreams of children instead of physics. If you use "scientific" to mean "like the real world" and "mythic" to mean "not like the real world" then practically every setting is 100% mythic because all of them say the world runs at least partly on magic and none of them say they were created by a Big Bang and gods evolved over billions of years and so on.

[Trask]

If you use "scientific" to mean "like the real world" and "mythic" to mean "not like the real world" then practically every setting is 100% mythic because all of them say the world runs at least partly on magic and none of them say they were created by a Big Bang and gods evolved over billions of years and so on.

This isn't really true, at least if were branching out from strictly D&D settings. Plenty of fictional worlds take place in the real world, or an approximation of it, albeit most often with fantastical elements. Lovecraft's Mythos and REH's Hyborian Age come to mind, as well as Jack Vance's Dying Earth, Frank Herbet's Dune, Dresden Files, Harry Potter, American Gods, D&D settings like Tekumel, Mystara, even our very own Yora's Kaendor all have planets and galaxies and nebulae and all that good stuff we associate with our cosmos, but also magic and wizardry. A setting being scientific has nothing to do with it perfectly emulating our flawed understanding of our own material universe, but how much does it seek to emulate real world phenomena?

If the platonic ideal of a purely scientific setting is the real world following it's rule as understand them, and the platonic ideal of a fantasy setting is one where natural phenomena are created and maintained by the whim or artifice of supernatural beings, then most fantasy worlds I know hang somewhere in the middle of the two poles.

I'm simply asking whether the worldbuilders here like their fantasy more on one end or the other.

[NigelWalmsley]

If the platonic ideal of a purely scientific setting is the real world following it's rule as understand them, and the platonic ideal of a fantasy setting is one where natural phenomena are created and maintained by the whim or artifice of supernatural beings, then most fantasy worlds I know hang somewhere in the middle of the two poles.

That still doesn't seem opposed. What's to stop the rules from having been created by a supernatural being, either generally or specifically? In the Divine Cities trilogy, miracles do particular things defined by the gods that create them, but exist independently of the gods and can't be later revised. In the Licanius Trilogy, the creator god is bound by causality, despite having been the one to establish it in the first place. Broadly, one side is defined by mechanism ("thing X works in way Y") and the other is defined by origin ("thing X was created by being Y").

[Max_Killjoy]

When I first read the question, I took it as the difference between empirical thinking and objectivism, vs magical thinking and subjectivism.

[Trask]

That still doesn't seem opposed. What's to stop the rules from having been created by a supernatural being, either generally or specifically? In the Divine Cities trilogy, miracles do particular things defined by the gods that create them, but exist independently of the gods and can't be later revised. In the Licanius Trilogy, the creator god is bound by causality, despite having been the one to establish it in the first place. Broadly, one side is defined by mechanism ("thing X works in way Y") and the other is defined by origin ("thing X was created by being Y").

I think perhaps this is getting a little too nitty gritty. The purpose of this thread is largely as it pertains to the aesthetic and flavor of our fantasy fiction worlds. If God created the universe as we understand it or if it happened by cosmic happenstance is largely irrelevant. For the purposes of a setting, that world would be identical to our real world with all the same principles of cosmology and physics.

If a world based on Medieval Muslim cosmology where the earth is a flat disc being held aloft by an angel balancing on a cow standing on a whale was created by Allah or if the disc just happened to fall on the angel as he and his animal friends were practicing their cheer leading routine makes little difference. For the purposes of a setting, the world would be a completely fantastical and mythical place with an alien cosmology compared to our own.

[NigelWalmsley]

But that cosmology wasn't conceived of as fictional. It was what real people actually believed about the world in which they lived. If that cosmology is so similar to our own that you can believe one is the other for your entire life, how can we possibly call it "alien"? The question of "is the world a sphere or a disc being held by an angel" is empirically so far removed from the concerns of the average person that they can spend their entire life thinking the answer to that question is the opposite of what it really is.

[Trask]

But that cosmology wasn't conceived of as fictional. It was what real people actually believed about the world in which they lived. If that cosmology is so similar to our own that you can believe one is the other for your entire life, how can we possibly call it "alien"? The question of "is the world a sphere or a disc being held by an angel" is empirically so far removed from the concerns of the average person that they can spend their entire life thinking the answer to that question is the opposite of what it really is.

It is impossible for a modern person in the western world to truly see the perspective an ancient person. We are not medieval Islamic theologians, and this is a board about fantasy world building. In that context, this question has less to do with pondering the nature of reality and more like "will the PCs in my game use magic/technology to fly to the moon or will they sail to the edge of the world and rappel down to the back of Behemoth?" Its completely a matter of preference and flavor.

[Wizard_Lizard]

My worlds are definetly mythic. It just lets players have more freedom, partially because if a player wants to be scientific, they can.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

This isn't really true, at least if were branching out from strictly D&D settings. Plenty of fictional worlds take place in the real world, or an approximation of it, albeit most often with fantastical elements. Lovecraft's Mythos and REH's Hyborian Age come to mind, as well as Jack Vance's Dying Earth, Frank Herbet's Dune, Dresden Files, Harry Potter, American Gods, D&D settings like Tekumel, Mystara, even our very own Yora's Kaendor all have planets and galaxies and nebulae and all that good stuff we associate with our cosmos, but also magic and wizardry. A setting being scientific has nothing to do with it perfectly emulating our flawed understanding of our own material universe, but how much does it seek to emulate real world phenomena?

If the platonic ideal of a purely scientific setting is the real world following it's rule as understand them, and the platonic ideal of a fantasy setting is one where natural phenomena are created and maintained by the whim or artifice of supernatural beings, then most fantasy worlds I know hang somewhere in the middle of the two poles.

My point is that "planets and galaxies and nebulas and all that good stuff" is not at all incompatible with "natural phenomena are created and maintained by the whim or artifice of supernatural beings." Lovecraft posits a world where the universe is dreamed into existence by one or more Elder Gods and you can swim to the moon through the Dreamlands, Dying Earth posits a world where the world runs on sapient mathematics that you can schmooze into temporarily changing reality for you, Dresden Files posits a world where Earth is a tiny bubble of stability mirrored and influenced by the parallel Nevernever and protected from mind-melting and reality-warping chaos by the Outer Gates, Mystara posits a world where entropy is not a physical consequence of natural law but a cause actively championed by one of five factions aiming to rule the universe, and so on.

All of these worlds have Earths or Earth-like worlds that appear familiar on a day-to-day basis, but all of them are dramatically younger and more magical than the real world as we know it. You simply can't treat those two positions as the ends of a single axis because most worlds are at both extremes at the same time, a veneer of "physics as usual" over a fundament of "gods in hamster wheels."

It is impossible for a modern person in the western world to truly see the perspective an ancient person. We are not medieval Islamic theologians, and this is a board about fantasy world building. In that context, this question has less to do with pondering the nature of reality and more like "will the PCs in my game use magic/technology to fly to the moon or will they sail to the edge of the world and rappel down to the back of Behemoth?" Its completely a matter of preference and flavor.

If the PCs fly to the moon on a Spelljammer, is that "scientific" because they're sailing the aetheric currents on a ship equipped with an air envelope, a gravity plane, and a thaumomechanical helm, or it is "mythic" because the moon they're sailing to is not a planet but a vortex to a misty lunar sea ruled by Selûne the moon goddess?

If the PCs rappel off the edge of the world to have a chat with the Great A'tuin, is that "mythic" because the World Turtle is carrying the world through the Astral Plane, or is it "scientific" because the path of the Great A'tuin around the sun can be charted according to the Third Law of the great wizard Kepler which states that "the square of the migratory period of a giant space turtle is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its favorite swimming lane"?

[Trask]

My point is that "planets and galaxies and nebulas and all that good stuff" is not at all incompatible with "natural phenomena are created and maintained by the whim or artifice of supernatural beings." Lovecraft posits a world where the universe is dreamed into existence by one or more Elder Gods and you can swim to the moon through the Dreamlands, Dying Earth posits a world where the world runs on sapient mathematics that you can schmooze into temporarily changing reality for you, Dresden Files posits a world where Earth is a tiny bubble of stability mirrored and influenced by the parallel Nevernever and protected from mind-melting and reality-warping chaos by the Outer Gates, Mystara posits a world where entropy is not a physical consequence of natural law but a cause actively championed by one of five factions aiming to rule the universe, and so on.

All of these worlds have Earths or Earth-like worlds that appear familiar on a day-to-day basis, but all of them are dramatically younger and more magical than the real world as we know it. You simply can't treat those two positions as the ends of a single axis because most worlds are at both extremes at the same time, a veneer of "physics as usual" over a fundament of "gods in hamster wheels."



If the PCs fly to the moon on a Spelljammer, is that "scientific" because they're sailing the aetheric currents on a ship equipped with an air envelope, a gravity plane, and a thaumomechanical helm, or it is "mythic" because the moon they're sailing to is not a planet but a vortex to a misty lunar sea ruled by Selûne the moon goddess?

If the PCs rappel off the edge of the world to have a chat with the Great A'tuin, is that "mythic" because the World Turtle is carrying the world through the Astral Plane, or is it "scientific" because the path of the Great A'tuin around the sun can be charted according to the Third Law of the great wizard Kepler which states that "the square of the migratory period of a giant space turtle is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its favorite swimming lane"?

I can't help but feel like I'm repeating myself. The ability to explain phenomena inside a fantasy universe using that universe's own logic doesn't make it a "scientific" setting. Maybe scientific was the wrong word to choose, but very simply, all I mean to ask and discuss is whether one prefers their fantasy to skew towards the realistic, modern approaches to cosmology or completely fantastical or mythical ones. Or, as I suspect most settings are, somewhere in between.

[Eldan]

My last world was entirely unlike our own, but could also be very readily understood and scientifically analyzed.

As in:
The planet was flat. Philosophers could calculate that with some geometry involving shadows and so on. The stars were fixed in position. In fact, they were large lights hanging from the branches of the world tree, some hundreds or thousands of miles (I forgot the number I gave) above. Meaning that by calculating the angle to some stars, ships could quite accurately determine their position on the ocean. (I.e. we're twelve degrees east of the North star and directly under the constellation of the serpent, we must be able to reach port Y tomorrow.) The sun was a god of fire trapped in a cage, that was moved across the sky in fixed patterns so that his presence would not burn any part of the land below too much. Storms were assumed to be the breath of particularly large and aggressive storm giants, the sons of the gods of the oean that stood at the four corners of the world. One order of storm priests were tasked with using divination to spy on those giants, to see what their mood was, so that storms could be predicted from their anger. The oceans were constantly flowing over the edge, so the nymph daughters of the ocean gods had to catch the water in nets and toss it back on land as rain.

All very scientific. All total nonsense by our scientific laws.

[Max_Killjoy]

I can't help but feel like I'm repeating myself. The ability to explain phenomena inside a fantasy universe using that universe's own logic doesn't make it a "scientific" setting. Maybe scientific was the wrong word to choose, but very simply, all I mean to ask and discuss is whether one prefers their fantasy to skew towards the realistic, modern approaches to cosmology or completely fantastical or mythical ones. Or, as I suspect most settings are, somewhere in between.

So the question is about the superficial physical structure of the setting, and whether it appears like our reality -- not about the underlying principles and "physics"?

In that case, "scientific vs mythic" was very probably not the right choice of terms. "Scientific" and "mythic" are approaches, mentalities, etc, not surface aesthetics.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

My world is fictional. Just because I don't have a full set of self-consistent explanations for how the world works doesn't mean I have a bunch of gods lined up that made the place.

People can't even agree on what our own world is like (and reminder: opinions on the matter are not welcome on this forum), so why should I have a better explanation for my settings? You're lucky if I know where the nearest bakery is.

[Trask]

My last world was entirely unlike our own, but could also be very readily understood and scientifically analyzed.

As in:
The planet was flat. Philosophers could calculate that with some geometry involving shadows and so on. The stars were fixed in position. In fact, they were large lights hanging from the branches of the world tree, some hundreds or thousands of miles (I forgot the number I gave) above. Meaning that by calculating the angle to some stars, ships could quite accurately determine their position on the ocean. (I.e. we're twelve degrees east of the North star and directly under the constellation of the serpent, we must be able to reach port Y tomorrow.) The sun was a god of fire trapped in a cage, that was moved across the sky in fixed patterns so that his presence would not burn any part of the land below too much. Storms were assumed to be the breath of particularly large and aggressive storm giants, the sons of the gods of the oean that stood at the four corners of the world. One order of storm priests were tasked with using divination to spy on those giants, to see what their mood was, so that storms could be predicted from their anger. The oceans were constantly flowing over the edge, so the nymph daughters of the ocean gods had to catch the water in nets and toss it back on land as rain.

All very scientific. All total nonsense by our scientific laws.

This sounds cool, and also like a setting that I would like to emulate. Would you mind telling me more about it?

[Eldan]

It's pretty much just that. It's vaguely based on cobbled together Greek, Nordic and Egyptian myths. The gods and various other divine creatures do everything, but mostly at the weird edges of the setting. The central area of the world is relatively normal, except for the gigantic tree trunk in the middle of the world that is large enough to be seen across the entire central ocean. There's vaguely Greek, Nordic, Egyptian and Phoenician-inspired cultures around said ocean. There's two main outer planes, an underworld with imprisoned ancient gods that were removed from power, and an upper world where the current ruling gods live with the mortal heroes they have chosen to be their companions. Uh. Not sure what else to say without going into cultural minutiae.

[DMwithoutPC's]

Trask, I think the question you were asking was fully clear.

I have designed and played with different worlds, which fell differently on the scale. I also find the clash between them interesting to explore. Does the weather mage agitate the electrons in the air to cause a discharge, or do they persuade the air spirits to do his bidding? Is one just a symbolic representation of the other? Are both ways valid to accomplish the same goal?

Whenever fairies, elementals or spirits will play a big part of my game, i emphasise the mythical aspect of the world, and of magic. If it's about societal progress, political intrigue or warring nations, a scientific world might be better suited, so I don't have to consider the ethics of Real Actual Gods and the nature of Evil.

[Wizard_Lizard]

I tend to leave a lot of the world building unexplained. This is partially due to the last time i made a very intricately detailed world, the campaign fell apart rather quickly... Also the players I play with tend not to worry too much about the composition of the universe and whatnot. A brief explaination of gods and patrons for clerics and warlocks tends to suffice, and then away we go to fight the evil lich and whatever. Of course, if I DMed for a party that DID care about all of the complicated background stuff then sure, I would put a lot of time and effort into because, frankly I enjoy world building. But the players are playing the game, and in my case, they don't care if the sun is a flaming ball of gas, or a giant firey god, or heck even a massive pile of dung pushed along by a giant beetle.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I tend to leave a lot of the world building unexplained. This is partially due to the last time i made a very intricately detailed world, the campaign fell apart rather quickly... Also the players I play with tend not to worry too much about the composition of the universe and whatnot. A brief explaination of gods and patrons for clerics and warlocks tends to suffice, and then away we go to fight the evil lich and whatever. Of course, if I DMed for a party that DID care about all of the complicated background stuff then sure, I would put a lot of time and effort into because, frankly I enjoy world building. But the players are playing the game, and in my case, they don't care if the sun is a flaming ball of gas, or a giant firey god, or heck even a massive pile of dung pushed along by a giant beetle.

Unless they get to ride the beetle.

I do agree with this sentiment though. As fun as worldbuilding is, it is deceptively easy for worldbuilding to detract from the game or story. I think the Terminator movies are a good example of this, specifically the ones everyone likes. All three of the twists in Terminator 2 were already considered for part 1. Casting was initially done from the idea that someone like Schwarzenegger would play the resistance guy while the robot looked smaller and unassuming, there is a deleted scene where Sarah brings up the idea of trying to stop judgement day from happening and there is a deleted ending where it shows the factory from the final showdown belonged to Cyberdyne Systems and they got their ideas from the robot remains they found there. But ultimately those three things were just too much explaining to do. They went with a simpler and more intuitive version of the premise, did that well first and only expanded on it in part 2.

Any setting detail you don't need to tell your story is often best left out. Any detail you don't need to tell your story right now but will need later is a bit more of a grey area, hinting ahead can be fun, but even there more often than we'd think the best option is to not explain it at all and leave it for later.

[Comaward]

Definitely scientific, at least when it comes to monsters. Assuming I understand your definition of the term.

I play 5e, in case it helps.

Setting aside the different actual monster TYPES, most monsters fall into one of the following SUBTYPES:

Elementalist
1. Air
2. Earth
3. Fire
4. Water

Etherealist
1. Magebred (a Wizard deliberately created it)
2. Shadow (mutation from exposure to dark magic)
3. Thought (naturally psionic without being elementalist)
4. Time (either from the distant past, or a possible future)


So for example:

Griffin - air
Illithid - thought
Red Dragon - fire
Owlbear - magebred
Sahuagin - water
Sphinx - time
Stone Giant - earth
Drow - shadow

[PoeticallyPsyco]

The setting I'm working on has three planes.

Heaven, the First World, is pretty much purely mythic. The whole thing is flat, the light comes from no particular source, and what few animals and plants there are certainly didn't evolve, but rather seem to have been created wholesale to add to the aesthetics of the plane.

Earth, the Third World, is pretty much purely scientific. Basically just like our Earth, with a little bit of mythic stuff due to reincarnation (which occurs on all three planes) and ritual magic.

Hell, the Second World, is in between. On the one hand, storms of magic and elemental chaos have resulted in a plane that's somewhere between D&D's Ever Changing Chaos of Limbo and the setting of Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive; on the other, the other aspects of the setting mostly exist as a logical result of setting elements interacting, rather than existing due to divine fiat as in Heaven.

[Cluedrew]

Mythic, I set stories in worlds that are like reality sometimes but those are the ones I don't world build as much. On the opposite extreme I have several settings where I wrote down the approximation of the fundamental principles of the universe after a couple layers of "Why does it work like that?" I do have to cut myself off sometimes or I get to a point where my friend starts saying "You haven't really world built until you get into protein folding." This civilization might not have understood cells so the organals inside the cell were unlikely to be relevant. Some other oddities in the setting's laws were though so I did figure out most of those.

My preference varies on the type of story really. To put it briefly: Don't change things you aren't going to get something out of. The story should benefit from the change in background. Admittedly sometimes just getting the right feel can help a story so it can be a very soft requirement sometimes.