Why is D&D still Medieval?

[Clistenes]

Hours? Sounds a bit generous.

Use Polymorph Any Object to turn 2000 cubic feet of matter into antimatter.

Use Polymorph Any Object to turn 2000 cubic feet of matter into strange quark matter (similar to what is hypothesized to form the core of neutron stars...).

Okay. the first one would probably destroy only life on Earth, and the second would destroy only planet Earth, or maybe the Solar System, if some strange quark matter ends spreading around during the destruction of Earth...

But if we figure a way to create a False Vacuum, the universe is ****ed...

[Bohandas]

I've reread the Greyhawk 2000 article. It says that gunpowder weapons were used formerly but are now obsolete

[Xuc Xac]

Use Polymorph Any Object to turn 2000 cubic feet of matter into antimatter.

Use Polymorph Any Object to turn 2000 cubic feet of matter into strange quark matter (similar to what is hypothesized to form the core of neutron stars...).

It can't make rare materials. You can't even use it to make silver or gold.

[Satinavian]

Meh.

It is less that D&D spells like Polymorph any object produce a lot of problems when mixed with modern science. And more that those spells (as most of D&Ds magic) were not written with any regard to how they fit into worldbuilding. We don't get Tippyverse because of science. We get it when trying to apply reason to D&D magic.

If I ever want to make or discuss a setting with magic that makes sense, i would certainly not use the D&D magic system and its spells for that.

[Clistenes]

It can't make rare materials. You can't even use it to make silver or gold.

The rules as written say that you can't make expensive materials... but strange quark matter hasn't a market price...

[Max_Killjoy]

Meh.

It is less that D&D spells like Polymorph any object produce a lot of problems when mixed with modern science. And more that those spells (as most of D&Ds magic) were not written with any regard to how they fit into worldbuilding. We don't get Tippyverse because of science. We get it when trying to apply reason to D&D magic.

If I ever want to make or discuss a setting with magic that makes sense, i would certainly not use the D&D magic system and its spells for that.

It's faerie-tale / just-so.

"A is true, because we said so. B is true, because we said so. Etc. But nothing can be extrapolated from any of those true things, and those true things do not interact."

IMO, it's them trying to eat their cake and have it too -- putting things in the secondary world, but not having them in any way affect the secondary world.

[warty goblin]

It seems strange to me to complain that magic runs on fairy tale non-logic. Of course it does, it is literally magical thinking. That's the point of having magic in a story, you want some level of impossible, inconsistent stuff in there; if you didn't want that you wouldn't include magic.

[InvisibleBison]

It seems strange to me to complain that magic runs on fairy tale non-logic. Of course it does, it is literally magical thinking. That's the point of having magic in a story, you want some level of impossible, inconsistent stuff in there; if you didn't want that you wouldn't include magic.

There are lots of stories that have magic work in a logical and consistent fashion.

[Morgaln]

It seems strange to me to complain that magic runs on fairy tale non-logic. Of course it does, it is literally magical thinking. That's the point of having magic in a story, you want some level of impossible, inconsistent stuff in there; if you didn't want that you wouldn't include magic.

Impossible, yes. Inconsistent, no. I'm fine with magic breaking the laws of physics, that's why it is magic. I'm not fine with magic breaking its own laws. If magic works a certain ways, it should keep working that way and not suddenly change. In other words, I subscribe to Sanderson's laws of magic.

[Anonymouswizard]

The rules as written say that you can't make expensive materials... but strange quark matter hasn't a market price...

This kind of rules-lawyering is why the world won't end in minutes, it takes time to work this stuff out.

It seems strange to me to complain that magic runs on fairy tale non-logic. Of course it does, it is literally magical thinking. That's the point of having magic in a story, you want some level of impossible, inconsistent stuff in there; if you didn't want that you wouldn't include magic.

It makes more sense if the game has fairy tale theming, such as Changeling, but many games do not. Fairy tails are somewhat different to modern fantasy, which stems from differences in culture and the intent of the writers (although some stories straddle the line).

If you want magic to follow fairy tale logic you have to have ti actually follow that logic. Why do Changelings have so many weird powers only connected by vague themes? Because they formed contracts with various concepts that let them do that! How did they manage to form these contracts? Because they're fairies! (albiet ones that began as humans). Why can fairies form those contracts? Good boys and girls don't ask annoying questions.

[HouseRules]

The rules as written say that you can't make expensive materials... but strange quark matter hasn't a market price...

Extremely rare and arguably expensive material are labeled as priceless.
No market price works for them.

[Willie the Duck]

IMO, it's them trying to eat their cake and have it too -- putting things in the secondary world, but not having them in any way affect the secondary world.

I've always said the cake-and-eat-it-to issue for D&D is that they want to have it both ways on whether there is a default world to begin with. We're not going to lay out specifically if every castle has 20 ballistas up top to deal with all the dragons that will be attacking because it's up to the individual DM if that's really what happens, but here's a dozen different campaign settings with every patch of land mapped and labelled and how all the different creatures and factions interact spelled out in exacting detail.

It makes more sense if the game has fairy tale theming, such as Changeling, but many games do not. Fairy tails are somewhat different to modern fantasy, which stems from differences in culture and the intent of the writers (although some stories straddle the line).

If you want magic to follow fairy tale logic you have to have ti actually follow that logic. Why do Changelings have so many weird powers only connected by vague themes? Because they formed contracts with various concepts that let them do that! How did they manage to form these contracts? Because they're fairies! (albiet ones that began as humans). Why can fairies form those contracts? Good boys and girls don't ask annoying questions.

D&D seems to have travelled far from fairy tale influences (although the focus on the feywild in 4e did bring it back a bit), but the framework still more resembles them then much of fantasy fiction. In particular, it acts like a collection of fairy tales, where each individual one may have a consistent logic, but they need not be the same how they interact may be pretty vague society exists as normal despite their existence because they are really rare and stick to out of the way places and so forth. Modern fantasy, what with across-the-world consistent magical logic and worldbuilding certainly owes a debt to both fairy tales and D&D, but certainly has moved on (orthogonally, mostly) to a consistency that works much better for a modern novel than fairy tale kitchen sink does.

[Max_Killjoy]

I've always said the cake-and-eat-it-to issue for D&D is that they want to have it both ways on whether there is a default world to begin with. We're not going to lay out specifically if every castle has 20 ballistas up top to deal with all the dragons that will be attacking because it's up to the individual DM if that's really what happens, but here's a dozen different campaign settings with every patch of land mapped and labelled and how all the different creatures and factions interact spelled out in exacting detail.



D&D seems to have travelled far from fairy tale influences (although the focus on the feywild in 4e did bring it back a bit), but the framework still more resembles them then much of fantasy fiction. In particular, it acts like a collection of fairy tales, where each individual one may have a consistent logic, but they need not be the same how they interact may be pretty vague society exists as normal despite their existence because they are really rare and stick to out of the way places and so forth. Modern fantasy, what with across-the-world consistent magical logic and worldbuilding certainly owes a debt to both fairy tales and D&D, but certainly has moved on (orthogonally, mostly) to a consistency that works much better for a modern novel than fairy tale kitchen sink does.

Agreed, on both.

They build the game like there are a bunch of "setting facts" from a default world, but then also want to not have a default world.

And yeah, fantasy fiction really isn't more than a Venn overlap with part of faerie-tales at this point.