GMing a D&D lite game for a group of kids

>GMing a D&D lite game for a group of kids
>"Alright you convince the wizard to help you infiltrate the goblins lair!"
>"He casts a spell and turns you all invisible!"
>Kid suddenly closes his eyes and holds up his hands
>"AH! HELP! I CAN'T SEE!"
>"Uh. [kid's name] what's wrong?"
>"If you're invisible light goes through you."
>"So it doesn't reach your eyes and you can't see anything."
>I chuckle a bit
>"That's silly I mean..."
>I freeze
>"Uh..."
>"It's magic?"
>"Yea but the magic just makes us invisible. He'd need to cast another spell to have us see right?"

tfw you're outsmarted by an 8 year old.

Uh, never thought of that.
What happened after that what did you do?

>not saying that's included in the invisibility because it was a clever wizard

Man, you really did just get schooled by a child.

rip OP

>That same game
>"The evil goblin mage holds aloft his hand and a FIREBALL appears within it!"
>Same kid goes "HAH! HE JUST BURNED HIS HAND!"
>"[kids name] it's a magic fireball it doesn't hurt him."
>"Yes it does. That's why wizards use wands and staffs and crystals! So the stuff they make doesn't hurt them."

This kid is gonna make some poor DM out there REALLY ANGRY when he's older.

I just had the wizard cast another spell so they could see.

He was happy with it after that.

>invisibilty surrounds you in a reactive sphere of illusionary magic that projects the image of what's behind/around you to it's opposing surface.
>this way your opponents are technically looking around you not through you

Kill off his character and make him cry.

Get out of here, Lenin.
You could have told him that is not how magic works in this game.

Nah I just told him the goblin has magic gloves that resist fire.

He bought that.

This, OP.
RIP (You).
Part of the spell is dedicated to directing the magical force, which is why it moves forwards instead of just exploding outwards.
No, I'm not drawing you a model.
Dude, this kid should be the DM rather than you.

>kid fires back that you being inside of said sphere would be like standing in a mirror ball

>"Yes it does. That's why wizards use wands and staffs and crystals! So the stuff they make doesn't hurt them."

Heh, that's a pretty good point. I think it's important to encourage clever and creative kids like that.

That said it's an evil goblin mage. If it was me I'd just say he the mage doesn't give a fuck because he's drunk with power and channeling magic without a focus is exhilarating.

Explaining the intricacies of how arcane energy operates and moves is more boring than magic gloves.

Least I felt that way.

I wanted to avoid feeling like I had to give science lectures on something that doesn't exist.

I could write you an essay on how magic like this would theoretically work (actually making yourself completely invisible while 'seeing' with divination, for example) but I'm not that autistic yet.

>outer surface to outer surface projection. Think of it like a two-way mirror. You can see through it from one side, but the other is like a living IMAX screen.

And I am sure the kid in OPs story -is- autistic enough to keep arguing with you.

I can't decide if this kid is really imaginative or a future That Guy.

Lead him on the right path, OP. Veeky Forums can never have enough That Guy stories.

>"Yes it does. That's why wizards use wands and staffs and crystals! So the stuff they make doesn't hurt them."
But by the same logic the fireball would destroy the medium anyway.

>magic is formless. A wizard bends and shapes it into a desired final shape/form/force. The fireball gives light because the wizard wills it. It gives off heat because the wizard wills it.
>the fireball doesn't burn him because he's not finished casting it; at which point he hurls it at you before it can hurt him significantly. Only then does it give off heat.

That Kid thread? Anyone else has experiences to share?

But the light isn't actually going through him, that's a pretty autistic way of thinking about it. If a spell made you invisible at a molecular level you'd turn into some sort of wind elemental, you wouldn't be allowed to hold a solid form at all. Tell him he's just surrounded by an aura that refracts the majority of light around the other side of his body, giving off more light than it's letting in.

Don't think it is really a that kid.
OP' kid wasn't really That bad, just some kid innocently trying to make sense of the universe he is in;
it's just happened that it wasn't something the GM thought about this way. not a That Guy move.

In this case either shut him done, or go with the flow.

If you wish to rework invisibility for this, they're working on real invisibility by making the light bend around the object, like water around a rock in a river.

Another spell to let them see works great though

>wizards have to use a focus to cast magic

Except this setting isn't gay, kid. Magic here is cool and not homosexual in any way.

RIP in spaghetti, never forgetti.

Give that child a private school!

Maybe the spell just makes people think they can't see you, that's how VTM handled it.

just scorch it a little
that's why 'mend' is a cantrip

> the spere does not only produce a photon of the same wavelength of the original on the opposing side, but it also creates another photon that goes inside the sphere like nothing happened. Photons however can't leave the inside of the sphere, will be destroyed once they hit the inner wall of the sphere
> this means that the sphere requires double the energy of the light that hits you to stay stable, making it easier to cast on smaller creatures, or at night
> if you are wearing very reflective clothes (like polished armor) this will help reduce the loss of energy to thermal energy, and the photons that hit the inside of the sphere will 'recharge' the sphere a lot easier, making invisible knights not uncommon.
> however metal armor is not as silent, and if you want to sneak and be invisible you need a more powerfull spell
Fuck you, we need more autism to save this board. We used to have shit like this all the time.

fuk man
invisibility spells are hard

I think you should let this kid be DM

I'd play a game where physics actively works against magical users

>I cast elemental aura, choosing ice
>Good job, fucko. Enjoy hypothermia as the air inside your little winter bubble chills drastically

Invisible not incorporeal.
You're still there thus light still enters your eyes, but they like the rest of you are transparent.

Fuck me OP. I hope you don't have a job where you have any kind of responsibility at all. That would have highly dangerous for the people around you.

>You're still there thus light still enters your eyes, but they like the rest of you are transparent.
The kid said, correctly, that "light goes through you." You said the same thing when you said that they're transparent. He wasn't technically correct when he said that the "light doesn't reach your eyes," but he was correct in that a transparent eye would be impossible: how can the retina absorb rays if light passes through it? Incorporeality has nothing to do with it unless you accept 's point about it.

You just dressed the magic up in different words, you didn't solve the problem at all. You have no right to talk shit to OP like that when you can't do any better yourself. At least OP was self-effacing about his bullshit solution.

Wow, it's almost like fucking MAGIC doesn't obey the laws of physics as we know them.

Who woulda thought it?

>a transparent eye would be impossible
Would it?
If the body was there, it had mass and so affected the light particles that it came into contact with then why couldn't it operate in the same way as a normal eye?
The light would not simply pass through it regardless, as light doesn't just pass through glass.

Even if it worked that way, it would be receiving light from all directions at once so you'd just see white.

Magnetic fields will move objects with resonance even though there is no direct contact with the source of the emission. So why couldn't an invisible detector still measure the light passing through it?

>light doesn't just pass through glass
Yes, it does. If you want to be very precise about it, it doesn't always just PASS through it, because sometimes the light is absorbed by impurities or the light is focused somehow, but it still usually passes through it.
Unless I'm making a fundamental misunderstanding of how the retina works, a retina which allows light to pass through it simply would not work. The possibility of a hypothetical "invisible detector" that uses a different means of light detection is not relevant.

How does it feel to be BTFO by an 8 year old?

Good thread OP. Sounds like fun.

Not so.
You would only be receiving the information detected from the retina as once past it the signals to the brain are electrical.
You also have to remember that the retina is curved so that it will only pick up light from in front of the eyeball. Yes I will agree that it would be like your eye had been removed from it's socket and so much more light would be captured.
But it would not all be white. Think about this why isn't the light your receiving now all white?
Light and colour happens when light rebounds off objects which absorb some of the light spectrum, nothing has changed in that respect.

>Not understanding that light particles move through, resonate and refract when hitting glass.

>fundamental misunderstanding
Care to explain what that fundamental element is? Or are you just going to say I fail to understand something and then proceed to tell me you're right? Perhaps you need to go back to reading your Bible.

>The possibility of a hypothetical "invisible detector" that uses a different means of light detection is not relevant.
Actually I'm afraid that's the entire point of the discussion and therefore extremely relevant.

ITT: things that never happened.

You seem to be under the impression that the retina somehow "captures" light instead of reacting to it. If it passed through completely it would still be able to respond to touching it.

>metal armor is loud
Not if you use WD40.

This kid should get checked on autism.

For* autism, or checked for his place on the autistic spectrum.

...what.

The retina is transparent. Being curved does not allow it to block light from entering. Every receptor would simultaneously be exposed to light from every direction at once.

It's called Conservation of Energy, user.

>>Not understanding that light particles move through, resonate and refract when hitting glass.
Except I said as much myself:
>sometimes light is absorbed by impurities or the light is focused somehow
What did you think I meant by light being "focused" if I wasn't referring to refraction?
"Fundamental" refers to my core understanding of how the retina works. I'm not a fundamentalist, nor does what I know about the human eye related to the Bible at all. Is English your first language?
>Actually I'm afraid that's the entire point of the discussion and therefore extremely relevant.
I shouldn't have said "irrelevant," but if we're talking about a hypothetical transparent light detector that doesn't use the same mechanism as a human eye, the question would have to then become "but can a human eye work in the same way?" I'm not convinced it can.

You're right about this, actually, but if the light merely passes through the retina, how does the mechanism of detection work? My understanding is that light is absorbed by the retina, and via a photochemical process that energy is converted into the signal sent through the optic nerve to the brain. This was my impression when I began talking about this and customary googling to double-check myself seems to back me up.

>every direction at once
There are only receptors on the front of the retina, and only facing the aperture of the pupil.

>Unless I'm making a fundamental misunderstanding of how the retina works, a retina which allows light to pass through it simply would not work
Retina is very, very thin. And indeed ALMOST transparent. The absolute most of the light reaching it passes through it.

Not how that works. Can't react to light (detect) without affecting light (not be transparent). Heisenberg's Uncertainty.

>"If you're invisible light goes through you."
Wrong. If you're invisible it means you cannot been visually detected. Light doesn't pass through, no nonsense of photons, you just cannot be seen.

I'm glad we're in agreement that light touches glass even through it is transparent.

Hahaha fucking hell you yank tard. I referred to the fact that you failed to provide proof for your argument I just used your wording (fundamental misunderstanding). I then likened you to a person that argues based upon faith and not fact as an insult.

No you shouldn't have said irrelevant.
You claim you don't think the concept holds any merit but then in your next statement agree with the premise.
(both your linked comments were posted by myself btw)

Well that's a completely incorrect implementation of the principle.

Light is detected based on the affect it has upon its surrounding particles. It is not destroyed in the process.

I'm just going to point out that magic. in general, is incredibly anti-scientific, and completely falls apart if you try to apply real world physics to it.

>Uh, never thought of that.
Really? Seems pretty obvious to me.

>I referred to the fact that you failed to provide proof for your argument I just used your wording (fundamental misunderstanding).
But you didn't provide proof for your argument, either. I was being charitable by assuming you'd simply made a misunderstanding instead of just insulting me.
>You claim you don't think the concept holds any merit but then in your next statement agree with the premise.
I went too far by calling it "irrelevant," but I don't see how I've been inconsistent by stating that a hypothetical transparent light-detector would not necessarily work the same way as a hypothetical human eye, and that by claiming such a detector could exist does little for proving that a human eye could detect light if it did not effect light.
>(both your linked comments were posted by myself btw)
It was kind of obvious. So what?

>The back of the retina would block the light
The back of the retina is transparent. That's the entire premise.

>But you didn't provide proof for your argument, either.
Bugger off what was that fucking essay's worth of posts then?

>made a misunderstanding instead of just insulting me
Nope. Insult.

>does little for proving that a human eye could detect light if it did not effect light.
Whhaaaaaaaa.
You were litterally just in agreement with me that a transparent object would effect light!

>So what?
You're agreeing with one and arguing with another that makes the same point!

Bloody pissing dick nipples.
Had enough can't be dealing with the 15 year old American kids tonight.

Receptors. No receptors on the back.

>Bugger off what was that fucking essay's worth of posts then?
I don't know. You don't seem to think my posts were worth anything.
>You were litterally just in agreement with me that a transparent object would effect light!
Yes, but "effect" does not necessarily mean "detect." That's a critical distinction, and, frankly speaking, a really obvious one.
Consider an eye with a damaged retina. Light will still enter the eye and be effected by the cornea and retina, but the light itself will not be detected by the eye because the detection mechanism itself is damaged. It would be idiotic to suggest that an eye does not effect light, which is why I have not suggested that.

You'd probably be having an easier time if you weren't getting so worked up about it.

The invisibility probably works on a mental or spiritual level, not a physical one. Rather than effecting how you interact with light it effects other's ability to see you.
You could play around this by adding some sort of side effect where all images of the character become invisible. So when effected by certain invisibility magics, he would disappear from paintings and photos as well.

The fireball could similarly be spiritual. Only the astral shadow of fire until it leaves the mage's control.
Or it could be a ki-energy type deal. The mage's hand could be the thing generating the ball of fire. His chakras could be moving at the same frequency as the heat of the flame.
Or it could be entirely chemical and part of the spell's daily preparation is coating your hand in a heat resistant potion. The spell burns it up on use though.
Or it could be a mix of two or all of the above (which is my favourite, magic is best when it's a mix of art, science and mysticism with not true unifying element)

The kid's idea of wands and staves being safety precautions for the wizard is pretty cool though. He should be applauded for his creativity but warned about injecting major setting decisions into other people's games.

Also you don't have to give a reason to everything right away. Describe what happens, don't flip-flop, keep your cool. Make your players feel sure this has all been thought out and tackle it later. You don't even have to say it's magic, that ruins the possibility for PC discovery and the potential for illusions on the part of the GM.

Ha. Indeed, I remember when Veeky Forums would derail shitposting threads with something, if not worthwhile, at least interesting stuff.