Is "scientification" of fantasy pretensious?

Its a follow up of the "all sufficient advanced enough technology can be considered magic" meme.

Now everyone thinks its cool to try and explain the unexplaimable.

I like it as long as it's not taken too far. Sometimes it ends up being a lot dumber than "It's magic". Personally, I'd make highly magical creatures have a thoroughly supernatural biology which works very differently from ordinary lifeforms.

it's not pretentious, but it's sometimes symptomatic of the kind of people who like to hierarchically organize genre, usually with science fiction at the top and fantasy at the bottom.

it can be really cool if done well though.

I think it's cool. Just because it's worked by forces that isn't constricted by physics or standard biology, that doesn't mean no logical system can be applied on it.

Having things that you can't explain is just lazy worldbuilding though.

I do what OP described and I like both fantasy (high, low, and anything in between) and sci fi equally. They are two different genres with two different goals. I do believe that if you just handwave shit with technobabble or "its magic" then you are just a bad worldbuilder though.

I don't care, as long as there is internal logic and consistency. If it's science, you better explain that shit in a meaningful way. If it's magic, boy you gotta explain what your magic is and how it works, not just say it's magic and move on.

Not really, it's just the application of logic to storytelling which is necessary. Nothing is more frustrating for a reader (and especially a player) than having logic thrown completely out of the window because lol it's magic.

it's true that handwaving with magic or technobabble is essentially the same thing.

at the same time, one of the tenets of fantasy is mystery, so there is value in keeping some rules either hidden or wholly unknown. but i agree - good worldbuilding in fantasy will often have some underlying rules, but keep them hidden, rather than resort to handwaving.

I can't stand it. It's turned monsters from unnatural embodiments of evil forces to just predatory fauna that's higher on the food chain.

How does working out the exact molecular structure of trolls add player agency?

You say, "troll regenerate, they do so at this rate, acid and fire stops it." That's all the players need. Similarly, you can say, "Basilisk eggs take this long to gestate," without working out the exact bioscience behind pseudo-reptilian embryo growth in macrolecithal eggs.

Your examples are the worst possible ones, because that's exactly the kind of the thing the GM should handwave and say happen just because that's how they happen. Not because it's magic, but because a GM has way better things to do with his time than crank out endless theses on the ins and outs of every fake creature in the fake world.

>Having things that you can't explain is just lazy worldbuilding though.
Not really.
If it's consistent with ITSELF, it's awesome.
Adding mystery and unknown variables is ok, and in a lot of cases even makes the world better.

I agree. While I'm more of the person that wants to know all the rules to the setting (even the hidden ones) it's good to have all your internal logic figured out so the setting is consistent. Having magic that is just MYSTERIOUS just so that the worldbuilder can be look smarter than they actually are is retarded.

It's only pretentious if you act pretentious. The point of a lot of fantasy stuff is that it can't be explained. There is nothing wrong with inexplicable phenomena, as long as there is a degree of consistency within the world itself.

It does not matter how dragons fly, so long as there are rules that they must obey.

Scitentim is pretentious. You being on Veeky Forums means you are likely a scientism worshiper.

Not in my opinion. Internal logic is fantastic and every setting should have it, but if that isn't conveyed to the reader/player it's worthless because it may as well not exist if only you know about it. Now, this is different if you are writing a book since taste is a thing but for a tabletop I expect you to explain the logic of the setting and not just handwave shit with technobabble or "its just magic motherfucker"

>Scitentim is pretentious
Please explain your reasoning.

>It's turned monsters from unnatural embodiments of evil forces to just predatory fauna that's higher on the food chain.

I like the idea, but yes; this is where it has to stop. Evil is evil, and good is good. Divine and abyssal things are only done well if it is beyond the scope of what mortal science can achieve.

...

How exactly is that "pretentious" in any way?

Reminder that morality is relative and that except in high fantasy dreamland things are only evil or good by those whom determine what is moral and what isn't.

Eh.
I know an extremely autistic dude who sincerely believes that all creatures from myth can be explained with evolution, and I'm really holding back on screaming in Morbo's voice that evolution does not work that way.

>Reminder that morality is relative

Settings should be internally consistent, it should also be filtered through what the people in the setting know.

In your setting there might be some internally consistent reason for fire breathing dragons, but for the average peasant flying fire breathing lizards might as well be magic.

Oh you're right, there is no cause and effect. All of life is just an incomprehensible chaos impossible to fit into any pattern.

I don't get it.

I don't know if it's pretentious, but...

I guess it's appropriate in the context of contemporary fantasy genre fiction, which has abandoned any desire to draw on the principles of the tradition of symbolic communication that is mythology. Because in contemporary fantasy, a dragon breathing fire is just to make a big scary impressive creature that is "cool".

It doesn't have anything to do with the concepts being communicated symbolically by dragons in myth like Python, Tiamat, the dragons of the book of Revelations, Fafnir, etc.

And that's why Tolkien is the best and contemporary fantasy fiction is garbage. Especially ASoIaF.

Not necessarily, but it often goes too far.

This depends heavily on what is meant by 'conveyed'.

It's entirely possible for a setting to hang together perfectly, but players don't understand it because they aren't paying attention/don't investigate phenomena. There's a reason that some creatures can breathe fire and some can't, but if the PCs never bother to find out which can and which can't they have no chance of figuring it out. I wish I had the cap of the GM of the Red Sails, who played through much of a campaign before the PCs finally realised that the pirate ships with the red sails, which had been dogging them throughout the campaign and featured into the background of at least one player, were in fact affiliated with each other.

The GM is not required to explain how all of the setting works in a textdump, because that leads to . The players should sit up, listen, and ask questions if they want to know more, or accept that some things are just magic.

>circular reasoning is OK when I do it

>Damn he showed me with that very clever and well-thought out comic! Damn I better re-think my position despite him never addressing or questioning my reasoning/thinking at all!

as long as that magic doesn't break it's own rules, no problem.
Science is awesome.
Scientism is the parody of it people who's main interaction with it is facebook posts, while not understanding it's underlying mechanisms.

>never addressing or questioning my reasoning/thinking at all
l a m o

Is this a new meme that I missed?

You are legitimately damaged, there is no point in arguing with you if you can't understand as simple a concept as observation, deduction, theory, testing and induction cycling to catch inconsistencies and improve theories.

While I agree that not everything should be told in an infodump, crucial details that most people in the world would know should be already should be told to them. Info that a person's character should know should be told to them OOC and new info should be told to them IC.

el ay
em oh

Don't mind him, it's just a retard thinking he's so smart because he can post shitty comics.

Nice bait but you are fucking retarded

>nice bait but I use circular reasoning to justify everything I worship haha joke's on you
plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/

Is 'how dragons fly' crucial info?

'Dragons fly because they are magic' seems like it would be enough for most people- they don't need (or have the opportunity to get) a lesson on the metaphysics of dracoforms and their inherent subconscious use of mana fields to sustain themselves in physically impossible acts by performing symbolic gestures like flapping wings.

Most people accept 'birds, planes and bumblebees all fly in different ways, but it's OK because physics.'

I agree with the broader point that PCs should be automatically given the life lessons anyone in this world would learn growing up, but for the subject of the inner workings of magic or ecology of fantastic beats, that doesn't seem to be in the same category.

>posts the same image 3 times in a row as if that will refute anyone's point.
not even the user you were replying to in the first place, bro

>poi
>not refuting scientism
ayyyyyyyyyyy

Is it too much to hope for that it's "Fusion is impossible" "literal horsefucker" user? That guy always makes threads great for a giggle.

For the actual point of the thread: a setting needs to be self-consistent. It doesn't need to be consistent with our world. Other than that, provide exposition to taste.

I mean I personally care about that stuff but that's just me. The majority of my friends are worldbuilders as well so they care about the settings I create. I get what you're trying to say but in my experience I find that people are more satisfied when you show them that there is an internal logic at work in the setting and a method behind the madness.

What do you mean it doesn't need to be consistent with our world? Since most worldbuilders use our reality as a basis for their fictional ones, shouldn't it stand to reason that their settings follow Earth-like rules and foundations?

Is it a thing like "there are different breeds of dragons that have adapted to different environments" or is it a "this is the biological explanation of how a dragon breathes fire" thing?

The former is fine, it adds some flavor to the world and can be used to build something with (these mountain dragons are more dangerous than the forest dragons but rarer and more territorial; they will attack you on sight, while forest dragons will attack only when provoked). The latter is only important if it factors into the world you're creating. (The dragon has a weak spot here that if you stab hard enough you'll rob it of its ability to breathe fire.)

Peasants probably do believe a lot of dumb shit, but you can use that to your advantage as well as a storytelling device. They have superstitions and believe in ill omens for a reason, even if the reason isn't as fantastic as they believe.

The key here is that the world is Earth-LIKE, I suppose - similar but dissimilar in whatever ways are needed to let the setting function properly. If it must follow rules that contradict our own (magic that violates the laws of thermodynamics, etc.,) then it can't be entirely consistent with our world.

He said it doesn't NEED to be consistent with our world. Large parts of it probably will be, for sake of convenience, but so long as whatever is different is consistent within itself (the existence of magic being the obvious example) then it doesn't need to relate to our world at all.

Read what various past cultures thought the laws of physics were. The one I know the most about is the nearly-ubiquitous western "4 elements make up the world, with a fifth governing the heavens which move around on a finite number of perfectly spherical crystalline spheres." It's weird as hell, but now that it's established, we know roughly how any relevant things will act under most circumstances.

he said mortal, not moral.

While the barrier can be pushed trough the roof in a High Fantasy setting, it is advisable for it to be there.
Like look at an oyugh. Scientifically it's just a weak slab of flash, with way too many orifices.
Put it beyond the understanding of logic, and BOOM, it's liquid chaos.

>he said mortal, not moral.

No he didn't

>Reminder that morality is relative

Don't stoop to his level of retardation

I guess what I'm trying to say is that since our only knowledge is of Earth cultures and histories, then how can we make a new set of histories and cultures that are so far away from Earth ones that we can just throw those rules out the door? I understand and agree with the statement of "small details can be different but the underlying fabric follows our same rules" but how can the building blocks of a setting be different to such a degree that it just ignores Earth laws since all we know are Earth laws?

>he said mortal, not moral
>Reminder that morality is relative

not if it at least kinda makes sense
makes world more believeable

Absolutes don't exist user. Just deal with it. No one is absolutely 100% good or evil except in fairy tales and high fantasy, which are designed to have absolutes.
I get what you mean about people changing the nature of something through ignorance but if you say something is 100% that thing then that doesn't make for much internal or moral conflict, especially within nations(see: DAH EVIL EMPIRE) or people/figures (see: DAH DAEMON LORD)

>Basilisk

If you want to run a casual, gamist game that's fine too and I understand, some players just want to eat cheetos and make basic attacks. Nothing wrong with that. Some groups just appreciate the added realism and role playing that a thought out monster ecology brings and GM'S who favour this approach tend to be superior at crafting more logical, consistent and in depth world's.

I think you misunderstood, I was calling the guy who thought 'mortal' instead of 'moral' was said a retard. I wasn't arguing about moral relativism vs absolutism.

I think you're wrong about that, but I'm not going to get into a theological debate, I've got sausages to grill

Here's how I do it:

>look around yourself (metaphorically)
>say something inane that sounds convincing
>>Examples: everything in the world is made of 3 parts, sunlight is how God talks to us, dragons fly through aether, not air
>figure out how that makes sense
>figure out how it making sense makes sense
>ad infinitum

It wont give you a complete Principia Mathematica for your new world, but it helps with general details.

>Absolutes don't exist user. Just deal with it.

Is that a 100% absolute statement?

Nice try, smartass.

No, he's referring to an academic discussion that's actually a thing.

academia.edu/18650015/Six_Signs_of_Scientism_2013_

He's not a smartass, you Sith-ass busta.

If you want off the merry-go-round, the law of causality is also a principle of deductive logic.

It's also non-falsifiable.

Yet still rational. More rational in fact, than induction, where there is always doubt.

Still a valid question. Your absolutist spin on your initial statement was called to the carpet. Then your dismissal and failure to "deal with it," makes it all the worse for you.

If absolutes do not exist absolutely, then that's a logical contradiction begging the question. If that's true, then you're either an existentialist, lying, or insane. A reasonably sane existentialist (absurdist) wouldn't dare make an absolute statement, unless they were stupid or willfully ignorant.

Seeing that "there are no absolutes" is absurd, we can rationally conclude there is at least one absolute. Even a dilettante like Ayn Rand understood this.

>a pseudo-intellectual tries to argue philosophy with someone on an anonymous imageboard
Pray tell then: is there an absolute evil in our world? Because everyone has a different idea of what is right and wrong. Just look at politics.

>using human moral positions as the basis for determining absolute morality

theresyourproblem.jpg

damn you Veeky Forums, my sausages are going to burn

If human moral positions can't determine absolute morality, then it is impossible for it to exist in our reality as we know it.

No, he's not. "Scientism" refers to people putting too much stock in anything perceived as scientific even if real science doesn't pretend to cover it, like claiming science proves/disproves the existence of god when deities, by their very nature, exist outside the laws that govern the observable universe. We're not talking about epistemology here, we're talking about fiction writing.

This whole thread reeks of "I got a C+ in Intro to Philosophy and that means I know EVERYTHING"

Deductive reasoning does not utilize cause and effect.
Besides, it's mostly the uniformity principle that you have issue with.
Deductive reasoning doesn't utilize the uniformity principle, while inductive reasoning requires it.

To illustrate, given I expect hardly anyone to actually understand the situation given you're philosophical laymen:
"All bachelors are unmarried" is an a priori true deductive statement. It doesn't not require the uniformity principle. It does not require causality.
"I am a bachelor" is an inductive claim - it needs to be tested against experience in order to confirm its truth or falsity. This *does* require that the world and our experience be consistent, because if they weren't then we would be incapable of saying whether or not I am, in fact, a bachelor.

It doesn't matter what people think. Their subjective opinions are irrelevant to the objective morality laid out by the Almighty God. Burn in hell cocksucking degenerate.

I genuinely dont understand what "sientism" is meant to be

Someone has to make the rules for an objective reality to exist or be made apparent to all. If you can lay out the qualities of what an objective morality is, then I will believe you.

>a pseudo-intellectual tries to argue philosophy with someone on an anonymous imageboard

Which, I must admit, is a waste of time and I apologize. But then again, I didn't shit all over the thread. I'm just here to clean it up.

>Pray tell then: is there an absolute evil in our world?

Which would imply a converse moral absolute. So I need to address that first.

And there is a tie-in here to what I previously wrote.

If there is at least one absolute, let's say the law of identity ("A = A"), then we can know through reason that this is absolutely true by default.

IF absolutely true, then moral truth can be demonstrated mathematically. Which, when one realizes it from that perspective, is kind of "duh" obvious. But it's not obvious to the majority who ignorantly and forcefully assert, "There are no absolutes!" Thus, it is necessary to press on.

Therefore, if there is at least one absolute moral truth, then there is at least one absolute evil we can point to, being anyone who violates this one (objective and absolute) moral truth.

Which is more commonly known as lying.

Therefore, "yes." That is how to recognize absolute evil. Anyone who wishes to force doubt upon at least one absolute is lying, just as those who wish to re-create reality in some other form, or who "self-identify" something that doesn't exist in reality.

>pretensious
No.

>fun
In my opinion, also no.

Laughing... ass my off?

You do realize that everyone else here can see you deliberately ignoring my direct academic citation, which includes a much more rigorous definition of scientism than your opinion here.

>This whole thread reeks of "I got a C+ in Intro to Philosophy and that means I know EVERYTHING"

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

I know God causes your fedora to tip uncontrollably, but that doesn't make the morality He has laid down for all reality stop existing.

> Is "scientification" of fantasy pretensious?
My players will experiment so I am kinda forced to do so. They're awesome.

>he said mortal, not moral.
well damn, now I feel stupid. I'll go to the corner of stupids if you'll excuse me.

This literally makes no sense.

>depends on the setting

>Deductive reasoning does not utilize cause and effect.

Ignorant fallacy of assertion. Note how he steers away in the very next statement here.

>Besides, it's mostly the uniformity principle that you have issue with. Deductive reasoning doesn't utilize the uniformity principle, while inductive reasoning requires it.

Yes. Which is still subject to doubt. Inferring a predictive claim doesn't mean for certain one's prediction will necessarily come true. Thus, it's not in a law of knowledge in and of itself, no matter what your professor may have inferred otherwise.

>To illustrate, given I expect hardly anyone to actually understand the situation given you're philosophical laymen:

Dat smugness.

>"All bachelors are unmarried" is an a priori true deductive statement. It doesn't not require the uniformity principle. It does not require causality.

Causality isn't limited to inductive arguments alone. You seem to be missing the classical law of causality within classical deduction, which is simply law of identity in motion. "Every effect requires an antecedent cause." Cats like Bertrand Russell fucked this up, and early in his life too, I might add.

>This *does* require that the world and our experience be consistent, because if they weren't then we would be incapable of saying whether or not I am, in fact, a bachelor.

Yet the consistency you're assuming is, of course, assumed. Therefore, ever and always subject to doubt. This includes your own statements. That is, if you're going to be dogmatic about it.

I think its a social trend. Being able to explain something makes it feel legitimate or deep, and the people who play ttrpg games are typically nerds who like to mine things for explanations because in real life that is a smart thing to do. It's about not being able to "suppose".

We are talking about people who legitimately do not understand the concept of negative possibility space. There are lots of them in ttrpg gaming for obvious reasons.

You are a laymen who thinks he understands way more than he actually does - thank you for showing everyone.

>Yes. Which is still subject to doubt

>"All bachelors are unmarried"
>subject to doubt

Just kill yourself you cringe-worthy autist. I swear hardly a soul with a fucking brain or any understanding of first order logic frequents this cess-pool of a board.

>Kant
>God is perfect, guys, so he exists
What a retarded fucking asshole. He shoulda stopped at Solipsism.

>missing the point entirely - the post

>You are a laymen who thinks he understands way more than he actually does - thank you for showing everyone.

I admit I'm a layman. But no one here has actually demonstrated exactly how I'm wrong. All contrary responses to my posts have been foaming-at-the-mouth assertions. Which are worth nothing without actually taking on the burden of refutation.

>"All bachelors are unmarried"
>subject to doubt

Your doubt in this case, is forced. You believe doubt can be waved around like some magic wand, and if someone points out your dogmatic use of doubt, you get all triggered.

"Bachelor" by definition. . .

bach·e·lor
ˈbaCH(ə)lər/
noun: bachelor; plural noun: bachelors

1. a man who is not and has never been married.
"Mark is a confirmed bachelor"

Therefore, you're forcing doubt on the very definition of the very term in question.

Some would even call it lying. :)

>Just kill yourself you cringe-worthy autist. I swear hardly a soul with a fucking brain or any understanding of first order logic frequents this cess-pool of a board.

Wow. Even more hubris here. I was just looking for tips on my game when I came across the lol-worthy, "There are no absolutes" absolutist assertion.

I believe it can be very useful in a campaign. If nothing other than to make for a great setting to introduce more NPCs.

Pic related. Maybe their day job is wizardry.

I'm not going to bother wasting my time on someone who's so obviously an austistic cringe-worthy nerdshit. You types are better left to rot in your cloistered shitty circle-jerk world of like-minded autists so the rest of the world doesn't have to deal with you. Wasted so much of my life trying to explain things to people like you.

You *literally think* "all bachelor's are unmarried" is a proposition of which there can be doubt. You don't know *JACK SHIT* about logic, since that is *ABSOLUTELY WRONG*.

Bai bai~