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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Emmit Svenson's Avatar

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    Apr 2007

    Default Resemblance to RTS = Strong Anthropic Principle

    It's too early to say with any degree of certainty, but I tend to disagree with the people on this forum who think Parson is inside an actual game. I think his predicament is better explained with parallel world theory.

    Given an infinite number of parallel universes with different physical laws, it is infinitely likely that at least one will resemble our RTS games. Erfworld is one such.

    Of the infinite number of potential warlords from parallel universes available to the summoning spell, Parson was summoned (among other reasons) because the reality of Erfworld resembles his beloved games, and therefore seems comforting and familiar. But this appearance is deceiving to people from our world, both to Parson and to we readers. Erfworld is not a game in some very key ways: the gods are real, the stakes are real, there are no players with an existance seperate from the pieces or external to the scenario, and there's no way to break the rules...only to work around them.

    I could believe that the world was designed by its gods as an arena for conflict, but that would make it a game in the sense of gladitorial games, not in the sense of computer or table top simulations that Parson associates with the word game. I think it's fair to say Erfworld is a fantasy world that resembles a game, not a literal game.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Jun 2006
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    Default Re: Resemblance to RTS = Strong Anthropic Principle

    I thought this was a given. There are people who think he's actually in a game?

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Magnificent Boop in the Playground
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    Jul 2005
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    Default Re: Resemblance to RTS = Strong Anthropic Principle

    Quote Originally Posted by chionophile View Post
    I thought this was a given. There are people who think he's actually in a game?
    Some lines of interpretation draw a distinction between characters who are part of the game and characters who seem to represent player avatars.

    Trying to distinguish between "really inside a turn-based strategy game" and "in a universe that follows laws corresponding to the rules of a turn-based strategy game" based solely on evidence seen within Erfworld reminds me of the joke about the literary historian who concluded that the Iliad and the Odyssey weren't written by Homer, but rather by some other ancient Greek with the same name.

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