It's not breaking the laws of reality if you introduce new ones!

[Dusk Raven]

So, there are times in fantasy settings where you encounter something that doesn't make sense. "But that can't happen!" "That's not realistic!" "What the hell?!"

The most common response? "It's Magic!" Few responses are more infuriating to a person such as I, who likes things to make sense.

But what if that doesn't need to be the answer? What if we could introduce new universal constants to replace the ones being thrown out in the name of fantasy?

For instance... something I was thinking earlier, we don't actually need to have diseases work the same way they do in real life. People wouldn't even be aware of the intricacies of how diseases work, so frankly, it's not like they'll know the difference. Diseases can work however you darn well like!

Or even better - people in a medieval setting don't know about germ theory, how about cell theory? Why should living creatures be made of tiny biological machines? How ridiculous! Everyone knows that living beings are actually shaped from amorphous bio-aether and infused with vital essence! They function holistically, without all the messiness of a multitude of cellular organisms!

...I feel like I'm not explaining this very well, so the idea is - we have these ideas of how things work in real life, but knowing these, how can we find fantastic ways to get around them while explaining how they work? I seem to recall I got the idea after being called out for relying too much on modern knowledge of matter and energy, and while my stance on that particular issue has not changed, it did make me think...

[LudicSavant]

History is a good resource for inspiration, as many modern scientific concepts have ancient precursors (not to mention a laundry list of long-since-falsified alternative hypotheses).

For example, Nigoda is an ancient concept of microorganisms from a religion thousands of years old, but if you ask around D&D forums for long you're liable to hear some misleading information about how there was no concept of microorganisms in medieval times. That's rather like saying there was no concept of fire back when people believed phlogiston was a thing.

Here's another example, with ideas about evolution going back long before Darwin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor...ught#Antiquity

As another example, IIRC Lovecraft's monsters had wings because they had to wing their way through the luminiferous aether, which people used to believe was a thing.

[Mechalich]

Alternative physical laws are quite common in fantasy. D&D, to use the obvious example, breaks most of the standards and replaces them with its own. For example: atomic theory, yeah no, there's a four element system instead (which OOTS has mocked repeatedly). Likewise, D&D violates the laws of thermodynamics at a basic level and has a two-energy system instead. Spelljammer even went so far as to drastically rewrite the laws of gravity.

The problem with doing this is that it is extremely easy to screw up. Modern gamers have the advantage of modern scientific education, the internet, and disruptive imaginations. Working with real-world physical laws as a baseline means a GM can safely disallow a wide variety of absurdities as being impossible. When you change the laws that may no longer apply. To use the D&D example again: because the laws of thermodynamics no longer apply, you can build perpetual motion machines of the first kind, which means you can get up to all sorts of shenanigans involving infinite energy supplies.

So generally, it is much easier to write a fantasy that says: the real-world laws of physics are maintained except in these cases where they are violated by magic - which being magic has lower verisimilitude requirements - rather than trying to come up with new, magical laws that simulate the universe.

[Bohandas]

Alternative physical laws are quite common in fantasy. D&D, to use the obvious example, breaks most of the standards and replaces them with its own. For example: atomic theory, yeah no, there's a four element system instead (which OOTS has mocked repeatedly). Likewise, D&D violates the laws of thermodynamics at a basic level and has a two-energy system instead. Spelljammer even went so far as to drastically rewrite the laws of gravity.

It's not even that close. Most of those things correspond only in terminology

[Yora]

The problem with doing this is that it is extremely easy to screw up. Modern gamers have the advantage of modern scientific education, the internet, and disruptive imaginations. Working with real-world physical laws as a baseline means a GM can safely disallow a wide variety of absurdities as being impossible. When you change the laws that may no longer apply. To use the D&D example again: because the laws of thermodynamics no longer apply, you can build perpetual motion machines of the first kind, which means you can get up to all sorts of shenanigans involving infinite energy supplies.

I think the key is to keep a consistency in how things behave and then not going too deeply into the laws that govern them. Everything that people need to know is that if they do one thing, another thing will happen. And if they do exactly the same thing, exactly the same result will happen.

The First Law of magic applies here as well: "The ability to solve problems with magic in a satisfying way is directly proportional to how well the rules of that magic are known."
You can have settings in which very weird things happen and nobody really understands how or why, and it won't be a problem as long as these weird things aren't important to overcome obstacles and solve conflicts. If the characters are supposed to use those weird things to their advantage and have to be on their guard to not have them used against them, then people need to know what is possible and how it can be used.

[NichG]

Start with what's impossible, then figure out what that leaves you. That's a good way to avoid accidental infinite loops and such. Also, there's no reason that the people in the setting should have access to the 100% true theory of reality. Building in mistakes or limits of knowledge helps to create opportunity for mystery and progress.

For example, let's replace cell theory. Instead, organisms are actually knots tied in the fabric of causality. That is to say, there is some destiny which requires a vehicle for its fulfillment to exist. Therefore, while everything else decays and falls apart, there's an almost Maxwell's demon effect which holds living things together. Death doesn't thwart that destiny, it just redistributes it to other living things - so when one eats a creature, they're taking responsibility for a fragment of its future - and so are more readily sustained. This can also be exploited by risking a life in a way that prevents the transfer of destiny. Doing so can force unlikely events to come to be in order to keep that fragment fulfilled - e.g. magic or feats of supernatural scale.

However, people in the setting don't know all that. They recognize that there is some vital force that resides in living things, that the vital force transfers between beings when one is eaten, and that casting magic involves manipulating and risking that vital force. They don't know what the destiny is, or understand how to create that kind of self-fulfilling casual loop, or the connection between magic use and fate in general (destined individuals tend to be better at the supernatural, but most people think that skill at the supernatural leads one to a grand destiny, not vice versa). Once destiny for a person is fulfilled, they tend to become weaker, but that effect is not recognized or understood by the current civilization. Various mysteries can then involve creatures or civilizations that interact with the underlying thing differently. Undead are creatures that live off of creating twists and distortions in the casual loops of the living - basically, they weave themselves parasitically into the destinies of others. So if all life ended, the undead would not be able to continue either (but that is not know - people just know that the undead always have some kind of hunger for the living), etc.

[Bohandas]

So generally, it is much easier to write a fantasy that says: the real-world laws of physics are maintained except in these cases where they are violated by magic - which being magic has lower verisimilitude requirements - rather than trying to come up with new, magical laws that simulate the universe.

It's easier but ofttimes also cheaper

EDIT:
Now that I mention it, the handling of magic on the planes after second edition (which has mostly consisted of not handling it) is also kind of cheap.

[Mechalich]

It's easier but ofttimes also cheaper

EDIT:
Now that I mention it, the handling of magic on the planes after second edition (which has mostly consisted of not handling it) is also kind of cheap.

The planes are indeed a good example of how hard and messy this sort of thing can be. Planescape essentially developed a rule set, in 2e, that treated every single plane as a different universe with different physical and magical laws. The result was incredibly complicated, impossible to remember, and extremely frustrating to try and play - to the point that even some of the most hardcore 2e Planescape players (speaking from personal experience here) either ran mono-planar campaigns, provided magical workarounds to cheat, or simply ignored a huge chunk of the various rules for planar environments.

[Bohandas]

The planes are indeed a good example of how hard and messy this sort of thing can be. Planescape essentially developed a rule set, in 2e, that treated every single plane as a different universe with different physical and magical laws. The result was incredibly complicated, impossible to remember, and extremely frustrating to try and play - to the point that even some of the most hardcore 2e Planescape players (speaking from personal experience here) either ran mono-planar campaigns, provided magical workarounds to cheat, or simply ignored a huge chunk of the various rules for planar environments.

Ironically it's a lot more viable now than it was when it was official due the the fact that if they had those rules now they could release an android app to keep track of it

[JBPuffin]

Start with what's impossible, then figure out what that leaves you. That's a good way to avoid accidental infinite loops and such. Also, there's no reason that the people in the setting should have access to the 100% true theory of reality. Building in mistakes or limits of knowledge helps to create opportunity for mystery and progress.

For example, let's replace cell theory. Instead, organisms are actually knots tied in the fabric of causality. That is to say, there is some destiny which requires a vehicle for its fulfillment to exist. Therefore, while everything else decays and falls apart, there's an almost Maxwell's demon effect which holds living things together. Death doesn't thwart that destiny, it just redistributes it to other living things - so when one eats a creature, they're taking responsibility for a fragment of its future - and so are more readily sustained. This can also be exploited by risking a life in a way that prevents the transfer of destiny. Doing so can force unlikely events to come to be in order to keep that fragment fulfilled - e.g. magic or feats of supernatural scale.

However, people in the setting don't know all that. They recognize that there is some vital force that resides in living things, that the vital force transfers between beings when one is eaten, and that casting magic involves manipulating and risking that vital force. They don't know what the destiny is, or understand how to create that kind of self-fulfilling casual loop, or the connection between magic use and fate in general (destined individuals tend to be better at the supernatural, but most people think that skill at the supernatural leads one to a grand destiny, not vice versa). Once destiny for a person is fulfilled, they tend to become weaker, but that effect is not recognized or understood by the current civilization. Various mysteries can then involve creatures or civilizations that interact with the underlying thing differently. Undead are creatures that live off of creating twists and distortions in the casual loops of the living - basically, they weave themselves parasitically into the destinies of others. So if all life ended, the undead would not be able to continue either (but that is not know - people just know that the undead always have some kind of hunger for the living), etc.

This is simply fantastic. Kudos.

[johnbragg]

The Fundamental Theorem of Magic is mind over matter. Matter is shaped and governed by mind power, both present and past. Ordinary everyday workaday reality is very hard to overcome through raw thought because you are competing with the accumulated force of thoughts of legions of minds for aeons of time.

Spells in the SRD/PHB work the exact way they do because they were researched/established a long time ago, and have been consistently practiced since then, working the reality of those spells into "grooves" that follow predictable patterns, like a nail into a pre-drilled hole.

Your level or hit dice serves as a proxy for how powerful your mind is. Not how smart you are, how powerful your mind is. So high level mundanes can do things like ignore a fireball through force of will, or hide in plain sight.

This also serves as a basis for collective magics. Hundreds of thousands of citizens pledging allegiance to the crown on Kingdom Day can serve as a power source for a number of civic effects.

High-level figures in an E6 setting separate from ordinary society, as they become more involved in shaping their own lair and domain. Boom, lair effects and custom monster servitors for the BBEG. Or the Big Morally-Ambiguous Sociopath Who Can Be Bargained With Guy.

[EtuBrutus]

Because Magic isn't already a sufficient new law of reality?

[LudicSavant]

Because Magic isn't already a sufficient new law of reality?

The reason "because magic" is an unsatisfying explanation for many is because it's not an explanation at all.

That is, if you just wanted to "guess the teacher's password" when asked "where do fireballs come from?" the teacher might accept the password "magic!" But, as the link explains, the student doesn't actually know anything more about where fireballs come from. They can't use the information "because magic" to constrain their anticipations.

Or, one could approach the issue from a literary quality perspective. In that case, I suggest Brandon Sanderson's First Law.

[Nifft]

Eh, the real world is sufficiently mysterious, and has plenty of unexplored corners -- and unexplained foundations.

In other words: if you look at it hard enough, the real world doesn't "make sense" according to what we know of physics.

The obvious answer is: there are things we don't yet know.

That's also the obvious answer in the fantasy RPG world, and IMHO it works fine both in and out of character.