Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492129Are you arguing just for the sake of arguing or do you really believe that some characters just had a moment of brilliant intuition and created a just-add-water dimension door mass driver (DDMD)?

I'm just curious.

Whether it's feasable or not is beside the point and always has been. Whether it's credible or not is what I'm arguing.

If you do really believe that the characters made the DDMD, then I support you in believing it.

What bothers me about all this is that a DM can declare by fiat that my character is unable to extrapolate cause and effect and apply it to the world in a clever way because the DM simply doesn't like the idea. It doesn't fit with his priors of how the characters "ought" to relate to the world so he takes command of the one thing that is supposed to be sacrosanct to the player in a trad game--the character's internal perspective--and shuts it down. Were I a player in such a game I'd be irritated.  Now if the DM were to come and say the idea doesn't fit with the genre or other trappings of the imagined world, I might be more amenable to coming up with alternate ideas, but it would definitely provoke a discussion of what is suitable to the trappings of the world.

Quote from: David R;492133(Emphasis mine) Ok, what's this about ? This is not the first time I have read this when someone is going a couple of rounds with Justin. Is this a blogsphere thing or something ?

Eh? -- No idea, man.

Perhaps someone else worded it that way?

Quote from: two_fishes;492135What bothers me about all this is that a DM can declare by fiat that my character is unable to extrapolate cause and effect and apply it to the world in a clever way because the DM simply doesn't like the idea. It doesn't fit with his priors of how the characters "ought" to relate to the world so he takes command of the one thing that is supposed to be sacrosanct to the player in a trad game--the character's internal perspective--and shuts it down. Were I a player in such a game I'd be irritated.

I hear you loud and clear; I would be upset too.

At the same time, I personally think that it's important for players to run their characters in such a way that distinguishes between what the character knows and what the player knows. That's how all the GM's I've ever known have run games and that's how I run them too. It works for me.

Let me give you an example:

If a character is a 10-year-old in a very high-tech environment on the level of Star Trek:TNG, I would find it very unlikely that they have intimate and practical knowlege of crop irrigation or how to use a horse-drawn plow. So if the player is on some planet and says, "I'm going to build an irrigation ditch to help out the people in this town" -- I would say, "Um, does your character have a skill for land management (or whatever)? If not, then you don't know how to do that."

Now is it possible that they could concieve of the idea of building an irrigation system? -- Certainly. But without some kind of skill to do so (or a lot of practice)(or someone teaching them) they would fail at it - in the game.

I see this as basically the same thing. Whether you agree or not, do you understand what I'm saying?

QuoteNow if the DM were to come and say the idea doesn't fit with the genre or other trappings of the imagined world, I might be more amenable to coming up with alternate ideas, but it would definitely provoke a discussion of what is suitable to the trappings of the world.

Fair enough.

This isn't using specialized modern knowledge to make black powder. This is using magical knowledge to do something magical.

Teleportation mass drivers don't exist in the modern world. They're not even a science fiction concept. They're a fantasy concept - they require magic (or nonexistent and likely impossible technology).

If a player uses modern chemical knowledge to have his fighter mix up black powder, that's an anachronism.

If a player uses fantasy knowledge about dimension doors to make a telepult, that's D&D.

In other words: You have to be looking at the world from the perspective of a fantasy character (ie, roleplaying), seeing it in terms of dimension doors and teleportation gates, to even come up with the idea. The idea has no application in the modern world - it's not something that works here. In the world of the character - that's just using what you see every day.

To me it's about the type of game we all agreed to play when we started the whole mess.  If we agreed to play an epic high magic high fantasy game, then clever but anachronistic tricks are not part of the package.  It would be no different from me starting a low magic fantasy Renaissance game and revealing mid-campaign that all magic is derived from alien technology from a crashed spacecraft in Sicily.

Also, there's no spell in the d20 SD that acts like a Portal portal anyway, so the discussion's moot.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492159Also, there's no spell in the d20 SD that acts like a Portal portal anyway, so the discussion's moot.

True. But...

I'll just leave this here... and note that it takes 180,000 BBs to make 100 lbs.

Ring Gates

I think that D&D influenced Portal a bit.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492138If a character is a 10-year-old in a very high-tech environment on the level of Star Trek:TNG, I would find it very unlikely that they have intimate and practical knowlege of crop irrigation or how to use a horse-drawn plow. So if the player is on some planet and says, "I'm going to build an irrigation ditch to help out the people in this town" -- I would say, "Um, does your character have a skill for land management (or whatever)? If not, then you don't know how to do that."

Now is it possible that they could concieve of the idea of building an irrigation system? -- Certainly. But without some kind of skill to do so (or a lot of practice)(or someone teaching them) they would fail at it - in the game.

I see this as basically the same thing. Whether you agree or not, do you understand what I'm saying?

No, I think you have imagined an example that is very different from the original proposition. In your example here you have a player trying to give the character a skill he does not have. In the dimension door example, you have a player thinking of an application for a skill the character does have. The character in question is not an ignorant child, but an adult, and especially as a wizard, presumably intelligent and capable of novel and inventive applications for his skills.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492159It would be no different from me starting a low magic fantasy Renaissance game and revealing mid-campaign that all magic is derived from alien technology from a crashed spacecraft in Sicily.

I did this and the PCs loved it.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492109Not at all. But I personally (ie. Me, Blazing Donkey) do not believe that any characters could come up with such a thing on their own. If they put the work into it to test it out, maybe they could.

It sounds, though, like a classic case of someone out-of-character saying, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to create ___________?" And then figuring out a way to do that.

If some of you want to believe that the characters could do that, more power to you.

I would hesitate to decide that a character cannot have an idea, given that most scientific progress is based on people having that kind of ideas.

Blazing Donkey: Let me see if I can illustrate where I'm coming from.

Player: I'm going to use two sets of ring gates to set up a teleportation catapult!
GM: No, that's a modern notion, it's just a mass driver, your character wouldn't know what a mass driver is.

Player: I'm going to cast fly on myself, and then, when I'm up in the air, I'm going to light lanterns and drop them on the monsters.
GM: No, that's a modern notion, it's a plane dropping napalm, your character wouldn't know what a bomber plane is.

Player: I'm going to use the Sending ring to ask the mage on the Spelljammer to Teleport me to the ship.
GM: No, that's just like Star Trek. Might as well say "Beam me up, Scotty". Your character has never seen Star Trek, so you can't do it.

At least this is just spells. I had an old player that always wanted to build modern tech in d&d. I'd irritate him pretty bad.

"ok, your character retires as a craftsman from adventuring to start fabricating the parts he needs to build the tools he needs. Roll up a new character. No, ok, I guess the world will have to wait for blimps."

Yar. The time and trouble and money you'd need to actually build the telepult setup is likely to cost you 100,000 gold for the ring gates, the tower system, the remote to actually use it...

Seriously, there are easier ways. I think there's actually magic items that let you carry around a miniature catapult.

Still, if a player actually wanted to build such a thing, I wouldn't bother to stop them.

It depends on the game. In a game like D&D3 where after a few levels, casters do everything everyone else does better than they do, it is not a good idea to let casters do even more things better than everyone else does. If that's not going to happen in this game  (or the D&D3 game is short term, we're house ruling it, etc.) then absolutely I allow/encourage it.

Let me ask this: Which of the creative spell uses people are describing here would you be okay with bad guys using on you?

Quote from: daniel_ream;492159To me it's about the type of game we all agreed to play when we started the whole mess.  If we agreed to play an epic high magic high fantasy game, then clever but anachronistic tricks are not part of the package.  It would be no different from me starting a low magic fantasy Renaissance game and revealing mid-campaign that all magic is derived from alien technology from a crashed spacecraft in Sicily.

That's a great point, the decision has a lot to do with the feel of the world you're trying to create. Players have a big part in this too, it's not entirely the realm of the GM.

Most GMs that allow "creative spell use", I get the feeling they're not that interested in a consistent feel for their campaign world.