| From: | korishinzo@*****.com (Ice Heart) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Physics and Realism in SR (and other games) |
| Date: | Thu, 18 Aug 2005 11:49:33 -0700 (PDT) |
> game universe, what I hear them saying is "I'm so uncreative
> that I can't let go of all the trivial crap I learned in
> college."
There are, IMO, two deeply flawed assumptions to this line of
reasoning.
1. The Shadowrun game system presents a well written set of physical
laws.
2. A college-level grasp of the functioning laws of physics is
'trivial crap'. :p
I will ignore assumption #2, because I did not attend your college.
Assumption #1, however, I can confidently take head on.
The Shadowrun game system builds its basic physics model by saying,
in effect, "It's Earth, 60 years in the future. Oh, and magic came
back."
Thanks.
That adequately clears up any chance that anyone will have to even
discuss physics. I mean, we all graduated high school with a passing
understanding of... wait, did you say magic came ~back~!?
The game system starts by asserting that we can reasonably assume we
are on a world very much like our own, but with some disproportionate
advances in certain types of tech. The laws of physics are NOT
different from those of our own world. The game rules say so.
Nor, by the way, are the laws of physics equal to the game mechanics.
Game mechanics are an abstract method of representing physics. And
sociology. And economics. And chemistry, biology, blah blah blah.
They are a medium for experiencing the world without being in it. As
an abstraction, THEY HAVE TO BE BASED ON SOMETHING (sorry, not
yelling, but no bold italics in plain text, and this needs emphasis).
Mechanics are not a stand alone measure of a reality, imagined or
otherwise. They are a presentation of a reality, a means of
simulating experience. Your monitor, keyboard, and mouse are NOT
your computer. They are how you interact with it. Mechanics are the
peripheral devices of the game world. The game world's OS is very
similar to that of our world, for which our five senses and brain are
peripherals. Granted, SR's operating system has the Magic service
pack installed and is currently running on its third major patch, but
more applications will port. Say, jumping. Or shooting. Or
driving. (Are you sick of the computer analogy yet? I know I am.
:p )
Any halfway decent player who is arguing physics is probably actually
trying to be creative. They want to know what they can reasonably
expect as the parameters for their character's actions, so they can
derive creative plans for that character.
======Korishinzo
--we seem to have this particular debate a lot :)
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
