Cutting so fast you reach the gods

[darkmaster]

Hey Kaelik, I'm going to do you a favor an just suggest you shut you're ignorant mouth.

The argument that "it's magic it doesn't have to make sense or have an explination" is fucking terrible. In all way's it's terrible, it's lazy, it's unsatisfying, and allowing it to fly encourages bad habbits among designers. Seriously if you're going to decicde that "whatever magic or something" is an acceptable answer then you also have to accept that you're living in a world where the rules are made up and the points don't matter. Seriously if "I don't know a wizard did it" is the real, actual answer to any question about physics in your world, it is also an acceptable answer to EVERY question that CAN be asked about your world. So why even bother at all? At that point why is somone flying by pulling themselves up by their boot straps munchausen style a problem, the answer is it's not because hur dur wizard did it.

[Username17]

Hey Kaelik, I'm going to do you a favor an just suggest you shut you're ignorant mouth.

The argument that "it's magic it doesn't have to make sense or have an explination" is fucking terrible. In all way's it's terrible, it's lazy, it's unsatisfying, and allowing it to fly encourages bad habbits among designers. Seriously if you're going to decicde that "whatever magic or something" is an acceptable answer then you also have to accept that you're living in a world where the rules are made up and the points don't matter. Seriously if "I don't know a wizard did it" is the real, actual answer to any question about physics in your world, it is also an acceptable answer to EVERY question that CAN be asked about your world. So why even bother at all? At that point why is somone flying by pulling themselves up by their boot straps munchausen style a problem, the answer is it's not because hur dur wizard did it.

Dude, can I buy pot from you?

"It's magic" is an explanation. "A wizard did it" isn't the deepest answer or the most satisfying answer, but it is an answer. As opposed to the other option being presented in this fucking thread, which is "no wizards involved, it just happened for no reason." That's the discussion at hand.

So yelling at Kaelik and Lord Misty because their position isn't fleshed out well enough means that you don't fucking understand the discussion and you should go sit at the kids' table until you do. Because their position is that powers need more explanation and the people arguing against them are arguing that they need less. This is like you telling people to vote for Republicans because Democrats aren't proactive enough about fighting climate change.

Darkmaster: shut up. You're embarrassing yourself. You are drunk, sit this one out.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

The argument that "it's magic it doesn't have to make sense or have an explination" is fucking terrible. In all way's it's terrible, it's lazy, it's unsatisfying, and allowing it to fly encourages bad habbits among designers.

Are you aware that magic isn't real? It doesn't actually matter whether your magical physics is vague and sparse or precise and convoluted, in both cases the magical system does exactly whatever bullshit the author fucking says it does. Bcause magic isn't real and it is a completely fictional element of the story! If you are bitching about how magic is lazy, then maybe fantasy isn't for you. Actually, maybe fiction isn't for you. The author just gets to arbitrarily say that the Montugues and Capulets are fighting? How fucking lazy is that? You can't just introduce completely fictional story elements that work the way you need them to for the sake of conveniently telling the story you intended to tell!

At that point why is somone flying by pulling themselves up by their boot straps munchausen style a problem, the answer is it's not because hur dur wizard did it.

Because unless the person flying by their bootstraps is a wizard, a wizard didn't fucking do it, did they? And if they are a wizard, yes, that is the fucking point. Every character who is expected to fly to the castle in the sky needs to actually be able to fly, and considering flying is not a thing normal humans in typical fantasy settings can do characters going on that adventure need to not be normal humans, and instead have access to some sort of power source that explains why they can fucking fly.

[RadiantPhoenix]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_Etw_BwRoY

It was "[a] long lost art we all thought was forever gone."

[darkmaster]

Dude, can I buy pot from you?

"It's magic" is an explanation. "A wizard did it" isn't the deepest answer or the most satisfying answer, but it is an answer. As opposed to the other option being presented in this fucking thread, which is "no wizards involved, it just happened for no reason." That's the discussion at hand.

So yelling at Kaelik and Lord Misty because their position isn't fleshed out well enough means that you don't fucking understand the discussion and you should go sit at the kids' table until you do. Because their position is that powers need more explanation and the people arguing against them are arguing that they need less. This is like you telling people to vote for Republicans because Democrats aren't proactive enough about fighting climate change.

Darkmaster: shut up. You're embarrassing yourself. You are drunk, sit this one out.

-Username17

Fuck you, fuck you, and I will reiterate for your convenience, fuck you. Having no explanation whatsoever is better than having an unsatisfying explanation. Because an entry of not specified at worst leaves question to the imagination while one that just isn’t satisfying to people can, and in a non zero number of instances will, cause people to just say “well fuck your story then.”

And not that I didn’t like it, but false equivalence is false.

[quote="DSMatticus]If you are bitching about how magic is lazy, then maybe fantasy isn't for you. Actually, maybe fiction isn't for you. The author just gets to arbitrarily say that the Montugues and Capulets are fighting? How fucking lazy is that? You can't just introduce completely fictional story elements that work the way you need them to for the sake of conveniently telling the story you intended to tell![/quote]

Again, false equivalence is false.

Because unless the person flying by their bootstraps is a wizard, a wizard didn't fucking do it, did they? And if they are a wizard, yes, that is the fucking point. Every character who is expected to fly to the castle in the sky needs to actually be able to fly, and considering flying is not a thing normal humans in typical fantasy settings can do characters going on that adventure need to not be normal humans, and instead have access to some sort of power source that explains why they can fucking fly.

Are you stupid? In a world where wizards actually can just ignore any of the rules as we know them, there is no reason that a wizard even has to actually be present to be the source of something happening. It’s like saying, upon seeing an owlbear, that because the owlbear isn’t a wizard a wizard couldn’t possibly be involved with its creation. Despite the fact that owlbers very specifically are created by wizards.

[Kaelik]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_Etw_BwRoY

It was "[a] long lost art we all thought was forever gone."

Wow you pointed to someone not flying and explicitly channeling supernatural powers to prove the point that people are totally fine with people flying without supernatural powers.

I give up. Do you people not get that your explicit rejection of the attempt to make fighters have a power source while relying 100% on power sources for your examples of fighters doing things makes you fucking idiots?

[DSMatticus]

Again, false equivalence is false.

You are a fucking idiot. You are bitching about how "magic did it" is a lazy storytelling tool, but "magic did it" is an accurate description of every fucking magical system ever described by anyone ever because magic isn't fucking real, you stupid twat! It does not matter if you spend zero words or a collection of encyclopedic tomes describing the physics of magic, it is equally true that the author gets to make up every single fucking word of it because magic still isn't fucking real!

You know, exactly like how the Montagues and Capulets aren't fucking real, and boy it sure is convenient that they just happen to be fighting so Romeo and Juliet can be a bunch of stupid assholes about it and get themselves killed. And no matter how many bullshit details you add about the history of their feud, each one will be an equally convenient, equally fictional contrivance pulled out of the author's ass to help him tell the story he intended to tell about horny suicidal teenagers star-crossed lovers.

Your "brilliant observation" is that magic does what the author says it does. That has always been true and always will be true because magic. Is. Not. Real!

In a world where wizards actually can just ignore any of the rules as we know them, there is no reason that a wizard even has to actually be present to be the source of something happening. It’s like saying, upon seeing an owlbear, that because the owlbear isn’t a wizard a wizard couldn’t possibly be involved with its creation. Despite the fact that owlbers very specifically are created by wizards.

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS? IS THIS FOR REAL?

"No, fighters don't need a supernatural power source to go on high level adventures. He can just borrow the wizard's."

THIS MUST BE A SHITTY MOVIE BECAUSE CLEARLY I'VE FALLEN ASLEEP IN A HOT TUB AND ENDED UP BACK IN TWO THOUSAND FUCKING FIVE ARGUING ABOUT FIGHTER-WIZARD IMBALANCE WITH A FUCKING CAVEMAN BRB I'M GOING TO GO LOOK FOR CHEVY CHASE AND SEE IF I CAN GET HOME

[darkmaster]

So, yes, you are stupid. Let me just break it down because you're a fucking idiot who cannot understand the meaning of words unless said meaning is not explicitly spelled out.

In a world where
A) magic is real
B) There are people who can use magic
and C) Magic is not in any way bound by the laws of physics of our world

There is no actual reason that magic could not have been used to tell physics to sit down and shut up in any situation.

As for why your arguments about Romeo and Juliet are stupid and not applicable to this situation. The concepts of fucking hatred and blood feuds exists in the real world, and as long as you don't want to change a concept we already have and are familiar with you do not have to explain how the work because your audience already knows magic on the other hand, as you are so enamored with pointing out over and over as if it will make you right, isn't real. And since magic isn’t real and your reader therefore cannot have a frame of reference for it, you have to create that frame of reference.

Now, you could very well be a lazy jack ass and just shrug and say I dunno it just does. Of course, your story will probably end up as kind of a mess since you almost certainly didn’t do any planning, and a not insignificant number of people will probably get mad that you sold it to them for their money, which they probably worked quite hard to earn.

Or you could actually think about the constraints and rules of magic before proceeding and then it is unlikely you ‘ll ever have to bring it up because people won’t even ask questions if things are internally consistent.

OR you could go the MST3K route and just tell people to relax it’s just a dumb story which is like the first option but with the added benefit the most people who would have complained will assume you’re not being really for reals serious and they’ll turn their think boxes off.

Now, notably I’ve never said that supernatural abilities shouldn’t have a source, but I’m of the opinion that “a wizard did it” is a stupid source for such things and you would be better off with literally any other explanation, including no explanation at all.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

When a fighter casts Flight by pulling on his bootstrap, it changes the world itself; why is Joe Dirtfarmer working a job with a daily income in GP you can could on one hand, when all these cool powers were inside him all along? When a spell comes from the sort of Dying Earth laboratory that only the privileged have access to, it explains why Joe Dirtfarmer isn't casting spells.

Not all explanations are born equal.

[Kaelik]

Now, notably I’ve never said that supernatural abilities shouldn’t have a source, but I’m of the opinion that “a wizard did it” is a stupid source for such things and you would be better off with literally any other explanation, including no explanation at all.

You have now progressed from having no idea what is being discussed to having some sort of perfect knowledge of the subject multiplied by negative 1.

No one is talking about whether a wizard is the source of someone's goddam supernatural abilities or not. We are explicitly talking about the same goddam thing we are always talking about which is this:

DMFUSER: I want my character to be totally non magical, to use no magic items, to not have spells cast on him, and to not use any magic himself.
DM: Uh... That seems like you might have problems in the campaign to kill the Dragon.
WeirdDMFAdvocateWhoDoesn'tUnderstandtheMeaningofWords (WDMFAWDUMW): Well he can just fly by cutting at the ground.
DM: That doesn't make fucking sense. Clearly doing that would require magic.
DMFUSER: I don't want that anyway, that is magic, and I want to have no magic.
WDMFAWDUMW: But it can be just not magic, he can just cut the air to fly. And it can be not magic.
DM: Like Monk Chi to fly? Like he was born to a demon parent and he can fly, like he is an Wind Warrior and can fly?
DMFUSER: I don't want to be any of those things, I just want to be a normal guy who fights dragons. I'll figure something out to beat the dragon because I'll hide under a waterfall and it will come to me for no reason.
WDMFAWDUMW: No no, not monk chi, because that's magic, and he wants to be not magic, and not wind warrior or demon blood, because those are magic, and he wants to be not magic. So he can just fly through the power of NotMagicTM.
DM: 1) That clearly isn't what he wants, 2) That sounds fucking stupid.
DARKMASTER: HEY GUYS I JUST GOT HERE FROM THE CRAPPER WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?
DMFUSER: I want to be a fighter!
DM: DMFUSER wants to be an incompetent boob, and WDMFAWDUMW wants to piss all over suspension of disbelief by claiming that people are not using magic to fly.
WDMFAWDUMW: I have this great idea for how DMFUSER's character can fly without magic.
DARKMASTER: FUCK WIZARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I call this story: The eternal war between people who think reader insert characters who don't have any useful abilities and blindly win through plot contrivance are a good thing, those who don't, and the dumbasses who keep failing to understand what either party is saying. Guest staring DARKMASTER the wizard hater.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Wait, when did "not doing magical stuff" become one of AndreiChekov's criteria?

I thought he just wanted cutting-shit-really-fast-magic.

[Prak]

Not sure if WDMFAWDUMW is supposed to be me or who, but my suggestions were never intended to be NotMagicTM.

[Kaelik]

Wait, when did "not doing magical stuff" become one of AndreiChekov's criteria?

I thought he just wanted cutting-shit-really-fast-magic.

I wouldn't know, I have him on ignore. But if like most fighter threads it didn't start as a fighter thread that would still be fine. Because they morph. In particular, this one morphed when Prak said:

Wu Xia Do The LFB may achieve a state like flight through the honing of muscle control and precise timing of swings of his blade. At 6th level, he gains, in essence, a fly speed equal to one and a half times his land speed with average maneuverability. Take off and landing are achieved through mystically empowered leaping, while changing direction is accomplished through powerful, though often subtle, swings of his sword.
At 9th level, his speed improves to twice his land speed. At X his maneuverability increases to good. At Y his speed improves to 4x. At Z his maneuverability increases to perfect.
This is an extraordinary ability.

There, I just imagined it, no helicoptering needed.

Which is just more dumb melee fighter with notmagicTM bullshit.

Not sure if WDMFAWDUMW is supposed to be me or who, but my suggestions were never intended to be NotMagicTM.

It is meant to represent everyone who has ever taken the position that any PCs at all shouldn't have an explicit magical power source. In this case, since you specifically have taken that exact position in literally every thread about the subject and you posted in this thread a completely bullshit NotMagicTM ability that is very fucking obviously a NotMagicTM ability, it represents you among other people.

[Prak]

Wu Xia Do The LFB may achieve a state like flight through the honing of muscle control and precise timing of swings of his blade. At 6th level, he gains, in essence, a fly speed equal to one and a half times his land speed with average maneuverability. Take off and landing are achieved through mystically empowered leaping, while changing direction is accomplished through powerful, though often subtle, swings of his sword.
At 9th level, his speed improves to twice his land speed. At X his maneuverability increases to good. At Y his speed improves to 4x. At Z his maneuverability increases to perfect.
This is an extraordinary ability.

Just because I don't use the words Arcane, Divine, or Spell, doesn't mean I envisioned the power as non-magical or NotMagicTM. I just object to the helicoptering thing, because the mental image is fucking stupid, so I suggested AC find some other way to describe it, and when LM decided that Wuxia flying is specifically straight lines and TOTALLY MUNDANE GAIS fluffed up something about esoteric sword techniques that use sword-slashing because of course it's fucking magic.

[Kaelik]

Wu Xia Do The LFB may achieve a state like flight through the honing of muscle control and precise timing of swings of his blade. At 6th level, he gains, in essence, a fly speed equal to one and a half times his land speed with average maneuverability. Take off and landing are achieved through mystically empowered leaping, while changing direction is accomplished through powerful, though often subtle, swings of his sword.
At 9th level, his speed improves to twice his land speed. At X his maneuverability increases to good. At Y his speed improves to 4x. At Z his maneuverability increases to perfect.
This is an extraordinary ability.

Just because I don't use the words Arcane, Divine, or Spell, doesn't mean I envisioned the power as non-magical or NotMagicTM. I just object to the helicoptering thing, because the mental image is fucking stupid, so I suggested AC find some other way to describe it, and when LM decided that Wuxia flying is specifically straight lines and TOTALLY MUNDANE GAIS fluffed up something about esoteric sword techniques that use sword-slashing because of course it's fucking magic.

I like how you bolded the word "mystical" to apply to the part that had nothing to do with flying or sword swinging.

Look, you jumped in with stupid honed muscle timing sword cuts to fly, and that is stupid, and you did in defense of the idea that you could totally just have wuxia fly speeds, which is dumb because to the extent that it means anything at all wuxia refers to a specific style of genre that for the most part explicitly limits itself to NotFlightTM "really long jumps" that in narrative can't keep people suspended in the air and always treats specifically directional changes as needing some physical non air object to kick off of to redirect.

So your specific ability is clearly NotMagicTM, and you came into it because you were personally offended that Lord Mistborn was accurately stating that wuxia flight is not genre appropriate.

[Prak]

Alright, fine, I misused a genre name/misunderstood a bullshit trapping of a genre-

Fucking bullshit, super long leaps in wu xia are magic, they are just a trapping of mystical super kung fu rather than academic fireballing. They are magic, they are not something just anyone can do, no more than learning how to cast fucking fireball from reading is something anyone can do in Greyhawk

But whatever, genre convention. To me, wu xia stunts have always been a form of magic.

My broader point was "helicoptering is dumb, just let them have mystical leaping sword arts"

[DSMatticus]

In a world where
A) magic is real
B) There are people who can use magic
and C) Magic is not in any way bound by the laws of physics of our world

There is no actual reason that magic could not have been used to tell physics to sit down and shut up in any situation.

You are insufferably retarded. Like, holy fuck. In what sense is a person telling physics to sit down and shut up using magic somehow not actually using magic?! For fuck's sake, your entire rant is a contradictory heap of shit completely disconnected from the thread you are attempting (and failing) to participate in and your previous rants.

If you can fly through the air pulling on your shoelaces because a wizard cast a very weird fly spell on you, that is fucking magic.

If you can fly through the air because the boots whose shoelaces you are pulling on are magic, that is fucking magic.

If you can fly through the air because a wizard rewrote reality such that all boots are secretly flying machines because physics, that is fucking magic. And it also means turnip farmers can fly.

If you do any of these three things, you are explicitly not a nonmagical character doing nonmagical things. Which raises the question WHY DID YOU OPEN YOUR STUPID FUCKING MOUTH TO TALK ABOUT SOMEONE DOING THESE THINGS IN RESPONSE TO KAELIK COMPLAINING ABOUT NONMAGICAL CHARACTERS? THESE ARE ALL CHARACTERS WITH A MAGICAL POWER SOURCE FOR THEIR ABILITY TO FLY, YOU ASSHOLE. You know, exactly like if owlbears could breathe fucking fire, and someone asked why, you'd say "a wizard did it." Because a wizard did in fact fucking do that.

As for why your arguments about Romeo and Juliet are stupid and not applicable to this situation. The concepts of fucking hatred and blood feuds exists in the real world, and as long as you don't want to change a concept we already have and are familiar with you do not have to explain how the work because your audience already knows magic on the other hand, as you are so enamored with pointing out over and over as if it will make you right, isn't real. And since magic isn’t real and your reader therefore cannot have a frame of reference for it, you have to create that frame of reference.

Actually, the "concept" of magic is a thing in the real world that is older than literature. So if your argument is "b-b-but when I write about people hating eachother, I don't have to explain why those people hate eachother, because the readers will fill in their own blanks and not ask too many questions," then... congratulations! You're not actually being consistent, you're just bitching loudly on the internet about how you personally are offended when magic is vague and nonspecific but that you give no fucks when the setup for the story is similarly vague and nonspecific.

But more critically, you aren't paying any fucking attention at all. Even if your magic system is described in a set of tomes which could house the collected knowledge of wikipedia, every single word written there is a fucking contrivance pulled out of the author's ass to tell the story he wants to tell you. You fundamentally do not understand what makes something a lazy storytelling device. It has nothing to do with whether or not you spent one page or one thousand describing the mechanism by which the solution to a problem came to be, and everything to do with narrative coherence, foreshadowing, reincorporation, blah blah blah fucking blah.

Count Orlok's death is fucking lazy. Because it is not the conclusion of some story arc, it's just lol randumb. And it is exactly as lazy as if the story had spent a dozen stills describing the magical physics by which a vampire combusts in sunlight. Willingness to spend word count/screentime/whatever spoonfeeding (often pointless) details to readers is not what makes something a "satisfying" solution.

[Whipstitch]

Now, notably I’ve never said that supernatural abilities shouldn’t have a source, but I’m of the opinion that “a wizard did it” is a stupid source for such things and you would be better off with literally any other explanation, including no explanation at all.

This fucking guy right here.

Look, "magic" means "a technique to do the impossible." "Magic" is just literally the word we use to signal that there isn't actually going to be an explanation for something. Scolding people for using magic as an explanation instead of simply refusing to give an explanation at all is thus pretty fucking stupid.

[ishy]

My broader point was "helicoptering is dumb, just let them have mystical leaping sword arts"

Which sadly is even dumber.

But that is kind of the points. Everybody draws different lines, which is why

Prak, if you are seriously worried about the flavour of the flight style, you can just change it when you want to use it next.

is pretty much the only relevant response.

Personally, I find the whole concept of a cutting pool and splitting the atom dumb. So I would not want this class in any of my games, but if someone is creating a class for their own game, who gives a flying fuck?

[Aryxbez]

While the thread's current issue has seemed to have been recently resolved, I figure I should clarify for posterity anyway. Lot of people I think put into the D&D mentality of "need this ability at X level", without caring for the in-game explanation of it, because: "it's a level appropriate" ability. Some [Tome] classes did this, so they could compete, and it works, but Going Forward in Fantasy RPG's, you need that flavor. So while may have abilities that have consistent functions to be fun unto themselves, come times want to use your flavor for "DM-fiat" like uses. If your brand of flavor can't accommodate it, then those characters are worse off (or even damaging to the game ela Captain Hobo).

Another mentality is "charles atlas superpowers" or basically superpowers that are disguised as being normal (when they're obviously not). Lot of people conflate "Magic" with being a filthy spellcaster that gets all the goods and made our favored warrior-type concepts left in the dark for decades (when we just mean "powersource/phlebotinum") I'm a big supporter of "EX-based superpowers", but moving forward in fantasy, I understand that characters need to have a Power Source once superpowers start coming online.

To those suggest 5th level characters should compete in 15th level environments, are silly, and should understand what level means, and corresponds to power levels in D&D games like this.

Lastly "Wizard did it", or "because magic" is really just a term or expression we're using to refer to the supernatural metaphysics of the game in question. There's likely a magic system that has rules and what not present, but for brevity not going into specifics of what that is.

[tussock]

Perhaps it's just that killing things in a world of magic makes you magical, even if you only fight goblins for five levels. Radiation! or Mutagens! or Alien Ancestry! or Secret Training! Instant random powers, heaps of stuff works fine for people's SoD. Why not monster-killing XP, now we seem stuck with it?

Killing stuff is a bit like radiation, surely. Shoot webs after killing giant spiders, why not?