Subject: [HUMOUR] Magic isn't realistic enough. Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 10:55:00 +0100 From: Michael Clark To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Picture this situation, if you will: A lonely party of quiet elves are having a picnic in the forest somewhere, when - horror of horrors - a great big Shivan dragon swoops down from the skies, ready to eat them all. You'd think they were all dead, wouldn't you? But hang on a second. One of the elves (who's on holiday from Llanowar) suddenly learns how to climb like a spider and gets a bit peeved (some would say furious) at the approaching dragon. So he dons his brand new armour of thorns that he had bought only that morning and decides to go out and twat the dragon. Needless to say, he wins, but is a little lucky to survive as the dragon can't muster any fire when he needs it. I'm sorry, but this is stretching the imagination just a little, if you ask me. An angry elf with thorny armor and a penchant for doing spider impressions has not got an ice cube's chance in hell of beating up a dragon. How about this then: A knight, white and true, with shiny armor and a glistening, razor sharp sword, is charging into battle against....a wall made entirely of blossom. Who do you think would, in real life, tear apart the flowery (no matter how perfectly formed) wall and continue through to a real battle? Who do you think would laugh at the vain attempts of some shrubbery to stop him in his quest for victory, who do you think wouldn't just stop and think "blimey, this wall's a bit tough for me, I think I'll just sit here and do nothing"? The knight - that's who! It doesn't make sense! In the blue corner you've got a Nomad-en-Kor - trained in the art of battle and toughened to fear no foe. And in the red corner you've got an aged wizard whose only defense is a robe. The rules of the bout are that the wizard can't use his magic abilities, but he still somehow manages to take down the armed nomad, alas sacrificing his own life in the process. How can this old man fight so well? And how can a band of Fyndhorn Elves ever lose a battle to a single Rime Dryad? And how would an intelligent, battle-wary Warrior ever be stupid enough to walk right into a Wall of Razors? And how does the Booby Trap really work? When you suddenly know something it gets set off? Seems unlikely to me. The whole concept of shadow, to me, also seems very dubious. How can a creature not of our plane ever fall into some quicksand? And how does a sorcerer know where to target his mini ball of energy when trying to kill off a creature he can't see? And how can a creature that is not governed by our laws of physics ever be flung, or take part in a goblin bombardment, or given a dragon mask to wear? They didn't think it through! Still, you do learn some things from the game. I never knew that Orangutans had a passion for destroying artifacts when they were born. I never knew that boiling water would destroy every island in the seas. I never knew that a pathetic little falcon wouldn't be killed by an enormous Rathi Dragon. I never knew that a powerful archmage could be killed by repeatedly scalding himself. Until I played Magic.