Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version nyu B notes v1.5 12/10/84; site acf4.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!bellcore!decvax!linus!philabs!cmcl2!acf4!tihor
From: tihor@acf4.UUCP (Stephen Tihor)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: Elves, Magic & Teleportation
Message-ID: <2760001@acf4.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 15-Jun-85 18:47:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: acf4.2760001
Posted: Sat Jun 15 18:47:00 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Jun-85 05:34:42 EDT
References: <1028@dual.UUCP>
Organization: New York University
Lines: 27


	The only way to avoid the inconsistancies is to vastly limit the
	system, not the rules which define the system.  Not only will a large
	system be full of inconsistancies, but also full of paradoxes.  Neither
	the inconsistancies nor the paradoxes invalidate the system.  For each
	inconsistancy, there is an exception to the rule (again, think of
	mathematics - imaginary numbers, mapping of fractions to a real number
	system, etc.).

There are certain limits on the power and consistency of any formal system but
they aren't really relevant to this discussion.   To the extent that a set of
rules is sparse and cleanly designed working froma small number of axioms they
can successfully model any consistent reality well enough for almost all 
practical purposes.  

FRP rules have a particular problem since many of the works of Fantasy which
one wishes to evoke with the game were not designed with internally consistent
physics that encompass magic and many of the ones which were are not mutually 
consistent.  This doesn't mean that it can not be done.  I have written too
many rules and know too many game designers who have produced consistent 
systems to believe that one can not model however much of reality you want.

The thing about D&D/AD&D is that it is clear that there is no single clear
set of principles to fuse (half Newtonian) physics, the Golden Bough, assorted 
scrapings of Christianity, Errol Flynn, Tolkein, and Michael Moorcock into a
set of rules with the coherency of even the Hero System, Runes is Space,
or Lands of Adventure.