Fiction vs Fantasy

I was watching some more nacis lectures and came across this one by David Nuttal and wanted to just comment on something he said in passing.

I think his work is amazing and tend to empathize with a lot of what he says, yet I couldn't help but cringe when he said he makes fictional and not fantasy maps. First off his example of the LOTR map, while maybe the most recognizable, is not the end all be all of fantasy cartography. Also while it has been severely criticized is not as bad as many seem to think, you just have to realize that it is made in a certain stylistic manner; I may go into a deeper review of that particular map at a later date.

My real issue is the statement that he makes fictional and not fantasy maps; this is based on a false dichotomy. Not so long ago science fiction, traditional wannabe LOTR fantasy, sword and sorcery, and standard modern fictional stories were all lumped together under the label of fantasy. Arthurian legends were considered Fantasy. what separates the Oddyssey or the Illiad from Fantasy? Most scholars agree that much of the events described in those works probably didn't happen. Many of these older myths and legends are not considered 'fantasy' simply because of their date and their origin, not because of the stories they tell.

Definition of Fantasy from the 1963 Webster's Illustrated Dictionary

 - an erratic or fantastic mental image(fantastic references fancy and fanciful which both reference imagination and something that is 'not real')
Definition of Fiction from the 1963 Webster's Illustrated Dictionary 

 - something imagined or made up

Fantasy is fiction and fiction is fantasy. Categorizing works of fiction into all these uber specific genres may be useful for libraries and catalogs, etc, but let's not forget that these are all works that came out of our of the imagination. When making these fantasy worlds we should doing the same kind of research that Nuttal is doing with his 'fictional' maps. This is part of the reason no one takes fantasy seriously, because we treat it as just a fantasy. Maybe do some research, put in some hard work and we can hope to have something as good as Nuttal. Make your fictional worlds as well researched and presented as the real thing.

Academic Parochialism

Many people have a disdain for universities and "academia" in general. So when Alexis proposes a college level course on how to become a better DM, and then lays out in depth well researched course work, there are of course many adverse reactions. This is not helped the behavior of many academics which fuels this disdain in the first place. Here is a perfect example of how Academics should not behave. Too often well educated, intelligent people will be passive aggressive and behave like children on the playground who can't get along. Academia is supposed to be a place open to debate, there should be an encouragement to voice dissenting opinions. Well reasoned arguments should be a common occurrence among intelligent individuals. Instead there is tendency to reinforce the accepted dogma and not to challenge anything. This is why many people don't want D&D in school/college. They are afraid a dogma will form, and anyone who disagrees will be hushed into silence. Instead of being afraid of what Academia might do to our hobby we should be having intelligent discourse about the game so that the ideas developed by these arguments may be considered on par with Academic studies.

The Academic study of RPGs

Alexis has just finished writing his 201 series in the style of an academic university class. This was very well done and thoroughly researched. I didn't treat it with the same seriousness or dedication I would were I take this at an actual college, but I learned quite a lot just from reading it.

In this post he outlines a series of courses on DMing and RPGs that would expand on and really fill the traditional academic structure of a university degree. While I think a university level course about RPGs or DMing would be great, I don't know about an actual degree program at a University; maybe a MOOC would be a better method of delivery. One upside of MOOCs is that Alexis, or anybody really, doesn't have to wait for someone else to adapt his work.

In regards to Academic rigour, I'd like to discuss something that Alexis wrote pertaining to DMing and these college courses. 

"This dictates that there must be a right and a wrong; a correct way, based upon a tried and true curriculum, based on accepted theories and established methods."

I agree with this statement wholeheartedly. This doesn't mean that there is one answer that always applies to how to DM, or world build, etc. It means there are common accepted good practices. Moreover, there may be multiple answers to a single question that are equally valid. What that answer is will be dictated by circumstances as much as standard methods. Example: In one GIS cartography course we spent weeks talking about color schemes and typology. When to use a diverging, sequential, or qualitative color scheme depends on the type source data used and what you are trying to emphasize on the map. On a map of population you may use sequential colors because a qualitative color scheme would be inappropriate and confusing to the reader, but which colors used and what exact values they represent are up to your discretion as long as you account for color blindness and ability to distinguish the different gradations of color. My point being, that when Alexis, or I, or other people say that there is a right way to do things, we aren't talking about specific choices you must make (such as using the real earth as the basis for your setting), rather we are speaking of the ordering and following of general methods, how and why you make decisions.Academia, through study and trial and error, usually develops common methods and comes to a general consensus on subjects of their field.

I had written most of the above and decided not to post, but then Alexis followed up with this workshop.

The responses he got, while interesting and not inherently bad, still bother me. The general character of the responses he received really irks me. The descriptions tend to to be oh so familiar, like they come right out of an osr module's boxed text. They don't characterize how this room would actually be presented to the players. Is this actually how you would describe a room to players?or is it the descriptions from which you would run the room? Actual dialog tends to be short and choppy. Generally at the table the DM doesn't have time to think of all these creative adjectives. The only time I have witnessed a table of players let a DM describe something in more than one or two sentences without interruption/questions/taking action is when the DM is clearly reading boxed text and the players are letting him out of respect. Granted I understand the workshop is limited to the format of the blog, it's just the given descriptions feel so rehearsed. Again I think the content of the descriptions is just fine and Alexis does a good job at pointing out the possibilities and conundrums presented by them, I just feel the way they are presented is flawed.

What I have seen of this workshop reinforces my initial idea that a MOOC would be a great way for Alexis to deliver these academic courses and begin to develop the idea that the role of a DM can be taught and a subject for study.

Wandering Monsters and Quantum Mechanics

"rules for wandering monster movement in B/X D&D—there aren't any. While player food, light and movement through the dungeon are all tracked meticulously, all of that is hand-waved for monsters.

Monsters (or townspeople) just appear when a wandering monster roll says they should, and nobody worries about their precise location before that. Their precise inventory doesn't matter either, not until they're dead and examined more closely.

Until it actually matters, most of this stuff is completely undefined, held behind a "curtain of vagueness," until it matters."

I ran across this and it got me thinking about quantum mechanics and Schrodinger's cat. The wandering monster is a better analogy/explanation than a cat in a box. This just clicked for me, I guess you could say others have already explained this with the quantum ogre to some degree, but I'm thinking more in terms or actual physics and less gaming. The common presence of wandering monsters in old school games is the clearest way of explaining quantum physics to the average person that I have seen.

If you substitute electron, or other subatomic particle, for monster and human measurement for roll, then the above paragraph is an apt explanation of how quantum mechanics (at least as I understand them).

While in standard Physics every particle and object can be all tracked meticulously, all of that can be in a state of flux for subatomic particles.

Subatomic particles just appear when a measurement made by our instruments says they should, and their precise location before that is unknown. The position and Characteristics of these particles on the smallest scale are not defined until they are examined more closely.

Until it actually matters, any information about these particles is undefined, held behind 'a curtain of vagueness,' until it matters.

Basically it is our measurement of the "quantum realm" (to use a Marvel term) which brings it into focus, before such measurement the quantum is present/existent but unknown. Like the wandering monster, it is there and has a possibility of appearing, but until a roll is made its exact features and location are unknown and could be anything within a certain range of possibility.

I find Schrodinger's cat to be flawed because the cat is either dead or alive, poisoned or healthy. your knowledge of it does not change the fact that it is dead. The cat can't be both dead and alive, it is one or the other, no matter whether we can see into the box or not. In comparison the wandering monster has both a possibility of being in the same location as the party and not being there, until the die is rolled the monster occupies both locations/possibilities and neither of them at the same time. Quantum Mechanics operate in a fashion more similar to the wandering monster, it is both here and not here a the same moment until it is measured.

So that's a little perspective on science for you.