The Power of Imagination

[FlyingSquirrel]

The Power of Imagination

Now, as I'm sure you all have noticed, the players are now given more freedom in what's playable. From Technomages to Blademasters, from Subversives to Beastmasters, it's all allowed. Well, most of it, anyways. On top of this, players are given near complete freedom for their character, allowing them to make their character whatever they want as long as it fits the rules given beforehand by the GM team. And so, that's what this guide is aimed at. More specifically, it's aimed at the marriage of Magic and Technology.

Imagination is a great thing. It's fueled our growth throughout the ages, and has led to many things, from Harry Potter to those snazzy houses on TV. Our imagination now is larger then ever, mainly due to the fact that it's no longer just our imagination. We can pull ideas from books, from movies, from friends. And with the new freedom, we can pursue these ideas. However, some of these ideas just don't make sense, or have something else wrong with them.

However, there's another problem that people rarely think about – Their characters imagination. Your characters haven't read Dr. Seuss, J.R.R. Tolkien, or J.K. Rowling. They haven't seen Twilight, Conan or Star Wars. They've never heard about Zelda, Fallout or Call of Duty. They wouldn't be able to create a Tesla Cannon, point out a Thestral, or even notice some Elven Chain-Mail. Things that you may easily be able to point out would be completely foreign to them.

And so I ask you, what does your character know? Does your character have near instant access to thousands of other people's imaginations by going to the nearest library?

By now, you're probably telling yourself to tell Squirrel to get to the point. Well, fine.

Our characters don't have the imagination that we do. We, as the players and as the puppeteers of our little avatars, have to set limits to what our character would be able to think of, and how they would be able to do it. Then, you have to ask if that's even possible, and if your character would be able to figure that out, as well. If something needs a special amount of sugar to get to where it is, as an example, then how long will it take them to figure out the amount of sugar they need?

So, yea. Have a nice day, and hopefully you've listened to Squirrel's little guide/rant of the month. I have a Pajama-dress day to attend.

[Beltharean]

A library, no matter what time it's from has, does, and will continue to house collections of fiction:

http://www.wowpedia.org/Royal_Library

http://www.wowpedia.org/Library_Wing_(Northshire)

http://www.wowpedia.org/Scarlet_Monaster...2829.2B.29

http://www.wowpedia.org/Library_(Ironforge)

http://www.wowpedia.org/Seer's_Library

http://www.wowpedia.org/Inventor's_Library

Etc. Etc.

As for creative ideas with the melding of Magic and Technology, there's an institution devoted to that with more than enough ideas being thrown about for anything you can think of.


http://www.wowpedia.org/House_of_the_Arcane_Contraption

In addition:


http://wiki.conquestofthehorde.com/Official_Timeline

The history of Warcraft, despite us not knowing all of it, is more creative, immersive, and in-depth than nearly any other source of fiction. Where we take from fantasy books, our characters take from history books. Where we write character profiles, they write biographies.

Not to mention the simple fact that nearly any invention that you can think of has, in part, most likely been cemented into WoW lore.

I apologize for the lack of URL coding, but I'm on my phone at the moment.

[Kaghuros]

I wonder how many characters would be literate.

[Morhana]

Considering the mass of books, common use of mail, etc. I would imagine that literacy would be a fairly common thing.
When books only went to the richest of the rich because of the production cost and what was needed to create them and all, there was a reason for less people to be literate.
Also, considering Paladins, Mages, Warlocks, and more seem use various types of books or tomes quite commonly, and with the amount of characters that are classes like that, I have a hard time believing literacy is too uncommon among player characters.

[Caravan]

I run into a lot of illiterate characters, myself, even from races/classes that one would expect to be literate.



Interesting point you raised, Squirrel