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"Malachias Invictus" <capt_malachias@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:vPSdnZUyJPpOWf_fRVn-sg@comcast.com...
>
> "Jeff Goslin" <autockr@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:i92dndM2SZ8tL8PfRVn-3Q@comcast.com...
> > "Rupert Boleyn" <rboleyn@paradise.net.nz> wrote in message
> > news:5mhs51d02pnkrppses8o4888hcbg8uatoj@4ax.com...
> >> That aside, you're claiming it's hamfisted of nature if I hand you an
> >> egg and tell you it's a rock, and you believe me, and then it hatches
> >> into a chicken.
> >
> > Let's just say that any observant individual could easily detect what's
> > going on. See the embryo, etc. But if they look like berries, taste
like
> > berries, well, they must be berries.
> >
> > The PC's would undoubtedly have some frame of reference for determining
> > what
> > is a berry and what is an egg, even relatively obscure and unknown eggs
> > would have something in common with each other.
>
> ...because, of course, they characters are all
xenobiologists/xenobotanists,
> and they live in a world where all knowledge in those fields have been
> thoroughly explored and categorized.
Call me crazy, but I assume that characters have a certain "base of
knowledge", an understanding of basic things that let them get by in the
world. Things like "fire is hot", "water quenches thirst", "down is the
direction stuff falls", "if I'm hungry I'll eat", and so on.
Included in that list of very basic information that one just *might* be
privy to during the course of a lifetime would be the characteristics of a
berry, and the characteristics of an egg. Even if they were *slightly*
wrong about their categorization of a thing, they'd probably have it at
least PARTIALLY right. For instance, while technically a tomato is a fruit,
I can't really fault someone for calling a tomato a vegetable when asked the
question "did you eat your veggies?" Sure, it's a fruit, but I wouldn't
answer NO to a question "did I eat my veggies" if the only thing I had was a
salad.
In the same way, I would think it to be in the character's "basic
information set" as to the things that make an egg an egg, and a berry a
berry. The *ONLY* way I could concieve of an egg being mistaken for a berry
would be if it tasted like a berry(no egg I know of like that), and it had a
berrylike texture(no egg I know is like that), and it had a berrylike
appearance(this is the only one that's even plausible, fish eggs are
sometimes round).
If the berry had all the properties of a berry, and none of the properties
commonly associated with an egg, it would be a fairly huge logical leap to
deduce that said "berry" was in fact an egg, without something to give it
away.
In order for this idea to be even remotely logical, SOME foreshadowing needs
to take place. Make no mistake about it, I'm *ALL* for springing it on some
unsuspecting characters, because I'm a bad DM like that, and I like pissing
my players off and giving them twists and stuff, but, hey, the simple
reality is that they are berries, first and foremost, and to suddenly make
them eggs is, well, "hamfisted".
I have a feeling, though, that because this is, in the opinion of many
people here, a "good" idea(I happen to agree with that assessment), that it
will somehow MAGICALLY be deemed to be a fantastic and necessarily
NON-hamfisted idea, because NO good idea can EVER *POSSIBLY* be hamfisted,
nope no sirreebob... It seems to be the prevailing wisdom that any idea
that is hamfisted is a bad one, and any idea that is NOT hamfisted is a good
one, and therefore any idea deemed to be GOOD must necessarily be
non-hamfisted. Not the case. An idea can be good even though it is
hamfisted, as is the case here.
--
Jeff Goslin - MCSD - www.goslin.info
It's not a god complex when you're always right
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