Is Dwilight SMA or low fantasy SMA?

[Anaris]

Had a question, low fantasy is restricted to what limit?

It's not like there some Universal Fantasy Scale that we can say "BattleMaster only uses things that rank 15 or lower" on, but I can try and give some guidelines.

Wizards exist, but are incredibly rare, and only findable by adventurers. Having one as a PC or in any meaningful way associated with a PC is out of the question. Our characters performing magic is pretty much exclusively limited to the scrolls we can get from adventurers.

Monsters and undead exist, and are not particularly specified in form, so it's not unreasonable to RP as having fought skeletal warriors, shambling zombies, trolls, and maybe even dragons (particularly in the past when incredibly powerful monster groups roamed Dwilight, or in the Fourth Invasion).

Gods are ambiguous. They can have no game-mechanic effects on the game, so it's reasonable to state that they can have no effects on RP that cannot be explained away as a charlatan's trickery or the delusions of a single character. However, it's also reasonable to state that our characters can converse with the Gods they believe in. (After all, anything they claim to have heard from their Gods certainly falls into the "can be explained away as a delusion" category.)

Unique items are not magical: they are simply items with a storied history, like Joyeuse, the sword of Charlemagne, or the Crown Jewels of England, such that simply possessing them would show that you are an impressive and noteworthy person. (The minor exception is items that improve one of your skills; however, that is the limit of magic that unique items can possess.)

You shouldn't read too deeply into the names of items adventurers can find. Just because your character believes that it's a griffon's egg doesn't mean it really is. After all, you're only a commoner.

It's important to remember that many mythical creatures were known to exist in medieval times, and even afterwards. For instance, Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, a respected scientist in Zurich who had written treatises on paleontology and biology, also wrote an account of the various types of dragons that were known to live in the Alps—in 1723.

[Indirik]

I'm not going to change how I rp for someone's view of what something as vague as SMA should be.

If you didn't really want an answer, then why did you ask? I tried to answer in a pretty neutral manner, with no slams or insults or anything. I hardly think that the answer I gave deserves a "!@#$ you" response.

[Cren]

How do you know it's a giffon egg?

Because my advy got scrached by a griffin, when he stole an egg.

[Geronus]

It's not like there some Universal Fantasy Scale that we can say "BattleMaster only uses things that rank 15 or lower" on, but I can try and give some guidelines.

Wizards exist, but are incredibly rare, and only findable by adventurers. Having one as a PC or in any meaningful way associated with a PC is out of the question. Our characters performing magic is pretty much exclusively limited to the scrolls we can get from adventurers.

Monsters and undead exist, and are not particularly specified in form, so it's not unreasonable to RP as having fought skeletal warriors, shambling zombies, trolls, and maybe even dragons (particularly in the past when incredibly powerful monster groups roamed Dwilight, or in the Fourth Invasion).

This being the case, why couldn't a group of monsters actually be a pack of direwolves? That's no more or less SMA than "skeletal warriors, shambling zombies, trolls, and maybe even dragons". And if you RP their existence, it's not outside of the realm of possibility that one is found as a pup and raised by a man. Granted, it'd probably still be feral and dangerous as hell for anyone other than Gustav to be around, but my point here is I think you're all being somewhat arbitrary in your opposition to the idea of a direwolf being present in the setting when you will simultaneously write off the existence of monsters and undead as completely acceptable. It's borderline hypocritical.

Earlier someone said something along the lines of "yes, there's fantasy elements here, but SMA is about RPing your characters the way that real medieval nobles would have behaved." I think this is perfect, because frankly lots of things in the setting simply are not realistic and fall into the low fantasy category, and I personally would like to remain free to interact with those elements naturally without having to fear an SMA report. I've seen a few of Gustav's RPs relating to the wolf, and they're tasteful enough. Is it a choice I would make for my character (in any setting)? No. But as he said, he's not RPing it as cute and cuddly, or that he's riding it into battle, or anything that really breaks the atmosphere any more than the existence of monsters, undead and daimons already does.

[Anaris]

Is it a choice I would make for my character (in any setting)? No. But as he said, he's not RPing it as cute and cuddly, or that he's riding it into battle, or anything that really breaks the atmosphere any more than the existence of monsters, undead and daimons already does.

I don't think that roleplaying that you've got a pet direwolf is any more SMA than roleplaying that you've got a pet dragon. They would both be borderline plausible, based on explicit characterization of monsters, but I don't think it's that reasonable to state that you can take a baby monster—of whatever variety—and train it up to be your pet just to try and make your character look like a Stark.

[Tom]

Had a question, low fantasy is restricted to what limit?

To what the game mechanics allow. If you get an actual magic scroll in-game, that is still low fantasy (because they are rare). If you roleplay about casting spells, that is not because there is no game-mechanic to support it, so it is exactly what it is: Someone making stuff up.

Same with the animals. If the game says you have Griffon eggs, then that is what they are. However, they don't hatch or grow into Griffons unless the game says so, either.

[Tom]

Gods are ambiguous.

Not really. In the middle ages, God was anything but ambiguous. In Dwilight, the gods certainly exist (in the same way they exist in medieval europe) and the priests have the very same challenge to explain why they don't do anything.

[Anaris]

Not really. In the middle ages, God was anything but ambiguous. In Dwilight, the gods certainly exist (in the same way they exist in medieval europe) and the priests have the very same challenge to explain why they don't do anything.

Well, I was speaking more from an OOC perspective

Yes, absolutely, from our characters' perspectives, Gods exist, the Gods they believe in are to be worshiped and probably feared, and, depending on their beliefs, the Gods other people believe in may also exist, but simply not be deserving of their own worship.

[Gustav Kuriga]

If you didn't really want an answer, then why did you ask? I tried to answer in a pretty neutral manner, with no slams or insults or anything. I hardly think that the answer I gave deserves a "!@#$ you" response.

Maybe because I wasn't the one asking...

[Geronus]

I don't think that roleplaying that you've got a pet direwolf is any more SMA than roleplaying that you've got a pet dragon. They would both be borderline plausible, based on explicit characterization of monsters, but I don't think it's that reasonable to state that you can take a baby monster—of whatever variety—and train it up to be your pet just to try and make your character look like a Stark.

Unfortunate character resemblance aside, I think whether it starts to break SMA depends very much on how you handle it in your RP. A man raising a direwolf from a pup is not any more or less plausible than a man raising an actual wolf pup, or a lion cub, or a bear cub, all of which happens (at zoos, for example). Will they ever be 'pets' in the sense that they are domesticated and completely safe to be around? Nope. A direwolf raised by a man is still going to be a direwolf, and quite dangerous, even to the man that raised it in all likelihood. But it's not impossible or even that implausible, though it might cause average people to question the character's sanity. Not to mention avoid him and not let him into places unless he leaves his wolf at the door. Tastefully done I think that an RP along these lines is fine as long as the wolf is realistically portrayed as what it still surely is: a wild animal, even if it does happen to have a connection to one particular human.

I haven't read enough of the RPs to make a judgment, and the ones I did read were all written before Kabrinskia was founded. All I'm saying is, it shouldn't be so quickly dismissed without knowing more about the content of the actual RPs, even if the whole idea rather closely resembles a certain well known and widely read fantasy series. Besides, the wolf in the RPs might be quite different from the way the direwolves are portrayed in said series. Again, you wouldn't know for sure unless you'd read them, would you?

[Anaris]

Again, you wouldn't know for sure unless you'd read them, would you?

No, I wouldn't, and I don't have access to them. And I admit that I inferred more from Gustav Kuriga's original comment than was stated. If he's not claiming the direwolf is a pet in a meaningful sense of the term, but rather that it's half-wild and even he needs to be very careful around it, and that it's not specifically Canis dirus, but rather is simply a wolf of unusual size, then that would probably be OK.

The Game of Thrones TV series is likely to make more people than usual want to have a direwolf as a pet, in the same way that the Stark family does, and personally, I don't think that's appropriate to BattleMaster, even with roleplay of raising it from a pup.

[Gustav Kuriga]

Never seen the TV series... don't see why it is seen so highly.

Also, I have rp'ed it as being hard to control at times(ask dustole).

[Gustav Kuriga]

just want to apologize for the !@#$ you comment. It was out of line, due to having a stressful weekend, and I shouldn't have taken it out on some of the members of this forum.

[Arundel]

How do you know it's a giffon egg?

Flintstone (2x)
Fool's Gold
Griffon Egg (2x)
Hair of a Maiden
Junk (2x)

The actual acquiring of it, after I defeated an alpha monster (who apparently must have been a Griffon,) included a text saying the mother wouldn't be too pleased. Now, considering there are monsters and undead, it could be assumed that a dire wolf or a griffon could be a monsters. The chances of raising a dire wolf as a pet is far-fetched, I agree, but having one in the first place (in comparison to a fricken griffon) is plausible considering evolution. NOW, the real question is since the Griffon is part hawk and part lion, and Hawks can be trained, while Lions can be.......... unleashed, would it be possible to attempt raising one ? Archaic and medieval societies all believed in the prowess of the Griffon, hence the heraldry and the numerous statues.

[Sacha]

Just because people call it a griffon egg doesn't make it one. Could just as well be an egg-shaped rock.