Hello. I'm still not sure about some aspects of roleplaying, and there's no specialized section for it, so I'll ask it here. In the game, I've started a book, 'Teratology of the Basin' in which I portray my character's 'scholarly' pursuits in the fields of teratology, neonatal and prenatal mortality.

Considering that all of the 'research' described involves only the supposed interaction with game's denizens, I have the following question: While it may be an interesting read, how would you react upon reading such a book? As a player, you know that those things never happened, and they never could happen. Would your character then be as skeptical, or would you believe the lie that my character actually did that research?

Thank you.

Think I'd have to say Nejii'd be skeptical. Depends exactly what the research entailed though.

Murphy would read the book, then beat out of you the time he wasted reading it.

Ok, nvm then.

I have made up a bunch of stuff in game, which people have latered followed.

The only question is how beliveable your book is from the IG perspective. If it fits with everything else, and is beleivable, then people will believe it. If it something completely new that has no basis in the game, then people will ignore it.

I have to say that it really does depend on whether it seems believable ICly (as a previous poster said). You can't expect people to take something that looks ludicrous ICly as fact.

However, if it doesn't-- then it could very well work ICly.

(Ignore Murphy, btw)

Late response, but a couple points.

Like Daganev and Xenthos said, it has to be believable from your character's perspective.

Also, for it to matter at all, someone has to care. Teratology might lead you to comparisons with orcs and orclach, faelings and shadow faelings, or spec races in general. If you can get people to read and care, you can set yourself up to be looked down upon by some and looked favorably on by others. (It's semi-cliche, but sticking to your organizational prejudices is the best way to do this.) Or it could be dry, vanilla-grey, and no one will care aside from the librarian that thanks you for your contributions. Orrr...you could talk about the bright children in Stewartsville, and people will actually express negative interest in your work, if such a thing could be imagined.

The problem with teratology in the Basin is that... well, besides the Tainted, there are no hideous mutants going around; and the Taint has been written about over and over and over already.

Also, most people don't know what teratology is.

My advise would be to make it as believable as possible, in-game. While you wouldn't be able to talk about genetical factors, since genetics isn't a true science or even on the horizon for the basin, you could talk after-affects and side affects. You could also use what most people doing these types of studies do (My undergrad profs will never know I said this, thank god) and blame it on the immediate environment as well as premorphic evolution status. Though evolution isn't a science nor even a word in the basin yet.

Go go gadget teratology!!

I beg to differ, several books on the status of genetics have already been written.

Look for the studies on furrikin and tae-dae heritage.

I always found those kind of...twinkish. Like, I didn't fully object to them, but it seemed like blurring the IC/OOC line.

If you have variety (obv) and traits are hereditary (also obv) some kind of "aspect" of people that makes it like that is the only logical conclusion. In Lusternia there's no religion or whatever that would prevent people from being able to accept that.

If the books actually call it "genetics" that's kind of another matter though, but not one I'd pick over.

"In Lusternia there's no religion or whatever that would prevent people from being able to accept that."

You do know that the "father of genetics" was a Christian monk, working in the abbot on his flowers, and that the scientific community ignored him until after he died, right? Point being, religion has nothing to do with whether or not people accept a theory.

Genetics is a field of scientific study that calls for machines able to dissect DNA and chromosomes from the object in question. To pull genetics into Lusternia, IMO, is almost like saying, "Its a bird! Its a plane! Its superman!" Lusternia doesn't have near the technology or know-how to call something "genetics", unless Viravain has a secret lab somewhere, cooking up some new form of Laysus clones to take over the world. (Simile meaning planes do not exist in lusternia, nor does superman for obvious reasons). Just irks me when technical studies are pulled into the game that really haven't reason nor possibility of being present.

But what do I know? I only have a MS in Genetical Engineering. Not like I know anything about the subject.

Again, Mendel was able to work with genes and theorize their existence, without any tools to do so. Which gene does what, and picking them out is an entirely different thing.

Mendel however was not the first to use the concept of genetics and use it. Farmers and Herbsman do it all the time. Infact, I remember my Cartoon guide to Genetics, using the story of Jacob and the goats from the bible as an example.

Unless scientifically proven, its all "theory". But I'll give you dues where dues are earned. But the first person who says they've found the "miracle chromosome" will get drop kicked. Hard.

You do know moderators aren't supposed to be baiting me into a diatribe, at least not so godamn transparently, right?

yeah, chrmosomes would be inappropriate in my view. But magic works in Lusternia, so I don't know why anyone would go further than saying "and thats the way it works." though I'd love to see theories of Low magic, and how that influences diversity amongst furrikin and tree types.

That would be really neat.

I agree. Didn't Ibaesha do that for a while though? Ibaesha or Skyla. I can't remember which. But they stopped for some reason.

I once again disagree, we've got bloody spaceships with huge spaceports which contain gargantuan computers and space-time modulators and can hide in folds in time. We've got structures that can pierce through multiple layers of reality.

Hell, there's a bloody electron microscope in Xion.

I'm not saying you should run in and start altering the colours of petunias (don't ask) and start screaming about chromosomes, trisometries and translocations, but to theorise about the existence of chromosomes and use existent technology to supply evidence to support these theories would not be stretching it in my opinion.