Witchcraft - lore friendly?

[Mudran]

You are very kind, but the problem is - there are magic mods, only they are labelled "non lore friendly" and that is something I don't understand. There are many things Bethesda changed from the original lore, including a lot of power armors, they changed BoS into military organization just to serve their purpose - to make a military game. But you have all kinds of magic/gothic like places on Fallout 4, but stripped from any sign of magic - was that necessary just to avoid "magic"? Even if they wanted something different than Skyrim, it could still be different enough, but not totally empty?

When I asked someone if BoS would erase a faction just because 1 person might be a synth - the answer was - ofcourse not, they would find a tool to scan people if they are synthetic, that was the original purpose of BoS - I was told they were Scribers with Elder scribers in their charge and palladins and knights were their bodyguards, but nobody has a problem with that, but say that word "magic" and suddenly it is not lore friendly.

 

Why post-apocalyptic world would have to be without magic? what is Fallout magic? Even in DnD Oberron setting, which was based on machines, you could use that source in spells. If it would be realistic survival post apocalyptic world, I would understand it, but my impression from the lore is that it is fantasy world in post apocalyptic setting, having fun explaining fantasy features based on twisted reality using scifi explanations without real meaning.

So it still does appears to me that it is simply biased.

Edited March 5, 2019 by Mudran

[Mudran]

Also magic in post-apocalyptic setting could be quite unique. But I know that this cannot be solved - Bethesda does have magic setting in TES already, so they will keep this survival only shooter with some war flavor on the top of it and I guess there doesn't have to be any other real reason. Also no reason to change it if some player really don't want Skyrim in Fallout, so that is what the lore will be about .. the end of the story. I don't know why I always keep searching for some complicated explanation :tongue:.

 

But when I think about it - there is magical post-apocalyptic setting with magic already - it could be steampunk or something similar. But I don't know any RPG openworld really.

Edited March 5, 2019 by Mudran

[Moraelin]

Why does it matter if it says "not lore friendly"? You can still use it, can't you? All that those keywords do is help people who don't want that kind of stuff not have to wade through pages of stuff they don't want.

[Mudran]

Well it wasn't about me... it was about a question. And about freedom of lore.

[Mudran]

I can give this example: I was thinking about subraces of maomers in Skyrim - someone could say that it is not lore friendly, because it is just my imagination, but because it is within boundaries of the setting, it is OK, what is not lore friendly would be a superman or something modern.

 

Now in Fallout I had the same feeling - magic is not supported, but there should be enough of space for that kind of speculation, but now basically only mental powers are supported. So I'm still trying to find out why people have a problem with fire or cold if that is not so far away and the substance is the same, the only what does matter is how it will be explained.

So I couldn't understand why an immersive mod with a quest explaining somehow how you get power was reminded by some player to have a tag for not lore friendly with an explanation that it is not realistic (I think) - and I cannot imagine more immersive mod.

 

And there is realistic magic, so even that is not an argument, post-apocalyptic setting has some games (like Elex) with both magic kind - natural and scientific. So that is not an argument either.

 

On the other hand FNV didn't have any kind of magic and still I didn't miss that, maybe because there was possible different enough gameplay, but setting of Fallout 4 is more mystical, so that is what it is about - could it be taken further and if yes, then how far?

I already realized that it would have to be optional groups like Children of Atom or a some crazy quest giver - like Cabot family, but they are not mystical.

Another NPCs where I could imagine/expect some kind of magic would be Hancock. And you could explain that by taking jets which prolonged his life (like mama Murphy was explained), but that is getting old.

Edited March 6, 2019 by Mudran

[Mudran]

And I wouldn't mind if you would port your magic wand into Fallout 4 :) I checked that and it looks great.

I think maybe those people suggest that there should be some crystal on that weapon, which would explain energy beams, and I know I'm very biased when it comes to magic sometimes, because it could make the game more fun for me sometimes, so maybe that is why I cannot see it and those people, who don't think magic is lore friendly, cannot really explain it for me, without me asking more of questions, so I will just leave it.

[Moraelin]

Mate, there is enough space for doing whatever the heck you want in your single player game. You seem to just need approval for your choices from everyone else. Why? What you do in your game doesn't affect them, and viceversa what they choose as fitting in their game doesn't affect you. Why does it matter then if they approve of your choices?

 

And the lore is just what the authors of the book/movie/game put in it. Period. It is what it is. You can't change Batman lore by arguing he should throw fireballs, unless you're in charge of making that decision at the publisher. Same thing here.

 

You can make your own fan-fic, which is what some of us do with mods, but it's never going to be official unless the ones holding the copyrights and trademarks decide to make it official.

[Mudran]

It is nice to see a free soul :)

[MarkusTay]

Well, being that my first contact with the post-apocalyptic genre (aside from the PotA movies) was in the form of Thundarr the Barbarian (and I WILL do that moon mod!!!), I have NO PROBLEM with 'some' magic in FO.

 

Like what they did with the Cabot family, the Dunwich Borers, and the little ghost girl in Nuka-World (there was also that 'magician' there, but that's debatable). Anything heavier than that magic-wise would seem out-of-place, IMO.

 

On the other hand, my first literary encounter with a post-apocalypse was Fred Saberhagen's amazing Empire of the East, wherein a major nuclear war ('major' is probably redundant in that scenario) caused a rift in the fabric of reality, and 'magic' became a thing (someone needs to make a game based off that someday). Furthermore, I come from a background in Tabletop gaming, and the magic system in D&D is referred to as 'Vancian Magic', because its based upon the works of Jack Vance and his Dying Earth novels. In that series, magic was actually super-tech that no-one understood anymore, thus, 'magic' (so technically ALL magic in D&D is really super-science).

 

And to take that a step further - since the MCU is currently all over the news - the whole 'Infinity War' plot is steeped in magic, but Marvel plays-off magic as something supernatural or 'alien' - it is just methods of doing things that we on Earth don't understand or don't have the functionality to use. So if traditional 'magic' bothers you in a atom-punk game, just think of it as 'stuff beyond our understanding' - either alien or extra-dimensional. both 'Gods' and 'Demons' are extra-dimensional beings... and in the RW the existence of other dimensions is the cornerstone of Quantum physics, ie., 'science'.

 

What is magic? To the aborigines in the South Pacific, it was airplanes. To the native Americans it was 'boom-sticks' (guns) that the Europeans brought. When the first mounted warriors poured out of Southern Asia, people started stories about 'Centaurs'. if you were to travel back a hundred and fifty or more years ago and showed someone your cellphone, you'd be burned as a witch. I'm sure if aliens are ever stupid enough to land here, we'd think the stuff they had was 'magic'. Magic is NOT 'a thing', magic is a perspective.

[SirDanest]

Numerous fallout games at least hint at things like super-powers. The degree of how "proven" they are is up for debate but the hinting has been there all along, leaving it up to the player to decide whether or not to be a skeptic. Mama Murphy being the most recent example, but it certainly goes back to the master or other psychics.