This is a knee jerk reaction to Ben Stein's "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" documentary on the debate between Intelligent Design and Evolution. One apologist for Darwinism said one thing that irked me: Creation is boring.
Excuse me? Creation is boring?
BORING?
Something so wonderful, so beautiful, is boring? How can he say that? I felt totally, and completely insulted at what this evolutionist said. As a game designer, I often try to design worlds that scientists would approve of. Something other world designers don't do. The Known Lands is built on a world that works on scientific principles. I studied a lot of science to do this, and there is still not a lot that I don't know.
Solar system models, planetary accretion, moon models, atmosphere and ocean dynamics, oceanography, biology, wildlife, ecology, desert ecology (I have a text book on deserts to help explain Athas' environment, the world of Dark Sun); anthropology, history, civilization. A lot of knowledge and work went into creating the Known Lands. I'm just describing it in scientific terms (then bring in the religious world view of the inhabitants). And what I do is boring? How can he say that?
Frankly, I don't know what your religious leanings are. If you are a Darwinist or not, if you play or GM D&D; you still participate in world design. I realize I do, and I actually get a beautiful rush doing it. I get high on building worlds. It makes me happy. Frankly, who has the authority to say in an authorative canonical statement that what I do is boring? It's pure and utter nonsense for one man to say that the activity that makes me happy is boring. I think this person is just monumentally naïve on how much work is put into creating a high quality, scientifically based, "fantasy" world.
The first person that stands up and says that the Known Lands is science fiction gets a candy, but I still say its built for fantasy gaming. :)
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