I like the fallout approach Green glow: radiation Brown water: radiation Bottled Water: Good! Not really, believe it or not, radiation. (You must be thinking of purified water)

Pixel dungeon does the same thing, you don't know when you start a run what any color potion does. So they're randomized.

Granted. Anthrax the Destroyer is how hiding among stuffed animals.

I feel like any decent adventure would develop a system. I hear blind people will fold their paper money a certain way so they can differentiate between the different values...

A clearer way to phrase it might be "there are no rules for the *genre* of fantasy". An individual world needs self-contained rules, yes, but just because Tolkien's Dwarves have beards regardless of gender doesn't mean that *your* Dwarves need to be the same.

... yes^tm^

Green w/ sparkly bubbles = Happy Drunk

It's a potion that cures hunger.

Rules for fantasy *writers*. For a post centered on reading, the actual comprehension of what is being said in this thread is poor.

If they don't taste like peppermint, I'm sending them back.

Why do you imagine that the,post is about *reading*?

*Potion of Hospitality +3*

Also the important rule here is everything not explained to be different is assumed to be the same as our understanding of the real world.

Sure but it falls apart when an asshole gives them a dollar change instead of a 20 and they fold it as a 20. Any system relies on having trust that the system was done correctly as you can't verify.

That is part of world building, too. If your fantasy world needs more explaining than storytelling, something is seriously wrong.

> To write good Fantasy (of SciFi), you have to go through a process called “World Building” I think this is more implying that you don't have to work from the same framework for every fantasy world. Not everything has to be set in Medieval Times with Crusader-Era social sensibilities. The menagerie of mythical creatures isn't a prerequisite or delimiter (dragons / unicorns / etc are not a requirement nor are robots / cthulhoid horrors / woolly mammoths disallowed). You need internal consistency (to a degree) but you aren't forced to adhere / omit any genre trope. I would say, at an absolute bare minimum, you need some kind of fantastical or supernatural element to make it "Fantasy" as opposed to "Historical Fiction" or "Science Fiction" some other category of fictional prose. Although, the genre of "Magical Realism" does make even that distinction a bit fuzzy. > many literature teachers / professors don’t even know about the idea of World Building You don't necessary need to go through the whole work of World Building if you're just banging out a short story or novella. Even serial writers don't necessarily bother going deep on the background material until they feel the need to expand the scope of the setting. A story that takes place entirely in a single house over the course of a long weekend doesn't need the kind of scaffolding that a Long Walk to Mordor requires.

> Why should your fantasy game be limited by something like “health”. One way of escalating drama and tension is by injuring a main character. The scene in Terminator 2, where Sarah Connor has to knock the T-1000 into the blast furnace with consecutive shotgun blasts, isn't nearly as cool without her doing it with a wound in her arm. Frodo collapsing from exhaustion gives us the incredible moment of Samwise shouldering him and carrying the guy, ring and all, up the slope of Mt. Doom. And particularly for folks invested in the coolness of their characters, some conflicts are much more fun when the outcome isn't anything either storyteller or player could have anticipated. A totally unexpected David v Goliath moment, where a scrawny guy fells a giant with a lucky shot, will be the kind of story people talk about for years.

Most countries have varying sizes and tactile features to distinguish denominations.

Exactly. You demonstrate to me that a goblin is a house sized red avian, I won't love that thats the word you used unless you give me a reason, but once thats done you better not use that word to describe a little green hominid.

That's a roguelike convention. Potion colors are randomized. Runes/scrolls usually arent.