Would you rather be reincarnated into a world of magic or reborn as yourself (with your current knowledge fully intact)?
If you choose to be reborn, you will not have magic powers, but you will unlock a status window and a skill tree that you can use to give yourself new skills and abilities and improve your physical characteristics.
You'll get the same thing if you choose to be reincarnated, however, magic will be a factor. And the age of the world will be somewhere like 50-ish years before the full rollout of the industrial revolution, technology-wise. (minor clarification, you keep your current knowledge either way)
However, you will not be the hero or the chosen one. You're just going to be a person with a perk.
90 replies
I think I would choose to forget everything, and have a chance to be reborn in a world where everything is new
I would never choose to be reborn as myself with my current knowledge. I would know how my life could turn out without knowing all the steps I did to get there. I don't think I would be able to get my wife to fall in love with me and I know that I would never be able to find the exact breeder that sold me my dog.
As much as I would love to imagine how much better my life will be if I made the right decision at some juncture, I would not want to lose out on all the treasure I discovered taking the wrong road.
Sure I would be able to see loved ones who have passed, but would I be able to enjoy that extra time knowing that they will soon develop a disease that will kill them?
Please clarify the details.
Is it reincarnated into a world without magic, retaining all of your knowledge just in a preindustrial revolution knowing and timeline will remain the same minus the changes I make? (Like everything that happened without human influence such as earthquakes, volcanoes, stellar phenomena etc would still happen at the same times, but magic now exists and I don't have it?
And the other choice. Being reincarnated into a magic world without knowing who I am or anything I knew in my previous life but I will have a magic system to utilize that I'm fully informed of? And also does everyone in this magic world have magic or would I be a rarity or at least uncommon as someone who can use magic?
Magic world. That sounds more fun and interesting to me
Magic no question
i would want to be reborn in world with magic with my memories so i would appreciate more
I'd rather be reborn as myself with my current knowledge, that way I have more time to learn. I'd do so many things differently.
Magic easily. Why would I want to come back into a world like this?
I think I’m kinda done.
Same. Please just let me die.
The magic one for sure. I have no doubt that I would not only recover my memories of past lives but would ascend to much greater heights, perhaps grasping immortality itself.
All the amazing adventures to bizarre worlds await.
With dimensional and time travel, shapeshifting, I might even come back to this world. Maybe I'd turn my other self into newt and take his place. Or imbue him with forbidden knowledge and power. Or take him with me. Or maybe we'd just end up having a bunch of freaky shifting magic sex.
"Hey me, it's you, from a world of magic. I'm here to rescue you."
"Wow, how unexpected. Also, you're hot."
"Baby, I'm about to blow your mind."
I would take magic if it's summon spell.
Why would I live in a preindustrial society just for the minute chance I could use magic. Because statistically speaking you will be a subsistence farmer in a world where the powerfull can literally alter reality.
If you take the magic route, you are guaranteed magical ability of at least C tier rank, and since you have the status window, you will be able to upgrade that through patient and dedicated practice.
I did not see the changes you made to premise. But I would still stay with modern comforts and lack of terrible diseases.
I couldn't imagine a single scenario where I wouldn't choose to reborn as myself. IMO it is objectively the correct choice: more stable/safe world (compared to pre-industrial revolution with dangerous spells), and I'll almost be guaranteed to do quite well in it given the status window and skill tree
My intrusive thoughts tell me to choose world of magic and go kaboom though
Nobody born today is going to be doing well unless their parents are rich. Doesn't matter how smart you are.
If you get reborn as yourself you can just buy bitcoin when it was cheap?
I guess if start back over at the same spot. I was thinking you'd be reborn today.
Reborn as myself with my knowledge.
Youth is wasted on the young.
Young people don't listen to old people. But, if the old person is myself, then I'll listen... when I'm young again.
Yeah, this question... like, this isn't even a question. So much stuff I would re-do...
Anything sufficiently advanced that it isn’t explainable in the current culture is magic.
Considering I’m already a modern day wizard, I’d go for being able to use my existing skills from birth over being born into a society where the laws of physics may not be the ones I’ve spent decades studying. That sounds like a recipe for abject misery and early death.
Gonna reincarnate without magic and then just pump up my INT so I can invent magic myself.
Unfortunately I don't think you get to repick your stats, just resets your str, dex and con
I'm not respeccing, just leveling it up. It says I can do that.
Reborn as myself. Once my vocal chords develop people will be amazed at the conversations they can have with a baby.
And before that, your parents will be amazed that you didn't need potty training 😅
What if I already need potty training?
If the Harry Potter universe taught me one thing, it is that a world of magic is a terrible place. Anyone could be anyone else transformed, people can read minds, etc etc etc., no wonder Alastor Moody became so paranoid.
Reborn. I wanna see my mom again.
Ok, this one is too wholesome for me to make a dark joke about.
It would be the best, man. I miss her. I could do a lot of stuff differently, sure, but mostly I would just like to spend some time with her. She was awesome.
🫂
So new game in magic world or new game + in normal world?
Do I have to be the chosen one in new game +? I'd do that if I don't have the added responsibility of saving the world.
If you're of a certain age, you'd STILL have to save the world.
Imagine you go back in time, to the year your born. You can't even speak yet, but you know 9/11 is coming.
If you try to warn others, they won't believe you. But after it happens, they'd blame you. You're the guy who knew 4 planes would be hijacked on one random tuesday.
Because thats what 9/11 was before the planes hit. Just another random tuesday. Very calm. Nice pleasant weather. If you watch what the today show host says at 8am, he says "It's Tuesday morning, the sun is shining, and it's a nice quiet morning. Maybe a bit too quiet."
Oh believe me. That's about to dramatically change!
But how would you know that on Sept 9th 2001?
So now you have a choice. Let thousands die on the day, and hundreds of thousands develop conditions related to the attacks. Ranging anywhere from mild, to lethal. Everything from a persistant cough, to aggressive cancer.
But in choosing to save them, you most certainly go to max security federal prison.
Or, you can pretend to be shocked when 9/11 happens. Knowing you let hundreds of thousands suffer.
Your choice.
Would it really matter if we get reborn? That implies pretty strongly that death isn't the end. Sure, you could choose to be a hero, or at least try, but all those people already died, maybe even you did (depending on how this whole thing works).
Given those surrounding circumstances, I don't think the concepts of life and death would carry the same weight in a second run through life.
You did this wrong. I would spend the time using the info I know to get massively rich very early and connect with people who can do something, and start working that front
World of Magic, I don't wanna live through the Trump presidency again, nor gender dysphoria.
Going to a world of magic sounds pretty sweet, but only if I can remember that I once lived in a world without it. Otherwise, I'm just a schmuck in the only world I've ever known, and magic wont be any more fascinating than technology is today.
The current world with knowledge would be more advantageous than a magic world from scratch.
@Rhynoplaz @bizarroland what greater magic than kindness and compassion? We have that here, you have that power, here, now.
Fireballs.
Kindness and compassion are great and all, but Fireballs are MUCH greater.
@Rhynoplaz <3
Neither. I'd make my parents choose people who actually love each other which would prevent me from being.
My memory is soo bad that I'd probably forget all the useful stuff and remember things like how many dimples are on a golf ball or how to do a Rubiks cube as a baby.
I'd probably take the magic option.
Can I choose to just die?
shoots kibblebits
BANG!
..........wait, did he say something?
🥰
What kind of monster would saddle a newborn with the weight of my current knowledge?
Give me a new body and a brain without chemical imbalances, please.
I really don't understand what magic you think we don't have? Chances are you typed this question on a slate of crystal and wire that allows you to see and hear across the planet in nearly real time. There are people who, with the right tools can summon fire at their fingertips, unleash arcs of lightning, draw water from thin air, and make rocks that talk. We are surrounded by forces that both well mapped (at least locally) and are completely incomprehensible to the best of us. While we have not mastered the veil between life and death, we have certainly learned to draw it back.
You are, I fear demonstrating the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt. You're confusing the comprehensibility of the world with mundanity. We are living in a world full of "magic"... It just doesn't look like the magic you read about in old fairy tales, and importantly, it's not shared equally to everyone.
I'll take reincarnation with my mind intact.
This take lacks whimsy, and that's my entire gripe with it.
If I can't use the force to levitate a building or by simply calling on the spirits learn things that are verifiably true, then it's not cool enough.
Sure, many of the things that we have may seem magical to a caveman brought here from 47,000 BC, but it's not castles floating in the sky without a visible means of propulsion. It's not mind-melding with a bird and seeing the world from its point of view.
We have an imitation of magic and not the real thing.
And what makes you think we haven't got those still in store? The island of our knowledge and the vast coastline of our discovery is still insignificant compared to the vast sea of our ignorance and the oceans of possibility we have yet to travel.
Whimsy is in short supply, but it's not because the world lacks magic. It's more because of choices made by people who chose to be dead inside, and shaped the world in their image. I'm not asking you to stop demanding more whimsy, far from it. This old grey bearded man is asking you to form a party, accept a quest and perhaps one day lead the charge of an army in pursuit of returning the whimsy to the world.
Do you accept, traveller?
As a lover of science I find your recidivism ghoulish. Math rocks are magic. It's insulting to think of modern science as magic as they requires me to turn off my brain and live as if I don't have the answers to those things. But magic as the question asks is a force outside of nature. It is something that could benefit our greatest knowledge seekers. It is purely whimsy as the other person put it.
And I think you are trying to point out how amazing the things we take for granted are.
But I want to make something very clear. We do not have magic in this world. There is no divine being handing out miracles. There are no demons corrupting the world with dark forces.
We humans do these things, the divine and the demonic, that's us. We can be amazing and we can be the worst thing that has ever been inflicted upon ourselves.
To borrow a thought, we do it to ourselves, we do, and that's why it really hurts.
If you can't understand what possibilities magic could do for us, what limitations we have with our math rocks, then I earnestly and whole heartedly implore you to open up your mind and dare to imagine.
It's those who can imagine a world we don't have that will give some of us the passion and the fascination to find out where our limitations can be pushed
2 questions:
No one asked you to believe in angels or demons or devas or yokai or anything else that is objectively not real. The fact that's how some people define "magic" does not mean that's the only definition. Some people have defined marriage as a holy sacrament exclusive to their mythological beliefs. That doesn't mean that's the only definition, and I find it odd that you would dismiss the very many viewpoints that do not have such an Abrahamic bias.
We do not have all the answers to every question nor are we ever likely to, if for no other reason than the maximum information density of our brains is finite and a mind vast enough to know everything would necessarily exceed the limits of our finite universe.
Now, far from finding imagination foolish, I think it's one of our most important skills, but let's be clear, most of the fantasy magic systems we fantasize about would be objectively terrible because in almost every case, the consequences of such a world would not be how we imagine it, particularly since every magic system we imagine is almost universally internally inconsistent. That by no means suggests we should stop imagining, I merely stated I'd rather live in a world that has consistent rules than one that is arbitrary and capricious.
Perhaps you might learn to practice some humility and ask a question or two before you go throwing around terms like "ghoulish."
I'm assuming that all of the magic would be hoarded by the spellionaires. I'd be stuck in some warehouse loading an infinite number of potions that I can't afford onto a Pallet of Holding.
Maybe it would be more like a world where everyone has a nuke, which means that conflicts and tantrums are way more dangerous but otherwise people are generally more polite and reluctant to escalate conflicts that do come up.
I think the greater risk is being forcibly drafted into some sort of magical war because of the fact that you have magical ability.
I'll take the new life+, thank you. Gonna be trivial to become a child prodigy, earn money off that and then have a very smooth adult life
Reborn, any day. I'm quite happy with my life, but this and being a multimillionaire through some minor investments in bitcoin, and a stat screen to minmax? 11/10
I think it's reborn current time, not in the past
No, it's New Game+. You would start over back on the day that you were born.
Your superpower in this case would be your ability to remember events that have happened over the course of your life and potentially profit from them or to change their outcome, that and the status board and its ability to upgrade yourself or to give yourself perks in the process over the course of your life.
Neither. I’ll take absolute absence
A crucial part of this is that there is an afterlife, so if there is some sort of judgment for you, whether beneficent or maleficent, that would be your alternative option.
I have quite the skill tree that I'm too old and broken to make use of.
Reborn with my knowledge of skateboarding? Yes please.
The timeline is changed. Skateboards are now square wheeled. You either know how to make it roll, or you hurt yourself.
First one. Need to stock up on amphorae first though.
Don’t forget your biscuits.
I don't understand. you are born in a world of magic with the potential for magic vs having all your current knowledge? you are born in a world without magic but all your current knowledge vs born into a world with magic with no memories of your current life but potential for magic?
You keep your current knowledge either way.
The question is, do you want to live in a new fantasy world or relive this world, but starting over from when you were born?
I would also say that other than the spiritual act of reincarnation and afterlife things that there would be no manifestible magical powers in this world, the closest that it would come to would be having your status window.
oh fantasy world 100%. Especially given what has happened with this world since I was born. Since I still have my memories it would be neat to experience magic.
Unless the magic comes with sex and gender fuckery spells, neither. I'm not really keen on doing a whole lifetime without access to trans health care
I would make an exception in the case of trans people and allow them to be reborn as their preferred gender.
In that case, I'll take "reborn with current knowledge intact" thank you!
Even though magic sounds tempting, if I can't remember my previous stint, my reborn persona may as well be a completely different person!
Option 2. Much easier to get set for life.
Besides, magic already exists. We just know how it works now.
Here's some magic.
The president is a pedophile and a rapist. Everybody knows. He's starting wars as a distraction from his blatantly obvious sex crimes.
The magic is, how the fuck is he getting away with all this bullshit, while Nixon had to resign over a planted recording device?
It's MAGIC!!!
Settle down.
My fellow lemmite, you gotta find a way to take a break. That's the equivalent of someone rolling up to a group of folks at the mall and ranting about politics.
While totally understandable that you're stressed over it, the way you did it and the way you phrased it all is worrying. For real, no sarcasm, no snark, it makes me concerned that you're on the edge of a breakdown. You have anyone irl that can help you find some outlet? Maybe a good game night with friends, whatever sport you might play? You can't hold onto that kind of anger and stay healthy, physically. Like, the stress you must be feeling will harm your body.
I'm not even a people person, and I don't know you, but if you were my neighbor I'd want to hug your neck and tell you that you're not alone, that maybe we should grab some nice iced tea and sit a spell, give you a chance to let it all out to someone that'll really listen.
Take care of yourself, okay? It's an ugly world, but if you let it grind you down much more, it'll just get uglier.
Let me finish this play through and get back to you.
Second one
You said "with your current knowledge still intact". If that means I can know beforehand which things I've already invested in which didn't pay off and those which did (and I mean relationships, careers, life choices, not necessarily money) that alone would be a massive perk. You want to give me physical perks on top of that, I'm not complaining. But the deal was already a no brainer.
If there isn't knowledge remembered then I'm a bit ambivalent about which of the two. I think I might go for magic but if you strip all memory away I would have nothing to compare it to.
You would keep your memory. It's just knowing that the Cubs won the Super Bowl in 2015 doesn't really do you any good in a world where there is no Super Bowl, or if there is, then it's played with dragons.
This is not really the right community, but I wanna play anyway lol.
If I'm getting your scenario right, the choice is between being you, but not having access to the Wizard class (or whatever it would be called) and limited to other classes; or not being you at all in terms of consciousness and being a wizard.
If that's accurate, what would be the point of reincarnation? You wouldn't get to enjoy any of it as your self. So unless the scenario factors in souls having memory and you'd get to enjoy it that way, it seems a pretty bad choice in terms of experiential immersion.
So, obviously, with that in mind, I'll take the brand new body, thank you. Though if I can't do so with my people also being present, I'd opt out entirely. I'm not sacrificing the good in my life, abandoning the people that love me and rely on me, just for an adventure. That's what d&d is for, you dig? Taking an adventure like that without at least my wife is a hell no.
Your memory stays intact with either decision.
The question is, do you want to have your knowledge be immediately applicable to you upon being born, or do you want it to be a wellspring of information that you can pull from in an entirely different world where physical labor is dramatically simplified by the use of magic?
The advantage of magic is magic. You might be able to make extra coin by developing simple technology like a bicycle or something, and selling them to other people, or if you've read a lot of do-it-yourself and how-to books over your lifetime, you might be able to improve people's living conditions and make a good life for yourself in the process.
The advantage of knowledge in this world would be things like putting extra skill points into your intelligence until you unlock eidetic memory and then remembering every lottery number that has ever been played that you've ever casually seen in your entire life, every stock market notable maneuver or event, and every major and minor catastrophe that has happened over your entire life and then do things to either prevent them or capitalize on them.
Ahhhh, that makes it much easier to choose magic. As long as I don't have to leave my people behind, I'm down for that
I don't want to live another life.
The magic one please. I need a mind reset anyways, knowing what i know today is no resource,it's a handicap.
I would like to experience something new, so would go with magic. As long as it's not too wrapped up in religion. I've enjoyed my arc here, but don't need to repeat it - and safe from being a chosen one is itself a perk.
Myself with knowledge no question future knowledge and ability to make different choices way too valuable, even if i had no skill tree at all.
Option Two. Butt only if I can erase the memory of the clap your mom gave me.
I'm sorry dude, that shit doesn't wash off even with reincarnation.