[scandum]

Magic is not so much the problem as its ramifications. Imagine someone figures out how to teleport and it proves to be fairly easy to be taught to most people. In your typical soft setting most people can teleport, which is wonderful, and business continues as usual.

In a hard setting the ability to teleport would dramatically change the world. How do you deal with crime and prisoners? How do you stop illegal immigration or the import of drugs? A butterfly effect would ensue and the challenge of hard fiction is to make it logically sound, which is easiest if you closely model the real world.

The Lord of the Rings is fairly low on magic compared to D&D which most MUDs seem to be modeled after. I never managed to get passed the first chapter of The Wheel of Time and the only fantasy authors I like are Tolkien, Zelazny, and Rowling, other than those I primarily read science fiction and generally avoid fantasy.

I guess I'm one of those people for who things have to make sense. I'm not entirely sure why I like the Harry Potter books, Rowling fails at creating hard fiction, but she gets points for trying.

So (imo) the hardness of fiction is the logical soundness of the scientific and fantastic theories, as well as these having a logically sound impact on the universe.