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<blockquote data-quote="Haltherrion" data-source="post: 5390751" data-attributes="member: 18253"><p>Wolf may or may not have made the case for a magic revolution but citing 3E costs is hardly an adequate counter argument. For starters, costs are setting specific. You have cited the costs for the 3E standard campaign setting. In this setting, such costs are set to be in line with the expected costs of items (mostly magical gear) for characters of a level where they are interested in the the mount of your example, which is perfectly reasonably given that it's a game. Even if the 3E authors were attempting to model the economics of their world, I frankly don't trust them to have done a strong enough job of that rather difficult task to take that as a baseline in such a discussion.</p><p> </p><p>I agree that the adoption and prevalence of magic would be a function of attractiveness (aesthetics/utility), cost of materials and other availabilty issues. Most of these discussions start spinning around without resolution because these fundamental factors that drive adoption are hard to quantify and most often, those discussing it are making wildly different assumptions.</p><p> </p><p>It is certainly possible to have a game world or other fantasy setting where the barriers to magic are such that it is never widely adopted and never causes a "magic revolution". I've never found the standard D&D settings to be such a world, to be honest. 3E did introduce the mechanic of requiring XP for item creation, which if strictly interpreted will likely limit magic items although there are still cast spells. But in general, the D&D systems have a lot of magic lying around for adventurers to find which if taken on face value could suggest sufficient prevalence and ease of access to allow it to start shaping societies.</p><p> </p><p>The idea of mage cantrips introduced some editions ago just scratches the surface of using magic for convenience. The industrial revolution was focused more on convenience and basic necessities than war yet in the D&D settings, magic is mostly focused on war and the like and not convenience items. Is it because magic is not useful for convenience? Or is it because D&D is a game with a large amount of combat? I'd suggest the latter.</p><p> </p><p>It's certainly fine for the game world. You could also put magic item prevelance into a whole category of game prevalence items that are "bent" for game enjoyment and would not necessarily be so easy to come by in a "real" fantasy world (I think random encounter rates and implied monster populations could also be considered rather high, but again those are useful for <em>gaming.</em>)</p><p> </p><p>In any case, to take such discussions on whether the presence of magic results in magico-industrial revolutions and the like requires a better definition of the magic and its accessibility. This is separate from gunpowder weapons as generally treated. We have a pretty good idea how that can evolve.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Haltherrion, post: 5390751, member: 18253"] Wolf may or may not have made the case for a magic revolution but citing 3E costs is hardly an adequate counter argument. For starters, costs are setting specific. You have cited the costs for the 3E standard campaign setting. In this setting, such costs are set to be in line with the expected costs of items (mostly magical gear) for characters of a level where they are interested in the the mount of your example, which is perfectly reasonably given that it's a game. Even if the 3E authors were attempting to model the economics of their world, I frankly don't trust them to have done a strong enough job of that rather difficult task to take that as a baseline in such a discussion. I agree that the adoption and prevalence of magic would be a function of attractiveness (aesthetics/utility), cost of materials and other availabilty issues. Most of these discussions start spinning around without resolution because these fundamental factors that drive adoption are hard to quantify and most often, those discussing it are making wildly different assumptions. It is certainly possible to have a game world or other fantasy setting where the barriers to magic are such that it is never widely adopted and never causes a "magic revolution". I've never found the standard D&D settings to be such a world, to be honest. 3E did introduce the mechanic of requiring XP for item creation, which if strictly interpreted will likely limit magic items although there are still cast spells. But in general, the D&D systems have a lot of magic lying around for adventurers to find which if taken on face value could suggest sufficient prevalence and ease of access to allow it to start shaping societies. The idea of mage cantrips introduced some editions ago just scratches the surface of using magic for convenience. The industrial revolution was focused more on convenience and basic necessities than war yet in the D&D settings, magic is mostly focused on war and the like and not convenience items. Is it because magic is not useful for convenience? Or is it because D&D is a game with a large amount of combat? I'd suggest the latter. It's certainly fine for the game world. You could also put magic item prevelance into a whole category of game prevalence items that are "bent" for game enjoyment and would not necessarily be so easy to come by in a "real" fantasy world (I think random encounter rates and implied monster populations could also be considered rather high, but again those are useful for [I]gaming.[/I]) In any case, to take such discussions on whether the presence of magic results in magico-industrial revolutions and the like requires a better definition of the magic and its accessibility. This is separate from gunpowder weapons as generally treated. We have a pretty good idea how that can evolve. [/QUOTE]
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