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World Building: Tech, Magic, and Society
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<blockquote data-quote="Oofta" data-source="post: 9052119" data-attributes="member: 6801845"><p>I think it was on one of these threads that Agatha Christie would come up with the solution to the murder mystery and work back from there. I look at world design much the same. What feel do you want? Do you want a literate world where many people own books? Where walking down the street you'll hear someone yelling "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" as they try to sell the latest newspaper? Then make it so. Has the "technology" of the world stagnated? Stuck between late renaissance and early industrial revolution? Then that's what you have.</p><p></p><p>My campaign world is pretty advanced but it's been "stuck" at that level for quite a while. Long ago, things were much more advanced but then there was a magical cataclysm that wiped out a lot of knowledge (essentially the equivalent of nuclear war, those legendary items have to come from somewhere), but a fair amount of knowledge was retained. However, the logic and science behind the advances of magic was lost. Meanwhile, there is a lot of "common" magic. Magic that people don't even realize their casting. So those cookies really are magically delicious, the blacksmith hums a special ditty and blessing while forging and his steel is more uniform than it should be while also not being prone to rust. There is magic that groups or specialists can do that will rival even high level casters, on the other hand they couldn't cast magic missile with a snap of their fingers to save their life.</p><p></p><p>This even extends into biology, medicine, agriculture. A broken leg that in the real world that would take 3-6 months to heal instead takes 3-6 weeks. Those compotes and tinctures really do cure diseases. Infant mortality is far lower than it was traditionally so women are more likely to enter the workforce (side note: longer lived races also tend to treat men and women more equally because percentage wise raising a child takes less of their lives). When it comes to agriculture, blessings for good crops really do work and fields are far more productive than they were traditionally. While planting and harvesting are still quite labor intensive, it's more around 60% of the population grows food instead of 90%.</p><p></p><p>Last, but not least, people sometimes get too caught up in things like "Castles wouldn't stand a chance against dragons". While this is true if dragons had just popped up in some medieval city, but that's because dragons don't exist in the real world. Therefore in a world with dragons there would be counters to dragons. When people's lives are on the line we tend to get quite creative on how to defend ourselves.</p><p></p><p>All of this is just stuff I've been noodling on over the years. If I assume that we have magic, how limited is it? Is there any reason to limit it to just a handful of people? I want a more "modern" feel to my world but I also want to be able to advance the timeline, so the magitech is not really advancing much, why not?* If people really can have diseases cured with a touch, how widespread do I want magical treatment of disease to be? What ripple effects does that have? So I decided I wanted magic to be common, but I don't want a industrial revolution society. I certainly don't want space fantasy (although that could be fun too). I just kind of went from there.</p><p></p><p>TLDR: Start with what kind of society you want, start with the real world as a guideline and then think about how magic works and what impact it has on society.</p><p></p><p><em>*We should note that we live in a time of technical advancement that has never really been seen before. Go back just over a hundred years and speed of advancement was slower. Go back a little further before the steam engine was invented and it was even slower.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Oofta, post: 9052119, member: 6801845"] I think it was on one of these threads that Agatha Christie would come up with the solution to the murder mystery and work back from there. I look at world design much the same. What feel do you want? Do you want a literate world where many people own books? Where walking down the street you'll hear someone yelling "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" as they try to sell the latest newspaper? Then make it so. Has the "technology" of the world stagnated? Stuck between late renaissance and early industrial revolution? Then that's what you have. My campaign world is pretty advanced but it's been "stuck" at that level for quite a while. Long ago, things were much more advanced but then there was a magical cataclysm that wiped out a lot of knowledge (essentially the equivalent of nuclear war, those legendary items have to come from somewhere), but a fair amount of knowledge was retained. However, the logic and science behind the advances of magic was lost. Meanwhile, there is a lot of "common" magic. Magic that people don't even realize their casting. So those cookies really are magically delicious, the blacksmith hums a special ditty and blessing while forging and his steel is more uniform than it should be while also not being prone to rust. There is magic that groups or specialists can do that will rival even high level casters, on the other hand they couldn't cast magic missile with a snap of their fingers to save their life. This even extends into biology, medicine, agriculture. A broken leg that in the real world that would take 3-6 months to heal instead takes 3-6 weeks. Those compotes and tinctures really do cure diseases. Infant mortality is far lower than it was traditionally so women are more likely to enter the workforce (side note: longer lived races also tend to treat men and women more equally because percentage wise raising a child takes less of their lives). When it comes to agriculture, blessings for good crops really do work and fields are far more productive than they were traditionally. While planting and harvesting are still quite labor intensive, it's more around 60% of the population grows food instead of 90%. Last, but not least, people sometimes get too caught up in things like "Castles wouldn't stand a chance against dragons". While this is true if dragons had just popped up in some medieval city, but that's because dragons don't exist in the real world. Therefore in a world with dragons there would be counters to dragons. When people's lives are on the line we tend to get quite creative on how to defend ourselves. All of this is just stuff I've been noodling on over the years. If I assume that we have magic, how limited is it? Is there any reason to limit it to just a handful of people? I want a more "modern" feel to my world but I also want to be able to advance the timeline, so the magitech is not really advancing much, why not?* If people really can have diseases cured with a touch, how widespread do I want magical treatment of disease to be? What ripple effects does that have? So I decided I wanted magic to be common, but I don't want a industrial revolution society. I certainly don't want space fantasy (although that could be fun too). I just kind of went from there. TLDR: Start with what kind of society you want, start with the real world as a guideline and then think about how magic works and what impact it has on society. [I]*We should note that we live in a time of technical advancement that has never really been seen before. Go back just over a hundred years and speed of advancement was slower. Go back a little further before the steam engine was invented and it was even slower.[/I] [/QUOTE]
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