D&D General Technology in D&D, the IRL Timeline, and Pausing It.

[Crimson Longinus]

ironically you "aliens built the pyramids" has the same energy as "it had to be a hoax" both discount what someone can do when they put there mind to it.

could aliens have come down and done some things... sure I can't disprove it, but most likely not. We have machines that can compute astral body movements perfectly that predate the turk. We have modern engineers that can duplicate the turk. so could it be a hoax, yes it could. is it a proven fact it is, no no it isn't.

It is a proven fact and to be frank, to think otherwise is bordering on flat Earth theory levels of wilful scientific illiteracy. Like the alien pyramids, it requires completely ignoring the actual evidence if favour of building an impossible fantasy narrative. How the Turk worked has been known for almost two centuries; it was a guy in a box. Son of the machine's last owner literally revealed how it worked in 1850s, and one of the people who operated the machine during the shows corroborated it. And of course even if they hadn't, it should be blatantly obvious that a 1770s clockwork couldn't play chess, let alone very competently, or even more amazingly, match modern chat AIs in speech! (Yes, the Turk could 'speak' with people using a letter board. Though Kempelen dropped that part of the act early on, as even at 18th century people didn't buy it.)

I really love weird history and all sorts of wild conjectures people came up with in the olden times. They're excellent fodder for fantasy world building. I just wish people would understand the difference between fantasy and reality.

 

[Charlaquin]

maybe if you get into close things (This knife vs that knife, a bow vs a sling) but I mean we can very easily give levels of technology levels...

having a computer, smartphone and internet is more advanced then any bronze age technology.

if (and I do) you believe the Turk was an ancient computer and that Egypt could harness some form of electricity that SOUNDS like they are close to a computer. But really they are close to what a 18th or 19th century computer could look like (yes in BC and even then there is no evidence that it was ever put together) You still hit the problem that in 1998 the not smart phone I carried and the digital calculator watch I wore both had more computing power then my uncle had access to when he worked on Apollo missions.
(My uncle died before I got my first iphone. I often wonder what he would say about TODAY's smart phones when he used to talk with such joy and awe about any cell phone and big bulky laptops)

there isn't a single through line, infact our line double back on itself many times... but yes technology advances.

Technology grows more complex. I was not talking about technology, but about societies

 

[prabe]

Yeah, I have never disallowed gunpowder precisely because it makes no sense to me to remove it and keep the rest of technology the same, and I have no desire to bend over backwards narratively in order to force it to make sense. Plus, blackpowder weapons are a cool ascetic.

I don't like gunpowder in my D&D, but that's my preference. As what you replied to (I hope) made clear, I don't see that as a universal right/wrong thing. What matters to you can be different from what matters to me.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don't like gunpowder in my D&D, but that's my preference. As what you replied to (I hope) made clear, I don't see that as a universal right/wrong thing. What matters to you can be different from what matters to me.

I wonder how big overlap there is with people who prefer D&D with gunpowder and those who have played Warhammer Fantasy Battles or the associated RPGs...

I don't think there is anything wrong with gunpowder in fantasy. It just depends on the style of setting you want. Fantasy pirates game should definitely have black powder! Personally I prefer my fantasy settings to be more tightly temporally focused that D&D usually is. I don't mind anachronisms or different places being on different tech levels, as long as it is intentional and considered, rather than just results of thoughtless lumping of everything from ancient Greece to Victorian era into one hodgepodge.

(Seriously, fashion in a lot of fantasy setting bugs me. People in the same country seem to be wearing an incoherent riot of styles spanning several centuries. Victorian clothes, chain hauberks and renaissance puffy sleeves all mixed without rhyme or reason! Fantasy fashion doesn't need to match real fashion, but it should look coherent.)

 

[prabe]

I wonder how big overlap there is with people who prefer D&D with gunpowder and those who have played Warhammer Fantasy Battles or the associated RPGs...

I'm not gonna argue preferences, here, but I'll give you a datum: I've never played anything Warhammer-related or -derived.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm not gonna argue preferences, here, but I'll give you a datum: I've never played anything Warhammer-related or -derived.

It used to be a rather big thing, and the main human faction was explicitly renaissance flavoured. So if that's among one's formative fantasy influences, gunpowder in fantasy seems perfectly natural.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not gonna argue preferences, here, but I'll give you a datum: I've never played anything Warhammer-related or -derived.

I have, but I don't believe it was a great influence on my fantasy world view. I prefer to start with real history (to the best of my understanding of it at the time) and deviate from there contextually. Gunpowder weaponry existed alongside many items in D&D for quite a while historically, do it does the same in my games unless I have a good reason why not. Removing it for otherwise unexplained asthetic reasons does not work for me, particularly as I like the asthetic.

 

[éxypnos]

The question is if humans are quicker to build upon the knowledge of ancestors faster than the longer lived races.

That's a question for the DM of any particular campaign. There will be no consensus here.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I don't like most in-universe arguments for not having gunpowder in the setting. But I'm usually more than happy to accept "it doesn't fit this setting's aesthetic" as a perfectly cromulent reason to not have any.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I wonder what difference the assumed gender equality and availability of magical healing at childbirth would make? (Maybe add in some cleric spells offering resistance to disease for children and a reliable birth control cantrip?). Would that lead to smaller family sizes and less pressure for population expansion?

The fact that women can use magic just as well as men means that, at least among the elite, women are much closer to equal if not actually equal. After all, it's much harder to oppress people when they can cast a 15' cone of fire.

If we run with that... the society overall should be more equal because the lower classes tend to reflect the upper classes more than the other way around.