D&D General D&D, magic, and the mundane medieval

[pemerton]

With respect... maybe, if you are not an expert in a thing, you need to do a bit more than just assert that everyone can do that thing. Maybe your assertion needs some evidentiary support.

I think this standard can also be applied to the notion that meaningful extrapolations about social and economic arrangements can be drawn from the D&D magic rules.

 

[Oofta]

it just isn't true. it's education level not natural born ability. IF you had spent 10 years pushing for XXXX career you could do it, the fact that it would be hard becuse that skill set doesn't come easy might be why you didn't push for it, but that doesn't make some skills magic inborn ability,

I guarantee you some of the people who would have been the best (insert mental field here) didn't get to be that because they didn't have access to the education. I also guarantee you that some of the mediocre but able to do it (insert mental field here) pushed to be educated and put everything into it.

being 'born smart enough' is eugentics.

Education can give you skills, many people who are never given access to education are brilliant. I'm certain we've had innumerable individuals who had Einstein levels of intellectual capacity that were never given the opportunity to use their gifts. The converse is not true. I accept there are certain things I simply am not be capable of doing. No amount of training will change that. I do not feel bad that I can't do high level math. I have other strengths, other areas I do better than most.

Eugenics doesn't even enter into the picture. Different individuals have different capabilities.

 

[Cruentus]

While things have changed, in Ad&d, you rolled your ability scores (Method 1) 3d6, in order. A Wizard needed a minimum of 9 to be a wizard.

Ok, certainly not a huge bar, but you had to roll that 9 or higher in your 'fourth' 3d6 roll to qualify.

However, with that 9, you could only cast up to 4th level spells, only had a 35% chance to learn a spell (re-rollable each level gained), and a maximum of 6 spells per level (that you can know, granted, this last is optional).

So, yeah, you could be "average", and learn to cast spells, but not many, and not to a high level, and you were likely not learning spells very easily as you came across them.

If I was rolling up a character, and didn't roll well on that 3d6 for Int, or it wasn't my highest stat, I wouldn't be making a Wizard. With d4 HP, and a high xp chart, it was a tough road to hoe to get to that "powerful wizard" mantle.

In the worlds I run, I base my "level of magic" against those types of parameters, so magic is "rare" and looked at askance or feared, there are no wizard colleges, so you learn either in a major city combing through whatever stands for books and tomes, or you have a mentor, and you don't pick your spells, they're randomly generated early, and you have to find (or do tasks for your mentor) to gain more if you're adventuring.

Its not an easy path.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Education can give you skills, many people who are never given access to education are brilliant. I'm certain we've had innumerable individuals who had Einstein levels of intellectual capacity that were never given the opportunity to use their gifts.

100% agree I have a wholly not appropriate to this site theory about that and the world

The converse is not true. I accept there are certain things I simply am not be capable of doing. No amount of training will change that. I do not feel bad that I can't do high level math. I have other strengths, other areas I do better than most.

again, I can understand math isn't easy for you (your brain isn't wired to do it naturally) but the training that would come with hours of WANTING to be a theriacal mathematician and the education would improve the way you do it.
I understand not everyone can be Einstein, there is talent in born and a education that needs to go hand in hand. However I know plenty of people who dabble in crazy things because they are willing to spend hours being bad at it and hours being not as bad at it and hours of being less bad still and then get to okay/adequate. They may never be the best top 1 ever, but they CAN learn and do the job.

Eugenics doesn't even enter into the picture. Different individuals have different capabilities.

science is NOT a born thing. If you take 20 random people some of them are not 'unable to learn science' now some of them may not want to (infact all of them may not want to) some of them may need to put in more hours at studdy.


It reminds me of High school... I was the 3rd highest graduating, and I almost never did home work, I doodled D&D stuff during class and I never took my books home to study (and if I told my mom I was studying I was working on D&D) the valedictorian the same year was Monica... I never in my 6 years in school with her DIDN'T see her with a book studying. She never understood why I didn't study and I didn't until years later learn why she needed to... She is a car mechanic now, she has an aptitude I don't. I COULD put hours and hours and learn to be a better mechanic, but it just comes easy to her. The same way I can in short term retain and understand what is talked about around me (aka school). But she didn't do worse then me... she pushed her butt and did BETTER then me,

 

[HammerMan]

I think this standard can also be applied to the notion that meaningful extrapolations about social and economic arrangements can be drawn from the D&D magic rules.

Yeah why are we talking about if you can or can’t be taught physics?!?

 

[Cadence]

Assuming there is no spark/bloodline/mutation/whatnot required, the rarity of classical magic-user/wizard type magic in a campaign world feels like it would be related to:

• How much it takes mentally to do it - is it multiplying fractions, algebra II, calculus, undergrad real analysis, measure theory, category theory, advanced differential geometry, or theoretical mathematical logic?
• How dangerous it is to fail - is it writing stuff on paper and risking headaches and suffering stress, or is it like a chemistry lab with unstable explosive chemicals or nuclear materials?
• How expensive the materials to learn it are - does it take pencil and paper, or does it require a super-computer or expensive lab?

Focussing on the 1st, at some point in math it seems like folks (with support who are actually given the opportunity) top out at what they can manage in any reasonable amount of time. There are plenty of people who put in hundreds or thousands of hours to get to a given level in graduate school and have support to get there... and it apparently isn't doable in the months or years they put into it. Seemingly in the same way it isn't doable for some folks to make a college baseball team, or a minor league baseball team, or get out of the minors to the pros.

If first level spells are multiplying fractions then it feels like most people would get there in a reasonable amount of time and would learn it if the opporutnity to do so was actually given and the rewards for doing so were vaguely reasonable. If casting a first level spell is like mastering Spivak's Differential Geometry or Hungerford's Algebra (let alone the things that build on those) then it feels like society might starve to death if most people were trying to learn 1st level earth moving things instead of actually plowing fields and planting stuff.

 

[Clint_L]

The effect of magic and various monsters, gods, etc. would be so absolutely transformative that if you want to keep quasi-medieval trappings it's best not to think too hard about it.

For example, why would walled fortifications be a thing in which so many threats can fly, burrow, leap, teleport or just utterly annihilate them in an instant?

Why would any anyone ever die of disease with all the remedies available? Why would anyone starve?

Every caster capable of casting "Magnificent Mansion" would quit adventuring and make a fortune offering luxury accommodations with all the benefits. And that's just one option. Hell, "mending" alone would revolutionize a medieval world (or the modern one!).

No, it's best to not consider this aspect of the setting too deeply.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Physical skills such as hockey, basketball, underwater basket weaving are things that just about anyone can accomplish, even if they can not do them well. There are some mental tasks that only a subset of the population can accomplish. I don't think that's a radical concept, nor is it an insult to anyone to accept that we al have limitations that no amount of effort or training can overcome.

This is false. Again, the advanced levels of basketball skill are just as out of most people's reach as advanced mathematics. The fundamentals are available to everyone. You talk of insults is odd, since no one has claimed that you've insulted anyone.

Do what makes sense in your campaign, in my campaign world only some people can become wizards.

I don't care about your campaign, as I've pointed out many times before. A discussion here is generally about the game in general.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

There’s also the other side of things that no one ever seems to take into account - the monsters.

So many monsters would radically change the world. Fire beetles are a renewable light source that cannot burn your house down.

Never minding flying mounts.

An ogre would be able to do unbelievable amounts of work.

The list is enormous.

And more of the "mundane" beasts should have changed to make use of the magical nature of the world. In a world where there are 9+ ways for humanoids to learn magic, why don't more animals find ways to use magic? Magical animals are going to outcompete mundane animals because of how useful magic is, so why haven't magical beasts become the dominant animals of the world? Where are the mutated beasts that have sorcerous magic? Why haven't Awakened Beasts used their superior intelligence to outcompete mundane beasts? Or used their sapience to become spellcasters (Clerics, Druids, Rangers, Warlocks, and even Wizards)? Can songbirds get bardic magic from singing? Can bats evolve magical echolocation that does thunder damage and stuns their prey? Can axolotls regenerate like a Troll does?

There are some magical versions of mundane creatures (Blink Dogs, Displacer Beasts, Awakened Beasts, Eberron's Magebred) and hybrid animals (Chimera, Owlbears, Merrow, Perytons), but in most D&D worlds most abundant creatures are the mundane (humans and Earth's animals) and those magical variants are mostly magical abominations created by other sentient creatures (Owlbears were created by a wizard, Chimera and Merrow were created by Demogorgon, Perytons were created by an elven goddess, the Magebred of Eberron were created by House Vadalis, etc).

The only setting that properly integrates magic into the wildlife is Dark Sun, where most creatures/monsters have at least some psionics. I would love to see a setting that uses the idea that magic can be accessed by wildlife and has wide-magic that normal Earth animals can use.

 

[pemerton]

Yeah why are we talking about if you can or can’t be taught physics?!?

Dunno.