Cultural and Technological Continuity and The Process of Change

[SHARK]

Greetings!

In my campaigns, I have various regions and kingdoms making changes based on magic, culture, and technology, among other factors. I've noticed though, that over the years, many products and many people sort of embrace a time warp where nothing really changes. Indeed, I realise that the main flavour of medieval European paradigms are generally the dominant base-line, but do you think that carrying through with advances and changes in culture--say from invading hobgoblins that conquer a kingdom, to Dwarven water technology and use of elevators and other engineering improvements, as well as some local wizard creating a caravan line that uses freezer wagons and other improvements in long distance transportation and food storage to bring rare or previously unobtainable fruits and vegetables to entirely new regions. These kinds of changes and more operating on changing the economies, politics, technology, and culture of subject societies, societies around them, and more distant societies through such changing paradigms could, and logically would be significant, and yet, oftentimes no such shifting paradigms and dynamic changes ever seem to occur in many settings. Why do you think this is so, or why not? If so, how do you implement such changes in your campaigns?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Turanil]

Playing a fantasy game with a ruined castle to explore is a thing... Making an accurate and intelligent simulation of an evolving society is another matter entirely. It takes time, it's difficult and requires one to have a master dgree in history, economy, etc. As such, for the simple purpose of gaming lets just say there are ruined castles to plunder with a sword, in the vicinity. Then, if you need some verisimilitude to ease suspension of disbelief, just make it superficially looking some part of Earth history and that will do the trick. Now, make a huge scholar work of influence of magic, economics, and what not upon the world, and it's not going to improve your game that much.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I am of the mind that guilds and alignment have a lot to do with it in game. If a lawful kingdom change would be slow and small, in a chaotic one; fast and large. In a good one, there would be no harmful effects and it would be the best way to do a thing, if not why have it. in a evil one...it fits the need, so what if it kills and ruins.

 

[Zenodotus of Ephesus]

Perhaps for the same reasons that Romans never made the leap to developing the steam engine? They seemed quite intent on maintaining the status quo on a larger and larger scale when they were but a hair's breath away from some incredible technological advances that could have done away slave labor and lifted many into a new middle class, perhaps giving rise to a very different world today (bypassing the so-called middle ages, straight into a renaissance and an early industrial revolution). So, why not? Maybe for every serendipitous moment there are a series of anti-serendipitous moments that, in our ignorance, we simply are not aware. If the reasons why not were obvious, or even existent, there would be no need for the expression "Eureka!" As to why some things do not come to pass at all, or not until the time they do, it may simply defy reason.

 

[Zappo]

In standard D&D, I think there are several good reasons for which the advancement of technology seems to be halted at the middle ages level. The main three are the following.

First, magic can solve a lot of the problems that technology would, faster, better and sometimes even cheaper. The only field where technology wins big is mass-availability. To use magic, you need to either have special training or to have a magic item (which costs XP to make and therefore can't be mass-prduced). This alone would provide enough need for technological advancement, if not for...

Second, exactly who is going to do scientific research? Let's face it, not everyone has the potential to discover electromagnetism, or to take that and build a radio. You need high INT and lots of time. In fact, you need enough INT that you could be a pretty good wizard instead, and enough time that you are better off researching Rary's Telepathic Bond rather than build a radio. It works better, too. And you get the additional perk of throwing fireballs at annoying people. In a magic world, geniuses tend to become wizards, not scientists. Besides, scientists are screwed anyway, because...

Third, who said that there is such a thing as an EM field in D&D? It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that there is no scientific advancement in D&D because the universe simply doesn't have as many tricks to exploit as ours. Maybe Maxwell's equations are a lot more complex and suffer from quantum uncertainty, and Boyle's law works a bit differently, and nuclear interactions are stronger. Blam, now electromagnetism is useless for anything more complex than a compass, steam power is too inefficient for practical use, and there is no such thing as radioactivity. Oh, of course that would screw up living cells as well, but that's what we have positive energy for. Yes, it would cause the clouds to vanish and the seas to freeze, but the weather gods take care of that. And I know that the sun would go off, only it doesn't because instead of hydrogen fusion it works on elemental fire.

In conclusion, I add that this lack of technological advancement puts a hard limit on societal advancement as well. You'll never have an industrial revolution; chances are that you'll never have illuminism as well; no mass media accelerating cultural change either. And you get the occasional cataclysm or invasion of supernatural opponents as well. Given all this, I think that it is pretty reasonable for a world to stay medieval for ten thousand years, or even indefinitely.

 

[mmadsen]

Modern capitalist society is very unusual in its ability to successfully merge dynamism and stability -- or chaos and law, if you prefer. Most successful societies of the past (e.g., Rome, China) stifled innovation and change.

Really though, fantasy is an offshoot of medieval romance, and our prime example of what fantasy is is Tolkien's Middle Earth in its Third Age -- a world, like Europe after the Fall of Rome, which looks to the past for inspiration.

 

[General Barron]

Well, up until the modern era (19th century or so), technology, and arguably society and culture, advanced incredibly slowly. Hell, technology has only progressed as incredibly fast as it does now for the last 50 years at most.

So in any setting based before, say, the Renaissance, technological achievement is going to be so slow that it won't even be noticable over the course of an individual's lifetime. Meaning, you don't have to worry about it at all. The most advancement you would need to introduce is a single, mundane invention or two, such as stirrups.

If you want to show differences in tech, then focus on making the different peoples/cultures in your world have different tech levels. Goblins, orcs, gnolls, and other monsters could be living in nomadic tribes that have bronze age technology at best (and can only get modern weapons/equipment thru trade or plunder), or stone age technology at worst. Humans could have the "baseline" technology level/culture type for your campaign (100 years war? crusades?). The other player races should have similar technology and culture, but slight variations of course make them unique.

Remember that whenever societies freely trade with each other, they tend to share their technological/cultural achievements. But if you have more isolated societies, they could understandably have very different levels of tech/culture.

 

[pogre]

Agreeing with General Barron here - I immediately thought of Egypt and Roman society like many others have mentioned. IMC - magic has helped stifle mechanical and other innovative inventions - much in the way slavery affected Roman society. There are innovations in magic IMC, although like slavery it is mostly a tool of the wealthy.

 

[Umbran]

...and yet, oftentimes no such shifting paradigms and dynamic changes ever seem to occur in many settings. Why do you think this is so, or why not?

Why not? Simple - change generally takes more time than the duration of a campaign. In addition, there's the "more things change, the more they stay the same" phenomenon.

Example - our own world. Since 1980, the home computer has wrought many changes. But that's a quarter century we're talking about. Adventurers live hard, fast lives, and the campaign would be over before anyone noticed major shifts.

Example - our own world - Since 1980, the home computer has wrought many changes, but in many ways, life is still the same. The computer has changed the mechanics of life, but the end result is the same. While we don't use typewriters any more, people still go to work and do lots of typing. Factory workers work with bigger, more complicated machiens,but they still go to work and sweat all day. For all that change, for the most part I can tell the same stories set in 1980 as I could in 2005.

Change is not relevant unless it impacts the PC's story. GMs need to be like wise filmmakers - anything that isn't really relevant probably ought to be left on the cutting-room floor. We don't care about dwarven elevators, unless they impact the lives of the adventurers in some way.

 

[Zenodotus of Ephesus]

For all that change, for the most part I can tell the same stories set in 1980 as I could in 2005.

It's the haircut.