D&D Technology

[Staffan]

What is an anti-bra?

I think he means the "Goblyn Queen" look.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I think he means the "Goblyn Queen" look.

But why is it called an anti-bra?

 

[Staffan]

Because unlike a regular bra which covers the bottom of the breasts, an "anti-bra" covers the top of them. There is, on one level, an additional level of naughtiness because the bottom of the breasts is usually covered up.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Because unlike a regular bra which covers the bottom of the breasts, an "anti-bra" covers the top of them. There is, on one level, an additional level of naughtiness because the bottom of the breasts is usually covered up.

Ahhh, I see.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And seeing is half the fun!

 

[fusangite]

There are a lot of world changing technologies that shouldn't properly exist in the sort of high midieval world mosr campaigns like to portray, but that often sneak in because the just seem so basic to us. Which ones got your goat?

I'll start off with two:
The button
The decimal point

I tend to be more bothered by the assumption of modern social, political and religious arrangements and worldviews.

As for the technology thing, let's make sure to differentiate between science and technology. These things do not always advance together; sometimes, they go in opposite directions as in the early medieval period where technology moved forward while scientific knowledge decayed. Because we live in a time where there is a high level of interdependence between scienfitic knowledge and technology, it is sometimes difficult for us to remember that before the Scientific Revolution this was not the case.

Given how immune organized D&D societies are to non-military threats like natural disasters and diseases and, in a similar vein, have access to highly reliable, predictable forms of magic, I would tend to assume that D&D worlds would have relatively little technology for their amount of scientific knowledge.

Also, given that D&D worlds clearly have different scientific laws, what with being able to make giant balls of fire out of words, there is no guarantee that technologies that would work in this world would work in a D&D world. If there are four elements instead of 108, what might the implications of this be to other areas of physics? For instance, if water and air are elements, clearly there is no such thing as oxygen. Would there even be fossil fuels, especially given that most D&D worlds are thousands rather than billions of years old, created by totally different forces than those that made this world?

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I tend to be more bothered by the assumption of modern social, political and religious arrangements and worldviews.

I hate to hijack the thread, but could you give some examples?

 

[Tsillanabor]

I hate to hijack the thread, but could you give some examples?

Probably referring to modern ideas of equality, human rights, upward mobility, etc. which wouldn't exist in a proper medieval setting.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I hate to hijack the thread, but could you give some examples

Women having rights, a common cultural distate for slavery, upward mobility in society, a lack of racism (an almost unavoidable consequence of having intelligent nonhumans), ease of moneychanging, a dearth of holy wars and religious persecution, etc.

Although most of those make sense for role-playing purposes, they really do vary from the real world.

 

[fusangite]

I hate to hijack the thread, but could you give some examples?

I see some other posters have already started work and offered some good stuff. Here are a few more examples:

1. The idea that people's relationship to pagan gods would be something like people's relationship to God in monotheistic faiths.
2. The idea that feudal states will have mechanisms that can enact or enforce laws the way we do in modern bureaucratic states.
3. The idea that gods cover a portfolio (e.g. rain) in a neat and rational way.
4. Free, unconditional purchase of services, land or goods in exchange for simple cash.

Anyway, this is just off the top of my head. There are plenty more.

EDIT: I'll disagree with DannyAlcatraz on one thing: racism. The concept of racism did not make a whole lot of sense to medievals. Despite the fact that they spent much of their time, from the 7th century onwards fighting Arabs and Africans, the idea of race did not emerge until the 16th century. "Race" as an idea, is a fundamentally modern notion.

People were hated because their religion was different, their fatherland was different, their culture was different, etc. But the idea of hating people simply because of how they looked is pretty new. You'll note, for instance, that in Parzifal, one of the original Holy Grail stories, the hero cannot achieve the grail until his black half-brother comes to his aid. One of the favourite saints of the Middle Ages was Saint Christopher, who was believed to have been a dog-headed man.