Does high magic = high tech?

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

yea, points taken

I do have to give props to the teleportation circles thread. That was an interesting bit of exploration right there.

I think the personal point is probably the biggest distinction between magic and tech.
Even at the point where you are creating the permanent teleport circles that make the limitations of personal power stretch out a great deal, you do suddenly create a liquid demand for experience. Something we deal with only in a very static basis.
Experienced scientists retire and must be replaced by younger scientists gaining experience, but a high level wizard basically empties himself of a good chunk of experience and then has to go get more. I find the implications of that startling from a human resources perspective at the very least.

So that's one general distinction, and I would argue for another.

Technology tends to make resources easier to use. Magic in DnD tends to make using resources better. These are gross generalities, but...

Tech: tractors: make it easier for one guy to farm more land.

Magic: plant growth: doesn't make it any easier to farm the same plot of land, but makes it more effective to do so.

Tech: flintlocks: make it easier to train more men for battle effectively

Magic: longbow +2, arrow of seeking: makes the one guy you've trained just as long as the other bowmen more effective

Mind you, each way of doing things often violates this distinction, but I think as a general tendency it holds and I think it has an important influence on the way society develops as a result of either becoming more prominent.

I mean the magical agricultural revolution still means that fewer farmers are necessary, but there is more of a product surplus than a labor surplus, retraining isn't an issue for the individual farmer, the individual farm remains small, there is less pressure to rapidly develop the surrounding land, and a class of professional agricultural magicians becomes a powerful component of rural society.

The magical military revolution probably means that commando and strategic units begin to dominate the field of war in the way they do today at a much earlier period in society's development.

In both cases you are basically heading straight to the agricultural and military revolutions of the modern era without hitting the complicating intervening history of rapid urbanization, land development, rural and governmental, and huge military and industrial complexes. Same issues, but in a very different context.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I think D&D sets up a situation where high magic could become ubiquitious. It is not necessary for the common man to understand or be able to create 'wondrous items'. The common man does not understand a microwave or a television set. Increasingly, the common man does not even understand a car. (I can fix quite a few things on a car built 40 years ago, but almost nothing on one that is built recently.) All that is necessary is that the common man have the usage of the wonderous item.

Well, would the "Common Man" get usage of such items? Somehow, I doubt it. In my setting, I even waived the XP costs for magic items to some degree and in certain circumstances (instead, it's some poor schmucks in the slums who feel the drain) - and still, magic items remain useful tools and toys for the rich. Poor people simply cannot afford the good stuff, and the rich see no reason to change that by paying them more.

What sort of world would it really be if we could make Decanters of Endless Water? Would sanitation and running water develop much earlier and in a greater number of cultures? Surely a couple Decanters of Endless Water make no more of a daunting construction challenge than the Aqueducts that watered ancient Rome.

Well, in my setting, something on these lines is certainly used for some desert cities. But most cities are still built near major rivers - none the least because these provide convenient means of transportation...

What sort of world would it be if you really could make Clay and Stone golems? Imagine you could make a tireless, unthirsting, beasts of burden? Forget uber-guards. Imagine you could replace cranes with stone men!

Well, clay golems have the disadvantage that they melt in the rain... but in my setting, stone golems are certainly used at tasks where human strength simply doesn't suffice - such as pulling trains...

What advances would this encourage and what would it discourage? The invention of the waterwheel, windmill, gear box, and the block and tackle were all inhibited by the precense of abundent slave labor in the ancient world. How much more so if the King could command the alligence of 400 Stone Golems?

In my world, it is usually still cheaper to hire a couple of dozen - or hundreds - of people than put a single stone golem at the task. Stone golems remain an expensive investment, and as long as human strength can do the job at all, it is more efficient to pay humans to do the job. After all, humans are cheap...

And of what value would an army be in the field against the King if he could? Of what value is the Phlanyx when one man with wand of fireballs can consume the whole line? Are wands of fireball and 5th level wizards really rarer than armies of hundreds of men? What is the point of a mass cavalry charge if a Wall of Fire can be errected between you and the foe?

Well, in my setting, the age of mass field battle is over. Instead you need a large number of "grunts" who "police" conquered territories - and some highly trained specialists to take out key objectives (like enemy spell casters, Nexus Towers...)

Tight army formations are just another way of suicide.

If there are potions of youth, do aristocrats ever really need to die?

They don't seem to be any in the DMG, and there aren't any in my setting, either (but see here...) - which frustrates human rulers to no end. Sure, they tend to get ressurected after each assassination, but once their time is up, it is up.

Which, of course, provides plenty of adventuring opportunities as the PCs search for the Philosopher's Stone, or the Fountain of Youth, or something...

If you really have vampires and liches, how likely is it that they _would not_ rule empires openly or in secret?

Well, in my setting, they do...

If you really have half-celestials and demi-gods, wouldn't you really have divine right of Kings?

I'll top that: I've decided that in my setting, one of the cities will be ruled openly by an actual demigod. The writeup should be on my homepage by the weekend...

First edition D&D had the problem of explaining why low level magic items were so common given how hard they were to create. Third edition solved that problem, and now the question is 'Why are they so rare?'.

And imagine what items would really have economic value to the common person. Forget wands of magic missiles. How about wonderous items of 'clean', 'chill', 'heat', 'spice', 'gather', etc.? (all duplicatable by the Prestidigtation cantrip). Once you make one, it doesn't go away. If your campaign world is thousands of years old, and the population is stable (or reduced from the glory years of the past!) as it so often is, why aren't these things everywhere?

Well, the population in my setting isn't stable - it has been increasing at rates similar to our Industrial Age. Thus, too many poor people who can't afford this stuff...

 

[hong]

URL overload

In my setting...

Well, in my setting, ...

but in my setting, ...

In my world, ...

Well, in my setting...

in my setting, ...

Well, in my setting, they do...

I've decided that in my setting, ...

Well, the population in my setting ...

I'm sorry, which setting was that again?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

To create a fantasy world where this is <i>not</i> the case, you'll have to get pretty radical. In my first post, here, one of the ways I proposed this is to have being a magician (be it divine or arcane) have mystical and psychological reasons for not wanting to see the average people advance. Perhaps becoming a powerful magician makes the magician indifferent to the suffering of others, for instance, as a side effect of the forces they play with.

Or to take a cue from the real-world market economy, perhaps they are just too busy competing with each other to notice or care...

Will you do something for the public good and install a couple of decanters of endless water to help ensure a clean water supply? It won't generate much money for you, and the guild of water-sellers will harass you to no end - but you could sleep well with the knowledge of a job well done, at least until some slum dweller nicks the decanters and sells them on the black market.

Or will you join the multi-million gp defense project and build another siege golem for the army? It won't do much for the public good, but it will increase your personal research budget to unknown heights.

Hmmm... Tough choice, isn't it?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Re: URL overload

I'm sorry, which setting was that again?

Well, Urbis, of course, the setting I constantly plug in my sig.

(OK, perhaps I'm going a bit overboard at times... but hell, if the links annoy you, just don't click on them.)

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Magic makes work easier than it would be to do 'manually'.

Easier? Yes. Cheaper? Depends...

Compare the price for a golem with the weekly wage of a menial laborer. In many cases, it is cheaper to hire a few of the latter...

 

[Chrisling]

Or to take a cue from the real-world market economy, perhaps they are just too busy competing with each other to notice or care...

Will you do something for the public good and install a couple of decanters of endless water to help ensure a clean water supply? It won't generate much money for you, and the guild of water-sellers will harass you to no end - but you could sleep well with the knowledge of a job well done, at least until some slum dweller nicks the decanters and sells them on the black market.

Or will you join the multi-million gp defense project and build another siege golem for the army? It won't do much for the public good, but it will increase your personal research budget to unknown heights.

Hmmm... Tough choice, isn't it?

Oh, no! Selective reality intrusion!

Considering how far some governments have gone to insure stable waters supplies to the people they serve in both the modern day as well as antiquity, no doubt in some places magicians would be convinced to supply the decanters for the public good. I mean, Rome built the <i>aqueducts</I>. Buying a few decanters of endless water compared to THAT is a pretty small expense.

However, to talk about the point I was trying to make, the actual precise psychological mechanism that gets used to prevent magicians from make world transforming artifacts is irrelevant to me. A good GM can BS anything they want and make it sound legitimate.

 

[Chrisling]

In Defense of Golems

In my previous campaign, there was actually a widely held belief that, in the long run, golems were in fact cheaper than people. I mean, c'mon, a human menail worker has to be fed, housed, etc., and wears out after swiftly. A <I>golem</i>, on the other hand, doesn't eat, doesn't sleep, doesn't join a guild, don't do anything but work, work, work. For <i>aeons</i>, if properly cared for.

While I don't have a cool setting link, in my previous campaign, the one with the Undying Emperor, golems were virtually everywhere and most of them were old as time. The Emperor had been making and commissioning them for literally thousands of years, as many as possible. It just made sense to him to have the Empire scattered about with servants that were absolutely obedient to his will who could generate huge amounts of energy for enormous amounts of time.

Not to mention their other benefits. Let's say you're a bandit chief. You know in every village has a stone golem or two. Now, what's you're motivation to attack?

There are drawbacks. IMC, the Undying Emperor was Lawful Evil, heh. If a province annoyed him, he had no problem whatsoever just ordering all the golems to kill everyone.

But, regardless, in terms of economics, if one presumes as I did that golems never "wear out," then creating as many as possible makes sense for people who think in terms of centuries instead of days and years.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Any magic that is sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from technology.

How about a little credit for Arthur C. Clarke, hmm? The above construction is known as Clarke's Law or Clarke's Theorem, can't recall which.

 

[hong]

How about a little credit for Arthur C. Clarke, hmm? The above construction is known as Clarke's Law or Clarke's Theorem, can't recall which.

Actually, no. Clarke's Law is that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The line quoted here is that any sufficiently pervasive magic is indistinguishable from technology, and is known as Hong's Second Law. Hong's Third Law is that thinking too hard about fantasy is bad. And I forget what the First Law is.