Is Magic a Setting Element or a Plot Device

[mmadsen]

But, if "elf knives" are left over from elf-orc wars, then why aren't there more of them?

There probably aren't more elf knives leftover from the elf-orc wars because (a) there weren't that many to start with; we're told they were made for elf-princes, (b) there haven't been any full-scale elf-orc wars in a long, long time, and (c) the elves are in decline.

Why didn't the people on the Italian peninsula keep living like Imperial Romans after the western empire fell? Why didn't Europeans just build more aqueducts?

Not all societies progress inexorably, like modern society since the Industrial Revolution.

I look at Conan, with monsters under every rock, wizards all over the place, heck, it's got GODS hanging around in the middle of the city (The Tower of the Elephant).

Monsters under every rock? Conan travels the world (of Hyborea) and encounters monsters in many far-off lands, but the monsters certainly don't seem common. Even in the story you mention, the wizard's tower holding the "god" is guarded by lions and a giant spider. In another story the villain has a not-quite-tame man-ape.

If this kind of thing is possible, then it's possible to exploit. [...] Yet, no one, in all the history of the Middle Earth, thinks, "Hey, that's a pretty nifty idea - I think I'll get me one of those too." and copies the idea?

So, the fact that a demi-god like Sauron was able to create something by pouring substantial amounts of his own personal power into means that the other dozen or so Wizards and powerful elves should be forging such rings too?

I never got the impression that it was a cheap industrialized process. More like, if Michelangelo can make a Sistine Chapel ceiling, why don't we see a lot more of these?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

There was a fashion for denying the dark ages, as a way for historians to make their reputation by refuting the previous generations. Now that 'Late Antiquity' is pretty old hat, the new generation are making their reps showing that the Dark Ages were indeed pretty damn dark. I recently read the (IMO) excellent The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization which demonstrates through primary sources the massive impact of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire - in Britain civilisation literally disappeared completely, and while the effects were more nuanced in other areas, they were ultimately devastating throughout the West...

I think this effect is similar to how nutrition science is constantly telling us that X is bad for us or great for us--only to reveal later with more research that Grandma was right: Eat a wide variety in moderation, and you won't do too badly (barring diabetes or such). So the medieval period is one where people were people like they have always been, and had their ups and downs. The scholarship keeps over-reacting to whatever was discovered most recently, instead of keeping that central fact in mind.

However, there is a widespread, "modern American" view in a lot of high school history minds that Rome fell, and then nothing decent happened again in Western Europe until the enlightenment. It takes a lot of research to counter old Mrs. Freedlips* modern dogma.

But back on the main topic, sometimes the difference between rapid take off and several centuries of decline is razor thin. See the "mini-enlightenment," circa 1300, with rapid progress in economics, techology, philosophy, etc. And then the bubonic plague takes out 1/3 of the population, you throw in a bit of religious strife, and the whole thing more or less blows up for 2 to 3 centuries.

In a fantasy story--which whatever else it wants to be, is a story about characters--you need very little literary license or "what if" exploration to come up with something plausible for long periods of stagnation or even decline. Once you have that, then almost any story is possible. Afterall, if you lose the means to pass on technological or other progress to the next generation, it only takes two or three such generations to set things back "permanently"--until rediscovery.

* A favorite stand-in of one of my favorite professors for a high school teacher that taught mainly attitude, and that out of a poor textbook.

 

[Baron Opal]

So, how about your game worlds? Do you spend time exploring the implications of the fantastic? Or, is your game world more traditional fantasy?

One of things that I enjoy the most about D&D is extrapolating the consequences of magic and fantastic creatures being present. Sometimes the changes that I envision are significant, othertimes more trivial. For example, I see city-states being more common due to the presence of monstrous creatures and the apparent fragility of the peasantry. I also try to highlight the use of clay jugs full of vinegar being common household items. You have to wash blood away with something acidic, denaturing the blood, otherwise you will attract stirges. Nobody wants that.

But, if "elf knives" are left over from elf-orc wars, then why aren't there more of them? After all, orcs and goblins are a common enough threat in Middle Earth that having something that can tell you when they're around would be pretty durn handy.

...

If this kind of thing is possible, then it's possible to exploit...
Someone makes the One Ring, so, now it's known that it is possible to do. Yet, no one, in all the history of the Middle Earth, thinks, "Hey, that's a pretty nifty idea - I think I'll get me one of those too." and copies the idea?

That would be what I'm talking about. None of the fantastic is ever exploited in LotR, despite it being fairly easy and/or obvious that it quite possible could be exploited.

I think that in this instance the difference is between possible and accessible.

Enchanted weapons are both possible and accessible in that situation. While the Fall of Gondolin was thousands of years ago, the techniques to make enchanted weaponry are still extant. You can find useful relics due to their commonality (Sting, Orcrist and Glamdring in the troll hoard, Numenorian blades from the barrows). Also, while few still know how to make them, those techniques have been preserved and are accessible (reforging Narsil into Anduril).

If it was a game rather than a story, I would imagine that the lore would be teachable if you had the grit to travel to Rivendell and persuade the elves to teach you how. Failing that, an exceptional amount of patience to search through the libraries of Minas Tirith to find old records from the Numenorian settlers.

I would say that the rings of power are most definately plot devices. Sauron taught the elves of Hollin how to make them. After seeing their refinements to the process, he encouraged their manufacture and made the One Ring to control the others. At that point, making further rings would only increase his power. While it is possible to make a ring of power, after the elves stop there are no further means to learn how. It seems to be a particularly difficult process; it's implied that Saruman rediscovers the craft, but the ring he makes is basic at best and it took a 1000 years of investigation to figure that much out.

To put this more towards the OP, it is a choice similar to whether or not you think casting wall of iron is destructive to the local economy. I don't think so, because 9th level magicians are pretty rare and it is unlikely that they will know that particular spell. Furthermore, it would be a pain in the neck to smelt it down unless a special facility was made for just that. I consider that highly unlikely. Because, really, if it was me I would already have all the cash I needed to live comfortably just through the achievement of becoming a 9th level magician. The pursuit of power, the daughter of the Duke's hand in marriage, or whatever my original motivation was would have changed.

 

[Baron Opal]

Put another way, just because it is possible doesn't mean that you are capable.

Looking at D&D again, I can see that the presence of clerics and druids would improve the health of the peasantry. But, like I mentioned before, the peasantry are a fairly fragile lot. Given my assumptions of number and magnitude of classed individuals, I've interpreted this to mean that infant and child mortality is much lower than our own world. This does give more adults to be eaten by manticores or slaughtered by orcs. Homeostasis is achieved.

I also only look at how the 1-2nd levels spells would impact the world. While the higher level magic is possible, there are relatively few practitioners of that level. Therefore it is not as accessible, and so poorly exploitable. And, as I mentioned previously, just because a magician has achieved 7th or higher level does not mean for an instant he is interested in being a lowly tradesman. If he wanted to throw walls of stone around all day, he would have learned to be a stonemason.

When I do have more potent magic have a societal impact, I generally restrain it to the scope of a city-state. Beyond that, the different city-states become involved and political considerations arise.

 

[Dausuul]

Look at it like this. Someone makes the One Ring, so, now it's known that it is possible to do. Yet, no one, in all the history of the Middle Earth, thinks, "Hey, that's a pretty nifty idea - I think I'll get me one of those too." and copies the idea?

It's clearly stated that Sauron, a minor deity, put a whole bunch of his own power into the Ring. That's why destroying it reduces him to a shadow. The power used to create the Ring is a finite, non-renewable resource; Middle-Earth petroleum if you like. For all Tolkien's faults as a writer--and he did have quite a few IMO--it's hard to find major problems with his world-building, aside from a tendency toward medieval stasis.

One thing I do whenever designing any kind of magic system is to put boundaries on it, so that there's a plausible reason why it hasn't turned society into something unrecognizable. With D&D-type fantasy, my boundaries usually consist of a) limiting powerful magic to high-level casters, who are rare and b) resource-limiting the ability of casters to produce permanent effects, so they can't accumulate magic in huge amounts. Material components are a good way to achieve b).

4E seems to have got the memo on this. Two examples of places where earlier editions ran into trouble that could have been fixed with these principles:

Invisibility. A spell available to every failed apprentice wizard who can scrape out level three, long-duration invisibility is a massive game-changer in a variety of ways, from warfare to commerce. Solution: Move to higher level and limit duration.
Wall of Stone. While this spell requires fairly high level to cast, you can build an entire castle with it in a matter of weeks. Edward Longshanks, move over; Mr. Ninth-Level Wizard is going to fortify his country like whoa. Solution: Add a material component cost.

Your magic is still tool-like (that's almost inevitable in an RPG where it's possible to play a caster), but there are logical reasons why it isn't all-pervasive.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

I never got the impression that it was a cheap industrialized process. More like, if Michelangelo can make a Sistine Chapel ceiling, why don't we see a lot more of these?

The reason there aren't more elf knives is because it's a plot point. That's the long and short of it.

We could recreate the Sistine Chapel in a day if we wanted. How many copies of the Mona Lisa are there kicking around?

We don't do so for artistic reasons, but, copies, and perfectly authentic copies, are not particularly difficult.

 

[Jhaelen]

Most of the fantasy I have read (and there are many exceptions here, I'm painting with a very broad brush) treats magic as a plot device.

Yeah, I hate that, too. It's part of the reason I prefer reading SF over Fantasy novels any day.

Much too often novel authors and more importantly adventure designers use magic as an excuse for or the solution to a poorly thought-out scenario. It's the classic cop-out of saying "a wizard did it!".
I hate nothing more than an adventure module that relies on a magical gizmo created specifically to make the adventure work. That's just lazy!

If you create a setting where magic is a reality, you'd better think long and hard about the implications, rules, and limitations of magic. As always my poster child for a magical setting that makes sense is the 'Ars Magica' rpg.
But other settings work quite well, too: e.g. Mage: The Ascension, and to a lesser degree Eberron (and maybe Dark Sun).

 

[mmadsen]

The reason there aren't more elf knives is because it's a plot point.

You sincerely believe that the internal logic of Middle Earth suggests that it should be awash in magic elf-knives, but Tolkien restricted the number appearing in The Lord of the Rings so that the story would work? Really?

 

[Dausuul]

The reason there aren't more elf knives is because it's a plot point. That's the long and short of it.

We could recreate the Sistine Chapel in a day if we wanted. How many copies of the Mona Lisa are there kicking around?

We don't do so for artistic reasons, but, copies, and perfectly authentic copies, are not particularly difficult.

A better comparison is Damascus steel, the secret of which was lost for centuries. European smiths imitated the look of Damascus steel by pattern welding, but were never able to duplicate its strength and flexibility. It wasn't until the advent of modern metallurgy that we were able to produce blades of equal quality, and we still aren't sure how the ancients did it.

I really don't understand this insistence that Middle-Earth must be flooded with elvish swords. The only way elf-swords get into circulation is when elves die in battle. The big battles involving elves were thousands of years in the past, many of them took place in regions that have since been laid waste, and most were waged against the exact same creatures elf-weapons were created to kill. What would an orc do with an elf-blade? "Hey, look, it's glowing! I'm still here! The light is hurting my eyes, who knows what it will do to me if I try to wield it, but I'm going to use it anyway because it's just so Elfy Keen."

I'm also not seeing where the rarity of Sting and its like is a plot point. If every soldier in Gondor had been armed with elvish weaponry, it wouldn't have changed anything significant. The only magic items whose rarity plays a key role in the plot are the One Ring and the gifts of Galadriel.

 

[Pentius]

To put this more towards the OP, it is a choice similar to whether or not you think casting wall of iron is destructive to the local economy. I don't think so, because 9th level magicians are pretty rare and it is unlikely that they will know that particular spell. Furthermore, it would be a pain in the neck to smelt it down unless a special facility was made for just that. I consider that highly unlikely. Because, really, if it was me I would already have all the cash I needed to live comfortably just through the achievement of becoming a 9th level magician. The pursuit of power, the daughter of the Duke's hand in marriage, or whatever my original motivation was would have changed.

I think it is. Casters that know it might not be everywhere, but neither are iron mines. Casters that did know it have every reason to set up a facility for processing it, which would result in usable iron at a lower cost than mining, since miners have to be paid. Sure, 9th level magicians have other ways to get money, but this is one that doesn't require charming, thieving, looting or serving someone else, which makes it a nice choice. If I were a magician of sufficient power to cast Wall of Iron, I would most certainly use it in that way, probably daily. Wenches don't buy themselves.

What would an orc do with an elf-blade? "Hey, look, it's glowing! I'm still here! The light is hurting my eyes, who knows what it will do to me if I try to wield it, but I'm going to use it anyway because it's just so Elfy Keen."

Slap on some gloves and a welding mask, then talk to his wizardy demi-god(who happens to be interested in forging powerful artifacts) about getting someone working on using our massive forging facilities to make an orc-friendly, elf/human-killing version of the blade.