I guess I should have specified at least a rule set for my thinking. My original thought for this question was for the Pathfinder rules, since that's what I mostly play with, but it would apply to any 3.5 or higher ruleset.
According to those rules, here are the main points that lead to my thoughts that an actual D&D world would be different than most published settings.
- Anyone with a casting stat of 11 or higher can cast spells, the only impediment is learning them.
- Anyone can switch classes when they level up. So switching to a spellcasting class isn't an issue by the rules. So NPCs can switch from whatever to Adept.
- The general population rules show that most villages will have some kind of spellcasters, so magic is available and accessible to most people- assuming those spellcasters are cooperative.
- Any caster that makes it to 4th level can choose an item creation feat and craft wonderous only requires 3rd level
Those four factors point to a world that would have a lot more permanent magic than is currently in most setting- especially low-level utility magic. This is barring of course any setting-specific reasons why this HAS NOT happened. I'm only talking about what is possible by the rules as presented. Most settings probably have some reason why the world isn't like this, and that's fine. I'm interested if there is a world, or at least a resource, that explores what's possible.
Good on ya for stating your assumptions and trying to get the thread back to the intended focus. I'm afraid the board is liable to continue refusing the premise of your question, but that's how it goes.
If Pathfinder is where you get your starting assumptions, then I would again recommend you read the
Tippyverse post. It's not perfect, but it
does at least do what you are asking. Also, as
@Rune mentions, the
Order of the Stick webcomic uses a setting that takes literally a bunch of the rules quirks of 3e D&D (often as parody).
Yes, item creation and even low-level permanent magic (like continual flame) are expensive, but it's easy to imagine scenarios where that wouldn't be a problem.
[...]
But even at a trickle of advancement, the cumulative affect would make a change in the world.
While reading your post, I had a curious recollection of season 3 of The Wire, where a neighborhood gets littered with partially used burner phones that people pick up, use, and then drop on the ground. An erstwhile D&D-land crime lord could, perhaps, do the same with wands. But, of course, lots of D&D magic items are permanent. Imagine picking up a 200 year old continual flame pebble from the street, which has basically no value, using it to find your way home from the bar, and then tossing it the gutter. Things that are durable pile up like that--even if an object was created to be grand and high status, it's liable to be sold as a cheap hand-me-down decades or centuries later.
There was a pattern like this in the price of swords in the middle ages. They start out expensive but gradually become cheap and common. Here's a link about that from
scholagladiatoria (which is a spectacular resource if you want to know things about medieval kit--and not just the D&Disms about medieval kit)
A lot really depends on assumption. If magic is rare then magic items are rare and the PC's are rare and power beings.
Yes, absolutely! And, fortunately
@FoxWander has helpfully provided some, so we can go from there.
I don't think that it is useful to try and extrapolate from a set of assumptions to a final world state. First off, that is pretty much beyond anybody. Which is why people are so crap at working out the full implications of innovate and society changing tech. I am pretty sure that the inventors of the TCP/IP protocol envisioned cat memes and Tiktok videos.
You are better off deciding where your end point is; and working backwards from there.
I disagree. To my thinking, both strategies are reasonable.
The fun of starting from assumptions and trying to play them out is that it often leads to unexpected places. Trying to be "realistic" can get you to a setting that is more creative and strange than what you would have invented yourself. Even if it isn't really possible to a fully worked out fantasy world, the constraints are good for creativity.
This is a good time to mention one of the most famous science fiction series posited a future where a civilization capable of interstellar space flight remained more-or-less technologically static for about 15,000 years.
(and both movies made from the first book are good!)
I'm glad someone brought this up. Dune is a very good example of technological stasis
done right.
Herbert posits a technobabble law, the
Holtzman Effect, and a religious taboo against AI, the
Butlerian Jihad, that do a lot to explain the stasis of Dune tech and society. The tech creates a feudal social system and the feudal social system maintains the tech. You can listen to an actual historian nerd out about it at length
in this podcast.