D&D General Is there a D&D setting that actually works how it would with access to D&D magic?

[Baldurs_Underdark]

Lamp oil was made from olives for rather a long time before petroleum was refined in an industrial process. No reason to think plant-based fuels like lamp oil, fruit-based sugar alcohol, etc, wouldn’t be developed at an accelerated rate in a world with no mineral fuel sources.

Oof. You propose to fuel the heavy industries with plant-based fuels? Maybe with a lot of druids that go around casting Plant Growth it might be possible to at least grow enough plants. In our real world, we don't even have nearly enough surface to grow all the plants on. We'd need another earth just to grow all the fuels we use. But Plant Growth doesn't solve the other challenges of biobased fuels, such as the huge need for fertilizers, and all the effort needed for harvesting and converting.

It's probably just as realistic to use charcoal, in terms of yields per hectare, the effort needed to make it and the applicability for heavy industry. But I consider charcoal part of the medieval fantasy setting.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Oof. You propose to fuel the heavy industries with plant-based fuels? Maybe with a lot of druids that go around casting Plant Growth it might be possible to at least grow enough plants. In our real world, we don't even have nearly enough surface to grow all the plants on. We'd need another earth just to grow all the fuels we use. But Plant Growth doesn't solve the other challenges of biobased fuels, such as the huge need for fertilizers, and all the effort needed for harvesting and converting.

It's probably just as realistic to use charcoal, in terms of yields per hectare, the effort needed to make it and the applicability for heavy industry. But I consider charcoal part of the medieval fantasy setting.

You do not need fuel to fuel heavy industry when you have magic. You can smelt and forge metals with modifications of existing spells and I am pretty sure you could create magical effects to run a Stirling engine.

 

[dave2008]

What I mean is- humans, at the very least, are a very industrious and innovative people. Look how far we’ve developed in just the past 2000 years- or even the past 100! But most D&D settings seem to have multi-thousand-year histories where the world has existed at the “default” D&D setting; that is- a vaguely medieval, feudal peasant society that happens to have magic, dragons, etc. Now monsters aside, our world does not exist like that, and we don’t have fairly accessible magic.

I’m not saying I want a D&D game that recreates modern society- except with magic instead of electricity. But the D&D rules, as written; with item creation, permanent spells effects, and more; would NOT create Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, or Golarion.

Eberron comes close, but it also invents at least three other systems to “justify” it (dragonmarks, manifest zones, and rampant exploitation of elementals). You don’t need anything extra like that to envision that most D&D worlds should be vastly different than the medieval default that’s used for most of them.

Also, I should mention, I’m not looking for an argument or reasons about WHY most D&D worlds ARE stuck in their vaguely medieval setting. I know the history of D&D’s development and all the books that Gary and Dave got their inspiration from. They took a setting, slapped rules for dungeons, magic, and dragons on it and started to play. All those game worlds I mentioned are fine. I've gamed in them for years, just like all of you have. But what would a world that has always existed within those rules ACTUALLY look like? Is there a setting that takes the rules-as-written and runs with it- as humanity would do?

The big issue I have with this task is that we really have no idea how a world with magic, and magical monsters, would work. Really anything could be justified when magic and monsters come into play. Determining what would "really" happen will always be a complete work of fiction and dependent on a lot of assumptions that don't necessarily hold true from table to table.

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

You do not need fuel to fuel heavy industry when you have magic. You can smelt and forge metals with modifications of existing spells and I am pretty sure you could create magical effects to run a Stirling engine.

True. But that depends a lot on the DM. In any setting that I played, magic is rare because high-level spellcasters are rare. Therefore magic is not able to produce the equivalent of molten metals/concrete that you'd need to make our modern society.

In 2020, total world crude steel production was 1877.5 million tonnes [wikipedia]

That's roughly 500,000 tons per day.

In 2014, the world's production of cement was 4180 million tonnes [wikipedia]

That's roughly 1,150,000 tons per day.

And that's just two examples of important materials. There's also plastics, paints, fabrics, etc.

You're gonna need a LOT of wizards to produce that. So, if your DM makes magic sufficiently common that this is possible, then sure.

 

[dave2008]

Except the evidence says otherwise. Most decent-sized villages have a spellcaster of some stripe.

What are you basing this on? That definitely is not the case for the D&D my group plays, but are you talking about a particular setting?

Additionally, a spellcaster "of some stripe" is potentially a really low and modestly useful bar.

 

[beancounter]

Also, I should mention, I’m not looking for an argument or reasons about WHY most D&D worlds ARE stuck in their vaguely medieval setting. I know the history of D&D’s development and all the books that Gary and Dave got their inspiration from. They took a setting, slapped rules for dungeons, magic, and dragons on it and started to play. All those game worlds I mentioned are fine. I've gamed in them for years, just like all of you have. But what would a world that has always existed within those rules ACTUALLY look like? Is there a setting that takes the rules-as-written and runs with it- as humanity would do?

It would look like it does. Magic essentially replaces scientific advancement in D&D. (beyond renaissance technology)

Once scientific advancements start "taking over", you no longer have D&D, you have some other game.

Have you tried Star Finder? It's a technologically advanced world with wizards. It may be what you're looking for.

(btw, I know you didn't want reasons why D&D worlds are stuck in a certain age, but there have been times in RL human history when there were no meaningful advancements for thousands of years. So a D&D world being "stuck" is not unprecedented or unrealistic)

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

There's also the fact that destruction is easier than creation: magic spells that actually create something are generally higher level spells than the ones that go boom!

Even druids, who tend to have more ''creation'' type spells, would hardly be grateful participant in a possible mass-industrialization if said process threaten the source of their powers aka nature.

And if your gods are real, how would they react to mankind becoming more and more independent in their world-shaping power? You could have an ''American Gods'' effect where divine Powers fight to stay relevant and take on new portfolios. But I guess they would prefer to act preventively and enforce the status quo to avoid mass-spellcasting to affect their prerogative.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

If one of my players would get thoughts about why the campaign world doesn't progress like our real world, I would just blame the gods. No worries.

With that said, late-stage capitalism as a source of evil usually sneaks in as a side focus in most of our campaigns anyway, even without industrial revolutions ;-)

 

[Minigiant]

I think a looking at 4e's Points of Light Nentir Vale setting illuminates a lot of the issues.

In Nentir Vale, there are tons of spellcasters. Humans have them.Elves have them. Gnomes have them. Dragonborn have them. Orcs have them. Hobgoblins have them. But why does magic progress so slowly.

1) Lack of research partners
2) Limited economic freedom
3) Lack of personal freedom from patrons

Technoloical advancement typically requires a community. D&D setting typically lacks magic communities. And theones that do exist are cutthroat or rigid that research ishoarded or impossible. At best you get a wizard/sorcerer master and their 1-3 apprentices. And you can only hope none of the apprentices get killed, recruited, or blackmailed by an outside force. Nentir Vale uses the "get killed" a lot.

This is why archmages hold up in towers or become liches. It takes a long time to advance magic alone.

TLDR: D&D Magic users are closer to the Sith. They die a lot and can't/don't help each other advance.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

snip

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.

Ok I will concede starting from a particular premise can get you somewhere interesting but I think that you have to accept that you will not spot all the possible ramifications. If I may use the Tippiverse for an instant. If one posits that leaving a cart inside an unactivated teleport circle blocks the circle. Then the world building would be very different. The gates would be more defensible, you would need sending stones or some other communication method at both ends to authenticate incoming traffic and it would be more Stargate then the Tippyverse. This would create a more traditional settlement pattern.
This is what I mean that you can end up where ever one wants to, by tweaking back and forth with the premises.