Magic-tech - A Story of Love and Hate

[Aaron L]

Going on the assumption that you mean a Dragonstar type magic/technology mix, I voted that I LOVE it. If, however, you mean that everyone has a crystal ball in their house that they watch the news on, and Dad goes to work on his magic carpet that he keeps in the garage, the I would have to say that I DESPISE it.

 

[Ibram]

I voted for the hate magic-tech bit,,, now to expand on that vote...

I dispise settings where magic takes the place of technology... where street lights are eternal flame spells instead of light bulbs and where golems are stamped out in factories, where wands of fire take the place of guns.

now it can stand side by side, settings such as shadowrun and even Buffy/Angel do a very good job of combing the two.

 

[Sejs]

I'm more of the Mage: The Ascension mindset where Technology/Science is directly opposed to Magic/Mysticism.

Heh, one of the things I like about the Technocracy is how that if you go far enough down the technology spectctrum, you'll end up coming right back around to magic.

Sufficiently advanced and all that.

 

[clockworkcrab]

I'm a magic-tech lover, though I should add a caveat or two. I think, like alot of other people here, that magic-tech is only lovable when it's got a good campaign idea behind it. I personally hate the 'Alien technology crash lands in Tolkeinesque world' idea - it seems like there's just lasers and robots bolted on top of what is actually a generic campaign world.

Really to have a good magic-tech world, you need a reason for there to be both. In my campaign, technology was first worked out by a slave race within an ancient empire. The slaves were forbidden to use magic, so they developed technology to overthrow their oppressors.

P.S. I've always wondered why magic is always more ancient in most magic-tech worlds. Are there any worlds where technology is well-developed and then magic arises due to some event?

 

[dead]

I think the Dragonstar concept where you've got all the D&D stuff imported directly into a future setting is very intriguing. I'd certainly love to try it out.

Shadowrun was fun when I used to play it, too.

I have a question. For d20 Modern's default setting (Urbana Arcana?), does magic work like in a D&D world. In other words, you have the divine/arcane divide, you have spell slots, you have to pretty much use the spells from the PHB, etc.

 

[Wombat]

Might be good, might not; all depends on who is running it and how.

I agree with some of the other posters, however, in not wanting magitech as reliable as physics-based technology.

 

[The Goblin King]

P.S. I've always wondered why magic is always more ancient in most magic-tech worlds. Are there any worlds where technology is well-developed and then magic arises due to some event?

GURPS Technomancer is pretty neat but sadly out of print.

For the record I think mixing tech and magic is cool. I couldn't see playing in a world where magic took the place of tech except for maby a laugh. Sort of like the Flintstones with spells.