D&D General Technology in D&D, the IRL Timeline, and Pausing It.

[Thunderfoot]

I remember a discussion from..well yeats ago in high school when we were discussing this and one of the guys came up with this take. Not sire why it took me this ling to remember.

So, you live in a world where magic is real, technology would either follow the path that:
a) magic is rare and special and therefore using it for 'mundane' things is 'beneath' a mage. This means that technology must advance because things like magic pens, or light sources would be reserved for the 'magic elite'.

b) magic is prevalent and adventuring mages are the oddballs. Somewhere a father is telling a young mage, 'Why do you want to be an adventurer, I have a spot in a construction guild where you can cast wall of wood/stone all day. You're just gonna end up as dragon poop with all that adventurer talk!' So technology does NOT advance or it does so at a severely retarded rate due to the reliance on arcana over science.

It's a solid argument and puts the normal campaign (those that kind of straddle it) somewhere between the two. So make of that what you will.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The same armor class system that would give bullets a special benefit would make medieval rapiers useless, make chain vitually immune to slashing damage, and so on. The armor mechanics would be a magnitude more complex.

For 5e, the armor oversimplification can be a virtue.

It's a matter of how much complexity you want to put into the equipment rules. I find base 5e's weapon and armor rules annoying simplistic. Others really like it.

 

[éxypnos]

I consider mithril to require the same kind of advanced technology and secretive formulas that steel does.

I was using it as an example as D&D presents it. An element not an invention.

 

[Yaarel]

I was using it as an example as D&D presents it. An element not an invention.

Iron and copper are also elements, but still need processing for exceptional qualities.

That reminds me, the Greek adamans is a crystal, not a metal. Historically, it is the corundum crystal of ruby and sapphire fame, but can also appear as pale or colorless, and used as a drill or abrasive.

For D&D adamantine crystal, grown into its tailored form for crystalline armor, then afterward unchangeable and indestructible.

 

[Lyxen]

Iron and copper are also elements, but still need processing for exceptional qualities.

Indeed, and Bronze is an invention, for example.

 

[Lycurgon]

Which kills almost every fantasy book out there that takes anything vaguely real world as a jumping off point?

I am not really suggesting that people shouldn't mix technology and magic, just because magic can solve the problems that technology is trying to solve.

I am more suggesting that people should choice the technological level that they want from an aesthetic preference point of view and not worry about how realistic it is or isn't in a world with magic. If you want Black Powder weapons or even gunpowder weapons, have them in your world. If you want to have no such weapons because you prefer your fantasy not to have such things do that.

Having magic in the world is reason enough for technology being developed to a different level than in our world. If it is a fact in your fantasy world that alchemical studies lead to the development of potions and magical transformations (eg Lead to Gold can be achieved) then such study probably wouldn't lead to an understanding of real world chemistry. But if you want someone with a mistrust or dislike of magic, or an inability to preform it, looking for an alternative means to power, then maybe they did studies that led to Black Powder and how to use it effectively.

In summery, choose the style and aesthetic that appeals to you and use that for your world. There are plenty of reasons to justify such choices.

My personal preference is to have mosty medieval tech levels without firearms of any kind. I mostly don't want clockwork cog/steam tech. I'd rather have magical powered devices that science oriented tech. But I am okay playing in games with other flavours/styles, especially if it has a theme that suits the different tech level. Like playing in a musketeers style game with muskets, flintlock pistols and rapier being the main weapons is cool for a change.

 

[Lyxen]

In summery, choose the style and aesthetic that appeals to you and use that for your world. There are plenty of reasons to justify such choices.

My personal preference is to have mosty medieval tech levels without firearms of any kind. I mostly don't want clockwork cog/steam tech.

Just so that you know, I completely agree there, the thing is that all of these necessitate more basic techs that people don't necessarily think about but which bring suspension of disbelief when thought about. But even more importantly, what people who inject these things usualy don't think about is the fact that there should be some interaction between magic and these new techs, and it's hardly, if ever, properly taken into account, with the result that it's just D&D Magic + Guns (but just guns, nothing of the supportive or associated tech).

Also, and more at the core, I like my D&D to be about personal power, it goes with the levels and it scales properly. Introduce barrels of gunpowder and it becomes a great equalizer that negates the quest for progression that is usually that of the heroes.

 

[Mirtek]

I believe you're thinking of Greyhawk in regards to gunpowder not working. Don't recall anything of the sort even being mentioned on Krynn.

Incidentally, that Grey hawk moratorium was and is one of the sillier bits of D&D lore to my mind.

It's FR where it's not working. You need smokepowder which is gunpowder with some added magic

 

[Cadence]

In the midst of reading the "Lord Darcy" stories, set in a parallel world in the 1960s-1970s, where there is magic, but a lot of technological things weren't developed because of it.

The wikipedia summay is below. (Not really any spoilers in the two paragraphs below, although it's fun to get it all just by reading the books).

Spoiler: Summary fo Magic and Technology in the books

"Magic is a scientific discipline, codified in the fourteenth century by Saint Hilary Robert, much involved with higher mathematics and possessed of theoretical and experimental underpinnings as sophisticated as those of our physics and chemistry. Licensed Sorcerers, possessed of the Talent and properly trained, achieve a wide range of effects. Healing by the laying on of hands is effective and a commonplace treatment for disease and injury."

"Technology and physical sciences have suffered somewhat with the emphasis on magic. Physics has not been codified as a science; the one example of an investigator into the discipline is an eccentric on a par with the members of our own Flat Earth Society. Most mechanical devices are approximately those of our Victorian era. Characters travel by horse-drawn carriage and steam train and employ revolving pistols and bolt-action rifles; buildings are illuminated with gas lights. An electric torch, with magical parts, is "a fantastic device, a secret of His Majesty's Government." Messages can be sent by an electrical device called the "teleson", but the principles by which it operates are not well understood, and the technology to lay teleson lines underwater, or over water, has not yet been developed, so it is impossible to communicate across the Channel. Food is sometimes preserved in iceboxes; a magical "food preservator" has been invented, although preservators are expensive and rare because the stasis spell they employ is expensive to maintain, requiring the services of a specialist Journeyman or Master-grade magician. Sorcery is commonly employed in murder investigations, in much the same fashion as forensic science in our own world. Medical technology is not as advanced as in our world, because Healers are so effective, indeed the use of drugs with a genuine but non-magical benefit ("may cover a wound with moldy bread... or give a patient with heart trouble a tea brewed of foxglove") is regarded as little more than superstition."

 

[Umbran]

Does anything break in terms of history, physics, biology or their outcomes if a world just doesn't have much fossil fuels? (No easy heating of metropolises in colder climes? Does this stop large scale industrialization without getting rid of all the forests anywhere close?)

We have coal because there was a period in our distant history during which we had trees, but didn't have microorganisms that broke down the cellulose that makes up their bulk. The trees then don't completely rot away when they die, and their carbon remained to be buried and transformed by geological processes into coal. You break nothing in biology or physics if those microorganisms develop earlier, preventing the creation of coal at any scale.

Without coal, though, metallurgy at scale stalls out, unless you burn huge amounts of wood, or another energy source is available.

Any good reasons nitro-glycerin would never be discovered, thus stalling things out at black-powder and never getting to smokeless powder?

The basis of smokeless powder is nitrocellulose. You can get it by treating wood, paper, cotton, or other cellulose-rich material with nitric and sulfuric acids. Nitroglycerine (which you get in a reaction of those acids and glycerine) is not required.

Can folks never develop nitrocellulose? Sure. The effective original discovery of gun cotton for us was, iirc, an accident when a cotton apron was used to mop up acids, and combusted after it dried. Just have that accident not happen, and nitrocellulose for firearms is delayed indefinitely.

• Does having lodestone be very rare deal with anyone really discovering electrical generation? Does having it be rare mess up how physics would word? Is non-magical electrical generation enough harder than some other things that it can just be handwaved away?

Lodestone is already extremely rare. Current best guess is that it is formed when lightning strikes near magnetite deposits, but only when the magnetite also has some specific impurities. If you want it even more rare, nothing breaks - it is just a world in which the specific circumstances don't happen often.

But, note that you don't really need lodestone to discover electrical generation. Faraday's original generator didn't use lodestone. You can (and we largely did) discover the dynamics necessary using leyden jars or chemical batteries and wire.

Are there any big things besides fossil fuels, nitro and its biproducts, and electricity that could really throw things off?

Sure. For example, in our world, you likely don't get industrialization if your world doesn't have unbalanced development of seafaring technology. In our World, Europe made some leaps in development of ships before the rest of the world - that led to Europe's "Age of Discovery", which needed mass finances, and gave us the modern notion of the corporation. If sail technology is more evenly spread around the world, nobody has the opportunity to expand rapidly enough to need cooperative private financing, and the profit motives that come with it led to industrialization.