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

[prabe]

Do you have a favorite reference on how much various places used Coal from 1000-1600 outside of England? (Google only wants to show me that. Were peat and wood huge things too?)

There is a series of posts here on metalworking in pre-modern cultures: Collections: Iron, How Did They Make It? Part I, Mining

That's where I got the bit about stripping forests in the absence of coal. I have no references on coal usage directly.

 

[Cadence]

There is a series of posts here on metalworking in pre-modern cultures: Collections: Iron, How Did They Make It? Part I, Mining

That's where I got the bit about stripping forests in the absence of coal. I have no references on coal usage directly.

The second one has the immediate information I was looking for:

We have records of early experiments with methods of coking coal in Europe beginning in the late 1500s, but the first truly successful effort was that of Abraham Darby in 1709. Prior to that, it seems that the use of coal in iron-production in Europe was minimal (though coal might be used as a fuel for other things like cooking and home heating). In China, development was more rapid and there is evidence that iron-working was being done with coke as early as the eleventh century. But apart from that, by and large the fuel to create all of the heat we’re going to need is going to come from trees.

It was also interesting to read about the charcoal needing to be made within about 4km of where it would be used. And that outfitting a roman legion of 5,000 men might have needed 5.1 tons of wood and 80,000 man days just to get the wood and charcoal!!!

But I have the feeling I will find tons more interesting stuff on these pages. Thank you very much!!!

 

[Vaalingrade]

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?

There would be way fewer whales.

 

[prabe]

There would be way fewer whales.

Plausibly. OTOH, given the stuff that tends to live in the deep wide oceans in D&D setting worlds, whaling seems less likely to be as big a thing as in the real world.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Plausibly. OTOH, given the stuff that tends to live in the deep wide oceans in D&D setting worlds, whaling seems less likely to be as big a thing as in the real world.

Unless the world is as magic heavy as the core books imply but few DMs run, it would be a considerable necessity as peat bogs and forests evaporate in places where they aren't full of PC fodder. Societies need fuel, plain and simple.

 

[éxypnos]

The issue of different inventions and discoveries comes up in threads now and then (why not have gun powder? what makes a world believable? shouldn't usual physics and chemistry work by default? etc...). And so I was wondering today about when different inventions came about/became widely used in real life. I give a rough timeline below, and if anyone has more to add or corrections to make, please put them in a reply!! I'll edit the list as I see them.

The timeline isn't important nor a good guide for what you are trying to solve/figure out.. Different cultures move at differnt rates. Some didn't move at all despite having a constant human presence the longest. Others like China zoomed ahead of everyone else on the planet and had the longest standing continuous advanced culture but stopped dead tech wise, at Iron Age. They had gunpowder but never moved forward developing advanced artillery like Europe did in a relatively very short time period after it was introduced from China. So, it is perfectly fine (and within the norm) to have a "medieval" TL without gunpowder or advancement for thousands of years. Forever even

 

[Faolyn]

There would be way fewer whales.

On the other hand, that one time a kraken died and washed on-shore? Oil for decades.

 

[Lycurgon]

I think the biggest reason that technology doesn't advance the same in a fantasy world is that there are alternatives to solve many problems - Magic!

When magic can easily solve problems, why look for new ways to solve the problems that are no longer problems. D&D Setting is pretty high magic. Why would advance medical techniques be developed when you just need to take someone to the nearest church for a 1st level cleric to cure their wounds? Why experiment with guano to figure out you can make gunpowder with it when you can use guano to make fireballs?

Those scholars, that in our world figure out technological advancements, are more likely to be studying magical solutions to problems than tech fixes. Why study chemistry when potion making has much more dramatic effects?

Technological advancements are always build on what has come before, by standing on the shoulders of giants. But when the (possibly literal) giants used magic, the new advances will rely on what works, what gets the best results, which is of course magic.

To me there is not need to suspend belief that technology has not developed the same in a world with magic. It take more suspension of disbelief to believe that the world developed as close to our world as it is portrayed. I think if cavepeople had magic to solve problems, we probably wouldn't have developed medieval level technology in the first place. Problems would be solved with magic rather then technology.

We don't need Gods stopping the development of tech because human nature would look to developing far easier and far more effective ways of solving problems.

 

[Charlaquin]

I was trying to avoid doing that. For some of the early part of the timeline in particular, there are places Europe is definitely behind.

I figured, which is part of why I wanted to propose “institutionalization” as an alternative framing rather than “advancement.” It acknowledges that there have been cultures throughout the world and throughout history that have taken this trajectory, in a way that doesn’t suggest it is the “proper” or “natural” trajectory for a society to take.

For a lot of this I was picturing the stereotypical Greyhawk/Faerun that had a few really big cities and the like. If there was even one of those that came up with some technology that was seen as useful, it feels like it would eventually spread around to anyplace it was connected to by (several steps if needed of) trade.

Maybe, though I think there are good reasons one might come up with for why that might not happen, if it suited their world building better. These sorts of standard fantasy settings are often modeled after medieval Europe, which was actually not very institutionalized. There was of course some institutionalization, but less than might be expected over the length of time. Probably this was because there wasn’t much need to move large quantities of water, due to the Roman aqueduct system still being very functional. And here we have a potential explanation for the stunted technological development of such settings. If they’re built over the ruins of an older, more institutionalized civilization, relying on the scavenged remnants of that civilization in place of developing new technologies of their own.

It feels like a place doesn't even need to be decentralized not to come up with lots of things -- just to not have a bunch of other places it's a few steps away from trading with. How does Eurasia go if you take out any of India, China, Mesopotamia, the eastern Mediterranean, Arabia, Greece, Rome, western Europe, at the different time points? (Both for the discoveries and developments, but also for the earlier animal/plant domestications that could then be spread).

Certainly an interesting question to speculate about. As I get at above, I rather suspect that without Rome, you would actually have seen more institutionalization faster.

A set up that didn't work like that would have no reason to come up with lots of those things -- but in that case it feels like it wouldn't have come up with lots of the things in the 5e rule book.

Yeah, my preferred way to deal with the weird mishmash of technology in D&D settings is to lean into the idea of a glorious lost past. Nothing is new, everything is scavenged from the ruins of ancient civilizations upon ruins of even more ancient civilization. The secrets of making these wonders are lost, which is why people can make their living delving into the buried remnants of those ancient civilization to recover the things they left behind.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think the biggest reason that technology doesn't advance the same in a fantasy world is that there are alternatives to solve many problems - Magic!

This is of course another thing to consider. Would any societies ever become institutionalized in a world where create or destroy water existed? History suggests probably not, or at least not in the same way. Though a possible alternative might be that such magic is the product of institutionalization. A technology developed by the wizards in their magical academies.