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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8553286" data-attributes="member: 6779196">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.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.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.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.</blockquote>

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