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<blockquote data-quote="s/LaSH" data-source="post: 1221885" data-attributes="member: 6929">There's absolutely no good reason the wizard wouldn't look at the situation and go, &quot;Hey, that'd put 95% of your haulers and caravan guards out of business, thus wrecking the economy. No deal.&quot;The ancient Greeks kept slaves. They also had the brains and technology to build energy weapons, and could quite easily have had an industrial revolution, but they took the same view: &quot;Hey, we build a machine that does the work of 10 slaves, what do we do with the slaves?&quot; They quite purposefully didn't advance technology for economic purposes.It's far more likely that the innovation of a teleport network would arrive from some other source. The wizards wouldn't make commercial circles, they'd make diplomatic circles for quick communication between kings or nobles (or, initially, archmagi). Within the year, privileges would be acquired - certain super-rare items would be transported through the network, maybe once a week, by favoured merchants. Pepper or mithril fits the bill. That's how it would stay for a while, but the use of the circles would increase over time until it reached capacity, allowing the economy to adapt over the years.And when the circles reached maturity, the world would be ready for them to be expanded. Given a few hundred years, everything would change. Where would the caravan guards and haulers go to work? I don't know, but they'd probably enhance the economy. Which is where the ancient Greeks were wrong - our modern society didn't collapse when we freed the slaves and emancipated women, it was enriched by people who had to find something else to do...Therefore, assuming the Circle is a new discovery (which is pitifully easy to do), it's there, it's useful, but you won't see the merchants using it for decades to come.In my world, I just don't let NPC wizards use spells above level 3, because I equate magic with technology. Thus the PCs are world-shaking innovators...</blockquote>

[QUOTE="s/LaSH, post: 1221885, member: 6929"] There's absolutely no good reason the wizard wouldn't look at the situation and go, "Hey, that'd put 95% of your haulers and caravan guards out of business, thus wrecking the economy. No deal." The ancient Greeks kept slaves. They also had the brains and technology to build energy weapons, and could quite easily have had an industrial revolution, but they took the same view: "Hey, we build a machine that does the work of 10 slaves, what do we do with the slaves?" They quite purposefully didn't advance technology for economic purposes. It's far more likely that the innovation of a teleport network would arrive from some other source. The wizards wouldn't make commercial circles, they'd make diplomatic circles for quick communication between kings or nobles (or, initially, archmagi). Within the year, privileges would be acquired - certain super-rare items would be transported through the network, maybe once a week, by favoured merchants. Pepper or mithril fits the bill. That's how it would stay for a while, but the use of the circles would increase over time until it reached capacity, allowing the economy to adapt over the years. And when the circles reached maturity, the world would be ready for them to be expanded. Given a few hundred years, everything would change. Where would the caravan guards and haulers go to work? I don't know, but they'd probably enhance the economy. Which is where the ancient Greeks were wrong - our modern society didn't collapse when we freed the slaves and emancipated women, it was enriched by people who had to find something else to do... Therefore, assuming the Circle is a new discovery (which is pitifully easy to do), it's there, it's useful, but you won't see the merchants using it for decades to come. In my world, I just don't let NPC wizards use spells above level 3, because I equate magic with technology. Thus the PCs are world-shaking innovators... [/QUOTE]

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