Why would this be more immersive? The principles behind it have obviously been understood when they can be created. So why would an engineer refer to it as magic when he knows fully well that it isn't?
D&D General The Transition of a D&D World into the Industrial Era
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
But it is. Combustion is magic, vaporization of water is magic (also see, transmutation enchantments that instantly turn water into steam for quick starting a steam vehicle, which is then sustained by simpler fuel), etc.
Seriously think about it from the perspective of an engineer from a society where tech is much newer than magic. Why would tech be considered separate from magic, rather than simply new magical technologies. Why wouldn’t technology be a term applied to all forms of magic, including the physical magics of combustion and such.
Hell, even IRL right now I know many pagans of various kinds who refer to their methodologies and practices as Ritual technology.
Nearly everyone will have boiled water at some point in his life. They know that this is not magic but that it simply happens. Boiling water does not make them a wizard and they know it. And an engineer who knows how steam engines operate will also know that magic plays no part in it.
For muskets some might assume that the powder is a magical creation, but considering how involved loading a gun is they also won't believe that it itself is magical.
And of course every mage or priest will confirm that nothing of that is magic as neither their detect or counter magic works on them.
Tony Vargas
Legend
In a world where overt magic has long existed, and everyone believes in it and language reflects that?
Because it'll be easier for the non-in-gin-ears he's a dressing to understand, perhaps?
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
I boil water every day. Tea, coffee, soup, hot chocolate, or even cleaning certain things without harsh chemical compounds.
The process of water turning to steam as it gains thermal energy is physics.
The fact that I’m not a physicist doesn’t make it any less physics.
My point was that in such a world, science is a type of magic. So, the average person will know that water boils because of the magical process by which a liquid turns to a gas when it’s store of fire energy, which is a magical energy type, is increased by a given amount.
Dispel Magic doesn’t interfere with natural magical processes, that is already true in normal dnd. Dispel Magic doesn’t make a dragon less able to fly or breath fire. It does nothing to a sprite. It doesn’t unravel the magic that keeps an air elemental alive and coherent. It can’t make a manifest zone in Eberron stop being a Manifest Zone or make a fountain of healing into a normal spring.
Detect Magic detects some of those things, but not all. It doesn’t tell you that a dragon or elemental is nearby. It may detect the fountain, but probably not because it isn’t under a magical effect, and it isn’t a spell or magic item. It’s just water that has always been magical. It’s part of the world.
So why would a wizard or priest doubt that physics is magic? In a world created by magic, physics objectively is magic.
The formulae involved in engineering a proper steam engine (pressure, tolerances, heat, timing, etc.) also resemble magic.
I'm reminded of Freemasonry. Supposedly, in the Middle Ages, the knowledge of how to build a cathedral that wouldn't collapse was incredibly valuable, but also difficult to learn. When someone showed up claiming to have this knowledge, you needed a quick way to judge whether they were legit. So the Freemasons started an exclusive club with a bunch of "secret handshakes," fancy regalia, and esoteric terminology, so that they could recognize one another. All of this merely looked mystical to the uninitiated. (Overt mystical trappings were added centuries later by bored nobility who didn't know anything about building cathedrals; ironically, this came about due to advances in science and math which made engineering knowledge much more widespread, rendering the original function of Freemasonry obsolete.)
I'm also reminded that Isaac Newton spent a lot of time studying alchemy, and so did Boyle (of Boyle's Law, which is pretty relevant to steam engines). Francis Bacon is said to have dabbled in the occult. And don't even get me started on Paracelsus. (Dude's real full name was Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim. He invented some of the best-known D&D creatures. You should go look him up.)
Anyway, even these are all Renaissance examples, my point is that most pre-Enlightenment people didn't really distinguish between magic and science, like, at all. You could say that "science" is really just the scientific method, a way of figuring things out; "magic" is one of the things they would try to figure out using science. Or, conversely, you had people like Paracelsus applying magical methods to natural problems, successfully. Obviously by today's standards you would not want Paracelsus as your primary-care physician but some of his techniques were such an improvement over what had come before that he is considered a contributor to the founding of modern medicine.
So, yeah, you could consider boiling water to be "not magic," but that's kind of a modern perspective. For most of human history, there was simply "how the world works," and stuff we knew, and stuff we didn't. I guarantee some culture somewhere has a myth, involving gods or spirits, to explain why water boils.
I'm reminded of Freemasonry. Supposedly, in the Middle Ages, the knowledge of how to build a cathedral that wouldn't collapse was incredibly valuable, but also difficult to learn. When someone showed up claiming to have this knowledge, you needed a quick way to judge whether they were legit. So the Freemasons started an exclusive club with a bunch of "secret handshakes," fancy regalia, and esoteric terminology, so that they could recognize one another. All of this merely looked mystical to the uninitiated. (Overt mystical trappings were added centuries later by bored nobility who didn't know anything about building cathedrals; ironically, this came about due to advances in science and math which made engineering knowledge much more widespread, rendering the original function of Freemasonry obsolete.)
I'm also reminded that Isaac Newton spent a lot of time studying alchemy, and so did Boyle (of Boyle's Law, which is pretty relevant to steam engines). Francis Bacon is said to have dabbled in the occult. And don't even get me started on Paracelsus. (Dude's real full name was Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim. He invented some of the best-known D&D creatures. You should go look him up.)
Anyway, even these are all Renaissance examples, my point is that most pre-Enlightenment people didn't really distinguish between magic and science, like, at all. You could say that "science" is really just the scientific method, a way of figuring things out; "magic" is one of the things they would try to figure out using science. Or, conversely, you had people like Paracelsus applying magical methods to natural problems, successfully. Obviously by today's standards you would not want Paracelsus as your primary-care physician but some of his techniques were such an improvement over what had come before that he is considered a contributor to the founding of modern medicine.
So, yeah, you could consider boiling water to be "not magic," but that's kind of a modern perspective. For most of human history, there was simply "how the world works," and stuff we knew, and stuff we didn't. I guarantee some culture somewhere has a myth, involving gods or spirits, to explain why water boils.
And most tellignly of all, it doesn't render constructs inert, not even temporarily
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Exactly. IIRC, even anti-magic fields don’t affect those things.
The more I think on it, the more I’m convinced that in a magical world, the engineer would simply be a type of wizard or Artificer or whatever, and the technical terminology would refer to what we call physics and chemistry, as types of magic rather than fields of science. Science wouldn’t even evolve as a distinct concept from magic. It would just be a process of codifying the Natural Magic of the world.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Yes! Without Paracelsus, we might not have developed modern toxicology for another hundred years past when we did.
jgsugden
Legend
Sorry to necro, but I just came across this today and thought it deserved a response.
Elemental magic, in my world, is seen to be everywhere. It is the most basic and fundamental magic. Love, boiling water, bad luck - these are all seen as elemental magic - and many of the more mundane are taken for granted.
However, when you start to manipulate the elemental magic in complex ways, you start to be seen differently. If you build a steam engine, you're seen akin to a wizard. If you build canons, people will fear your capabilities.
This is not an unusual approach in literature and movies, either. How often do we see "technology is magic" (Thor) or "Is not love the greatest magic of all?" (Countless Lifetime movies). Anything that a person can't explain in detail can be seen as magical. And typical fantasy commoners can't explain much. The rest of the discussion is just deciding how to apply labels.
And putting all of that aside for a second: My worlds have existed for 30 years or so. This is how magic has worked in them since the beginning. It might be appropriate to ask how this view of magic can work, but to claim it won't work is kind of foolish. I have 30 years of evidence to counter that supposition. It works and has been well received.
But in my world, it is magic. And everyone knows it.
Is not the somatic component of a spell involved?
While it is true that Elemental Magic functions differently than other magics, clerics an mages in my world will most definitely confirm that gunpowder, creating steam from fire and water (or even mud from water and earth) is a very basic form of magic.
Elemental magic, in my world, is seen to be everywhere. It is the most basic and fundamental magic. Love, boiling water, bad luck - these are all seen as elemental magic - and many of the more mundane are taken for granted.
However, when you start to manipulate the elemental magic in complex ways, you start to be seen differently. If you build a steam engine, you're seen akin to a wizard. If you build canons, people will fear your capabilities.
This is not an unusual approach in literature and movies, either. How often do we see "technology is magic" (Thor) or "Is not love the greatest magic of all?" (Countless Lifetime movies). Anything that a person can't explain in detail can be seen as magical. And typical fantasy commoners can't explain much. The rest of the discussion is just deciding how to apply labels.
And putting all of that aside for a second: My worlds have existed for 30 years or so. This is how magic has worked in them since the beginning. It might be appropriate to ask how this view of magic can work, but to claim it won't work is kind of foolish. I have 30 years of evidence to counter that supposition. It works and has been well received.
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