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Message: <blockquote data-quote="s/LaSH" data-source="post: 392731" data-attributes="member: 6929">Re: Re: Re: What Do Your Fantasy Societies in D&D Get For Their Taxes and Tithes?This is why I equate magic with science. Virtually nobody has the luxury and inclination to practice it, but when they do, they discover really neat things.Look at how many scientists you had in medieval society. Virtually nil, and most of them had the wrong idea. Applied scientists were a little more common, such as blacksmiths (metallurgy is a high science in this setting) or bridgebuilders (a keystone is an important engineering principle, but good luck finding a peasant that can explain why) or scribes (enscribed paper would be worth its weight in silver at least). These 'applied scientists' could do a very few things, but because they did them themselves they did them at low volume. Much like magic.When the Renaissance came, with such things as the printing press and increased public education, suddenly you had a lot more specialists. The 'industrial process' came along a little later, and the information revolution after that. These all made creating complex things a lot easier.In a magical society, the rough equivalent is education producing more mages - as I've said before, a Renaissance fantasy would have everyone in a city with a few levels of spellcaster. Proceed from there, and somebody is sure to discover a new method of spellcasting with nigh-infinite power. Wands that never run out of charges. Golems that can build a house and never go berserk. Casters that can cast any spell they know repeatedly. That's the sort of thing you'd be looking at five hundred years after the Renaissance. (What about a national power net that generates magical energy from sunlight or burned coal?)So basically, we're not playing in a Renaissance setting. If we were, magic would be completely different.That said, magic should probably be handled with tongs in normal campaigns. Rare and low-level. The truly powerful magi are shunned and live in the wilderness, where they experiment recklessly with bizarre things.I just had a really cool idea. Must run.</blockquote>

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