What Should Magitech Be, if not Real Tech...?

[Janx]

Something that Umbran kind of touches on, is that many ideas for Magitech coming from people in our current age are often tied to replicating effects of actual technology.

Cellphones, rapid transit, etc.

So the idea of Lightning Rail trains strikes some people as 'wrong' because it's just using magic to recreate our world.

Rather than using Magic to create things that technology hasn't solved. In our world, technology solved that which technology was able to solve.

If you assume magic has different qualities an technology, then the areas it solves should also be different.

This is where Umbran mentions free energy type solutions. Curing horrible diseases (which real medicine and technology haven't been able to achieve D&D levels of success).

A world where people don't get common diseases or ailments means people live fairly productive lives. There are fewer cripples and invalids.

A world with free energy means cities don't worry about electricity or polution. Why upgrade from RenFair style society when the lights stay on, sewers stay clean, and food is in reasonable supply?

 

[Desdichado]

I think the reason that a lot of Eberron magic mimicked real technology in some ways is because to the authors, those where the obvious areas in which magic could benefit society. Streetlights and fast transportation (to take two obvious examples) are so obviously useful to society at large, that it'd be hard not to include them, frankly.

That said, I think they also missed a few. Why do we have House Jorasco working a little bit like a junior version of the temples of Pelor or whatever in "regular" D&D settings? Where's the neighborhood magical health clinics, or whatever?

In other words, I don't think that there's anything wrong with how Eberron did it, they just didn't stretch out into other areas that maybe weren't as intuitive, but with a little brainstorming would have been obvious to anyone who actually grew up in a society with magic the way it works in Eberron.

 

[Aldeon]

That said, I think they also missed a few. Why do we have House Jorasco working a little bit like a junior version of the temples of Pelor or whatever in "regular" D&D settings? Where's the neighborhood magical health clinics, or whatever?

I don't think it's that they aren't there, it's just that they get mentioned because they are like the McDonalds of Eberron healthcare; it's easier to pay the DM House and get that name recognition than it is to live off of being a home-ran clinic.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

If you want magitech that doesn't look like RL technology, you can start with an alternate technology then add magic too it.

In a game I've been puttering with on and off, each race has a different type of technology. Humans have our tech, and other races get at the same results in a different way; one bio-engineers plants and animals to create cellphones, vehicles, and so on similar to ours. Another bio-engineers themselves. Still another is steampunk. There's one where everything is based on fancy chemistry. Machine components self-assemble in chemical vats. There's a shamanistic one where they persuade the spirits of objects to do what they want. And so on, and so on.

Match magic with any of these and you can get a pretty unique feel for magitech.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

The reason Eberron's magitech resembles technology is because it is technology. Magic in D&D is completely reliable, it's just another kind of science. People are going to use it to build civilization and that civilization is going to look a lot like ours.

So if you want to change the nature of magictech, you need to muck with the nature of magic. My first thought is to make it impossible sustain outside of a living creature.

If magic requires a living creature to function, then any kind of device that uses it would needs be a living creature. And then civilization being civilization would start to engineer living creatures for specific purposes...

This approach would still mean magic was very much a science, but at least instead of pseudo-steampunk machines running around, you'd have all sorts of bizarre animals, bugs, and funguses instead.

 

[Nagol]

The reason Eberron's magitech resembles technology is because it is technology. Magic in D&D is completely reliable, it's just another kind of science. People are going to use it to build civilization and that civilization is going to look a lot like ours.

So if you want to change the nature of magictech, you need to muck with the nature of magic. My first thought is to make it impossible sustain outside of a living creature.

If magic requires a living creature to function, then any kind of device that uses it would needs be a living creature. And then civilization being civilization would start to engineer living creatures for specific purposes...

This approach would still mean magic was very much a science, but at least instead of pseudo-steampunk machines running around, you'd have all sorts of bizarre animals, bugs, and funguses instead.

It may be predictable and reliable, but it lacks something that tech has -- mass production. Tech is better suited to providing for the masses than(typical) D&D magic.

A particular magical geegaw should be localised -- this spell was developed in this kingdom/House/guild and can be found there. A functionally similar, but different geegaw can be found over there where it was developed by a rival/independently/inspired by the original.

One group develops Lightning Rails. A different area doesn't have those, but does have magical dirigibles. A third area has all the major cities linked via permanent teleport circles, but any travel off the ring is by traditional means.

Classic Traveller had that feel with Ancient technology -- each Ancient site seems to use a total reinvention of technological expression.