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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 8424410" data-attributes="member: 6704184">Well, it isn't that common, even amongst cultures where everyone knows that magic is real, simply because a lot of times mundane skill does it either better or with less energy cost, or the limits of magic are relevant, such as the principle (which will get a "some person's law" name at some point) that the further removed from the practitioner an effect is, the harder it is to create and maintain, or even activate, in the case of permanent enchantments. A good example is weapon enchantments. The reason that melee weapons experience a rennaisance of serious use in the future of Quest for Chevar (my game) is that it's easier (less power intensive and requiring less skill and focus) to enchant a thing you are holding and will continue to hold while it does The Thing, than it is to enchant something like a bullet, which will be separate from you with a contraption of metal and other materials between you and it, and then be fired by a mechanism, and be at some distance from you when it does it's dark work upon the physical world. You can enchant the gun itself, but that limits what sorts of enchantments you can give it. Even arrows are a bit easier, sitting in basically the same place as thrown weapons magically speaking, because you (depending on technique) are touching the arrow all the way until it leaves the bow, you can see it, you can whisper your enchantment into it's fletching in the moment before release. So, imagine trying to create a magical equivalent of a national radio system. You can use magic to make radio signal more reliable and clear, because people are in the radio station operating the machine, but sending signal over a great distance via magic is really hard. Like, the realm of specialist with specialized focus items, and even then it won't be as broadly useful as technological radio. But yeah, part of the idea of the setting is that magic and mundane skill/tech make eachother better. So you might have magic involved in sports, or you might see cultural pressure against it, as well as pressure against using physical strength in a magical contest, while in other areas you'd see both broad and specialised mixing of the two. Honestly, a fun variant of the game might involve coming up with some skills that are inherently both magical and physical/mundane. OTOH, I can see that turning into self indulgent esoteric faff pretty easily. The game exists for people to play, after all, not for it's own sake.</blockquote>

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