Worlds of Design: Magic vs. Technology

In connection with my discussion about differentiating science fiction and fantasy, here’s a related question: How do we tell what’s magic, and what’s technology, especially in light of A. C. Clarke’s famous maxim?

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke

Having a strong grasp of differences between magic and technology is useful to both role-playing game designers and to game masters. Sometimes it's hard to say what the difference may be.

A Matter of Knowledge​

My take is that the familiar or knowable tends to be technology, and the unfamiliar or unknowable tends to be magic. Technology and science aren't quite the same thing: technology is applied science. But here we'll speak of them together.

Keep in mind, with our current technology we could reproduce many of the miracles that any particular set of religionists are said to have witnessed. Those are magic to the religion, yet we could use technology.

Magic has an air of mystery that technology does not (or shouldn’t, anyway). Someone can explain how tech works. That's rare in magic, magic just IS.

Does technology require machinery? To create it, perhaps; to use it, I don't think so.

Novelist Brandon Sanderson's magic systems have rules and bases, but then get to the "black box" stage: "this works because it does, we don't know why or how." Science attempts to understand the black box, tries to keep working deeper and deeper into "why". Magic systems rarely bother. Perhaps that is the fundamental difference between magic and technology: we understand why technology works, but no one really understands why magic works, it just does.

In a game, magic inevitably becomes "hard" to the extent that the rules of the game must explain exactly how things work. Yet heavy reliance on the "black box" is still there.

If you’ve ever read a tome purporting to be about real-world alchemy (yes, they do exist), you've seen the author trying to turn alchemy into a kind of technology with rational explanation, but entirely BSing it—a bogus "explanation" amounting to "it just is" if not "it's magic."

Isaac Newton famously said, "if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" (previous scientists). Technology tends to derive from previous technology. Magic frequently just happens through "mystic discoveries."

Mass Production​

Are everyday items, items that are technology in our contemporary world, producing many of the same effects through magic? So which is it?

Mass production implies technology. Individual production implies pre-technology (which can include magic). Obviously, we had individual production before the Industrial Revolution, but I nevertheless regard mass production as a sign of technology, not magic. (Of course, we can conceive of a magical world where mass production exists: but is that natural, or forced by the creator of that world?

The Frequency of Magic​

How often do you encounter someone who can cast magic spells/make magic (as opposed to use a magic item)? How often do you encounter someone who can create magic items? For that matter, how hard is it to make magic items? (I'm reminded of the vast number of potions cheaply produced in the original version of Pathfinder. This "smells of" technology even though it is magic.)

If magic includes an air of mystery, then is anything that is commonplace not magic, even if it is mass production of potions?

Star Wars: Magic or Technology?​

Many call Star Wars science fantasy. The Force, and light sabers, are mysterious, unknown, and to an extent unknowable (despite the "midichlorians"). Some of the technology is "indistinguishable from magic," such as the instantaneous communication throughout the galaxy (that is nevertheless easy to jam). I'd call Star Wars magic, tacked onto a more or less science fiction setting.

Knowledge vs. Familiarity​

In the end, familiarity is less important than whether something is knowable. Knowable as in, understanding what happens to make the black box work. If it's mysterious, something we don't think can be figured out, we tend to think of it as magic. If we think it can be figured out (even if it has not been, yet), it is more likely technology.

Your Turn: Where do you draw the line between magic and technology in your campaigns?

 

[Umbran]

Except it is. The issue is the average commoner doesn't have the education, training and Intelligence to go through the process academically.

I'm sorry, but no. You've described the casting of fireball as a set of specific rote steps to be taken. You yourself reject the issue of reproducibility.

It does not require broad education, training, or intelligence to wiggle fingers this way, say these words, and think that. It requires only very focused training in this, these, and that. Commoners are highly competent at a broad range of life tasks - adding this small series of rote steps would not be difficult for them, given that being able to fry enemies at great distance is a survival skill in a world with monsters and ravenous orcs wandering the countryside.

If magic worked thus, This, These, and That should be part of basic life - like tying shoes is for us. Every kid learns This, These, and That. Grandma probably teaches the kids while mom and dad are off about tasks on the farm. There's going to be towns where there are fireball contests much like we have pie baking contests at county fairs. And over the next hill, there's a village that instead knows OtherThis, OtherThese, and OtherThat - and they get lightning bolts... and they're just weird and we should not trust those lightningbolters...

 

[embee]

I'm sorry, but no. You've described the casting of fireball as a set of specific rote steps to be taken. You yourself reject the issue of reproducibility.

It does not require broad education, training, or intelligence to wiggle fingers this way, say these words, and think that. It requires only very focused training in this, these, and that. Commoners are highly competent at a broad range of life tasks - adding this small series of rote steps would not be difficult for them, given that being able to fry enemies at great distance is a survival skill in a world with monsters and ravenous orcs wandering the countryside.

If magic worked thus, This, These, and That should be part of basic life - like tying shoes is for us. Every kid learns This, These, and That. Grandma probably teaches the kids while mom and dad are off about tasks on the farm. There's going to be towns where there are fireball contests much like we have pie baking contests at county fairs. And over the next hill, there's a village that instead knows OtherThis, OtherThese, and OtherThat - and they get lightning bolts... and they're just weird and we should not trust those lightningbolters...

It's a common misconception that those who lived long ago were, well, morons. They weren't. They may not have been as well-versed in certain subjects or may not have learned under the same pedagogy, but they often had quite a bit of knowledge.

These are people who can smelt metals, weave intricate tapestries, dye fabrics using ingredients harvested from plants, and so on.

A weaponsmith who can forge a sword, knowing how and where to fold the steel, how hot to heat the coals, how long to keep the blade on the coals so that it softens but doesn't melt, and how to hone the edge just right... if magic was just the pure VSM with nothing else, that weaponsmith could be an archmage.

As a Jew, my favorite such misconception is "Oh well of course pork isn't kosher because, if you don't cook it right, you can get trichinosis." So you're saying that you think a literate group of people who came up with an entire alphabet and a codified set of laws was too stupid to read a cookbook.

The medieval economy was an economy of specialists, each craftsperson with their own specialized knowledge. To say that such a person lacked the education, training and intelligence completely ignores the entire concept of apprenticeship and confuses "a modern understanding of nature and science" for intelligence.

 

[Minigiant]

I'm sorry, but no. You've described the casting of fireball as a set of specific rote steps to be taken. You yourself reject the issue of reproducibility.

It does not require broad education, training, or intelligence to wiggle fingers this way, say these words, and think that. It requires only very focused training in this, these, and that. Commoners are highly competent at a broad range of life tasks - adding this small series of rote steps would not be difficult for them, given that being able to fry enemies at great distance is a survival skill in a world with monsters and ravenous orcs wandering the countryside.

If magic worked thus, This, These, and That should be part of basic life - like tying shoes is for us. Every kid learns This, These, and That. Grandma probably teaches the kids while mom and dad are off about tasks on the farm. There's going to be towns where there are fireball contests much like we have pie baking contests at county fairs. And over the next hill, there's a village that instead knows OtherThis, OtherThese, and OtherThat - and they get lightning bolts... and they're just weird and we should not trust those lightningbolters...

You are assuming that am saying this that and these are easy and their study is readily available.

I can shoot a 3 pointer.

If that's skill, training, and talent to shoot the jay all wet under pressure multiple times.

Magic has steps. Reality isn't stopping the commoner from performing the steps. Training, education, and unknown elements are. The commoner's education when elsewhere so they never learned nor practiced the steps to hurl fireballs. The wizard did.

 

[Umbran]

You are assuming that am saying this that and these are easy and their study is readily available.

I wrote a longer response, but then turned it around to a very simple point - spell slots.

If casting spells was merely doing This and That and These, then all spells would be cantrips, infinitely repeatable. Ergo, there's more to casting a spell than mere performance of the ritual Hokey-Pokey.

 

[Minigiant]

I wrote a longer response, but then turned it around to a very simple point - spell slots.

If casting spells was merely doing This and That and These, then all spells would be cantrips, infinitely repeatable. Ergo, there's more to casting a spell than mere performance of the ritual Hokey-Pokey.

Why would they be cantrips?
I've always assumed, and i may be wrong, is that in D&D and games like D&D, part of the process of casting or preparing spells is the gatherig or preparing some of the energies for it in one's mind or soul. This is one of the steps and the capacity to hold spells is part of the training.

A commoner or a first level wizard cannot cast fireball because they haven't developed the capacity to store a 3rd level spell slot or whatever it is in that world.

What makes the magic magic is that some of the steps have unknown parts that cannot be observed, known, or understoodby the user as they don't follow natural logic and have gaps that natural phenomena don't have. Magic never makes complete sense and there are always very basic questions that can't be answered.

 

[Bohandas]

Except, of course, that isn't how D&D magic works. Merely doing the dance is not sufficient, or every commoner would be able to cast fireball.

Plus, under the D&D vancian system, the real casting of the spell is done during preparation. The bigger issue is that doing only the gestures that set the fireball off is like pulling the trigger on a gun that isn't loaded

 

[Umbran]

Plus, under the D&D vancian system, the real casting of the spell is done during preparation. The bigger issue is that doing only the gestures that set the fireball off is like pulling the trigger on a gun that isn't loaded

Eh, that's not a strong argument, in that some editions explicitly state so and others (like 5e) do not.

That description works really well when you prepared a spell in the slot you was going to use to cast it, but 5e has a wizard preparing a list, and then picking from that prepared list and using slots as you will. You can cast one spell seven times a day in 5e, which doesn't fit with the "did most of the spell casting earlier" narrative very well.

 

[Minigiant]

Eh, that's not a strong argument, in that some editions explicitly state so and others (like 5e) do not.

That description works really well when you prepared a spell in the slot you was going to use to cast it, but 5e has a wizard preparing a list, and then picking from that prepared list and using slots as you will. You can cast one spell seven times a day in 5e, which doesn't fit with the "did most of the spell casting earlier" narrative very well.

The wizard has slots.
The commoner doesn't.

That's the magic. No one understands why the wizard can get 2 stocks of magical energy in their head capable to launch fireballs.

The wizard knows that waving his hands a certain way, saying certain words, and holding bat poop and sulphur turns that energy into a streaking glowing bead of light that flies out his finger and explodes in pressureless heat.

 

[Zsong]

Science fiction. The fiction part means it is not science and therefore fantasy. Sci-fi is fantasy. Any differences is just fluff.

 

[Umbran]

The wizard has slots.
The commoner doesn't.

That's the magic. No one understands why the wizard can get 2 stocks of magical energy in their head capable to launch fireballs.

Which means, fundamentally, it isn't about This and That and These. The components alone don't make the magic, there is something else. That was my point in the first place.

And, whether someone knows why can be handled on a campaign-by-campaign basis.