Quote from: jibbajibba;813022I think the choice of weapon tech is set to an arbitrary time period, late middle ages, just because that was the time period that comes across from the inspirational literature. There is no concept of technology or improvement more like the idea of a degeneration from a previous halcyon age when all these magic items were constructed and a load of folks built underground complexes (usually with no ventilation or flooding issues ....) . Its a very dying earth idea even suggestions that the 1e default setting is a post apocalyptic one and that the magic you find are remnants of old tech.

The fighter stronghold stuff is just stuff. To be honest the 0 level troops that the fighter gets would last about a round against a high level wizard so ... moot. Also remember that for some reason the cleric gets more troops than the fighter, they are fanatically loyal and the cleric's stronghold cost 1/2 the fighter stronghold price to build. The trope is simply that fighters rule kingdoms and wizards do arcane research in lonely towers perhaps with an apprentice and a bunch of magical constructs/flying monkey guards.

Hmm, I think that even with the assumption of a post-apoc setting, someone prior to the fall cared enough to improve technology. Unless, you think that the implied setting never went through a stone age? Perhaps. Maybe, prior to the apocalypse, they never had to go through a stone age period because the gods or some other extraterrestial/extradimensional beings gave them the knowledge of these things? Just extrapolating...

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;813017Contrasting Estar's alt-humanistic vision with Trechriron and other's more magic centered vision, I guess the question for me is, is there anything in the implied setting that would hint at there being at least some pockets with humanist tendencies? If not, then I could see the magic/divine centered vision dominating the future as proposed in other posts.

The polytheistic pantheon of squalling deities. Like the Greeks, a thinking man would eventually go "You are shitting me, these are the beings we are living and dying for? There got to be something better. Rules that even the mighty are beholden too."

One thread of thought led to philosophy and science, the another to the great religions of our world.

The big difference is that a D&D setting would have powerful supernatural deities ultimately capable of "blue bolting" any opposition along with their clerical lackeys. Mind you blue bolting does mean it has to be a literal blue bolt. It could be something like the local priests of the healing goddess taking in a deranged "philosopher" for rest and a "cure" to restore his former faith.

In most cases it won't be very overt or ornerous. Some of these deities have genuine concern for the well-being of humanity. But there will be those who resent being a "pet" even of the most benevolent of supernatural being.

There will a come a time where circumstance will conspire to produce a near total societal collapse like the late Roman Empire. That when the humanists will make their gains. And they would be centered around wizards as they are the only group with an independent source of supernatural power open to anybody to learn. Sorcerors are born, warlocks are beholden to a patron. The rest, clerics, druids, rangers, etc. are part of the divine hierarchy.

And a likely area of development is the use of wizards by thieves. In D&D 5e Arcane Trickters for example. Thieves want power and wealth and use magic to that end. During times of stability, it is a underground criminal activity. During times of chaos it becomes a path to power just like the warlord's swords or the faithful of a zealot's flock.

Understand what you are going for is plausible not probable. There are so many variables that it is hard to predict how something is. Choices build on choices, etc.

What you need to do what people who write on the alternate history forum do.

They start with a moment in time, propose a single change, and then work out the implications over time. Their work at each step is judged on plausibility, unless it is a wank and explicitly meant as escapist fun.

With your kind of speculation you need to sketch out what you consider a D&D setting, then start developing it forward. Each step forward in time can be judges whether it is plausible given the circumstances.

I just can't imagine how profound a difference it would make if early humans (or whatever) had access to people who could just... make fire.

... I just had an amusing thought -- in the real world, intelligence and problem solving was a survival strategy selected for by evolution because of how useful 'figuring shit out' is.
In D&D those same traits would be selected for once early humanoids started figuring out that certain things could create magical effects.

Heh

Quote from: Will;812979I figure people have always been incredibly inventive in ways to use what they have around them, and will do much the same with magic.

Technological progress, (counting magic as a source of innovation), is dependent on a multitude of factors.

In order for magic to exploited (or water power, or better ways of growing crops, etc) the circumstances have be right.

The biggest obstacle to overcome is the fact that there is so little surplus in the pre-industrial economy. A more plentiful food supply means a larger population with the same margins to support non-agricultural activity. It took a cascade of changes until the cycle was broken in western Europe during the late 18th century.

It wasn't people were idiots in the past, just more risk adverse, with little resources or time to throw at figuring better ways to do things.

Quote from: Will;813029I just can't imagine how profound a difference it would make if early humans (or whatever) had access to people who could just... make fire.

... I just had an amusing thought -- in the real world, intelligence and problem solving was a survival strategy selected for by evolution because of how useful 'figuring shit out' is.

One theory that has a lot of support was that intelligence developed because of a "social" arms race. Smarter pre-humans could manipulate their fellow tribesmen to gain more food, and above all more women.

That the part of the brain that got enhanced to deal with more complex social situation also was useful to figure shit out.

Quote from: Will;813029In D&D those same traits would be selected for once early humanoids started figuring out that certain things could create magical effects.

Understand that to early human society in our world the world was already a magical place. While the particulars would be different the general development of humanity would not be any different with magic.

For example we know that we don't have a inherent need to wander around. In our history many people settled down in one place when they means to do so. In our history the tool that enabled this was agriculture.  People who adopted a different tool, pastoralism, continued to wander except instead beholden to whatever game animal happened to live in the area, they moved their food, goats, sheeps, cows, etc,  with them.

The same with magic, if human figure out a way to create food and water with magic then they will start to settle.

In the end what develops depends on the rules and circumstances of the setting.

Sure... I highly advise people check out Ancient Inventions, the book and then documentary series, which outlines a lot of this sort of thing. Well, RL stuff.

The comment made repeatedly is that inventions need two things: an idea, and a perceived need.

One without the other, and amazing inventions remain curios, like Heron of Alexandria's steam engine.

Quote from: Will;813020As an aside, I've often thought of fun ways to make use of magic to drive technology.
...

These are awesome ideas.

Yeah, lots of good discussion in here. If I had pursued a degree in Anthropology or Sociology of some kind, this would make an interesting topic for a thesis. I would have to rope in experts from psychology to engineering I think to really research all the angles.

On the subject of cause/effect...

We discovered fire by observing lightning and then creating sparks by smashing rocks, yes? If one of the people of the tribe could create fire by snapping their fingers, would that have still inspired the same development in the use of fire? Instead of teaching people to bang rocks together, wouldn't that one mage just teach another mage, and so on? If magic can be taught/learned, wouldn't lots of people learn how to start fire magically vs. mundanely? Would that not be a faster method of advancing technology? I no longer need to perform the same laborious action, nor do I have the failure rate of even more modern methods like matches. I just instantly get fire.

On those same lines, then wouldn't we just solve the same problems with magical solutions as we discovered magical effects? If magic can be studied and new effects extrapolated somehow, wouldn't some of these revelations have come faster? It seems to me the nature of magic is to bypass the mundane. We wouldn't need to understand ANY physics to fly, heat, cool, move, travel instantly, etc. It seems to me like civilization would "modernize" faster and maintain that status longer. As problems were solved quicker, our hungry spirits would seek out new unknowns to conquer. Ocean exploration? Space exploration? Colonization?

I like the possibilities for a RPG setting...  :-)

The same setting with the once-global empire lizardman also had a European analog nation with vaguely 1800s tech based on alchemy.

The concept is that Magic, if anything, makes it easier to study and learn about the natural world, and finding shortcuts or understanding the world makes it easier to do things to it.

So there were trains and firearms that were mostly tech, except for small magical widgets to liberate energy from coal or whatever.

And floating ships, because that's fairly easy with magic.


Come to think of it, you could quite satisfactorily do Steampunk as magitech, and I think anime and other stuff has beaten us to THAT punch.

Anyone ever play Castle Falkenstein? That was a wild alt hist Magic/tech rpg.

Another thought... I think Sagan framed the idea of civilizations being typed by source of energy.

So, personal muscle, using animals, wood, coal, gasoline, fission, fusion...

The cool thing about Magic is that it makes it FAR easier to skip a bit ahead.

Quote from: jibbajibba;812955You can't compare the technology user to the technology creator though. Yes anyone can learn to use a Spinning jenny/automobile/AK47 but not everyone can invent one.
The wizard take the place of the natural philosopher so Newton, Hooke, Copernicus, Wren, Boyle, Farraday, Kalashnikov, Ford are replaced with wizards who create the magical equivalents.
the peasant who can use a forge or a plow can also use a bag of magic seeds, a golem, an everbright lamp. They don't need to know how these things work, just like I don't need to be able to build a computer from raw materials.

And there just aren't enough enchanters to do that, in most game systems, D&D included.

The Potterverse is certainly an interesting example of how this might spin out, but the point to remember is this: everyone who counts is either a wizard or a member of a magical race.  The people who can't do magic are a despised and pitied minority who are lucky if they can get menial work.

Quote from: jibbajibba;812984Not sure the invention process works like that.

You can't invent a bike until you have the right materials and a bike with a chain requires gears and stuff. You are more liekly to invent a bike if you look at a mill grinding wheat than a guy on a ghostly horse.

Same with the other stuff. Its not a case of an iron golem is an artificial man so I will invent clockwork men. Its a case of look at how those gears fit together I bet you could use gears like that to make a creature that moved through gears.

I meant that like watching birds fly, it sparks an idea of "I can do this without magic. But... HOW?" and then going out and possibly hitting on the mill idea or anything else handy to draw upon.

One of the early proto bikes did not have a chain or drive to it. But most D&D settings are far along enough that there are chain and gear driven traps so who knows what someone might come up with.

One of the Guardians of the Flame books took it the other way. One of the characters was making muskets and keeping the process a well guarded secret. The slaver guild wizards eventually equipped some troops with muskets too. But the ball was propelled by a tiny fireball explosion in a chamber since they could not figure out the gunpowder. But did puzzle out the baser idea.

Quote from: Catelf;813006* Orc Emanciption Movement

SPI's Swords & Sorcery had the Orcish Revolutionary Council (ORC); I think they were based in New Orc City.

Quote from: rawma;813169SPI's Swords & Sorcery had the Orcish Revolutionary Council (ORC); I think they were based in New Orc City.

I just cant help picturing the end of Gremlins 2, with all them singing "New Orc, New Orc..."

There was at least one article in Dragon on playing a pre-historc level setting. There were level limits on clerics and magic users such that they were about equivalent to humanoid shamans and witchdoctors.

The presence of magic would probably stunt any sort of real innovation and strangle science in the crib. Most invention has come from necessity. When you can just cast a magic spell to do it, there is no pressing reason for any resourcefulness.