Quote from: Ravenswing;812950Are we talking realism here?  If so ...

It's pretty tough to say.  My eternal answer to "magic replaces technology" is "NFW, because in almost no game system is magic ubiquitous enough to pull it off."  How many D&D settings have as many as one in ten capable of magic, let alone practicing magic?

And there's your answer right there.  ANYone can use a forged tool.  ANY peasant can lead a team of horses wearing horse collars.  ANYone can learn to drive a car.  You don't have to have the inbred ability to work magic, or years of magical apprenticeship, to do them.

At the same time, scientific advancement happens because people are seeking ways to do things that either aren't being done at all or which can be done better, and for which they can find the financing to experiment.  I'm thinking rich patrons are far less likely to put their gold into the pockets of physicists and chemists than into the pockets of wizards.  

And beyond that ... every journeyman wizard who can make large volumes of water vanish equals a mine owner who isn't looking for better pumping technology.  Every one who can create sustainable high furnace temperatures equals one less opportunity for a John Bessemer to make his name.  If enchanters can come out with cheap time-telling items, there's no incentive to make accurate naval chronometers.  And so on.

You 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.

The Kvote books have a nice magic tech section where the students at the university design and build inventions which the university then sells on to teh general public (once they have decided that each thing is morally acceptable)

Another example of what  a magical culture brought forward might look like is the Wizard society in the Harry Potter books.
I know they're kids books, but it's quite an interesting take on the regulated society of Wizards and how they seem to control or try to control all supernatural beings as well (House elves, Centaurs etc)
They have a very complex council with departments for control for magic and policing.
The "Muggles" being normal humans for the most part aren't even aware of human society.
In a more traditional dnd setting, the non-magical beings would be aware of magic and all that, but their system would work in sync with the magical regulation, so the Wizarding setup could be used in a fantasy setting with some work.

The D&D setting is often presented as having had magic and a Manichean cosmology for a long time (ancient races and artifacts). Just as the specters don't run amuck, there must be something that sustains the status quo; opposing forces in balance is not likely to be a stable equilibrium.

Bemusingly you might get some tech advancements because of magic.

Someone sees a wizard flying by and wants to fly too. So they invent the hang glider.

Someone sees a wizard on a phantom steed and invents bicycle.

Someone sees a wizard using firebolt and fireball and invents the flamethrower and hand grenade.

Someone sees a golem and invents clockwork automata.

And there will be places where thers no mages for some reason and there is where someone may start inventing, not aware that magic does it better and easier. (if you can cast spells)

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

What's interesting is that magic essentially distorts what is easy or hard, compared to us.

At a very basic level, one of the common ways this happens is with energy. Magic generates or transmutes magic very easily.

But complex machines are still hard...

So you might have reliable refrigeration before you have a card loom.

Quote from: Omega;812975Bemusingly you might get some tech advancements because of magic.

Someone sees a wizard flying by and wants to fly too. So they invent the hang glider.

Someone sees a wizard on a phantom steed and invents bicycle.

Someone sees a wizard using firebolt and fireball and invents the flamethrower and hand grenade.

Someone sees a golem and invents clockwork automata.

And there will be places where thers no mages for some reason and there is where someone may start inventing, not aware that magic does it better and easier. (if you can cast spells)

Not 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.

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.

What's interesting is that magic essentially distorts what is easy or hard, compared to us.

At a very basic level, one of the common ways this happens is with energy. Magic generates or transmutes magic very easily.

But complex machines are still hard...

So you might have reliable refrigeration before you have a card loom.

That is a very interestng point and you could tie it to specific spelsl.

In 5e terms the firebolt cantrip is effectively a limitless supply of energy you could harness this to provide a host of stuff, just like 1e unseen servants could be used to power a treadmill to generate free electricity.

I'm going to bring up Eberron since no one has yet. I'm running my current game pretty much as if it were the modern era without even altering the setting assumptions, what with...
corporations (dragonmarked houses)
airlines (teleportation and airships)
telecommunication (speaking stones)
mass media (magic enhanced newspaper printing and distribution, recorded illusions)
hotels (house Ghallanda)
proto-skyscrapers (immovable-rod enhanced architecture)
taxis (elemental carriages)
Labor-saving appliances (widespread use of cantrips and 1st level spells)
James Bond gadgets (industrialized low-level magic item manufacturing)
firearms (the prevalence of shooty cantrips)
security and hacking (the arms race to develop better warding and ward-beating magic)
nuclear weapons (the mourning)
modern finance (house Kundarak)
modern medicine (house Jorasco)
etc...

Quote from: TristramEvans;812830I ran a longterm Shadowrun campaign that took place in a near-future Ravenloft

Technically, within the base setting it is totally natural to feature a Ravenloft domain that has modern or future levels of technology, given how the demi-plane is said to grab pieces of worlds all across existence.

Quote from: rawma;812963The D&D setting is often presented as having had magic and a Manichean cosmology for a long time (ancient races and artifacts). Just as the specters don't run amuck, there must be something that sustains the status quo; opposing forces in balance is not likely to be a stable equilibrium.

Powerful supernatural deities with an agenda dominating the goals of the sentient races.

I.e. gods.

The clerics are what keeps the status quo going. The conservationism is reinforced by the natural inclinations of the longer lived races especially the elves.

I can certainly think of a few revolutionary ideas that could mess up the status quo, and cause any fantasy world to become more "modern", and even forcing magic to become more scientific, and make non-magical science more interesting:
* Orc Emanciption Movement
* Thaum wants to be free (magic for everyone)
* One God Concept
* The Gathering for disarming the Mages(Magic is too powerful)
* Obey the Dragons

Wow, lots of well thought out, compelling ideas so far. You too Will. I don't mind checking out your posts here.

I guess that I was drawing too much from my notion of Arthurian pastiches based on the idea that as Christianity/"Progress" spread it pushed back the old beliefs and the magical/supernatural beings "into the mists." After reading the discussion here, I think there was really no reason for me to assume that since I guess the fairy people in those legends are of a different nature than the tolkienish ones. I'm really just talking out of my ass here.  

Some random thoughts:

Contrasting 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.

Given that the mechanics tie a high INT to an ability to handle magic, I guess it logically follows that intelligent people would go into the magical path. The only things that occur to me as a negative incentive to do that would be if magic users were generally untrusted (which would be true in some S&S incarnations, I think), or the learning curve (assuming focusing on improving technology has a lower learning curve compared to magic).

The other thing is that there has obviously been some technology advancements: the wheel, steel as opposed to stone weapons, the bow and the crossbow. So it seems to me there is also some precendent in the implied setting for at least some people looking for technological improvements. Otherwise, would it stand to reason that you'd see magically souped up stone age tools & weapons? What do you think?

One more thing, in reading a blog post about the "quadratic wizard vs linear fighter", the author was talking about how in versions prior to 3.0, there were character options to acquire a realm or domain. He says that what kept the fighter viable vs a wizard was the size of his force, while the wizard was envisioned as a more solitary type of force to reckon with. Would this imply some sort of built in distrust of wizards? If so, do you think it would be an incentive for fighters with a domain to improve technology to offset wizards? Even if wizards were trusted, wouldn't non magic users still want to offset that power?

As an aside, I've often thought of fun ways to make use of magic to drive technology.

For example, you can make a permanent wall of fire (in 3e, at least). That, to savvy dwarves, would be AMAZING -- make a boiler system.
Or reverse gravity to power a perpetual flywheel (put part of the wheel in the reversed gravity and the thing should spin up pretty fast).

D&D has often had this 'dwarven/gnome tinker' element to it which suggests a fair amount of potential technological application.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;813017The other thing is that there has obviously been some technology advancements: the wheel, steel as opposed to stone weapons, the bow and the crossbow. So it seems to me there is also some precendent in the implied setting for at least some people looking for technological improvements. Otherwise, would it stand to reason that you'd see magically souped up stone age tools & weapons? What do you think?

One more thing, in reading a blog post about the "quadratic wizard vs linear fighter", the author was talking about how in versions prior to 3.0, there were character options to acquire a realm or domain. He says that what kept the fighter viable vs a wizard was the size of his force, while the wizard was envisioned as a more solitary type of force to reckon with. Would this imply some sort of built in distrust of wizards? If so, do you think it would be an incentive for fighters with a domain to improve technology to offset wizards? Even if wizards were trusted, wouldn't non magic users still want to offset that power?

I 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.

Quote from: Will;813020D&D has often had this 'dwarven/gnome tinker' element to it which suggests a fair amount of potential technological application.

I remember that from Dragonlance, but I'm not sure if other settings had it.

Well, there's also alchemy. I mean, in 3e, you had tangler grenades (very SciFi! Tanglefoot bags), incendiaries (alchemical flask), lights (sun rods, those might be enchant rather than alchemy), and a few other things.

When I was poking at the idea of SciFi D&D, I found a lot of low level gear maps pretty easily to futuristic stuff... I mean, potions of healing? HEAL PACK