There are four scenarios worth considering, representing the ends of two "dials" on magic - how recent it is, and how prevalent/practical it is:
- Magic has always been around, but it's incredible rare/difficult.
- Magic has always been around, and it's very common/easy.
- Magic has only recently been discovered, and it's incredibly rare/difficult.
- Magic has only recently been discovered, and it's very common/easy.
There are any number of possible explanations, but the point remains - a small amount of magic, even if around for a great deal of time, would not have any significant effect.
Scenario 2 would be wildy, radically different from our world. As different as the world of a modern Briton is from an agrarian Brit living under the Norman yoke in 1088. Positing a world where anyone can do useful magic with the equivalent of, say, a six-week nightschool course would result in a world where everyone who's anyone retains one or more potent magic-users. Magic is used in industry, warfare, trade, diplomacy... Much as computers have transformed every facet of our current world, plentiful cheap magic would transform the ancient world, and therefore transform every subsequent age beyond recognition.
Instantaneous communication, teleportation, magical lie detection, purification of elements, transubstantiation of elements, battlefield artillery, mass production of wondrous objects... The possibilities are limitless, and it is difficult to make any kind of prediction about what such a world would be like. It would depend greatly on the exact types of magic that are feasible.
But to argue that plentiful, cheap magic, available over the long term, would not cause at least the degree of transformation that computers and industrialization did is insupportable.
Scenario 4 would be a world like our own transitioning into a different kind of world, like England at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Forward-thinking businessmen and princes would be making the most of the new-found magic in industry, commerce, and war. Most people would still be living pre-revolution lives.
Perhaps centuries of alchemical and astrological work were converging on a single solution to the problem of practical magic, and near-simultaneous discoveries were made in several places. Perhaps some planetary convergence opened rifts to another world. Perhaps powerful beings have returned to this realm, bringing magical potential with them.
None of this is Earth-shattering. I wouldn't think this is particularly controversial even (although I might be surprised). I don't think Alexis and I disagreed so much in our conclusions as our premises - if I understand correctly, he's thinking of a Scenario 1 world, and I'm looking at all the possibilities.
That said, we play a game. If you want to play a game where powerful, plentiful magic has always existed, but the borders of Europe are the same in 1088, the feudal system is in place in Norman England, and in every way the world mimics our own (but there's powerful, cheap magic everywhere), all power to you. It's a game. Do what works for your game!
But don't try and tell me that's a plausible historical scenario. It's not.
I think you under rate the impact of magic and misplace the comparison with technology.
ReplyDeleteA scenario 2 world would be much more different then you pose as an example, the world of 1088 existed under the same physical laws our world does now. Magic isn’t just the cheap, easy, and effective communication of knowledge. A scenario 2 universe would look nothing like our own, the societies, histories, and language couldn’t possibly be as similar as the worlds of 1088 and 2014 in any spot in the British Isles. 1088 England never would have happened as the first civilization with effective use of magic would be the triumphant civilization; there would have been no Britain, Rome, Egypt, or even Atlantis if the Lemurians some 6,000 years earlier were the first folks to develop cheap, effective, and easy magic. Civilization, culture, and mythology as we know it simply wouldn’t exist as humanity would be under the thumb of a handful of archimages/preistkings/liches/demiurges who would have secured a monopoly on cheap easy magic millennia ago and still be putting it to use for their own means.
As for a scenario 4 world being as meager a difference as now and the industrial revolution? Not a chance. A six week study to be able to create and deploy the force of an A-bomb? A scenario 4 world would be one of catastrophic apocalyptic change as the world was ripped apart by individuals and factions playing “the wish wars” unless of course there were limits on that magic, limits that would make it unlike technology and utterly unlike any comparisons you just raised. Even the limitations imposed by having to conform with the direct desires and goals of immortal beings acting as gods or the need to engage in the insanely dangerous and expensive trade of adventuring to gain exp to gain the levels required to cast spells would result in a very different world than you have posited.
Magic has a set of rules that are influenced by the feeling, goals, and desires of the powerful that simply isn't there with technology.
>A scenario 2 universe would look nothing like our own, the societies, histories, and language couldn’t possibly be as similar as the worlds of 1088 and 2014 in any spot in the British Isles.
DeleteYes, I would tend to agree. I meant that metaphorically, not literally - as in, "very different".
>would be under the thumb of a handful of archimages/preistkings/liches/demiurges who would have secured a monopoly on cheap easy magic millennia ago and still be putting it to use for their own means.
Possible, but hardly the only possible outcome.
>Not a chance. A six week study to be able to create and deploy the force of an A-bomb?
I guess. Again, it all depends on your premises. I didn't really see there being magic as powerful as an A-bomb, certainly not right after magic was discovered.
Just because magic is relatively easy and cheap doesn't mean a) it can do anything, b) that everyone automatically knows the most advanced techniques.
My thinking was that, much like the steam engine inevitably led to the nuclear steam engine over the course of hundreds of years, so too would the rise of magic - each discovery would be found, disseminated, and built upon.
But, since this is all hyopthetical, you're right - if we're positing magic, there's no reason why you couldn't invent a magic A-Bomb six weeks after discovering magic.
>the need to engage in the insanely dangerous and expensive trade of adventuring to gain exp
I have never understood why in any of these scenarios, adventuring would be the only - or even a desirable - way to gain knowledge.
The only reason the game works like that is because Masters And Theses is a lot duller than Dungeons and Dragons.
I find it highly implausible that casting magic missile to kill a troll would be nearly as enlightening as diligent experiments and research.
>Magic has a set of rules that are influenced by the feeling, goals, and desires of the powerful that simply isn't there with technology.
Only if you say it does. There's no reason to suppose that.
re: Magic has a set of rules that are influenced by the feeling, goals, and desires of the powerful that simply isn't there with technology.
DeleteIf a campaign has divine magic it absolutely does have magic influenced by the feelings, goals, and desires of the powerful.
Even if practitioners most consort with spirits, elementals, genies, and demons and those entities are individuals at any level their actions and reactions would also impact magic depending on the level of interaction.
Having to threaten to torture your car to get it to take you on a long trip (and be able to do so if needed) because the fire demon bound to the engine needed "encouragement " now and again would put a very different spin on a vacation or business trip. D&D does have that sort of magic item as well seen in some artifacts and magic swords (pity the fighter with a smart and stubborn sword).
Magic isn't (or shouldn't be) limited to the will of the person flipping a switch.
>If a campaign has divine magic it absolutely does have magic influenced by the feelings, goals, and desires of the powerful.
DeleteOnly if divine magic is actually powered by the Gods. That's implied, but not required by D&D. I personally find things much more interesting if Clerics do the same type of magic as Wizards, and just tell people it's divine intervention.
>Even if practitioners most consort with spirits, elementals, genies, and demons and those entities are individuals at any level their actions and reactions would also impact magic depending on the level of interaction.
Sure, but magic only works like that because you say it does.
I'm equally free to say that magic is like magnetism, simply a dumb and unknowing force of nature.
>Magic isn't (or shouldn't be) limited to the will of the person flipping a switch.
In the words of the Dude, that's just like, your opinion, man.
I happen to agree with you, but it's still just one way of doing things, and one opinion on things.
I think the problem you run into with these disagreements is with how you define "easy" and "common". You seem to only define "easy" in terms of objective physical barriers, not social or political barriers, and the "commonness" of magic is assumed to be a universal, continuously increasing and never decreasing, quality.
ReplyDeleteNeither of those has been true of scientific or technical knowledge, so why would they be true of magic?
>Neither of those has been true of scientific or technical knowledge, so why would they be true of magic?
DeleteEvidence? That's not my take. Sure, knowledge has been lost occasionally over the years, but a useful technology always gets used. And if it's being used, it's impossible to keep secret.
Take literally any technology or scientific concept - ironworking, steel, the windmill, lathes, steam engines, lenses, round-earth hypothesis, calculus, heliocentricity, even literacy. All have been widely disseminated to the people that would find them useful.
I can already hear "But literacy was reserved for the elites for most of history! That wasn't widely disseminated!".
Well, actually, it was. Everywhere you went in Medieval Europe, you would find literate people. Sure, most people were illiterate, but that's because reading would have done them no good. A shepherd in Wales doesn't need to read a book to learn to shepherd, his dad shows him. If you offered to teach him to read, he'd probably just say, "Why would I waste my time?". Once literacy became relevant, people became literate.
Even in the rare case that a technology or concept was attempted to be suppressed (e.g. heliocentric model, crossbow), the suppression was completely and utterly ineffective. The heliocentric model rapidly became universally accepted, and the crossbow was commonplace (until the coming of the gun).
So, yes, I only define "easy" in terms of physical, nature-of-the-universe barriers, because in practical terms, that's the only kind there is. Any useful technology or concept, once conceived, will out.
No, actually, not every useful technology or concept, once conceived, will out. Not everyone who finds a technology useful will automatically get it.
DeleteI don't know much about the pervasiveness of technology in England, but perhaps you do not know about the pervasiveness of technology in America? Not everyone in America has a computer, even if they want one. Not everyone has a cell phone. Not everyone has access to a telephone, or electricity, or indoor plumbing, sometimes by choice, but many times because no company that controls the technology has felt it was profitable enough to expand in every area. In some cases, without government subsidies like the Rural Electrification Project, some areas would *still* be without technologies they actually want.
Some technologies, like internet over powerlines, are invented, have an immediate, obvious benefit, but aren't deployed for what are basically structural reasons.
Some, like nuclear power plants, have safety concerns.
Some groups lack a technology because they've decided against it for religious reasons, such as the Amish, or the Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions, or some Christian sects and birth control.
Even in the cases where you would say "that technology won, it's everywhere", you're overlooking the fact that there was, indeed, a battle to win; resistance happens, and change can be very slow.
So no, social and political factors should *not* be ignored when deciding what a given setting should look like. Even if you assume that magic will eventually become universally accessible, you can still choose to play somewhere earlier on the timeline, when there was still a struggle to get the information out.
>No, actually, not every useful technology or concept, once conceived, will out.
ReplyDeleteLike what? Again, I'm waiting for examples.
>Not everyone who finds a technology useful will automatically get it.
Well, of course not, but that's very different from nobody will ever get it. Nobody automatically gets anything, except being born.
>I don't know much about the pervasiveness of technology in England, but perhaps you do not know about the pervasiveness of technology in America?
It is, for all intents and purposes, all-pervasive. If it's not available in an area, nobody is forcing people to live in that area (well, except Native people on reserves, but that's because America is perpetuating a slow and steady genocide on those peoples). Half of people who don't have Internet, for instance, don't have Internet because they don't want Internet. Broadband is available to 98% of American homes.
Some people can't afford certain things, but that doesn't mean they're not available. I can't afford a Rolls Royce Phantom, but if I could, I could get one tomorrow. Just because a serf can't afford a magician, doesn't mean that magicians are not fundamentally altering society.
>Some technologies, like internet over powerlines, are invented, have an immediate, obvious benefit, but aren't deployed for what are basically structural reasons.
Aren't deployed because there are more appealing alternatives. I shouldn't have said "every" tech will out, I should have said every "better" tech will out.
BPL is interesting, but has a number of inherent problems that make it less appealing than fibre.
In any case, BPL has been deployed in a number of settings and scenarios where it makes more sense than the alternatives.
>Some, like nuclear power plants, have safety concerns.
Actually, nuclear power is by a wide margin the safest power source, in terms of deaths per terawatt hour, even taking into account Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Nuclear power IS widely implemented in a variety of settings and scenarios, so I don't know why you would list that as something that's not implemented.
>Some groups lack a technology because they've decided against it for religious reasons, such as the Amish, or the Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions, or some Christian sects and birth control.
More or less irrelevant.
>you're overlooking the fact that there was, indeed, a battle to win; resistance happens, and change can be very slow.
Not in the slightest. As I said over at Tao's, never did I say these things would be fast. The Industrial Revolution took close to 150 years from beginning to end for it to be felt in all of the current First-World countries.
Nonetheless, the Industrial Revolution happened, as was inevitable once the requisite technology was in place.
>So no, social and political factors should *not* be ignored when deciding what a given setting should look like.
That is not what I said. I said that social and political factors do not suppress a useful technology over the long term.
Obviously social and political factors are some of the *main* factors in deciding what a setting looks like.
They are not particularly relevant on a large time scale when dealing with technological diffusion.
>Even if you assume that magic will eventually become universally accessible, you can still choose to play somewhere earlier on the timeline, when there was still a struggle to get the information out.
Of course you can, and I said so. See Scenarios 3 and 4, outlined above.
When talking about the pervasiveness of technology, I was referring to America and what I know about its pervasiveness there. That was maybe unclear (up until the bit about Native reservations).
DeleteAlways good discussion, both here and at Tao. I had commented something similar to this on Tao, but this, in my mind, is one of the fundamental questions and benchmarks that the DM must set when developing their campaign world. Fundamentally we are dancing around the discussion of 'High Magic' settings vs. 'Sword and Sorcery/Low Magic' worlds. In my experience, everyone is drawn to one or the other as their default and the style of setting that they are naturally more comfortable playing in and wrapping their head around.
ReplyDeleteOne of the other questions that I evaluate when looking at these types of questions is 'how mages view their own spells?'
Even if mages are a dime a dozen, what magic they have access to is, at least in my mind, the more important question. If one in ten people can cast Grease, the world is very different than if one in ten can cast a wide range of spells. This sets up the relationship between mages. Do they share their research/spells freely? Do mages kill each other in the hopes of finding one more incantation?
I am also a fan of cultural spell access. I.e. the Persians are masters of illusion magic and the Romans are masters of Transmutation, etc. This concept hedges closest to the 'magic = technology', at least on a wide spread basis, as I get as a DM, but that is me. But again, this is a flavor decision that the DMs must make for their selves regarding how they want to present the world.
But as always, keep up the great work and ideas.
A great discussion, Charles.
ReplyDeleteIn partial defense of Taly's point, Frank & K had a great explanation of why players couldn't reinvent paper currency to replace gold pieces. The cultural technology simply isn't there for universal fiat currency (even though in real history people did use limited paper currency in the form of bonds and other securities). It takes more than just an invention; it also requires a social context. The Greeks actually understood steam engines but had neither the machine-tool ability to build them or the industrial level to use them. Slaves were cheap, after all.
I remember in my first D&D game I invented tanks - animated dinosaurs with mounted ballistae. My poor DM didn't have the heart to explain that modern combined-arms doctrine is necessary to put such contraptions to any effective use, let alone to train or convince soldiers to go along with it. Not to say it can't (or shouldn't) be done in a game; just to say that more than the mere fact of the idea is necessary.
But as you point out, some things are simply too useful to be ignored. The auto-stabilize of even a 0th level healing spell is, all by itself, world-altering. On of the most common causes of death for women in all of history (including today!) is blood loss from giving birth. Societies that had CMW would simply outbreed societies that didn't over a hundred years. The technology for CMW is both easy to obtain and culturally applicable. And don't get me started on Remove Disease... These basic magic technologies would inevitably spread to everyone. And of course every edition of the DMG had magic as incredibly common (one of the random city encounters in 2E is an 11th illusionist and his buddies... as if you could be walking through a city and bump into a guy who could remake reality at will but you'd never heard of him before).
Also, as you point out, magic items last forever. You can still dig up Roman coins in Britain; the supply of 2,000 years of producing Continual Flames would be blinding by now.
As presented, the world of D&D never made sense. Even accepting that only a small percentage of people could gain these powers (1 in a 100, wasn't it, in 1E?) you still cannot have modules where the players are tasked to solve a crime in a small village that contains a 3rd level cleric (I'm looking at you, Pathfinder! At least tell me the priest already ran everybody through a Zone of Truth, but apparently the bad guy made his save.)
However, with surprisingly little work, I think the world can be saved. To my mind you need four key things:
1) XP as a resource. If XP represents a resource you can consume to make yourself more powerful, then adventuring wizards make more sense. They're not out there to learn, they're out there to get the mojo that makes their magic work. (Note how 3E handily set the price of XP as 5 gp!)
2) XP comes from people. This instantly recreates your feudal world, as big tough warrior guys have a reason to guard huge plantations of smelly peasants. It's because they provide the mojo that makes those guys big and tough.
3) A steeper power curve. Under 3.0 rules a 20th lvl wizard costs the same as a fortress. You can't have your faux-medieval world at that kind of exchange rate. I use an exponential curve for level advancement; this means 9th levels are as common as Kings, and 17th levels are... virtually non-existent.
4) A leavening agent. You still need to explain why societies don't eventually flower into a Tippy-verse. (See the Giant in the Playground boards if you don't what this means). Every so often some extra-planar disaster must crush the most successful empires. This is also necessary because otherwise you'll have an incredibly static society. In real history peasant rebellions almost never succeeded, and that was against aristocrats who were merely better fed, trained, armed, and led. Add in levels and the peasants don't stand a chance.
>The cultural technology simply isn't there for universal fiat currency
DeleteOr the technology technology. Without anti-counterfeiting measures, paper money is worthless. If all you need is a steady hand to carve a woodblock to make paper money, nobody will honor it.
>My poor DM didn't have the heart to explain that modern combined-arms doctrine is necessary to put such contraptions to any effective use
No, it's not. Tanks were immediately useful on the battlefield.
Also, from the invention of the tank to the invention of blitzkrieg was only about 20 years. That's pretty quick.
>more than the mere fact of the idea is necessary
As I pointed out, tanks do not require modern combined arms doctrine to be effective. They have been effective since their invention.
I don't really understand your points about XP. I don't understand how adventuring "gets you mojo to make your magic work". Or how XP could "come from people". What is this "mojo"?
For a fighter, it's training at arms and fighting. For a wizard, it's studying and casting spells. I don't see how adventuring or being a landlord has anything to do with that.
>A steeper power curve
See this article I wrote a while ago for my take on that:
http://spellsandsteel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/logarithmic-advancement-in-old-school.html
* Without anti-counterfeiting measures, paper money is worthless.
ReplyDeleteBut paper money existed for a long time (in the form of contracts and promissory notes) before we had currency. Also, those rogues have to have something to do with their Forgery skill ;P.
Even metal coins are subject to forgery: you can't assay every coin to determine its actual metal content. Even when coins were circulated by weight instead of legal value there was a social contract that the form and style of the coin indicated its weight. (From this great article on debasement: "even when the existing coinage was altered, a change in fineness or even in weight was indicated by a small change in the design of the coin" - http://elainemeinelsupkis.typepad.com/money_matters/2008/02/february-7-2008.html). Also, forgery (while a theft from the state) doesn't actually matter that much: the Germans forged boxcars of American currency during WWII, to no particular effect. Frank & K's point was that in D&D (and the middle ages) there is no nation-state large enough to make paper currency worth the effort; i.e. there wasn't enough social capital in the form of trust in face value to leap from coins to paper. I recommend the whole discussion on economy, found here: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=28547:
"Remember that this is the Iron Age, and people haven't invented Nationalism yet. The cornerstone of the Greenback currency is a belief in the nation that prints it – and nations simply don't exist. You've got empires, and you've got kingdoms, and you've got tribes, and you've got unincorporated villages… and that's it as far as civilization goes."
To quote the money shot from Frank & K (one of the greatest paragraphs I've ever read):
"It is historical fact that you can take a ridiculous and crumbling imperium with serfs and horse-drawn carts managed by a tyrannical and squabbling aristocracy and boot strap it into being a technologically sophisticated global power that can win the space race and such in a single generation even while being invaded by an evil and genocidal empire. The people at the top don't even need to be nice or sane, they just have to understand that economics is an entirely voodoo science, and the limits of production can be broken by thousands of percentage points by getting everyone to buy on credit, work on projects that people looking at the big picture tell them to work on, continuously invest in productive capital, and believe in the future.
Right. That's called Communism, and it ends the dark ages immediately even if it isn't run well. "
He goes on to point out that Communism doesn't exist in D&D not because it doesn't work (it works better than feudalism), but because it hasn't been invented yet. Just like gunpowder.
* Also, from the invention of the tank to the invention of blitzkrieg was only about 20 years.
ReplyDeleteThat was during a period when people accepted or even expected change to occur. Quite different than the static world of D&D where elves have lived for thousands of years but still copy each book by hand.
One of the rules of combined arms is that tanks have to be supported by infantry. This becomes obvious the first time your dino-tank falls into a pit trap that the driver couldn't see from his viewslit but that an infantry man would have spotted. Learning this and teaching it to your commanders is part of developing that doctrine. Trying to convince a bunch of French knights who beleive they they are appointed by God to gain personal glory in deeds of arms to get inside your dino-tank is also part of that doctrine.
Again, not that it won't work; just that there is more to it than "Hey let's put a ballista in an armored wagon." Of course John Ziska of the Hussites actually did develop all this, including the tactical doctrine of setting up his mobile fort of armored wagons chained in a circle and then using his cavalry to lure the enemy into attacking it (known today as the tactical doctrine of "pulling" :D), so tanks aren't really the best example. http://epicworldhistory.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/john-huss.html
* I don't really understand your points about XP
ReplyDeleteI wrote this up in some stuff in DriveThruRPG (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/64422/World-of-Prime-Worldbook?manufacturers_id=2849 although I am in the middle of revising it fairly significantly), but the short version is: xp is a tangible resource that is harvested from sentient brains. You can either wait around for your peasants to die of old age, or you can go out into the wild and murder things to speed the process along. Hence murder-hoboes and high-level barons capable of defending their castles against murder-hobos. 3E already established that 1 XP = 5 GP, so if you just take that literally, you wind up with a universal currency that can't be forged, is valued across all planes of existence, and explains why even demons allow vast swaths of dirty peasants insted of just destroying the whole world at one go: who burns their own hunting grounds?
* See this article I wrote a while ago for my take on that:
ReplyDeleteThat's good, but the problem is that the players are themselves the very challenges they need to defeat to advance. So either they are unique, or they will be able to find other creatures of their own power. Still, as you noted, the essential point is to make 17th level effectively unachievable, since achieving it generally wrecks the campaign world. Unless... 17th level means fighting monsters so horrible in power that they boggle the mind. But if those monsters exist, why haven't they conquered the entire world already? Answer: they have. They just left you alone until you had enough XP worth harvesting. Kind of like hunting bear instead of hunting the salmon the bear eats.
Sorry this was so long, but I really wanted to quote Frank & K.
Oops... just subscribing so I'll get a note if you respond.
ReplyDelete"Remember that this is the Iron Age, and people haven't invented Nationalism yet. The cornerstone of the Greenback currency is a belief in the nation that prints it – and nations simply don't exist. You've got empires, and you've got kingdoms, and you've got tribes, and you've got unincorporated villages… and that's it as far as civilization goes."
ReplyDeleteI would take exception to that argument. If we are looking at a feudal or manorialism based society the nobility, especially the king/emperor/top dog was seen as being divinely appointed. In Medieval Europe people were deeply religious and BELIEVED and not in the 'yeah there is an invisible sky wizard who puts us on the naughty or nice list when we die' kind of believed but 'I will burn as a heretic if I speak otherwise' kind of believed. So if faith in the nation akin to Nationalism is all it took then I would argue that the peasant in 1260 AD may have firmly believed that their king was divinely appointed to be their ruler and that his tender was good. Nationalism was the actual break from I believe in 'x ruler' to I am a citizen of 'x geography that identifies itself as a nation', which I is not any more viable for a fiat money system. And if we assume in a fantasy game that the kings are divinely appointed then this is even more powerful because the clerics of the gods that put him there can shoot laser beams from their eyes and turn the undead into dust at will. When you see those kinds of things you BELIEVE that the Gods exist.
This has always been somewhat of a pet peeve of mine when it comes to D&D. The old saying of 'there are no atheists in foxholes' is not even remotely comparable. It takes a special sort of ignorance to watch a cleric instantaneously bring someone back from the dead and then say 'yeah, I just don't believe in the gods, they are not for me.' Now I understand that there is a difference between belief and devotion, but (I am painting with my broadest brush at this point) most players shy away from any level of devotion or belief in a deity, especially if they are a cleric.
Clerics may be able to cure wounds, which is nice, but why would they do that on an infidel unless they were trying to convert them? And why would the then cured unbeliever shrug off this quite literal miracle and continue on as if nothing happened?
I think that the players carry a lot of their modern cynicism about religion into their characters. Don't get me wrong, I am not a religious man myself, but that would make the job of role playing that out more interesting to me. But I think that (broad brush again) the bulk of players see divine magic simply as an expendable resources instead of gifts from their gods. Perhaps the cleric should ask the dying fighter if he accepts Tyre as their lord and savior before they heal them. And perhaps the cleric should expect the then saved fighter to attend services at the next town, tithe some of the loot to the church and stop gambling so much. After all, the priest is holding miracles from the god in his hands, and he is the god's chosen one on how those should be dolled out on earth. And if the priest is just casting willy nilly and not bringing people into the faith, what good are they to the God?
Zzarchov over at Unofficial Games wrote a great post about his interpretation of priestly magic vs. magician magic. It can be read at: http://zzarchov.blogspot.com/2011/10/miracles-how-priests-use-magic.html I have never personally put this system in a game, but I really appreciate the underpinnings and think that it would be a great system to play with.
I agree that the religious viewpoint is often overlooked when we discuss history - but I also think the people of the that time matched a dire cynicism with their religious assumptions. Almost every pirate of the golden age believed in God and assumed they were going to Hell. It didn't stop them from pirating, however. :D So I am not sure a King, even with divine blessing, could unilaterally change a cultural attitude towards currency. More importantly, the fact that the king grew up in that culture means he thinks of currency in exactly the same way, so where would this idea of paper currency even come from?
ReplyDeleteI agree there aren't any atheists in the D&D world. Instead there are anti-theists: while the existence and power of the gods is undeniable, one can still doubt their authority. An anti-theist says that the gods are enemies of mortals to be opposed at every turn, or merely high level posers who have no particular moral claim to being worshiped.
I also agree the fluff of divine casting should be enforced more in games. 3.5 with its godless clerics was a huge step in the wrong direction.
Don't mistake me, I am not advocating for paper currency, just pointing out that it is my assumption that people would have equal belief in divinely appointed lords as they would a geographically defined piece of dirt given your argument that it was Nationalism that lead to the rise of paper money. There are records of promissory notes and letters of credit in history which are the logical forbearers of paper currency. And I could perhaps envision a culture devoid enough of metal, or placing little value in it, to be able to assign value to a paper/leaf/bark/etc. form. But since I cannot interview a medieval peasant let alone a denizen of a fantastical realm I don't have much of a retort other than 'my internal logic says disagrees with your internal logic'.
ReplyDeleteI prefer coinage anyways, and take great pains to make my characters account for weight and volume, and have an organized exchange rate as they move between currencies. I also do not truck with the widespread usage of gold for coinage, it is too rare a metal (at least in my world) and is reserved only for macro economic transactions (purchasing ships/loads of ore/bulk ore/etc.) and I also make use of promissory notes from institutions such as nobility and clergy, as well as the presence of trade bars for high end dealings. However, I am not one to rob my players of scamming by coin shaving or even pursuing a life of forgery if they so chose.
But in regards to the more topical issue of magic and the world, while I do not immediately jump to your conclusion on anti-theists, I will mull on it.
But I would point that poly-deity areas would absolutely NOT be able to keep up with the mechanical demand for healing and tend to blow holes in the 'everyone can live forever' mentality. We again fall victim to modern views of religious tolerance. We can look to history to point to issues of religious genocide such as the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, and the Holocaust to point to unabashed destruction directed against people of different faiths. Heck even amongst ideologically aligned religions there have been massive slaughters. Take the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in Paris (and surrounding areas). In May of 1572 French Catholics murdered upwards of 30,000 Huguenots. A great number of European cities have been burned/sacked/and emptied of people during the reformation and splintering of the Catholic church. And these guys all believed in the same god. I doubt that a Catholic friar, if he was luck enough to be blessed with the ability to cast spells, would ever consider healing a Huguenot farmer. On top of that, it would be more than a logical assumption that priests would be targeted in preference to the rabbled flock.
However, a lot of this is personal flavor. I tend to make spell casting religious men rare in my worlds, in fact I mostly use BRP in which the bar for casting magic is extraordinarily high (you need a 16+ in your POW stat on a 2d6+6 roll, or if you do the point buy version you get 24 attribute points across 7 stats which start at 10, and increasing POW by 1 point costs you 3 attribute points so you have to dump 75% of your attribute points into just meeting the minimum to cast magic, divine or arcane). And I understand that AD&D the bar for entry is just a 9 Wisdom. However, even when I was running D&D worlds leveled characters were exceptional, to the tune of 1:1,000 people and high leveled characters even more rare. Kings were but men (0th level) and most monks and clergy were the same. I have never equated social power with level. I understand that this way of seeing the world is not necessarily in concert with 3.x and beyond, but I am open about playing a low powered Sword and Sorcery game and that is what I like.
I think that in D&D terms, the Catholics and Protestants count as worshiping different deities. Or maybe the deity they worship is CE and likes to see them fight amongst each other. :D
ReplyDeleteI think you have to equate social power with level; otherwise, the most powerful people in the world are wandering murder-hobos. This basically transforms your players into monsters; their arrival in a town is no different than the arrival of a powerful, uncontrollable force that can do whatever it likes without consequence. I can't imagine why a 9th level wizard would view a 0th level king as anything but an ATM.