Why hasn't magic changed the world?

[McCoy]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

because training a wizard or other magic-user is a decades-long and massively expensive project. That also explains why PC wizards gain experience so much faster than NPCs - after a 15-year apprenticeship' date=' your NPC court wizard then spends every hour of the day trying to keep on top of the cholera outbreaks.[/quote']

Something like that.

 

(1) The genetic potential to work magic is very rare.

 

(2) Magic either requires celebacy, or causes infertility. Either your creative manna must be built up to a critical level to work magic, or working magic exhaust your creative potential, leaving not enough left to beget a child.

 

(3) There is no test for Magic Potential other than trying to learn magic. Before you can learn magic, you must be literate. Before you can be literate, you must have someone pay for your schooling, which usually means being the nephew or cousin of a mage, or the younder son of a noble family.

[Lucius]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

What makes you think it hasn't?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary suggests I should probably read threads before posting in them, but who has time for that?

[Drhoz]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

Something like that.

 

(1) The genetic potential to work magic is very rare.

 

(2) Magic either requires celebacy, or causes infertility. Either your creative manna must be built up to a critical level to work magic, or working magic exhaust your creative potential, leaving not enough left to beget a child.

 

or they're just too busy to raise a family

 

(3) There is no test for Magic Potential other than trying to learn magic. Before you can learn magic' date=' you must be literate. Before you can be literate, you must have someone pay for your schooling, which usually means being the nephew or cousin of a mage, or the younder son of a noble family.[/quote']

 

the politics is almost as limiting - if training a wizard is as expensive as seems plausible, only the richest courts will be able to afford one. And if that's the case they'll be very reluctant to risk him in dangerous stunts. Poorer countries may be forced to beg for magical assistance from their richer allies - which would put a magically trained spy into their courts.

 

they'd be the fantasy equivalent of nuclear arms - hardly anybody has the means or money to produce them, their presense increases political tensions dramatically, and they're far too rare, valuable, and powerful to risk using.

[Spence]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

 

 

the politics is almost as limiting - if training a wizard is as expensive as seems plausible, only the richest courts will be able to afford one. And if that's the case they'll be very reluctant to risk him in dangerous stunts. Poorer countries may be forced to beg for magical assistance from their richer allies - which would put a magically trained spy into their courts.

 

they'd be the fantasy equivalent of nuclear arms - hardly anybody has the means or money to produce them, their presense increases political tensions dramatically, and they're far too rare, valuable, and powerful to risk using.

 

Yep, that would make a "natural talent" or a "self taught" mage a really really interesting campaign.

 

The "old one" had lived in the mountains above the village for as long as anyone remembered. While reclusive and quick to anger he was wise and had cured sickness and saved many a lamb during foaling season. One day after unseasonable storms had battered the mountain villages and all the men and boys were scouring the mountains for the flocks, a strong party of Kings Men accompanied by a Court Mage thundered through the village and on to the Old Ones hut. Those still in the village hid themselves as thunderous roars rocked the mountainsides and bright flashes could be seen above.

 

Later the troop of Kings Men were seen leaving, much reduced in number and the Court Mage not to be seen. The incident may have ended there and passed into village lore except for the boy. A lad of 16 summers that the Old Man had taken to apprentice when he was but 7. A bright lad quick to laughter and what the Old Man had been heard to remark upon as “the strongest natural talent ever seen”.

 

After the “incident” the boy didn’t laugh much and was seldom seen outside the Old Mans cottage except at the most dire necessity. And then two years after the passing of the Old One, the boy packed up his vials and parchments, took up his staff and departed the village the “balance the scales”.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

And this is why I love Eberron. Magic actually HAS affected sociological development in that setting.

[Cancer]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

In a world with magic, there is still evolution. Germs have magic resistance. The strains with low resistance have already been wiped out. What's left is the stuff that doesn't keel over at the first spell.

 

As for engineering and agriculture, the answers aren't quite so obvious. Who knows? Maybe crops grown with magic aid aren't as toothsome (pink bullet tomatoes, anyone?) or have other unintended side effects.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

And while we're at it, why haven't Superheroes changed the world? I suspect there are similar answers to both questions: because the GM/Author doesn't want the world to change that much.

[Spence]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

And while we're at it' date=' why haven't Superheroes changed the world? I suspect there are similar answers to both questions: because the GM/Author doesn't want the world to change that much.[/quote']

 

But they did. Back when they still wrote comics that is, say the early 90's before the CEE (comic extinction event). Many people these days don't remember because they have never seen a superhero comic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cancer]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

Besides, in a world with real magic and super-powerful wizards who can do anything, I figure that all the problems are solved, but the Council of One Thousand have overlain an elaborate illusion on the whole world of conditions of misery, squalor, and disease. Then all they do is tweak the illusion a little once the money is at the right level, and poof! another illusory annoyance gets fixed, and they stay at the top of the heap, living off the real misery & squalor of others.

 

In that respect, it's just like the modern world, but with ultra-powerful wizards in the place of ultra-rich CEOs.

[Curufea]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

In a world with magic' date=' there is still evolution.[/quote']

 

Not necessarily - a world with magic is a perfect place to actually have creationism. Most of the settings do actually have some kind of deities or force creating the sentient life.

Not every law of physics need be in place in a fantasy world.

[Fitz]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

A fantasy world is also an ideal place to indulge yourself in Lysenkoism

[Curufea]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

Good idea!

 

Likewise, religion and culture can play a big role in keeping magic in check or preserving their way of life.

[OddHat]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

And while we're at it' date=' why haven't Superheroes changed the world? I suspect there are similar answers to both questions: because the GM/Author doesn't want the world to change that much.[/quote']

 

Pretty much.

 

In my own Fantasy setting (Imperium Romanum), magic has changed the world. In my Superhero setting (Alternate Wold Newton), Supers have caused tremendous changes, as is the case in any number of good Superhero settings (Gestalt by our own Scott Bennie, Alan Moore's Miracle Man, Tom Strong/Promethia and Legue of Extraordinary Gentlemen, etc).

 

We're not obligated to play Fantasy games in an endless historically accurate Middle Ages, and percentage wise damn few fantasy settings, movies or novels give a toss about historical accuracy. Tolkien didn't, but then he also didn't have clerics healing every Hobbit's stubbed toe or Gimli's crotch rot (never trust an Elf).

 

We're not obligated to play Superhero campaigns where genocide, incurable diseases and a menu of environmental and social disasters are the order of the day.

 

When given the power to re-make the world, it's silly to worry that you can't find room for quite enough muck.

[assault]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

In the world I have been fiddling around with recently, magic certainly has changed the world.

 

A previously prosperous region has turned into a wilderness, as the population has run away.

 

You see, on the western edge of this region, there is a little stream. (Sometimes, it's a big river, or even a narrow sea, but usually it's a stream...) If you cross that stream, you end up... elsewhere...

 

Sometimes things cross the stream.

 

Of course, everybody who still lives in the area carries cold iron with them at all times. All those who can afford it carry silver as well, and usually a bunch of helpful herbs, and a holy symbol, and/or a magical charm or two...

 

There is a magic well that can heal you somewhere in the forest. There is also one that can make you fall in love, one that can make you forget who you are, and probably some others as well. That would be a whole lot more helpful if it wasn't for the Glamour that intermittently covers the area.

 

I won't bother to describe the strange knights, hermits and ladies that are sometimes encountered in the area.

 

Most people prefer to avoid Faerie. It changes the world.

[McCoy]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

In a world with magic' date=' there is still evolution. Germs have magic resistance. The strains with low resistance have already been wiped out. What's left is the stuff that doesn't keel over at the first spell.[/quote']

 

A fantasy world is also an ideal place to indulge yourself in Lysenkoism

Good points.

[OddHat]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

A fantasy world is also an ideal place to indulge yourself in Lysenkoism

 

Lysenkoism is a core concept in some Superhero worlds. The child of a Super is almost always a Super.

[assault]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

In a world with magic' date=' there is still evolution.[/quote']

 

As has been pointed out, not necessarily.

 

After all, the Ghodz only (re-)created the world 300 years ago, after the people of the Silver Age fell into Eeevil and were destroyed.

[eternal_sage]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

thats why i run mostly low fantasy games, or what i have termed middle fantasy (same great fantasy taste, half the stupidity). basically in my world there are certain things even magic can't do. resurrection is one, cure disease is another, teleportation, check. i also require character points to be spent on enchanted items, limiting the idea of the fighter with a +10 sword, +10 armor, +10 shield, plus magical boots, socks, underwear, hat, monacle, thimble, toothbrush, and prophylactic device (pesky werewolves). some characters could have a cool sword, or special armor, or maybe even both, but more than that and its a no go. it recreates the idea of LoTR where even Frodo only had two cool items, and he saved the entirety of creation. also lessens questions like these, and play balance.

[Spence]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

thats why i run mostly low fantasy games' date=' or what i have termed middle fantasy (same great fantasy taste, half the stupidity). basically in my world there are certain things even magic can't do. resurrection is one, cure disease is another, teleportation, check. i also require character points to be spent on enchanted items, limiting the idea of the fighter with a +10 sword, +10 armor, +10 shield, plus magical boots, socks, underwear, hat, monacle, thimble, toothbrush, and prophylactic device (pesky werewolves). some characters could have a cool sword, or special armor, or maybe even both, but more than that and its a no go. it recreates the idea of LoTR where even Frodo only had two cool items, and he saved the entirety of creation. also lessens questions like these, and play balance.[/font']

 

Perfect

 

I once had a really good game at that level. Though it wasn't the players paying CP's. I just controlled the available magic. I do like the paying CP's idea. I tried it a again years later but could never get it off the ground. At the time it seemed fantasy RPG was too mired in "it's not role playing its the cool stuff to kill things with" mentality. I haven't thought of it in a long time.

[eternal_sage]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

i am lucky to be blessed with two fantastic players in my wife and our friend Dennis, both of which never miss a game, also GM, have similar styles (i'm the middle, the wife is more rp centric, and Dennis tends to occasionally go Dynasty Warriors on us) and really enjoy the same genres as i do. that makes my GM job SUPER easy. they are happy pretty much period, and then there is only one or two other players (we like small groups) so its all good.

 

we don't have to worry about the guy who usually plays mages bitching about magic being "twinked" because he doesn't get a 10d6 RKA Explosion fireball, because we don't have those kinds of players. your mileage my vary. (hell, i'm the guy who usually plays mages, and i wrote the "twinked" rules!)

 

i do have to say that i like the Eberron setting in conception, though, not so much in practice. it all sounds cool, but it seems less so when playing. although that was only a single campaign i played there, and i was a psion (which i found i DO NOT like), so it may be colored by general frustrations with that particualar adventure.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

THANK YOU, Herodom, for your enthusiastic and thoughtful responses. I have been following this thread with great interest.

 

I should point out that I'm not going for total realism--it IS a fantasy world, with magic and non-human races. What I'm mostly interested in is internal consistency.

 

What I'm taking from this thread so far is:

 

1) Magic is uncommon in civilization. Adventuring parties are NOT a representative sample of the society they come from. In normal civilization, literacy is rare, and the time and money to become a mage are also rare.

 

2) Magic is frightening. Especially when people recall the damage done by strategic magic during the Succession Wars.

 

3) The medieval mindset does not lend itself to innovative, outside-the-box thinking. People are used to things being the same as they always were, and for the most part, it doesn't occur to anyone to start thinking about cross-discipline solutions to age-old problems. This also connects to point 1: the people who are most likely to do this kind of thinking are the ones who are pushed to the margins of society.

 

4) Magic HAS affected the world, to some extent. After all, this is a fantasy world, not a historically accurate middle ages!

[Markdoc]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

1) Magic is uncommon in civilization.

 

The only thing I'd quibble with here is this point. It's possible to run a "medievalish" setting with common magic as long as it's neither all encompassing and all-powerful.

 

In the game I'm running now magic is quite common - even well off commoners will often know a spell or two. But the power of magic is limited because:

a) the commonest sorts of magic require the character to either buy the spells/powers outright, or use a VPP: meaning that ordinary folk have the choice of a few powerful spells or a larger number of little ones

and

the choice of spells is limited, since they are taught by religious cults, which guard them jealously as cult secrets and teach them only to proven devotees of the cult. Thus warriors tend to follow the warrior god - which means improved combat potential at the cost of no other sort of spells (including no healing). So large temples with many different cults play a crucial role in society, being a kind of combined hospital/court/university/Western Union - but they still can't alter the lives of the vast majority of people because (in this game)

c) casting magic is exhausting (it uses LTE).

 

To take an example, the town the players were last based in had a small shrine with two priestesses, who fortunately could do healing magic and weather/sea magic. But casting 6 healing spells would essentially wear the healer out to the point where she'd have to go and lie down for a few hours and could do nothing else until the next day. That's fine for mending a broken leg, or a few swordcuts, helping at a childbirth, treating a sick animal and so on, but if the Bloody Death or a similar plague hit her town, there's no way she could cope. Not only is her magic not strong enough to completely cure it (unless she rolled gangbusters, all she could do is ameliorate the symptoms) but she could only do that 4 times a day if she wanted to keep it up each day and likely, she'd be keeping some of her spells for herself in case she got it. So in a plague time people still behave much as they did in real life - flock to holy sites with lots of healers, or lock themselves in their houses and pray nd try to prevent strangers from entering town. Some of the villagers have learnt magic from her, so they can also do small healings, but overall, they're not much better off than - say - a rural town in 18th century England, which also likely had a doctor who could set broken limbs, treat some illnesses but not other and so on.

 

The weathercaster can predict the weather and make minor local changes, and she can cast charms on boats to make them more seaworthy, so the fishermen and local farmers are well-served: but she lacks sufficient power to dispel (or create) a really big storm: the best she could do would be create a small calm area around a boat (if she was on it). Most of the fishermen are initiates of her cult, so they know the same sorts of spells, but at an even less powerful level: they can predict the weather with a bit less accuracy and summon up a small breeze - enough to move a fishing boat, say. But they can only keep it up for a few phases - it's simply a useful emergency measure. So again, the town has a short-range lifeboat service if they really need it, and fishing and farming are more reliable than they were in real life, but that doesn't actually change the appearance or function of the town: it still just looks like a prosperous small coastal town.

 

The point here is to think how you want magic to work - and then build from there. It's perfectly possible to have a medieval-like setting with common magic, as long it's restricted in some other way(s).

 

cheers, Mark

[Hainted]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

My favorite reason ever(Thanks to Orson Scott Card's book on how to write Fantasy and Sci-Fi)is that using magic causes diseases,birth defects,and all of the "bad" things that befall humanity.So while the spell cures Farmer brown of the Green Trots,Molly across town gives birth to a baby without arms just hands attached directly to it's shoulders or Little Timmy gets crushed by a meteor because a wizard makes the crops grow bigger.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

It's your world; make it however seems right to you based upon your assumptions, reasonings, and whims.

 

In the end it either is fun & playable for you and your players, or it isn't; and that's the only measure that means anything.

[Kristopher]

Re: Why hasn't magic changed the world?

 

It's your world; make it however seems right to you based upon your assumptions, reasonings, and whims.

 

In the end it either is fun & playable for you and your players, or it isn't; and that's the only measure that means anything.

 

Also keep in mind that what makes for a good fiction setting doesn't always work for a gaming setting, and the opposite is true as well.