Long Timelines

[PhilFleischmann]

We've had a lot of discussion about how magic changes the world from how it was historically, but I have another world-altering question:

 

How does the long history and timelines given for many fantasy worlds (especially Epic Fantasy) affect things? ITRW, there was only about 10,000 years between the dawn of history (the first cities, writing, irrigation) and fully modern technology (moon landings, cell phones, the internet, nuclear weapons, plastic, refridgerators, etc.)

 

Many fantasy worlds have intricate backgrounds laid out for them and a history spanning as much as 100,000 years. What prevented them from ever inventing gunpowder, or the printing press, or the cotton gin? With all the supposed ancient wisdom they had, and the long lifespans of some fantasy races, why didn't they advance technology in all that time? Sure there were occasional cataclysms (often with a capital C), but between these there was often more time for civilization to evolve then there has been in the real world since the dawn of history! And these guys are far beyond the ancient Sumerians: they have crossbows, trebuchets, wind and water mills, weaving, steel, and stellar navigation.

 

How do we explain the lack of progress?

[Old Man]

Re: Long Timelines

 

Originally posted by PhilFleischmann

How do we explain the lack of progress?

 

In my proto-setting, there are few (if any) explosives, no electricity except for lightning, and steam does not generate pressure.

 

But you don't have to go that far. Remember that for spans of hundreds or thousands of years there was no progress and sometimes even regression. Consider feudal Japan, where technology remained static for almost a thousand years, or the Middle Ages, where 'civilization' (as evidenced by engineering, politics, and health care) regressed from the Roman era. In both these cases the reasons are more social/traditional than anything else.

 

And then there are entire civilizations that arose and disappeared over the course of history, sometimes inexplicably. The Mayans, the Babylonians, the Nubians, the people at Angkor Wat, and all kinds of lesser Central Asian civilizations that practically no one has even heard of.

[assault]

Re: Re: Long Timelines

 

Originally posted by Old Man

Consider feudal Japan, where technology remained static for almost a thousand years,

 

When?

 

On the main point of the thread...

 

First of all - a lot of these long histories aren't really well thought out! They don't make sense.

 

Second, you can possibly weasel things a little with a "history repeats itself" theory. Personally, I'm not fond of it, but it's an option.

 

Third, the presence of supernatural entities will change things dramatically. If every village or town actually has a god living in its temple, the rate of social change will be dramatically slowed. This is, of course, especially true if the entities in question aren't exactly benevolent. They don't have to be soul-sucking demons either - just the kind that get jealous of other gods...

 

In fact, you could write an interesting history where humanity actually needs to rebel against the gods/demons/whatever in order to progress. Of course, that could well result in the odd cataclysm. It could also be quite an interesting twist on some of the "monster" games, where the various vampires, werewolves and so on get overthrown by a rebellious humanity.

 

If the dice are too stacked against humanity, you could give them a protector of some sort - a Prometheus bringing enlightenment to them. But how is such a figure different to any of the other godlets that send their followers off on a holy war against the followers of their rivals?

 

This kind of history could be as long as you want.

 

If you are so inclined, you could possibly use the kind of "Serpent Men" ideas that appear in some of Howard's stories. These were adopted to some extent by H. P. Lovecraft.

 

In this case, the Serpent Men are the "gods" who have enslaved humanity since time immemorial...

 

Of course the real question to "why hasn't humanity advanced" is quite simple - advancing to a Neolithic society can take millions of years, and advancing beyond one can take thousands of years. Add the kind of pressures I have suggested above, and a more or less Neolithic/early Bronze Age culture could be around for tens of thousands of years. Advancing beyond that would be rather difficult.

 

Alan

[Solomon]

This is much of a genre thing. After all, the very idea of progress and evolution is fairly modern. Up until a few centuries ago, most people had little or no idea of just how much human technology and society had evolved over time. So I have a feeling that, by introducing progress in a fantasy setting, you're sapping one of its basic assumptions: that of a static or cyclic world.

 

If you still want a rationale for the lack of technology, you may consider that technology is often driven by need. If you have access to healing magic, you probably lack the drive and dedication to pursue scientific medical research, for instance.

[Ghost who Walks]

You could explain the lask of progress a couple of ways

 

1) If you can make food or other stuff by magic, do you need to trade? In D&D you could make food by magic. What about spices?

 

2) Whoever is in charge does not want things to change.

 

3) There isn't sufficient trade to start the technological revolution.

 

3) The elves are behind it.

[Seenar]

It would seem to me that really long lived people would tend not to progress as fast as us short lived ones.

[AnotherSkip]

Elves are too lazy......

 

Actually _any_ race could be behind it. Orcs because they can better use manpower and labor saving devices get rid of their advantage in having enough people to do everything.

 

perhaps the Dwarves are behind it. They have such a tried and true philosophy that if a machine fails 1in 10 times it is not worth pursuing perfecting it until it is 1failure in 100 or 1 in 10, 000.

 

Elder races could have dampened some of the ideas "Cinterallius tried that 2,000 years ago and he got nowhere... ... trust me, I know, I was his apprentice then."

 

Or spectacular failures could be construed as "angering the gods". one steam engine explosion, one failed bessemer process, one time the saltpeter mixture does not explode because it wasn't just right and you have the gods angered at you.

[McCoy]

Re: Long Timelines

 

Originally posted by PhilFleischmann

With all the supposed ancient wisdom they had, and the long lifespans of some fantasy races, why didn't they advance technology in all that time?

It's often observed that a scientific revolution suceeds only as the old guard dies off, so long lifespands would work against technological advances.

[farik]

I'm a big advocate of the long lifespans work against technology theory but I think culture is the biggest culprit. Most Fantasy cultures seem to focus more on craftsmanship over production. With the industrial revolution things got cheaper so more people had things that were previously luxuries so new luxuries took their place and the Industrial juggernaut just keeps on chugging. Now with magic, long life spans, and guardian beings to offset the disastrous calamities you have periods of Dark Age like conditions and then things get peaceful and prosperous so you don't have to focus on production you can take great pride in your work. As a result you have diversified economy/culture like an advanced form of renaissance but no push for Industrialization becuase the average person is "happy". With a history of these feast or famine conditions a lack of technological progression is reasonable.

[Alcamtar]

Because they have reached the limit of what is technologically possible in the fantasy universe. At some point you have to reach the point where you are incapable of progressing further, either because you've learned all there is to learn, or because you are incapable of understanding more.

 

If magic stands in for technology, then most fantasy worlds are already pretty "high tech." Compared to modern earth, they have better healing, instantaneous transportation and communication, heavy artillery, mind control... The big difference is that fantasy-tech ("magic") is not easily mass-produced, but requires long years to master. If wizards spend their whole lives trying to master the complexities of magic, they have little chance to surpass their teachers, much less discover the "deep secrets" of the universe. Maybe the "deeper secrets" are of such a mind-wrenching nature that they will never be comprehended except by the rare genius?

 

In any case, "progress" is not really a theme in fantasy. Most fantasy worlds were *created* by the gods at a given level of technology, and never advance much beyond it. They have neither a stone age, nor a space age.

 

If you consider that a fantasy world is normally near its technological ceiling, except during such times as war or adversity causes a temporary regression and loss of knowledge, then it works out okay.

 

Anyway, that's one possible explanation. :-)

 

Mike

[assault]

Originally posted by Alcamtar

If magic stands in for technology, then most fantasy worlds are already pretty "high tech." Compared to modern earth, they have better healing, instantaneous transportation and communication, heavy artillery, mind control...

 

...

 

In any case, "progress" is not really a theme in fantasy. Most fantasy worlds were *created* by the gods at a given level of technology, and never advance much beyond it. They have neither a stone age, nor a space age.

 

OK, well the "better healing" etc is mostly a DnDism. Most fantasy literature doesn't feature this stuff, or at least have it particularly widespread. Nor does mythology, epic poetry and most of the other sources.

 

But it's true that "progress" is not really a fantasy theme. In fact, there is a conservative streak in it - a certain wishing for the good old days. Tolkien is a particularly good example - the Shire is a romanticised pre-industrial/rural England.

 

More generally, legends tend to be timeless.

 

Of course, some modern fantasy (usually from the US) tends to feature more "modern" (usually US) belief systems. That's fine too, of course.

 

In my opinion, fantasy world creation ultimately boils down to deciding what the world you want to create is like, and then saying that that's how it is! I don't generally go with hugely long histories - the past, beyond a few generations, is buried in legend. Of course, it's difficult doing that if you have lots of immortals and near-immortals around!

 

In fact, one history I developed had the world being created about 500 years before the start of the game! A lot of the Elves that were around were amongst the First Born. They clearly remembered the first humans they encountered... The first Dragons were born in historical time...

 

This was a cut down version of one of Tolkien's early timelines as it appeared in one of the books his son edited.

 

The biggest problem was justifying a decent population of humans. This is mainly why I don't still use it.

 

Alan

[Catseye]

My answer is similar to most of the others here, though it goes deeper intio the psychology of the "old races."

 

In my game the old races were created as basically static entities with fixed roles to play in the world. Although they did develop some of their skills somewhat, they didn't have the drive that the new races have to build tools and improve their situation. In fact, it was wandering away from their purpsoe that eventually doomed them.

 

The history of the young races is still very new. Of the young races the Humans (who are the shortest lived and reproduce the fastest) are both the most driven and the most flexible.

 

Why? 'cause I'm G-d and thats how i made em all!

 

Next question?

[Markdoc]

I thought about this question when setting up my game. My answers are:

 

A) some of these 100,000 year histories are just silly. Just as in some fantasy books, the writers have no idea of time. "Here are the ruins of Al-Thargede, which was deserted 50,000 years ago!" Yeah, right. Like there would be two stones left standing after 10% of that time.

 

I cannot think of a single era or region of history where technoogy stood still* except those places which remained mired in stone age technology due the the failure to progress beyond the family/Clan level or orgainsation. Such groupings are small enough that they cannot retain advances. There is a whole arm of technology theory devoted to the question "how large must a population be to retain technology?" But that answer clearly does not apply to most fantasy worlds.

 

*Japan? Not hardly. The feudal rulers of the 16th C outlawed the gun and sailing technology, but in many areas they progressed significantly. And Japan changed enormously between 1000 AD and 2000 AD! (or between 500 AD and 1500, if you prefer).

The Mayans? Likewise, no deal. Over the course of 1000 years they progressed from wandering hunters to the builders of mighty cities - which then collapsed under the pressure of over-population and environmental degradation.

Medieval times? You have *got* to be kiding me. In the course of 1000 years after the collapse of the western Roman empire we went from primitive feudalism to the establishment of nation-states with great libraries and trade networks, and fleets scouring the coast of Africa and the Americas. We went through romanesque and gothic architecture to the Italiante. In military technology, we went from feudal levies through the high age of chivalry, to armies of cavalry and pikemen supplemented with firearms.

 

2) I have, nonetheless a game history stretching uncountable eons into the past. I manage this by simply detailing 5,000 years of past history and saying that almost nothing significant remains from earlier times.

 

In addition, I adopt the "Canticle for Liebowitz" approach of occasionally burning everything to the waterline with an invasion of extradimensional nasties, or intercontinental war between civilisations with armies of powerful wizards (a fairly standard fantasy trope, as it leves the landscape littered with ruins and interesting thingies from times gone by).

 

The third element is that I agree that really long-lived people tend towards conservatism - aided by the fact that in a fantasy world with magic and mighty heroes, individuals can make a difference. The end result is that powerful individuals can shape society - and then stay alive to see it stays shaped the way they want, which means stamping on anyone espousing theories they do not like. I have no elves and dwarves, but anyone with enough wealth can get access to immortality magic.

 

Finally, I take the approach that generally magic renders the use of early technology redundant at best, and that it is actively eradicated by those in power at worst.

 

I mentioned Japan above to make this point. The Shogun got rid of the gun because it passed military supremacy back to the person with the most samurai - and no-one had more than him. Removing guns also made the defence of castles harder, which the ruler also had an interest in.

 

Think of a fantasy world. If anyone ever developed gunpowder weapons, the initial iterations would probably resemble earthly ones: slow to make and use, unreliable, heavy, noisy and smelly. A single semi-competent wizard could devastate whole companies of gonne-bearers. Where's the incentive to develop it? Moreover, the people in power probably already have wizards (or they won't stay in power very long) so they have an incentive to wipe out technology that threatens their status.

 

The same applies to any field of technology where magic competes with tech - unless your magic is under-developed compared to most fantasy worlds: in which case you might get a fusion. It didn't happen in the real world, because there is/was no alternative to tech. It was a case of innovate or die. Magic gives you a third option - so in my game magic DOES evolve over time, becoming more sophisticated and powerful. But unlike tech, magic is strictly a craftsman thing. You can't mass produce mages - they have to be slowly and carefully trained, one by one.

 

Applying these kinds of limits (and I am sure there are others) gives you a "realistic" but slow-changing fantasy civilisations.

 

cheers, Mark

[Storn]

My timeline starts "before the concept of time"... took humans arriving on the scene to even have that concept... humans arrive on the scene some 6,000 years ago.

 

Bane, god of evil, destruction, mad elven sorcerer who became a God, was killed some 700 years ago...which was the conclusion of a 200 year, continent wide war. This depopulated the continent by 2/3rds... mostly through disease and starvation than actual combat. Btw, I'm NEVER resurrecting Bane... the Evil God Comes Back storyline is NOT happening... too much of a cliche... although his evil lieutenants are still lurking about.

 

Not only does the population drop drastically in those 200 years of war, but it basically uses up vast amounts of magic. The next 700 years before the first PC ever steps on the stage is one of slow rebuilding.

 

Now the PCs show up in the modern age. The printing press has been around for 50 years, invented by the dwarves. The population, while still low, is creating a need for trade. Naval warfare has focuses ship technology and ships are considerably better. And gunpowder has been invented in the last 5 years although, again by the dwarves and there are about 50 firearms for all the Realms... they build slow, beautifully crafted firearms...not sitting at the feet of Ford's assembly line theory yet.

 

And Magic is back!!! In a big way, the rubber band has snapped back into shape. Elven and dwarven populations have huge birth rate increases, human mages are being born in great numbers, the walls between dimensions is thin and things pop up all the time. This is a world that is going through a reineissance.

 

So I built Change into the timeline even before the PCs showed up. Now that I've run 8 campaigns in that world, there is even more Change happening. I had a PC just introduce public education for the young in his dukedom... that is social change of the highest order. A popular emporer who once was a slave, just eliminated slavery... to all kinds of social and economic ramifications, including a recent unsucessful coup.

 

So I feel like I"m certainly picking and choosing what "advances" are made, but there is a steady progression since the Bane war of technology and societies.

[keithcurtis]

Just to throw this thought in. In the Tolkein model, something quite different is going on. Technology de-volves. There was a golden age of high learning and art from which each successive generation forgets or loses a bit until normal folk stand amidst high and fantastic things that they can no longer make or really understand.

 

Here's some more thought on the matter.

 

Perhaps your laws of magic (or technology) change over time, either slowly or catastrophically. The former means that people are forever playng "catch-up" and never get to advance beyond a certain point of dynamic equilibrium. The latter is the aforementioned Canticle model. Every now and then, someone hits that great big re-set button in the sky and we have to start all over. We remember what has gone before, but must struggle to understand it, perhaps held back by the fear that by pursuing such knowledge we may actually cause the fall again.

 

Keith "Just throwing out ideas" Curtis

[Pteryx]

As far as gunpowder goes, Uncle Figgy's Guide to Good Fantasy provides a good answer to the question of why a fantasy world would have no guns or gunpowder -- wizards make them impractical. Water makes it necessary to repellet gunpowder, and fire... well, you do the math.

 

The printing press (more specifically, moveable type) or an equivalent spell is more difficult to explain the absence of, as such a thing would remain useful even if you couldn't make magical scrolls with it. For that matter, I don't off the top of my head see why there aren't all kinds of different alloys made possible through magic like there are magical hybrids. Of course, in one setting of mine, alloying of this sort has been invented -- specifically, a mithril/silver alloy that's effective against lycanthropes yet isn't too soft for everything else. -- Pteryx

[Terry Wilcox]

A lot of fantasy literature is based on post-apocalytic worlds. Often the world is "early in the third age", meaning that the last two ages ended in some horrible world-ending conflagration that nuked almost everybody back to the stone age. Except those damn elves.

 

An apocalypse is a good way to set up forgotten civilizations, lost cities, and ancient magics. Have an apocalypse, then wait for your players to find the lost goodies.

 

100,000 years may seem excessive, but but it's relatively tame compared to flying cities, gods, giants who don't need knee braces, etc. Fantasy is prone to hyperbole.

 

As for technology, consider where medical science would go if diseases and infections were caused by evil spirits and the local priest could pray your wounds away. There wouldn't be much need for disinfectant or stitches. Or surgery. Or doctors. Or much medical science.

 

A world with wizards who can conjure up a wind wouldn't need steam ships. It just needs more wizards.

 

Necessity is the mother of invention. If you have magic to fill the need, technology isn't required.

[Old Man]

I sort of hate to use magic as an excuse to not develop technology because it implies that magic is more prevalent than I would like it to be.

 

But then again, who is to say that ten thousand years is such a long time? We don't really have very many real-life data points to determine how advanced a civilization ought to be after ten millennia.

[Old Man]

Originally posted by Markdoc

Japan? Not hardly. The feudal rulers of the 16th C outlawed the gun and sailing technology, but in many areas they progressed significantly. And Japan changed enormously between 1000 AD and 2000 AD! (or between 500 AD and 1500, if you prefer).

 

The Mayans? Likewise, no deal. Over the course of 1000 years they progressed from wandering hunters to the builders of mighty cities - which then collapsed under the pressure of over-population and environmental degradation.

 

Medieval times? You have *got* to be kiding me. In the course of 1000 years after the collapse of the western Roman empire we went from primitive feudalism to the establishment of nation-states with great libraries and trade networks, and fleets scouring the coast of Africa and the Americas. We went through romanesque and gothic architecture to the Italiante. In military technology, we went from feudal levies through the high age of chivalry, to armies of cavalry and pikemen supplemented with firearms.

 

In Japan and Europe from 500AD-1500AD, was there change? Sure. Was there progress? Hardly. Any progress that did occur happened at a snail's pace, especially when compared to the most recent three hundred years of history in Europe and the last 100 years in Japan. Europe only popped with the advent of the printing press and improved celestial navigation. Japan only changed when technologically advanced European societies sailed into their harbors.

 

To wit: In ~500AD, Europe and Japan were feudal societies ruled by men with swords on horseback. In ~1500AD, Europe and Japan were feudal societies ruled by men with swords on horseback. The swords got a little better, and the art and architecture and borders changed a little, but there was no real groundbreaking change in arms, engineering, or political systems in that time.

 

The Mayans, of course, went from nothing to empire to nothing in 1000 years, which was my point--that progress over time is not a given. Regress is just as likely.

[assault]

Originally posted by Old Man

To wit: In ~500AD, Europe and Japan were feudal societies ruled by men with swords on horseback. In ~1500AD, Europe and Japan were feudal societies ruled by men with swords on horseback. The swords got a little better, and the art and architecture and borders changed a little, but there was no real groundbreaking change in arms, engineering, or political systems in that time.

 

Wow. How wrong can you get in a single paragraph?

 

I can't adequately demonstrate the changes in Japan, but they happened... I'll use Europe to prove the point instead.

 

Arms: gunpowder weapons were all over the place in 1500. While smallarms were still fairly marginal, artillery was beginning to make the medieval castle obsolete.

 

Engineering: Tricky... but the ships Columbus was using in 1492 weren't around in 500AD...

 

Political systems: You're kidding, right? Feudalism was just getting started around 500AD. It simply didn't exist in a good part of Europe. By 1500AD you had absolutist monarchies presiding over things that were beginning to resemble modern nation states. That's: standing armies, rather than tribal levies. In more general social terms, the status of the peasant had changed wildly (but inconsistently) in various areas. At one point or another, serfdom had been generalised at the expense of both slavery and free peasant societies. By 1500, serfdom was on its way out in most of Europe. (It later recovered to some extent in some areas.)

 

Of course, there are problems with the whole concept of "progress". It's a value laden term. "Progress" isn't a good thing if it happens at your expense! After all, by 1500AD, European civilisation was beginning to spread down the coast of Africa and to the Americas - but that "progress" was at the expense of the societies that already existed there. If smallpox and slavery is "progress", then there are some interesting philosophical questions raised, isn't there?

 

Alan

[Old Man]

Originally posted by assault

I can't adequately demonstrate the changes in Japan...

 

Perhaps because they didn't happen? Seriously, the only real change there was the advent of the Shogunate, which came and went.

 

Arms: gunpowder weapons were all over the place in 1500. While smallarms were still fairly marginal, artillery was beginning to make the medieval castle obsolete.

 

The key word there is "beginning". Gunpowder weapons were successfully used as early as 1377, but they weren't commonplace until after the invention of the arquebus in the 16th century.

 

Engineering: Tricky... but the ships Columbus was using in 1492 weren't around in 500AD...

 

Political systems: You're kidding, right? Feudalism was just getting started around 500AD. It simply didn't exist in a good part of Europe. By 1500AD you had absolutist monarchies presiding over things that were beginning to resemble modern nation states.

 

So to sum, over the course of a thousand years Europe went from small ships to bigger ships, and from small feudal states to bigger feudal states. That's progress, sure, but it's so pathetic that it easily fits my definition of stagnation. And if we were to change the parameters to include the thousand year span from 0AD-1000AD a strong case could be made that technology, engineering, and political systems actually regressed.

[assault]

Originally posted by Old Man

Perhaps because they didn't happen? Seriously, the only real change there was the advent of the Shogunate, which came and went.

 

Not to mention the rise of the Samurai class, replacing an earlier Chinese-style system. All this, of course, was just the tip of the social iceberg - the condition of the peasantry is the main point, and unfortunately I don't have good sources on this.

 

And then there was the conquest of the indigenous populations of northern Japan... Japan as we know it didn't exist at the beginning of the period. By the end, it was beginning to take shape. It would be another century before a stable, unified national government would emerge, but the tendencies towards it were there.

 

The key word there is "beginning". Gunpowder weapons were successfully used as early as 1377, but they weren't commonplace until after the invention of the arquebus in the 16th century.

 

Yeah. Sure. Whatever.

 

Cannon were a routine, indeed, key, feature of siege warfare by the mid to late 15th century.

 

More to the point, they weren't there at all at the beginning of the period.

 

So to sum, over the course of a thousand years Europe went from small ships to bigger ships, and from small feudal states to bigger feudal states. That's progress, sure, but it's so pathetic that it easily fits my definition of stagnation. And if we were to change the parameters to include the thousand year span from 0AD-1000AD a strong case could be made that technology, engineering, and political systems actually regressed.

 

Well, of course, with the proper definition of stagnation, there is no difference between the Europe of Theodoric the Ostrogoth and that of Ferdinand and Isabella. The scattered pre-feudal tribes, and early/proto-feudal kingdoms of 500AD were _obviously_ identical to the unifying nation states of 1500AD, weren't they?

 

Let's face it - with the proper definition, there was only stagnation since 1000AD and 2000AD. After all, the world is still fragmented into lots of little states, there are wars, epidemics and famines...

 

0AD to 1000AD? Sure, but you might also note that these tendencies weren't uniform, and that there were upward trends in the later part of the period. And, of course, if you look at the area outside the Roman Empire, you would find a different situation from that inside it!

 

Ireland, Scotland, Germany and Scandinavia definitely _advanced_ during the "Dark Ages".

 

There are other odd cases too: what about Spain? Islamic Spain was a bastion of civilisation in no way inferior to what it was in the Roman period. It had had its hard times, and more were to come, but you would actually have to come out with some hard evidence to prove your point here, and not just make sweeping assertions...

 

Alan

[Markdoc]

>>>Originally posted by assault

I can't adequately demonstrate the changes in Japan... <<<

 

But I can

 

>>>Perhaps because they didn't happen? Seriously, the only real change there was the advent of the Shogunate, which came and went.<<<

 

Nope: in 500 AD, Japan had a relatively small population, mostly centred in the south, with an animistic religion, no written script, simple wood-based architecure, and - as far as we can tell - a relatively flat social structure, with a poorly defined noble class (a lot of this speculative, I admit because there are so few traces left we can clearly interpret - but that by itself indicates how much things changed).

 

In 1500, we had a (mostly) unified nation state with a clear national identity, and a clearly defined social structure, with defined castes. Not just one, but two new monotheistic religions had come into being and swept the whole country, two written languages had evolved, the spoken language had probably changed out of all recognition, architecture had definately changed out of all recognition, technology at everylevel had elvolved, gunpowder was in the process of revolutionising warfare (and class structure) all over again, and so on.

 

Basically, over that 1000 year period, the only thing that had NOT changed was mount fuji....

 

I really think we can take change as a given: certainly, by 1500 AD, in Europe, social and technological change was rapid enough that people were discussing it in much the same terms we do today.

 

As for the effect of gunpowder, the crushing defeat of the formerly mighty English longbows at Formingny in 1450 was attributed to the small cannon the French had with them. 100 years later, the equally crushing defeat of Charles V at Pavia saw the flower of french chivalry shot to pieces by a numerically inferior force of landskneckt arquebusiers - by that time the age of the knight (a totally unknown concept in 500 AD) had clearly passed. So in a thousand years Europe had passed from tribalism, through feudalism and was entering the modern age. That may or may not be progress, but it is sure as hell change.

 

And - as pointed out - change can be a regression as well a progression.

 

You can, of course, build an unchanging society if you wish: if you have meddling gods, it could easily be arranged, and an inventive GM could easily come up with other plausible solutions. I think the only thing that is "unrealistic" is to build a pseudo-medieval society and then let it fester unchanged for 2000 years.

 

cheers, Mark

[Alcamtar]

I just want to point out that social and political change is quite common in fantasy. Races are created or evolve or devolve, empires rise and fall, peoples migrate around, whole societies are enslaved and then freed and then enslaved again, religions rise and fall, languages mutate and evolve, even magic often evolves or devolves. About the only thing that tends to be static is "physical" technology, like swords and castles and ships, and even that varies considerably between barbarism and high medieval and classical.

 

So sure, societies on earth progressed to nation-states, or got new religions, or abolished/formed caste systems, and so forth. But fantasy worlds do that too. Also I question whether moving from semi-barbaric feudalism to a nation-state, or from monarchy to democracy is "progress."

 

Mike

[Markdoc]

>>> So sure, societies on earth progressed to nation-states, or got new religions, or abolished/formed caste systems, and so forth. But fantasy worlds do that too. Also I question whether moving from semi-barbaric feudalism to a nation-state, or from monarchy to democracy is "progress."<<<<

 

I think we made the last point already :-)

 

And in good fantasy novels and good fantasy games, that kind of change happens - or if it doesn't, the reason is explained (Lord of Light is a fantasy/Sci Fi novel that springs to mind, where technology and social change is arrested for a very good reason).

 

But Phil's original point was "how likely was technology to be arrested over vast spans of time?" - as happens in some badly thought-out fantasy novels and fantasy games. The answer I'm getting off this thread is "not very".

 

As an aside - IMG there is a theocracy where technology is relatively backward - especially magic-related or information-related - compared to its neighboours.

 

As Keith posted:

>>>Every now and then, someone hits that great big re-set button in the sky and we have to start all over. We remember what has gone before, but must struggle to understand it, perhaps held back by the fear that by pursuing such knowledge we may actually cause the fall again.<<<

 

and this is precisely the case: the religious organization even knows who some of the people responsible for the last cataclysm were, so their apparently arbitrary rules (Women may never hold positions of authority, Never teach sorcery to foreigners, No weather magic, etc) are based on the rules they put in place to make sure it never happens again. Of course, now the rules ARE arbitrary because over the last 1200 years, everybody has forgotten the real reasons for them - well almost everyone - there are still a few people living who were around then...

 

In the end, it's just a game, but to my mind, building a little historical veracity into a game goes a long way to giving it a feeling of depth.

 

cheers,Mark