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I have read a number of essays on how magic would radically alter the development of society. Conventional warfare might become obsolete and economics might shift to post-scarcity depending on the rarity of magic.

https://mythcreants.com/blog/six-consequences-of-high-magic/
https://faustusnotes.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/post-scarcity-fantasy/
https://faustusnotes.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/scientific-inquiry-in-a-magical-world/
http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/magic/magicandsociety.html

For example, a wizard could use teleportation to assassinate a king. I heard someone casually suggest that the king would have fifty wizard bodyguards to prevent this, but they failed to explain where those bodyguards came from (is magic rare or common? this has massive implications) or why they serve a puny muggle king.

This is what I think would happen: Humans being humans, we are not going to see utopian societies where the wizards and clerics use their powers to end war and poverty. We will see dystopian societies. The wizards are going to use their powers to take over and once they realize they do not need peasants at all, they will probably go off to live in utopian flying cities or something similarly extravagant. The few times the magocracy would deign to take interest in the world outside their ivory towers would be for experiments, taking wild talents away to wizard school, or adventuring for knowledge and reagents and whatnot. This solves the paradox of how reality altering magic does not prevent the existence of pseudo-medieval societies. In fact, wizards might actually take steps to limit their power a la Discworld to prevent potential world-ending disasters.

The worldly societies themselves would probably be semi-isolated city states surrounded by monster-infested wilderness, not unlike the frontier in Vampire Hunter D. Living dungeons, a la 13th Age, would probably serve as kernels for city-states as in fiction like The Tower of Druaga and Overlord. But that's for another discussion.

What do you think? Do you consider how magic does or does not affect the development of society in your setting?

Not everyone wants to rule and some are too smart to want to rule. Let someone else handle that while the wizard gets on with research.

Also some are going to set up to counter others and at least in D&D there were various building tricks to counter magic and that is not even including the myriad personal spells wizards come up with to counter just about anything. Given the time and inclination a whole castle or dungeon can be made teleport proof or even cause low level spells to fizzle. Or just build on any given magic dead zone.

Also wizards do not exist in a vacuum and again at least in D&D there are things attracted to magic both supernatural and mundane.

But given enough organization you can end up with about any possible setting type up to and including ultra high magic settings like seen in some anime.

Also Dark Sun and Dragonlance are two settings set after high magic settings collapse.

I think it depends a lot on what magic can do, what it takes to develop the ability to do those things, what it takes to do the magic, what can be done to avoid hostile magic, and what can go wrong, and so on. And as a whole, what sort of power dynamic does the magic system create? (e.g. Is it easier to attack first, or to defend and react? Is it easy or impossible to find or hide? How does physical might stack up against magical power?)

And then too, what personality types end up being the people who have access to that magic. How many are benevolent or obedient? How many are scholars or eccentrics? How many are self-centered or megalomaniacs? Etc. It seems to me that the more powerful, self-sufficient, and uncontrollable they are, the less likely you are to be able to get them to do things to serve organized group plans, especially if using their magic the way you want would take a lot of their time, energy, resources, safety, privacy, etc.

Magic systems with large numbers of different spells, and very powerful spells, especially ones I haven't studied and played extensively, tend to make it really hard for me to answer many of these questions, which is why I tend to set the known spells in my game worlds to fairly limited sets known by different groups, and to limit the power and efficiency of them along lines I am familiar with from playing with them for a long time.

Also because I tend to have creative pro-active players who, if the world contains various strong magic powers, may put a lot of thought into things to do with them that I may not have considered and may lead to the PCs flat-footing the supposedly competent magicians of my world, mainly because I haven't thought them through as much as those magicians probably should have. Often that can be really fun and interesting, but it can also be a case of "er, someone should have noticed this before and it means various situations in the world don't make so much sense any more" which I would prefer to head off at the pass if I can.

I also tend to like most gameplay to be fun and interesting for non-magical warrior types, which is another reason I don't like so much magic power that it tends to make them obsolete.

Quote from: Robert HeinleinThroughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded -- here and there, now and then -- are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as "bad luck."

The presence of magic doesn't change the nature of the Heinlein quote, only the details.  Dystopia is almost as unlikely as Utopia.  The more likely result is something rather banal, if you want to take things to their logical conclusions

If you merely want to rationalize a world that fits what you want to do anyway, you can justify almost anything, especially with a wink or a nod to smooth over the trouble spots.

Observation #1 Magic is completely made up arbitrary stuff. You can't say anything about the effect of magic on society without defining what magic is. If you have this discussion without defining what system of magic you are referring too then you will talk past each other as one person is talking about Oranges and the other person talking about Potatoes.

Observation #2 Unless stated otherwise the assumption is that everything works like on our earth. Metallurgy, agriculture, human psychology, philosophy, daily number of calories a person needs, etc. The different is of course whatever system of magic you are describing.

In short anything goes as long you spell out your assumptions and what varies from our history.

Observation #3 Our hobby is entertainment. None of this required to run a successful campaign. It interesting because you the reader find it interesting. If you don't fine.

For example Star Trek isn't the hardest of science fiction and yet it manage to present many entertaining and thought provoking stories. However it OK  if the all handwaves for warp, transporter, phasers, etc, mean you don't find the movies and TV shows interesting or enjoyable.

Observation #4 A problem is that history unfolds as a result of everybody choices. The lack of documentation and sheer numbers of people involved means that to get a grip on the past we selectively tease out certain ideas and people and focus on that. And then there are the debate on exactly what important to focus.

Like stating what you mean when you say "magic", stating what and why you are focusing from a given historical period  helps people understand your point.

Observation #5 Being capable of doing something doesn't mean it automatically follows that the person realizes that what they can do. Case in point, Mesoamercia (Aztecs, Maya, etc) had the wheel, except to them it was a toy and not used to make labor saving device like what happened among Old World civilizations. Even in the Old World there are areas where the use of the wheel all but disappeared  (http://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/197303/why.they.lost.the.wheel.htm)because of cultural choices (Arabia after the introduction of the camel).


Observation #6 Human in all ages have a system of understanding their world that works most of the time. People are not stupid, in every age they use what they know to construct a system of understanding their world. Where this is important is when something like magic appears the first generation will tie it into what they know. This is the primary reason why an obvious application of magic won't immediately be widespread.

But given enough generations then this will occur. Given enough generations the ideas that fueled our Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment and all three Industrial Revolutions will be developed and that crazy weird so unlike Earth magical setting will come to pass.  But it highly unlikely it will happen within a handful of generations.

Yesterday I had considered how low level illusionists could dominate the entertainment industry. Theaters would probably be packed nightly.

The primary issue with the article the author doesn't state exactly which form of magic he is talking about. A system of magic can be anything the author can imagine it to be. Any debate will have goalposts moving around until that settled.

To consider whether any of Orin's assertions are accurate you need to take account how long it takes master different spells, and whether it something in-born or taught. When we are talking about divine magic, what role religion plays and how much of a free agent a divine caster is.

No Sickness

Broadly speaking there are several classes of health problems to consider. Trauma due to injury,  actute health problems like poison, or the immediate effects of disease, chronic health issues like disabilities, weak heart, or asthma, and long term illnesses like cancer.

If magic is taught or in-born magic then it needs to be considered how long does it take to do any of these spells. And if there any length of time involved in the process then one need to take into account that person not contributing to his support by growing or crafting.

As I stated in other thread, some health issues can only be dealt with if the caster understand how disease and illnesses work. Or if they recognize the symptoms as an illness in the first place.

Eventually through generational trial and error all of these issues will be overcome and the result with be an alien (to us) setting that largely free of illness. And it is perfectly plausible to say that the campaign is set before that time.

Population Explosion

The Green Revolution happened because of better crop through generations of selective breeding, and better agricultural practices. There were and still are regions of the world that enjoy season after season of excellent weather. Yet it took several leaps in agricultural technology before the huge leaps in productivity we have today were realized.  A 50% increase of the yield field of 9th Century BC Emmer Wheat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmer) is still crap compared to what a modern wheat farm can produce.

However better weather and crop blessings will increase crop yield and the food supply. Leading to growth in the population. Historically this resulted in all arable land no matter how marginal being utilized. And when that ran out, cultures started expanding outwards looking for new lands. Resulting in wars, migrations, and empire building.

Unlike disease, overpopulation and famine causing widespread collapse of society was rare in our history. Far more prevalent is the collapse of a realm's economy destroying trade in food. Without various surplus being distributed this caused major urban centers to implode (like last empire Rome).

No Armies

While a fireball is spectacular again all depend on easy it to learn to cast spell of such power. And how magic works in regards to such a spell. From the article, the author it taking the spell from D&D. He not taking into account the frequency of mid range spellcaster. Nor the fact that close order military formation each men cover about 3 feet of front. A fireball has a 40 feet diameter, capable of taken out dozens but still leaving the larger army of thousands intact.

Also the fireball as a range, depending on the exact edition of D&D it possible that the archers will outrange the magic users casting the spell.

Wizard Arms Race

Here the author does explore different assumptions of magic. And largely I am in agreement that various culture will harness and cultivate people who can cast magic. I view the likely scenario that at first both arcane and divine magic will be wrapped in whatever religious system a culture has. That independent arcane mages for a long time will be those living off the magical scraps so to speak.

Also I think equally likely is that once a sophisticated independent tradition of arcane magic  developed that mages will band together into magical orders for protection and support. The exception being if mind control magic has no effective counter or means of detection among arcane caster. I am assuming for divine caster and mind control that the final trump card is the power of their faith. You can mind control a D&D cleric but it plausible to say that the D&D cleric can never regain a spell due to the fact his faith in his religion undermined by his mind being controlled by a will of another.

Gods On Earth

If magic is easily learned, quickly learned and require little resource, Then the mages as gods or the magocracy becomes a factor. The longer the time it takes to learn magic, the more resource needed to support the student while they are effectively useless to society, the less this will be a factor.

Technological Acceleration

The advancement of technological is as much as about ideas as it is the ability to do thing. Many thing we know now can be replicated at the medieval level of technology. For example sanitary practices can be used even if one has access to a Neolithic tool kit. Even with auguries and communes one has to imagine the question in order to ask it. Or have the foundation to understand the answer once given.

I think there would probably be an arms race between magic and ways to counter magic. And overall, magic would be akin to technology/science. People would go for magical solutions as opposed to technological ones.

OTOH, I think the actual existence of Gods and clerical magic would be the thing that dramatically changes society.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1019897The presence of magic doesn't change the nature of the Heinlein quote, only the details.  Dystopia is almost as unlikely as Utopia.  The more likely result is something rather banal, if you want to take things to their logical conclusions

If you merely want to rationalize a world that fits what you want to do anyway, you can justify almost anything, especially with a wink or a nod to smooth over the trouble spots.

Yes, I suppose this is right. My own explanation was simply to rationalize why a setting would loosely resemble the medieval period when D&D style magic-users exist. Even cantrips cast by hedge mages can radically alter how society works. If magic-users are prevalent enough over time to have libraries of lore in the city of wizards, then there needs to be some reason they do not use low-level spells to revolutionize society. A class division where an egotistical magic-user society lives in ivory towers isolated from the muggles is the first explanation that came to my mind.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1020055Yes, I suppose this is right. My own explanation was simply to rationalize why a setting would loosely resemble the medieval period when D&D style magic-users exist. Even cantrips cast by hedge mages can radically alter how society works. If magic-users are prevalent enough over time to have libraries of lore in the city of wizards, then there needs to be some reason they do not use low-level spells to revolutionize society. A class division where an egotistical magic-user society lives in ivory towers isolated from the muggles is the first explanation that came to my mind.

Some other possibilities:

1) Magicians have an ethical code that they adhere to as a result of their studies, including a non-interference directive to not change things too much - a Zen-like code. Clerics could similarly be directed by their deities to maintain the medieval order.

2) Magic carries with it an inherent taint that sticks to things after it is cast. So using magic on people or places brings them into the adventurer's world of gods, monsters, curses, etc. There are scattered magic-users who use magic, but they are very sparing in using magic on or for anyone that isn't already into adventuring.


That said, though, I think it can be interesting to let magic have an effect on the development of society. To do this, though, one needs to be specific about the magic system and the world. Different magic systems - or the same magic system with different assumptions - could have very different effects.

Quote from: jhkim;1020114Some other possibilities:

1) Magicians have an ethical code that they adhere to as a result of their studies, including a non-interference directive to not change things too much - a Zen-like code. Clerics could similarly be directed by their deities to maintain the medieval order.

Or, if you are willing to fit the nature of magic to specifically support such, you could even make it stronger than an ethical code.  Make it so that the practice of magic inherently requires such to even function past a very primitive level.  

It's not as if the various myths haven't supplied enough taboos and other strictures for magicians at times.  For example, just requiring celibacy for magic to work well would tend to seriously restrict the supply of magicians in a world.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1020121For example, just requiring celibacy for magic to work well would tend to seriously restrict the supply of magicians in a world.

First that requirement would have to be one of natural law not the prescriptive laws of society.

I could see a requirement like that giving rise to a caste if eunuch mages. I suppose there'd be some sort of neutering process to get the equivalent for females. And if magic is an inherited characteristic rather than a product of learning and culture then you'd have an in-built limitation on the number of mages. Sounds like a pretty unpleasant setting to game in though.

There is nothing a priori about allowing magic that would require the rest of the world to opperate on the same natural principles as our own does, quite the contrary. It would likely take quite a profound rewriting of the laws of reality. Disease might very well be caused by evil "Disease Spirits" as it is in RuneQuet rather than by microorganisms, just to give one example.

Is Clerical magic sourced from actual, living gods? How does this effect society and the world?

Really a lot needs to be defined about what magic is, and how it works, who can work it, how common it is, etc before any meaningful discussion can take place. What are the parameters?

Too many authors don't really think things through. Magic just sort of exists side by side with a world much like our own. This is part of why Harry Potter failed to work for me. Whole great chunks of plot could have been undone with a simple cell phone, a device which would have been known about and quite probably even owned by the characters who would have done the plot disruption. We had wizards born into non-wizard families, and a whole Ministery of the Government devoted to keeping magic a secret, for reasons that were never adequately explained. And magic in general seemed rather silly and ineffective, wordprocessors would have been much better than those self writing quill pens, flashlights, emails?

#Magic has been insufficiently defined here for me to be able to effectively answer the inquiry.

Quote from: Omega;1019873Not everyone wants to rule and some are too smart to want to rule. Let someone else handle that while the wizard gets on with research.

The problem is #ThoseWhoRule tend to get up in everyone's business rather quickly, which means one has to participate in the rulership game in some capacity order to continue one's research.

Unless of course there's a spell to fix that.

Quote from: Bren;1020129First that requirement would have to be one of natural law not the prescriptive laws of society.

I could see a requirement like that giving rise to a caste if eunuch mages. I suppose there'd be some sort of neutering process to get the equivalent for females. And if magic is an inherited characteristic rather than a product of learning and culture then you'd have an in-built limitation on the number of mages. Sounds like a pretty unpleasant setting to game in though.

Right, that's what I meant by more than a code.  The nasty example is just one example.  Point is, if you want to make it work, you can make it work.  It's not as if magic has some kind of predefined reality that you must emulate. :)

90s FASA really had a good take on it with the 1st edition Earthdawn setting (& the ties to Shadowrun). Magic-users were <10% of the population. "Mage" style magic users were only ~20% of _that_ population. (The other 80% being magically active Warrior cults, Scout companies, Archer guilds, Air Sailor crews, etc.) Earthdawn has a _very_ well defined set of magical-metaphysics, and the advice to really define "what kind of magic are we dealing with here?" is really necessary for world-building. One of the better restrictions in Earthdawn (besides the whole "only ~5% of the population has the ability") is that if you mess up with spell-magic in earthdawn, you attract the attention of one of the Lovecraftian "Horrors" that are still around from when the magic cycle peaked and they flooded into our reality through astral space.

Again. Anything is possible. It really depends heavily on chance with some tipping factors based on the current society and environment.

All it takes is the right, or wrong, person at the right, or wrong, place at the right, or wrong, time to start the snowball careening down the hill and you'll NEVER know how things will end up. And it doesnt have to be something big either.

Someone invents a utility spell to weave cloth as well as a loom.
Possibility A: The mage sets up a business of this and makes a pile of gold. Then sets up a little factory with apprentices and branches out from there as the fad takes root in society.
Possibility B: The mage shows this off at a trade market or goes to a clothier and the local guild decides this is a threat to their livelyhood and takes measures to suppress this invention. The mage either fights back aeeking to topple the guild. Or the spell is supressed and fades into local legend. Or the mage moves to another land more accepting and so on.
Possibility C: The local guild sees this and someone gets the idea of combining the magic and physical looms to make a spell powered loom capable of weaving cloths of elven quality. Rivalries develop. Possibly war. Or the elves want in on this idea too to make cloth that makes silk look like burlap.
Possibility D: The mage keeps refining the spell to the point they eventually can craft clothing with bonuses. The potential of protective streetwear takes off in society. Or. The mage is killed and the spell stolen by one of the non-human races. Thus making them an even bigger threat eventually.

and so on.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1020175Right, that's what I meant by more than a code.  The nasty example is just one example.  Point is, if you want to make it work, you can make it work.  It's not as if magic has some kind of predefined reality that you must emulate. :)

Theres a novel series about a world where you gain magic for one year only if you invest your luck into an object. Something happens to the object and you might not only lose your magic but also die if it was destroyed at the right time. And another novel series where all mages had the requirement of having a usually random secret attached to their ability to perform magic. Discovering that secret gave you power over the mage. And other examples. Like needing spell components to cast spells. Or having to drain or kill something to gain the life energy to cast spells.

My take is that the impact of magic on society is badly, badly oversold, and has a lot more to do with the paradigm that PCs get pretty much access-on-demand to magic than any measure of common sense.

The key factor is this: magic is RARE.  With our game systems and game settings as guide, the number of people capable of wizardry is very low, and those practicing it at any level lower still.  Many of the armchair fantasy economic theorists blithely presume a unique degree of efficiency in their gameworlds. Because there are X number of wizards in town of a high enough level to enchant Create Water items, of course the city has pure fresh water in ample quantities. Because there are enough clerics of Y level, of course there's free healing for all and enough food to cover. Because there's Z number of gold coins coming in, the city can afford to have magical streetlights and airships and levitating elevators and all of that.

Life doesn't work that way.

In what gameworld is there depicted a Mordorian totalitarian state, where every citizen works cradle to grave on the ruler's pet projects? (And, if there was one, why would the PCs be exempted?)  Few enough. You're not going to have every wizard of enchanting level doing nothing but pouring out civic goodies. Take Master Elaina, the water wizard -- sure, she's the city's most powerful mage, but she's a full-time adventurer; she's not enchanting for a living.  Mistress Syrielle is a legend, but she's mostly retired now, and spends her time puttering in her garden from her wheelchair.  Master Ravenswing works for the Duke, mostly in divination; he's not enchanting for a living.  "Whisper" is the hired mage of the richest fellow in town, and they say her telepathy and anti-thief magics are why he's so rich; she's not enchanting for a living.  Master Nightflame is the professor of thaumatology at the local academy; he's not enchanting for a living, and neither is his sister Arathena, who got stuck with the Guildmaster job of the local wizards' chantry after Syrielle retired.  No one trusts Master Hamal any more since he fell into the bottle; he's sure as hell not enchanting for a living.  Whether anyone trusts Master Pando after the magical accident (he's yet to be able to cope with enclosed spaces, precious metals and the color red), he doesn't seem to be enchanting these days.  And Master Detheril is the new Knight Marshal of the city, and on the short list for a coronet the next barony that opens up; he's not enchanting for a living.

Beyond that, hang on here.  So you do have X number of wizards enchanting, and that's enough to make sure the city has that pure fresh water?  Alright, so stipulated.  So who's enchanting the magical street lights?  Who's enchanting flying carpets?  Who's enchanting the animated war machines?  (And who, out of curiosity, is creating the enchanted swords, armor, wands, elixirs and other widgets so beloved of PCs?)  That would be "no one."  If I have $100 in my pocket, I get to take my wife out to a fancy dinner or I get to take her to a nice show or I get to take her to the Bruins' game or I get to pick up four new hardcovers or I get to buy a couple new pairs of dress pants.  I can only do one of these, and I certainly don't get to do them all.  The same principle applies with magic in a fantasy society.

Another crucial error of the armchair theorists is in assuming that everything always goes right. What, the chief enchanter never gets drunk and breaks her neck in a fall the week before the UberDingus is finished? No funds or materials ever get diverted by corruption ... or flat out stolen? The enchanters never find out a month in that what they thought were the fifty rubies needed as material components for that civic enchantment are in fact a bunch of doctored garnets?  (Or, alternately, that war the PCs were involved with in Altania has cut off the only bulk supply of rose korf feathers ... can you get by with substituting king korf feathers?  No?)  Gee, sorry, but that fire that torched a third of the Palestra District before the mages put it out got the Mill Pond Waterworks, and half the city's Create Water items were destroyed?  That stuffy king is peeved that HIS Bowls of Endless Food are only silver while he hears the Bowls over in Vallia are made of gold -- so he just commanded the wizards to make up a whole new set. And so on.

The reason technology transformed our culture is that it's ubiquitous.  The vast majority of people can figure out how to drive a car, or use a telephone, or surf the Net, or read and write, or operate a simple machine.  Now if we had a paradigm where 90% of the population not only could, but did, know two dozen spells each, and they could cast them frequently and routinely, then magic would absolutely transform society.  It's just not the way fantasy game systems usually operate.

Quote from: Ravenswing;1020219My take is that the impact of magic on society is badly, badly oversold, and has a lot more to do with the paradigm that PCs get pretty much access-on-demand to magic than any measure of common sense.

A better way of stating what I was trying to get across with my arguments. I tend the focus on the logistic of how how healing, water, street light mages get trained. But your summary highlights well what happens even if you get the training cycle down pat. When I don't want to get into the fine points, I explain to my players that at this time in the history of my setting, magic is all handcrafts. Each and every things is done by one person and one person only. Eventually they will figure out how make magical assembly lines for crafting and training but that not this time.

Quote from: Ravenswing;1020219Another crucial error of the armchair theorists is in assuming that everything always goes right. What, the chief enchanter never gets drunk and breaks her neck in a fall the week before the UberDingus is finished? No funds or materials ever get diverted by corruption ... or flat out stolen?

"Armchair theorists"? Seriously? Look, no one is coming to take your campaign away and force you to play in Eberron or something. But this is generic qualitative nitpicking that can be argued against anything. For example, someone can argue against the effectiveness of factories in the real world by saying "Oh, yeah. Factories won't have any major effect, because what if the factory burns down?"

Sure, fires in factories are a real problem, and enchanters will sometimes get drunk. But we don't need to take into account every little detail.

Quantitatively, one can just apply a general factor to say that there is a lack of full efficiency in production. So instead of 125,000 liters of water a day - maybe there's only 10% efficiency and they create 12,500 liters of water a day. But many of the effects that are discussed are still very significant even at only 10% or 5% efficiency, like the effect of healing on childbirth. Childbirth is a rare event, so even with rare healers, there can be a healer on hand. Changing maternal and infant mortality has a huge social effect.

Quote from: Ravenswing;1020219The reason technology transformed our culture is that it's ubiquitous.  The vast majority of people can figure out how to drive a car, or use a telephone, or surf the Net, or read and write, or operate a simple machine.  Now if we had a paradigm where 90% of the population not only could, but did, know two dozen spells each, and they could cast them frequently and routinely, then magic would absolutely transform society.  It's just not the way fantasy game systems usually operate.

This is simply not true. There are plenty of technologies that have had a large social effect without being ubiquitous. The microscope and the telescope had major effects long before they were common, by giving new information about the world. Divination magic and other information-gathering can have a related effect.

So did the compass, which only had to be quite rare to make a major difference. A single druid among a large fleet of ships can make a huge difference - just as the compass did.

In the modern era, the computer, radar, and the atomic bomb had sweeping effects on WWII and every subsequent war. Indeed, many things become more devastating the more rare they are. An invisible assassin, for example, is all the more deadly in a world where magic is very rare - because there will be few or no magical or mundane counter-measures prepared to stop them.

In the social arena, the presence of a spell like Zone of Truth will have an enormous effect not just on trials, but on the relationship of the common people with the government. Even if it is only available for the grandest cases - that changes a lot. Likewise, Know Alignment or a similar spell could hugely effect appointments, even if only available once a year to the king.

Quote from: estar;1020263When I don't want to get into the fine points, I explain to my players that at this time in the history of my setting, magic is all handcrafts. Each and every things is done by one person and one person only. Eventually they will figure out how make magical assembly lines for crafting and training but that not this time.

Which essentially means, for all the smoke blown about pre-literate societies, etc.  you're just slapping a nice coat of Trekbabble Handwavium over it because you don't want to deal with it.

Which, of course, is completely, totally fine (to save Brendan the fingercramps), but then why the big show of putting down the Heresy that it could be different?  That's the point I never understand.

Quote from: jhkim;1020280An invisible assassin, for example, is all the more deadly in a world where magic is very rare - because there will be few or no magical or mundane counter-measures prepared to stop them.

Few or no mundane methods? What about entry rooms where the floor is covered with a shallow pool of water or that have hundreds of hanging strips of cloth or the floors have squeaky boards that give away position by sound. That took me less time to think of than it took to type.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1020294...but then why the big show of putting down the Heresy that it could be different?  That's the point I never understand.

If you want a world where it's different then create it. Then share it.


Or don't.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1020294Which essentially means, for all the smoke blown about pre-literate societies, etc.  you're just slapping a nice coat of Trekbabble Handwavium over it because you don't want to deal with it.

No, I have dealt with it. I just opted not to get into a hour long discussion about the whys. I used what I feel is a strong point to demonstrate to the player that

QuoteYes I am not going to into all the details but here is a detail to show that I have put some thought into the matter.

And in some cases where that wasn't enough, like it is with you, at some later point go into the details.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1020294Which, of course, is completely, totally fine (to save Brendan the fingercramps), but then why the big show of putting down the Heresy that it could be different?  That's the point I never understand.

I never claimed that couldn't be different. What I have consistently said that the consequences follows from the circumstances. That many technologies rest on multiple foundations. That it not enough to be able to create water, cure disease, etc. Many other things need to occur before the point is reach where everybody has a disease free life of plenty.

Quote from: jhkimAn invisible assassin, for example, is all the more deadly in a world where magic is very rare - because there will be few or no magical or mundane counter-measures prepared to stop them.

Quote from: Bren;1020303Few or no mundane methods? What about entry rooms where the floor is covered with a shallow pool of water or that have hundreds of hanging strips of cloth or the floors have squeaky boards that give away position by sound. That took me less time to think of than it took to type.

You're missing the first part of the sentence there. If magic is more common and invisible assassins are understood as a serious danger, then yes, you will regularly see defenses like this. However, if magic is very rare, then such safeguards will be far less common. Just like how police on the street are often prepared to deal with guns by having bulletproof vests, but they are generally not prepared to deal with nerve gas. If magic is closer in rarity to nerve gas than guns, then there will be less specific defenses to deal with it. That gives more power to the rare invisible assassin when they do exist. Keep in mind that with magic, an assassin could also be shape-shifting, or ethereal, or shrinking, or mind-controlling, or simply long-ranged - as well as combining these with more usual assassination methods - so it's not just one method to counter.

The point here is that rarity of magic is a double-edged sword. For many purposes, making magic rarer also makes those rare magic-users more powerful. If there is only one person in the whole country who can cure disease, then it's true that common people won't have their disease cured. But conversely, that one person will likely have massive sway over the whole population - sought after and followed and idolized. Particularly in a game setting, this means multiplying the power of magic-using PCs. Simply by walking into town, the PCs might be dominant forces sought after by all the elites.

Quote from: estar;1020330What I have consistently said that the consequences follows from the circumstances. That many technologies rest on multiple foundations. That it not enough to be able to create water, cure disease, etc. Many other things need to occur before the point is reach where everybody has a disease free life of plenty.

It's true that technologies rest on multiple foundations - but magic doesn't have to produce or replicate technology for it to have a significant effect on society. For example, even if magic doesn't reach the point of everyone having a disease-free life of plenty, it can still have significant influence on the trends of history. In any case, whether many other things need to occur depends on the circumstances.  If magic is incredibly rare and/or limited, then I agree that it will most likely not produce a disease-free life for everyone. However, if magic is as common as it is in Village of Hommlet, say, then nearly everyone will have a disease-free life.

Quote from: jhkim;1020360It's true that technologies rest on multiple foundations - but magic doesn't have to produce or replicate technology for it to have a significant effect on society. For example, even if magic doesn't reach the point of everyone having a disease-free life of plenty, it can still have significant influence on the trends of history.

I have not claimed otherwise. I have however argued against specifics and the magnitude of such effects.

Quote from: jhkim;1020360In any case, whether many other things need to occur depends on the circumstances.  If magic is incredibly rare and/or limited, then I agree that it will most likely not produce a disease-free life for everyone. However, if magic is as common as it is in Village of Hommlet, say, then nearly everyone will have a disease-free life.

In Hommlet, Terjon and Jaroo Ashstaff as both capable of casting Cure Disease. Given their ignorance of medical science, my view that the mortality rate of Hommlet would be similar to that of a late 19th century rural village blessed with not one but two country doctors. As long as something has identifiable symptoms, Terjon and Jarroo will effective.

The net effect from a sociological standpoint is an the same as a extended run of "good" years in our history. in most time periods disease (and weather) cycled from good to bad. Went too many bad thing happened at once you get the situation in 6th century Europe. When a bunch of good things happened you get the prosperity of the High Middle Ages from the 10th to 13th century when the great clearances occurred.

The effect of people like Terjon and Jaroo meant that more of Greyhawk's history were like the High Middle Ages than the 6th century. The ability to cast Cure Disease, still takes place within paradigm of medieval technology and a medieval understanding of the world.

And to make it crystal clear as to my point, changes will occur, not enough to turn a setting to a fantasy wonderland with magitech within a generation. The easier it is to learn magic, the more widespread it is. Then the shorter the timespan between the development of magic and the arrival of civilization to the point where is a fantasy wonderland with magitech.

Quote from: jhkim;1020360You're missing the first part of the sentence there.

No I'm not. I'm providing several* possible, low tech, non-magical defenses as a contradiction of the "no magical or mundane counter-measures." Also not that these methods are not useful only against invisible assassins. In fact the squeaky boards is something I'd read that the Japanese sometimes used as a warning against ninja spies and assassins - none of whom were actually invisible.

QuoteHowever, if magic is very rare, then such safeguards will be far less common.

Less common? Sure. I was countering the premise that both magical and mundane counters might be non-existent. I think people often way overestimate the utility of invisibility which doesn't block sounds, odors, and footprints or any other signs of passage. Also I think people underestimate the problems inherent in not being able to see exactly where your own hands and feet are located.


* For a fourth countermeasure dry leaves or crumbled newspaper on the floor serve a similar dual purpose warning. For a fifth, guard dogs or other watch beasts that can locate by smell or hearing.

Quote from: jhkim;1020280Childbirth is a rare event, so even with rare healers, there can be a healer on hand. Changing maternal and infant mortality has a huge social effect.

So many problems with this, but let's pick on this one as an example.  I just pulled up my Raven's Bluff PDF for reference.  Given the size of the city and standard high medieval birth rates, you'd expect about six or so confinements daily.  And hey, there are forty clerics beyond acolyte level in there, no problem, right?

Well now hold on a bit.  Those forty priests represent ten different faiths, and include the city's chief prelate.  The high priests and the chief prelate likely have much more to do with their time than play midwife.  Then we turn our attention to what those faiths do.  Are you suggesting that the priests of the God of War are doing childbirth duty?  (Among other things, actually, the writeup explains that the priests are looking after a great many children orphaned in a recent war.)  The ones of the God of Smithing, who apparently are dedicated artificiers?  The God of Guardianship, whose priests explicitly hire out as bodyguards?  The God of Justice, whose clergy are dedicated judges and arbiters?  Let's leave aside that healers would be wanted for injuries and accidents occurring far more often than childbirth in a large city, or that clergy would be called upon to do other things: pastoral duties, religious services/ceremonies, burials, weddings, administrative tasks, counseling, and hey, adventuring.

Or let's take your single druid "among a large fleet of ships."  You mean a war fleet (because that's the only time a "large fleet of ships" convokes)?  Arguably, but you'd think the other side has mages and priests too, and are likely to counter those wind spells.  By contrast, a sizeable medieval port could have hundreds of vessels ... how many do you figure ship a druid?

Yes, indeed there are ways that history can be changed by divination/informational magic (though people touting their utility seldom consider spells designed to spoof or thwart such magics).  But how is society at large changed by them?  Yes, the Queen won the battle -- and thus, the war -- because the scout with the Flight spell got a good look at the Usurper's dispositions at the decisive Battle of Shedra, and furthermore she got word of it that same day instead of the several days it would've taken the fastest courier ship to beat against the prevailing winds to bring news.  But whose backside's on the throne scarcely impacts the masons laying tile, or the hawkers in the marketplace, or the longshoremen on the wharves.  Estar's turn of phrase is exactly right: magic is all handcrafts.

You want to rebut that, don't go for an airy "of course there's enough magic to go around."  Go for the actual demographics for your game setting and system.  How many mages are in that city of 10,000 people?  What spells do they know, and how often can they cast them?  What power level does it take to make permanent enchantments?  What roles do those mages have?  (If they're the Duke's Mage, they're not enchanting.  If they're full time adventurers, they're not enchanting.  If they're banging out magic swords for the Duke and the aristocracy, they're not enchanting anything else.  If they're divination specialists, they're not casting weather spells. And so on.)

I've done these calculations for my own game setting, and using GURPS, and the results are sobering.  In fact, I've got one 10,000 person city in particular.  I had my all-mage party stay there for many months (one of the PCs was a native), and because they wanted to work as mages I took the unprecedented -- for me -- move of working out every single spell that every mage above apprentice level knew, and what those eleven mages did for a living.  It was pretty sobering.  There were only two full-time enchanters; one wasn't very good, and the other was Guildmaster of the mages' guild and was distracted a lot.  One was the Thaumatology Professor at the local academy.  One was a spy.  One was the Baroness' house mage.  One worked for the PC local's grandmother, the city's leading shipbuilder, and mostly did levitation and repair magics, and provided weather reports to the fishing fleet.  One is the Greatest! Mage! In! The! City (and really isn't, getting by with magical items from a dungeon crawl, and to the greatest degree possible doesn't actually cast spells for the public for fear she'll out herself)!  One's a necromancer and adventurer for hire.  One's a privateering captain.

Of such things societal changes are not made.

Quote from: Ravenswing;1020570I've done these calculations for my own game setting, and using GURPS, and the results are sobering.  

For my all-mage campaign in the Majestic Wilderlands using GURPS (circa 1993). I did a census of all the Thothian Mages in the City State Region. I didn't work out their character sheet like you did, but their age, guild rank and their house affiliation was enough of a memory aid that I could generate what I needed on the fly.

Mages Roster (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hhrOgN97_OBIJG0x64iOGTsrSelw8mQy/view?usp=sharing)

Note: Yes at first the Order of Thoth was an adaption of Ars Magica's Order of Hermes then over the course of that campaign and subsequent campaign evolved it into its own thing. For one thing it is much more involved in the cultures that it is part of than the Order of Hermes.

Further Note: For those of you with Scourge of the Demon Wolf and read the section on the Golden House; the document I link too is the first mention of it in the Majestic Wilderlands. The NPCs in the supplement half are taken directly from the roster including the age of the mages, and number of apprentices

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Anyway my depiction of Mages then and now is a luxury profession. Part of the world, but like the our world's trade in silk and spices not touching much on the lives of most folks.

My worlds don't have these problems, because they tend to follow some basic principles:

1) Magic is rare. Perhaps 1:1000 people have the capability to learn magic, the great majority of those never learn more than a few rudimentary cantrips. Each level of attainment is rarer than the last. So in a kingdom or region of 1 million people there will be only a handful of wizards higher than level 4.

2) Wizards are eccentric individuals who pursue their own strange agendas. They rarely cooperate with one another, or concern themselves with mundane affairs.

3) As for clerics, again, most are lay priests. Clerics who have been touched by the hand of their deity are rare freaks. The gods grant them divine powers for specific and narrows purposes; temples are not healing shops, and the use of divine aid is not institutionalised or commodified.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1020157There is nothing a priori about allowing magic that would require the rest of the world to opperate on the same natural principles as our own does, quite the contrary. It would likely take quite a profound rewriting of the laws of reality. Disease might very well be caused by evil "Disease Spirits" as it is in RuneQuet rather than by microorganisms, just to give one example.

I am currently building a setting with this in mind, where nature runs on magic rather than magic being arbitrarily separate.

I even defined engineering as a type a magic, much less martial arts. My only problem right now is that the distinction between magic and technology is so ingrained into modern fantasy that I am having difficulty envisioning how the world works if everything we take for granted as mundane was inherently magic. It seems easiest to me to just have mundane skills outright granting spells at points if the rules cannot handle it any other way.

For example, a healer with the healing skill would have healing spells and a blacksmith with enough skill could create magic items. I have a very clear Tolkien influence here: e.g. Aragorn could heal supernatural wounds without casting spells (his heritage gave a huge racial bonus) and elvish blacksmiths could forge swords that detect goblins/orcs without being wizards.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1020157Is Clerical magic sourced from actual, living gods? How does this effect society and the world?

This is a theological bag of worms. In real life theologians already struggle with the problem of evil, the omnipotence paradox and the Euthyphro dilemma. If the gods were real and could answer questions, things would be much different.

Since that was too difficult for me to deal with, I decided to combine Eberron's agnosticism with D&D immortals. Clerical magic comes from an ill-defined "The Source" that also empowers deities (loosely similar to the Loa); clerics need not worship a specific deity. The gods themselves are flawed, basically good (sometimes crazy) people who spend most of their time managing the celestial bureaucracy and answering miracles. They are not jerks who let evil empyrean titans run rampant like the 5e MM shows, nor are they beyond game statistics (you can kill a deity, even at low level and by accident, but their position just goes to someone else... possibly their killer a la The Santa Clause).

Certainly, as I've said in other recent threads, if there was sufficiently powerful magic that was sufficiently easy for a large number of people to master to a high level of power, odds would be that the entire society would be magic-dominated.

But if any of the above conditions weren't true; if magic was not sufficiently powerful, if it wasn't sufficiently easy, or only a limited number of people could master it, or if it was very difficult to master to a significant level of power, then society would likely not be magic-dominated.