One problem that has not received enough attention is the effect of the
existence of magic on a medieval society. It is unreasonable to assume that
a society wherein magic is common would be effectively identical to those
Earth-historical societies where it was not.
Motivation: Frequently in my campaigns, some rabid PC Priest will decide
to go forth and make money by performing healings, weather changes, exorcisms,
and similar services for pay. So what are the going rates? One must assume
that others have previously thought of this, and that the primary benefit to
a town or city of having a temple around is the availability of these
services. So I came up with a method for calculating standard prices for
magic items, spells cast, spells copied, and similar services.
Now that magic was considered "available", several effects became obvious:
*Plagues can only run wild among the poor, who can't pay for cures, and only
in areas where there's a dearth of the hard-core goody-2-slippers types.
*Castles are built in months, not decades, without peasant labor, but reek
of magic, and are well protected (especially from Dispel Magic spells).
*As no siege engine can equal the destructive power or flexibility of a large
golem or a dragon, armies do not utilize mechanical combat devices.
*Functions normally achieved by technology would more likely be implemented
using magic, like mechanics, navigation, medicine, construction,
communications, information, etc., leaving only mass-manufacturing.
So technology would not develop beyond a certain minimal level. The time
and resources necessary to achieve technical progress would be better spent
studying magic.
*Criminal activities must be carefully chosen to not make enemies among those
who have wealth (after the thefts, of course) for fear that they might call
in a soothsayer to find out who was behind it all. Of course, a truly
unscrupulous magicians guild will sell protection to the local mafia.
And of course, there are others.
It should be noted that this may not be true in all campaigns, or in all
game systems. For example, AD&D places spells outside of the price ranges
of mere mortals, which encourages fly-by-night temples to offer cut-rate
miracles. :-) Fantasy Hero makes the process of making magic items and casting
spells prohibitively expensive, causing prices to rise with difficulty.
The hidden assumption that most people simply cannot be taught to use magic,
and most others don't get a chance to learn, also keeps prices high. But
if one assumes a rich and powerful magicians guild, one can see a process
like the following: 1) guild offers services at high prices, with the guild
getting a lot of money in the process; 2) guild gets more business than it
can handle; 3) guild actively recruits apprentices; 4) number of magicians
increase; 5) reduction in prices leads to higher volume, and increased
revenue; go to 2. Eventually, prices will stabilize, either when more
apprentices cannot be found, or the market is saturated.
The social implications are outright staggering. In any society wherein
any person can become rich and powerful if only they can learn magic, rigid
castes can continue to exist only if one of the following conditions are met:
1) Few people can actually learn magic, given the chance;
2) Few people are given the chance to learn magic;
3) The guilds have a sort of caste system themselves, which cuts down on the
possible social progress that a magician can achieve;
4) Entering the guild cuts a person off from their old station in life,
so that entering a guild is a drastic move only taken by the desperate
or alienated.
1 is assumed in most games; 2 allows for "entry fees", tuition, taxes for
working for a guild, and other dirty tricks; 3 is interesting because it
would explain why there are all these weak, rebellious magicians running
around (they couldn't take the discipline); 4 seems natural in any event.
But even if a caste system is in place, the society will be a far cry
from the Earth-historical dark ages. Magic in large quantities would
produce a very different society; it would even allow for the maintenance
of a totalitarian state in a medieval technology, using magicians instead of
soldiers to prop up the government.
This is too long already, so I'm quitting.
--fini--
Eric McColm
UCLA (oo' - kluh) Funny Farm for the Criminally Harmless
UUCP: ...!{ihnp4,trwspp,cepu,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!mccolm
ARPA: mcc...@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
Reason is Peace;
Fanaticism is Slavery;
Tolerance is Strength.
I would suggest you read Barbra Hambley's (i think) Darwath Trilogy (it
begins with "The Time of the Dark"). Although the situation in that case is
a little different from the Classic FRP one, the class implications of magic
are well thought out.
Consider a world where magic is well-known (it exists, specifics of how/why
whatever are not). There is also a church that is well respected by the
people, that considers magicians a competitor, and agents of the devil.
For this reason, they are all excomunicant, and trafficing with them is
dangerous to one's soul. So the mage-born have no loyalty to any government
on the world, only to each other (this is because no one wants to deal with
them, and if they were to step out of line, the entire population would
rise up and toast-em). There's a lot more.... the books are well done, and
I'd recomend them to anyone anyway...
--
KENNETH E. WALKER
Office of Computing Services
Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!ccastkw
Consider a world where magic and technology both exist. Magic may
not always be easier to perform than technology. For example, assume
that some of the basic principals of physics apply, such as conservation
of matter and energy. Under that assumption, while one spell can
theoreticaly trash an entire castle, including defending army (or
optionaly, just the defending army), the energy required to do so
may be prohibitivly expensive. (See River of the Dancing Gods, et al)
Alternativly, consider that the people who are both willing and able to
learn magic is very small. Most reasonable explanations assume that
magic is not unlike high-level mathamatics, or computer science. (see
the Lord D'Arcy and Myth-adventures series') If this is true, The number
of people who could learn magic is limited (when was the last time that
you tried to teach an end user about computers), As is the number of
people willing to study that long.
Also consider that there may be Social prejudices against the
practice of magic, like there are here.
-corwin
ucbvax!ucdavis!ucrmath!hope!corwin
=========================================
"Even though he's COMOTOSE, he must have activated his ability to
project a mucous extradimensional substance into this reality."
Scott J. Berry ihnp4!hou2g!scott
Ian Sewell
Eliot College
U.K.C
Canterbury
Kent
Read _Riding a Pale Horse_ by Pieres Anthony for a world
were magic and science coexist. On this earth, Issac
Newton's work in alchemy an interest in the occult allowed
him to also produce the laws of magic (to go with those
of gravitation).
steve anich
If the average person can become a Cleric (and he can), and being a
Cleric looks like a good deal (and it is), you'd expect a society of
Clerics! I don't find the idea very appealing.
Now, assuming for the moment that you want to use D&D rules in a
fantasy campaign that is more or less medieval, you need to do
something to keep the number of spell-casters to a workable number. A
simple guideline would be:
INT or WIS MAX LEVEL
15 1
16 3
17 6
18/01-18/50 9
18/51-18/75 12
18/76-18/00 unlimited
This allows only 9% of the population to be spell-casters, half of
them limited to first level. Only 0.11% of the population even has
the POTENTIAL to go beyond 12th level. This would tone down the
magic level quite a bit, but still leave lots of low-level
spell-casters in the game.
If you don't put some kind of limits on spell-casters, things get
wierd fast. Castles simply aren't suitable for defense against
airborne attack, teleportation, large monsters, etc., so they
wouldn't logically be part of the landscape. Men-at-arms aren't
enough to guard towns, so SWAT teams of mages (or something even
stranger) would be necessary. Armored knights would (by and large) be
dogmeat when they encountered their first medium-level mage, so
armored chivalry as the dominant force is highly unlikely.
My own campaign is a medieval campaign with custom rules, which (like
PENDRAGON from Chaosium) has no PC spellcasters, and few NPC
spellcasters. There IS magic, and it IS powerful, but very few people
have the ability to use it. You have to be in the 99.5th percentile
just to have measurable aptitude, but only with 99.99 is the ability
very powerful.
--
Robert Plamondon
UUCP: {turtlevax, cae780}!weitek!robert
FidoNet: 143/12 robert plamondon
"How about a little fire, Scarecrow?"
a lesser Power of Darkness
Well, the average person can become a cleric, if he's willing to invest
the time, money, effort, and risk in training. Being a cleric looks like
a good deal until you realise that a cleric is described as a servant and
emissary (read 'pawn') of his/her deity(ies).
For these reasons there probably won't be too many people who want to be
clerics. And if there are too many who want to be clerics, the gods and their
temples will start to be more selective about whom they accept as trainees.
If you think of the world as a market economy, the producers of clerics (the
gods and high-level clerics who train them) will attempt not to flood the
market. There will not be more clerics in a society than that society could
reasonably support.
>If you don't put some kind of limits on spell-casters, things get
>wierd fast. Castles simply aren't suitable for defense against
>airborne attack, teleportation, large monsters, etc., so they
>wouldn't logically be part of the landscape.
Agreed, to a certain extent. Remember that the builders of the castle
will have just as much access to magic as the attackers. In the official
D&D/AD&D rules, there aren't a lot of large-scale defensive spells, but there
are: wall of force, anti-magic shell, protection from evil/good, globe of
invulnerability, as well as lots of magic items which could be used, like
the magic of a ring of spell turning or certain ioun stones.
> Men-at-arms aren't
>enough to guard towns, so SWAT teams of mages (or something even
>stranger) would be necessary.
Agreed, again. But what's wrong with that? If there is magic available,
why wouldn't cities and armies use it to their advantage? While we're on
the subject, why should city watchmen always be untrained rabble? Sure, they
were in the real world, but this isn't the real world we're talking about.
A city's militia should have trained military (read 'high-level fighters')
in command of it, or the city won't last long.
> Armored knights would (by and large) be
>dogmeat when they encountered their first medium-level mage, so
>armored chivalry as the dominant force is highly unlikely.
No they wouldn't. The armored knight is in all probability a medium-level
fighter or cavalier. His retainers might be in trouble, but I'll play a 7th
level fighter against a 7th level MU (or the other way around) and give you
even odds any day of the week.
>
>My own campaign is a medieval campaign with custom rules, which (like
>PENDRAGON from Chaosium) has no PC spellcasters, and few NPC
>spellcasters. There IS magic, and it IS powerful, but very few people
>have the ability to use it. You have to be in the 99.5th percentile
>just to have measurable aptitude, but only with 99.99 is the ability
>very powerful.
That sounds interesting, and plausible. But how do the players feel about
being unable to use magic? Let's face it, being able to decimate those pur-
suing orcs with a fireball is fun!
"On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It's a silly place"
--
Mr. Blore, the DJ who would not die
{hplabs, seismo}!hao!udenva!showard
or {boulder, cires, ucbvax!nbires, cisden}!udenva!showard
He goes on to point out that techonology probably wouldn't evolve.
Here's something I've been dying to do in a campaign, I just haven't found
the players that could handle it. It's a neet thing to think about:
Current (1980's) society, based on magic instead of techonolgy.
I would like other people's opinions on what the world would be like...
Please post (or mail and I will summarize). I would like to get a table
of differances between the two cultures. If it really gets interseting and
complete, I may publish (giving full credit where due).
I await your replies.
Thanx.
Gryphon
For a relatively contemporary world that has both science and magic,
see "Operation: Chaos" by Poul Anderson. Examples: the narrator is
a werewolf who was in the lycanthrope corps in World War II. The group
carried photoflash lights around their necks that gave off exactly the
same colour and intensity of light as the full moon, so they could make
the change any time they wanted. His beloved was in the witch corps.
Other tidbits: university professors are put under a geas not to get
romantically inclined with students. Hell is built with non-Euclidean
geometry, and the heroes summon the ghost of Lobachevski to show them
around...
Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo
Randall Garrett's "Lord Darcy" books are also relevant: they are mysteries
set in a magic-based 1960. There is one novel, "Too Many Magicians" (murder
by black magic at a magicians' convention), and two or three collections of
short stories. Good stuff.
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
Also try "Operation: Chaos" by Poul Anderson about a world where science
discovered how to degauss "cold iron" and thereby allowed magic and science
to co-exist. "The Goblin Reservation" by Clifford D. Simak and the novellette
by Robert A. Heinlein called "Magic, Inc." and usually found bound with
the novelette "Waldo", as "Waldo and Magic, Inc." are also both excellent
stories on this theme.
--
The Phoenix
(Neither Bright, Dark, nor Young)
---"A man should live forever...or die trying."
---"There is no substitute for good manners...except fast reflexes."
---"Never appeal to a man's "better nature". He may not have one.
Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage."
>My own campaign is a medieval campaign with custom rules, which (like
>PENDRAGON from Chaosium) has no PC spellcasters, and few NPC
>spellcasters. There IS magic, and it IS powerful, but very few people
>have the ability to use it. You have to be in the 99.5th percentile
>just to have measurable aptitude, but only with 99.99 is the ability
>very powerful.
But the reason I play fantasy games is to escape from the boring
realities of this world. I want to do something different. Thus I want
to become a beautiful hobbit cleric, or perhaps an unwise mage. Why
should I have to settle for reality? Sure it's unrealistic, that's
why I like it!
--
David W. Berry
d...@well.UUCP
Delphi: dwb
{ucbvax,pyramid,idsvax,bene,oliveb}!tolerant!berry
I'm only here for the beer.
In general I think that magic would not affect a battle too much as both
sides will have the magic users and they will be concentrating on each
other while the fighters go out there and bash. In modern terms, I think
the best analog to magic in a battle is long range artillary and aid
in some covert operations and intelligence gathering.
--
Random (Randy Buckland)
Research Triangle Institute
...!mcnc!rti-sel!rcb
In article <12...@udenva.UUCP>, sho...@udenva.UUCP (Mr. Blore) writes:
> Well, the average person can become a cleric, if he's willing to invest
> the time, money, effort, and risk in training. Being a cleric looks like
> a good deal until you realise that a cleric is described as a servant and
> emissary (read 'pawn') of his/her deity(ies).
In a medieval society (which the D&D universe claims to be), most
people are peasants, living a precarious, impoverished, powerless
existence. Being a D&D Cleric would be preferable, no?
> And if there are too many who want to be clerics, the gods and their
> temples will start to be more selective about whom they accept as trainees.
> If you think of the world as a market economy, the producers of clerics (the
> gods and high-level clerics who train them) will attempt not to flood the
> market. There will not be more clerics in a society than that society could
> reasonably support.
All of which is distinctly different from medieval society and the
way things are presented in D&D. My point is: D&D's rules and the
D&D universe don't go together.
> Remember that the builders of the castle
> will have just as much access to magic as the attackers. In the official
> D&D/AD&D rules, there aren't a lot of large-scale defensive spells, but there
> are: wall of force, anti-magic shell, protection from evil/good, globe of
> invulnerability, as well as lots of magic items which could be used, like
> the magic of a ring of spell turning or certain ioun stones.
But the fact remains that a society with widely available magic would
never develop the elaborate castles of medieval Europe: the things
you are defending against are entirely different. In spite of this,
D&D is presented with medieval-style walled cities and castles, as if
they were useful against the real threats.
> > Men-at-arms aren't
> >enough to guard towns, so SWAT teams of mages (or something even
> >stranger) would be necessary.
>
> Agreed, again. But what's wrong with that? If there is magic available,
> why wouldn't cities and armies use it to their advantage? While we're on
> the subject, why should city watchmen always be untrained rabble? Sure, they
> were in the real world, but this isn't the real world we're talking about.
> A city's militia should have trained military (read 'high-level fighters')
> in command of it, or the city won't last long.
Militia *ISN'T* always untrained rabble; but that's not the point.
The point is that city guards as they existed in the middle ages or
as they are described in D&D are inappropriate to a world with D&D
magic and characters in it.
> > Armored knights would (by and large) be
> >dogmeat when they encountered their first medium-level mage, so
> >armored chivalry as the dominant force is highly unlikely.
> No they wouldn't. The armored knight is in all probability a medium-level
> fighter or cavalier. His retainers might be in trouble, but I'll play a 7th
> level fighter against a 7th level MU (or the other way around) and give you
> even odds any day of the week.
You'd lose your money. The imporant thing about armored chivalry is
that they have no missile weapons, and the imporant thing about
medium-level mages is that they have long-range high-damage spells.
If the fighter lived long enough to get close, the mage could simply
ride away on his less encumbered, faster horse.
In any event, the point is that armored chivalry was dominant because
they were virtually unbeatable by the arms of the day. With a high
level of magic, this is patently not true. If the reasons for armored
knights dominating society don't exist, they probably won't dominate
the society. Ancient Rome, for example, was dominated by unarmed,
unarmored civilians.
> >My own campaign is a medieval campaign with custom rules, which (like
> >PENDRAGON from Chaosium) has no PC spellcasters, and few NPC
> >spellcasters.
> That sounds interesting, and plausible. But how do the players feel about
> being unable to use magic? Let's face it, being able to decimate those pur-
> suing orcs with a fireball is fun!
It's even more fun to decimate them with sword and lance!
In reality, catapults were more often built out of timbers from barns
and houses. The wood is seasoned and straight, and there are almost
always plenty of buildings outside the walls to grab timbers from.
In article <12...@udenva.UUCP> sho...@udenva.UUCP (Mr. Blore) writes:
> That sounds interesting, and plausible. But how do the players feel about
>being unable to use magic? Let's face it, being able to decimate those pur-
>suing orcs with a fireball is fun!
But you could still role-play that .5% of the population if you wanted.
Assuming 8 people to a party in its lifetime, only about 4% of all parties
would contain any mages at all over their lifetime, and only about .07% would
contain more than one. For the sake of the play, you could assume that you
were playing the *interesting* 4% of parties, and allow one "free" mage per
party lifetime. But if a mage entered the party at any point and were killed,
you would have to roll to see if another interested mage were around to join
-- 02 or less on percentile dice would be being generous.
One consequence of this would be that mages would be well protected
and respected in the party, and might only join if there were a good deal of
benefit in it for them. Depending on the dungeon setup, the mage might be
able to stay in town most of the time, being brought in only for tough jobs.
I think this would be closer to the legendary concept of magic than these
parties where first-level mages are as common as rats and just about as
expendable.
--Jamie.
...!ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews
"It's just a rumour that was spread around town"