At 12:30 PM 12/29/2002 -0600, Kenneth Gauck wrote:

> > The contention that one can somehow divorce the Renaissance
> > from gunpowder, exploration and the printing press is like
> > saying that nuclear power, the space race and electronics are
> > incidental to the 20th century. You don`t get the shifts in social
> > and political systems, the changes to the economics that fostered
> > them, the rise of nationalism, etc. without those processes.
>
>In a fantasy game with magic, you contend here, we are unable to imagine
>magical substitutes or fantastic substitutes for technology.

That`s a bit of a leap from what I was actually suggesting there. Fantasy
substitutes for Renaissance features is a whole different beast from what I
had thought was the theme of the previous thread; defining what the
Renaissance was and its affects. We can certainly discuss fantastic
replacements to real world conditions, though, since it is even more
relevant to BR. In reference to the ideas described in the previous ("What
is the Renesance?") thread, however, I`d note that without many of those
features we don`t really have a Renaissance. We have a few historical
points of comparison, but describing the Brecht as "early Renaissance" when
very few of those Renaissance features exist in the campaign setting isn`t
very meaningful. We can use it analogously (which is all I think the BR
writers meant, really) but to read much more than a cursory resemblance
into the cultures of Cerilia to Renaissance cultures is probably taking
things too far than is warranted by the analogy alone.

Magic is problematic as a motivating force for a Renaissance-like period in
Anuire. Gunpowder, for instance, brings down castle walls quickly enough
that it makes the feudal manorial system obsolete. Magic could certainly
occupy a similar role. In BR, however, magic is mostly available to the
aristocracy. Commoners can not by definition have the kind of access to
magic in a way that would supplant gunpowder without some very serious
revision of the setting or rules.

Further, in 3e magic has a much different take on it than it did in
previous editions. One of the things many folks expressed a concern about
when 3e came out was that it would ruin the "low magic" nature of the
setting because there are fewer restrictions on who can create magic
items. In previous editions it was entirely possible (and often described)
for someone to set up a sort of pre-industrial magic manufacturing factory
that cranked out scads of magic items that anyone could simply pony up and
buy. 3e, of course, has a much more direct cost in XP for the creation of
magic items, so the bottomless number of them imaginable has some sort of
restriction.

Another problem with magic as a substitute for gunpowder in a
Renaissance-like culture is that magic can be countered by other magic in a
much more dramatic way than gunpowder is countered by opponents with
gunpowder. Magic tends to have a binary success/failure and quicker (often
instantaneous) results. That`s quite different from the science of
siegecraft that develops with gunpowder in which engineers could determine
to the day, sometimes the hour when a defender would fall.

You absolutely could premise different influences in place of historical
ones. I would contend, however, that those influences would affect the
development of a culture differently. If you put magic in place of
gunpowder, for instance, you get an entirely different set of social values
than those that ended up creating the Renaissance. Castle walls might come
down as readily or more due to magic than they would because of gunpowder,
so certain social changes would probably still take place, but they would
differ pretty significantly from those of the Renaissance. If magic is to
replace gunpowder, for instance, I`d suggest that in many ways Cerilia`s
cultures are going to remain medieval rather than Renaissance. Because
true magic is available to a limited few. Those people will gain more
equanimity with feudal lords, but since they are already blooded nobles
that subtle change won`t affect the overall culture as drastically as the
democratizing influence of gunpowder on Western Europe.

Another issue to be considered when replacing gunpowder with magic is this:
Magic isn`t invented/dispersed the same way gunpowder was. That is,
gunpowder arrives in Europe from China by way of the mid-East and several
wars of aggression from that direction. Most Cerilian cultures brought
some sort of magic with them when they migrated, but the really
big-bang-for-your-buck magic, true magic, is something that hits the
continent in a very different way. There are a few issues here:

Elves. If we`re replacing gunpowder with magic then the elves are in the
position of the Islamic cultures who brought gunpowder to Europe. Lots of
folks might not like that, but to me it`s just weird enough to work.

Timing. True magic is "invented" by humanity 1,500 years in the past. If
magic is to replace gunpowder as a Renaissance-esque influence on Cerilia
then that`s an awful long gap before the Renaissance features start to take
effect. It took several centuries (and the development of a few
significant other technologies) for gunpowder to take hold of Western
Europe the way it did during the Renaissance, but 1,500 years is a much
longer period of time, especially considering that magic just whips into
place. There are no real reliant technologies. So if magic is to replace
gunpowder then why didn`t the Renaissance effects in BR take place a
thousand years ago?

Gary

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