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Thread: Steam...
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09-15-1998, 06:12 PM #1Saberdrake@aol.coGuest
Steam...
I would agree with you if this was the FR or Greyhawk or any other magic rich
realm. But BR is very low magic and therefore, more prone to technilogical
advancement from their craftsmen. Humans in the real world have always tried
to improve life with new gadgets and gizmos that do things to make life
easier. Why wouldn't it be different in BR? They just don't have magic to fall
back on as much. Just think, only blooded people can be wizards and even then
do you think those blooded mages are going to spend time making items that
replace technology? I think that technilogical advancements in BR is only
common sence since magic is so scarce. However, this is only my opinion.
Saberdrake
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09-17-1998, 11:37 AM #2Gary V. FossGuest
Steam...
Saberdrake@aol.com wrote:
> I would agree with you if this was the FR or Greyhawk or any other magic rich
> realm. But BR is very low magic and therefore, more prone to technilogical
> advancement from their craftsmen. Humans in the real world have always tried
> to improve life with new gadgets and gizmos that do things to make life
> easier. Why wouldn't it be different in BR? They just don't have magic to fall
> back on as much. Just think, only blooded people can be wizards and even then
> do you think those blooded mages are going to spend time making items that
> replace technology? I think that technilogical advancements in BR is only
> common sence since magic is so scarce. However, this is only my opinion.
I know a lot of folks feel this way and maybe I'm just a nutjob for going against
the will of the majority, but I really see magic as the trump card here. Magic is
just THAT impressive, and THAT much easier to use than technology, even in the BR
setting. To me, magic is several steps ahead of technology. Doing a lot of
purely technological research without including magic would be like designing a
coal burning car today. OK, that's an exaggeration, but the basic premise is the
same. You don't waste time researching alternate methods of doing what you can
already do more easily using an existing process. Especially when the guys you
are trying to research out of existence are the primary guys able to do research.
The other issue about magic is that the only magic that is under represented in BR
is wizardly magic. There should be just as many clerics/priests/druids running
around on Cerilia and the rest of the planet as on any other gaming world. Maybe
more, as the scarcity of wizards makes for a demand in the spell-casting market
that clerics can attempt to fill. Actually, that they would have to fill.
Lastly, the ability score requirements of magicians are higher than that of
wizards, but not incredibly so. I'm not at all up on doing the kind of
statistical analysis that would determine the likelihood of rolling those stats or
better (maybe somebody out there with less calculator-phobia could come up with
those numbers?) but there should be probably around a 50:1 to 100:1 ratio of
magicians to wizards.
That is, if 5-10% of the population is of class and level and 10% of those NPCs
are magicians, magicians represent 1/200th-1/100th of the population. Blooded
mages according to the figures I've used are 1/10,000th of the population. (I
think that number should be higher, personally. I mean, wizards should represent
a more typical percentage of the blooded population, which would be 25% but I kept
the 10% so as not to freak everybody out.)
Somebody out there came up with the figure 8,000,000 for the total population of
Cerilia (I think it's closer to 10,000,000 but I won't sweat the difference) which
according to my numbers would make for 800 blooded mages (please, no one quote
that "seven score mages in all of Cerilia" line again, I beg you!) but between
40,000 and 80,000 magicians. Even if you think 1% of the NPCs would become
magicians, in defiance of any logic that I can see, that's still 4,000 to 8,000
magicians.
I think at least 25% of the NPCs of class and level should be priests. That's
100,000 to 200,000 priests. Those are some pretty big numbers. Big enough to
make most people out there go NO WAY! This is a pretty long-running argument,
however, so I don't think I'm going to change many minds here...
The long and short of this is that I think BR is misrepresented as a "low-magic"
setting. Oh, it is when compared to FR, but that's not really fair is it? BR is
really a "lower-magic" setting.
Gary
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09-17-1998, 12:16 PM #3Gary V. FossGuest
Steam...
Lyndon Baugh wrote:
> Gary,
>
> How many "they" can research magic items, compared to how many "they"
> can research technological items?
> In even the most high magic TSR worlds spellcasters are a
> minority of the population, in Cerillia this is even more clear.
> Last month I finally got a good enough computer to play the
> Birthright computer game, and am having fun with the Transport realm
> spell, which can do things railroads can't ... but I would be
> surprised if 20 people on the continent could cast Transport.
Hmmm. Interesting. Since I am the self-appointed census taker of Cerilia let's just
see what I can come up with, eh?
Blooded characters are 1/1000th of the population. These are basically the nobles,
right? There are other, lower level (in the sense of feudal hierarchy) nobles, but
blooded guys are basically the folks at the upper end of the social strata and would
have the leisure/resources to engage in serious research, right? I'm sure a farmer
might spend a few summer nights thinking up how to make a better plow, but that's not
really the kind of thing we're talking about is it? We're talking about serious
Research. Like a capital A Action in the domain rules. If we use those domain rules
as the basis of research, then it costs 1GB to do the action. Very few people have
access to that kind of coin.
If we don't assume it costs anything to do research (which is kind of hard to believe
when it comes to things like researching gun powder or steam engines which would
require a lot of craftsmen and materials to create) don't we run into a brain drain? I
mean, the guys of intelligence in the world would tend to be magic users. Even the
non-blooded ones. I know, they have higher ability score requirements than standard
wizards, but are two 12's really that unassailable? Wouldn't the guys doing the
research tend to be magicians? Of those who weren't magicians, wouldn't they be just
as likely to be priests as fighters or thieves?
> Some of the 99.99% of the population that can't cast magic would be
> interested in non-magical transportation improvement.
True. But how many of them would have the time/resources to actually do the research?
We live in a world where we have scads of leisure time by comparison a relatively easy
access to materials, not to mention no magical alternative....
Let's say 10% of the population is of class and level, and 20% of those folks are of
high enough intelligence, education or have the inclination to do research, but half of
those guys have become magicians, leaving 10% possible to research technology. Of
those 1% have the money and time to do some research. (Remember only 1 in 1,000
Cerilians is a blooded noble, and even fewer are regents with access to GBs, so 1%
seems pretty generous to me.) That's 0.01% of the population. Blooded wizards
represent 0.01% of the population, so we get the EXACT same number!
Actually, I'm inclined to think it would be even lower than this. Far lower. Mostly
because of the money factor, but I think the brain drain part would be even higher....
Gary
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