The Priorities of Magic

If you haven’t noticed, we’re hip deep in working on world building where magic makes sense.  In many ways this then results in what we call “magitech” or magic used to recreate something technological in the fantasy era.  But what should be done?

We think the question comes down to, what’s most important when it comes to tech?  These are game worlds where adventurers are most often the most important people in the world so is it higher tech weapons?  Higher tech defenses?  No, it is higher tech tools!  By enhancing the abilities of the tools, it becomes easier to make everything else, including better tools.  So by advancing the way tools are produced, you are at least increasing the efficiency by which the products that those tools make are produced.

So better tools may not make a better sword, but they will likely make them much faster, thus cheaper, thus available to more people.  What kind of people?  Well, soldiers of course.  How many times has an advantage in technology driven an army to win battles that everyone assumed they would lose?  Well, being an American, the American Revolution comes to mind.  Anyone who tells you that the USA won their independence because of anything other than the Kentucky long rifle (as compared to the musket) is either lying or ill-informed.

It’s a big deal!  And the same thing needs to be considered with magic.  In our book, The Alchemist’s Lab, we got into a lot of the tools of the trade of alchemy, not just the various different potions that might be used in combat.  We did that too, but the focus was on the lab equipment.  Why?  Well, because of this premise - better tools yield better product, better product may lead to better tools, and so the cycle goes.  That’s how technological advancement works.

Obviously, this takes a little more world building than determining how powerful a magic weapon you are going to allow in a particular campaign.  But it is worth it.  We’re not suggesting that you figure out exactly how the alchemist makes his healing potions and then determine tech advances that will help him.  We are suggesting that you know there are tech advances that will help him and that he just might want those advances.  OK, we know he wants them!  The question is how much is he going to pay the party to go get them for him?  How about a case of healing potions delivered two months after they do the mission?

This is what we’re driving at.  Instead of the kingdom being thrilled at the idea of some recovered artifact weapon, especially if it is a melee weapon, they should be vastly more thrilled about the new manufacturing process that will equip each one of their soldiers with a minor magical item.  Which is the priority, one major sword or a thousand minor magical shields?  Two rival countries seeing this differently could lead to some really cool adventures, including combat, strategy, and even diplomacy.

This post was written as part of the upcoming The Circuitry of Magic aka All About Magitech, the latest in our Small Bites editions.  Each Small Bites book looks deeply at one subject, a character archetype, a race/monster, a style of questing, or some other role-playing/world building subject.  This one is showcasing all sorts of ways to use magic in different ways, including some that might resemble technology and/or machinery.

We hope we’re getting you interested.  If you want to see the World Walker edition for FREE!! click the link here.  If we’ve hooked you and you want to get the full 62 pages of content in the Game Masters’ edition, click here. 

High Tech, Low Tech, What’s your Fantasy Tech?

This may seem an odd way to start a fantasy tech discussion, but stick with us for just a couple of paragraphs:

Some folks have complained that the price of foods in our Grain Into Gold fantasy economy book is wrong.  The biggest issue is that fresh beef is generally the same price as wheat flour.  Now there are some real reasons for this, but the main one is that Fletnern is not really based on medieval England.  Medieval England was running out of space.  They didn’t have vast prairies on which to raise beef cattle.

But the Central Plains of Fletnern is a vast prairie.  The farming isn’t that good, but there is land as far as the eye can see, and there are cowboys leading huge herds from pasture to pasture.  So certainly in the Council of Baronies where the farming is poor and the noblemen are typically Cattle Barons, beef is cheap and wheat flour (which has to be grown, harvested, transported to a miller, milled, transported to a market, etc.) costs about the same.

But why?  Is it just because it isn’t England?  No, it’s because of the technology!  Fletnern has been stuck at a single point in technology for centuries, probably at least 2,000 years.  Now most fantasy fiction looks at thousands of years of history and focuses on what technologies have been lost.  {In my most somber voice}  Man has forgotten how to forge the magical steel required for these swords.  Now they can only hope to find it in the wastelands.

Yeah, we have that too, but we have actually developed in-game reasons for the technology stagnation.  Not only that, but we’ve tried to think through what the other ramifications of this stagnation would be.

The point here is you need to know your world.  Not every blade of grass, but if they have been using swords and sorcery for ages, why?  Maybe magic is so cool that they have abandoned science, but if that’s the case, you need to have little things that happen because of it.  Maybe every farmer chants a little spell or cantrip when he’s plowing because no one bothered to invent tractors.  Maybe the chicken and goose tenders hum a little cantrip to make the fowl lay more eggs.  If magic really has replaced science, then it must have penetrated to the fundamental base.  If they don’t have chicken wire, do they have fox wards?

Maybe there is a ruling class that is good with magic and therefore wants to prevent technology from rising, because that might put power in the hands of the peasants.  But then this tyrannical government or ruling class (or whatever) must have other impacts on the world.  This would absolutely be a world of the haves and have nots - and that can be really cool to adventure in!

Or, like Fletnern, there may be a “secret” group who is opposed to technology because they have seen what it can do (like sunder a continent) and therefore they are “protecting” the world by not allowing anyone to develop the steam engine or gunpowder.  But there are ramifications to this one too.  No gunpowder or steam engine, so no industrial revolution.  OK, but the titans (the “invisible overlords”) are not stopping clockworks, so there are grandfather clocks, animated tin toys, and intricate locking mechanisms.

If your game world is a magical England, then you need to have beef more expensive than flour.  And that’s OK!  But few of us are adventuring on alternate Earths, so we need to think through what the technology is and what the ramifications of that level of technology are.  You are not on a mission to write an entire science book, but to plug some of the most glaring plot holes, should they exist.

This won’t just plug your plot holes.  It will make you think about your world, understand your world, and then write really cool adventures in your world based on its history.

This post was written as part of the upcoming The Circuitry of Magic aka All About Magitech, the latest in our Small Bites editions.  Each Small Bites book looks deeply at one subject, a character archetype, a race/monster, a style of questing, or some other role-playing/world building subject.  This one is showcasing all sorts of ways to use magic in different ways, including some that might resemble technology and/or machinery.

We hope we’re getting you interested.  If you want to see the World Walker edition for FREE!! click the link here.  If we’ve hooked you and you want to get the full 62 pages of content in the Game Masters’ edition, click here.

High Fantasy Cities

There are a lot of things that a world builder can do with their high fantasy cities.  A lot of what is done is the consideration of modern technologies and how magic can be used to mimic those.  That’s what our Small Bites edition All About Magitech is about.  But there are other aspects to this that we think most people (GMs and world builders) ignore.

Mainly what we are talking about is more often used as a sci-fi or futuristic aspect, but we think it applies to high fantasy as well.  We’re talking about using magic that you just don’t understand.

To be clear, we’re talking about examples such as:  riding golem steeds, drinking potions of youth, and being teleported, but having no idea how these magical effects are done.  You don’t have to be a powerful sorcerer to pay someone to teleport you to the next city - that’s what the long range teleporters are for.  Similarly, you can go to the spa and drink potions of youth without understanding what the alchemist had to do in order to craft that potion.  But it goes deeper than this too.  Are there dangers that the common person doesn’t understand when they are drinking that potion or being teleported?

But is this realistic?  Well, yes!  Sure, there are a lot of people on airplanes who have some grasp of the physics behind how an airplane flies, but how many people really understand what keeps a plane in the air?  How many understand what is going on inside their phones and whether or not the microwaves might be frying their brains.  They aren’t, but a lot of folks think they might be.  And that’s the point - The people using the devices, don’t necessarily understand them.

The same should be true of magic in a high fantasy world.  We know that in FRPGs the swordsman doesn’t really understand why his sword is magical or how it got to be that way, he only knows it works better.  Further, in most cases, he doesn’t even know how it works better.  What does “+2 long sword” mean?  Why is it more likely to hit?  Why does it do more damage?  The swordsman probably doesn’t know.  (If you’re playing Legend Quest, both the player and the GM will know the answer - Hint hint!)

But in a high fantasy city, this idea takes on all sorts of shapes and sizes.  Maybe the judicial courts have to use anti-magic devices to prevent people from lying to or attacking a court.  But does the criminal know that?  Will he still try to smuggle in a device that will aid him in court, perhaps by charming the judge?  Not understanding the magic, he may attempt it not understanding how it will be prevented.  In a similar situation, what happens if a handicapped person uses a flying carpet as a type of wheelchair.  Upon entering the court, this person falls to the ground and cannot move on their own.  The anti-magic device “shut off” the magic of the carpet, at least for now, but who was thinking about that when the carpet was floating into the room.  This actually works in many courts on Fletnern, because they use mentalism to detect lies and other issues.  They can block the magic, but leave mentalism wide open.  Now if the criminal understands that, he or she might be able to use that to their advantage.  “Might”.

There is a part of this that has us thinking of some of the futuristic cities portrayed in various fictions.  These are often fantastic places, as long as you’re rich.  The poor are still poor, and magic is expensive.  Are there poor folks crammed into small apartments near the ground, while towering magical towers house the rich?  Do those towers block out most of the light and assuming they do, and what impact does that have on the people actually walking the streets instead of flying above them?

Do the poor scrounge through junk yards looking for broken pieces of permanent ice that are still cold or steeled glass that may be warped or cloudy, but still functions as see-through steel?  On the darker side of magic, did the alchemical processes that created those magical substances cause some manner of magical pollution that is flowing in the streams or possibly floating in the air?

Assuming that humans with magic would still be wired the same way as humans with technology, then a lot of the problems that we have today would still exist.  Magic probably would not create a utopian society.  The haves will still have, though they really don’t understand what they have, while the have nots will still be in similar situations, though their way out might be completely different.  These are the fun aspects of world building in the fantasy era!

This post was written as part of the upcoming The Circuitry of Magic aka All About Magitech, the latest in our Small Bites editions.  Each Small Bites book looks deeply at one subject, a character archetype, a race/monster, a style of questing, or some other role-playing/world building subject.  This one is showcasing all sorts of ways to use magic in different ways, including some that might resemble technology and/or machinery.

We hope we’re getting you interested.  If you want to see the World Walker edition for FREE!! click the link here.  If we’ve hooked you and you want to get the full 62 pages of content in the Game Masters’ edition,click here.