The price of using magic in a conworld

[Particles the Greek]

"Any sufficiently detailed magical system is indistinguishable from technology", or something like that.

[Yng]

I didn't really mean deep-level implications for physics and so on - these are interesting to consider for those who understand them, but I won't pretend I know enough about physics to discuss them at even the most basic level. I was thinking implications for culture, for production, for economics - even at the most obvious level. Why is there no ice cream in the Forgotten Realms? Why has nobody created a police state with divination? Why do conventional armies even exist? Why is political organisation and technology approximately the same as a generic medieval country as imagined by a relatively uninformed balding overweight guy with a sticky keyboard and BO problems? There's not necessarily a need to think this through that far - FR I'm sure makes for fun D&D, vanilla fantasy probably makes for good reading for some people - but some people prefer well-thought-out conworlds.

[Matrix]

If the only thing you want magic for is to have fireballs and dragons, just write science fiction.

Fantasy and Science Fiction are so blurred with eachother that this statement is basically meaningless. Trying to draw such a hard line between the two is a futile effort. This is why many people prefer the term Speculative Fiction these days, which covers both and all their gradations into eachother.

[Salmoneus]

I didn't really mean deep-level implications for physics and so on - these are interesting to consider for those who understand them, but I won't pretend I know enough about physics to discuss them at even the most basic level. I was thinking implications for culture, for production, for economics - even at the most obvious level. Why is there no ice cream in the Forgotten Realms? Why has nobody created a police state with divination? Why do conventional armies even exist? Why is political organisation and technology approximately the same as a generic medieval country as imagined by a relatively uninformed balding overweight guy with a sticky keyboard and BO problems? There's not necessarily a need to think this through that far - FR I'm sure makes for fun D&D, vanilla fantasy probably makes for good reading for some people - but some people prefer well-thought-out conworlds.

I agree in general, and it's why I've never loved FR, but they do address the questions a little more than I think you give them credit for. For one thing, I think there is/was an FR magical police state. More generally, the answer they use for why magic doesn't rule everything is that high-level magic users tend to have their own individual interests - as they get more powerful, they are more and more equivalent to gods (that is, capable of terrible intervention, but mostly way too busy floating on clouds considering quantum mechanics to bother helping some petty potentate overthrow his neighbour). And in any case, there are so few of them that it works more like interpersonal conflict than like politics, when they get involved - I think this is meant to be one reason there are so many conspiracies and secret societies and rulers with hidden identities and the like in FR. But that's mostly me being charitable, and I would like them to consider it more.

[Chagen]

If you want a conworld that thinks about those implications a little more, I'd suggest Exalted's Creation.

However, they got around that with "Only super-powerful beings can use Essence" and thus most people in Creation barely are affected by Essence except when dealing with gods or something like that. However, part of the backstory is a "First Age" where Essence was used to basically create a Wuxia/Cyberpunk/Sci-Fi world...and then the Solars went insane and the Sidereals decided to kill them all and everything fell into a Bronze-Age level of technology...though there are many First Age artifacts still lying around.

It's also balanced by the extreme rarity of said super-powerful beings. Exalts are rare as hell (there's 300 Solar Exalts at any one time, and Creation is bigger than the Earth, 100 Sidereals, and so on. I can't remember the rest but even the most common kind, Dragon-Blooded number only about 10,000, but they're much weaker).

There's also nothing preventing players from creating a magic-run kingdom of their own, though. If you're playing a group of Solars, you're basically EXPECTED to create an Essence-run perfect kingdom spanning the whole damn world by the end of your game.

[WeepingElf]

I wanted a conworld that was recognizably modern, yet had magic in it. One way to go would be to have a world where magic does the job of modern technology, with people commuting to work on flying carpets and watching news and soap operas on crystal balls. (I think the Magitech setting of the Amazing Engine RPG works that way, but I don't know for sure as I never got it into my hands.) But that is IMHO silly, and literally drains the magic out of magic. I also did not want to suddenly plonk magic into a previously non-magical modern world as in Shadowrun or GURPS Technomancer. Something like Harry Potter where magic users live in a tightly self-segregated parallel society also does not make sense to me (why is the secret never breached?).

This, together with the magic theory (based on Sheldrake's morphic field theory) I had in mind all the time, led me to the way magic works in Rosæ Crux. Of course, you are free to dislike it and do it differently in your conworlds.

[Chagen]

I wanted a conworld that was recognizably modern, yet had magic in it. One way to go would be to have a world where magic does the job of modern technology, with people commuting to work on flying carpets and watching news and soap operas on crystal balls. .

No...no it doesn't. There you go making assumptions again.

You could do that. You could also have cars running off of fire elementals for engines instead of gasoline reciprocating ones. Or you can have cars running off of gasoline reciprocating engines because magic doesn't work for such uses (or is prohibitively expensive for them) and have magic be used for something else.

[Yng]

I wanted a conworld that was recognizably modern, yet had magic in it. One way to go would be to have a world where magic does the job of modern technology, with people commuting to work on flying carpets and watching news and soap operas on crystal balls. .

No...no it doesn't. There you go making assumptions again.

You could do that. You could also have cars running off of fire elementals for engines instead of gasoline reciprocating ones. Or you can have cars running off of gasoline reciprocating engines because magic doesn't work for such uses (or is prohibitively expensive for them) and have magic be used for something else.

I do not mean to offend but can you read because I don't think that comment says what you think it says

[Chagen]

I wanted a conworld that was recognizably modern, yet had magic in it. One way to go would be to have a world where magic does the job of modern technology, with people commuting to work on flying carpets and watching news and soap operas on crystal balls. .

No...no it doesn't. There you go making assumptions again.

You could do that. You could also have cars running off of fire elementals for engines instead of gasoline reciprocating ones. Or you can have cars running off of gasoline reciprocating engines because magic doesn't work for such uses (or is prohibitively expensive for them) and have magic be used for something else.

I do not mean to offend but can you read because I don't think that comment says what you think it says

It says exactly what I thought it said:

One way to go would be to have a world where magic does the job of modern technology, with people commuting to work on flying carpets and watching news and soap operas on crystal balls. (I think the Magitech setting of the Amazing Engine RPG works that way, but I don't know for sure as I never got it into my hands.)

Normal statment (though worded as if this is THE ONLY way to do such a conworld)...

But that is IMHO silly, and literally drains the magic out of magic.

...Followed by subjective value statement that makes a judgement ("this is silly", "drains the magic out of magic") and takes it as fact when it is nothing more than subjective opinion. I disagree with this.

In regards to the statement as well, I must say again--you guys are ONCE AGAIN acting like magic must be this "mysterious" thing. Stop that.

[Herr Dunkel]

ONE way to go would be to have a world where magic does the job of modern technology, with people commuting to work on flying carpets and watching news and soap operas on crystal balls. (I think the Magitech setting of the Amazing Engine RPG works that way, but I don't know for sure as I never got it into my hands.)

Normal statment (though worded as if this is THE ONLY way to do such a conworld)...

[Drydic]

In regards to the statement as well, I must say again--you guys are ONCE AGAIN acting like magic must be this "mysterious" thing. Stop that.

s/must/can/

[Salmoneus]

Chagen, don't explode every time somebody isn't you. You're not just reading in meaning that isn't necessarily there, you're reading in meanings that are explicitly stated not to be there.

It would also help if your replies were to the things you were quoting, so we could actually see what you were getting angry about.

[Chagen]

Chagen, don't explode every time somebody isn't you. You're not just reading in meaning that isn't necessarily there, you're reading in meanings that are explicitly stated not to be there.

It would also help if your replies were to the things you were quoting, so we could actually see what you were getting angry about.

You don't get to say dumb shit and then say "Well I actually didn't say that".

I'm sorry, but you don't.

Now, given that you (along with the other people on this site who have sucked Zompist's dick enough to be exempt from the rules) always ignore what I say and then act like I said something else (when I didn't say it), you'll probably ignore this, but I'll still say it.

[Drydic]

Chagen, don't explode every time somebody isn't you. You're not just reading in meaning that isn't necessarily there, you're reading in meanings that are explicitly stated not to be there.

It would also help if your replies were to the things you were quoting, so we could actually see what you were getting angry about.

You don't get to say dumb shit and then say "Well I actually didn't say that".

I'm sorry, but you don't.

Now, given that you (along with the other people on this site who have sucked Zompist's dick enough to be exempt from the rules) always ignore what I say and then act like I said something else (when I didn't say it), you'll probably ignore this, but I'll still say it.

Chagen, what you quoted does not mean what you seem to be responding to*. It's as simple as that.

*Which, since it's not what was written, we're having to guess at, so yes we might be getting things off slightly. But what you're saying still doesn't make sense in response to what you're quoting.

[Chagen]

>All this damage control

Yeah, no.

[Drydic]

Which would you prefer, us trying to work with you to figure out where the disconnect is or us just pointing and laughing? Because right now you're choosing the latter.

[Chagen]

There was no disconnect.

A lot of people on this thread were claiming magic to have all these various properties like "mysterious-ness" and "inability to be measured and studied and then harnessed". I disagree with them attaching all of these properties to magic and then acting like IT MUST have these properties or it's "not magic".

I wanted a conworld that was recognizably modern, yet had magic in it. One way to go would be to have a world where magic does the job of modern technology, with people commuting to work on flying carpets and watching news and soap operas on crystal balls. (I think the Magitech setting of the Amazing Engine RPG works that way, but I don't know for sure as I never got it into my hands.) But that is IMHO silly, and literally drains the magic out of magic.

Read the last sentence of this quote--no, ACTUALLY read it. WeepingElf is basically saying "Magic without [Properties that I believe magic should have] isn't REAL magic *tips fedora*". I take offense to this. I have no idea why this is SO HARD for you people to understand.

[Salmoneus]

Different people have different opinions from one another, Chagen. You don't have to go ballistic over it. Welf made clear that he wasn't putting that forward as the only legitimate viewpoint. He said that ONE way to have magic would be that, and that in his own humble opinion that didn't seem very magical. Which is a perfectly legitimate view for him to express.

What Drydic and I were saying when complaining about your not replying to what you said you were replying to is that the quote you actually replied to didn't even include the sentence that you now say you have a problem with, and your reply made no sense as a response to what you quoted. Also, you have invented things for other people to have said, by reading 'can' as 'must'.

You keep saying "A lot of people on this thread were claiming magic to have all these various properties like "mysterious-ness" and "inability to be measured and studied and then harnessed". I disagree with them attaching all of these properties to magic and then acting like IT MUST have these properties or it's "not magic"." (well, only that exact quote once, but you know what I mean). But this isn't true. Only one person expressed that he didn't find that particular type of magic all that "magical", and he couched it in "I think" and "personally I don't like" and "no offence" and so on. And then Welf expressed a personal feeling about one subtype of that type of magic, expressly limiting the scope of his opinion and the strength of his claims. You're casting things in black and white, to such a degree that it's hard even to make out the outlines of what you claim to see present in the actual text. And we're maybe not giving you the benefit of the doubt much because you keep doing this - cf only a few days ago, when you broke out ranting about drydic before it was pointed out that you just hadn't bothered to see who he was replying to.

Finally, I have to bring you up on something: "You don't get to say dumb shit and then say "Well I actually didn't say that". I'm sorry, but you don't." Because... well, I'm sorry, but I do. I mean, I'm not, not right now, but yeah, I can do that if I want to. For one thing, I'm a mod here, and you're not. But more generally, we are both on a board with a fairly lax standard of moderation, and there is no continuity police here to come down and arrest me if I deny having said something. Which means that it's not just me, it's everyone else who can do that. Including you, of course. You may not think that's a nice thing to do, but for the sake of your spleen I really do encourage you to come to terms with the fact that, sometimes, shit happens. And this might be very helpful for you beyond the board, as well, because... well, most of life doesn't have a continuity police. If you're going to have a tantrum every time you think that someone's changed their mind without admitting it, you're going to have a lot of problems in your career, in romance, and pretty much just everywhere.

So my advice is: when you think someone is being inconsistent, register your objection in a polite, rational and proportionate way, ideally in a way that doesn't look like you're making things up and failing to read the words you quote in your own posts, and then prepare yourself to count to ten and walk away if they don't recognise your brilliance right away.

Also, maybe try to see the virtue of other points of view. People in this thread are going out of their way to express how much they respect your opinion and don't want to shout it down - maybe reciprocate that sentiment?

Anyway, that's the friendly advice done with. Now for the colours:

Making homophobic slurs against members you don't like is not an appropriate way to discuss tastes in fiction. Please stop. While you're at it, nor is it recommended to argue by implying the idiocy of others. (your 'I don't understand why this is SO HARD for you people to understand' comment. It's not that they're not bright enough to understand you, it's that they don't agree with you).

While I'm at it: Yng, your 'can you read?' comment was maybe a bit too harsh. Normally I'd find it unacceptable except that... well, in this case it was a literal thing, since it was a matter of (elementary) reading comprehension that was under discussion.

[Torco]

Just a tiny nitpick of a point: is suggesting someone is being a suckup and getting special treatment -factually false as it is imo- for it through the metaphor of fellatio really homophobic? I mean, another semantical equivalent is licking someone's boots or 'brown-nosing', and we wouldn't think to accuse people using the latter metaphor of being bigoted towards foot fetishists or coprophages, would we?

that being said I couldn't agree with the ruling-to-mod here, Chagen is behaving pettily and inappropriately. Come on, dude, we're trying to be more mature and less flammy as a community here; you know you have a short fuse that makes you behave badly from time to time so shape up plz.

[Drydic]

Oh THAT's what the homophobic slur was? Yeah, Sal...suckup is not really a sexual slur anymore (if it ever was, this is the first time I've ever heard of it being called sexual.) It's 100% equivalent to brownnosing.

[Hallow XIII]

For that matter, neither is "sucking somebody's cock" homophobic. The implication is that they perform sexual favors for a higher-up in return for some advance in status or money or whatever it is. It is neither an implication that there are male members here who would enjoy giving Mr. Rosenfelder head, nor that that would be a bad thing.

Torco: Chagen has a persecution complex that I think is quite frankly incurable; on the bright side if he were able to polish his image he could have a spiffing career as an Evangelical pundit.

[ol bofosh]

Magic in the Great Island is based on the Mist. It is the Source of all things, and is the creative energy that the world is based upon. This magic is mainly limited by the beliefs and mindset of each person.

The first wave of humans are animistic and shamanic; so they don't manipulate the world around them, they communicate with it and make deals with it on subtle "Mist-ical" levels.

The second wave had more of a control of magic energy, but it is was so associated with the land and previous that they had to "ally" with the land's powers (the gods) to have any use of it, and in a prescribed manner.

The third wave were able to use the Mist's power directly, creating and transforming the world around the. There was effectively no limit to its use except their own knowledge and imagination. Within their society everyone had use of it, but very few attained high profficiency with it, and they would only employ their powers to the highest bidder (economical limits). In the end their hubris was their ultimate limit, and they hadn't counted on the instability of the Mist. They had built their society on shifting sands. The Mist affected them in strange ways, transforming what they looked like. The magicians formed a cabal to save their people, they managed to, but by turning them into part-time selkies. Within their underwater palaces they return to their human forms, or on a full moon they can gather on beaches and for one night be human.

The next wave are highly suspicious of and don't use magic, trusting more in "physical" things. This makes them in some ways immune to the affects of magic, yet also highly susceptible to its influence. Their numbness to its subtle effects is also a blind spot behind which they are influenced by it. So they are highly superstitious, employing all manners of "protective" measures to ward off its influence.

A phrophecy says that their will be a fifth wave that seeks harmony with the Mist. They will not have power over the Mist, nor will they be under it. They will have power with the mist and usher in a new time of harmony and creativity.

[WeepingElf]

While it may at first glance seem that magic in Rosæ Crux is pretty useless because technology does it cheaper and more reliably, it certainly isn't. There are still things magic can do that technology can't. For instance, manipulating the weather. This is very difficult, but it can be done. A wizard can, for instance, make a lightning bolt strike a particular building during a thunderstorm. (Though he can't do so without a thunderstorm - but a very good team of wizards can make a thunderstorm appear!) Another possibility is to influence dice, roulettes or slot machines. Fortunately (for the casinos), there are magical means to detect magic, and they are part and parcel of the security precautions at casinos. Anyone who is caught working magic in a casino is usually banned for life.

@Chagen: It is your right to dislike the way magic operates in Rosæ Crux, or not to consider magic that emulates technology silly. It is just that our tastes are different - but as we do not work on the same conworld but each of us on their own, there is no problem with that. Yes, I called flying carpet commuters and soap operas on crystal balls "silly" - but that is just my own opinion. If you like that kind of magic, you may build your conworld that way.

EDIT: I checked my wording: I wrote that magic-as-tech was "IMHO silly" - "IMHO" means "in my humble opinion".

EDIT²: Fixed an unintended double negation.

[Drydic]

While it may at first glance seem that magic in Rosæ Crux is pretty useless because technology does it cheaper and more reliably, it certainly isn't. There are still things magic can do that technology can't. For instance, manipulating the weather. This is very difficult, but it can be done. A wizard can, for instance, make a lightning bolt strike a particular building during a thunderstorm. (Though he can't do so without a thunderstorm - but a very good team of wizards can make a thunderstorm appear!) Another possibility is to influence dice, roulettes or slot machines. Fortunately (for the casinos), there are magical means to detect magic, and they are part and parcel of the security precautions at casinos. Anyone who is caught working magic in a casino is usually banned for life.

@Chagen: It is your right to dislike the way magic operates in Rosæ Crux, or not to consider magic that emulates technology not silly. It is just that our tastes are different - but as we do not work on the same conworld but each of us on their own, there is no problem with that. Yes, I called flying carpet commuters and soap operas on crystal balls "silly" - but that is just my own opinion. If you like that kind of magic, you may build your conworld that way.

EDIT: I checked my wording: I wrote that magic-as-tech was "IMHO silly" - "IMHO" means "in my humble opinion".

IMHO is rarely taken as actually being humble. Just throwing that out there.

[KathTheDragon]

Even without the H, it's still his opinion, and he's perfectly entitled to it as you (pl) are to yours (pl).