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Originally Posted by combatmedic
Welll, you have to have mages to cast those spells. Mages are people with a special, inborn talent. Not just anyone can learn and cast spells [unless you are in a high mana zone]. How many mages will spend all their time doing mundane sorts of work? Also, factor in single college mages, illiteracy among the general populace limiting educational propsects,etc. Magic is not technology.
That being said, I think some modifications to the standard GURPS Magic system might be in order.
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Banestorm itself admits (p. 31) that it's not an entirely plausible setting. Certainly, it's a good, coherent setting for adventures, but one wonders why magic has not transformed the setting and why the secrets for some really useful inventions (steam engines, electrical lights, etc.) haven't gotten out and been accepted--certainly Megalos could use them.
I've got three explanations for this...
First, the deal with magic...while the number of mages (about 2% at Magery 0 and about 0.2% at Magery 1 or better) is canonical (p. 23), the influence on magic on society can be greatly reduced by assuming that most mages are still only average or above average characters (i.e., 75 points or less). Most mages will only know a few spells, and will probably focus on the ones likely to help their village (plant spells, weather control spells, healing spells, etc.) The few who do specialize in Earth spells might get rich by spending their days as living factories of essential metal, but there are not enough of them to really change the basic economy of the world.
And the number of characters who are both mages and heroic characters (150 points or more) will be very, very low. Again, high enough to change the course of individual adventures, but not high enough to change the course of history very often.
Second, since Yrth is a world with magic, there is no reason not to believe that Other Forces might be shaping the world as well. Perhaps Yrth, as a world, has a DESTINY, and the Fates themselves work to keep it eternally as a strange, pseudo-medieval playground for heroes and villains. And so the Banestorm never brings the people who could make a difference, or brings them, but they get caught and their memories erased, or if they don't get caught and are able to get a workshop put together something else happens and their inventions never quite work or...there is a fire or...you get the picture.
This might also affect some mages...maybe the Fates just keep most mages from thinking "outside the box," so they stay in their villages and learn the plants spells, etc. And the ones who "break the fourth wall" and start to churn out tons of essential metal, etc. Get Noticed, which means they will either fade into the background or die in some horrible accident or become important to an adventure or something. But the Fates won't let them actually break the world.
If you read
Witches Abroad, by Terry Prachett, there's a wonderful idea of worlds where narrative causality works--things don't have to really make sense as long as they make good stories. Maybe Yrth works that way, a little, too.
For some reason, I'm also thinking of the
Star Trek episode "Day of the Dove." The one where the entity traps humans and klingons on the
Enterprise, gives them swords, tries to keep them fighting, etc.
Three, maybe there IS a conspiracy. At the very least, there would be strong influences trying to keep technology out of human hands. Dragons would certainly benefit from humans having limited dragon-killing capabilities (e.g., machine guns). With their enormous wealth, magical abilities, and cunning, and the luxury (granted by near immortality) to employ very subtle, very long range plans, they might be working to keep technology out of human hands. Elves would feel the same way, although their motivation wouldn't be so much self-defense as defending forests--it would probably take elves about five minutes to figure out that a world with factories, skyscrapers, highways, etc. is a world where forests are in danger.
Anyway, that's my take on it.
Mark