Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - What could a D&D like setting realistically look like?

WaterAndWindSpirit · 05-05-2019, 09:40 PM

Hello all!

So, with the only hard limit being no technological anachronisms (that is, no technology that couldn't exist by what GURPS calls TL 4 with magic, that is even if it's technically modern tech if it could be reproduced by using TL 4 tools and either the D&D (whatever edition you feel like using) or GURPS magic system (but not both in the same universe) it's fair game), "cultural" anachronisms (such as an early abolition of slavery, public education, cheap adventure novels, scientific theories that could be conceived (even if they can't be proven at the current tech level, the atom has been theorized as far back as Ancient Greece even if it hadn't been proven yet, hell it's even a Greek word meaning roughly "uncutable" so germ theory could at least be one theory floating around about diseases) and crops that existed somewhere in the world but weren't discovered by Europe at the time having been discovered in the D&D like setting being acceptable "cultural" anachronisms) being fair game...

What could a "realistic" D&D-like setting look like? What with the gods actually speaking to their priests and granting them repeatable miracles (that can thus be studied using the Scientific Method), hedge wizards actually having repeatable powers (ditto), but removing technological impossibilities yet adding technological and magical possibilities that make sense in D&D, using existing spells as a power level guideline? (Some wizards had to have experimented to develop some kind of harvest enhancing spells, it just doesn't show up in the source books because the PC party is assumed to be a paramilitary unit, not a group of farmers.)

Send your ideas away if you have any!

05-05-2019, 09:40 PM	#1
WaterAndWindSpirit Join Date: Oct 2014	What could a D&D like setting realistically look like? Hello all! So, with the only hard limit being no technological anachronisms (that is, no technology that couldn't exist by what GURPS calls TL 4 with magic, that is even if it's technically modern tech if it could be reproduced by using TL 4 tools and either the D&D (whatever edition you feel like using) or GURPS magic system (but not both in the same universe) it's fair game), "cultural" anachronisms (such as an early abolition of slavery, public education, cheap adventure novels, scientific theories that could be conceived (even if they can't be proven at the current tech level, the atom has been theorized as far back as Ancient Greece even if it hadn't been proven yet, hell it's even a Greek word meaning roughly "uncutable" so germ theory could at least be one theory floating around about diseases) and crops that existed somewhere in the world but weren't discovered by Europe at the time having been discovered in the D&D like setting being acceptable "cultural" anachronisms) being fair game... What could a "realistic" D&D-like setting look like? What with the gods actually speaking to their priests and granting them repeatable miracles (that can thus be studied using the Scientific Method), hedge wizards actually having repeatable powers (ditto), but removing technological impossibilities yet adding technological and magical possibilities that make sense in D&D, using existing spells as a power level guideline? (Some wizards had to have experimented to develop some kind of harvest enhancing spells, it just doesn't show up in the source books because the PC party is assumed to be a paramilitary unit, not a group of farmers.) Send your ideas away if you have any!