Yrth technology

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Can you recommend any good novels with less powerful magic that explore the effect it has on military strategy with something approaching plausibility?

Not really my line of interest, really. At heart, I tend to feel that the words "magic" and "something approaching plausibility" don't really belong in the same sentence, and anyone who puts them there is slightly missing the point of the "magic" part.

Though one has to make compromises in my line of work. And I do rather like Phyllis Ann Karr's The Idylls of the Queen... But I guess that the military-strategic part of that mostly consists of people muttering that the only thing that Merlin was ever good for was moving armies around the countryside fast.

And if you do insist on logic - well, yes, I concur that game magic would mostly be used for intel and logistics, really. Any dumb grunt with a crossbow can kill other people at range; magical espionage and such can do things that dumb grunts can't.

[Ogo]

Oh man, so many interesting questions about this stuff. I think about this probably more than is healthy… Warning: long!

1. Magic would most likely be used the way all other human talent would be used: a. to enhance one's importance personally, especially with the opposite sex, b. to make money, c. to secure power in one's own society, d. to advance some other personal passion or ideal, roughly in that order. Just as not every talented, driven, tough person ends up in the military today, I’d bet that very few mages would end up serving the state in direct war -- if the state wanted their service it would have to be worthwhile somehow, or required in such a way that it wasn't onerous. On the other hand, the advantage gained in war could be enormous at a strategic level, so you can bet that monarchs would spend anything to stay effective.

If I were a mage, I'd want to end up rich, fat and happy, and I'd use my power to help out people I liked and maybe causes I thought were worthwhile. Going off to war, or even some interesting personal quest... ehhh maybe, maybe not. The sedentary life would be pretty rewarding for a mage.

2. Mages engaged in defense might spend most of their efforts countering one another. Assuming a very small number of people have the talent, mages may well view themselves as having more in common with their brethren (and sistren!) in other countries, and be less than eager to kill each other at the order of some petty king. For the rich and powerful, maybe gunpowder is a better investment than magic! A gun shoots when you pull the trigger; a mage can do whatever the hell he wants. Mages might be proto-internationalists.

Speaking of "sistren," if the talent to work miracles is distributed evenly between the sexes, the "woman question" would appear in society a millenium early. And if the talent manifested itself evenly across class lines, the class structure, resting on a supposed divine order of human worth, would be seriously destabilized as well. Aristocratic attitudes lasted well into the Industrial Revolution in our world. With magic around, maybe they wouldn't -- who was a "better sort of person by birth" would be readily apparent! Most fantasy games skip over the ugly stratification of medieval life or gently sanitize/modernize it. Maybe this actually makes sense. On the other hand, Christian ideals such as “we are all God’s children” and democratic ones like “all people are created equal” would be challenged by the existence of a minority of people with amazing powers.

3. GURPS is somewhat unique in that its magic system explicitly includes a lot of spells that do "boring stuff" like food-, metal-, and stone-work, along with more exciting stuff like mind control, transformation, fireballs, etc. Does anything in fantasy or older mythical literature bother with the "boring stuff" at all? The point of magic in most tales is that it's outside the mundane, after all.

However, folktales do, in a way, use magic in a "fantasy of unlimited production": think of the alchemists' promise of free gold, or the elves' (the Germanic goblin kind) ability to do a huge amount of work overnight. These are essentially economic and therefore social fantasies. In an economy of manual labor, the ability to do anything with a wave of the hand would be hugely profitable, if it was reliable. Magic might improve things at the margins, but would it improve the quality of life enough to retard development and innovation? Who knows...

Almost all the technological developments of the early industrial age were in the textile industry, and in agriculture: mechanical looms and jennies and all of that. We forget how much work it took the medieval economy to keep everyone clothed and fed. Maybe it’s the weavers and not the gunmakers that the mages should keep their eyes on!

On the forum people wrestle with the question of what real magic would do to history a lot. My feeling is that it would affect warfare probably very little, but would affect the larger social order hugely.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Pomphis

Alchemy is a VH skill and IQ based. That will cost points too.

Absolutely . . . but "points" are a red herring here. Point budgets are strictly for players. They are a meta-game construct that applies to PCs and only to PCs. Everybody else in the world has what fate and society dictates, which might well mean there are lots of lucky chaps born with IQ 16 and who never get the chance to be adventurers, but who do get recruited into intensive alchemy academies at the state's expense and end up with Alchemy at level 20+, access to the best labs, and vast budgets to absorb failures.

I have run two campaigns set on Yrth. Neither time did I feel the need to care that IQ 16, Alchemy-20 chaps with expensive Patrons were worth many times the points of the PCs, because the PCs had their points in adventuring abilities, not in a narrow niche. I mean, any reasonably respectable lord with Status, Wealth, a small army of Allies, etc., would also out-score the PCs on points, but it's the same deal -- it's all in one specialized area (social clout) and not balanced across a bunch of useful adventuring abilities.

The same goes to a lesser extent for the less-impressive kinds of wizards. A chap with huge IQ, Food-college Magery 10, and no other redeeming features might be worth twice the points of a PC on paper, especially with some costly Unusual Background. He isn't really a fun adventurer, though, so who cares? However, we can't ignore his contributions in boring, non-adventuring areas.

Originally Posted by Pomphis

For mage-healers one important consideration is whether Healing-Only-Magery exists, and if yes, whether it is inborn or learnable. If it can be taught, that makes them cheaper.

I'm of the view that neither "Magery stops at 3" nor "Magery is inborn, not taught" are good assumptions for Yrth. I generally take the stance that Magery N is about as common as IQ 10+N, maybe more common, and that like IQ, Magery can be improved through slow, tedious means. Specialized Magery is that much more common, less tedious, and more likely to be found or taught at higher levels. This isn't strictly canon, I realize.

If you make the above assumptions, then it isn't especially worrisome for legions to have squad-level mages and healing potions enough for all.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by Ogo

Oh man, so many interesting questions about this stuff. I think about this probably more than is healthy… Warning: long!

1. Magic would most likely be used the way all other human talent would be used: a. to enhance one's importance personally, especially with the opposite sex, b. to make money, c. to secure power in one's own society, d. to advance some other personal passion or ideal, roughly in that order.

I'm not so sure about (a). The truly effective methods in this category involve mind control, which can easily bring you into conflict with the law, while the other methods, while effective in limited ways, still represent an enormous amount of effort to learn. So unless you are already independently wealthy, learning such spells merely to use them yourself usually isn't worth it.

Now, using such magic on behalf of other people can be quite profitable, if you have the right connections. I think in a typical medieval society (outside of the largest cities, that is), enhancing "performance" rather than appearance would be the most sought-after service - people who can afford to hire spellcasters for such issues are usually wealthy enough to make their own arrangements irrespective of appearance. Only in large cities with active social scenes would appearance enhancement be truly sought-after magic.

(Improving Charisma, on the other hand, might verge into "mind control" territory, and thus run into legal problems on that basis, if its use can be proven.)

[Ogo]

I'm not talking necessarily about using magic directly to become some kind of mage pick-up artist (or worse -- mind control, yuck), I just mean that the decisions a mage would make would be driven primarily by what would make life easier and more enjoyable for the mage, and that includes a lot of sexual politics. Rising in society and becoming powerful are heavily sexualized ambitions -- "check me out, I'm the big man in this town!"

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Ogo

I'm not talking necessarily about using magic directly to become some kind of mage pick-up artist (or worse -- mind control, yuck), I just mean that the decisions a mage would make would be driven primarily by what would make life easier and more enjoyable for the mage, and that includes a lot of sexual politics. Rising in society and becoming powerful are heavily sexualized ambitions -- "check me out, I'm the big man in this town!"

Absolutely. Pop stars, tycoons, and athletes have to beat off potential mates with sticks because they Do Something Sexy and Have Lots Of Stuff. No mind control required. The canon Yrth model of super-rare genetic Magery would lead to that outcome, logically speaking. It seems kind of goofy to assume that mages will remain the servants and technicians of nobility and royalty for long under such circumstances. That's why I depart from canon and make mages significantly less rare, sexy, and impressive -- I want mages to be more like scientists and techies than like football stars and Britney Spears.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by Ogo

I'm not talking necessarily about using magic directly to become some kind of mage pick-up artist (or worse -- mind control, yuck), I just mean that the decisions a mage would make would be driven primarily by what would make life easier and more enjoyable for the mage, and that includes a lot of sexual politics. Rising in society and becoming powerful are heavily sexualized ambitions -- "check me out, I'm the big man in this town!"

Actually succeeding with such an ambition is rather difficult in a medieval society, however - the idea of someone becoming rich, famous, and influential merely through is image is more appropriate to modern times. For those not born to power, it usually means joining some sort of guild structure - and it takes a lot of time to rise in those...

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Actually succeeding with such an ambition is rather difficult in a medieval society, however - the idea of someone becoming rich, famous, and influential merely through is image is more appropriate to modern times. For those not born to power, it usually means joining some sort of guild structure - and it takes a lot of time to rise in those...

Not so sure about that. The Middle Ages and Renaissance are littered with charismatic leaders who were low-level clergy (and didn't bother to work their way up to becoming bishops and the like), low-level noblemen, people who styled themselves as such whether or not they had any claim on it, or in a few cases were simply remarkable individuals. Consider Savonarola, Wat Tyler, or the leaders of the Children's Crusade.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

Not so sure about that. The Middle Ages and Renaissance are littered with charismatic leaders who were low-level clergy (and didn't bother to work their way up to becoming bishops and the like), low-level noblemen, people who styled themselves as such whether or not they had any claim on it, or in a few cases were simply remarkable individuals. Consider Savonarola, Wat Tyler, or the leaders of the Children's Crusade.

Ah... I'm considering them. I'm also considering the ends they came to...

;)

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Actually succeeding with such an ambition is rather difficult in a medieval society, however - the idea of someone becoming rich, famous, and influential merely through is image is more appropriate to modern times. For those not born to power, it usually means joining some sort of guild structure - and it takes a lot of time to rise in those...

Two things have always bugged me about those assumptions on Yrth:

1. Just how well would "medieval society" or "guild structure" really stand up to proof that genuine power -- the sort that bends reality -- can manifest across class or guild lines? Just how well would divinely appointed nobility or monarchy really fare against positive proof of miracles in the hands of random men? My answer to both is "not very." In fact, I think it would all come apart like a cheap toy.

2. Why would a society stay medieval for centuries -- close to a millennium -- past the point where it did here on earth in the same number of years? I would argue that it wouldn't, and furthermore that working magic and the inescapable presence of alien life, much of it hostile, would catalyze modernity rather than inhibit it.

Thus, when I run Yrth, I inject significantly more modern values -- social mobility, women's rights, etc. -- than the canon recommends. No debate about Yrth's state of technological and social evolution can really go anywhere useful until either it's accepted that the canon medievalism is dubious or a clear mechanism is presented that enshrines said medievalism.