06-06-2009, 09:42 AM | #11 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.
|
Re: Economy wrecking spells?
Quote:
Metal weapons and armor make better armies. Metal plows allow you to grow more crops. Metal structures allow you to build bigger. Metal rails allow you to build railroads. Metal pipes make potable water easier to transport. Metal jewelery just looks shiny. There's no shortage of uses, just look at the world around us which has abundant supplies of metals. The problem with the meme in GURPS is that the Earth to Stone/Metal spell has no serious limitations built into it. It's cheap, creates large quantities, and is relatively permanent (yeah, it can be dispelled, but regular metal can be turned into air so if there's a large supply of mages dispelling mage-metal they're probably also dispelling regular metal). That's a bad mix for the world breaking factor. A spell that either cost hundreds of FP, lasted only a few hours, or could only create an ounce of metal wouldn't be nearly so bad.
__________________
Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya. |
|
06-06-2009, 10:34 AM | #12 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
|
Re: Economy wrecking spells?
Which is cheaper, hiring miners or hiring a mage to create metal? If I were a mage, it would take a lot of incentive to sit around creating metal every day.
|
06-06-2009, 10:37 AM | #13 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.
|
Re: Economy wrecking spells?
Quote:
Really, we've had this argument about three times in the last month on these forums; it's not worth having it again. The spell is broken; it's too cheap, creates too much metal, and is too permanent, case closed. You can change the spell to fix it, or you can ignore the problem and hand-wave it away. But the spell as written is broken.
__________________
Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya. Last edited by ericbsmith; 06-06-2009 at 10:42 AM. |
|
06-06-2009, 10:42 AM | #14 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
|
Re: Economy wrecking spells?
Prospecting is not so big a part of the medieval economy that making it obsolete will make things bizarre.
Last edited by David Johnston2; 06-06-2009 at 10:10 PM. |
06-06-2009, 10:44 AM | #15 |
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Portland, Oregon
|
Re: Economy wrecking spells?
The other thing that must be taken into account is the idea that the magic didn't just appear (unless that is part of the world's background). Most worlds have had the magic long enough for spells to be developed. So the economy has had time to adjust to the fact that the spells have been affecting it for a very long time.
So, in effect, unless the spell has recently been developed, it won't be wrecking the economy. The economy will reflect the effects of the spell. If there is a spell that enough people know and use to affect the world economy, then it will have changed the economy to take it into account. As has been stated on other threads, a world with magic won't have an economy that looks anything like a medieval one. Unless spells are very rare, they will affect the economy like any other useful innovation. Perhaps a better question would be: What would the economy look like given that spell X exists? How would it affect the use of the other economic inputs (labor, time, money, other spells, politics, etc). All that said, I agree that spells should be carefully examined (and perhaps modified) to prevent radical upheavals in the economy. The spells that create something from (almost) nothing are a good example of "broken" spells when it comes to economies.
__________________
Warmest regards, StevenH My current worldbuilding project. You can find the Adventure Logs of the campaign here. I try to write them up as narrative prose, with illustrations. As such, they are "embellished" accounts of the play sessions. Link of the moment: Bestiary of Plants. In a world of mana, plants evolved to use it as an energy source. It is also the new home of the Alaconius Lectures, a series of essays about the various Colleges of Spells. |
06-06-2009, 11:10 AM | #16 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.
|
Re: Economy wrecking spells?
Scarcity of metal is, however. Replacing metal scarcity with post-scarcity will radical change the medieval economy; and there's no reason why magic necessarily has to make metal a post-scarcity resource, unless you use the GURPS rules as they're written.
__________________
Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya. |
06-06-2009, 11:12 AM | #17 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
|
Re: Economy wrecking spells?
Copy, the spell which creates a magical printing press, removes the profession of copyist (although illuminators and people to compose documents and write things down for the busy and illiterate will still have work). In a society without paper, this may not be all that important- leather to write on is expensive and limited in supply.
More broadly, the basic assumptions of GURPS magic (that if you know a spell it can be reliably repeated many times a day for as long as you care to try, with no cost except time and the odd critical failure) cause problems for worldbuilding unless magic is rare. Lots of effects can be hand-waved over until wizards can cast them again and again all day.
__________________
"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature Last edited by Polydamas; 06-06-2009 at 11:21 AM. |
06-06-2009, 11:18 AM | #18 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
|
Re: Economy wrecking spells?
Takes more than knowing where the ore is to get it out of the ground. Particularly since we're also talking about an environment where many man-eating things burrow through the ground.
|
06-06-2009, 11:44 AM | #19 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.
|
Re: Economy wrecking spells?
With Earth to Metal/Stone (which what I'm talking about) you don't need to get it out of the ground. You go poof and have 16 tons of metal siting in front of you.
__________________
Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya. |
06-06-2009, 11:54 AM | #20 | |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: The deep dark haunted woods
|
Re: Economy wrecking spells?
Quote:
__________________
"When you talk about damage radius, even atomic weapons pale before that of an unfettered idiot in a position of power." - Sam Starfall from the webcomic Freefall |
|
Tags |
game economy, magic |
|
|