Quote:
Originally Posted by maximara
The problem is easily used common magic ( Low Fantasy) is incomparable with a realistic fantasyland ( High Fantasy).
Unless magic is curtailed in someway (like can only be done ceremonially) is is going to FUBAR a TL3 society to the point that as far as ETL is concerned it isn't TL3 anymore. |
This is why I started up a new thread in the ROLEPLAYING in General forum titled:
Mageborn are like Coins - World Building TL 3
My suggestion is to go with the original Demographics for mageborn, then go with the general historical demographics (ie about 1/3rd of your population was younger than 15 with 1 in 2 children historically dying before reaching age 15), and dealing with the general demographics of:
Roughly 24 to 25% of a rural population were free born
roughly 74% of the rural population were serfs
Overall, roughly 2% of the population were wealthy, and while I can't remember the precise ratio of Nobility to the rest of the population, I think it came close to the 2% value over all.
In that thread, there will be 10 "landed Knight" families with each village owing fealty and other obligations to the 10 landed knight families. I'm torn between using a base figure of about 50 families per village and allowing up to more like 75 to 100 families in other villages. But if I go that route with variable villages having variable numbers of families instead of each village having only 50 - well, that will make it all "cookie cutter like".
None the less, the intent is to give people concrete NUMBERS. Concrete ages for each of the mageborn vs non-mageborn. Give people an idea of just how much "available wealth" there is to support various "crafts" such as Alchemy and/or spell casters. If potions are priced at $1200 and discretionary spending for the bulk of the serfs is less than $100 per month - those serfs will NOT be supporting the alchemist unless the alchemist can sell goods/services the general population can afford.
Keep in mind, my next step will be to get a full listing of all of the spells in GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition like I did for GURPS FANTASY 1st edition. I will try to list those spells that came into being AFTER the publication of GURPS FANTASY 1st edition so that people who read this thread later on, might begin to understand why people say that you can't have Low Fantasy game worlds with GURPS MAGIC. This may be 100% true with GURPS MAGIC for 4e - but maybe not entirely true with GURPS FANTASY 1st edition spells listed, or even perhaps GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition. And yes, I will eventually create a list of those spells introduced in GURPS GRIMOIRE.
GURPS MAGIC for 4e's evolution is such that sequentially, it is like this:
GURPS FANTASY 1st edition spells + additional GURPS MAGIC spells + additional GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition spells + GURPS GRIMOIRE spells + a select handful of spells that were introduced for the first time in GURPS MAGIC for 4e as unique spells.
Those who want to pare back the "over the top" genre-breaking spells from the spell list might have a chance to see why the evolution of GURPS MAGIC does matter.