06-24-2021, 02:51 PM | #11 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and some other bits.
|
Re: Closest real-world matches for Yrth cultures?
Quote:
EDIT: however, magic doesn't need to outperform gunpowder, so long as it can set fires at a distance. That makes using gunpowder very hazardous.
__________________
My blog. Last edited by Sam Baughn; 06-24-2021 at 02:55 PM. |
|
06-24-2021, 03:15 PM | #12 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
|
Re: Closest real-world matches for Yrth cultures?
Quote:
The Dragons and the Djin and the Knights Templar can be scheming too and creating PLOTS AND PERIL for adventurers to get tangled up in, but development is much more complicated than "knowing that a thing can be done."
__________________
"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 |
|
06-24-2021, 06:37 PM | #13 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
|
Re: Closest real-world matches for Yrth cultures?
Quote:
Personally I think the major reason for the high buy-in to the No Gunpowder! regime is that the aristocracies of all the nations have been taught enough of Earth's history to know that gunpowder empowers kings. That it ultimately empowers peasants is of less concern (it's generations down the road) and more of a bother to kings than barons.
__________________
Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
|
06-24-2021, 08:51 PM | #14 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
|
Re: Closest real-world matches for Yrth cultures?
Quote:
That it has a similar amount of dry land would be my theory number one but I wouldn't be certain of it.
__________________
Fred Brackin |
|
06-25-2021, 01:23 AM | #15 | |||
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
|
Re: Closest real-world matches for Yrth cultures?
Quote:
Quote:
I should point out that c 1000 Europe's population was 56.4 million and that was when large swaths of it were isolated. It wasn't until the beginning of the Crusades (population 68.0 million) that there was something resembling efficient communication and even that in many areas was spotty as blazes. In fact from an anthropological POV (something I have a masters in) there is something seriously off about Ytarria's population given what arrived there c 1000 CE (perhaps a 1 million humans at best) As for China its problem was it was too bureaucratic and the opportunity to get ahead was effectively non existent. Development was top-bottom rather than Europe which was largely bottom (or middle)-top a problem that exists today ( https://hbr.org/2014/03/why-china-cant-innovate ) Quote:
The examples given are in the same order: Clock, improved mapmaking, static electricity, the chimney flue, food in cans, Huntsman's steel, water wheel cams resulting in the punch cards used in the Jacquard loom, artificial dye. It is akin to the how the Greeks saw events - events being threads in a giant tapestry.
__________________
Help make a digital reference for GURPS by coming to the GURPS wiki and provide some information and links (such as to various Fanmade 4e Bestiaries) . Please, provide more then just a title and a page number. |
|||
06-25-2021, 11:42 AM | #16 |
Join Date: Dec 2020
|
Re: Closest real-world matches for Yrth cultures?
If looking at Yrth you always should consider the impact of magic, on the one hand it enables faste communication higher crop harvest and much more which gives much more people the possibilty to do something els instead of farming. The rate in early medieval times of 10 farmer producing so few extra food that 1 noble / priest or otherwise non farming occupation could live from the surplus, is a bit low if magic works. A lot of earth or weather spells help in farming and give much more surplus, maybe a 4 to 1 rate like before introducing fertilizers, pestizides and steam powered machines to farming is more likely. This enables a lot of folks to have spare time in which they can think to make live better or innovate otherwise, or just send the kids to a basic school.
That was the pro, but here is also a disadvantage of magery. historically there was always more work than workers, the pressing demand of labor, forced people to innovate, if magic makes that obsolete there may be no need to invent machines or a better understanding of nature. Also the mages, which would be in a powerful position wouldn´t like to compete with the technological invention, and they are in a good position to shoot this down. In the extrem you may get a society in which everything is resolved by magic and a bit of work, but is very staid technological, maybe folks live after millennia still at a medieval tech level and are happy about it, like countless generations before. |
06-28-2021, 04:04 AM | #17 | |
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
|
Re: Closest real-world matches for Yrth cultures?
Quote:
Even if everything was done by magic that doesn't mean the actually TL is going to stand still and the ETL sure won't. While many of these are due to different physical laws they do illustrate the issue: Azoth-1 TL(4+3)^ ETL9; Manned interplanetary spaceflight Azoth-7 TL(4+2)^ ETL12; Faster "interstellar" space flight Britannica-5 TL(5+1)^ ETL10; Antimatter bombs Etheria TL(5+1),(etheric spacecraft, TL5^) ETL9; Manned interplanetary spaceflight Futura TL(5+1)^ ETL7: Manned spaceflight Igor-1 TL(6+1)^ ETL9 with some inventions Roma Universalis TL3^ ETL9; Manned interplanetary spaceflight D&D's Starjammer definitely has ETL9 (Manned interplanetary spaceflight) even if it is puttering around TL(4+1)-TL(4+2).
__________________
Help make a digital reference for GURPS by coming to the GURPS wiki and provide some information and links (such as to various Fanmade 4e Bestiaries) . Please, provide more then just a title and a page number. |
|
Tags |
banestorm, yrth |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|