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8BitNinja
2017-02-27, 11:01 PM
So my brother, known here as Green Elf, and I are working on making my old game, Sidequest, an actual game (by the time it's done, the people who I revealed it to when I just started here won't be able to recognize it as the same game). In it, there is a lack of any class that is an arcane caster. Originally, this was because I wanted the game to be focused on the world, as I find too many fantasy works to be too magic-centric while ignoring the fact that the characters are exploring this crazy world full of flying lizards and living amorphous blobs. Later, when we came up with the world's central lore when completely changing the game that we would involve magic. However, the story of the main setting, their existence plays out a little like this.

The world used to be divided, with everyone only being regulated by their clan. Then, a group of ambitious scholars found the secrets of the planes, and then shortly afterward discovered magic. With their newfound power, they completely took over the world, uniting it under their single power, with the wizards as royalty and nobility. They controlled all politics, religion, and commerce in a tyrannical rule over the world. However, a group of half elven knights, rejected by this society for not being "pure blood", decided to free the world from the tyranny. While some joined in hopes of gaining a social standing and others did it because it was the right thing, formed an order called the Inquisition and led the rebellion against the wizards, crushing their forces. The Inquisition then destroyed all found knowledge of magic, hoping that no one could rule the world with the same kind of evil they did. After that, the different races, including half elves, formed their own kingdoms.

So how can we keep it fantasy while still sticking with this? Any ideas? I was thinking that some of the monsters (elementals, slimes, mimics) were byproducts of summons, but other than that, still pretty non-magical. But that only covers some things.

So what are your ideas?

daniel_ream
2017-02-28, 03:14 AM
In it, there is a lack of any class that is an arcane caster.

This is the default state for the overwhelming majority of mythology and fantasy lit pre-D&D.

A completely no-magic setting is really a form of alternate history or perhaps "second world" fiction, but low- or subtle magic describes the works of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Homer, Snorri Sturlson, Mallory and Shakespeare.

NichG
2017-02-28, 05:03 AM
Rather than making a setting without magic, you've actually just made a setting where magic is even more plot relevant than ever. It's a forbidden power, sufficient to rule the world, kept out of the way only by the active persecution of knowledge about it? That's a perfect storm for the PCs to discover the secrets of magic in some untouched ruin and have an entire game run about how magic use re-enters the world. If you don't want the game to be about magic, just don't make it a huge deal to begin with.

Anyhow, the question then remains, what forms can fantasy take other than 'magic use'?

Well the easy one is, just because there isn't finger-waggling style magic use in a setting doesn't mean that there aren't supernatural forces that are at play. China Mieville's stuff is a good example of this (though extremely heavy), with a heavy dose of fantasy in the form of sheer alien weirdness. Fallen London and Sunless Sea (computer games, but with tons of prose) are more examples of this kind of alienist fantasy, with statements that can't be taken literally yet must forming the backbone of the source of wonderment - of course people can capture sunbeams in mirror boxes (and drink them as a potent drug), blocks of time can be mined from the firmament, etc. It's not because a wizard did it, its because its a world where anyone can e.g. go up to the place where the twin poppies of madness and true love grow and collect the seeds. This is normal, and therefore fantastic.

You can also try to develop the other themes that fantasy tends to embrace - individual power/importance, sharp good vs evil type moral conflicts, a sense of wonderment at the exotic, etc.

Frozen_Feet
2017-02-28, 06:02 AM
This isn't low magic. This is similar to Praedor: post-apocalyptic high magic, with the difference that Praedor still has a small population of True Wizards where as your setting doesn't. But even Praedor, they aren't playable.

But in any case: yes, you can run a setting with this premise.

First question would be: how long has it been since magic was removed? This has implications on how much magical ecosystems and ruins can be found intact.

Second is: how hard it would be to rediscover magic? Unlike NichG proposes, this doesn't have to be achievable to the PCs. But knowing what the boundary conditions would be will be useful for setting the tone of the setting.

Third is: how willing are you to do legwork to justify fantastic creatures? Alt-history and science make for equally good groundings for fantasy as magic, but you have to show your work. Elementals probably should be right out, they don't really work without supernatural explanations. Slimes are easy, mimics less so, but doable if you look at full extent of how well various animals can change their texture and shape.

LibraryOgre
2017-02-28, 12:35 PM
I think the simplest method of doing this is redefining magic, and thinking about the rules that govern it.

One of the real problems that D&D-like worlds tend to suffer is "What do we do when the magic-user is angry", because they try to layer instantaneous, relatively easy-to-acquire magic onto a medieval world. If I want to kill you, I whistle and snap my fingers and bolts of light shoot from my nostrils to kill you dead. When I'm more powerful, a slightly different whistle plus jazz hands will let me circumvent the will of the gods.

Magic is easy. Magic can be enacted quickly. Magic is plentiful.

Skosh that. Magic is difficult, with every spell having a chance of failing. Magic takes time to enact... not just the laborious preparation process (one hour... at high levels, you're preparing each spell in less than 3 minutes), but every casting of the spell requires time and effort. And magic is rare, or difficult to reacquire.

All spells take a minimum of 10 minutes to cast. They require a skill check that has a built-in-automatic-failure chance, and no automatic success option. More powerful spells require more work, and might require multiple spellcasters, sometimes working in relay teams. Want a floating castle? You need a score of mages, working on rotation so there is always someone chanting the spell. Every spell has to be created from scratch, every time... principles apply, but the same spell won't work twice.

A group of dedicated spellcasters, working together, can accomplish great feats. Bob, the mage? He can boil his water. Maybe.

Max_Killjoy
2017-02-28, 02:13 PM
So my brother, known here as Green Elf, and I are working on making my old game, Sidequest, an actual game (by the time it's done, the people who I revealed it to when I just started here won't be able to recognize it as the same game). In it, there is a lack of any class that is an arcane caster. Originally, this was because I wanted the game to be focused on the world, as I find too many fantasy works to be too magic-centric while ignoring the fact that the characters are exploring this crazy world full of flying lizards and living amorphous blobs. Later, when we came up with the world's central lore when completely changing the game that we would involve magic. However, the story of the main setting, their existence plays out a little like this.

The world used to be divided, with everyone only being regulated by their clan. Then, a group of ambitious scholars found the secrets of the planes, and then shortly afterward discovered magic. With their newfound power, they completely took over the world, uniting it under their single power, with the wizards as royalty and nobility. They controlled all politics, religion, and commerce in a tyrannical rule over the world. However, a group of half elven knights, rejected by this society for not being "pure blood", decided to free the world from the tyranny. While some joined in hopes of gaining a social standing and others did it because it was the right thing, formed an order called the Inquisition and led the rebellion against the wizards, crushing their forces. The Inquisition then destroyed all found knowledge of magic, hoping that no one could rule the world with the same kind of evil they did. After that, the different races, including half elves, formed their own kingdoms.

So how can we keep it fantasy while still sticking with this? Any ideas? I was thinking that some of the monsters (elementals, slimes, mimics) were byproducts of summons, but other than that, still pretty non-magical. But that only covers some things.

So what are your ideas?

This doesn't sound like low magic, so much as it sounds like "high magic, brutally suppressed." It's like a radical church element setting out to suppress all knowledge of gunpowder after a group of kings used cannon and early bombs to take over the continent. The chemistry still works, it's just that knowing how to make gunpowder can get you killed and the books have all been burned.

Yora
2017-02-28, 03:08 PM
One interesting option is to have mortals being incapable of magic but still having supernatural creatures who do have magic powers. Priests would simply be delivering requests of assistance to their gods but it would be out of their hands whether the god responds and how much help they get.

Knaight
2017-02-28, 03:45 PM
This is a fascinating definition of low magic you have here. Putting aside how the setting is anything but no magic, and putting aside how it sounds tediously generic in a lot of ways - magic is not required in fantasy. It can be stripped out completely, and while it rarely is there are cases which get extremely close (most of Guy Gavriel Kay's work, with a few notable exceptions).

8BitNinja
2017-02-28, 06:59 PM
Get ready for The Great Wall of Text.


This is the default state for the overwhelming majority of mythology and fantasy lit pre-D&D.

A completely no-magic setting is really a form of alternate history or perhaps "second world" fiction, but low- or subtle magic describes the works of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Homer, Snorri Sturlson, Mallory and Shakespeare.

Lord of the Rings wasn't the only one? The more you know.

Also, I wouldn't exactly consider Homer or Shakespeare fantasy. However, this statement could cause a forum war, so I wouldn't dwell too much on it.


Rather than making a setting without magic, you've actually just made a setting where magic is even more plot relevant than ever. It's a forbidden power, sufficient to rule the world, kept out of the way only by the active persecution of knowledge about it? That's a perfect storm for the PCs to discover the secrets of magic in some untouched ruin and have an entire game run about how magic use re-enters the world. If you don't want the game to be about magic, just don't make it a huge deal to begin with.

Anyhow, the question then remains, what forms can fantasy take other than 'magic use'?

Well the easy one is, just because there isn't finger-waggling style magic use in a setting doesn't mean that there aren't supernatural forces that are at play. China Mieville's stuff is a good example of this (though extremely heavy), with a heavy dose of fantasy in the form of sheer alien weirdness. Fallen London and Sunless Sea (computer games, but with tons of prose) are more examples of this kind of alienist fantasy, with statements that can't be taken literally yet must forming the backbone of the source of wonderment - of course people can capture sunbeams in mirror boxes (and drink them as a potent drug), blocks of time can be mined from the firmament, etc. It's not because a wizard did it, its because its a world where anyone can e.g. go up to the place where the twin poppies of madness and true love grow and collect the seeds. This is normal, and therefore fantastic.

You can also try to develop the other themes that fantasy tends to embrace - individual power/importance, sharp good vs evil type moral conflicts, a sense of wonderment at the exotic, etc.

I never thought about that. Turns out, those other themes were the reason we decided to keep magic from being the thing that's front and center. Although there are other powers that could be argued to be magic, which is divine power and chi. Also, the people who try to find arcane knowledge, since the main setting is hundreds of years afterwards, are not exactly persecuted, they just appear joking or delusional. The Inquisition thought that they destroyed all traces of magic, so it was no longer a threat. After all, how can you use a weapon when it no longer exists?


This isn't low magic. This is similar to Praedor: post-apocalyptic high magic, with the difference that Praedor still has a small population of True Wizards where as your setting doesn't. But even Praedor, they aren't playable.

But in any case: yes, you can run a setting with this premise.

First question would be: how long has it been since magic was removed? This has implications on how much magical ecosystems and ruins can be found intact.

Second is: how hard it would be to rediscover magic? Unlike NichG proposes, this doesn't have to be achievable to the PCs. But knowing what the boundary conditions would be will be useful for setting the tone of the setting.

Third is: how willing are you to do legwork to justify fantastic creatures? Alt-history and science make for equally good groundings for fantasy as magic, but you have to show your work. Elementals probably should be right out, they don't really work without supernatural explanations. Slimes are easy, mimics less so, but doable if you look at full extent of how well various animals can change their texture and shape.

1. A long time, hundreds of years.

2. Really hard. You can do it, but what you will find is a book filled with strange runes half burned and most of the pages ripped out under a pile of rubble weighing hundreds of pounds.

3. Some creatures were sent in from the ethereal plane due to unwanted summoning. These weren't destroyed as they hid and reproduced. With no natural predators, they eventually became a moderate to high threat.


I think the simplest method of doing this is redefining magic, and thinking about the rules that govern it.

One of the real problems that D&D-like worlds tend to suffer is "What do we do when the magic-user is angry", because they try to layer instantaneous, relatively easy-to-acquire magic onto a medieval world. If I want to kill you, I whistle and snap my fingers and bolts of light shoot from my nostrils to kill you dead. When I'm more powerful, a slightly different whistle plus jazz hands will let me circumvent the will of the gods.

Magic is easy. Magic can be enacted quickly. Magic is plentiful.

Skosh that. Magic is difficult, with every spell having a chance of failing. Magic takes time to enact... not just the laborious preparation process (one hour... at high levels, you're preparing each spell in less than 3 minutes), but every casting of the spell requires time and effort. And magic is rare, or difficult to reacquire.

All spells take a minimum of 10 minutes to cast. They require a skill check that has a built-in-automatic-failure chance, and no automatic success option. More powerful spells require more work, and might require multiple spellcasters, sometimes working in relay teams. Want a floating castle? You need a score of mages, working on rotation so there is always someone chanting the spell. Every spell has to be created from scratch, every time... principles apply, but the same spell won't work twice.

A group of dedicated spellcasters, working together, can accomplish great feats. Bob, the mage? He can boil his water. Maybe.

The magic sort of works like that. I'm thinking of making another setting for it when the wizards were around (you could play them, but for lore reasons they are all Lawful Evil). They are separated into three categories, Cantrips, Incantations, and Rituals. Cantrips are instant, have a low chance of failure, no risk of an unwanted summoning, and are easy to memorize. The catch is that they are super weak. Incantations are more powerful and are probably what you are going to use in combat until you have to switch to Cantrips. They usually require reading off of a scroll, having a material component or two, and taking some time to cast, but has some moderately effective stuff. Then there are rituals, high failure chance, most likely will result in unwanted summonings, requires reading off of a book, lots of material components, and takes forever to cast. The good part is that you can destroy city blocks with it.


This doesn't sound like low magic, so much as it sounds like "high magic, brutally suppressed." It's like a radical church element setting out to suppress all knowledge of gunpowder after a group of kings used cannon and early bombs to take over the continent. The chemistry still works, it's just that knowing how to make gunpowder can get you killed and the books have all been burned.

The Inquisition eventually dies out, and no one will take anyone seriously when they say they can cast a spell, even when the Inquisition was around, they didn't believe wizard sightings.


One interesting option is to have mortals being incapable of magic but still having supernatural creatures who do have magic powers. Priests would simply be delivering requests of assistance to their gods but it would be out of their hands whether the god responds and how much help they get.

Already a step ahead of you.

Clerics, Monks, Knights, and Rangers have divine powers. Knights, Rangers, and Clerics can get more by taking the Paladin, Shaman, and Priest prestige respectively. Monks and Ninjas have chi, which is the body's natural energy flow. However, monks and ninjas have learned to manipulate it so it all goes to one part of the body for a short amount of time.


This is a fascinating definition of low magic you have here. Putting aside how the setting is anything but no magic, and putting aside how it sounds tediously generic in a lot of ways - magic is not required in fantasy. It can be stripped out completely, and while it rarely is there are cases which get extremely close (most of Guy Gavriel Kay's work, with a few notable exceptions).

I didn't know this. Thanks for telling me.

daniel_ream
2017-03-01, 10:23 AM
Also, I wouldn't exactly consider Homer or Shakespeare fantasy.

You wouldn't consider the Odyssey, The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream fantasy? Interesting.

Thrawn4
2017-03-01, 10:49 AM
You wouldn't consider the Odyssey, The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream fantasy? Interesting.
Depends on your definiton. While there are certainly plenty fantastic elements, my default definition of fantasy would not include drama or mythology.

@OP
How powerful is your non-wizardly magic (chi and divine)?
BTW, even if you give magic a different name, your setting is really high fantasy/magic.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-01, 10:54 AM
Odyssey, The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream contain fantastic elements, and I'd say they outright contain magic.

daniel_ream
2017-03-01, 11:53 AM
Depends on your definiton. While there are certainly plenty fantastic elements, my default definition of fantasy would not include drama or mythology.


Odyssey, The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream contain fantastic elements, and I'd say they outright contain magic.

That last is hardly even an arguable point; Circe is variously described as a sorceress or a witch, Prospero as a wizard, and, well, Bottom (http://www.theatrevoice.com/a7-assets/uploads/2013/06/2038d9c0-8020-473a-a0f5-0218e0eaac47.jpg).

But like science fiction, "fantasy" doesn't really have a good rigorous definition. I was mostly just curious what would exclude those works I mentioned, while including things like, say, Guy Kay or Tolkien.

Knaight
2017-03-01, 12:41 PM
But like science fiction, "fantasy" doesn't really have a good rigorous definition. I was mostly just curious what would exclude those works I mentioned, while including things like, say, Guy Kay or Tolkien.

There's definitely a distinction to be made between fantasy and mythology, which gets the Odyssey out. As far as Shakespeare goes, there's the question of whether the same genre frameworks that work for books really work for plays in the first place.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-01, 12:52 PM
There's definitely a distinction to be made between fantasy and mythology, which gets the Odyssey out. As far as Shakespeare goes, there's the question of whether the same genre frameworks that work for books really work for plays in the first place.

I don't think that mythology gets out.

Judith Tarr, for example, has written books framed around real people and real events and real places, but also featuring fantastic elements and entirely fictional PoV characters. Those certainly would count as "historical fantasy" in my estimation. How was what Homer did with Illiad and Odyssey so different, in the context of his day and age?

Vrock_Summoner
2017-03-01, 01:21 PM
I don't think that mythology gets out.

Judith Tarr, for example, has written books framed around real people and real events and real places, but also featuring fantastic elements and entirely fictional PoV characters. Those certainly would count as "historical fantasy" in my estimation. How was what Homer did with Illiad and Odyssey so different, in the context of his day and age?
Well, there's an automatic difference in assumptions between fantasy and mythology, for a start. Fantasy is a subset of fiction by definition. Even if the words being spoken aren't actually true (people can lie or be wrong in nonfiction too), can a book be considered a work of fiction if it is designed and intended to be read as nonfiction? Judith Tarr isn't expecting you to believe that the version of events described is actually what happened, after all.

2D8HP
2017-03-01, 01:24 PM
The setting seems cool to me, based on the description I'd play it!

I'm a little bit reminded of the Arthurian Pendragon RPG in which (except for the 4th edition which had spell-caster PC's) you played knights, and spells could only be cast by NPC's.

As to whether Shakespeare is Fantasy, since he had an audience who sometimes believed in Magic (more specifically King James (http://m.historyextra.com/article/culture/shakespeare-macbeth-king-james-witch-hunts)) I'd say no, and that only post Don Quixote works qualify.

There were those of Shakespeare's time who did not believe in Magic, but many did and who knows what Shakespeare's himself believed.

I recommend a The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/014312563X/ref=pd_aw_sim_sbs_14_1/156-4986388-7935714?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=51YZBGSQCAWC9DASHNH7&dpPl=1&dpID=512xmyoDUVL)

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/512xmyoDUVL._SY400_.jpg

8BitNinja
2017-03-01, 07:08 PM
The setting seems cool to me, based on the description I'd play it!

I'm a little bit reminded of the Arthurian Pendragon RPG in which (except for the 4th edition which had spell-caster PC's) you played knights, and spells could only be cast by NPC's.

As to whether Shakespeare is Fantasy, since he had an audience who sometimes believed in Magic (more specifically King James (http://m.historyextra.com/article/culture/shakespeare-macbeth-king-james-witch-hunts)) I'd say no, and that only post Don Quixote works qualify.

There were those of Shakespeare's time who did not believe in Magic, but many did and who knows what Shakespeare's himself believed.

I recommend a The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/014312563X/ref=pd_aw_sim_sbs_14_1/156-4986388-7935714?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=51YZBGSQCAWC9DASHNH7&dpPl=1&dpID=512xmyoDUVL)

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/512xmyoDUVL._SY400_.jpg

I didn't know that many people would like this idea, and it's good to know that. To me, it's kind of weird to see people try to take sides on the in game politics before we even finish the mechanical part of the game.

As for the magic thing, there are people who still believe that there is magic (which I'm not getting into, that would land us knee deep in real world religion)

Also, when you say King James, do you mean THAT King James? As in translated the Bible King James?

The more you know.

8BitNinja
2017-03-01, 07:21 PM
@OP
How powerful is your non-wizardly magic (chi and divine)?
BTW, even if you give magic a different name, your setting is really high fantasy/magic.

Divine power is mostly used for healing. However, there are a few defensive and offensive powers They range from moderate to high power, but have no way to be regenerated other than praying the next day. Chi is temporary augmentation. Think of The Bulletproof Monk, but he can only use his powers a limited amount of time before the monk has to meditate before using his powers again. Also, monks can throw hadoukens with their chi.

If we are going to call this magic, then is sci-fi made up science magic? Divine power (or prayers, as they are listed as in the manual) does not come from or can be controlled by the user. The user is simply a proxy for the god(s) and/or spirits (religion is a complicated thing in this world, I could probably write about a paragraph on how it works). None of the power is the user's own. Chi is some made up fake science that can work in this world because Democritus' atomic theory is true and dragons exist, so why can't there be fake science? The user of chi uses his mind to control the chi from being evenly dispersed throughout the body to having more focused on one part of the body. However, with multiple usage, the chi gets out of balance, making it hard to do even the simplest tasks. This can be fixed through meditation.

2D8HP
2017-03-01, 07:23 PM
Also, when you say King James, do you mean THAT King James? As in translated....


Yes THAT King James, who authorized the translation.

Honest Tiefling
2017-03-01, 07:45 PM
In several myths, Merlin could only cast magic because he was a cambion. If Wizards (and from the sound of things) elves going to be highly restrictive, why not make it so only elf-blooded people can cast magic?

I think this COULD be low magic, if magic is still extremely rare and the very existence of it is debatable. Through some would probably call the tales of King Arthur low or high magic. I mean, he did have magical ladies in lakes tossing extremely powerful artifacts at him, several fey showing up in stories and Morgan Le Fey and shapeshifting.

This sounds like a great campaign, and I wouldn't worry about labels. Is it fantasy? Is it low-magic? Who cares! Make a GOOD setting that can be played in as an RPG.

theasl
2017-03-01, 07:54 PM
To continue the question about mythology and fantasy - why would it not count? Plenty of modern fantasy is based on ancient or not-so-ancient (*cough* cthulhu *cough*) mythology. If anything, it should be considered the original fantasy.

daniel_ream
2017-03-01, 08:33 PM
I apologize for derailing the thread, perhaps we can shelve the "what is the definition of (literary) fantasy" discussion and return to the OP.

8BitNinja
2017-03-01, 10:27 PM
In several myths, Merlin could only cast magic because he was a cambion. If Wizards (and from the sound of things) elves going to be highly restrictive, why not make it so only elf-blooded people can cast magic?

I think this COULD be low magic, if magic is still extremely rare and the very existence of it is debatable. Through some would probably call the tales of King Arthur low or high magic. I mean, he did have magical ladies in lakes tossing extremely powerful artifacts at him, several fey showing up in stories and Morgan Le Fey and shapeshifting.

This sounds like a great campaign, and I wouldn't worry about labels. Is it fantasy? Is it low-magic? Who cares! Make a GOOD setting that can be played in as an RPG.

Not all the wizards were elves. The half elves were hated by the people, due to high amount of racism at the time. Since humans generally didn't like elves and vice versa, half elves were rejected by both parts of society. When the one kingdom was split, the racial tensions died down (mostly).

Frozen_Feet
2017-03-02, 07:38 AM
1. A long time, hundreds of years.

2. Really hard. You can do it, but what you will find is a book filled with strange runes half burned and most of the pages ripped out under a pile of rubble weighing hundreds of pounds.

3. Some creatures were sent in from the ethereal plane due to unwanted summoning. These weren't destroyed as they hid and reproduced. With no natural predators, they eventually became a moderate to high threat.


1. Okay. So what construction materials did the magitech civilization use and how densely populated are areas where it used to reside? "Hundreds of years" is enough to reduce most constructions to rubble and make it hard to extract any information from the ruins without benefit of modern archeologic and scientific means. The situation is potentially worse if people have been living in the ruins, as anything usable would've been scavenged and retrofitted by the locals. As a real world example, Egyptians used mummies as firewood. For ruins in the wilderness, there's a documentary called "life after people" which you might want to take a look at to see how badly time and nature destroys everything.

Doing away with the fantastic trope of "surprisingly intact millenia-old ruins" will serve well to hammer in how thoroughly magic has been eradicated.

2. More detail, please. Are these books written in a language that's still spoken, or a dead one? Are these strange runeegible script or would they require local equivalent of the Rosetta Stone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone) to decipher? Would one of these texts be enough to learn some magic (similar to scrolls in D&D) or would you need dozens of these to gain any functional understanding?

In general, looking at the history of the Rosetta stone and how long it took to go from finding it to actually reading ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs will allow you to give a tangible timetable for any foolish player character who thinks they can implement "return of magic" by their lonesome; it took over two decades of study by various scholars across nations to decipher and go from there to understanding other hieroglyphic texts.

3. I got that, and that's not what I meant. What I meant it: for every fantastic creature or object, consider how and why they have the traits you want. Every occasion where you can confidently say "this creature is explainable by natural laws" helps to reinforce the idea that the setting is low magic.

Let's take, for example, dragons. Even for a fictional creature, there's a difference between what could exist and what couldn't. It makes a large difference for the setting whether you're using something plausible (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatlus) or inspired (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon) by real (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draco_sumatranus) creatures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile), or something fundamentally supernatural. (https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/46/59/05/465905fb258e638ed7335a7b277c0437.jpg)

More on this below.

---

Now, you asked about "fake science" in sci-fi. There's actually more than one sort and understanding the subtle differences is important if you want to reinforce a low-magic feel.

Let's start with what magic is and isn't. Magic, as catch-all term for the supernatural, is arbitrary within the context of a fictional setting. However, what the real people around your table will consider "magic" is informed by magical thinking. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking#Psychological_functions_of_magic)

In short: "magic" is not a force. "Magic" is not an explanation. "Magic" is a feeling. It is when you see two events which seem related but can't figure out the causal connection, and your brain goes to overdrive to explain it. When a stage magician pulls a rabbit out of their hat and you can't figure out how it ended up in there, that is magic.

There's no magic in the act itself. The magician, who is in the know, does not feel any magic. It is all a ruse.

Another way to think of it: "magic", at it's root, comes from a word meaning "knowledge". However, majority of people are not in the know about how the world works. "Magic" hence has come to mean "hidden knowledge", and is used as a crutch whenever a phenomenom has no easy explanation.

Now, what is science? Science is theorizing about the world and then putting those theories into practice to see if they work out. What sets modern science apart from its premodern predecessors is the concept of falsifiability: that is, a scientific theory ought to make predictions, in such a limited way that reality could contradict them. If no contradiction is possible, that is, the theory could predict anything or nothing, then we label it as "pseudoscience".

The sort of "fake science" you see in science fiction is usually not pseudoscience; however, sci-fi tends to take at face value some predictions of theories which have not yet been proven or observed. For example, wormholes and timetravel appear mathematically valid in the framework of general relativity, but whether these appear in reality is contested. You can get quite fantastic results simply by taking contemporary theories and then assuming they are flawless. Let's call this sort of stuff "speculative science".

The sort of "fake science" you are proposing with Qi et all it is different: it is taking an obsolete scientific theory, that is, a theory that has been falsified in reality, and taking it at face value. Let's call this stuff "alternate science".

Each form of fictional science has its own problems:

Pseudoscience has a bad habit of feeling magical, because pseudoscience often has obscure notions of cause and effect and sometimes has roots in actual magical practices. Having pseudoscience in a no-magic setting is acceptable; having pseudoscience that is dependable is not. Let's discuss Qiqong briefly, as it is the real-world foundation of the Qi concept. Qiqong is a premodern medical theory and several things, such as acupuncture and pressure point techniques in martial arts, are rooted in it. Some of these things work, others don't. Based on how some of the things work, one might naively lend scientific credence to it. However, the reason why Qiqong is considered pseudoscience these days, is because it is rooted in Taoist mysticism, hence making some unfalsiable claims, and in other respects it has been falsified. In short, it is an obsolete theory. The stuff that works, works for reasons which are different from what Qiqong claims.

So if you want to have Qi in your setting and it to not feel like magic, the monks have to be wrong about why they can do some of the stuff they can. The theory of Qi has to either not explain, or explain too much. At the same time, you have to hold that the real, different reason is something explainable by natural physics, even if the real reason is not known to anyone in the setting.

Alchemy is in the same position as Qiqong here.

Speculative science has the problem of being most work-intensive. You really have to know what you're doing lest a math-savvy or science-savvy player dig out the ground from under your setting. However, there are shortcuts. An example: in my setting, there is a herb which stops periods and hence prevents pregnancy. The people in the setting don't know why, and it's hardly impossible for a woman brewing a potion of these herbs to be labeled a witch. However, I, as GM, maintain that there is nothing supernatural about these herbs and they work by screwing with the human hormone system. No, I can't tell you exactly which hormones, because I'm not an expert in human biochemistry; however, in the game this doesn't matter, because neither could any of the character or other players try to puzzle it out within the context of the setting. So whenever you need some fantastic stuff, look for the closest real-life parallel, point to it, and say: "a thing like this exists in reality. I do not know how either of these things work exactly the way they do, but unless you prove gods, wizards, Qi etc. are behind it in the real world, neither are they in the game world".

Alternate science has the problem of screwing with verisimilitude. That is: even if you use an obsolete theory that is as useful as Newtonian mechanics, there may come cases where a real-world phenomenom then couldn't exist as it does. In addition, math-savvy players can be even more of a nuisance, as many of the obsolete theories which are attractive for alternate science are too simple. For example, some of the worst physics exploits in D&D have always combined a keen understanding of the game mechanics with real mechanics to create absurd effects. To avert this, you either have to backpedal from your alternate science premises and say "I know the game / in-setting rules allow for this, but since it couldn't happen in real life, I'm not going to let it fly", or bite the bullet and accept some really freaky stuff is going to go town.

CharonsHelper
2017-03-02, 09:02 AM
As to whether Shakespeare is Fantasy, since he had an audience who sometimes believed in Magic (more specifically King James (http://m.historyextra.com/article/culture/shakespeare-macbeth-king-james-witch-hunts)) I'd say no, and that only post Don Quixote works qualify.


There are people who believe in alien abductions. A book about it isn't sci-fi?

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-02, 09:13 AM
1. Okay. So what construction materials did the magitech civilization use and how densely populated are areas where it used to reside? "Hundreds of years" is enough to reduce most constructions to rubble and make it hard to extract any information from the ruins without benefit of modern archeologic and scientific means. The situation is potentially worse if people have been living in the ruins, as anything usable would've been scavenged and retrofitted by the locals. As a real world example, Egyptians used mummies as firewood. For ruins in the wilderness, there's a documentary called "life after people" which you might want to take a look at to see how badly time and nature destroys everything.

Doing away with the fantastic trope of "surprisingly intact millenia-old ruins" will serve well to hammer in how thoroughly magic has been eradicated.

2. More detail, please. Are these books written in a language that's still spoken, or a dead one? Are these strange runeegible script or would they require local equivalent of the Rosetta Stone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone) to decipher? Would one of these texts be enough to learn some magic (similar to scrolls in D&D) or would you need dozens of these to gain any functional understanding?

In general, looking at the history of the Rosetta stone and how long it took to go from finding it to actually reading ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs will allow you to give a tangible timetable for any foolish player character who thinks they can implement "return of magic" by their lonesome; it took over two decades of study by various scholars across nations to decipher and go from there to understanding other hieroglyphic texts.

3. I got that, and that's not what I meant. What I meant it: for every fantastic creature or object, consider how and why they have the traits you want. Every occasion where you can confidently say "this creature is explainable by natural laws" helps to reinforce the idea that the setting is low magic.

Let's take, for example, dragons. Even for a fictional creature, there's a difference between what could exist and what couldn't. It makes a large difference for the setting whether you're using something plausible (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatlus) or inspired (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon) by real (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draco_sumatranus) creatures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile), or something fundamentally supernatural. (https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/46/59/05/465905fb258e638ed7335a7b277c0437.jpg)

More on this below.

---

Now, you asked about "fake science" in sci-fi. There's actually more than one sort and understanding the subtle differences is important if you want to reinforce a low-magic feel.

Let's start with what magic is and isn't. Magic, as catch-all term for the supernatural, is arbitrary within the context of a fictional setting. However, what the real people around your table will consider "magic" is informed by magical thinking. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking#Psychological_functions_of_magic)

In short: "magic" is not a force. "Magic" is not an explanation. "Magic" is a feeling. It is when you see two events which seem related but can't figure out the causal connection, and your brain goes to overdrive to explain it. When a stage magician pulls a rabbit out of their hat and you can't figure out how it ended up in there, that is magic.

There's no magic in the act itself. The magician, who is in the know, does not feel any magic. It is all a ruse.

Another way to think of it: "magic", at it's root, comes from a word meaning "knowledge". However, majority of people are not in the know about how the world works. "Magic" hence has come to mean "hidden knowledge", and is used as a crutch whenever a phenomenom has no easy explanation.

Now, what is science? Science is theorizing about the world and then putting those theories into practice to see if they work out. What sets modern science apart from its premodern predecessors is the concept of falsifiability: that is, a scientific theory ought to make predictions, in such a limited way that reality could contradict them. If no contradiction is possible, that is, the theory could predict anything or nothing, then we label it as "pseudoscience".

The sort of "fake science" you see in science fiction is usually not pseudoscience; however, sci-fi tends to take at face value some predictions of theories which have not yet been proven or observed. For example, wormholes and timetravel appear mathematically valid in the framework of general relativity, but whether these appear in reality is contested. You can get quite fantastic results simply by taking contemporary theories and then assuming they are flawless. Let's call this sort of stuff "speculative science".

The sort of "fake science" you are proposing with Qi et all it is different: it is taking an obsolete scientific theory, that is, a theory that has been falsified in reality, and taking it at face value. Let's call this stuff "alternate science".

Each form of fictional science has its own problems:

Pseudoscience has a bad habit of feeling magical, because pseudoscience often has obscure notions of cause and effect and sometimes has roots in actual magical practices. Having pseudoscience in a no-magic setting is acceptable; having pseudoscience that is dependable is not. Let's discuss Qiqong briefly, as it is the real-world foundation of the Qi concept. Qiqong is a premodern medical theory and several things, such as acupuncture and pressure point techniques in martial arts, are rooted in it. Some of these things work, others don't. Based on how some of the things work, one might naively lend scientific credence to it. However, the reason why Qiqong is considered pseudoscience these days, is because it is rooted in Taoist mysticism, hence making some unfalsiable claims, and in other respects it has been falsified. In short, it is an obsolete theory. The stuff that works, works for reasons which are different from what Qiqong claims.

So if you want to have Qi in your setting and it to not feel like magic, the monks have to be wrong about why they can do some of the stuff they can. The theory of Qi has to either not explain, or explain too much. At the same time, you have to hold that the real, different reason is something explainable by natural physics, even if the real reason is not known to anyone in the setting.

Alchemy is in the same position as Qiqong here.

Speculative science has the problem of being most work-intensive. You really have to know what you're doing lest a math-savvy or science-savvy player dig out the ground from under your setting. However, there are shortcuts. An example: in my setting, there is a herb which stops periods and hence prevents pregnancy. The people in the setting don't know why, and it's hardly impossible for a woman brewing a potion of these herbs to be labeled a witch. However, I, as GM, maintain that there is nothing supernatural about these herbs and they work by screwing with the human hormone system. No, I can't tell you exactly which hormones, because I'm not an expert in human biochemistry; however, in the game this doesn't matter, because neither could any of the character or other players try to puzzle it out within the context of the setting. So whenever you need some fantastic stuff, look for the closest real-life parallel, point to it, and say: "a thing like this exists in reality. I do not know how either of these things work exactly the way they do, but unless you prove gods, wizards, Qi etc. are behind it in the real world, neither are they in the game world".

Alternate science has the problem of screwing with verisimilitude. That is: even if you use an obsolete theory that is as useful as Newtonian mechanics, there may come cases where a real-world phenomenom then couldn't exist as it does. In addition, math-savvy players can be even more of a nuisance, as many of the obsolete theories which are attractive for alternate science are too simple. For example, some of the worst physics exploits in D&D have always combined a keen understanding of the game mechanics with real mechanics to create absurd effects. To avert this, you either have to backpedal from your alternate science premises and say "I know the game / in-setting rules allow for this, but since it couldn't happen in real life, I'm not going to let it fly", or bite the bullet and accept some really freaky stuff is going to go town.



I wish we could +1 or like or "thumbs-up" posts.

This sort of analysis is an often-lacking aspect of worldbuilding, especially in fantasy games and fiction. I know many people disagree angrily, but IMO, it's not enough to just say "Wouldn't it be cool if..." and run with it, or recreate the "trappings and atmosphere" of a setting or genre, without really looking into the underlying framework.

CharonsHelper
2017-03-02, 09:40 AM
I wish we could +1 or like or "thumbs-up" posts.

This sort of analysis is an often-lacking aspect of worldbuilding, especially in fantasy games and fiction. I know many people disagree angrily, but IMO, it's not enough to just say "Wouldn't it be cool if..." and run with it, or recreate the "trappings and atmosphere" of a setting or genre, without really looking into the underlying framework.

I'll give another +1 to Frozen Feet's post.

Though I'll quibble that stone structures in the wilderness last much longer than wood/metal (They actually mention it in Life After People).

I'll also say that it's surprising how many people will say that world-building doesn't make sense solely because it DOESN'T follow genre tropes, even when those tropes don't apply because of x or y in your setting, or the tropes might just be sillies used by a pioneering author. (My recent pet peeve is some people insisting on ring shaped space stations in sci-fi which has artificial gravity.)

LibraryOgre
2017-03-02, 01:07 PM
The Mod Wonder: I would suggest that the "Does X qualify as fantasy or sci-fi", and the definitions thereof, be better served in the Media Discussions forum.

8BitNinja
2017-03-02, 07:43 PM
1. Okay. So what construction materials did the magitech civilization use and how densely populated are areas where it used to reside? "Hundreds of years" is enough to reduce most constructions to rubble and make it hard to extract any information from the ruins without benefit of modern archeologic and scientific means. The situation is potentially worse if people have been living in the ruins, as anything usable would've been scavenged and retrofitted by the locals. As a real world example, Egyptians used mummies as firewood. For ruins in the wilderness, there's a documentary called "life after people" which you might want to take a look at to see how badly time and nature destroys everything.

Doing away with the fantastic trope of "surprisingly intact millenia-old ruins" will serve well to hammer in how thoroughly magic has been eradicated.

2. More detail, please. Are these books written in a language that's still spoken, or a dead one? Are these strange runeegible script or would they require local equivalent of the Rosetta Stone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone) to decipher? Would one of these texts be enough to learn some magic (similar to scrolls in D&D) or would you need dozens of these to gain any functional understanding?

In general, looking at the history of the Rosetta stone and how long it took to go from finding it to actually reading ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs will allow you to give a tangible timetable for any foolish player character who thinks they can implement "return of magic" by their lonesome; it took over two decades of study by various scholars across nations to decipher and go from there to understanding other hieroglyphic texts.

3. I got that, and that's not what I meant. What I meant it: for every fantastic creature or object, consider how and why they have the traits you want. Every occasion where you can confidently say "this creature is explainable by natural laws" helps to reinforce the idea that the setting is low magic.

Let's take, for example, dragons. Even for a fictional creature, there's a difference between what could exist and what couldn't. It makes a large difference for the setting whether you're using something plausible (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatlus) or inspired (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon) by real (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draco_sumatranus) creatures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile), or something fundamentally supernatural. (https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/46/59/05/465905fb258e638ed7335a7b277c0437.jpg)

More on this below.

---

Now, you asked about "fake science" in sci-fi. There's actually more than one sort and understanding the subtle differences is important if you want to reinforce a low-magic feel.

Let's start with what magic is and isn't. Magic, as catch-all term for the supernatural, is arbitrary within the context of a fictional setting. However, what the real people around your table will consider "magic" is informed by magical thinking. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking#Psychological_functions_of_magic)

In short: "magic" is not a force. "Magic" is not an explanation. "Magic" is a feeling. It is when you see two events which seem related but can't figure out the causal connection, and your brain goes to overdrive to explain it. When a stage magician pulls a rabbit out of their hat and you can't figure out how it ended up in there, that is magic.

There's no magic in the act itself. The magician, who is in the know, does not feel any magic. It is all a ruse.

Another way to think of it: "magic", at it's root, comes from a word meaning "knowledge". However, majority of people are not in the know about how the world works. "Magic" hence has come to mean "hidden knowledge", and is used as a crutch whenever a phenomenom has no easy explanation.

Now, what is science? Science is theorizing about the world and then putting those theories into practice to see if they work out. What sets modern science apart from its premodern predecessors is the concept of falsifiability: that is, a scientific theory ought to make predictions, in such a limited way that reality could contradict them. If no contradiction is possible, that is, the theory could predict anything or nothing, then we label it as "pseudoscience".

The sort of "fake science" you see in science fiction is usually not pseudoscience; however, sci-fi tends to take at face value some predictions of theories which have not yet been proven or observed. For example, wormholes and timetravel appear mathematically valid in the framework of general relativity, but whether these appear in reality is contested. You can get quite fantastic results simply by taking contemporary theories and then assuming they are flawless. Let's call this sort of stuff "speculative science".

The sort of "fake science" you are proposing with Qi et all it is different: it is taking an obsolete scientific theory, that is, a theory that has been falsified in reality, and taking it at face value. Let's call this stuff "alternate science".

Each form of fictional science has its own problems:

Pseudoscience has a bad habit of feeling magical, because pseudoscience often has obscure notions of cause and effect and sometimes has roots in actual magical practices. Having pseudoscience in a no-magic setting is acceptable; having pseudoscience that is dependable is not. Let's discuss Qiqong briefly, as it is the real-world foundation of the Qi concept. Qiqong is a premodern medical theory and several things, such as acupuncture and pressure point techniques in martial arts, are rooted in it. Some of these things work, others don't. Based on how some of the things work, one might naively lend scientific credence to it. However, the reason why Qiqong is considered pseudoscience these days, is because it is rooted in Taoist mysticism, hence making some unfalsiable claims, and in other respects it has been falsified. In short, it is an obsolete theory. The stuff that works, works for reasons which are different from what Qiqong claims.

So if you want to have Qi in your setting and it to not feel like magic, the monks have to be wrong about why they can do some of the stuff they can. The theory of Qi has to either not explain, or explain too much. At the same time, you have to hold that the real, different reason is something explainable by natural physics, even if the real reason is not known to anyone in the setting.

Alchemy is in the same position as Qiqong here.

Speculative science has the problem of being most work-intensive. You really have to know what you're doing lest a math-savvy or science-savvy player dig out the ground from under your setting. However, there are shortcuts. An example: in my setting, there is a herb which stops periods and hence prevents pregnancy. The people in the setting don't know why, and it's hardly impossible for a woman brewing a potion of these herbs to be labeled a witch. However, I, as GM, maintain that there is nothing supernatural about these herbs and they work by screwing with the human hormone system. No, I can't tell you exactly which hormones, because I'm not an expert in human biochemistry; however, in the game this doesn't matter, because neither could any of the character or other players try to puzzle it out within the context of the setting. So whenever you need some fantastic stuff, look for the closest real-life parallel, point to it, and say: "a thing like this exists in reality. I do not know how either of these things work exactly the way they do, but unless you prove gods, wizards, Qi etc. are behind it in the real world, neither are they in the game world".

Alternate science has the problem of screwing with verisimilitude. That is: even if you use an obsolete theory that is as useful as Newtonian mechanics, there may come cases where a real-world phenomenom then couldn't exist as it does. In addition, math-savvy players can be even more of a nuisance, as many of the obsolete theories which are attractive for alternate science are too simple. For example, some of the worst physics exploits in D&D have always combined a keen understanding of the game mechanics with real mechanics to create absurd effects. To avert this, you either have to backpedal from your alternate science premises and say "I know the game / in-setting rules allow for this, but since it couldn't happen in real life, I'm not going to let it fly", or bite the bullet and accept some really freaky stuff is going to go town.

1. This civilization had no magitech, and wasn't operated by magic. Only the elite were allowed to learn magic, and teaching it to commoners was a serious crime, resulting in death of both parties and their families. It was built with regular eastern and northern Medieval European culture and architecture. Again, this is why the Inquisition destroyed ties to magic. If you think that they were being oppressive (which you can form whatever opinions you want about them), they constantly terrorized their citizens with their power. Also, the tech actually got better when they went away, when the Ancients found it safe enough to reveal themselves to others, who are a race who were incredibly advanced in engineering, having machines do manual labor for them and inventing energy based weapons, but never went out of their home mountain (simply called Mount Ancient). However, they eventually trusted people enough to trade some of their less advanced technologies (gunpowder, guns, crossbows) and even built a mechanical army for a dwarvish lord when he was besieged by goblins.

2. They would require translation. However, it would be very hard to translate it. You would most likely have to use a seperate codex that would translate it to say, an obsolete version of Dwarvish. That dwarvish script would have to be translated to Lizardtounge (the language of the Reptillian race) since it looks most like it, then Dwarvish and then common. So I guess a Rosetta Stone of some sort would be needed.

3. There will be an explanation for most creatures. Dragons of different elements can be easily explained (especially fire ones, since there are already real life creatures that use incendiary, such as the Bombardier Beetle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_beetle)) But other creatures can be explained too. I haven't planned every single monster, since the game itself is still a work in progress, but explanation for most will be there.

As for the "fake science" as everyone, including me, keeps calling it, can be justified since other rules are changed. For instance, in this world, the periodic table is a lie, atomic theory falls more in line with what Democritus said (https://the-history-of-the-atom.wikispaces.com/Democritus). Also, the entire world is made up of earth, air, fire, and water. Also, this is a medieval world with renaissance and futuristic technology. I'm pretty sure that with that, chi (as the game calls it, but you guys can call it Ki/Qi. I don't care) can be considered a science here.

As for potions, there fictional herbs and plants that contain the potion effects. There are also similar poison effects.

Frozen_Feet
2017-03-03, 06:45 AM
1. Well that makes your job easier. You can look at real centuries-old town and see how well they've stood the ravages of time.

2. Sounds like a homologous situation to the Rosetta Stone, so you have a solid base to work from.

3. So it's firmly in the realm of alternative science, then. I do have some questions about Qi, specifically. How is it supposed to fit in a world where physics follow classical Greek ideas? The Taoist elemental wheel has only superficial resemblance to four-elements theory.

Qi could be a name for the movement/energy of atoms, as with such old-fashioned atomic model, you won't otherwise have a working explanation for electricity. This could also explain the Monks' Hadoken ability: it's a built-up of Heavenly Ki and hence allows them to shoot lightning. (Bio-electric monks for the win.)

In general, what is the degree of separation between the theory of Qi and the actual phenomenom - that is, how complete is the monks' understanding? What things can and can't be done with Qi?

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-03, 07:35 AM
"Fifth element" for "western" elemental systems that might serve as grist for the mill in working "Qi" in -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_(classical_element)

8BitNinja
2017-03-03, 06:49 PM
1. Well that makes your job easier. You can look at real centuries-old town and see how well they've stood the ravages of time.

2. Sounds like a homologous situation to the Rosetta Stone, so you have a solid base to work from.

3. So it's firmly in the realm of alternative science, then. I do have some questions about Qi, specifically. How is it supposed to fit in a world where physics follow classical Greek ideas? The Taoist elemental wheel has only superficial resemblance to four-elements theory.

Qi could be a name for the movement/energy of atoms, as with such old-fashioned atomic model, you won't otherwise have a working explanation for electricity. This could also explain the Monks' Hadoken ability: it's a built-up of Heavenly Ki and hence allows them to shoot lightning. (Bio-electric monks for the win.)

In general, what is the degree of separation between the theory of Qi and the actual phenomenom - that is, how complete is the monks' understanding? What things can and can't be done with Qi?

1. This was the plan from the beginning. We're doing research already.

2. It pretty much is the Rosetta Stone. The only difference is that it is incredibly rare.

3. That's a good idea. I never really planned for chi to be based off of the Taoist wheel from the start and only to vaguely resemble the actual thing. Similar to how in most American movies, dragons and the yin yang on a dojo means "we do cool East Asian fighting stuff here." So now, chi is going to be the energy that allows movement in general. High amounts of it concentrated makes electricity.

This also helps explain how the ancients build Golems (their word for androids).

Also, on a side note, I did not plan for the Hebrew based culture to be the builders of golems. What a nice coincidence.

Arkhios
2017-03-04, 06:20 AM
I'm personally quite fond of "Magic as a chaotic force". Meaning - at least in a campaign I'm putting together - that everyone who can cast spells, if even only a little, are always subject to a randomized chance of "something weird and unexpected happens and you have no control over it!"

In Pathfinder the system would use the Wild Magic optional rule. Likewise, in at least 5th edition D&D it would be based on the Sorcerer's Wild Magic origin (basically same thing: You cast a spell, roll dice, if conditions are met, roll on a table and see what happens).

Because of this - rather risky - use of magic, it should cause a situation that spellcasters are rare, and even those who choose to play one anyway should be more considerate of when and where they cast anything.

2D8HP
2017-03-04, 11:49 AM
I'm personally quite fond of "Magic as a chaotic force"...


So all Spell-casters sometimes roll on the "Wild Magic Surge" Table when they cast?

I like it!

8BitNinja
2017-03-04, 12:57 PM
I'm personally quite fond of "Magic as a chaotic force". Meaning - at least in a campaign I'm putting together - that everyone who can cast spells, if even only a little, are always subject to a randomized chance of "something weird and unexpected happens and you have no control over it!"

In Pathfinder the system would use the Wild Magic optional rule. Likewise, in at least 5th edition D&D it would be based on the Sorcerer's Wild Magic origin (basically same thing: You cast a spell, roll dice, if conditions are met, roll on a table and see what happens).

Because of this - rather risky - use of magic, it should cause a situation that spellcasters are rare, and even those who choose to play one anyway should be more considerate of when and where they cast anything.

That was the plan, I was also planning that if I turned the "Magicracy" setting into an actual setting, magic would also have an effect on the caster. In other words, magic would also be a corrupting, evil force.

Here was the plan

Every time a wizard casts a spell magic would not only affect the target, but there would be "recoil" in a sense, as magic would contaminate the caster. The first cantrip you cast won't affect you that much, or even at all. In fact, you might get all good from it. However, after repeated use with more powerful spells, magic starts corrupting the caster, making the caster an evil shell of what he once was.

Races more prone to good can make some recovery "Such as Dwarves and The Sea Elf and Wood Elf subraces), but the affects on creatures more swayed by evil (Such as humans and Reptilians (neither are all evil, but are more likely to be influenced by evil)) may never recover.

So it's sort of like the Ring of Power from Lord of the Rings. Great power, but at a great price.

And then there's the unwanted summonings and byproducts.

2D8HP
2017-03-04, 02:25 PM
IIRC in the old Stormbringer! RPG (based on Michael Moorcock's Elric stories) mortal sorcerers could only effect magic by summoning Elementals or Demons, and the more practice they had successfully controlling what they summoned the better they got at it, but each time they summoned something they ran a risk of becomming the victim of what they have summoned.

Arkhios
2017-03-04, 02:50 PM
That was the plan, I was also planning that if I turned the "Magicracy" setting into an actual setting, magic would also have an effect on the caster. In other words, magic would also be a corrupting, evil force.

Here was the plan

Every time a wizard casts a spell magic would not only affect the target, but there would be "recoil" in a sense, as magic would contaminate the caster. The first cantrip you cast won't affect you that much, or even at all. In fact, you might get all good from it. However, after repeated use with more powerful spells, magic starts corrupting the caster, making the caster an evil shell of what he once was.

Races more prone to good can make some recovery "Such as Dwarves and The Sea Elf and Wood Elf subraces), but the affects on creatures more swayed by evil (Such as humans and Reptilians (neither are all evil, but are more likely to be influenced by evil)) may never recover.

So it's sort of like the Ring of Power from Lord of the Rings. Great power, but at a great price.

And then there's the unwanted summonings and byproducts.

Oh, yes. I forgot to add, that everytime the unexpected occurs the caster would be subjected with a sanity altering effect (in 5th edition that means every character has a 7th ability called Sanity and it would cause a Sanity saving throw for the caster. Fail and you might go mad!


So all Spell-casters sometimes roll on the "Wild Magic Surge" Table when they cast?

I like it!

Yes, all spellcasters indeed would use the table. As an additional detail, all magic comes literally from the same source (no arcane/divine/primal disparity, just "magic").

Although, I have also limited spellcasting classes to a very few classes. There's even an organization that hunts and eliminates "unsanctioned" casters (everyone outside their ranks).

Cluedrew
2017-03-04, 03:54 PM
I don't think any about this setting strikes me as being non-magic. There seems to be magic everywhere when I look at this setting.

What do you mean by "magic" when you say "no magic"? There are a lot of things you could mean (take for example Frozen_Feet's hidden knowledge is magic... even though that isn't where the work comes from it is a very good analysis of that view) but are far as I can tell you seem to be referring more to the active practice and study of magic, rather than magic itself.

2D8HP
2017-03-04, 04:10 PM
I don't think any about this setting strikes me as being non-magic. There seems to be magic everywhere when I look at this setting...


I'm guessing that the OP mostly means no what old D&D called "Magic-Users"



....there is a lack of any class that is an arcane caster

8BitNinja
2017-03-05, 12:15 AM
I don't think any about this setting strikes me as being non-magic. There seems to be magic everywhere when I look at this setting.

What do you mean by "magic" when you say "no magic"? There are a lot of things you could mean (take for example Frozen_Feet's hidden knowledge is magic... even though that isn't where the work comes from it is a very good analysis of that view) but are far as I can tell you seem to be referring more to the active practice and study of magic, rather than magic itself.

As 2D8HP said, there are no arcane casters. There was magic being used, but now there isn't. There used to be wizards, but they're all dead. Magic used to be extremely relevant, and now it's just a bedtime story.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-05, 10:24 AM
As 2D8HP said, there are no arcane casters. There was magic being used, but now there isn't. There used to be wizards, but they're all dead. Magic used to be extremely relevant, and now it's just a bedtime story.

What's to keep someone from figuring it out again?

If magic is an actual thing, then it would be a bit like saying "there used to be physicists and electricians, but they're all dead, and no one will ever figure out how to use electricity again".

Beleriphon
2017-03-05, 12:48 PM
What's to keep someone from figuring it out again?

If magic is an actual thing, then it would be a bit like saying "there used to be physicists and electricians, but they're all dead, and no one will ever figure out how to use electricity again".

From what I've gathered its more like the physicist and electricians were all killed, and now the Plumber's Inquisition is making sure nobody figures that stuff out again. Even if it hints at physics and electrical engineering down they come with the lead pipes and hot soldering torture.

2D8HP
2017-03-05, 12:53 PM
...the Plumber's Inquisition is making sure nobody figures that stuff out again. Even if it hints at physics and electrical engineering down they come with the lead pipes and hot soldering torture.


As a working plumber myself I should probably say I'm offended by the implications.... except that post is just so very beautiful!

Beleriphon
2017-03-05, 01:20 PM
As a working plumber myself I should probably say I'm offended by the implications.... except that post is just so very beautiful!

I aim to please. I mean Clue got that lead pipe from somewhere. All that said where I'm from plumbers wouldn't make very good inquisitors, what with the flexible PEX tubing and PVC fittings. Gas fitters on the other hand...

8BitNinja
2017-03-05, 01:59 PM
What's to keep someone from figuring it out again?

If magic is an actual thing, then it would be a bit like saying "there used to be physicists and electricians, but they're all dead, and no one will ever figure out how to use electricity again".

Like I said, only nobility and royalty was allowed to learn magic. If they were caught teaching a commoner, both parties and their families would be executed.


From what I've gathered its more like the physicist and electricians were all killed, and now the Plumber's Inquisition is making sure nobody figures that stuff out again. Even if it hints at physics and electrical engineering down they come with the lead pipes and hot soldering torture.

Also, it was previously stated, this Inquisition, unlike their real life counter parts thought that they neutralized the threat. They would think that you're crazy if you said that you saw a wizard. Also, the order disbanded shortly after, forming their own splinter orders since they achieved their goal in pretty much reforming the world governments and bringing back many religions from hiding. Sure, there were some paranoid knights, but this would be more due to shell shock than anything else.

Also, physics and electrical engineering doesn't turn you evil and summon elementals when you try to put what you learned into practice.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-05, 09:17 PM
Like I said, only nobility and royalty was allowed to learn magic. If they were caught teaching a commoner, both parties and their families would be executed.


The point is, if it's real, someone will rediscover it.

Cluedrew
2017-03-05, 10:07 PM
But in what time frame? Anything outside of 10 years probably wouldn't matter in even a long form campaign. A 100 years means even if you play your character's kids it still isn't going to matter. 1000 years might as well be never.

I mean we are talking on the internet. Imagine if someone destroyed all computers and knowledge of their construction. Nothing keeps us from re-building that knowledge over time, but we are looking at 50+ years of discovery that has to be re-done. We could probably do it in quite a bit less than that, but factor in the innate danger of it, the stigma against it and the fact this society just does not have nearly the same resources to through at things that might be useful in the future (I'm guessing it is mostly farmers still) and I could easily it being 100s of years away.

Probably will happen eventually, easily in the far future that does not have to be considered part of the setting.

Mechalich
2017-03-05, 10:50 PM
But in what time frame? Anything outside of 10 years probably wouldn't matter in even a long form campaign. A 100 years means even if you play your character's kids it still isn't going to matter. 1000 years might as well be never.

I mean we are talking on the internet. Imagine if someone destroyed all computers and knowledge of their construction. Nothing keeps us from re-building that knowledge over time, but we are looking at 50+ years of discovery that has to be re-done. We could probably do it in quite a bit less than that, but factor in the innate danger of it, the stigma against it and the fact this society just does not have nearly the same resources to through at things that might be useful in the future (I'm guessing it is mostly farmers still) and I could easily it being 100s of years away.

Probably will happen eventually, easily in the far future that does not have to be considered part of the setting.

The OP did say the inquisition ended hundreds of years ago. That's a long time for magic to remain suppressed. It probably makes more sense to move the apocalypse date up to something much more recent, decades maybe.

NichG
2017-03-06, 12:12 AM
But in what time frame? Anything outside of 10 years probably wouldn't matter in even a long form campaign. A 100 years means even if you play your character's kids it still isn't going to matter. 1000 years might as well be never.

The issue is more that players can actively move up this schedule, rather than waiting passively for it to happen. Worse, even if they can't succeed, the perception that succeeding should be possible given the provided explanations is enough to derail the not-about-magic goal.

It's basically Chekhov's Gun. Making magic historically important communicates that it could become so again.

2D8HP
2017-03-06, 12:27 AM
The OP did say the inquisition ended hundreds of years ago. That's a long time for magic to remain suppressed. It probably makes more sense to move the apocalypse date up to something much more recent, decades maybe.


There is real world historic precedent for technologies being lost, sometimes deliberately so.

The Chinese had and scuttled ocean going ships (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_history_of_China),

The knowledge of making

Roman concrete (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_concrete)

was lost for centuries, and the recipe for

Greek fire (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire)

is still lost.

In my own work I've seen machines that functioned well for decades stop being used because the guy who knew how to maintain them died, increasingly plumbing fixtures in the building I maintain that work longer with less maintenance need to be replaced with inferior modern replacements because they're"obsolete" and replacement parts are no longer made, steam heating systems that provide more comfortable heat than modern forced air are replaced because the guys who knew how to build them are dead, etc.

That technological knowledge may be lost for centuries seems very plausible to me, I don't understand why anyone would think otherwise.

5a Violista
2017-03-06, 01:01 AM
2D8HP, I feel what you‘re describing would better parallel certain spells or rituals dsappearing, rather than an entire field of knowledge vanishing for centuries. When knowledge of how to make the sea-faring vessels was lost, the knowledge of how to make boats was not lost: only that specific implementation and the combination of details that went into it was lost. When the Roman concrete was lost, it was the recipe/technology that was lost, and no the field of knowledge of construction materials that was lost.

I feel that would be similar to the specific ritual that causes fire to rain from the heavens to be lost while still remembering to cast a lesser fireball, or losing the recipe that lets one raise someone from the dead (while still remembering how to cast illusions that give phantom pain).

In other words, while I appreciate your examples, I feel that the metaphor between the field of knowledge of magic in general, and specific applications of technology is not an adequate metaphor. A better example would be if there were a civilization that had discovered calculus but then forgot it, or were seafaring but lost all knowledge of navigation, or were an agricultural civilization that reverted to hunter-gatherer.

Mutazoia
2017-03-06, 01:34 AM
Quick question. Have you looked at the "Iron Heroes" game/setting. Mechanically, it's pretty damned close to what you are describing in your OP. (minus the the historical fluff). The Arcane caster is an optional class, and the game functions perfectly well with out it.

Mechalich
2017-03-06, 01:57 AM
In other words, while I appreciate your examples, I feel that the metaphor between the field of knowledge of magic in general, and specific applications of technology is not an adequate metaphor. A better example would be if there were a civilization that had discovered calculus but then forgot it, or were seafaring but lost all knowledge of navigation, or were an agricultural civilization that reverted to hunter-gatherer.

A civilization can lose a massive amount of knowledge if it collapses. That certainly can, and does, happen. However, the inquisition event, as described, is not a collapse, in fact, in order to suppress something as widespread as all arcane magic implies an extremely powerful, highly organized, and wide-spread regime. It was almost certainly incredibly oppressive. As a result, dissidents were almost certainly attempting to rediscover magic while the inquisition was still going on, and their efforts would only accelerate following its fall. With active rediscovery efforts, a small number of arcane spellcasters would likely re-emerge fairly swiftly. And this is without considering the possibility of innate spellcasters (monsters with sorcerer levels, unless the inquisition managed to kill them all) serving as instructors for humans in the re-derivation of arcane principles.

Magical knowledge could easily still be dramatically reduced - in D&D terms perhaps the arcane casters only have access to a small number of very low-level spells - but it's total elimination is unlikely.

Arkhios
2017-03-06, 03:35 AM
One clarifying question (or two actually):

Is this game supposed to be run with D&D/pathfinder? (If so, were wizards the only class who even could cast spells prior to inquisition? Note: A GM is never under any obligation to allow every single class a player manages to dig up from the rules!)

If wizardry was the only magic ever present and its practitioners and their texts of lore have now been extinguished, it's a lot more plausible to say that magic (or its users) don't exist anymore. No texts to study and no one to teach you makes it a whole lot more difficult to learn.

This is even more true in other game systems, if there are no other magic-users than "wizards etc." anyway.

Kitten Champion
2017-03-06, 04:13 AM
I think my issue is the presence of divine magic makes the loss of arcane power seem relatively trivial in the broad historical sense. The actual impact the lack would have on layfolks' lives wouldn't be particularly substantive - even before accounting for any additional practical risks arcane magic carries - the functional differences are less obvious than the overt similarities. A miracle is a miracle whether it comes from a grimoire or a holy scripture. I don't think anyone but zealots would care all that much. Additionally, the arcane casters are described here as being very rare even at the height of their influence, whereas presumably clerics and similar entities are and were more ubiquitous and - by their nature - safe to approach.

It's like replacing whale oil with kerosene, only here people have been misled to believe that whales are extinct. Sort of thematically underwhelming to be honest.

Frozen_Feet
2017-03-06, 06:59 AM
The point is, if it's real, someone will rediscover it.

No.

This is not some hard axiom of existence. It is entirely possible for knowledge and technology to be lost beyond the means of human recovery.

A has been noted, while powerful and wide-spread, the magical society was ruled by a small number of magic-using elite. It was already secretive and oppressive, so if dissidents could figure out arcane magic, they would've already done so during its reign. But this didn't happen; instead, the rebellion against the magic-users culminated in the Inquisition. The only entity with any real chances of "rediscovering" magic would've been the Inquisition itself, as it was in position of appropriating knowledge from the prior body of power.

---

@Kitten Champion: a better analogy would be replacing the Egyptian dunasties with the Roman Empire. I think you underestimate how much subtle changes in technology and changes in religious attitude will go in creating the atmosphere of a setting.

Cluedrew
2017-03-06, 08:54 AM
To Mechalich: Yeah, the hundreds of years bit I am not so sure about. I think we can buy 50 years from the active persecution before it died off but after that... I'm not sure how the reclamation process didn't start.


I'm going to skip some other small points (there were some good ones) and jump to the big one. I say don't do this. Given the information I have, which is not complete yes but if there are important points I am missing tell me and I will see how it changes this. Anyways, given the information I have I will conclude that this is a bad idea.

There doesn't seem to be a point to this section of the back story, besides establishing some negative feelings towards casters which could come from other places. You go through these huge plot points in the setting history and yet the amount to nothing, stuff gets added to the setting and then cut out. Just don't add the stuff in the first place. Plus it creates a huge red herring of what the setting is about (compared to how you have pitched it).

If you want to keep it you might have to bury it among other setting details, but considering how people react to these sorts of things even that might not be enough.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-06, 11:10 AM
No.

This is not some hard axiom of existence. It is entirely possible for knowledge and technology to be lost beyond the means of human recovery.

A has been noted, while powerful and wide-spread, the magical society was ruled by a small number of magic-using elite. It was already secretive and oppressive, so if dissidents could figure out arcane magic, they would've already done so during its reign. But this didn't happen; instead, the rebellion against the magic-users culminated in the Inquisition. The only entity with any real chances of "rediscovering" magic would've been the Inquisition itself, as it was in position of appropriating knowledge from the prior body of power.


Someone had to discover arcane magic the first time. They had no teachers, no mentors, no books, nothing to start from.

Kitten Champion
2017-03-06, 02:37 PM
@Kitten Champion: a better analogy would be replacing the Egyptian dunasties with the Roman Empire. I think you underestimate how much subtle changes in technology and changes in religious attitude will go in creating the atmosphere of a setting.

I think overthrowing a whole ruling social class in its entirety is a civilization-shaking event, mage or no.

However, what implications does the lack of arcane magic have in a world not built on magical technology - or magic in general - in the first place, where magic-users were an extreme minority, and similar convenient magic powers still exists in ubiquity anyways?

Putting aside the everything else and just focusing on the magic aspect, what's actually been lost here? A bludgeon used by a long-dead oppressive class to maintain an unwieldy power-base prior to their annihilation by a group of mundane warriors?

8BitNinja
2017-03-06, 06:25 PM
The point is, if it's real, someone will rediscover it.


But in what time frame? Anything outside of 10 years probably wouldn't matter in even a long form campaign. A 100 years means even if you play your character's kids it still isn't going to matter. 1000 years might as well be never.

I mean we are talking on the internet. Imagine if someone destroyed all computers and knowledge of their construction. Nothing keeps us from re-building that knowledge over time, but we are looking at 50+ years of discovery that has to be re-done. We could probably do it in quite a bit less than that, but factor in the innate danger of it, the stigma against it and the fact this society just does not have nearly the same resources to through at things that might be useful in the future (I'm guessing it is mostly farmers still) and I could easily it being 100s of years away.

Probably will happen eventually, easily in the far future that does not have to be considered part of the setting.

I'm sorry, I probably didn't understand the last question. No magic still exists, just no one knows how to use it. There are no wizards.

Not only that, but I forget to mention that the time before the campaign were playing (for a play test) that there was pretty much a world war between an army of men, elves (mostly sea and wood elves, but some high elves joined), dwarves, and gnomes against an army of drow elves (specifically that subrace), orcs, goblins, and various mercenaries.



The OP did say the inquisition ended hundreds of years ago. That's a long time for magic to remain suppressed. It probably makes more sense to move the apocalypse date up to something much more recent, decades maybe.


There is real world historic precedent for technologies being lost, sometimes deliberately so.

The Chinese had and scuttled ocean going ships (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_history_of_China),

The knowledge of making

Roman concrete (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_concrete)

was lost for centuries, and the recipe for

Greek fire (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire)

is still lost.

In my own work I've seen machines that functioned well for decades stop being used because the guy who knew how to maintain them died, increasingly plumbing fixtures in the building I maintain that work longer with less maintenance need to be replaced with inferior modern replacements because they're"obsolete" and replacement parts are no longer made, steam heating systems that provide more comfortable heat than modern forced air are replaced because the guys who knew how to build them are dead, etc.

That technological knowledge may be lost for centuries seems very plausible to me, I don't understand why anyone would think otherwise.

I'm pretty sure people know how to make Greek Fire, it's called Napalm.


Quick question. Have you looked at the "Iron Heroes" game/setting. Mechanically, it's pretty damned close to what you are describing in your OP. (minus the the historical fluff). The Arcane caster is an optional class, and the game functions perfectly well with out it.

I've never looked at it, I'll check it out. Thanks.


One clarifying question (or two actually):

Is this game supposed to be run with D&D/pathfinder? (If so, were wizards the only class who even could cast spells prior to inquisition? Note: A GM is never under any obligation to allow every single class a player manages to dig up from the rules!)

If wizardry was the only magic ever present and its practitioners and their texts of lore have now been extinguished, it's a lot more plausible to say that magic (or its users) don't exist anymore. No texts to study and no one to teach you makes it a whole lot more difficult to learn.

This is even more true in other game systems, if there are no other magic-users than "wizards etc." anyway.

1. No, this is the "central lore" for an original game that My brother, known here as Green Elf, and I are making (technically revising, but the game will look completely different from the old version that was virtually unplayable). I don't need to follow D&D rules since it isn't D&D.

2. The texts exist, but are almost impossible to obtain. If someone does find a magic book, they probably would have no idea what they found other than a book full of seemingly gibberish. Even then, they were probably poking around in an ancient ruin that was turned into an orc fortress, and then burned down and turned into a goblin fortress, and then destroyed and turned into a dwarf mine, and then abandoned and infested with giant spiders, with the book being under an egg sac of one of the said spiders. Crazy hard to find.

Frozen_Feet
2017-03-06, 09:48 PM
Someone had to discover arcane magic the first time. They had no teachers, no mentors, no books, nothing to start from.

Except that given what we know of arcane magic in this setting, your first three are presumptions could be false, and the last one almost certainly is. Unless you presume the first magicians randomly figured it out via armchair philosophy, they had some real phenomena to start from.

The first discoverers may have stumbled upon an extant planar gate. The may have had a literal devil sponsoring them. And they may have destroyed the basis of their discovery.

Consider real life archeology and paleontology. Much of our understanding of the past is based on relics we dug up and put in a museum. This means those relics cannot be found again in the same way. If there was a serious discontinuity of information, with someone destroying the relics, it would have a lasting negative impact on understanding history, the fossil record or several dead languages.

And even if arcane magic was rediscovered, it's not a given they would know it is the same thing. Consider the example of Greek fire in this thread. A poster above said "sure we have rediscovered it, we call it napalm". Not unreasonable given their similarities, but we can never know, as we don't have a comparison point with which to verify it.

Mechalich
2017-03-06, 10:19 PM
Consider real life archeology and paleontology. Much of our understanding of the past is based on relics we dug up and put in a museum. This means those relics cannot be found again in the same way. If there was a serious discontinuity of information, with someone destroying the relics, it would have a lasting negative impact on understanding history, the fossil record or several dead languages.


Such a discontinuity has actually happened - World War II. A large number of important unique specimens, fossils, botanical and zoological holotypes, and records were stored in museums in Germany and were destroyed by Allied bombings, as a result there are peculiar holes in certain areas that cannot be filled - the taxonomy of fossil fishes for one.

Less modern but probably more significant for fantasy setting design would be the Burning of books and burying of scholars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_of_scholars) conducted by Qin Shi Huangdi - the First Emperor of China - which was a deliberate attempt to purge the body politic of knowledge of certain schools of thought in fields that were considered threatening (technical knowledge was generally spared). While the event itself is of somewhat dubious veracity it is at least in the same vein.

However, such comparisons depend on 'magic' as an intellectual pursuit, having the same properties as historical sciences or social endeavors dependent upon such limited resources, rather than being a pursuit much more like physics or chemistry where you can restart from first principles if you need to.

Ultimately though, that's not especially relevant. Establishing that an arcane elite once ruled the world prior to being cast down is fine. If centuries have passed without rediscovery of their powers then part of the design is that whatever the barriers to discovery of that knowledge are, they are sufficiently high that they are outside the realm of player capabilities. Arcane magic is gone and you aren't allowed to bring it back, full stop. If you allow for the possibility for the players to restore arcane magic they will (rightly, as it represents the best possible path to world-shattering power) almost certainly put 100% of their effort towards doing so. That would totally derail the apparent setting goal of exploring a bizarre fantasy world through the eyes of persons without magic.

Arkhios
2017-03-06, 11:28 PM
1. No, this is the "central lore" for an original game that My brother, known here as Green Elf, and I are making (technically revising, but the game will look completely different from the old version that was virtually unplayable). I don't need to follow D&D rules since it isn't D&D.

2. The texts exist, but are almost impossible to obtain. If someone does find a magic book, they probably would have no idea what they found other than a book full of seemingly gibberish. Even then, they were probably poking around in an ancient ruin that was turned into an orc fortress, and then burned down and turned into a goblin fortress, and then destroyed and turned into a dwarf mine, and then abandoned and infested with giant spiders, with the book being under an egg sac of one of the said spiders. Crazy hard to find.

Note, I didn't say you had to follow D&D rules.
There are (at least) two ways people can make (and interpret the making of) an original game:
1. A new original setting with already existing game system. (e.g. D&D, Pathfinder, etc.)
2. A new original game system with a new set of rules. (e.g. Savage Worlds, which is fairly new system IIRC.)

My point was that I believe most people still associate any roleplaying elements, such as wizards, with D&D, because it's the most iconic roleplaying game with Wizards. (World of Darkness has Mages, which are far more than just Wizards in D&D terms, for example)

Talking about wizards makes many (if not most) people assume that there was also clerics, or something else that exist in a D&D game, which does affect their point of view about magic-users in a setting.
It's important to specify whether wizards were the only magic-users even before the inquisition because this isn't D&D. If the system doesn't support anything else than "wizardry-as-magic", then say it. A lot of misassumptions should be gone with that simple statement.

Overall, I think the system you and your brother are putting together seems interesting.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-07, 01:09 AM
Except that given what we know of arcane magic in this setting, your first three are presumptions could be false, and the last one almost certainly is. Unless you presume the first magicians randomly figured it out via armchair philosophy, they had some real phenomena to start from.

The first discoverers may have stumbled upon an extant planar gate. The may have had a literal devil sponsoring them. And they may have destroyed the basis of their discovery.


The ONLY one that makes any difference is the last one -- deliberate destruction, alteration, or erasure of the basis of their discovery. Without that deliberate act, there's no reason to think that what happened once cannot happen again. An extant planar gate can happen again. Sponsorship by a devil can happen again. Whatever real phenomena they might have been inspired by, can happen again.

daniel_ream
2017-03-07, 01:23 AM
Traditionally, the race of men is taught arcane magic by one or more gods.

I know you really, really want every fantasy world to be completely and impersonally mechanistic and ruled by predictable laws of physics, but all it takes for your entire thesis to be rendered irrelevant is for the God of Magic to say "Nope. Not again. You ****ed it up last time, so no magic for you,. Come back one eon."

Arkhios
2017-03-07, 03:24 AM
Traditionally, the race of men is taught arcane magic by one or more gods.

I know you really, really want every fantasy world to be completely and impersonally mechanistic and ruled by predictable laws of physics, but all it takes for your entire thesis to be rendered irrelevant is for the God of Magic to say "Nope. Not again. You ****ed it up last time, so no magic for you,. Come back one eon."

Unless there is no "God of Magic" to say 'nope' on this matter. Granted, that wouldn't be "traditional" as you put it, but where do you base the claim that it is traditional?

Mutazoia
2017-03-07, 04:12 AM
And even if arcane magic was rediscovered, it's not a given they would know it is the same thing. Consider the example of Greek fire in this thread. A poster above said "sure we have rediscovered it, we call it napalm". Not unreasonable given their similarities, but we can never know, as we don't have a comparison point with which to verify it.

A better example would be Damascus Steel. The method of producing true Damascus Steel has been lost to history, and the only way to make a new Damascus item, is to reforge an old one. Any new Damascus item, forged from scratch, is not really Damascus Steel...it just looks like it.

In much the same light, the true method for making Katanas as been lost thanks in no small part to the the Imperial edict that outlawed Samurai and their way of life. Even the simple doping solution that is used to coat the back side of the blade during tempering....what Japanese sword makers craft now is only a pale shadow when compaired to the few remaining traditional Katanas.

There are tons of examples of knowledge and processes used by ancient civilizations that we can't duplicate today, in part or in whole.

Elderand
2017-03-07, 05:21 AM
A better example would be Damascus Steel. The method of producing true Damascus Steel has been lost to history, and the only way to make a new Damascus item, is to reforge an old one. Any new Damascus item, forged from scratch, is not really Damascus Steel...it just looks like it.

In much the same light, the true method for making Katanas as been lost thanks in no small part to the the Imperial edict that outlawed Samurai and their way of life. Even the simple doping solution that is used to coat the back side of the blade during tempering....what Japanese sword makers craft now is only a pale shadow when compaired to the few remaining traditional Katanas.

There are tons of examples of knowledge and processes used by ancient civilizations that we can't duplicate today, in part or in whole.

That's a distinction without a difference. Yeah we lost the precise recipe or don't know the exact process. But so what? We achieve the same, or in most cases, better results to these ancient techniques. And that is no way shape or form similar to what the thread talk about when it comes to magic. The real comparaison would be "we lost the original magic missile spell, the orginal produced a blue missile but ours is turquoise and is actually more stable."

Beleriphon
2017-03-07, 10:50 AM
That's a distinction without a difference. Yeah we lost the precise recipe or don't know the exact process. But so what? We achieve the same, or in most cases, better results to these ancient techniques. And that is no way shape or form similar to what the thread talk about when it comes to magic. The real comparaison would be "we lost the original magic missile spell, the orginal produced a blue missile but ours is turquoise and is actually more stable."

On Damascus/Wootz steel one theory I've seem floated was the original creators managed to not just get high carbon steel, but inadventently layered carbon nanotubes into the steel through whatever process they were using.

NichG
2017-03-07, 12:02 PM
There's a pretty big gap between 'it's possible to spin a plausible story about why no one in the setting has rediscovered magic so far' and 'the players will come to the conclusion that its fruitless and uninteresting to pursue rediscovering magic'. Of course you can tell a story about a world where there was magic but now there isn't - the trick is doing that and getting player buy-in for the idea of just leaving it alone.

If the first magic was given by the gods, well, so what? The OP established that there are still magical creatures in the setting, just not hand-wagglers summoning forth arcane power. So start capturing creatures for experiments in figuring out how they work, when the magic stops, where it is in their makeup and what calls it forth, etc. What happens when you hybridize magical and non-magical plants? What happens if you try breeding animals for magical traits? Are there interactions between the body parts of deceased magical creatures? Maybe you can rediscover material components. You might not rediscover the divine-gifted finger-waggling arts as they historically were, but the new method you invent of giving yourself periodic injections of dragon blood and controlling its effects with a parasitic plant grafted into your arm isn't really going to contribute to the theme of 'a setting without magic'.

A setting where no one does any of that is plausible, but just because that's your starting point doesn't mean that the PCs won't just go and try stuff.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-07, 12:10 PM
Unless there is no "God of Magic" to say 'nope' on this matter. Granted, that wouldn't be "traditional" as you put it, but where do you base the claim that it is traditional?

"The god of magic" seems to be a fixture of D&D's half-baked settings and some of the derived extruded fantasy product... but other than that, I don't think it's anything like "traditional".

Beleriphon
2017-03-07, 02:38 PM
"The god of magic" seems to be a fixture of D&D's half-baked settings and some of the derived extruded fantasy product... but other than that, I don't think it's anything like "traditional".

Most mythologies have a deity that is dedicated to knowledge of some kind, this usually overlaps with magical knowledge. D&D extends this to magic specifically since it features so prominently. Examples: Norse have Odin, Egyptian have Thoth and Isis, Polynesian myth has Anulap, Tir or Oghma in Celtic myths could apply as well.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-07, 02:54 PM
Most mythologies have a deity that is dedicated to knowledge of some kind, this usually overlaps with magical knowledge. D&D extends this to magic specifically since it features so prominently. Examples: Norse have Odin, Egyptian have Thoth and Isis, Polynesian myth has Anulap, Tir or Oghma in Celtic myths could apply as well.


Within those mythologies, is it not true that those are gods of knowledge (including knowledge of magic in some cases), not gods of magic itself -- not gods who grant and withhold magic, or shape the actual fabric of magic, at their whim.

Beleriphon
2017-03-07, 05:08 PM
Within those mythologies, is it not true that those are gods of knowledge (including knowledge of magic in some cases), not gods of magic itself -- not gods who grant and withhold magic, or shape the actual fabric of magic, at their whim.

Depends, some of them can fall into that and their changes over the life time of a culture are used to explain how magic works, or doesn't work. Again, not having actual functional magic in our world the best we have is a deity that grants knowledge to humans, magic may or not be included. In a setting with very real usable magic that doesn't follow any conventional physical laws it make sense to a degree that there would be a deity that governs or rules over that aspect of reality in the same way there are deities of weather or the ocean, if you accept that magic is a physical force in the setting the same as gravity or mass. It just happens that we don't have any such thing to compare it to.

The only setting that I know that has an explicit deity of magic is Forgotten Realms, and the conceit is that Mystra underpins the entire fact that magic works at all. It isn't that different than Umberlee having control over the oceans or Talos over storms.

8BitNinja
2017-03-07, 07:12 PM
I'll try to get to everyone soon, but I'll answer these really quick.


Traditionally, the race of men is taught arcane magic by one or more gods.

I know you really, really want every fantasy world to be completely and impersonally mechanistic and ruled by predictable laws of physics, but all it takes for your entire thesis to be rendered irrelevant is for the God of Magic to say "Nope. Not again. You ****ed it up last time, so no magic for you,. Come back one eon."

People in this world have different opinions on magic because of religion. Some religions in the game do have gods of magic, while some don't. The religions in the setting are kind of hard to explain until seen in practice, but I'll try my best.

In the setting, there is undeniable proof that gods and/or spirits (whether they be angels, demons, nature spirits, and/or spirits of ancestors) exist. Clerics, Knights, Rangers, and Monks with their prestiges and the Zealot prestige class are undeniable proxies for divine power, and supernatural or seemingly supernatural occurrences (depending on how your characters look at it) happen, and legendary weapons powered by the divines have shown up in the hands of heroes, although very rarely. However, no one knows which god/s exist, since said god/s never speak to the mortals directly and in the flesh, so every race has their own pantheon. I will say that one of the religions are right, but I will never reveal it to people, even if you end up really caring about the game's lore (Will this happen? I don't know. We're not exactly trying to make a franchise or even a product here. Just a fun side project.). I want to keep people guessing.


Note, I didn't say you had to follow D&D rules.
There are (at least) two ways people can make (and interpret the making of) an original game:
1. A new original setting with already existing game system. (e.g. D&D, Pathfinder, etc.)
2. A new original game system with a new set of rules. (e.g. Savage Worlds, which is fairly new system IIRC.)

My point was that I believe most people still associate any roleplaying elements, such as wizards, with D&D, because it's the most iconic roleplaying game with Wizards. (World of Darkness has Mages, which are far more than just Wizards in D&D terms, for example)

Talking about wizards makes many (if not most) people assume that there was also clerics, or something else that exist in a D&D game, which does affect their point of view about magic-users in a setting.
It's important to specify whether wizards were the only magic-users even before the inquisition because this isn't D&D. If the system doesn't support anything else than "wizardry-as-magic", then say it. A lot of misassumptions should be gone with that simple statement.

Overall, I think the system you and your brother are putting together seems interesting.

Thank you for your compliment. And I have an answer for the wizard question. I call them wizards simply because I like the word wizard better than mage. Just a personal preference.

Also, for clerics, during the rule of wizards, the wizards were clerics. However, they weren't clerics in the sense of "channels for divine power" but just teachers of religion. Actual clerics had to practice underground for fear of death. Also, paladins then were even rarer, since they openly practiced a religion that was against the empire, so they were attacked on sight(they are kind of a rare thing even afterward. They do exist, but they are considered legends. To put it into perspective, the young farm boy dreams of being a valorous knight. The valorous knight dreams of being a paladin. They are also not a basic class, but a prestige for the knight.).

Knaight
2017-03-07, 07:15 PM
In the setting, there is undeniable proof that gods and/or spirits (whether they be angels, demons, nature spirits, and/or spirits of ancestors) exist. Clerics, Knights, Rangers, and Monks with their prestiges and the Zealot prestige class are undeniable proxies for divine power, and supernatural or seemingly supernatural occurrences (depending on how your characters look at it) happen, and legendary weapons powered by the divines have shown up in the hands of heroes, although very rarely. However, no one knows which god/s exist, since said god/s never speak to the mortals directly and in the flesh, so every race has their own pantheon. I will say that one of the religions are right, but I will never reveal it to people, even if you end up really caring about the game's lore (Will this happen? I don't know. We're not exactly trying to make a franchise or even a product here. Just a fun side project.). I want to keep people guessing.

So what I'm hearing is that the setting absolutely has magic, it has people who use magic, and it has magic items. I really don't see how "keeping it fantasy" is at all an issue here - this isn't borderline historical fiction or the like, this is high magic fantasy.

8BitNinja
2017-03-07, 08:53 PM
So what I'm hearing is that the setting absolutely has magic, it has people who use magic, and it has magic items. I really don't see how "keeping it fantasy" is at all an issue here - this isn't borderline historical fiction or the like, this is high magic fantasy.

If you consider the power of the gods magic, then yes. However, there is no arcane magic. I think I should have specified. Also, there aren't magic items (again, unless you consider holy power to be magic). And when holy weapons appear, the existence of them is very questionable and are rare. An example of the kind of rarity such an item would have, think of the Master Sword from the Zelda games.

Knaight
2017-03-07, 08:57 PM
If you consider the power of the gods magic, then yes. However, there is no arcane magic. I think I should have specified.

You did specify. The whole paradigm of having arcane and divine magic as the two types of magic isn't a general fantasy thing, it's a D&D thing. There's a lot more variety than that to what magic is in general fantasy, and there's basically no definition* of magic that isn't completely ridiculous that doesn't include the power of the gods that actually shows up in the setting as magical effects.

*There's the one that fits stage magic and is thus an exception, there's a few involving figurative uses of the term, and that's about it.

daniel_ream
2017-03-07, 10:18 PM
The whole paradigm of having arcane and divine magic as the two types of magic isn't a general fantasy thing, it's a D&D thing.

Nonsense. All D&D tropes perfectly represent all fantasy literature. And history.

8BitNinja
2017-03-08, 06:04 PM
You did specify. The whole paradigm of having arcane and divine magic as the two types of magic isn't a general fantasy thing, it's a D&D thing. There's a lot more variety than that to what magic is in general fantasy, and there's basically no definition* of magic that isn't completely ridiculous that doesn't include the power of the gods that actually shows up in the setting as magical effects.

*There's the one that fits stage magic and is thus an exception, there's a few involving figurative uses of the term, and that's about it.

Except that in this world, divine casters don't have control over their powers. It isn't even their powers, they are merely proxies for divine power. Why do the gods or god choose to do it this way? That's debatable. With magic, where the wizard has some level of control over it, although it eventually ends up controlling the wizard.

Beleriphon
2017-03-08, 06:26 PM
Except that in this world, divine casters don't have control over their powers. It isn't even their powers, they are merely proxies for divine power. Why do the gods or god choose to do it this way? That's debatable. With magic, where the wizard has some level of control over it, although it eventually ends up controlling the wizard.

Are we talking about a deity taking control of the body of their proxy, or more like dreams/instructions that say to go to a certain place flail your arms around and watch the fireworks?

Because there are two general ways to approach divine might: miracles literally channeled through a subject without any underlying reason/rational explanation other than a deity caused the effect through a person, and D&D's method of discrete spells powered by a deity the user gets to choose when to use (which makes them the same as a D&D wizard with different abilities).

On magic is is possible that the reason nobody has discovered it again is because it requires a particular philosophy or state of mind, and the instructions to find that state of mind are destroyed and it was only discovered originally after hundreds of years of trial and error?

Cluedrew
2017-03-08, 07:26 PM
The whole paradigm of having arcane and divine magic as the two types of magic isn't a general fantasy thing, it's a D&D thing.I do that a lot actually, but there are rarely what you would describe as "divine casters" in the settings that applies to. Although the ones that do exist tend to have some very significant (if hugely specialized) power at their disposal. But if you consider magic as breaking the rules of physics, than when I separate them it is because divine power breaks the laws of magic.

Knaight
2017-03-08, 07:54 PM
Except that in this world, divine casters don't have control over their powers. It isn't even their powers, they are merely proxies for divine power. Why do the gods or god choose to do it this way? That's debatable. With magic, where the wizard has some level of control over it, although it eventually ends up controlling the wizard.

The powers exist, it's still fantasy - and it would be even without them. The gods alone make it a fantasy setting, the magic items alone make it a fantasy setting, the existence of fantasy races alone make it a fantasy setting. Heck, the way it isn't set in a real historical place and also clearly isn't science fiction makes it a fantasy setting.

8BitNinja
2017-03-08, 07:58 PM
Are we talking about a deity taking control of the body of their proxy, or more like dreams/instructions that say to go to a certain place flail your arms around and watch the fireworks?

Because there are two general ways to approach divine might: miracles literally channeled through a subject without any underlying reason/rational explanation other than a deity caused the effect through a person, and D&D's method of discrete spells powered by a deity the user gets to choose when to use (which makes them the same as a D&D wizard with different abilities).

On magic is is possible that the reason nobody has discovered it again is because it requires a particular philosophy or state of mind, and the instructions to find that state of mind are destroyed and it was only discovered originally after hundreds of years of trial and error?

The divine powers are used by the deity directly through the users, literally channeled through them. However, there are multiple spirits (without a set number) that are overseeing the world, both good and evil. No matter the religion the general belief in the world is that one of these lesser spirits (or greater, depending on religion) is chosen power wielder for the person, while under the authority of a greater spirit/god. This applies for clerics of all alignments.

Think of it as sort of "Guardian Angel" situation