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  1. - Top - End - #481
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    The idea of all super heroes being heroes is just unrealistic. Of course, the ratio of good heroes to bad might actually be pretty good (like most police forces). Having sponsored merc-types who can bypass certain laws is easy enough--but the punch-ups and costumes remains tricky.

    Media focus might be enough for the costumes... maybe guns would have to be scarce?
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  2. - Top - End - #482
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Conners View Post
    The idea of all super heroes being heroes is just unrealistic. Of course, the ratio of good heroes to bad might actually be pretty good (like most police forces). Having sponsored merc-types who can bypass certain laws is easy enough--but the punch-ups and costumes remains tricky.
    Oh, that's what you meant by punch-ups. OK, I can think of two reasons.

    1) This isn't the US (or the US has changed dramatically). It's a country where police officers don't carry a gun by default. Real-life examples: Ireland, Norway, UK.

    2) Take a page from Dune. There was wide-spread technology which made guns useless, because your worn gadget (I forget what it was, exactly) could stop bullets without restricting your movement. But it didn't work against slower objects coming at you, making knife-fighting the most common type of combat. You can make up something similar, either wide-spread or for exclusive law-enforcement/military/superhero use.
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  3. - Top - End - #483
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    Quote Originally Posted by HeadlessMermaid View Post
    2) Take a page from Dune. There was wide-spread technology which made guns useless, because your worn gadget (I forget what it was, exactly) could stop bullets without restricting your movement. But it didn't work against slower objects coming at you, making knife-fighting the most common type of combat. You can make up something similar, either wide-spread or for exclusive law-enforcement/military/superhero use.
    You mean the personal shield that caused thermonuclear explosion if hit with a laser?

    As for realistic takes on superheroes check Law and the Multiverse. Its an awesome blog written by two American lawyers about how real laws would affect superheroes.

  4. - Top - End - #484
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    Quote Originally Posted by HeadlessMermaid View Post
    1. Guy gets superpowers. How? Was he born that way? Did something happen? Can this something be replicated? Does he or anyone else know how to replicate it?
    2. In any case, guy now has superpowers. What does he do? Wear a costume and fight crime?
    3. No, that would be silly. What does he really do?
    4. How do his superpowers affect his way of life? How do they upset it? Can he suppress them at will? Can he hide them at least? Is he obviously a freak?
    5. What does he want in life? Can his superpowers help him achieve it? How? Have his superpowers ruined it? How?
    One of the stories I was/am/maybe still writing involves random people getting superpowers out of nowhere (about as varied as the X-men) and the protagonist is an innocent and naive 14 year old girl... who can time travel and learned to do it from her 1 hour future self.
    Oh, the craziness allowed simply because you can time travel.

    Fighting crime is around "meh" on the list of priorities. She doesn't even try to earn lots of money, more like some very expensive chocolate and generally not being very imaginative... All in all, rather boring.
    Unfortunately, Life disagrees. >.>


    You don't have to make your protagonist interesting if the shenanigans of the superpower is the main point.

    Spoiler
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    While she plays at 'fighting crime' (namely calling the police before the crime happens),
    she gets caught practically immediately after her first go (police traced the precognitive tip)
    and is, frankly, manipulated into helping the police fight crime (a simple time loop and a pair of handphones lets her send precognitive tips without even leaving class)

    Clearly, our hero fighting crime without... actually fighting is undesirable due to lack of tensions. But come on, she's 14 and emphatically not an action girl.
    What is one to do in fighting crime when you can't punch worth anything, can't do anything more sophisticated with a knife than peel an apple and don't even know where the safety is on a gun? Add an idealistic worldview that doesn't even consider that people would kill each other (not even "I'm not going to kill people" kind of idealism, more of "people only die in hospitals and car accidents") and you're well on the way to being the wimpiest superhero ever to be written or conceived of.
    Once again, Life disagrees.

    Obviously, this doesn't stop at fighting crime, with a visit very shortly afterwards from her 8 years older future self escalating into a (surprisingly sedate) time-travelling conflict involving the words "Defcon 1" and "thermonuclear war".
    "Nukes? Oh, that's not until next Friday. "

    Humanity has also come rather a long way in 8 years. Turns out, time loops are very very good at science.

  5. - Top - End - #485
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    If they had someone who could travel through time or something like that... though it sounds cliché, they might want to do experiments. Course, that doesn't necessarily mean dissection.
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  6. - Top - End - #486
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Conners View Post
    If they had someone who could travel through time or something like that... though it sounds cliché, they might want to do experiments. Course, that doesn't necessarily mean dissection.
    Certainly not dissections. Do you have any idea how impossible it is to keep someone, who can time teleport, against their will? Especially when *you* cannot?
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    And no, against time loop logic, classical ambushes are ALSO impossible. =D Drugging her won't work not because the drugs don't work but because she can receive warnings from future selves and so *passively* protects herself without actively doing anything.
    No, there will be no "wolverine" scenarios with a time teleport power.

    But a number of experiments to find out more about the structure of the universe... nay, the underlying philosophy questions of cause and effect and the nature of time itself!
    These need not be destructive or even risky experiments. A simple few tests with face down cards and guessing will reveal things like consistency principle and time loop logic. Using multiple time clones to perform adversarial loops would also reveal some structure as to how the many valid solutions are narrowed down to one.


    A simple way to think of how I interpreted her time teleport power was that she can move in 4 dimensions, the time part being a straight teleport without going through the intervening time.
    Of course, it gets more than a bit crazy once you factor in cause and effect. >.>
    Last edited by jseah; 2012-08-26 at 12:06 AM.

  7. - Top - End - #487
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    That's assuming she is ever in a state capable enough to use her powers, of course.
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  8. - Top - End - #488
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    Quote Originally Posted by HeadlessMermaid View Post
    Oh, that's what you meant by punch-ups. OK, I can think of two reasons.

    -snip-

    2) Take a page from Dune. There was wide-spread technology which made guns useless, because your worn gadget (I forget what it was, exactly) could stop bullets without restricting your movement. But it didn't work against slower objects coming at you, making knife-fighting the most common type of combat. You can make up something similar, either wide-spread or for exclusive law-enforcement/military/superhero use.
    IIRC, Mass Effect has something similar. Kinetic shielding, which is included on almost all armor, can easily block bursts of assault rifle fire, or even sustained fire in some cases. It also defends the user against biotics, which are a sort of psionic power present in the setting. This is why armor-boosted melee attacks and indirect attacks with biotics are so useful: the kinetic shielding doesn't stop objects moving at a slower pace than the near-lightspeed bullets of the setting.
    This is also why one of the most infamously dangerous things in the galaxy is the Krogan race, known for charging head-on at opponents.

    Okay, that was a little off-topic, but it was another example and an opportunity to talk about my favorite sci-fi setting.

    A little more on-topic: one way to justify superheroes and villains is that superpowers are a very new and rare occurrence, fluffed however you wish: nuclear disasters and cosmic radiation are popular explanations. Normal people simply aren't capable of standing up to anyone who decides to use these powers for evil, and this is why they need other super-people to help. In a setting like this, anyone known to have superpowers would probably be placed under very heavy surveillance or imprisoned; hence the vigilantism present in the heroes.
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  9. - Top - End - #489
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    If the government cracked down on everyone with powers, wouldn't the powered people (potential heroes, and villains alike) become a crime organization or seize power? Mightn't be a popular move these days, since it'd be seen as akin to racism by some.
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  10. - Top - End - #490
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Conners View Post
    If the government cracked down on everyone with powers, wouldn't the powered people (potential heroes, and villains alike) become a crime organization or seize power? Mightn't be a popular move these days, since it'd be seen as akin to racism by some.
    Yes, very much possible, and a great plot hook :D

    In the scenario I presented, the most common reason for super-people to become heroes would be personal morals/grudges, such as a villain killing their family etc.
    Alternatively, they might he hired by some private party, such as a mercenary company, a police officer who considers them trustworthy or just some big firm that needs to secure its own assets. If you want, the government might even have the heroes work for them in exchange for some freedom and basic rights, or just simply force them into submission.
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  11. - Top - End - #491
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    Quote Originally Posted by Conners View Post
    That's assuming she is ever in a state capable enough to use her powers, of course.
    In a state to use her powers ever, at any point in time. If at any point in the future or past she will get to time travel if no time travellers appear, a loop will form where she evades capture or escapes.
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    If she gets even one chance to use her power in the past or future, the escape attempt will bootstrap itself from literally nothing at all. The future or past chance (which will never actually need to happen at all, just needs to happen provided no time travel) to use the power can generate another chance at some target time, which if the escape attempt can *possibly* succeed, will allow (and indeed require) an ontological loop where she springs herself from confinement...


    Short of mind-control powers (aka. she wants to be there), there is no way to even temporarily confine such a person, if the word temporary even means anything to a 4 dimensional person. And even mind-control powers can be evaded with the same logic as above.

    Time loop logic is already very *very* powerful by itself. When you pull out counterfactuals and loops that affect each other, it gets even worse.

  12. - Top - End - #492
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    Yes, keeping such a person is nearly impossible. Though, I guess they could keep her sedated at all times. Sounds like an interesting story you have there. Glad to see an interesting what-if being well thought out.


    @Silver: Good point. Not sure if anyone has really delved into that yet... Know if anyone has?
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  13. - Top - End - #493
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    Can we see this story you wrote?
    Quote Originally Posted by jamieth View Post
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  14. - Top - End - #494
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    Quote Originally Posted by Qwertystop View Post
    Can we see this story you wrote?
    Well, it's not done, but I can upload the first few chapters. My writing is nothing that could be called good and there really isn't much more to the story than increasingly complicated time loops.

    There are a number of currently unanswered questions (but the answers are to come later), as well as sometimes unbelievable character actions (some with answers, some without). Really, I just wrote this story to have an excuse to write insanely complicated time loops.

    There is the problem that explaining how and why stuff happened takes longer than describing what happened. A character doing a debrief and AAR would go on for far longer than the actual event itself in terms of word count.

    In fact, describing all the factors that explain the events in chapter 5 would be impossible from in-universe since some of them can't be found out even with time travel (counterfactuals play a massive role in time traveler vs time traveler).
    And trying to do so would take as much length as all 5 chapters.
    Last edited by jseah; 2012-08-26 at 12:21 PM.

  15. - Top - End - #495
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    Will have to look into it when I'm not playing War of the Roses.


    Curious about something: Pheromones.

    Anyone know much about them? For example, how much can they sway the behaviour of a human or animal?

    Wondering if you could have super pheromones, and what their effects would be.
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  16. - Top - End - #496
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    Pheremones are just chemicals. The effect depends entirely on the biology of the affected creature. To have any effect, the sensory organs and brain need to be wired to trigger a specific reaction to the detection of the chemical.
    It's like a specific key to a specific lock.
    And the actual effect is still created by the brain, that can only produce so many hormones to affect the mind. Simply increasing the amount of triggering chemicals might not make a difference.
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  17. - Top - End - #497
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    Like Yora says, pheromones are merely certain chemical compounds released into the air that triggers certain mechanisms once the olophactory cells detect them. Most often they trigger reproductory signals in the body.

    Increasing the dose would only lead to the sensation lasting longer, but not it being stronger. We would be in no more heat from a very "potent pheromone" than we would be in a large crowd a warm day (sweat releases a human pheromone).

    With the right mood, the right movement and the right level of intimacy pheromones certainly play their part. But without those it's unlikely to affect much more than that.

    Unlike many animals, our reproduction is not limited a certain time of year and thus we do not have the inbuilt signals that forces us to look for a mate when triggered. Instead it's merely subconcious signals that make us look a bit closer.

    Of course... a "super pheromone" could trigger the reproduction signals of other species... but that sounds more like a flaw than an advantage.

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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Conners View Post
    If the government cracked down on everyone with powers, wouldn't the powered people (potential heroes, and villains alike) become a crime organization or seize power? Mightn't be a popular move these days, since it'd be seen as akin to racism by some.
    Oh, it would be akin to racism. I'm fairly certain you can't discriminate based on stuff like that. For example Marvel mutants are almost certainly a protected group in the US, or any place else that prevents laws being passed to target specific groups based on colour, creed, or biology.

    Its also possible in the US that offensive powers might fall under the Second Amendment (right to bear arms, this doesn't exclusively refer to guns BTW).

    I'd once again refer to Law and the Multiverse for several excellent discussions about how superheroes and real laws would interact. It even includes what to do about super long lived characters like Wolverine or Vandal Savage. Did you know for example that bank robbers could be charged with attempted murder for shooting guns at Superman because they had every intent to try and kill him even if its impossible with bullets?

  19. - Top - End - #499
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    What methods are there for telling how healthy an individual is, and how many of them would be possible in ancient times?

    Partially, thinking about the Spartans, who judged whether an infant was healthy, and worth keeping.

    Could you tell by examining someone for a while? Would you need to know their recent ancestors' health?
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  20. - Top - End - #500
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Conners View Post
    What methods are there for telling how healthy an individual is, and how many of them would be possible in ancient times?

    Partially, thinking about the Spartans, who judged whether an infant was healthy, and worth keeping.

    Could you tell by examining someone for a while? Would you need to know their recent ancestors' health?
    In Sparta, each infant would be presented to the council of the Elders. If they thought it was underdeveloped or deformed, they'd throw it off a cliff. That's pretty much all we know about the procedure, but since the Elders weren't experts or trained physicians or anything of the sort, it's safe to assume that the examination meant simply checking for obvious "defects".
    EDIT - Since most of the time Sparta had trouble finding enough "true Spartans" to replace fallen warriors, I don't suppose the Elders were too strict about it, as in "that one's slightly shorter than average" or "this is a bit on the weak side".

    Now, telling how healthy an individual is... That's tricky. The best thing that happened in ancient medicine was the systematic observation of symptoms, and of the effects of various treatments. As a result, you got many cures that worked (surgeries, even!) and many conclusions that were more or less correct. However, none was founded in the knowledge of how the human body actually works, because this knowledge didn't exist yet. Most ancient theories about the human body, health and disease would be described as mere superstition today. So it was a hit-and-miss thing. Many conclusions were shockingly off.

    In short, if an ancient physician were to examine you, he'd probably get a couple of things right and everything else wrong.

    As for examining parents and ancestors, Hippocrates supposedly researched family history. But I don't know how helpful it really was, I guess it depended on the case. (By the way, there was a popular theory that children inherit traits only from their fathers - the mothers simply happen to give labour.)

    P.S. If you're interested simply in ancient methods of examination, and not correct methods necessarily, start with humorism. It's a general theory, but it mentions symptoms and other visible clues, so you can make up a plausible examination procedure.

    If you insist on correctness, you could look up Hippocrates, Galen, or Avicenna for something more recent, and use any method that's still relevant.
    Last edited by HeadlessMermaid; 2012-08-29 at 08:27 AM.
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  21. - Top - End - #501
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    In this case, I'm thinking of working methods. Though, it's a good point you make about misconceptions.
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    OK, just a note, I edited the above post while you were replying, so check again the P.S.

    Hope that helps. :)
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    What would be the likely cultural effects if a sentient race had more vestigial extremely strong animal instincts than humans have? Stuff like going into heat, or hiding anything that is theirs that they aren't using at the moment, or stealing shiny things??
    Quote Originally Posted by jamieth View Post
    ...though Talla does her best to sound objective and impartial, it doesn't cover stuff like "ask a 9-year-old to tank for the party."
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    its impossible to say what would happen becuase societies come in so many different forms but what we could have is what might happen.

    for example assuming the society is fairly strict heat could be dealt with by isolating females in heat guarded by eunuch.

    the desire to steal shiny things could result in very drab structures.
    any currency would likely not be shiny. banks would be unlikely to develop

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    Quote Originally Posted by awa View Post
    the desire to steal shiny things could result in very drab structures.
    any currency would likely not be shiny. banks would be unlikely to develop
    I would actually expect things like letters of credit to arise earlier and be more common.
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    Well, humans can place incredibly high priorities to random things entirely based on culture instead of instinct. So having strong instinctive compulsions probably wouldn't be any different to culturally aquired compulsions.

    In the end, it depends of course mostly on what specific compulsions there are and how the rest of culture works.
    When it's a natural biological trait, the culture would have evolved to accomodate for it.
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Conners View Post
    What methods are there for telling how healthy an individual is, and how many of them would be possible in ancient times?

    Partially, thinking about the Spartans, who judged whether an infant was healthy, and worth keeping.

    Could you tell by examining someone for a while? Would you need to know their recent ancestors' health?
    Traditional medicine systems have a bunch of diagnostic tools based on observation. Some are bogus, others have a kernel of truth, and some have been supplanted by more efficient (and occasionally less gross) methods.

    But to start with the Spartans--the standards on infant health weren't very detailed. They were looking for obvious physical impairments--twisted spine; malformed limbs, head, or sensory organs. Not, of course, that if you passed that muster you were in the clear. The agoge system was perfectly happy to let weak children drop dead: infanticide was just the first round of assessment.

    More generally, things that could be used in diagnosis of "health":

    - Diet was a major part of diagnosis and prescription because food was seen as influencing the four humors of the body, and the wrong diet could lead to an imbalance, and thus illness. This was not as simple as a blanket "good diet" for everyone: the theory was that people had a basic nature that made them prone to certain humoral imbalances, and that diet could magnify or chafe against that nature. Pretty much the first thing a doctor would want to know back in the day was what a person had been eating, both in the short and long term.

    - Examination of the body would be next. Locating aches and pains, examining lesions...but also looking at the color and texture of the schlera, the tongue, and other soft tissues such as the nasal passages and inner ear.

    - The next step would be examination of bodily excretions and emesis. Tears, mucus, breath, sweat, urine, stool, et cetera. Old medical texts included long descriptions of what sensory qualities present in excreta suggest what kind of health (texture, smell, taste, color and clarity). For most of history people tended to be really, really interested in their bowel movements and/or their "flow" as a sign of good versus ill health.

    - Taking the pulse...or in some medical traditions, several different pulses.

    - Divination.

  28. - Top - End - #508
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Yanagi View Post
    - Diet was a major part of diagnosis and prescription because food was seen as influencing the four humors of the body, and the wrong diet could lead to an imbalance, and thus illness. This was not as simple as a blanket "good diet" for everyone: the theory was that people had a basic nature that made them prone to certain humoral imbalances, and that diet could magnify or chafe against that nature. Pretty much the first thing a doctor would want to know back in the day was what a person had been eating, both in the short and long term.
    It's still part of basic examinations in China, I think. Because it does help to some degree.
    With modern chemistry and knowledge of cell processes, it's still very common to make a general blood check to see if there is any irregularities. Even without that knowledge, it's possible to draw a connection between certain symptoms and either a lack or too much of certain foods. When there are only 10 or 20 plants that make up virtually all the food in a region, this isn't as difficult as it sounds.
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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    Questions ahead :

    I'm going to have my players go in past in a little 4e campaign, let's say 500 years (don't want many creatures alive at both periods).
    Considering D&D is inspired from dark ages in europe, what would be missing in this past (in technology, mostly...) ?
    Considering D&D 4e history, what would change ?

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    Default Re: Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

    Quote Originally Posted by TomPliss View Post
    Questions ahead :

    I'm going to have my players go in past in a little 4e campaign, let's say 500 years (don't want many creatures alive at both periods).
    Considering D&D is inspired from dark ages in europe, what would be missing in this past (in technology, mostly...) ?
    Considering D&D 4e history, what would change ?
    Really, whatever you want...

    Technological development hugely depends on particular system and events, culture, and millions of other factors that are going to be unique.

    Cultures develop their unique technological traits, which either catch on, or die off, and so on.

    I don't know about 4e history, but in popular 3e settings, like Faerun, 500 years usually didn't really have any difference, on large scale.

    Equating D&D to dark ages in Europe doesn't really have that much sense, because way too many things doesn't compute.
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