Good/bad news for future D&D CRPGs

[Nostromo]

Here are the designer notes by Keith Baker, the original creator of Eberron:

http://www.coveworld.net/eberron/designer_notes.html

What he has to say about tech:

People are saying "It's Shadowrun!" It's not. "It's steampunk!" It's not.

Looking back, I do wish that we hadn't shown the lightning rail in [Across Eberron], just because everyone latched onto that as if it was the center of the world. If you look at all the art that's been shown, you'll see that the lightning rail is an unusual element of the world and not an example of the general tone.

Despite the presence of airships and what appears to be a train, there is little similarity between Eberron and [steampunk PC game] Arcanum. Unlike Final Fantasy, which I have never played, I do own Arcanum and enjoyed playing it. However, one of the central themes of that game was the conflict between technology and magic; as Eberron does not use technology [that involves electricity, gunpowder or steam power] there is no such conflict.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Personally, "technology powered by magic" is an oxymoron. Magic is something people don't understand. Once it's understood, it ceases to be magic.

You don't neccisarily have to understand it to harness it.

[Jamski]

They're talking about "working class wizards" who slave all day to enchant household items for a minimum wage.

Not that I'm laughing at them

-Jam

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by General Ludd
You don't neccisarily have to understand it to harness it.

While that's true, I can't find a parallel in human history. No forms of energy had been harnessed on a large scale before we first understood how it works.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Jamski
They're talking about "working class wizards" who slave all day to enchant household items for a minimum wage.

Not that I'm laughing at them

Now that's funny.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


While that's true, I can't find a parallel in human history. No forms of energy had been harnessed on a large scale before we first understood how it works.

What about the most important source of energy - fire? Not that human history matters when talking about the practical uses of magic in an alternative reality, anyways.



I could see "harnessing it but not understanding it" making for a really great fantasy setting. Lot's of potential for mad-scientist types, experiments run amock, and really unusual/imaginative applications.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by General Ludd
What about the most important source of energy - fire? Not that human history matters when talking about the practical uses of magic in an alternative reality, anyways.

Yes, fire had been in use for a very long time, but there was no large scale use of it until pretty recent times. What I mean by "large scale" is the scale of the fire, in this case. Fire had been in very widespread use, but each fire had been rather small.

See, I actually thought about these things

Originally posted by General Ludd
I could see "harnessing it but not understanding it" making for a really great fantasy setting. Lot's of potential for mad-scientist types, experiments run amock, and really unusual/imaginative applications.

I don't see you can really harness something until you bring in a systemetic method of studying, building, and controlling. IOW, engineering. But there's no engineering before there's science.

At any rate, the fun thing about Shadowrun etc. is the conflict and tension between technology and magic. IOW, you are not limited to one or the other - both path works, each with its own strength and limitations.

[Qilue]

A related issue is metalurgy.

Steel (and it's creation) has been in use for centuries. While it was known that doing certain things to iron produced steel, it wasn't known until recently what turns iron into steel.

Just as mixing tin and copper produced bronze, only now do we understand why bronze is harder than tin or copper.

Understanding is not really needed for utilization. A stone age hunter could use a rifle just as easily as a modern soldier at least until it ran out of ammunition.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


While that's true, I can't find a parallel in human history. No forms of energy had been harnessed on a large scale before we first understood how it works.

Can you say Hydrogen bomb?

ACK!

[General Ludd]

I don't see you can really harness something until you bring in a systemetic method of studying, building, and controlling. IOW, engineering. But there's no engineering before there's science.

The point is, magic does all of that by itself.

A wizard can observe the effects of a spell, and it's reactions to an environemnt, and get the idea of combinign them. A storm trapped in a box to use as a washer (as Jamski mentioned) is a perfect example.

[Jamski]

There are some artifacts like this already in the FR setting :

Bags of Holding, for example. Imagine if everyone had one of these to go shopping, it would be so practical. And at home I'd want a Cupboard of Holding too. And a permanant tiny portal to the plane of fire as a heating element, the spell "Light" enchanted on a item with unlimited charges, instead of using candles.

Its not really "technology" but its using magic in everyday ways to get the job done better/faster/less effort, so it fills the same rolé as technology does in our world.

-Jam

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Jamski
There are some artifacts like this already in the FR setting :

Bags of Holding, for example. Imagine if everyone had one of these to go shopping, it would be so practical. And at home I'd want a Cupboard of Holding too. And a permanant tiny portal to the plane of fire as a heating element, the spell "Light" enchanted on a item with unlimited charges, instead of using candles.

Its not really "technology" but its using magic in everyday ways to get the job done better/faster/less effort, so it fills the same rolé as technology does in our world.

-Jam

Why not the spell "Continual Light"? Or is the gone in 3rd Edition?

ACK!

[Jamski]

Because I want to turn it off so I can sleep

-Jam

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Jamski
Because I want to turn it off so I can sleep

-Jam

Put a cloth over the light.

ACK!

[General Ludd]

I could see "harnessing it but not understanding it" making for a really great fantasy setting. Lot's of potential for mad-scientist types, experiments run amock, and really unusual/imaginative applications.

Reminds me alot of the discworld, now that I think about it.