mwm@ea.UUCP (04/23/84)
#R:uok:2200020:ea:3600002:000:3144 ea!mwm Apr 23 09:41:00 1984 > Clarke's Law, "Sufficiently high technology is >indistinguishable from magic," and vice versa. Readers of A&E >should be familiar with John Sapienza's writeup of the Arachnidae >Campaign and the leftover Intercontinental Ballistic Magic. This vice versa is know (where I started D&D, anyway) as Goldberg's law. > However, depending on your axioms of magic, this doesn't >need to be true. The most common difference cited is that >Magic can't be produced on the assembly-line. If it is just like >technology, with laws and usable by any citizen, the result would >usually be something like Poul Anderson's _Operation Chaos_. Running magic on an assembly-line basis is not inconcievable. _Master of the Five Magicks_ (by Anderson?) includes assembly-line production of potions, complete with all the risky "will it work" flavor of typical (whatever that means) potion production. > But are most people's campaigns like that? The Most >powerful D&D spell (Meteor Swarm, for example) is the equivalent >of an artillery barrage, not even a tac-nuke. The most powerful >RQ battle-magic spell is maybe the equivalent of a bullet, and >the most powerful RQ Rune magic maybe a hand grenade (or am I >forgetting something?) What you have is a case where magic just isn't sufficiently advanced. The most powerful spell I recall is a clerical (!) spell, "create supernova." This is somewhat nastier than anything technology has given us to throw around (so far). Of course, this is from an early (first-generation) dungeon - pre Greyhawk. > And if Magic IS like a tactical nuke, will you really get >a feudal society? First off, Castles seem like a waste of time. >If mages are rare, whoever controls the mages rules; if mages are >common, wouldn't you get an anarchy? It's not clear that castles are a waste of time. Depends on your magic. After all, stone walls may make the best base for a magical defense (You should have seen god's castle on my first world! It was awesome, in every sense of the word.) against magical nukes. If magic is rare, then the common man won't have any magic to speak of, and the stone walls of your castle are a cheap and lasting defense against uprisen peasants. There are lots of others. You pegged it quite accurately when you asked if technology was usable by any citizen. If that's the case, then the resulting societies should be much like some of the ones we've been through, with magic replacing technology. If not, then you immediately have a distinguished class. There are two options at this point: the members of the class are a well-treated elite, or they are slaves. It's hard to swallow the second case for magic users, but given sufficiently poor magic to start with, it could come about. How about it, anybody out there running a universe where magic-users are nothing more than high-dollar slaves? For an example of this kind of thing, you might check out Kenneth Bulmers' Keys to the Dimensions series. The latest is _The Diamond Contessa_. Titles for the others on request (I have to look them up). <mike