Steampunk

[Ace Pace]

For those who RP, what would be a good balence in a steampunk world?

For those who don't know the term, its the normal setting(as far as fantasy goes) with the industrial revolution kicking in.

[Comrade Tortoise]

hmm... Depends on how far into the Industrial revolution you want to go

[Ace Pace]

Starting off, factories are starting to rise, throwing craftman out, and magic is becomming less commenplace.

[Comrade Tortoise]

alright, weapons and armor will become lots cheaper. On the other hand, magical items become less commonplace, but due to their rarity, comparatively more powerful. No need to change mechanics, but if people have fewer magical items, each one's individual value is higher.

[B4UTRUST]

now when you say steampunk are you meaning steampunk in the general way the term is understood? Like with steam-driven mecha or power armors?

And if you want a good reference to some cool things steam could be used for, check out the anime Steamboy. Very interesting. ^_^

But if it's just starting off I'd have to agree with Comrade on it mostly. Cheaper equipment, common weapons and armor more readily available for less. Magical equipment going up in price, much to a mage chagrin. Well those invisibility spells gotta be useful for something... *yoink*

[Comrade Tortoise]

Price goes up, but so does utility. A wand of magic missile becomes a thing to be feared, and without as many magical items or even mages around, each individual becomes a thing to be feared and respected, rather than something more or less common place

[Pcm979]

Just buy Dragonmech.

Although it's set 100 years after the discovery of steam, and not right in the thick of things.

[SirNitram]

Bizzare. Why would industrialization automatically make people drop what has worked perfectly for centuries?

This is so very indicative of a fundamental misunderstanding of the industrial revolution.. Nothing there was brand new. It built on what was before it. It's pretty bloody stupid to think this wouldn't apply to magic as well, but then again, the average person is lazy and just wants to say 'No more mages everywhere! It's just like our world except maybe a few wands!'.

[Comrade Tortoise]

well, I was just going on his premise that magic would become scarcer.

[SirNitram]

well, I was just going on his premise that magic would become scarcer.

Is there a problem with pointing out the premise is, in a word, stupid, and in more words, completely contrary to making the world in question logical and sensible?

[Pcm979]

*Pimps some more*

They have a good rationale in Dragonmech.

[SirNitram]

*Pimps some more*

They have a good rationale in Dragonmech.

Do they pay you by the word? If so, how can I get in on that?

What is this rational, though?

[Comrade Tortoise]

well, I was just going on his premise that magic would become scarcer.

Is there a problem with pointing out the premise is, in a word, stupid, and in more words, completely contrary to making the world in question logical and sensible?

Martin, you are talking about a universe were gnomes exist

[Cynical Cat]

well, I was just going on his premise that magic would become scarcer.

Is there a problem with pointing out the premise is, in a word, stupid, and in more words, completely contrary to making the world in question logical and sensible?

Martin, you are talking about a universe were gnomes exist

That's evading the question. Suspension of disbelief relies on people acting like people. If gnomes exists, dragons burn towns, and magic can raise the dead why is magic falling out of use?

[Stofsk]

That's evading the question. Suspension of disbelief relies on people acting like people. If gnomes exists, dragons burn towns, and magic can raise the dead why is magic falling out of use?

Perhaps if magic-users represent a form of, say, nobility in this fantasy setting, magical industrialisation comes about and the old get swept away by the new.

Similar to how something like the Meiji Restoration wiped out the Samurai. If you take the historical example as a kind of analogy, and apply it to a Steampunk setting: you have the Old Guard of the Magi who could wield arcane powers, but they represent a minority of a society's population. Industrialisation occurs, and because this is Steampunk we can say why not, and have it be 'magical industrialisation'. In other words, magic becomes commonly applicable to the common man, whereas prior to this it was in the hands of the Noble Magi.

Like with the Samurai, the Noble Magi have a desire to hold onto the power they've enjoyed for generations, and thus the forces of old and new clash in a titanic struggle... I'm sorry, I'm getting a little carried away here.

Ace Pace's definition of Steampunk confuses me. I always assume Steampunk is a fantasy setting in a Victorian period or thereabouts style of industrialisation. Nothing is said of magic becoming 'scarcer' as far as I'm concerned.

[Cynical Cat]

Ace Pace's definition of Steampunk confuses me. I always assume Steampunk is a fantasy setting in a Victorian period or thereabouts style of industrialisation. Nothing is said of magic becoming 'scarcer' as far as I'm concerned.

That's the point both Nitram and I are raising. There is no reason for magic to be rarer in a Steampunk setting. In fact, there is good reason for it to become more common.

[SirNitram]

Magic and the driving forces of the Industrial Revolution should result in magic becoming commonplace; the fantastic becoming the everyday. Why bother with silly copper wiring when a crystal ball does it already? Just find a way to make it cheaper and more accessable. Assembly line? Easy when you can animate the machinery directly. I hope I'm getting through here; magic and technology aren't really that different when it comes to how humanity will work with them.

[SirNitram]

Martin, you are talking about a universe were gnomes exist

Only if the writer includes gnomes....

But what the fuck does that have to do with anything I raised? I'm talking about the universe being self-consistant, not being a bad author and simply shoving Thing A into place without regard for how it got there or why. Seriously, your complaint is 'BUT IT'S FANTASY', and nothing more, and that doesn't even merit this much of an explanation.

[Ace Pace]

Okey, I'm going to try having abit of Nitram's idea and have magic more commenplace, but have true weilders of magic become more powerful and mysterious.

[Pcm979]

*Pimps some more*

They have a good rationale in Dragonmech.

Do they pay you by the word? If so, how can I get in on that?

I wish.

What is this rational, though?

Basically, magic is literally getting weaker, because the Old Gods are being destroyed by the rival Lunar Gods, who are ripping chunks off the moon and throwing them at the planet of Highpoint, bringing a lot of WotW-style crazyness along.

Admittedly, due to the moon's proximity a large number of Lunar-themed sorcerers are being spawned, but Steam-based technology, in the form of giant mobile cities, is ascendant.

[Comrade Tortoise]

Is there a problem with pointing out the premise is, in a word, stupid, and in more words, completely contrary to making the world in question logical and sensible?

Martin, you are talking about a universe were gnomes exist

That's evading the question. Suspension of disbelief relies on people acting like people. If gnomes exists, dragons burn towns, and magic can raise the dead why is magic falling out of use?

One explanation relies on supply and demand. As steam based technology becomes more common, things which normally required magic, such as bringing down a castle wall, or lighting the streets, becaomes doable at a lower cost than a mage can handle. Without people relying on magic, the mages and magical items become less common. People wiht magical aptitude will go into things like engineering, or mages wont make magical items to sell, because they wont be able to get rid of their stock.

If he wants to say that magic is becoming less common, there are a number of ways to do it.

(I was making a joke about the gnomes, not making an agument silly. Gomes+logic and reason... yeah, they are mutually exclusive, at least with the gnomes I have seen in game)

[SirNitram]

One explanation relies on supply and demand. As steam based technology becomes more common, things which normally required magic, such as bringing down a castle wall, or lighting the streets, becaomes doable at a lower cost than a mage can handle. Without people relying on magic, the mages and magical items become less common. People wiht magical aptitude will go into things like engineering, or mages wont make magical items to sell, because they wont be able to get rid of their stock.

This pre-supposes magic can't be improved, which is rather sensless. Hell, just expanding education will bring magic to many more people.

If he wants to say that magic is becoming less common, there are a number of ways to do it.

And the logical result of losing a cornerstone of your society like that is not instantly becoming Age Of Steam Europe, but to collapse.

[B4UTRUST]

In most books and genres dealing with magic that I've personally read and that's quite a few, magic has never been common even with high education rates and wizards being in good standing. Magic, save in a few cases, is something that was never suppose to be common or easily usable. Otherwise everyone would use it and you'd have fireballs burning down villages because some snot-nosed whelp got upset at his pa because he had to go mind the goats.

But if we were to use a more established magic system that also deals highly with technology look at White Wolf's Mage: the Ascension. Their stance on why magic was so rare and more people didn't utilize it or make profit from it, even if it was the "cornerstone" was that technology and science killed magic. Or made it harder to use. Magic required belief and a suspension of disbelief. In the Dark Ages, magic was more accepted. But the idea of magic throughout the ages became less of what could be done as a reality, to more of a child's story about great adventures with dragons and knights and mages. Technology had made it so people no longer fully believed in magic.

As for the question, well why the frag did they forget that magic works? The evidence is there before them! It's still usable! It's still around! *shrugs* It's a mentality I suppose. Science and knowledge becomes more readily available and understandable by the masses and the idea of someone shooting a fireball from his hand just seems weird and impossible because it defies what science knows and can prove can be done. I mean why did people fear witches, warlocks, wizards and mages in the dark ages as real and true threats but today the only thing akin to a witch or warlock is some new age spin on an older religion? Because people "know" that magic isn't real. That it's just some delusion or way for a bunch of rebel teens to get the angst out of their systems, or whatever excuse or reasoning people give.

But science, now science can give you concrete data as to WHY this is happening, why it happened, what will happen and when. Reproducible results that can be done, mostly, by your average citizen. Nothing arcane and silly like waving your hands and mumbling in latin or some other psuedo-magical language.

But even in M:tA magic was still around. It was just more tightly guarded, better hidden from the masses. You no longer had lightning bolts blasting forth from fingertips to fry some enemy. Now you have lightning innocently striking a person from the skies during a bad storm. Happens all the time in Florida. Bad coincidence, but coincidence none the less. No more opening vast portals to escape destruction in the middle of a town. Now you have a random brownout in the building you're in and you escape in the temporary darkness, praying your enemy doesn't have good nightvision.

But that's only one view of it. If you look at other games and worlds it's the total oppisate. A good one involving steam and such is Arcanum: Of steamworks & magick obscura. It's a damned good RPG btw, you can find it for about $5 or less now-a-days if you haven't played it. Find it and pick it up. Worth it most definatly.

Back on subject, in Arcanum magic and technology more or less exist somewhat harmoniously. You have dwarves, and gnomes and halflings and elves, etc. You have steam driven trains and high sorcery capable of raising the dead. You have pistols and rifles and the ability to create a golem from the stone before your feet. Magic and Technology coincides. If you're a major hardcore magic user, most technologists will frown at you and won't be as apt to render you aid or sell you things for a fair price and the oppisate is true if you're a technologist to a magician. And as a magician, things of technology tend to fail more around you and you can't get in some areas because there's too much risk you would break something with your mere prescense.

But it's the same situation all over again really. Magic requires faith and belief, arcane ritual and learnings. Technology requires the ability to give the same results over and over again, to have proveable and duplicatible instructions that give this result. Arts of faith and belief don't seem to work well around the cold logic of science.

But in the end it's up to Ace to figure out what elements he wants in his story and to incorporate them accordingly. It's all up to the author as to how he ties things together that will make or break the story.

[Cynical Cat]

Congradulations. You've just described magic as it exists in Mage, which is just one setting. If we take a look at Eberron, Thay, or the Malazan world your explanation doesn't work. In fact, your explanation only really works by Mage which is trying to rationalize working magic with the modern, magicless, world.

In a world where magic is known to work and can be empiracly demonstrated it isn't a matter of faith. Eberron has entered the first part of a magically centered industrial age. Thay has widespread testing and near assembly line minor magic item production. In the Malazan Books of the Fallen, technological progress tends to slow to a crawl once a society develops effective sorcery because it is easier to do most things with sorcery. I'll leave Shade and Netherese examples for Nitram.

Some fantasy world have only a few being able to wield magic. Others have a much more widespread practice, which would certainly increase if they was an industrial revolution and ogres and dragons and chimeras.

[SirNitram]

Netheril is industrialized magic. Period. Full stop. Mass transit? Got that in the form of everything from air travel to teleport booths to starships. Mass production? Every home has a stove, fridge, and bathtub and sink. Most even have news/communications devices. Et cetera. Et cetera.