Roleplaying Worlds
Should player characters be innovators or indicators?
Take a fantasy setting with multiple nations. One may be renown for its schools of magic, and another may be know as "technologically advanced" with the best ships or firearms or whatever. Then add a PC who wants to do something new. He creates a new spell, or technological marvel. What happens? I see two major options:
1) The character is an innovator. His creation is unique. The first mass fireball, or the first airship - it sets the PC ahead and NPCs who see it are inspired, but well behind in development of anything similar.
2) The character is an indicator. This follows the logic "if the character could do it, so could someone else." Suddenly there's someone at those mage schools who teaches the spell, or there are companies in the tech-country who field airships. Maybe they're slipped in as "always having been there" or maybe they're fairly new, but the NPC world is brought up to match the bar of progress set by the PC.
Take a fantasy setting with multiple nations. One may be renown for its schools of magic, and another may be know as "technologically advanced" with the best ships or firearms or whatever. Then add a PC who wants to do something new. He creates a new spell, or technological marvel. What happens? I see two major options:
1) The character is an innovator. His creation is unique. The first mass fireball, or the first airship - it sets the PC ahead and NPCs who see it are inspired, but well behind in development of anything similar.
2) The character is an indicator. This follows the logic "if the character could do it, so could someone else." Suddenly there's someone at those mage schools who teaches the spell, or there are companies in the tech-country who field airships. Maybe they're slipped in as "always having been there" or maybe they're fairly new, but the NPC world is brought up to match the bar of progress set by the PC.
Both. A character could develop something that is just ahead of the society they are in, and will be 'ahead of the game' until someone else sees what they've done and starts modifying it. Alternatively, if it is something not too impressive, something that is easily within the grasp of anyone else, that becomes part of the status quo. For example - the first pistol. Once people learned of it and how it was made, that spread all over the place. The first telephone? Well, that took a bit more time, since to make that a part of society required the re-wiring of whole cities and such. In a fantasy setting, this becomes more of a problem. You make an impressive enough innovation, you'll have people looking at it in short order, trying to figure out what you did, and trying to improve upon it. Some things will be more difficult to duplicate than others. Of course, the other question would be what is the nation like? Someone in a 'poorer' region may come up with a new sword design, then go to a more advanced region and find that par for the course. As for being behind... not always the case. You make a cool invention, someone sees it, gets inspired, and doesn't run into the same pitfalls you did. They innovate and alter your design to come out ahead. If I remember, Bell did that with his patent of the telephone... he had a few flaws, someone had just handed in the design for something minutes before him, since he knew the patent clerk he got permission to look it over, made some adjustments on his design to use that, and got his patent in.
ReplyDeleteSo your answer is that any and all of the above are acceptable ways to run things? ;)
ReplyDeleteHow many good (ie. believable) explanations have you heard of for why magic/technology would remain largely unchanged for the thousands of years that is normally the case in a fantasy setting?
ReplyDeleteOne. Specifically, Wizard's Bane had the explanation that magic isn't controlled, and civilization suffered because of it. Spells were rote, because mages learned by trial and error, and codified what they learned, not knowing how it worked or why it worked as it did. It took someone from outside to figure out the underpinnings of magic and teach it, and that is what started to bring civilization forward. Otherwise, really, I've not heard a good excuse.
ReplyDeleteExactly. It is very much a 'it depends' sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteThe Mistborn series has a situation where the immortal Lord Ruler has been exercising strict control of information and society since he came to power. I forget the exact time scale involved, save that it's long. Allomancy was largely only present in the nobility, and experimentation could cause sickness or potentially death, so I can see little drive to expand on the powers "given" to them. Technological advancement... eh... I'm not sure about, as it wasn't really addressed directly, but that could have been discouraged culturally. That's the only specific example I can think of. I know a few cases where technological progress is prevented by use of one or more "dark ages" or wars. Though warfare seems, historically, one of the major driving forces for invention.
ReplyDeleteI don't like #2 in the sense of 'suddenly' there's an NPC who could always do it or better. It sort of depends on which nation this character innovates something. If this character is from the tech nation and they make a tech device that, until the point of creation, had never been heard of or used before, then the character is an innovator. If the character isn't from the tech nation when they make this awesome device, it is plausible it may have already existed in the more advanced nation, but I don't like the 'oh yeah? Those guys in Gearland? Yeah, they -always- had floobtubes.' because that devalues the PC's player's innovation to make something neat, and up to that point, previously never mentioned before. It takes away from the experience and unfortunately creates player animosity towards the GM.
ReplyDeleteTrue enough. The whole 'dark ages' thing seems to forget that the dark ages weren't universal. Sure, Europe had a dark age, but meanwhile, the other cultures of Eurasia were doing just fine and progressing along at a nice pace. And you're right ... warfare tends to make increases in technology, where the tools become more efficient and more deadly.
ReplyDeleteTrue, but then again, it becomes a matter of 1) would such a thing probably already exist, and 2) how fast can they retro-engineer it once it is discovered / heard of.
ReplyDeleteYeaaaaah. >.> As one might assume, this whole topic of thought came up largely because I heard about airships over Tarantis. Admittedly, this is second- or third-hand in getting to me, but it sounds like the nation is "suddenly" being portrayed as having dozens of the things all over the sky when 6-12 months ago Tarantis had "a couple" and PCs were just making their first two (oooh, ahhhh). As much as they might want to keep that proprietary, such things would probably be popping up in neighboring countries too. And with the new slant to artificing (this assumes that artificing PDF is some way close to being done and official), FurryFaire could go steampunk in no time. If we don't want that to be the case, we should probably have some plausible reason to put the brakes on things sooner rather than later.
ReplyDeleteDark Ages: Well, most fantasy "worlds" are smaller anyway - where the focus is on a continent rather than a globe. Sometimes that's explained, usually it's glossed over. Warfare: And in the long run, it's not just weapons. Look at everything air travel is today and image where we'd be without the drive for air superiority in the World Wars. Or radio. Or M&Ms. ;) War ushers in weapon tech, but once the dust settles, developments spread out into the civilian sector all over.
ReplyDeleteWell, they had airships before the Shire did (the Wraith being a good example) -- having flown the PCs from Kith Kanaan to Domremy. Then there's the ship which went to the New World. Then, there was the tensions with Carcassonne, who have aircraft. With the Shire building one airship and one 'super airship', this was more motivation. Then came the trade boost with the Mainland (which was hinted at a few times), and the urge to expand that way. I'd put Siren's Cove, which is the 'tech center' of Kith Kanaan, at having perhaps a dozen or two, yes. The thing is -- if they had a few over a year ago (closer to two), and having had not one, but three etherships... why wouldn't they have developed more? They've got the technology and means (more so than the Shire has). The artificing PDF is pretty much done (just needs a few minor details added). The Shire could go steampunk, assuming the movers and shakers had the coins for it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, for some reason people keep thinking the dark ages should be 'universal'. Then they mix it up by adding gnomes. ;)
ReplyDeleteOh, it could happen. It's just a bit... shocking when they go from two known (and having one bite the dust from an expedition and never return) to "a bunch." In that sense, it's just a perception issue. In another sense, there's a question of "Why the heck didn't this happen a thousand years ago? The magic that allows it hasn't changed at all." Though it's about to when those rules go final. And in a spinoff of that, just don't go saying Tarantis is the only one making progress. Airships are still (as of now) largely possible due to magic, and they may be technologically advanced (though I still question how they can maintain much of a lead), but magic is widely accessible. As you say, Carcassonne had summoned aircraft of some sort. Drachen (well, Kyle) has had a planeshifting airship for twenty-plus years now, even if that one hasn't been paraded around. I'm not against setting progress as long as it makes sense, and playing other nations like they have their heads in the sand doesn't make much sense. And coin? Heh. Cyra has been over the resource cap for a few months now. I suspect Amanda is and Zhokora is close. If PCs are indicative of the situation, then money isn't an issue.
ReplyDeleteGood point. I've made a post saying what the various nations are up to.
ReplyDelete*reads comments and is totally utterly lost. cool!*
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