Why so few games about Magic VS Tech?

[msxyz]

In any practical sense, technology devalues traditional magic systems. Therefore magic users will either attempt to control the advancement of technology or try to delay it. If magic can be improved, we will certainly see some kind of arms race.

From an evolutionary point of view it could be the other way around. If there are enough magic users around, there's no push to create machines or to approach problems from an engineering point of view. Who need medicine when you have magic healers? Who need fast means of transport when wizards can create portals?

However, if magic users are scarce and those who can wield magic rapidly climb at the top of the social structure, then I can imagine a scenario where commoners would be interested in technology as a mean to be freed from the rule of magic users. It would be something clandestine because magic users would have all the interest to keep people ignorant about all the mundane knowledge (medicine, physics, chemistry...) and proactively prosecute those who defy their narrative that 'magic is the only way to go'.

What is rare is the existence of magic technology. In any setting where magic exists as a fundamental force, people will try to build on it.

There are some JRPGs which have such a premise, i.e. most of the Final Fantasy games. The entire story of the 6th notably revolves around fusing magic with technology

 

[Lady Error]

I think it is best if either magic or tech is dominant.

For example, I felt that Shadowrun would be better without much magic. Many RPG's in fantasy settings are focused on magic and have only slight tech, eg. Wizardry, Might & Magic, PoE.

Having magic and tech compete with each other like in Arcanum or Shadowrun can work to some degree, but is difficult to pull off in a good way.

 

[Cross]

The challenge with pulling off a convincing 'magic vs technology' setting is that the Industrial Revolution would presumably play out differently in a world with magic. Shadowrun gets around this by having magic suddenly reappear in the future when the world has already advanced to a cyberpunk level of technology.

The other thing is that in many fantasy settings there already is a substitute for a hypothetical conflict pitting magic against technology: using magic in ways it was not meant. In Dark Sun the world is reduced to a desert because mages, who draw their power from the land, went too far. In Planescape: Torment the Nameless One cheats the natural order by changing his nature and becoming immortal.

Arcanum and Thief have some of the best settings, so it can definitely be done right.

 

[Humbaba]

To give a short answer, most writers aren't good enough to portray such a conflict in a believable manner. I mean look at Arcanum, that stuff makes no sense if you think about it for more than 5 seconds. Shadowrun is like the only setting that pulls it off reasonably well, though there it's not really a conflict as much as a rivalry.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I think it is best if either magic or tech is dominant.

For example, I felt that Shadowrun would be better without much magic. Many RPG's in fantasy settings are focused on magic and have only slight tech, eg. Wizardry, Might & Magic, PoE.

Having magic and tech compete with each other like in Arcanum or Shadowrun can work to some degree, but is difficult to pull off in a good way.

magic in arcanum works because some races are inherently not magical meaning they were required to rely on technology and follow a similar technological advancement path as one would expect.
IIRC, this is represented in gameplay not just by dwarves having an innate bonus to tech affinity, but all their spells cost twice as much to cast. The latter part I don't believe is actually mentioned anywhere, but it is implemented that way.

 

[Stoned Ape]

I felt that Shadowrun would be better without much magic.

I strongly disagree with you there. The whole point of the setting is having a magical revival taking place in a high-tech corporate world.

 

[JarlFrank]

Because it's a pretty silly idea that can very easily give rise to stylistic conflicts and challenges in consistent worldbuilding. You can and often enough do have both in the same setting, but with one clearly being dominant - e.g. Thief is technologically grounded with a splash of the supernatural, and Pillars of Eternity is sorcery-ahoy! with a scientific undercurrent.

When both are as developed and valid, though, it gets difficult to channel specific aesthetic motifs and establish the history and functioning of a setting because you're dealing with different levels of suspension of disbelief. It can quickly become jarring for the player to go along with your "crystals" and "ritual energies" or whatnot, essentially make-believe concepts, when they're sitting side by side with notions people can realistically relate to, like electronics and thermodynamics.

Is it though?

Most fantasy worlds have real world physics as their baseline. Bows and arrows work as they should, melee weapons work as they should, gravity works as they should... the basic structure of the world relies on real physics.
Magic is like an additional field of physics that exists in that world, but not in ours.

Why wouldn't things like gunpowder, steam engines, propeller flight, electric lights, etc work in a fantasy world with magic in it? It's not like the real laws of physics don't exist in such a world. It's just that magic exists on top of them.

 

[Cryomancer]

Magic is like an additional field of physics that exists in that world, but not in ours.

Why wouldn't things like gunpowder, steam engines, propeller flight, electric lights, etc work in a fantasy world with magic in it? It's not like the real laws of physics don't exist in such a world. It's just that magic exists on top of them.

I know that it is a anime example and many people here hate anime, but in Log Horizon, they use conjured fire elementals to power a ship steam engine. I found it very clever.

The challenge with pulling off a convincing 'magic vs technology' setting is that the Industrial Revolution would presumably play out differently in a world with magic.

Exactly. And modern tech also would be different. Imagine how easily would be to generate energy with mid level D&D magic.

--------------------

Anyway, here is a unpopular opinion. Is silly to attempt to balance a fireball VS a sword, a bone spear VS a bow, but is OK to ballance a fireball VS a grenade launcher or a bone spear VS a ballista.

 

[vota DC]

Because Glest flop despite being free!

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

Because magic and tech are, for many people, clashing concepts that do not go together. Plus it is difficult to do well.
Personally I've found the hightech endings to Might&Magic games jarring 20+ years ago and I wouldn't be too interested in a techmagic game now.
It just feels like mixing beer and wine in the same glass - while enjoyble separately, they are bleh together.

 

[jackofshadows]

this is represented in gameplay not just by dwarves having an innate bonus to tech affinity, but all their spells cost twice as much to cast. The latter part I don't believe is actually mentioned anywhere, but it is implemented that way.

The manual but also there's dwarf wizard companion which basically represents said idea. Despite all odds and all that. As far as I remember, he avoid saying literally twice as mana, that would be solly but otherwise convey that pretty well even before joining.

On subj: I think it would be great if some game would present a world where, like in ahem, certain novel, the tech world and the magic world would be totally separated and the opposition would be rather on global scale (again, like in said novel). The plot, the journey would lead from one world to another and back while both worlds/regions would react accordingly to the character's chosen side.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Magic is like an additional field of physics that exists in that world, but not in ours.

Why wouldn't things like gunpowder, steam engines, propeller flight, electric lights, etc work in a fantasy world with magic in it? It's not like the real laws of physics don't exist in such a world. It's just that magic exists on top of them.

I know that it is a anime example and many people here hate anime, but in Log Horizon, they use conjured fire elementals to power a ship steam engine. I found it very clever.

If you like that kind of thing, there's a Chinese web novel called 'Release that Witch' which is about an engineer who gets his mind transferred into the body of a prince in a world where witches are executed by the church. He saves a witch who can control fire and uses her abilities to begin an industrial revolution. Overall it's pretty fun.

https://novelfull.com/release-that-witch/chapter-1-from-today-onwards-i-am-a-royal-prince.html

There's also a manhua of it, and the Chinese are in the process of making a cartoon series as well.

 

[msxyz]

Because it's a pretty silly idea that can very easily give rise to stylistic conflicts and challenges in consistent worldbuilding. You can and often enough do have both in the same setting, but with one clearly being dominant - e.g. Thief is technologically grounded with a splash of the supernatural, and Pillars of Eternity is sorcery-ahoy! with a scientific undercurrent.

When both are as developed and valid, though, it gets difficult to channel specific aesthetic motifs and establish the history and functioning of a setting because you're dealing with different levels of suspension of disbelief. It can quickly become jarring for the player to go along with your "crystals" and "ritual energies" or whatnot, essentially make-believe concepts, when they're sitting side by side with notions people can realistically relate to, like electronics and thermodynamics.

Is it though?

Most fantasy worlds have real world physics as their baseline. Bows and arrows work as they should, melee weapons work as they should, gravity works as they should... the basic structure of the world relies on real physics.
Magic is like an additional field of physics that exists in that world, but not in ours.

Why wouldn't things like gunpowder, steam engines, propeller flight, electric lights, etc work in a fantasy world with magic in it? It's not like the real laws of physics don't exist in such a world. It's just that magic exists on top of them.

They can work, but the issue is a lack of incentive to develop technology when magic already provide a solution to the most common problems. Why invent the cannon when you can cast a fireball?

In order to coexist, either magic must be scarce, forgotten or known only to an elite of few persons, or its power must be very limited to the point that people would proactively look for other more... mundane solutions.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

The moment you can describe the interactions magic has with the world as a set of hard and fast rules, it in fact becomes a form of technology. In such a fictional world, the rules of magic are an extension of that world's physics. That's not to say that magic has to be portrayed in that way, but any setting that must codify magic in terms of game mechanics inevitably walks the path of magic as technology. The only alternative is simply to use magic as a narrative device (i.e. as deus ex machina) that is out of the hands of players, such as the way the corrupting influence of the otherworldly is portrayed in Lovecraftian horror.

 

[Cryomancer]

Magic is like an additional field of physics that exists in that world, but not in ours.

Why wouldn't things like gunpowder, steam engines, propeller flight, electric lights, etc work in a fantasy world with magic in it? It's not like the real laws of physics don't exist in such a world. It's just that magic exists on top of them.

I know that it is a anime example and many people here hate anime, but in Log Horizon, they use conjured fire elementals to power a ship steam engine. I found it very clever.

If you like that kind of thing, there's a Chinese web novel called 'Release that Witch' which is about an engineer who gets his mind transferred into the body of a prince in a world where witches are executed by the church. He saves a witch who can control fire and uses her abilities to begin an industrial revolution. Overall it's pretty fun.
https://novelfull.com/release-that-witch/chapter-1-from-today-onwards-i-am-a-royal-prince.html

There's also a manhua of it, and the Chinese are in the process of making a cartoon series as well.
(...)

Interesting.. About anime, other that I like a lot is Hiatus X Hiatus. IMO is one of the best "hard magic" systems. Anyway, in video games what I wanna to see is more dangerous magic. I'm not saying that a mere magic missile needs to put the caster life at risk, but something like, if you are casting a fireball and took a attack of opportunity, it has a chance to blow up in your own hands. Summoning a demon has a chance of him turning hostile towards the party, In 2E book domains of dread, a lot of necromantic spells are modified to be deadlier and riskier. For eg, wail of the banshee has twice the "area" of effect but every female slain by the OHK spell raises as a Banshee not loyal towards the master but with a revenge desire against the caster.

Personally I've found the hightech endings to Might&Magic games jarring 20+ years ago and I wouldn't be too interested in a techmagic game now.

I like using powerful dark magic to fight a sci fi powerful droid. Still don't like how blasters rends everything except high level dark magic useless in combat. I would prefer if the blasters were extremely powerful but ammo very scarce,

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Magic is like an additional field of physics that exists in that world, but not in ours.

Why wouldn't things like gunpowder, steam engines, propeller flight, electric lights, etc work in a fantasy world with magic in it? It's not like the real laws of physics don't exist in such a world. It's just that magic exists on top of them.

I know that it is a anime example and many people here hate anime, but in Log Horizon, they use conjured fire elementals to power a ship steam engine. I found it very clever.

D&D accessory AC11 The Book of Wondrous Inventions included several contraptions that replicated 20th-century technical via magical means, including a subterranean borer powered by captive umber hulks, an artillery piece powered by fire elementals, a train with a steam engine fueled by a captive red dragon, a steam-driven dungeon-building machine fueled by a fire elemental, and a gnomish submersible powered by golems.

 

[Reinhardt]

Victor, you don't need to bring animu. In Eberron, including DDO, airships are powered by bound elementals.

 

[GhostCow]

I actually have a bit of a hateon for magic vs tech. It seems retarded to me. Magic should enhance technology. They shouldn't be opposed. What's wrong with having a setting where magic has replaced electricity for example?

 

[Gargaune]

Is it though?

Most fantasy worlds have real world physics as their baseline. Bows and arrows work as they should, melee weapons work as they should, gravity works as they should... the basic structure of the world relies on real physics.
Magic is like an additional field of physics that exists in that world, but not in ours.

Why wouldn't things like gunpowder, steam engines, propeller flight, electric lights, etc work in a fantasy world with magic in it? It's not like the real laws of physics don't exist in such a world. It's just that magic exists on top of them.

They would work, but your general art direction, including writing, might struggle. You have to reasonably account for how and why these technologies develop and you'll have a harder time tapping into your consumers' preconceived aesthetic sensibilities. Mixing dragons with F16s runs a high risk of nosediving down a pit of lolrandom. I don't think it's coincidence that combining large-scale D&D magic with industrial science is often done in the trappings of "steampunk" pseudo-Victorian settings, aping the aesthetics of a modern period when the supernatural was still widely present in the public consciousness (or at least that's our contemporary perception of it, e.g. that Dracula, Frankenstein and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas might've been received as similarly "realistic" speculative fiction back in their days).

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

I actually have a bit of a hateon for magic vs tech. It seems retarded to me. Magic should enhance technology. They shouldn't be opposed. What's wrong with having a setting where magic has replaced electricity for example?

What's the difference between magic vs. tech and divine vs. arcane? Doesn't it simply denote a different source of power?

 

[Cryomancer]

In Eberron, including DDO, airships are powered by bound elementals.

Yep. DDO is the best post wow mmo IMO. Sadly many CRPG's don't focus in magic use out of combat. For eg, Polymorth self and polymorth other is way more useful out of combat than in combat. When I played a one shot in Dark Sun, I've used that spell to make a templar look like a fugitive slave and other like a infamous defiler and get our party out of trouble. A Mere lv 1 charm person can be the difference of life and death for a low level party.

Magic should enhance technology. They shouldn't be opposed. What's wrong with having a setting where magic has replaced electricity for example?

Depends in how magic operates in that fictional world. For eg, in the The Call of Cthulhu, you can own firearms and perform magic. However, magic is a alien power which our mind can't comprehend. Is completely out of human capability. A human trying to learn magic in that setting is like a chimpanzee wanting to learn how to code. Even if somehow he learns, he would't be a normal animal anymore. Hence most magic users in Call of Cthulhu are insane cultists. And doing magic hurts your sanity. In Vampire : The Masquarede, is different. A Tremere proficient in path of conjuration can if he knows a lot of firearms and mechanics materialize a anti materiel rifle with explosive rounds and if he has a lot of electronics understatement, he can even create a thermal scope and even make it permanent essentially using magic sorcery to create technology.

 

[laclongquan]

With a straight line of eyesight fireball and rocket, if there's an obstacle between the two it would be disabled, blocked, uneffective to target

With a lobbing over grenade that can bounce around, an obstacle is not that much of an obstacle.

So you accept that a fireball and a rocket launcher are functionally equivalent, but then try to compare a fireball to a grenade and argue that the grenade can be arced and the fireball can't. But that's not an argument of magic vs. tech. That's an argument of one specific item vs. another specific item.

[/QUOTE]
Boy, boy, this is me caring about your poor brain mush of magic players so I used simple to understand examples. Understand? Simple. IF I use something complex like wire-guided portable missile launcher I am sure your brains would explode. or Javelin, bitch! Know what Im saying?

And a critical difference, unsaid in game, is this: a rocket/grenade has cost. Once used, it's gone, shooting rocket = burning money. With fireball there's no cost associated except maybe time to regenerate (sleep, rest, etc). There's no material cost to it~

Guns run on bullets, magic runs on mana potions. I'm not really sure what the fundamental difference is from a gameplay standpoint. A gunman that runs out of bullets can't use. A wizard that runs out of blue potions can't shoot either. What are you going for here?

Like I said, poor brain mush of magic players.
1. A mana-system wizards can use their own self-recovered mana to launch spell. For free. A gun cant shoot without bullets. Not For Free.
2. Same deal with Vancian (Dnd) magic system. Even without ingredients, they have spells that can be used without ingredients. Out of thin air, bitch.

 

[Grimlorn]

I actually have a bit of a hateon for magic vs tech. It seems retarded to me. Magic should enhance technology. They shouldn't be opposed. What's wrong with having a setting where magic has replaced electricity for example?

You can do both. But typically in settings not everyone can be magic users so there might be nations without them competing with nations that do have them seeking their own form of power to stand on their own.