Quote: Long ago there were many kingdoms of man and many kings, all at war. Eventually they fought each other down to one king, the new emperor. All other kings were put to death and the other kinsman over the centuries were either killed off or married into the emperors bloodline, or became commoners forgetting their heritage. There was peace, uprisings happened, usurps of the thrown, but the kingdom at large was free of the devastating wars and and the fights now were political and assassinations were the only killings. The peace brought innovation and renewal, advancement it the arts of magic and crafts. Mages learned how to control ever more powerful forces, albeit in simple ways. Magic has always made simple but powerful changes in things. It came a time when the researchers of the arcane found there world to be one of many, existing within an astral world. A world between worlds. A portal was opened and another world was found. It was a dark world, and researchers went in, but never came back until the day it was shutoff. One researcher did come back. He was the first to go in. He came back possessed of the devil incarnate, or so they thought. He brought things back with them they thought unholy and vile. Mighty spells of fire and lightening were released against this being from the dark portal and the room was scorched, his bones lay brittle and charred, his disgusting familiars the same. The portal was closed and the room sealed. The tomes written about the methods employed to create the portal were taken and kept secret. Eventually they forgot their past attempt and the tomes they wrote about it. those same tomes though were gone, long stolen by some thief looking for valuables, and then sold again, changing hands over and over, its true power and worth unknown. It ended up in the hands of a powerful and curious mage. The tomes did not speak of what the dark portal was or what became of it, only of how it was made and of the underlying workings of the astral planes. This mage opened a new portal, and fortunately for him and the world at large, it was not a portal of dark malevolence and vile mephits. It was a world beings wholly unmagical. They had technology that could do complex and amazing things. These beings had answers to the most complex and troubling problems within their technologies. But they had no magic, and no answer to how the mage had made his portal. They had no massive powers or devices capable of such devastating or wonderful effects even a lowly student of magic was capable. For a long time, the two sides did nothing about this portal other than guard it. The mage did not think these beings a threat and they, while frightened of the mages ability to rip holes in the world were powerless to stop it or close the portal. The mage made efforts to communicate with them to no avail. It was them who first learned his language and spoke the first words to him. They welcomed the mage. They slowly began conversing and eventually a trust formed and they shared knowledge of magic and technology with each other. Hundreds of years have since passed and the mage's world has changed drastically. There are holdovers of their past, things which technology could not really improve much more than they already had. There were new devices which were alien to their past, and there were hybrids and amalgamations of the technology and the magic.

This is a backstory to explain how technology and magic coexist in my world. the mention of the dark portal is important to my plot also as a central conflict point when it gets reopened. The parts that sound vague are vague because this isnt polished or sensitive to any other plot elements yet to be established, like names and what these beings are. What I want to know is if this makes sense and allows for a world with devices of high tech and magic, and items of each alone, from swords and armor to electric lights and computers. (there will be no guns, and no real world vehicles.) Is this backstory and world cheesy and ridiculous or good and believable? (the game is an iso-RPG)

sure. it's a game.

By the way, your writing needs a lot of re-writing. You have no voice in the piece; it's all stuttering and jutting around every which way - it breaks up the reader's ability to "parse" it. I'm glad that you have the idea of magic / technology as a baseline for what you want your game to be about.

Apparently you want to avoid certain modern day "technologies," such as guns and vehicles. Therefore you need a way to avoid the span of the known human timeline that possesses these affects. Having a portal from the past open the door to some alien/unknown race of technological wonder is a good method of doing this. So is reducing an alien/unknown species to a primitive means of subsistence.

Magic and Technology is a pretty common element in many RPGs. What specifically within the world you create is going to be the catalyst for all the adventures your player will embark upon?

Well the writing was an unpolished write up of my thoughts just to get them written. It isn't necessarily that I want to avoid those technologies, its more that I want to avoid things that scream of real human culture and technology. Hand guns and cars would kill a players suspension of disbelief. On the other hand I am not against having alternate technologies to fill the gaps. For instance, there would be mixing of weapons at some point in that early communication from one culture to another would be under guard and so there would be weapons from both sides present. I just don't want them to look like Assault Rifles.

As I mentioned in that write up, there was a portal opened before the one that mixed the magic world and tech worlds. It was a portal to an evil place and was closed off soon after it was opened. The catalyst will have to do with it being reopened and need closing, my adventurers of course being the ones to do it.

Right now I'm trying to figure out what sort of tech I want to be brought into the magic world and what sort of medieval tech I want to be obsolete by it. For instance I want to keep swords and armour in the game, but with magical and technological enhancement I can see those being viable arms in a strange pseudo-modern sense. On the other hand, Bow and arrow seems had to keep when a world with computers should have chemistry an therefore gun powder. I dont want guns, but I want more advanced tech, so how do I avoid guns? Cars and the like I can avoid by having magi-tech teleportation which I want anyway. Could magi-tech shielding and offensive magic obsolete guns and the possibility of them being present? Would that then obsolete swords and metal armour too? *sigh*

Honestly though, my plot and characterization is still almost non-existant. I'll be thinking more on it, but world building is what has taken my thoughts first so I am going with it.

Quote: I dont want guns, but I want more advanced tech, so how do I avoid guns?

I figured out my way around guns. After the two cultures met and exchanged knowledge, the magic culture shared with them items that were keyed to a certain spell, say fireball, or lightening bolt, and then charged. It could then be sold or given to others who could then cast those spells without training, at least no more training than the point and shoot training of guns. Spell casting on its own wasn't a solution to avoiding guns as it takes much training and schooling to be a spell caster in your own right. These objects would be simpler to create and charge than guns and offer more flexibility in what they can do. Thoughts?

So rather then guns, you have sticks that shoots fireballs? If thats the case why have swords and armor?

One way you could avoid having guns and vehicles is explaining that physical sciences work differently in each world. Gunpowder and oil could be non-combustable in the magic world, which is why there are no guns or vehicles. Like wise other substance from the technological world could have abnormal properties in the magic world. Ceramics for instance could absorb magical energy, making a suit of cermaic armor extremly valuable for any anti-mage swordsmen. If you want sword versus magic then you have to come up with some reason that makes sense for the two to be able to compete with each. Espically if magic is simply control powerful forces as you stated in your back story.

One idea you could go with leading from this is the distruption to the society caused by the influx technology. Technology could be causing a major shift in culture and society. Mages could be loosing their control over soceity that their fearsome has given them. Technology has allowed people to perform tasks that previously only mages could do and allowed for the first time for anti-magic warriors to compete with against the mages. That could be why the dark portal is reopened. A group of powerful mages terrified of loosing their power and influence open the dark portal in an effort to gain access to an even more powerful source of magic.

Thank you for those great suggestion, TechnoGoth! I intended on having swords and armour in the game from the magic world anyway, after all, before the tech world, that was the best they had. (the mages are powerful yes, but they still take years and years to teach and bring to a war worthy level of spellcasting. a thousand armour wearing sword bearing footsoldiers could be trained in the time a single mage would learn enough to be a warrior) After the tech came, it could be improved not only with magical enchantments but also with better metal working techniques, tempering, new alloys and new materials from the other world. Even plate mail is so flexible as it is in the real world, you cant much top it for usability other than stopping power and weight. New materials might reasonably bring both of those allowing swords and armour to remain viable. Now admittedly the Sticks-Of-Doom would be closely guarded by the mages, so even if the exist, I suppose thats not a good solution.

If there were no guns, what would be the modern weapon of choice then?

I'm not sure if I want an epic war between mages and non-mages. As good as it sounds, its a power struggle so standard to the fantasy RPG world that it might be cliche.

PS, i really like your idea that materials from one world brought to the other might have different properties.

A lot of it depends on how powerful you want to make your mages and how common magical enchantments are going to be. My point was that swords don't make much sense if death sticks are as common as guns are in real life.

You don't need to an war between magic and non magic to have conflict. It could be a class struggle and social upheval. If Mages are a powerful elite, wealthy aristocrats but few in number and the bulk of people are non magical and thus limited by the lack of technology then the influx of new technology could cause a major change in the social order.

Think about A few examples of where magic could dominate in your world and how the influx technology could break that dominance. What effect would that have?

For example:
Construction - If mages are employed to create building molding stone into fantastic structures the envy of the world over and costing a fortune to build. Then what would happen when modern construction techniques are introduced? Now builders can build stuctures cheaper and in someways are superior to magical ones.

I'm thinking by thing about guns is better solved by simply making the tech world not need them because they never ran into huge culture vs culture conflicts. the easiest way for this to happen is for them to have a planet so huge they dont make land grabs on each other. I need to think about the implications of that some though, but i like it and it makes for a lot of possibilities as well. I'm also thinking the mages should be venerated as gods would. after all, they are very powerful. I also find it amusing that in most RPGs the mages are at odds with priest who get power from gods and here they have their own priest and are the gods. More thinking needed...

Quote: Original post by JasRonq
I'm thinking by thing about guns is better solved by simply making the tech world not need them because they never ran into huge culture vs culture conflicts.

"Huge culture vs culture conflicts", i.e. a global and intense war, might perhaps encourage the development of extraordinary strategic weapon programs, from the large WWII initiatives like Bletchley Park and the Manhattan Project to the Death Star, but even the smallest conflicts, down to one person vs one person, produce demand for very destructive weapons.
For example, sniping with a rifle from the next hill is vastly less dangerous than getting close enough for swords, and napalm bombs (not to mention fantasy fireballs...) are more reliably incendiary than sending in animals with torches tied to their tails.
Family feuds can only be hereditary because private access to house-leveling missiles is very rare.

Only an unreasonably pacifist fantasy society would dispense with weapons; at best, traditional weapons might be replaced by more effective or cost-efficient magic, like the mentioned death sticks (which cannot avoid gun development if they cost more than about $1000 per stick and $10 per shot or cannot be delivered in large numbers).

Quote: The easiest way for this to happen is for them to have a planet so huge they dont make land grabs on each other.

Grabbing your neighbour's land is intrinsically easier than emigrating, unless he is defended enough to make aggression dangerous and expensive.
Abundance of land or resources expands and extends competition rather than diluting it; only the likelihood of desperate moves from desperate parties would decrease.

And of course property is only one of the reasons for wars, feuds and crimes; there are sex, religion, madness, honour, and many other priorities, while pure aggressivity (demonstrating one's valour, territorial and competitive instincts, death wishes) is more than enough to kill and be killed.

Quote: I need to think about the implications of that some though, but i like it and it makes for a lot of possibilities as well. I'm also thinking the mages should be venerated as gods would. after all, they are very powerful.

The whims of such very powerful people would be a threat to everybody else. Some "above the law" unassailable public enemies could be assimilated to natural hazards (certainly not worshipped, except by stupid people); but any gifted youths interested in becoming their apprentices and successors are likely to be killed before they become dangerous, maybe openly and legally.
Remaining socially accepted is in the wizards' best interest; "good" wizards who make themselves useful are likely to band together against aggressive sorcerer-king or mad wizard types.