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Magelight

jwdh71 said:
Employee 2-4601: Yes I've both read and playerd Dragonstar. An interesting game, but the background wasn't really to my taste, and it was really a high-tech universe. Yes they used some magic, such as the FTL system for starships, and you could play spell-using characters, but most of the weapons and equipment were based on technology, not magic, with the exception of spellware and the like. The concept I'm trying to go for is a complete replacement on technology with magic, so that everything we would see in a high-tech world is there, but everything is powered by magic, not electricity.

If you reduce the technology to the level of D&D, then what you have are medeaval fantasy space travellers that travel to the stars with the aid of spells and magic items. These space travellers use swords and arrows and wear armor. Magic items in your typical D&D universe are relatively rare though, not everyone has them, and you usually can't buy them, they are made by powerful wizards. Medeaval space travellers really have no means of surviving the various planetary environments. You would need spells not only to travel through space, but to travel faster than the speed of light, protect you from radiation, and provide breathable air for space travellers.
 
Originally posted by Space Cadet:
If you reduce the technology to the level of D&D, then what you have are medeaval fantasy space travellers that travel to the stars with the aid of spells and magic items. These space travellers use swords and arrows and wear armor. Magic items in your typical D&D universe are relatively rare though, not everyone has them, and you usually can't buy them, they are made by powerful wizards.
It actually depends on the campaign. In my experience, in 2nd edition D&D magical items were very common in the hands of players with each player typically having like 10-15 items at any decent experience level. The problem was that ordinary people were still serfs and other stuff from the actual medieval era so you had the "Emrikol the Chaotic" problem - nobody could stop players.

In 3rd edition, the general feel has changed so that everyone and their dog can wield some sort of magic, directly or indirectly thorough items. Most players tend to have like 20+ magic items at any decent level, plus some spellcasting ability. It's the kind of world where if the players get unruly with fire magic in a bar, someone "breaks glass in case of emergency" and out of a glass bulb pops a water elemental who saunters over and smothers the fires then wallops the players.

Magelight appears to a be high magic world - where magic replaces technology. Technology is available to everyone, so if it's a direct replacement, there's going to be lots of "magic" (but would it be "magic" if it were common?) - so it's going to be more like 3rd edition.

Originally posted by Space Cadet:
Medeaval space travellers really have no means of surviving the various planetary environments. You would need spells not only to travel through space, but to travel faster than the speed of light, protect you from radiation, and provide breathable air for space travellers.
This assumes that a magical universe has the same problems as our own. Stuff like "radiation" may not exist - being attacked and killed by something you can't see or fight against is thoroughly unpopular in all RPGs, let alone fantasy games. The solution could just be as easy as casting "Resist Elements - Radiation/25", "Vacuum Breathing" (a spinoff of Water Breathing) and "Permanency" on a suit of clothing. There, you can even have your stylish Poet's Outfit double as a spacesuit.
 
Glen Cook, one of my favorite fantasy authors, wrote a trilogy of books that deals with some very similar themes to what you are trying to create.

It is "The Darkwar Trilogy" and is available in paperback (at least it used to be).

Without spoiling the story, interstellar flight is possible using magic.
 
It actually depends on the campaign. In my experience, in 2nd edition D&D magical items were very common in the hands of players with each player typically having like 10-15 items at any decent experience level. The problem was that ordinary people were still serfs and other stuff from the actual medieval era so you had the "Emrikol the Chaotic" problem - nobody could stop players.

In 3rd edition, the general feel has changed so that everyone and their dog can wield some sort of magic, directly or indirectly thorough items. Most players tend to have like 20+ magic items at any decent level, plus some spellcasting ability. It's the kind of world where if the players get unruly with fire magic in a bar, someone "breaks glass in case of emergency" and out of a glass bulb pops a water elemental who saunters over and smothers the fires then wallops the players.

Magelight appears to a be high magic world - where magic replaces technology. Technology is available to everyone, so if it's a direct replacement, there's going to be lots of "magic" (but would it be "magic" if it were common?) - so it's going to be more like 3rd edition.

This assumes that a magical universe has the same problems as our own. Stuff like "radiation" may not exist - being attacked and killed by something you can't see or fight against is thoroughly unpopular in all RPGs, let alone fantasy games. The solution could just be as easy as casting "Resist Elements - Radiation/25", "Vacuum Breathing" (a spinoff of Water Breathing) and "Permanency" on a suit of clothing. There, you can even have your stylish Poet's Outfit double as a spacesuit.

Epicenter00 has got it exactly right, it is a "High-Magic" world, where; instead of an industrial revolution, there was a magical revolution, and the creation of magical items became an industry. Wizards began sharing spells and information with each other, research into the fundamental building blocks of magic was done, and magic became the science of that universe, with wizards the scientists and engineers.

Basically it gives me the opportunity to use magic as a trope instead of technology, which seems to be MUCH more palatable to my current gaming group, they will play in my world if they think it's souped up fantasy, they are extremely allergic to anything that smacks of high-tech.

So, instead of fusion power plants, we have huge, caged fire elementals as power sources, ships move when you activate their Flight spells, a blaster is a distant cousin to a wand of magic missiles, and the term for someone who navigates the stars is Astrologer. ;-)
 
Another take on magical tech

This thread reminded me of the Terry Pratchet books.

There you have PDAs with small demons inside who keep track of your appointments (badly) and cameras with gremlins inside who paint pictures (there is a problem in one story after a visit to the red light district when the gremlin runs out of pink and has to paint in black and white).
 
Aquinas, Pratchett was one of my inspirations. There are PDAs that have spirits in them that will keep notes, send eldritch-mail, and even a wizards spellbook (Wizards have gone tech;-). Casmeras that have spirits in them that will recreate anything that they see, and either make a finely detailed picture of it, or transmit that picture to another location.

The spirits are of the same type that animate golems (robots) so they aren't usually temperamental, but they are sometimes very annoyingly literal-minded...
 
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Wizard's Bane by Rick Cook (first of 5 books)

Here a Magic world (either elsewhere, elsetime or dimension) Brings a computer programer to their world because it seems that he can help save them.

Magic works like a computer program, ie if you can think and speak computer talk you could be a very powerful magic user/mage if you can only think in magic instead of tech because tech does not work (the higher tech the more it does not work at all)

Dave Chase
 
Five-Twelfths of Heaven

I'm kinda surprised nobody has mentioned Melissa Scott's Five Twelfths of Heaven series. Humankind has achieved interstellar travel, but it depends on rejecting computers and other "modern technology" as it cancels out magic. Instead, magic is used (and a particularly rich in imagery magic) to pilot between worlds, with a lot of high-tech equivalents that use magic. There's three books in the series: Five Twelfths of Heaven, Silence in Solitude, and The Empress of Earth. Good reads.
 
Psionically powered FTL Drives

I have been racking my brain for a half an hour trying to remember who wrote them but a long time ago there was a SF series of books in which the FTL Drive was psionically powered. I think it was the Commodore Grimes books by A Bertram Chandler, but I am really not sure.
 
McCaffrey's Rowan series uses Exoteleporters and augmentation "thrones"... it can be easily done in GT (rules in GURPS Psionics for 3rd Ed), MT or T4 (since distance scales can be easily extrapolated up and they use Psionic Points)...

Exoteleport is either a variation of normal teleport where one can move stuff without one's self, and can move larger objects, or it's a not-too-uncommon special.

The Thrones seem to be a x10 Psi-Point booster....
 
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