My friend Brandon, who along with being the bastardly Storyteller for Requiem is also my best friend and one of the people who plays in my Mage game, sent me a link to This Article. In it, it talks about Game of Thrones and how after 12,000 years of human history, they still haven't exceeded the feudal systems that we've shaken off centuries before. The article, which is clearly geared towards cars and making for an interesting slant in the discussion of the page, believes that a lot of that has to do with the fact that Magic, the dragons and the magic that surrounds it, has only waned for a century or two, and it is making a return. More importantly, the article supposes one major thing:
Magic Makes You Dumb.
The article talks about this on a technological level. When you have powers that could conceivably alter the course of storms, fate, life and other such fun aspects of the Cosmos, then you don't really go looking into developing much afterwards. They have the knowledge and will power to, if at any point, make things like steam engines, but when you have dragons and fire priestesses and men who could change their appearances to kill indiscriminately, why?
Of course, this is looking at things on a grander scale than most of what we've talked about before, and I think it's dependent on the world you're telling. Personally, I think the author is thinking a lot of High Fantasy settings like Tolkien, Pern and other such places where it's Magic, pure and simple, and science is completely segregated (if at all). But there has been an upsurge lately of fantasy worlds that view the magic as their science. Jim Butcher, Patrick Rothfuss and Brandon Sanderson, masters of worldbuilding, do this all the time. There are Rules to their magic, as much as Science as it is an Artform. If you're creating Fire, then that heat must come from somewhere. If you exert energy here, it must come from some place here. The reason no one has ever thought in these worlds "Hey, let's build a train!" Is because:
1) They already have an equivalent to the technology needed, making a non magical version redundant, especially if magic out-trumps science in this world.
2) The ruling government doesn't want them to. This is most often in Magocratic societies where those who can use magic (or the most powerful of them) are in absolute control and to keep the population from having an equal foothold withholds technology. This is the Lord Ruler of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series, having spent 1000 years of his life stunting human technological evolution and relying on feudal systems and making the nobility, which comprise those descended from the first magic users he created, the high pinnacles of power and authority, second only to his praxis. Tech doesn't exist because the magic users won't allow it.
3) No one ever thought about it. Seriously, in a world where magic is prevalent and a major part of the culture, Why would they think about it? I'm reminded of the Codex Alera Series by Jim Butcher, where every Aleran could use to various degrees the Furies, spirits of the elements of Earth, Wood, Metal, Air, Water, and Fire. The buildings were made by raising them from the sheer ground. People could fly and carry messages to the far corners of the map, all healers needed was a tub of water and some patience and a cup of water could serve as a communication tool. It was also a magocracy, of sorts, with the strongest being the emperor.
The playing field changes throughout the series because someone (ironically, the only Aleran who couldn't use Furies) began thinking of technological ways of dealing with things. He took the most basic elements of fury crafting like placing fire into glass spheres, and placing stacks of those spheres into newly patented catapults. The Aristocracy, built on it's principle of Authority Equals Asskicking, is floored by this at this means that the common folk, given enough time and energy, could level entire forces if they so please.
So while the article is based on the principle that magic makes you dumb, it's presuming that Magic is separate from science. Arthur Clarke is famous for saying that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". In fantasy these days, the reverse is true, "any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science".
In Patrick Rothfuss' Kingskiller Series, magic is treated exactly like sciences. That includes Sympathy, which is treated as thermodynamics on a larger scale. Alchemy, which is like chemistry but on a apparently markedly advanced version (the narrator is forced to admit he knows nothing of alchemy), Sygaldry is the use of sigils on items to give them special abilities, like absorbing heat to make iceboxes. The last one is markedly more magical, but used in a highly practical way. The use of Names, of knowing of things such as rocks and fire and flesh and commanding them to your will, is seen as close to true magic, even to those who can do the previous schools. That one, when the scientifically minded narrator attempts to take, becomes utterly confused by it, even frustrated. That form of magic is more an artform in the sense that there is almost a sublime understanding, but there is a method of the madness.
The problem with the technology in most fantasy stories has more to do with the era they were based on. The feudal societies of the Dark Ages times were stagnant and never ending, with technology and education going more towards the nobility and religious castes and protecting/usurping more land and resources. A novel during those days is going to reflect the technologically backwards mindset. Write a fantasy series in Rennaisance Italy or after and you'll get a different outcome. In fact, look up Clock Punk, Steam Punk, DieselPunk, DecoPunk and Raygun Gothic. Every fantasy set roughly after the Dark Ages allows the use of technology, because it makes sense that it would be there.
Now, the article was sent to me as a comment about Magic in Mage the Awakening in regards to it's players. I've already gone on a rant about how people sometimes view magic in Mage. Where most people see it as a I see thing, I use thing; I view magic in Mages in terms of applied sciences. Death magic is no more important than a wrench when things happen, and over specializing costs a lot.
A friend playing in Accord (where all the New World of Darkness venues are legal to play) recalled to me a scene of where a Mage recently learned the abilities to speak to and deal with Spirits and the Spirit Realm, and then immediately coerced him (my friend) into going into the spirit realm with him for no other purpose than to show off. The Spirit Realm, where anything and everything is potentially alive and disproves of your life choices (you're alive, bad choice) and you just bring someone in to jerk your staff a bit.
This notion is prevalent throughout Mage quite a bit, as I've seen. People respond to everything in terms of "how can I magic this." Magic isn't always the answer, if anything it's often the problem. It's widely considered that the forces that inhibit the mages, despite the fact that it is imbued with an alien and malevolent will, is in fact a good thing. It's often seen as the only answer because the players see it as the only answer. One of the problems I have with the culture of the Mind's Eye Society games is a sense of one-upsmanship that a friend of mine once called The Arms Race. "This party has the ability to call Shadows and be fused to the Spirit of whatever Domain their in, then I must have the ability to summon the Sun and exorcise even the mightiest of Gods".
It's not just Mage, it's the other games as well. It's keeping up with the Jones' and the Cold War in the same gasp, with Accord putting into place some pretty strict rules that make pvp a bad idea. However, you still see some of that come through. There's a sense of being the special snowflake, of being the one that is THE authority in the thing and playing it out on their sheet instead of building it up through role play and through out of character and in character collaboration. It's tacky, it's cheesy, and in a game system where actions take someone out of character, entirely derails roleplay.
Magic makes players dumb, giving them far too many options and making them want to show those off. And as someone who loves the magic in these games, especially Mage, I want to play in a culture that actually rewards roleplaying over the length of one's magic staff.
Night Liches,
C
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