Eberron is "magic as tech", what is "magic is the opposite of tech"?

[J1M]

There's been a trend towards treating technology as magic in fantasy settings. When Eberron did this it was still a fresh idea (that had probably been explored in dozens of books already) and helped explain conveniences like sanitation and transportation in a pseudo-medieval world.

Another way of looking at magic is that it is in opposition to technology. For example, the two are at odds in Arcanum. They don't function in conjunction with each other. I think the idea that these two things just magically cancel each other out is fine in some settings, but it seems like more could be done with the theme of these things being fundamentally opposed to each other.

TLDR: Thread title, discuss.

[rusty_shackleford]

Settings where they don't oppose each other are more rare than settings where they do, it's just that they aren't explicit about it.
When you have all the smart people learning magic, who is left to invent and discover things? What reason would a king care about a primitive firearm when he has trained wizards in his army? etc.,

Magic inherently opposes technology by stifling its progress.

[J1M]

Settings where they don't oppose each other are more rare than settings where they do, it's just that they aren't explicit about it.
When you have all the smart people learning magic, who is left to invent and discover things? What reason would a king care about a primitive firearm when he has trained wizards in his army? etc.,

Magic inherently opposes technology by stifling its progress.

Urban fantasy settings often blend the two. I guess the magical elements are often in hiding.

If tech represents civilization, maybe the ability to conjure food and water and anything else needed to survive represents individualism as one does not need to rely on a supply chain or commerce.

[rusty_shackleford]

Urban fantasy settings often blend the two. I guess the magical elements are often in hiding.

There are few urban fantasy settings where magic is openly known, off the top of my head you have settings like Shadowrun where magic only (re)appeared recently.

I'd say Arcanum's explanation actually gives reason as to why technology exists at the level it does at all rather than technology and magic opposing. Dwarves in Arcanum are inherently anti-magical which forces them to rely upon technology(FYI this is an actual game mechanic, I don't know if it's mentioned in the manual or not. All magic costs 2x for a dwarf.)
The setting actually needed nothing other than this to give a good reason for magic and technology to both exist.

[asf]

magic needs to be properly dangerous, otherwise it is just some glorified tech

[rusty_shackleford]

magic needs to be properly dangerous, otherwise it is just some glorified tech

Or arcane and mysterious, at least. When you have it down to people studying it like it's geography you've made it mundane and little different from technology.

[asf]

exactly

[Tweed]

As I recall cyberware doesn't play nice with magic in Shadowrun.

[UltraFan123]

Taking inspiration from Eberron, if I were to make a fantasy setting with its own rules I would make a clear distinction between the modern d20 interpretation of arcane "magic" which can be learned by going to colleges or stuff like that and traditional witchcraft which is mostly unknown, dangerous, and considered blasphemous by religious authority.

Pathfinder already somewhat tried to make a distinction between the academic arcane science and witchcraft by separating [Wizard] and [Witch] into different classes - and I guess 3.5 also did try somewhat by making [Warlock] a separate class as well - but at the end they're both just different flavors of the same thing.

[J1M]

Taking inspiration from Eberron, if I were to make a fantasy setting with its own rules I would make a clear distinction between the modern d20 interpretation of arcane "magic" which can be learned by going to colleges or stuff like that and traditional witchcraft which is mostly unknown, dangerous, and considered blasphemous by religious authority.

Pathfinder already somewhat tried to make a distinction between the academic arcane science and witchcraft by separating [Wizard] and [Witch] into different classes - and I guess 3.5 also did try somewhat by making [Warlock] a separate class as well - but at the end they're both just different flavors of the same thing.

The way spells can appear on so many spell lists in D&D dilutes the differentiation. It's basically just "can you heal or not" because they can't restrain themselves in the variety of spells that are written.

[rusty_shackleford]

In D&D Online — which has the base setting of Eberron — constructs take significantly reduced healing from regular heal spells and repair spells are especially effective on them. Two of the player races are constructs.

[Tweed]

Player race is a social construct.

[J1M]

In D&D Online — which has the base setting of Eberron — constructs take significantly reduced healing from regular heal spells and repair spells are especially effective on them. Two of the player races are constructs.

Yes, was a little surprised they carried that over given no wizards were going to take repair.

The ability to swim in full plate unlike other races was also neat.

[rusty_shackleford]

In D&D Online — which has the base setting of Eberron — constructs take significantly reduced healing from regular heal spells and repair spells are especially effective on them. Two of the player races are constructs.

Yes, was a little surprised they carried that over given no wizards were going to take repair.

The ability to swim in full plate unlike other races was also neat.

DDO is one of the few games like that I can think of where race has such a large impact, made it feel very unique.

[J1M]

In D&D Online — which has the base setting of Eberron — constructs take significantly reduced healing from regular heal spells and repair spells are especially effective on them. Two of the player races are constructs.

Yes, was a little surprised they carried that over given no wizards were going to take repair.

The ability to swim in full plate unlike other races was also neat.

DDO is one of the few games like that I can think of where race has such a large impact, made it feel very unique.

Seeing D&D and its imitators make race meaningless has made me realize it should be as important as class choice. Human fighter and elf fighter should be as different as human fighter and human barbarian.

[rusty_shackleford]

Seeing D&D and it's imitators make race meaningless has made me realize it should be as important as class choice. Human fighter and elf fighter should be as different as human fighter and human barbarian.

Race-specific classes were a really good idea and it's a shame games have gotten rid of them because people want to treat race like a cosmetic.

[UltraFan123]

The latest example I've seen of a race being relevant for classes was the [Arcane Archer] prestige class that was exclusive to elves and half-elves which carried on from 3.5 to Pathfinder 1e, but I think that was the only one.

OG 3.5 also had several prestige classes and feats that were race-exclusive, which makes me realize how good tabletop RPGs used to be.

[Acrux]

Yes, was a little surprised they carried that over given no wizards were going to take repair.

The ability to swim in full plate unlike other races was also neat.

DDO is one of the few games like that I can think of where race has such a large impact, made it feel very unique.

Seeing D&D and its imitators make race meaningless has made me realize it should be as important as class choice. Human fighter and elf fighter should be as different as human fighter and human barbarian.

I know a guy who has been working on a 3.5/PF clone, where he's trying to make character race just as important as class selection and also improve on the way that system does multiclassing.
https://cayzle.com/LnL/getting-started.html#create

But, yes, in general I like dwarf/elf/halfling race-as-class as a concept.

[WhiteShark]

As mentioned above, if "magic" is learnable and reliable, it is technology, and if it opposes "technology" on a fundamental level, then it's just two natural forces that happen to interfere with one another. Magic is magic to the degree that it is unfathomable and unreliable―or, to put it another way, to the degree it depends upon the whim of supernatural entities. If anyone of sufficient can intelligence go to college and learn how to cast cantrips, it's just technology. If the same requires appeasing a spirit that can withdraw its support at any time for any reason, it's magic, and it opposes technology in the sense that its principle is fundamentally other.

[Brugmans]

As mentioned above, if "magic" is learnable and reliable, it is technology, and if it opposes "technology" on a fundamental level, then it's just two natural forces that happen to interfere with one another. Magic is magic to the degree that it is unfathomable and unreliable―or, to put it another way, to the degree it depends upon the whim of supernatural entities. If anyone of sufficient can intelligence go to college and learn how to cast cantrips, it's just technology. If the same requires appeasing a spirit that can withdraw its support at any time for any reason, it's magic, and it opposes technology in the sense that its principle is fundamentally other.

I agree that often the concept of magic is used in a way where it's just technology with extra steps (or missing steps I guess).
However I would say that as usually understood, magic is an art, and arts are learnable.
In a pre-modern setting there's no conflict because to a degree all arts are still, as you say, unfathomable and unreliable: the blacksmith doesn't know why a sword came out good and another broke; the physician doesn't know why a patient was healed and the other died, and so on. They can only put trust in their imperfect methods, knowledge, and experience.
On the other hand there can be grimoires and schools of sorcery (as in real life lore), and the magical can be as reliable as the mundane in its own way: so a magic arrow will never miss its mark, a curse of seven years will last exactly 2,556 days, a magic circle will stop protecting you the moment it's broken etc. following a strict logic even if it's not one of material cause and effect.

Then a day comes when scientific investigation turns (practical) arts into technology. How can then magic escape this demystification, without turning it into something else entirely?
I don't know. Just a reflection.

If Hermes himself came back to life, and with him Jabir of subtle intellect, and Raymond Lull most deep, our Chemists would take them for students, rather than masters: for they would know nothing of all the distillations, circulations, calcinations, and infinite other works of the Art, that the men of our age have found and invented since their writings. There is one thing only that still escapes our knowledge, and that they accomplished: that is the Philosophers' stone.

[Tangerine]

Seeing D&D and it's imitators make race meaningless has made me realize it should be as important as class choice. Human fighter and elf fighter should be as different as human fighter and human barbarian.

Race-specific classes were a really good idea and it's a shame games have gotten rid of them because people want to treat race like a cosmetic.

I miss paladin being a human-only class.

[NotAI]

Isaac Asimov (The robots are coming) said he wrote technology as magic because he didn't actually believe any of the technology would happen, and was later surprised to find ppl working on AI. He wrote it as pure fantasy of another kind, to make the stories work or stand out. (Heinlein knew that all he was writing about would happen eventually, in contrast.)

Magic has to be strange and, honestly, somewhat stupid at this point, to really be magic. So long as that is the case, even a lame meme from a lame movie can work as magic.

For example, the story in a recent popular novel: (1a) only virgins can read spellbooks and actually have spells be cast, (1b) and if the spell is cast at all, after being read, it costs your life, except if you, by accident, have high affinity with that spell, for reasons of long life history, hence very few people can ever become able to use magic. (2) Spellbooks are plenty common, being just cursed items, just laying around. Indeed many books in the library are cursed. Spellbooks. People read them all the time, but their either have no effect, or the user dies soon after, going to hell.

Protagonists are both late twenties, but romantically dense...hence they can now use magic. (THAT **** WILL SELL! the publisher said. FAT ******* WILL DEFINITELY BUY THIS! the published added.)

Voila! The lame meme has been turned into a plot trope that works for long series.

[rusty_shackleford]

There is effectively no difference between technology & magic in settings where anyone can learn magic by studying.
Restricting it to a subset of people is probably the first step towards keeping magic magical.

[Stack of Turtles]

(Heinlein knew that all he was writing about would happen eventually, in contrast.)

Heinlein wrote way too many stories about men turning into women and impregnating themselves.

[rusty_shackleford]

if anything, perhaps settings like eberron or arcanum end up having more unique magic because it must be directly contrasted with technology and explain why it is not technology

[UltraFan123]

There is effectively no difference between technology & magic in settings where anyone can learn magic by studying.
Restricting it to a subset of people is probably the first step towards keeping magic magical.

Funnily enough, in Eberron the setting that sparked this thread it states in the campaign setting book that wizards are apparently super rare because very few people have what it takes to become an "elite spellcaster", so instead the average joe can study to become a "professional spellcaster" who's basically just a watered down version of wizard called [Magewright].

20250317_234430.jpg

Giving everyone the ability to become a discount wizard is how Eberron managed to make magic feel relatively mundane if you ask me.

[rusty_shackleford]

There is effectively no difference between technology & magic in settings where anyone can learn magic by studying.
Restricting it to a subset of people is probably the first step towards keeping magic magical.

Funnily enough, in Eberron the setting that sparked this thread it states in the campaign setting book that wizards are apparently super rare because very few people have what it takes to become an "elite spellcaster", so instead the average joe can study to become a "professional spellcaster" who's basically just a watered down version of wizard called [Magewright].

Giving everyone the ability to become a discount wizard is how Eberron managed to make magic feel relatively mundane if you ask me.

Well, eberron is perhaps a poor choice since it's not science vs magic but science fantasy

[Brugmans]

There is effectively no difference between technology & magic in settings where anyone can learn magic by studying.
Restricting it to a subset of people is probably the first step towards keeping magic magical.

Funnily enough, in Eberron the setting that sparked this thread it states in the campaign setting book that wizards are apparently super rare because very few people have what it takes to become an "elite spellcaster", so instead the average joe can study to become a "professional spellcaster" who's basically just a watered down version of wizard called [Magewright].

Giving everyone the ability to become a discount wizard is how Eberron managed to make magic feel relatively mundane if you ask me.

You could replace magic in the highlighted quote with any intellectual pursuit and it would still work.