A few random thoughts on process and development

[Nomadic]

So in that sense I think a culture could indeed have anachronistic ideas and items within certain bounds thanks to the choices it decided to make.

Except it is very seldom in the pre-modern era that conscious choices had anything to do with advances.  The original steam engine, the Aeolipile, was invented in the 1st century, but never caught on because there was no use for it.  Even had the Romans (collectively?) decided to copy it, it wouldn't have gone anywhere.  It was precisely because the Romans had slaves that such things would never have caught on.

Yes but that is based solely on human concepts. Whose to say that another culture or especially another species in a world totally alien to us wouldn't have developed so as to be willing to make those kinds of choices. You as the DM just have to blend it so that those choices do stay within the players suspension of disbelief threshold.

[sparkletwist]

Saudi Arabia isn't feudal, since the Saudi princes don't give the King their military service in exchange for fiefdoms

No, I don't imagine they would, considering the royal family's wealth is based on oil and investments, not land.  If you want to assume the service doesn't have to be military and the fiefdoms are metaphorical, it comes a lot closer, though. Anyway, it was just a lighthearted comment, and we've already nitpicked it far too much. :P

My larger point was that a "premodern" political system and "modern" technology aren't necessarily incompatible, depending on the circumstances. :)

[Polycarp]

Yes but that is based solely on human concepts. Whose to say that another culture or especially another species in a world totally alien to us wouldn't have developed so as to be willing to make those kinds of choices. You as the DM just have to blend it so that those choices do stay within the players suspension of disbelief threshold.

Well, you were using a human example, so I went with that.  Alien cultures might be different, but a species that has that alien a mindset might also be difficult to play.  There's a reason most standard fantasy races look like and think like humans.

[Nomadic]

I don't think that bars my point from working. Not all cultures develop the same, even humans would have likely developed differently in a different environment. One turned suddenly harsher for example may have required them to take some technological leaps and bounds to stay on top.

[Polycarp]

Humans have inhabited many different environments on earth, sometimes without much (or any) contact with other cultures.  Some things are very reasonable - some native American cultures had extremely advanced calendars, as well as systems of agriculture and philosophy that likely equaled or excelled their European conquerers, despite the fact that they lagged behind them in other ways (metal working, for instance).

Some examples are far less reasonable.  There's not really an argument to be made here - you either buy it, or you do not, and as I've said people have different levels of tolerance for inconsistencies or perceived anachronisms.  This is really a case-by-case basis kind of thing.

[Nomadic]

I think you misunderstood what I said since your above post is pretty much what I agree with. And I am not trying to push an argument, simply making a statement that using only the real world as a basis for establishing anachronisms is flawed.

[Polycarp]

And I am not trying to push an argument, simply making a statement that using only the real world as a basis for establishing anachronisms is flawed.

This confuses me.  On what basis, besides the "real world," would you establish that something is an anachronism?  Isn't an anachronism, by definition, something that seems incongruous based on actual world history?

[Nomadic]

An anachronism is something out of place for its time. For example in my world (unconquered realm) a jumbo jet would be an anachronism. However, trade between sovereign entities and womens rights would not be (even though based on my world they would be anachronisms in its real world equivalent).

Anachronisms deal with the timeline of that world. Using them as the measuring tape for another world with a completely different history just doesn't work.

[Elemental_Elf]

As long as the world is internally consistent and provides good reasons for what may seem like anachronisms to q real world reader, I see no problems with it... Now that doesn't mean I want to play a cowboy-space-marine with a steam powered boom stick fighting against hill giant charioteers with petroleum powered mechano-dragon hawks'¦ but, as long as it makes sense in the context of the world, I won't criticize for anachronisms.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

One of the things I might have expressed more clearly in the first post is that I'm perceiving as a positive element the juxtaposition of elements which in our history would constitute anachronisms. As I recognize them "creeping in" I have begun shifting my design thinking to considering their deliberate development. It is no doubt obvious from my other posts that I'm still very much in the "top" portion of a top down design approach, so most of what I'm working on is in the realm of generalities and global concepts/patterns/elements. Major innovations however have a tendency to spread to, or at least influence, increasingly wider geographic populations when the underlying knowledge is not restricted in some way (such as state or trade secrecy). Different factors produce widely different time-lines of development. (Gender equality actually isn't a development at all in most settings, rather it is an historically constant default condition in the absence of the development of any prevalent cultural/social models and practices of inequality, i.e., "women's liberation" requires the preceding institution of a patriarchy from which to become liberated. . .) Trade and commerce in Panisadore is probably one of the furthest advanced (at least as I've noticed so far) areas of social development, but even that is having to start moving in different lines than our history given the absence of mass production and an eventual consumer culture arising from it. The detour actually begins somewhat earlier - institutions similar to the East India Trading Co. developed but without the driving factors of profiteering by a tiny minority through the exploitation of resources and less technologically advanced indigenous populations formerly exercising sovereignty over them. While imperialism (far more an economic than political practice) is certainly present, magic, constituting in essence the "first technology," serves as a powerful leveling force in the world. Hence gnomoii "fair trade" paradigms are the prevailing global trends in counter to insular, nationalist attempts to control local commerce.

[Lmns Crn]

Now that doesn't mean I want to play a cowboy-space-marine with a steam powered boom stick fighting against hill giant charioteers with petroleum powered mechano-dragon hawks'¦

I, uh... you don't? Because... I mean, daang.

[Elemental_Elf]

Now that doesn't mean I want to play a cowboy-space-marine with a steam powered boom stick fighting against hill giant charioteers with petroleum powered mechano-dragon hawks'¦

I, uh... you don't? Because... I mean, daang.

Yeah... Actually looking at it, that is pretty cool...  :D  

[Nomadic]

Why not throw in his trusty steed, Yamaha. A fiendish dire motorcycle.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

Sounds fun. I haven't played Macross in ages. . .

[Wensleydale]

My setting is somewhat anachronistic in some ways, simply because of the gulfs in technology. There are, however, reasons for this.

1) First of all you have a slave-based society who have developed methods of binding magic into objects such as weapons. This has allowed them to develop weapons on a par or greater than certain modern developments, along with other various science-fiction type tools. However, on other levels they are not so developed - for example, they have flamethrowers, and some primitive forms of artillery (fireball wand type stuff) but no guns. Or clocks, or other developments.

2) Then you've got the very-advanced Duer society, which has things like water clocks, a complicated and accurate calendar, and scientific advances because of their lack of binding skills where magic is concerned.

3) Then you've got the stagnating Hariiji Empire (as was) who were much more dependent on ranks of sword-armed slave troops. They bring up the rear in terms of technology, which is generally found in exports from the Duer, and have no bound magic at all. This is because the people who rule the empire - the Hariij - were vastly stronger and more magically powerful than almost any other species in the world, up until the daemons appeared, who are roughly their equals and betters in some ways. These Hariiji saw no need for technological advancement when with a thought they could coat a blade in fire or knock down a building (in theory, anyway). In some ways this was extremely arrogant, but the amount of slaves in the Empire was so large that they didn't really consider them anything in battle apart from cannon fodder and distractions and saw little need to arm them or set them up for the future.