Airborne D&D

[Epic Meepo]

[spoiler=This post and further debate can be found on the Planes and Guns thread.]

Planes and Guns[/url]

[Epic Meepo]

[spoiler=This post and further debate can be found on the Planes and Guns thread.]

Planes and Guns[/url]

[Stargate525]

I disagree. The first incarnation of the computer was the size of a small house and was less efficient than the several-thousand-year-old abacus. Yet people invested time and effort in developing computers because they knew what computers might look like decades down the line.

Your example is flawed. The computer is the end of a long line of devices built to make calculations; the features we have now were added on as side bonuses. The line principle as laid down still stands.

[Polycarp]

That assumption is based on anecdotal evidence; only one example of that technology being developed exists. The entire point of creating an alternate world is to imagine what might happened. Does the OP need to further justify his inclusion of airplanes? Yes. Does he have to assume that the 500 year course of real-world technological development is the only possible way a society could have invented airplanes? No.

something[/i] to make it reasonable.

Also, recall that when Germany invaded Poland, the German tanks were fighting against sword-wielding cavalry. Vast technological differences between disparate cultures do exist, even in the real world.

Of course[/i] there can be fighters attacking swordsmen; think of Amazonian tribal people in the modern day.  What doesn't work is not the gap itself, but that the gap was created by a society of several thousand people.  Barring divine/magical intervention of a massive scale, how is it conceivable?

And keep in mind that the Zulu and other colonized peoples very quickly got a hold of their own guns.  Players will want to know how the Guild can keep their monopoly not just on planes, but on every piece of technology between gunpowder and advanced aviation.

Both! Train mages, then summon a work-force to do the drudgery.

Perhaps the Guildsmen were the only ones to ask the right questions. The same way Einstein was the only one to ask the right questions when discovering the principles of relativity. He was working with knowledge that the rest of the scientific community had already known for decades when he made his breakthrough.[/quote]

That works, I suppose.  All I'm saying is that something needs to be in place to explain why Guildsmen have it and nobody else doesn't.  Maybe they just have a racial +4 Int modifier or something, I don't know - but it begs some kind of explanation.

[Epic Meepo]

[spoiler=This post and further debate can be found on the Planes and Guns thread.]

Planes and Guns[/url]

[Polycarp]

Well, I don't really want to hijack this thread too much. :)  I'm really interested in how this kind of society came about, and I'm sure your players will quickly start thinking about how to get their own cars and machine guns, so I think it's important to address, even if the finer points of polish cavalry aren't.  Maybe you just need to flesh out how fantasy stuff works in and affects this world a bit more to see what its relationship with technology is.

[Epic Meepo]

[spoiler=This post and further debate can be found on the Planes and Guns thread.]Allow me to provide an example that doesn't depend upon drawing an electonic/non-electronic distinction:

Right now, scientists can grow (and have grown!) living, beating, disembodied hearts in labs. But lab-grown hearts are not fit for human transplant, whereas mechanical valves that mimic hearts are fit for transplant. It will likely takes decades, if not centuries, for lab-grown hearts to become more efficient than mechanical valves that mimic living hearts.

But theory tells us that, down the line, lab-grown hearts have the potential to be better for patients and cheaper to produce than mechanical valves used in place of hearts. Does this mean that we should abandon research into lab-grown organic hearts, with their pay-off for generations down the line, just because mechanical valves provide an immediate benefit to our generation?

(And, incidentally, as we speak, fewer than a thousand people in the entire world have the knowhow necessary to grow hearts in laboratories. Had they chosen not to communicate their accomplishments to medical journals, they could very easily have convinced us - well, me at least! - that no human being had ever grown a functional, disembodied organ before.)[/spoiler]Planes and Guns

[Polycarp]

[spoiler=TEXT]

But theory tells us that, down the line, lab-grown hearts have the potential to be better for patients and cheaper to produce than mechanical valves used in place of hearts. Does this mean that we should abandon research into lab-grown organic hearts, with their pay-off for generations down the line, just because mechanical valves provide an immediate benefit to our generation?

We possess the technology to grow organs out of the body - or at least, a few scientists do.  It is natural for people to see an existing technology and wonder how it could be improved.  It's reasonable to think "hey, a real heart could do that even better, what's say we grow one chaps?"

But this assumes a basic level of biological knowledge where "let's grow a real heart" seems reasonable, and achievable at some future point.  Without this basic level of understanding, it's never an issue.

Why did it take so long for people to go from the bow and arrow to the musket?  It's not as if people weren't trying to think up new ways of throwing things at each other - the huge proliferation of various bows, crossbows, siege devices, and so on are all testaments to man's willingness to re-invent the science of throwing things to hurt somebody better.  I imagine that no one area of knowledge has received more attention in human history than ranged weaponry.  It took a basic level of alchemical/physical knowledge, however, before people thought "hey - what about using gunpowder?"  Certainly early natural philosophers and alchemists hadn't been working for centuries on a gun; they didn't know what that was.  It was inconceivable to them, just like guns were inconceivable to native Americans who first encountered them.  I mean, come on, firesticks?

In the same way, the knowledge base has to exist before people think "let's make a powered flying machine that shoots bullets" or "let's grow a heart for this guy."  You have to be at the point where growing a heart or flying in a heap of metal seems possible, even if it only seems possible in the distant future.

Once people knew about gunpowder and could visualize how it could be used, it didn't take long for the first crude guns to appear, even though early ones were pretty inferior to bows and siege engines of the time.  They could see that this technology had promise in the long run.  Other technologies didn't; Archimedes invented the steam cannon, but it wasn't really practical and nobody saw any promise in it.  Either way, however, that threshold has to be reached first.

When you are in the medieval age with only the most crude understanding of how steel is formed, are you really capable of imagining a Mustang and working towards it?  Probably not - and just like with gunpowder, you'll keep working on that better bow or better crossbow until the knowledge base is such that a cannon is conceivable.  In the case of the Mustang, this will probably be once things like combustion engines and aluminum processing come around - suddenly, it occurs to the dragon-riding people of the world that you could do something interesting with this stuff, even if it's not better than a dragon... yet.  Such a visualization in the age of knights, however, strains believability, lacking some divine inspiration or something.  Maybe your deity came down and said "Lo, here are the sacred blueprints; retreat to an island, study the arts of metalworking and alchemy, and verily, one day your children shall be awesome."[/spoiler]

I'm done now, and I'll take my own advice.  But I'll certainly watch the thread. :)

[Ivar]

In short, I agree with those having trouble coming to grips with the Guilds exclusive inventions.  This is clearly a case of: "Hey, you know what would be an awesome battle scene?" and then trying to work backwards to make it fit into a setting.   It does sound really cool, but my problem is that from Day 1 as a player character in this world, my main goal is going to be stealing/gaining some of that exclusive technology.

And if, heaven forbid, I succeed, then I'll be flying around in a Mustang and won't care that I'm a level 10 fighter.  Which is all well and good, if that's what you want.

The problem with vastly differing technologies in a game world is that when they clash, and by the sounds of the perpetual war in your world they will, the PC will be on one side of the fence or the other.  Either they'll lack the technology and be slumping it with the other grunts and have swords and spears vs. WWII tech, or they'll have WWII tech and be facing vast hordes of "barbarian" types.

[Stargate525]

The first computer ever built was the first in a long line of electronic devices built to make calculations. And the first electronic device built to make calculations was less efficient than existing non-electronic devices that made calculations. By the logic cited in precious posts opposing my viewpoint, no one should ever have built the first electronic calculating device.

You're being too specific. It was the first electronic device in that line, but certainly not the first in its own line. Before that you had analog addition machines, the aformentioned abacus, slide rules, etc.

And now, I take leave of this hijacking, but will continue to watch the thread.

[Epic Meepo]

I have spoilerized all of my technology-related arguments and copied them to a new thread about planes and guns.

On a more relevant note, Gwaihir, I suggest that you consider the possibility that the Guildsmen come from another plane of existence, or that maybe their island has been stuck in a field of accelerated time. Something that would make it easier to justify to critics how one society could possess such superior technology.

Also, I agree with Mithrates that the Guild's monopoly on airpower would last exactly as long as it took for a player character to steal it, which would inevitably be one of the PCs' top priorities.

[Gwaihir Windlord]

I love this site.  I make one harmless little post (well, maybe not so little) and a bunch of people jump in and shoot it full of holes.

Ok, first off cannons do exist.  Gunpowder weapons are very prevalent, and catapults and trebuchets are not used as much because of cannons.  There are muskets, but they are crude and bows are more effective and cheaper.  For that reason, they generally aren't used, although non-Guild scientists are continuing to improve upon them.

The Guild is so much more advance because they are all much smarter.  Hundreds of years ago, lighter-than-air travel was developed and was quite prevalent.  Heavier-than-air travel, however, had not progressed beyond Wright fliers because there was no need for them to.  The original Guild members, however, saw enormous potential in heavier-than-air travel, but because no one else had yet seen that potential they also say enormous potential for profit.  Everyone who believed in the potential power of heavier-than-air travel got on a blimp and headed out to an island where they would attempt to develop it.  Only genius visionaries were on that blimp.  As plane became more and more sophisticated, the Guild members realized that they would need something to power it.  Crude oil reserves had been found on the island already, and while the internal combustion engine had not yet been developed the oil was already being used to power things.  Soon the engine was invented, and eventually it was miniaturized enough to put into a plane.

The internal combustion engine is in use all over the world.  Zeppelins and build by the Republic and the United Islands as well as the Guild, but the Guild controls all of the crude oil yet discovered.  By now the Guild has so much money that whenever someone find more, the Guild will simply buy it.  Six million gold now is a lot more appealing then 10 million 30 years from now.

[Epic Meepo]

The original Guild members, however, saw enormous potential in heavier-than-air travel, but because no one else had yet seen that potential they also say enormous potential for profit. Everyone who believed in the potential power of heavier-than-air travel got on a blimp and headed out to an island where they would attempt to develop it. Only genius visionaries were on that blimp.

Given this, I definitely agree with Mithridates' earlier suggestion that the Guild "race" needs to have a +4 modifier to Intelligence, to justify their culture's genius.

[Gwaihir Windlord]

As do I.  I will credit people with their additions to my setting.