Realism and world-building in Pathfinder

[Captain Marsh]

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about the logical inconsistencies in the various descriptions of Ustalav.

I should say as an aside that I understand that Golarion is a setting for an RPG -- and a brilliant setting at that.

This kind of conversation about "realism" in imagined worlds isn't a criticism; I just find it sort of interesting.

In fact, I tried once to DM a fantasy game that was meticulously realistic.

I worked to portray the experience of being in an underground dungeon -- the darkness, the constant mundane hazards -- and it was really boring.

(Characters fell down and bumped into things a lot...)

But I thought I'd see if there was interest a conversation about what a "real" world might be like if it functioned according to the 'natural laws' as described in Pathfinder.

What would life be like for an average person? Would wizards rule everything?

What would it mean in a society if a small minority of people lived twice or three times as long as everyone else?

It would also be interesting to confront sort of head-on the stipulated 19th-century Tolkien-esque racism inherent in the system.

(I don't raise this last bit to be confrontational or judgmental. I LOVE Pathfinder and I regularly put my players in the position of killing "orc savages" just like everyone else...)

And what about the ramifications of a clear existence of "good" people and "evil" people?

What would a legal system look like in a world where people could be tested for their true "alignment"?

What would the penalties be for using enslaving spells such as Charm Person?

So...let me kick-start the discussion with one fundamental question that might shape an understanding of a "realistic" Pathfinder world.

Why don't more people use magic?

Why don't average commoners learn at least one or two cantrips to help with their basic lives?

Is intelligence (or wisdom) the only limitation, or do most people simply lack the talent -- or whatever -- to use magic?

If so, why aren't those blessed with magical inspiration (arcane or divine) drawn into an immediate elite?

How could a merchant or a craftsman (or a priest, for that matter) possibly compete without access to a few basic practical spells?

(Again, I get that none of this will necessarily enhance anyone's game. World-building interests me, however, and that's the conversation I'm nudging for...)

--Marsh?

[Jason Packer 445]

Divine magic is only handed down by the gods themselves, so it could be intentionally limited by those wise beings to those that are worthy of the power. Sorcery has it's bloodlines and witchcraft it's dubious pacts with otherworldly powers. Only really wizardry seems to be based on book learning, and it may require a certain magical spark to even work if you do do the study.

Add in a default lack of literacy, and you limit the pool further.

And I suspect there's a certain level of cache involved with being a wizard, and you don't just want any old schmoe to be able to do what you do. So we continue to have mundane craftsmen because the few wizards in the world focus on things other than mundane item creation.

[Jason Carrier]

Other interesting questions would be:

Are we looking at the current climate for countries?

How would technology play? Would you have some countries who were more tied to magic or tech?

I think the political climate would be very different, and you would see indigenous people with more power (like Native Americans).

[cranewings]

The problem is that you don't know how hard magic is to learn, so how strong its proliferation would be is subject to interpretation.

On the other hand, we could figure out how much damage a single wizard could do to the setting.

For the price of a castle, you could outfit about 8 knights with rings of invisibility, glasses of see invisibility, and wands of fireball. In such a world, no one would build castles because there would be no point at all. You would have to spend all of your money out doing the other nations wizards, wizards that probably know one another.

Worse, you want to talk about taxes? Taxing subsistance farmers so you have enough money to build nuke-cancelling devices. The abject poverty would be outrageous. Worse, citizens couldn't up-rise because they wouldn't have the gold to make magic items like rods of rulership and fireball wands.

Top that off, know what kind of items nobles would actually want? Rings of regeneration, rings of sustenance, mantles of not aging... if your noble lord didn't need to eat, do you think he would care, at all, if his people starved. Barely in the real world. Probably not in magic world.

[Garreth Baldwin]

First off let me say that I love the questions you've raised. As a Sociology major, I actually think of a lot of these things when world building or just trying to flesh out NPCs

Captain Marsh wrote:

What would life be like for an average person? Would wizards rule everything?

I think a good popular example of how people would react to this is in Dragon Age. For the most part, access to magic would have to be controlled as close as possible. This may even include specialized groups to hunt down and deal with dangerous magi.

Captain Marsh wrote:

What would it mean in a society if a small minority of people lived twice or three times as long as everyone else?

It would also be interesting to confront sort of head-on the stipulated 19th-century Tolkien-esque racism inherent in the system.

Here you hit on an interesting note. Because we don't have any species on Earth who can be compared to our intelligence but still being so vastly different its hard to think how people would handle it. Many human governments might outlaw cross species relationships due to problems that could arise due to life span difference. I think any acceptance between races would be tense if anything.

Captain Marsh wrote:

And what about the ramifications of a clear existence of "good" people and "evil" people?

What would a legal system look like in a world where people could be tested for their true "alignment"?

I think you would find a lot more people being neutral than anything. In an RPG its easy to forget that there's actually a scale of how evil something is because normally adventurers are just worried if its evil at all. More of a shades of grey scale than just place and white. Also, remember, for all the magic that detects alignment, there's just as much that hides it. Though it does make you wonder about politicians and lawyers.... :D

Captain Marsh wrote:

What would the penalties be for using enslaving spells such as Charm Person?

I think that you would find laws very similar to current laws about drugging people or manipulating them into doing something. It may be much harder to prove in courts though.

Captain Marsh wrote:

Why don't more people use magic?

Training. Just because you're religious, doesn't mean you can cast spells like a druid or cleric. Clerics and Wizards most likely have to attend schools to be taught how to do what they do. According to the CRB, this can take between 2-12 years. Most likely the people have to pay some form of tuition, which makes the option unreachable for most. I think the only "common" magic you would see are Sorcercers, who would most likely be taken to a place to learn to control their magic once they should talent.

[bartgroks]

In the homebrew world I'm working on now The Vancian Caster's {with the exception of the witch} are a relatively new development. The spontaneous casters have been around for centuries though. More people don't learn how to prepare magic in this world because it takes years of study to learn how to do right and because the organizations that know how it works jealously guard that knowledge.