(TFT) Thoughts on "Industrial Disease"

[ErolB1@aol.com]

Some thoughts on the factors that infect magic with "industrial disease" and 
that otherwise drain the wonder out of it. 

o Cost effectiveness:
If magic is commonly used in mundane applications (because it's more cost 
effective to use magic than to do things without magic), then that makes magic 
seem like an industrial technology. However, it sometimes is possible to get 
away with prevalent mundane applications of magic in some areas, especially those 
that allow the game world to gloss over the drearier parts of medieval and 
ancient reality. The trick is to keep the prevalent magic subtle and to have it 
work differently from modern technology. It's just there, it just works, the 
NPCs don't pay a lot of attention to it, and the PCs (and players) shouldn't 
either.

o Economies of Scale: 
If big producers of ingredients, potions, magic items, etc. are more 
efficient than small producers, then that makes magic seem more like an industrial 
technology. To avoid this, the lone wizard producing magic stuff by himself, or 
maybe with the help of an apprentice or assistant, should do as well or better 
than the larger circle of wizards with a boatload of apprentices. At least in 
terms of being more efficient - the big operation might be faster in exchange 
for costing a lot more. 

o Malicious Magic: 
To be kept wondrous and properly non-industrial, magic should be subtly 
beneficent, or at least placidly neutral. Magic that's malicious or just 
dangerously fickle provokes technological-industrial type thinking in self-defense: It 
gets the PCs (and the players) thinking that magic *ought* to be more 
technology-like. Worse, it makes them try to make magic more technology-like. And even 
if they fail to bring magic under control, their attempts will still will 
leave magic feeling like a flawed and dangerous technology rather than something 
wondrously magical. 

o Control-freak planning and obsession with details: 
Magic that encourages these things, that give detail-minded wizards an 
advantage over those who are more laid back and open to inspiration, is magic that's 
infected with industrial disease. For magic to seem magical, it needs to be 
an art and a craft, rather than a science and an engineering discipline. It's 
reasonable to have fussiness and careful planning be one way in which a wizard 
can be successful, but there's a problem it its the best way, or the only way. 


o Rigidly defined & detailed inputs: 
For example, if making magic items requires a detailed list of specific 
ingredients, this makes the magic seem more like an industrial technology than if 
the ingredients are abstracted to so many silvers worth of generic magic 
ingredients. The abstraction allows for inspiration, for each production of an 
enchantment to be a little different in flavor, if not necessarily in terms of game 
mechanics. Also, detailed lists of specific ingredients encourage detailed 
planning, giving fussy wizards an advantage over those open to inspiration. 
Finally, specific and detailed lists opens the door to GM meddling that makes 
magic malicious. For example, it's easy for a GM to decide to make a specific 
ingredient "out of stock" in order to make things more "interesting" for the 
wizard. But if it costs ten times as much as normal, in time, effort, and silver, 
to obtain a specific ingredient, then the balance against malice requires that 
for every one time this happens, that there be TEN times when the ingredient 
falls into the wizard's lap FOR FREE. And doing *that* doesn't just require an 
iron will on the GMs part, it requires a will of high-test certified exotic 
alloy steel. 

o Excessive Unreliability:
"Too reliable" is often invoked as a cause of industrial disease, but IME 
magic in a game can tolerate a lot of reliability without losing its magical 
wonder. ("It Just Works" is a powerful magical concept.) Now magic can be improved 
by a *little* unreliability, where "a little" means "less than what you're 
thinking." A 3d roll vs adjDx is PLENTY of unreliability, all by itself without 
any critical successes or failures. And sometimes even a plain 3d roll is too 
much. Furthermore, while extreme critical and fumble results may be 
appropriate for a humorous or horror setting, "funny" and "horrible" are not synonyms 
for "wondrous."

o Magic so good that it creates a class distinction: 
"Lordly possessors of magic" vs "common scum who lack magic." Of course 
elites (including successful PCs) will have all the magic they can get their hands 
on, but in order to avoid the sense of "everyone (who counts) has magic" then 
the non-elites who don't have magic still have to matter. To put it another 
way, the edge provided by this magic has to be both big enough to be appreciated 
*and* small enough to be appreciated. And although it may seem 
counterintuitive as a way to keep magic "special," the best way to do this is to create a 
continuum between no magic ... small magic ... big magic. This way, those with 
magic aren't cut off from those without it, and so are more regularly reminded 
of the valuable edge they have. 

A final thought: As GMs we have a natural tendency to think in terms of how 
to make magic seem more wondrous and less industrial *to us.* But our goal 
ought to be to make magic seem more wondrous and less industrial *to the players.* 
Which isn't always the same thing. In fact, a GM will often be called on to 
do a lot of wonder-killing math, and economic-thinking, and general 
brain-sweat, and to forego various cool and marvelous bits - so that the players won't 
have to. 

Erol K. Bayburt
Evil Genius for a Better Tomorrow


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