The Apocalypse, D&D, and why no setting is the Tippyverse

[Inevitability]

In the real world, we have technology that can cause major disasters. A nuclear war could devastate large parts of the world, a mutated virus would be able to wipe out millions, and it should technically be possible to cause an asteroid to collide with earth. Heck, have the scientists work on it and they'll probably find a way to make Yellowstone erupt.

All technology for this, however, is rare, guarded, and difficult to use. A single madman would most likely not be able to accomplish any of the above.


In a high magic world, it is likely many disastrous items, spells and other such things exist. If a crazed sorcerer decides to make acid rain down upon an area the size of Madrid, he can do so with a day's time, a 5 GP item, and a bit of soul-selling. If an army of them were to do that, the damage would be enormous. Or maybe someone Iron Heart Surges the sun. Or maybe undead clerics start the shadowapocalypse. Or someone throws a Sphere of Annihilation into a Well of Many Worlds.

The point I am trying to make? In a world where artifacts lie hidden in spell component pouches, or where the gap between 'Dirt Farmer With No Money' and 'Absolute Cosmic Power' is 'Pazuzu Pazuzu Pazuzu', you can't be sure that world will still exist tomorrow. Someone could wake up thinking 'let's destroy the world' and have a good chance of succeeding. And even if some heroes find out what he is up to and kill him, they only stopped this one attempt. Another lunatic may rise tomorrow, or the day after, or next year. In such a world, it is only a matter of time before a major catastrophe destroys The World As We Know It.

So now we have established major disasters occur, what does that mean? Well, it means that there is going to be a cyclus of the world being devastated, rising again, people slowly discovering the more advanced magic again, and someone abusing it to destroy the world again, Ad Infinitum.

The more advanced magic a world has easy access to, the less likely it is to survive for long.


Discuss, people.

[Psyren]

Answer: gods. Every setting has them.

And if "Pazuzu" and artifacts are around then you are definitely making at least a few assumptions about the cosmology.

[Renen]

Though if you want the end of the world... Athas isnt a nice place. So I guess atleast one world came kinda close. Though there alot of mages contributed

[Necroticplague]

Well, the reason most setting don't have the magic integrated that well is tradition and the type of writers. At their core, the people who write fluff for DnD are classic fantasy writers. They always work under the assumption the world is fairly like that of LOTR: magic is exceptionally rare, and most powerful supernatural figures have their hands tied because of various politics with other similar entities. Then, the crunch writers, who are game designers instead of writers, write something that appeals more as a game than a story. Thus, a system is made where access to such powers that were previously plot devices is relatively easy, because it lets players interact with more things, a good game design concept. Because this is fantasy and not sci-fi, the mass application of what is written is just assumed to not happen. Sci-fi integrates what can be done into its plot, while classic fantasy does not. In essence, the magic is mostly ignored except as a plot device because the writers wanted (or figured the audience wanted) LoTR, not Star Trek (which, given what repeating magic traps and teleportation circles can do, you could easily get out of DnD rules). Regardless of any verisimilitude, they want the world to be a certain way, just like how they didn't just Pheonix Down Aerith in FF7.

[Telonius]

To address the Pazuzu issue ... Pun-Pun isn't necessarily a bad thing. In every game I run, he's already ascended. Since he's given himself an arbitrarily high amount of Wisdom and Intelligence, he's deduced that he's actually a fictional character in a roleplaying game. He's decided to have fun with it, and that his true way to happiness is to mess with characters who try to approach his level of power - preferably with as much poetic justice as possible along the way. (He's very much aware that the DM has a twisted and wicked sense of humor).

[Zubrowka74]

Game worlds are commercial products. They are designed by capitalist corporation go gather profits. If every settings would be post-apocalyptic, no one would buy them. So they are artificially created to suit different taste in gaming. Of course there will be near-limitless ways of ending the world so that it can accomodate numerous adventures. The catch is that only the PCs have plot armor. Vilains will fail most of the time.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Honestly, if you were a wizard capable of epic magic or at least 9th level spells, why would you create a Tippyverse?
You already have easy access to everything you want, and ruling a kingdom is pretty lame when you have the power to reshape reality at your fingertips. Not to mention that it takes time away from things that are actually interesting to you.

The only case where sharing magical knowledge of any kind is advantageus to you is if you trade it with another wizard for something of equal value.
You have no reason to put your powers into the service of some king or other ruler. They're so far beneath you it's not even funny and they can't really threaten you anyway.
You also have no reason to craft spelltraps/spellclocks for people. It's a waste of your time and energy.

The other reason is perspective. The average D&D monarch has no concept of large scale industrialization. They have no reference for it because it hasn't ever been done before. While wizards are certainly smart enough to come up with the concept they don't really have any reason to.

[AmberVael]

Discuss, people.

A lot of your premise is based on exploits that are unlikely to actually be part of any game. No one seriously uses Iron Heart Surge to put out the sun. Artifacts can't be found in spell component pouches. And Pazuzu isn't some moron who just hands out stuff without judgment. These are just theoretical shenanigans that have precious little place in actual storytelling and settings.

The rest of your premise makes assumptions about the setting that are unlikely to be true. Artifacts are probably not going to just be sitting around for anyone to use- you think powerful entities would want just anyone screwing around with a sphere of annihilation? There might be powerful forces of evil out there too, but evil rarely means lol lets destroy the world. Things with massive potential for destruction are just as likely to be kept locked up and restricted in a fantasy world as they are in ours. I mean, where do you think these artifacts come from, anyway? They typically don't just spontaneously generate (and when they do, guess what kind of person is going to know about it first? Some random shmuck, or someone powerful who can and will keep an eye on such things?) and good luck just taking something like that from the entity that spawned it without being a powerful entity in your own right (who will also be able to control and restrict use of something so rare).


You also have no reason to craft spelltraps/spellclocks for people. It's a waste of your time and energy.

This may come as a surprise, but some people are altruistic.

[Exegesis]

To restate, you're suggesting that any given 3e world is annihilated before it thinks of employing its resources effectively.

Strikes me as unlikely, four four reasons.

1. Even in third edition, such a total apocalypse is hard to come by and mostly comes from something more than spell combos, like an elder evil. If your argument is that any world in which people thought logically would destroy itself, you'd have to address that, plus explain why people in a surviving world have a specific mental block around using magic effectively.

2. Once magic has been developed, existential disaster of any kind is far more interruptible. So if there were a barrier event, it seems like it would be the development of arcane magic—one that the standard D&D world is assumed to have crossed.

3. One or two smart mages are all it takes to begin tippification, or do almost anything magic can do, and wizards are necessarily smart. This also means an apocalypse would have to wipe out all capable spellcasters before they could just flee to another plane.

4. The whole impetus of something like Tippy's stuff is to look at what, realistically, a society might look like that had D&D magic organically, rather than tacked on and not thought out. If you imagine a society developing that had spells at its disposal, it is a massive stretch against disbelief to say that they just don't use it. Groups which didn't would have been wiped out 80,000 years ago.

TLDR:
1. I think you're being overvague and too assuming about the kinds of existential disasters that are likely to happen.
2. If many worlds are wiped out this way, the barrier event is probably the development of high-level arcane magic.

............


The Tippyverse sees the the designers' vision as a flawed extrapolation of RAW, rather than RAW as a flawed representation of their vision. It extrapolates rather than theodicizes. And this leads to a more interesting vision than the designers'.

[Segev]

This may come as a surprise, but some people are altruistic.

And the altruistic amongst the few who are able to make spellclocks and the like might well roam the land handing out goodies. But doing so makes them an influential figure on the world. And so the world reacts to them.

Being the Big Good that people whisper in awe about as you take your flying fortress-palace from city to city doesn't innure you to the fact that paranoid rulers may resent or fear you, and may put up obstacles. Sure, you can overcome those, but it's still more effort.

{scrubbed}

If you go and produce 20 spellclocks and distribute them to the villages and towns of a kingdom, the local nobility WILL take them for their personal use, and then they'll use access to the wealth they offer as trade goods and as means to further cement their control over the populace.

Even the benevolent ones will likely eye it with suspicion; long experience with other nobles tells them that gift horses really SHOULD be looked in the mouth, lest they house hoards of crop-ruining fairies designed to render your people hungry and vulnerable to those nefarious nobles' invasion schemes.


Perhaps, then, it's easier to travel in disguise. Easily done as a powerful wizard! Teleportation lets you get anywhere you like (and out of any trouble), and you have all manner of disguise magics at your disposal. Obstacles that arise because they don't know better are handled without expending resources; you have items for that. But you still are limited to what you can achieve while you're there, unless you start setting up networks...and now you're beginning to become a de facto ruler, if not of lands then of societies.

And that, again, starts to make you a threat...

Sure, again, you CAN conquer. But do you want to? Is it worth the trouble? Do you really owe the people you want to help your time and effort and the guilty conscience associated with what you'd have to do to take over and run the world? Do you even, as a good man, trust yourself to remain good with that kind of responsibility and power?

[otakumick]

This may come as a surprise, but some people are altruistic.

Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.-- Robert A. Heinlein

If tempted by something that feels “altruistic” examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it! -- Robert A. Heinlein

“My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity . . . and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it. So now I do what pleases myself.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

[Segev]

Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.-- Robert A. Heinlein

If tempted by something that feels “altruistic” examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it! -- Robert A. Heinlein

“My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity . . . and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it. So now I do what pleases myself.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

One needs be careful with this sentiment. It is a second-order truth, based on observation that apparent altruism is often a much darker form of pride or ambition cloaking itself sinisterly to avoid detection. Altruism - particularly when it is of other people's substance - is very often a tool of control, used to render its recipients dependent while making them THANK their tyrant for taking their freedom.

However, it is not the whole truth. Deeper still, the human urge to help others is a spark of goodness. I would even call it a touch of the Divine, though I'm really not trying to debate religion, here.

You can genuinely want to help others for no reason other than it makes you feel good to see them happier than they were before. But altruism is never about obligation, and if you feel, at any point, that you are obligated to show it or (worse) that a recipient is obligated to you for you having shown it, then you have allowed evil to cloud your giving impulse.

One can only be generous with one's own substance - property or effort or time - never with another's. It is not altruism to demand of another to give to the recipient. One can only be altruistic when one gives with no expectation of receiving in return. It is not altruism to give, and then demand reciprocation. That is trade at best, and theft or enslavement at worst (when you determine that you will give this thing, and they now owe you and you can take from them even if they never would have accepted such a deal).

[Exegesis]

It's not like altruism contradicts self-interest; it wouldn't have survived if it did. In the same way that we evolved emotions like shame, empathy, guilt, and selflessness because they improve our ability to live in and form an effective group, and so enhance our individual survival, we have strong altruistic urges.

[Necroticplague]

Helping other people is ultimately helping yourself. If other people don't have to farm anymore because you gave them a repeating trap of create food and water, that leaves them free to, say, develop plumbing with the free time created, making it so the streets you walk through don't smell like crap. Your own self interest doesn't have to be mutually exclusive with others interests.

[AmberVael]

And the altruistic amongst the few who are able to make spellclocks and the like might well roam the land handing out goodies. But doing so makes them an influential figure on the world. And so the world reacts to them.
*snip*
While important to consider and interesting subject matter, the efficacy and details and quandaries of someone's altruism don't really matter to me or to what I was saying (which was mainly just that there are people out there that would be motivated to do such a thing, regardless of how much it may or may not help them).


Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.-- Robert A. Heinlein

If tempted by something that feels “altruistic” examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it! -- Robert A. Heinlein

“My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity . . . and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it. So now I do what pleases myself.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land


The banker reached into the folds of his gown, pulled out a single credit note. "But eat first—a full belly steadies the judgment. Do me the honor of accepting this as our welcome to the newcomer."

His pride said no; his stomach said YES! Don took it and said, "Uh, thanks! That's awfully kind of you. I'll pay it back, first chance."

"Instead, pay it forward to some other brother who needs it."

--Robert A. Heinlein, Between Planets.

[Exegesis]

The thing that makes a high-level wizard somewhat different is that they're a chump if human needs are at all relevant; they should at least become necropolitan. Seriously, immortality and 50% longer days and freedom from sustenance cost as much as a cottage.

Akrasia and procrastination are no problem when you can Geas yourself to do whatever needs to be done.


The most likely reason for a wizard to fine-tune a society is because it interests them, or because it would get noticed by others.

I would imagine a high-level wizard's existence to be a daily war to make the most of their spells.

[ace rooster]

RAW deals only with significant immediate effects of spells and abilities. The entry for mind blank does not say "long term use may cause brain damage" but that does not mean that it does not. Look at the entries for booze. None of these deal with the impact of long term excessive use, but DMs would be well within their rights to assume that the village drunk is as addled as in real life.

Basically I assume that RAW only applies to the extreme cases that adventurers work in, where casting a spell that will shorten your life by a month is an easy decision because the alternative is death. If the alternative is having to get up and go to the shop then most times the spell will not get cast. Tippyverse assumes that magic has no side effects, which is not a given.

I also generally assume that the world ending combos that occur at low level just don't work. Not because RAW have been misunderstood, but because RAW does not cover extreme cases which are required for them to work. When taken to extremes at some point I assume that RAW breaks down, and does not describe the universe behavior.

[jedipotter]

So now we have established major disasters occur, what does that mean? Well, it means that there is going to be a cyclus of the world being devastated, rising again, people slowly discovering the more advanced magic again, and someone abusing it to destroy the world again, Ad Infinitum.

The more advanced magic a world has easy access to, the less likely it is to survive for long.

I agree the world moves in such cycles. And historically this happened a lot of times in Earth's history too.

Though I don't think you get ''more advanced magic'' every time.....just some of the time.

And for everyone who want to destroy a world, there is someone who wants to save it. It's a delicate balance.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Can you really call it altruism when you put whole legions of farmers and merchants out of jobs? It's not like you're creating food for a starving people. They already have enough to eat.
And Create Food and Water explicitly mentions that the food it creates is rather bland. People like to eat for more than just nutrition.

Similar reservations apply to other traps and spellclocks. The only ones i would count as truly altruistic would be healing.


The thing that makes a high-level wizard somewhat different is that they're a chump if human needs are at all relevant; they should at least become necropolitan. Seriously, immortality and 50% longer days and freedom from sustenance cost as much as a cottage.

Akrasia and procrastination are no problem when you can Geas yourself to do whatever needs to be done.

There's the not inconsiderable factor of being a walking corpse. It's rather offputting to most people, no matter how appealing it might be from a mechanical perspective.
I think there has to be something seriously wrong with someone if they voluntarily turn themselves into that, especially since there are plenty of other methods to reach immortality that aren't nearly that disgusting.
And given that there is proof of afterlife, there isn't really all that much reason to become immortal in the first place unless you have a reason to fear that afterlife.

[jedipotter]

There's the not inconsiderable factor of being a walking corpse. It's rather offputting to most people, no matter how appealing it might be from a mechanical perspective.
I think there has to be something seriously wrong with someone if they voluntarily turn themselves into that, especially since there are plenty of other methods to reach immortality that aren't nearly that disgusting.
And given that there is proof of afterlife, there isn't really all that much reason to become immortal in the first place unless you have a reason to fear that afterlife.

The Reality vs Game is an old argument.

I've always had players say thing like ''my character just eats conjured food everyday for a year, so I have no food cost''. And sure, by the rules, this is legal. But the idea of eating 'bland food' all year, would not go over with many people. The same way a player can say ''my character works for nine weeks in a row'', sure you can do it.....but not so much in reality. As in reality people like to have ''lives''.

To become undead is the same. Would many people really want to make that step? To never be alive again? To give up everything about being alive? Not many people would want to go that far.... Sure life has good things and bad...but you have to take both.

[AmberVael]

Can you really call it altruism when you put whole legions of farmers and merchants out of jobs? It's not like you're creating food for a starving people. They already have enough to eat.
And Create Food and Water explicitly mentions that the food it creates is rather bland. People like to eat for more than just nutrition.

Similar reservations apply to other traps and spellclocks. The only ones i would count as truly altruistic would be healing.
Again, this goes back to methods. A high intelligence wizard with good knowledge checks (and spells to aid those checks) making magical devices to aid general welfare probably isn't going to implement them that poorly.

And even if they do, its still altruism. Its just really, really poorly implemented altruism. And even if you refuse to call it altruism, its still an impetus for people to try it and to do it, which is all the point I was making.


There's the not inconsiderable factor of being a walking corpse. It's rather offputting to most people, no matter how appealing it might be from a mechanical perspective.
I think there has to be something seriously wrong with someone if they voluntarily turn themselves into that, especially since there are plenty of other methods to reach immortality that aren't nearly that disgusting.
And given that there is proof of afterlife, there isn't really all that much reason to become immortal in the first place unless you have a reason to fear that afterlife.

There are a lot of afterlifes in D&D that are defined in such a way that I would gladly turn myself into a walking corpse rather than go to them. And I'm not even talking about the ones that are supposed to be bad.

For instance, many of the deceased supposedly become petitioners, which usually means the loss of all your life skills and memories. That's the kind of fate I would consider equivalent to being dead, to which undeath as a creepy being would be far, far preferable. At least I'm still me at that point.
Also, something being disgusting or creepy may be a deterrent to a lot of people, but it doesn't mean there is something wrong with you. Plus, I think it would be entirely possible to be an undead with style and class. Necropolitans aren't exactly rotting shambling zombies.

[Twurps]

What I've always wondered is: Why would any wizard WANT to live forever and have ultimate power? Being able to do what you want, whenever you want might seem nice, but It would get boring very fast (At least when put in perspective to an immortal life)
In fact: 'you will live forever, but never again experience any feeling of achievement (As being all powerfull, nothing really is an achievement anymore)' sounds like the stuf nightmares/hells are made of. Why would this wizard come out of bed in the morning?

Any wizard that realizes this in time, might actually become altruistic, even if he wasn't before, just for the fun/chalenge of it.

[Bucky]

The 'Tippyverse' was a setting from an actual campaign, after the high level PCs were done messing with it. And by the end it was indeed mostly abandoned wasteland except for cities that had high-level casters protecting them. The Create Food traps just meant people didn't need to leave the safety of the cities to farm.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I agree the world moves in such cycles. And historically this happened a lot of times in Earth's history too.

Though I don't think you get ''more advanced magic'' every time.....just some of the time.

And for everyone who want to destroy a world, there is someone who wants to save it. It's a delicate balance.

Uh, the Europeans were more advanced than the Romans, who were more advanced than the Egyptians. There are setbacks, but technological advancement isn't just a cyclical thing.

[squiggit]

Incidentally. The universe we're looking for here is Athas: magic-caused wasteland with cities protected by extremely powerful sorcerer-kings. No altruism allowed

Can you really call it altruism when you put whole legions of farmers and merchants out of jobs? It's not like you're creating food for a starving people. They already have enough to eat.
Given that you're in a Star Trek style "no one needs to do anything they don't want to" setting being out of a job doesn't end up being that big of a deal



And Create Food and Water explicitly mentions that the food it creates is rather bland. People like to eat for more than just nutrition.
And prestidigitation can explicitly flavor things

[Yahzi]

There is a less expansive answer: localized apocalypse. Societies that reach a certain level of development are destroyed by a powerful global force. This force does not itself evolve because its politics are perfectly stable and prevent any sub-group from making advancements (that would invariably change what is otherwise a great setup for overlords).

These overlords can be gods or just monsters as long as they have sufficient power and global reach (i.e. dragons, mind-flayers, etc.).

[Malroth]

The development of a Tippyverse doesn't require altruism, It can come about solely by greed and logical responses to short term problems, a merchant prince with ranks in spellcraft and a moneymaking idea can bribe a sorcorer 18 to rig up a set of permanent teleportation circles between 2 distant cities and suddenly everything starts moving in that direction. All trade between those two points will want to go through the gate due to the time and money it saves. Armies will move to sieze control of the trade route due to it's profitability and potential threat to themselves if conquered by someone else first. High lv spellcasters will duplicate the idea as a proven method to fill their coffers. Small towns along old traderoutes will see trade die off and its populations will move to the cities. With the massively increased ease of invasion at least one city will either hire magic users for defense or be conquered by one with ambition, this will set off a magical Arms race among the Linked cities and someone will consider the possibility of teleport strikes against enemy infrastructure. Defending an area from enemy teleport raids is very expensive, a wealthy city might be able to ward itself but in almost all cases the countryside will remain vulnerable, this also encourages people to move to the cities.

[The Insanity]

In high fantasy magic makes it easy to cause an apocalypse, but it also makes it easy to prevent or reverse it.

[WeaselGuy]

-snip-

So now we have established major disasters occur, what does that mean? Well, it means that there is going to be a cyclus of the world being devastated, rising again, people slowly discovering the more advanced magic again, and someone abusing it to destroy the world again, Ad Infinitum.

The more advanced magic a world has easy access to, the less likely it is to survive for long.


Discuss, people.

That's basically the backstory to Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, in a nutshell.

[Cirrylius]

One needs be careful with this sentiment. It is a second-order truth, based on observation that apparent altruism is often a much darker form of pride or ambition cloaking itself sinisterly to avoid detection.

Not at all. Altruism feels good (to altruists); i.e. it releases dopamine. The motivation for altruism doesn't NEED to be disingenuous to be fundamentally, biologically selfish

[Deophaun]

No one seriously uses Iron Heart Surge to put out the sun.
Unless you're an illithid crusader. Then it's mandatory to at least try.

[Necroticplague]

Unless you're an illithid crusader. Then it's mandatory to at least try.

Or a vampire crusader.

[jedipotter]

What I've always wondered is: Why would any wizard WANT to live forever and have ultimate power? Being able to do what you want, whenever you want might seem nice, but It would get boring very fast (At least when put in perspective to an immortal life)
.

This is a good point. Anyone who has lived a couple years notes how much the world changes and how you ''can't go home again''. And if your not going to live life, there is not much point in staying around.


Uh, the Europeans were more advanced than the Romans, who were more advanced than the Egyptians. There are setbacks, but technological advancement isn't just a cyclical thing.

Guess it depends on who are the ''Europeans''. After the Fall of Rome, there sure was a Dark Age, for example. And it does depend on what technology Ancient Egypt knew more about astronomy then anyone in Europe until the 18th century.

[BWR]

Guess it depends on who are the ''Europeans''. After the Fall of Rome, there sure was a Dark Age, for example. And it does depend on what technology Ancient Egypt knew more about astronomy then anyone in Europe until the 18th century.

Common misconceptions.

[jedipotter]

Common misconceptions.

Really? So ''no one in the past knew anything'', but ''people in the present know everything''. Ok...

[BWR]

Really? So you just go with ''no one in the past knew anything'', but ''people in the present know everything''. Ok...

No, I go with the idea that the so-callled Dark Ages weren't, on the whole, more ignorant than previous times. Knowledge advances. It may advance slowly at times but is rarely lost except when something better comes along.

[jedipotter]

No, I go with the idea that the so-callled Dark Ages weren't, on the whole, more ignorant than previous times. Knowledge advances. It may advance slowly at times but is rarely lost except when something better comes along.

Knowledge is lost all the time. But, of course, we don't have ''proof'' as it is still lost. Millions of humans over thousands of years had no written language. So they could not save knowledge by writing it down. All they could do was tell someone else. How much knowledge was lost? We will never know....

And even when written down it can be lost.....wonder how much more knowledge the world would have if we had all the scrolls in the Library of Alexandria?

And it's not like when someone discovers something that they telepathically tell everyone else in the world. Lost of knowledge is kept secret. So lots of people have to advance from ''square one''.


Now if your just trying to say, vaguely, that ''knowledge always advances'', ok, I'll say that...

[Hiro Protagonest]

Egypt may have had irrigation and astronomy, but Grome (I'm going to include Greece here since I don't really know which one was more advanced) was definitely more advanced. After the initial turmoil from the fall of Rome and the need to get some basic infrastructure in place first, Europe had better agricultural practices and metalworking techniques, amongst other things.

Well, unless the Mayans had lasers and Egypt was ruled by Gaoul and Jaffa.

[jedipotter]

Well, unless the Mayans had lasers and Egypt was ruled by Gaoul and Jaffa.

It's so hard to talk about real world history.....

[BWR]

Knowledge is lost all the time. But, of course, we don't have ''proof'' as it is still lost. Millions of humans over thousands of years had no written language. So they could not save knowledge by writing it down. All they could do was tell someone else. How much knowledge was lost? We will never know....

And even when written down it can be lost.....wonder how much more knowledge the world would have if we had all the scrolls in the Library of Alexandria?

And it's not like when someone discovers something that they telepathically tell everyone else in the world. Lost of knowledge is kept secret. So lots of people have to advance from ''square one''.


Now if your just trying to say, vaguely, that ''knowledge always advances'', ok, I'll say that...

Wasn't that what I said?
But specifially: knowledge of medicine, architecture, metallurgy, astronomy, geography, history, etc. was on the whole not less in the dark ages than in previous eras buit greater. These things aren't secrets that are lost if one building goes up in flames. For these things to be lost you would have to go around and actively kill all the smiths, masons, doctors, teachers etc. and make it illegal to profess or pass on their knowledge, something that didn't happen. Some details may be lost, some processes are lost as newer, better ones are discovered, languages die out. The point is this: the idea that the Classical eras were somehow more advanced than the dark ages is nonsense.

[SiuiS]

Well, from this point there's not much to discuss.

The actual answer to thread title is "every world is the tippyverse". Tippyverse is just a perverse camera twist. Most settings are "in the dark wilds, man has learned to live anew, forging a life through grit and steel, navigating shadowy jungles, horrid monsters, and mysterious obelisks". The tippyverse is "in the dark wilds, man has learned to live anew, forging a life through grit and steel, navigating shadowy jungles, horrid monsters, and mysterious obelisks. Those obelisks are actually self contained supercities which are also a viable setting element to play in". And... That's it.

The tippyverse just says "the ancient hyperzephyrians realized every equally mighty pre-hyperzephyrians race nuked themselves over petty squabbles, said "F— that!" And retreated from the world into isolation instead of Armageddon".

[sleepyphoenixx]

Egypt may have had irrigation and astronomy, but Grome (I'm going to include Greece here since I don't really know which one was more advanced) was definitely more advanced. After the initial turmoil from the fall of Rome and the need to get some basic infrastructure in place first, Europe had better agricultural practices and metalworking techniques, amongst other things.

Well, unless the Mayans had lasers and Egypt was ruled by Gaoul and Jaffa.

It depends heavily on the field.
Consider that medieval european cities tended to just throw their waste in the street. The romans actually had proper sanitation.
They also used underfloor heating. Aqueducts. Proper roads.
In general much of roman architecture & engineering knowledge (which admittedly a lot of was developed somewhere else first but they had it) was almost totally lost after the fall of the roman empire and only rediscovered centuries later.

[Cirrylius]

What I've always wondered is: Why would any wizard WANT to live forever and have ultimate power? Being able to do what you want, whenever you want might seem nice, but It would get boring very fast (At least when put in perspective to an immortal life)


The nice thing about immortal ennui is that you have centuries to figure out how to get around it:smallbiggrin:

[SiuiS]

Unless you're an illithid crusader. Then it's mandatory to at least try.


Or a vampire crusader.

Being In The sun does not cause a condition. If anything, this would at most end the dazzled/blinded condition, and the ambient light around you that causes it – which is immediately replaces by the sun. As light sources and light are not the same thing, the sun cannot be removed via IHS.


No, I go with the idea that the so-callled Dark Ages weren't, on the whole, more ignorant than previous times. Knowledge advances. It may advance slowly at times but is rarely lost except when something better comes along.

Dark ages were dark because Europe went "waah, we aren't roman anymore", and the rest of the world kept on keeping on. It's a specific thing with specific meaning. Pointing out that Islamic nations still had algebra doesn't disprove the dark ages. It reinforces them.