Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
I'm claiming that people who think that technological development is inevitable in settings where magic is already well-entrenched and the laws of physics might be different from our world, and that technology must advance from Medieval/Renaissance levels to modern or near-modern levels or the setting is stuck in Medieval stasis and thus doesn't make sense, are wrong.
To a certain extent, when players get to play and mess about in a setting and it spontaneously breaks when they In-Character start asking inquisitive questions about how the world works and trying to build better things (aka. incremental improvements and general "let's make better stuff" attitude);
not advancing becomes something you have to explain instead of just assuming it happens.

I've seen it happen all too much and avoid playing a scientist/engineer-type character in too many games due to a feeling (from reading the background) that it would punch too many holes and get vetoed immediately.

I have yet to play a game with a pure scientist character whose main motivation is to dig into the setting knowledge; ask "why" and don't stop.