A Theory Why The Tippyverse Doesn't Happen

[Lysander]

The tippyverse. A place where Dnd magic is taken to its logical conclusion. Create Food traps for endless free food. Teleportation Circles for public transportation. Skeleton servants tirelessly obeying your every command. Death being a reversible condition you can get Resurrection insurance for.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with this. It's just an example of Niven's law "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

But what about the standard high magic DnD world that doesn't have magical tech everywhere? What stops this magitech from developing?

Here's one theory. Not THE theory. Just a theory.

The material plane is where mortals are born, live, and die. When they die they pass on to various good, evil, lawful, and chaotic aligned planes. What they do during life determines their alignment, and thus where they go.

The residents of each plane want to increase their population, needing more warriors for the endless battle of alignments between the planes. Dead mortals become the lowest form of outsider in whatever plane they pass to, but can grow in power over time. The material plane is basically an outsider factory, producing more beings for all the outer planes.

The Tippyverse utopia is a problem for all outsiders because it eventually takes away all challenge and suffering. There is no need noble sacrifice, no selfish misdeed. Why steal when you can just create or summon whatever you need? Why murder when true resurrection will bring them back to life? There's enough of everything for everyone, so everyone leads a comfortable leisurely existence. Without hardship and choice almost everyone's alignment becomes neutral and they all wind up at the Outlands. The aligned planes, on all sides, are determined to prevent this.

So whenever the tippyverse starts to unfold an unstoppable force of fiends or celestials, or sometimes both, soon arrives to undo it. You hear tales of places like Atlantis that briefly achieved paradise before the outsiders cast it into the sea. A little magic here or there or a lone wizard in his study is beneath their concern, but once magic becomes universal outsiders soon arrive to reset the status quo.

And that's why peasants use mules to plow their fields instead of skeleton elephants.

[Gamerlord]

Or may be cause wizards are so fragile that they tend to die before they are a threat.

[Johel]

*Clap Clap*

I like it, Lysander

[Project_Mayhem]

my interpretation is that characters in game don't have perfect meta knowledge of the rules, and so don't know how to do all the abusive stuff. Fixed.

[Tyndmyr]

It doesn't take perfect meta knowledge. For example, once you realize you can make repeating traps with magical spells attached...or items that do the same, it doesn't take meta knowledge to consider what the most useful items might be, mostly starting with cheap ones.

IE, create food and such.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Atlantis. I like it. Plus, it gives the DM clout against rule-abusers xD.

[Xuincherguixe]

... I think this is less metagaming and more common sense.

[Tyndmyr]

Well, yeah...Gods and such are gonna want to protect their power. If wizard x is gaining power at a phenominal rate, and stealing believers from them or w/e, you will attract unwanted attention.

I kinda like the tippyverse, actually. Its a fun place.

[Saph]

The first reason you don't get these kind of exploits in practice is because in real games, setting trumps RAW. If 1000 pages of setting material give you one type of campaign world, and one poorly worded line in the DMG gives another, and it's blatantly obvious that the DMG line wasn't intended to work that way, then only the dedicated Rules Lawyer types are going to prefer the DMG interpretation. Since in real life Rules Lawyers are about as popular as their legal counterparts, it shouldn't be a surprise that you don't get Tippyverses.

The second, related reason is that most Tippyverse staples require a level of rules abuse that will get you booted from most gaming groups within one session if you try it.

[Choco]

Another in-game reason for this not happening could be because magic power is limited. It is never specified where Arcane magic comes from and how much Divine power a given god can produce to grant to followers.

This would actually make a good plotline. You start out in the Tippyverse, but using that much magic on even the most mundane tasks starts taking it's toll on the world, which slowly begins to crumble.

[Coplantor]

Another in-game reason for this not happening could be because magic power is limited. It is never specified where Arcane magic comes from and how much Divine power a given god can produce to grant to followers.

This would actually make a good plotline. You start out in the Tippyverse, but using that much magic on even the most mundane tasks starts taking it's toll on the world, which slowly begins to crumble.

Have you ever played Dark Sun?

[Hashmir]

Another in-game reason for this not happening could be because magic power is limited. It is never specified where Arcane magic comes from and how much Divine power a given god can produce to grant to followers.

This would actually make a good plotline. You start out in the Tippyverse, but using that much magic on even the most mundane tasks starts taking it's toll on the world, which slowly begins to crumble.

Go play Tales of Symphonia.

[Choco]

Have you ever played Dark Sun?

I shat a pile of bricks when I heard WotC was going to release official Dark Sun books for 4th edition later this year. That is probably one of the major reasons for my conversion from 3.5e.

I think that about answers your question

Both that and Tales of Symphonia take place well after some magic-overuse caused disaster though. I was thinking of a campaign based during the fall/disaster.

[Lysander]

Well, yeah...Gods and such are gonna want to protect their power. If wizard x is gaining power at a phenominal rate, and stealing believers from them or w/e, you will attract unwanted attention.

I kinda like the tippyverse, actually. Its a fun place.

What I like about the theory is that you don't actually need to spell it out for your players in detail. Almost every fantasy novel has a downside to magic. Wizards in stories often only use it in times of great need, and then only as sparingly as possible. They never really spell out why, just that it will upset the natural order of things or unbalance the universe. As it's put in the Earthsea series: "“To light a candle is to cast a shadow.”

Greater information could actually be provided by simple knowledge checks. Maybe something like this would be appropriate

{table="head"]Knowledge Arcana DC|Information
5|Many ancient civilizations had much greater magic than the present does.
10|Ancient high magic civilizations tended to only last a few years before suffering a grim end.
15|Widespread use of magic tends to attract hostile attention from outsiders.
20|Outsiders are committed to keeping the material plane one of struggle and ethical choice. Fiends and celestial have a common purpose in reducing any magical utopias to a more primitive level.
25|Many artifacts and remnants of epic spells were created as last ditch efforts to fight off the invading armies of outsiders. These attempts invariably proved futile.
[/table]

[Grumman]

The aligned planes, on all sides, are determined to prevent this.

No. Good and Evil are not mirror images of each other. Your theory would mean that Good outsiders are not Good, and are in fact Evil, by virtue of their willingness to screw everyone over to maintain their own numbers.

[oxybe]

why doesn't a tippyverse happen?

a wizard undid it. he was a jerk.

[Eldan]

No. Good and Evil are not mirror images of each other. Your theory would mean that Good outsiders are not Good, and are in fact Evil, by virtue of their willingness to screw everyone over to maintain their own numbers.

Welll... Greater good, yadda, yadda, yadda. Solars are so good they would probably be against it (being humble is one of their main shticks, after all), but I can totally see Asura or Eladrin going for this: magic utopia -> no more good outsiders. Since good is already struggling and only still alive thanks to the blood war, they have to prevent this.

Alternative explanation: a lawful evil wizard tries to take over and establish Big Brother Land. Veiled Eladrin prevent this. Chaotic Evil wizard wants to blow everything up. Army of Archons kills him. Neutral Good wizard tries to create free-food-and-healing utopia. There is a strange and inexplicable shift in direction of the blood war and suddenly everyone on the world ends up dead because a battalion of Tanar'ri gets lost, swiftly followed by an army of Baatezu. No Yugoloth were ever involved.

[Lysander]

No. Good and Evil are not mirror images of each other. Your theory would mean that Good outsiders are not Good, and are in fact Evil, by virtue of their willingness to screw everyone over to maintain their own numbers.

They view giving people the chance to become celestials as good, even if that causes some suffering. Angels can be some cold bastards. After all, the flesh of this world is but ash, only the eternal soul truly matters.

Plus, if they didn't meddle in the material plane the fiends still would and would probably tilt things towards evil. It's basically fight for good, and gather noble souls, or allow demons and devils to run rampant over all creation.

[Coplantor]

Anyone played Total Annihilation: Kingdoms here? The game is set on a world that had recovered from a magical apocalypse caused by abuse of magic wich swept away 90% of thw world's population. The game story happens 5000 years after though, but a part of the world itself is beign transformed into what could be called hell on earth due to magic abuse.

[erikun]

The second, related reason is that most Tippyverse staples require a level of rules abuse that will get you booted from most gaming groups within one session if you try it.

This, at least from what I've seen. I know most DMs wouldn't allow players to create food traps or chaingating Solar chains. The reason for it not working may vary, but from most of what I've seen it just won't happen.

Then again, there are other DMs who let you go crazy, under the assumption that everyone before you was too close minded or low level to attempt Trippification. Both ways work.

why doesn't a tippyverse happen?

a wizard undid it. he was a jerk.

Rope Trick + Bag of Holding. They told you it was hazardous!

[WalkingTarget]

There's nothing necessarily wrong with this. It's just an example of Niven's law "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Just a nitpick, but that's Clarke's third law. For [one of] Niven's Law[s] you need it to put it the other way 'round. "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."

[Tyndmyr]

This, at least from what I've seen. I know most DMs wouldn't allow players to create food traps or chaingating Solar chains. The reason for it not working may vary, but from most of what I've seen it just won't happen.

Then again, there are other DMs who let you go crazy, under the assumption that everyone before you was too close minded or low level to attempt Trippification. Both ways work.

I will gladly allow very high degrees of tippification. That said, Im very comfortable with elements of very high magic coexisting with a more traditional world. Teleport circles are great, but you still need caravans to places without them. If high level mages just aren't that common, tippification isn't instant or ridiculously easy.

[Lysander]

Just a nitpick, but that's Clarke's third law. For [one of] Niven's Law[s] you need it to put it the other way 'round. "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."

Damn it. I started with Clarke's law then decided to change it to Niven's, I just put forgot to swap magic and technology.

[LibraryOgre]

No. Good and Evil are not mirror images of each other. Your theory would mean that Good outsiders are not Good, and are in fact Evil, by virtue of their willingness to screw everyone over to maintain their own numbers.

The thing is, it doesn't require good to be willing to screw over the entire world. Just for evil to be willing to.

Evil comes to the utopia... say, three generations on. The people who are important now have never known want or fear. Everything is supplied to them by their mighty wizard-kings, and some few are selected to be part of the mighty wizard-kings. So where does evil fit in?

Some are NOT selected to be wizard-kings. They're not smart enough. They're determined to be of the wrong ethical stripe. They don't have an innate ability to cast magic. But a demon comes and offers them a chance. Sell your soul to me and become as powerful as the wizards. Work for me, and I'll give you what you want. I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave.

Boom. Warlock. Cleric. Sorcerer. You've got one of them. He charms people. They sabotage food-making devices.... the warlock and cleric dispel them, the rogues disable those nasty traps. Society, never more than three missed meals from revolution, starts to fray, because the food was not... could not be... stored against problems. Replacements can be made, but those take time. Meanwhile, evil seeps in through the crack opened... and widened... by the demon-worshiper. The new wizard-kings, having not needed the spells of combat, have to learn them. Time has to be spent responding to this threat... and in that time, the problem gets worse.

Sure, good can stop this incursion. But in order to do so, you have to assume that good outsiders are proactive. That they go to places where evil is and kick its butt. And, by and large, good outsiders don't come unless called. Chaotic outsiders may look at this utopia and refuse, insofar as they are able, to help a stratified, lawful society continue to exist... and if it's a more free-wheeling utopia, lawful outsiders may do the same. They're not lawful GOOD or CHAOTIC good, they're LAWFUL GOOD and CHAOTIC GOOD... those things are both intrinsic to their nature, and a CG outsider is not going to say "Gee, you've got a wonderfully stratified society that seems to result in good for everyone, I suppose that personal freedom thing isn't that important" any more than they're going to say "My, what a pleasant chaotic hellhole you have. I love how maximum freedom for everyone has turned out, and so will turn a blind eye to the rapine and slavery."

All it takes is one person who is not completely content... and demons with a will to cause chaos and misery.

[The Rose Dragon]

Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave.

"You have no power over me!"

[LibraryOgre]

"You have no power over me!"

Wondered how long it would take someone to catch that one.

[Lapak]

I'm still fond of the reasoning I decided on the last time I saw this subject: XP is soul-stuff, and is a finite-but-huge resource without which children cannot be created. This is impossible to notice on an individual scale, no matter how treasure-laden any given adventurer is, but a society that mass-produces permanent spells and magical items is gradually sequestering a critical element without which their population cannot increase - and eventually, they can push it beyond the point where their population can even remain static.

This leads to grand magical societies rising to prominence every few thousand years, only to sink into decay and collapse as their population shrinks and dies off, and eventually their empires become unliveable wastelands until enough of the magic stuff is destroyed and the soul-stuff powering it released. Provides plenty of ancient ruins for treasure-hunting in, to boot. It also explains the typically-slow reproductive rate of elves and dwarves (older demihumans tie up more experience, you can only gradually regrow the population as some folks die off), let alone dragons, and makes liches and the like even more of an abomination.

[Swordgleam]

I'm still fond of the reasoning I decided on the last time I saw this subject: XP is soul-stuff, and is a finite-but-huge resource without which children cannot be created.

I really like that idea. But how about a slightly creepier twist? Children can be created without xp, but they're soulless. Able to master basic skills and go through the motions, but unable to add anything to the world that doesn't already exist - unable to make art, invent things, or even tell jokes.

Plus, then you can have the evil types steal xp-souls from already existing people and transform them into tragic shells of their former selves.

[hamishspence]

Heroes of Horror bleak ones, or Magic of Incarnum Lost, might be possible ways of representing soulless ones.

Technically Lost are being that have attracted too much soul energy of the wrong kind, but the rules seem like they could work.

[Lapak]

I really like that idea. But how about a slightly creepier twist? Children can be created without xp, but they're soulless. Able to master basic skills and go through the motions, but unable to add anything to the world that doesn't already exist - unable to make art, invent things, or even tell jokes.

Plus, then you can have the evil types steal xp-souls from already existing people and transform them into tragic shells of their former selves.

Eh, that just leads to the Tippyverse populated by mindless slaves. But you're welcome to adjust the idea for your own purposes however you like. :)