Why is D&D still Medieval?

[LibraryOgre]

People keep saying this but in most cases even the levels of magic knowledge and ability is stagnant too. Even RL alchemy, our closest analog to actual d&d working magic, which started as mostly mysticisim and philosophy kept consistently advancing as its practioners experimented and tried to understand what was happening.

My perspective may be different because of some older material, notably Cormanthyr: Empire of the Elves and Netheril: Empire of Magic. Set 5000 years before the standard Forgotten Realms, they DO have more primitive magic, with a lot of spells gone, because they haven't been invented, yet.

[Nifft]

I thought it was created by an unnamed male elf?

I heard that the character wasn't named, so at the top of the character sheet were the words 'M elf'.

That is the origin of the name Melf, yes.

The player hadn't written a name on his sheet, so the character's name became Melf for "M elf".

From that point on, the character's name was Melf, and that name has been immortalized in official D&D books for decades -- none of his other deeds or traits, just the spells that bear his name.


Melf is the immortal name of a nameless, forgotten elf.

[Luccan]

That is the origin of the name Melf, yes.

The player hadn't written a name on his sheet, so the character's name became Melf for "M elf".

From that point on, the character's name was Melf, and that name has been immortalized in official D&D books for decades -- none of his other deeds or traits, just the spells that bear his name.


Melf is the immortal name of a nameless, forgotten elf.

Melf has a fair bit of lore, actually. Not like, Mordenkainen amounts of lore, but more than the actual unnamed characters at the early tables. He's the PC of one of Gary's kids, IIRC.

[Scots Dragon]

He’s apparently Prince Brightflame, and is a minor royal amongst the elves.

Melf is basically a nickname that he picked up somewhere. Likely got tired of humans mispronouncing his real name, which has not been revealed.

[Clistenes]

People keep saying this but in most cases even the levels of magic knowledge and ability is stagnant too. Even RL alchemy, our closest analog to actual d&d working magic, which started as mostly mysticisim and philosophy kept consistently advancing as its practioners experimented and tried to understand what was happening.

My personal theory is that deities themselves preserve the status quo, for two reasons:

1.-There are deities of civilization and wilderness, of law and chaos, of joy and despair, of health and disease, of wealth and poverty...etc. In most D&D settings they have a compact that prevents direct intervention in the mortal world. I think that compact also includes certain limits to the world's development (or lack of it); the world must have room for primitive tribes living in the woods, and to cities too, to brutal raiders and to shining cities...

The gods of nature don't want an industrial revolution; the gods of health, order and prosperity don't want civilization to be destroyed... so the world remain a patchwork of wastelands and prosperous, orderly realms...

The problem is, past certain level of development, human beings (and maybe other PC races too) would curb-stomp any threats to their civilization with technology, magic or a mix of both, turning the planet into a magitech version of our Earth... so the gods that favor civilization have signed a pact limiting development to appease the deities who oppose it, and in exchange they receive some securities... The use of magic is one of these setoffs; magic allows mortals to better their lifestyle if they work for it, so they don't have to live in squalor in the absence of scientific and industrial advancement (again, if they work for it).

2.-The gods themselves feel uncomfortable if the world deviates too much from what they have gotten used too... can you imagine being a patron deity of rural, pre-industrial world during thousands of years, and suddenly, in the blink of an eye... BAM! INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION! FACTORIES! GLOBAL COMMUNICATION AND TRANSPORT! TV! COMPUTERS! INTERNET! and you no longer understand the world...? (well you DO understand the world because you are a super-intelligent being, but it still feels disorienting and unfamiliar...).

[tomandtish]

That is the origin of the name Melf, yes.

The player hadn't written a name on his sheet, so the character's name became Melf for "M elf".

From that point on, the character's name was Melf, and that name has been immortalized in official D&D books for decades -- none of his other deeds or traits, just the spells that bear his name.


Melf is the immortal name of a nameless, forgotten elf.

Not just D&D books. He also shows in the Greyhawk novels written by Gygax, both as Melf and Prince Brightflame.

[Destro2119]

It's more of a gripe against unnecessarily 'epic' timescales, as much as eternal stasis. Many D&D settings have had a thousand year status quo, in many cases longer, with only the occasional new spell as a development.

And as 3.5's Complete Arcane pointed out, only the spells the creator distributes to others create a setting change.

Eberron in a thousand years will, if it continues it's current trend of development, look very weird. This is a good thing.

My settings tend to operate on a shorter time scale than many, individual pieces of technology may be around for centuries but there are both incremental improvements and major developments in other areas. Generally full gothic plate is less than a century old, although I'm considering for my next game pulling back and having it appear mid-campaign.

Also can we please get gambesons that are actually worthwhile?



I heard that the character wasn't named, so at the top of the character sheet were the words 'M elf'.

Exactly. Everything else might hold, but let's remember that "5000 years" is Ancient Crete to a moon landing

Prince of Thorns does a little study on this, but Prince of Thorns is centuries, in a highly unstable political climate (think constant warring states) with basically no magic. As in, not "normal DnD world."

It's frankly the extended timescale (1000s of yeeeeeears!) that makes any attempt to rationalize a setting fail on its own.

[Nifft]

Not just D&D books. He also shows in the Greyhawk novels written by Gygax, both as Melf and Prince Brightflame.

Greyhawk books aren't D&D books?

[KineticDiplomat]

Since the rest of the setting is more or less entirely irrational other than “Because Plots of Adventure Require It” is this really such a big deal? It’s a milquetoast and mediocre system for generic fantasy adventuring. Is this really such an issue?

As always, you could always play any game that isn’t a grudgingly accepted mediocrity if this bothers you.

[Tanarii]

Exactly. Everything else might hold, but let's remember that "5000 years" is Ancient Crete to a moon landing

It's usually there so that longer lived, slower changing races can have their empires before humanity. Traditionally Elves, then Dwarves, possibly with Dragons and/or Giants before them. Although how those races had civilization while humans were hunter/gatherers can be an issue in some. Although some just assume humans were like Orcs & Goblins traditionally are, a kind of pest pushed to the corners and badlands, but dangerous because they breed so fast and overrun things if not kept in check.

[Clistenes]

Exactly. Everything else might hold, but let's remember that "5000 years" is Ancient Crete to a moon landing

Prince of Thorns does a little study on this, but Prince of Thorns is centuries, in a highly unstable political climate (think constant warring states) with basically no magic. As in, not "normal DnD world."

It's frankly the extended timescale (1000s of yeeeeeears!) that makes any attempt to rationalize a setting fail on its own.

Well, you have to take into account that technology only started to advance at a really fast pace a few centuries ago...

People have been using spears, bows, shields and swords to fight for thousands of years.

Sea People's ships, weapons and tactics 1200 BC weren't so different to Viking ships, weapons and tactics 1000 AC.

Scale armor was used 3,500 ago in Ancient Egypt, and Asian Steppe people kept using it until guns made it obsolete.

Longbows similar to Medieval English longbows were used by Paleolithic big game hunters. Composite recurve bows were used 3,000 year ago, and both were of use in battle until a few centuries ago.

Mounted archers were around 3,000 ago in Middle East, and they were only rendered obsolete during the XIX century.

Mounted lancers were even older, and they were still around during the XIX century too.

Ancient Greek sculpture couldn't be matched until the Renaissance, and some may say it was never surpassed.

From the first Mesopotamian ziggurat 7,000 years ago to the last Mesoamerican pyramid 500 years ago the only thing that changed was the addition of more levels.

Add a few magical catastrophes, monsters hindering the advance of economy and industry, meddling deities, and I can see a world that gets stuck in a pre-industrial state for thousands of years...

What I find difficult to believe is that none of the many D&D worlds in the Great Wheel cosmology manages to beat the odds and break through to a higher level of development. Eberron and Ravnica kinda did, but they are isolated from the greater Multiverse, cut off from direct divine intervention... that's the reason I think the gods are the X factor that prevents most worlds' advancement...

[Duff]

Sorry if this has been said before and i missed it, but
If it's not medievalish, it's a different game to D&D

[LibraryOgre]

Exactly. Everything else might hold, but let's remember that "5000 years" is Ancient Crete to a moon landing

On the other hand, 5000 years is also "neolithic farming" to "ancient Crete". Or "Paleolithic period" to "paleolithic period" a few hundred times.

[Tanarii]

On the other hand, 5000 years is also "neolithic farming" to "ancient Crete". Or "Paleolithic period" to "paleolithic period" a few hundred times.

Problem is when the elves and dwarves were building cities and using advanced food generating techniques while the humans living right next to them and interacting with them were in an extended Stone Age. For some reason.

[quinron]

Problem is when the elves and dwarves were building cities and using advanced food generating techniques while the humans living right next to them and interacting with them were in an extended Stone Age. For some reason.

Ehhhh, I'm actually pretty happy with that if elves and dwarves are played (and depicted in-game) the way they're typically described: xenophobic and self-contained.

The Knight of the Swords by Moorcock actually depicts this pretty well from the demihumans' side - the not-elves of the setting (of which the protagonist is one) have a very small population that's mostly secluded in their ancestral manors and don't find it odd to go decades or centuries without hearing from even their relatives. They're totally caught off guard when the humans attack them, because they don't interact with humans often enough to see how relatively quickly their technology has been progressing.

[snowblizz]

Problem is when the elves and dwarves were building cities and using advanced food generating techniques while the humans living right next to them and interacting with them were in an extended Stone Age. For some reason.

Right now there are African bushmen living a hunter gatherer lifestyle, tribes in the Amazon that have yet not been contacted and a people living on some small islands in the Indian Ocean that are basically off-limits to modern humans.

And that's not even touching a fairly broad category of people poor enough or choosing to live lives that are more traditional in nature. While we travelled to the moon there are still neolitihic stoneage people alive. Effectively.

[Tanarii]

Is that going to last through 5k-10k years of technological disparity, without any trickle down influences and advances?

I'm a bigger fan of the "humans were dangerous pests" justification. Or slaves (e.g. Krynn and the Irda). Sure, there was trickle down technology/magic. Humans just didn't have a chance to expand by breeding like crazy until the dominate race(s) collapsed.

[Max_Killjoy]

Sorry if this has been said before and i missed it, but
If it's not medievalish, it's a different game to D&D

D&D has plenty of not-medieval in it... it already drags in a ton of classical, ancient, renaissance, and early modern elements, and elements from far beyond the core geographic area of "medieval" tropes.

[Destro2119]

Well, you have to take into account that technology only started to advance at a really fast pace a few centuries ago...

People have been using spears, bows, shields and swords to fight for thousands of years.

Sea People's ships, weapons and tactics 1200 BC weren't so different to Viking ships, weapons and tactics 1000 AC.

Scale armor was used 3,500 ago in Ancient Egypt, and Asian Steppe people kept using it until guns made it obsolete.

Longbows similar to Medieval English longbows were used by Paleolithic big game hunters. Composite recurve bows were used 3,000 year ago, and both were of use in battle until a few centuries ago.

Mounted archers were around 3,000 ago in Middle East, and they were only rendered obsolete during the XIX century.

Mounted lancers were even older, and they were still around during the XIX century too.

Ancient Greek sculpture couldn't be matched until the Renaissance, and some may say it was never surpassed.

From the first Mesopotamian ziggurat 7,000 years ago to the last Mesoamerican pyramid 500 years ago the only thing that changed was the addition of more levels.

Add a few magical catastrophes, monsters hindering the advance of economy and industry, meddling deities, and I can see a world that gets stuck in a pre-industrial state for thousands of years...

What I find difficult to believe is that none of the many D&D worlds in the Great Wheel cosmology manages to beat the odds and break through to a higher level of development. Eberron and Ravnica kinda did, but they are isolated from the greater Multiverse, cut off from direct divine intervention... that's the reason I think the gods are the X factor that prevents most worlds' advancement...

Yes, but those "few centuries" weren't just everybody waking up one day and deciding to do the Industrial Revolution, there was an incredible buildup of proto industrialization, nation-states, and trade that started from basically the Renaissance (and even before that-- see Venetian Arsenal) which is basically where most DnD worlds have been for "thousands of years."

DnD worlds presumably ALREADY have all that stuff, and it's not like tech was a straight line IRL either-- there were tons of setbacks IRL, but things always HAPPENED. Which doesn't happen for some reason in DnD, and no, if monsters are so prevalent as you say, then we don't have nation-states at all.

"gods are the X factor"

Depends. For FR? 1000% yes. For Eberron/Greyhawk/Dragonlance/Pathfinder? They're nowhere near involved enough.

[Clistenes]

Yes, but those "few centuries" weren't just everybody waking up one day and deciding to do the Industrial Revolution, there was an incredible buildup of proto industrialization, nation-states, and trade that started from basically the Renaissance (and even before that-- see Venetian Arsenal) which is basically where most DnD worlds have been for "thousands of years."

DnD worlds presumably ALREADY have all that stuff, and it's not like tech was a straight line IRL either-- there were tons of setbacks IRL, but things always HAPPENED. Which doesn't happen for some reason in DnD, and no, if monsters are so prevalent as you say, then we don't have nation-states at all.

"gods are the X factor"

Depends. For FR? 1000% yes. For Eberron/Greyhawk/Dragonlance/Pathfinder? They're nowhere near involved enough.

Eberron is going through a magitech industrial revolution right now... Did the lack of divine involvement contribute to it? We don't know...

Dragonlance is actually a good example of deities forcing a reset of civilization and purposely sending people back to barbarism not once, but twice (the Fall of the Irda and the Cataclysm), plus the damage inflicted by several divine wars...

Both Oerth and Golarion have suffered their own resets too (the Twin Cataclysms and the Earthfall), but I will admit the hand of deities isn't evident (as a matter of fact, the gods prevented Golarion from being utterly destroyed).

Oerth has developed advanced magitech civlizations several times during its history: The City of the Gods in Blackmoor was destroyed by the Gear Madness, Sulm, was destroyed by its ruler's magic, the ancient elven kingdoms by the wars against the Ur-flan, Baklunish and Suloise empires by the Twin Cataclysms...etc...
Could the gods have stopped such disasters? We don't know...

Golarion is kinda weird in that you have late XVIII/early XIX level civilizations (minus gunpowder) side by side to a copy of Ancient Egypt... But anyways, Golarion does have advanced magical civilizations, they just exist outside the Inner Sea Region; the Vudrani are said to be able to raise woundrous cities in days using magic. Golarion has also suffered its own share of cataclysms: The Earthfall, which explicitly resetted technological an magical development, the Worldwound, the conquest of Geb, Ustalav and the Gravelands by undead, the war between Geb and Nex...etc.

[Nifft]

Oerth has developed advanced magitech civlizations several times during its history: The City of the Gods in Blackmoor was destroyed by the Gear Madness, Sulm, was destroyed by its ruler's magic, the ancient elven kingdoms by the wars against the Ur-flan, Baklunish and Suloise empires by the Twin Cataclysms...etc...
Could the gods have stopped such disasters? We don't know...

Gods couldn't stop the Suloise Empire from doing such horrible things that one god left the pantheon in protest.

[NigelWalmsley]

The real problem is more the insistence on having histories that are tens or hundreds of thousands of years long than the particular level of development at the time the setting presents. The oldest person who's name we know lived a little more than five thousand years ago. All of what we'd call "recorded history" happened in roughly that timeframe, and maybe five hundred years of it are something you'd call even "proto-industrial" (even that is pretty unevenly distributed). There is no real in-setting explanation for it, because it's not an intentional choice. It's just that Authors Have No Sense of Scale (and, frankly, the people who write copy for D&D settings are, for the most part, not the top of the fantasy author pool).

If you want an explanation to shoehorn onto settings, the ones this thread (as do most threads on the topic) seems to have settled on is basically functional: magic causes periodic civilizational resets, gods/dragons/archmages stifle innovation, and/or tech levels are slightly higher than most settings assume (frankly, more D&D settings should have at least early firearms, because gunslingers are cool).

[Tanarii]

Mystara:

Technology from an alternate universe crash landed in the form of a ship, and the survivors dominated the surrounding area with technological artifacts, but they eventually caused a nuclear disaster so bad it rotated the axis of the planet.

Then later on some elves found the somehow surviving reactor and it blew up again, causing a smaller apocalypse. This time the engine got converted to drain magical energy from around the planet to provide awesome magical powers to those who tapped into it.

Then a magical nation took over the known world, and got corrupted by an entropic immortal so badly they had to be wiped from memory and civilization collapsed.


Then hordes of humanoids ravaged the known world a few times, wiping out everything repeatedly.

It really wasn't until a bunch of tribes fled the humanoids to the southern continent to set up shop, build an Bronze Age tech civ, which then pushed out a bunch of other tribes back north to set up shop, which built an Iron Age civ, which started conquering everything, that things generally got pushed into the modern era.

And then the magic-draining reactor core caused an Immortal-driven war in which plagues ravaged the land, the elven nation's land was corrupted and conquered by dark elves, a meteor was dropped on two nations, and an entire continent ruled by max level Magic-users sank below the waves. (Side note: they lost the war.)

[Destro2119]

Eberron is going through a magitech industrial revolution right now... Did the lack of divine involvement contribute to it? We don't know...

Dragonlance is actually a good example of deities forcing a reset of civilization and purposely sending people back to barbarism not once, but twice (the Fall of the Irda and the Cataclysm), plus the damage inflicted by several divine wars...

Both Oerth and Golarion have suffered their own resets too (the Twin Cataclysms and the Earthfall), but I will admit the hand of deities isn't evident (as a matter of fact, the gods prevented Golarion from being utterly destroyed).

Oerth has developed advanced magitech civlizations several times during its history: The City of the Gods in Blackmoor was destroyed by the Gear Madness, Sulm, was destroyed by its ruler's magic, the ancient elven kingdoms by the wars against the Ur-flan, Baklunish and Suloise empires by the Twin Cataclysms...etc...
Could the gods have stopped such disasters? We don't know...

Golarion is kinda weird in that you have late XVIII/early XIX level civilizations (minus gunpowder) side by side to a copy of Ancient Egypt... But anyways, Golarion does have advanced magical civilizations, they just exist outside the Inner Sea Region; the Vudrani are said to be able to raise woundrous cities in days using magic. Golarion has also suffered its own share of cataclysms: The Earthfall, which explicitly resetted technological an magical development, the Worldwound, the conquest of Geb, Ustalav and the Gravelands by undead, the war between Geb and Nex...etc.

Exactly. Greyhawk has no excuse, b/c deities aren't as active to "eff civilization up point," and it has been thousands of years.

Golarion STILL has the problem of "oh thousands of years pass w/ no change whatsoever" but it makes sense in its own right since Golarion was never meant to be a living world.

A side note: People say Tolkien is medieval fantasy, but the style of living of hobbitts is at least late 19th century.

[NigelWalmsley]

Exactly. Greyhawk has no excuse, b/c deities aren't as active to "eff civilization up point," and it has been thousands of years.

It was three thousand years between the building of the pyramids and the fall of Rome. I'm not saying Greyhawk has nothing to answer for (I certainly don't know the specifics), but the discussion warrants more nuance than that.

A side note: People say Tolkien is medieval fantasy, but the style of living of hobbitts is at least late 19th century.

"Medieval" (in the context of fantasy) is, in practice, as much about aesthetics as practicalities. Tolkien is clearly "medieval" in the sense that the setting cues largely draw on ideas about the middle ages. The Hobbits live in a fashion that is "idealized pastoral England". Some specific details of that may fit better in the 19th century than whatever you'd consider the "middle ages", but the Shire is missing a great many of the things we'd expect to be present in the 19th century, because it's a pastiche of Tolkien's ideas about "the good old days of England", rather than a transplanting of some particular culture into a fantasy milieu.

[InvisibleBison]

A side note: People say Tolkien is medieval fantasy, but the style of living of hobbitts is at least late 19th century.

I don't think that's quite right. Remember, one of the reasons that the Scouring of the Shire was so bad was destructive industrialization - and the most technologically advanced element was replacing the water-powered mill with another, bigger water-powered mill. Not a steam engine in sight.

[NigelWalmsley]

I don't think that's quite right. Remember, one of the reasons that the Scouring of the Shire was so bad was destructive industrialization - and the most technologically advanced element was replacing the water-powered mill with another, bigger water-powered mill. Not a steam engine in sight.

Like I said, it's not a specific period in time, it's a vehicle for Tolkien to explore the conflict between industrial England and pre-industrial England. It's not really "this is 19th century England, only the people are Hobbits" or "this is 14th century England, only the people are Hobbits", it's "unchecked industrialization attacks the soul of the English people". You can see it with what Saruman does in Isengard. It's clearly meant to be a metaphor for the rapacious industrialism of <whatever your favorite period of rapacious industrialism is>, but it's not like Saruman is making guns or tanks or trains. He's still producing stuff that is, aesthetically, medieval, he just does it in a way that's coded as industrial.

[Anonymouswizard]

Also, IIRC, the hobbits did originally possess at least some 19th century technology. Because the first versions of The Hobbit weren't part of Middle-earth, it was brought in later as The Lord of the Rings was being written. So Tolkien obviously did care about sticking to a rough technology level, if not limiting the kinds of cultures.

Hobbit culture also has some other interesting elements that tie into the whole 'idea, not a time period' thing. Including their lack of an overarching government, while in theory they'd be subjects of Aragorn if I'm remembering my lore correctly, the Shire never had any central leadership itself and Anor hasn't been an actual state for at least hundreds of years. Several elements also exist because Tolkien knew they wouldn't be historically accurate but fittef with his pastoral English ideal, including their tendency to smoke.

[Gnoman]

The head of the Took family is nominally the "Thain" of the Shire, but the office is purely ceremonial because he has nothing to do. They do have a police force of sort, the Shirrifs, under the elected Mayor of Michel Delving. Again, this is primarily a ceremonial thing, as the only thing the Shirrifs normally do is manage to border patrol to keep trespassers out.

Unlike the typical D&D depiction of Halflings as extremely chaotic (and thus being essentially anarchistic in organizing themselves), the Hobbits of Tolkien are so inherently Lawful that there's no real need to govern them.

They were nominally subjects of the King of Arnor and settled the Shire with his permission, but that kingdom was extinct for a thousand years by the time of LOTR. Aragon restored that kingdom, but gave the Shire effective independence and banned interference with them.

[Nifft]

They were nominally subjects of the King of Arnor and settled the Shire with his permission, but that kingdom was extinct for a thousand years by the time of LOTR. Aragon restored that kingdom, but gave the Shire effective independence and banned interference with them.

It's good to be friends with the king.