[sladethesniper]

It's not like they can never, ever, ever understand it...it's more along the lines of being difficult.

Magic, Spiritualism, Divine Magic, Psionics, Technology, et al. all exist, but the methods for getting them to "work" are different. To solve the culture/game balace issue...I made skill lists for each of the 15 types of development and one I called universal. A character can pick skills from the universal list and ONE of the 15 cultural skill lists and buy skills as normal. If they want to learn skills from another culture, it costs double, and if they wan to learn skills from a third, they cost triple, etc. Thus they can learn skills from different cultures, but it is difficult and why would you want to learn how to drive a car, you can fly? Alternately, why would you want to learn how to cast fireball, you have an assault rifle with a grenade launcher?

Several of the races live in "co-terminus" planes...as do the deities. The primary method of ensuring cultural cross pollination is historical precedent.

From the Prologue (post #5)

Steel and Iron Will describes the other central conflict within this setting, technology versus magic, or more generally the conflict between cultures. This is a world where magic has existed for thousands of years, but its presence has not somehow stopped progress, but assisted it. The reason for the dichotomy is that magic is an art and a science that takes a lifetime to truly master, and the longer lived races simply have more time to learn the most difficult of rituals and spells. The shorter lived races faced a severe shortcoming when dealing with magically inclined races until the invention of hard technology, so called because technology continues to progress beyond the level of those who developed it. Technology allows for rapid development, while magic does not. A being does not have to know how an internal combustion engine works in order to use it. The reverse is true of magic or psionics, a being must be intimately familiar with the theories of magic and the mental disciplines in order to use even the most simple of these abilities. Thus, magical societies and beings are forced to be specialized in their skill sets, while technological societies and beings are allowed to be much more general in their skill sets while still enabling them to be competitive with magical cultures.

From the Tech chapter:

The end effect of this many technological systems coexisting is obviously chaos. What must be remembered is that each system has its own particular strengths and weaknesses, which allow it to continue to be a viable systemic technology. If this were not true, then they would have been abandoned for a more reliable technological paradigm. For this reason, many of these systems are considered to exist in a state of developmental parity with each other. Those technological systems are deemed to be primary paradigms, while other systems are recognized as being a supplementary system

From the Campaign chapter

Although it would seem at first to be problematic having all of the different flavors of magic, plus psionics and religion present and in competition with each other, it should not be so. What is important for the GM and the players to remember is that each technology type is, at this point in Vhraeden's history, equal in regards to effects. That means that for the time being, a magic user is just as capable as a high technology user. They are effectively equivalent to each other. What is also important to remember is that each form of technology exists independently of each other.

An analogy is the world of today. African bushmen and South American tribesmen still practice their native traditions (spiritualism and shamanism respectively) in the modern world, while various religions (divine favor, infernal corruption, abyssal insanity and the druidic path) obviously still exist side by side with technology (low tech, mid tech, high tech and ultra tech are all still present, it just depends on where you go). Devotees of magic and witchcraft are obviously real, they just exist on the fringes of everyday society and thus are often discounted by the mainstream. Meanwhile New Age (empathy) adherents obviously are real and have organized communes and ESP (psionics) is very slowly gaining acceptance by the academic community. Biotechnology (analogous to BioMagic) is not only real, but a billion dollar industry. All that is different about Vhraeden is that these systems are all very much alive and well, are all accepted as “real”, and thus are not on the decline.

With regard to societal variation based on a technological system basis, again we can look to our own planet. On one world, there is a civilization that can transplant organs, microwave food in less than a minute, nuke other countries to smithereens, and fights over civil rights of various lifestyles and the evils of fast food... while at the same time a civilization that still wears animal skins for clothing, fights with spears, and has no written language exists. A civilization that has so much food available that it pays its farmers NOT to grow more...on the same planet with entire NATIONS of people who are malnourished and starving to death? So, why can't Orks have technology on the same planet with Elves who cloak themselves in magic? It doesn't seem quite as far fetched when you compare it to reality...which is quite similar in many ways.”

The reason for this is that the system of technology is tied to the culture of the area where it was developed and, lets face it, people (and by extrapolation, all sentient beings) are resistant to change. If an elf knows magic, why would he waste time learning about technology or spiritualism? They wouldn't.

If you are still uncomfortable with running Vhraeden as a polyglot technological world, don't. Remember, it's your game.

One of the most important things to remember about Vhraeden is that it is an open ended world. There has been every effort made to remove any trace of artificiality that is commonly present in RPGs. This is a world of chaotic and violent co existence. As stated in the introduction, this is a world where there are many different viewpoints on all aspects of life including technology, religion, history, race, and identity.

Although Vhraeden is a complex world of several billion sentient beings, there is a very important question that must be asked. Of all the beings on Vhraeden, how many are playable characters? While the rules of this game would allow you to play any conceivable character, the truth is that there are very few “playable characters”. The reason for this is simple. Normal people are simply not that interesting.

It is possible to create and play a college student with a full time job at a fast food restaurant, but why would that be interesting? You could create and play a private in any army in the world, but unless you like roleplaying being tired, hungry, training and cleaning, there is little to recommend it. The interest that player characters generate over normal people (non-player characters) is not in their statistics, abilities, skills or any other quantifiable area. What sets a good player character apart from the vast majority of the population is their mindset and the choices they have made.

While it is possible for most people to become an assassin with enough training, there are not a lot of assassins running around comparatively. By way of comparison, based purely on the concrete selection criteria, most people could be cops, crime bosses, special forces or astronauts if they decided to do so early in life and pursued their ambitions. Then why are there so few of these professionals in existence? The answer is simple, most people don’t have the drive to push themselves above the mediocre. Therefore, what sets a “player character” apart from the average person is simply drive, ambition and motivation.

That is not to say that the only characters that are useful, unique or interesting are player characters. Quite the opposite. It is just that the vast majority of NPC’s have chosen to follow a more mundane and socially acceptable life path than the that of most player characters. For instance a normal person will have skills such as cooking, driving automobile (or ride appropriate animal), basic math, writing a language, speaking a language, reading a language, credit rating, five to ten skills that relate directly to their job (about 50-70%) and about ten skills that are considered to be hobbies (40-70%). The remainder of a characters skill points will be used in esoteric skills that the character may have forgotten all about such a second language they learned in secondary education, various classes on physics, biology, chemistry, sports rules, a few martial arts moves, a weapon skill, magical theory and other such sundry one semester classes and passing interests at about 10-25%.

This methodology of universe creation is far different than most other games, which gives player characters all sorts of “special” powers and abilities which are simply impossible for normal beings to possess. Vhraeden makes no such allowances delineating characters from non-player characters. This allows both players and the GM to create any sort of character from a mentally deficient homeless alcoholic halfling refugee that grew up in state schools and knows very little besides how to panhandle all the way to a laboratory created genetically modified elf super warrior outfitted with millions of Imperial Marks worth of equipment and every type of character in between.

In the original version of Vhraeden, the campaign style I chose was deliberately dichotomous. I merely took the conventions of other RPG settings and modified them. I had megacorporations engaged in corporate wars over resources where heavily cyberized street punks were a constant threat, drugs and money were omnipresent and the only way to stay on top of the dog eat dog Western World was to dish out cash and slap on augmentation like there was no tomorrow. The East was the magical world where there were evil gods, powerful wizards and paladins riding out to wage crusades against the vile forces of darkness. This was the area where magic ruled, and if you were not a wizard or a magical item monger, you were going to die. The rest of the world developed from that model, and that is the campaign style for which this setting was deliberately designed for, although all of the genre’s and campaigns work well.

Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it.

-STS