High Tech vs Magic, Low Tech and Tech Levels

 Early in my blogs (November 2017 “TSL What? Technical Social Levels”) I discussed the Technical Social Levels that appeared in Star Empires. Most of the time Traveler gets credit for this idea but technically Star Empires did it first as a part of the economic and tactical necessities of the game. They are relevant to PC centric RPGs as well as AC of 2 for Plate Mail is going to vastly different than a Modern Tank with a relative AC of 2... the two are simply not the same. When you are mixing tech levels and weird powers such as magic and laser beams some special rules are going to be needed. The Tale of the Comet addresses some of these issues. 

Medieval type TSL is level 2 by Star Empires charts were as the technology of the Rael and their mechanical enemy are extremely more advanced at least in the high teens if not the twenties. This means each technology level must first be understood in context to its self and then in relativity to each other. 

Perception: The less advanced fantasy world natives will perceive the Sci Fi technology as magic, and referees should describe it in those terms. The advanced culture does not use “flame throwers” they use a magical staff that channels magically trapped Dragon’s Breathe... a terrifying weapon. Conversely aliens biological or mechanical from a higher technological level will perceive magic divine or arcane as a scientific technology that is new to them. They will naturally be shocked to find magic users creating affects with pinches of sand or clerics praying and healing someone, they will be denial as to how it all works. Any PC or NPC from such an advance culture will be trying to understand magic in terms of the science they know such as genetics, biomegnatic fields, psionics if that exists for them, hidden bio-mechanical tech or nanotechnology for instance. Let the techno babble theories fly as you describe the natives generating force fields from hidden sources, beam weapons disguised as walking canes, and personal anti gravity generators! 

 For the purpose of play the technology that works the same as a spell or an existing rule in D&D should be treated as such. Conversely if you are using a Sci Fi games rules as your master rules you find a piece of tech that does the same thing and translate the magical abilities as such. However in both cases you must make the magic to the high tech culture seem bizarre and weird or if introducing the high tech to a fantasy game equally bizarre, alien and weird. In no cases should it feel the same same to the players based on their perspective, magic to the disbelieving scientists should never produce the science they are looking for and the future tech should be mysterious to the mages who can not fathom non magical tech. 

Combat A Few Rules For Realism

High Tech Armor Negates all blows from Medieval Weapons. Treat high tech armor as creatures that are immune to such weapons.

High Tech weaponry affects other High Tech as normal, attack rolls are made.

Magical Weapons can affect High Tech targets, on a successful attack roll, inflicting 1 point of damage for every “+”, example +2 sword inflicts 2 hp damage.

High Tech ignores medieval armor, magical armor grants only “+” in protection. Thus +3 equals that improvement to the AC and offers some small protection in addition to any Dexterity modifiers used (if used in your rules).

There will be unique situations that will require the Game Master to make house rulings. Just keep track of your rulings and how you feel they worked out, adjust as needed. 

Sentient Aliens such as the Rael are biological lifeforms unless otherwise stated. Therefore you should treat them the same as similar life forms in D&D as far as magic such as charm person and psionics are concerned. They should be treated as persons, strange looking NPC human types with a strikingly different culture for example.

Mechanical sentient lifeforms are not biological so they are Immune to such things as charm person, illusion and other mind effecting spells. The Machines that posses personalities are AIs and have ethics, morals and can distinguish between good and evil and thus spells that determine alignment, or effect alignments do effect them. Lower level units that simply follow orders as programmed have no alignment or moral to effect.All mechanical units can be affected by heat, lightning bolt and other spells that have physical altering effects. 

The Doomed... are living beings but with mechanical minds. They are thus immune to magic and psionics that would effect biological minds. However spells such as paralysis and hold person affect the as they are still “persons”.

If only they had magic! We all know the Martians would have won if not for that little microbe.