A Bit of Warriors History

[Bob Schroeck]

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y, the arcano-engineer approach is what I would have expected from Doug, given that Bob is his creator.
I mean, seriously, this is a man who writes GURPS sourcebooks. If there's ever a system that breaks magic down into a series of definite, hard rules, its GURPS.

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On a completely seperate note, I think it's also a reflection of the "arcane" nature people apply to modern technology - aka the "High tech looks magic, high magic looks tech" rule.

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Actually, it's less either of these than my personal observation and belief that if magic works at all reliably, then it must have some kind of underlying system, some set of consistent rules by which it operates, even if it appears random at times. And when something runs by such a set of rules, the scientific method will be one of the best tools for analyzing it. Any magic system where the effects are impersonal and more or less replicable -- they aren't gotten by bargaining with idiosyncratic spirits to do favors, for instance -- will eventually yield up its secrets to a proper investigation.
Then you have a "science of magic", and then you get convergence, and... well, you get the idea.

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As a general rule, people don't know HOW technology works (like your computer), just that they work. They know that someone with sufficient education and experitise knows how tech works, and how to build it.

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As I once said in a different context almost twenty years ago: "Magic" is a ritual performed to produce a specific, desired end result, the exact reason for whose occurrence is unknown. By this definition, most of the civilized world operates by magic.

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Look at most of the more recent movies, anime and video games - magical circles, major constructs, and other "high magic" looks an awful lot like uber-tech. Uber-tech looks an awful lot like magic.

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Definitely influenced by Clarke's Third Law, and its usually unconsciously-assumed inverse ("Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology." Call it "Crowley's Third Law", maybe? )

-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.