Magic in Society: Introduction

Things have been pretty quiet for nearly 8 months now.  I'm running an on-and-off post apocalyptic game that re-started in early January.  Schedules have forced us to miss a few sessions but we hope to be getting together again in another couple of weeks.  The system is pretty much done, but lacks a little tweaking, a lot of testing, and a setting.

Technically Renaissance can be used in any setting; heck, it's designed for medieval-fantasy role-playing and I'm using it for a post-apocalyptic sci-fi game.  However, there are some features about it that lend itself to a particular setting.  One I've always had kicking around in the back of my mind and could never quite get out on paper satisfactorily.  You know the one, you probably all have one kicking around the back of your mind too.

Well, I've been studying a lot of geography (a little) and doing a lot of mapping and re-mapping and re-re-mapping and a lot of personal debating about world features, feel, etc.  At the moment I'm working on pinning down exactly how much presence magic has in society and how it is felt.  I've formulated a series of notes, personal guides you might say, regarding the various aspects of magic within society.  Over the next week or so I'll be posting those notes for your review, enjoyment and opinions.  I plan a total of 5 articles, one for each aspect and a final one to bring it all together and discuss the "so what"; the worth and use of the guides.  From what I'm looking at in the notes right now, I think they're going to be very helpful in my setting building.  Hopefully they will be helpful to you as well.

Before I go, here is a summary of the aspects of magic in society I have noted and will be posting:

• Caster Personalities/Purpose
• Accessibility
• Attitudes and Reactions (of the populous)
• Saturation Levels