On the Behind the Screens thread, MJ wrote:
His blacksmithing SAL is 1@10; his BRA is 2@2, and the world area bias is 6@, so that gives him a base chance of 54% on ordinary blacksmithing checks.
Can someone explain how the world area bias affects your chances? I mean I know that a 14 would make this easier than a 6, but exactly how? I think it is safe to say that the world area bias that we enjoy today is much higher than it was 600 years ago. How could that possibly make blacksmithing easier? I mean perhaps you would have better tools and equipment now, but the actual act of blacksmithing would be fundamentally the same. How does the world area bias affect that? I've been wondering about this for a long time now. I mean if you were to take a blacksmith from 600 years ago, and time travel him into the future today, would blacksmithing be easier for him, just because it's 600 years in the future, and we have a higher tech bias? How????????????????????
I guess I mean how does the world area Tech bias work? Psionics and Magic I can understand, but not the Tech and Body biases. Blacksmithing is a physical skill, so I would assume that a lower or higher body bias would affect it, but how? Is the air harder to breathe in one universe? If so, what if you had an oxygen tank? Would that help? That I could believe, but what about the Tech? Why would that ray gun work in one world, but not in another? What's wrong with the world that it won't work? Why? Does anyone know?
As Scott would probably say, you're thinking like someone from a high tech world. If you were from a high mag world, you would be asking how it could possibly be that the gods could create ex nihilo in one world but not in another, and why healings would be harder in a world in which such creation was not possible.
If you were a serious Dr. Who fan, you would remember that there was a time during the John Pertwee years during which the Time Lords had created a mental block against the Doctor's knowledge of temporal mechanics--he couldn't figure out how to make the TARDIS do what it was supposed to do, because he couldn't think how to do it. Bias is a bit like that: in worlds with high bias, it's easy to see how to make things work, while in worlds with low bias it's a lot harder. If everyone's understanding of techology is better, then even in simple matters like how to strike a piece of metal with a hammer, it's going to be done that much more effectively.
And note, the difference between the effectiveness of blacksmithing in a 6@ world and blacksmithing in an 11@ world is only ten percentage points--64% instead of 54%--which is not all that big a difference.
Note, too, that you would get that benefit, because your understanding of technology is that high, but John the Smith would not, because he is limited to his own level of technological understanding.
So your ability to apply technological concepts is a bit fuzzy--you're not as sharp on such things in this world as you would be in a world with a higher bias, where you would be sharper, but the blacksmith from this world would not.
Also, the laws of physics are presumed to be a bit more stable in a higher biased world--if subatomic physics related to nuclear decay were less reliable in this world, no one here would notice it, but your raygun might not work so well, and your teleporter isn't going to be a safe bet at all.
Also, quite frankly, the increased levels of technology in the world affect everything in it. You would be able to get a better balanced hammer, a purer bar of steel, and a more accurately controled fire, rather easily in our world as compared with theirs, and all of that makes blacksmithing easier. Indeed, farriers (those specializing in the care and shoeing of horses' hooves) carry portable "forges", gas-fired means of heating their iron shoes, which are a lot more dependable than those bellows-driven forced draft forges you're using. However, if you tried to build one of those gas things here, it just might explode--you don't have the technology for a reliable valve and burner system.
The explanations for magic and psionics and body are similar, but since you come from a low bias world in relation to magic and psionics those arguments wouldn't make much sense, and since you're an averaged bias creature from a high bias world in body, you'd probably have trouble grasping them as well.
--M. J. Young
Oh, and that's quite apart from the game reason for the effect: worlds with low bias in one bias area are supposed to encourage you to explore solutions in other bias areas, because you will tend to use that which is more reliable in any given world.
--M. J. Young