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Gaming Outpost Discussions » Tag: society - Recent Posts http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/tags/society Gaming Outpost Discussions » Tag: society - Recent Posts en-US Thu, 24 May 2012 11:07:34 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 <![CDATA[Search]]> q http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/search.php Tadeusz on "Alternate Movies" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/alternate-movies#post-1783 Sun, 18 Nov 2007 02:14:09 +0000 Tadeusz 1783@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ 11. How To Build a Universe in Seven Days: This zany comedy, and philosophical tour de force made the careers of a number of young actors. It explored the viewpoint of a young man struck by tragedy who challenged God on the grounds that he could do a better job. So God gives him the job of designing a universe, and every time he tries to do something to fix things in Universe 2.0, it makes the situation worse. Eventually, he hands his Temporal Toolbox back, and to his surprise, God compliments him....sorta. "Not half bad. It would explode in elementary particles and total madness in five hundred years, but thats much better than when I discussed this issue with Martin Luther. His universe only lasted a hundred years. Here, let me fix a few things..." A quick swirl there, and there, and a Universe is glowing. "Do you want to say it, or shall I?" God asks. "Say what?" "Let there be light..." And there was light. "Oops, I guess I said it." God says with knowing humor in his voice. 12. Lady Light: Two souls, the perfect couple, have met and been drawn apart over and over again through time. Neither remembers the past, but in each life they try unconsciously to find each other. However, the failures are grinding them down. The girl has given up hope. The boy yearns and fumbles and can't seem to succeed at anything. They meet each other, and seem perfect for each other, but both are too depressed to see it. And then he hits her car, and puts her in the hospital. He has no money to pay, and she is bedridden and about to lose her bookstore. They make a bitter deal to avoid suing where he will work at her bookstore for her until she is ready to leave the hospital. It turns out that he is a very good bookstore owner. And as he reports his progress day by day to the bedridden girl, she is by turns incredulous, and then worried that he will steal it from her, and then thankful, and then paranoiad and screaming at him...and then she yells something about how she has been waiting a thousand lifetimes, and what is so hard about closing a deal? Confused, despondent, he leaves, and finds a book in the bookstore with the tale of their last life. And so he goes off to rescue her from her suicide attempt in a rainstorm off the top of the hospital.... 13. Starfarer 1-8: The winding complicated tale of a noble family, friends, enemies, and associates in the year 3000 which is the one hundred seventieth year of the Galactic Empire. Politics, intrigue, romance, and the very best depiction of starship fleets in combat ever made. The land combat strategy and tactics is very good as well. So much so, that its required watching in the military academies. It basically has something for everyone with mystical powers, and an amusing Irendorian space snake, and detailed space combat...and...thus each of the shows is well over three hours long. And for some people, its a way of life. There are well over two hundred books (novels, spaceship schematics, and the series Revealed Secrets of the Noble Houses to keep its fans entwined.) Conventions, and autograph signings, and the lead actors got to visit the President. 14. Rebel Star: What if the Lords of the Ivory Towers were able to break through into Earth by their evil magic, and take over the world? Its a thinly veiled social critique of the Establishment reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz, and a truly chilling portrayal of the nature of a totalitarian dictatorship by 'those who know best' and are not limited by religion or morality. The heroes fight back in a resistance movment centered in the mountains, and live a primitive life under their flag--the Rebel Star. The magic system is very intriguing as well. 15. Fast Food: This comedy covers the travails of a family of four and a couple hitchhikers who are trying to get out of the Sandy Dessert. But they keep getting lost, their RV breaks down at all the wrong moments, bridges are washed out by flash floods, maniacs chase them, and rattlers climb into their sleeping bags at night. Meanwhile a pair of sardonic vultures trail them speculating between themselves about when the 'fast food' will stop moving. In the end, the family does escape, and so do their new friends the hitchhikers. But, the oldest girl who's been dating losers is now attached to one of the nice guy hithhikers, and the other hitchiker who is wandering the world for the last year of his life as he suffers an incurable disease has convinced them to enjoy life now. And the family finds they really did like the Sandy Dessert. So they buy an abandoned truckstop, and move in. 16. Law of the Gun: A crime drama about a disabled veteran trying to get the police and the Establishment to stop the depredations of the gangs in his area. When he finds that the pols are on the pay of the gangs, and have basically given his neighbourhood over to the gangs as prey, he becomes coldly furious. Then he arranges through a series of devious manipulations to have everyone in on these deals to meet at an abandoned factory. He confronts them from the outside, and asks them to stop, threatens them with proof, and of going to the news media. The chief gangster laughs back. "I would kill any reporter who actually showed what was going on. And they know it. They're scared." Its true, the hero realizes remembering some past experiences as he tried to get help. "Its the Law of the Gun. Everyone comes up with rationalizations why they couldn't help you, but the real reason they couldn't was they were afraid." The gang leader explains almost kindly. "All right then, the Law of the Gun it is." The hero says, and calls his wounded vet pals who are standing by a half mile away next to a 105 mm howitzer. "Problem for you, is I have a bigger gun." The shells rain in on the factory...Roll Credits...snipped of a scene of the vet living in peace and harmony on his street with the formerly terrorized residents out and about gardening and playing in the street.... 17. Theodore Roosevelt: A Life is a tribute to a man who was consequential despite the fact of never achieving the Presidency. His advocacy of manliness, boldness, conservation, and energetic self-improvement in a framework of faith made him an icon to a generation. Add in the realistic portrayal of the Old West with deeply researched historical details, and this is the most famous biographical movie of the century. 18. Saving Raygun: The thinly disguised President is the object of a temporal war between a number of sides. A hard core Soviet (after the Wall fell) temporal strike team assasinates him on a movie set in his youth, and this provokes a post-apocalyptic future. This new future sends a team back to save him. They meet, fight, save the future President, and the Soviet team tries again in the Fifties. Here two sub-plots emerge. A discussion by the two teams causes a defection by the more reasonable members of the Soviet team to the other team. And the most hardcore of the Soviet team recruit Hollywood actors and State Department officials who they know from history are Soviet agents. There is a final duel between the two teams. And then the two team leaders struggle over a temporal device, and this causes them to become unstuck in time. The background swirls past them as they bounce and jitter through time. Trees appear where there was a sapling, and young guys smoke drugs and a second later lecture their children about not doing drugs. And all the while you hear people talking about how dangerous anti-communism is, except when the Soviet team leader is winning. When he is winning, the world changes to gulags, and executions, and show trials. In the final moments, the future flips between a pleasant future and a post-apocalyptic wasteland as the two men struggle with their last strengths. This movie was reviewed on M.J. Young's Temporal Analyis Website for World News Net. "An almost impenetrable mass of illogic in its temporal structure, but fun to watch anyways. Four stars." 19. Four Diamonds is a screwball comedy that is a favorite of the female crowd, and not unappealing to many males. Its about a girl obsessed with diamonds, who has three guys romantically chasing her. She is trying to win an art competition to win a diamond as the prize, and the three guys are trying to win her. But she likes them all. And she can't make up her mind. Much wild hijinks ensues. 20. Soccer Dad: A family movie about a father trying to bond with his young soccer playing son, finding that he has to take over the soccer team to keep the team going as the coach leaves for a job in another state, and with the help of his dog (which is his reincarnated father), he leads the team to a successful season, and bonds firmly with his son. And there's my 1d20 chart of alternate movies. JohnA1nut on "Roles" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/roles#post-1763 Sat, 17 Nov 2007 14:48:17 +0000 JohnA1nut 1763@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ There's also the Resident Expert. The most highly skilled person in a field, at a certain place and time. In an emergency situation where a doctor was needed, a veterinarian could be the Resident Expert doctor, if there was no other medical help to be found. I certainly would take my chances with a veterinarian against having no medical help at all. A paramedic could also be a Resident Expert doctor, if there was no other medical help available. JohnA1nut on "Roles" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/roles#post-1762 Sat, 17 Nov 2007 14:41:56 +0000 JohnA1nut 1762@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ You're not far off on your assessment of roles. Taxi drivers have to take a special training course and get a special endorsement on their driver's license to drive a cab. I believe it is called a Chauffeur's permit. It's just driving a normal car, but they have to have a special license to do it. Likewise, a pharmacist could probably tell you what drugs would be used to treat your illness, but cannot prescribe them himself. Interesting topic Eric. Tadeusz on "Roles" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/roles#post-1756 Sat, 17 Nov 2007 13:59:57 +0000 Tadeusz 1756@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ And a weird Powerblock comes to mind....what about a world where you can't do certain things without gettring approval from an authority....you don't have to do this every time, but you do have to do it at least once. The reason why kids don't starve is because their parents are an authority, and give them approval to eat string beans. Tadeusz on "Roles" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/roles#post-1755 Sat, 17 Nov 2007 13:57:44 +0000 Tadeusz 1755@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I don't have a lot to say about this right now, but one of those differences that scale between socieities is how firm the roles are. And what are the nature of those roles. An example that may help the typical player is to compare their Multiverser character to the D20 character. D20 is a role or class based system. Multiverser is obviously not. Almost all societies to some degree are class based systems, but people themselves not so much. A1 is wanting to discuss roles. MJ is correct that medieval societies were very role oriented. We mostly think of roles in relationship to the Spheres used by Victorian society, but the Medievals were even more so. One marker for high roles structures is Credentialism. That is, you can't do a job without the proper papers. This could be Union Cards, or it could be being a Lawywer, or anything else. Nowadays, it seems that a rise in credentialism has occurred over the last few decades. I regard this with suspicion. Now back to Lawyers and Judges. You might think such requires credentials....but part of the purpose of this is to stretch the mind. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a quasi-Libertarian classic of SF by Robert Heinlein. Judges are chosen by a group of spectators to a crime, and paid by the defendant and the victim. Trial is held in the street or at a nearby bar. I wrote a sketch world on this--taking this concept and ripping it to shreds. But that is not the point. The point is that you theoretically could run a society with almost no credentials, and almost no roles. It occurs to me that our sliding scale might be marked, at least in part, by which professions require credentials. At one end, Doctors are allowed to practise when they put up a sign in their door, and at the other end of the scale, Pizza Delivery Drivers have to take a twenty week course, and pass several tests in order to get a Delivery Driver Card (which is on top of the Driver's License everyone also has to get.) Or even better, Gamemasters have to take ten semester hours in game theory in order to get their Amateur Gamemaster Golden Dice which they wear on a chain around their neck (I'm thinking of a society in which everyone has necklaces covered in small charms which represent approval from various Testing Boards for certain activities.) Tadeusz on "Cycles in Time" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/cycles-in-time#post-1729 Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:10:05 +0000 Tadeusz 1729@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Pendulum Cycle ============== By Eric R. Ashley No doubt this is not wholly original, what is? Hopefully it is a profitable restatement of what great men before me have understood. The Pendulum Axe, first bequeathed us by Poe, and beloved of black and white horror directors since is an appropriate metaphor for a declining age. It swings wildly to one side, and then wildly to the other side, and each time it drops a notch vertically closer to the victim tied up on a table underneath the pendulum axe. With the blade whirring above us, let us think. There are intellectual positions, standards of behavior, that are superior to others. They balance various concerns, and square circles that need squaring. But some people don't understand this subtlety. They get enamored of some idea, and forget competing concerns. They make themselves a slave to a single issue (which is not always bad). These partisans push the pendulum way out of its natural resting spot in the middle. And for a time, they achieve their desire. And they push it farther, and some begin to decry their influence, and how it is destroying society. Pundits and preachers fear that if this goes on, it will destroy society. And it would. It would. But there are counter-vailing forces which gather strength as they are challenged. And eventually a tipping point is found, and the Pendulum screams back the other way, and on to the other side. And now its out of balance again. Such wars have ways of making things cruder than they need to be which is what war does. The counterforce focuses on the primary issue, and doesn't take the time to restore the complicated ecology of knowledge which was the beginnion of this struggle. Let me give you two examples to clarify this thought. Anti-death penalty supporters struggle to keep murderers from receiving what most of the nation thinks they deserve--a fair trial, and a quick hanging. Using the logic of a committed few, which allows a very few people to turn the wheel of history if they are hardcore enough, they push the pendulum way past what the middle ground is. In the middle is a concern for justice, for safety, for seeing the victims avenged, and for deterring future victims, and a desire to let the guilty go free if there really is not enough evidence. And yet, I've heard people say that we ought to torture to death murderers. That is the gathering force for the other side of the pendulum swing. And its a drop downward of the pendulum axe. More later... Tadeusz on "Cycles in Time" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/cycles-in-time#post-1725 Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:44:08 +0000 Tadeusz 1725@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ One effect from your 10X Longetivity with children would be that those who prefer children would outbreed those who did not. Which could be the flashpoint for the Children's War I was talking about in my first reply. The ZPG folks see that in a very short time, say sixty years, they are going to be totally outnumbered....so the time to strike is now. Incidentally, this is happening now. Guess which political areas and parties are having children,a nd expanding, and which are shrinking. If you said Republican and Democrat respectively, you'd be right. And there is some hostility toward 'breeders'. As I understand it, the movie "Idiocracy" was about in part Red State rampant child rearing which was part of the reason that human IQ has gone downhill by 2200. Personally, I look at it as people who wanted a nice car, and a great job, and so skipped the kids, and are now whining about the results of their choices. Which illuminates the outlines of a future 'Children's War'. On the one side, a lot of middle-class families, and on the other side a lot of elite professors and their associates who have more concentrated wealth and power, but not perhaps as much as the whole of the spread out class opposing/wanting to be left alone. Now, if I try to get back to your assumptions.... 10X lifespan. Children every twenty years (which could happen. In this advanced society, it would be affordable. Unless, you make the rule that Children have to pay their parents 5% of their wealth for life--which would be a sizable incentive to have seven kids, and train them all to be stockbrokers. In that case, you'd recreate the agrarian society model where kids are an economic asset....and all with just one little law change. As a lawyer, this is probably not surprising to you, but I think to a lot of people they don't realize how much of their incentive structure and what they consider normal and reasonable is determined by the laws they live under. Everyone acts as if the current situation where kids are an economic drain is a Natural Law under a Post-Modern Society, but its not.) Back on track again... Three children every twenty years as an average. Thats a fifty percent growth rate...no, the parent continues to have children....wild, mushrooming growth....this impacts the culture too....The culture is both wise and ancient, and wildly enthusiastic and young all at the same time. So....We use the English colonization of the world for a model. The English were driven to expand because their death rates dropped radically, and their birth rates stayed the same as they started to seriously industrialize. So their population shot up. They were thus aggressive, confident, and bold. Space is huge. These people start colonizing it with a will. And they are guided by the ancient minds back home and in various spots here and there so they tend to make good long-term decisions which saves a lot of bother. Its a Golden Age of Colonization. Dozens of ships leave the solar system daily to colonize other worlds. In the span of a few hundred years, a bustling, vibrant, go fast culture is created among the stars. They build things....really huge things like stardocks that are five hundred miles long. What I'm assuming here is enough homogeneity that common concerns would be where the culture is at. However, what if the Golden Age of Colonization was more of the Diaspora. A booming Earth is willing to help its troublemakers, and minorities on their way. And once these minorities are gone, Earth becomes more staid, more normal. The minorities build themselves up cultures and systems which have their own values. This leads to 1)Conflict Among the Stars. Its a great setting for Space Fleet War or for Single Destroyer Combat or for Hunt the Pirates. 2)It could easily lead to a war of annihilation if things are allowed to develop that way. 3)One solution to 1 and 2 is for cultures to clamshell, to do what Mandarin China did. You might even see some socities deliberately destroying their starships. This could lead to a Grand Tour Diplomatic Game where the diplomats go to a bunch of different cultures bearing the bad news that some huge alien predatory fleet is on the way, and all you groups that hate each other need to cooperate or die. Another possibility is something like the Da Vinci Code...archeological puzzles. Perhaps some of the people who were supposed to destroy the starships did not destroy them all, but hid a few, just in case. So their is a secret society--the Hidden Starship Society which gets tattoos on their thumb and first finger--which look like something or other, but when properly aligned look like a starship. They are hiding the starship down the centuries. There are clues in dangerous places, and in rare books, and you have to trek all over the whole world...and off world to the astroid belt to find the starship so that you can 1)Go get help for an ecological catastrophe 2)Fight off some invaders. Eric Tadeusz on "Cycles in Time" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/cycles-in-time#post-1724 Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:52:31 +0000 Tadeusz 1724@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Wodium, I've tagged it with 'Societal Structures'. Which is a dull, and earnest name. You're welcome to use that wild Discordian imagination to come up with something more interesting. MJ, I'm going to sketch a scenario I discussed with someone from Baen books and an author at the Barflies room at Constellation if I can remember it. Assumptions were the product of our host: 1. Longetivity 2. Continue to have children Result: Those in charge want to continue to be in charge, and to organize society around their concerns. Result: Those who cannot tolerate being permanent second-class citizens in their own land move to the frontier. Result: The frontier ossifies rapidly, making the process repeat, and repeat, and repeat. Pretty soon you've got tree rings of static cultures spreading out in spheres, to mix my metaphors, from Earth, and each additional ring out may well be quite weird. There will be an element of Random Walk to this which will act as a moderating force, but the human drive for the New will overwhelm it. Some of the outer cultures will be very, very weird. Consider my host's mental model. He said "Imagine a frisbee, held upside down. And this is your expanding cultures. Now imagine a ball on the outer edge, sometimes its going to roll back." Which is true. Weirdness will infiltrate even Earth. But frequently it will be resisted, and the cultures described are run by centuries old humans accustomed to doing things their own way. Result: War. Another Assumption: This will be a Post-Scarcity Economy. That is, the only things of lasting worth are 1)the Attention of another Human Being (which is what the Waffle House Waiters are really selling when they take their very, very high paid jobs in Starsong--which you didn't go along with). 2)Unique Items (Its not enough that you have an atom perfect copy of the Mona Lisa, what you must posess is the One and Only.) 3) Reputation and Status which I'm told by 'author guy' was what Cory Doctorow called 'Wuffies'. In a Post-Scarcity Economy, there really is very little to fight about. We speculated that there would be fighting, but it would be robots clashing with robots. No one would be willing to risk their thousands of years of life in a fight. And then I pointed out: What if one of those weird tree rings rediscovers Total War. And a doctrine of "Its better to roll the dice, and take a chance on total rule" (which would be seen as a way to extort Wuffies) would be a serious problem to all the other risk-averse cultures. They would tend to win was what I thought. Which would then necessitate the rise of a Christian counter. "Thousands of years of life is real sweet, but True Immortality waits. Have no fear." And from that I can see the spread of revival to some cultures, and I can see other cultures promoting something like the Knights Templar. A highly respected warrior group founded on Christian values while the rest of society continued as risk averse as before. And some societies would hate the new messages so much, they might either strike, or scream and fuss really loudly. WilliamTWodium on "Cycles in Time" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/cycles-in-time#post-1711 Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:52:03 +0000 WilliamTWodium 1711@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <blockquote>This would probably be grouped with 'Societal Structures' along with 'Status of Women', and such stuff. </blockquote> Tad, if you'll come up with a Tag for this sort of thing, I'll go back and tag those other two threads. I've already gone back and tagged eight threads with Vampires and twelve as Lists; you might have noticed those two appeared in the Hot Tags sidebar on the left of the Discussions page. Now all we need to do is label new vampire/list/sociology threads as such when we create them, and they'll always be easy to find again. Tadeusz on "Cycles in Time" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/cycles-in-time#post-1708 Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:46:17 +0000 Tadeusz 1708@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ You met the L1's in Starsong, some of them had been born in the Twentieth Century. Many had lots of children. They were the first prototypes of longetivity programs. Other, more widely used and usable programs came along later. Which is to say, I dealt with a number of these related issues in Starsong. I think a hundred year cycle of 1)Work for 40-60 yrs. 2)Have three children for 40-50 years--with both of these being near full-time endeavours MIGHT be more likely. I also suggested that there were some areas that didn't allow the vote to those below fifty. Also, Starsong has layers...the ancient peoples tend to have secrets, and to play games on a much more subtle level than open politics which they tend to leave to those below onehhundred fifty or so. So, its a system with a deluge of information, but still deep secrets. But, like Industrial Breakdown, which deals with a Post-Scarcity Economy, that Starsong/Breakdown is just one answer to what would likely happen. There are at least several others that are valid. Now to more directly deal with your insights which I am quite happy to see. On the issue of having children--there is a bit of disagreement on this issue in the longetivity community. Most pro-longevity people assume a ZPG. However, some of the more capitalist point out that there is plenty of space, and if need be, we can actually go into space. This could be a major social flashpoint for a war. One side is ZPG, and the other side is Children Friendly. I do think that people would start having children a bit later, but I could also see having children a bit younger. I can make a good arguement that we ought to allow fourteen and fifteen year olds to marry with adult supervision. But thats another post. Lets just say, I'd call your assumption reasonable enough, but not fixed. It is ONE way of doing things. One thing I can say, the Fireborns of different generations would probably have difficulty with each other in many respects. And the older ones would not likely share power. The Fireborn more than most change their life goals as they go along...a young Fireborn wants to meet God, and dance in the street. An old Fireborn wants to burn the corrupt world down with the most powerful weapons in reach so that a new perfected world can be put in its place. Imagine President FDR (Missionary Awakening), and John Lennon in his early career meeting....There might be some tempermental friendliness, but otherwise.... 2. Easily answered....Think back to the Civil War....Abolitionists in the North, Firebrands in the South....Or....What happens when Alpha Centauri and Earth go to war, and both are racing to develop the Starshot which is a bit of engineering which allows one to launch a very large asteroid at near light speed to hit the enemies' sun, and cause it to nova. Yup, they could well wipe each other out. And unlike the leaders of the Cold War, they might just do that. One factor is that generations would tend to slip....they don't run on iron tracks....so you could find a Fireborn leader facing a Hardcore leader I like this. But I gotta go. M. J. Young on "Cycles in Time" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/cycles-in-time#post-1691 Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:38:11 +0000 M. J. Young 1691@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Interesting overall. I've two questions for you to consider in connection with generational cycles. <ol> <li>Insert a longevity program into the cycle, one which is nearly universal in its reach, extending the lives of most people tenfold--but do not alter the space between generations. There is no practical reason to think that people who lived to be eight hundred on average would not continue having children into their four hundreds at least, possibly their seven hundreds, but these children would fall into different twenty-year cycles, as there is equally no reason to believe they would not start having children around an average age of twenty. Thus we would have each type of generation recurring in the lifetimes of each individual. We don't know, though, whether fireborns of 2010 and fireborns of 2090 would have the same visions, nor who would have control at any given time.</li> <li>Next, factor in a sufficient geographical spread of humanity that people in different areas--in this case, I'm thinking star systems--would be sufficiently isolated from each other as to prevent concerns from easily crossing between them. The 2170 fireborns at Alpha Centauri and those at Sol would not be living in anywhere near the same situations politically, economically, or in almost any other way. How does this impact development?</li> </ol> I have no idea, incidentally; I'm just tossing it your direction. I find it interesting that just as we've constructed these fascinating tools for predicting the flow of future history, we have also developed the potential to render them useless against the changes we face. --M. J. Young Tadeusz on "Cycles in Time" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/cycles-in-time#post-1680 Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:58:37 +0000 Tadeusz 1680@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Great Power Cycles ================== The theory described was created by Paul Kennedy. Power is based upon economic strength. Superior economic strength offers a foundation to build a military dominance upon. Once this dominance is achieved, the economic strength it was based upon is already declining. This is because of three reasons as follows: 1. Imperial overreach. The political leaders of a society try to do too much with too little. 2. Too much money is going to the military, and too little money is going to the economy. The economy, which is the base of the strength, weakens comparatively to others. 3. Frequently, the wealthy class in society is not willing to tax themselves enough to pay for the military. Thus inflation, and debt become used to finance the military which weakens the whole of the society. Typically, instead of reducing military responsibilities, taxing the wealthy, and trying to manage the decline gracefully, the leadership will increase responsibilities, go into debt, and assert a need for a revivified will. This is not a determinist theory because a large role is reserved for the skill of the political leader. An inferior nation (with weaker economy and military) may triumph over a stronger nation due to bad moves on the part of the stronger nation. Germany, before the Wars is instructive. It had the ability to dominate economically, and later militarily at least the European continent, but it made a series of bad choices which ended up with it partitioned among the victors. Political skill substitutes in this theory for draining expenditures on the military. NOTE: It does seem that this theory has issues because although it was aimed at the US, in the end, a low tax to boom the economy, a high debt regime, an increase in responsibilities, and a revivified national will exemplified by President Reagan did in fact triumph. Of course, this is in part acknowledged by some who point out that the Soviet Union was even more mismanaged. A good point. However, war has been characterized as a series of catastrophes that leads to victory. And later, America has emerged as the Hyperpower with only spending about 5% of its economy (or less) on the military. In part, this is explained by a factor not mentioned in the reviews. Europe spends almost nothing on the military, but a very great deal of money on social welfare. A broader formation of Dr. Kennedy's theory would be thus.... Whatever you spend huge percentages of your economy on, that is not the economy, is a drag on the economy, and thus weakens your nation. So building a war machine of an army, or a cradle to grave welfare apparatus, the finest set of family tombs in pyramidal style, or a one-off mission to Alpha Centauri before you're really ready is going to weaken the Nation. Someone is going to challenge you. It will hurt. Probably a lot. Chaos will creep in at the edges as pirates and bandits proliferate in out of the way places. And potentially huge armies will clash leaving regions that had been productive to become wastelands. It may take thirty years, and a succession of wars, but eventually, you're going to be yanked up short. Your natural level of power is going to reassert itself, minus the damage you suffered in the war. Tadeusz on "Cycles in Time" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/cycles-in-time#post-1665 Wed, 14 Nov 2007 13:07:24 +0000 Tadeusz 1665@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ This would probably be grouped with 'Societal Structures' along with 'Status of Women', and such stuff. Societal Cycles: ================ The notion of cycles in history fascinates most everyone. Cycles offer a glimpse into the future, and warn of impending disaster for the nation or the world. But, they have more advantages than is commonly understood. One problem for Future Historians is how they make their histories too smooth, without sudden zigs and zags. Cycles can help. Another advantage to cycles is they can help you understand history far better. And once you understand History on a 'almost lived it' level, then you're a more capable world creator and gamemaster because you can take those scenarios from the past, refurbish them, and use them. And they will feel real, because they were based on a solid understanding of history. Isaac Asimov based his Foundation Series on the Decline and Fall of Rome. The Dominic Flandry series is based on the conflict between the Medes and the Persians even as its set in space with Lizardfolk battling Humans. If award-winning, bestselling novelists do it, then maybe you should too. Mine History, and one of the best tools is an understanding of cycles. One set of cycles, I've used twice. For my "Hide From the Evil Day" project (not yet finished) I wrote up four hundred years of future history leading to a superpower conflict on a landlocked moon across the galaxy. In "Starsong Systems" a Transhumanist game setting, I also wrote up four hundred years of future history leading up to a society of human cetaceans, and human trees, and human commando-forms, and a whole lot else (including the kitchen sink) for a society of a trillion humans spread over nine planets, and many asteroids. I used the Strauss and Howe Cycle of History for this. You can read about it in "Generations" (OOP), or in "Thirteenth Generation". I am simplifying here. It is a structure of four stanzas with two eruptions that are forty years apart. The whole takes eighty years. And then it repeats. There are four generational types: 1. Teamplayers--Sharing, conformity, and a focus on the material tend to be their life. 2. Finetuners--They seek to make the world safer, smoother, fairer, more precise. 3. Fireborn--Cries of individuality, of furious morality, of the need to shake off the corrupt world abound. 4. Hardcore--Actually more individualistic than the Fireborn. They try to put society back together again, and to survive. In their youth, the Teamplayers fight a Phoenix War. The old world order is destroyed, and made new. They then live in plenty, and create the glories of a new modern world. Airports of towering pre-stressed concrete spring up where corn and log cabins once stood. The Finetuners come, and make their harsh and material world with its sudden judgements and its unfairness a much more pleasant and kindly place. And then the pampered children who have been given everything they ever asked for arrive. They see the glorious world their parents made, and consider it the normal baseline. Towering airports are nothing to them. Instead, they see a world of corruption, and materialism. They seek a new relationship with the Divine. In some cycles this is a Missionary Awakening, and in others its Flower Power. The Teamplayers fold before this furious onslaught that they don't understand, and retreat to splendid retirements. Suddenly the spirit-minded change, and go forth to seek money and status avidly, but they carry their values inside them, and they preach them loudly when they may. And society begins to change from the inside out as their Fire burns everything. "We didn't start the fire" one rock singer claims, but his generation sure fanned those flames as hard as they could. Unnoticed, frequently despised, the Hardcore arrive in a world that doesn't really like children anymore. They see a world that is completely falling to pieces. Even the most basic elements of society are on the verge of total collapse. They teach themselves how to survive, and start trying to fix things to general revilement. Everyone remembers the Norman Rockwell picture of two parents looking in on their baby safe in his crib. Those parents are adult Hardcore. They are protecting what needs to be protected. Its interesting that this picture, and Norman Rockwell in general draws scorn. This picture draws scorn because a lot of people don't want to focus on the basics the way the Hardcore know down deep in their bones that you have too. By this time, the Fire is ready to burn the world. The Teamplayers have been reborn. A new generation of eager, kindly, cooperative children are young adults. The children are Finetuners who realize that the adults are about to do something dreadful, and they should keep quiet. The Hardcore control most of the positions of power with their steely-eyed gazes. The top-most positions, and the seats of the visionaries, are held by the old prophets and seers, the Fireborn. And the Fireborn have been telling everyone for the last forty years that certain values need to be enforced. Fireborn who once were all about choice and diversity and tolerance. Fireborn who in their youth protested against war will now call in a loud voice for WAR. Another Phoenix War is upon the world. And the world is about to be shaken by the tail, dumped upside down, and totally changed. Before the Spanish Armada, Spain ruled. After, not so. Before the Civil War, America was a Republic with slaves and not slaves, with a co-equal agrarian and industrialized sectors, after it, slaves were gone, the agrarians were under the yoke, and the Republic had become the Nation. Before World War Two, there were many powers. After it, there was America and the Soviet Union and MAD. Whats the next Phoenix War? In my Starsong future history, I postulated an invasion of China by America in 2025 or so. And defying the so-called 'Rules', America wins. And after that...the near solar system is opened. People in 2040 will look back on us the way people in 1950 looked back on 1910. It will be a different world, not just in relations between nations, but in so many different ways that it would be hard to catalog. How can you use this? 1. Create a Future History with some jags, and zigs to it. History twists and turns, and is full of plot twists. Who from 1951 would have predicted Woodstock? Who from 1981 would have predicted the Fall of the Berlin Wall? 2. This short intro may help you to see into history a bit more clearly. Sometimes, the reason someone is angry at another one is not class interests, or philosophical differences, but one man might be of another generation than the other. If a forty-year old Hardcore attains power amidst a group of twenty year older Fireborn, its almost certain that nothing he does will make them happy. 3. While this Cycles will be most useful to Near-Earth timelines, those events in history can be used after appropriate cover from metaphors as Space Wars, or as battles between the White Order and the Legions of the Abyss. 4. You may find that you can also just use small generational differences in certain conflicts. The new lord of a castle is as in #2 a Hardcore. All his advisers are Fireborn. You've just set the stage for court conflict, possible treason, too aggressive tactics by the young lord, and general revolt in the land as forces pull one way or the other. 5. This may be of use in Non-Player Character Creation. At one time, cartoons which featured teams of heroes usually had one hero with the personality 'Woman'. That is, they might have four guys ('Cowboy', 'New Yorker', 'Scientist', and 'Brash Enthusiast') and 'Woman'. Nowadays, many such shows have more complicated female characters which is good. But, in desperation, you can certainly make a group of people by rolling 1d4...Joe is a Finetuner, Mary is a Fireborn, Sam is a Teamplayer, and Kevin is Hardcore. Add a few more traits from the Three V Non-Player Character Creation chart, and you might have in the space of three minutes something approaching real enough people. 6. I've found also that this schema is a useful outline to hang history on. Because, knowing dates does not get you very far. You need to see the forces and the patterns flow in order to get a clearer understanding. Tadeusz on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1283 Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:17:55 +0000 Tadeusz 1283@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ oh, indeed. I quite knew that. I have the thought that not only would a list of Fifty Magic Limits be of use, but so would a set of examples of different ways to put them together in order to achieve different genre effects would be of interest as well. I'm also interested in any thoughts on what these limits are worth, but I'll have a go at the list and see if I can answer most of them. Eric M. J. Young on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1280 Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:37:09 +0000 M. J. Young 1280@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ ...and this magic acts this way because it is what the caster expects, so the caster faces these limitations. Some spellcaster from another society, or another universe, would not face the same limitations even while visiting that world. You would have to assess what bonuses the cast gets for those limitations, since the way the limitation system works is that the player accepts a limitation in exchange for a bonus. The character might be aware of this trade-off, might be dimly aware of it, or might believe that the only way to do magic is this way. For example, when I was in Haston, everyone in Haston believed that all magic had to be sung. It could not be true--if a verser brought magic from another universe, it would still work the way it had always worked--but it was true for the casters in Haston, and would remain true for them even if they left that universe, because it is what they believed. Thus Haston magic is bonused by virtue of being sung, and the casters accept the limitation that they must sing to perform magic, in exchange for which they always get that bonus--but in their minds there is no bonus, just the rule that magic is sung. --M. J. Young Tadeusz on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1272 Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:10:58 +0000 Tadeusz 1272@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ One other major and some other minor Elements of Magic is shown in the following snippet I created... Clarise took Rupert's money unwillingly. It was good gold, but Rupert wanted inside the dungeon to look in on the state of his cousin which was being held without habeas corpus in defiance of the law, but the Tyrant cared not for Law. However, he did keep the gallows busy, and the Skilled in the Art like Clarise had a disturbing tendency to get there very easily. It was as if the Tyrant wished to strip Power from the people to make his own throne unchallenged by any. But Clarise put all this from her mind for the casting of spells requires a calm heart. She wrapped a shroud of invisisibility around the two of them, for magic would not go to someone else or somewhere else were not the caster there to carry it, and sustain it. Halfway across town, Rupert mentioned that he had forgotten to 'get the key' from his uncle like he said he had. It was a transparent lie. His uncle would likely forbid such foolishness being a high noble, and Holder of one of the Gate Keys. Angry, Clarise began to remonstrate with Rupert, but as her concentration failed, and as her heart grew upset, the flow of magic began to be undone. She stilled her lips, and found that unless she wished to abandon the quest, she must needs go with Rupert, and without arguing with him. They stole the Key that let them into the Castle, and from thence scurried through the guards like a gusting wind until they were into the dungeon. And then she saw the thin frame of the young girl imprisoned. She was barely eleven. Hot fury stormed through her, and the magic that shielded them evaporated. She heard guards coming even as the child conversed with Rupert. If only she weren't so angry, and yet so frightened at the same time, she might be able to reweave the web, and cast another spell.... ....Casting requires calmness throughout, and emotional strains can cause checks to see if the magic fails... ....Casting requires concentration with a Difficult check at the beginning, and Simple checks at decision points along the way.... ....Magic does not adhere to a target.... ....All magic is touch magic.... ....Casting requires that the mage place themselves into an altered state of consciousness where their willpower is temporarily reduced @5 thus making them suggestible.... ....Casting requires one minute preparatory time.... ....Spells may last as long as the caster likes, but for each five minutes of casting time the caster is required to make Simple Stamina check to continue. Failure may be blocked with a Difficult Willpower check..... This magic is good for a dare I say it, female oriented story. This magic is subtle (and things like fireballs should be out of place), and very dependent on emotion, and on making oneself vulnerable. Tadeusz on "Societal Types and Inter-Society Conflict" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/societal-types-and-inter-society-conflict#post-1258 Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:44:07 +0000 Tadeusz 1258@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ The cough is still hanging on, but I'm mostly as good as new although with little reserve. Its seems like some of my recent post titles resemble sociological papers which makes sense as I'm trying to describe the various ways one can build a society across the Multiverse. Societal Types: 1. Hunter-gatherer This breaks down into two types, nomadic and largely sedentary. The nomadic is the purer form. The most likely size is small tribes, but large spread out tribes are not uncommon. There is no major scaling difficulty to prevent a dispersed mass of small tribes from turning into a Horde like the Mongol Horde. Conflicts with Agrarian or Agricultural societies started by this type tend to be of two types. One, if the agrarian society is weak, and rich then greed lures the barbarian forward (see the Fall of the Roman Empire). More likely, the barbarian horde is being driven before some huge natual force like famine. Or famine is driving another tribe which drives another tribe which drives them. Conflicts started by Agrarian societies tend to be focused on the land, and on resource competition. In such conflicts, a 100-1 and a 10-1 principle may be stated. The agrarian society has inferior fighters due to poor food, and little practise. Oftentimes, the hunter-gatherer is worth ten of the farmers, but his problem is that there are a hundred farmers to the one hunter-gatherer. However, a concentration of force may be arranged, and such a Horde may well sweep the world. While the agrarian society has an advantage, its not a clear-cut advantage. This is a point that reoccurs. Some people imagine that conflict between civilizations neccessarily yields a victory for the more highly advanced one. This is not the case. 2. Agrarian 3. Industrial 4. Information 5. Post-Scarcity M. J. Young on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1223 Sun, 28 Oct 2007 22:02:27 +0000 M. J. Young 1223@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I won't say that all martial arts styles are equal in Multiverser; an effort was made to avoid arguments about which was the best. The way the system is designed, you can design superior or inferior styles. However, it is much more a matter of deciding what you want a style to do, and making it superior at that at the cost of something else. A design which put everything into hitting hard and fast would be one in which you hoped your opponent never got the chance to hit back, because it would be nearly defenseless; on the other end, you can design a very slow defensive style which did very little damage but allowed you to keep going and going to whittle down your opponent while taking or avoiding everything he had to offer. Speed, power, and defense are thus set against each other, and it's impossible to build a style that does all three extremely well, although you can build a style that compromises and gives you moderate bonuses in all three. I'm perfectly happy with designing a holy magic spell that works best on those of the same affiliation as the caster. I think that what I'd specify is +10SM on everyone of the specified affiliation at the cost of a -10SM on anyone else. That twenty point difference in probability of success would make a significant difference in how well it works, and would be a strong incentive for spell casters of that sort to look for people particularly susceptible. It also creates a distinction between the character who read the book of vile darkness in search of knowledge of arcane secrets (affiliating himself with the anarch side in the process) and the character who read that same book seeking to understand the weaknesses in his enemy (who is already established as an alliance or neutral). There are probably other ways to do it, but that's what comes to mind at the moment. --M. J. Young Tadeusz on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1220 Sun, 28 Oct 2007 20:48:34 +0000 Tadeusz 1220@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ You're right in reality that certain Martial Arts are inferior to others, but not in Multiverser because MJ wisely did not want to get into arguements with each and every Martial Artist Partisan who would tell you how great their art is compared to all the other feebs. Anyways, a lot of those 'my art is best' arguements come down to preconditions like 'if I'm allowed to do my art according the rules we do my art in, and not in another situation....' In Starsong, I have a rather flavorless, but logical idea. No one learns an 'art'. Each and every person learns skills based on their goals, their committment, their physical bodies. The man with stork-like legs learns spinning high kicks, and the gorilla shaped guy learns grapples. Thus MJ is learning "Mark-Ryu" which is a martial art totally customized to him. Now on to another magical limitation--Openness. There are a lot of little wrinkles I could express on this, but I'll skip that for now. Its strongest, and most common form is for example: "Dark Mage Stinking Trout who under another name is a teacher a local high school cannot cast 'Unnerving Nightmares' or 'Beguiling Lies' on anyone who has not shown openness to the Dark. This could be that they read The Book of Nastiness, or they asked him for a magic spell to benefit themselves, or they engaged in a bit of deliberate and wanton cruelty like plotting to, and engaging in shoving another student down the stairs. The Dark Mage is always on the lookout for vicious predators to mentor them, and turn them into full-fledged Servants of the Dark so to corrupt the bucolic and unssuspecting farming town of Four Corners which is primarily known for its apple orchards." However, one can show openness to the Host of Heaven as well. Deeds of unusual kindness or mercy given when undeserved can open you up to receive blessings. WilliamTWodium on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1197 Sat, 27 Oct 2007 23:58:08 +0000 WilliamTWodium 1197@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <blockquote>The Key Question is: If a man were to deliberately study a language for the express purpose of magic, and he chose one that was harder than others (even if it was solely because he had bad teachers in that area, but he did not realize that was the problem) should he not be rewarded for his extra labor? </blockquote> Nnnnnno? I'm going to sound stubborn or stingy here, but I'm going to go with "no." Not all courses of action are equally rewarding, and not all skills are created equal. Some martial arts, for instance, are simply inferior to others from a mechanical standpoint. The problem is that the difficulty of the language in no way makes the language any more magical. Since the bonus is for using a magical language, and the difficulty is irrelevant to its status as magical, the difficulty of learning, using, or improving in that language is irrelevant to the bonus. If you like, you can count time spent studying the magical language as practice time toward improving those magical skills that depend on it. [Edit: especially if it's holy magic of any kind, and time spent on the language can count toward a character's Religion or Occultism skill.] That's about as much as I'd be willing to give. Tadeusz on "Resource Management" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/resource-management#post-1196 Sat, 27 Oct 2007 22:17:49 +0000 Tadeusz 1196@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I'm going to come at this from an odd angle, but it does lead to Developing Different Dimensions. A young woman, late at night, walking home alone from the club, and through the park. She gets asked by a stranger for light before the park. In the park, stranger ambushes her. She survived. Recent news in the region although no one I even faintly know. One blogger says she is in part responsible because she did not take elementary precaution. There's some arguing, and legalistic stuff by those who don't want to blame the young woman at all for making some unwise choices. I get a flash of insight. What the 'she is not responsible, and its hateful for you to say she is' people want is for the police to be there in person, or in robotica (cameras and lights). They are making a claim on the finite resources of the society. The criticizing blogger (a female mind you) is making a claim on the personal resources of the young women going to clubs. 'You have a duty to learn how to protect yourself in the most basic forms, at the least.' The clubbers don't want to spend their own resources. They want to spend society's resources so they don't have to spend their own. Now consider several different societal responses, and how it yields vastly different feelings of worlds in places that are essentially alike. 1. Society spends little, clubbers spend little, crime statistics shoot through the roof until the police stop bothering to collect the data cause it makes them look bad. In some cases we start to see problems about ethnic violence, and rioting, and then police brutality seems to go up (it does, but the claims of it go up even faster). The city is in a death spiral. It may take decades, but the city is dying. 2. Society spends a lot (installs cameras everywhere, lights on every major and minor footpath, and a large number of police are put into action.) Clubbers wave merrily to Officer Friendly on his big horse as he sedately ambles down Nightclub Road keeping an eye on any potential troublemakers who are easily spotted under the bright lights. As a side effect, a lot more work and ordinary life gets done at night. It used to be in major cities that ordinary people went out at midnight to eat ice cream in the park (probably because in the summer it was the only cool part of the day. the kids are asleep, walk across from your apartment with your wife, and chat with her and some of your buds about working in the steel mill all day...) 3. Society claims to spend a lot, but there is more Big Speeches and Posters than real effect. Cameras get put up because they're cheap. A few lights get put up. Few officers are hired. Things stay the same, but the pols proclaim "We're Safe City!" This is a good setting for crusading activists and private investigators (versers can be one too!) who find out which pol is on the take from which crime group, and track down maniacs who have kidnapped decent citizens. 4. Society spends little, but decides to go for max effect. Scum are scum after all, and 'rights' are for decent folk. A little curbside justice 'explains' things wonderfully. There is a dangerous edge to the City, but its generally safe if you're cautious. However, mouthing off to a cop is a very bad idea. Your teeth will not thank you. And the cop has a dozen friends who will assure the judge he was on the other side of town in a bar if you bother to wade through the red tape arrayed against you. After which, you'll get another shellacking some night real soon. Its actually fairly effective. And if you're not suicidally inclined, you'll probably do just fine. And its a lot cheaper. Its a good place for private detectives with big fists. 5. The society spends little, but the clubbers spend more. Most clubbers have mace, a snapstick baton, and are at least a green belt in Baton-Ryu, or as MJ would put it Beat-on-ryu or Mow Git Smashed. They also make efforts to carry 'screamers' and to stay to well lit areas. Private bouncers at clubs know the faces of regulars, and pair them up with other trusted regulars as they leave. Bouncers also know the signs of trouble, and might on occasion administer a dumpster dive on a creep. Also, 'pack not a herd' mentality occasionally kicks in as when a woman screams for help, and the ten nearest women as if galvanized by an electric shock charge in and beat the snot out of some creep. (There's been a few incidences somewhat similar to this in the last few years.) Also having a big, strong boyfriend is better than having a sensitive skinny poet even if the first guy really likes football. Result....crime goes down, way down. Tax bills go way down. While there are dangerous areas, there are relatively few. And there are concerted efforts by 'Night Clubs' to eliminate those which consist of 'take back the night' community activities. However, with all the money spent on Kikhaid and mace and concealed carry pistols and range time there is less money spent on fancy restauraunts and museums on on Xbox and DVD movies. On the whole its cheaper than letting the gov't do it because the gov't is vastly inefficient. But its a hugely different society in which one--woman is fearful of her safety as she looks out in daylight through the glass of her restauraunt at a guy openly studying her with ill intent, and expects gov't to handle it, but knows it won't and is sitting down in a very fancy restauraunt with the latest iPod, palmtop, and celphone....and two--woman smiles evenly as she drops into a horse stance after leaving the diner, and slips her fingers over the cool stainless steel of the .45 revolver in her fanny pack that her boyfriend bought her last Christmas, and the possibly predatory male who heads on his way to spend another night not doing what he should not be doing. The first is our society. The second is a nicer one I think. And it comes down to how we think that gov't and people should spend their resources of money and time. Tadeusz on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1186 Sat, 27 Oct 2007 07:41:41 +0000 Tadeusz 1186@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ A fascinating lecture, and very informative. I think you make a positive case for the worth of a really good teacher in a subject, the sort of person who can lay things out in crystal clear simplicity and definiteness with a logical order, and on the other hand, a negative case for how skilled and in-depth in understanding some language teachers are now. The Key Question is: If a man were to deliberately study a language for the express purpose of magic, and he chose one that was harder than others (even if it was solely because he had bad teachers in that area, but he did not realize that was the problem) should he not be rewarded for his extra labor? If this was too implicit in my earlier questions, then another bit of foreignism...mea culpa. And as a side note, I forget if its Apache or Navajo or Arapahoe that I've heard described is almost impossible for a non-native speaker to pick up. Its concepts are said to be at odd angles, I guess you could say. Eric WilliamTWodium on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1178 Sat, 27 Oct 2007 00:34:04 +0000 WilliamTWodium 1178@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ It's a lot easier for me to pick up entirely new sounds - the guttural K's and Bantu clicks - than to master the tiny deviations from the sounds I know. Trying to de-aspirate my word-initial /t/s, /p/s, and /k/s is like trying to scrape grease off my hands using a stick of butter. I can't do it. The way I heard it, in Japanese [l] and [r] are allophones, treated much like the "ed" at the ends of our past-tense verbs or the two /t/s in "top" and "pot" - that is, the same phoneme gets articulated as one sound or the other depending on the phonetic environment in which it appears. One of my professors tells of a friend (a native Japanese speaker) who has learned to pronounce the difference between "light" and "right" (well enough to fool native speakers of English), but who still cannot hear the difference between the sounds. M. J. Young on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1170 Fri, 26 Oct 2007 22:18:11 +0000 M. J. Young 1170@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I, too, am going to quote and respond to <blockquote>As to languages...from what I've heard its extremely difficult for an English speaker to learn Japanese, and vice versa. Its supposed to be relatively easy to learn another of the Romance languages if you're already a speaker of one. Speakers of non-tonal languages are supposed to have extreme difficulty with learning tonal languages. And in WW2, there was this little group of people called 'Windtalkers'.....</blockquote> Granted that it is easier to learn languages which are more closely related to your own, this is only because you already know pieces of it. When I introduce people to Greek words used in the New Testament I will often point to English words derived ultimately from them, as it helps to cement the connection to the vocabulary. Language is primarily three things: phonemes, syntax, and vocabulary. What gets most people is phonemes, and it's the reason foreign speakers so rarely sound like native speakers. I note that my sister, who spoke English and French fluently, was able to pick up Chinese (Cantonese) so well that native speakers speaking to her on the phone would not believe she was not a native speaker. The trick is in the phonemes. To save people a trip to dictionary.com, a phoneme is the smallest unit of sound to have meaning in a language--that is, it is the difference between moon and noon, tall and tell, sat and sad. Those are called minimal pairs, example words which prove that a difference in sound has meaning in a language. All infants in their first year of life learn how to make all the phonemes used in all human languages; they then proceed by process of elimination to forget how to make all the phonemes which are not used by those who speak to them. Once you have eliminated a phoneme from your usage, it is more difficult to learn a language which uses it, for two reasons. The first is that you lack the experience using it--your mouth, throat, teeth, lips, or whatever parts of your speech organs are unfamiliar with that movement. You can learn to make a gutteral K or an African click, but it will take a great deal of practice to be able to do it smoothly. The second is that you are not accustomed to listening for it. French and German share a pronunciation of "u" that is simultaneously "oo" and "ee"; English speakers not made aware of this will often not hear the sound as it is pronounced, and so will reproduce one sound or the other. Castillian Spanish uses very soft dental touches in several letters (including "L" in some cases), which speakers of other languages (even some other dialects of Spanish) turn into T's or D's, because that is what they hear. What happens in language instruction is that inadequate attention is given to phonemes. We give people an approximation and let them go with it. The Japanese do not have the phonemes we use for "L", so they substitute "R" for these--in part because the have never practiced saying the "L" sound, but in part because to them it does not sound different. Going the other way, English speakers use pitch for emotional content and some syntax markers (questions usually rise in pitch at the end); in tonal languages, pitch is a phoneme, and makes a difference to the meaning of a word. Careful attention to learning the phonemes of a language overcomes this. Syntax can also be challenging, because people tend to think in their own language, and then try to make direct word-for-word translations to other languages. Fluency in a language fundamentally means that you are not doing that any longer--you are thinking in the language in which you are speaking. Languages can be analytic or syntactic. English is mostly syntactic--we understand sentence structure from the sequence of the words and the inclusion of helping words; the subject is usually at the beginning of the sentence, or there will be other words to identify it as the subject. Ancient Greek and Latin are considerably more analytic--the noun which is in the nominative case is the subject, no matter where it falls in the sentence; function in the sentence is coded into the words themselves. As suggested already, vocabulary is easier in related languages because there will be at least some words that are derived from each other, or from a common ancestor. All of which is to say, once you have learned the language, it is not harder to use it than any other language. You just have to really learn it. The reason windtalkers were so difficult to crack was that Navaho was not related to any European or Asian languages, and so shared no similarities in syntax or vocabulary. It was not that the Germans would have had more trouble learning it than any other language, but that they had no reference books even to identify the language. It would not be easier to crack Welsh than to crack Navaho--unfamiliar phonemes, syntax, and vocabulary--but the Germans would have had access to books about Welsh, and could have learned the language from those. Hey, I'm not very good at languages, but I got A's in Linguistics. --M. J. Young WilliamTWodium on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1161 Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:38:41 +0000 WilliamTWodium 1161@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <blockquote>As to languages...from what I've heard its extremely difficult for an English speaker to learn Japanese, and vice versa. Its supposed to be relatively easy to learn another of the Romance languages if you're already a speaker of one. Speakers of non-tonal languages are supposed to have extreme difficulty with learning tonal languages.</blockquote> From what I've read, a lot of that is hearsay and rumor (combined perhaps with varying strength of educational programs with regard to language and region). I'm not an authority, of course. Tadeusz on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1154 Fri, 26 Oct 2007 11:43:27 +0000 Tadeusz 1154@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ As to languages...from what I've heard its extremely difficult for an English speaker to learn Japanese, and vice versa. Its supposed to be relatively easy to learn another of the Romance languages if you're already a speaker of one. Speakers of non-tonal languages are supposed to have extreme difficulty with learning tonal languages. And in WW2, there was this little group of people called 'Windtalkers'..... I think this is a good time to say with an impudent grin....checkmate in three. Thank you for the additional suggestions from your Taboo paragraph. Since I'm trying to come up with 'Fifty Magic Limits' thats about three right there. And it helps, in case you're wondering to have a specific list because it serves to jog people's memory. And some people have a very hard time reasoning from the abstract to the specific at least until you show them an example (I think thats most people actually.) The geas/quest will work. I'm a bit iffy on it because essentially you're saying a devout character can make a promise to a deity with no ill effects if the bias is low enough. I'd in some ways prefer a GE roll for that to decide if your deity decides to teach you a lesson like by perhaps sending a "penalize morale" skill zinging at your head in a low bias world. In higher bias, we can go with lightning bolts on occasion as well, but while loss of attributes is good, one of my favorite would be "ill luck". And Taboo for 'sins'....hmmmm that could work. The Code of the Good Believer has a number of ways for the PC to mess up. Fail, and he incurs loss of magic.---Just an aside tangentially related to the above paragraph. I gave Donna the Sceptre of the Summer Queen which gave her a five percent sit mod on all magic. Something like that is in Multiverser not materially magical, but I guess its a permanent spell attached by artifice or by nature to an object. In the Staff of the Great Oak, its some sort of power boost which we don't need to go into detail on. So its a focus and its a magic boost at the same time. That said, you could create a magic item that was a mere focus that had +10 for rarity, and so on. But I'm trying to explore the boundaries, and the uncommon. The burning of the staff is not a botch because its a deliberate choice. Just like with a car. You're racing to the hospital. The engine is overheating. You have a choice. Smoke your engine, or stop the car, and drag your injured body to the hospital on foot. However, I do like the botch suggestion. One other whole group of tables I'd love to see would be 'A Smoking Huge Collection of BOtDchezzs, err Botches." One of the joys of the Rolemaster system was the incredibly gory, and imaginative Critical Hit tables. M. J. Young on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1145 Fri, 26 Oct 2007 01:21:34 +0000 M. J. Young 1145@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Scott asked: <blockquote>Could a language cease to be magical? Say my character becomes fluent in Spanish and spends some time in Argentina; would his spells lose the bonus on the grounds that the incantations are now in a conversational tongue?</blockquote> This one's tricky, but the answer is no and yes (it's not yes and no). Imagine for a moment that you're old Catholic; the Mass is in Latin. Every week you chant Credo in unum deum, pater omnipotentum, and the words are infused with magical significance made the more magical by the fact that they are in that magical language that nobody uses except for these rituals. You know what the words mean, but they're still magical. Now you go to school, and you learn Latin, and you read many books in Latin, and hold conversations (at least in writing) with other scholars in Latin, and Latin becomes an ordinary language to you. It is still infused with magical significance in those passages you knew before; but you can't use it for new magical passages once it becomes conversational otherwise. The expectation arises because at the time you learned those "spells" the words themselves were magical, and the mystery of the words themselves being magical still applies even though you've gotten past that in other contexts. That, anyway, is my pseudo-rational justification for it; I would not strip someone of a bonus they had just because they have become more familiar with the language used. I should caveat that it's possible even here that Latin would always be a "magical" language even for a scholar, for example if he were a priest, because although he communicated with other scholars through it, it is not the "vernacular"--literally, the "common language"--and is still that language dedicated to magical use. If the priest were a verser who spent years in ancient Rome, that still would not alter this, if his mental attitude were that this was the language of the faith, which happened also to be the language of these people. Eric challenged: <blockquote>The arguement that a magical preparation is harder to do than another magical preparation is superfluous? Raises Perry Mason eyebrow....</blockquote> Maybe it's just because I'm so good at linguistics and so bad at languages, but my feeling is that once you've learned a language using it is using it--and my impression, too, is that it really is not harder to learn any language than any other language. I've learned smatterings of scores of languages, none of them with conversational facility, but I do not see Koine Greek as more difficult than French (the two I know best), despite being hundreds of years apart and in different branches of the language tree. I also think that your idea leads to what might be a double benefit. If I spend years studying something that will help my magical abilities, does that not mean I spent years studying magic? I just feel like it means I'm going to get bonused because my BRA and SALs all went up, and again because I'm getting extra credit for something that isn't any problem for me. The primary logic in your favor, if this can be considered a primary logic, is that the guy who has this benefit--he has learned a "special magical language" that would bonus him in any spell in which he uses it--will be better at a spell he has never tried before by using that language than someone who does exactly the same spell using an "ordinary magical language". I don't see that as a particularly desireable outcome. This benefit already applies to using a magical language, and sorting out the better ones is not a particularly useful task. Already you admit that for a Sumerian, Sumerian is not a special magical language; it probably isn't for his neighbors in Canaan, either. In the same way, Spanish is going to be a particularly magical language for some people--some of them French--simply because they associate it with magic. That is the only requirement to make a language "magical", and that's as magical as it gets. You can still get bonuses from such things. For example, you can use variants of the Taboo concept: the wizard gets +10 on all of the spells in this category because he refrains from X, or carefully observes X, but if fails to do so he cannot cast any of those spells until he performs this particular atonement/purification spell to restore himself. Kyler's character has that: he may not imbibe alcohol, and all his spells are bonused as long as he does not do so, and impossible if he breaks that taboo. Your wizard might have to spend an hour in study of the ancient texts every twenty-four hours, or must perform a particular ritual every day, or whatever, to be able to cast any spells at all, but doing so bonuses all of them. The staff from the Great Oak is already covered. It is a focus; you can either use it separately as a focus, or make its use a necessary component of any spell. Since it is a nearly unique object, it has a value of +10 (effectively doubling the power of any spell in one aspect) The bargaining/condition aspect is interesting. I think, though, that I would treat it as a geas/quest sort of component--that's the only thing that really works in play. Follow my reasoning. I come to this situation and promise that if the power does X, I will do Y. I have not done Y, and there is no way to know if I ever will; but I have indebted myself. I would create the bargain as a bonus to success which incorporates another spell within it conferring a bonus equal to whatever the value of that action would have been had it been done as part of the casting. (I might or might not include a penalty, depending on the nature of that bonus. For example, "I will spend a day in fasting and prayer" means some number of hours of deferred casting time, and I would penalize deferring casting time by -10; the promise to destroy a material component I would not penalize for deferral, because already it's not going to have so high a value as that.) That other spell hits the caster, a 1@8 curse (and this would only work in a curve of 9 or better for that reason). If the skill roll is successful, the desired effect occurs, but so does the curse; the curse ticks off the agreed timeframe, and if the promise is not fulfilled, it inflicts specific pains on the errant character (loss of attributes comes to mind). Make sense? <blockquote>The Branch from the Great Oak is inherently magical. Now foci have no magic in them. I assume the squaring of the circle is that the Branch has magic, and is also a foci.</blockquote> Right, I did not really deal with the possibility that a focus could be made from something inherently magical. Part of that is that we don't really think of materials being inherently magical--because magic is not material, and not local, but always from another place. Thus a magic device might store magic from the supernatural realm, but the materials are ordinary. I'm inclined to think that the crucifix given to Chris by St. Peter is a unique object, a focus of high value, but not "materially magical". I'm inclined to think the same of the branch: its value is that it is very nearly unique, and comes from a supernatural realm and so connects to the supernatural realm. Using it as a material element in the creation of a magic device or focus would give a +10 value for material, which could be used to boost the success of the skill or transferred to the power of the device. <blockquote>Also, one disagreement with MJ. In reading the foci rules, it says foci are not destroyed except in botches and something about skill checks. However, I've read stories where foci are burnt because too much power was funnelled through them. It clearly was not a botch. I'm wondering if thats the skill check the rules were talking about.</blockquote> Um--how is it not a botch, if the focus was destroyed? There are two ways I can use a focus with a spell: I can use my skill at using the focus, roll it successfully, and get a bonus on the roll for the spell, or I can incorporate it as a necessary component of the spell, giving me a bonus with the spell but preventing me from using that spell if I don't have that focus. In the former case, I have to make two rolls, and I'm pretty much committed to making both at the outset. So let's suppose I botch the first but succeed in the second. Why can't one of my botch options be, "Power surge, intensify spell effects but destroy focus"? That's an absolutely fabulous botch for that kind of spell. You can even use it if the focus is incorporated as a component of the spell, that the spell effects are intensified and the focus destroyed. --M. J. Young Footnote--it took over an hour for this post to post, which is why it duplicates some of Scott's stuff. WilliamTWodium on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1141 Fri, 26 Oct 2007 01:00:10 +0000 WilliamTWodium 1141@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I haven't actually read any of the source material or tried to run a game in the setting. My knowledge stems almost entirely from three novels and two ancient video games. I love the setting, though, despite or perhaps because of how little I know of it. I'm sure that if I bought the current incarnation of the setting from WotC I'd be sorely disappointed. <blockquote>In reading the foci rules, it says foci are not destroyed except in botches and something about skill checks. However, I've read stories where foci are burnt because too much power was funnelled through them.</blockquote> The skill check for the focus is only rolled if the skill as written does not specifically require the focus (that is, you can apply the focus to any arcane spell, but you have to roll a skill check if the spell wasn't designed to include the focus). Perhaps the user botched the focus skill check but not the spell? I could see a referee calling a focus botch "you get double the focus bonus, but it's consumed in the casting. Tough luck, but look on the bright side . . ." Tadeusz on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1133 Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:49:51 +0000 Tadeusz 1133@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Its been a long time since my Mul lived for five minutes in Dark Sun. I find your interpretation of Athas to be interesting, and informative. Most of it, I already know, but you have a different slant, and you do remind me. The Branch from the Great Oak is inherently magical. Now foci have no magic in them. I assume the squaring of the circle is that the Branch has magic, and is also a foci. Also, one disagreement with MJ. In reading the foci rules, it says foci are not destroyed except in botches and something about skill checks. However, I've read stories where foci are burnt because too much power was funnelled through them. It clearly was not a botch. I'm wondering if thats the skill check the rules were talking about. WilliamTWodium on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1128 Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:24:21 +0000 WilliamTWodium 1128@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ The Branch from the Great Oak is an arcane focus (covered under 1@1 Operate Focus/Holy Symbol and 15@1 Create Focus/Holy Symbol), and can in theory be taken away from the character. Once a character knows a language, he can't lose it. For something to be a device - even an intangible device - it needs to be separable from the character. <blockquote>So the Athasian Defilers are bad because of a lack of understanding....interesting. </blockquote> Well . . . most of them also happen to be evil. The way the scenario sets it up, the Preservers and rebels are clearly in the right, so obviously anyone who doesn't understand that Life Is Sacred must be a callous, selfish individual with few if any redeeming qualities. Also, to some extent there is difficulty receiving the necessary training without patronage from another defiler, and since defilers who practice magic openly have the sanction of the Sorcerer-Kings (despotic megalomaniacal dragon-demons) . . . you see where I'm going with this. Very few people with conscience and integrity make it all the way to being full-blown defilers. (Some abandon ship mid-way and switch to being preservers - but they have to re-learn all of their magical skills.) Of course, that doesn't mean that the public at large necessarily sees defiler magic as being inherently evil. They probably hate defilers, but that's for the same reason that they hate the templar and the army - they're in power, and your average citizen is not in power. Tadeusz on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1123 Thu, 25 Oct 2007 10:46:39 +0000 Tadeusz 1123@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I also remember reading one book by Name Escapes Me that was SF/Fantasy about a Yoga Master who ended up having to eat less and less, and eat weirder things, and have limits on what he ate as he perfected his body (which was his magic). At one point, he nearly kills himself by pouring cow's blood down his throat but forgetting the anti-clotting agent which then closes his throat with a giant clot. I also remember reading Terry Goodkind who had his wizard warrior thinking that he had to stop eating meat to serve as the balance for his killing. But then he's starting to go off balance...and he eventually realizes its because his understanding of the rules of balance is wrong. Eating meat is fine for him because killing in self-defense is perfectly justified and not something that he should feel the slightest qualm about---I think Goodkind's case falls under Elements #1--code of behavior proscribed by a god or objective moral ideals. So that would be Code of the War Wizard. --If you feel guilty for remorselessly slaughtering the wicked, and do not realize you were perfectly in the right doing so, then your magic will start to fail you, and you will sicken. As you can probably tell, I'm not totally at ease with Goodkind's philosophy. However, it was fun to see him have his hero hack up a bunch of evil peace protestors. Tadeusz on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1122 Thu, 25 Oct 2007 10:37:47 +0000 Tadeusz 1122@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Another 'Element of Magic Limits'--Bargaining. My heroine in Worldwalker, Kara Wellington, promises the Powers Above unspecified service at a future date if they help her save a child from the North Wind. Other promises are vague like the bad example in the Old Testament of the man who promised whatever first came out of his house when he returned from war or something. Other promises are more specific..... "I promise to spill a cup of the best wine, and slaughter a lamb and give it to the poor in your name, O Jupiter, should I return alive to the city of my fathers." Sometimes the bargain is imposed on the human.... ...You will have a son. The rules start with you when you're pregant because he's going to follow the Oath of the Nazarite from the womb. Don't cut his hair, don't let him touch dead things, and also don't let him drink wine....when he gets older, he will begin to rescue your people from your enemies.... Tadeusz on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1120 Thu, 25 Oct 2007 09:49:52 +0000 Tadeusz 1120@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ So the Athasian Defilers are bad because of a lack of understanding....interesting. I'd enjoy seeing a SF weapon described and written up labelled 'piconuke' cause thats just cool. I also like the idea of LAW rocket armed guerillas of human origin vs. say alien invaders using piconukes. It creates an enviromental struggle, that I, a conservative who thinks much of enviromental concernsis bogus, could get behind quite enthusiastically. It could be an interesting world. I like what you did with the Language of the Valdar with the +10+5. I think I mostly understand that. MJ, The arguement that a magical preparation is harder to do than another magical preparation is superfluous? Raises Perry Mason eyebrow.... Yes, I am suggesting that any lengthy endeavor to gain magical power offers a potentially permanent bonus. That is, the trip to find the Great Oak, and petition it for one of its branches, and then to carve it just right, and inscribe it with runes to create the perfect wizard's staff is valuable magically to the wizard for several reasons. 1)The staff, being a branch from a Tree of Worlds, is innately magical having certain powers and bonuses on its own. 2)The casting of the runic spells on the staff serves as a permanent bonus of probably several kinds to spellcasting. 3)The time and effort spent creating a specifically magic object even when this time was not spent casting runes counts toward a general bonus to the usage of magic. I can go with the color explanation although with a Language of the Valdar, I'd make it a common botch covering several numbers on the botch chart with varying degrees of targetted area. When I make the final rework of the list on Woman's Status, I'll include the bit about warrior cultures and polygamy to add greater detail to my bit about aggressive armies in polygamous countries. Finally, consider the concept of Language as an Immaterial Device....I think the concept of Immaterial Magic Devices might be of use in other situations in magic. Eric WilliamTWodium on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1108 Thu, 25 Oct 2007 03:19:17 +0000 WilliamTWodium 1108@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Could a language cease to be magical? Say my character becomes fluent in Spanish and spends some time in Argentina; would his spells lose the bonus on the grounds that the incantations are now in a conversational tongue? M. J. Young on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1106 Thu, 25 Oct 2007 03:01:47 +0000 M. J. Young 1106@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <blockquote>What about magical skill that is not under the control of the "skilled" user? The rules touch on this with Active By Caprice devices, but I feel like what can be done by device ought to be possible directly.</blockquote> I think it's also touched on in precognitive dreams; I know I've done that skill for some people in cons, who mention that they sometimes have dreams that tell the future, but they have no control over these. I don't care whether the language is Valdar or Pig Latin--if it is a foreign language for the character, it is a magical language. In Bah Ke'gehn we make the point that it is possible for Bah spells to be in Bah, which would be a magical language for the character but not for the Bah, but also that they might be in English, which is a magical language for the Bah but not for the character. The argument that Sumerian is harder for a modern to learn is superfluous: a modern can learn it, and then it becomes no harder to use than any other language. Kyler's character has learned Oni, the language of Japanese demons. That's a magical language not because it's a language of demons but because it's one that he associates with magic and doesn't use in normal conversation. I think that's the key: if you use the language in normal conversation, it's not a magical language for you; if the language is something you use almost exclusively for magic, then for you it is a magical language. That does not mean you would never use it for conversation in special circumstances--the Wu Jen with whom Kyler studied undoubtedly used Oni to speak with Oni, and Kyler could do the same. <blockquote>That is, if one means to say "Light the Arrows on Fire" in Ye Olde Anceitn Tongue of Magik, but really says "Light my eyebrows on fire" you get the second effect even if you didnm't know the word for 'eyebrows'. I'm not sure how to put that effect into Multiverser.</blockquote> That would be a botch result--that is, if you roll a botch, one possibility if you are using that kind of element in your ritual is that you mispronounced a word getting a wrong result. Wrong result is already on the list of common mag botches, this is just a "color" explanation for why it happened. I do like Scott's idea about the die mod, though. What you're calling an RS modifier is usually called a damage modifier, because it's usually used for weapon or attack damage. It probably needs a better name; in noting it we usually say "plus points", so that's what I would use. (Someone remind me to include it in the new edition.) Thus your spell would be -10SM, +20points. You're right, though--you can get +DC for a -10SM, so you can probably double your power output that way. The idea of incorporating the blessing to get a bonus on RS hits the same obstacle: you get a stronger result for the same penalty a different way. We've got blessing spells that increase chance of success and those which affect degree of success only, but once you try to incorporate them they don't work so well--they're real advantages are 1) you can use them to bonus broad ranges of other skills and 2) if you're trying to figure out how to create a magic device with increased chance or degree of success (e.g., magic weapon), these are the skills to use. Polygamy is rather common in warrior cultures, because there are not enough men to go around. We did something solid with this in Orc Rising, in which the wives and children of slain orcs are given to their companions. If the wars are bloody enough, there isn't a problem of lack of women for the unsuccessful males--unsuccessful in this case means dead. --M. J. Young WilliamTWodium on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1103 Thu, 25 Oct 2007 01:03:27 +0000 WilliamTWodium 1103@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Problem being that part of the evil here is that they don't see these acts as evil. It's just plants, after all. I imagine the Defilers just think of themselves as wizards or sorcerers; it's only the good guys who use the "Preserver/Defiler" label. Imagine if the underground rebellion in your country used longbows instead of rifles because gun smoke was bad for the environment. (In reality, it's more like using TNT instead of piconukes, but that's not how the defilers see it.) Of course, that's just with regard to this specific example. In general, you've made your point; things that make you look evil aren't doing you any favors. Tadeusz on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1102 Thu, 25 Oct 2007 00:34:47 +0000 Tadeusz 1102@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I'll look at your numbers more tommorrow. Evil in Evil Realms reply... SM Stirling in Dies the Fire trilogy has the bad guy flying Sauron's Eye as a flag. A good guy leader explains to his followers...'even if I was set on becomeing a power-mad dictator in the ruins of America, I'd fly Old Glory. Because it would confuse people. This guy, up front is announcing that he's pschyo evil, that he will stab you in the back on his whim.' Very few people actually like evildoers, including other evildoers who don't like them either. Eric WilliamTWodium on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1101 Wed, 24 Oct 2007 23:52:38 +0000 WilliamTWodium 1101@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Separate spells can certainly work; I meant to respond to that, actually, but I forgot in the middle of my post. If the point is to make the spells written in Valdar more effective, though, I feel like I should incorporate the blessing (1@4 Bonus Skill) into the same spell. If I do that, though, I run into temporal problems - if the spell succeeds, its chance of success was bonused, but if it fails without the bonus, it doesn't get it. Possible solution: incorporate the blessing into the skill, but design the blessing so that it affects relative success rather than simply adding a sit-mod. I'm not sure if that can be done (MJ?), but if it could it would go like this: A sorcerer lights arrows on fire with an ordinary spell: 67% chance of success, 3% chance to botch, RS ranges from 1-67 The same spell in the Valdar tongue (includes a M1@4 blessing for a -10 SM): 57% chance of success, 4% chance to botch, RS runs from 21-77 Hmm. Actually, it occurs to me that a -10 SM can usually be traded for double the power in some aspect, so that may be a bum deal. Then again, if we assume that the RS bonus from the blessing is multiplied by skill level, that leaves us with +60 RS in exchange for the -10 SM once the caster reaches expert level . . . which still leaves us shortchanged, since by doubling the power we could effectively have had RS of 6-522 instead of 63-231. Bother. It seems like incorporating a recursive bonusing skill is ineffective no matter which way you frame it. Still, with a separate skill, what you're saying is you speak a few words of Valdar and then whatever spell you cast next is bonused - no matter what language that spell is in. Or could you get a bonus on the blessing by stipulating that it only applies to other spells written in the same language? Tadeusz on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1100 Wed, 24 Oct 2007 23:25:00 +0000 Tadeusz 1100@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ My understanding of the system is not that strong. However, I was at one point talking about making it separate spells. One a power-up, and the other the actual spell. However, what you got looks interesting indeed. And about my prior comment on 'mommy track', it does not totally reset to zero every time you take some time off. That just slows your advancement. WilliamTWodium on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1099 Wed, 24 Oct 2007 23:05:13 +0000 WilliamTWodium 1099@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I find it interesting that you say the Tongue of the Angels would be more difficult to say, but advocate a bonus making spells that employ it easier to use. Again, the problem is that the player, out of character, is not being limited by the supposed limitation. If the spell required that the character make a successful skill check with the language to operate, maybe you could justify the bonus - but I have serious misgivings about letting a 0@0 Psi skill provide bonuses to a 15@10 magical spell. Let's look at a couple of alternate mechanical systems to represent what you're going for. a) The language of Valdar lends your spells power at the risk of catastrophe if you mis-speak: What I want to do for this is to grant the skill a small positive sit-mod in exchange for a positive die mod every time they use the skill. The die mod effectively increases Relative Success on every successful use, but it disproportionately increases the chance to botch. An example - A sorcerer lights arrows on fire with an ordinary spell: 67% chance of success, 3% chance to botch, RS ranges from 1-67 The same spell in the Valdar tongue (+10SM, +5dieM): 72% chance of success, 7% chance to botch, RS ranges from 6-77 You see? The thing to do is ask "what limitation am I applying?", and then rig the mechanics such that the limitation actually exists in the numbers. In this case, we're making the spell more powerful and successful more often, but also increasing the frequency and severity of the inevitable botches. (In both of the above spells, I'm assuming the +5SM for foreign language has already been factored in.) Actually, I like that one so much that I'm going to skip thinking up a (b) for now and move on. ___ I don't think the fact that using Defiler magic marks you as a bad guy is necessarily worth a sit mod in and of itself. After all, in Athas, the bad guys are in charge - the place is a desert created by the magical wars of ancient defilers of ages past, many of whom live on as the Sorcerer-Kings (a.k.a. "Dragons") who rule the various City-States. Using Preserver magic marks you as an unambitious weakling (at best) or an anti-government subversive (at worst). You're right that the life-drain is detectable, though, and that's why I'm comfortable giving +5 even when there aren't any plants in the immediate vicinity. The killing of nearby vegetation is mandatory, by the way; the defiler can't just forgo the extra "material component" bonus in order to avoid leaving a brown stain. Tadeusz on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1098 Wed, 24 Oct 2007 22:59:10 +0000 Tadeusz 1098@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ More Women's Status: 1. Equality in Reserve: This occurs in settings of the 2050's (as described from 1970), and in high culture, low tech societies, and in others. Men and women are considered equal in all regards. This is accomplished in part because no one pushes themselves to the outer limits of their capabilities. The level of societal exertion and competence is such that a woman or a man is equally good for pretty much any job that happens. Its considered gauche to sweat, or otherwise exert oneself. A sedate gracefulness is the societal ideal. One effect is a great deal of stability as Strength Held in Reserve=Reliability=Stability. Maximum efficiency is the enemy of reliability. 2. Women are the souce of corruption and temptation in society, and must be controlled to keep them from corrupting good, honest men. See Saudi Arabia, and other Muslim countries. 3. Women are saintly and never lie or do evil, and when it seems they do, its the man's fault. Thus when women shoot their husband in the back, while he sleeps, with a shotgun it because he was abusive, and she, poor, fragile shotgunner was scared. See modern feminism. 4. Women need to be taken care of by another source of funding. In some societies this takes the line of independent trusts, or dowries. In certain medieval situations, the woman may find herself with an independent income because she owns castles and lands given to her at her marriage by either her family, or her new husband. 5. In some societies, this independent source of funding is the government which with the best of intentions, and much good effect steps in to provide funding to the woman to take care of the children. This has advantages which are obvious. It has disadvantages which are not so obvious. Frequently, the incipient 'welfare queen' looks forward to her sixteenth birthday, and 'independence day' because once she's sixteen and pregnant, she can leave her crowded apartment, and have an apartment of her own provided for by the government. To keep it she needs to keep having babies, and NOT get married. The young men in this society have no power as they are outbid, and they have no wife to force them to be responsible. Its a perfect recipe for violence, crime, and thirty-five year old grandmothers. 6. Polygamy is beneficial to two groups. They are older, rich males and younger, not quite so attractive females. Everyone else loses. The successful male gets more time with multiple nubile females, and the not quite there girl gets time with a successful male. Such a society depends on driving out the young males to alternative jobs (while not admitting this frequently), and keeping the young females around for the older, and richer males to charm. If possible some sort of alternate male culture is created for the 'losers'. Either its an army that frequently makes war (and gets its people killed off), or its outlying farms far from civilization, or its a homosexual culture. Failure to create (perhaps due to lack of money) an alternate male culture yields a troublesome problem of the usage of backdoors into the Big Man's House. That is, adultery between the 'losers' and the 'wives' is common. As regards woman's status, most women feel betrayed by the situation. They frequently school their male children to not do this to their wives when they grow up, and the male children agree since they love their mothers, and often dislike their fathers. But they tend to follow the same pattern anyways. Another woman's status issue is covered by the Chinese symbol for 'trouble' which is 'two women under one roof'. Relations can be extremely poisonous, and vindictive between the females of the house. Typically an older wife is appointed 'dictator of the house' with the job to keep the noise down to a low roar. 7. Serial Polygamy or Trophy Wives: This modern custom allows one to marry a young girl, get a good job with her help, and then dump her for someone five-ten years younger. A number of cultures have even more extreme versions of the 'easy divorce'. In some cultures, its sufficient to say "I divorce you" three times to make it so. This is part of the reason for the wealth in jewelry that is worn by women in some cultures as this jewelry may be the only thing they are allowed to keep. In certain cyberpunk cultures, this has been revived with glittery bits of cyberware taking the place of ancient armbands of gold. 8. A Matriarchy (nice) has women in charge, and men as non-voting members with distinct rights. Usually these men are more timid, and less combative than most men. The women are noble, and brave and have a good balance of the open hand and the closed fist. They also tend to wear something similar to bikinis, but I don't think this is an essential element of that culture. In some cases, they are excessively warlike, but they rarely venture into true evil. 9. Matriarchy (not so nice): Sacrifices (men) must be made to the Mother Goddess who while she has her gentle side, most of the time resembles Kali than Gaia. Men are kept in the dark, and chained by superstition, and terror of their priestess wives. Its the War between the Sexes with the women adopting the tactics of the Ku Klux Klan. Poison and mob violence are primary ways of dealing with one's female rivals in the tribe. Troublesome men get harsh looks, then if that fails, they get abducted in the night and beaten by drug-using masked females while the rest of the tribe quakes in fear, and if that fails....well Kali needs a new skull. 10. The Rule of the Cold-Eyed Women: Pragmatism and survival define their methods. Their goals are to save as many of their 'children', or the people of the nation as possible. But they never weep in public over deaths because thats a sign of weakness, and that would invite more problems. They dazzle by turns, and charm by others, and never give an inch. Knives and daggers, spies, and deniable 'rogue' sea captains are their tools although they will raise an army if they must. You're never sure how you stand with them, and thats how they want it. You're never quite sure what they're up to, except that its for the good of the Nation, and thats how they want it. But one thing you are sure of, and thats that you don't want to cross them. See Elizabeth the First of England. 11. Women are honoured for their womanhood. They are allowed some breaks on behaviour because they are women, but then men are also allowed different breaks on behavior. However, a certain basic moral code applies to both. They are trained as young girls to demand chivalry, and courtesy, and to spot the various character weaknesses in themselves and males. They are trained to show respect for their male friends, and to be gentle with the masculine ego. And the most effective techniques to gently deflate one. Most women prefer traditional roles, but there remains a sizable minority which prefers other paths. This is generally understood by society. Switching paths happens frequently as well with the understanding that if you switch, you start over at zero. That is, most companies have a 'mommy track' which allows the female employee more time off, and slower advancement. This is accepted as equitable. Less than one percent of jet fighter pilots are female, but they are generally as good as the males. However, the War between the Sexes is a matter of witty jokes and puns, and men and women frequently laughing ruefully at their own foibles. Tadeusz on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1097 Wed, 24 Oct 2007 22:09:14 +0000 Tadeusz 1097@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Its probable that also a Tongue of the Angels would be more difficult for mere mortals to say. They would involve mind-bending precision, extreme beauty, and concepts that a poor sinful mortal would find hard to understand (much as an orc would find the chivalry of the High Elves incomprehensible). One way around this is to make such a language a spell of its own. Its interesting in Eragon that the True Names of an object can do magic that is not willed by the user. That is, if one means to say "Light the Arrows on Fire" in Ye Olde Anceitn Tongue of Magik, but really says "Light my eyebrows on fire" you get the second effect even if you didnm't know the word for 'eyebrows'. I'm not sure how to put that effect into Multiverser. Tadeusz on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1096 Wed, 24 Oct 2007 21:59:11 +0000 Tadeusz 1096@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ In Champions they have an interesting bit about Flying with Energy Trails which some superheroes do. They point out that it could be a disad, a minor one, or it could in other circumstances be an advantage. It could lead your enemies to you, or it could lead your friends to you. Now me, I mostly see the disad. So analyzing in light of that... 1. Being evil looking can be an advantage...but its primarily a disad. -1 2. Making yourself easy to track is primarily a disad. -2 3. Hiding your torch under a bushel is not hard if you don't use the spell, which is what you could say about #2 as well, but the #2 disad is persistent (people months later are going to see circles of dead earth and know that a Defiler was casting in teh area). -0 Tadeusz on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1095 Wed, 24 Oct 2007 21:49:07 +0000 Tadeusz 1095@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ As to what you say about #7, I refer you to my opening header about being incoherent....:) Yes, your definition is well-written. But the Defiler magic should provide another bonus....the great big, flashing sign that says "I'm EVIL--Kill me now!" is a disadvantage. It also makes them easy to track so much so that even a 1@1 tracker might be able to follow them. And lastly that 'great big sign' is a disad because they're going to have a hard time faking being of the Forces of Good. Ancient Sumerian definitely builds greater expectation. And it is generally harder for a PC to learn. Now, if a PC came from Sumeria, then Spanish might be the uber-magic tongue to them. But not for modern day Terrans. As to 'Tongue of the Angels', I am not talking of Arabic which is said to be the tongue of angels, but of a language that you have good reason to believe is the actual language used by angels at least in some circumstances. If Gandalf the White teaches you the language of the Valdar (gods or angels in Middleearth), you should have an advantage for the use of that language. WilliamTWodium on "Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elements-of-magic-punishments-and-womans-status#post-1087 Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:39:05 +0000 WilliamTWodium 1087@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ When I brought it up, I was thinking of the Bink scenario: a skill with no ritual which activates only when the referee says so - potentially according to rules and conditions laid out in advance (every full moon, anyone?), but not necessarily. The complete lack of ritual slaps an instant -25 SM on the skill, along with whatever damage you rack up in the time factor department, but the hope is that these penalties will be offset by the bonus awarded for the sacrificing the power to initiate the skill. Also, I disagree with your most recent #6. Why should some languages be of more benefit than others? I'm sure each of them is "the language of the Gods" in some universe. Here you're steering toward the same treacherous waters as when you suggested making some things more or less "appropriate" than others, awarding more than +5 for appropriateness. There are two reasons that players are bonused for using foreign tongues. In game, the mystical sounds of the incantation lead to greater expectation of magic. Out of game, speaking in tongues lets his opponents know that he's using magic, and the player should be compensated for that disadvantage. I suppose you could argue that using Ancient Sumerian builds greater expectation (although I'm not sure it does, you could argue it), but it does nothing to limit the skill any more than Spanish does; we have no out-of-game reason to increase the bonus. And, I'm not sure #7 is a limitation. Try replacing it with something like this (I'm copy-pasting from my as-yet-unfinished work-up of the Dark Sun campaign setting from 2nd Ed. AD&D): <blockquote>Arcane magic is more prevelant than holy, and is of two kinds: Preserver magic (harder and rarer), and Defiler magic (easier and more common). Defiler magic contributes to the ongoing holocaust on Athas by draining the life energy from the world at large and nearby inanimates particularly (+5 sit-mod, bonused by up to an additional +10 for surrounding plant life destroyed in casting). Preserver magic gains no such bonus, but the practitioners keep a clear conscience.</blockquote> Here we have the life energy of plants employed as a material component. Notice that this skill definition can work in universes other than the universe of origin (which is an absolute must for Multiverser magic). Note also that if the verser enters a universe without plant life, his Defiler magic will cease to work altogether. The point is, unless there is some concrete requirement/limitation, the fact that a spell drains an infinitesimal amount from the magical potential of the universe really shouldn't provide the player with any bonus.