Gaming Outpost Discussions » Tag: worlds

Gaming Outpost Discussions » Tag: worlds - Recent Posts http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/tags/worlds Gaming Outpost Discussions » Tag: worlds - Recent Posts en-US Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:48:19 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 <![CDATA[Search]]> q http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/search.php M. J. Young on "World: Diamonds on a Dark Scarf" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-diamonds-on-a-dark-scarf#post-34398 Sat, 11 Dec 2010 17:40:51 +0000 M. J. Young 34398@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ That makes sense. We have to assume that "pointing it to that which is eternal" is the act of entreating the Alliance power, and we can accept that John D. Verser could use a different ritual which entreats an alliance power, but an indig in pointing the sword in the wrong direction is entreating the wrong power. --M. J. Young kyler on "World: Diamonds on a Dark Scarf" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-diamonds-on-a-dark-scarf#post-34311 Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:11:50 +0000 kyler 34311@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Well, we've got an Alliance holy magic item, and the user is trying to entreat an Anarch deity with it; if in this world, Anarch and Alliance holy artifacts exist, but no Anarch power will answer prayers made with Alliance artifacts, that could prove a solution. M. J. Young on "World: Diamonds on a Dark Scarf" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-diamonds-on-a-dark-scarf#post-34307 Thu, 09 Dec 2010 21:51:08 +0000 M. J. Young 34307@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ That's an interesting wrinkle on magic item use--what if the user does not perform the ritual for which the item was intended, but performs a ritual which his expectation supports? I might have to think on that. After all, it's generally a rule in Multiverser that a spell that operates a magic item will work for any magic item of the same type. That's so that if you have a spell that for example opens this magic door, that becomes a spell that opens magic doors generally, simply because otherwise a character would gradually accumulate hundreds of different spells all of which are specific to a particular door. That same notion applies to magic item use of all types. Because of that, spells work based on expectations, and if the spell user expects the spell to produce a particular and the roll is successful, it does. The reason indigs are limited to spells working in a particular way is that they have been taught that "magic works like this", and so they don't expect anything to work that doesn't match "this", whatever "this" is. But if the user expects that pointing the sword in a specific direction will activate it, and believes he knows the direction, it ought to work. So I'm thinking about how it might not. --M. J. Young Tadeusz on "World: Diamonds on a Dark Scarf" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-diamonds-on-a-dark-scarf#post-34205 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 12:59:14 +0000 Tadeusz 34205@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Yeah. Well, Buffy the Vampire Slayer's past history is that Demons used to rule the Earth before Man. There is some proof of a Demonwar, and of people serving Demons in ancient times. What the current bardic historians don't know is that ...1)The Demonwar was for the outskirts of the Earth after they tried to steal the best parts of the Earth from the Lord of Light, and he and his armies beat them silly. 2)Some people...stubborn, or outlaws, or fleeing debt, or just not organized enough for life in the Big Empire did flee beyond the frontiers of the Ancient Empire. Some of these less successful sorts took to living in caves, and some of them took to Demon worship aka The Old Ones Under the Earth (some Demons had hid from the Lord of Light's pursuing armies deep in caves.) The Light had arranged it then so that if the Humans kept their act together, were righteous, and tough, and organized...they could the Demons at bay with holy magic and bright steel swords. Whenever one empire crumbled from corruption or cowardice, another Human empire soon took its place. But this last time, courage itself was attacked, and no empire rose. Now, there are places where some corruption is taught, but steel protects them for a while. That and the fact that the Demons and the Foul Men are fairly chaotic, and unless forced to the whip usually avoid hard targets. There are a few places where the Truth is still held, and these places are protected by guardian spirits of the Light and by holy magic of a lesser than Empire quality, and by steel (although not of the quality of the Legions of the Empire). Otherwise the Island of the Blest is now the Cursed Land where the best sort of person you might meet is a thuggish and greedy innkeeper eager to protect you as long as you've got good gold, and look like you're too dangerous to steal from himself. For that, he will barr the doors against the wolfmen adn the other Things in the night, and bid you help him keep the fire high during the night. Durig the day, the incident of evil scummery is 1/10th of what it was, and many of those who were out hunting last night, might be milling their corn the following day. This Great Lie gives support to the notion that the Demons are here to stay, and saps courage from the defenders of the Light. Also, it makes it so that many of the great magic items, and spells are not used because they make assumptions that the current user does not. "Point ye the Sword of Destroyers at that which is Eternal." Says one recipe spell for activating a magic sword....pointing it at the North Demonhome, instead of the Sun, the Palace of the Lord of Light,is not going to turn the Sword of Destroyers on. JohnA1nut on "World: Diamonds on a Dark Scarf" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-diamonds-on-a-dark-scarf#post-34202 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 11:15:06 +0000 JohnA1nut 34202@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <blockquote>The history of the world is taught that for millions of years, Demons and Foul Beasts ruled the world, but that one day, Humans arrived on the scene. No one is quite sure how, but most who think on it, think some sort of magical accident. Humans lived as slaves of Demons for a long time, and then the Age of Man began (some say because Humans organized, and others because that was so, but that a Demonwar had broken the demons's powers beforehand).</blockquote> This reminds me of a story I heard about the origins of Halloween. Before the earth was ruled by man, it was ruled by Satan and his demons. When God wanted to reclaim the earth and populate it with people, Satan struck a deal with God. Satan and his armies had to be given one night a year where they could march and show their power to the people of earth. The children trick or treating is a representation of Satan's army walking on earth for one night. Tadeusz on "World: Diamonds on a Dark Scarf" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-diamonds-on-a-dark-scarf#post-34200 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 10:51:06 +0000 Tadeusz 34200@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I watched a short Ken Ham video where he talked of the need for a reformation rather than a revival. Its one of his points that you can't have a revival without the groundwork being laid, and right now, the groundworkis almost gone. Few churches and isolated in England preach the Truth, and many of them let corruption in. Thus, an idea for a world. Small, and isolated communities of a former Golden Age (that is now reviled by most as as the Age of Empire and Oppression). The history of the world is taught that for millions of years, Demons and Foul Beasts ruled the world, but that one day, Humans arrived on the scene. No one is quite sure how, but most who think on it, think some sort of magical accident. Humans lived as slaves of Demons for a long time, and then the Age of Man began (some say because Humans organized, and others because that was so, but that a Demonwar had broken the demons's powers beforehand). There were then the Cycles of Empire as one group of rulers succeeded another, and as nations rose and fell, always fighting with the Foul Beasts and with Corruption and each other. And then the Last Empire fell, the Federal Empire, and Man was once again opressed. So much so that Man again took unto himself the worshipping of Demons and the transformation of his body to the ways of th eDemons....so that some Men now look more like Foul Men than True Men. They live in the ruins of the Empire, and trade and loot upon each other, and all as was and has been for a million years. Except that most of that is a lie. The world is 2000 years old. The first, Ancient Empire, was established by the Lords of Light. Gotta go...gotta get my teeth cleaned by a dentist's hygienist. Sigh. M. J. Young on "World: The Ladyfaire and Her Ravens" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-the-ladyfaire-and-her-ravens#post-26633 Fri, 15 Oct 2010 21:02:00 +0000 M. J. Young 26633@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Oh, yeah, you could do it with a sub-multiverse of related universes, defining the universes according to some kind of frequency relationship. Yeah, I don't know how long it takes for gravitic effects to be felt elsewhere. I'm given to think that it's probably a speed-of-light thing, but I don't know why. I do know that with relativity gravity is not a force but a distortion in space, but I don't guess it makes that much difference to the process. --M. J. Young Tadeusz on "World: The Ladyfaire and Her Ravens" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-the-ladyfaire-and-her-ravens#post-26368 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 20:07:37 +0000 Tadeusz 26368@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ It would have to be a Little Multiverse which had some 'frequency' or something, and a steady framework of worlds inside the LM. As to being arbitrary, yes, but if you find one of the landmarks inside the map, then you can use the map. One marker for universes is a Verser Leaving or Arriving. You probably don't need that much more advanced tech than now, or you might be able to do it now, a network of gravity measuring devices (supersensitive to minor fluctuations) and spread out over a large area to localize the gravity changing point, plus some semi-difficult math...and you could detect when a verser arrived and pretty roughly where based on the change in gravity. With more sensitive tech and better math, you might be able to deduce the arrival of versers in earlier times by the effect on planets. I'm not sure if there is a propagation wave effect. I'm not sure how long it would take you to detect the arrival of a verser on Earth from Alpha Centauri. Jhiaxus on "World: The Ladyfaire and Her Ravens" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-the-ladyfaire-and-her-ravens#post-26338 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 19:06:11 +0000 Jhiaxus 26338@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ As a plot Device all the numbers and logic really don't matter, it's how the player reacts to it. If the player makes it a point to investigate it, then every time he verses, it's a possible world to send him to. In this case I'm not so big into the technical details on how could someone track it, it's a camouflage for "Does the player want to help, and to what degree, or not." As far as I'm concerned she could have put a random number on the page, all that matters is the player's reaction. M. J. Young on "World: The Ladyfaire and Her Ravens" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-the-ladyfaire-and-her-ravens#post-26332 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 18:14:24 +0000 M. J. Young 26332@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Hmmm--I find the notion that she can identify her location dubious. I know that di Vars can't do it, nor the Architect, nor Whisp, Mother, Adams--it's never been done. That doesn't mean that someone couldn't do it. But then, one verser successfully finding a way to catalog the randomly-distributed array of of worlds doesn't mean that their catalog system would have any meaning. It would be like giving Library of Congress Catalog numbers to native Martians and expecting them to find your book (when everyone knows that Martians use the Dewey Decimal System). That is, any means of identifying a universe is going to be based on a randomly determined base and scale. The number 1.475 assumes that there's a 0.000 or a 1.000 somewhere, and that there's an incremental system of units of a specific length. That is, if I were to say that you were to find an object that is 1.475 away from 0, you would need to know where 0 is (an arbitrary decision by the person who created the scale--e.g., 0 degrees is the freezing point of water on the Celsius scale, the absence of all energy on the Kelvin scale, and nothing in particular on the Fahrenheit scale) and whether I'm talking about inches, centimeters, meters, miles, light years, or the width of my own hand. And worlds are constantly in motion relative to each other, adrift in the scriff, bumping into each other and bouncing away, never in the same place twice relative to any other universe. They don't have labels; they don't have "frequencies". All that distinguishes them is their histories and whatever that means they are now. So the only way to find a specific world is to follow the trail through the scriff left by another scriff traveler. That's theoretically possible, at least, and the Ravens should leave such a trail. --M. J. Young M. J. Young on "World: Multicultural Utopia" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-multicultural-utopia#post-26326 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 17:24:45 +0000 M. J. Young 26326@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ It is interesting to think that we will have neither factories nor farms, but I think it is slightly overstated. I do agree that very few people will work in factories or on farms, as these will be more automated and less labor-intensive; but we're still going to be pulling some of our resources out of the ground (oil, coal at least, maybe minerals), and that means processing and refining, which is always done less expensively close to the site; and if we think being largely dependent on foreign oil makes us vulnerable, that's nothing compared to what it would be to be largely dependent on foreign food. I think it likely that multilingualism will rise. I know that there are quite a few places even in our area where you've got a much better chance of being employed if you speak Spanish, and a few restaurants where a lot of the help speak only Spanish and Mandarin. I'd like to see official language laws passed, and immigrant language classes curtailed in favor of mainlining students into English-speaking classes, but I think those who want that are an elderly minority, and thus likely to become a smaller minority before anything can be done about it. People have thought that Christianity was going to vanish for a lot of centuries, and it hasn't done so. I don't think it's going to do so now. I also think it is almost wishful thinking to think that Islam as going to be reduced to vestiges. Now, there are already a lot of people for whom religion has no effect on their lives, and probably his grandchildren will be among them. I don't think my grandchildren will be, though, because I think their fathers have been sufficiently influenced in Christian thought that they are going to pass that influence to their children. And as long as Judaism is around, there's going to be a conflict in the Middle East that is going to make Islam dangerous worldwide. A good part of the reason Islamic terrorists are attacking the United States is because we are perceived as one of Israel's allies, and it is the Islamic hope that attacks against us will cause us to pressure Israel into compromising itself out of existence. (I find it funny that in the beginning of the twentieth century the British took over a bit piece called Palestine, establishing it as a homeland for the Jews, and when the Palestinians protested, they broke the land in half, making half of it a free Palestinian state (I think called Lebanon). Now the Palestinians are trying to make it happen again, to get the land broken in two pieces to create a homeland for the Palestinians--because they know that we have short memories, and don't recall that we already did that. But that's off topic. The real point is, Islam is going to remain strong as long as it has Judaism to oppose.) --M. J. Young Nikolaj on "World: The Ladyfaire and Her Ravens" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-the-ladyfaire-and-her-ravens#post-26291 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 13:45:30 +0000 Nikolaj 26291@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ It does. Ravens usually don't bode well as omens though, but knowing you a bit, you probably do not mind that ... at all. Tadeusz on "World: The Ladyfaire and Her Ravens" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-the-ladyfaire-and-her-ravens#post-26283 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 13:28:58 +0000 Tadeusz 26283@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Niko, It does add a mythic overtone to things, doesn't it? Like maybe there is something more going on than is at first apparent. There's also perhaps an archetypical feel to this 'World'. Nikolaj on "World: The Ladyfaire and Her Ravens" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-the-ladyfaire-and-her-ravens#post-26269 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 12:46:39 +0000 Nikolaj 26269@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ of course, because normally it are seagulls that live near lighthouses ;) Cool idea! Awesome. Jhiaxus on "World: The Ladyfaire and Her Ravens" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-the-ladyfaire-and-her-ravens#post-26230 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:51:33 +0000 Jhiaxus 26230@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Ok grumblegrumbleevilgmgrumblegrumble :P Tadeusz on "World: The Ladyfaire and Her Ravens" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-the-ladyfaire-and-her-ravens#post-26227 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:46:09 +0000 Tadeusz 26227@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Oh, yes, that was an immediate thought. Jhiaxus on "World: The Ladyfaire and Her Ravens" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-the-ladyfaire-and-her-ravens#post-26225 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:42:45 +0000 Jhiaxus 26225@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ You do realize that a Raven coming to any Jhiaxus with a note has special significance correct? Tadeusz on "World: The Ladyfaire and Her Ravens" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-the-ladyfaire-and-her-ravens#post-26223 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:34:53 +0000 Tadeusz 26223@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Plot device. She came up with the idea for the ravens. Tadeusz on "World: Multicultural Utopia" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-multicultural-utopia#post-26221 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:32:27 +0000 Tadeusz 26221@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I read this on Bighollywood.com, and PT Bull a commenter called it a Multicultural Utopia. Its written by a definite liberal named MovieBob, and he's writing about his grandchildren, not his children because he says the transition is going to be rough as America becomes an hourglass economically intead of a peach. I doubt he's right. I certainly hope he's not. But its an interesting prediction... ----"I hope you are wrong in your negative prediction, but financially, I am betting on america going down the tubes. Hope I am wrong too." Depends on what you mean when you say "America" when it comes to tubes. If you mean "America" the nation - no, that's going to be just fine. We're not going to get blown off the map by some enemy nation, we're not going to be invaded and conquered, we're not going to lose the flag, the bill of rights, the monuments, the what-have-you. Now, if we're talking about "America as we know it" i.e. the abstract "feel" of what America is or "means?" Up-by-your-bootstraps, cabin-in-the-woods, frontiersman, family-centric, rural-blue-collar-working-class-as-heroic-ideal, nominally-Christian, predominantly-white, reflexively-patriarchal, that whole thing? Yeah... that's toast. Has been for awhile now. It happens. Cultures change - "evolve," if you like. My grandchildren will probably speak two or three languages just as a matter of "how it works now," and one of them will probably be Mandarin - especially if their successful in business. They will probably not work in a factory or on a farm, not because those things aren't nice but because those things aren't "here" anymore. They'll probably live and work on either or both coasts, not in the middle, and for purposes of business they will probably have secondary citizenship in at least one other nation. They will probably not "marry" but rather have multiple "official" long-term-but-finite relationships throughout their lives, and will likely have children much later than I did. Vestiges of Christianity (and Islam, while we're at it) will be around, but will have about as much effect on their day-to-day lives as the lingering notions of Athena or Thor have upon mine (Judaism, however, will be alive and kicking - that much you can always bet on.) Strange future? To me, maybe. But then imagine what a man of 1899 would think of OURS. America will be just fine, in other words ;) ---- Jhiaxus on "World: The Ladyfaire and Her Ravens" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-the-ladyfaire-and-her-ravens#post-26202 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 09:39:17 +0000 Jhiaxus 26202@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Very interesting premise, so is this a game you are running for her, a story, or a plot device to add to your multiverser games? Tadeusz on "World: The Ladyfaire and Her Ravens" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-the-ladyfaire-and-her-ravens#post-26198 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 09:32:11 +0000 Tadeusz 26198@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ One day, a beautiful lady with long, lustrous raven black hair bought herself a new tech toy as she so dearly loved to do. It had Scriff Inside! imprinted on the cover of the PDA. She went to work that night, and took it in to show off to her fellow employees before setting to work. Rain pounded the roof of the building, and work went on. Finally time for 'lunch' at midnight arrived, and she went out to the car to put her new device up as the rain had finally ceased a half hour ago. But a truck came barrelling into the parking lot, driving much too fast for a wet, and dark night. It did not hit her. But it did roar through a very large puddle and drench her, and the PDA in her hand. A half-dozen worlds later, and she sort of understands, as much as most versers do, what is going on. So she arrived in a world in the midst of a parade in honor of Coordinator 129 whose wise council led District 129 as his father had led it before him. It was a blessed and wonderful world, all the posters on the walls said so, and anyone who disagreed was an Enemy of the State, and quite obviously insane. The Coordinators, with their superior wisdom and benevolence, had removed the burden of excess choice from the People. It was a scientific fact, proven by studies funded by the Coordinators, that more than three choices was painful for the average person when confronted by any choice. So there were Trucks, Cars, and Cycles with Red, Blue, and Green colors for each of the types of vehicles which those with ten years service could receive by cashing in their Benevolence Points. They got BP's by doing extra service to the Community as determined by the Coordinators. So, when an unknown person appeared in the midst of the parade, the instant assumption was that she was an assassin, a servant of conservative radicals, and a Hater. So she was apprehended with the typical lack of concern shown to the subhuman. Which meant she woke from her coma ten years later. By then, her remarkableness had been well-established. Her backpack was well-made and had over a dozen colors in it. Heresy or Unscientific Thought! But inside was worse, a totally unbowlderized collection of thousands of books and songs on a tiny electronic device. It was then that the serious men got involved which they rarely did. The device was at least twenty years in advance of anything even the Black Tech Cites could make. It was phenomenal. It was scary. So she was closely observed as she slept in her coma. And one fact became clear. She was not aging. Not in the least. Massive efforts were expended to raise her from her coma. A whole new Black Tech City dedicated to coma patient's recovery was set up. In the space of five years, over twenty-five years of research was force fed into the solutions for comas. This had notable bad effects as a number of thoroughly stupid theories got advanced, and hardened into dogma. But they were lucky enough to have some truly brilliant scientists, and so the breakthrough was made. She woke to find herself controlled by electro-mechanical means. They wanted one thing. 'What's your secret to immortality?'. She tried to verse out, but with a multiple watchers and a device in her head that could freeze her muscles at a word, it did not work. They asked about the yellow substance in her blood, and she realized that they were so close. And she did not want to oppress other worlds with their ways, nor, did she want to have them find a way to use scriff tomake themselves immortal overlords in this world. The populace had it bad enough without their bosses living forever. So she began to lie, to lead them on a path. She was the daughter of a goddess and a merman. She needed time and privacy to brew up her magics. So they gave her a lighthouse by the sea, and watched her carefully by human eye, and in her lab, with cameras. She brewed up some small magics, all that would work in the world's low magic bias. Besides she was no great magi. And then she took the ravens that roosted all over the lighthouse, and what she had heard from some other versers, and she fed some of her Special Brew No. 9 she called it with a smirk to each Raven. Each raven, thus sedated and scriffed, was put into a huge blackpot, and covered by a lid. Airtight. The whole thing was heated to a slurry mess. By this time, the raven had either versed or plain died. She then dumped the slurry mess off the side of the lighthouse into the sea with an expression of disgust. "Spell is still not working." She filled pages of notebooks with structured nonsense so that her watchers had something to read. Now each raven had a message attached to its leg. "I am a verser on Timeline 1.475. Held prisoner by evil forces. Please rescue me." The immortal raven versers, several dozen so far, fly into various worlds, and often get killed. But then at some point, in the midst of this strangeness, the raven senses something familiar so he goes to it. Another verser who then reads the message...some versers take up the Quest for the Lady of Ravens as she is known. Others simply add their message to the raven they find. It occurs to some that this might be a way to create some sort of Raven Internet Interdimensional. M. J. Young on "Quirky Mystery Adaptations" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/quirky-mystery-adaptations#post-25960 Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:30:30 +0000 M. J. Young 25960@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Well, I really like the Archie-to-an-NPC-Nero form; but the initial question was how to make Jessica Fletcher/Jane Marple mysteries work with a verser. So I'll wrap up that idea by saying that our Nero Wolfe-like detective has to need an assistant whom he will pay well and house and feed and clothe, whose job is formally "secretary" in that he is to take notes of all interviews, but who is really Wolfe's investigator; and the verser has to be given the opportunity to apply for the job. That the verser is skilled in the use of certain weapons (a revolver would be top of the list, but swords and knives would also be of interest), and possibly that he has other skills in stealth, lock picking, and questioning suspects would all make him a prime candidate. I think, too, the fact that he has no family in the area would interest Wolfe, because it means he won't want off to visit them. Now having said that, I'll close down that piece, because it's pretty straightforward at this point--just hire the verser to work for the genius who never leaves his home, has a gourmet chef prepare his food in-house, and demands not to be interrupted for one hour a day while he tends his orchids in the penthouse greenhouse, and you've got your set-up. It's a bit like Why Spy in that regard, only that the employer is private, the tech level is a bit lower, and the investigations remain local. So then, how do we connect a verser to someone like Jessica Fletcher or Jane Marple? One possibility is to suggest that the lady does not drive, does not have a license. Fletcher is a good candidate for this, because she's a successful novelist who has enough money that she could easily hire a car when she needs to go somewhere. That raises the problem of putting the verser in the position of seeking employment as a driver. I'm reminded of the opening of Highpoint, where Mr. Kinney is in the middle of nowhere and a wealthy less-than-healthy elderly woman calls to him from the back of her car because her stubborn adult daughter has run off toward the edge of the cliff leaving her driverless for the moment and concerned whether her somewhat distraught and beautiful daughter might do something untoward. Kinney, out of work, is easily persuaded to take the job of "babysitting" the daughter, which gets him into the adventure of the movie (her brother pulled a scam in which he managed to pose as a money launderer and got both the FBI and the Mob to give him money, and then vanished presumed dead with no one knowing where the money is). Anyway, you could bring the limo to some secluded location where the verser is, have the family member driver fight with the elderly non-driving detective, and in the process get one of them to offer the verser the job of driving for a famous mystery writer. If he takes it, you're golden. Of course, if he doesn't, I'm not sure where you are. You've then got something like the Wolfe scenario, except that the woman is going to leave the driver with the car sometimes and do her own legwork, and they're sometimes going to be in the thick of things together. There's also the potential here (and probably with the Wolfe scenario as well) for the detective's friend on the local police force to become curious and suspicious about the verser, which adds an undercurrent plot element. For the record, verser divergents are like identical twins--they will usually have the same DNA profiles but different fingerprints. (Temporal divergents will have the same fingerprints and DNA profiles). So again we have the situation in which the verser is employed by the detective, and so is always around when there's detecting being done. I'm not sure how you do that with Jane Marple; she's not the wealthy type. --M. J. Young kyler on "Quirky Mystery Adaptations" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/quirky-mystery-adaptations#post-25875 Tue, 12 Oct 2010 08:26:42 +0000 kyler 25875@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I have an idea, outright in its simplicity so much that it may seem to make the issue too easy. Give (hidden) intellect, ed lev, or most especially intuition checks when the player is about to leave a clue or has seen one that is relevant and doesn't seem to attribute importance to it; even if all the referee says to him about it is "you feel that there is something here of relevance", or more specifically "you feel the half-empty wine glass on the counter may be relevant", this is especially necessary in situations where the character's non-physical attributes have exceeded those of the player, but even otherwise; having a place described to you and actually being there are different from one another entirely. edit: of course, on a roll of 40 you can always feel free to present misleading information =) Tadeusz on "Quirky Mystery Adaptations" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/quirky-mystery-adaptations#post-25854 Mon, 11 Oct 2010 23:54:57 +0000 Tadeusz 25854@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Some players like to be taken by the hand and led through the adventure. Not the majority, tis true. The advantage is that most of the time MM's don't work. Flat out failure. So this is a way of making a sorta MM to slake the thirst for MM. Diet lemonade may not be real lemonade, but its something. And you should make it so that at least one of the puzzles presented to the verser is mission critical. Solve it, or the murderer goes free. Nero could work too. M. J. Young on "Quirky Mystery Adaptations" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/quirky-mystery-adaptations#post-25821 Mon, 11 Oct 2010 22:00:31 +0000 M. J. Young 25821@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <blockquote>The advantage of the outsider perspective is that the detective can do the heavy lifting are regards the detecting, and only present to our hero, the continuing summary of the case. At which point, the hero can offer some helpful advice on solving part of the mystery, and offer help if violence or some form of derring-do is needed.</blockquote> Meh. That reads to me like, "the advantage is that the referee can tell his story to the player and make the player feel like he's part of it when his input doesn't really matter at all." I suppose the notion of player character as bodyguard for the detective works, as long as we know that there are going to be frequent problems. You might pull off a Nero Wolfe thing in which the verser is Archie (Wolfe is the brilliant and severely overweight detective who never leaves his home but sends Archie to gather all his information and report it to him). At some level, though, it seems very much as if the referee is directing the scenario and the player is along for the ride, and I personally do not like that kind of play. YMMV, as they say. --M. J. Young Tadeusz on "Quirky Mystery Adaptations" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/quirky-mystery-adaptations#post-25723 Mon, 11 Oct 2010 08:43:22 +0000 Tadeusz 25723@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I agree about expanding it. The advantage of the outsider perspective is that the detective can do the heavy lifting are regards the detecting, and only present to our hero, the continuing summary of the case. At which point, the hero can offer some helpful advice on solving part of the mystery, and offer help if violence or some form of derring-do is needed. I'm reminded of the blonde guy detective in Matlock who ran around as Matlock's gopher, and probably beat up a few fleeing murderers. This is very much a Murder Mystery Lite idea. Which considering how hard MM's are, might be a good thing. Now obviously, you can w/o much difficulty turn it into something more heavy, probably using the same ruleset. Its more up to th eintent of the GM and the player. Now the seemingly irrelevant bit of info clue can fit in very nicely with the Lite version. Our hero may come from a future time period and thus he knows facts that only the villain who imagines himself on teh cutting edge of science.... "Bwahahahaha....they will never figure out my murder method. Only four people in the world can even understand the theory behind it!" M. J. Young on "Quirky Mystery Adaptations" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/quirky-mystery-adaptations#post-25677 Sun, 10 Oct 2010 17:34:24 +0000 M. J. Young 25677@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Eric, in the thread <a href='http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/boredom/page/2#post-25509'>boredom</a>, suggested that someone devise a ruleset for playing quirky mysteries a la Miss Marple or Jessica Fletcher. I'd prefer to expand it to include Columbo and Sherlock Holmes, and Tommy and Tuppence, and Nick and Nora, and Hercule Poirot, but let's see what we can devise. In thinking about mysteries, my usual advice is that the writer, or the referee, must start with what actually happened, then from that determine what clues are immediately available to the observer and what else can be discovered by investigation, and making sure that there is enough information in all of this to reconstruct the crime. That's the way I handled it in Mystery of the Vorgo. However, I'm aware that Seth Ben-Ezra, author of Legends of Alyria, has a very effective little game out there called Dirty Little Secrets which approaches the Noir Mystery genre from the other end: the players create characters and facts along the way, led by mechanics which ultimately determine who committed which crimes. I've not played it, more's the pity, but the concept is intriguing. Our idea also suggests that the player character, a Verser from another universe, is neither perpetrator nor investigator nor victim, but an outside interested party who might or might not be suspect (as the investigator told Peter Davison's Doctor in The Black Rose, just because you're from another planet does not eliminate you from suspicion of murder--it just means we're a lot less likely to find your motive) but in some way has an interest. Not so long ago I ran a murder mystery in Harry's Mary Piper Alpha setting; but then, Harry was a Junior Investigator in the Durnmist City Watch on duty at the time the murder was reported, and so he was roped into the story already. With that one, too, I had most of what happened worked out before he reached the scene of the crime, and thus it was easy for me to answer his question by thinking through what I knew had happened and occasionally rolling the dice to determine whether the outcomes made things easier or more difficult (e.g., did someone involved in the fight drop his weapon such that it is unclear who held it?). I was once in a game of twenty questions in which the person answering the questions did not know what the object was but thought he would answer randomly yes or know and see what object fit the answers. In the end, there was no such object, and that's the risk of any mechanical method of running the mystery: if the resolution is mechanical, it might yield an impossible result (Peggy killed Sue at two o'clock in the afternoon, and was herself killed by Chuck an hour earlier). You have to have some way of making the outcome plausible. Also, one of the tropes of such mysteries is often that the detective knows some seemingly irrelevant bit of information that solves the case. This trope is particularly challenging, because if the player is to solve the case he has to be made aware of the seemingly irrelevant information without being clued to the fact that that information is critical to the solution. I will mention Ron Edwards' Moving Clue at this point, a mechanical solution to the problem that arises in mystery games when the players fail to ask the right question of the one character who knows the critical piece of information. By the moving clue, the critical pieces of information are known by one of the characters likely to be questioned, but the referee does not know which one--he only knows that one of them knows, and when the player character asks the right question it will be addressed to the right character. That, anyway, is a start on the problem. I need to turn my attention to a lot of other threads tonight, and perhaps some others here will contribute to the project with ideas that will make such a scenario workable. --M. J. Young Tadeusz on "World: Magica Materia Manifold" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-magica-materia-manifold#post-23575 Fri, 24 Sep 2010 00:33:57 +0000 Tadeusz 23575@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ On the Isle of the Dawn, there has been a steady stream of magic users doing many things. And as time passed, the skills of those users increased. When any of the Ten Cities came up with a better way of doing things, a way that increased the power, wealth, and prestige of a city, everyone else joined in, or that recalcitrant city got taken over. There were times when certain classes of people stood in the way of Progress, when some nobles thought that because they were nobles they knew better than the common sort, or some who clung to ancient rights that limited their military service, but in the comptetive swirl of the Isle, such did not last long. So too, corruption and weakness were purged. Being a ruler in this land was always a matter of walking a high wire in a high wind that could change without notice. It bred tough men and women with flexible souls, and hardnosed survival skills and a deep understanding of how cities work. Waves of change washed over the Isle as the centuries rolled on. And as it did, schools sprouted, and companies were formed, and the understanding of magic became both deeper and more widely practised. Until finally Newman the Wizard summoned the first spirit bound to matter. It was a dumb creature, hardly brighter than a rat, but it could move matter in a simple trained pattern tirelessly. Newman used it to chop wood for his wood stove when he could not be bothered to summon a fire spirit to warm his house. Over the next century, a great increase in wealth and health surprised everyone. Newman's spirit/matter creature soon had 'friends' and these friends were brighter than the first. But mostly they were stronger. A revolution in Materia Magica took place. Now everyone could own a wagon pulled by a spirit bound to the wagon. And then one day a clever wizard asked if you could make a Materia Magica that could summon other Materia Magica and could train them in their endeavours. It turned out that humans were needed. Unless the magic was done to an impossible degree of precision, you needed a human mind behind it. But, the wizard needed did not need to move the items or say the words himself. All that was needed was for him to observe and consent. So now one wizard could do the work of a hundred wizards who each could have done the work of a hundred wizards from a century ago. And it was thus easy for a singular King to rise above the others, and to impose his city's Ancient Rights of Man upon all for he grasped the benefit that this could have for war, and for the speed of war faster than anyone else. And so in a short campaign, he became the High King,a nd then passed his crown down to his son, and then grandson. Prices for everything fell through the floor. Now, everyone could have everything they needed and more for the amount of money a day's wage brought in. And then as the Laws of Economics say....when you double the amount of product you produce, you reduce the cost to make it by 20-30%. Prices went down again as the new Materia Magica Manifold Products Companies swung into high gear. People started losing jobs right and left. But their relatives had enough to pay for themselves and the out of work folk. And then the amount produced by the MMMPC's doubled again, and again until pretty much everything on the Isle of Dawn that was produced was produced by the MMMPC's. What had cost a hundred denarii now cost twelve denarii. But the only people with jobs were the wizards employed by the MMMPC's. At this point, the people went to the King, and asked him to take money from the MMMPC's. He smiled gently. "My people, the MMMPC's can easily move overseas and ship their products to us. Far better to have them here." "You could stop this." The king nodded in agreement and drew his sword. "I will." The crowd murmured in approval. "First you have to swear to me on bended knee that you forego your Rights under the Ancient Compact, what few you have left. You have to swear to me that you will obey my every word as if it came from an angel. You have to swear to do my bidding without dissent. And you have to swear to do the same for my sons and all that follow." "That's the ancient tyranny." One man objected. "Aye, sir, it is." The King replied. "But that is what you have asked for." "But we need food for our children." "Indeed you do. How did you get food before the coming of Newman's first Materia Magica?" The King asked and he pointed at someone in the checked red and blue of villager of the deep woods. "Well, we, not like the city folk, we hunted the great cats, and the deer, and gardenned." "Just so." "But our children." The People cried to the king, not understanding. He sighed. "You would have me steal food from him who earned it by his labor? Is that just?" And the people were abashed before their King. "Let us sit down to a feast for I know you are hungry." The king said, and so they sat down to a feast and made merry. And at the end, the King stood and motioned for silence. "Do you know how much this feast cost me?" The people shrugged, and some started to count the loaves of bread, and make estimates in their heads. "Nothing." The King said. The people stated at him in surprise. "I took some of the royal money for upkeep of the castle, and had my new 'servants' plant for me. I had them weed for me. I had them take the corn they grew, and give it to my chickens which I had also bought. They gathered for me. They ground the wheat into flour for me. And they cooked the meal as well for me and you." He clapped his hands, and spoke several words in a magic tongue which all recognized as magic use was as commonplace as owning a bed, and everyone had a bed even if they had to share it with a brother. And in walked and floated a dozen Materia Magica. "And now they will clean the table for me." The King smiled. "I see. But my King, I cannot afford a dozen...." "I am the King, and have a large staff, but you have but a house. You can afford to buy one, even if you must go into debt for it." And so it was that the people began to buy Materia Magica. And the prices for things went down even further. And then the most skilled wizards came to the King. "Mighty One." They said in their very expensive robes that even the King could not afford. "We bring a grave problem to you. There are many households, perhaps one in ten now, but growing in number, who strike at the economic strength of your kingdom." "Dear me,sounds serious." The King said. "Yes, O King, we of the MMMPC's fully support you, but these 'individual artisans' as they call themselves keep us from fully exploiting the marketplace." "I cannot get involved in the economic struggles by favoring one side or the other." The King replied. "If you're not able to keep up, then I'm sorry for you." The wizard huffed a bit. "O King, its not that we are unable to keep up, its that these people...they won't buy. We can offer them goods at cheaper rates than it would take to make them, and still they won't buy." "Cheaper than free?" The King said skeptically. "Now that I'd like to see." "But eventually their Materia Magica will grow homesick and tired from long labor and flee home. Our processes are more efficient, we have better Materia Magica that do the same job in half the time with much less strain on the spirit." the Wizard explained. "Ah, but can't they just get their Materia Magica to make another of its same kind, or slightly better if one of them comes up with something. And then release the tired one to its home?" The King asked looking puzzled. The Wizard bit his lip. "Well, in a way...but, y'see..." "Speak up, man, yes or no." The King said briskly. "We find ourselves with occasional over supplies of product." "You could give that away to the poor." The King replied. "But then the poor would have no incentive to work." The Wizard shot back. The King shrugged. "We need to sell this over supply." The Wizard pointed out. "Well, you could sell it for cheaper." The King replied. "I know you're making a bit on the sale. Not much. You're practically a commodity now. Everything is practically a commodity now. Razor thin margins of profit. Its a tough world." "You suggest we improve and sell for cheaper." The wizard said accepting the sympathy. "But that only pushes us further down the slope. Eventually we reach the point where one denarii can buy a week of ease, and our margin of profit is .01%. And then it will just keep getting worse and worse." "Yes?" The King said blankly looking at the Wizard to make a point. "We'll be poor!" The Wizard exploded. "Ah, not my problem." The King replied. The Wizard paused. "O King. We had thought of a good plan. Beneficial to all." "Ah, excellent, I so enjoy when someone else does my job for me. Leaves me more time to clip flowers in the royal gardens." The King said with a smile. The Wizard gritted his teeth and went on. "You see, many cannot afford the current rates. They get by on charity, and some do services for those with money." "Services?" The King asked innocently. "Yes, they hold doors, soothe horses, march in front of wizards holding banners high, that sort of thing." "M'kay. I used to have to hold a banner for my father when he was King and I was but a Page." The King reminisced. "I still remember dropping the banner on the head of the Merketi Ambassador because I fell asleep in court. Heh. My father whipped me with his belt until one arm got tired and then he shifted to the other arm. But it was worth it, the way that old windbag stopped his dreadfully long speeches ever after whenever I started to do a fake yawn." "Um, right, your Majesty. Just so, an honoured position. We had thought to make these positions permanent. We would take certain of the poor into our households and feed them and in return they would serve us, for a set number of years. You see?" The Wizard smiled hopefully. "Oh, yes, of course. Why didn't you say so? You want to reinstitute feudalism with yourselves as the Great Lords. And ingenious scheme if I do say so myself." The wizard waited until he could wait no longer. "Well, your majesty?" "What?" The King asked absently. "The ah 'feudalism'?" "Oh, that's against the Ancient Rights of Freemen that I have to sign before I take up the crown. Terribly sorry. No can do." "But...?" The wizard bleated. The King looked sadly at him. "I can't help you. The market is going to trim your power one way or the other." "We could stop you." The Wizard snarled. The King's eyes turned glacial. "I'd advise complete silence for a moment, sir wizard. I am not my grandfather who conquered this island in a year and a day, but I am perfectly capable of taking out a couple dozen Mechanique wizards with my war wizards and my enchanted sword, and chopping any survivors heads off in the courtyard." The wizard turned pale, and got down to his knees and began mumbling fervent apologies. After a minute the King walked over to him,a nd helped him up. "Trust me, my friend, I understand. You feel deserving because Fate smiled on you." "But..." began the wizard. "And you worked extraordinarily hard, and took great risks for it. But none of that is a promise from Fate that you will always succeed. But you thought it was." The wizard sagged a bit as he stood next to the king. And then he buried his face in his hands. "What should I do? No one can afford our products. You could make the workers not be able to buy our robots, and that would solve..." The King shook his head, and the Wizard wept a little. "You need to begin conceding the market to these village artisans. They will provide the food and the drink, the house and the clothing for each home." "And so we will have nothing. However, we can have a few good years selling Materia Magica to them. Maybe we can survive as research facilities for high level magics." "Or you can take your great wealth, and begin to buy up strips of land. This will push money back into the economy which will then come back to you. And those strips of land you can cover in marble, and call them roads. Toll roads." "But..." The wizard said and could not find an objection. "The ordinary village artisan could not do that job. Its too big. He's still free to take the dirt roads, but his wife will want to ride in smooth comfort. He will pay you money he gains from his Materia Magica which he gains because perhaps his tomatoes are the best on the street." The king outlined his idea. "And there are other jobs we could do. Not just an Island wide toll road superhighway. We could build giant ships to take our excess to other lands. And we could build a stairway to the Moon." The king nodded in agreement. After all the Moon was only a hundred miles up so the theorists said. "And I bet those druids who have been complaining about how we dump acids from making Materia Magic into the sea and poison the coral reef would be willing to pay for us to strain the ocean...which..." The wizard stared. "Straining the ocean of toxins is a big enough job to even faze you, I see." "Yes, yes it is. But you know, we could do it." "As it happens, the chief druid is in town this weekend. Why don't I set up a meeting for you with him." The King said with a smile. "Yeah, yeah, that'd be good." The MMMPC said with a faraway look as he imagined a glorious future. Tadeusz on "Worldseedling: Psionic World: A Stained Glass Mind" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/worldseedling-psionic-world-a-stained-glass-mind#post-22933 Mon, 13 Sep 2010 11:18:08 +0000 Tadeusz 22933@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Yes. And yes. The damage might regenerate over time, but I'd say treat it as some form of personality change or perhaps brain damage. Tadeusz on "World: Triannia" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-triannia#post-22921 Mon, 13 Sep 2010 10:05:10 +0000 Tadeusz 22921@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ The verser wakes on the site of the last massacre of the Holan Tribe. He sees ghosts. Some tribeswoman, a couple really badly injured tribesmen, some children, and the ancient shaman. Noises of battle outside. In to the hut walks a half-dozen hard-faced soldiers with sabres dripping blood. And then in walks Wainchester the First. "You and yours die, old man. My family gets power and fame forever." "Not true, liar and father of liars. We have drunk of your spirits, and you have drunk of our blood. In the days to come, young men shall die for foolishness (W II), and treason shall have its reward ( W III), and that which is not, shall be, and shall see (the verser arriving to see the ghosts), and before the end of the wicked (the Wainchester Family being finally destroyed), the dead shall walk(Newspaper Zombies), and then it shall be no more (W Family destroyed), and we shall rest(the ghosts wait and will haunt the verser if needed until the day the W are gone), if that which is not (the verser) wraps your lies in a web (The Web defeats the Newspaper). Tadeusz on "world idea: gates" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-idea-gates#post-22828 Sat, 11 Sep 2010 13:07:18 +0000 Tadeusz 22828@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I'd say that what ordinarily happens is... Matmak meets merchant ship...Horror Matmak meets EDF Frigate, or a decent warship of the Fortifiers, or other major powers....target practise with extreme prejudgice. There are some elements in the EDF establishment that favor tracking down whoever is doing this, and KE blasting their planet into a parking lot. JTM on "world idea: gates" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-idea-gates#post-22821 Sat, 11 Sep 2010 01:40:50 +0000 JTM 22821@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Gates are pretty rare in this particular setting. They'd be trying to get far enough from the sun to jump. Also, the intended feel isn't exactly horror, but eh, big setting. Tadeusz on "world idea: gates" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-idea-gates#post-22819 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 23:48:12 +0000 Tadeusz 22819@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Second Post... I'm going to have the verser arrive on the ship Good Hope, a medical rescue ship which had taken on a hull full of refugees from a planet that got hammered by an enemy race, and afterwards, teh ship picked up a pursuer, and is fleeing from this ship piloted by a wide variety of dead alien meatbots aka zombies. The goal is to get across the solar system to a jumpgate because the EDF have a force on the far side. Its a long and perilous journey with various stratagems to keep the more heavily armed pursuit craft back. But finally they jump and escape. And the EDF ship waiting for them is one that the zombies have taken over already. Tadeusz on "world idea: gates" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-idea-gates#post-22818 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 23:39:25 +0000 Tadeusz 22818@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I said I wanted to use JTM's idea in Constellation. And I've kinda decided to go with Zombies. So... I could go with magic zombies, but I prefer techno-zombies I think. And in this case, its real dead. The Matmak (from Matter Manipulator with a twist) do not believe in magic, to hear tell, if you can find one to speak. But they do believe in paranoia, and in shills. Each of them is convinced the rest of the universe is out to get them. 'Matmak against the Universe, Clans against Clans, Families against Families, Siblings against myself.' Is a saying of theirs which shows their attitude. Two Matmak will help each other against aliens. If no aliens are about, and they are of different clans, they will do each other in. If they are members of teh same clan, but of different families, and no other clan differing from theirs is near, they will do each otehr in. If siblings are near each other, and no non-sibling is about, they will do each other in. Its unknown if this is a cultural propensity, or a biological one. In any case, they do not have the concept of 'word of honor' or 'dishonesty is wrong'. They believe that no one has a soul, and we are as Yoda denied 'crude matter'. They further believe that they are the height of existence and that other species are lesser so they don't really feel pain. This all goes to their customary practise. A Matmak catcher ship will sneak up, with its very capable stealth, and capture an alien ship (Human or other.) The entities on board are tortured for information, and then killed. Then electrical and mechanical devices are put into their body to enable their bodies to be run as robots at the whim of a Controller. Such 'meatbots' last a varying amount of time before decay and overuse destroys them. Humans tend to last four months. The ship is taken back to an auction station where a well-to-do Matmak will bid on it. The winner becomes that ship's Controller. He sits in a very well protected cabin, and 'dance my puppets dance' describes things fairly well. He then takes his new ship out, and tries to steal stuff, and spread division between allies, and capture more bodies to turn into meatbots. No Matmak has ever been seen, or even captured. They have the ability to destroy the ship, and escape in a hyper capable escape pod. But they will destroy themselves with an A-M explosion before they let themselves be captured. One thing that reinforces the Matmak's paranoia is how pretty much every other race in the galaxy treats them as walking targets once they realize who they are, and what they've done. This insistence on 'the value of XXXXX life, as if life was somethng innately valuable is a sign of a malicious desire to attack the Matmak under the subterfuge of silly reasons.' Some Matmak do believe in souls, theirs anyways. A small underground sect of them (but most of them are underground as paranoia is a natural to them) practises dark magics aimed at creating madness and horror and enligtenment (they view them as close to the same thing.) Being a practising magician is grounds for expulsion from your clan as you're adjudged insane. Now I have Zombie Space Pirates... Tadeusz on "War" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/war#post-22817 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 21:56:31 +0000 Tadeusz 22817@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ MLPHD Syndrome seems to me to have a fair basis in reality. I think a large part of it is insulation from reality. The Humans would, in my opinion, have the ability to grab some factories. Its not like they are centralized and placed for maximum defense. They are scattered all over the place. JTM on "world idea: gates" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/world-idea-gates#post-22816 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 21:43:58 +0000 JTM 22816@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ The fortifiers (You may not have noticed, but I am not good at naming things) They are vaguely humanoid, with a very short neck and a decidedly yellowish cast to their skin, with a small pair of secondary arms, which aren’t useful for picking things up but form an integral component of their magic rituals, moving in elaborate patterns while the main arms are used for slow, sweeping movements. (I should have put this up earlier, but I got the idea that the EDF didn’t use magic because no magic-using species uses rituals compatible with human anatomy, so they’ve got nothing to copy until the verser shows up) Prior to the EDF showing up, they seemed to have lucked into the correct biological urges for long-term success in space warfare. Their nickname comes from their tendency to expand their dwelling area slowly but with massive military force when they do, then obsessively fortify the area until it looks like the Maginot line before moving in non-military settlers. This served them well on their homeworld because of the left-over genetically engineered combat beasts from a long-forgotten intersteller war, and has helped them in space because of the 20% law and fuel restrictions making attacks on their systems completely infeasible. If not for the existence of Gate powers, they’d probably have eventually expanded to control an area equivalent to the area controlled by a gate world. As it is, they’re successfully maintaining effective independence from the EDF within 10 light years of the Hector gate system. (theme naming: gate worlds are all named after heros from the Iliad, Odyssey, or other Grecio-roman legends.) Although they aren’t exactly hostile to the EDF, their very existence offends high command. Their massive defenses can’t stop the combined mobile forces of four sectors, and that just might be coming for them eventually, or alternately soon. Ship design: They don’t go in for the armed merchantmen of most other races, since they use exclusively military craft outside of their fortress worlds and don’t need any inside. Their fleet supply ships have armor and point defense exclusively, while their warships sacrifice onboard endurance for power. Even their hyperfocus doesn’t let them match the EDF’s constantly updated designs ton-for-ton, and they aren’t good for independent operations, or very fast. However, they possess firepower no other alien main fleet ships can match, and their Dreadnoughts can face EDF heavy cruisers one-on-one. They make use of lasers as their primary weapon to prevent enemy warships from exploiting speed and range advantages against them. Their low speed is rendered partially irrelevant because they don’t make a point of targeting enemy ships that don’t come to them. Ground combat: The realities of ground combat in the intersteller era forces them to break from their preferred strategy of massive fortifications to an extent. They now use highly-mobile infantry and hovertanks to disrupt enemy forces attempting sieges and bombardment. They’ve also been forced to adopt a pattern of fortification similar to medieval era castles, with large fortresses armored against anything short of an antimatter warhead and with the anti-space weaponry to keep enemies from simply continuing bombardment until the fortress has melted. Their space fortifications mean this has rarely been put to the test in living memory. It has proven somewhat effective, until the spellcasters die of crucial mistakes and enemy artillery silences the anti-space weaponry. Magic: Their magic generally involves extremely elaborate and time-consuming rituals used only for combat. Historical experience with using it for domestic tasks involved an inadvertent portal between the center of a fortress-town and a major monster hunting ground. Their ritual magic is long-distance but can only be manifested at a location the user can see with their own eyes. Generally, it’s used through armored windows. Mages can cast spells in a hurry, but try to avoid it because of the risk of disaster. When they take the field with mobile forces, they’re a primary target for snipers and guided weapons. Note for future ones: Major powers could use some crippling flaw in their designs that they exploit to be really good at everything else and try to work around the flaw. Makes things less samey. Obviously, minor powers and rogue groups don’t have to do that, it’d be too hard to keep straight and they might end up repeating a fair bit anyhow. JTM on "War" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/war#post-22811 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:56:07 +0000 JTM 22811@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ There will probably be jobs in war until human-like AIs become practical on a relatively small scale. In fact, there might be a number of jobs equal to the number of NCOs and commissioned officers in front-line duties today for pretty much the reason they exist at present. There might even be three operators per combat drone, to get around the various fairly complex problems humans understand without having to think about them and to allow operators to work in shifts. The one thing that seems odd to me about the main scenario is that the have-nots are apparently winning a war with the haves after getting reduced to only seven times their number and definitionaly not having industrial capacity. War has been more and more heavily influenced by sheer industrial capacity since the 1800s, and not having any pretty much means you lose genocidal wars by default. Now, if the Needed acquired moronic liberal Phd syndrome and decided to start a genocidal war without properly securing the vital industrial complexes and resource stocks properly beforehand, I guess the Humans could have seized a decent quantity beforehand. However, moronic liberal Phd syndrome has always struck me as contrived. I've just now coined the term moronic liberal Phd syndrome to mean highly-educated people from prestigious, IE: new england, universities doing things that are both stupid and not the natural reaction to a situation so the author can make a political point. Worst cases: Leaving a comfy APC in the middle of a firefight and standing in the open, and not letting an intersteller warship with a drive that transforms wall socket power into sun-destroying explosions and exotic matter that explodes when brought into contact with normal matter carry modern chemical explosives well away from both of those on account of if being "too unstable". At some point it stops being effective because the only situation in which someone could be expected to take those actions involves severe damage to the sections of the brain responsible for survival instinct M. J. Young on "War" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/war#post-22803 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:05:48 +0000 M. J. Young 22803@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ This looks pretty good. Kyler was thinking along similar lines, but what he envisioned was a sort of neo-feudalism, in which the haves needed to hire the have-nots to protect themselves from the other have-nots and the other haves-but-want-more. Of course, warfare is also being automated, so maybe there aren't enough jobs in that department, either. --M. J. Young Jhiaxus on "War" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/war#post-22782 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:06:51 +0000 Jhiaxus 22782@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics, Fallout 3 and soon Fallout Vegas, are the series for Post Apocalyptic RPG/Strategic/FPS gaming there is, nothing comes close INHO. Tadeusz on "War" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/war#post-22781 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:02:54 +0000 Tadeusz 22781@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ That's a good idea, but I'm way behind in my PC games in general. I've never even played Fallout,let alone Fallout 3. Jhiaxus on "War" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/war#post-22779 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 10:49:20 +0000 Jhiaxus 22779@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Well you ask people in their thread their favorite books/movies. Should add video games to it: Mine: Fallout 3 Dragon Age: Origins Red Dead Redemption If I had no internet, no WoW, I could play those games for a very long time. Tadeusz on "War" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/war#post-22778 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 10:47:02 +0000 Tadeusz 22778@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Well, I was somewhat inspired by your desire for a world with power armor. Jhiaxus on "War" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/war#post-22776 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 10:44:33 +0000 Jhiaxus 22776@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I like this world, biological weapons, power armor, political intrigue it has it all. :P Tadeusz on "War" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/war#post-22775 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 10:38:39 +0000 Tadeusz 22775@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Perhaps I'm just responding to the imaginary Mr. Typical Leftist in my head. :) WilliamTWodium on "War" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/war#post-22769 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 00:39:10 +0000 WilliamTWodium 22769@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I wasn't going to freak out. I just wanted to know what the claim actually meant, and the fastest way to discover that was to find out how it had been derived. It covers space for housing and space for farmland, water (etc.) not included. Thank you.