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Lemon-Lime posted:Reality patch notes ver. 1009.62 (season XLVII) I loled, thank you, goon
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Dec 12, 2022 18:35
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ty for the replies, I was pretty sure i wouldnt be the first to the general idea so its interesting to see how other people have developed similar things. Lemon-Lime posted:Reality patch notes ver. 1009.62 (season XLVII) this is genuinely the type of stuff i was thinking, like by the present day wizards are doing fancy equations with slide rules to figure out how to skim off 0.00001% extra mana than they put in to some weird rube goldberg machine of interlocking spells and artifacts, but at the dawn of time it was like 'uh oh we gave everyone inborn magical power but Ugloth the Mighty just figured out he can eat people to steal their power, we didn't think anyone would actually do that and now he's too large for us to stop'
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Dec 12, 2022 22:03
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I regret to inform you that this is a thing in a bunch of litrpgs and related web serials.
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Dec 12, 2022 22:07
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90s Cringe Rock posted:I regret to inform you that this is a thing in a bunch of litrpgs and related web serials. i didnt know what that was and know i know what that is and i would definitely not want to write a litrpg id want to make sure to keep things as non-gamey as possible, the premise of iterative balance is the only thing id want to take from mmos really. the idea of iterative, sequential creation events is pretty common in ancient mythology (nearly everyone has at least a flood, and the aztec and nahua peoples had like 5 cycles predating ours where something went wrong and the world had to be destroyed and restarted) so its a fairly natural fit as a world building element. the challenge with making it a compelling setting would be building out the magic system(s) in it to a rigorous enough extent that exploitable wizard glitches dont just seem like some random bullshit the author just made up, but also not such obvious exploits in a system that it makes the characters seem like dummies for not thinking of it sooner. i know larry niven or jack vance did a story where a guy figured out an antimagic device that was just a spinning disc that soaked up magic to spin faster and faster till it drained all the background mana, so the idea of applying kinda engineering principles to a magic system is pretty old. i have a bunch of magic systems i thought of during long commutes and a few are pretty original (as far as im aware) so they could slot into the backstory as previous iterations of the world, albeit ones that might need some more building out. i am unfortunately not a good min maxxer at all, so i would have difficulty coming up with something as fun as like the d&d peasant railgun.
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Dec 12, 2022 23:04
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Magical Industrial Revolution by Skerples is definitely a good book to look into for this sort of concept
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Dec 13, 2022 00:20
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juggalo baby coffin posted:i know larry niven or jack vance did a story where a guy figured out an antimagic device that was just a spinning disc that soaked up magic to spin faster and faster till it drained all the background mana, so the idea of applying kinda engineering principles to a magic system is pretty old.
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Dec 13, 2022 00:33
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I read that in what was I think short story format as a kid and then years later as an older kid read a full book on it and it turned out that magic in the world was broken and not replenishing as it should so it was possible to use up all the magic in the area where it shouldn't have been.
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Dec 13, 2022 00:51
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Lemon-Lime posted:Reality patch notes ver. 1009.62 (season XLVII) "Reality will be down for maintenance two hours this tuesday while we patch out 'heavier than air flight,' if we had wanted you mortals to fly without magic, we would have given you wings. Colonel Cool posted:I read that in what was I think short story format as a kid and then years later as an older kid read a full book on it and it turned out that magic in the world was broken and not replenishing as it should so it was possible to use up all the magic in the area where it shouldn't have been. This reminds me of a couple of fantasy books by, I think it was Gordon R. Dickson, that I read like a decade ago. What stuck with me was that in one of them, the main character was denied the use of his magic because supernatural auditors had decided that he had overspent and essentially developed a mana deficit, and they were unwilling to lend him any more on credit, thus leaving him with a book where he didn't have access to most of his usual tricks and had to get creative with other things instead.
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Dec 13, 2022 01:23
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PurpleXVI posted:This reminds me of a couple of fantasy books by, I think it was Gordon R. Dickson, that I read like a decade ago. What stuck with me was that in one of them, the main character was denied the use of his magic because supernatural auditors had decided that he had overspent and essentially developed a mana deficit, and they were unwilling to lend him any more on credit, thus leaving him with a book where he didn't have access to most of his usual tricks and had to get creative with other things instead.
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Dec 13, 2022 01:37
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Colonel Cool posted:I read that in what was I think short story format as a kid and then years later as an older kid read a full book on it and it turned out that magic in the world was broken and not replenishing as it should so it was possible to use up all the magic in the area where it shouldn't have been. Twas Niven. There was a story about how magic was from the sun but some Greek Deity had decided to block it. But I can't remember more than that premise. As far as patch notes go you have to include Time Stop not automatically restarting time. So some poor sucker is frozen for all time with glowing letters spelling out what they did wrong. Wizards can't actually prepare time stop if they haven't read the note.
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Dec 13, 2022 01:41
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PurpleXVI posted:"Reality will be down for maintenance two hours this tuesday while we patch out 'heavier than air flight,' if we had wanted you mortals to fly without magic, we would have given you wings. It was one of the sequels to The Dragon and the George, I think the second one where he’s a dude again instead of a dragon. The series is fine to okay, some good ideas mixed in with some bad, pretty mild yikes factor considering its age and genre. (By which I mean it’s not secret Nazi poo poo or super misogynistic or Piers Anthony ; probably pretty woke for 1970’s white midwest nerd, but that’s a low bar). I have a giant soft spot for them though because they stole the plot, combined it with a book by Peter Dickinson and then made it into a rather nice Rankin and Bass cartoon called The Flight of Dragons. It has John Ritter and James Earl Jones, the latter of whom is a full on evil wizard who just casts Greater Eat Scenery five times a day. I watched that thing like once a day for a year or two as a kid, until the VHS from the library crumbled to dust. Don McClean did the opening song uncredited. Which is a loving stone cold banger if acoustic singer-songwriter folk music about dragons has any appeal.
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Dec 13, 2022 02:30
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habituallyred posted:Twas Niven. There was a story about how magic was from the sun but some Greek Deity had decided to block it. But I can't remember more than that premise. It got made into a magic card as an homage to nevin yrral.
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Dec 13, 2022 02:33
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Xiahou Dun posted:It was one of the sequels to The Dragon and the George, I think the second one where he’s a dude again instead of a dragon. Rankin-Bass were doing some really great fantasy films during the 70's and 80's, definitely recommend everyone here go hunt down a copy of their final stop motion Christmas special The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus(adapted from the book of the same name by L Frank Baum of The Wizard of Oz fame) as it's just a beautiful little fantasy film
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Dec 13, 2022 04:09
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habituallyred posted:Twas Niven. There was a story about how magic was from the sun but some Greek Deity had decided to block it. But I can't remember more than that premise. The series was called "The Magic Goes Away" and it's pretty fun. The best story is probably "What Good is a Glass Dagger?" but the whole series of short stories was collected in an anthology some years ago and is worth picking up if you can find it. There was a novel trilogy or something after that but I make it a point to avoid anything Niven writes with Jerry Pournelle so I haven't read those.
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Dec 13, 2022 06:41
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Doesn't "The Magic Goes Away" feature a character whose name translates to "like a shade of purple grey" as a mauve... or was that another book
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Dec 13, 2022 06:50
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That's the sort of poo poo Niven would pull
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Dec 13, 2022 07:14
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juggalo baby coffin posted:ty for the replies, I was pretty sure i wouldnt be the first to the general idea so its interesting to see how other people have developed similar things.
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Dec 13, 2022 07:20
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Nessus posted:That's the sort of poo poo Niven would pull It is, and it was in "The Flying Sorcerers" apparently. And the exact translation of the protagonist Purple's name is "as a color, shade of purple-grey" so I didn't remember it exactly right but close enough.
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Dec 13, 2022 07:33
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Xiahou Dun posted:The series is fine to okay, some good ideas mixed in with some bad, pretty mild yikes factor considering its age and genre. (By which I mean it’s not secret Nazi poo poo or super misogynistic or Piers Anthony ; probably pretty woke for 1970’s white midwest nerd, but that’s a low bar). I have a giant soft spot for them though because they stole the plot, combined it with a book by Peter Dickinson and then made it into a rather nice Rankin and Bass cartoon called The Flight of Dragons. It has John Ritter and James Earl Jones, the latter of whom is a full on evil wizard who just casts Greater Eat Scenery five times a day. Love this book, still have it in the coffee table pile. https://archive.org/details/flightofdragons00dick The URL is a bit unfortunate tho
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Dec 13, 2022 09:35
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My Lovely Horse posted:Not only is this basically D&D but it's pretty much literally the D&D metagame well yeah that's the insipiration for the idea, a setting where the metagame is part of the setting instead of (in most cases) an unforseen consequence of the rules. idk im bad at explaining ideas in my own voice in a way that sounds cool, it's a problem. i once had a falling out with a friend because i described an episode of dr who in such plain terms that it ruined it for them (iirc it was something about an evil sun touching a leaf and then dying).
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Dec 13, 2022 14:27
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xiw posted:Love this book, still have it in the coffee table pile.
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Dec 13, 2022 14:38
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juggalo baby coffin posted:i once had a falling out with a friend because i described an episode of dr who in such plain terms that it ruined it for them (iirc it was something about an evil sun touching a leaf and then dying). Haha, yeah, once you strip out the uplifting triumphant music that tell you how you're meant to feel and the fancy CGI graphics, it can completely rob something of it's "sense of wonder".
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Dec 13, 2022 14:40
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xiw posted:Love this book, still have it in the coffee table pile. Absolutely adore it. I just love that it kind of works. Like, it doesn't really work, it's a book about dragons, of course it doesn't work. But the dude put enough effort in where if you start giving a couple of his assumptions, it's at least hangs together. He managed to describe a cryptid that has a fully fleshed out life cycle that can do a lot of the magic stuff it's supposed to do and there's some handwaving in there but he's bothered to get basic poo poo like the square cube law and conservation of energy to check out. Plus I'm just a sucker for the look of big-headed zeppelin dragons for some reason.
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Dec 13, 2022 16:07
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juggalo baby coffin posted:well yeah that's the insipiration for the idea, a setting where the metagame is part of the setting instead of (in most cases) an unforseen consequence of the rules. Earthdawn did it 
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Dec 13, 2022 19:19
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Leperflesh posted:It is, and it was in "The Flying Sorcerers" apparently. And the exact translation of the protagonist Purple's name is "as a color, shade of purple-grey" so I didn't remember it exactly right but close enough. Niven should have worked more with Gerrold than with Pournelle.
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Dec 13, 2022 19:32
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juggalo baby coffin posted:well yeah that's the insipiration for the idea, a setting where the metagame is part of the setting instead of (in most cases) an unforseen consequence of the rules. idk im bad at explaining ideas in my own voice in a way that sounds cool, it's a problem. i once had a falling out with a friend because i described an episode of dr who in such plain terms that it ruined it for them (iirc it was something about an evil sun touching a leaf and then dying). I'm really surprised no-one has mentioned it yet, but Unknown Armies adepts try to rules lawyer magic all the time.
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Dec 13, 2022 19:44
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mllaneza posted:Niven should have worked more with Gerrold than with Pournelle.
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Dec 13, 2022 19:46
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hyphz posted:I'm really surprised no-one has mentioned it yet, but Unknown Armies adepts try to rules lawyer magic all the time. Unknown Armies is an interesting setting in this regard, because everyone in the Underground is trying to optimize and rules-lawyer, but they're all held back by their own baggage: adepts by their taboos and by the fact that becoming an adept means being a pretty disordered person in general, avatars by their role/taboos and by the fact that the Clergy is watching and ready to slap cheaters down, ritualists by the fact that rituals are just fundamentally more limited (slow, elaborate, expensive) than the postmodern stuff. "Ritualists figure out how to do an on-the-fly ritual that gives them a blast" could completely change the power structure of the setting, and that's pretty interesting!
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Dec 13, 2022 22:28
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Nessus posted:Yeah, Pournelle was just a crypto fascist drag. Footfall was fun, but mostly for replacing patriot fiction misery porn with baby elephants. Also the Michael. That's the one where a group of thinly-disguised real life science fiction writers (who all happen to be the ones who more-or-less shared Pournelle's politics) get brought in as advisors to the government on how to handle first contact/the conflict with the aliens, and pretty much save humanity with how cool and smart they are. I have a vague memory of the group making GBS threads on another writer who is an expy of a New Wave author, with their focus on soft science and emotions and societies and people and all that silly stuff. But I could be making that part up, since it's been quite a while since I read it.
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Dec 13, 2022 22:35
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I read all those niven/pournelle books when I was like 15-25 and totally blind to the political subtext, I recall liking them but I liked a lot of poo poo back then.
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Dec 13, 2022 22:48
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Lemon-Lime posted:Reality patch notes ver. 1009.62 (season XLVII) lmao
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Dec 13, 2022 23:24
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Xiahou Dun posted:Absolutely adore it. I just love that it kind of works. Like, it doesn't really work, it's a book about dragons, of course it doesn't work. But the dude put enough effort in where if you start giving a couple of his assumptions, it's at least hangs together. He managed to describe a cryptid that has a fully fleshed out life cycle that can do a lot of the magic stuff it's supposed to do and there's some handwaving in there but he's bothered to get basic poo poo like the square cube law and conservation of energy to check out. The art is all just a little bit grotesque and off-putting too, which gives it such a great vibe. I love that weird rear end book.
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Dec 14, 2022 02:30
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PeterWeller posted:The art is all just a little bit grotesque and off-putting too, which gives it such a great vibe. I love that weird rear end book.  Hi im basically just the worst chemistry set on the inside (The artist's name is Wayne Anderson and he's done a lot of dragons over the years. If you've seen a bunch of dragon pictures, one of his is probably in there and he has a really distinct style.)
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Dec 14, 2022 02:44
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Leperflesh posted:I read all those niven/pournelle books when I was like 15-25 and totally blind to the political subtext, I recall liking them but I liked a lot of poo poo back then. Pournelle *handwobble* The motie books were good though but you could really kind of see the seams on the characters.
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Dec 14, 2022 02:44
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I'm reading my copy of Under Hollow Hills that just arrived. It's very cool, and I'm really interested in mapping out the social moves and comparing them to Miseries and Misfortunes, because I'm seeing some significant similarities and I'm wondering if I can pull out some good practical and general advice for social interaction mechanics from that comparison. I'll try write up my thoughts when I'm done reading it.
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Dec 14, 2022 03:13
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Jimbozig posted:I'm reading my copy of Under Hollow Hills that just arrived. It's very cool, and I'm really interested in mapping out the social moves and comparing them to Miseries and Misfortunes, because I'm seeing some significant similarities and I'm wondering if I can pull out some good practical and general advice for social interaction mechanics from that comparison. I'll try write up my thoughts when I'm done reading it. UH2 is a weird game. From reading it earlier on I'd assumed it was about transformational performances, eg the play in Hamlet or, um, the drama at the beginning of Child's Toy?, and building a transformational performance as a narrative climax as a replacement for building a mystery solution or heist/combat strategy. But, almost all of the APs of it I've heard have instead focussed on the process of running the circus - one had two episodes on just trying to stake out a pitch. So I'm not quite sure what the focus is supposed to be.
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Dec 14, 2022 13:45
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hyphz posted:UH2 is a weird game. From reading it earlier on I'd assumed it was about transformational performances, eg the play in Hamlet or, um, the drama at the beginning of Child's Toy?, and building a transformational performance as a narrative climax as a replacement for building a mystery solution or heist/combat strategy. But, almost all of the APs of it I've heard have instead focussed on the process of running the circus - one had two episodes on just trying to stake out a pitch. So I'm not quite sure what the focus is supposed to be. The text agrees with your initial read. I'm going to say something here that I think you'll agree with: most APs are not very good at engaging with games as they are. Maybe most gaming groups? People who grew up on dungeons playing everything like a dungeon, people who grew up on improv playing everything like improv, etc. It's easy to get set in your ways in any situation, and I can't say I'm immune to it. Then when you have a successful AP and your fans like your style, you now have even more reason and a financial incentive not to change your formula when you change games. Caveat: I have not listened to any AP play UHH so I am not talking about anyone in particular.
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Dec 14, 2022 16:54
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I feel like AP is the new "casual players," i.e. anyone can use "this is what the people who came to D&D through Critical Role want" as a cudgel for or against anything, sans evidence.
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Dec 14, 2022 17:36
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Halloween Jack posted:I feel like AP is the new "casual players," i.e. anyone can use "this is what the people who came to D&D through Critical Role want" as a cudgel for or against anything, sans evidence. I'm saying very much the opposite of "casual" - that they have played so much they are set in their ways. Which, again, I said probably applied to most long-running gaming groups, AP or no. Including my own! It's like what Ron Edwards said that one time about Vampire, except that "brain damage" was an incredibly lovely way to put it, and it applies to way more than just Vampire - it applies to all styles of game. And it's certainly not sans-evidence: I have listened to a lot of APs and one thing I've noticed about a lot of them is that they have their style and it doesn't really change when they change games. Most APs like to de-emphasize or even edit out the times when they interface with the rules. The exceptions are the ones who go out of their way to highlight the rules they are using (for an example off the top of my head, Party of One did this in the few episodes I listened to.) I think some groups have a way they like to play and they pick games based on setting and aesthetics and then mostly ignore the rules when they conflict with whatever they were going to do anyway. (Or they just mash whatever setting and aesthetics into 5e and call it a day.) And other groups really like playing new and different games to experience the differences and novelty that new rulesets introduce. In listening to APs, I've mostly heard the former and only occasionally the latter. There are a number of possible explanations: a) the former kind of group is more common across the hobby as a whole. b) the former kind of group is not more common across the hobby but is more likely to make APs. c) the former kind is not more common and no more likely to make APs, but is more likely to achieve popularity and so I see more of them. I don't have the evidence to say which of those is correct. If I had to guess, I'd guess a) because it fits well with other evidence like the popularity of 5e and the broad reluctance to play any other game that I see when I venture outside of these friendly forums. But I'm certainly open to the idea that the filtering happens at a later step. Maybe there are many of people like me but, like me, they don't post a lot on Twitter and don't run an AP, and so I never see them except for here on SA (or the handful of goons I follow on Twitter). Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Dec 14, 2022 |
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Dec 14, 2022 18:22
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Halloween Jack posted:I feel like AP is the new "casual players," i.e. anyone can use "this is what the people who came to D&D through Critical Role want" as a cudgel for or against anything, sans evidence. I mean, maybe? It's more that I just tend to look for APs for new games as a sign of how they actually play at the table, as opposed to as reading material or the extremely "theoretical" examples of play in the books. The tricky bit is to find one that's not designer-led or professional (the GM/players will be too good, and the podcast will have an ulterior motive) but at the same time isn't so amateur that the players just don't give a crap about playing the game properly.
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Dec 14, 2022 19:31
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