Making a Fantasy Game

[Username17]

I think the question that PhoneLobster needs answered is: Keeping in mind the fact that they players, if allowed, will try to create weapons from tiny floating rocks, what constraints, if any, will be placed on the minimum size of a peice of magical floating stone which the players are allowed to aquire and/or attempt to weaponize?

I don't think Phone Lobster needs anything. He picks nits over frankly nothing at all in order to "prove" how intellectually dishonest I am because I want to think out the consequences of fantastic elements I put into games and don't want to include fantastic elements whose consequences I haven't considered, nor do I have any intention of working out the consequences for fantastic elements that I have no real interest in including. I leave it to future historians to determine whether there is a logical contradiction in that stance, but I certainly don't see one.

That being said, I envision floating stones as moving at roughly boat speeds when propelled by a sky mage. As such, weaponizing them would be much more effectively done by hanging big things from them and then ramming those things into a target than by tethering any projectile to them. Think f it like a helium balloon - it floats, and you could tether a javelin to it if you wanted. But doing so isn't going to have any meaningful effect on the future of warfare.

-Username17

[MartinHarper]

In this case, the floating islands are built on a series of blocks that have a magical force holding them in place relative to the planet's core. So all other objects on the island have to rest their weight on the suspended stones.

So, you have a series of blocks that are fixed in place relative to the core, and then you have a big chunk of earth and soil on top of that, and buildings on top of that, and neither the buildings, nor the earth and soil, are any different to normal.

It seems to me that the earth towards the edge of the floating island is going to experience significant force to slip off the edge of its block and plummet to the ground, particularly if anyone foolishly puts a castle on top of it. Are these blocks in some kind of a bowl shape, perhaps?

[Grek]

It allows for non-parabolic catapults firing large, solid hunks of stone at things at extreme range and with a speed (and thus force of impact) only limited by how big of a catapult you have and air resistance. That would change warfare quite a bit.

[IGTN]

It seems to me that the earth towards the edge of the floating island is going to experience significant force to slip off the edge of its block and plummet to the ground, particularly if anyone foolishly puts a castle on top of it. Are these blocks in some kind of a bowl shape, perhaps?

Regular shipments of earth up to the sky cities might also help with this problem. Of course, you'd have to place the loose dirt nearer the middle to keep it from falling straight off.

Also makes the world a more interesting place; you have the magical airship that few fully understand, with a cargo hold full of sod. Unless the island is low enough that you can pull it up in buckets with ropes attached.

[MartinHarper]

I dislike the repulse option because of the bit where the sun has to stay out.

It doesn't have to. If you want day and night and summer and winter, then you have only one side of the sun emitting light, but all of the sun emitting anti-gravity. The sun itself is unaffected by anti-gravity, so it doesn't tear itself apart. As you get closer to the sun, anti-gravity increases, following the normal inverse square law. This doesn't alter the parabolic trajectory of arrows and rocks because they don't get high enough to leave the atmosphere, let alone suffer from increased anti-gravity. In order to avoid baking the world-shell, the sun puts out plenty of light, but very little heat.

[name_here]

This doesn't alter the parabolic trajectory of arrows and rocks because they don't get high enough to leave the atmosphere, let alone suffer from increased anti-gravity.

I refer you to the part where I mentioned what I considered to be the point of having a hollow world. If you're not going to support straight-line travel, a hollow world is like a normal world with a different (and potentially boring if the atmosphere is thick enough) sky. Unless you are exploiting the outside of the shell. That'd be interesting, though moving from the inside to the outside would be quite a journey, most likely. Especially since it switches from repulsion to normal gravity at some point, or rather some giant area.

[MartinHarper]

If you're not going to support straight-line travel, a hollow world is like a normal world with a different (and potentially boring if the atmosphere is thick enough) sky.

Well, I can't see a way of filling a hollow world with breathable atmosphere while still having a gravity-like force. I think we'd need to pick one or the other. However, you can do straight-line travel: you just need to cast Vacuum Breathing and Fly first.

Unless you are exploiting the outside of the shell.

Well, of course. Some layer of the shell needs to have sufficient mass that its gravitational pull cancels out the anti-gravity from the internal sun, and thus the shell appears to be a normal planet on the outside.

Also, I'd want the internal atmosphere to be transparent enough that you can clearly observe folks elsewhere on the shell with a powerful enough telescope. Powerful telescopes thus become a vital piece of a nation's military infrastructure.

[TarkisFlux]

I think the continued hollow world stuff is derailing whatever got stared here a few pages ago, and we should just mvoe on.

Since I won't follow my own advice of course, I'll just spoiler it

I refer you to the part where I mentioned what I considered to be the point of having a hollow world. If you're not going to support straight-line travel, a hollow world is like a normal world with a different (and potentially boring if the atmosphere is thick enough) sky.

Except for the part where the horizon doesn't curve away from you, or is the ability to spy on your neighbors with a sufficiently large telescope too boring?

Unless you are exploiting the outside of the shell. That'd be interesting, though moving from the inside to the outside would be quite a journey, most likely. Especially since it switches from repulsion to normal gravity at some point, or rather some giant area.

Not necessarily. It only switches if the Mshell + Mstuff > |M'star'|. If they're equal, the whole thing is gravitationally neutral outside of the sphere and you'll just float away, and if it's less than you just fall off the surface, but less quickly than you'd fall to the inside of the shell.

[name_here]

That's acceptable, though i'd like vaccum resistance to be somthing every class can project.

You'd still get arcing if the projectiles are fired in the vaccum, and it'd slowly change as you neared the sun. How much depends on how far away the sun is from the ground.

EDIT: No, spying on people with a giant telescope really isn't too cool, especially since it's actually hard to get that high-power a telescope anyway.

[Psychic Robot]

Q: "Can I dispel it?"
A: "I don't know, nobody cares how it works."
Q: "Can I move it?"
A: "I don't know, nobody cares how it works."
Q: "If I blow it up, does it keep on doing what it's doing?"
A: "What the hell is your problem? If you want to be able to interact with the game world, go play a video game."

1. No.
2. Yes.
3. Rocks fall, everyone dies.

[Crissa]

Oh, you can make things which aren't gravity based...



-Crissa

[RandomCasualty2]

Science and fantasy RPGs just dont' mix.

[Leress]

Science and fantasy RPGs just dont' mix.

It works pretty well in Shadowrun.

[Psychic Robot]

Oh, you can make things which aren't gravity based...

-Crissa

:SDKJFPS(*YG:JJDHFLISDUHGLSHGO(Syt07YOTAIOTTIUOHLFIHGL

THOU SHALT NOT LINKETH SUCH BEFOULMENT ON OUR MOST SACRED OF FORUMS.

[Parthenon]

My older, more well read brother was telling me a while back about various contradictions and weird things in science. Unfortunately I don't have any sources and so have no idea how real this is, but supposedly some scientists did some experiments giving evidence that we are currently in a hollow world. If someone finds out that this is faked, then please tell me.

I think the evidence was stuff like having a very long, flat object over the ocean. Now, if it is long enough, then the curvature of the earth would mean that the water nearer the middle of the object is closer to the object than at the ends. Also, the middle of it bending due to gravity would mean that it is closer to the water in the middle.
However, they found the opposite: that the ends were closer to the water than at the middle, suggesting that the curvature is the opposite to what you'd expect.

Also, some other scientists dug two deep holes, then connected them underground. They then measured the distance between the holes above ground and at the bottom of the holes, and found that there was a greater distance at the bottom of the holes. This also suggests that we are in a hollow world.


From this, it was theorised that the earth is a hollow world. However, the centre of the world is infinitely far away, and due to some >3 dimensional folding of space or whatever, light and so on goes in a curve within it because thats the fastest possible route.


Personally, I think that this is either bullshit, or it doesn't make enough difference to worry about it, in the same way as if a integrated theory of everything is created, we will still use Newtonian mechanics for almost all physical calculations.

But, this gives a possibility for making hollow earths almost feasible: if a mile vertically is a larger distance than a mile horizontally, then you could have a reason for skyships not going straight through the centre of the world, and in the same way looking at an angle upwards would be looking so far away that it would be similar to looking at other galaxies for us: not really feasible, or the image takes so long to get there that it is useless.

The main differences for the inhabitants is that the horizon is a lot further away, and that throwing an object at 45 degrees isn't the best way of doing it. Oh, and this also gives a reason for gravity: since there is a huge, huge distance from one side to the other, the other side doesn't cause enough gravity to have any real effect.

---

My opinion on these is that hollow worlds either get really confusing, or don't have enough actual effect to be worthwhile, and so should be ignored.

For floating islands, I always think of Skies of Arcadia (brilliant game for the Dreamcast then Gamecube), but the thing that got me about the setting in that game was that the "cities" on them are all tiny, about 10 - 15 buildings at most, and the islands are all very small. True, this was a game and so couldn't have large cities, but it made me think that the population living on the islands altogether will be miniscule: not enough to have genetic diversity within an island, even with frequent visitors. Now your planning on having hundreds of thousands of people on an island, so, err... wait, I'm babbling.

My gist is, that I'm wondering if the islands are:

- about the size of the Isle of Man
- about the size of Ireland
- about the size of the UK
- a small continent
- or what?

My opinion is that to have enough space for all the buildings, especially since a lot more space is needed for airports since there will be hundreds of skyships a day, and to not worry about subsidence each major island should be about the size of the Isle of Wight. Alternatively, the floating islands should be like the Caribbean, with a chain of islands hanging over a peninsula about the size of the UK.

However, what are other peoples opinions? What would work best? One alternative is to have an island about the size of Ireland, and to make use of the permanent darkness beneath it by making it a source of evil or just a really good place for vampires.

[virgil]

My older, more well read brother was telling me a while back about various contradictions and weird things in science.

...

Personally, I think that this is either bullshit, or it doesn't make enough difference to worry about it, in the same way as if a integrated theory of everything is created, we will still use Newtonian mechanics for almost all physical calculations.

Your first impression is the correct one, that's a load of bullshit that surpasses aether theory in stupidity.

[name_here]

It's worth noting that the giant city islands import a lot from the ground. It's also worth noting that depending on the local terrain there might not be permanent night below the city.

Really, the answer to the question is that they are large enough to hold the population and the golems and whatever they're warehousing. Which is not really an answer.

Mind, the islands are not neccessarily solid. In fact, if they're assembled from smaller islands there are probably places where there are gaps with a bridge suspended from it's own stone.

The place below them is not always dark, but the area below them doesn't get as much light as everywhere else. However, near sunrise and sunset they wouldn't cast their shadow straight down. So the area below (and east and west, and either north or south depending on latitude and time of year) them would have plants that need little direct sunlight.

Blocking the rainclouds would be more of an issue, unless they're high enough to stay above them.

[CatharzGodfoot]

My older, more well read brother was telling me a while back about various contradictions and weird things in science.

...

Personally, I think that this is either bullshit, or it doesn't make enough difference to worry about it, in the same way as if a integrated theory of everything is created, we will still use Newtonian mechanics for almost all physical calculations.

Your first impression is the correct one, that's a load of bullshit that surpasses aether theory in stupidity.

Actually, did you know that there's good scientific evidence for the north and south poles containing holes to the center of the Earth? The entire system acts as a pump to circulate air, which is why we have weather. It's kept functioning with ancient alien technology controlled by dwarves.

[JonSetanta]

I shall proceed to multiquote at dire risk to my fragile constitution for this sort of shitpickery.

Give me the floating islands. I don't fucking care how it works.

You should.

I won't.

The way the floating islands function is going to be very important, because the player characters are going to be interacting with them.

Yes, such as walking on them. That's about it.

In this case, the floating islands are built on a series of blocks that have a magical force holding them in place relative to the planet's core. So all other objects on the island have to rest their weight on the suspended stones. Meaning that you can answer the kinds of questions that will come up:

• If I knock something off the floating island, will it fall? yes.
  If I build something new on top of the island, will it stay up? yes.
  Can I run around the surface onto the bottom of the island? no.
  Can I lower the island by digging a hole in the ground under it? no.

1. Yes. Stupid people fall, smart people use magic flight or mutate/evolve some fucking wings. Selective bias towards smart and/or flying people on flying islands.
2. Yes. You could say "You may only have X buildings and Y people on the island or it will sink" but that's a matter of plot, not game design. Solution: bigger islands with arbitrary weight limits.
3. Maybe. Depends on the island. If one lets you and the other you can't, that's how it goes.
4. Well of course not...

These aren't intellectually dishonest discussions, nor are they unimportant. If it's in the setting, you should care about how it works.

No!

Which ultimately, is my problem with Phone Lobster. Yes, you could make a game with a hollow planet. But it would necessarily work differently than a solid planet.

I doesn't have to. Thusly, I shall win you with utterly overwhelming rational discourse;
• No
• No
• Double No
And strangely
•I agree with PhoneLobster. Perhaps not the delivery of said opinion, but certainly on the matter of Realism vs. My Little Pony Flying Colored Horseworld.

Hard vs. Soft Fantasy, if you will. With Hard you lose fans by being scientifically inaccurate because that's what they like.
With Soft you can 'wing it'. Why? Because the fans don't care.

And thus, things in that game would work differently, QED. You can't have things be different without having them be different. What PL has continually demanded is just that contradiction, which is why I won't dignify his tirades with direct answers on this meta topic.

Any fantastic elements you add, you'll have to know how they work. Not because any character in the world actually knows the answer, but because the characters will interact with those fantastic elements and those actions need to be resolved.

Ultimately this isn't a personal attack from me on your ability to design a game, but instead a direct confrontation in the matter of personal opinion that you've attempted to wrap in logical debate.
It's not a matter of reason! This is fantasy! Fucking bug people and cathead freaks don't fit in Earth evolution so you don't use Earth evolution to explain it!

Likewise, you don't waste time with science when rocks fly.
You either do it or you don't, and if you don't handwave the floating islands, you'll bore people to abandonment with Carl Sagan-like explanations of Why Magic Mile-high Tree Must Fall Down.

[Parthenon]

Another thing I've been thinking about is construction and how much is required to build or repair a building.

For example, theres various fantasy ideas about a tower on a tiny floating island slightly larger than it'd footprint, or a fortress taking up the whole island, or large bridges...

(How much of the setting are we taking straight from Redarkhan and the other stuff Frank linked to? From what other people are saying it seems to be everything unless there is an excellent reason not to.)

Here are the issues I see with construction:

Assuming we are using Redarkhan, since there is a guild of Sculptors, they probably will stop all non-Sculptors doing building work, and it is very difficult to become a Sculptor in the first place. If so, then won't the Sculptors be spending practically all their time just repairing? Or are there a lot more Sculptors than Navigators or Auditors?

Or is everyone trained enough to do repairs? If so, then craft/profession/knowledge(architecture) skills would be a lot more widespread.



If we aren't using Redarkhan, then we still need a magical form of construction that is widespread, since there isn't enough space on a lot of islands to put up scaffolding and shelter for workers and storage for materials. Using skyships is risky and stupid because the ships are really large and would be blown in the wind causing large amounts of damage.

Where does the raw material come from? The islands, the ground?

---

Hmmmm.... thinking about it, the way I can see it happening are that there are large building companies, but only sculptors end up in charge. Stones are used as support for scaffolding, and building regulations are enforced with extreme prejudice because official sculptors will always add stones to reduce th effect on the island.

So, if building is done on the edge of an island or a small island, they create a temporary island out of stones and scaffolding to store materials, attach themselves by harnesses to those and do standard construction work.

As much as possible of the materials comes from the island to reduce the weight gain.

---

The reason this is important is that if all building work is only done by sculptors, then it will be done relatively fast, but could take a while to start, whereas if it is by standard builders, then it can be started earlier but can take longer or be impossible. So, if in the story you are having a house built or defences made, then you have more idea of how long it will take. If some buildings can't be made, then they can't be added having been built while you were adventuring and so on.

Also, if there are building regulations, then the characters need to be told what they can and can't do before they get into trouble.

This can also affect how likely characters are to have various skills.

[virgil]

In regards to the floating island crap...

While you might not care about the specific rules of floating islands, there WILL be players who will poke holes into their workings to the absolute limit. Internal consistency and potential abusiveness are important, and I suspect Frank considers a hollow earth to require drastically more thought on maintaining those two traits than the rules on a floating rock.

Since there are skyships, are there beams of enchanted rock within it? Do you need an earth shaper on board to run it, or can they be automated? How small a scale can the floating rocks be made (earth shapers with levitation rocks)? Can they imbue floatiness on a whim, randomly destabilizing stone buildings if done right?

What's next to work on, or is this thread going to be nothing but discussion on merits of whatever Frank deems not wanting to bother with?

[Elennsar]

This is to several people, but I'm quoting Sigma as a particularly obnoxious example:

Hard vs. Soft Fantasy, if you will. With Hard you lose fans by being scientifically inaccurate because that's what they like.
With Soft you can 'wing it'. Why? Because the fans don't care.

If you don't want to agree with Frank's assumptions, why, again, are you not launching your own damn project where its okay that no one has a fucking clue how things work and whether objects fall, float, rise, or are spontaneously combusted because the Gods hate litter bugs?

Seriously, if you know something works like a giant magnet, you can apply how giant magnets work and use it to make an impact on the something in question.

If you don't have that and they only float because floating islands are UberCool (TM), then how the fuck do you figure out how you can interact with them?

If you don't care how trade winds work, you're basically saying something only works because the GM said so, which means that by definition the only reason something doesn't work is the GM saying so.

That's not a consistent and believable (however weird and fantastic world). That's a combined acid and power trip where the GM can make up whatever bullshit he likes and the players have no idea what to expect other than hoping that the omnipotent God Master doesn't arbitrarily decide against them - and all of his decisions are by definition arbitrary because you said "fuck this" to having a system where it works because of something you can interact with other than on those terms.

If you still want that, make your own damn thread where up is only up if the GM wants it to be.


If you don't give a shit how the campaign world works, then nothing you do can interact with it without at least an improvised decision on how it works.

And really, if I have to ask how the fuck an arrow moves through the air to play in your setting, then I'm not going to even try and play in it.

To quote Virgileso

Since there are skyships, are there beams of enchanted rock within it? Do you need an earth shaper on board to run it, or can they be automated? How small a scale can the floating rocks be made (earth shapers with levitation rocks)? Can they imbue floatiness on a whim, randomly destabilizing stone buildings if done right?

And none of those questions can be answered unless you have principles by which the setting operates.

They can be based on science or a suitably creative magical explaination, but if its "Ask the GM.", then, again, I have to ask the GM whether or not arrows work the way they do on Earth, because having a consistent explaination I can look at and deal with is literally impossible.

Wonderland: The Tripping is not fun.

[PhoneLobster]

To answer the unamable one is a cardinal sin. But still.

If you don't want to agree with Frank's assumptions, why, again, are you not launching your own damn project where its okay that no one has a fucking clue how things work and whether objects fall, float, rise, or are spontaneously combused because the Gods hate litter bugs?

You are a "Combused" idiot. The argument isn't that there should be no rules. It is that the rules as presented for floating islands are abitrary and unrealistic, and that that is OK. Only chumps like you are stupid enough to believe you are creating a set of rules that is more believable, more real or in any way less arbitrary than some similar potential set of gravity defying fiction.

People no less care if you just declare gravity works in a hollow earth, or that the void of space between the earth and the seven moons is full of breathable air, or if you put an arbitrary minimum size on floating rocks.

They are all arbitrary unexplained and utterly unrealistic measures taken to preserve some game play goal.

And only morons aren't OK with that.

The fact that Frank is resorting to a line of argument to trash the arbitrary measures he doesn't like that you enthusiastically support only indicates how incredibly damaging his line of argument is to game design and discussion on this forum.

And I can say Name Here's "contributions" on the matter are very helpful either.

Never ever, ever, give life to the "realism" twats, people take that as a lesson.

[Elennsar]

I hate Frank and I hate Elennsar and I want to obstruct anything they try to do rather than make my own project which works the way I want it to and leave them to theirs.

Fixed.

[PhoneLobster]

Don't be so brief unamable one. Every word you type makes my argument stronger and makes Frank look more like an idiot for humouring you.