Caliborn wrote:he was, from the very beginning, referring to the he later posted a photo of
Frank wrote:But honestly, when it comes to multiple legged shapes, some work:
What the hell? I got to play "direct fucking quote" game now?
That is a giant crab. Crabs go in holes too, sideways, one way in one way out no sharp turns. Giant crabs are the same as centaurs. Except when Frank doesn't want them to be because they are related to a worm and you can't remember shit from what he was saying with big giant graphic aids five minutes ago.
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Sun Dec 14, 2008 11:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Dude, that's the later picture with legs stapled on. bendy legs stapled on.
DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.
That thing you reposted from earlier in the thread has most of it's horizontal space taken up by its legs, jointed legs that can be drawn up to the body; a body that seems capable of a lot more flexibility than a horse and a fuckton more flexibility than a crab. Besides as you just pointed out with your convenient direct quote, at that point he was talking about body shapes; the truck-like size of the example creature actually has nothing to do with anything, then, or now.
It's literally the later picture with legs stapled on. Hydralisks can turn into lurkers, which are hydralisks which can use spikes from below instead of shooting posion darts and furthermore is the same length and twice the total width, counting legs that bend enough to make it not much wider.
It can bend in the middle, and even if it couldn't it can sure as hell make 90 degree turns. It's called walking sideways then forwards. Can horses do that?
FrankTrollman wrote:PL, that's getting a horse to crawl in a straight line. Now try moving it from the front seat to the back seat. You know, actually fucking turn in such an environment. You can't do it. And that's the problem. My personal flat doesn't especially matter save that it's one I'm actually living in right now. In my time as an EMT I've been in many homes and offices where a horse can't go.
Yes, I realize that a horse can scrunch down and crawl in a straight line through surprisingly narrow areas. The problem is that while it can theoretically continue to crawl in a straight line as far as you want, as soon as continued progress requires a turn in an area substantially narrower than the horse is long, that's the end. A horse in the back seat of a car doesn't disprove my point in any way, it just makes you come off like a mouth breather. The damn horse is still facing the direction it came in through the door!
As for winged people, I genuinely don't see the problem. Fantasy winged people look like this:
And actual mammal wings fold up like this:
One is really small; and the other, while large, folds up completely. So pretty much regardless of whether you are going for fantasy standard or biologically believable it's not going to be a big problem. There's a reason bats live in caves.
-Username17
Why is realism important for centaurs and completely ignorable for winged creatures? Because at the start of this post you talk about centaurs in human houses and not being able to turn in narrow environments realistically and then go on to state that in fantasy we can ignore realism.
I personally don't give a damn whether centaurs are included or not in the game; I've never played one and have no desire to. But realism is a drag. I had a character buffed up to large size and I couldn't make it through dungeon doors, that sucked. I got to spend combat either 1) the target for every enemy attack or 2) stuck in a doorway. That was full of fail, I had no fun that session. So why do we want realism at all? Realistically a halfling would have to climb into a human sized chair and have real trouble with stairs. Realistically a creature of more than 8 feet in height cannot fight indoors, because their weapon would get caught on the ceiling. And realistically only humans would fit or be comfortable in human dwellings or buildings.
In fantasy, we can ignore realism, but not that "centaurs" are not something that is a body type that works indoors even with being generous about reach and such.
Is that a pain? Yes. That was Frank's point, it seems. They don't work as PCs balanced with human PCs because the "situations they can enter" realm is sharply limited.
Its not even "survive but do poorly". They just plain suck indoors. If they can enter.
Trust in the Emperor, but always check your ammunition.
I do wonder about goblin/kobold warrens. Does D&D allow them to build tunnels such that they're fine, and humans have to squeeze (4' ceilings would do that)?
Come see Sprockets & Serials
How do you confuse a barbarian?
Put a greatsword a maul and a greataxe in a room and ask them to take their pick
The bat's wings are folded and they still double the width of the body. I would note that all of the wings that fold to small sizes do not do so on a humanoid body type. You note that as well, but handwave it. If you can ignore the fact that there isn't a way for the wings to fold neatly to a humanoid body, then we could have bendy centaurs now couldn't we?
What I care about, and no one has addressed, is that a double standard is being applied. On one hand, realism is demanded, on the other it is ignored. Can we at least admit that the double standard exists and we aren't being consistent?
How would you have a bendy centaur when the part that makes it a centaur (the horse part) is distinctly unbendy?
At some point, its not a centaur. Its a "I want to have a horse's ass." weird hybrid that makes no sense.
Not that centaurs make a lot of sense to begin with, for what that's worth, but at least we know what we're talking about.
None of this really seems to indicate that centaurs as a race add an element that a bunch of guys riding on horseback doesn't do just as well.
I'm not a centaur lover...Greek myth monsters in general are too mutant for my tastes. But what do they add that would benefit the story(stories)?
Is there some "I'm a centaur, I can ______." that we can't do with horsemen as distinct from horse-men? Is there some personality or alignment or whatever foible?
I mean, it would probably not be a good idea to have a group that's like the Mongols, but a million times worse. But centaurs as a monsterous "race" like that would work fine.
So what do you get from "playing a centaur" that requires you to be attached to a horse's butt?
Trust in the Emperor, but always check your ammunition.
As I mentioned, I wanted to have some fun posting links and pictures, and it's related to the point that there are horses in houses. I know one of PL's links was basically the same thing as my link (the Kansas crime report, horse in the bank lobby).
Side note THIS is a video that includes a horse inside. And at the 2:55 mark, you should see the horse actually go inside a room that's further inside. I think it goes around a corner.
Those two links, in my eyes, are more proof than PL has actually shown yet; because he just keeps showing horses walking on tires, staying in the front room, or fitting in cars like furniture.
Come see Sprockets & Serials
How do you confuse a barbarian?
Put a greatsword a maul and a greataxe in a room and ask them to take their pick
If I'm understanding this right, things will work out pretty well so long as it is understood that in your setting, the horse part of a centaur is both smaller and more flexible than a normal horse. You should use Shining Force centaurs rather than just assuming that the equine half functions exactly like the body of a regular horse.
Are there any problems with centaurs that are about as tall as humans, but longer due to the equine half, and which have an equine half dramatically more flexible than a generic horse's body?
The second one had a tightish turn, but with a horse that had apparently yet to stop growing. The turn in the first one is unclear due to the camera angle. also with a small horse.
Also, on the wing folding: actually, at least one semi-relistic wing folding for a winged humanoid also only about doubled bodly widith, which is still enough to fit through a door. Hell, i can almost fit through a door with my arms fully extended, but laying down i'm still shorter than a horse is long and can't fit through said door.
On walking sideways: Come to think of that, the entire thing was a red herring, as neither a lurker nor a horse can fit through anything they can't turn to go through anyway. Sorry for bringing it up.
DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.
virgileso wrote:Those two links, in my eyes, are more proof than PL has actually shown yet
I'm not sure I follow your tone. Am I wrong because you have videos that show I'm right, am I right because you have them or is the whole argument as silly and inconsistent as it seems but you have these cool videos as well?
Anyway I'd only just recently had a go on youtube for what I was rather surprised not to find in large volumes on google images. By the looks of your related videos there all the horse navigates house action you could ask for is on youtube. Which is why realism arguments are dumb because reality often doesn't match the "realist's"opinions, as seems to be the case with Frank and his amazing inflexible-gianormo-horses that cannot go inside.
But anyway after being traumatised by all the XXX rated action resulting from the "horse inside" search on google images I wasn't yet game to approach any similar searches on youtube yet and was mostly messing about with dull (but fancy!) dressage videos and had only got around to finding a single nice quicky of horse on stairs.
Um, you do know that the video with actual turning involved a horse explicitly described as not full grown? and the turn consisted of walking in a circle?
DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.
Elennsar wrote:
None of this really seems to indicate that centaurs as a race add an element that a bunch of guys riding on horseback doesn't do just as well.
I'm not a centaur lover...Greek myth monsters in general are too mutant for my tastes. But what do they add that would benefit the story(stories)?
Is there some "I'm a centaur, I can ______." that we can't do with horsemen as distinct from horse-men? Is there some personality or alignment or whatever foible?
I mean, it would probably not be a good idea to have a group that's like the Mongols, but a million times worse. But centaurs as a monsterous "race" like that would work fine.
So what do you get from "playing a centaur" that requires you to be attached to a horse's butt?
The main thing I like about having centaurs in a setting is that it lets me take domesticated horses out. I don't like having situations where attacking or hurting domesticated animals is a good idea that advances the goals of a character in my games. I feel particularly strongly about this when it comes to animals used for transport.
If I have a race that fills the roles otherwise filled by humanoid cavalry, I don't have to worry about people poisoning a warband's mounts to gain an advantage in a chase, riding horses to death to move a message faster, or killing and eating their mounts after they move deep into barren terrain (the mounts pay for the stupidity of the riders).
So, put simply, I feel less guilt when poisoning a centaur than when poisoning a horse. Centaurs are sentient, so they'd likely share at least some of the blame for a situation where harming them becomes a good idea. That makes doing unpleasant things to them easier to justify.
name_here wrote:Um, you do know that the video with actual turning involved a horse explicitly described as not full grown? and the turn consisted of walking in a circle?
If you have problems with patches we may have to step outside. He is more than adequately large for the centaur factory.
But failing that, related video, its a cool feature, about 2 seconds of browsing from Virgileso's material has All you need to satisfy your not big enough not cornery enough obsession.
name_here wrote:Um, you do know that the video with actual turning involved a horse explicitly described as not full grown? and the turn consisted of walking in a circle?
If you have problems with patches we may have to step outside. He is more than adequately large for the centaur factory.
But failing that, related video, its a cool feature, about 2 seconds of browsing from Virgileso's material has All you need to satisfy your not big enough not cornery enough obsession.
No, not at all. in fact, there is this one video on there of a horse fitting down a hallway that has doors on the side that i doubt the horse can get into. which is sort of our point. that and the whole bit where people have fortifications with even less room than normal on purpose.
So you feel less guilty about cannibalism than eating horse. (if I didn't completely miss your point)
As someone struggling to find a way to disagree with that , I have to say that's the best arguement for using centaurs I've seen.
Pretty much, yeah. If the horse is dependent on civilization, not sentient, and it provides a valuable service already, I feel it should get treated fairly nicely and not killed as soon as it lacks usefulness or when doing so is expedient.
If I had to choose between killing and eating a domesticated horse or eating the already-dead body of another person, the choice would be easy. I don't see cannibalism as bad if you are just utilizing a pile of meat that would otherwise just rot. It's a bit distasteful (no pun intended), and there might be some disease problems, but it's really just a form of recycling.
Elennsar wrote:How would you have a bendy centaur when the part that makes it a centaur (the horse part) is distinctly unbendy?
At some point, its not a centaur. Its a "I want to have a horse's ass." weird hybrid that makes no sense.
Not that centaurs make a lot of sense to begin with, for what that's worth, but at least we know what we're talking about.
I'm sorry, I really tried to ignore this stupidity. Thank you for not answering a single question but instead seizing on a point in a hilariously wrong manner and running with your misguided assumption. Let me go slowly for you. If I can have winged creatures that have no resemblance to winged creatures in reality, I can also have horse like creatures that can do things no real horse could. If you will accept one but not the other, you have a double standard. Are we clear now?
The rest of the post was directed at someone who thinks that centaurs add something to the game. Since I have no opinion one way or an other, I'd guess that you have me confused with someone else. When I find that person, I'll have them respond to it. But I'll ignore it.
