Bay 12 Games Forum

Alright, I'm finally getting restarted on this.

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This is an unfinished world, but it will be peopled by mighty empires.


Step 0 is to sign up. I'll be allowing no more than six and probably only 4-5 players play. Too many and games like this become a nightmare. Priority will be given to those who participated in my Feudalism Rethought game.
Step 1 is to finish the world. Each player I will be able to make one major change or three minor changes to the map.
Step 2 is to seed your empires. Each empire will start with a single town and will have a number of points assigned to it by the player controlling it.
Step 3 is to add finishing touches. Each player will be able to add a reasonable number of minor features to the area within 1 World Hex of their empire's starting position.
Step 4 is to alter the course of history. Doing so entails me describing a period of history, then the players can influence their empire's destiny. This will be somewhat freeform; you'll be able to do just about anything within reason.
Step 5 is to wait for me to finish up compiling all of these little things so I have a nice, detailed map to use.
Step 6 is to actually play.

Hopefully this will capture the worldbuilding aspects of the original Feudalism and the empire-building aspects I had imagined, without being too hard on me.

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Player List:
10ebbor10?
Child of Armok
Dariush
javierpwn
mesor
scapheap

Okay then. Let me catch up on what's been going on, especially near Beanietown, and I'll post an action.

Kick of Authority on Red Mage.
Get Red Mage to cast Heal on GM.
And everyone else too, actually.

Chat with good-looking girl.

"Hi."
"Hi."
"How are you?"
"Fine. You?"
"Also fine, despite the zombie."

Find a weapon then join up with a random survivor.

[1] You decide to grab the hatchet someone had earlier. The shark eats you. Respawn?

Respawn with a rifle. Shoot the shark to death

You get [2] a squirt gun. [6] The shark's gills are dampened.

Widen hole and explore.

It seems to be a cave! Very dark, though.

"Ha-hah! Protect me, minion, while I do more SCIENCE!"

Make a majestic, beautiful KATANA-LEG out of the katana! If the Yakuza agrees to protect me, instruct him to strangle the katana thief.

[6] You make a katanaleg, or as the Japanese call it, カタナ脚. You're still short by a foot. The Yakuza guy appears to be a zombie.

Also chat with girl. Ask if she knows where and what the hell is going on.

"Hi."
"Hi."
"Hi."
"How are you two?"
"Fine."
"Fine."
"Me too. Do you know where we are?"
"No."
"Yes, we're next to the ship."
"What's going on?"
"I don't know."
"We're talking. Someone is coming out of the ship."

Set zombie on fire.

[1] You try to set the shark on fire. It's wet. [6] It eats you and gets some indigestion. Respawn?

GM TURN:
The zombie [6] latches onto Baldman's neck, losing its body in the process. Somehow.
The shark vomits up [rolls] the hatchet and the brass knuckles.
The child pesters Furtaka to let him have the squirt gun.
#1 exits the ship again.

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on January 01, 2013, 11:58:08 am

You implied they didn't exist. I'd be offended by that.
And no, PCs are not like brains. And no, DF is not just a simulation of real-world stuff. (It also simulates fantasy stuff.)

Fantasy stuff is real-world stuff in disguise and operates under the same principles. The general framework of reality remains the same.

Regardless of if the claim is true or not (it varies by author), it doesn't really matter; the fantasy stuff is NOT, repeat NOT extant IRL. This makes your reasoning faulty and your conclusion invalid.

And PCs duplicate a human being's data processing abilities,

No, they exceed them.

while a simulation mimics a human being's imagination.

Nope. A simulation's creator creates it imaginitively, but the simulation itself just follows its rules.

The core ideas of these inventions aren't original, as they clearly are developed as duplications of a natural process or human capability.

Regardless of if this is true or not--and it isn't--the peripheral changes are often the most important.

Invention is not original creation, it is refinement and development.

It all depends on how you define it, but there are times that invention has come up with things no one had thought possible or sane, but which worked and revolutionized the world. Who in the 18th century would have thought setting a fire within a ship could make it run better than with good old sails? Yet it worked. Even if invention is just putting old parts together in new ways, the new ways are often innovative in and of themselves.

And I don't recall ever implying all those wonderful things don't exist.

When you denied the existence of people who invented radically different new inventions, you implied their nonexistence.

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You can't wave a wand at something and have a computer program which copies it. Making a simulation is impressive and innovative, unless you're copying another's simulation.

But the idea of simulating something comes from the idea of playing out a situation in your head and the idea of observing the world, only the process (in this case playing out a situation) is realized through different, more precise means.

Sometimes? Maybe. Always? No. Usually? Probably not. Simulations are created to simulate things. They aren't doing the exact same thing in a different way.

What you're saying is essentially that if everyone measures water with their hands and you measure it with a bucket, you are being original. You are not. You are still measuring water, only using different means.

Even if that WAS an apt analogy--and it isn't--if people never thought to use vessels to measure water before, then someone did, that is (by definition) innovation. It would really revolutionize water-measurement, too.

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That's missing the point. You might as well make dirt an American symbol--everyone has access to dirt!

Ah, but how much effort, imagination and skill has gone into the obtaining of a clod of dirt? How ingenious do you have to be to construct a razor-sharp sword from matchsticks and how ingenious is it to pick up some dirt? You are ignoring the important parameter here.

That particular argument I was countering was saying that since anyone could have a shiv, shivs are a good American symbol. Effort taken to get a shiv doesn't matter for that argument. I agree that my counterargument sucks when applied to an argument it wasn't countering.

Although true American soil might also make for a good symbol of America.

Alright, I'm not debating American symbols with you anymore. You seem to have no idea what makes a good national symbol. It should  make the people of a nation proud, not embarrassed by association!

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I know, I've completely forgotten why we're debating if a shiv is a good national symbol.

Well, I'm mostly debating for the sheer hell of it, but also to see how far I can take the defense of this particular position. Good practice and good fun, I always say.

Whatever. I'm arguing with logic, you're arguing with insanity. I'm not going to try and argue more. It reminds me too much of debating theology in church.

Quote from: Persus13 on January 01, 2013, 12:39:17 pm

Whose GM again?

Also what's a shiv?

TCM is the GM, and a shiv (also known as a shank) is an improvised (usually made of seemingly innocuous objects, such as a toothbrush) stabbing weapon. It is also the greatest symbol of ingenuity and innovation one could possibly think of.

Assuming that one is Harry Baldman.

Character sheet changed. All I need is the name of Urist McBeanie's stronghold (or me do decide to change where Waljan's hometown is) and approval.

I left in the pseudonyms when Grimore & Co were using them, because that's what they saw themselves as: Not normal people with normal names, but legendary heroes with names that sounded so much more epic. I'll remove them if asked, but I don't want to because I like the idea of kids with delusions of grandeur renaming themselves to fit the delusion...and I don't really want to have to go through those long paragraphs and change all the names.

Having confidence I could make more adamantine if I needed to, I decide that getting my woodworking started is a little more important than the experiment, because we really need bedrooms. I should also dig out a still and an alcohol stockpile...and bedrooms...and maybe a better dining room...
Well, Zulban's better, and Melbil's still the happy ray of sunshine bringing us all up. He's smoothing the food stockpiles and workshops--a noble goal, I guess, but he says it's mostly for training so he can engrave the dining room walls.
The water buffalo keeps wandering out of its pasture. That's annoying.
I can see a hand up there, used to belong to the fish cleaner. I saw it kill a dwarf and a keet, maybe it killed others, I'm not sure. Four out of five fingers are broken; it's mostly dragging itself along by the middle finger.
Late Sandstone. More migrants arrive. There's the uncle of one of the last wave's mother migrants, his wife, his daughter, his older sister, her husband, her young son (the younger brother of the aforementioned mother of the last wave)...7 family members and others altogether, plus a poult and a water buffalo calf. The first mentioned starts throwing a tantrum after his niece attacks him--or her arm, rather. One of them orders them all to flee for the fortress, visible as a few wooden walls almost flush to a couple palm trees; frightened by the dead, they savagely attack them. Five of the dead ones collapse; one of the live ones falls. I shout for them to run, but they can't hear or won't listen. They slaughtered the dead, a couple joining their number, before running for the hole. I shouted at them to use the chalk blocks which were outside from when we were building the roof--long story--to seal the hole, then we would let them in. But no; they poured back out of the hole! Soon an orphan and a widow were all that was left; then the widow charged at a weasel corpse before another dwarven zombie came up and mashed her skull in with one punch. This left a frightened child, hiding in the woods from monsters who wanted to kill him. He was running from a hand when a herd of dead wild swine charged at him from out of nowhere, trampling him. The first hoof struck the child's head, killing him instantly. I named the deadly dead sow Kissedshot.
Dammit. We need those migrants!
On the bright side, I took a break from mining to calm Zulban down. We're all fine now. Finally, we can relax, get on with our lives, and research.
I was storing some meat, moving it down into the caverns, when what do I see but a pale form? It's one of the migrants who died upstairs! Well, then. I hope she keeps the cat company. Maybe we'll memorialize her. Maybe we'll leave her there to remind us of what lies on the surface.

It's about the 17th of Timber. I hear hooves trampling on the surface and voices. More migrants? No--the traders! Surely we could escape with them, taking our adamantine and notes along?
No. A dead kitten attacks the outpost liason until she passes out. The merchants--two, plus two water buffaloes, plus an axedwarf and a hammerdwarf for protection--get attacked as well. They hide at the very edge of our sight, to the northwest. Surely they see the fortress, but they also hear the shuffling and moans of a small horde of the dead between them and us. They seem unaware that the dead keet the hammerdwarf took down will simply rise again...
An arm joins the kitten in killing the liason. Soon she, too, joins the ranks of the dead, now 33 strong.
The guineacock rises. The guards kill it, but the frightened merchants flee south, with the guards giving chase. The guards calm the merchants and convince them to return to the safe distance, when the corpse rises again, scattering the merchants once more! A dead falcon notices them and gives chase; while it is put down, that's two dead birds to terrorize them until they flee or die. Another falcon arrives (why are all the zombies raised here standing still, like eerie guards of a sort?), and as soon as that one collapses the other rises. They're just birds, but if they stay it's only a matter of time before something worse arrives or one of them dies. A third falcon shows up, and they keep rising.
It seems the merchants will leave soon.
Moonstone 15th. I have a great idea...I'll need more adamantine, though. Lots more.
((This update, I discovered that the bug that digging out a wall next to the door let you have a door without a wall was fixed.))

"What an odd ocurrance."

Get up. Pocket remains of amulet. Locate exit and/or friendly people.