2012-09-10 : So very busy!
Sometimes, when the deadlines whoosh past like I'm on a speeder bike and they're the trees of Endor, it's exhilarating. "Woo! Woo! There goes another one! I'M MISSING THEM ALL!"
Sometimes, I'm just pretty sure I'm about to smash face-first into one and explode in death and fire.
Here's a random piece of the Seclusium rules.
Finally, what byproducts have the wizard's pursuit created? Choose as many as apply:
1. Pages and volumes of notes, diagrams and lists. (Create these as wizardly accessories.)
2. Creatures, living, half-living or preserved, human or un-, all malformed in body or impulse. (Create these as creatures, if they're living, or wizardly accessories, if they're not.)
3. Graves, crematory jars, or bodies piled in trenches. (Create these as an architectural feature.)
4. Infestations of minor plasmids. (Create these as a population of creatures.)
5. Unearthly, perilous things moving about half-unseen. (Create these as monsters.)
6. Prisoners or slaves crippled in body and mind. (Create these as people.)
7. Tools upon which strange nimbuses dwell. (Create these as wizardly accessories.)
8. Ever more complicated devices for measuring, calculating, observing, or predicting. (Create these as wizardly accessories.)
9. Impossible memories and uncanny dreams. (Create these as influential events.)
10. The predatory attention of a significant plasmic entity. (Create this as an outside interest.)
11. A guest or prisoner from another domain. (Create this as a creature.)
12. Strange lasting causal adjustments or resonances. (Create these as influential events.)
Or one of your own invention.
1. On 2012-09-10, akooser said:
Soooo great! Looking forward this!
2. On 2012-09-10, Evan said:
"Significant plasmic entity"
I'm smelling From Beyond (1986) here.
3. On 2012-09-10, Alex D. said:
"Sometimes, when the deadlines whoosh past like I'm on a speeder bike and they're the trees of Endor, it's exhilarating. "Woo! Woo! There goes another one! I'M MISSING THEM ALL!"
Sometimes, I'm just pretty sure I'm about to smash face-first into one and explode in death and fire."
There was a pretty cool (not excellent, but playable!) Star Wars vehicle combat game for Gamecube some years ago that had a Endor speeder mode. It felt *exactly* like that, all the time.
Anyhoo, on topic! These are cool! What are the distinctions between creatures, monsters, and people, may I ask?
- Alex
4. On 2012-09-10, Vincent said:
Alex: Hm, let's see. The Venn diagram is kind of complicated.
Creatures can be living creatures or plasmids.
There's no distinction between plasmids and plasmic entities, except that just as a person you respect is technically a creature but you wouldn't refer to her as one, you wouldn't refer to a powerful plasmic entity as a plasmid. It's belittling!
There are also plasmids you'd call "libertine intelligences," although they don't appear on this list.
Living creatures can be animals, unnatural creatures, or people.
Most creatures fall into one category or another, cleanly - most animals are just animals, most people are just people, most animated gargoyles are just animated gargoyles, most plasmids are just plasmids. But all of the possible combinations exist. A wizard, for instance, isn't just a person, but is also possessed of a plasm called her "plasmic psyche," the very thing that makes her capable of wizardry, so that she is in the overlap between living creatures and plasmic ones.
And then, any kind of creature can be a monster. A monster is just any creature with a monstrous appetite.
So when an element says "create this as a creature," it means "go to the creature creation rules and follow them, making choices as you go, to create this thing. Will it be a monster? Your choice. Will it be a person? Your choice. Will it be a plasmic creature, or an unnatural thing? Your choice."
When another element says "create this as a monster," it means something slightly different: "go to the creature creation rules and follow them, making choices as you go, just as above, but be sure to choose to make it a monster." Similarly "create this as a person": "...but be sure to choose to make it a person."
Obviously, these elements each provide further constraints, guidance, or suggestions of their own. When the entry says "unearthly, perilous things moving about half-unseen," the choices you'd make during creature creation will naturally be different from the ones you'd make to create "blind, ravenous things coiled in the seclusium's well."
And finally, when you create any kind of creature, you can create it as an individual or as a population.
Evan: I haven't seen it. Ought I?
This makes...
MB go "I'm not a native english speaker so take my words for what they're worth, but as a biologist I find this "plasmid" thing"
go "(continued) a bit distracting."
VB go "Ha ha ha"*
*click in for more
5. On 2012-09-12, Evan said:
Only if this is your kinda fare, Vincent.
This makes...
VB go "Possibly so!"
6. On 2012-09-12, strongbif said:
This will pair nicely with Dungeon World.
7. On 2012-09-12, Vincent said:
It may be true! I imagine that we'll find out.
8. On 2012-09-13, Josh W said:
I love the "create it as a ___" bit, very clever.
Especially given the idea that you don't segregate the creation rules, you just allow creative freedom in approach, then specify what that freedom aims towards.
Could be a nice bit of "man in the loop".
It's also a little like you're putting those classic "testing archetypes" for the creator subsystems within the text itself. (ie lets make sure the system can do ___)
Nice way to encode and hold yourself to designer intent.
9. On 2012-09-14, Vincent said:
Thanks, Josh! Right on.
RSS feed: new comments to this thread
This thread is closed to new comments.
home: anyway.
newer thread: 2012-09-30 : Countdown
older thread: 2012-08-27 : A good day for the apocalypse
