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woodenbandman
2009-09-19, 11:21 AM
Can someone render unto me a link which details the Tippyverse in detail? I am strongly considering modeling a campaign setting in the tippyverse.

Yora
2009-09-19, 11:24 AM
More details please. "Tippyverse" seems to be unkown to google. ^^

Nohwl
2009-09-19, 11:27 AM
tippyverse is a world where full casters rule everything. food and everything else is taken care of by traps, and rogues and other classes that can break those traps are hunted down and killed.

Roland St. Jude
2009-09-19, 11:29 AM
I'd be surprised if you find a thread that explains "tippyverse" in detail. It's not like Tippy sat down and explained in detail what his 'verse was like. The term arose as a (potentially pejorative) description of the type of universe poster Emperor Tippy used as the default in his discussions here. I know he used the term at some point, but I don't think he ever set out a description of it, so much as had a description foisted upon him given that his assumptions varied so much from others assumptions.

So you may find one off answers to this question like:


There is no such 'place' as the Tippyverse. The 'Tippyverse' is a place where Players can actually do whatever they like and 'RAW is Law' and GMs apparently don't exist. Magic seems to work a different way when Tippy describes it.
and

The term "Tippyverse" refers to a world ruled by wizards, akin to what is described in nearly all of Tippy's posts.
and

Tippyverse is like the horizon: more of a concept than a corporeal being. Very few people would actually run a campaign inside such a society since it does not match the standards of fantasy universes that most people like.


And I'm sure you sense the pejorative tone there, though it's a pretty accurate description of what most people mean by "Tippyverse."

This post by Tippy sort of gives you a flavor for the underlying assumptions, but is far from a "detailed" explanation.

Taken to explain the base failure of elliott20's post.

Magic has existed for a very long time. How long depends on the game. But if it is not a new invention (last thousand years or so) then it has already altered the economy to such an extent that their is no baseline, at all.

Teleporation Circle makes it so that moving goods by ship never even comes up. There is no reason to ever even think of sending goods by ship. Create Food and Water traps means that farming (if it exists at all) is only a specialty used to grow delicacies. The effects of teleportation on warfare means that nations never form in the traditional sense (a traditional nation can't defend it's claimed territory). Fabrication traps mean that the need for raw materials or even work are eliminated.

If magic is a new invention (or at least teleportation magic) then it's a different story. But if it's been around for thousands of years (or from the beginning of time) then you have to throw out the entire non-magical economy and start with the effects of magic.

If a single cleric can feed a nation by creating a single magic item then why does farming ever exist? Once the magic exists there is no reason for them not to use it. You go straight from a hunter gatherer society to a post farming society.

If a single wizard can make an item that spits out a suit of clothes made of the finest silks and of the finest manufacture every second then why does a cloth making industry ever come to exist?

If a single wizard can construct an entire city in under a week on his own (and do so better than any non magical builders) then why do people not have houses?

---
Ultimately economics and economies rest on the idea of a certain amount of non trivial work and effort being needed to produce a product that someone else needs or wants. Magic in D&D removes that base need. It's free energy.

add to this other comments on how a sufficiently prepared wizard can divine threats in advance, defeat any foe, mind rape, clone, and enslave many beings, and you sort of get the sense of it. Wizards, or perhaps just one wizard, runs the multiverse.

And I don't disagree that a completely unmediated RAW universe (made up of rules only and stripped free of any common assumptions about a fantasy medieval setting) will get you a Tippyverse, but I don't imagine too many people would want to play there as their fantasy medieval setting. ymmv.

Starsinger
2009-09-19, 02:08 PM
Wizards, or perhaps just one wizard, runs the multiverse.


Pretty sure her name was Cindy.

Yora
2009-09-19, 02:10 PM
But I liked Tim.

Roland St. Jude
2009-09-19, 02:13 PM
Pretty sure her name was Cindy.

I miss Cindy. Haven't seen her around in quite a while. For a while there though, she was every where I looked.

Keld Denar
2009-09-19, 02:30 PM
I haven't seen Tippy in so long. Probably cause he hasn't been online in 5 months. His user profile says (Last Activity: 04-08-2009 02:37 PM).

And yea...Cindy was one of the earliest incarnations of an Orb powered Incantatrix that I remember seeing, a style which is now known as "the Mailman" over on CharOp (RIP CharOp)...I guess cause he delivers the boom.

Probably makes your job a bit easier though, Roland...since a goodly number of his posts seem to incite randomly placed {scrubbed} markings.

Grynning
2009-09-19, 02:36 PM
I don't think Tippy really expected anyone to play in such a 'verse either...I think he was just pointing out the absurdity of D&D arcane magic existing side-by-side with the standard grungy peasants, dark ages, low fantasy elements. Arcane (and divine) magic in 3.x was really pretty world-breaking and it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense as to why people wouldn't use it to advance their society.

Matthew
2009-09-19, 02:39 PM
To add to answers so far, I generally think of it as a place where "the game serves the rules; not vice versa". That is to say the game rules are the actual physics of the world and no room is left for ambiguity.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-09-19, 02:50 PM
And I don't disagree that a completely unmediated RAW universe (made up of rules only and stripped free of any common assumptions about a fantasy medieval setting) will get you a Tippyverse, but I don't imagine too many people would want to play there as their fantasy medieval setting. ymmv.

Well, to be fair, D&D has never really been a fantasy medieval setting. Sure, it's a fantasy setting, and it has medieval trappings, but generally "fantasy medieval" implies "historical western Europe + magic"...and unless you're playing a low-magic, low-wealth campaign without 3rd+ level spells, most items, and all the weird monsters, D&D doesn't exactly fit that mold at all.

When it comes right down to it, I'd rather have the Tippyverse (or at least a lesser version of it) than the standard world the rules assume: PCs are awesome and can do all this cool stuff, but the world as a whole is stuck in faux-medieval times and is pretty much in stasis unless the PCs come and screw it up. I mean, if even one spell was used by NPCs as your typical crafty PCs use them, the world would be entirely different: cure disease or other cure spells can eliminate most causes of death in medieval times, fireball makes almost every strategy of medieval warfare obsolete, and so forth. It makes no sense for PCs to be able to waltz up and slaughter entire armies with spells, because unless the world was created within the last year, there wouldn't be any massive armies to kill!

A lot of people look down on interesting uses of magic as "cheesy" or "broken" or whatever, things like shrinking rocks and putting them in bags of holding, or traps that make food--but that's exactly the kind of thing most of us would do in real life if we could use magic, look at it and think "Wouldn't it be cool if we could do X?" It's kind of like when all the superhero comics have the heroes act stupidly for plot reasons and comic fans think of a hundred ways the hero could have gotten out of it if they had bothered to think. In the same way, for the characters in D&D it is real life, so assuming those Int 20+ wizards use their spells logically rather than keeping the world in medieval stasis (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MedievalStasis) sits better with me.


And yea...Cindy was one of the earliest incarnations of an Orb powered Incantatrix that I remember seeing, a style which is now known as "the Mailman" over on CharOp (RIP CharOp)...I guess cause he delivers the boom.

Actually, it's so named because the build focuses on getting damage in without resistance: "Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail, shall impede the delivery of the mail" turns into "Neither AC, nor SR, nor saves, nor miss chances, nor immediate-action teleports, nor [...] shall stop this orb of X from completely wrecking your day." :smallwink:

Je dit Viola
2009-09-19, 02:52 PM
Actually, a campaign with wizards ruling the world could be fun, if played with certain ramifications:

1. The wizards ruling the world became corrupt and greedy, so:

A. Rogues are hunted down for their trap-conquering abilities
B. Sorcerers are hunted because they're 'not worthy of magic'
C. The peasants and commoners return to poverty because the wizards stop caring
D. Because the wizards managed to kill a couple gods, the remainder of the gods are in hiding
E. Everyone 'in hiding' could be the PCs; aka rogues, sorcerers, bards, 'traiterous' wizards, paladins, clerics (their gods can only give limited support), and so on
F. The goal of the campaign is to restore order to the universe by getting rid of evil wizards
So, by that, you can choose PCs of any class, and you have to stay in hiding while hunting down wizards. Could be fun.

Doc Roc
2009-09-19, 02:55 PM
A lot of people look down on interesting uses of magic as "cheesy" or "broken" or whatever, things like shrinking rocks and putting them in bags of holding, or traps that make food--but that's exactly the kind of thing most of us would do in real life if we could use magic, look at it and think "Wouldn't it be cool if we could do X?" It's kind of like when all the superhero comics have the heroes act stupidly for plot reasons and comic fans think of a hundred ways the hero could have gotten out of it if they had bothered to think. In the same way, for the characters in D&D it is real life, so assuming those Int 20+ wizards use their spells logically rather than keeping the world in medieval stasis (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MedievalStasis) sits better with me.


Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto Dice what is cookie-shaped.

Ent
2009-09-19, 02:58 PM
Actually, a campaign with wizards ruling the world could be fun, if played with certain ramifications

As long as it wasn't in the Tippyverse.

Arakune
2009-09-19, 03:00 PM
You could say Eberron or the new 4th edition implied world is the soft version of Tippyverse: magic on everyday life and lots of technomagic stuff, but for the sake of simplicity/lazyness/gentleman agreement the high level wizards doesn't screw with the world THAT badly on a 'mundane way' when they bother: normaly they want to unmake/rule/destroy all the creation and multiverse, so that takes a lot of time.

Can anyone take the offer to make a "true" Tippyverse?

Tavar
2009-09-19, 03:03 PM
I don't have the post, but Tippy actually made a somewhat reasonable point that the Tippy-verse actually has something for every level of the game: at low levels, you're in the area right outside the massive cities, at mid levels you're out farther afield, and at upper levels you're building a new city/operating in the cities.



Can anyone take the offer to make a "true" Tippyverse?
I remember that Tippy did that, and even might have run a game in it. Can't find the post, though.

Myou
2009-09-19, 03:04 PM
Actually, a campaign with wizards ruling the world could be fun, if played with certain ramifications:

1. The wizards ruling the world became corrupt and greedy, so:

A. Rogues are hunted down for their trap-conquering abilities
B. Sorcerers are hunted because they're 'not worthy of magic'
C. The peasants and commoners return to poverty because the wizards stop caring
D. Because the wizards managed to kill a couple gods, the remainder of the gods are in hiding
E. Everyone 'in hiding' could be the PCs; aka rogues, sorcerers, bards, 'traiterous' wizards, paladins, clerics (their gods can only give limited support), and so on
F. The goal of the campaign is to restore order to the universe by getting rid of evil wizards
So, by that, you can choose PCs of any class, and you have to stay in hiding while hunting down wizards. Could be fun.

Or, the wizard does a good job ruling the world, and hires you to sort out problems for him rather than doing everything himself.

Morty
2009-09-19, 03:11 PM
It's a rather well-known fact that magic in D&D can do more than the designers expected. Personally, I think it's because the spells were designed with adventurers in mind - so that they can have fresh water and food readily, for instance - without putting much thought into what effect would they have on the world at large. Of course, I see no reason to play in a setting I find unfun just because the rules allow it. I guess it makes me non-trendy to want to play in a classical medievalesque fantasyland, but I don't really care.

Mike_G
2009-09-19, 03:37 PM
As with everything else in the rules magic was geared towards adventuring. It works for the Wizard in the party, and for the Evil Sorcerer nemesis, but not so much for the rest of society, or we wind up with every peasant hut being turned into the Looney Toons "House of Tomorrow."

This is the same issue with things like Profession, which works for the party members to earn a few gold while sitting around town waiting for the Wizard to research his spells, but is crap at simulating jobs for normal people. Profession: Dung Shoveling pay the same as Profession: Cartography. It's tyhe whole "why would anyone take Commoner as a class" argument. IC, you don't "choose" your class, any more than IRL we can't all choose "Millionaire" or "Nuclear Physicist." Some people don't have the luxury of "picking" Cleric, they inherit the family hog farm, not a legacy slot at the Seminary of Pelor, and scrape out a living with pig **** on their heels for the rerst of their lives.

D&D, be it the magic system, or skills or any of it, works best when simulating Adventuring. It falls the hell apart when trying to model Life in a Medieval Village.

Thrawn183
2009-09-19, 03:37 PM
I don't have the post, but Tippy actually made a somewhat reasonable point that the Tippy-verse actually has something for every level of the game: at low levels, you're in the area right outside the massive cities, at mid levels you're out farther afield, and at upper levels you're building a new city/operating in the cities.



I remember that Tippy did that, and even might have run a game in it. Can't find the post, though.

I actually thought about those posts a lot when I designed my own campaign world. I remember how it made sense that there would be highe level areas (cities) surrounded by this incredible wilderness where nobody cared what happened.

I really like the idea of a setting where it makes sense to go from level 1-20 because the world is actually built to handle it. You don't have level 1 commoner farmers next to the forest where there's apparently a CR 16 Battletitan Dinosaur running around.

Johel
2009-09-19, 03:38 PM
Can anyone take the offer to make a "true" Tippyverse?

So...many...possibilities.

A world torn in a century-long war between clerics (magic is the gift of the gods. Thou shall not use it without being chosen by them) and wizards (Gods are just epic spellcasters with inflated pride. And I shall become one). The people torn in between are dirt-poor as most wealth is sunk into magic item creation...

A world ruled by a powerful magocratie because a group of wizards actually created a item that allow people to cast wishes at will, without XP cost. Since then, reality itself is relative. Also, "they" watch us...

A world ruled by a powerful theocracy because severe censorship on magic made it impossible for wizards to actually learn high-level spells. Depending of the church's boss, it can be paradise or hell but in both case, magic is a divine monopoly and we are all ants...

A world where there's nobody above 6th level...but where spellcasters are so common that there's tons of "at-will" items, making physical work unecessary. Welcome to the 22th century...

RagnaroksChosen
2009-09-19, 03:47 PM
I miss tippy.

Roland St. Jude
2009-09-19, 03:51 PM
Well, to be fair, D&D has never really been a fantasy medieval setting. Sure, it's a fantasy setting, and it has medieval trappings, but generally "fantasy medieval" implies "historical western Europe + magic"...and unless you're playing a low-magic, low-wealth campaign without 3rd+ level spells, most items, and all the weird monsters, D&D doesn't exactly fit that mold at all.

This seems to me a needlessly narrow definition of "fantasy medieval." For example, it seems to preclude high fantasy, a well-accepted part of medieval fantasy. But that's just an example, my objection to is broader than that; it just seems too narrow to encompass what people understand as fantasy medieval. But, even accepting your definition of "historical western Europe + magic," D&D largely fits that mold. I'm not sure why "+magic" has to be limited to low magic or stick to non-weird monsters to remain "fantasy medieval." I suppose at some point, breaking enough conventions may force a given game to be called just "fantasy," but I think the default is firmly a fantastic medieval setting.


When it comes right down to it, I'd rather have the Tippyverse (or at least a lesser version of it) than the standard world the rules assume: PCs are awesome and can do all this cool stuff, but the world as a whole is stuck in faux-medieval times and is pretty much in stasis unless the PCs come and screw it up. I mean, if even one spell was used by NPCs as your typical crafty PCs use them, the world would be entirely different: cure disease or other cure spells can eliminate most causes of death in medieval times, fireball makes almost every strategy of medieval warfare obsolete, and so forth. It makes no sense for PCs to be able to waltz up and slaughter entire armies with spells, because unless the world was created within the last year, there wouldn't be any massive armies to kill!

I agree with the consequences, and I think that's why most people don't want to go down that road. They want to muck about in a medieval-ish setting not one that's become industrialized or modernized by magic. So despite the possibility for that under the rules, the games themselves and players in practice have prevented that. They do this by social strictures on magic or simply hand-waving (just stating that society stopped somewhere along the continuum between the low-magic setting you describe as fantasy medieval and the magic-dominated world of Tippyverse.)

Aside: Like you, I'd prefer "lesser Tippyverse" to either extreme, though my preference would probably be much "lesser" than yours.


A lot of people look down on interesting uses of magic as "cheesy" or "broken" or whatever, things like shrinking rocks and putting them in bags of holding, or traps that make food--but that's exactly the kind of thing most of us would do in real life if we could use magic, look at it and think "Wouldn't it be cool if we could do X?" It's kind of like when all the superhero comics have the heroes act stupidly for plot reasons and comic fans think of a hundred ways the hero could have gotten out of it if they had bothered to think. In the same way, for the characters in D&D it is real life, so assuming those Int 20+ wizards use their spells logically rather than keeping the world in medieval stasis (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MedievalStasis) sits better with me.

I'm not so bothered by the medieval stasis; I want to adventure in a medieval w/magic (and magical monsters) setting. I don't want to adventure in that is the logical result of food-making traps and disease-curing traps. I'm willing to accept whatever rationale (such as suspicion of magic or hoarding of Church secrets) or even handwaving it takes to create such a setting. If that's a medieval stasis, I'm fine with it. In fact, if what you'd prefer is a "lesser Tippyverse" you probably agree with this practice, you just differ about where to halt the progress.

That said, I don't look down on someone who prefers the more common magic or look down on that as "cheesy" or "broken." It's just a preference about how one wants their setting to look and willing they are to impose restrictions on RAW (via rule or setting) to get there.

Matthew
2009-09-19, 04:00 PM
That said, I don't look down on someone who prefers the more common magic or look down on that as "cheesy" or "broken." It's just a preference about how one wants their setting to look and willing they are to impose restrictions on RAW (via rule or setting) to get there.

I totally look down on them from the window of my ivory tower, or maybe from an ivory crow's nest, given the day and all... :smallbiggrin:

Johel
2009-09-19, 04:02 PM
For "The Tippyverse by Tippy himself" :
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5396845&postcount=24

Was it that post ? The concept is... well, it actually sounds cool to run a campaign in the wild. Something like :
"Your city has just been invaded and destroyed.
You and the few thousands who survived must now head to another city. Most high level spellcasters have been killed during the battle so there's no way to just use magic. Most of the magic items have been left behind and it's not safe to return (hordes of demons, whatever...).

Nearest city is 1 month on foot.
But rumors speak of the ruins of an old city, about 1 week from here.
While most people want to head for the nearest city (who's responsible for your city's destruction, by the way), you and your merry band want to find the ruins, where you hope to find some left-over magic items."
Good luck.

Tavar
2009-09-19, 04:06 PM
You know, the Tippy-verse in that post kinda sounds like the Teraport wars from Shlock mercenary.

Johel
2009-09-19, 04:20 PM
Me, it reminds me of debates with a friend, after a lot of vodka, about how society could evolve if we could automate most things.

Being quiet inept at anything social and extremely logic-oriented at that time, his idea was that the society could be divided between the "Labores" and "Reproductores".
In the Tippyverse, the wizards are basically the "Labores", the few elite people, gifted with unusual intelligence at birth and educated so they would become great wizards and craft magical "traps", items, golems and such (aka, be useful to the citadel).
The rest of the citizens are basically "Reproductores" : they provide the necessary demographic pool from which talents can be picked while the mass is left in a semi-hedonistic life with no job, no ambition. Just the drive to survive and multiply.

shadow_archmagi
2009-09-19, 04:26 PM
A "Tippyverse exploded" could be a great excuse to set up a magical version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Yuki Akuma
2009-09-19, 04:34 PM
So... The Tippyverse is the Exalted First Age?

Haven
2009-09-19, 04:48 PM
Maybe I'm missing something in the tone of Tippy's posts but I don't understand why the Tippyverse inspires so much vitriol. To me, it just seems like a rather brilliant thought experiment in taking the rules of the game to their ultimate conclusion, which can be really useful for worldbuilding (if you take things back a notch, of course).

Arakune
2009-09-19, 04:52 PM
Maybe I'm missing something in the tone of Tippy's posts but I don't understand why the Tippyverse inspires so much vitriol. To me, it just seems like a rather brilliant thought experiment in taking the rules of the game to their ultimate conclusion, which can be really useful for worldbuilding (if you take things back a notch, of course).

The logic itself isn't bad. The problem came from some theorical problem (doesn't remember now), involving shadesteel golens and world domination. During this thread some users got banned and the discussion at the very end seemed very hot (as in, burning your flesh to your death).

J.Gellert
2009-09-19, 05:46 PM
Actually, a campaign with wizards ruling the world could be fun, if played with certain ramifications:

1. The wizards ruling the world became corrupt and greedy, so:

A. Rogues are hunted down for their trap-conquering abilities
B. Sorcerers are hunted because they're 'not worthy of magic'
C. The peasants and commoners return to poverty because the wizards stop caring
D. Because the wizards managed to kill a couple gods, the remainder of the gods are in hiding
E. Everyone 'in hiding' could be the PCs; aka rogues, sorcerers, bards, 'traiterous' wizards, paladins, clerics (their gods can only give limited support), and so on
F. The goal of the campaign is to restore order to the universe by getting rid of evil wizards
So, by that, you can choose PCs of any class, and you have to stay in hiding while hunting down wizards. Could be fun.

This is awesome. I'd run a game like that tomorrow if I had/could find a group.

Pilum
2009-09-19, 06:11 PM
...while the mass is left in a semi-hedonistic life with no job, no ambition. Just the drive to survive and multiply.

Sounds an awful lot like Mega-City One actually, although things don't work out quite so well in there, of course... It would certainly give "detect-and-smite" paladins something to do, and give 'em a chance to wear black for a change. Wonder if Summon Mount could ever give you a Lawmaster? :smallwink:

sonofzeal
2009-09-19, 06:23 PM
I think it was the assertion that the Tippyverse was a logical necessity of the rules, and that any campaign setting that was not a Tippyverse either had to adhere to some extremely limited set of conditions, or was logically inconsistent. Basically, a lot of people took Tippy to be saying that they were "playing the game wrong", and got offended.

Grynning
2009-09-19, 06:29 PM
I think it was the assertion that the Tippyverse was a logical necessity of the rules, and that any campaign setting that was not a Tippyverse either had to adhere to some extremely limited set of conditions, or was logically inconsistent. Basically, a lot of people took Tippy to be saying that they were "playing the game wrong", and got offended.

Heh, well, almost all speculative fiction settings generally end up being logically inconsistent one way or another. The Tippyverse happens when you try to correct this and sacrifice all the time honored heroic fantasy tropes to do so.

Mike_G
2009-09-19, 06:45 PM
But it's not inevitable that, for example, Shadesteel Golems would make armies so obsolete that nobody would train an army anymore.

We have enough nukes to wipe out any enemy on the planet right now. That doesn't stop us from spending a huge amount of resources on plain old guys in muddy boots and sweaty cammos doing the heavy lifting.

In the Tippyverse, we'd just hide behind our walls and nuke anybody who threatened us until their country was a glass bowl.

While that's an option, it's hardly a foregone and inevitable conclusion.

Matthew
2009-09-19, 06:55 PM
Right, not to mention that the Tippyverse is not an attempt to correct inconsistencies in the game setting, but an attempt to apply the rules of the game that is played in the setting to every aspect of that world in a very specific way. Rather than treating the rules as an abstract interface, they become the very building blocks of the world, creating something reminiscent of a massive online multiplayer computer game.

These conceptual problems are very old indeed, though, the argument against the credibility of a medieval setting given the existence of magic stretches back to the beginning of the hobby. It is an ass backwards idea, though, as the point is to explain why the world is as it is, rather than try to force the world to conform to the limited reality of a given rule set.

Grynning
2009-09-19, 06:56 PM
But it's not inevitable that, for example, Shadesteel Golems would make armies so obsolete that nobody would train an army anymore.

We have enough nukes to wipe out any enemy on the planet right now. That doesn't stop us from spending a huge amount of resources on plain old guys in muddy boots and sweaty cammos doing the heavy lifting.

In the Tippyverse, we'd just hide behind our walls and nuke anybody who threatened us until their country was a glass bowl.

While that's an option, it's hardly a foregone and inevitable conclusion.

I don't know about this comparison. Nuclear weapons are limited in their tactical options in a way magic is not. Spellcasters could easily conquer an enemy nation without mass murder or making the land uninhabitable, and if you could conquer new countries with a minimum of bloodshed via magic...why wouldn't you? To prevent a fantasy world with functional magic from logically progressing to the Tippyverse, you have to have some kind of limitations on magic that make it a limited resource or a limited problem solver. In D&D land, magic is infinite in scope on both counts...there's virtually nothing it can't do. So while I agree that it would be a horrible setting, it would be the logical result of the effect of D&D magic on a world.

Mike_G
2009-09-19, 07:15 PM
I don't know about this comparison. Nuclear weapons are limited in their tactical options in a way magic is not. Spellcasters could easily conquer an enemy nation without mass murder or making the land uninhabitable, and if you could conquer new countries with a minimum of bloodshed via magic...why wouldn't you?


For a million reasons, many being that people are not always logical.

The nuclear argument holds up well to the specific "armies are obsolete" thread in that Tippy said there would no longer be a need for boots on the ground, just hide in your Fortress of Solitude and obliterate anyone who disagreed with you.

And the concept of the Tippy magocracy was not to "limit bloodshed." Or even to conquer, in the traditional sense, since you don't need the lands, since fields and mines and so on are irrelevant.





To prevent a fantasy world with functional magic from logically progressing to the Tippyverse, you have to have some kind of limitations on magic that make it a limited resource or a limited problem solver. In D&D land, magic is infinite in scope on both counts...there's virtually nothing it can't do. So while I agree that it would be a horrible setting, it would be the logical result of the effect of D&D magic on a world.

That's not really true.

The rules don't really mechanically limit the amount of magic, but the fluff cleary intends it to be something that a gifted few can do. each level has fewer people than the one below, and advancing as a mage requires going out and putting onesself in harms way, and mages start out very fragile.

Plus, they are human (ok, ok, they are all Grey Elves who began Venerable for the Int bonus, but you know what I mean) they have human desires, quirks, etc. Powerful men have mistresses. They eat at multiple starred restaurants. They want something beyond the MMM and Create Food.

They want the rich world we live in, they just want it at their bidding. And they don't necessarily want to solve everyone else's problems.

Scott Lynch wrote a very good series, The Lies of Locke Lamora which has a city state of mages who basically banded together centuries ago, use their magic to make their own lives better, and hire out at exhorbitant rates to other nations. The rule is, if you kill a Bondsmage, all the others come down on you like a ton of bricks, so nobody ever dares cross one. They seek out people with magical aptitude and offer them a choice: join us, live in splendor and wealth, working for huge pay under our protection, or refuse and we kill you.

This can work as a logical extension of magic being unstoppable, but the world at large is basically Renassaince level tech with some magic. The mages maintain their monopoly, keep the best to themselves and let the world spin on without them, unless you want to pay a lot for a spell. Why would they want to bother with the work of ruling when they can just live well, and have all the resources and luxxuries they want without bothering to enslave other countries

That works for a D&D setting, without the Tippy food traps and flyovers by squads of Shadesteel golems.

Grynning
2009-09-19, 07:26 PM
For a million reasons, many being that people are not always logical.
...

The rules don't really mechanically limit the amount of magic, but the fluff cleary intends it to be something that a gifted few can do. each level has fewer people than the one below, and advancing as a mage requires going out and putting onesself in harms way, and mages start out very fragile.

Plus, they are human (ok, ok, they are all Grey Elves who began Venerable for the Int bonus, but you know what I mean) they have human desires, quirks, etc. Powerful men have mistresses. They eat at multiple starred restaurants. They want something beyond the MMM and Create Food.

They want the rich world we live in, they just want it at their bidding. And they don't necessarily want to solve everyone else's problems.
...

(I can refute only these parts of your post, the rest was omitted for space, not to try and remove context)

My argument here is that if we, silly gamers that we are, can think of all these uses for magic and how they could solve the world's problems, why would you ever assume that real mages, who would be the world's most intelligent and educated people, couldn't come up with them and apply them? What if even one mage puts aside their desires for material things and acts altruistically? What if one or several are true megalomaniacs? You can't just assume that everyone who can cast spells will be content to sit on their laurels and do nothing.

Think of wealthy people today. Sure, a lot of them spend their time on frivolous pursuits. Others just spend their time making more money. But some go into politics, or become activists, and stir up change. Same thing would happen with spellcasters, and given the D&D magic system, they could and likely would take over.

wadledo
2009-09-19, 07:31 PM
@Mike-G: Of course, that in itself implies that all wizards are either 'Evil' (D&D evil, mind you), or Neutral.

If any of them decide that (though either goodness or a sense of duty to their fellow man, bear, pig, thing) they should make everything better for everyone, if only so that they can still be the best/feel good about their uber-powerful self.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-09-19, 08:07 PM
This seems to me a needlessly narrow definition of "fantasy medieval." For example, it seems to preclude high fantasy, a well-accepted part of medieval fantasy. But that's just an example, my objection to is broader than that; it just seems too narrow to encompass what people understand as fantasy medieval. But, even accepting your definition of "historical western Europe + magic," D&D largely fits that mold. I'm not sure why "+magic" has to be limited to low magic or stick to non-weird monsters to remain "fantasy medieval." I suppose at some point, breaking enough conventions may force a given game to be called just "fantasy," but I think the default is firmly a fantastic medieval setting.

The issue is that the more world-changing magic you have in a setting, the less medieval it can be before maintaining a medieval feel becomes a matter of ignoring what the rules can do. For instance, in the Riddle of Steel, magic is ridiculously powerful because there are few defenses against it and mages are rare. However, (A) magic tends to be more personal- or combat-oriented, and (B) every spell cast ages you, so mages are either really old and sickly or really frugal with magic. In that sort of setting, high levels of magic and medieval fantasy can exist fairly well side-by-side--the stereotypical "old mysterious powerful loner wizard" Merlin-type is what all mages are like, and there are reasons within the rules why magic isn't all over the place. Contrast this with D&D: Magic is easily repeatable (refreshes daily with no extra input besides rest), cost-free (for the most part; some spells have gp/XP costs), common (anyone can take a level of a casting class), and storable (in multi-use items such as wands). In this scenario, you certainly can have a medieval game, but it requires actively ignoring what the rules allow NPCs to do because there are so many ways to affect the world outside the dungeon.

That's the low-magic portion. As to the weird monsters portion...well, if you put a stereotypical medieval village in D&D, it dies fast. Things like ogres and giants and other mythological monsters can fit in the world easily, because tons of low-level mundane NPCs can logically take them down--I don't care what your AC is or what HP you have, enough commoners rolling natural 20s will take you out. When it comes to the weirder, non-mythologically-based monsters, though, they're out of luck: a single vrock, for example, is pretty much immune to average level 1 warriors thanks to its DR, and can take out at least a few low-level greatsword-swinging barbarians, and three of them working together can destroy entire cities' populations in 18-second increments. Yes, taking out these critters is what adventurers are for, but unless you have a good level of magical protections in your cities, the Abyss could send three vrocks to greater teleport in, dance, kill dozens to hundreds of people, and teleport out to heal up if necessary. And that's only one monster; a shadow, mind flayer, basilisk, or other monster could also probably cripple cities single-handedly without magical ways to protect people or heal them later.


I agree with the consequences, and I think that's why most people don't want to go down that road. They want to muck about in a medieval-ish setting not one that's become industrialized or modernized by magic. So despite the possibility for that under the rules, the games themselves and players in practice have prevented that. They do this by social strictures on magic or simply hand-waving (just stating that society stopped somewhere along the continuum between the low-magic setting you describe as fantasy medieval and the magic-dominated world of Tippyverse.)

Aside: Like you, I'd prefer "lesser Tippyverse" to either extreme, though my preference would probably be much "lesser" than yours.

And I don't think it's a bad thing that people want to play in a medieval fantasy game; I like that kind of game myself. My point is simply that this isn't what D&D does by default, since, as you said, you need to introduce houserules or implement roleplaying strictures on the rules or simply ignore it in order to get to the medieval fantasy point.


I'm not so bothered by the medieval stasis; I want to adventure in a medieval w/magic (and magical monsters) setting. I don't want to adventure in that is the logical result of food-making traps and disease-curing traps. I'm willing to accept whatever rationale (such as suspicion of magic or hoarding of Church secrets) or even handwaving it takes to create such a setting. If that's a medieval stasis, I'm fine with it. In fact, if what you'd prefer is a "lesser Tippyverse" you probably agree with this practice, you just differ about where to halt the progress.

Well, the whole food-making traps and such is a peculiarity of the D&D rules, but when it comes to RPGs in general, I'd like to see a logical treatment of magic's impact, so it isn't just "Adventurers are cool and can use magic in weird ways, society is moronic and can't think of things the PCs figured out in minutes." If the magic system is logically implemented, so you can have a medieval feel with magic still being present and acknowledged, so much the better.


That said, I don't look down on someone who prefers the more common magic or look down on that as "cheesy" or "broken." It's just a preference about how one wants their setting to look and willing they are to impose restrictions on RAW (via rule or setting) to get there.

I haven't encountered anyone here who thinks creative uses of magic is broken, but I have seen people claim things as simple as "sneak up to someone and toss a shrink item'd pebble at them, expanding it in midair" or "take a bunch of dust of dryness, suck up lots of water, and use all the pressure of the released water to crush things" to be horrible ideas that somehow ruin the game...yet both of those are things that people can think of literally within seconds of reading the descriptions.

Mike_G
2009-09-19, 10:08 PM
(I can refute only these parts of your post, the rest was omitted for space, not to try and remove context)

My argument here is that if we, silly gamers that we are, can think of all these uses for magic and how they could solve the world's problems, why would you ever assume that real mages, who would be the world's most intelligent and educated people, couldn't come up with them and apply them?


I'm sure that plenty of people on the internet can come up with solutions to the Arab/Israeli conflict, as a pure thought exercise, without messy human emotion getting in the way.

No plan survives contact with the enemy. Just because it seems logical on a discussion board doesn't mean it would fly in the real world.

And I need to object to the oft repeated theory that since Wizards have a high Int score, they naturally make smart decisions and would come up with a better plan than normal people. There are different kinds of "intelligence." Some people pick up languages very easily, but can't do math. Some people can get a 4.0 GPA but still screw their lives up royally.

D&D Int is a shorthand catchall to mechanically represent aspects of intelligence. Certainly the ability to learn complex things, like high level spells, and the fact that it gives bonus skill points means it must reflect an ability to learn. That doesn't mean you have the sense to come in out of the rain.




What if even one mage puts aside their desires for material things and acts altruistically? What if one or several are true megalomaniacs? You can't just assume that everyone who can cast spells will be content to sit on their laurels and do nothing.


It's got nothing to do with all mages not caring. It's got to do with mages being rare, (not everyone has the stats to qualify, or the money or connections to get the training) and high level mages being ever more rare, as gaining levels per RAW is dangerous. (If we consider RAW to be the physics of the world, -which I don't, but the Tippyverse tends to- the only way to get better at casting spells is to go kill monsters, not study in a library) How many first level Wizards with their handful of HP will survive the gauntlet to get those nice juicy 9th level spells?

Now, the cream of the crop of those able to be Wizards in the first place is going to be a tiny percentage of the world population. Some will want to use their power for their own pleasure, some will horde that power and try to stomp out potential rising threats, and some may well try to improve their world, but we're talking about a very small number of people. Even if they can, it's a huge amount of work to "fix" a nation.



Think of wealthy people today. Sure, a lot of them spend their time on frivolous pursuits. Others just spend their time making more money. But some go into politics, or become activists, and stir up change. Same thing would happen with spellcasters, and given the D&D magic system, they could and likely would take over.

Maybe. It's a definite option.

But it's not inevitable.

If they are activists, they are going to show those activist tendencies before they hit 20th level and decide to take over. If they attract too much attention when they are low level, they won't make high level. If they want to be active and improve society so nobody starves, etc, they aren't likely to be the paranoid sociopaths who spend 23 hours a day in the MMM and have half a dozen Contingencies at all times.

Running a country is work. A lot of it is dull work. If a guy can create his own demi plane, create wealth at will and have a harem of Mindraped succubi, why would he worry about making the trains run on time? Plus, if he made 20th level by adventuring, and that's his only option if RAW = How The World Works, he 's addicted to either the adrenaline rush of combat or to the power of gaining levels. Not bureaucratic material. Why else adventure beyond a few levels?

I don't object to the Tippyverse as a possible outcome of a close reading of the rules. I object to the idea that no other outcome is possible.

Like I pointed out, if mages are too powerful for any to oppose, the world in Lynch's novel is a second possibility. The organized mages would stomp any single mage who tried to upset the apple cart, and they benefit from keeping the everyday magic for the masses to a dull roar.

Grynning
2009-09-19, 11:22 PM
I'm not saying the Tippyverse is inevitable, rather that it's more logical than the assumed D&D Dark Ages/Renaissance with spellcasters and adventurers on the side. Even discounting a plethora of high level wizards, anyone with a mental ability score of 12 or higher can pick up some magic in the default D&D world. Hell, there's even NPC classes for it, Adept in the default setting and the magewright from Eberron.

(Aside: Now, Eberron comes a lot closer to a believable setting than base D&D, because it's explicitly low-level, and magic is integrated in society to a large degree. But we're not talking about an Eberron style 'verse, but rather...)

The D&D world that exists on the GitP forums has characters of all levels, all classes, all races, etc. Level 20 wizards included. While you can wave this away as "Oh that's all that Internet theory and optimization," this really isn't straying too far from how the 3.5 default setting is presented. Think about how many PrCs there are, all presented as existing in the same continuity. With elaborate histories, traditions, etc. Presumably, at one time or another in the 3.5 world, there has been at least one person who has completed the full progression of each PrC. Including those with full spellcasting. This means that D&D is presented as a world where there ARE in fact, LOTS of high level spellcasters, with a lot more at the lower to mid levels.

The Tippyverse likely came about from all of the "How do you kill a wizard" threads around here, because if you really start thinking too hard about what spellcasters can do, even low level ones, the logical conclusions are that they can fundamentally change the face of a planet, eliminating many of the problems faced by both medieval and modern civilization, which begs the question, why do we all still picture commoners in the D&D world as subsistence farmers, and experts as blacksmiths? Those professions would cease to exist with just a bit of spellcasting about.

The point I'm trying to make is that the default D&D setting is patently ridiculous. The Tippyverse is less so. (I prefer something in between, like Eberron, myself.)

Xenogears
2009-09-20, 12:05 AM
Somewhere in the DMG it gives tables for randomly rolling up what % of the population is what class lvl combo. For major metropilis' then you can have epic lvl commoners there and extremely high lvl casters. So the DMG does present the world as having high lvl casters. Thus even core only basic world has cities with a number of high lvl casters.

Mike_G
2009-09-20, 12:11 AM
I'm not saying the Tippyverse is inevitable, rather that it's more logical than the assumed D&D Dark Ages/Renaissance with spellcasters and adventurers on the side.


The argument for the Tippyverse was that it was inevitable, since mages can by RAW do these things, they will

That's the part I have issues with. As a possible world, as a thought exercise, sure.



Even discounting a plethora of high level wizards, anyone with a mental ability score of 12 or higher can pick up some magic in the default D&D world. Hell, there's even NPC classes for it, Adept in the default setting and the magewright from Eberron.


Mechanically, yes.

Setting wise, you need to learn spells, so what percentage of the population can take time off from shovelling cow manure to seek out a master and become an apprentice?

People tend to take our fairly fluid social system for granted and apply it to the game world. In a Medieval (or even faux Medieval) world, it's easy to assume more stratified society, where a peasant with a 16 Int would just be the sheepfarmer who could remember everyone's birthday. Not much chance the village would take up a collection to send him to the Unseen University. Even in 21st Century America, if you don't have the money for school, well, the world needs ditch diggers, too, Danny.




(Aside: Now, Eberron comes a lot closer to a believable setting than base D&D, because it's explicitly low-level, and magic is integrated in society to a large degree. But we're not talking about an Eberron style 'verse, but rather...)

The D&D world that exists on the GitP forums has characters of all levels, all classes, all races, etc. Level 20 wizards included.


Actually, they mention the rarity of high level casters quite a few times. Haley says something about needing a 17th level Cleric to resurrect Roy unless they get the body back, and says she's not even sure there is one on this continent. The party is around 13th level at the Battle of Azure City, and Roy is the "highest level Good character" on the field. If a city of 100,000 doesn't have anyone over 13th level, well, that kinda fits the "rare" scenario.




While you can wave this away as "Oh that's all that Internet theory and optimization," this really isn't straying too far from how the 3.5 default setting is presented. Think about how many PrCs there are, all presented as existing in the same continuity. With elaborate histories, traditions, etc. Presumably, at one time or another in the 3.5 world, there has been at least one person who has completed the full progression of each PrC. Including those with full spellcasting. This means that D&D is presented as a world where there ARE in fact, LOTS of high level spellcasters, with a lot more at the lower to mid levels.

The Tippyverse likely came about from all of the "How do you kill a wizard" threads around here, because if you really start thinking too hard about what spellcasters can do, even low level ones, the logical conclusions are that they can fundamentally change the face of a planet, eliminating many of the problems faced by both medieval and modern civilization, which begs the question, why do we all still picture commoners in the D&D world as subsistence farmers, and experts as blacksmiths? Those professions would cease to exist with just a bit of spellcasting about.


Only if enough Wizards could be arsed to spend xp and time and spell slots doing the work of butchers or bakers or freaking plumbers.

They have better things to do. Like create demiplanes or gain xp hunting monsters.




The point I'm trying to make is that the default D&D setting is patently ridiculous. The Tippyverse is less so. (I prefer something in between, like Eberron, myself.)

The default setting is only ridiculous if you look at the rules as "the Physics of the world" in which role they fail, as opposed to "a way to adjudicate tasks that adventurers do" which is what they are designed for.

By RAW, miners can't overcome the DR of stone with picks, Profession: Streetsweeper pays the same as Profession: Lawyer, and the local carpenter only gets better at carpentry by fighting kobolds. Hell, the senior librarian has more HP than the average City Guardsman, since he's a high level Expert.

The rules are for adventuring parties, who are rare. Freelance mercenaries have been rare in most societies. The world at large is the pseudo-medieval fantasy world that authors from Howard to Lieber to Tolkien have worked in. Most people are simple commoners, who look with suspicion at the rare, nigh mythical nomadic adventurer, be he heroic swordsman or mysterious sorcerer, brimming with fell energies.

It's a fantasy game. It not an engine for building consistent worlds.

Grynning
2009-09-20, 12:53 AM
The argument for the Tippyverse was that it was inevitable, since mages can by RAW do these things, they will

*snip*

It's a fantasy game. It not an engine for building consistent worlds.

I agree with you that 3.5 RAW fails as an engine for building a world. That's the whole point I'm trying to make, just from a different angle. I think we're agreeing more than not, we just have different reasons for reaching this conclusion.

I think that the D&D setting is ridiculous because it does treat RAW as the physics of the game world to a large extent. If you don't think that it does, just have a sit-down with any number of setting books or even with the DMG and consider how much of what you are characterizing as the rules that are "only for simulating what adventurers do" are used as the building blocks of the world around them. A game where the rules were obviously divorced from the setting wouldn't have a Tippyverse, but 3rd edition D&D is not that game.

3.x D&D (and D&D in general) does not treat adventurers as special and rare characters. The abilities they possess are not unique, and are often replicated by monsters and NPCs alike. The same spells that they can cast pop up as traps, as wards in a merchants home, or being used at will by a critter that exists within the worlds ecology. Attack bonuses, saves, etc are all applied to the "ordinary folk." The kings and nobles and bad guys have class levels. It is TRYING to be a world simulator. And it's not a very believable world.

Lieber and Howard's worlds were believable because mages and demons and strong-armed heroes were rare and frightening and mysterious. Tolkien's world was structured around an in-depth mythology. In all those settings as well, magic had a price and was very difficult to master. The D&D 3.x world does not follow any of these conventions. Your personal setting that you DM might, but here on the boards, where we're meeting on the common ground of what's in the books, 3.x D&D gives us a world of common and unlimited magic. Common and unlimited magic would logically lead to a Tippyverse. That's all I'm trying to say.

Edit:


Actually, they mention the rarity of high level casters quite a few times. Haley says something about needing a 17th level Cleric to resurrect Roy unless they get the body back, and says she's not even sure there is one on this continent. The party is around 13th level at the Battle of Azure City, and Roy is the "highest level Good character" on the field. If a city of 100,000 doesn't have anyone over 13th level, well, that kinda fits the "rare" scenario.


I was referring to the hypothetical generic setting where discussions on the boards often take place, not to OoTS. OoTS is a specific world tailored to the story that the Giant is telling, much like the worlds of the authors you brought up. It also doesn't follow D&D RAW, which forum discussions usually (try to) do.

Mike_G
2009-09-20, 08:27 AM
I agree with you that 3.5 RAW fails as an engine for building a world. That's the whole point I'm trying to make, just from a different angle. I think we're agreeing more than not, we just have different reasons for reaching this conclusion.


Probably.

The Tippyverse arguments drive me nuts because they are all phrased in terms of inevitablity, and only make sense in the vacuum of a discussion board, where any kind of DM intervention does nto exist.



I think that the D&D setting is ridiculous because it does treat RAW as the physics of the game world to a large extent. If you don't think that it does, just have a sit-down with any number of setting books or even with the DMG and consider how much of what you are characterizing as the rules that are "only for simulating what adventurers do" are used as the building blocks of the world around them. A game where the rules were obviously divorced from the setting wouldn't have a Tippyverse, but 3rd edition D&D is not that game.

3.x D&D (and D&D in general) does not treat adventurers as special and rare characters. The abilities they possess are not unique, and are often replicated by monsters and NPCs alike. The same spells that they can cast pop up as traps, as wards in a merchants home, or being used at will by a critter that exists within the worlds ecology. Attack bonuses, saves, etc are all applied to the "ordinary folk." The kings and nobles and bad guys have class levels. It is TRYING to be a world simulator. And it's not a very believable world.



This certainly wasn't the case in earlier editions, and it isn't in 4e. In AD&D, if you weren't an adventurer, you were a "0 level" human. No abilty to advance, 1 HD, etc.

4e uses rules like the "minion" classification, which recognizes that the rules are for PC's, and the rest of the critters are part of the setting.

I kinda like the fact that 3e lets the monsters have their stat bonuses, which 1st didn't (1d8 damage from a dragon claw, no Str bonus in the old Monster manual).

I don't think 3e tried to be a world simulator as much as it tried to make stuff mechanically consistent. Things like Profession clearly work fine when the party Ranger wants to earn some gold as a guide in his downtime, but fail horribly at simulating a craftsman NPC.



Lieber and Howard's worlds were believable because mages and demons and strong-armed heroes were rare and frightening and mysterious. Tolkien's world was structured around an in-depth mythology. In all those settings as well, magic had a price and was very difficult to master. The D&D 3.x world does not follow any of these conventions. Your personal setting that you DM might, but here on the boards, where we're meeting on the common ground of what's in the books, 3.x D&D gives us a world of common and unlimited magic. Common and unlimited magic would logically lead to a Tippyverse. That's all I'm trying to say.


I think setting is very malleable. Magic isn't as common as posters tend to contend.

If we use the listed wage of 1 sp per day for a menial laborer, that's 36.5 gp a year. How much access to spells or items is that guy going to have?

The only way to amass the gold for magic is to loot it. Sure, a city overlord may commission a Decanter of Endless Water in the public well, but magic on the scale of the Tippyverse is only logical if you read the spell list carefully but ignore the whole WBL, which is rules as much any of the rest of it.

Tyndmyr
2009-09-20, 09:04 AM
This is awesome. I'd run a game like that tomorrow if I had/could find a group.

And I would gladly play that game. I agree that it is made of pure awesomeness.

Matthew
2009-09-20, 09:09 AM
I don't think 3e tried to be a world simulator as much as it tried to make stuff mechanically consistent. Things like Profession clearly work fine when the party Ranger wants to earn some gold as a guide in his downtime, but fail horribly at simulating a craftsman NPC.

D20/3e has a bit of a personality disorder; sometimes it seeks to perpetuate the standards of previous incarnations of the game, and other times it wanders off in a completely different direction. Often it contradicts itself, supplements like Enemies & Allies tell us that the typical city guard is a Warrior 2, but the maths of the demographic charts in the DMG give a somewhat different picture. The pay rates for hirelings in the DMG versus the profession rules in the PHB are probably one of the biggest contradictions, though.

Oslecamo
2009-09-20, 09:35 AM
We have enough nukes to wipe out any enemy on the planet right now. That doesn't stop us from spending a huge amount of resources on plain old guys in muddy boots and sweaty cammos doing the heavy lifting.
Ah, but you're forgeting something very important here.

There is such thing as overkill!

Nukes can wipe out any enemy on the planet indeed, but you won't gain anything from it.

A nuked country is a country wich won't buy your products, where you cannot grow food, where you cannot recruit new engineers, and where you can't even extract the oil because everything is either dead or radioactive. You just spent a bazillion dollars of nukes for nothing!

So, one sends the old guys in plain old guys, to submit the population, and make them work for you. Now you can get their brains, and their oil, and force them to buy your products, turning them into a profit machine, instead of an useless glassed wasteland.




In the Tippyverse, we'd just hide behind our walls and nuke anybody who threatened us until their country was a glass bowl.

Nah, that's for what mind control is for.

Karsh
2009-09-20, 10:09 AM
Pretty sure her name was Cindy.


I miss Cindy. Haven't seen her around in quite a while. For a while there though, she was every where I looked.


And yea...Cindy was one of the earliest incarnations of an Orb powered Incantatrix that I remember seeing, a style which is now known as "the Mailman" over on CharOp (RIP CharOp)...I guess cause he delivers the boom.

Stop it, you're making me blush.

Cindy was originally a character I made for a Belial the Leveler playtest, who was then tweaked for the "Grinder" dungeon, though she never actually made it in there. Tippy and I collaborated on her towards the end of the process, especially since he was making his own Incantatrix, but Cindy was my own creation and honestly, I sort of resent the fact that he took my concept and passed it off as his own.

Where exactly did she turn up all over the place? I have to admit that it's weird that everyone knows about her.

Nohwl
2009-09-20, 10:19 AM
my understanding is that cindy was the response to wizards should be doing battlefield control instead of blasting.

Karsh
2009-09-20, 10:35 AM
Well, honestly, she was more to demonstrate how horrifically broken Arcane Thesis was. Cindy was still perfectly capable of doing battlefield control; her Orbs of DoomTM were only 4th level spells, after all. It was just usually more expedient for her to blow up whatever she was fighting than to bother debuffing them.

Mike_G
2009-09-20, 11:20 AM
Ah, but you're forgeting something very important here.

There is such thing as overkill!

Nukes can wipe out any enemy on the planet indeed, but you won't gain anything from it.

A nuked country is a country wich won't buy your products, where you cannot grow food, where you cannot recruit new engineers, and where you can't even extract the oil because everything is either dead or radioactive. You just spent a bazillion dollars of nukes for nothing!

So, one sends the old guys in plain old guys, to submit the population, and make them work for you. Now you can get their brains, and their oil, and force them to buy your products, turning them into a profit machine, instead of an useless glassed wasteland.



So.

The mountians of Afghanistan. Which are good for growing.....

Uh, no a whole lot beyond poppyfields and Al Qaeda training camps. Goats, maybe?

It's not a market for our goods, it's a drain on our resources. And other than cheap heroin, I don't see what we're getting out of it, resource wise. Haven't seen much goat at the old Safeway.

When's the last time the old Empire model worked, anyway? Not since the mid twentieth century, as far as I can recall.

I think the Tippy solution to that issue would be nuke the place until it glowed and Mindrape anybody who complained. His Shadesteel Golem Strike Teams were a simple deterrent by threatened destruction, not an occupying force.

My point is simply that we have evidence that just because you can solve a problem through overwhelming force without boots on the ground, it's not inevitable that people do.

Yahzi
2009-09-20, 11:42 AM
Well, to be fair, D&D has never really been a fantasy medieval setting.
You are pointing out a very valid problem: either the NPCs have the same spells as the players, in which case the world can't be Medieval; or they don't, in which case the power of the players is exponentially magnified. If you are the only person in the world who can cast Remove Disease, then you are going to become the Pope without even trying. If everybody can, then there is no Black Death.

I have invested a fair amount of time into creating a setting that is (mostly) RAW and Medieval. I did have to make two slightly radical changes: XP is tangible and the level curve is exponential. Other than that I think it yields a world that convincingly explains why feudal barons rule over poverty-stricken peasants. I would really enjoy hearing how close you think I came. :smallsmile:

(click on my sig for more)

Da Pwnzlord
2009-09-20, 11:49 AM
And I would gladly play that game. I agree that it is made of pure awesomeness.

Count me in!

Mushroom Ninja
2009-09-20, 12:08 PM
This is awesome. I'd run a game like that tomorrow if I had/could find a group.

That could be arranged for...

Yukitsu
2009-09-20, 12:10 PM
I think the Tippy solution to that issue would be nuke the place until it glowed and Mindrape anybody who complained. His Shadesteel Golem Strike Teams were a simple deterrent by threatened destruction, not an occupying force.

My point is simply that we have evidence that just because you can solve a problem through overwhelming force without boots on the ground, it's not inevitable that people do.

The key difference here is that wizards can mind rape everything into truly believing that was OK, whereas the standard country gets a lot of detractors they can't deal with.

shadow_archmagi
2009-09-20, 12:40 PM
What exactly is so spiffy about shadesteel golems, anyway?

Am looking at the statblock right now, and, um...

Oh. 33 AC, DR 10, +20 to hit, 12d6 blasts as free action, plus stealth... I can see how a squad of these guys would be pretty dangerous, but the "70k each" price tag is a bit much for my taste.

Radar
2009-09-20, 12:44 PM
I think the Tippy solution to that issue would be nuke the place until it glowed and Mindrape anybody who complained. His Shadesteel Golem Strike Teams were a simple deterrent by threatened destruction, not an occupying force.

My point is simply that we have evidence that just because you can solve a problem through overwhelming force without boots on the ground, it's not inevitable that people do.
Well i would disagree on the "nuke'em all" being a Tippy-like solution - nuclear warfare =/= teleportation warfare. The teleportation wars in Tippyverse were the consequence of sudden invention and world-wide spread of teleportation spells. This would inevitably lead to chaos, since regular defences would be obsolate in a matter of days and everyone has the spell and first one to strike is the one to survive. People would have to adapt either by bunkering up (highly defended cities -> Tippyverse) or developing anti-teleport spells and that takes time.

With nuclear weapons it's very different. First of delivery of the warhead is not instant. Even if it can't be prevented, there is more then enough time for a retaliation strike. This leads to a stalemate, since everyone looses - the first to unleash nuclear hell will go down as well. That's why using nuclear weapons is by now prohibited (as much as international agreements have power upon anybody) - nobody likes trigger-happy people, so using an A-bomb, would lead to serious political and economical backlash and being cut off from trade hurts a lot in today's world.

You said correctly, that shadowsteel golems are a deterrent by threatened destruction - that's exactly the cold war scenario. And we weren't that far from mutually assured annihilation IRL actually.

Mushroom Ninja
2009-09-20, 12:44 PM
What exactly is so spiffy about shadesteel golems, anyway?

Am looking at the statblock right now, and, um...

Oh. 33 AC, DR 10, +20 to hit, 12d6 blasts as free action, plus stealth... I can see how a squad of these guys would be pretty dangerous, but the "70k each" price tag is a bit much for my taste.

But, as an evil archmage, you have plenty of money to spare making constucts.

Radar
2009-09-20, 01:05 PM
Another tought about Tippyverse: if you think about it, it's a fantasy version of Fallout - you have fortified cities/vaults and total wilderness outside of them.

wadledo
2009-09-20, 01:34 PM
What exactly is so spiffy about shadesteel golems, anyway?

Am looking at the statblock right now, and, um...

Oh. 33 AC, DR 10, +20 to hit, 12d6 blasts as free action, plus stealth... I can see how a squad of these guys would be pretty dangerous, but the "70k each" price tag is a bit much for my taste.

The spiffy thing is that if you look at the Shadesteel golem in comparison to the iron golem (considered to be IMO the best Core construct for its price), the Shadesteel golem comes out ahead in price, combat, alternate uses, stealth, and general efficiency.

Kallisti
2009-09-20, 02:02 PM
This is awesome.

And I would gladly play that game. I agree that it is made of pure awesomeness.

Count me in!

That could be arranged for...

I accept your challenge. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125655)

Thrawn183
2009-09-20, 02:24 PM
*snip*

Oh. 33 AC, DR 10, +20 to hit, 12d6 blasts as free action, plus stealth... I can see how a squad of these guys would be pretty dangerous, but the "70k each" price tag is a bit much for my taste.

On average, large cities have 19th level commoners running around. To put it differently, a thorp (the smallest community) on average has a 7th level commoner. A 7th level commoner has just over 7,000 GP worth of wealth.

"Farming" low levels for money is not even close to challenging. Sure, you'd need to take out a hundred 7th level commoners to make 10 shadesteel golems, but is that particularly challenging? With any of the reserve feats, it wouldn't even take you that many days. Not to mention if you add in the assistance of your steadily growing shadesteel golem army.

Eldan
2009-09-20, 02:42 PM
Problem with that: these commoners have their wealth invested in gardening tools, a large house, five cows, a goat, three corn fields, ten slaves to work these fields, huts for these slaves and an expensive wardrobe. Not in money.

So, this isn't the way a tippy wizard would go. Instead, he would conjure up trade goods, crash the market and take the money made that way to build golems.

Tyndmyr
2009-09-20, 03:26 PM
Well, rather than the straightforward "kill them for their lewtz", you could run a simple "protection" racket. It would have all sorts of benefits, and mind you, this is only to get started.

Thrawn183
2009-09-20, 03:31 PM
Personally I think they'd have their wealth tied up in magic items like a plow that gives a +5 competence bonus to profession (farmer). And something like that would be easily resold.

Regardless, the point is that a high level character (and I'm not just talking about casters here) can make an incredible amount of money if they put some real effort into it. Like say... dragon hunting. Sure you can make an argument that the dragons will gang up on them, but then why doesn't that happen to PC's?

In the end, there is a lot more wealth out there in the default D&D setting than people realize.

mostlyharmful
2009-09-20, 03:55 PM
On average, large cities have 19th level commoners running around. To put it differently, a thorp (the smallest community) on average has a 7th level commoner. A 7th level commoner has just over 7,000 GP worth of wealth.

"Farming" low levels for money is not even close to challenging. Sure, you'd need to take out a hundred 7th level commoners to make 10 shadesteel golems, but is that particularly challenging? With any of the reserve feats, it wouldn't even take you that many days. Not to mention if you add in the assistance of your steadily growing shadesteel golem army.

Also, if you're an evil archmage you can make use of pain traps and soul sucking to alliviate the xp costs and gp costs are nonexistant in the tippyverse due to coherent use of low level magic. Making constructs just requires the time of a high level caster, that's about it's only real cost when you start making use of the rules. And even that's not a genuine cost with homonculi.

shadow_archmagi
2009-09-20, 03:56 PM
I suppose one could make a portal to the plane of shadow and then hire miners, spending a few gold for the skilled labor instead of 70,000.

The Glyphstone
2009-09-20, 03:57 PM
And I'm pretty sure repeating True Creation traps were involved at some point, making the golems effectively free to produce.

shadow_archmagi
2009-09-20, 06:49 PM
And I'm pretty sure repeating True Creation traps were involved at some point, making the golems effectively free to produce.

I like the idea of actually mining the Shadow metal better. I just have this picture of the line of workers with the miner's hats and the inspiration speech before sending them to almost certain doom

Oslecamo
2009-09-20, 07:24 PM
Personally speaking, I believe an undead army would be much superior simply due to much lower costs. One hour for animate dead, one hour for a shaddow to kill another being.

Ideally, we would have this producing line:
1-Planar ally trap.
2-Several undeads wich spawn more of themselves when they kill attack.
3-New undead is moved to the storehouse.
4-Go back to step 1.

shadow_archmagi
2009-09-20, 07:42 PM
Personally speaking, I believe an undead army


The thing about undead armies is that they're beatable. A lot of the game is focused around "how to kill undead" with things like clerics, anti-undead feats, an entire "screw you undead" energy type...


Golems are much nastier and more durable. A single shadesteel golem should have no problem vs 20 fifth level warriors.

The Glyphstone
2009-09-20, 08:04 PM
Plus, there's the problem that while a Wightpocalypse/Shadowpocalypse is easy to start and unleash, it's very, very hard to call off - while you technically control the entire force via pyramid, all it takes is for one undead to get out of range of its immediate superior and continue multiplying, and you've just depopulated the entire world. It's great for ENDING the world, not so much for TAKING OVER the world.

Tyndmyr
2009-09-20, 08:19 PM
It's great for ENDING the world, not so much for TAKING OVER the world.

You say that like it's a bad thing...

The Random NPC
2009-09-20, 08:39 PM
While I don't know much about Shadesteel Golems, I do know that the US military is trying to remove men from the battlefield. Take the Air Force for example, they are constantly researching and testing how to improve our unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). And I'm sure anyone who has seen a bomb squad has seen those bomb disposal robots. If the Golems were capable of precision kills, much like a soldier with a gun or a sniper, governments would be snapping them up like candy.