Help with Crafting Materials

[DaMunky89]

Hey everybody. Just looking for some quick crowdsourcing assistance for this homebrew setting I'm writing. Specifically, I need help with crafting.

My game uses a 3-stat system for describing materials:

Sharpness - How well it can be sharpened to an edge or cut into a specific shape.
Hardness - How dense and strong the material is.
Elasticity - Its resistance to breaking when bent and ability to snap back into place when bending force ceases.


So, for example, graphite (used in pencils) has decent sharpness but low hardness and elasticity. This means that you can sharpen it to a point, but it is very brittle and will break rather than bend.

Here's what I need help with: I need to start putting together a list of "representative materials" for my crafting system. What I mean by that is materials that many players would have heard of already, commonly encountered in any given world, which provide a good example of how statistics translate into effects. (Like with graphite above.) I will need a few (4 - 6) such materials for each major type of material (wood, stone, metal, cloth/fiber, probably more I haven't thought of yet).

The purpose of this is to let me write my lists for the crafting system using only representative materials. That way if a rarer material pops up it can just be defined in terms of the existing list. You won't need to know all the stats of Adamantium, because I can just treat it "like granite but 10x harder and 5x sharper", etc.

So, any ideas here? Remember I'm looking for representative materials, not just a whole big list of every rock and type of tree.

[Kholai]

Iron and Steel (Iron being harder but less flexible), Ceramics, Glass, Diamond, bone, wood, and jelly.

[Deepbluediver]

Iron and Steel (Iron being harder but less flexible), Ceramics, Glass, Diamond, bone, wood, and jelly.

You could use some real-world materials to start with and slowly slide into the more fantastic.

Base Metals- Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Mithril (Titanium), Adamantite, Orichalcum

Precious Metals- Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Electrum

Wood- Pine, Birch, Ash, Oak, Darkwood, Sapient Pearwood, Laburnum
If anyone knows what fantasy series I pulled that last one from I'll be really impressed.

Stone- Sandstone, Granite, Obsidian, Crystal

Organic- Bone, Horns & Claws

Hide or Skin (leather)- Cow, Pig, Snake, Alligator, Bear, Dragon, Leviathan

Did you want potential descriptions as well?

[LordErebus12]

A couple of metals from fantasy worlds that i stat'd out.
HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13355810#post13355810)

[NichG]

Dwarf Fortress uses this system, and it has values in its data files for lots of common metals and alloys. In Dwarf Fortress, these three things are described by shear modulus, density, and bulk modulus respectively (higher modulus means more resistant to that kind of force).

Actually, for that matter you could just use the actual measured values of those three things for real materials.

[Spiryt]

Iron and Steel (Iron being harder but less flexible), Ceramics, Glass, Diamond, bone, wood, and jelly.

Iron isn't really harder than almost any steel out there.


OP idea is potentially interesting, as far as playable materials go, though couple of problems may be apparent even for simple representations - particularity, density is usually by no means necessarily accompanied by hardness.

[DaMunky89]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, this definitely gives me a good place to start. Because my kind-of starting point is a pseudo medieval low magic world (and then magic gets discovered), I will probably use materials that were actually used for various things back in that era in real life as my starting point. From there I'll start adding other more fantastical materials.

I have, for example, a race of giant beetle people. One of their nation's chief exports is molted shells and chitin; they have no further use for these, but the other races pay good money for them as armor materials.

I know my 3-stat system isn't 100% realistic, but the game I'm working on makes a point of lumping things together for ease of use. STR in my system covers the duties of STR, CON, endurance checks, fortitude checks, and more, as they would otherwise be handled in D&D. Heck, SIZE lumps together density and volume, which having been a competent Physics student I know aren't the same thing at all.

[Rainbownaga]

Iron isn't really harder than almost any steel out there.



Interestingly 'Iron' (such as cast iron) typically has a higher carbon content than 'steel' and is much more brittle, whereas true iron is much softer than steel.

Terminology is confusing.

Also, talking about the 'strength' of metals (not to mention making it the same category as density) is going to be inherently unscientific.

[Spiryt]

Interestingly 'Iron' (such as cast iron) typically has a higher carbon content than 'steel' and is much more brittle, whereas true iron is much softer than steel.

Terminology is confusing.

Also, talking about the 'strength' of metals (not to mention making it the same category as density) is going to be inherently unscientific.

Cast iron is indeed something quite different - I believe that in most conditions, more carbon than ~ 2.2 cannot be easily dispersed in iron, at least in medieval alloys.

Any sort of iron with much smaller, 'sub steel' amounts of carbon, used now and then are going to be softer than steel.

[Amechra]

You could use some real-world materials to start with and slowly slide into the more fantastic.

Base Metals- Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Mithril (Titanium), Adamantite, Orichalcum

Precious Metals- Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Electrum

Wood- Pine, Birch, Ash, Oak, Darkwood, Sapient Pearwood, Laburnum
If anyone knows what fantasy series I pulled that last one from I'll be really impressed.

Stone- Sandstone, Granite, Obsidian, Crystal

Organic- Bone, Horns & Claws

Hide or Skin (leather)- Cow, Pig, Snake, Alligator, Bear, Dragon, Leviathan

Did you want potential descriptions as well?

I had to double check to make sure, but I'm assuming the Runelords?

I've always wanted to make an Endowment system for D&D... It would actually be pretty damn cool, now that I think of it...

[Deepbluediver]

I had to double check to make sure, but I'm assuming the Runelords?
Yes! I was actually kind of disappointed the series ended before that plot point really went anywhere. One of several, as I recall.

IRL the tree seems to be mostly used for making wood and furniture, but I think it has potential for some inventive D&D style refluffing.


I've always wanted to make an Endowment system for D&D... It would actually be pretty damn cool, now that I think of it...

I've thought about it, too, a couple of times, but the biggest problem seems to be the same issue that arises in the books: the only weakness of the endowment-users is the people they get their attributes from. It's like a worse version of the wizard's spellbook; your physical-god has suddenly lost all his powers because the DM decides orcs are raiding a castle 100 miles away.
Not impossible, I think, but would be very tricky.

Of course, the fact that you need some weird metal for the ritual that is rare and has no other apparent use seems like it fits in perfectly with D&D's style of fantasy.

[Amechra]

Yes! I was actually kind of disappointed the series ended before that plot point really went anywhere. One of several, as I recall.

IRL the tree seems to be mostly used for making wood and furniture, but I think it has potential for some inventive D&D style refluffing.



I've thought about it, too, a couple of times, but the biggest problem seems to be the same issue that arises in the books: the only weakness of the endowment-users is the people they get their attributes from. It's like a worse version of the wizard's spellbook; your physical-god has suddenly lost all his powers because the DM decides orcs are raiding a castle 100 miles away.
Not impossible, I think, but would be very tricky.

Of course, the fact that you need some weird metal for the ritual that is rare and has no other apparent use seems like it fits in perfectly with D&D's style of fantasy.

Well, that would be kind of the point of a Runelords-style campaign; figuring out how to keep your people hidden and safe.