A Story About Pun-Pun

[Bartmanhomer]

Hey I just thought of something. Have anyone ever heard or written a fan-fiction about Pun-Pun the legendary kobold? If not, There should be a story inspired to him. What do you think?

[The Glyphstone]

That's like writing a fan fiction about Schrodinger's Cat. They're both thought experiments.

[Misery Esquire]

"Pun-pun did everything. Yes, even that. Pun-pun did everything again. Then he killed the author and took his spot. And made the universe do everything, while he did everything. Because he can do everything. Someone once almost got to think about doing something about Pun-pun in the past, but then Pun-Pun retroactively had done everything before that.

The End"

[Bartmanhomer]

"Pun-pun did everything. Yes, even that. Pun-pun did everything again. Then he killed the author and took his spot. And made the universe do everything, while he did everything. Because he can do everything. Someone once almost got to think about doing something about Pun-pun in the past, but then Pun-Pun retroactively had done everything before that.

The End"LOL! Good one. :smile:

[Peelee]

That's like writing a fan fiction about Schrodinger's Cat. They're both thought experiments.

Technically, Schrödinger's Cat is not so much a thought experiment as it is an example as to why he disagreed with a certain interpretation.

I do realize i have a negative modifier to my Fun: Party skill.

[rooster707]

What I want to know is, has anyone ever actually tried to play Pun-Pun?

[Reddish Mage]

Technically, Schrödinger's Cat is not so much a thought experiment as it is an example as to why he disagreed with a certain interpretation.

I do realize i have a negative modifier to my Fun: Party skill.

Yet doesn't everyone use it now instead of "some physicists (not Shrodinger) are so crazy" to instead say "look how that brilliant physicist Schrodinger proved how weird the universe is!"

[Traab]

What I want to know is, has anyone ever actually tried to play Pun-Pun?

Frequently. You can identify those who attempted it by the suspiciously player handbook sized dents in their foreheads.

[Lizard Lord]

Yet doesn't everyone use it now instead of "some physicists (not Shrodinger) are so crazy" to instead say "look how that brilliant physicist Schrodinger proved how weird the universe is!"

Everyone in T.V./Movies where either the characters were idiots or the writers clearly missed the point of Schrodinger's cat.

[eggynack]

I think a story is doable.

"No one knew when Pun-Pun Began, or when he would End, but everyone knew that Pun-Pun Was. Most lived their lives relatively untouched by Pun-Pun, only seeing the product of his existence in the form of arbitrary whims that radiated out from him across the universe. Some, one can only assume, opposed his Being, but those that tried must have been banished into non-existence, for not a single person has ever known anyone who has opposed Him. He was everything, his extent stretching out in all directions as if it had always been such.

'Y'know, I think that today I'ma make the moon into a replica of William Shatner's head.'

And so it was."

Y'know, kinda an ending of The Last Question sorta vibe, with some It's a Good Life in the tone, except with some geekery thrown in. It's not like no story has ever come into existence on the basis of philosophical and social questions, or even thought experiments. Hell, Flat Land is basically all three in one.

[Psyren]

What I want to know is, has anyone ever actually tried to play Pun-Pun?

Yep. There are generally two results:

1) Player: "I ascend and..."
DM: "Congratulations, you succeed and win D&D. Next campaign. What would you like to play?"
Player: "A kobold! I ascend and..."
DM: "Congratulations, you succeed and win D&D. Next campaign. What would you like to play?"

Repeat until the player gets the point and does something else.


2) Player: "I ascend and..."
DM: "Congratulations, you succeed and win D&D. Pun-pun is now an NPC whose great deeds live in myth and legend. Next campaign."
Player: "I roll a kobold and..."
DM: "The existing Pun-pun is now an overdeity. Sarrukhs no longer exist in this world as he has deemed this power too great to fall into the wrong hands, and the pantheon quickly acceded to his wishes. His portfolio is Tabletop Gaming itself, extending into our world and making sure nothing circumvents the actual game from occurring. So long as you do not violate this tenet, he will leave your character alone. Also he has decreed that {insert list of GM's gentleman's agreement rules}"

[OldTrees1]

What I want to know is, has anyone ever actually tried to play Pun-Pun?


Back in highschool we were running a game of D&D. One of the other players was playing a mage with a goal* that seemed to hard for wish but that everyone was on board with. We were high enough level that my necromancer could do a few steps to qualify for being targeted by manipulate form. So we invoked manipulate form to fulfill the goal and then removed the ability afterwards.

*Once upon a time in his backstory he was partially possessed by a powerful mage. He wanted to time travel and replace the mage with himself. Thus partially possessing himself (the player did not realize the consequences of creating this time loop, I found it funny & interesting) partially possessing himself partially possessing himself partially possessing himself ... (My necromancer considered the infinitely dense soul to be an interesting result)

[gooddragon1]

What I want to know is, has anyone ever actually tried to play Pun-Pun?

I don't think you actually play pun-pun as much as just say what happens.

I think the closest we have to a story about pun-pun is the story of Saitama in the One Punch Man anime.

[endoperez]

There is a genre of fantasy stories that are about a human being getting godlike power, raising to the realm of gods as a weak deity, getting overdeity-like power, raising to the realm of overgods as a weak overgod, raising to the realm of supreme beings as a weak supreme god, raising in power to challenge the heavens, and winning.

It's a mostly Chinese genre, and it's similar to pulp fiction - cheap, quick reading, low quality, with little literary merit. The few English translations are mostly unofficial ones made by fans, translated at an obnoxious speed (such as "1 chapter per day").

That is the closest you can get to Pun-Pun in an actual story.

One example of this is probably "Stellar Transformations", where the main protagonist starts as a relatively normal human, but achieves great power through huge amount of work and unusual circumstances.

There are dozens of variations in which the main character has some sort of a cheat in the beginning, not unlike Pun-Puns Sarrukh-method. Reincarnation with past knowledge is a common one. Traveling back in time to your own younger body is another similar trick. Then there's various secret techniques - I wouldn't be suprised if there was a story about a character who can get the powers of any creature for himself in some way.


Note that there are many Japanese light novels / manga / a few anime about similar topics, but these Chinese novels specifically let the characters ascend from normal characters to epic-level characters to gods (and to over-gods). These successive, ever more powerful worlds seem to be a thing.

[Eldan]

Back in highschool we were running a game of D&D. One of the other players was playing a mage with a goal* that seemed to hard for wish but that everyone was on board with. We were high enough level that my necromancer could do a few steps to qualify for being targeted by manipulate form. So we invoked manipulate form to fulfill the goal and then removed the ability afterwards.

*Once upon a time in his backstory he was partially possessed by a powerful mage. He wanted to time travel and replace the mage with himself. Thus partially possessing himself (the player did not realize the consequences of creating this time loop, I found it funny & interesting) partially possessing himself partially possessing himself partially possessing himself ... (My necromancer considered the infinitely dense soul to be an interesting result)

I think I'dd just say "congratz, you are now DM"

[Reddish Mage]

It's not like no story has ever come into existence on the basis of philosophical and social questions, or even thought experiments. Hell, Flat Land is basically all three in one.

Actually, its a whole genre: "The Stranger," everything Sartre ever wrote, everything Nietzsche wrote, even Plato..

[Ok Plato some would say is too bare-bones, but look at all the literary implications of some of the Dialogues, like how Socrates has a conversation about "the holy," aka justice/goodness, with Euthyphro, the chief prosecutor seeking the death penalty for his father for third-degree manslaughter because it's "holy." Euthyphro makes a tangential declaration that the Greek gods are fleshy man-shaped beings that literally did all the things Homer wrote exactly as written...Socrates responds with incredulity...]



There is a genre of fantasy stories that are about a human being getting godlike power, raising to the realm of gods as a weak deity, getting overdeity-like power, raising to the realm of overgods as a weak overgod, raising to the realm of supreme beings as a weak supreme god, raising in power to challenge the heavens, and winning.

It's a mostly Chinese genre, and it's similar to pulp fiction - cheap, quick reading, low quality, with little literary merit. The few English translations are mostly unofficial ones made by fans, translated at an obnoxious speed (such as "1 chapter per day").

Note that there are many Japanese light novels / manga / a few anime about similar topics, but these Chinese novels specifically let the characters ascend from normal characters to epic-level characters to gods (and to over-gods). These successive, ever more powerful worlds seem to be a thing.

You are bringing up cheap Chinese/Japanese fiction (incidentally a lot of Hong Kong action films follow, and have you thought about a few video games...), but they are based on a rich mythology like "Journey to the West" and legends surrounding immortal sages.

[Traab]

Honestly, Pun-pun is the exact opposite of rocks fall, everyone dies. It is the elast interesting thing possible to happen in a game because the moment it does, its over. there is no stopping it, no getting around it. Rocks fall, everyone dies, pun pun ascends, he wins forever.

[endoperez]

You are bringing up cheap Chinese/Japanese fiction (incidentally a lot of Hong Kong action films follow, and have you thought about a few video games...), but they are based on a rich mythology like "Journey to the West" and legends surrounding immortal sages.

Thanks for the correction.

Just like the cheap Western fiction is based on older works of greater literary merit and draw from the whole culture, these Chinese works do it too. The works I've read have all been of the cheap variety, but there could be well-written works that share many of the same themes.

[McNum]

I always liked the idea of Pun-Pun as the overdeity of cheese. I could imagine a tale of the glorious Pun-Pun go something like this.

"There once was a small unassuming kobold named Pun-Pun. Pun-Pun, being the curious sort, liked to poke at things, see how they worked, and importantly, how they broke. One day, however, be it by accident or by design, Pun-Pun broke something. Something big. While the details have been lost to time, one day, Pun-Pun broke... everything. He poked at reality itself and broke it, gaining true ultimate cosmic power, becoming able to do all, see all, and know all. Pun-Pun the kobold, as it were, ceased to be and became something entirely else, something divine to the divine. In his literally infinite wisdom, Pun-Pun realized that if anyone was ever allowed to reach any measure of ultimate power, they would challenge him, and a conflict between himself and anyone even close to his power would be the end of all existence. And while breaking things was a hobby of his, even he could not bear to see everything there ever was and ever will be destroyed, so he set himself up as the eternal watcher, the protector of reality itself. No one must ever reach Pun-Pun's own power, for it would be the end of everything.

It is said that sometimes, some crazed wizard or other egomaniac will try to achieve ultimate power through rituals or other means. None have ever succeeded. Most simply vanished before their moment of triumph, leaving behind only a faint sigh on the wind. Except for one, who tells the story of how he almost became all-powerful, when he met this kobold. The kobold had asked him to stop, politely. Being just that tiny bit smarter than his peers, this wizard did cease, and the kobold had smiled and thanked him, then vanished in a flash of light. This is the only known sighting of Pun-Pun on record, but it has spread as a cautionary tale.

If a kobold suddenly appears and politely asks you to stop what you're doing, you should heed it. For you are in the presence of Pun-Pun, the one who keeps people like you from breaking the world itself."

If used in a story, he'd probably be more of a side character. He'd show up, try to tell people to not break the world, intervene if he absolutely must, and just generally be detached from the world, but perhaps have a grudging respect for some of the more outrageous ways people try to achieve his power. He'll still tell them to stop, but he might praise them for the attempt if it's crazy enough.

[Felyndiira]

I feel it's entirely possible to write fiction about Pun-Pun as an exploration on giving a normal human limitless power, like Dr. Manhattan on The Watchmen. It could be interesting to see the character struggling with reconciling his morality with the fact that the world is like an ant for him, maybe trying to create his vision of perfect utopia and the struggles that he faces with free will getting in the way of his visions of the world.

A character like that would have to operate on a different meta, but it's still entirely possible to create a compelling story with it. Heck, even if it's on a smaller scale, "what a person does with world-shattering power" is pretty much the premise of a number of actual RPG settings (such as 1.0-2.5e Exalted).

[Seppl]

I feel it's entirely possible to write fiction about Pun-Pun as an exploration on giving a normal human limitless power, like Dr. Manhattan on The Watchmen. It could be interesting to see the character struggling with reconciling his morality with the fact that the world is like an ant for him, maybe trying to create his vision of perfect utopia and the struggles that he faces with free will getting in the way of his visions of the world.

The Pun-Pun is waaaaaaay above Dr. Manhattan or any character in any fiction ever¹. We are talking about reality authoring power. Like making pi equal to 42. There is not even a moral question to consider, Pun-Pun can just change the nature of morality itself.



¹: If there were any such character, Pun-Pun would just give himself the power to be more powerful than said character.

[GloatingSwine]

The Pun-Pun is waaaaaaay above Dr. Manhattan or any character in any fiction ever¹. We are talking about reality authoring power. Like making pi equal to 42. There is not even a moral question to consider, Pun-Pun can just change the nature of morality itself.



¹: If there were any such character, Pun-Pun would just give himself the power to be more powerful than said character.

He's scrub tier compared to Bugs Bunny. Never bet against Bugs, he's the latest incarnation of the trickster, and the trickster always comes out ahead, even if you think he lost he just won a game you didn't know he was playing.

[Felyndiira]

The Pun-Pun is waaaaaaay above Dr. Manhattan or any character in any fiction ever¹. We are talking about reality authoring power. Like making pi equal to 42. There is not even a moral question to consider, Pun-Pun can just change the nature of morality itself.

¹: If there were any such character, Pun-Pun would just give himself the power to be more powerful than said character.

The 3.5e construct of Pun-Pun that I'm aware of is a character that can give himself effectively infinite stats (effectively, because his stats are finite at any given point in time) and any ability on any creature listed on any D&D sourcebook given time. He can give himself divine ranks to work up to the "Alter Reality" deity power through an Ice Assassin exploit, which is still steps below the demi-omnipotence and (admittedly imperfect) omniscience that Dr. Manhattan possesses.

Pun-Pun is not what you think he is. He does not have infinite stats - just unbounded ones that is only infinite given infinite time. He does not have causality-altering powers - just an unbounded set that includes anything from any creature with an actual HD score (creatures without an HD/with infinite HD are actually immune since he can't actually pass a DC infinite knowledge check). He's not actually omnipotent or omniscient - he can approach infinity at exponential rates, but is always finite on every single scale.

Arguing over the superiority between Pun-Pun and Dr. Manhattan isn't the point, also - the point is that:

Pun-Pun is still a person. Unless if you are a believer that he'll achieve omnibenevolence or true indoctrination past a certain wisdom point, Pun-Pun probably became that way with a goal in mind, and a very interesting story can be told through the progression of this goal as he experiences the consequences of his reality-altering actions interacting with free will (or the boredom from eliminating free will from the world).
Pun-Pun cannot rewrite the laws of the universe. This is important because he can't rewrite his own ability to get bored or make irrational decisions at adequately cosmic scales (or other properties of sapience), and he can't use his morph abilities to give himself omnibenevolence because there isn't any creature that he can poach it from.

Certainly, if you write omnibenevolence (or any kind of pure indoctrination) into his character and make him infallibly possessed by a belief, than Pun-Pun would be boring to read about. If you allow his humanity (or kobold-anity in this case) to flourish, though, that - the idea that someone now has supreme powers and needs to figure out how best to use it - can be interesting in itself.

[Seppl]

The form of Pun-Pun I am most familiar with does not have such limitations. Through some literal interpretation of the Manipulate Form ability's wording he can give himself any ability, not just those described in a D&D-sourcebook. If that Pun-Pun can think of something, it can do it.

[blunk]

That's like writing a fan fiction about Schrodinger's Cat.Schrodinger's Cat fan fiction could be great, but you'd have to write it to find out.

[Traab]

Schrodinger's Cat fan fiction could be great, but you'd have to write it to find out.

Either way though, it would never average a higher rating than 50% as its both great and terrible.

[Prime32]

The form of Pun-Pun I am most familiar with does not have such limitations. Through some literal interpretation of the Manipulate Form ability's wording he can give himself any ability, not just those described in a D&D-sourcebook. If that Pun-Pun can think of something, it can do it.Pun-Pun's main weakness is that even a 100% RAW game has things which operate by DM fiat, and DM fiat takes priority over his abilities. For that reason he can be defeated by entities like the Lady of Pain (who has no stats, and can erase people from reality regardless of their defences) and cannot travel through time (since D&D time-travel spells have no mechanics other than "your DM decides what happens").

[Ruslan]

What I want to know is, has anyone ever actually tried to play Pun-Pun?
Once it has ascended, Pun-Pun plays you. And for all we know, this has already happened.

[Lord Raziere]

Pun-Pun's main weakness is that even a 100% RAW game has things which operate by DM fiat, and DM fiat takes priority over his abilities. For that reason he can be defeated by entities like the Lady of Pain (who has no stats, and can erase people from reality regardless of their defences) and cannot travel through time (since D&D time-travel spells have no mechanics other than "your DM decides what happens").

Therefore any time traveler who is good enough can beat Pun-Pun by going back in time and sabotaging him before he ascends. In fact thats probably the most likely story you can make from Pun-Pun, a time traveler going back and preventing Pun-Pun from existing.

Meaning basically the Terminator movies, except replace "Skynet" with "Pun-Pun" and robots with magical constructs or something.