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View Full Version : Best System where, at endgame, you'd have the ability to start Earth's Singularity?



Gavinfoxx
2020-07-12, 05:41 PM
So I was inspired by the "Proving you have magic" (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?615450-Proving-you-have-Magic!) thread, where Xar asked an apparently D&D focused question on 'what if you had max levels in a D&D type caster class, how would you prove you had magic to the world?'

And to me, that seemed to be somewhat missing the point!

So here's an alternate scenario, one I think is a bit more compelling!

You, as you are, are described/statted out, as close as the system can manage, in some pen and paper role playing game system, one with an extensive amount of progression and dramatic power increase. Then, you are given the careers/classes/advancement/etc. associated with some kind of powerful, brainy type of advancement, replacing/retraining your existing 'career' or class or whatever as necessary to reach whatever the system considers 'endgame power level'.


What systems would allow you to most readily, or most interestingly, achieve, using your own personal powers (magical, mundane, sci-fi, or otherwise), a technological singularity on Earth? What systems would allow you to do so in a subtle way, that doesn't require the use of any overt magic, and seems to be 'within context' of what people on Earth expects to happen? What systems would help guarantee that it's one of the good types of singularities, rather than the many ways it could go horribly, horribly wrong?

Nifft
2020-07-12, 05:49 PM
Heh.

One of Shadowrun's inspirations, William Gibson's Neuromancer, was basically this campaign.

tyckspoon
2020-07-12, 05:54 PM
Exalted is.. probably a cheap answer, I suppose, because an endgame level Exalt can probably do just about any arbitrary thing, but Exalted. Let a Craft-focused Exalt learn the basic principles of AI and you'll get a general-purpose AI capable of self-improvement pretty quickly. If you're lucky, it'll even have the appropriate restrictions and/or ethical code to prevent it from deciding to destroy humanity. (Or possibly you wind up with cellphones where the 'personal assistant' program actually is an intelligent spirit bound into the item.)

Quertus
2020-07-13, 08:12 AM
Very few systems have an "endgame" level.

I'm not sure what a "technological singularity" is, but…

I suspect WoD Mage is all but perfect. Granted, I'd probably want to open with a UFO crashing into a famous international monument on live TV, to fuel Belief. So maybe my technique wouldn't be as subtle as you'd prefer.

2e D&D Wish could work, but… WoD Mage Paradox is probably safer. 2e True Dwoemers also seem a plausible answer.

3e D&D Miracle could probably work, but you'll need to find the right deity / cause, and you'll want to mitigate those XP costs. 3e Epic spells with epic leadership for mitigating factors, maybe?

Mutants and Masterminds, genius inventer, Matter Transformation ray: build all the tech you need, give it away for free? Seems like it could work.

NichG
2020-07-13, 08:38 AM
A lot of systems limit power to non-transferable, personal forms. So that might put a crimp in things if you have to personally be involved in order for the resulting civilization to maintain itself or spread.

Nobilis would work, but its a bit of a cop out. Same story with Amber I think. You just directly create what you want or find it in Shadow.

D&D 3.5 can sort of do it via the ability of a D&D character to create new D&D characters who can themselves do the same.

Maybe that tabletop adaptation of Worm would work, but I'm not sufficiently familiar with the mechanics of how powers are constructed. A Tinker making self-replicating things is canon at least.

Presumably other superhero systems might work too. Can you do it in 'Adventure!' ?

Gavinfoxx
2020-07-13, 09:47 AM
Very few systems have an "endgame" level.

I'm not sure what a "technological singularity" is, but…

Well, by endgame I mean max level, or high power, or the amount of competence you have towards the end of the campaign, or whatever the late part of progression systems have as their typical maximum. Also, do be aware that there are several theorized ways of reaching the Singularity, only some of which involve a superintelligent AI. Some have people themselves getting smarter and more capable.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

Quertus
2020-07-13, 05:36 PM
If a singularity is defined as an intelligence beyond that of humanity, whose presence negates the necessity for innovation, then I would argue that any D&D groups who do not invent their own spells (or other custom content) are already gaming in a singularity.

So, what are the necessary conditions to transition into a singularity? They must start out innovating, and end at a state where they recognize that innovation on their part is no longer required, because something clearly has this covered now.

XP gained during the course of a "normal" campaign in WoD may well be insufficient… although there are a few "mother may I" tricks which could work, even with starting characters.

D&D? I don't picture me ever giving up inventing new spells, collecting cool components for items, etc.

Tvtyrant
2020-07-13, 05:46 PM
So I was inspired by the "Proving you have magic" (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?615450-Proving-you-have-Magic!) thread, where Xar asked an apparently D&D focused question on 'what if you had max levels in a D&D type caster class, how would you prove you had magic to the world?'

And to me, that seemed to be somewhat missing the point!

So here's an alternate scenario, one I think is a bit more compelling!

You, as you are, are described/statted out, as close as the system can manage, in some pen and paper role playing game system, one with an extensive amount of progression and dramatic power increase. Then, you are given the careers/classes/advancement/etc. associated with some kind of powerful, brainy type of advancement, replacing/retraining your existing 'career' or class or whatever as necessary to reach whatever the system considers 'endgame power level'.


What systems would allow you to most readily, or most interestingly, achieve, using your own personal powers (magical, mundane, sci-fi, or otherwise), a technological singularity on Earth? What systems would allow you to do so in a subtle way, that doesn't require the use of any overt magic, and seems to be 'within context' of what people on Earth expects to happen? What systems would help guarantee that it's one of the good types of singularities, rather than the many ways it could go horribly, horribly wrong?

Pun Pun is an infinite singularity, so... That.

I think most high fantasy ends in either a magic apocalypse or a magic singularity, there isn't much room for anything else.

NichG
2020-07-13, 06:03 PM
If a singularity is defined as an intelligence beyond that of humanity, whose presence negates the necessity for innovation, then I would argue that any D&D groups who do not invent their own spells (or other custom content) are already gaming in a singularity.

So, what are the necessary conditions to transition into a singularity? They must start out innovating, and end at a state where they recognize that innovation on their part is no longer required, because something clearly has this covered now.

XP gained during the course of a "normal" campaign in WoD may well be insufficient… although there are a few "mother may I" tricks which could work, even with starting characters.

D&D? I don't picture me ever giving up inventing new spells, collecting cool components for items, etc.

I don't think this really captures the idea of a singularity. Usually the idea is that you have some sort of process which, as it progresses it enables itself to go faster and faster, to the point that in finite time if nothing changed then it would go infinitely fast. Of course, something always changes to cut off the growth, but that will generally be a thing that wasn't particularly important on the other side of the transition.

So an example of a singularity in D&D would be if you're going down the Pun Pun route (or similar) and you get to the point where within the space of a single round you can take as many actions as you care to until you get bored (and as such the thing that cuts you off is that your attention span as a player or GM is a finite, while theory-craft doesn't try to model those things). Getting a wish loop going is also a sort of singularity - rather than having your wishes-per-second determined by your rate of XP income, it becomes determined by the finite extent of a round.

Though a lot of those are first-order transitions where you sharply go from 'can't do it' to 'can do everything' with no real ramp-up in between... Maybe a better example would be something like chain-gating Solars, where the number of Solars present grows exponentially until you run out of unoccupied space within the range of the innermost Solar's summoning spell, at which point it would slow down to quadratic growth.

Gavinfoxx
2020-07-13, 08:04 PM
Just FYI, a lot of the books that talk about a technological singularity is lots of stuff about people uploading into digital afterlives, nanobots covering the surface of the earth (and sometimes eating it, or perhaps just changing it), the creation of a solar dyson swarm, the end of scarcity due to mass amounts of molecular fabricators and fusion power, etc. etc.

Basically, a point where there are BIG changes, and normal humans don't necessarily run things any more.