The Commoner Internet in Sum

[Endarire]

As I first discovered by reading about Debunking the Commoner Railgun, the Commoner Internet! I didn't fully understand it my first time through, either.

Lemme try to sum up the Commoner Internet.
1: Each end has a client and a Wizard. The SENDER tells the Wizard his query (like with Google) and the Wizard sends out the message, possibly via sending for remote queries.

2: The network has a large number of nodes (Commoners, warforged, constructs, undead chokers, etc.) Each node passes a '0' or '1' to the next node which appends the message. For example, the first node passes a 0 to node 2 who passes a 0 to node 3 who passes a 1 to node 4... for a string of 10011100.

3: Each node must be within 100 feet of each other node to hear that it transmitted, or within less than 10 feet to understand the message sent. Assume all nodes take 10 on Listen and have +0 to their Listen skill.

4: The receiver Wizard gets the message and uses major image to express the decoded message to the client.

Notes
-Direct lines between points are simplest. Packet switching can work. (How?)

-Talking is normally a free action.

-Hearing a noise is DC0, but +1 DC for every 10 feet. A 10 WIS creature with no Listen ranks could hear something up to 100 feet away. Meanwhile, understanding what someone says is DC 10, +1 DC per 10 feet.

-Instead of talking, you may be able to use creatures with 2 arms/flags with distinct patterns to signify 0 and 1. Simply 0 and 1 could work, but there's little encryption. Colors alone won't work because darkvision is black and white.

-An undead choker can operate continually AND gets 2 standard actions (for readying) per round. Other units- warforged, constructs, and most Commoners- may require food, water, sleep, and more.

-If you relied on undead chokers for this, you could call the search engine Choogle.

Future Adaptations
-Now, how would this work for multiplayer gaming?

[Glimbur]

3: Each node must be within 100 feet of each other node. (Why?)

Take 10 on a listen check lets you hear things 100 feet away. Using Old commoners would let use 110' distances. Curiously, it's a DC 0 check to hear that someone is talking, but +10 to make out the words. So if you take 10 you can make out conversation from someone next to you, but no further away. There are no listed rules for shouting instead of talking normally.

Other units- Warforged, constructs, and most Commoners- may require food, water, sleep, and more.

Warforged don't sleep, but only get one standard action/round. Speaking is a free action, but a readied action is a standard action. On the other hand, can you ready actions outside of combat?

[Touchy]

If it uses an undead choker, then clearly this is a chaotic evil search spell.

[Prime32]

Undead choker with a vestigial twin and a 900gp Hand of the mage = 3 standard actions per turn (vestigial twin's extra action is mental, so you need to use telekinesis of some kind).

[Xan_Kriegor]

-Instead of talking, you may be able to use creatures with 2 arms/flags with distinct patterns to signify 0 and 1. Simply 0 and 1 could work, but there's little encryption. Colors alone won't work because darkvision is black and white.

From what I understand, you need to transmit two possibilities, 1 and 0. Why wouldn't colors work, then? One flag could be white, and the other black, and darkvision sees the difference.

[Ragven]

Undead sharn with a vestigal twin and possibly levels in factotum does this better.

Or anyone who can cast unseen servant.

Heck, prying eyes works too, what with the "knows everything you do" thing.

[Spamotron]

You're basically describing a semaphore optical telegraph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_line

You know establishing and maintaining one in monster infested terrain to link up frontier villages to the capital could have promise as a campaign

[Tyndmyr]

As I first discovered by reading about Debunking the Commoner Railgun, the Commoner Internet! I didn't fully understand it my first time through, either.

Lemme try to sum up the Commoner Internet.
1: Each end has a client and a Wizard. The SENDER tells the Wizard his query (like with Google) and the Wizard sends out the message, possibly via sending for remote queries.

A chain of sending, sure, no problems with that. Not really an internet, though. In particular, you'll have huge problems with information availability.

2: The network has a large number of nodes (Commoners, warforged, constructs, undead chokers, etc.) Each node passes a '0' or '1' to the next node which appends the message. For example, the first node passes a 0 to node 2 who passes a 0 to node 3 who passes a 1 to node 4... for a string of 10011100.

What? Why would each append to the message? This results in an ever increasing message size consisting of nothing more that the addressing information. Together with the large number of nodes, this ends up being ridiculously slow. Messengers on horseback would likely end up faster.

-Talking is normally a free action.

Yes. Not an indefinite amount of talking per round, though. The rulebook doesn't give an exact limit, but it's pretty clear that there is one.

-Instead of talking, you may be able to use creatures with 2 arms/flags with distinct patterns to signify 0 and 1. Simply 0 and 1 could work, but there's little encryption. Colors alone won't work because darkvision is black and white.

It's binary. Encryption is perfectly possible with binary.

Still though, it's just signal flags. They've used these in the real world for forever. It's not an internet.

[Prime32]

"It's just signal flags" fails to take into account that due to readied actions, messages will always reach their destination in 1 round regardless of distance.

Alright, that's one bit per round, which is why you use eight parallel lines for a data transfer rate of 0.16bps. And put the whole thing in a demiplane with accelerated time.

You can still use this to pass physical objects anywhere in 1 round, which is far more efficient than digital unless you're trying to make a neural net.

[Tyndmyr]

Not thanks to the addressing schema used.

He's adding to the message at every node. He also has no way of ensuring that a specific endpoint will get the message....he's sending to all of them.

Thus, the message gets longer and slower at every single node. Increasing the length linearly increases transmission time exponentially.

[Tyndmyr]

Alright, that's one bite per round, which is why you use eight parallel lines. And put the whole thing in a demiplane with accelerated time.

Once you're using a demiplane with accelerated time, why are you bothering with hand delivering messages? The magic required to make that work is far greater than that needed to simply send messages and objects.

[Prime32]

Once you're using a demiplane with accelerated time, why are you bothering with hand delivering messages? The magic required to make that work is far greater than that needed to simply send messages and objects.

Simply because the idea of a mechanical internet run by chokers is inherently amusing?

You could run your lines through the astral plane, which is timeless, but then you'd have to worry about web piracy. I recommend protecting these lines with a firewall. i.e. keep githyanki away with wall of fire

[Tyndmyr]

Well, it's not really an internet. A linear line of people waving flags isn't the internet.

Mind you, it's certainly possible to design an internet in D&D....but we've already proven turing completeness for the vancian casting system, so it'd be easier to just make it run TCP/IP.

[Eldan]

We could combine it with a commoner railgun... let them pass along white and black objects. If you give the different commoners different instructions what to do if they get white or black objects, you should be able to build a simple computer...

[Tyndmyr]

There's also a potential for error. Commoners are not perfect, tireless machines...

[Prime32]

We could combine it with a commoner railgun... let them pass along white and black objects. If you give the different commoners different instructions what to do if they get white or black objects, you should be able to build a simple computer...

They can't ready different action for both though, unless they're chokers.

[chiasaur11]

There's also a potential for error. Commoners are not perfect, tireless machines...

Warforged commoners, however...

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Increasing the length linearly increases transmission time exponentially.

The whole point of this pseudo-internet, I though, is that the transmission time is a constant 1 round no matter what you're sending, so adding bits shouldn't really matter for transmission time.

There's also a potential for error. Commoners are not perfect, tireless machines...

Warforged commoners, however...

EDIT: Dammit, chiasaur! And the same phrasing, too!

[Doc Roc]

Hallo Endy, didn't know you posted here!

[Asbestos]

Warforged commoners, however...

I bet they were depressed when that stepped out of the creation forge.
"You made me a construct peasant?!"
"Wait, give it a bag of rice, maybe we'll get some free chickens or something"
"... Do you even listen to yourself anymore?"

[Slayn82]

What? Thats not even meta-scientific. Be it a rod or a message, those kinds of things rely in taking RAW and playing it in the straightest sense, like a computer with a bad programed aplication.

For instance, supposing that in that scenario the laws of physics are exactly the same as those of our world, as the Core Rules suggest, then the maximum speed a message using sound could conceivably cover in 6 seconds is 6750ft (1125ft*6) or 2058 mts. No, even increasing the volume of the sound would not affect this speed, contrary to some alegations that could be made (sometimes one can despair on internet discussions). Just would improve the message reception, and allow to have more spacing between the messengers.

So, total failure under Rules as Natural World Simulation (and the compromises made to it, like falling damage). Just like the Commoner Railgun, where it invoques Natural Laws to affirm that the rod is at relativistic speed, failing to take into acount that the method that it employs is forbbiden by those Natural Laws (since time is needed for each commoner to pass the rod to the next, and since its the same object passing from one to the next, the time involved is not negligible like the time for one arrow to strike its target), and at the same time that the Rules are not intended to be blind, but take into account its own limitations as Simulations of Reality, and give the arbitration to the GM for the most complicated physical actions (sometimes by forbbiding the action, sometimes by judging its dificulty and aplying bonus and penalties).

Its different from saying, for instance, that multiple Lassos should stack allow to reduce the target Dex to 0 throught penalties and immobilize him. In our world, thats what Lassos are usefull for, and its common to use multiple Lassos on one target if needs come to present itself. Its one alegation that comes from lots of observations, and judging the Rules under the criteria of Natural World Simulation. We may be right or wrong about this point, but we start from something that makes logical sense under Natural World Rules, and then we try to emmulate.

Note that even if the Natural Laws of the scenario are not the same from our world, sound would still have a maximum speed, that would limit the transmission of information. And that, since ancient China and Babilony, able man yelling to another in an outpost a certain distance away, or later by sounding drums or similar instruments, was widelly employed for military uses.

Now, some excelent games have mechanics of this sorts. Disgaea and other Nippon Ichi games have entire strategies revolving around making characthers move and the re-move, keeping the action potential even after achieving some result (usually combos), or having one characther thrown another, who throws another, and goes on. Or X-Com, and those funny grenades travelling the entire scenario.