Modron numbers don't make sense

[Braininthejar2]

There is supposed to be a rank squared of modron hierarchs for each type (one primus, four secundi, 9 tetrians etc)

But with the 'unbroken chain of command' requirement that comes with modron way of thinking, there is no way that would work - such a pyramid of power is much too steep, because of the number of hierarchs stuck as "translators" in their higher-ups' retinues.

Any way to headcanon around it, or should I just drop the notion?

[Keltest]

Theyre beings of pure law, not pure effectiveness. It makes a certain amount of sense that they would be bloated and inefficient since theyre more concerned with the order of things than accomplishing things with the minimal amount of waste and effort.

[Braininthejar2]

Or so good at multitasking, that a sexton will simultaneously manage his army, and relying the statistical data between his superior quinton and the septons ruling the nearest region?

Assuming that every hierarch needs a direct line to non-hierarch modrons, there are only 5 tetrians not stuck with any secundus, 7 quartons not stuck with any tetrian, and +2 each rank down, with 19 decatons at the bottom. That in a realm with at least a million non-hierarch modrons that each decaton should oversee.

[Keltest]

Or so good at multitasking, that a sexton will simultaneously manage his army, and relying the statistical data between his superior quinton and the septons ruling the nearest region?

Yes. Theyre magic not!robots from another dimension. they do what they want.

[Braininthejar2]

Hmm, standard modrons are numbered up, from the number of things they can do at the same time (with modrons doing exactly one thing until ordered to stop, and duodrones barely smart enough to oversee them)

If you extend it up, it makes sense for hierarchs to do some inhuman stuff (though they'd still need some long distance telepathy to get their jobs done.)

And now I have an urge to have another go at trying to homebrew the modrons.

[Goaty14]

(though they'd still need some long distance telepathy to get their jobs done.)

*cough* formianQueenHas50-MileTelepathy *cough*

[KillianHawkeye]

*cough* formianQueenHas50-MileTelepathy *cough*

I get that the Formians and the Modrons are competitors for control of Mechanus, but I don't see how this is directly relevant. If we're talking about Modrons at all, then it's safe to say it's probably a situation where the Formians haven't completely taken over the plane yet. Either way, the Modrons can hardly use Formian telepathy to communicate amongst one another.

[JoeJ]

Modrons are not mindless, they're lawful. They only need orders from their superiors when they have to do something that isn't within the scope of their normal duties or standing orders.

[Braininthejar2]

but a lot of natural duties require communication. If you're a hierarch, there is likely only about hundred modron out of millions that could understand what you're saying.

[Grim Portent]

The idea of Modrons as a group suffering severe lag in orders being transmitted due to limited time on the part of the upper and middle echelons of the heirarchy actually seems kind of fitting to me. Inefficiencies steadily piling up and unable to be corrected because of their rigid adherence to doing things the way they're doing them, like a clock growing more innacurate as it slowly winds down.

[Nifft]

Nonsense? In my modrons? It's more likely than you think.

[ross]

A race constructed of pure order should be perfectly efficient, rather than the opposite - or at least, that's what I would expect the average human mind to expect, given average conceptions of order and disorder. A modron may only need a few planck times to communicate a message to another modron, and their messages would be perfectly unambiguous. A race made entirely out of entropy, on the other hand, would be perfectly inefficient - all of the actions of all of its members determined entirely at random. I would expect a message from an "entropion" to contain the maximum amount of information density possible, and therefore be completely useless (from a human perspective only); they would be impenetrable to any method of analysis available to humans.

[Keltest]

A race constructed of pure order should be perfectly efficient, rather than the opposite - or at least, that's what I would expect the average human mind to expect, given average conceptions of order and disorder. A modron may only need a few planck times to communicate a message to another modron, and their messages would be perfectly unambiguous. A race made entirely out of entropy, on the other hand, would be perfectly inefficient - all of the actions of all of its members determined entirely at random. I would expect a message from an "entropion" to contain the maximum amount of information density possible, and therefore be completely useless (from a human perspective only); they would be impenetrable to any method of analysis available to humans.

Order doesn't necessarily lead to efficiency. The very concept of "red tape" requires that efficiency be impeded due to an excessive amount of rules that need to be followed and dealt with before getting a result.

[ross]

Order doesn't necessarily lead to efficiency. The very concept of "red tape" requires that efficiency be impeded due to an excessive amount of rules that need to be followed and dealt with before getting a result.

Red tape exists to the extent that a system is disordered. A perfectly ordered system has exactly the number of rules necessary to perform its function, and will have no delays anywhere.

[Keltest]

Red tape exists to the extent that a system is disordered. A perfectly ordered system has exactly the number of rules necessary to perform its function, and will have no delays anywhere.

Order is not synonymous with efficient. Adding in additional forms to prove the identity of the person executing an action is orderly, for example, but not efficient.

[braveheart]

The purpose of red tape is to prevent chaotic people from manipulating the rule system too much to their advantage. A system designed for a perfectly lawful orderly society, could work without the immense amounts of red tape that bog down real world systems.

[Braininthejar2]

Hence why modrons don't have paperwork at all among themselves, but create ridiculous amount of red tape when dealing with humans.

[ross]

Hence why modrons don't have paperwork at all among themselves, but create ridiculous amount of red tape when dealing with humans.

Yeah that actually makes sense. I imagine we would have difficulty dealing with a fundamentally alien race from a different dimension no matter how efficient we were.

[War_lord]

Even the most orderly human bureaucracy is probably horrifically chaotic by Modron standards. A perfectly ordered system has no need for red tape. It's just that Modrons seem overly bureaucratic to humans because we're chaotic in comparison. The low number of "officer" Modrons to lower ranked Modrons isn't an issue, because the high ranking Modrons are always were they need to be for maximum efficiency.

[MrSandman]

It seems to me that there is too much of an emphasis on lawful=efficient. But as far as I can recall, lawful alignment doesn't necessarily indicate efficiency. It indicates adherence to social norms, laws, and traditions. A lawful system as a bureaucratic mastodon that's completely inefficient makes sense because that's how things have always been done, and tradition is enough reason to keep doing something in the same way, even if what was a reason to do it that way has long disappeared. Also, a completely lawful society still needs red tape because using the letter of the law to do something against the spirit of the law is a perfectly lawful action (often LE or LN, but lawful nonetheless).

Obviously that's not the only way, a lawful society can be extremely efficient, but it needn't be so simply because there's a big L.

[ross]

It seems to me that there is too much of an emphasis on lawful=efficient. But as far as I can recall, lawful alignment doesn't necessarily indicate efficiency. It indicates adherence to social norms, laws, and traditions. A lawful system as a bureaucratic mastodon that's completely inefficient makes sense because that's how things have always been done, and tradition is enough reason to keep doing something in the same way, even if what was a reason to do it that way has long disappeared. Also, a completely lawful society still needs red tape because using the letter of the law to do something against the spirit of the law is a perfectly lawful action (often LE or LN, but lawful nonetheless).

Obviously that's not the only way, a lawful society can be extremely efficient, but it needn't be so simply because there's a big L.

Probably people are equating law = order, since they're both antonyms of chaos. Of course all these words are ambiguous and I doubt you'd get anyone to agree, word-for-word, on a definition of any of these terms that wasn't defined in terms of any of them. (That is, for example, describing what "order" is, without using "law", "order", "chaos", "entropy", or any similar words in the definition.)

However, the description of modron society in the sourcebook implies that they are bureaucratic at least with respect to outsiders, so that position has more evidence behind it; whether it makes sense is left as an exercise for the reader. While I would normally say "they're whatever you define them to be, they don't exist," the whole point of a sourcebook is to provide a definitive, objective, common reality for fictional concepts, so that doesn't really hold up here.

[War_lord]

But as far as I can recall, lawful alignment doesn't necessarily indicate efficiency. It indicates adherence to social norms, laws, and traditions. A lawful system as a bureaucratic mastodon that's completely inefficient makes sense because that's how things have always been done, and tradition is enough reason to keep doing something in the same way, even if what was a reason to do it that way has long disappeared.

Lawful does not equal traditionalist. Traditionalism causes that kind of decay. Modrons aren't conservative, they're programmed to solve tasks in the most efficient way possible. They're just not going to say, change the optimal route of their march because a village was founded there in the last 100 years without a compelling rationale from an efficiency standpoint.

[ross]

Traditionalism causes that kind of decay.

Any evidence?

[King of Nowhere]

1) red tape is there to prevent different interpretation. In order to avoid red tape, a society needs a loose system of laws, so that everyone is fee to interpret them to some extent. red tape specifically tries to prevent that and keep everything exact. This is not necessarily a bad thing: rules can be abused with liberal interpretation. But anyway, an embodiement of law will have a lot of red tape, more than the worst human society in that regard. Even if said red tape is probably efficient in each step, the sheer amount of it would make it a big burden.

2) Why do you get the idea that the pyramid of command is "too steep"? Past the first few ranks, there's hardly any increase in numbers. For example, rank 10 will have 100 members, rank 11 will have 121, for an increase of 20%. rank 30 will have 900 members, rank 31 will have 961, for an increase of roughly 7%. In fact, I'd say the pyramid is not steep enough

[Tanarii]

2) Why do you get the idea that the pyramid of command is "too steep"? Past the first few ranks, there's hardly any increase in numbers. For example, rank 10 will have 100 members, rank 11 will have 121, for an increase of 20%. rank 30 will have 900 members, rank 31 will have 961, for an increase of roughly 7%. In fact, I'd say the pyramid is not steep enough

A small increase on the next base down is a steep-sided pyramid. A large increase would be a shallow-sided pyramid. Steepness of the sides goes inversely with the increase in each layer of it.

[MrSandman]

Lawful does not equal traditionalist.

Let's see what SRD has to say about that, shall we?

Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties.

And

. On the downside, lawfulness can include close-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability.

Link: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm

Also, for the record, I never said that lawful equates traditionalist. I said that lawful indicates adherence to traditions (as well as law and social norms) and that means that an inefficient lawful society makes sense. I also said that this is not an inevitability. If you continue reading, you you'll get to the place where I say that there are other options that also make sense.

[Quertus]

Wait, um, where did you get these numbers? Afb, but those don't sound line the original old-school numbers.

Which means that modrons have broken from tradition.

Which means that they are chaotic?!

[Braininthejar2]

2) Why do you get the idea that the pyramid of command is "too steep"? Past the first few ranks, there's hardly any increase in numbers. For example, rank 10 will have 100 members, rank 11 will have 121, for an increase of 20%. rank 30 will have 900 members, rank 31 will have 961, for an increase of roughly 7%. In fact, I'd say the pyramid is not steep enough

The rank squared thing is only for hierarchs. Below decaton there are suddenly thousands upon thousands of drones.

(though these too provide some space for comedy. Today my party met a pentadrone working for a lawyer's office. While they were talking with it, a messanger monodrone flew in, dropping a note on the table. The pentadrone read it, wrote a response on the spot, but needed to pass the order through three assistants to give the monodrone the return address. )

[Rockphed]

Red tape exists to the extent that a system is disordered. A perfectly ordered system has exactly the number of rules necessary to perform its function, and will have no delays anywhere.

The purpose of red tape is to prevent chaotic people from manipulating the rule system too much to their advantage. A system designed for a perfectly lawful orderly society, could work without the immense amounts of red tape that bog down real world systems.

Red tape is designed to make sure the process never arrives at the wrong result. It calibrates all decision paths to the length of the longest decision path. The more a group is willing to accept making the wrong choice, the less red tape they introduce. A perfectly lawful society will probably be designed so that every choice must be the most logical, and thus will have red tape in spades.

[Maelynn]

Red tape is designed to make sure the process never arrives at the wrong result. It calibrates all decision paths to the length of the longest decision path. The more a group is willing to accept making the wrong choice, the less red tape they introduce. A perfectly lawful society will probably be designed so that every choice must be the most logical, and thus will have red tape in spades.

This. People who say that 'lawful = efficient' and state that red tape is only necessary when dealing with humans, fail to acknowledge naturally occurring chaos. It's not just other creatures, even nature itself is pretty chaotic (I dare even say that nature is the perfect example of chaos, adapting and changing constantly). It's perfectly logical to have a set of rules that deal with the possibility of something chaotic happening, no matter how small the odds, just because something happened that required it.

Example: several years ago a squad of Modrons visited the Material Plane, hunting down a Rogue Modron. They ended up in a foresty/wilderness area with a lot of undergrowth, which severely slowed down their progress. The area of vegetation was too large to simply travel around, so the decision was made to cut down all undergrowth in their path and keep a straight line. This process delayed their march significantly, but it was nonetheless considered to be the most efficient way to deal with this difficult terrain. Since then, this method has become law/tradition/whatever, so all Modrons facing this terrain will meticulously cut everything down in their path. Even if 30 metres to their right, the vegetation is low enough to provide a clear path. Lawful? Yes. Efficient? No.