|
|
Post by Mother Starlight on May 23, 2015 20:51:37 GMT
We've got a lot of high-power characters here, including but not limited to literal deities. Many of these have abilities that, in their original settings, are simply absolute. Problems arise when two of these absolutes come into conflict. We need to work out some guidelines for how to handle this. I don't have a good answer at the moment, so I'm opening this thread to ask for ideas. As a temporary stopgap measure, though, I'd suggest the rule of consent: don't assume your abilities/principles/rules/paradigms still work out-of-world, even if they are explicitly supposed to work cross-world, unless you have OOC permission from the player responsible for whoever/whatever they're going to interact with. A good example of this would be Kappa asking for permission to have the keeper connect to various worlds, even though as envisioned the keeper "should" be able to just grab everything. Note also that Kappa designed an IC excuse for the keeper to miss worlds, without abridging the keeper's IC powers. Better suggestions are extremely welcome. |
|
|
|
Post by lurkingkobold on May 23, 2015 21:55:14 GMT
I don't know if this will help, but for Carp magic I think of it in terms of tiers: 1: General common magic. Lurker's pseudo-illusion magic falls here. Can be expected to do the thing it does, but it'll fail if it hits the wrong sort of edge case. This comes in levels - DF is still working out its knowledge system, so I'm stepping up to fill the gap a little: each person's knowledge of a particular type of magic comes in quality levels, just like objects do, which affects the quality of the spells they cast; a higher quality spell trumps a lower quality one. 2: Artifact-grade magic. DF has a mechanic called Strange Moods, which can result in artifact items. I'm revising this slightly and adopting it here - strange moods are triggered rather than random, and you can get them for magic, resulting in having artifact-grade knowledge of a particular type of magic. Magic backed by artifact-level knowledge trumps common magic, is much more resistant to edge cases, and just in general is more flexible and powerful. For the above two tiers, magic cast to handle a specific situation trumps magic cast in general, if the magic system can do the thing in question at all - Carp magic can't ignore the pseudo-illusion, but in a system with more freedom in that area, someone could cast a spell to. Common magic *may* be able to trump general-cast artifact magic, if the caster makes a particular study of the specific situation, but generally can't. 3: Deity effects trump both of those, with a little bit of fuzziness at the lower end - well-cast artifact magic can inconvenience a deity working outside their specialty but not actually trump them. 4: Deities working within their specialties trump just about everything. |
|
|
|
Post by Meletiti Entelecheiai on May 23, 2015 22:20:36 GMT
Entelechy magic has clashing absolutes regularly. Generally, mages try to avoid them, because while technically whichever effect has more mana powering it wins, in practice the universe really doesn't like overriding absolute effects when it's possible to avoid them. The result looks kind of like a fate effect: in general, clashing absolutes just don't happen unless one spell is several orders of magnitude more powerful than the other. By "don't happen," I mean things like "the mage spontaneously explodes instead of casting the spell," or "the mage on offense misses" or "the mage on defense is on coffee break."
No idea if that's helpful or not, but basically, the idea is that if you try to make absolutes clash, both sides suffer for it, generally getting worse the more "active" you are in applying your absolute.
|
|
Hadassah
Regular
Posts: 107
World: Pantheon
Pronoun: She/Her
|
Post by Hadassah on May 23, 2015 23:59:51 GMT
I'd say we should have a thread for someone to *announce* their events but we already have one created by Dotted Lines called Backstage: Plot Coordination and Inconvenience Warnings. Ostensibly, that would be where anyone trying to do anything *absolute* should happen. Except... We already have Esthfora protecting the forum, and Mother Starlight has improved forum security to prevent future effects like Entelechy from being implemented (or that is how I read it). I assume that (in spite of Viridescence's Mania attack) Esthfora's effect is instantaneous. I am half tempted to delete Hadassah's post all together, but we've already responded to it. I'd even argue that even if Hadassah downloaded the material completely and sent it via email to her boss, the Mania wouldn't pass through, because she downloaded it from the forum, which was filtered by her deities. --- So are there any more Unstoppable Forces to discuss? Individually, we have sort of dealt with the effects that have come into play. Can't we say there is no "even more Truthy than Entelechy and totes unstoppable" because Mother Starlight (and Esthfora) are now the final arbiters of what effects do and do not come through the forum. Any other Unstoppable Forces would have to subvert the forum as a media (such as a plane invasion from the SCP Foundation or interuniversal travel for individual plots) and be discussed between players. For instance, as a complete and absolutely silly Example: If Botanical Engineer decided they figured out interuniversal travel, then decided to Invade Pantheon and cause every Human to Germinate, they would have to discuss it with me (probably via PM) first. If I didn't okay it, then it wouldn't happen. I am the final arbiter on my "canon", and should be in control of that. I can come up with a plot excuses, or I can just say, "No, that doesn't happen." --- I did this with Meletiti via PM when he stated that the Entelechy (sorry for using this example too much, it is the most relevant example) should penetrate the basic "site mirror and format removal procedures, magical and mundane" previously in place for Pantheon. I could have disagreed, and said "Nope, Pantheon uses better magic" and while Meletiti could be annoyed at this logic, he couldn't stop me. I instead decided to go along, which worked out for plot and interest. However, I am now claiming that Pantheon can filter for Entelechy, and remove it from enforcing understanding, along with any other similar effects and side magic. I control Pantheon, I dictate its rules, and I am saying that regardless of Esthfora's influence, Pantheon is immune from informational-memetic effects (not just attacks, but even things that are minor and painless, like Esthfora's Truth Rainbows). If someone wants to invade Pantheon and try something directly with memetic attacks, I am open to discussion, but they kinda have to resolve that with me first. You can't roleplay without two willing parties, afterall. |
|
|
|
Post by gabriael on Jun 17, 2015 9:04:09 GMT
I would propose that if two effects cancel each other nothing magical happens. That way people need to use more smarts. An exception to that would be Aeli, who only can use a small fraction of one type of Magic.
Gabriael doesn't quite grasp the thing about rock-paper-scissors and is kinda sceptical about the absolute there and not here and thinks of it as an artificial limitation. He can apply arbitrary physical force, but can't penetrate a magic shield that does anything that isn't applying force or using acceleration, unless the effect has a might smaller than 200. Weather that's true or not is for the author to decide, but I'm inclined to say that your magic IS the "god" of your world as Gabriael understands it, therefore has an Arcane Might of 2 * 3 to the power of 27. (It can be a bigger or smaller god if you want.)
But most importantly he won't. He thinks most extrauniversal magics got to be backed by some form of god like he understands it. He doesn't want anything messing with his home. That home is really hard to find, so it's mostly fine, but he'd rather not push it.
|
|
