Building Worlds: OoC thread

[Wildfeather]

I liked the anti-evil starlight, but it was too limiting that evil wouldn't be able to move around overground at all. The devilssong makes it so both good and evil can interact, but that evil has limited scope. I'd also wanted the devilssong fragments to corrupt the life they get ahold of, but I forgot to mention that I think.

It isn't wholly original, but still interesting. I've always really enjoyed the undead/zerg building concept, so I wanted to include it here. I can't wait until we get some life for it to corrupt. I think it should try to manifest on the plants at some point, making the first predators/parasites.

I think it will be interesting once we get to sentient life. I want to disavow the association between law/order and good. Obviously creating demons is a good start, but I think ill be straight up endorsing relatively evil actions so long as they produce order. I also want to find some way to play with the lawful/chaotic dynamic.

At least we have mountains now.

I just thought of something. Since ill be going around making evil where good is, and good where evil is, I think it would be funny if the mortals considered me a god of evil at some point. Whether or not that would fall under my Domains ee can figure out later, but it would be funny if mortals didn't really know what we were gods of so they just assigned us things based on what they see us do. Someone makes dwarves? I make goblins. Angels? Making demons now. A fountain of life? Here comes a black desert. And the mortals see this and go "wow, Jeth is an evil motherfucker."

I'll wait a bit longer on my next post, I want to see if anything interesting happens for me interact with. My tentative plan is that of no one makes sentient life, ill start that ball rolling with humans. We have a plant based ecosystem at the moment, so humans would be in the hunter/gather development stage.

Also, here's something I think would be fun. I want things to evolve Lamarck style, where usage makes the resultant offspring better at it. To counteract this, it should be really hard to get good at anything, and the "genetic bonus" is minor, but additive.

 

[Aarik]

The counter to Dwarves would be Kobold's actually.

Well, dnd wise anyway.

And again, Starlight that smites evil is overkill.

And kinda not conductive to free will, which would make Aoradah disaproving of it.

Also I don 't think Zevras made Sevren Holy, so I don't think it smites evil.

 

[Wildfeather]

The way I look at it, goblins are all about fast. Breed fast, die fast, war fast, etc. they're the embodiment of living life by the seat of your pants. Dwarves are the opposite of that, slow as stone, long-lived, incremental research yielding advances at a slow but steady pace.

 

[Aarik]

Since it's pretty much a given that magic, and the various things that come with it, wizards and such, will at one point exist, and that Humans or something like them will also at some point exist.

I'm thinking about human(ish) lifeforms, the world can't support them now, cause there's not much to eat except plant's and I want them to be omnivorous like humans.

The main thing is, I don't like the idea of redundant sapient, that is, completely different species of sapient life that are almost the same, or entire species with the same personality.

There's also the fact that I want this species to have roughly equal shot, regardless of what path to power they take.

Also that Evolution thing sounds odd. But then, evolution can work different ways for different species, depending on how their genes work.

A species like that would be... Specialists, right? Each generation of a family getting better and better at one thing?

Hmm, we could pull a skyrim and make one species like that that breaks up into a bunch of other ones due to over specialization.

Metal/earthworking? ie; Digging, smithing, mechanics and stuff? They become Dwarves.

And so on and so forth.

Goblins would come about from specializing in what?

Maybe Krork/Orc's came from specializing in fighting, and Goblins branched off from specializing in logistics instead of raw individual strength? Breeding fast, moving fast, warring fast, so on and so forth?

Anyway, the humanish species I was thinking of would be 'generalist' but not in the dnd sense of the 'average' 'middle road' race, but more, different path's are open to each individual 'human' that they can take or overlap as they choose.

In the physical sense, I have it out in roughly three tiers.

The normal humans, which all are born as, the default 'level one' state, then after something I'm currently calling the Epiphany, they advance to the second stage, where they become faster, stronger, tougher, better reflexes, and so on, and then the Enlightenment, where that continues further.

But that's physical, with the muscles, with the mind, there's magic, but magic doesn't currently exist, so I can't do much scaling.

EDIT:

Oh, that's a good thought.

With our made up language.

Tarva : Born.

the Lamarckian species can be the Shutarva, Legacy Born, and the human ish species can be the Aotarva, Choice Born.

 

[Wildfeather]

That's right bitches, corruption eating tiny dinosaur. We are now one step closer to raptor Jesus!

I feel like even though I technically did one thing, it is really easy to see it as two. I created a new law (no apex predators, basically, or There is Always A Bigger Fish)and made the creature that will eat the corrupted plant life, which may wind up corrupting some of it. They are also fixated with white, which might be fun later on with clothes. I actually like drawing the symbolism that white=evil here. While it may be a tacky inversion of white is good, I think it fits our world where starlight has some kind of negative effect on evil.

A bit of a tag there in my post for you to make something that eats the new guys, and to name them. I feel like sometimes things happen but you can't really effectively interact with the other gods right now. Hopefully once we have more stuff going on, we will have more ways to play with each other.

 

[Aarik]

Err.

Only one thing a turn.

The change of turn is marked by Vex posting.

And, again, starlight only hurts evil when it's sent down as kill sat laser blasts.

And if that was automatic, they would be blasting the shit out of the devilsong locations.

Plus there being no apex predators is kinda... Nonsensical, because it creates a no limits fallacy.

Which ends with god eating monsters, which then get eaten, by god eating monster eating monsters, which then-

Yeah.

(We're trying NOT to pull a primordial, where we make a thing, that then goes batshit and murders us for some arbitrary reason.

We should have a "No making things that can kill the Gods" rule.

Except then we can make contingencies in case of evil gods... Damn this is hard.)

Unless you do what our world does and bend the food chain into a circle that begins and ends with the same lifeforms.

That is, everything that dies get's eaten by the smallest lifeforms. Bacteria, or whatever equivalent we make up.

Maybe microscopic cows or something.

EDIT: oh and plants on this world are yellow, not green.

 

[Gwyll]

Wildfeather, you might wait a bit more with turns. Also, the actions you take are not really what I would consider a god of law and order to take. Also, hope your new creations can survive on ice and snow.

 

[Wildfeather]

Edit: Herp. Mixed up Vexarion and zerohour, sorry for the double post. I'll go back and edit that post so it doesn't happen.

There are some green ones too. It was mentioned that they diversified, and why limit that to shape/form? We can have lots of different colored plants, which would be cool. Besides that, yellow plants don't work.

I did do one thing, it was just a very complex thing. Strictly speaking, everyone takes more than one action, because we all think and move, which are themselves actions.

We are using the trumping system here, so I would say big beats medium, which beats small, which beats big. For example, a dragon is a predator of bears. However, humans are predators of dragons. And bears are predators of humans. Insert new names for for species, and we have a simple way of viewing an ecosystem with no apex.

The only thing that can kill gods are things under the purview of the god of death, which is a GM position. I'm not playing my god as if he has an organic structure beside, so nothing could eat me even if it somehow got big enough.

Here is the reason this game is fun, we are all gods. So if you think your starlight would be able to beat my devilssong, you could try that in the game. You win by default, since we have equal domains and you are an attacking, but then in response I destroy all the angels. The point isn't that we all have to work together in the RP, or else this would be a circle jerk. The point is that we all have a unique idea of what this world could be and we implament it with the aid of. Or in spite of, the other players.

If you dislike something that has been done, use your turn to change it. Otherwise, on your turn you can do your own thing and ill do mine. Thats why this is fun and interesting. No one knows what the other people are going to do but we all have plans.

 

[Aarik]

We're Gods.

Yellow Plant's work if we say they do.

Physics are currently in the "being written" stage.

Technically.

Does gravity exist? I don't think anyone made it yet.

And by action, it's meant one reality warping thing.

Also that's not what an apex predator is.

Humans are Apex predators, but so are Wolves, we eat each other, and so are Sharks, humans also eat Sharks, and Sharks eat humans, even if they don't like the taste and tend to spit us out.

<a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apex_predator' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Apex Predators</a>

Essentially, if it's to tough to kill in sufficient numbers as to be worth using as a food source, and is a predator, it's an apex predator.

I do not want to see something that can kill dragon's easily enough that they do it routinely for food.

It would however, be very badass.

EDIT: also, any comment's on the Shutarva/Aotarva idea's?

Technically, with something as sensitive as, you know, sapient, thinking, feeling life I think we, the Gods, should actually talk about this before we actually make them.

Aoradah would be utterly horrified if an entire race of millions of innocent beings were destroyed because two Gods didn't talk to each other first.

EDIT2:

Hmm, not feeling confident in this chart.

Any revisions?

Shutarva:
Combat Specialization: Krork
Magic Specialization: Zenta
Craft Specialization: Tarsle

Further Combat Specialization:
Individual Strength: Orc
Logistical Combat: Goblin
Siege Combat: Ogre(?)
Survival: Troll(?)

Further Magic Specialization:
Good Magic: Elf/Elves
Evil Magic(?): Drow(?)

Further Craft Specialization:
Earth/Metal Working: Dwarf/Dwarves
Technology: Gnome
Cooking: Halfling

Under your Lamarckian concept of evolution, this would take hundreds/thousands/hundreds of thousands of years.

I was going to put Kobold's into there as the defensive siege species, because traps, but then i remembered there thing as tiny demi dragons and communists.

 

[Wildfeather]

Unless specifically stated otherwise, most people will assume the world is "just like our except X,Y, and Z" which is pretty common in literature. Otherwise we would have to go back to the start, because without gravity we couldn't have a planet, waves,stars, or a sun.

The purpose of an apex predator is that it is the top of the food chain. That means it has no natural predators, not that it can never be killed. By making a cyclical food chain instead of a pyramid, out world has a really interesting flavor, in my opinion, just like having night not he the time of evil. If you don't like it, play god in your own way just like I am. That's the point of the game.

It's not like plants can only be one color. They diversified, why not I clues color along with shape/form?

@Gwyll I'm leaning toward the order part at the moment. If we have plants running amok without predators, that sounds like chaos to me. Introduce a predator so that there is a limiting factor on growth, which would be more ordered. Then you need a predator for that predator, etc. I have no idea if they would or would not survive in ice. Since that was a snafu, ignore it for now, then when it is my turn again ill see if I can still work that idea into my turn, or something else will take its place. I think it would be up to you though, since I didn't mention one way or the other. Specific beats general, I would say. If you posted "and the ice came, and all the devilssong infected plants died" it would work by the system we have in place. Otherwise, I would say that they survive.

I know it is a far out idea, but order can be evil as well as good. Order can be stiffling or force stagnation, or needlessly complicate something. Part of my idea to express order uniquely is to include the evil aspects of order into our world.

 

[Aarik]

Technically, if it eats plants, it's not a predator, anything that ate it however, would be.

Our world DOES have a cycle.

Bacteria > Everything else > Bacteria > Repeat.

Everything get's eaten.

But seriously, that's not important.

Need some input on the races.

I attmepted to incorporate what you've said in regards, but the Shutarva, or whatever you choose to call them, would be your thing.

(Derp, posted the already.)

The Aotarva would be mine, I just want to... Avoid what we humans did to our sapient cousins.

What with the genocide and the extinction and the eating them.

Since they would presumably start at the base animal level and work up, it's weak talentless species that can't get much better being dropped in with a humanlike species that also starts off sucking at everything but can get extremely good at whatever it wants provided it tries hard enough.

Given humanlike instinct, the Aotarva would wipe the Shutarva off the face of the world long before they had time to gain the momentum to match up, for no reason then because they were there.

Aoradah wouldn't let them mind you, but they would try.

 

[Wildfeather]

In our world, the food chain stops at the apex predator. Bacteria act as a scavenger, breaking down things that are already dead. You cannot call them a predator because they are opportunists, only breaking down already dead biological matter. While some bacteria/organisms try to hunt humans (HIV/AIDS for instance, the common cold, etc.) they are mostly unsuccessful. Food chains don't include bacteria though, in most examples because it would be too complicated since there are millions of different bacteria species. In general though, the purpose of bacteria is to return biological mass to the soil so that plants can utilize it. The other kinds of bacteria are pretty unsuccessful if held to any kind of standard, with a few notable exceptions.

I wanted to apply Lamarck to every species. If you want a non-augmented species, I can't see how your "plain human" species could beat my "human plus" species though, since we would both start with the same "momentum" but mine would advance much faster because your young have to be taught from scratch, but mine grow more talented each generation in everything their parents did.

To put this in simple terms: a regular human starts with 10 stats, but over the course of it's life gains 10 more. My species of human has the same distribution at the start (10) and gains 10 more. However, as a result of the species benefit, the children start with 10% of the stats of their parent, so my newly born baby has 14 stats (10% of 20 is 2, and the child has 2 parents). In a few generations, my humans are born with better stats then a fully mature adult of yours.

 

[Aarik]

You didn't read the Aotarva thing did you.

They are human like.

But if you put one and a human next to each other, they would not be the same on vary many levels.

I wanted to SUBVERT the common thing where humans are the weak, middle road species who aren't really good at anything.

Post Enlightenment, that's stage three of the Physical Ability 'skill tree' (which any Aotarva can reach with enough effort) Aotarva would be able to:

Run almost the speed of sound.

Jump miles of distance.

Rip solid titanium alloys with their bare hands like tissue paper.

Have skin of sufficient hardness that modern anti tank rifles would bounce straight off of them and most missiles would just daze them.

Lift at least a hundred tons.

Perform Wuxia style ludicrous martial arts, like balancing on individual blades of grass, throwing hundreds of punches/kicks a second, reading body language and enough knowledge of what parts of the body to hit to pull almost hokuto shinken level pressure strikes.

Have reaction time fast enough to see and dodge AND CATCH, bullets.

Aotarva exist (or will exist) as a statement that: Free Will exists, your choices matter, and they always will.

Hence, Choice Born.

In one lifetime, they can go from baby that cannot do anything, to a being capable of the absolute maximum possible in their chosen art, so long as they choose to do so and follow through with that choice with all their strength.

They actually BECOME MORE TALENTED at what they try the more work they put towards it, it's sort of like... In Naruto, there are hard workers, and geniuses.

With Aotarva, both of these things come at the same time.

If they work hard at something, their brains and muscles adjust to what they do, and they become naturally more able to understand and comprehend that subject, causing them to become more naturally talented at it.

It's YOUR choices that matter, not your parent's, not your grandparent's, or anyone else, it's all you.

Choose.

EDIT: also, since their inherited stats, wouldn't the bonus stats be set into whatever your parent's were good at?

If your parent's are both bakers, your a naturally good baker, and your 'stats' are higher, but in a fight, your ass is gone.

Hence why I thought it would lead to specialization.

Since 'people' tend to do what they're good at, which make their kids better at that, and so on, and so on, until they become a completely different species altogether.

 

[Wildfeather]

You didn't read the Aotarva thing did you.

They are human like.

But if you put one and a human next to each other, they would not be the same on vary many levels.

I wanted to SUBVERT the common thing where humans are the weak, middle road species who aren't really good at anything.

Post Enlightenment, that's stage three of the Physical Ability 'skill tree' (which any Aotarva can reach with enough effort) Aotarva would be able to:

Run almost the speed of sound.

Jump miles of distance.

Rip solid titanium alloys with their bare hands like tissue paper.

Have skin of sufficient hardness that modern anti tank rifles would bounce straight off of them and most missiles would just daze them.

Lift at least a hundred tons.

Perform Wuxia style ludicrous martial arts, like balancing on individual blades of grass, throwing hundreds of punches/kicks a second, reading body language and enough knowledge of what parts of the body to hit to pull almost hokuto shinken level pressure strikes.

Have reaction time fast enough to see and dodge AND CATCH, bullets.

Aotarva exist (or will exist) as a statement that: Free Will exists, your choices matter, and they always will.

Hence, Choice Born.

In one lifetime, they can go from baby that cannot do anything, to a being capable of the absolute maximum possible in their chosen art, so long as they choose to do so and follow through with that choice with all their strength.

They actually BECOME MORE TALENTED at what they try the more work they put towards it, it's sort of like... In Naruto, there are hard workers, and geniuses.

With Aotarva, both of these things come at the same time.

If they work hard at something, their brains and muscles adjust to what they do, and they become naturally more able to understand and comprehend that subject, causing them to become more naturally talented at it.

It's YOUR choices that matter, not your parent's, not your grandparent's, or anyone else, it's all you.

Choose.

EDIT: also, since their inherited stats, wouldn't the bonus stats be set into whatever your parent's were good at?

If your parent's are both bakers, your a naturally good baker, and your 'stats' are higher, but in a fight, your ass is gone.

Hence why I thought it would lead to specialization.

Since 'people' tend to do what they're good at, which make their kids better at that, and so on, and so on, until they become a completely different species altogether.

They should hunt dragons.

I did read it but it wasn't flesh out to that point yet. To be honest, those are two reflections of the same thing (incremental advantage based on use) but mine takes longer. It is no fun if you have a whole planet of supermen, because then everyone else has to have kyrptonite to even have a shot, so of course they will get it.

Those asspull numberz. I don't know any humanoid species that is capable of even a tenth of those in any fantasy work without using magic, and even then, most of those creatures are so powerful but there are so few of them they don't ruin dramatic tension, or have no interest in basically anything in the world because they're gods in everything but name.

What world can a race like that exist where they have any sort of competition? I can't imagine anyone can do anything to that race except the gods. And even if only .001% of the population has the drive and determination to get there (which makes no sense based on their premise of "your choices matter" there would be a strong cultural drive to excel since they literally cannot fail to succeed) what do you do once they get there? Smite them, since they ruin the game by wrecking all the other gods.

By Aotarva, did you mean "Mary Sue race"?

 

[Aarik]

They are not born like that.

That's post enlightenment, which comes post epiphany, which itself comes after mastering the limits of the normal physical body.

All Aotarva start at level 1, with no skill at anything.

And, over the course of their life choose the one thing they want to do, maybe picking up other minor skills like making basic food or doing laundry.

But when they choose to master something, and devote all of their time and effort, their whole life, they essentially can reach the level cap of that skill/ability/whatever.

As with humans, as technology advances, the Aotarva should, like us, get lazier, and see less point in putting decades of effort into punching tanks in half, and maybe they should pick up that job in accounting like mom was talking about...

The point of them is Choice, that there is no such thing as "I can't be that good" or "I can't reach that level at X."

That up there is the end result of the physical tree.

They can go from level one to level 99, or level 999, or level 9999, whatever the cap is, but they have to earn every level.

They don't just get born able to smash steel and throw wall breaking punches, or born with magic or some other thing.

All of them start at level 1.

Whereas the Shutarva can, over generations, be born able to fight, or do magic, or cook, or make armor/weapons, Aotarva don't.

It's basically, with your Race, Legacy determines what your good at and what you can do, with the Aotarva, it's what you choose, and what your parent's chose only matters in that you have someone to teach you whatever they chose.

EDIT: Another way it could progress is:

Shutarva: *desperately tries not to get killed by Aotarva combat monster*

Shutarva's children: *get better at not dieing and fighting*

Many Generation's pass.

Ork's: *Be amazing fighters*

Aotarva: Damn Ork's are strong, I want to be strong like that... *Years of grinding*

Irony is funny sometimes.

They're also supposed to subvert the Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards problem, hence, Quadratic Warriors, Quadratic Wizards, blablahblah.

Quadratic everything.

There's also the fact that after we establish the world, and make the races and stuff, we could run RP's in the world we make.

We are essentially making a setting after all.

 

[Wildfeather]

Of course, the real problem with yours guys is they get to do it over a lifetime, whereas mine takes multiple generations. By small increments, I meant like, a hundred generations or something to be born with the DnD equivalent of level 5/6 knowledge. The main benefit of my guys is that over the course of time, the society becomes filled with people who can fill any job, because essentially random selection means that chances are good a single guy can build a house, cook, clean, and defend his home when he is born. At the start they are just regular humans, with talents and failures just like everyone else.

I guess it boils down to: Better beginning or better ending? But it's always better to have a better end-game in a battle where there is no win condition. If my guys scale too fast, they're overpowered and toxic to the world. If your guys do, they are toxic to the world. If both scale too slow, what's the difference from being human?

My idea for balancing my guys was that their inheritance is only potential. They could become master swordsmen because their great-great grandfather was, and they have a bit of a leg up on John Doe because of it, but I wasn't thinking they would be born as master swordsmen because they come from a long line of swordsmen. That'd be silly, because if they had any brains at all each family unit would grind up one skill, then breed with another that had done the same for a different skill. Four or five iterations later, the entire race is supermen with PH.Ds in Opening A Can of Whoop-Ass.

In a balanced scenario, while the potential exists, that potential is balanced out by the fact that in their past someone has probably done something else that is more interesting than swordsmanship. And if not, then they were probably going to be a swordsman anyway./

From a world-building perspective, where do you view concepts like "talent" and how would you plan to treat it? Your race basically says "There is no such thing as talent, only determination to succeed" while mine should say "My ancestors guide my path to success."

P.s. The names are too hard to type, so I call them my guys and your guys, even though as time goes by I see that mine are too big a headache to balance and not ruin the game.

 

[Aarik]

Talent, in simplest terms is: How easily you learn something, basically.

If your super talented at, like, Archery, like Shirou Emiya, you just have this... Knack for it.

You pick up a bow for the first time, shoot, and oh hey, bullseye.

Repeat for the rest of your life.

The Aotarva get more 'talented' as they work, the more they focus on one thing, the better they get at it.

It's like... They're savants, that get to pick what they're savants of.

And yeah that thing where you mix skills in a massive clutter that becomes exponentially more difficult to keep track of is why I suggested the branching skills thing.

It allows us to cheat the one action limit, eventually populate the world with many races with one move, and accomplishes your "everything must have an opposite" rule easily.

Most importantly, it makes balancing them far easier.

EDIT: another metaphor that may work.

Let's phrase each skill set as a race.

In the beginning, when their first made, your guy's will take a few steps, then give birth to a child who will take a few more steps.

My guys will have to run the whole race, then they die, and their kids have to pick a race, then run that one all the way on their own.

But, as generations pass, and your guy's begin to specialize more, they get born further along the racetrack.

Until the near end, when your guys are born two steps from the finish line and my guys are still born at the start and have to catch up.

But it's not just that, each of the races descended from your guys will be on different tracks, each of my guy's born will have to choose a track, then run the whole thing just to catch up.

Slow build up over generations vs repeating the same race over and over.

 

[Wildfeather]

My concern is it does't look like they have to pick at all. Just by doing it they get better at learning how to do it. It would be different if they had to specialize "I'll be dedicating my life to swordsmanship" then they get to access their fast-learning abilities, and only in that one field.

I'm not interested in making everyone quadratic, i'm interested in making everyone linear.

Remember, the rules don't apply to gods. That'd be ridiculously overpowered.

edit: So you want to place an artificial cap on the race? My main interest isn't having a race of people who are born almost winning, but rather a race of people that are born with a 2 second headstart in a 20 minutes race. A minor advantage in every skill (mine) vs a major advantage in one skill (yours) seems fair, but that is different from what you are describing mechanically. You are saying (assuming exp is based on preforming an action successfully, modified by talent)

Hitting the opponent grants 2 exp.

2*1 (base talent) yields 2 exp for the first hit, and they become 1/10 more talented than they were.

2*1.1 yields 2.2 exp.

2*1.32 yields 2.64

etc.

Which means in 4 iterations, you get double the experience per hit, which increases exponentially.

 

[Aarik]

Umm, that's what they do.

"I'm going to spend my whole life learning magic."

Their whole life is spent doing that, and they get really good at doing that and almost nothing else.

As in, if they didn't learn to cook before doing that, they won't know how, if they didn't know how to clean before that, they won't know how.

Theirs also another problem.

Personality.

To put it simply, it takes A LOT of dedication, perseverance and patience to dedicate your life to something.

Most of my guy's... After they get out of the animal and caveman stages and get to the point where luxuries are available, they're just going to lose the personality needed to just do that on any kind of grand scale.

It's sort of like...

Right now, you could, if you had money, sign up for kickboxing or whatever, but just don't feel like spending months to years learning how, because you don't need to, and because it's not necessary.

Only the ones who truly mean fucking business are going to be going for the high level stuff.

The masses are lazy, there will probably only be a few thousand true master's of any particular skill in the world by the time they reach the modern age.

And, really, when I said Talent increases, I mean that if you get up and do, I don't know, ten thousand push ups every day for like a week or so, after that your muscles will get a tiny bit more benefit, which will increase slowly over time.

 

[Wildfeather]

Yeah, but what stops them from saying "okay, i'm moderately skilled at magic, now let me learn Other Skill Here". Keep in mind it won't take someone whose talent increases as they practice long to master any skill, because theoretically a human should be able to master a skill in a lifetime. It only takes 20-30 years of real life time to "master" the most refined of skills, and some take even fewer than that. Video Games, for instance like LoL/HON/DOTA have been out less than 10 years and the field of talent has massive differences.

If a race of people who get better at learning by doing can't master a skill faster than a human can, what's the point? They have to be significantly better at it to justify the effort, yet the downside to specializing highly doesn't exist because no matter how bad at anything they are, they will become better at learning it by learning it.

I mastered magic at age 30, because I eventually became a prodigy of magic. Unfortunately, I noticed that people keep bashing my face in with maces, so I figured I'd learn how to use a shield in my offhand and enchant my weapon to act as a focus. Even though i'm only averagely talented when i start to learn, after 5 years of actual practice i'm as skilled at a person who has practiced for 10 years because of my genetics.

The point i'm trying to get at here is that there is no reason for them to specialize because they can become talented enough to become a master in one or two fields. And not just a rare individual either (like humans, who are mostly mediocre at everything, but have some genius who excel far beyond the norm) but every single member of the race. They need some kind of limiting agent to explain why they don't become masters in a bunch of fields as they rightly should.

In the case of my race, I don't want them to inherit super-strength because their parents were strong. I want them to have slightly better than average strength.

To parallel the dynamic I can see in these two races:

Mine: Everyone is above average, but no one is exceptional.

Yours: Everyone is exceptional.

It would be okay if it is "Everyone is exceptional in one thing" but that sounds like regular old humanity to me.

 

[Aarik]

Ohh, that's what you meant.

When I say, they become a savant, I mean, their body's adjust to one thing.

And then don't adjust to anything else.

It's a one shot process.

Their body's adjust to a specific muscle and nerve and neuron formation for whatever their skill is.

And once it get's to maximum compatibility, it's not going to change.

You made your choice, now stand by it.

Part of this is simply, once your muscles, nerves, neurons and such have flatout rearranged themselves, telling them to suddenly arrange themselves for something else is gonna cause... Problems.

Like knotted muscles, nerves getting caught and tearing, and worst of all, burst or torn blood vessels in the brain. Which kill you.

It was just decided that, rather then rewrite a few laws of biology, Aoradah would just, you know, make it fair for the other species and just set their bodies to only go through the process one time.

To him, it's not fair to be born with some random talent or ability or skill, and then never find out about it because your society doesn't have flutes and doesn't even know what they are.

It's also not fair to live in a world with a race that mary sue's it up and becomes better then everybody at everything.

The Aotarva are a compromise.

EDIT:

Sort of like how you can train your legs to run really fast for a short time, or walk for a really long time, but it's physically impossible to train your legs to run really fast for a really long time.

The way muscle growth work's makes it impossible.

 

[Vexarian]

Jeez you guys are going stir crazy apparently.

Partially my fault I guess, I was planning to end the current turn earlier this evening but I ended up forgetting. Anyway I guess I'll get to that now.

 

[zerohour]

Settle down guys, I don't think we have any type of animal life yet, and I'm guessing once civilizations/sentient beings come into being, we may have to adjust the rules/switch over to a new way to play. It wouldn't do for us to keep unhinging the world and destroying entire cities by accident at that point after all.

 

[Wildfeather]

But the fun.... Is too stronk. It is fun to express new ideas, I don't think Aarik or I are having any kind of ill will related to our discussion, and refining our ideas is good.

I think that makes a lot more sense. As long as it is a concious choice, otherwise the race would be too underpowered. Oh, you try a lot because you can't speak yet? New Specialty! Crying powered chosen.... Engage!

If you make it a ritual (magical or not) what kind of civilization elements are you looking to include?

For mine, I was looking at using a form of ancestor worship, combined with huge repositories of scrolls filled with geneology. Culturally, I'm struggling to make them more unique than simply adopting the Japanese culture that also engaged in ancestor worship. I'm looking at playing with the idea of a strong caste system based on the number of famous/powerful ancestors, under an oligarchy. With the caveat that the children are distributed randomly (to maintain a diverse society) and only told their true parents when they reach adulthood. Which has been done before, but since everything else has too, I'm not too worried. With a caste system there is a high conceptual necessity for law and respecting law/order, which names sense if I am their patron, but I want to do something interesting with the system itself. Not sure what yet.

 

[Aarik]

It would kind of have to be a mostly post puberty thing.

Since muscle degeneration kicks in if you try to do much before that.

Most of their schooling, when they reach the level of development to have schools, will probably be teaching kids basic skills everyone should know, so you don't get people who can't speak or read or do math, or cook to support themselves.

So basically, no superfluous classes like in our school system.

And yeah, it takes a lot of effort to start the process, but once it starts, they learn absurdly fast.

It would also probably be possible to set it to a general jack of several different trades thing, (Since a literal jack of all trades wouldn't make any sense.) for the ones to lazy or not dedicated enough to truly master something.

But then they don't get to be super amazing at much of anything if they do.

They essentially just be slightly above average people with some bonus's spread around.