Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 20:10:23 -0500 From: Dan Root Subject: [TFA] Food for thought To get things rolling, here's some food for thought. Below is a list of "Things We Will Probably Want to at Least Consider, Even if to Say 'Doesn't Matter'", given that we're not going to be based directly on any existing book/mythology/movie/etc. Architecture Arts and Entertainment Burial customs and the dead Calendar Climate and Geography Crime and the Legal System Daily Life Demographics of various races Diet Eating customs Education Fashion and Dress Foreign Relations General History Gestures Government Greeting and Meeting Language Magic and Magicians Magic and Technology Manners and Ettiquette Medicine Natural Resources People and Customs: Ethics and Values Physical and Historical Features Politics Population Religion and Philosophy Rules of Magic Rural Factors Science and Technology Social Organization Transportation and Communication Urban Factors Visits War Wizards vs Mundanes -DaR ------- Message 15 Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 00:35:45 -0800 (PST) From: Melissa Tabbifli Subject: [TFA] Re: Food for thought Well, okay, this isn't in-depth thoughts, but just some things off the top of my head from what DaR said.. Now, keep in mind.. I'm not really expecting anything constructive to get done for a couple of weeks, just to give the Tales folks a breather (and also for me to get the code I have packaged up). I'd like to see what we can get worked out via web and email. Dan's got some suggestions for cultural stuff below :) We'll also need to figure out policy stuff - consent issues (how much consent), staff makeup (I have some thoughts), TP policy, chargen policy, what kind of code, how much code. One thing we're going to need to discuss in addition to culture is the economy - how much of an econ do we want to simulate? That's something to consider when we're thinking of arts & entertainment, fashion and dress, etc. I've got some stories in my head for what happened when the "new" races started showing up. I'll have to get those out at some point.. they are something like 200-400 years before we open (a number we'll want to get narrowed down :) Anyhoo... On Mon, 19 Feb 2001, Dan Root wrote: > Calendar Ack. > Climate and Geography To a limited extent, this is done with the map. we'll need to figure out the climates, but the geography I've got at least some of the topology done with. Supposedly Clint will have me the map soonish.... > Foreign Relations Er. Well. We're on an island surrounded by some variety of barrier. We can't get off, other people can't get on - WHAT Foreign Relations? :) > Government > Politics I was thinking perhaps a council, of different races, to oversee the populated areas.. and the factions within. Since the council will only be IC, this gives us a chance to do elections and whatnot. > Language I vote for one language... doesn't matter what your natural language is, you magically understand each other through.. whatever ;) I hate dealing with language code.. But as long as someone else writes it, I'm happy to be overridden. > Rules of Magic Some of this all got started in the news files.. try checking the news link off the TFA page. None of it's set in stone, but if it's a generally approved direction to start with, we can keep growing in that way. Otherwise, we scrap it and start over :) I'm happy scrapping, btw. Keep in mind that most of the news and stuff hasn't been touched since '98, I'm *not* terribly attached. > Visits Visits of? > War War with? > Wizards vs Mundanes Note here that I *don't* think this refers to the Manager-Wizards, but rather to the IC-Wizards. M. ------- Message 16 Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 02:24:03 -0800 (PST) From: Melissa Tabbifli Subject: [TFA] Some Info Below is a conversation I had with Cue on the customs and stuff for TFA. I actually cut the bits about Tales, since they weren't terribly relevant. Timeline decided: We're 250 years after the Treaty Of Integration (or something) was signed for the Island, thus hopefully putting an end to the mass fighting that ensued. We're coming up on the celebration (sort of like the 4th of July, only a lot more racially diverse!) - I figure we can use that for a soon-after-public-opening event. At the very end is the post I put up on the ElseMU board for Tales. Doesn't say much :) Was probably premature. But hell, why not? Also.. I'm registering fantasyalternative.org. It's long, but it's appropriate. Melissa - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cuebiyar read through Dan's list. Lot of thinking to do. Melissa nods. Cuebiyar says "Makes sense though. Looked an awful lot like a similar list I made. Course, that never actually went anywhere. Are we meeting or something in the near future?" You say "I'm not sure offhand.." You say "Part of the problem is that, unlike Tales, most of the connection crew is either in PST or lives PST..." You say "and I'm not sure when is good. I'd like to get some of it worked out via email and web.." Cuebiyar ahhs. Kay. Er, that's a problem? You say "Well, for timing issues it is :)" You say "Rhonda's daytime EST when she's on at all anymore, Spirit can't manage late night, which is evening PST, Dan works days and is very idle then, I'm around.. god only knows :) and you know your schedule." You say "Earth is effectively on PST, but he's trying to pretend he's not involved, but I think we'll get him interested despite himself.." Cuebiyar chuckles. You say "And my guys aren't going to make more than an occasional comment on email anyway." You say "anyway, trying to set up a meeting could be challenging for the next week or so. I'm also not really going to get people really working on stuff until at least the week after we close (next week), and not expecting much in the way of production before the week after *that*, just because all the Tales people will need to get a little breath-catching." Cuebiyar whews. Breathers are nice. Melissa smiles, and rather thought so. You say "The other good thing is that we don't have to rush to open, it's not like anyone's impatiently waiting to take their characters back up." Cuebiyar grins. - --- You say "What I'm thinking of doing is that once we've got all the theme and policies, plus the basics fo the building and code in place (as much of it as we can, I suspect we'll run out of building before we run out of code, but at least Dan can code almost as well as I can, and he'll get better in a hurry)..." Cuebiyar cools. You say "is making it invitation to people we like and think are good RPers, get them started, let them invite a few people, while we finish it.." Cuebiyar ahhs. You say "Then once it's done, we should have a small, but fairly stable, core base of people... and then we can open it up, advertise it." Cuebiyar says "Theme is basic right now right?" You say "And we can focus on daily instead of dev." You say "Theme is about as basic as you can possibly get right now." You say "The stories I have in my head that I need to get out before they explode through the front of my brain are from.. oh. 200-400 years in the past." Cuebiyar oohs. Sounds cool. Cuebiyar supposes it's just a matter of your time to get those out, eh? (yeah right, 'just') - --- You say "So.. off the cuff, off the top of your head, and without thinking of any of it.. what do you think about TFA so far?" You say "And what would you like to see in TFA?" Cuebiyar isn't quite sure she's totaly bought the collection of different beings on an island by erm whatever that was. Cuebiyar says "What do I want to see? The list of questions with answers. :) A lot of work, I know, but that's the problem I've always found with original theme games. Harder to get into the mindset to play there and open to a lot more varied interpretation. :)" Melissa nods. What do you mean by "the list of questions" - What Dan sent out? You say "yeah, I agree that having that is a good idea. And yeah, it'll be open to interpretation, but.. no more interpretation that being kissed by a drakhar makes you into a grey man :)" Cuebiyar oys. You say "see my point, though? :)" Cuebiyar nods. Sure, just going from previous experience though. Found it hard to get int othe setting because I kept having to ask questions since the resources weren't all in place. Not impossible, just more difficult. And you'll always get someone not quite reading teh right thing anyways. :) Melissa nods; Resources are the one thing I'm going to positively insist on.. You say "Dan, like myself, is someone who has been writing fiction for something like a decade or more.." You say "And he's also one of the best damn GM's I've dealth with." You say "So developing the resources, while it'll take work, won't be as complex as that. Plus.. I think we're also going to let some of the complexity develop. There will be some there, but we can't dictate all of it." Cuebiyar says "Nifty. :)" You say "In a lot of ways, I think it'll be easier *for us* than trying to adapt a written world to a MUSH.." Cuebiyar just needs a seed ot play with. Still a bit unsure which directions I can start pelting down. Melissa hms. at the moment.. Yes. :) You say "Okay, let's look at it from a different direction.. what sort of thing do you like playing with?" You say "religion, cultural norms, language.. whatever." Cuebiyar stays away from magic stuff. :) Customs, cultural stuff. That's what I was hoping to develop with the Aiel. You say "Okay, well.." You say "Absolutely nothing has been done in that area yet :)" You say "So it's free to be developed as we choose." Cuebiyar says "Okydoky. :)" You say "So what you have is.. around.. oh. Call it 250 years or so ago, this peaceful island with two or three races on it (elves, dawrves, maybe humans) living in quiet harmony mostly by ignoring each other except to trade.." You say "Suddenly started having miscellaneous different races that they'd *never* seen before, heard of, or even had the faintest idea that they existed started popping in." Cuebiyar says "Poor things." You say "Worse.. some very similar races (drow instead of elves, for example) also came in - with very different customs." You say "And of course, the poor people who were suddenly picked up from their homes and dropped to this new place were also more than little discombobulated." You say "So... within the first.. oh. 25 years.. the original residents discovered that the Newcomers sort of, well, outnumbered them. But let's say that at the beginning, no one particular racial/cultural group outnumbered any other (although there were probably more humands, they weren't all the same culture)." You say "And they're not going away, and people still occasionally pop in on a semi-irregular basis." You say "AND.. they just suddenly discovered that about 15 miles out to sea, there's a barrier. Nobody can leave." You say "So... how do you integrate?" You say "Now we're coming up on the 250 or 500 anniversary of the Offical Something Or Other (we'll want to figure that out and have that as a plot, I suspect)..." You say "250, I think, it's easier to deal with." You say "So it's been 250 years since the offical Integration Treaty of the Island of... er... we'll need aname.." Melissa is making this up as she goes along, btw.. Cuebiyar grins. You say "It's been 250 years. So we've finally got some cultural norms established.." Cuebiyar is following. A bit sleepily though. You say "Greetings.. some people's greetings were more musical than others, so we adopted them.. and some people's eating habits were more palatable to others, so we took those (and sent the really disgusting ones out back).." Melissa will log, want to send it to TFA list anyway ;) You say "So. You have a Random Collection of Miscellaneous People From Different Cultures. Much like the net." You say "the idea is to fuse these cultures into one culture that can more or less live together without devolving into absolute violence and chaos." Cuebiyar says "They speak teh same language though?" You say "I think I'm going to fiat something.." You say "Everyone can understand everyone else." Cuebiyar says "Oh good. That's simpler anyway." Cuebiyar says "Reminds me of america." You say "One of two things happens, and it depends on if anyone wants to code a language or not :) .. Either when they get transferred, they get a new language programmed into their brain (we're talking about aliens who can travel space and dimensions, like subconcious language programming is going to be beyond them!) or..." You say "Well, no, not or.." You say "hm.s" You say "Okay. If they get the subconcious programming, they still remember their own language to use with the people who come from the same place they do." You say "So yes, there's an or. Or... everyone is just magically modified to hear whatever language they're most familiar with." Cuebiyar says "Babel fish?" You say "Magical babel fish, yep." You say "Like I said, depends on if we want to code language or not :)" Cuebiyar grins. Cuebiyar says "What level tech are we thinking here?" You say "they know how to make gears interlock, but they still need blacksmiths." You say "No gunpowder. It just absolutely refuses to work." Cuebiyar nods. Melissa is going to have enough hassle trying to figure out bows & arrows, I don't want to figure out guns. You say "So they could build a bicycle, but it'd be a VERY expensive machinery." You say "on the other hand.. indoor plumbing works." Cuebiyar nods. You say "Tech that has no hazardous use possible (and you have to admit, indoor plumbing is about as non-harmful as you can get, unless you slip in the shower) is allowed to develop." You say "if it's got the remotest possible chance of causing harm (thus, gears are limited and gunpowder simply doesn't happen), something inevitably happens to it." You say "It blows up, it breaks, stress fractures, it simply disappears, whatever." You say "That's the advantage to having active and involved gods (us :) - if they don't like something, they make it poof." You say "Fireballs, however, do work. Which makes me wonder about gunpowder, but hey.. gods are capricious." Cuebiyar has a weird thought and attributes it to being tired. Someone messes something up in the whole scheme of things and these beings from other places end up on this island 'cause they're the ones that didn't wake up from their falling dream. Used to be they just died, but now they show up here. Cuebiyar says "Anyways." Melissa laughs, and thinks that's cool.. Cuebiyar says "Doesn't say a darn thing about teh barrier though. Ah well." Melissa smiles. Cuebiyar toddles off to bed. Melissa hugs. Goodnight. Cuebiyar snugs. Nighty. :) You say "I'll send this to the mailing list in a few.." You say "And maybe it's something to think about :)" Cuebiyar cools. *** Cuebiyar has disconnected at 01:44.