Rules Q&A

[Kaiju Cuddlebug]

5 hours ago, Anthr4xus said:

I had the connected web of life as basically the web of symbiotic basic life functions that allow soil to carry plants and promote the air renewal cycle without Veshwoon having to keep constant tabs on it.

That sounds like the concept of a biosphere. Wouldn't that be Create Basic Life then? It's not a societal concept, but a scientific concept; it exists regardless of society. And from the description of Create Basic Life, it seems intended there isn't any limits to what you can create outside of sapient and magical life. If anything, a biosphere seems inherent to life; if you make life where there was none, you've created or altered a biosphere.

[Anthr4xus]

I defined it as a concept for more robust later use.  Existing as a concrete Mythic Concept allows mortals to later utilize it directly as a source of power or magic, basically the fundamentals of mortal life and/or death magic or sympathetic magic between basic elements of the world as they are now explicitly connected from my AP spend.  Without the AP spend, as discussed before, there is no inherent "connected-ness" of life.

[The Stranger]

  

18 hours ago, Avaday Daydream said:

Mm, well I intend to put tasks like terraforming and construction under the Toil domain...but perhaps an Artifice or Invention or Tools domain might be appropriate as well, reflecting the tools the Tolig actually use, whether inventing technology from pottery to fabrics or creating magic to incite plant growth or beautify places...

...Hmm, would that be suited to a whole new domain? Or would it fall under Toil (Invention) or (Toolmaking)?...Inventions might actually be more of Iam's domain (mind and innovations), and to an extent Takayaane's (crafting tools helps intelligent life grow more powerful) so I might leave it under Toil.

Iam doesn't own all of innovation. It's just that he's particularly good at it. If someone else reaches Mind (Innovation 2) they would be better than him at it.

 

Since no one has done that yet, and no one has reached Mind (Innovation) he can proudly call himself the god of innovation and claim that he has no rival. Whether that is true or not is up to the individual to decide for themselves, but he probably won't make any such statements.

 

The one thing he did so far with AP is make a tool, but that doesn't mean anyone and everyone who makes a tool after him needs his permission or guidance.

 

In short, you can make your domains and portfolios whatever you want.

 

The Life domain is tricky if you don't want them to die. Can you truly be alive if they cannot die? I guess yes. Maybe Life does work. They aren't part of the Death domain.

 

It's up to you, really. I don't mind if you change it as long as no one else does. Just try not to do it too much going forward.

 

As for the Mythic Concept, think of it like arcana or mana. Not quite magic or spellcasting, but the thing needed for those things to exist eventually.

 

However, the concept of the web of life is a bit vague, maybe instead of magic it would be a natural law of physics or the universe that eventually leads to science like the before mentioned bioscience.

 

I can imagine some creatures learning to "grow" a gun that shoots bees from its back using this bioscience, tapping into this mythic concept. The bees are attracted by some pollen like excretion that the gun produces. It can only learn to do this by studying the mythic concept. This is only possible since it was created with AP.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by The Stranger (see edit history)

[The Stranger]

So now that I have Innovation 2, what does that mean?

 

I get a -1AP discount any time I innovate? Right?

 

However, if I take advantage of that discount, I build only toward Innovation. Which could be good, too, but not if I want to grow my other domains and I'm pretty sure that to reach the higher tiers of godhood you need multiple domains. 

 

But in theory, doesn't this mean I can take any 1AP action I want for free now? As long as I can reasonably explain why it's within the domain of the Mind?

Edited November 25, 2022 by The Stranger (see edit history)

[Anthr4xus]

Yeah, pretty much.  If you can link what you are doing to that domain you can apply the discount. This also makes minor activities that you do in that domain not count towards building that domain, since they discount to 0 AP.

[The Stranger]

This is really easy to abuse. I was about to make a bunch of organizations within the Theocracy, you know to have them for the lore.

 

However, I noticed that each one adds some kind of modifier to combat. So, if I make a bunch of them, each one costing 0AP, my Theocracy would be unreasonably strong. In theory it can be infinitely strong.

 

Obviously, I'm not going to do that, but in theory anyone can do that. I guess there should be some kind of limit there, right? 

[Avaday Daydream]

Basically, now you have two portfolios in your Mind domain, you get a -1 AP discount on all actions using the Mind domain. If it were three portfolios, it’d be a -2 discount, and so forth.

So yes, you can effectively do 1 AP actions for free now if they relate to Mind. You could run around Blessing any mortal societies that pop up with supergeniuses, or set up a bazillion universities, or…
That said, keep in mind that only AP you actually spend will count towards gaining a new portfolio; taking lots of 0 AP actions won’t get you anyway towards a new one.

[The Stranger]

That all checks out to me. I guess the scale of our power (how easy it is to get this powerful) was just a bit surprising to me.

 

We're demigods technically, but we can already get to the point of blessing willy nilly. Both Iam and the godkin can each create monstrous life for free. 

 

I guess it's still balanced since everyone can get this powerful right away. No one would abuse this, because the response would be to just abuse the system back. Then we'd go back and forth trying to abuse the system, which wouldn't be very fun. So, the best way to avoid this is to just not abuse the system. 

[Kaiju Cuddlebug]

If we ever do need, we could set a rule of "any action that gives RCR bonuses costs a minimum of 1AP". But yeah, the true check on our power is other players being sad and angry. Which is the true check of power in any RPG, in the end.

[The Stranger]

That would be a really good solution if we feel we need to implement it. 

Edited November 25, 2022 by The Stranger (see edit history)

[Kaiju Cuddlebug]

Before I get society create'n: how do societies learn concepts? Veshwoon created the Web of Life, the Tolig have created Masonry. How would a society go about acquiring those concepts? The Trade Concept action?

[Anthr4xus]

When you create the Society it gets five concepts for free (although I would think these could be new or replicating a concept created by an existing society), then they can either learn new concepts by Create Concept, Steal Concept, or Trade Concept actions.

Edited November 25, 2022 by Anthr4xus (see edit history)

[The Stranger]

I also have a question about societies and concepts.

 

Iam created the Source Energy Mythic Concep for the society he created. Do I need to spend more AP to teach that society the mythic concept? Or do they just have it now that I created it for them?

 

What if I create a new society? Can they also start with my mythic concept?

 

I also did not hide or protect my mythic concept. Does that mean that another god can create a society that knows how to use source energy? 

[Anthr4xus]

As the way you worded it in the writeup it sounds like they can "feed" from it natively, but if you wanted to teach them how to utilize the Source Energy for something else that would need to be a Mythic Concept (Source Energy Manipulation) or Mythic Concept (Source Energy Based Magic) or something along those lines.

 

there is a good question about if a new society would start with knowledge of stuff your other society has already developed.  That is not clear in the rules at all. I would be inclined to say that if the creation is specifically restricted to a particular society/race/group/etc. then it is as much a part of the world as the atmosphere.  Once we line out some options we should probably put up a poll about how we want to handle that moving forward.

[The Stranger]

On 11/25/2022 at 2:53 PM, Anthr4xus said:

As the way you worded it in the writeup it sounds like they can "feed" from it natively, but if you wanted to teach them how to utilize the Source Energy for something else that would need to be a Mythic Concept (Source Energy Manipulation) or Mythic Concept (Source Energy Based Magic) or something along those lines.

 

there is a good question about if a new society would start with knowledge of stuff your other society has already developed.  That is not clear in the rules at all. I would be inclined to say that if the creation is specifically restricted to a particular society/race/group/etc. then it is as much a part of the world as the atmosphere.  Once we line out some options, we should probably put up a poll about how we want to handle that moving forward.

Yes, I was planning to make Sorcery next Epoch or something along those lines, but for now I only wanted it to be for avoiding needing to breath, sleep, or eat. It sustains them, basically. 

 

The thing is, I made Sorce Energy abundant and available throughout the entire universe, but I also didn't want it to be in the way. So, I made it so you can't interact with it, unless you want to. I worded it as a secret but I didn't expend AP or try to conceal that secret. So, in theory any of the player's gods could know it. Maybe even mythical creatures can be smart enough to learn it without being taught.

 

I think that as long as you are in a society, you can learn the secret of how to use Source Energy since I did not restrict it. I only say society, because the rules specifically state that you must be in a society to use mythical concepts. Your deities can also know how to use it, though they would have no use for it, you are smart enough to notice it is there and how to utilize it. You can then teach it to your societies if you desire. Just like with the atmosphere.

 

In the future, if people want to restrict the use of their concepts, maybe they need to specifically state that they are doing that.