STGOD 2k8 Planning thread

[Dark Hellion]

I am going to try to refine my faction from the background thread some more. However, I am trying for a highly developed, exceedingly socially sophisticated aristocratic society that has large amounts of cybernetic enhancement, if allowed integrated technology and magic, and a high, but unspoken worship of the human form. It is slightly decedent, but highly conscience of the mistakes of past aristocracies, and very careful not to make them, although it can be suckered into making them with enough subtlety. It is also somewhat socially inbred as it stabalized quickly after the fall, and has had 90 or more years to grow so with little outside contact. It is sorta a mix between the Eldar, a cheesy cliche dark ages European power and yet supportive of enough whimsy to try to have a clamp-est (I hope I am not the only straight guy in the world to love the show Card Captor Sakura) feel of lighthearted optimism and oddly literal trait definitions.

[Hawkwings]

CCS was an awesome show. You're definitely not alone.

So is magic allowed? It might work similar to biotech or nanotech, but maybe with greater effects but less control.

[Covenant]

CCS was an awesome show. You're definitely not alone.

So is magic allowed? It might work similar to biotech or nanotech, but maybe with greater effects but less control.

Could we not do magic? Is it really necessary? ;p

If one Imperial faction has magic, then every Imperial faction gets magic. At which point it ceases to be much special and it just becomes regular soldier training, if it is feasible to be used effectively as a force multiplier. If it isn't, then why use it?

And please, no alien magic users either, just to circumvent such a rule. ;_; I mean, I already asked, back in the day, if people wanted to do fantasy.

[Hotfoot]

Again, I don't really care what you call it, so long as it's not an excuse to do things without counters. Anything you do with "magic" or psionics is detectable and stoppable under conditions that would stop something else similar.

[Dark Hellion]

Exactly as I see it hotfoot. Especially if it is kept to the level of an infantry force multiplier only, then it is mute in most circumstance because they can just bomb the fuck out of you from orbit. It just allows for some politically subtle story elements to be introduced, and gives characters enough power to matter against massive fleets with huge fucking guns. I think it will keep the game a bit more fanciful, and keep it from becoming fleets playing space chess.

[Covenant]

Again, I don't really care what you call it, so long as it's not an excuse to do things without counters. Anything you do with "magic" or psionics is detectable and stoppable under conditions that would stop something else similar.

I'd say there's one big difference--if magic comes from Nowhere and is summoned by Words or Acts, then it's not a psionic that you could like scan his brain for and say "Yeah, he's emitting fluxons, this guy is a TK." If it's abstract knowledge that you gain this from, and extends to the idea of a 'Nuclear+' level ability, then we get back to the old problem of One Dude walking into Space UN and going "Abrakafuckyou' and blowing it all into the realm of Chaos.

Also, it turns an old man into some engine of destruction that even Slab Hardchest the Psionic Space Marine would be terrified of. Someone able to drop the funk on someone with atomic-level power is a lot more hard to quantify, especially in terms of the already abstracted Ground Combat strengths, than a guy with a gun and tank support that fires nuclear shells.

And it gets back to what stops magic. Counterspell Shields? Or can I cast 'Mass Mute' on a fleet and fuck 'em all? Can I carry a charm of Reflect to bounce it all back? I think this would work okay, but that's called a fantasy game. If we start mixing science and magic then we need everyone to have access to counters to both, without either being superior to the other.

And that includes saying that instead of 1 dude casting Nuke, it needs to be a guy in a big tank-sized altar casting Nuke, and the nuke is preceeded either by an energy blast or some sort of PD-interceptable fireball.

Exactly as I see it hotfoot. Especially if it is kept to the level of an infantry force multiplier only, then it is mute in most circumstance because they can just bomb the fuck out of you from orbit. It just allows for some politically subtle story elements to be introduced, and gives characters enough power to matter against massive fleets with huge fucking guns. I think it will keep the game a bit more fanciful, and keep it from becoming fleets playing space chess.

No no, a thousand times no! No characters! No characters casting spells, goddammit! No heroes! It is space chess! It's 15 player space chess with diplomacy and such. If that's not subtle enough, then having people able to twiddle their fingers and cast a curse on me is definately not a viable method of extending the gameplay.

If people want magic, fine, but we need to all have access to it--equally--and it needs to be as easily countered as any similar size of doodad. No dropping Ten Men to take out an army, no matter what they cost. Size matters in space. I don't want someone RPing a single shuttle landing with Sauron and Superman onboard.

[Nephtys]

I'd have to agree. No heroes as force multipliers. The only 'force multipliers' ought to be things like a Battle Squadron in orbit, or spending extra points in buying more divisions. Magic has a VERY nasty tendency to lean in the direction of no-limits.

[Dark Hellion]

Oops, I mispoke. I meant that it easily allows characters to have signifigance against ships within the story. If we want it to be interesting we don't want to trade 3 space rices so that you don't sent 50 ships to kick my ass. Captain Margarette McHeroine should dupe the 50th Space Hemogonizing fleet that it wants to attack the planets galactic east, as they have better land and possess and imperial agricenter, which would ensure a huge expansion in the future. I think magic is a nice way to infuse a bit more of that into the game.

Although I think we should ban mindreading. Just straight up, everyone will always have mindreading protection. Because really, I think that is the major source of problems. If you can't mindread, you can't do anything that tech can't do, and all you have is a semantic name game, with the occational opportunity to pull the wool over, just as an all tech society might be able to pull the wool over on a magic using society with a gizmo it has that the magic guys just don't have a defense for.

[Hotfoot]

Again, I don't really care what you call it, so long as it's not an excuse to do things without counters. Anything you do with "magic" or psionics is detectable and stoppable under conditions that would stop something else similar.

I'd say there's one big difference--if magic comes from Nowhere and is summoned by Words or Acts

Oh come on. What part of "detectable and stoppable" don't you get? I've already gone into detail on this before, and I'd really appreciate not having to repeat myself. A single person using TK or magic to bring down a building should be just as easy to stop as someone using covert explosives. Anyone found breaking this commandment and fucking with reality will find that reality fucks back. Specifically with multiple gravitational anomaly shards passing through important cities. As far as counters, it's simple. Quantek is a widespread technology that mimics and counters magic and psionics. It also can be used to enhance existing abilities, and is, in fact, the only way to come up with TK that can be used as a tank cannon is to get a series of Quantek enhancers that is, get this, roughly the size of a tank cannon. Same goes for magic. Quantek can be in many forms, but it's immediately recognizable to anyone with a simple quantek scanner, which again, would be widespread.

I will say this, NO FUCKING CHARACTERS VERSUS SPACE FLEETS. I thought I had clearly laid this out earlier, but apparently some people need it spelled out in tiny words.

[Nephtys]

Oops, I mispoke. I meant that it easily allows characters to have signifigance against ships within the story. If we want it to be interesting we don't want to trade 3 space rices so that you don't sent 50 ships to kick my ass. Captain Margarette McHeroine should dupe the 50th Space Hemogonizing fleet that it wants to attack the planets galactic east, as they have better land and possess and imperial agricenter, which would ensure a huge expansion in the future. I think magic is a nice way to infuse a bit more of that into the game.

Although I think we should ban mindreading. Just straight up, everyone will always have mindreading protection. Because really, I think that is the major source of problems. If you can't mindread, you can't do anything that tech can't do, and all you have is a semantic name game, with the occational opportunity to pull the wool over, just as an all tech society might be able to pull the wool over on a magic using society with a gizmo it has that the magic guys just don't have a defense for.

Why would we ever want a person to be able to fight ships? A Person's nature makes them inherently different. How exactly for example, will I be able to stop a Battleship-powered person from taking a charter flight to Planet X, and nuking the place? Etc.

Characters just shouldn't be a factor in that stuff.

[Crossroads Inc.]

What about hordes of giant 30meter tall Massivly Powerful mecha that are designed to take on hordes of, oh, perhaps small weak fighters or work together to take down small capital ships
>_>
<_<

[Nephtys]

What about hordes of giant 30meter tall Massivly Powerful mecha that are designed to take on hordes of, oh, perhaps small weak fighters or work together to take down small capital ships
>_>
<_<

That's just a fighter. A fighter that's shaped funny.

[Hotfoot]

What she said, but so help me if you have an anti-missile hula hoop, I swear to all I hold dear I will end you.

[Dark Hellion]

I don't think that the amount of firepower a magician should be able to wield should be above the level of affecting infantry. Really, mages should have a tough fucking time busting tanks, just like a dude with an AT-rocket has a tough fucking time busting a tank. A mage would have to take on a ship the same way a secret operative would, Sneak around like ben kenobi and bomb some weak point. And if they work that fucking hard to get their jedi master (cyber-infiltrator) on your ship, they deserve to blow it up.

As I have said though, I really am not that invested in it, as I just want it for flavours sake, and really could do everything I want it to do with tech. I would just rather have some fun with my society, and magic would be a fun way I believe. We are going to see a ton of fucking exotic tech anyways, so magic is just another one.

[Adrian Laguna]

I don't think that the amount of firepower a magician should be able to wield should be above the level of affecting infantry. Really, mages should have a tough fucking time busting tanks, just like a dude with an AT-rocket has a tough fucking time busting a tank.

What happens when the hypothetical mage is armed with the magical equivalent of a W54 on a recoilless rifle?

[Beowulf]

What about hordes of giant 30meter tall Massivly Powerful mecha that are designed to take on hordes of, oh, perhaps small weak fighters or work together to take down small capital ships
>_>
<_<

Last person to seriously propose that got gang-raped.

[Crossroads Inc.]

What she said, but so help me if you have an anti-missile hula hoop, I swear to all I hold dear I will end you.

I only want the Ridicuious Giant Robots, Ridicuious Anime style Attacks/deffenses shall NOT be a part of them.

What about hordes of giant 30meter tall Massivly Powerful mecha that are designed to take on hordes of, oh, perhaps small weak fighters or work together to take down small capital ships
>_>
<_<

Last person to seriously propose that got gang-raped.

Theroeticlly, They should never be used in the game itself. They are eltie Home Defense corps that usually is spent rallying public support or dealing with emergancies on planets vs fighting space monsters

[Academia Nut]

It's the Davey Crocket doing the work there man, and in this system its theoretically detectable. So too should magic I would suppose. If you've got a nuke spell in your head waiting to be cast, or hell in your spellbook, you should be lighting off security detectors like its the Fourth of July and the bottom just fell out of the gunpowder market.

[Adrian Laguna]

And in his example, it was the AT rocket doing the work.

[Dark Hellion]

Basically, what I am saying is that it doesn't matter if it is the Holy hand grenade or an Imperial Strategic Plasma Grenade Mk. 2. Just like academia said, they are the same.

[Covenant]

Well, in that case, the only real question is, how much Magic and how much Tech does the Empire use? If they're roughly equal, what should we call the 'norm' for Imperial society and, quite importantly, warships?

[Nephtys]

Magic seems best to be done as an 'extra'. Not a 'primary' thing. Some trooper can use fireball instead of his Imperial Mark 5 Napalm Shooter. But to have Holy Photon Torpedo seems a little too much...

[Spyder]

Dibs on the superweapon "Planet Fucker."

[Covenant]

Magic seems best to be done as an 'extra'. Not a 'primary' thing. Some trooper can use fireball instead of his Imperial Mark 5 Napalm Shooter. But to have Holy Photon Torpedo seems a little too much...

And a secondary question--what's their opinion of it? If they're religious, do they embrace it? Or do they fear it? It's quite possible that the crazy religious nuts of Fortress Terra are different from the 40k nuts of Holy Terra. Maybe our Empire really fucking loves using Magic, and only likes to use tech as a backup and on capships, and embrace it far and wide. That doesn't mean their small little nation-states that we play used it, but it could be one of the reasons why their shit is so hard to get started. Might require a wonky amount of magic dooders keeping the thing going.

...or they may think it's totally irrelevent, but usually religious nutters would glomp onto magic fuckery pretty hard, either as evil or as divine. Do they make an arbitrary distinction between the two?

These are just elements of the backstory that'd be interesting to flesh out and make available to people as they make their empires and OOB's. I don't care either way.

Also, we've said they're religious several times. But, are they? People seem okay with that, but just wanted to do a gut-check before we build it into the theme by stacking their attitude for magic on top of it. If people would rather they be an a-religious empire, they should make that much known! I know that the Imperial Remnant groups would want to know if they need to be observant to any faith or not.

[Dark Hellion]

I would think that if we include magic, then both imperial tech and imperial magic is way above what our powers can use, as we have only seen glimpses of the true power. How much balance can be left up in the air, as some of their tech would be borderline magic, or just might be inexplicable (think minaturization techs, and the like). Whether some stuff is done by tech, by magic, by magi-tec, or by techno-magic or by wishing really damn hard it works isn't necessary. It works, we know know how the effect it has works, and thats whats important unless it gets into the total nuts of the system, then the mod tells us whether or not the imperial tech in powered by demon-hamsterwheels or a micro-tap, or by the mods indignation at getting down to that level.