Thursday, December 8, 2022

... And You Thought Hammers were Crazy

 Check this out.


I'm the sort of fellow who likes to throw the ball over the wall and then figure out how the wall's climbed.  I don't have any pages for any of the above links, but of course the concepts all exist in the real world, so it's a matter of applying those concepts to the D&D world.  All of these things existed in the 17th century.  Nearly all of them were present in the 13th.  Most of them are totally ignored where D&D is concerned.  Gygax's understanding of medieval economics has served me well for many years, but it's time to throw out those crutches and examine the higher concepts of gaming.

One thing I like about D&D is that I'm not limited to the game maker's perception of how an object or a social practice functions.  Unlike a video game, where the local inn operates in very specific ways, enabling me to rest before returning to the game's rigid programming, I can take a D&D inn all apart and examine every facet of a truly functional inn from every angle.  There's no game rule that exists saying I can't buy an inn, run it, supply it with liquor, use it as a cover for illicit political activities (a la The Tale of Two Cities) and as much else as I conceive.  It's only blind, unwritten convention that constrains me from breaking free of the frigid game's non-evolution.

Who knows what games might sprout from ideas like accepting state contracts or investing my money in war bonds to support my country of choice?  Only my imagination.

I hear D&D is a game of imagination.

7 comments:

  1. Now I'm very curious how you might reinvent the bread symbol along these new lines you've followed for hammers and coins...

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  2. I think, logically, the best way to approach that is to assume that some foods are more difficult to produce than others, that fish and animal foods are distinct from crops, that plantation foods are distinct from staples, that locally produced beers and distilled liquids ought to come from hexes with better infrastructures and so on. I'm not ready to tackle that, but it should be easier in structure than these previous two.

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  3. Outstanding. I'm confident you'll defeat any resistance to getting over that wall.

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  4. Looking at the table and all those red links in the middle of this page, it must feel like a neverending battle sometimes to collate and bring everything up to date.

    But nevermind that - It's been a fantastic couple of weeks of wiki progress. I'm looking forward to the next update.

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  5. really appreciating the inclusion of suggested core materials on the various facilities pages. I have the stuff in my economy but recipes can be a nightmare.

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