If you have a passing acquaintance with physics, and if you have the least knowledge of biological construction, you know already that giant creatures are flat out impossible, and that if they came into existence at the flick of a wand, they would collapse immediately under the weight of their own flesh.
There is a reason why insects or crustaceans are small, particularly on land. It is the nature of the exoskeleton, in which the structural integrity of the creature comprises an outer shell enveloping the meaty goodness. The bouyancy and pressurization of water will enable larger crustaceans to exist and retain their integrity, but the gentle reader will take note that one does not see four-pound lobsters clambering around, or 20-pound oysters or nestling upon dry land.
It is a simple mathematics problem. If we consider a beetle, for example. It is easy to find an example that might be one centimeter in length, and perhaps a total of one fifth of a cubic centimeter in size. If we suppose that the beetles mass is equal to one fifth of a gram as well, we can compare the beetle's length to its mass as a ratio of 5:1.
If we increase double the length of the beetle, we increase the overall surface of that beetle's shell by the square of that length. The larger beetle's skeleton is now four times larger than before. However, the mass of the body is cubed, and is now eight times larger that it was before. The larger beetle now weighs 1.6 grams. The ratio to its length to mass has changed dramatically, and is now 5:4.
As we continue to double the size of the beetle, the mass increases exponentially while the body size of the beetle increases only arithmetically. In other words, in very short order the beetle hits a size in which it cannot exist. This is why the largest beetles in the world are only 15 centimeters long.
It is no different with creatures with internal structures, like ourselves. If we double the height of a typical 200-lb. human, keeping all things in the same proportions, we find we have a giant that weighs 1,600 lbs ... with a far lesser percentage of that meat directly attached to the bones supporting the weight. Even if we propose that the bones are larger, and that the tendons supporting the muscles and attaching them to the bones are larger, we still find ourselves with massive amounts of flesh and organs which will simply tear free from the structure of the skeleton, reducing our giant a mass of gooey muck.
Now, what I am not saying is that there should be no giant monsters in D&D. Giants, along with huge crabs, ants the size of dogs, hornets the size of Volvos and so on are romantically fascinating things, and the game demands their existence. Rather, I am proposing that there must be some other justification for the presence of these huge versions of smaller, natural creatures. The obvious answer is magic.
We can suppose that there is some sort of 'magical integrity field' that enables the bones of a giant to support its massive size, or a rhinocerous beetle the size of a bus to scurry over the earth despite the comparison of its tiny legs to its necessary weight. Perhaps it is some sort of net, with invisible nodes that extend to each critical support point in the monster's body, sustaining that point and keeping it free of the inexorable pull of gravity. One might imagine having goggles that enable the viewer to see the magical 'tendons' extending throughout the giant creature's body.
Would this not, however, mean that if you chose to detect magic in the direction of a giant scorpion hiding in the bushes, the presence of the scorpion would be revealed? Shouldn't this be true with all such creatures? And if I should choose to dispel magic, shouldn't the body of the cyclops simply collapse, killing the creature? And what other ways might there be to magically affect his integrity field, once we have argued for its existence.
Which creatures would, and would not, have this field? A giant rat is no larger than a small dog. Certainly the reason there are no pig-sized rats in the real world is not because pig-sized creatures can't exist due to the skeletal-to-body mass ratio. So where does one draw the line, exactly. Where does "very large bear" end and "impossibly large bear" begin? When the bear is 1,500 lbs? 1,700 lbs? Do I need my Guinness book of records to tell me when the creature starts being 'magical?'
We could posit that large creatures are 'magical' but that they're a different kind of magical that isn't affected by the existing canon of mage spells. That seems like a bit of a hand wave to me, and in any case begs the question that if this magic integrity field exists, how come mages through the ages haven't researched to find spells that directly effect the field - never mind simply causing damage to the creatures, but rather simply obliterating the creature's ability to keep itself standing upon the earth's gravity well on its spindly little legs?
And while we're on the subject, perhaps the existence of giant creatures isn't regulated by a magical field? What if there's some other reason? I can't think of one and I'm open to suggestions. I know some of you out there will be thinking "smaller gravity well," which has long been the staple of science fiction novels. It won't work. At some point the limit is still met, and mass will still fail to hang off the bone. You've only changed the ratio limit.
The hand wave is the obvious solution. But are we really looking for solutions, or are we looking for new ways to tap into inconsistences that have been hand-waved to the point where we've forgotten a hand wave was necessary? Why shouldn't anti-giant creature magic be in some way be available? "A wizard did it" only preposes that a wizard can undo it.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
My It's A Good Day, Isn't It?
I've been remiss this week in not posting here, as my online campaign has been going sensationally, full of intrigue and puzzling events, plus a few moments of raw terror. There's a part of me that thinks if I'm writing here, I'm not answering questions and presenting the next scene there, which seems wrong somehow. For example, I could be carrying forth the campaign right now.
And running D&D is sort of the point of it all, isn't it?
Still, I have a few things on my mind and I thought I'd address them. Yesterday I remade an acquaintance with an old film, one that is probably in my top fifty: not the sort of thing that usually appeals to nerds, but if you simply like a very good story, you can find Kind Hearts and Coronets here in its entirety. The film, while utterly ignored by the Oscars on account of being British and unsavory, brilliantly displays what a genius Alec Guinness was, and goes that first step for the uninitiated towards explaining why he detested the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi so much. If the gentle reader has already seen The Man in the White Suit, The Horse's Mouth, The Lavender Hill Mob, Last Holiday, Tunes of Glory and the Bridge on the River Kwai - along with at least ten other very worthy films - you're well aware of the man's impressive range, and why he quite probably before-the-fact viewed Kenobi as "phoning it in" for the cash. God knows why Guinness needed it at that time, but from all reports he regretted it for the rest of his life.
But then Star Wars is a piece of cinematic shit that took advantage of some new technology and an old, popular set of plot devices that have always served to amuse the groundlings, as Shakespeare called them. When I was twelve and first saw the film, I thought it was brilliant. When I was twenty and saw it again, I realized that growing up develops one's discrimination.
I say this full well knowing the number of man-boy nerds who will stamp their feet and pout and go around in another big circle about how I am full of myself and all, and don't appreciate 'fun' and blah blah blah. It is incomprehensible to many that a person simply could not like Star Wars because it is a bad movie, abounding with overused plot tropes and stock wooden characters who do not, any more, 'speak' to my view of life. To put it another way, it isn't 'fun' for me because it is terribly, awfully simple-minded. Visually it looks like a lot of people in really obvious costumes walking around on really obvious set pieces carrying bits of plastic and pointing them at each other like ten-year-old children. At ten, these things were fun of course, but I've long since come to a place where I need more than plastic toys to fire my imagination.
I'd also like to say that there's been time now to talk to the people who put forth the $100 to get a subscription to my game designs, and everyone seems very happy. I have no proof of this, of course, since this is the internet, and I'm not exposing people who don't want to be seen ... but I must comment on others who have made a great stomping, pouting show about how much money it is and what a pompous ass I am for daring to suggest that someone might spend one hundred dollars on whatever I happen to have created. This mind-boggling impossibility is without question measured against the money most people spend during a Friday night at the local bar or tavern, food and drinks included, or the thousands of people right now who are laying hundred dollar bets that a red jack and a seven will beat whatever's in the dealer's hand. Because obviously a hundred dollars is SO much money that data representing twenty years of work could never be its equal.
I don't know. The stomping and the pouting is such an important part of the internet, it's hard not to look at it once in awhile from a purely sociological point of view. A few weeks ago I called quite a number of people on this blog 'idiots,' capitalizing the letters for emphasis, which created a small trickle of other people cleverly capitalizing the word on other blogs while pointedly not using my name or defining the source. But naturally, everyone knew who was being talked about. I wonder if any of these people can understand how spectacular that is for me, to know that there are so many people who read this blog that an oblique reference to something I've written here can be ascribed and understood by others because they've read it here. Not that it makes any difference, mind, to anything except my ego. The world is the same world. The things we like are the same things. I go on making my world, my way, and other people buy it and enjoy it their way, and other people scoff and then move on with their little lives, and so on and so forth.
It is as though all of this doesn't make very much difference at all. It is as though it is all just a lot of strutting and fretting hours upon the stage, by IDIOTS, full of sound and fury ... well, you ought to know the rest of the quote. The Star Wars people can look it up on the internet.
Viewed from that angle, with little else to prop up the existence of some people, I am not surprised that blogging becomes a soul-destroying prospect, driving the blogger to despair and ultimately the decision to stop strutting and fretting altogether, and return to prospects in life that may offer gratification that is somewhat less than immediate and fleeting.
If I blogged only for the effect I could cause, I could quit now, having cheerfully proved what puppets some people are and how easy it is to get under their skin.
But that's not enough for me. That it is believed by some to be my whole purpose is not very surprising, given that people can only surmise the aspirations of others from their own limited imaginations. And given that their imaginations extend to the belief that Star Wars is a good film, I'm not surprised they miss me and my purpose by at least 12 parsecs (which is a distance, and not a measure of time).
I must explain what does make it for me. It isn't the arguments, that must be made for the sake of those who find themselves caught in so much dreck and wish for something better. It isn't the numbers on this blog, that climb steadily from month to month. It isn't the laughable attempts to evicerate me elsewhere that prove my influence. It isn't racking up another blog post here, although 755 is a nice, tidy sum to have already written.
It is, to wit, the frank creation of life and events going on over there on the other blog, the campaign the players assure me is full of fun and excitement. It is the powerful sense of achievement that comes from constructing another map, or from overcoming another obstacle in the creation of algorithms for the purpose of deepening my world, or from feeling just generally that art is in itself a marvelous means of achieving self-satisfaction.
I stop every once in awhile, upon having a really good day, and realize just how happy I am.
And running D&D is sort of the point of it all, isn't it?
Still, I have a few things on my mind and I thought I'd address them. Yesterday I remade an acquaintance with an old film, one that is probably in my top fifty: not the sort of thing that usually appeals to nerds, but if you simply like a very good story, you can find Kind Hearts and Coronets here in its entirety. The film, while utterly ignored by the Oscars on account of being British and unsavory, brilliantly displays what a genius Alec Guinness was, and goes that first step for the uninitiated towards explaining why he detested the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi so much. If the gentle reader has already seen The Man in the White Suit, The Horse's Mouth, The Lavender Hill Mob, Last Holiday, Tunes of Glory and the Bridge on the River Kwai - along with at least ten other very worthy films - you're well aware of the man's impressive range, and why he quite probably before-the-fact viewed Kenobi as "phoning it in" for the cash. God knows why Guinness needed it at that time, but from all reports he regretted it for the rest of his life.
But then Star Wars is a piece of cinematic shit that took advantage of some new technology and an old, popular set of plot devices that have always served to amuse the groundlings, as Shakespeare called them. When I was twelve and first saw the film, I thought it was brilliant. When I was twenty and saw it again, I realized that growing up develops one's discrimination.
I say this full well knowing the number of man-boy nerds who will stamp their feet and pout and go around in another big circle about how I am full of myself and all, and don't appreciate 'fun' and blah blah blah. It is incomprehensible to many that a person simply could not like Star Wars because it is a bad movie, abounding with overused plot tropes and stock wooden characters who do not, any more, 'speak' to my view of life. To put it another way, it isn't 'fun' for me because it is terribly, awfully simple-minded. Visually it looks like a lot of people in really obvious costumes walking around on really obvious set pieces carrying bits of plastic and pointing them at each other like ten-year-old children. At ten, these things were fun of course, but I've long since come to a place where I need more than plastic toys to fire my imagination.
I'd also like to say that there's been time now to talk to the people who put forth the $100 to get a subscription to my game designs, and everyone seems very happy. I have no proof of this, of course, since this is the internet, and I'm not exposing people who don't want to be seen ... but I must comment on others who have made a great stomping, pouting show about how much money it is and what a pompous ass I am for daring to suggest that someone might spend one hundred dollars on whatever I happen to have created. This mind-boggling impossibility is without question measured against the money most people spend during a Friday night at the local bar or tavern, food and drinks included, or the thousands of people right now who are laying hundred dollar bets that a red jack and a seven will beat whatever's in the dealer's hand. Because obviously a hundred dollars is SO much money that data representing twenty years of work could never be its equal.
I don't know. The stomping and the pouting is such an important part of the internet, it's hard not to look at it once in awhile from a purely sociological point of view. A few weeks ago I called quite a number of people on this blog 'idiots,' capitalizing the letters for emphasis, which created a small trickle of other people cleverly capitalizing the word on other blogs while pointedly not using my name or defining the source. But naturally, everyone knew who was being talked about. I wonder if any of these people can understand how spectacular that is for me, to know that there are so many people who read this blog that an oblique reference to something I've written here can be ascribed and understood by others because they've read it here. Not that it makes any difference, mind, to anything except my ego. The world is the same world. The things we like are the same things. I go on making my world, my way, and other people buy it and enjoy it their way, and other people scoff and then move on with their little lives, and so on and so forth.
It is as though all of this doesn't make very much difference at all. It is as though it is all just a lot of strutting and fretting hours upon the stage, by IDIOTS, full of sound and fury ... well, you ought to know the rest of the quote. The Star Wars people can look it up on the internet.
Viewed from that angle, with little else to prop up the existence of some people, I am not surprised that blogging becomes a soul-destroying prospect, driving the blogger to despair and ultimately the decision to stop strutting and fretting altogether, and return to prospects in life that may offer gratification that is somewhat less than immediate and fleeting.
If I blogged only for the effect I could cause, I could quit now, having cheerfully proved what puppets some people are and how easy it is to get under their skin.
But that's not enough for me. That it is believed by some to be my whole purpose is not very surprising, given that people can only surmise the aspirations of others from their own limited imaginations. And given that their imaginations extend to the belief that Star Wars is a good film, I'm not surprised they miss me and my purpose by at least 12 parsecs (which is a distance, and not a measure of time).
I must explain what does make it for me. It isn't the arguments, that must be made for the sake of those who find themselves caught in so much dreck and wish for something better. It isn't the numbers on this blog, that climb steadily from month to month. It isn't the laughable attempts to evicerate me elsewhere that prove my influence. It isn't racking up another blog post here, although 755 is a nice, tidy sum to have already written.
It is, to wit, the frank creation of life and events going on over there on the other blog, the campaign the players assure me is full of fun and excitement. It is the powerful sense of achievement that comes from constructing another map, or from overcoming another obstacle in the creation of algorithms for the purpose of deepening my world, or from feeling just generally that art is in itself a marvelous means of achieving self-satisfaction.
I stop every once in awhile, upon having a really good day, and realize just how happy I am.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Deactivating Characters
It may be that my particular technique of wringing emotions from a group of player characters may be disrupting to some player attempts at roleplaying ... and I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
I perceive that my principle role as DM is to elicit an emotional reaction with any part of the game that might be on the table at a particular time. Things that are unknown should be concerning and even frightening. Combat should be thrilling and definitely scary as the hit points flutter away. Treasure and NPC recognition should be fruitful and promising, and should make a player's chest swell. Treason should make a player angry. Trickery should obtain disbelief ... and then more anger. Conquest should bring pride and ambition. And so on.
I like to believe I manage these emotions through the little events of the game, building them a bit here or there with a casual word at first, a few descriptive phrases, an NPC with an agenda and so on. I like to believe that these things are crafted so that whatever the adopted roleplaying 'stance' of a player's character, it will be the PLAYER who responds to the taunting, the insult or the proposition that is put on the table.
If it can be understood: as DM, I am not speaking to the characters. I can't speak to the characters. I have no idea how Boffo the Monk would respond to my manipulations ... but Boffo's puppeteer is going to hear whatever I say, and if I can get under the puppeteer's skin, Boffo will do what the puppeteer wants.
That is, even if the puppeteer thinks Boffo wouldn't.
And that is the thing. The player enters the campaign with some idea in mind of what their character will be interested in, and what their character would want, or what the character wouldn't do ... but none of that really matters. The character isn't real. The character is a mutable thing that will change its spots just as fast as the player wants. And if I dangle the right carrot in front of the player, those spots are gonna change.
I've made the point in the past (no idea where, sorry) that the characters I used to run as a player were fundamentally Me. And I know there are a lot of players out there who feel that's not what roleplaying is ... but really, when you get right down to it, when a particular NPC keeps getting in your way, and spoiling everything you try, and the only way to move forward is to say to hell with the characterization you've invented - you're going to move forward.
Hasn't always been true. I've been short-circuited. I've had players accept even death before changing. But I don't see that as a virtue of roleplaying. I see it as me failing to really get the emotional response I was going for.
Performance arts are fraught with failure. Sometimes the audience doesn't applaud. Sometimes they don't laugh. But you know you're on the right track when someone who came into the theatre certain that they'd do neither finds they can't help themselves. When they aren't 'themselves,' you know you're taking names and kicking ass.
I perceive that my principle role as DM is to elicit an emotional reaction with any part of the game that might be on the table at a particular time. Things that are unknown should be concerning and even frightening. Combat should be thrilling and definitely scary as the hit points flutter away. Treasure and NPC recognition should be fruitful and promising, and should make a player's chest swell. Treason should make a player angry. Trickery should obtain disbelief ... and then more anger. Conquest should bring pride and ambition. And so on.
I like to believe I manage these emotions through the little events of the game, building them a bit here or there with a casual word at first, a few descriptive phrases, an NPC with an agenda and so on. I like to believe that these things are crafted so that whatever the adopted roleplaying 'stance' of a player's character, it will be the PLAYER who responds to the taunting, the insult or the proposition that is put on the table.
If it can be understood: as DM, I am not speaking to the characters. I can't speak to the characters. I have no idea how Boffo the Monk would respond to my manipulations ... but Boffo's puppeteer is going to hear whatever I say, and if I can get under the puppeteer's skin, Boffo will do what the puppeteer wants.
That is, even if the puppeteer thinks Boffo wouldn't.
And that is the thing. The player enters the campaign with some idea in mind of what their character will be interested in, and what their character would want, or what the character wouldn't do ... but none of that really matters. The character isn't real. The character is a mutable thing that will change its spots just as fast as the player wants. And if I dangle the right carrot in front of the player, those spots are gonna change.
I've made the point in the past (no idea where, sorry) that the characters I used to run as a player were fundamentally Me. And I know there are a lot of players out there who feel that's not what roleplaying is ... but really, when you get right down to it, when a particular NPC keeps getting in your way, and spoiling everything you try, and the only way to move forward is to say to hell with the characterization you've invented - you're going to move forward.
Hasn't always been true. I've been short-circuited. I've had players accept even death before changing. But I don't see that as a virtue of roleplaying. I see it as me failing to really get the emotional response I was going for.
Performance arts are fraught with failure. Sometimes the audience doesn't applaud. Sometimes they don't laugh. But you know you're on the right track when someone who came into the theatre certain that they'd do neither finds they can't help themselves. When they aren't 'themselves,' you know you're taking names and kicking ass.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Player vs. Player
I have been thinking lately of the old trope of players vs. players in D&D campaigns, primarily because it has emerged in a few games like an unwanted relative. I have been playing one particular campaign in which everyone is a friend for so long, I haven't had to deal with this.
I've played in, observed and heard about campaigns where this is a common theme. Online comics like to play it up for all its worth, particularly the trope about the thief slipping into the treasure room and pocketing the nicest stuff before the party sees it. You see players killing one another a la Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but its there ... and of course quite a few DMs think its hilarious.
For myself, as a player, I've always found it a little difficult to stomach. After all, I am interacting socially with a person who is either gloating or otherwise behaving like an asshole as they kill something I've worked to keep alive and healthy, and that I've grown attached to ... and I'm expected to simply consider it 'part of the game.' I'm not to consider the action boorish, or proof of a lacking character.
When I was a boy, I had a grandfather whose favorite game in the world was cribbage, and who took great glee in being able to call 'muggins' on my 10-year-old self. For those of you who may not know, in the game of cribbage, if you count your cards for less points than they're worth, and then peg the total you've counted incorrectly, your opponent can declare "muggins" and count those points themselves. Thus, if you are a ten-year-old boy, and you have not played cribbage for sixty years, and have therefore not had all this time to train yourself to be a self-serving asshole, you can expect to lose a couple of points a game to a grandfather whose belief system includes taking advantage of this difference.
My grandfather used to tell me that it would "smarten me up" to the ways of the world, clearly with the expectation that someday I would be able to skin players with less skill - or commitment to winning, I suppose - than I would eventually have under my grandfather's tutelage. It was supposed to teach me to count cards more fastidiously. What it taught me was not to play cards with my grandfather.
If today I found myself playing cribbage with someone who called 'muggins' on me, I believe my first inclination would be to punch them in the face. I wouldn't do that, of course. I haven't punched anyone in the face since grade school. But my second inclination would be to tell them what assholes they were, rise from the table, and never play cribbage with them again. Or anything else, for that matter. I don't associate with people like this.
My parents, incidentally, played cribbage all the time, and the house rule was that if a hand was counted improperly, other people helped to make sure the count was right and the game continued in a friendly, competitive manner. So I guess my grandfather's influence on his children didn't go very far.
It isn't that there aren't people playing cut-throat D&D. It's only that I would like these people to be hit by a bus or something ... if they can't learn the error of their ways, that is, and smarten up.
To discourage this behavior, I usually try to play a wide-open game ... that is, I don't often share secret information with one part of the party and intentionally keep others in the dark. I used to do this all the time - it seemed like fun, taking people out into the back to describe something only they could see, or encouraging players not to be open about their characters, or encouraging secret messages to be sent around the table. In the long run, however, all this really did was to create a level of distrust which eventually disrupted the game and drove off players.
Some gentle readers might react to this assertion with the sentiment that players who would quit a game over something like this weren't good enough to play. Or 'mature' enough. Or some other belief my grandfather would have appreciated, that 'strong' players don't crumble because their characters are killed. That is, that 'muggins' is part of the game, and if you can't play with muggins then you don't deserve to play.
I have found, generally, that without all the running around behind other people's backs, players form a camaraderie that is much, much stronger than backstabbing and player-from-player theft will allow. Games tend to improve with time, rather than fall apart. Players respect one another. Players treat each other with compassion and concern. This doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. It sounds a game that 'adults' would play. Adults who can work for long-term goals and not short-term gain.
And I'm funny. I prefer to play with adults.
I've played in, observed and heard about campaigns where this is a common theme. Online comics like to play it up for all its worth, particularly the trope about the thief slipping into the treasure room and pocketing the nicest stuff before the party sees it. You see players killing one another a la Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but its there ... and of course quite a few DMs think its hilarious.
For myself, as a player, I've always found it a little difficult to stomach. After all, I am interacting socially with a person who is either gloating or otherwise behaving like an asshole as they kill something I've worked to keep alive and healthy, and that I've grown attached to ... and I'm expected to simply consider it 'part of the game.' I'm not to consider the action boorish, or proof of a lacking character.
When I was a boy, I had a grandfather whose favorite game in the world was cribbage, and who took great glee in being able to call 'muggins' on my 10-year-old self. For those of you who may not know, in the game of cribbage, if you count your cards for less points than they're worth, and then peg the total you've counted incorrectly, your opponent can declare "muggins" and count those points themselves. Thus, if you are a ten-year-old boy, and you have not played cribbage for sixty years, and have therefore not had all this time to train yourself to be a self-serving asshole, you can expect to lose a couple of points a game to a grandfather whose belief system includes taking advantage of this difference.
My grandfather used to tell me that it would "smarten me up" to the ways of the world, clearly with the expectation that someday I would be able to skin players with less skill - or commitment to winning, I suppose - than I would eventually have under my grandfather's tutelage. It was supposed to teach me to count cards more fastidiously. What it taught me was not to play cards with my grandfather.
If today I found myself playing cribbage with someone who called 'muggins' on me, I believe my first inclination would be to punch them in the face. I wouldn't do that, of course. I haven't punched anyone in the face since grade school. But my second inclination would be to tell them what assholes they were, rise from the table, and never play cribbage with them again. Or anything else, for that matter. I don't associate with people like this.
My parents, incidentally, played cribbage all the time, and the house rule was that if a hand was counted improperly, other people helped to make sure the count was right and the game continued in a friendly, competitive manner. So I guess my grandfather's influence on his children didn't go very far.
It isn't that there aren't people playing cut-throat D&D. It's only that I would like these people to be hit by a bus or something ... if they can't learn the error of their ways, that is, and smarten up.
To discourage this behavior, I usually try to play a wide-open game ... that is, I don't often share secret information with one part of the party and intentionally keep others in the dark. I used to do this all the time - it seemed like fun, taking people out into the back to describe something only they could see, or encouraging players not to be open about their characters, or encouraging secret messages to be sent around the table. In the long run, however, all this really did was to create a level of distrust which eventually disrupted the game and drove off players.
Some gentle readers might react to this assertion with the sentiment that players who would quit a game over something like this weren't good enough to play. Or 'mature' enough. Or some other belief my grandfather would have appreciated, that 'strong' players don't crumble because their characters are killed. That is, that 'muggins' is part of the game, and if you can't play with muggins then you don't deserve to play.
I have found, generally, that without all the running around behind other people's backs, players form a camaraderie that is much, much stronger than backstabbing and player-from-player theft will allow. Games tend to improve with time, rather than fall apart. Players respect one another. Players treat each other with compassion and concern. This doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. It sounds a game that 'adults' would play. Adults who can work for long-term goals and not short-term gain.
And I'm funny. I prefer to play with adults.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Character Calculation
Let's tackle this big table. This is one that definitely needs some work by me, which I am putting off because I must tell you this table is a persnickity bitch and I don't enjoy working on it very much. Still, the results are good and I like what it does for the campaign.
Incidentally, this is called 'Chararacter Calculation' because there are files on my drive called 'Character Generation' and 'Character Background' and 'Background' and so on already. This is the last of a long line of similar attempts, and all the good names have been taken. I'm just about ready to throw out all the past work, but for some reason I keep holding onto it.
All right, here's the idea. You input the race, the class, the stats and the gender, and the table pumps out a background, a secondary skill learned from the father (and possibly the mother, too), age, weight, birthday, starting capital, your credit rating (17th century world, remember) and some special things about your character. It is all calculated on random rolls based on the player's stats, and it is all neatly meant to be packaged on the 'Display' tab so that it can be printed when the character is rolled up.
At the moment the copy you have has the Display tab updated for Strength, Intelligence and Wisdom. I am in the middle of working on Constitution, and could do it in an hour or two. Dexterity wouldn't take long after that, but at the moment Charisma is a virtual nightmare. I have been avoiding this because I know that creating a character appearance that matches the charisma is going to be just hell.
Hey, I procrastinate. I did at one time join Procrastinator's Anonymous, but for some reason I just couldn't get out to the meetings.
If you want to muck around with it, putting in some stats and hitting F9 several times, you can see the results will change fairly widely. Certain aspects, such as family, not much. I don't promise there isn't a glitch somewhere - I find them from time to time, and fix as I do. There's a lot of calculations going on to make this table.
Starting with the 'Str' tab, the first one I did, you can see it is in two parts. Part 1 covers columns A through M, and Part 2 columns O through V. The orientation is different, because I tried this first one way, and then the other. I liked the second way better, and kept that for the rest of the file; eventually I may take the time to reformat the first part of the Str tab, but for now I don't care.
Strength affects two aspects: genetic background and physicality. A d20 is rolled against strength, and the difference determines the result. This is really nothing more than making this table (or this earlier version) automatic.
What is extremely pleasant about this set up is that if something new occurs to you to add to the table, you just create another window and set up a random generator. If you look at the cells P10 through U10, you can see that I've done this, making one result occur on a roll of 1 in 6, and the other 5 in 6. Extending this with a little imagination could make hundreds of possible results for each roll, without having to write the table from scratch - making the excel file infinitely better than a stiff table.
If you don't know excel, this is going to seem like gobbledygook to you. If you're a programmer, you're going to scratch your head and wonder what the hell I was on ... since my knowledge of excel is imperfect and I've had to create workarounds that use aspects of excel that I understand. A programmer could have a field day streamlining this, I'm certain.
Nevertheless, I've tried to make a lot of determinations automatic. When you lose a hand, it determines which hand; if you have a sibling, it determines whether its a brother or a sister. One thing it does not do is determine if you're the oldest or the youngest sibling ... it could do that, but the trouble isn't worth it. If anyone cares, I can roll that out with dice.
Throughout the file, I try to use yellow highlighting to show final results. Orange highlighting is usually a temporary crucial results, light tan is for description, blue for principle random results and gray for secondary random results, green for die rolls ... but believe me I break this rule as much as I use it. I tried to include a lot of description for what this die means and that, but I'm afraid I was more interested in producing results than copying them. But if you need me to tell you what something particular means, give me the cell and the tab and I'll try to answer it.
You'll note the father's table (the 'F' tab) is a random generator for character skills. It selects from your stats the background of your father, and if you stat is less than 11 your father will begin from some other stat. If all your stats are less than 11, you won't have a profession. Your father determines your starting capital (though it is modified by certain events that might occur as a result of your intelligence and your wisdom) or your credit ... if you father is a banker you can borrow tons of money. It is possible to be nobility or royalty. That is worked out too, along with how much land you own or if you're in charge of it (you might not be the eldest sibling in the family after all, or your parents might still be alive), or how big a country your family runs. I leave which country up to the DM - not all worlds are the same.
Hitting F9 on this page will show the random descriptions change; there's quite a number of possible options, and of course more can be added.
There's a chance on the Intelligence table of having both learned a father's profession and a mother's, and so the father's table is duplicated on the 'M' tab - M for Mother - so that a completely different result can be generated.
It's possible to start with men-at-arms, so these are generated on the 'Men-at-Arms' table.
If you constitution is low, or through a bad roll, you could have between a mild and a severe chronic disease ... this is determined on the 'Conditions' table. These include blindness and deafness, but those aren't likely. Color confusion or a low tolerance for spirits is more probable. Conditions can modify your height and weight, which are themselves calculated on the 'Biology' tab.
Here is a long bit of calculations that determines the height and weight for your race and your gender, according to the tables in the DMG - but again, made automatic. It adjusts your height/weight for other variables in the table. Columns AR through BB calculate your age, and also your birthday ... with a rejoiner that if you're born on February 29, that's the birthday that counts. I could have made a lot of programming to make this automatic, but it struck me as a huge pain in the neck, for something that would happen so rarely, so I didn't bother.
What is really a pain about this table is that something on this tab affects something on that tab, and that each modifier requires more programming and more fixing and so on, with all the inter-relationships piling up and getting difficult in the long run. But then, that's what makes the results interesting, as they actually have something to do with one another, and are not simply random collections of tables giving unrelated results. Everything is hinged to your character's base stats, race, gender and class, so things tend to group together to form logical characters.
But I don't pity anyone trying to go through this and decipher it. You do so at your peril. If you intend to make changes, I would suggest saving two copies, so you can change one and refer to the other.
Meanwhile, I'll push myself to keep working on this and getting it done sometime ... soon?
Incidentally, this is called 'Chararacter Calculation' because there are files on my drive called 'Character Generation' and 'Character Background' and 'Background' and so on already. This is the last of a long line of similar attempts, and all the good names have been taken. I'm just about ready to throw out all the past work, but for some reason I keep holding onto it.
All right, here's the idea. You input the race, the class, the stats and the gender, and the table pumps out a background, a secondary skill learned from the father (and possibly the mother, too), age, weight, birthday, starting capital, your credit rating (17th century world, remember) and some special things about your character. It is all calculated on random rolls based on the player's stats, and it is all neatly meant to be packaged on the 'Display' tab so that it can be printed when the character is rolled up.
At the moment the copy you have has the Display tab updated for Strength, Intelligence and Wisdom. I am in the middle of working on Constitution, and could do it in an hour or two. Dexterity wouldn't take long after that, but at the moment Charisma is a virtual nightmare. I have been avoiding this because I know that creating a character appearance that matches the charisma is going to be just hell.
Hey, I procrastinate. I did at one time join Procrastinator's Anonymous, but for some reason I just couldn't get out to the meetings.
If you want to muck around with it, putting in some stats and hitting F9 several times, you can see the results will change fairly widely. Certain aspects, such as family, not much. I don't promise there isn't a glitch somewhere - I find them from time to time, and fix as I do. There's a lot of calculations going on to make this table.
Starting with the 'Str' tab, the first one I did, you can see it is in two parts. Part 1 covers columns A through M, and Part 2 columns O through V. The orientation is different, because I tried this first one way, and then the other. I liked the second way better, and kept that for the rest of the file; eventually I may take the time to reformat the first part of the Str tab, but for now I don't care.
Strength affects two aspects: genetic background and physicality. A d20 is rolled against strength, and the difference determines the result. This is really nothing more than making this table (or this earlier version) automatic.
What is extremely pleasant about this set up is that if something new occurs to you to add to the table, you just create another window and set up a random generator. If you look at the cells P10 through U10, you can see that I've done this, making one result occur on a roll of 1 in 6, and the other 5 in 6. Extending this with a little imagination could make hundreds of possible results for each roll, without having to write the table from scratch - making the excel file infinitely better than a stiff table.
If you don't know excel, this is going to seem like gobbledygook to you. If you're a programmer, you're going to scratch your head and wonder what the hell I was on ... since my knowledge of excel is imperfect and I've had to create workarounds that use aspects of excel that I understand. A programmer could have a field day streamlining this, I'm certain.
Nevertheless, I've tried to make a lot of determinations automatic. When you lose a hand, it determines which hand; if you have a sibling, it determines whether its a brother or a sister. One thing it does not do is determine if you're the oldest or the youngest sibling ... it could do that, but the trouble isn't worth it. If anyone cares, I can roll that out with dice.
Throughout the file, I try to use yellow highlighting to show final results. Orange highlighting is usually a temporary crucial results, light tan is for description, blue for principle random results and gray for secondary random results, green for die rolls ... but believe me I break this rule as much as I use it. I tried to include a lot of description for what this die means and that, but I'm afraid I was more interested in producing results than copying them. But if you need me to tell you what something particular means, give me the cell and the tab and I'll try to answer it.
You'll note the father's table (the 'F' tab) is a random generator for character skills. It selects from your stats the background of your father, and if you stat is less than 11 your father will begin from some other stat. If all your stats are less than 11, you won't have a profession. Your father determines your starting capital (though it is modified by certain events that might occur as a result of your intelligence and your wisdom) or your credit ... if you father is a banker you can borrow tons of money. It is possible to be nobility or royalty. That is worked out too, along with how much land you own or if you're in charge of it (you might not be the eldest sibling in the family after all, or your parents might still be alive), or how big a country your family runs. I leave which country up to the DM - not all worlds are the same.
Hitting F9 on this page will show the random descriptions change; there's quite a number of possible options, and of course more can be added.
There's a chance on the Intelligence table of having both learned a father's profession and a mother's, and so the father's table is duplicated on the 'M' tab - M for Mother - so that a completely different result can be generated.
It's possible to start with men-at-arms, so these are generated on the 'Men-at-Arms' table.
If you constitution is low, or through a bad roll, you could have between a mild and a severe chronic disease ... this is determined on the 'Conditions' table. These include blindness and deafness, but those aren't likely. Color confusion or a low tolerance for spirits is more probable. Conditions can modify your height and weight, which are themselves calculated on the 'Biology' tab.
Here is a long bit of calculations that determines the height and weight for your race and your gender, according to the tables in the DMG - but again, made automatic. It adjusts your height/weight for other variables in the table. Columns AR through BB calculate your age, and also your birthday ... with a rejoiner that if you're born on February 29, that's the birthday that counts. I could have made a lot of programming to make this automatic, but it struck me as a huge pain in the neck, for something that would happen so rarely, so I didn't bother.
What is really a pain about this table is that something on this tab affects something on that tab, and that each modifier requires more programming and more fixing and so on, with all the inter-relationships piling up and getting difficult in the long run. But then, that's what makes the results interesting, as they actually have something to do with one another, and are not simply random collections of tables giving unrelated results. Everything is hinged to your character's base stats, race, gender and class, so things tend to group together to form logical characters.
But I don't pity anyone trying to go through this and decipher it. You do so at your peril. If you intend to make changes, I would suggest saving two copies, so you can change one and refer to the other.
Meanwhile, I'll push myself to keep working on this and getting it done sometime ... soon?
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Map Files
I must admit - since I knew it was going to be easy to send the material out, and that size wasn't an issue, I grabbed the whole map file as it was and made it available. Subscribers will take note there's a lot of junk in there, maps that should have been deleted, or maps that are duplicates because I intended eventually to change them to some new format (climate or otherwise). And I must also confess that when I look at these files, I see a lot of work I haven't done yet, and that makes me feel lazy.
But on the other hand, you can see how not everything I put together looks 100%, and that the fabrication of junk goes hand in hand with the fabrication of good work. That's a good thing.
Bypassing the 'Maps' folder, which is the work in the last stages, I ask the reader to look at the 'Map Rings' folder first. These many files represent the composite collection of the data on this website, which you can look over to see how the data is arranged there. Fallingrain.com is in general use by Wikipedia and other sites, and is a marvelous resource for simple and immediate information for any place in the world. That's how I stumbled across it, looking for elevation numbers.
The 'Map Rings' files, then, gives the relative elevation for every hex in the world, my having divided the hexes up according to this scheme here, which itself includes links to earlier posts on the subject. Hexes appear either white or grey, for no purpose than contrasting one ring on the documents from another, or in yellow on black for hexes that have been mapped already. This is an extremely useful check on the maps, to make sure that the hexes properly line up ... and it is a constant resource that I use while mapping to make sure I am producing accurate results. It is also helpful in the 'skewing' of the map to fit the projection effected by hexing the earth and flattening it, the reason why my maps don't look like those out of ye common Atlas. They do have a bit of medieval feel in the coastlines, however.
There's tons and tons of data there. Two things: you can find the equator on the file marked '301-320 4sep07 Done' ... its the centre tab. Also, for some reason a chunk of the western hemisphere was deleted (or failed to save back in 2007), so that rings 281-300 are missing it. I have the file elsewhere in the process of being corrected ... it isn't super important, however, so I just sort of work at it once in awhile. You can see from the dates on the files that I appear to have worked on creating this between Nov 2007 and October 2008. Those are just the latest file dates. In actual fact, the real mapping process began in 2005. It really took me three and a half years to gather the information and finish making this file. But no big deal.
Before I can create a map, however, I need to know what cities will be on it, who will control those cities in 1650 and how big those cities will be. Thus I research cities and towns shown on the maps of my olde, friendly encyclopedia (one must limit the work to some source, I'm not researching every village in the world!). The 'France Cities Workbook' is an example of my research - I am working on France to map that part of the world next. I haven't copied all the cities out of my encyclopedia yet ... only 194 of them, which would be the southern third of that country. This, too, is a task I only work at in bits; it can be quite dull to look up town after town, only to find out when it was founded and who controlled it and how many times it was burned or suffered from an illness or destroyed completely. But it does help me understand these regions more in depth as I read and read. Most of the main research, I admit, comes from wikipedia - quick search and extensive information on small, nothing places is very useful.
This information gets put together into a file like the 'Cities 22oct11' you have there. It too has little bits of floating junk on some of the tabs, such as a bit about Siberia, China, 'The Other India' (which means bits of India I actually need to make sure I've included - I think I have) and so on. The 'Compiled' tab is a mostly complete list of the cities, when they were founded (in many cases estimated), how big they are ... all the things that I put under the wikipedia months ago. This is collected together into the 'New Provinces' tab, (there used to be an old provinces tab, but its deleted now, and I never get around to changing these names), and the 'Kingdoms' tab. On the latter, you can see combined information for the population of the world at the point of latest update, and partial data on the total hexes which have been mapped for their vegetation. Again, I have so much of the world to work on.
The little box in green shows I've mapped the vegetation for just over 4 million square miles. Only 47 million square miles to go.
I have actually mapped a great deal more of the world, but I haven't determined its vegetation, and until I do that I don't record the actual size. It's just a little quibble for me - but I can see the size of a region just by looking at the map, can't I?
So, at present, there are 117 independent entities, the largest of which in population is the Moghul Empire (61 million people), mostly because it rules the heavily populated India. The Ottoman Empire comes in with nearly 30 million, and after that the Holy Roman Empire totals 14.5 million (which includes a lot of semi-independent entities). Europe has a great many people in it, but they are split and separated and usually at war with one another. The total population at present is 188 million ... which you will take note differs from the 115 million indicated on the Sources table. I added India to this, you understand. The numbers will go up again when I add the rest of Asia, Europe, Africa and all of the New World. I am estimating a world-wide total - now - of about 350 million, but that may be conservative.
This leaves the 'Map' Folder, which I'm going to cover quickly. Most of it is empty or junk, experiments or otherwise, but there are two folders worth looking at. The first would be 'New Hexes', which contains the elevation maps, and 'Terrain Maps' which includes all the vegetation maps (lord know why it's called 'terrain' ... don't worry about it). These you definitely want to look at. You can find a number of different keys for the meanings on the vegetation maps. Most of them are false, old, or flotsam before fixing them later. The one you should trust is found on the 'Ter D 06 - North Caspian' map. It is the one I think is most up to date.
Feel free to ask questions here or on email.
But on the other hand, you can see how not everything I put together looks 100%, and that the fabrication of junk goes hand in hand with the fabrication of good work. That's a good thing.
Bypassing the 'Maps' folder, which is the work in the last stages, I ask the reader to look at the 'Map Rings' folder first. These many files represent the composite collection of the data on this website, which you can look over to see how the data is arranged there. Fallingrain.com is in general use by Wikipedia and other sites, and is a marvelous resource for simple and immediate information for any place in the world. That's how I stumbled across it, looking for elevation numbers.
The 'Map Rings' files, then, gives the relative elevation for every hex in the world, my having divided the hexes up according to this scheme here, which itself includes links to earlier posts on the subject. Hexes appear either white or grey, for no purpose than contrasting one ring on the documents from another, or in yellow on black for hexes that have been mapped already. This is an extremely useful check on the maps, to make sure that the hexes properly line up ... and it is a constant resource that I use while mapping to make sure I am producing accurate results. It is also helpful in the 'skewing' of the map to fit the projection effected by hexing the earth and flattening it, the reason why my maps don't look like those out of ye common Atlas. They do have a bit of medieval feel in the coastlines, however.
There's tons and tons of data there. Two things: you can find the equator on the file marked '301-320 4sep07 Done' ... its the centre tab. Also, for some reason a chunk of the western hemisphere was deleted (or failed to save back in 2007), so that rings 281-300 are missing it. I have the file elsewhere in the process of being corrected ... it isn't super important, however, so I just sort of work at it once in awhile. You can see from the dates on the files that I appear to have worked on creating this between Nov 2007 and October 2008. Those are just the latest file dates. In actual fact, the real mapping process began in 2005. It really took me three and a half years to gather the information and finish making this file. But no big deal.
Before I can create a map, however, I need to know what cities will be on it, who will control those cities in 1650 and how big those cities will be. Thus I research cities and towns shown on the maps of my olde, friendly encyclopedia (one must limit the work to some source, I'm not researching every village in the world!). The 'France Cities Workbook' is an example of my research - I am working on France to map that part of the world next. I haven't copied all the cities out of my encyclopedia yet ... only 194 of them, which would be the southern third of that country. This, too, is a task I only work at in bits; it can be quite dull to look up town after town, only to find out when it was founded and who controlled it and how many times it was burned or suffered from an illness or destroyed completely. But it does help me understand these regions more in depth as I read and read. Most of the main research, I admit, comes from wikipedia - quick search and extensive information on small, nothing places is very useful.
This information gets put together into a file like the 'Cities 22oct11' you have there. It too has little bits of floating junk on some of the tabs, such as a bit about Siberia, China, 'The Other India' (which means bits of India I actually need to make sure I've included - I think I have) and so on. The 'Compiled' tab is a mostly complete list of the cities, when they were founded (in many cases estimated), how big they are ... all the things that I put under the wikipedia months ago. This is collected together into the 'New Provinces' tab, (there used to be an old provinces tab, but its deleted now, and I never get around to changing these names), and the 'Kingdoms' tab. On the latter, you can see combined information for the population of the world at the point of latest update, and partial data on the total hexes which have been mapped for their vegetation. Again, I have so much of the world to work on.
The little box in green shows I've mapped the vegetation for just over 4 million square miles. Only 47 million square miles to go.
I have actually mapped a great deal more of the world, but I haven't determined its vegetation, and until I do that I don't record the actual size. It's just a little quibble for me - but I can see the size of a region just by looking at the map, can't I?
So, at present, there are 117 independent entities, the largest of which in population is the Moghul Empire (61 million people), mostly because it rules the heavily populated India. The Ottoman Empire comes in with nearly 30 million, and after that the Holy Roman Empire totals 14.5 million (which includes a lot of semi-independent entities). Europe has a great many people in it, but they are split and separated and usually at war with one another. The total population at present is 188 million ... which you will take note differs from the 115 million indicated on the Sources table. I added India to this, you understand. The numbers will go up again when I add the rest of Asia, Europe, Africa and all of the New World. I am estimating a world-wide total - now - of about 350 million, but that may be conservative.
This leaves the 'Map' Folder, which I'm going to cover quickly. Most of it is empty or junk, experiments or otherwise, but there are two folders worth looking at. The first would be 'New Hexes', which contains the elevation maps, and 'Terrain Maps' which includes all the vegetation maps (lord know why it's called 'terrain' ... don't worry about it). These you definitely want to look at. You can find a number of different keys for the meanings on the vegetation maps. Most of them are false, old, or flotsam before fixing them later. The one you should trust is found on the 'Ter D 06 - North Caspian' map. It is the one I think is most up to date.
Feel free to ask questions here or on email.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Prices Template - Part D - End Goods & Market Page
Now we can go to the 'End Goods' section. Here we have the page where the actual items are calculated. The principle idea is that items have a given weight and quality of workmanship, and that these are multiplied against the value created on the 'Raw Material Cost' page.
For example, we've determined that 'aloe' has a price, that being (in Astrakhan) 100.16 c.p. per oz. (line 6, column C & D). The description of the item describes it as 'aloe vera' and the fact that it is '4 dozes contained in vial' and that its purpose is 'protects from the sun.' A vial is 4 oz., so column I indicates the size of the vial. There's a 10% increase in the cost for the trouble of putting the raw material in a vial. That would make the value of the aloe at 100.16 x 4 x 1.1 = 441 c.p. ... except it's not. As you can plainly see, the cost is given as 550 c.p. The reason for this is that the vial itself costs, and that cost is worked out on the 'Pre-Goods' tab. There, we see 'vial, glass, 4 oz. capacity, 1" diam., 5" high' in the 'Containers' section. You will notice that the price for this object is slightly higher than buying the glass vial alone (you can find it on line 522 of the 'End Goods' tab), and this is due also to the fact that the vial on the 'Pre-Goods' tab includes the cost of filling it, as opposed to the cost of merely buying it.
Believe me, this would all be hopelessly complex if it wasn't for the fact that when the calculation is put into the system ONCE, it is there forever and doesn't need to be worked out again.
Thus the aloe and the container together are 550 c.p. (or some other amount in some other market). Most of the time players don't think about the fact that the oil or the holy water or the wine or whatever else they buy fits into containers that apparently get thrown away once they've been used. Granted, a lot of them get broken, but when was the last time a player said he or she broke a wine bottle after drinking the wine?
550 c.p. is obviously an inconvenient number for use, so the table automatically converts this into silver or gold, rounding the number accordingly. Typically, if it is 24 c.p. or less, I record the price as copper, and if it is 384 c.p. or less, I record it as s.p. There's 12 c.p. per silver, so 384 c.p. is 32 s.p. There are 16 s.p. per gold piece in my world, so 32 s.p. is 2 g.p. ... and therefore any price less than 2 g.p. is recorded as either silver or copper. Anything more than 2 g.p. is rounded to the nearest gold piece, even if that isn't quite accurate. 550 c.p. is 2 g.p., 13 s.p. and 10 c.p., but giving prices like that would be inconvenient and would probably drive my players crazy. So I round them off and everyone is generally content with that.
If someone wanted to buy bulk goods for trade, and wanted to haggle, I suppose an exact price could be quoted ... though the exact price might actually be higher than the gold indicated.
Thereafter you see the venue, and then the weight of the items. The weight of the vial is included in the weight of the aloe in the example above, so the total weight is 5.3 oz.
Now it gets complicated.
To work out the shop selling prices, we go back to column E & F. Column E, 'Avails,' gives the total references for the item type, obtained from the 'References' tab (you see how this all pulls together). Column F generates a number between 0 and 0.25, so that if the number of references is higher than that, availability is 100%. On the other hand, you can see that aloe has an availability of 0.013, so there's only a 13 in 250 chance that aloe will be present on the seller's table.
If an item is made of more than one thing, such as a metal axe with a wooden handle, I usually set the avails to whatever is the most necessary material to make the object (or the rarest material, since this is the choke point). I'd set the material for a metal axe with a handle as the references for neither wood nor metals, but for 'tools,' which I have a reference for. That gives me a simple measure. You can see other decisions I've made throughout the table - some you may agree with, or not - but you can change them to suit yourself.
Looking at column S, then, this is merely a calculation for determining the number available, multiplied against a random number (column T), all based on the cost of the items. Large items that are expensive occur in smaller supply than smaller, cheaper items ... and may not be available at all, even if the avails indicate items of that variety are there. For example, you may be able to find various furniture, but that doesn't mean you can find an intricately carved four-poster bed. It depends on how available it is ... or how far column E is below column F.
The item description is repeated for easy importation to the next table, along with the price, coin, weight and then the total number available.
Columns AC to AJ then does the same in reverse. The cost of the item and its availability determines how many the shop vendor will buy from the player, and for how much. Then columns AL to AS determines it all again, for selling to passers by (or for selling in a village or on the road, anywhere that there isn't a market present).
I was reworking this table through the summer, so you should be aware that everything after shipbuilder (lines 1170 and down) haven't been upgraded to the present detail (the 'Pre-Goods' table hasn't been incorporated yet, along with other inconsistencies that I didn't get to. I simply got tired of working on goods, as it is exhausting and picky and takes a great deal of time. I did get more than a 1100 objects done before quitting, right? I'll pick this up again sometime, I promise. Only 450+ to go.
Also, please note that Jeweller is a mess and has been put on hold for the moment. This is a more pressing issue, and really needs some solid attention. I'd like to work on this before Christmas, but I'll probably work on the Character Generation Table first.
Finally, a quick word about the 'Market Page' tab. This is obviously the only page which the player's sees. I usually copy and paste this first as values on another page, then paste it as format, so there are no calculations remaining. Takes just a few seconds. Then I can show it to the players.
So, to recap: if you want to make a new market, there's the two actions on the Selected page, which ends with pasting the data on the 'Input Data' page on the Prices Template. Then you can move immediately to the Market Page, copy that and post the new prices for the players.
Like I said, a pistol. The actual calculation and presentation for the players doesn't slow the game down at all. You generate a new table and provide it. It takes new players a long time to go through 1,600 buyable items, but I've found with time players get quite used to searching through and finding what they want. Mostly that works because I've anticipated a character's need, and most things are certain to be there - and can be searched for with Ctrl F.
I once had it set up so that changing one thing on the Selected table changed everything else automatically, but this created huge problems in excel, as I always find when there are multiple tables open or not open. It is an issue with excel. I would have all of this together on one single page, except that the computer I have still can't handle the capacity and the number of calculations slows everything down. But tech is moving forward, so I suppose with my next computer I'll be able to convert these together ... and one day with the sources table also.
The rest is all junk. Make what you will of it. For the present, that's the last trading file. From here we move onto mapmaking.
For example, we've determined that 'aloe' has a price, that being (in Astrakhan) 100.16 c.p. per oz. (line 6, column C & D). The description of the item describes it as 'aloe vera' and the fact that it is '4 dozes contained in vial' and that its purpose is 'protects from the sun.' A vial is 4 oz., so column I indicates the size of the vial. There's a 10% increase in the cost for the trouble of putting the raw material in a vial. That would make the value of the aloe at 100.16 x 4 x 1.1 = 441 c.p. ... except it's not. As you can plainly see, the cost is given as 550 c.p. The reason for this is that the vial itself costs, and that cost is worked out on the 'Pre-Goods' tab. There, we see 'vial, glass, 4 oz. capacity, 1" diam., 5" high' in the 'Containers' section. You will notice that the price for this object is slightly higher than buying the glass vial alone (you can find it on line 522 of the 'End Goods' tab), and this is due also to the fact that the vial on the 'Pre-Goods' tab includes the cost of filling it, as opposed to the cost of merely buying it.
Believe me, this would all be hopelessly complex if it wasn't for the fact that when the calculation is put into the system ONCE, it is there forever and doesn't need to be worked out again.
Thus the aloe and the container together are 550 c.p. (or some other amount in some other market). Most of the time players don't think about the fact that the oil or the holy water or the wine or whatever else they buy fits into containers that apparently get thrown away once they've been used. Granted, a lot of them get broken, but when was the last time a player said he or she broke a wine bottle after drinking the wine?
550 c.p. is obviously an inconvenient number for use, so the table automatically converts this into silver or gold, rounding the number accordingly. Typically, if it is 24 c.p. or less, I record the price as copper, and if it is 384 c.p. or less, I record it as s.p. There's 12 c.p. per silver, so 384 c.p. is 32 s.p. There are 16 s.p. per gold piece in my world, so 32 s.p. is 2 g.p. ... and therefore any price less than 2 g.p. is recorded as either silver or copper. Anything more than 2 g.p. is rounded to the nearest gold piece, even if that isn't quite accurate. 550 c.p. is 2 g.p., 13 s.p. and 10 c.p., but giving prices like that would be inconvenient and would probably drive my players crazy. So I round them off and everyone is generally content with that.
If someone wanted to buy bulk goods for trade, and wanted to haggle, I suppose an exact price could be quoted ... though the exact price might actually be higher than the gold indicated.
Thereafter you see the venue, and then the weight of the items. The weight of the vial is included in the weight of the aloe in the example above, so the total weight is 5.3 oz.
Now it gets complicated.
To work out the shop selling prices, we go back to column E & F. Column E, 'Avails,' gives the total references for the item type, obtained from the 'References' tab (you see how this all pulls together). Column F generates a number between 0 and 0.25, so that if the number of references is higher than that, availability is 100%. On the other hand, you can see that aloe has an availability of 0.013, so there's only a 13 in 250 chance that aloe will be present on the seller's table.
If an item is made of more than one thing, such as a metal axe with a wooden handle, I usually set the avails to whatever is the most necessary material to make the object (or the rarest material, since this is the choke point). I'd set the material for a metal axe with a handle as the references for neither wood nor metals, but for 'tools,' which I have a reference for. That gives me a simple measure. You can see other decisions I've made throughout the table - some you may agree with, or not - but you can change them to suit yourself.
Looking at column S, then, this is merely a calculation for determining the number available, multiplied against a random number (column T), all based on the cost of the items. Large items that are expensive occur in smaller supply than smaller, cheaper items ... and may not be available at all, even if the avails indicate items of that variety are there. For example, you may be able to find various furniture, but that doesn't mean you can find an intricately carved four-poster bed. It depends on how available it is ... or how far column E is below column F.
The item description is repeated for easy importation to the next table, along with the price, coin, weight and then the total number available.
Columns AC to AJ then does the same in reverse. The cost of the item and its availability determines how many the shop vendor will buy from the player, and for how much. Then columns AL to AS determines it all again, for selling to passers by (or for selling in a village or on the road, anywhere that there isn't a market present).
I was reworking this table through the summer, so you should be aware that everything after shipbuilder (lines 1170 and down) haven't been upgraded to the present detail (the 'Pre-Goods' table hasn't been incorporated yet, along with other inconsistencies that I didn't get to. I simply got tired of working on goods, as it is exhausting and picky and takes a great deal of time. I did get more than a 1100 objects done before quitting, right? I'll pick this up again sometime, I promise. Only 450+ to go.
Also, please note that Jeweller is a mess and has been put on hold for the moment. This is a more pressing issue, and really needs some solid attention. I'd like to work on this before Christmas, but I'll probably work on the Character Generation Table first.
Finally, a quick word about the 'Market Page' tab. This is obviously the only page which the player's sees. I usually copy and paste this first as values on another page, then paste it as format, so there are no calculations remaining. Takes just a few seconds. Then I can show it to the players.
So, to recap: if you want to make a new market, there's the two actions on the Selected page, which ends with pasting the data on the 'Input Data' page on the Prices Template. Then you can move immediately to the Market Page, copy that and post the new prices for the players.
Like I said, a pistol. The actual calculation and presentation for the players doesn't slow the game down at all. You generate a new table and provide it. It takes new players a long time to go through 1,600 buyable items, but I've found with time players get quite used to searching through and finding what they want. Mostly that works because I've anticipated a character's need, and most things are certain to be there - and can be searched for with Ctrl F.
I once had it set up so that changing one thing on the Selected table changed everything else automatically, but this created huge problems in excel, as I always find when there are multiple tables open or not open. It is an issue with excel. I would have all of this together on one single page, except that the computer I have still can't handle the capacity and the number of calculations slows everything down. But tech is moving forward, so I suppose with my next computer I'll be able to convert these together ... and one day with the sources table also.
The rest is all junk. Make what you will of it. For the present, that's the last trading file. From here we move onto mapmaking.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Ah, India
And don't it look weird:
 |
| A Land of Silly Putty |
The bizarre appearance is, as ever, the distortion of flattening the northern hemisphere into a hex disc, caused by strange things like shortening the circumference from pi to 3 times the diameter. It also helps to remember that the direction North is somewhere at the top left of the above, and not the centre top, which is typical of maps.
All I care about is that it is a standardized reckoning within my world in every capacity, in playability, in representation, in comparison to other regions world-wide, and of course my trade table.
Getting this done feels like a tremendous weight off me. I actually started India about three years ago, then stopped to do other regions, leaving it half done. That proved to be a mistake. I changed certain aspects of my mapping in 2009, and since that happened I practically had to do all that I had done before one more time. So for me, this is a map done with one and a half times the work shown. Feels good to have that all finished and sorted out at last. There's still the Maldives and Laccadive islands to do, and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands too, but they wouldn't look good on the blog anyway - they're too small.
The map shown is a collection of 14 separate sections that I've been working on a couple of months now (which is why some labels appear twice, and why there's a pink glitch in the middle of Nepal ... colored on one map and not on the other - has to be fixed). Some of these, as they were previously, can be found on the Wiki, linked on the right hand side.
The strange twist on the right is the 90th parallel, that forces the map to 'turn the corner,' as I have described elsewhere on this blog. It was unfortunate that the turn went right through the middle of the the Bengal delta of the Ganges from the left and the Brahmaputra, which swings out of Tibet (where it hasn't been drawn in) at the top of the map and then down into India. That too makes the map look weird. This is the first large area I've done that's this close to the equator. I begin to wonder how this will make Indonesia look.
Well, the map speaks for everything else, so I'll shut up.
A Note To My Readers
Yes, it's true. Since last week it seems that this blog has been all about the subscription and the data I'm providing off line, and I don't doubt there's a little unhappiness about that. But the gentle reader must admit, if people have given me a sum of money, I am somewhat beholden towards servicing the needs of those people, at least as far as my responsibilities demand. And if there hasn't been more general information here in a week, well, I could just as easily have not posted at all, right? Quite a lot of blogs take a week or a month off, and I haven't done anything like that.
But I would like to reassure my loyal readers that I am here and I haven't made any plans to stop blogging about all the things I typically blog about. I came within a hair's breath of finishing India last night, with plans to publish it today ... but the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta proved more daunting than I expected and at 11:00 PM last night I knocked off. I don't know if I can finish today, but I'll post the whole map of the area this week.
I'm up to writing a post about Gunpowder for my civ IV technology posts, and I meant to write something general about the online campaign - which is also content I'm adding to the Internet daily, I hasten to add. I also have plans for one other thing ... if I dare do it. So all I can say is please be patient, don't lose faith, the blog and my interest in communicating about D&D to the general readership has not been compromised.
I can't help wanting to share everything, however, and if people are willing to pay for the gritty in depth stuff, who am I not to take advantage of that? I've been working hard at this hobby for more than 30 years, and I don't know any craftsperson anywhere who doesn't start to think eventually that it might be worth putting a few things on a table at a flea market.
Finally, one special note to the happy, wonderful people at YDIS who eagerly anticipate my being diagnosed with cancer. A hooker will charge you $100 to fuck you. I would be happy to offer the same service.
But I would like to reassure my loyal readers that I am here and I haven't made any plans to stop blogging about all the things I typically blog about. I came within a hair's breath of finishing India last night, with plans to publish it today ... but the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta proved more daunting than I expected and at 11:00 PM last night I knocked off. I don't know if I can finish today, but I'll post the whole map of the area this week.
I'm up to writing a post about Gunpowder for my civ IV technology posts, and I meant to write something general about the online campaign - which is also content I'm adding to the Internet daily, I hasten to add. I also have plans for one other thing ... if I dare do it. So all I can say is please be patient, don't lose faith, the blog and my interest in communicating about D&D to the general readership has not been compromised.
I can't help wanting to share everything, however, and if people are willing to pay for the gritty in depth stuff, who am I not to take advantage of that? I've been working hard at this hobby for more than 30 years, and I don't know any craftsperson anywhere who doesn't start to think eventually that it might be worth putting a few things on a table at a flea market.
Finally, one special note to the happy, wonderful people at YDIS who eagerly anticipate my being diagnosed with cancer. A hooker will charge you $100 to fuck you. I would be happy to offer the same service.
Prices Template - Part C - Raw Material Cost
The 'Raw Material Cost' tab is the crux of the table, and indeed the crux of the whole trade system. These is the practical calculations I've been holding back all this time. As you can see, there are a lot of them. As I said before, they've been built up one by one over time, until you have what you see here.
in each case, the references from the previous table are used as a ratio to calculate the price of various items, usually per ounce or sometimes per specific object. Furs, for instance, are calculated per pelt, animals per head, gems per cubic centimeter and so on. Much of this table uses other parts of this table in order to calculate the total price of things - probably the best example of this is the cow.
If you go to lines 922 and 923, you can see the price of a cow or a calf outlined. The price of the cow is based upon the basic cost per head (determined on the reference table), then augmented by the cost to feed the cow for a two year period, whereupon it will be at the height of its meat, leather and milk production ... though it may be kept for a longer period. A calf, you will notice, is fed for only three months, and that is why a calf costs less.
The price of the forage for the cow can be found on line 782, this price being based upon the total 'cereals' shown on the reference table, which is used in calculating the cost of 'preparing' the base cost of general cereals. You will note there is also a 'inkeeper feed' cost, which is calculated by the number of market references in this particular market city.
The price of milk is then hinged on the price of the cow, and how much milk it is predicted it will produce in a year (all production figures for the reference table are annual, which determines all prices throughout the system). You can find raw milk costs on line 208, along with the cost of cream & kumiss, butter & ghee, and ordinary cheese. Other cheeses of course are calculated against these prices.
The price of cowhide can be found on line 370, as opposed to horsehide or sheepskin and so on, which are all determined by the price of those animals as opposed to cows. The cost of salt is added (from line 591), then the cost of tanning the hide, plus the size of the hide and its cost per ounce. This is then used to give the cost of cowhide leather craft, found on line 388. That line shows the cost of leather armor there, along with the costs of gloves, hats and boots, which are considered more expensive to produce than leathercraft.
If you want, you can have your leathercraft embroidered, which would mean my creating a calculation for it using the reference for embroidery found on the 'References' tab, line 493. You could have it embossed (again, I'd have to make the calculation, but that's actually quite easy), from 'References' line 492 ('artworks'). You could also have it sewn with gems ('References', line 809, 'lapidary') or fitted with fur ('References', line 361). It is really all up to you, and the prices are all worked out according to the general system. Obviously, once I create a new calculation for a specific thing, I leave it in the system.
If you want the cost of cow meat, you can find it on the 'Raw Material Cost' tab on line 252. 'On the hoof' means the price paid to the rancher who brings in a live cow. The 'Stockyard' price is what you pay if you buy the cow unslaughtered. The 'Abattoir' price is what you pay for a side of slaughtered cow that hasn't been cut into steaks for you. The 'Butcher' price is the cost for cut up and ready to cook. 'Inn Fare' is the additional cost the inn charges you. 'Smokehouse' is the cost of drying or smoking ready meat. Sausage is the cost for the meat in that way, where as Pates are more expensive still. Pates de foie gras is the cost of goose liver pates (which has its own cost track, naturally) made in that particular manner.
So you can see that everything is hinged together. The number of stockyard references determines the mark-up on cows, the slaughtering references determines the mark-up at the abattoir, and so on and so forth, so that each stage has a specific price and each price is logical for the place and condition for which the meat is sold. And every part of the table works exactly the same way.
Thus if you think of a combination of things that doesn't at this point exist, you can follow the process of mixing those things together to get the appropriate, logical price.
Now, there is another calculation here that might seem a little unreasonable, but you'll have to believe me that it works. Part of the problem, as I said yesterday, is not having proper figures for a lot of specific items. Fruits, for instance, the same thing as yesterday. I have references for fruits, but I don't have total production for every kind of fruit, not even from the U.N., which tends to skip some items in their annual report or simply mixes them together.
I used to solve this by having a 'fruit' price on the table and telling players it was whatever was local. But then I reasoned I could assess a price for fruits (or other things) on the number of references I had for that particular fruit measured against all other fruits. If I then used a log calculation to work out a ratio, I could keep the difference in price from getting out of hand, and get specific prices for specific varieties of things ... like fruits, or cereals, or vegetables or kinds of stone or what have you.
Thus you can see on lines 839 to 871 that each type of fruit has a ratio, and that this ratio is multiplied against the general price for all fruits (line 831). This gives me a price for things as obscure as whortleberries or citrons, for which I had no world-wide production statistics.
The rest of this is pretty much just familiarizing yourself with the massive number of calculations on this page (there are about 2,200 of them), determining the raw price on a wide variety of goods and services. I am probably better off answering questions here than attempting to guess what things need to be deciphered. Good luck!
in each case, the references from the previous table are used as a ratio to calculate the price of various items, usually per ounce or sometimes per specific object. Furs, for instance, are calculated per pelt, animals per head, gems per cubic centimeter and so on. Much of this table uses other parts of this table in order to calculate the total price of things - probably the best example of this is the cow.
If you go to lines 922 and 923, you can see the price of a cow or a calf outlined. The price of the cow is based upon the basic cost per head (determined on the reference table), then augmented by the cost to feed the cow for a two year period, whereupon it will be at the height of its meat, leather and milk production ... though it may be kept for a longer period. A calf, you will notice, is fed for only three months, and that is why a calf costs less.
The price of the forage for the cow can be found on line 782, this price being based upon the total 'cereals' shown on the reference table, which is used in calculating the cost of 'preparing' the base cost of general cereals. You will note there is also a 'inkeeper feed' cost, which is calculated by the number of market references in this particular market city.
The price of milk is then hinged on the price of the cow, and how much milk it is predicted it will produce in a year (all production figures for the reference table are annual, which determines all prices throughout the system). You can find raw milk costs on line 208, along with the cost of cream & kumiss, butter & ghee, and ordinary cheese. Other cheeses of course are calculated against these prices.
The price of cowhide can be found on line 370, as opposed to horsehide or sheepskin and so on, which are all determined by the price of those animals as opposed to cows. The cost of salt is added (from line 591), then the cost of tanning the hide, plus the size of the hide and its cost per ounce. This is then used to give the cost of cowhide leather craft, found on line 388. That line shows the cost of leather armor there, along with the costs of gloves, hats and boots, which are considered more expensive to produce than leathercraft.
If you want, you can have your leathercraft embroidered, which would mean my creating a calculation for it using the reference for embroidery found on the 'References' tab, line 493. You could have it embossed (again, I'd have to make the calculation, but that's actually quite easy), from 'References' line 492 ('artworks'). You could also have it sewn with gems ('References', line 809, 'lapidary') or fitted with fur ('References', line 361). It is really all up to you, and the prices are all worked out according to the general system. Obviously, once I create a new calculation for a specific thing, I leave it in the system.
If you want the cost of cow meat, you can find it on the 'Raw Material Cost' tab on line 252. 'On the hoof' means the price paid to the rancher who brings in a live cow. The 'Stockyard' price is what you pay if you buy the cow unslaughtered. The 'Abattoir' price is what you pay for a side of slaughtered cow that hasn't been cut into steaks for you. The 'Butcher' price is the cost for cut up and ready to cook. 'Inn Fare' is the additional cost the inn charges you. 'Smokehouse' is the cost of drying or smoking ready meat. Sausage is the cost for the meat in that way, where as Pates are more expensive still. Pates de foie gras is the cost of goose liver pates (which has its own cost track, naturally) made in that particular manner.
So you can see that everything is hinged together. The number of stockyard references determines the mark-up on cows, the slaughtering references determines the mark-up at the abattoir, and so on and so forth, so that each stage has a specific price and each price is logical for the place and condition for which the meat is sold. And every part of the table works exactly the same way.
Thus if you think of a combination of things that doesn't at this point exist, you can follow the process of mixing those things together to get the appropriate, logical price.
Now, there is another calculation here that might seem a little unreasonable, but you'll have to believe me that it works. Part of the problem, as I said yesterday, is not having proper figures for a lot of specific items. Fruits, for instance, the same thing as yesterday. I have references for fruits, but I don't have total production for every kind of fruit, not even from the U.N., which tends to skip some items in their annual report or simply mixes them together.
I used to solve this by having a 'fruit' price on the table and telling players it was whatever was local. But then I reasoned I could assess a price for fruits (or other things) on the number of references I had for that particular fruit measured against all other fruits. If I then used a log calculation to work out a ratio, I could keep the difference in price from getting out of hand, and get specific prices for specific varieties of things ... like fruits, or cereals, or vegetables or kinds of stone or what have you.
Thus you can see on lines 839 to 871 that each type of fruit has a ratio, and that this ratio is multiplied against the general price for all fruits (line 831). This gives me a price for things as obscure as whortleberries or citrons, for which I had no world-wide production statistics.
The rest of this is pretty much just familiarizing yourself with the massive number of calculations on this page (there are about 2,200 of them), determining the raw price on a wide variety of goods and services. I am probably better off answering questions here than attempting to guess what things need to be deciphered. Good luck!
Prices Template - Part B - Spells
Working out the price of spells was tricky business. What was needed to fit the system was a level of supply, which could be determined by the number of clerics who had a given spell (or ability to use a spell), which then denoted a 'production' of that spell. In order to determine the number of clerics of given levels, I turned to my own demographic efforts - a table which, for the present, isn't in the accessed folder but which I shall endeavor to locate before the weekend. You can read something about those demographics, and the explanation of Adherents, Zealots and so on, here.
It follows that certain statuses of cleric have certain levels, and that higher level (and more able) clerics are less accessible to the general public. It is easier to see a local priest than the clerics dwelling in the monastical order, or those in the service of an archbishop. Thus, it's easier to get a first level spell from a poor friar (adherent) than a crusader (adventurer) or a cardinal (title holder). This table is meant to reflect that. Of course, a friar won't have 5th level spells at all - if you want a 5th level spell cast, you will need to see someone more important. You'll also note that 7th level spells aren't available ... they are just too rare, given the population of clerics among even 2 million people ... so if your party can't get there to be raised, don't count on resurrection as an alternative.
The second half of the table defines the number of 'references' for clerics based upon the total number of 'market' references for that particular market zone. Thus an area like Germany has more markets that are close to each other, and thus a greater likelihood that prices will be reduced on things like cast spells. A place like Astrakhan should be expensive.
You will also note that I've added a feature where you may have to wait to obtain the spells you want. You can read about this here.
I trust you can work out the remainder from the excel spreadsheet. Obviously, any questions you have I'd be happy to answer.
It follows that certain statuses of cleric have certain levels, and that higher level (and more able) clerics are less accessible to the general public. It is easier to see a local priest than the clerics dwelling in the monastical order, or those in the service of an archbishop. Thus, it's easier to get a first level spell from a poor friar (adherent) than a crusader (adventurer) or a cardinal (title holder). This table is meant to reflect that. Of course, a friar won't have 5th level spells at all - if you want a 5th level spell cast, you will need to see someone more important. You'll also note that 7th level spells aren't available ... they are just too rare, given the population of clerics among even 2 million people ... so if your party can't get there to be raised, don't count on resurrection as an alternative.
The second half of the table defines the number of 'references' for clerics based upon the total number of 'market' references for that particular market zone. Thus an area like Germany has more markets that are close to each other, and thus a greater likelihood that prices will be reduced on things like cast spells. A place like Astrakhan should be expensive.
You will also note that I've added a feature where you may have to wait to obtain the spells you want. You can read about this here.
I trust you can work out the remainder from the excel spreadsheet. Obviously, any questions you have I'd be happy to answer.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Prices Template - Part A - References
Now, all the previous work I've been describing since yesterday exists in order to drive this table. It all comes down to the data you've inserted on the 'Input Data' tab, which is then converted into prices and availability.
Let me first say that this file is a mathematical disaster. Not only is it indecently complicated, but it represents several incarnations of data creation, each of which vary in some degree and each of which - I am sorry to say - tends to leave some bit of calculation that manages to survive into the next incarnation. So it goes. I do my best to update things when I see them, but the reality is that there's more here than I have time to update, or care to take the time, and in any event it can wait for the next time to come along that I make this file even MORE complicated. The subscriber will please observe that this table was created one patient entry at a time, starting about 2006, and has experienced now six overhauls since its original creation - one which I started and did not finish just this summer. At this point I don't even want to look at this table to finish that overhaul until after I can add Italy, India and the Low Countries to the Selected table.
So, things are unfortunately messy, but if you are patient you can pull them apart and probably make my life unhappy by bickering or identifying errors, things that don't seem to make much sense and outright unreasonable assumptions that are found there.
Here is the original problem. The first efforts were based upon the production numbers I had available from the United Nations International Statistics Yearbook and from the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization's Agricultural Yearbook. Between the two, I could get an idea of the production of cereals, fruits, vegetables, oils, treenuts, crops, fish, livestock, metals & alloys, materials, chemicals, textiles, woods, foodstuffs and mining in the world at the time of the yearbooks. This was then modified in a rather ad hoc fashion to reflect the world in the 17th century, in a completely inaccurate way that really doesn't matter anyway, this is Dungeons and Dragons, and not my doctoral thesis for Harvard. Ultimately, all I really cared about from the beginning was getting kind of close. Since first mucking about with these statistics in depth (researching beginning around the year 2000), I feel justified in believing that I am close enough, and a damn sight better than some other perfectionist could probably manage. Where there seem to be irrational gaps in the prices template, you can believe the gaps probably exist there because there were insurmountable gaps in my research ... or possibly the later research hasn't yet caught some glitch from an earlier incarnation.
Am I getting across yet that there are many reasons why something might look illogical? Sorry, but as it is the only way I can tell the reason for a bit of illogic is by trying to remember why I did it a particular way four years ago ... and in my old age my memory is going. Usually the best thing anyway is to just try and fix it the best way it can be fixed.
With all that out of the way, let's start by looking at the 'References' tab.
This tab simultaneously groups and breaks down the raw data into convenient bits that can be addressed and reworked in the 'Raw Material Cost' tab. At one time this was supposed to give me a base price for everything ... now it is only supposed to give me a base price for commodities that don't experience any premier industrial development. However, there are things that still remain that are semi-industrial - like artworks and embroidery. Eventually the pricing for these things will be moved forward, but for the time being they can remain as priced on this page.
An explanation for the calculations on this page can be found, as ever, about three quarters of the way through this really useful post. The number of references for the specific market are divided by the number of total references and then multiplied by gold references to get their innate value, then adjusted for distance (the percentages in column K) and ultimately assigned a base "cost." Adamantite, for instance (the mineral and not the metal), has a base price of 98.36 copper pieces (column M, the coin not specified). All prices, except on the 'Market Page' tab, are specified throughout the table in copper pieces, then translated for convenience for the player.
The columns that refer to 'Second Tier References' is a development meant to compensate for the lack of proper reliable information. To see a complicated example of this working, see lines 967 through 1016 - FRUITS. From the encyclopedia I have references for sources producing 'fruits,' 'citrus fruits,' 'berries,' 'orchard fruits,' and of course a wide variety of particular fruits such as apples, apricots, oranges, grapefruits, raspberries, dates, figs, loquats, juniper berries, tangerines, guavas, pomegranates, olives, grapes, currants and so on. Obviously it doesn't work to have separate prices for 'fruits' and for 'tangerines,' so we must presume that references for fruits are distributed into whatever the local fruit of the area is ... and the local fruit is in turn also determined by the inputed data from the Selected table.
Thus, the 'Second Tier References' is the redistribution of more generalized references (citrus, fruit, berries) into more specific references (bananas, breadfruit, limes), according to the availability of these fruits. If the market is in a part of the world where there are more bananas than apples, the distribution of 'fruit' references will reflect that. If you understand excel, you can see how the numbers are thus redistributed.
Other places where this was necessary include tubers, metallurgy (where 'founding' could refer to any metal and not just iron), distilling and 'building stone' ... which could really be anything. A few places did not need this redistribution because of the way the table uses the data. 'Cereals,' for instance, could be applied to the general cost to fodder for animals, and because of this did not need to be sorted into its particular kind of grain ... the larger, cheaper price could be applied to groats and such to define it from grains which were specific and therefore eaten by people. Whenever I could generate a separate price that provided a unique item, I did this. It added depth to the general availability for the players.
Because the 'world value in oz. gold' column (column H) is determined by the number of gold references divided into the total number of ounces gold, when I rework this table to include new information from Africa, Spain/Portugal and England (from a reference I made on the encyclopedia post) there will be a dramatic change in many prices throughout the system. I admit that I don't know if it means the prices will rise or fall ... because there are so many changes that will come from the bulk Italy/India/Low Countries regions being separated out as well. In any case, prices will adjust and I expect the players will too.
For the moment I'll stop here, and pick up the next tab, 'Spells,' on the following post. I know that for subscribers this is a huge amount of information to take in all at once; but I am bringing you up to speed on a world that has been in a state of creation for 27 years. I began running 'Earth' in 1984. I've had a lot of time to think about these things and steadily bring them forward. You've had two days to see what's here. It will take time to understand what exactly you're looking at in the general picture. And once I get past the trade tables, much of the rest is quite simple.
Let me first say that this file is a mathematical disaster. Not only is it indecently complicated, but it represents several incarnations of data creation, each of which vary in some degree and each of which - I am sorry to say - tends to leave some bit of calculation that manages to survive into the next incarnation. So it goes. I do my best to update things when I see them, but the reality is that there's more here than I have time to update, or care to take the time, and in any event it can wait for the next time to come along that I make this file even MORE complicated. The subscriber will please observe that this table was created one patient entry at a time, starting about 2006, and has experienced now six overhauls since its original creation - one which I started and did not finish just this summer. At this point I don't even want to look at this table to finish that overhaul until after I can add Italy, India and the Low Countries to the Selected table.
So, things are unfortunately messy, but if you are patient you can pull them apart and probably make my life unhappy by bickering or identifying errors, things that don't seem to make much sense and outright unreasonable assumptions that are found there.
Here is the original problem. The first efforts were based upon the production numbers I had available from the United Nations International Statistics Yearbook and from the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization's Agricultural Yearbook. Between the two, I could get an idea of the production of cereals, fruits, vegetables, oils, treenuts, crops, fish, livestock, metals & alloys, materials, chemicals, textiles, woods, foodstuffs and mining in the world at the time of the yearbooks. This was then modified in a rather ad hoc fashion to reflect the world in the 17th century, in a completely inaccurate way that really doesn't matter anyway, this is Dungeons and Dragons, and not my doctoral thesis for Harvard. Ultimately, all I really cared about from the beginning was getting kind of close. Since first mucking about with these statistics in depth (researching beginning around the year 2000), I feel justified in believing that I am close enough, and a damn sight better than some other perfectionist could probably manage. Where there seem to be irrational gaps in the prices template, you can believe the gaps probably exist there because there were insurmountable gaps in my research ... or possibly the later research hasn't yet caught some glitch from an earlier incarnation.
Am I getting across yet that there are many reasons why something might look illogical? Sorry, but as it is the only way I can tell the reason for a bit of illogic is by trying to remember why I did it a particular way four years ago ... and in my old age my memory is going. Usually the best thing anyway is to just try and fix it the best way it can be fixed.
With all that out of the way, let's start by looking at the 'References' tab.
This tab simultaneously groups and breaks down the raw data into convenient bits that can be addressed and reworked in the 'Raw Material Cost' tab. At one time this was supposed to give me a base price for everything ... now it is only supposed to give me a base price for commodities that don't experience any premier industrial development. However, there are things that still remain that are semi-industrial - like artworks and embroidery. Eventually the pricing for these things will be moved forward, but for the time being they can remain as priced on this page.
An explanation for the calculations on this page can be found, as ever, about three quarters of the way through this really useful post. The number of references for the specific market are divided by the number of total references and then multiplied by gold references to get their innate value, then adjusted for distance (the percentages in column K) and ultimately assigned a base "cost." Adamantite, for instance (the mineral and not the metal), has a base price of 98.36 copper pieces (column M, the coin not specified). All prices, except on the 'Market Page' tab, are specified throughout the table in copper pieces, then translated for convenience for the player.
The columns that refer to 'Second Tier References' is a development meant to compensate for the lack of proper reliable information. To see a complicated example of this working, see lines 967 through 1016 - FRUITS. From the encyclopedia I have references for sources producing 'fruits,' 'citrus fruits,' 'berries,' 'orchard fruits,' and of course a wide variety of particular fruits such as apples, apricots, oranges, grapefruits, raspberries, dates, figs, loquats, juniper berries, tangerines, guavas, pomegranates, olives, grapes, currants and so on. Obviously it doesn't work to have separate prices for 'fruits' and for 'tangerines,' so we must presume that references for fruits are distributed into whatever the local fruit of the area is ... and the local fruit is in turn also determined by the inputed data from the Selected table.
Thus, the 'Second Tier References' is the redistribution of more generalized references (citrus, fruit, berries) into more specific references (bananas, breadfruit, limes), according to the availability of these fruits. If the market is in a part of the world where there are more bananas than apples, the distribution of 'fruit' references will reflect that. If you understand excel, you can see how the numbers are thus redistributed.
Other places where this was necessary include tubers, metallurgy (where 'founding' could refer to any metal and not just iron), distilling and 'building stone' ... which could really be anything. A few places did not need this redistribution because of the way the table uses the data. 'Cereals,' for instance, could be applied to the general cost to fodder for animals, and because of this did not need to be sorted into its particular kind of grain ... the larger, cheaper price could be applied to groats and such to define it from grains which were specific and therefore eaten by people. Whenever I could generate a separate price that provided a unique item, I did this. It added depth to the general availability for the players.
Because the 'world value in oz. gold' column (column H) is determined by the number of gold references divided into the total number of ounces gold, when I rework this table to include new information from Africa, Spain/Portugal and England (from a reference I made on the encyclopedia post) there will be a dramatic change in many prices throughout the system. I admit that I don't know if it means the prices will rise or fall ... because there are so many changes that will come from the bulk Italy/India/Low Countries regions being separated out as well. In any case, prices will adjust and I expect the players will too.
For the moment I'll stop here, and pick up the next tab, 'Spells,' on the following post. I know that for subscribers this is a huge amount of information to take in all at once; but I am bringing you up to speed on a world that has been in a state of creation for 27 years. I began running 'Earth' in 1984. I've had a lot of time to think about these things and steadily bring them forward. You've had two days to see what's here. It will take time to understand what exactly you're looking at in the general picture. And once I get past the trade tables, much of the rest is quite simple.
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