Heroica RPG General Discussion

[Cutcobra]

I have a quest in my mind for Bonapartes, but I still have to finish making this quest that has been in the cooking oven for quite a while now. It's almost gathering up dust, I only have to finish editing some pictures and making some sets before it can set off.

[Zepher]

I absolutely think that someone needs to make a map of the Eubric underground. There is a massive series of tunnels there, possibly bigger than the streets. I know that I've always laughed at/had fun with the number of secret societies that exist, but underground is: 1) The Proggs (a whole city!), 2) Zylsatra (a second whole city!), 3) The Syndicate Hide-Out, 4) The Temple of Zoot, 5) Various Sewers/gang hide-outs, 6) The Temple of the Old Gods, 7) Mercution (a third whole city!), 8) a Dragon's Lair. Probably more. It makes me laugh. I love the tropes that have developed within the game itself!

Edited May 11, 2014 by Zepher

[Kintobor]

Don't forget the Secluded Grove, where the Haerasias's Vault door is!

Also, remnants of Mercuition are beneath the city, if I remember correctly. Most of it was sunk with Moone.

[Duvors]

Don't forget the Secluded Grove, where the Haerasias's Vault door is!

Also, remnants of Mercuition are beneath the city, if I remember correctly. Most of it was sunk with Moone.

Moone was not sunk, Moone was one of the plateaux on the continent of Mercuton, which was sunk, and became and island, the city of Eubric is built on the ruins of Nu Mercuton, the capital of Mercuton.

[JimBee]

Isn't the Temple of Zoot the remnants of the city of Mercution, as well? Or am I mistaken on that?

[CMP]

Isn't the Temple of Zoot the remnants of the city of Mercution, as well? Or am I mistaken on that?

It's a temple. Nu Mercution refers to the entire city.

Which may or may not have other sections still intact.

[Endgame]

Syndicate HQ is pretty small, no deeper than the sewers. Not actually underground, either. To enter you have to go into an underground passage, but the majority of the base is aboveground in a sealed off, refurbished warehouse.

[Bricksandparts]

Someone really needs to compile lore in the library or start a lore thread. I'd probably start some, but I just don't have the time or will to look through all the quests.

[Bricksandparts]

Also, we need some new type of mechanism of transport. Whether that be portals, teleporting spells, or even high-speed (ether?) mine-shafts. Whatever is chosen however, a solution needs to be found, and with it, a counter-reason to use it. It can't be too powerful, lest, it'd ruin mechanics for quests that are meant to go through a long journey. I mean just look at this map, there is too much going on in Eubric, and anything outside of it is relatively unheard of.

[Endgame]

I plan on using a ~magic sail~ to justify a ship being able to reach the North in 4 weeks in my finale.

[Bricksandparts]

That's perfectly fine, All I'm saying is that I think we need to decide on a reasonable way for heroes to travel far distances without traversing land or spending months on the sea. I think it seems silly to have QMs keep making reasons to make journeys, while rendering other quest's mode of transport useless.

[Kintobor]

Teleportation is a rather complex, incredibly time consuming spell. Flipz could tell you more, but in Four's Company, Lt. Paolo stated this.

"I think there's a simpler solution. I believe not a shred of magic was used. If there was, we would have known in some way shape or form. Teleportation is a high class wizard spell which few have mastered."

Yes, it's doable, but it takes time to prepare in advance. I also like to think that the few weeks spent at sea actually helps deal with real time. A week back and forth to Dastan in game time for a month and a half quest in real time feels as if actual times passed, and not stuck in one location and being there for months. You also need to consider not every quest giver is swimming in Scrooge McDuck's vault full of money. Poorer quest givers can't afford to have someone come in and whisk the heroes off with a teleport spell. Sometimes they need to walk to the location they need to. It allows for potential encounters, too.

Although, on the topic of lore, a Lore Compendium would be nice, with different pieces of legends and myths being added and modified as time goes on.

[Cutcobra]

Actually, I think lore should be made as quests are made. Wasn't this a "First come first serve." game? Whoever creates it first gets to decide the lore (i think). I wouldn't like it if only 2-3 people created all the lore in one day and left us all with nothing to create.

[Bricksandparts]

All I'm saying is that the scope of what heroes quests are are quite limited to the nearby area. Having "airports" or teleports that can transport people to other teleports would allow QMs to make new storylines without interfering with lore in Eubric, other storylines, characters, etc. Teleportation doesn't need to be the answer, but in my opinion, a solution needs to be found and agreed upon.

[Cutcobra]

Or, if you want fast teleportation, how about this idea: "The heroes entered the ship. It was a nice trip without any inconveniences. They reached their destination.".

You don't always need to make long complex battles when going on trips in ships.

[Bricksandparts]

Yes, it's doable, but it takes time to prepare in advance. I also like to think that the few weeks spent at sea actually helps deal with real time. A week back and forth to Dastan in game time for a month and a half quest in real time feels as if actual times passed, and not stuck in one location and being there for months. You also need to consider not every quest giver is swimming in Scrooge McDuck's vault full of money. Poorer quest givers can't afford to have someone come in and whisk the heroes off with a teleport spell. Sometimes they need to walk to the location they need to. It allows for potential encounters, too.

However, like I said, there must also be a reason that this mechanic would not always work. If it'd always work, it'd ruin the quest the same way eagles could have in lord of the rings .

Or, if you want fast teleportation, how about this idea: "The heroes entered the ship. It was a nice trip without any inconveniences. They reached their destination.".

You don't always need to make long complex battles when going on trips in ships.

However, bringing up Kintobor's point about poor quest-makers, this solution wouldn't make much sense. Realistically, teleports wouldn't be able to transport large quantities at once or it would be highly inefficient, lest trading over seas would become utterly pointless.

[JimBee]

There ought to be a Low Kingdom's Canal Digging quest at some point. How are people supposed to get to the other side of the world without sailing the opposite direction?

[Bricksandparts]

There ought to be a Low Kingdom's Canal Digging quest at some point. How are people supposed to get to the other side of the world without sailing the opposite direction?

I see your point, but that'd be a really, really long canal. That looks to be farther than Eubric's diameter...

[Brickdoctor]

I see your point, but that'd be a really, really long canal. That looks to be farther than Eubric's diameter...

Enter magic!

[JimBee]

The Panama Canal is 48 miles long, no magic involved. And wide enough to fit ships through.

[Brickdoctor]

That isthmus is also pretty close to the orcish territories... I'm thinking an army encamped on the western side, fleet on the eastern side, hundreds of enslaved giant orcs and trolls dragging oversized plows across the land, rolling on huge logs. Like Return of the King siege towers and battering rams, but with farm equipment. (Okay, that sounds kind of ridiculous and demeaning when I write it out; in my mind it looks a lot more epic. [A 'quintessential medieval fantasy trope' sort of epic, not a 'slavery is epic' thing.])

[Flipz]

Honestly, this is assigning mechanics to things that don't need mechanics assigned to them. Sometimes it takes days to walk across Uland, other times it can be traveled in an afternoon. There's no consistency, nor is it needed.

Quite simply, the Heroes get where they need to go when they need to get there for the sake of the plot. It's not pretty to think of it that way (even though it's the truth), which is why Quests set outside Eubric tend to have Heroes taking a boat or an airship and set either a battle or some roleplaying in between Eubric and the Quest location. This also helps lengthen the Quest itself in terms of real-world time, which provides a nice "buffer" in terms of time that helps smooth out some of the wrinkles in the convoluted mess that is this game's timeline.

Regarding teleport: this universe breaks down if teleport (or any sort of transport, really) is cheap, easy, or safe. You can have one of the three, but the other two become the exact opposite: V-mail is easy, but it's not cheap, nor is it safe. A true teleport spell (like the Zeigfrieds have access to) is cheap, but it's not easy, and it's DEFINITELY not safe--that sort of spell requires immense concentration throughout a process that, from the user's perspective, is torturously long, and if it slips even a little there's a very real chance that you'll reassemble yourself incorrectly or even not materialize at all (the spell works by literally tearing your body apart at a subatomic level, transporting it along Ethereal ley lines which due to their extradimensionality aren't governed the same way by relativity as normal spacetime, and then reassembling it at the target destination)--not to mention the risk either way of ending up in the wrong place. There's teleport circles that basically act as a stored version of the teleport spell, but they have to be pre-linked to a companion circle at the other end of the spell, have to be re-linked fairly often, can't have their destination changed, and are hideously expensive in terms of rare reagents--not to mention several of the dangers of the teleport spell still exist, albeit lessened. There's also Planeswalking's dimensional doorway spells, but that involves fortifying a bubble of reality around oneself before walking bodily into the space between dimensions, which is similar to and connected to but not the same as the extradimensional space used by a teleportation spell. On the one hand, better control over target destination, and if everything goes right it's safer than the other options. If something goes wrong, however, it's a 100% guaranteed hideously painful death that doesn't even leave a body behind to try to revive--not to mention that planeswalkers of that sort tend to be notoriously reclusive and guarded of their secrets anyway, so good luck even learning the spell.

The Zut'tau'ri Gate system, incidentally, is none of the three: the Gates are absurdly expensive and complicated to build, they require extensive technical and magical know-how in order to use, and the dimensions accessible through it, while generally safer than extradimensional pathways, still tend to be extremely hazardous (think along the lines of the Nether from Minecraft), and may possess hostile inhabitants (think Stargate SG-1). It's also impossible to use for intra-dimensional transit (i.e. Gate from Zut'tau'ri to Eubric) unless the destination has built their own Gate and has tuned it to the same dimension yours is currently tuned to (so in other words, either Zut'tau'ri or Etheria, and even that connection hasn't been made successfully in a very, very long time).

(Regarding V-mail: in my headcanon, V-Mail works similarly to a teleport spell, but instead of disassembling the target instead places it in a pocket dimension that is then resized relative to the orifinal to be subatomic. Such a journey would normally be extended exponentially because of the relatively larger distance to travel (from the perspective of the cargo), but Valentine has engineered the propulsion method to slingshot the pocket dimension around the intersections in the extradimensional space of the ley lines, accelerating the journey but making it very rough on the passengers. It also utilizes a dimensional keying system based on the same school of magic as the Gates, allowing for pinpoint accuracy, whereas other transport spells tend to either be locked to predetermined endpoints or else be very inaccurate in where they drop the target off.)

But back to my point: storyline-wise, the universe breaks down if teleport is usable on any sort of scale above "emergency use only"; not only would it render at least four of the Eubric factions useless, it would also radically alter the social structure of the world, such that--well, read it for yourself. That's what happens when unlimited teleport is available, and that's not the universe we need for Heroica.

[StickFig]

TL;DR (just kidding! The whole Tippyverse is actually a pretty interesting read!)

Quite simply, the Heroes get where they need to go when they need to get there for the sake of the plot.

It's called Narrative Causality.

Edited May 12, 2014 by nstickney

[Zepher]

People have teleported when they've needed to! I think the most should be taking place in Eubric! It's fun to still have dark corners of the map to fill in. Keep the game alive. There was a time we didn't know Dastan, or, very recently, Baltarok.

But a lore topic would not be out of place.

[Kintobor]

Actually, I think lore should be made as quests are made. Wasn't this a "First come first serve." game? Whoever creates it first gets to decide the lore (i think). I wouldn't like it if only 2-3 people created all the lore in one day and left us all with nothing to create.

What I mean to say is lore is added by the QMs. It's not a few guys doing it, but whenever legends show up QMs give the lore to the individual responsible for the lore sections upkeep, and they post it.