Anyone read A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge?

[Chaldfont]

I'm about 3/4 of the way through this book. Its great sci-fi with some really interesting ideas. The best one is an alien race known as the Tines. They are packs of dog-like animals. That's right--they aren't individuals, but packs! Think of them as mini hiveminds. They "think" using complicated sounds. Each pack is about 4-6 individuals.

This idea is just too cool not to put into an RPG. My mind is swimming trying to come up with d20 rules to handle a character like this.

 

[takyris]

Read it and liked it a bunch. The prequel, "A Deepness in the Sky", is also very good, albeit completely different.

And yeah, I ripped off the Tines, sort of, for Trolls in my world. My trolls are physically one body, but mentally have several minds and souls competing for attention and need (trolls are the result of enslaved humans undergoing experimentation, much like the gith at the hands of the illithid).

Good good stuff. Get set for the ending...

 

[Fast Learner]

Love A Fire Upon The Deep. Loved it so much that I invited Mr. Vinge to be the guest of honor at one of my conventions, which he accepted. It was great talking to him, and later reading Deepness. I especially like his short story collections. Some truly amazing stuff there. AFUTD absolutely rocks. And what an idea for how the universe works!

 

[Chaldfont]

So how would you do Tines' stats in d20? Maybe something modelled on the swarm or mob mechanics? What happens to a character when a pack loses or gains a member? Do you evenly distribute a packs hit points among the members and allow foes to target them separately?

Its a tough problem.

 

[WayneLigon]

I loved that book at it's sequel. I especially like the idea that physical law changes the further out you get from any significant mass. Go too close and suddenly you can't go FTL anymore, and lots of other things.

 

[takyris]

If I were doing something like d20 Modern, I'd... (off the top of my head):

Declare that any given level belongs to one of the pack -- so if there was a foursome representing a Smart3/Tough2/Charismatic2, I'd say that one of the pack had Smart2, one had Tough2, one had Charismatic2, and one had Smart1 -- which is as close as I can make it.

Ability scores would go something like:

Three-member pack: -2 Int, +2 Wis
Four-member pack: Normal
Five-member pack: +2 Int, -2 Wis
Six-member pack: +2 Strength, +4 Int, -2 Dex, -4 Wis

(Don't remember how far up in number they went, but I remember four or five being about normal. In general, adding members lets you do more computation and helps you in a fight on the offensive end, but there's more of you to keep track of, and you've got conflicting viewpoints that can make common sense hard -- I'm trying to remember if this held true for the math-wizard Tine who, by my thinking, would have done point buy by putting no points in Strength, and lots of points in Int and Wis (the former to get a high score, the latter to counteract the penalties).)

Facing and Reach: A Tine can occupy as many squares as it has units. It can also have up to two units fight in the same square without taking penalties for fighting in close corners.

A Tine can also deploy an individual unit away from the rest of the units. A Tine can choose to send a unit up to 30 feet away, plus (Cha-mod x5) feet. (Don't remember if this maps to the book. It seemed about right, though -- not counting the long-distance device.) If a Tine sends a unit farther than this distance, or if a unit is lost through some other circumstances, the Tine immediately takes as many negative levels as there were levels associated with that unit. If the unit is permanently lost, this is considered actual level loss (but a Tine may also gain a new unit to gain back these levels).

I dunno. That's all off the top of my head, and I don't really know how well I'm remembering the ability-mapping.

 

[Chaldfont]

Negative levels--I like that mechanic. Its easy to use.

I think you are about right on the distance. I just read that the Tines don't like to get closer than 8 meters to other packs.

Areas of silence or echo would really mess these guys up. I'd probably make them more susceptible to sonic attacks, maybe give them a saving throw or Concentration check to hold it together after a such an attack.

 

[amethal]

I'm about 3/4 of the way through this book. Its great sci-fi with some really interesting ideas.

I love that book, and everything else of his that I've read. Its a great way of learning some theoretical science too.

I just wish he'd write some more books.

 

[dravot]

By amazing coincidence, I'm re-reading the book right now. I'm about 2/3 through the book and re-enjoying it immensely.

My only complaint is that I wish Vinge had explained how distance from the galactic core affected technology. Wayne's explanation is most excellent, thanks.

I also wish that he had explained about Powers and transcending, and how a power can subsume an entire civilization. Not much, but some extra insight would have been nice.

To date, I've read: A Deepness in the Sky, A Fire Upon the Deep, The Peace War, and Marooned in Realtime. I have an anthology of his short stories that I will be reading soon. I'm so impressed by his writing, and the characters and the alien races, and the complex ideas that he has, and I wish he'd written more.

Deepness and Fire are my most favorite books, though. Vinge's alien races are truly alien, and not just anthropomorphized creatures, and I love that. I especially love his toying with anthropomorphizing the spiders in Deepness.

 

[WayneLigon]

My only complaint is that I wish Vinge had explained how distance from the galactic core affected technology. Wayne's explanation is most excellent, thanks.

It's been some time since I read those books; I should go back and do so once I'm done with Hamilton's series (Reality Disfunctions, etc). I'm pretty sure that he says in there that's it's mass that causes the changes. It's certainly implied by the way they talk - mass is usually depicted as a dimple in a flat sheet of space, thus that area is 'deeper'. But as I said, it's been years. I might be misremembering.