Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="General Starlight" data-source="post: 115473" data-attributes="member: 3653">Realism in Teleporting.First, I have to say I think very little of Hong's Third Law of Fantasy.  Granted, one may not appreciate such considerations, but another may, and in fact, consider them a great part of the fun.  Furthermore, ignoring certain obvious considerations may even ruin the fun for them, but I admit this is a highly subjective area of preference.  Still, I equate Hong's 3rd law with those who say "It doesn't have to make any sense, it's fantasy."  It would be different, I suppose, if one were actually suggesting it was necessary for a player to make minute calculations and measurements in order for their PC to even use the spell, but no one is being asked to do that in actual practice.  Naturally, one can go too far, but IMHO, most don't go far enough.  Still, the level of realism you wish to include in your game is highly subjective.  I just think it's wrong to berate those more inclined to deeper thinking, if that's what you were doing, or ignore such thought once given.  If you didn't care about it in the first place, why even ask the question?  Heck, many players won't even like dealing with different time zones if they teleport a significant percentage of the globe away, but it's darn realistic, and I'd rather take such things into consideration.  And simplifications like rendering all fantasy worlds to 'Flat Earth constructs', though they may be true for your world, hardly should be the norm, IMHO.    Now I confess to an oversight on my part insofar as I should have said you are EITHER off 1d% miles, OR a percentage of total distance traveled, whichever is less.  Thanks, CRGreathouse.  It is better that way.    True, I know many games will likely confine themselves to one planet (and the planes above or below it) and many may think interplanetary considerations a stupid endeavor for most fantasy games, but I have always found them worthwhile.  If you really wish not to allow such things, I think the spell should clearly say so and not suggest distance isn't really a factor since it clearly would be.    Yet, due to the visualization aspects of the spell, if you allow this sort of 'similar area' sort of thing, a caster should be able to visualize either a location or a unique object.  Naturally, they should fixate on things that are harder to alter, like huge rocks, large trees, or bulkheads or things affixed to them in permanent ways, rather than more mobile aspects of a cabin, like items resting on a table.  The idea of carving a rune or something on such a bulkhead is a great way to help visualize a unique location to make it more familiar, and though not required to get there, I think it would help upgrade your target classification if you did such a thing.    Anyway, if a ship at dock moved and the caster didn't know this, they would only end up in the drink if they visualized the target as the previous location of the ship.  If they imagined instead some interior feature, this spell must take them there no matter where the ship may currently be located.  Of course, the ship may have blown up in the interim and no such place will still exist and thus 'false destination' must be used.  All of this simply makes teleporting to 'locations' safer and less risky than teleporting to some object or mobile platform.    Honestly, a bigger concern should be appearing where some object now rest which wasn't there before.  Fortunately, this is easily handled as Mishap damage, so instead of just those teleporting with you, you may damage items or creatures standing where you want to go (which is why teleporting into a locked closed room is often a good idea).  This will mean, however, such a person at the target location may also suffer some Mishap damage.  After the spell concludes, such items trying to exist in the same locations will be bounced apart, perhaps forcefully, which may be what the mishap damage represents.    Finally, though I enjoy this level of thought and more realistic consideration, and often feel fantasy settings should not mean normal laws of physics mean nothing and may thus be freely ignored, I do appreciate the fact not everyone enjoys this sort of detail.  That is why though it's a good idea to include these considerations into what the rule should be, it is not as wise to insist on it or try to make them a necessary part of what the player or character must consider during actual play.  Clearly, this is for the DM to take or leave, and hopefully, if it makes more sense, any logical consequences of this line of thought to mesh well and more consistently with other aspects of game world reality.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" />    Jim</blockquote>

Verification