How old is the Far Realm?

[werk]

How old is the Far Realm?

If time is infinite in both directions, forward and back, how do we begin to answer your question?

 

[Celebrim]

Yikes. I can't agree with a single word of that. Wow... Talk about different perspectives.

So that's it? You just don't agree? No reason however brief why? No interesting counter-example?

When you actually use the 'Far Realms' or anything from them, in a game and you find that your experience doesn't agree with the above, let me know about it.

You don't always need rules and numbers to resolve the consequences of actions.

For actions that you expect to occur often, it's a good idea to have hard & fast rules & numbers to back up the statistical behavior you want. But for things that won't occur often, "flavor" alone may be enough for a DM to adjudicate how an action resolves.

That's so vague that it's impossible for me to agree or disagree with it. I'd need either examples or your definitions of 'rules' and 'actions' and 'often' before I could even begin to know what your point was. If by it you mean, I don't need to have any rules or numbers to adjudicate whether the water goes down a PC's throat when he lifts a cup to his lips, drains a drought, and swallow, then sure. But that example even if it happens 'often' and even though its an 'action', bears almost no resemblence to what is actually under discussion.

 

[Nifft]

That's so vague that it's impossible for me to agree or disagree with it. I'd need either examples or your definitions of 'rules' and 'actions' and 'often' before I could even begin to know what your point was. If by it you mean, I don't need to have any rules or numbers to adjudicate whether the water goes down a PC's throat when he lifts a cup to his lips, drains a drought, and swallow, then sure. But that example even if it happens 'often' and even though its an 'action', bears almost no resemblence to what is actually under discussion.

"Drinking water" happens often, but usually off-camera, and isn't a contested action. (Unless, of course, you have an Airplane-esque drinking problem...) Thus, no rules. Just like you don't need to roll to walk on the ground, but you do need to roll to walk on the ground during an earthquake.

There are other areas of the game which are simply DM Fiat zones. You don't provoke the huge ancient dragon (who's commanding you to do a quest) when you're low-level. He isn't there to fight you.

If you tell a priestess of Lolth that you want to set up a church of Corellion in her cave, I don't care what your Diplomacy check result is -- you have not swayed her to Friendly.

This stuff may be what you consider too obvious. If so, let me know.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Celebrim]

"Drinking water" happens often, but usually off-camera, and isn't a contested action.

I believe you are agreeing with me (or I with you). I've no problem with that but...

(Unless, of course, you have an Airplane-esque drinking problem...) Thus, no rules. Just like you don't need to roll to walk on the ground...

Unless you have an equally funny walking problem - like for example, you are a toddler. Presumably, walking on level ground requires only like a -10 or something balance check, and PC's don't have that big of an equilibrium problem and even if they did (guy in platemail with a 3 DEX), we'd only worry about it during combat or some other time that it mattered - ei when thier was some sort of consequence. The rest of the time, the PC's stumbling about would be mere color and flavor.

But again, this smells an awful lot like we are on the same page.

but you do need to roll to walk on the ground during an earthquake.

Presumably because walking during an earthquake is hard enough for PC's that failure occurs on some sort of regular basis AND carries some sort of in game consequence that is worth keeping track of, namely that its consequences are not merely color.

So, again, we seem to be on the same page.

There are other areas of the game which are simply DM Fiat zones. You don't provoke the huge ancient dragon (who's commanding you to do a quest) when you're low-level. He isn't there to fight you.

Again, issues of NPC free choice are usually left up to DM fiat because a system would either not make for robust NPC interaction, or would be too complex to use. So, we are in complete agreement here.

If you tell a priestess of Lolth that you want to set up a church of Corellion in her cave, I don't care what your Diplomacy check result is -- you have not swayed her to Friendly.

This is just another issue of NPC free choice in disguise, because the Diplomacy system is - as I just said - kept simple enough to use but then can't account for a robust and realistic social interaction.

This stuff may be what you consider too obvious. If so, let me know.

Cheers, -- N

It's not that I think its too obvious. I have no problems with examining seemingly obvious things. Often great profit comes from that. The problem is that I don't see how any of the above contridicts what I said. I can agree with all of that without having to relinquish any of my points in the post you are responding too. So, what exactly are you disagreeing with?

 

[Joshua Randall]

If the DM says -- "The Far Realms exist outside space and time. In fact, they are so alien as to be incomprehensible to us; to go there is to cease to exist in our limited understanding." -- and you go there anyway, then you deserve whatever you get.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

In an RPG, anything without stats is just color. Color is what you have when the fluff has no crunch, and fluff with no crunch cannot actually do anything because it doesn't have any point of connection to the games mechanics.

Isn't it any wonder that D&D gets bashed so often by players of other RPGs...

I can think of many negative things that others can say about this "everything has to have stats" mentality.

As many games out there (as well as some official D&D settings) have things out there with no stats at all, which have a really big impact on how the game is.

 

[Ripzerai]

Stats are an aid to roleplaying, not its heart. Something exists if the DM and players agree it does, whether or not its attributes are formally enumerated. This is as true for a powerful, threatening creature as it is for an unimportant peasant.

I don't think the Far Realm or its inhabitants need to beyond stats, however. I've given stats to Far Realm entities before.

 

[Celebrim]

As many games out there (as well as some official D&D settings) have things out there with no stats at all, which have a really big impact on how the game is.

Nothing which doesn't have stats interacts with the game in anything but a superficial way. Statless things are like the backgrounds in a video game. They add to the sense of emersion, they may even change the way players play the game thereby, but they don't actually do anything. Color is important. But you can only handwave crunch if the color doesn't play a significant part of the game, and so far for all the people holding thier noses around me as if I was some sort of plague carrier, no one is arguing against what I said.

But I'll give you an example. My favorite RPG supplement ever is 'The Book of the Righteous'. It is the RP supplement I wish to have written. And its largely a book of color. In fact, it goes out of its way not to stat the gods of its pantheon in any way whatsoever. It gets away with this solely because the gods play absolutely no role in the game.

I'll repeat that in case someone thinks I made a typo. The gods of 'The Book of the Righteousness' play absolutely no role in the game.

Oh sure, almost all of the crunch in the game is flavored liberally with 'Lords of Heaven' flavoring, but thats all it is - flavoring. Important flavoring, sure. I wouldn't want to eat food that had no flavor either. In fact, I'm something of a food snob. I don't want to waste my time eating food that isn't well flavored. But if I couldn't taste the food, it would still be the same food.

The great innovation of 'The Book of the Righteousness' is that it recognized how important a cosmology was to the flavor of the game. It recognized just how much a really well thought out cosmology would shape the metagame and change how the players role-played. But it also recognized that it was pretty pointless to waste time on stats for something that wasn't part of the game, namely the gods themselves. Instead, it focused on stating out and detailing alot of things which would be a part of the game, most importantly those religions and religious institutions and religious celebrants that would be something that characters interacted with.

When you say, "The far realms doesn't have stats", you are saying, "The far realms won't be a part of my game in any significant way. I might have that as part of the setting. I might use the color to tie together what I do have in my game. But I don't really intend to actually have a far realm or anything from it except as color on the sky box."

And that might be fine. I'm not suggesting that everything needs stats. I am suggesting that anything that can actually do something and which you intend to be part of your game needs stats.

 

[Nifft]

So, what exactly are you disagreeing with?

Basically, you said that color without stats is impotent. I'm pointing out some obvious counter-examples (perhaps too obvious).

The point as it ties in here is: if you go to the Far Realms, unprepared (not an Alienist or whatnot), you will go insane. You will become horribly twisted in body and mind, and you will be my evil insane NPC puppet for an eternity. The Far Realms are a hard-core DM Fiat Zone(tm). Not by stats, but by color. But you (as a PC) can take actions which will prevent that dire fate. You can take a PrC, or you can be creative and come up with a way to keep your mind.

Just because there are no stats, doesn't imply there are no solutions. It just means the judge of the solution will be the DM's good sense (such as it is) rather than a rule in a book and the roll of a die.

Flavor text could do other things, too: if a dragon's personality write-up indicates that he's very vain and hates some other entity, than news that the entity in question were mocking him could lead to a disproportionate response on his part. If the PCs know this, they can deliver such news (which may require a Diplomacy or Bluff check to gain his credulity, but not to initiate the action as such).

Does that make sense?

Cheers, -- N

 

[kirinke]

The far realm exists. It's just so bloody weird that people don't want to think about it. The beings that inhabit it think that scientific reasoning is a fallacy. They consider black holes to be midnight snacks and humans to be less important than dust mites on a windy day. And they really don't care about all of your well-reasoned arguments that they don't exist and couldn't possibly be real. They're patient. They know the universe will unravel eventually and give them back their lost real estate.