Now It's Not a Game

[mythusmage]

Your New Life in Faerun

Let's assume you get a good start in your new life. You have a home and a family, you're making new friends, and getting to know the place.

The bad news? It stinks. Even with the best sanitation department in the world any settlement at a late medieval level of technology is going to smell.

The good news? It's not as bad as a medieval European city at the same stage of technological and sociological development. This due to the fact that the historical forces that led to the dolorous state of late medieval European sanitary affairs didn't occur here. And to the fact the local deities are a bunch of do-gooding busybodies (for the most part). To put this as simply as I can, a healthy body of worshippers can do more for a god or goddess than an unhealthy body. Overall everybody benefits.

So what's your life like?

Remember what your life was like as a 15 year old back on Earth? That's right, your life as a newly re-minted 15 year old in Faerun is a lot like that. Though you probably have even more responsibilities now than you did then. You have chores to do. You may be called upon to care for the younger children if your new family has such. In addition there are matters educational and vocational to consider. In addition to which is your status as a 'visitor from another planet'. Until the local sages, scholars, and nosy parkers get their nigh boundless curiousity satisfied you're gonna be busy answering questions. Even after they're satisfied there will still be travellers dropping by to hear your tales, myths, and legends.

"You mean you actually institutionalized coup d'etats and hold them on a quadrennial schedule?"

All in all the materials you brought with you for your benefit will most likely have a greater impact on the world than you do. While not all the information contained in those books etc may be useful, they may give people ideas at the very least. The scientific method, as worked out by philosophers and scientists on Earth since ancient times, may revolutionize mundane and magical research, even if it's not strictly applicable as formulated on Toril. Works on materials science on modern military and civil engineering could do the same in the field of construction and public works.

On the other hand, any texts you bring along regarding matters of morality and ethics are more likely to be dismissed as dangerously wrong at worst, and laughably wrong at best.

Which leads us to the topic of the next (substantial) posting in this thread, Good, Evil, And Why Killing Orc Babies is a Good Thing.

 

[Stormborn]

BTW, it's not a game. This is now your life. You now live in Faerun on the world of Toril. There's no more stowing away the character sheet, bagging the dice, cleaning up the Doritos® crumbs, and chatting about the upcoming football season; now your day ends with you going to bed in the same world you just had your 'adventure' in. There is no down time, there are no off-stage' actions for you. It ends when you die. You are 'on' all the time. No cut scenes or station breaks, it's now a 24/7 world. Enjoy.

You know, I appretiate what you are trying to do here. Really. You are attempting to play devil's advocate, getting people to see things from a different perspective. A vital and neccesary endevor in any field,and I do appretiate it.

However, in addition to some of the other flaws people have pointed out in this logic, there is the matter of Rules of Reality. Faerun is not logically consistant, its not the real world, in fact you cannot possibly extrapolate a real world given even the basic factors that make the Realms what they are.

Given that if a portal transported you to such a universe that world woudl be goverend by different rules than our own. Its a world DESIGNED for unique or special people to grow in power through having adventures. I belive by definition our hypothetical 15 year old transplanar selves qualify as "special."



So, our newly arrived selves will almost immediately be caught up in some kind of "adventure." Its the nature of the universe. Its a world full of demigods and greater beings that like to mess with mortals. It isn't a logically consistant constructed reality, its a world created to facilitate one thing only: adventuring.

However, adventurers have horrible things happen to them. Thats practiacally the definition of Adventure. Anxiety, Pain, Suffering, and Uncertanty. The things that happen to our PCs would be awful if they happened to us. You are right, no down time, no safe haven, or at least no more than one might reasonably expect for adventurers.

I have had adventures IRL, and as Bilbo said, they make you late for supper.

The transported 15 year old self would not likely be shackled by a dreary stepfamily, at least not for long, nor killed out of hand, nor any of the many other possibly unwelcome and worse fates enumerated in this thread. That self would likely follow the adventuring life one might desire.

And then he would die in about a year.

Or at the very least see his companions die, have horrible pains inflicted on his body, mind, and spirit, have his loved ones threatened, his trust betrayed, and his riches lost only to be rewon and lost again time after time.

So yes, going through the portal does allow you to adventure, and have all the things that happen in the game happen to you for real.

Its not going to be pleasant, but it will be interesting.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

To go through the portal is sheer stupidity.

To attempt to transnavigate the globe is sheer stupidity!

To attempt to fly is sheer stupidity!

To attempt to go to the Moon is sheer stupidity!

To attempt to go to Mars is sheer stupidity!

God bless us idiots, now and forever.


Wulf

 

[mythusmage]

Age of Maturity

A number of folks have raised the objection that people back in medieval times became adult at age 15. Some going so far as to claim that a PC starts adventuring at that age. Wrong on both counts.

First, the minimum starting age for a PC who is not a Cleric, Druid, Monk, or Wizard is 16. If the PC is a Cleric, Druid, Monk, or Wizard the minium starting age is 17. As our 16 year old members can attest, there is a substantial difference between them as they are now, and them as they were as little as a year ago.

Now, there were occasions when somebody as young as 15 would assume an adult role, but such were the exception and not the rule. Most of the time you would take on an adult role at 18 to 20 years of age, and possibly even older.

Now you might find yourself on your own, and doing well all things considered. But you're far more likely to be placed in somebody's care. If you don't find yourself someone's property that is.

And let us not forget the presence of magic in Faerun. I'll be discussing magic as a part of society later on, but for the nonce you can be sure that there will be magics, arcane and divine, designed to assess problems such as you. Are you good? Are you evil? Can you be responsible for yourself? Are you in danger from others? Your new guardian may be more of a bodyguard than a parent.

One final word on this early maturation thing. Are you aware of the changes that would be necessary on the genetic level to produce a human population that matures slower than in times previous? We're talking about species level change. Look at it this way, if we maturied at 15 back in the 1500s we'd be maturing at 15 today. We don't now, so we didn't back then.

Bad news? Odds are you have a guardian of some sort.

Mixed news? He likely expects more of you than your parents did when you were first that age. (Why is this mixed news? Think about it.)

 

[mythusmage]

However, in addition to some of the other flaws people have pointed out in this logic, there is the matter of Rules of Reality.

(snip)

You're looking at Faerun as a game setting. I'm dealing with Faerun as a real world. As a game setting it has holes. As a world it will be more coherent and more rational than what we see in our game books. The campaign setting would be a pale and quirky imitation of the real thing.

As for your fate in Faerun? That depends. With pluck, luck, and timely assistance you could make a good life for yourself. Without it life could get real nasty, brutish, and short.

So keep your eyes open for opportunities, and never pass up the chance to associate with good people. Even if said association is not entirely voluntary on your part.

 

[mythusmage]

To attempt to transnavigate the globe is sheer stupidity!

To attempt to fly is sheer stupidity!

To attempt to go to the Moon is sheer stupidity!

To attempt to go to Mars is sheer stupidity!

God bless us idiots, now and forever.


Wulf

And who knows? You may have as great an impact upon your new world as Jesus of Nazareth or George Washington did on this. (Think about this, without Washington the United States may be very different than it is now, with great ramifications on the state of the rest of the world.)

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

A number of folks have raised the objection that people back in medieval times became adult at age 15. Some going so far as to claim that a PC starts adventuring at that age. Wrong on both counts.

So far this thread is an awful lot of blather based on, apparently, a nitpick from the original post.

The rules say that humans reach ADULTHOOD at 15 years. It's right there in black and white. The original poster quite logically picked this specific age as the starting age, adulthood, for the human race. I don't think his point was to roll back the clock to adolescence.

Proceeding to nitpick because the poster didn't include +1d4 for barbarians and +2d6 for others is silly; basing this entire thread on that nitpick is sillier.

There are plenty of arguments against "going through the portal" without confusing the starting age of adulthood as defined by the game, with a layman's tenuous knowledge of developmental psychology.


Wulf

 

[Cergorach]

15 year, on another planet, no family or friends around...

The good news:There are new frontiers to explore, there is good, there is evil, and both have gods.*

The bad news: There's now a highly inventive 15 year old kid running loose somewhere on Toril, that's carrying a big ass 'modern' composite bow with a whole bunch of steel arrows, a couple of very sturdy 'modern' combat and throwing knives, some light 'modern' armor (magnasiumalloy plates sewn into a coat) and not to mention, no idea what morality means on this planet...

Imagine, a teenager raised on our own personal hellball (earth) is suddenly let loose on the unsuspecting masses of Toril, sounds just wonderfull. Did i mention that i have a whole lot of suppresed rage and that removing the rules of our society might be a bad idea for the folks on the receiving end?

*This is pretty significant, our society doesn't have any worshipped evil 'gods', the devil is not something a lot of people believe in (although a lot of people do believe in 'god'). Gods excist on Toril and everyone knows it, so what makes a good god any better then an evil god? People actually have a choice of whom they worship, which gives a lot more freedom to people and a lot more responsibility... [/rant]

 

[jmucchiello]

To attempt to transnavigate the globe is sheer stupidity!

To attempt to fly is sheer stupidity!

To attempt to go to the Moon is sheer stupidity!

To attempt to go to Mars is sheer stupidity!

God bless us idiots, now and forever.

Sailors have never believed the world was flat.

Birds fly, it must be possible somehow.

If the Berlin wall fell in 1964, no one would have every set foot on the moon.

No one is on Mars yet. And when we get there, we will discover nothing of great import.

Finally, all of the above were goals someone created for themselves. They set the parameters themselves. None of those things were attempted by diving through a magic portal to an unknown place. No one attempting those things was DE-AGED to 15 for no apparent reason. No one attempting those things could bring books from another dimension with them.

And most importantly of all, I know my limitations. Remember, I'm not 15, I'm wiser now. I have no desire to live in a quasi-mideval world where people run around with axes and swords hacking at one another. Let others climb mountains. And when they're incinerated by a red dragon, I'll get a good chuckle out of it.

 

[jmucchiello]

And who knows? You may have as great an impact upon your new world as Jesus of Nazareth or George Washington did on this. (Think about this, without Washington the United States may be very different than it is now, with great ramifications on the state of the rest of the world.)

I've read The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold and I've read Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man. Have you? I've also read Marvel Comics What If series. These are not my fantasies. To me, they are just so much navel gazing. Why not start the "if you could have any superpower, what would it be" thread? Same concept.

And again, I know my limitations, I would not change Toril. I would not risk my life to gain power. I did not risk anything on this world to become world-shaker why would I do so on Toril? Like anyone else who works a dead-end, middle-class job I'm too much of a coward to be a world-shaker. It's too bad I'm not coward enough to not admit it. Few people will back me up but deep down I'm sure many people know I'm right. What is it about diving through this portal that makes you special if you weren't special here on Earth?