wow a lot of posts overnight.
I'd think the Ergalians would have Written Language or Medicine first, being I envision them later printing books and such to preserve knowledge and old stories.
Medicine speaks for itself in an environment full of diseases and poisonous creatures, the Ergalians already have a basic grap of healing (Adept Witch Doctor racial trait) and I can see that being developed in these environments.
Probably Medicine first, Writing second
Animal Husbandry would come later (Wyvern Riders :), Alligator Beastmasters) and even later Agriculture, they don't have the room to build large fields, living in swampy and jungle/forest like terrain, they need to cut that down or fill up the swamp first.
Yes, seeing the advancement tree would be great, though I understand it may not be readily available.
Because of this, I've had to reload Fall From Heaven 2 on my laptop.
Shuma'i: do you mean you want to see the advancement tree? many of the advancements are interconnected. Is there something specific you wanted to work towards?
Mar'ru: I'll admit I had to do a little investigation into composite bows...it's much more interesting than i'd originally thought. It does say they were developed by groups without written language, so i'm thinking that's cool. Wooden shields are definitely ok.
A lot of modern folks are suprised at what stone age peoples and tribal societies developed with just oral tradition. All that leisure time spawns experimentation and ingenuity.
I want agriculture because it is the root of heirarchal civilization (unsustainable as it has proven to be), and as a human people I figured it was fitting to play an unintentional BBEG. And ironic since we start out revering nature only to eventually try to conquer it generations down the line.
Thing about agriculture is it allows heirarchy, division of labor is necessary, food surpluses = surviving harsh winters and droughts, no need to move with your food source so bigger permanent structures can be built, increased division of labor leads to warrior class, farmer class, merchant class, etc. Sexism often develops, but I am trying to make a matriarchal society. Classism is inevitable but I hope to defray it by using undead labor.
Agriculture by its nature leads to expansion. Foid surpluses always equal population growth. Eventually we'll encroach on other tribes' lands. I hope it goes peacefully. We'll likely set up trade centers, influencing a barter commerce. Keeping track of traded goods will lead to basic math and pictographs, then to writing. Warrior class leads to improved weaponry and warfare. Nature priest class and merchants lead to math & sciences. Necromancers will kead to improved healthcare and more efficient agricultural practices. Merchants bring in new ideas and technologies. Expansionism will bring new races into agrarian life, showing them how to be like us, and asking for a modest annual tribute instead of conquest/assimilation (goods, food, corpses, whatever).
Agriculture is a big deal. Humans on earth were tribal for millions of years. A small group started agriculture in the fertile crescent at the end of the last ice age and spread ever outward. 7-10 thousand years ago civilization was born shortly thereafter. We know how quickly it progressed. Population J curve. Technology and culture increasing in complexity...
Granted, civilization eventually came to new tribal peoples by the sword. Powerlust and expansion necessary to grow more food to maintain surpluses to fuel population growth...
Ritual sacrifice may have had its origins in population control, btw.
Likewise I want agriculture to start teaching the Rockmouths exactly that- hierarchy, division of labor, future planning, all stuff wild goblins need.
Thoughts, GM?
Wow. I'm really glad you guys put so much thought into it. Makes it more fun for me knowing that you all are thinking about these things too.
I'm loathe to just arbitrarily say one of you guys gets agriculture and the other doesn't... Didn't you want to start with metalworking, Stone-eyes?
Again, awesome to see the enthusiasm.
I was thinking though about maps... do you feel as though you need them, or should I wait until you have writing to give you a map, and just tell you what is around you: ie... this is to the north, this is to the south etc...
thoughts?
I can discuss on and off today, but I'm going to delay the start another day. I have some important RL stuff. Hope you folks understand.
I think it's worth tempering our anthropology with fantasy, and with a wide-open mind.
On earth, agriculture preceded complex cultures (aka civilization) everywhere. Agriculture is so crucial because it means a food surplus and requires a sedentary lifestyle. Pretty soon, you start having surplus people and then specialization starts to happen, but that doesn't have to be the way it happens. Our world has shadow people, goblins, lizard men, spider-centaurs and magic, which makes it pretty different from Earth.
The Shuma'i (like most tropical rainforest hunter-gatherers) already have a surplus of food. A lot of us probably do, because I see a lot of tropical types. My people have a lot of free time to stargaze, and develop systems of writing and magic based on the stars. We have a pretty drastic form of population control, however, in the form of were-tigers that we are effectively unable to fight. When that changes, everything changes.
Suddenly we have more people, and no monsters to kill them. The next thing you know, we can have all these specialists, developing technology and culture and magic. Agriculture might not matter to us for a few more centuries, because our environment can keep up with our needs for quite a while.
I personally think we should just have a general area on the world map marked as "you live around these part" + a description of the area we live in (assuming you got something else in mind than the things we have written)
So like, a silhouette of the continent(s), with each of us having a color code and that color being filled into the areas we control.
I call Blue for the Azurans obviously :)
Since we are on the topic of map-making, wasn't that something you could do after discovering Navigation in the Civilization games?
That being said, I have no particular preconceived idea or path of where my tribe will go, personally, and will be making every decision as it comes to me. They could end up as a tribe of priests and oracles that every other nation comes to for spiritual guidance. They could grow as the kind of tribe that keeps a stockyard of humans, but then turns around and makes diplomatic or subservient actions regarding a small human kingdom. They could be diplomats for other races, a small nomadic group of assassins, or the first inventors of the auto propelled turtle rocket.
So with that, I'm fine with having or not having maps, and even think it might make more sense for them to be bundled with a discovery of some sort down the navigation line, or even a simple cartography discovery that stems from basic navigation and writing together. I'm also fine if you decide that we need to roll to determine who gets what discoveries to start with, in any method.
Edit: Though yes, I understand animal husbandry and architecture are big things for the Vuscadorah to get soon, I just really haven't thought anything beyond that and what they are starting out as.
...or the first inventors of the auto propelled turtle rocket.
SSssssssh, dont give the goblin any ideas!
Proper map-making is fairly advanced stuff, when we haven't even got writing yet. At this point, I think things would be much more like "To the sunrise are the fetid swamps of the Ergalian lizard people, and on top of that hill is a big patch of strawberries."
That's more along the lines of what I was considering. Are the rest of you ok with proceeding like that until your people can actually make maps? I could give you a shadowed general map with something like "fog of war" around it too, if you like.
There's another thing...
I know I'm going to sound like a wet blanket, and I feel silly for even mentioning this, but just so we're all on the same page:
- no auto propelled turtle rockets.
I know we're all here to have fun, and we're dealing with elves and goblins and magic, but can we try to not make it a parody?
Again...sorry for bringing it up, but I felt like I should just get the elephant out of the room.
ugh.
nothing against elephants, of course. :)
Nothing against.... fully auto-propelled rocket elephants?
That works fine with me. I believe that we would have a general idea of our territory lines, even without a map.
Im all for keeping it straightfaced.
I will say though, any world needs a little bit of silly, even if its played straight. Fx in one of my campaigns, I had a dwarven and gnomish nation battling eachother over what race their shared god was. The gnomes had Hill Giants as semi slaves / henchmen (like Jaws from the Bond movie). In battle, the giants would wear a harness with a gnome "pilot", manning a big gun.
Now that is pretty silly, but also awesome (atleast I think so) in a way where it doesnt make everything about them silly...just food for thought.
Another example is the Games Workshop game Warhammer 40000. The whole setting is total Grim-dark, yet they have the Orks who are incredibly silly...but it works.
My elves wont be silly though.
I like descriptive geography until we advance to where maps are needed.
Metalworking or agriculture.
I agree with just the description until we discover map-making, though I'm fairly certain many of us will advance to that pretty soon, one way or another.
Sea-faring, stargazing, writing and book-binding (me) are all advancements that can lead to the need or invention of maps for that civilization.
Okay So rocket-propelled turtles are out of the question, how about wyvern riders or attack frogs? For example Giant Frogs that grab opponents and try to swallow them whole.
Also if I get Medicine as an advancement, do I also get the ability to extract poisons and healing salves/liquids out of plants?
At the moment they know a few things of wound binding and plant lore and use poison from animals for the hunt.
My experience of gaming is that silly happens, whether you like it or not. I say that more to say, let's not strive for it. Besides, turtle rocketry is going to be the capstone of the advancement tree.
I'm assuming that at the beginning contact is minimal, but as the game goes on will we be allowed to trade advancements?
How will we post? Seasonally, annually, other? Like, how much game time does a typical post cover?
^I think your question is, in short, how does this game work/play.
Well, I was originally going to go by season, but I'm open to suggestions. Do you all think that is too long, too short?
I want to progress at a good pace, but I also want to be able to have a good focus.
Opinions?
If you guys are ok with seasonal, I'll stick to that. We can also ocasionally just change it to suit our needs.
If you guys are all set, I'll be able to put up the intros tonight and we can get started.
If you have any other questions or ideas, we can go over those too.
Seasonal would be fine by me, as long as some major events can be RP-ed if it is appropriate.
For instance sickness spreading might be a normal event, but the leader searching for the one known cure might be a major event that could deserve some RP action.
I'm all set to go, but could you answer my earlier question about Medicine advancement?
Could I in addition to healing salves/liquids also extract poisons from plants as Medicine is an advancement of Herbalism and plant lore.
Im in this for the long haul, dont mind my PbPs taking years to complete, but I will say, the history of empires, if you go back the the beginnings we are starting at, usually stretches for thousands of years.
Going by season would take forever before we actually get into something even resembling actual kingdoms. Each post could be a year, with descriptions of the seasons?
I'm more concerned with the pace of things happening. If it takes 1000 turns for my guys to get their next advance, and it's something like The Wheel, I'm gonna be equally bummed if those turns represented days or centuries.
We can also always assume our "prehistory" of millions/hundreds of thousands of years is coming to a close. We are a few generations away from mythic pre-civilization era. Maybe start with annual updates, zooming in to seasons or specific dates as needed untilw become sufficiently complex to warrant seasonal posts as a default?
Yeah, your prehistory has ended.
I'm cool with each turn being a year, we can probably advance fairly well that way, and like was said before, we would "zoom in" for rp such as quests and rp "first contact" stuff.
So the way I see this going is like so:
I'll have the opener, then you an intro as well. After that, I'll point to little events and the goings on around you, and you'll have a chance to respond. I'm mostly going to be an arbiter to what you guys do, although there will be independent forces moving on the "board" as well.
I think i'll have a calendar header at the top of each post too, so we can easier keep track.
@Ergalian: yeah, I imagine if medicine is an extention of basic herbalism then poisons would be discovered as well, if only by finding out what not to use to make healing attempts.
That's a good point. Before we actually get into it, we should be clear who has what so there's no need to "retcon" stuff.
If you could just sound off with the advancement you wanted, that would be cool.
I wanted Complex Engineering, I believe it was.
Animal Husbandry
Agriculture.
Metalworking
Well... i think Shuma'i wanted Writing or Medicine, and I think Ergalian wanted the same, so if we can reach a consensus, and there are no other questions we can definitely start tomorrow.
Regardless, tomorrow I'll have your first description, telling you about the area you're in, what other beasties are around and any potential allies/enemies in the area as well.
I usually get home from work about 3pm pacific, so after I have a bit of time to unwind I'll put up the first posts.
Just so everyone knows, I usually get home around 5:30-6pm, Pacific, except Wednesdays, where I usually get home closer to 8:30-9pm, Pacific time. I'm off Friday and Sundays.
If the Shuma'i want Writing first and the Ergalians Medicine first, there should be no problem I think. Medicine has my first choice, Writing second, so I'll let Shuma'i decide what she wants first.
I get home around 6 pm Central time, US, and I have 2 variable days off a week. I can someti.es post from work.
I wanted metalworking first and writing after.
Alright. Since Ergalians first choice was medicine, he gets that.
Looks like both the goblins and the fetchlimgs want metalworking as their first, so shall we dice for it? Say best on a d6?
Seems fair to me:
I'm going to have to delay again till after the weekend. Sorry folks.
Couldnt they just both have it? One doublicate whouldnt hurt? If anything it would make more sense than every nation starting from totally different baselines.
I certainly don't mind both of us having it. If it's meant to be random, it makes sense, since random doesn't produce an even spread.
Yeah. It's not going to break anything of you both have it. Metalworking for hoblins and fetchlings it is!
Just checking to see if everyone is still interested.
I'm ready to get started tomorrow, so if there are any additional questions or suggestions, I'd like to hear them. Thanks!
My interest is still at a yes with my questions/suggestions at a no.
Yes ready.
No questions.
Ready with no questions. I'll wait for example posts though.
I second the above