Elric vs Magic World

[Atgxtg]

2 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

This is indeed true, but considering Hakwmoon is set in the future, Earth post cataclysm, the likelihood is that it isn't.

Do the Lord of Law or Chaos make an appearance in the Hawkmoon series? 

2 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

Feat threads on the internet where the stars were described as light, or something like that. I'd have to find it.

Not a reliable source. Oh speaking of which there would a whole debate around just what is considered to be an acceptable source. Generally anything not shown on screen is dubious, and even some of the on screen stuff is questionable or contradictory. 

2 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

True, but for this to work, again we need to have some conceits.

My point being that these decisions are not simple, but basically more a matter of choice with perhaps some element of deductive and inductive logic involved. 

That means that:

• You (the GM) is arbitrarily deciding things,, which is okay, as long as you are aware of it, and 
• Other people (like you players) might look at things differently, and that if fans of a given subject might  either act in an unexpected way (with disastrous consequences) based on those contrary views, or might not be happy with what you did to somethingg they liked.

Look at the current state of Star Wars and Star Trek to see what I mean. You want to be sure that they way you re imagine things is one that your players can accept or things will crash and burn over your "ruining" so & so. 

2 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

We were not talking hard science fiction, but generic science fiction or even space opera. But because it is science fiction, some of the technology will (emphasis mine) not work according to understood laws of physics. It does not mean the whole setting just kicks science in the knackers and calls it a day. Rather the reverse actually. We don't see Captain Picard swimming through space, not worried about vacuum, or floating off a cliff unafraid of dying.

No but what it does mean is that what works in X would work in Y. I can take any argument about one series ships being better than another and bring up "evidence" that can prove otherwise. But it all depends on which assumptions you want to make.

For instance, Star Wars tech is mostly advanced low tech. That is the ships work much like WWII era ships, only in space with lasers rather than machineguns and such. That was a conscious decision by Lucas, as he was trying to capture the feel of SF stories of that time. But is that a limitation of the technology or simply how the technology appears to work? Visual targeting would be pretty useless when shooting a targets moving at the ranges and speeds that the ships are commonly believed to be moving at (which on screen evidence doesn't support).

2 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

In fact, the laws of physics are foremost on their mind usually. This tells us that we can trust the setting to obey some of the laws of physics, allowing again, certain core conceits. 

Except those "certain core conceits' are uncertain variables that chance from setting to setting or even from story to story. 

 

2 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

This is another problem you're having, just because someone says it, does not make it true. It could easily be hyperbole, 

Yup, or the character saying it could be wrong, or lying, or even the writer could have messed up.  

2 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

Right this is another issue you're having. What is a cobalt bomb, and what is its yield?

Actually that can also be calculated by physical laws. Much better than the Sci-Fi stuff to since we can use real data. Just go with the minimum to achieve critical mass and you get a minimum threshold for 100 cobalt bombs. 

2 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

 We can also calculate the output of a photon torpedo due to the amount of matter and anti-matter in a given warhead.

But that's assuming that E-=Mc^2 holds true ,and there is Trek stuff that puts that into doubt. Case in point, according to E=mc^2 antimatter can't power a warp drive, yet war drives work. We also know that Trek has another layer of Peroid elements with propeties that we don't understand, such a Dilithium. There are also sources that state that phaser tehnology can produce more power out that you put in. It violates laws of physics but we're already admitting that.

Once you open up that Pandroa's box you have to deal with what comes out of it.

2 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

 

We can draw this conclusion from various other canon sources.

Okay, first of all you keep using "canon' sources rather loosely. In Star Trek the only canon source is what is shown on TV series and the feature films And the JJ Verse and Discovery are not in the same canon. Now Stars has recently shifted to the same rules by tossing out the EU (it was always that way,but they just admitted it). 

 

2 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

You are just pulling out random spurious facts, without context, or analysis. This is a core tenet over at SB. We need details in order to draw a conclusion. For instance Janeway in Voyager said they could destroy a small moon. Well bully for them. Didn't help the Ent-D much in the episode where it did not have enough torps to destroy an asteroid. Context, and . analysis is paramount.

And so are you. Just becaome some writer 30 years later writes something doesn't mean than the previous statement was wrong, or that thing don't change. Your still just cherry picking the stuff you want to accept as fact.

 

 

2 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

While this is laudable, if the item

has a technobabble approach behind it, we can work out minimum yield, and then analysis based on feats / texts the maximum yield. But to do that we need data.

 

Real data which you don't have by taking a techobabble approach.

Let me give you ONE example of where your approach fails utterly. In Star Trek is has been long established that phasers can disintegrate people. That's been shown in multiple episodes of the original series, the films, the Next Gen and so on. 

Now real world physics:

1. It would take an insane amount of energy to get matter to do that-much more that could be stored in a hand phaser that someone could pick up and carry. 

2. It would release an incredible amount of radiation and energy (it's essentially a fission reaction) and would kill anybody close enough to take the shot from radiation exposure, assuming that it just doesn't go all nuclear explosion. 

Conclusion:

1. Phasers either contain more power than E=mc^2 allows, in which case all the photorp calculations are meaningless as we don't know what else is going on with them, or  phasers use some unknown principle to break atomic bonds and control the effects, in which case all the photorp calculations are meaningless as we don't know what else is going on.

 

And you have to accept that phasers can disintegrate if you accept the "physics" of Star Trek. It just that once you allow for that, you open the door to all the secondary stuff that comes along with that, even if that stuff contradicts other facts. 

 

Between the warp drive phaser, transporter and inertial dampers, you have already thrown out so many of the laws of physics that what you got left over is entirely suspect and can't be used to prove anything.  And that's just one of your settings. 

 

 

 

 

 

[RogerDee]

48 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Not a reliable source. Oh speaking of which there would a whole debate around just what is considered to be an acceptable source. Generally anything not shown on screen is dubious, and even some of the on screen stuff is questionable or contradictory. 

Feat threads use stuff from canon sources, upon which to drawn a conclusion

48 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

No but what it does mean is that what works in X would work in Y. I can take any argument about one series ships being better than another and bring up "evidence" that can prove otherwise. But it all depends on which assumptions you want to make.

For instance, Star Wars tech is mostly advanced low tech. That is the ships work much like WWII era ships, only in space with lasers rather than machineguns and such. That was a conscious decision by Lucas, as he was trying to capture the feel of SF stories of that time. But is that a limitation of the technology or simply how the technology appears to work? Visual targeting would be pretty useless when shooting a targets moving at the ranges and speeds that the ships are commonly believed to be moving at (which on screen evidence doesn't support).

Right and this tells us a whole lot about the technology involved. That they really are not flying very fast, and yes your are spot on about Lucas making a decision to have dog fights taking place that mimic WW2 stuff.

If you want a real laugh go look at the Phantom Menace fight with the Gungans and the Droids. A blaster beam bounces off the ground and hits something. Does this mean that blasters do that? Heaven's no. It was an effect fail, but a funny one.

48 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Except those "certain core conceits' are uncertain variables that chance from setting to setting or even from story to story. 

Yes, but usually it is enough that we can draw logical conclusions based upon what we see, what is said, and interpretation

48 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

 Just go with the minimum to achieve critical mass and you get a minimum threshold for 100 cobalt bombs. 

 

I could say that a racecar has thousands of horsepower, does not make that statement true, This was an offhand comment, that is again likely hyperbole.

48 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

But that's assuming that E-=Mc^2 holds true ,and there is Trek stuff that puts that into doubt. Case in point, according to E=mc^2 antimatter can't power a warp drive, yet war drives work. We also know that Trek has another layer of Peroid elements with properties that we don't understand, such a Dilithium. There are also sources that state that phaser tehnology can produce more power out that you put in. It violates laws of physics but we're already admitting that. Once you open up that Pandroa's box you have to deal with what comes out of it. 

This is not so much a problem as you might think. It is science fiction after all. Having something that breaks science in some ways is fine as long as the rest of it is not too heavily buggered.

48 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Okay, first of all you keep using "canon' sources rather loosely. In Star Trek the only canon source is what is shown on TV series and the feature films And the JJ Verse and Discovery are not in the same canon. Now Stars has recently shifted to the same rules by tossing out the EU (it was always that way,but they just admitted it). 

There is the technical manual which was created which does give us lots of data. Direct canon....debatable. But it does give us solid numbers upon which to use. Okay now Discovery is actually Prime Timeline, allegedly. This may change, and quite frankly I would like it to go its own way and forget prime timeline. JJ verse is dead at the moment as Pine and Hemsworth have dropped out. Star Wars had a layered canon structure. Glad EU is gone though, although that prick Chee keeps trying to bring back gigaton firepower.

48 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

And so are you. Just becaome some writer 30 years later writes something doesn't mean than the previous statement was wrong, or that thing don't change. Your still just cherry picking the stuff you want to accept as fact.

Not quite,. what I'm trying to do is understand whether the statement made is correct, hyperbole, and what evidence we have. Someone saying herpaderp derp we can blow up a moon in some franchise. Unless we see it, or evidence of similar levels of firepower said claim is entirely suspect. People raved on recently how Trek firepower had gone up on the scale due to Alt. Phillipa's throneship virtually blew up a planet.  Despite certain visuals that debunked due to lack of certain effects or that they were likely on the ship made of neutronium. Which in Trek;s case seems to more akin to actual neutronium.

48 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Now real world physics:

1. It would take an insane amount of energy to get matter to do that-much more that could be stored in a hand phaser that someone could pick up and carry. 

2. It would release an incredible amount of radiation and energy (it's essentially a fission reaction) and would kill anybody close enough to take the shot from radiation exposure, assuming that it just doesn't go all nuclear explosion. 

Conclusion:

1. Phasers either contain more power than E=mc^2 allows, in which case all the photorp calculations are meaningless as we don't know what else is going on with them, or  phasers use some unknown principle to break atomic bonds and control the effects, in which case all the photorp calculations are meaningless as we don't know what else is going on.

Phasers do more than DET (direct energy transfer) they possess NDF (nuclear disruptive force) allowing for exotic effects. 

48 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Between the warp drive phaser, transporter and inertial dampers, you have already thrown out so many of the laws of physics that what you got left over is entirely suspect and can't be used to prove anything.  And that's just one of your settings.

You're whacking the donkey with sweets in again.

Did Captain Kirk float off the bridge or did the fall kill him? It was the latter. Do people die in a vacuum, yep. Can they get shot with bullets or energy weapons and die. Yep again. Do people get injured, Again yep. Do people need to breath. Again affirmative. Do people need to eat food? Yep. Would people die going to warp without some kind of inertia dampening technology?Yep. Physics works fine really, just a few physics breaking effects but nothing that cannot be worked around.

Edited April 8, 2019 by RogerDee

[Atgxtg]

29 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

. 

You're whacking the donkey with sweets in again.

No. This is the key point.

The whole argument that the yield of a photon torpedo can be calculated using real world physics is based upon ignoring the proven (in universe) fact that phasers exceed those limits. Now since photorp torpedoes are stated as being more powerful than phasers they must, logically also exceed those limits. So mathematically:

T>P>Jmax

with:

Jmax= Max Energey in Joules, per E-mc^2

P= Phaser Energy

T= Photon Torpedo Energy

 

So any argument that state that photon torpedo energy must be capped by E=mc^2 has been "proven" false according to the laws of physics used in Star Trek. Otherwise phasers wouldn't work.

[RogerDee]

21 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

No. This is the key point.

The whole argument that the yield of a photon torpedo can be calculated using real world physics is based upon ignoring the proven (in universe) fact that phasers exceed those limits. Now since photorp torpedoes are stated as being more powerful than phasers they must, logically also exceed those limits. So mathematically:

T>P>Jmax

with:

Jmax= Max Energey in Joules, per E-mc^2

P= Phaser Energy

T= Photon Torpedo Energy

 

So any argument that state that photon torpedo energy must be capped by E=mc^2 has been "proven" false according to the laws of physics used in Star Trek. Otherwise phasers wouldn't work.

We can calc yield based upon visuals, what we know of objects being destroyed. For instance their density, mass etc. You're relying purely on one source when a plethora exist. Don't limit yourself that way. Use everything at your disposal.

[Atgxtg]

37 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

We can calc yield based upon visuals, what we know of objects being destroyed. For instance their density, mass etc. You're relying purely on one source when a plethora exist. Don't limit yourself that way. Use everything at your disposal.

I'm relying on primary source material and real world physics. It is something that, if you are using real physics, has to be so. 

You're not. You mix 'n matching whatever material you want to give you whatever result you are looking for. That's fine, as long as you realize that is what you are doing. But you can't do that and claim that you have any sort of definitive answer. It's entirely arbitrary.

What you are doing is using any information that supports your theory and fact and ignoring anything that contradicts it.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 9, 2019 by Atgxtg

[RogerDee]

1 minute ago, Atgxtg said:

I'm relying on primary source material and real world physics. It is something that, if you are using real physics, has to be so. 

You're not. You mix 'n matching whatever material you want to give you whatever result you are looking for. That's fine, as long as you relize that is what you are doing. But you can't do that and claim that you have any sort of definitive answer. It's entirely arbitrary.

 

 

 

 

You're not relying on primary source material, you're ignoring some in-universe evidence. A photon torpedo destroys and asteroid and we can know what it is made of, or its size we can determine yield required. We see part of a city destroyed and we know the size, see a crater we can determine some of the effects. We know the size of something moved by a tractor beam, and composition it would allow us to work out its capabilities.

[Nick J.]

Somebody is going to have to explain to me what photon torpedoes have to do with Elric vs. Magic World?

[Imaginosmusic]

42 minutes ago, Nick J. said:

Somebody is going to have to explain to me what photon torpedoes have to do with Elric vs. Magic World?

Not sure if I have this straight or not, but,  near as I can tell.

Elric and Moonglum waylaid Frodo and stole the one ring. They pawned it and defaulted on the loan. Corum then purchased it. The pawnbroker looked remarkably like Captain Jean-Luc Picard. No one including Corum, likes captain Picard, so Corum put a hit on him. The hit man, Luke Skywalker, took the money, chickened out and is currently on the run. No one wants a pissed off Vadhagh after them. Soooo, Luke Skywalker is currently making his way through Known Space to the Ringworld with Speaker to Animals and Nessus in The Hot Needle of Inquiry. Corum, still angry, has enlisted The Red Baron and Buck Rogers to find and off them. They are currently on their way to the planet Dune where they hope to meet Mr. Clean, The Three LIttle Pigs and Metallica, enlist their expertise, and 'Beat' Bobby Flay...

 

Edited April 9, 2019 by Imaginosmusic

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Nick J. said:

Somebody is going to have to explain to me what photon torpedoes have to do with Elric vs. Magic World?

Sure. I'll try to keep this simple.

1. RogerDee wants to run a full fledged multiverse.
2.  He also wants to do a lot of crossovers, mixing Eternal Champion stuff with other settings and genres, comic book characters and so on. 
3. I tried to point out some of the difficulties in doing crossovers and how it is like "comparing apples and oranges" since there is really no common frame of reference between setting, and difficulties at time even within one setting, as the needs of the story often outweigh contintuty, logical ans such.
4. RogerDee believes that such comparisons are easy and can be done with through logical extrapolation of what we see, and with real math and physics.
5. I'm contending that such comparsions are not easy, and mostly subjective, especially when doing crossovers. 
6. The Photon Torpedo thing is an rather infamous example, used by Star Wars fanboys to show that Star Wars ships are more powerful that Star Trek ships., but while they did use some real world physics to get the "answer" that they wanted, they also avoided any and everything that contradicted their desired answer. 

Thats how we got there.

Now I'm fine with a GM mixing and matching to his hearts content, but any conclusions he comes up with regarding X vs Y is just one person's option, not something that can be "easily proven".  

[Imaginosmusic]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

RogerDee wants to run a full fledged multiverse.

My earlier snark aside, I have run a campaign that took place in only two dimensions and it was fun until the players 'crossed over' and found that their magic had a hard time overcoming the flintlock muskets of the lizard creeps in the sister dimension. I didn't diminish their magic or weapons, I only gave their adversaries technology that the players didn't posses. They were also rather upset when the flintlocks were no longer functional upon return to their dimension. I am perfectly open to the fact that the dissolution of that group was entirely my own overreach.

I am also happy to say that I have completed my recruitment of a new group. :-)~

 

 

[NickMiddleton]

13 hours ago, Nick J. said:

Somebody is going to have to explain to me what photon torpedoes have to do with Elric vs. Magic World?

Not a lot really - the underlying assumption, that one can in any useful sense matriculate between disparate fictional sources (by different authors) to reach a codified taxonomy of exactly how mcguffins and characters rank in some sort of "objective hierarchy" is a nonsense, and has been since the first play ground argument about whether Superman can beat the Hulk.

BRP is more than capable of describing different settings: one of the seminal Stormbringer supplements was the Rogue Mistress campaign, and I like many fans I knew had been running plane hopping / multi-dimensional games for a decade or so prior to that seeing release. It can also adapt to far more than the "gritty" style people assume is its only mode (and which is unquestionably its metier).

How "powerful" Stormbringer is relative to anything else is a question, like how fast is the Millenium Falcon or how strong is the Hulk that actually has no definitive answer other than "whatever the plot requires at that particular moment". They are all tools of fiction, subservient to authorial intent. And thus are fundamentally NOT amenable to the sort of "objective" codification a game requires, where by definition the outcome is NOT determined by authorial fiat. Good writing provides the illusion of underlying consistency to how something behaves in fiction; great games _in retrospect_ are full of moments that resonate and affect the participants like great fiction - but they get to those similar destinations by fundamentally _different_ means.

If a GM decides in their version of the multiverse Stormbringer can cut the One Ring that's fine and true for their multiverse / game - but it is an arbitrary GM decision. Just as it is an arbitrary decision that in _my_ multiverse the gods of Law and Chaos (and Sauron and Stormbringer) flee in terror from Dragnipur... and Stormbringer _cannot_ cut the One Ring, because it can _only_ be harmed by the fires that forged it.

Cheers,

Nick

Edited April 10, 2019 by NickMiddleton

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, NickMiddleton said:

Not a lot really - the underlying assumption, that one can in any useful sense matriculate between disparate fictional sources (by different authors) to reach a codified taxonomy of exactly how mcguffins and characters rank in some sort of "objective hierarchy" is a nonsense, and has been since the first play ground argument about whether Superman can beat the Hulk.

Exactly! 

Any "conclusions' drawn in such a situation is just one person's (or group of people's) view of how he things things work or should work. Nothing more.

 

 

Quote

If a GM decides in their version of the multiverse Stormbringer can cut the One Ring that's fine and true for their multiverse / game - but it is an arbitrary GM decision. Just as it is an arbitrary decision that in _my_ multiverse the gods of Law and Chaos (and Sauron and Stormbringer) flee in terror from Dragnipur... and Stormbringer _cannot_ cut the One Ring, because it can _only_ be harmed by the fires that forged it.

Cheers,

Nick

Yes. And that's perfectly fine, since each GM is free to run thier own multiverse as they see fit. 

But someone can't "definitely prove" X is better than Y by using some half baked semi-science out of context, or something that some fanboy posted on some forum on the Internet. They might prefer that version of things, but it's still arbitrary. A GM who thinks otherwise is deluding himself.

Edited April 10, 2019 by Atgxtg

[seneschal]

11 hours ago, Imaginosmusic said:

My earlier snark aside, I have run a campaign that took place in only two dimensions and it was fun until the players 'crossed over' and found that their magic had a hard time overcoming the flintlock muskets of the lizard creeps in the sister dimension. I didn't diminish their magic or weapons, I only gave their adversaries technology that the players didn't posses. They were also rather upset when the flintlocks were no longer functional upon return to their dimension. I am perfectly open to the fact that the dissolution of that group was entirely my own overreach.

I am also happy to say that I have completed my recruitment of a new group. :-)~

 

 

Based on your description, it doesn’t sound like overreach.  Your scenario and the different worlds having different physics seem entirely reasonable to me.  In fact, the concept that different dimensions operate by different rules has been used in fairy tales, The Chronicles of Narnia and Marvel comics among others.  You didn’t make your aliens super beings, they just had primitive firearms.  The failure of flintlocks to work in the PCs’ world could have been explained by any number of mundane factors — damp powder, misadjusted parts, the fantasy characters being unfamiliar with how to maintain and repair the technology, inability to duplicate the formula for gunpowder.

[Atgxtg]

Just now, seneschal said:

Based on your description, it doesn’t sound like overreach.  Your scenario and the different worlds having different physics seem entirely reasonable to me.  In fact, the concept that different dimensions operate by different rules has been used in fairy tales, The Chronicles of Narnia and Marvel comics among others.  You didn’t make your aliens super beings, they just had primitive firearms.  The failure of flintlocks to work in the PCs’ world could have been explained by any number of mundane factors — damp powder, misadjusted parts, the fantasy characters being unfamiliar with how to maintain and repair the technology, inability to duplicate the formula for gunpowder.

Yeah it's a pefectly fine crossover. 

Likewise RpogerDees mix could be a perfectly fine crossover too, but it's just one way that one GM wants to implement it-not any sort of actuate measure of relative abilities. 

[seneschal]

Picard should nuke Sauron’s Dark Tower from orbit:  it’s the only way to be sure.

(Besides, the tower is actually a Saturn XIV rocket, which the tyrant plans to use to conquer the rest of the solar system.)

[Atgxtg]

14 minutes ago, seneschal said:

Picard should nuke Sauron’s Dark Tower from orbit:  it’s the only way to be sure.

He can't, Prime Directive. 

14 minutes ago, seneschal said:

(Besides, the tower is actually a Saturn XIV rocket, which the tyrant plans to use to conquer the rest of the solar system.)

He's mad, the rest of the solar system is using Type XV's!

[RogerDee]

18 hours ago, Imaginosmusic said:

Not sure if I have this straight or not, but,  near as I can tell.

Elric and Moonglum waylaid Frodo and stole the one ring. They pawned it and defaulted on the loan. Corum then purchased it. The pawnbroker looked remarkably like Captain Jean-Luc Picard. No one including Corum, likes captain Picard, so Corum put a hit on him. The hit man, Luke Skywalker, took the money, chickened out and is currently on the run. No one wants a pissed off Vadhagh after them. Soooo, Luke Skywalker is currently making his way through Known Space to the Ringworld with Speaker to Animals and Nessus in The Hot Needle of Inquiry. Corum, still angry, has enlisted The Red Baron and Buck Rogers to find and off them. They are currently on their way to the planet Dune where they hope to meet Mr. Clean, The Three LIttle Pigs and Metallica, enlist their expertise, and 'Beat' Bobby Flay...

 

Behold the true terror, the true Lord of the Sith. He should be feared, the most powerful dark lord that all try to emulate from Voldermort to Morgoth. Next his power all are insignificant and should tremble before him.

Notice how all Sith Lords attempt to copy his yellow eyes

 

[Atgxtg]

28 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

 

Eek, everyones worse fear about Episode IX!

[Imaginosmusic]

1 hour ago, RogerDee said:

Behold the true terror, the true Lord of the Sith. He should be feared, the most powerful dark lord that all try to emulate from Voldermort to Morgoth. Next his power all are insignificant and should tremble before him.

Could he beat Bobby Flay?

[RogerDee]

53 minutes ago, Imaginosmusic said:

Could he beat Bobby Flay?

You asked if he could flay Mr Blobby right?

[Imaginosmusic]

24 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

You asked if he could flay Mr Blobby right?

Sure... (taps out)