Elric vs Magic World

[Atgxtg]

32 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

@Atgxtg I think maybe perhaps what you say was true once....but not so much now. If you're doing a multiverse setting, it is pretty much like Faith said, "Go big or go home," kind of mentality.

Two Points:

• Chaosium didn't do Elric!/Strombringer recently, they did it 30+ years ago. Stormbringer Fifth Edition, the last version that Chaosium wrote, came out in 2001. So you have to take that into account.
• Chaoisum didn't do a multiverse setting (at least not with Stormbringer/Elric!) they did an Elric setting. 

 

 

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I want the cosmology explained, like they do in Pathfinder. But we need how the multiverse is put together, its gods, and its metaphysics. Sure that can change, or get more refined as time goes on. And that is totally fine.

If they did a multiverse campaign then maybe, but the problem is Moorcock has never really explained it. At least not beyond the needs of his stories. 

Now historically when a RPG has tried to explain things that hadn't been covered in the source material they end up getting messed up when the source material does something else, and most fans aren't all that fine with it. There are quite a few FASA Trek players out there who don't understand how Star Trek diverted from the way they though the Trekverse worked. 

 

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As to the system thing, I suspect D100 would struggle with the tv series Arrow. i mean how would it cope with him shooting three arrows at once? At best I could see if a percentage divide three ways. But even so there would be a change he would miss. And the Green Arrow does not. Miss. Period. So short of him having like 300% in bow or something, not sure how this particular games engine would simulate that?

Well, for starters a 300% skill would do it. Also you can check out the Gu Fu threat to see me mention kill skills and the possiblity of firing a weapon in a burst. Or you could go find Superworld. The game sstem can handle that stuff. But the thing is Moorcokc never wrote Elric with an idea of doing a Arrow crossover, although you do have Rackhir.

The thing is all RPGs are designed to handle a certain style of play and genre. Trying to use them in ways they weren't designed fro will require adjustments. One example of this would be to try and run a typical TV/Film Western campaign in AD&D. With the way hit points and damage worked, to high level characters in a "High Noon" style shootout would have to stop to reload their revolvers! That's not Gygax's fault, D&D wasn't designed to handle that sort of thing (boot Hill was). Today, running something like that with D&D is easier, in part because the game can be (and has been) adapted to handle that genre. 

 

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EDIT: Now I have just come across the Revolution stuff, so I my purchase that if I like the SRD stuff. I have a hankering of a full-on Elric / Eternal Champion type game using all the various magic systems from D100.

Go for it. You might want to take a peek at Basic RolePlaying, if you can find it, just to see how much of a toolkit the game system is. Judging what D100 can handle based upon Elric! is like judging all canines based upon buying a Chihuahua. 

Edited April 7, 2019 by Atgxtg

[RogerDee]

@Atgxtg If you want more ready to find detail on Moorcock stuff, I recommend going to spacebattles.com, go into vs and search on Stephen King vs. There is a plethora of detail in there, like tons of it. If you cannot find it, shoot me a PM and I'll give you a link.

Yeah I know he didn't do Elric with Arrow crossovers in mind, but like I said in the CoC thread over at rpg.pub, I want my heroes / characters empowered to do crazy things that are impossible in the real world like shoot three arrows through the eye of a deep one and kill it dead.

I don't want depowered heroes, but empowered. If you know what I mean?

[Simlasa]

1 hour ago, RogerDee said:

As to the system thing, I suspect D100 would struggle with the tv series Arrow. i mean how would it cope with him shooting three arrows at once?

I don't get what that's got to do with Elric/Young Kingdoms though?
As far as I've seen there's no superhero RPG that perfectly emulates comics... primarily for the reasons Atgxtg mentioned... comics (and TV and movies...) are  a pre-written medium, where the hero has the powers it needs when it needs them... and conveniently forgets those powers when they don't serve the story.
Not that I doubt there's a way to make the three arrow stunt work in Superworld... but I generally don't want that sort of thing in my gritty sword & sorcery game.

Edited April 7, 2019 by Simlasa

[RogerDee]

Just now, Simlasa said:

Not that I doubt there's a way to make the three arrow thing work in Superworld... but I generally don't want that sort of thing in my gritty sword & sorcery game.

That's kind of the point, if I am doing a multiverse game you're playing big damn heroes, a planeswalker, not someone who is easily cut down.

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, RogerDee said:

@Atgxtg If you want more ready to find detail on Moorcock stuff, I recommend going to spacebattles.com, go into vs and search on Stephen King vs. There is a plethora of detail in there, like tons of it. If you cannot find it, shoot me a PM and I'll give you a link.

Yeah I know he didn't do Elric with Arrow crossovers in mind, but like I said in the CoC thread over at rpg.pub, I want my heroes / characters empowered to do crazy things that are impossible in the real world like shoot three arrows through the eye of a deep one and kill it dead.

I don't want depowered heroes, but empowered. If you know what I mean?

Yes, but that's not the game system's fault, is it? 

You original comment was that Elric didn't cover Moorcoock multiverse in detail. It isn't, true, but it didn't need to nor did it claim to be trying to. You can't hold it against the designers for not creating the game that for not doing something that somebody wants to do 30 years later. It is like complaining that your 1980s touch-tone telephone doesn't have cellular service. 

If you want to know how to do a multiverse setting with it, that's a different topic. 

[Atgxtg]

28 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

That's kind of the point, if I am doing a multiverse game you're playing big damn heroes, a planeswalker, not someone who is easily cut down.

That would depend on what sort of multiverse game you are trying to run. What works good for Superheroes might not work so well for a WWII setting. Sometimes high powered isn't the best or preferred choice for a setting. I have run multiverse campaigns, both Moorcock's multiverse and others, and I didn't want superheroes or Planeswalkers in them-they didn't belong there. Don't assume that there is only one way to approach a multiverse. 

Edited April 7, 2019 by Atgxtg

[RogerDee]

7 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Yes, but that's not the game system's fault, is it? 

You original comment was that Elric didn't cover Moorcoock multiverse in detail. It isn't, true, but it didn't need to nor did it claim to be trying to. You can't hold it against the designers for not creating the game that for not doing something that somebody wants to do 30 years later. It is like complaining that your 1980s touch-tone telephone doesn't have cellular service. 

If you want to know how to do a multiverse setting with it, that's a different topic. 

Elric is by definition a multiverse game, he travelled to different planes. That is what he did.

7 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

If you want to know how to do a multiverse setting with it, that's a different topic. 

Now that I will start a thread for in a moment. In this forum or another?

6 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

That would depend on what sort of multiverse game you are trying to run. What works good for Superheroes might not work so well for a WWII setting. Sometimes high pwered isn't the best or preferred choice for a setting. 

Like in Elric, or Hawkmoon - rules change from universe to universe. Same as in Lords of Gossamer, all of a sudden your powers might fail. Technology may no longer work. It is why in Amber all the nobles carried swords. Physics can only change so much that sticking someone with something pointy always works.

[Atgxtg]

5 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

Elric is by definition a multiverse game, he travelled to different planes. That is what he did.

No Elric is the story about the character Elric, the last Emperor of Melnibone who (spoiler) turned against Chaos at fogut them at the end of the world. 

Traveling to different planes is something that he sometimes did but it wasn't what he was about. I've traveled to the beach, quite a few times, but it doesn't mean my life is about the sea, and if there were ever an RPG about me (*cringe*) I shouldn't explain the origins and nature of the oceans. I'm not Jacques Cousteau.

 

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Now that I will start a thread for in a moment. In this forum or another?

Depnds on what game system you want to use. I'd suggest looking over the Basic Role Playing general forum a bit and look for threads where people adapted BRP to another setting. I had some stuff on a Amber campaign (another multiverse) that I was working on. 

 

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Like in Elric, or Hawkmoon - rules change from universe to universe. Same as in Lords of Gossamer, all of a sudden your powers might fail. Technology may no longer work. It is why in Amber all the nobles carried swords. Physics can only change so much that sticking someone with something pointy always works.

Yes, that is actually addressed in some of the latter supplements too. But again, that not what Elric was about.

Edited April 7, 2019 by Atgxtg

[RogerDee]

6 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

No Elric is the story about the character Elric, the last Emperor of Melnibone who (spoiler) turned against Chaos at fogut them at the end of the world.  Traveling to different planes is something that he sometimes did but it wasn't what he was about. I've been to the beat, but it doesn't mean my life is about the sea. Yes, that is actually addressed in some of the latter supplements too. But again, that not what Elric was about.

True, but the thing about Elric was that in order to fight them it was not something that could be accomplished on one plane, an eternal champion. 

6 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Depnds on what game system you want to use. I'd suggest looking over the Basic Role Playing general forum a bit and look for threads where people adapted BRP to another setting. I had some stuff on a Amber campaign (another multiverse) that I was working on. 

Any recommendations for which part to use?

 

 

 

[Atgxtg]

33 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

True, but the thing about Elric was that in order to fight them it was not something that could be accomplished on one plane, an eternal champion. 

But from the game perspective it didn't matter. Most of the worlds that Elric went to operated very similar to the Young Kingdoms. Plus most people weren't going to have to do that sore tof stuff. 

BTW, there is a throwaway line in the original adventure in Stormbinrger about using the magic mirror to travel to the world or Glorantha or the bridge of the Enterprise, so the idea was touched upon.. 

 

33 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

Any recommendations for which part to use?

It depends on just what you want to do with it and how you plan to approach it. You will need to decide what sort of limits you want to improve and how the various genres will interact. For instance can a powerful superhero who can survive a 100 story fall from a scraper in the comics do so in another setting? Or can a Batman or Daredevil type character actually dodge bullets? The thing when mixing settings and characters is that just what works in one setting doesn't in another. You wind up having to make a lot of decisions and judgment calls, and there ususally isn;'t a clear cut "right way" to go with things. For instance, can Excalibur cut Superman? How about a Lightsaber? Can a lightsaber cut through Excalibur? How about adamntium?  Is Stormbringer more powerful than the One Ring? There are no clear cut answers and it mostly boils down to interpretation and GM judgment calls.  But whatever way to decide to go with things expect there to be fallout in other areas. 

As far as the BGB goes, not all powers are equal. regardless of the point costs, and freely mixing them will lead to people eithing being outmatched or everybody cherry picking those abilties that work best. 

 

I think you need to define you multiverse and then see what fits it. The work up what you need for a primary setting, and keep most of the other stuff rare. Otherwise you could have things fall apart quickly. A high level fighter in D&D might be tough but he can't stand up to a tank. So if you have a character who can stand up to a tank, it makes the high level fighter not such a big thing anymore.  So the more you mix stuff the more you have to decide how to keep all the players relevant to the game, and the more pitfalls you will need to watch out for.  

[RogerDee]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

It depends on just what you want to do with it and how you plan to approach it. You will need to decide what sort of limits you want to improve and how the various genres will interact. For instance can a powerful superhero who can survive a 100 story fall from a scraper in the comics do so in another setting? Or can a Batman or Daredevil type character actually dodge bullets? The thing when mixing settings and characters is that just what works in one setting doesn't in another. You wind up having to make a lot of decisions and judgment calls, and there ususally isn;'t a clear cut "right way" to go with things. For instance, can Excalibur cut Superman? How about a Lightsaber? Can a lightsaber cut through Excalibur? How about adamntium?  Is Stormbringer more powerful than the One Ring? There are no clear cut answers and it mostly boils down to interpretation and GM judgment calls.  But whatever way to decide to go with things expect there to be fallout in other areas. 

As far as the BGB goes, not all powers are equal. regardless of the point costs, and freely mixing them will lead to people eithing being outmatched or everybody cherry picking those abilties that work best. 

I think you need to define you multiverse and then see what fits it. The work up what you need for a primary setting, and keep most of the other stuff rare. Otherwise you could have things fall apart quickly. A high level fighter in D&D might be tough but he can't stand up to a tank. So if you have a character who can stand up to a tank, it makes the high level fighter not such a big thing anymore.  So the more you mix stuff the more you have to decide how to keep all the players relevant to the game, and the more pitfalls you will need to watch out for.  

Well Stormbringer pretty much cuts anything from what I recall, so I would not see an issue with it chopping the One Ring in half. Lightsaber, not so much. There was a time they cut anything, but in the EU (now non-canon) there was loads of stuff to counter it. Same for Adamantium from the original X-Men movies. It cut anything, but in Wolvie Origins it had trouble with katana's.

Anyway slight rant over. lol

Okay so the simple way to do it would be use some external sources, e.g: https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Lords_of_Order

In the end I decided that would be too easy. So in some ways it is part project, and thought exercise, in that I can only use D100 products (or as much as possible) to make the multiverse, but it can come from any source. However changing names is allowed.

So with that in mind I came to the idea is that ll of the settings, BRP, CoC, Mythras, etc are all part of the same multiverse. To start with I have used the planar denizen descriptions from Raiders of R'yleh, for simplicity, and kind of got this idea-

Outer gods:  Outer Monstrosities from Raiders

Higher Ones: Archetypal Spirits from Raiders

At this point each and every one of the products have their own gods from here downwards, and their own spatial dimensions.

So CoC has Old gods which consists of Elder gods, and Old Ones. It also has a second set which are not as powerful: Great Ones, and Lesser Ones (Earth gods). These Earth gods consist of Deiwos (Old Ones from Dark Ages), Jinn (Invictus) and Olympians (I cheated and used Lovecraft's fiction here).

BRP has their own elder gods in the Elohim from Val-Du-Loup, and their own lesser ones in the form of angels and demons. Although there is no reason celestials does not also include deities, as listed in the description.

What do you think so far?

 

Edited April 7, 2019 by RogerDee

[Atgxtg]

25 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

Well Stormbringer pretty much cuts anything from what I recall, so I would not see an issue with it chopping the One Ring in half.

Except Stormbringer couldn't harm a ward-pacted demon, and the One Ring is indestructible save from throwing it into Mount Doom. See the paradox?

25 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

Lightsaber, not so much. There was a time they cut anything, but in the EU (now non-canon) there was loads of stuff to counter it.

Yes but nothing forces you to use EU stuff. Lucas generally ingored it and Dsiney certiany won't pay attention it. 

25 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

Same for Adamantium from the original X-Men movies. It cut anything, but in Wolvie Origins it had trouble with katana's.

Yes and that touches upon what was metntioned earlier. Super great stuff is only super great untilone of the writers decides to give it a weakness.Like Captain America's shield, indestructable for decades, then it got detroyed, a few times. 

25 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

Okay so the simple way to do it would be use some external sources, e.g: https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Lords_of_Order

Not so simple. Sources will contradict each other and be changed. When I way young Marvel had firmly established that Captain America was at the peak of natural human strength. Then some time back they retconned that to slightly superhuman strength. And that's jkust with one soruce (Marvel Comics). Expand outwards from that and it gets even more convoulted, and you will have to decide how it all works every time you add something new. 

25 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

In the end I decided that would be too easy. So in some ways it is part project, and thought exercise, in that I can only use D100 products (or as much as possible) to make the multiverse, but it can come from any source. However changing names is allowed.

So with that in mind I came to the idea is that ll of the settings, BRP, CoC, Mythras, etc are all part of the same multiverse.....What do you think so far?

 

I think you got your work cut out for you. First off how will you handle characters crossing over from one game system to another? Do you convert all the PKs over to the new system or convert the new stuff to the same system the PKs are using. Either way you will have some system specific stuff to work out. Basically it highlight exactly why bringing in the multiverse to Elric would have been a bad idea for the core RPG. I think it much easier and probably better to bring in the alternate world gradually and deal with changes in small pieces so you can see how things work out and adapt along the way. 

 

With crossovers it is very easy for one character to completely overpower the characters in another setting and ruin it for the players and fans of that setting. If Elric kills Godzilla, destroys the One Ring, or Kill Darth Vader it will have major ramifications on those other settings and stories. The whole sage of the One Ring pretty much loses all of it's depth and importance if Elric pops up and chops it in half, or if Superman shows up at Minas Tirith, and it makes all the LOTR characters look like mooks. 

[RogerDee]

39 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Except Stormbringer couldn't harm a ward-pacted demon, and the One Ring is indestructible save from throwing it into Mount Doom. See the paradox?

Yes but nothing forces you to use EU stuff. Lucas generally ingored it and Dsiney certiany won't pay attention it. 

Yes and that touches upon what was metntioned earlier. Super great stuff is only super great untilone of the writers decides to give it a weakness.Like Captain America's shield, indestructable for decades, then it got detroyed, a few times. 

Not so simple. Sources will contradict each other and be changed. When I way young Marvel had firmly established that Captain America was at the peak of natural human strength. Then some time back they retconned that to slightly superhuman strength. And that's jkust with one soruce (Marvel Comics). Expand outwards from that and it gets even more convoulted, and you will have to decide how it all works every time you add something new. 

I think you got your work cut out for you. First off how will you handle characters crossing over from one game system to another? Do you convert all the PKs over to the new system or convert the new stuff to the same system the PKs are using. Either way you will have some system specific stuff to work out. Basically it highlight exactly why bringing in the multiverse to Elric would have been a bad idea for the core RPG. I think it much easier and probably better to bring in the alternate world gradually and deal with changes in small pieces so you can see how things work out and adapt along the way. 

 

With crossovers it is very easy for one character to completely overpower the characters in another setting and ruin it for the players and fans of that setting. If Elric kills Godzilla, destroys the One Ring, or Kill Darth Vader it will have major ramifications on those other settings and stories. The whole sage of the One Ring pretty much loses all of it's depth and importance if Elric pops up and chops it in half, or if Superman shows up at Minas Tirith, and it makes all the LOTR characters look like mooks. 

On tablet so replying to each point individually is tricky.

Now the Stormbringer issue is easy, can its inherent chaos overcome those of the local gods? Now RQII has bits that can help, honestly it doesn't matter. Is the universe one of order or chaos? If the latter, and the ring is not protected by a god or lord of chaos it can be hacked in half.

Now crossovers from other systems are not that hard. For instance BRP angels are around peak human, based on stats. But I would take principles, not the figures. This way you get a more narratively driven system.

Or convert everything to the multiverse system being used. But that would require using something a lot of BRP folk hate, traits. Which quite frankly you're going to need, primarily so you are not stuck when switching genres  e.g. arriving from a sword and sircery setting to a space opera.

As for dealing with other franchises, go watch youtube Batman vs Darth Vader, the alt version. If you have not already. That is a gd example. 

 

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, RogerDee said:

On tablet so replying to each point individually is tricky.

Now the Stormbringer issue is easy, can its inherent chaos overcome those of the local gods? Now RQII has bits that can help, honestly it doesn't matter. Is the universe one of order or chaos? If the latter, and the ring is not protected by a god or lord of chaos it can be hacked in half.

It's not so easy. Remember in LOTR not even dragon fire could destroy it so it is protected. The question is which one is more powerful, and also what is permitted on that plane of existence. . And that is where things get tricky. In several of the stories Stormbinger's power varies on different planes of existence. Plus you kinda mixing apples and oranges. 

2 hours ago, RogerDee said:

Now crossovers from other systems are not that hard. For instance BRP angels are around peak human, based on stats. But I would take principles, not the figures. This way you get a more narratively driven system.

Yes, but then it no longer BRP, is it? 

And honestly for what you seem to want to do here, something like a narrative, diceless RPG such as Amber, or Lords of Gossamer and Shadow might be a better fit. 

2 hours ago, RogerDee said:

Or convert everything to the multiverse system being used. But that would require using something a lot of BRP folk hate, traits. Which quite frankly you're going to need, primarily so you are not stuck when switching genres  e.g. arriving from a sword and sircery setting to a space opera.

It might not require traits, but they would help. BTW, Superworld had something along those lines, as do some other BRP related games. 

2 hours ago, RogerDee said:

As for dealing with other franchises, go watch youtube Batman vs Darth Vader, the alt version. If you have not already. That is a gd example. 

You seem to be missing the point. That is only ONE interpretation of how it could play out. Someone could easily do up a version where the outcome was completely different. It's hard to quantify thing objectively because there is little common ground or data to really work with. 

 

One key thing here is that it really boils down to how you decide to interpret things, and then you have to hope your players will accept that interpretation. You see with a standard multiverse, that isn't an issue because the author/GM gets to control all the other worlds. But with crossovers people already have an idea of the places they are going to and the characters you are using. 

[RogerDee]

11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

It's not so easy. Remember in LOTR not even dragon fire could destroy it so it is protected. The question is which one is more powerful, and also what is permitted on that plane of existence. . And that is where things get tricky. In several of the stories Stormbinger's power varies on different planes of existence. Plus you kinda mixing apples and oranges. 

Yes, but then it no longer BRP, is it? 

And honestly for what you seem to want to do here, something like a narrative, diceless RPG such as Amber, or Lords of Gossamer and Shadow might be a better fit. 

It might not require traits, but they would help. BTW, Superworld had something along those lines, as do some other BRP related games. 

You seem to be missing the point. That is only ONE interpretation of how it could play out. Someone could easily do up a version where the outcome was completely different. It's hard to quantify thing objectively because there is little common ground or data to really work with. 

 

One key thing here is that it really boils down to how you decide to interpret things, and then you have to hope your players will accept that interpretation. You see with a standard multiverse, that isn't an issue because the author/GM gets to control all the other worlds. But with crossovers people already have an idea of the places they are going to and the characters you are using. 

Okay on lunch and replying on tablet.

1. There is no apples or oranges, ermm..I meant spoon. I did mention about whether that realm is order, chaos or balance dominant. Quite frankly dragon fire is irrelevant, that is kind of like the Judge from Buffy that cannot be harmed by any weapon. At which point she shoots him with an RPG esque weapon. 

2. Correct, but that is one method.

3. Using LoG is my preferred multiverse engine game anyway, and all too easy. I want this to be a little bit of a challenge ya'know.

4. Traits I think will become necessary to add LoG elements, but keep the game sane. Otherwise we'd have Superman in Stars Wars or Star Trek in short order.

5. Crossovers. Dude I post primarily on Spacebattles, where SB in threads still happen, and other franchises are thrown into others just to screw with canon. We even did mechas in Stargate, just 'cos no one had ever done it. Putting franchises together and working outcomes out is what we do there. If you are not member go join. It is a hoot.

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, RogerDee said:

Okay on lunch and replying on tablet.

1. There is no apples or oranges, ermm..I meant spoon. I did mention about whether that realm is order, chaos or balance dominant. Quite frankly dragon fire is irrelevant, that is kind of like the Judge from Buffy that cannot be harmed by any weapon. At which point she shoots him with an RPG esque weapon. 

Actually it's quite revelant. What you have here are a lot of situations of unstoppable force meets immovable object. In LOTR a key element is that the One Ring could not be destroyed by any other means than by that which it was wrought. Now maybe Strombringer as a weapon forged to slay gods could destroy the ring, but maybe it isn't as powerful in Middle Earth as Sauron is, and thus his ring. THere are stories where Elric goes to another plane in the mutiverse and Stormbringer loses most or all of it's powers. Then, there is the matter of timing. Do the Lord of Law and Chaos exist during the time of Middle Earth,or does it happen before that, or even after they were all killed off?

That's why I brought up the apples and oranges thing\, and why the Strombringer issue isn't easy at all. The situation could be interpreted just about any way a GM wants to depending just how he decides to fit the various aspects of each setting together.  

Here is another example. Compare Superman with the Hulk. Which one is stronger? Now most people would probably say Superman, and when Superman was pre-crisis Superman this was pretty much shown to be true. But, in what part of the multiverse? Can someone be as strong as Superman in the Marvel Universe? Could the Hulk become stronger in the DC universe? 

And what about all the various Gods and entities that appear in these other universes? Are the the lord of law and chaos is in a different guise or something else entirely? So much is open to interpretation. 

For instance, I once came up with a Amber/Worlds of Darkness/Eternal Champion crossover. The core idea was that the Amberistes were the Lord of Law and the Courts of Chaos were the Lord of Chaos (the easy bit). World of Darkness' Umbra (Latin for Shadow) was actually a way of manipulating shadows in a Amber sense. Paradox wasn't really the result of a collective subconscious but an effect of the Pattern to restore the order within a give shadow. I originally came up with the idea based on an Old World of Darkness character  edition Mage character being transported into the New World of Darkness, and occasionally slipping up with his understanding of how things worked. But that's just one way of interpreting it and not the only way.

So think very carefully before assuming that "X: must work this way vs. "Y"

 

3 hours ago, RogerDee said:

3. Using LoG is my preferred multiverse engine game anyway, and all too easy. I want this to be a little bit of a challenge ya'know.

It will be. In fact you might be biting off more that you can chew. THere are a lot of pitfalls to watch out for. 

3 hours ago, RogerDee said:

4. Traits I think will become necessary to add LoG elements, but keep the game sane. Otherwise we'd have Superman in Stars Wars or Star Trek in short order.

I don't think traits would make a difference in either of those regards. A lot of this will come down to how to end up ranking the various powers and how they can interact with each other, how you define each setting in the mutliverse, and if you players will be happy with your interpretation. The crossovers will be the bits where things can really go wrong because fans of one over another might not be happy with your result.

For example, consider Elric vs Conan. Now in my view Elric pretty much outclasses Conan across the board in every category except physical strength, but Stormbringer compensates for that. Yet most Conan fans probably wouldn't agree.

3 hours ago, RogerDee said:

5. Crossovers. Dude I post primarily on Spacebattles, where SB in threads still happen, and other franchises are thrown into others just to screw with canon. We even did mechas in Stargate, just 'cos no one had ever done it. Putting franchises together and working outcomes out is what we do there. If you are not member go join. It is a hoot.

Yes, but it can be a major point of contention. There are some sites that "compare" Star Wars to Star Trek to "prove" that the ships Star Wars have better tech. Now they use real world math and physics to show the limits of Star Trek technology, but then conveniently ignore those same math and physics when dealing with ships Star Wars (i.e. if the hulls are of neutronium then whenever a ship crash lands on a planet it causes an extinction level event (just fly close to a planet might do it), and that Coruscant couldn't exist). 

[RogerDee]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

Actually it's quite revelant. What you have here are a lot of situations of unstoppable force meets immovable object. In LOTR a key element is that the One Ring could not be destroyed by any other means than by that which it was wrought. Now maybe Strombringer as a weapon forged to slay gods could destroy the ring, but maybe it isn't as powerful in Middle Earth as Sauron is, and thus his ring. THere are stories where Elric goes to another plane in the mutiverse and Stormbringer loses most or all of it's powers. Then, there is the matter of timing. Do the Lord of Law and Chaos exist during the time of Middle Earth,or does it happen before that, or even after they were all killed off?

That's why I brought up the apples and oranges thing\, and why the Strombringer issue isn't easy at all. The situation could be interpreted just about any way a GM wants to depending just how he decides to fit the various aspects of each setting together.  

I referred to whether Law or Chaos was dominant one or more posts back as to whether SB had any powers. Also immovable object vs unstoppable force; we're not playing friggin' Exalted. It is reasonably easy to resolve.....now if you wanted to make it complicated then we could go this route. Are the Valar Lords of Chaos or Order in disguise? Now that would really throw a cosmic monkey spanner in the old theories

Personally, i wouldn't go that route, and keep all the deities from each setting as being less powerful than the Lords of the Higher Worlds.

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

Here is another example. Compare Superman with the Hulk. Which one is stronger? Now most people would probably say Superman, and when Superman was pre-crisis Superman this was pretty much shown to be true. But, in what part of the multiverse? Can someone be as strong as Superman in the Marvel Universe? Could the Hulk become stronger in the DC universe? 

Now there are three Superman expy's in Marvel - one is Gladiator, Hyperion, and the last is Sentry. There were like all things Marvel different versions depending on the parallel world.

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

For example, consider Elric vs Conan. Now in my view Elric pretty much outclasses Conan across the board in every category except physical strength, but Stormbringer compensates for that. Yet most Conan fans probably wouldn't agree.

This actually happened in canon.

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

Yes, but it can be a major point of contention. There are some sites that "compare" Star Wars to Star Trek to "prove" that the ships Star Wars have better tech. Now they use real world math and physics to show the limits of Star Trek technology, but then conveniently ignore those same math and physics when dealing with ships Star Wars (i.e. if the hulls are of neutronium then whenever a ship crash lands on a planet it causes an extinction level event (just fly close to a planet might do it), and that Coruscant couldn't exist)

Real world physics is a rule on SB forums

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/attention-versus-forum-the-versus-forum-rules-guide-book-v1-0-has-arrived-read-it-now.431674/#VFR

I would direct you to rule 9. This does not mean people don't cherry pick facts, or evidence, but we do strive to ensure that we obey the rules, The staff are quite hot on this too, ensuring we members obey the rules. In fact you'll find the feat threads in Technical some of the best out there, we calc everything, and are constant pedants

 

Edited April 8, 2019 by RogerDee

[Atgxtg]

31 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

I referred to whether Law or Chaos was dominant one or more posts back as to whether SB had any powers. Also immovable object vs unstoppable force; we're not playing friggin' Exalted. It is reasonably easy to resolve.....now if you wanted to make it complicated then we could go this route. Are the Valar Lords of Chaos or Order in disguise? Now that would really throw a cosmic monkey spanner in the old theories

But the question is not if one of the other is dominant but if they even exist. And it's not so easy to resolve. There are times in the Elric books when Strobminger is not powerful, and there are times when the Lord of Law and Chos do not exist.

We also don't know if the deities in LOTR are more powerful than those of Moorcock. Considering that both the Young Kingdoms and Middle Earth are allegedagly both previous incarnation of our own Earth a case could even be made that Stormbringer is Melkior. 

31 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

Personally, i wouldn't go that route, and keep all the deities from each setting as being less powerful than the Lords of the Higher Worlds.

Which is a fine route. But again, even in Moorcock's own timeline there was a time before and after the Lord of Law and Chaos, and beings more powerful than either (or both) of them. One being wiped out all of the Lord of Law and Chaos. 

31 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

This actually happened in canon.

It's not "canon". Marvel comics are not a canonical part of either the Elric or Conan timelines. Likewise the Superman vs. Spiderman comic is not canon to either DC or Marvel,. It was a one shot.

I was aware of the comic however and it was brought that particular issue to mind. The whole thing plays out a particular way becuase the author (Roy Thomas if I remember) wanted the story to go a certain way. Now, as Marvel had a Conan n comic book series at the time, there was no way they would have let Elric just off him like a mook (or vice versa). That's the sort of thing you have to keep in mind here. Generally the goals of the writers, and needs of the parent companies, will dictate the outcome, despite the supposed rules of the setting.

 

31 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

Real world physics is a rule on SB forums

LOL! If you went by real world physics you couldn't use any of the ships. It's all cherry picking. If you didn't play fast and loose with real world physics 99%+ of sci-fi ships just don't work. The few that do work put sevre limits on a game. So you have to ignore a lot of real physics. The problem is the selection process. 

 

Case in point, one site went to great lengths to show the limits as to how powerful a Trek Photon torpedo could be based on the E=mc^2 formula. Now the math behind it was perfectly correct. But, their conclusion that Star Wars weapon was therefore much better as the listed energies levels were much higher than those of a photorp blatantly ignore the fact that the very same E=mc^2 formula would prevent such energy levels, or the fact that if Star Wars weapon were as powerful as listed, all those stray shots and near misses would devastate any planet that got caught in the crossfire. 

So it all turns into a case of which universes rules do you want to give a higher priorty to, and that decides the outcome. In RPGs it gets even more complicated because most RPGs tend to bend the rules of the source setting a bit too, so even one setting has multiple levels of rules. Case in point, Star Wars ships are supposed to be much faster than they are in any of the Star Wars RPGs. Liewise most Star Trek ships are supposed to be much slower that they actually have to be in order to run adventures, as otherwise it would take months or years to get from one adventure to the next.

[Atgxtg]

You know HeroQuest might not be a bad way for you to go either. It gives you some rules and crunch, like BRP, but is more free flowing and narrative, like a diceless RPG. It's much easer to mix genres too, since all you really need is a rating. 

[Nick J.]

I object y'honor! Just because some comic book guys mashed up Conan and Elric, dinnae make it canon!

[RogerDee]

7 minutes ago, Nick J. said:

I object y'honor! Just because some comic book guys mashed up Conan and Elric, dinnae make it canon!

D'know what is even worse? Arioch is a servant of Shuma-Gorath.

[RogerDee]

7 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

But the question is not if one of the other is dominant but if they even exist. And it's not so easy to resolve. There are times in the Elric books when Strobminger is not powerful, and there are times when the Lord of Law and Chos do not exist.

This is true. But if we're actually doing an multiverse Elric game, then we have to maintain the conceit that they do.

7 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

We also don't know if the deities in LOTR are more powerful than those of Moorcock. Considering that both the Young Kingdoms and Middle Earth are allegedagly both previous incarnation of our own Earth a case could even be made that Stormbringer is Melkior.

We know that in LoTR that the stars are not really stars. So we know as a fact that they are not more powerful. Feats from the series tell us this. Now if i was evil, as i am also including the Mythos I might make Eru, Nyarly or Azathoth.

10 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Which is a fine route. But again, even in Moorcock's own timeline there was a time before and after the Lord of Law and Chaos, and beings more powerful than either (or both) of them. One being wiped out all of the Lord of Law and Chaos. 

Also true. But Lords of Chaos or Order can be made.

12 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

LOL! If you went by real world physics you couldn't use any of the ships. It's all cherry picking. If you didn't play fast and loose with real world physics 99%+ of sci-fi ships just don't work. The few that do work put sevre limits on a game. So you have to ignore a lot of real physics. The problem is the selection process. 

This is actually false. Sure some of the stuff breaks physics, but that does not mean it all does. And what we can see, can calc'd. Star Trek may have lots of things that break physics, but we can still work out what shields can withstand, weapon output etc.

15 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Case in point, one site went to great lengths to show the limits as to how powerful a Trek Photon torpedo could be based on the E=mc^2 formula. Now the math behind it was perfectly correct. But, their conclusion that Star Wars weapon was therefore much better as the listed energies levels were much higher than those of a photorp blatantly ignore the fact that the very same E=mc^2 formula would prevent such energy levels, or the fact that if Star Wars weapon were as powerful as listed, all those stray shots and near misses would devastate any planet that got caught in the crossfire. 

This particular calculation you were talking was using EU Lore, so this statement is very much a misnomer, and somewhat of a strawman argument. EU Wars uses hypermatter, which is IIRC energy drawn from hyperspace, a.k.a zero-point energy. This put EU Wars as a Kardeshev III civilisation, Disney Wars is same as Trek - a K2 civ. Whereas EU Time Lords are a IV verging on a V. TV Time Lords are more-or-less a 3-4.

It all boils down to know your lore, and feats which you can use to interpret your outcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Atgxtg]

9 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

This is true. But if we're actually doing an multiverse Elric game, then we have to maintain the conceit that they do.

No you could have Middle Earth occur before the Lord of Law/Chaos or after they are destroyed. More likely the latter.

9 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

We know that in LoTR that the stars are not really stars.

How to you draw that conclusion?

9 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

So we know as a fact that they are not more powerful.

Or that?

9 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

Also true. But Lords of Chaos or Order can be made.

Yes, but what difference that that make to the game? All it tells us for sure if that the Lost Gods,  Kwll and Rhynn are much more powerful than the Lords of Law and Chaos. So any other God encountered could also be. 

9 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

This is actually false. Sure some of the stuff breaks physics, but that does not mean it all does.

But for your argument to be true, none of the stuff would break the laws of physics. Just one thing that doesn't conform requires you to throw out certain laws of physics and then you become selective.

9 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

And what we can see, can calc'd. Star Trek may have lots of things that break physics, but we can still work out what shields can withstand, weapon output etc.

Not really. It all cherry picking. The writers of all such series are inconsistent with their facts and For instance according to Star Trek TOS the shields can withstand the force of a thousand cobalt bombs. Also in TOS the Enterprise was vulnerable to atomic weapons when the shields were down. Now according to real world physics, photon torpedes are more powerful tan cobalt bombs. YEt there are cases where the Enterprise (in STVI) and other ships take unshielded hits from Photorps and are not obliterated, the crew don't get cooked, blades apart with overpressure and so forth. Whyt, because the writers wanted the tech to work one way for a particular story and a different way in another.  

So the laws of physics are even constituent within one setting. 

9 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

This particular calculation you were talking was using EU Lore

Ah no. It based on real world physics. E=mc^2 means that the total energy an object can contain is based on it's mass. Actually, , what it really means is that mass and gravity are properties of energy but that more complex that we need here. 

The relevant point is that, according to the laws of physics, for an object of a given mass there is a maximum amount of energy your can get out of it. Period. Any Sci-Fi ship that gets more than that is breaking the laws of physics (as we know them), and that means being subjective in which laws you with to enforce. And once you do that, you are comparing apples and oranges because you're not operating by the same rules.

It's like have a baseball team play a game against a football team. Both are games, both played by teams, both keep score, both involve people running around a field, both involve people throwing and catching a ball, but they operate under fundamentally different rules.

Now if you want to try and judge such a game you have to dice which rules to use and which to discard, for every point of conflict that crops up. So it ends up being less about the settings and more about the preferences and biases of the one making the decisions. And it becomes more so the less the two setting have in common. You can't prove anything becuase you don't have a common set of rules to use to prove your points. It all arbitrary.

 

That's not to say that GM can't do that, only that any conclusions drawn are subjective and not valid proof of one over the over. 

[Atgxtg]

59 minutes ago, Nick J. said:

I object y'honor! Just because some comic book guys mashed up Conan and Elric, dinnae make it canon!

Objection Sustained!

[RogerDee]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

No you could have Middle Earth occur before the Lord of Law/Chaos or after they are destroyed. More likely the latter.

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

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

How to you draw that conclusion?

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

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

 So any other God encountered could also be. 

True, but for this to work, again we need to have some conceits. If anything, Moorcock's cosmology is paralleled in current DC Cosmology, with the Sphere of the Gods. There are tiers and levels, but essentially, ranks within the Lords of the Higher Worlds.

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

And what we can see, can calc'd. Star Trek may have lots of things that break physics, but we can still work out what shields can withstand, weapon output etc.

This is a strawman argument, yet again. At this minute you're hitting the straw donkey with a stick and getting the odd sweet. But as a whole, you keep missing the mark. And the reason for it is - 

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.

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. 

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

The writers of all such series are inconsistent with their facts and For instance according to Star Trek TOS the shields can withstand the force of a thousand cobalt bombs

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

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

Now according to real world physics, photon torpedes are more powerful tan cobalt bombs.

Right this is another issue you're having. What is a cobalt bomb, and what is its yield? If its output is that of a gas fire, then yeah a photon torpedo has better yield. We can also calculate the output of a photon torpedo due to the amount of matter and anti-matter in a given warhead. We can draw this conclusion from various other canon sources. Thus we build a more complete picture of the setting and its capabilities.

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.

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

Ah no. It based on real world physics. E=mc^2 means that the total energy an object can contain is based on it's mass. Actually, , what it really means is that mass and gravity are properties of energy but that more complex that we need here. 

The relevant point is that, according to the laws of physics, for an object of a given mass there is a maximum amount of energy your can get out of it. Period. Any Sci-Fi ship that gets more than that is breaking the laws of physics (as we know them), and that means being subjective in which laws you with to enforce. And once you do that, you are comparing apples and oranges because you're not operating by the same rules.

It's like have a baseball team play a game against a football team. Both are games, both played by teams, both keep score, both involve people running around a field, both involve people throwing and catching a ball, but they operate under fundamentally different rules.

Now if you want to try and judge such a game you have to dice which rules to use and which to discard, for every point of conflict that crops up. So it ends up being less about the settings and more about the preferences and biases of the one making the decisions. And it becomes more so the less the two setting have in common. You can't prove anything becuase you don't have a common set of rules to use to prove your points. It all arbitrary.

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.

 

Edited April 8, 2019 by RogerDee