/tg/ - Traditional Games

while i do share your sentiment, i still wish for magic on my games, but i rarely play a spellcaster

I'm honestly tired of the definition of the fantasy genre. It makes me sad that a word as vague as "fantasy" has all these rules to it. Elves, dwarves, dragons, kingdoms, middle ages Europe, magic. Shouldn't "fantasy" be more than that?

I really don't like magic. I don't like problems being fixed with a hand-wave. I like problems, I can relate to problems. Tell me a story about a guy with no arms who lives at the bottom of a well and has to shimmy his way up a rope every morning with his teeth and his knees so that he can have his weetabix, and I'll say, "Eh, sounds about right."

I enjoy my medieval fantasy rpg's I also enjoy it much more when casters, magic, and gods are not at the forefront of anything.

I have run entire campaigns with no spell casters, and the wizards seen in the game were more or less wise old men who had known secrets, chemistry, and some good old dirty tricks. Characters still believed in gods of all kinds, and pray as they like no one ever received a divine bump.

It was a lot of fun but it isn't for everyone.

>>19374477

by definition, fantasy is fiction, isn't it?

I wish the one guy in my group would stop trying to magic up everything in otherwise low-fantasy settings.

And it's always the same magical-girl-waifu-faggotry.

>>19374435
Why don't you just play a different RPG then? It sounds like you're whining for no reason. Play a game without magic in it. Problem solved.

>>19374693

Like what? There's magic in Riddle of Steel. There's magic in Call of Cthulhu, there's magic in Rogue Trader, There's magic in Vampire the Masquerde.

What the hell can I play?

>>19374649
I like your style, friend.

I agree, OP. Magic is cool and shit, but I've always found political and social machinations to be more entertaining and plot twisting. Saying "the BBEG is actually, also, the baroness secret lover we've been trying to uncover all along" is much better than "You fools, he was shapechanging all along"

Game of Thrones, and Conn Igulden's books all the way!

>>19374733
Spirit of the Century, Cosmic Patrol, Battletech, there's plenty out there.

>>19374663
Yes, yes it is. But nearly all fantasy RPGs/Movies/novels are pretty much the same. Elves love trees, Dwarves dig for shit, Dragons generally fuck things up. I'm not saying it's bad, but it'd be nice to see something different.
Also, if you want an actual definition: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fantasy

>>19374733
d20 modern has some rules, in the d20 past book I think, for playing realistic campaigns without magic. just the d20 modern book, plus players handbook for weapons and stuff, would make for a good no-magic setting. The base classes and advanced classes are flexible, and it wouldn't take much to refluff them for a medieval setting, or whatever your poison is.

>>19374751

Cosmic patrol has FTL so that's magic

Spirit of the century has pulpy mad science. That's magic too.

I don't know enough about battletech to refute it though.

>>19374733
Isn't magic in Riddle of Steel rather dangerous and can easily be left out?
Also The Dark Eye, which although it has magic in it, too, is damn easy to run a magic less campaign
WFRPG works probably too

Just leave out the shit you don't want, it's not hard

Personally, as I've been worldbuilding and getting caught up in the details of, well... the world... I've grown less and less fond of the idea of including magic in it.

On the one hand, thinking up a magic system is neat. On the other hand, it also interferes with things like economies and cultures and whatnot.

>>19374806

well to be honest, cliche exist because it works

when a cliche is violated, like the elves in hellboy golden army movie, shit get under the bus pretty fast, altough i like it personally

but you can say that those are also a cliche, elven assholes think that human is just a fodder

lets see, what "fantasy" works of fiction that defies the norm? because my lit-fu is weak, i cannot give you much example other than dwarven beardless bard in DA2

>>19374733
All Flesh Must Be Eaten is often played without any magic or divine content. There are rules for it, but of the four games I've played no one has ever used supernatural stuff. There isn't any magic in the Serenity and Battlestar Galactica RPGs, and they're also quite down-to-earth and brutal in tone, which seems like something you'd appreciate. There are a few post-apocalyptic survival games you'd probably like, but I don't remember their names. You could run a magic-less game with GURPS or Hero.

Magic is not mutually exclusive with good storytelling. Fuck, people.

Magic is just the utilization of the laws of the universe through different means. For someone to use a spell, they have to fundamentally understand what that spell is actually doing! Like Mage Hand: to use it the caster has to know how to project the force of his body in such a way that he can manipulate objects at a distance.

Also, magic is limited by the willpower of the caster, which is to say that there are some things you CANNOT do without going insane, or simply ceasing to exist.

If your dm would put effort into it, s/he could come up with magic that isn't boring or anathema to compelling storylines.

>>19374435
Wait so, are you giving Song of Ice and Fire as an example of magic and wonder bullshit tacked on, or an example of a setting which is mostly just people stabbing each other, or what? I'm a little confused by the addition of that picture to a post which mostly seems to be levelling complaints at Lord of the Rings.

>>19374893

Well the first thing that comes to my mind, I'd say Shadow of the Colossus defies a lot of the expectations of fantasy.

>>19374733
play battletech

>>19374844
There is FTL in BattleTech, but if you're going to seriously insist that we can't have that in a SciFi setting, then we're throwing most of them out.

>tired of fantasy in fantasy
...what?

Go play World of Darkness without any of the supernaturals.

>>19374924

The picture is added because I don't like the direction ASoIaF is going. At the beginning, magic was dead but as the series goes on things just keep getting more magical and I hate it.

I wonder if I'm the only one who went "Oh fuck, Dany has dragons now. Shit." in stead of "Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"

>>19374938
This. The system doesn't matter at all, play a campaign without magic using whatever rpg you like at best. Problem solved.

>>19374914

indeed, good storytelling is a cause, not an effect

magic is a tool for story telling, some people don't like to use tool x and prefer y, so ultimately, what we are trying to discuss here is pure subjectivity, which is the spirit that OP wants to introduce

now, i guess OP wants an anti-cliche on fantasy setting, like a dwarf who likes to farm and grow flowers, or an elf who own a multinational ore mining group

>>19374937
ftl is not magic, though. you can't solve any problem by it's application, you can only solve two problems: travel between stars, communication between stars. sure it's improbable and not explained, but it doesn't really fit op's complaint.

>>19374937

I will insist on no FTL sir. I like my universe with causality, thank you kindly.

>>19374927

while the colossus might need some work to be not utterly clunky and slow, yes, its a very different theme

no farming, no questing, just climb giants and fuck them sideways

I don't know about games, but in fantasy books I love magic. I hated Game of Thrones because there was none (and nothing interesting at all, really, but that is not the point of this post). I love the series Tales From the Malazan Book of the Fallen because there is a shit load of magic, and gods, and ascendents, and tons of other interesting shit.

Really magic is just another way to stab someone.

But like I said, I don't know if the book to game translation means anything.

>>19374973
You could read some historical fiction, like Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas or Sinuhe Egyptian by Mika Waltari.

>>19374978

The instant you have FTL, you have time travel too. It's magic, and it solves everything.

>>19374988
disregard causality, acquire battlemechs

>>19374978
So by your logic any well-designed magic system that operates on rules isn't magic?

>>19375011
oh sure. i know the physics, but BTU says nope. so there.

>>19374733
>He only knows about 4 RPGs
Pftahahaha.

>>19375007
Also, Baudolino by Umberto Eco.

>>19374477
Read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, China Mieville, Ursula Le Guin, etc, etc.

>>19374733
Play Legend of Anglerre or Riddle of Steel or whatever the fuck and don't use the magic section.

>>19375017
not what i'm saying. FTL in battletech is more a vehicle for the existence of the universe, not a catch-all solution or a pervasive force in the storytelling. it's background, and a capability of the people in the setting, not something that ruins the illusion if gritty reality like the OP complains about.

>>19374978
ftl implies time travel, dumbass.

Ultimately if you want more of a focus on political intrigue, bring it up with your GM and I'm sure he'll make some changes.

Unless you're a whiny douchebag, in which case, light your crotch on fire and kill yourself.

>>19375004
>Game of Thrones
>No magic
What are you talking about?
Sure, there's no Wizards in the Seven Kingdoms, but there is certainly magic.

>>19375033
Also Reign, although you won't want to use Reign's default setting.

>>19375011
Research some Battletech, the come back. It works out despite our common sense regarding the laws of physics.

It's not entirely FTL in as much as you have a very, very limited Alcubierre drive.

Furthermore, there are alternatives, you just need a little elbow grease. If you want someone to know exactly what you want and give it to you, that's a little too much to expect from any publisher.

>>19375011

How exactly does magic solve everything?

>>19375050
as i said already, i know that. i know i know. in the BTU, ships disappear and reappear instantly. the houses have tried shenanigans resulting from the FTL but that usually doesn't go very well.

>>19375067

Because you can go back to yesterday and tell yourself something and with that in mind tell yourseld something else when you go back in time again.

>>19375119
Not all magic is time travel.

And if we're talking about FTL, most settings don't allow you to go back in time using it.

Low magic to "magic doesn't exist anymore" tiers are amazing. The best campaign I've ever had as been in a world where it doesn't exist.

proposed homebrew rules for D&D:
>wizards MUST speacilize in one school and they may ONLY recieve spells from that school
>wizards get ONE spell per level

Ran a game without magic. Problem solved. Is it really that hard?

Saging because OP is a dumbass. If you don't like how the game is going, talk to your DM. If that doesn't work, run your own game that's all SRS AND GRITTY LOL

>>19375053
Yeah. Two different guys set their swords on fire.

I know thieves world had a more ritualistic magic system but I don't know the rules

>>19375125
>And if we're talking about FTL, most settings don't allow you to go back in time using it.
Then those settings are wrong. FTL is time travel.

>>19375119
>>19375119
What? Since when? What setting have you been playing?

>>19375155
ALL THINGS THAT EXIST IN REAL LIFE MUST EXIST IN FICTIONAL FANTASY GAMES, IN FACT NO ELVES FOR YOU, YOU PLAY HUMAN COMMONER LEVEL ONE, YOU WORK A DESKJOB UNTIL YOU DIE FROM BIOLOGICAL FAILURE, THEN YOU GO TO NON-EXISTENT AFTERLIFE TILL END OF UNIVERSE! REALISM AWWWWW YEAHHH

>>19375119
see
>>19375125
>>19375077

In BTU, people have tried to game that whole FTL-time-dickery thing- and it didn't work.

Comparing lightspeed communication and travel to the limited FTL is like saying, "It takes a messenger five days to cross these mountains, but with this roadway and tunnel he can do it in one. He can go and tell people things before anyone else. Therefore it's time travel.

Short version: Transposition along the temporal axis is provably nonfunctional in the BTU universe, your argument is invalid.

>>19375143
And the Dragons.
And all of the spell forged swords everyone has.
And the Others coming from the North.
And the eyes in the godswoods that can literally see, as well as pretty much everything the Children can do.
And the whole direwolf/Stark children thing.

>>19375155
FTL doesn't work in real life at all, so anything using it is already 'wrong'.

>>19375189
>
Comparing lightspeed communication and travel to the limited FTL is like saying, "It takes a messenger five days to cross these mountains, but with this roadway and tunnel he can do it in one. He can go and tell people things before anyone else. Therefore it's time travel.
FTL is like a road that takes him -1 days to cross the mountains, actually.

I like magic and supernatural and all the fantasy shit.

I just don't like when it's trivialized. And if all the crazy stuff is trivialized in-setting, then the consequences should be apparent.

>>19375189
Existence is moving along the temporal axis, at one second per second.
FTL is moving along the temporal axis backwards, so if that's possible, by definition you can't have FTL.

>>19375155
Maybe I should have payed more attention in science class but that sounds like bullshit to me. We can't even get anywhere near light speed so how did scientists get the evidence to prove that?

>>19375189
No FTL = No Fun.

On the other hand, as I posted this >>19374682 I've come to dislike setting elements thrown into sci fi settings to attract non-sci-fi fans. AKA Psionics to appeal to wizard-types etc. It makes it that much harder to wean the entrenched magefag from the same old shit, and gives them incentive to dig their heels in when presented with a setting that doesn't cater to their particular brand of crap.

>>19375212
Except it doesn't work that way.

>Temporal transposition is provably nonfunctional.

I don't know how much clearer I can get. Despite the physical laws, there is a difference between what's possible and what's doable. The limited drives in BTU cannot move through the time axis of spacetime. Period.

You can fly, but you can't do it by snapping your fingers.

Or are you being arbitrarily difficult?

>>19375274
As you move closer to c, time slows down.

If you are moving exactly at c, you are frozen in time.

If you are moving faster than c, you are travelling backwards in time.

>>19375237
the speed of light is the maximum speed information can go, like the clock speed of the universe. going faster is like doing a calculation, then taking the result and putting it in before hand. in fact, you can do just that with FTL: have computers that solve infinite calculations in zero time.

or from another perspective, time and space are the same thing. going faster in one means going slower in the other, and lightspeed is the speed limit. going over that in space means going in the negative direction in time.

>>19375285

IF YOU ARE MOVING FASTER THAN C, RELATIVITY NO LONGER HOLDS, AND THE *VERY MATH YOU'RE USING TO TRY AND SAY YOU'D GO BACK IN TIME*, HAS CEASED TO APPLY.

>>19375285
Only relative to everything else. Time dilation is relative, like most effects.
We can't prove that the dilation effect will continue increasing past c anyway.

Also that's not how FTL works in BTU anyway, it isn't physically going faster than light, its merely arriving quicker than light. It's Jump travel, not Warp.

>Faster Than Light Travel = Magic = Time Travel
>mfw
Are you people seriously THAT fucking unpleasable? The only time I've ever seen FTL used with time travel is Star Trek.

And to say things like FTL or pulp super-science are magic is the biggest load of horse shit I've ever fucking heard. Magic, when done wrong, is basically wand wavium to fix all problems with no consequences. FTL basically lets you go from point A to point Z^34 in a short period of time, but it doesn't solve everything. Pulp super-science just lets you build crazy cool shit, but I've never seen it used as an "instant fix" button before.

If you're seriously going to tell me that FTL and super-science are the same as magic and thus anything involving them is automatically disqualified then just go play Mouseguard and be happy. Sheesh.

>>19375274
Yes. Or in other words you can't go faster than the speed of light.
Or does the aether exist in BTU?

OP, here's the thing: you could play many, many RPGs that nominally include magic and just take the magic out. What's more, there are plenty of games and settings where doing so wouldn't change much. The fact that you haven't already done this instead of coming here and shitposting about it inclines me to believe you just want to complain. You could just play the Song of Fire and Ice RPG as though magic had left the world. There isn't much magic still in the core setting anyway. You could take the psychic powers out of Eclipse Phase and it would have no impact. You could play a game of All Flesh Must Be Eaten without any of the inspiration powers and it'd still be the same game. You could play a Fudge system game like Spirit of the Century without any magic. Why are you bitching about this non-problem here? And there are games that don't nominally demand that you have magic in them. Serentiy, GURPS, and Hero are examples.

>>19375340
Any FTL travel through 'normal' space would involve traveling backwards through time.

Which is part of the reason why it's impossible.

>>19375340
It's used in the Superman movie too, but I'm not sure if that's trollphysics due to the earth's rotation, or trollphysics due to misapplied relativity.

Personally, I'm tired of fantasy as well. Personally, I like science fiction as a genre better than fantasy, but it took fucking forever to get my friends to try Traveller, and even then they complain.

I mean, shit. It doesn't even occur to them that I could be tired of running fantasy, and when I say that they don't get why.

Maybe I don't want to look at the party and see a fucking dragon, drow, and some other character that is way the fuck out there- maybe I want to run a game with regular people, fighting regular people.

>>19375311
Uh, okay. But you didn't answer my actual question. Since we can't reach anywhere near light speed in real life, how did scientists test and prove that theory?

>>19375274
>The limited drives in BTU cannot move through the time axis of spacetime. Period.
ordinary chemical rockets and their crews move through the time axis of spacetime. everything that exists in spacetime, moves through spacetime, period.

>>19374973

All of my rage.

First scene of episode 1. White walkers seen.

PROLOGUE of A Game of Thrones. The Others are seen.

The direction ASoIaF is taking right now started the moment you open the fucking book.

10/10, would rage again

>>19374435

What you're experiencing is not strictly a problem with the game or the setting, but with one player's desire to be a horrendously obvious mary sue (though in his mind he just wants to be all-powerful and ub3r l33t pwn4ge h4xx0rz, the sue connection does not exist in his brain), and your Game Master's decision to allow it.

>>19375381
it's called relativity, you may have heard of it. It's been tested with gravitational sensors in satellites most recently, and lasers in the past.

What does time travel have to do with it? Well, we know relativity is a fact, so if you plug in speeds faster than lightspeed into the equations, you get speeds backwards in time.

>>19375285
>>19375311
>>19375318
>>19375328
>>19375340
>>19375345

Only one person in this string of posts actually gets it. The way FTL works in BTU is that a ship spends several days chargins fuckhuge capacitors, lines up, and WHAM. Jump. It disappears from one location and appears in another, pretty much wormhole-style.

The physical velocity is nowhere near C, let alone in excess of it. You warp space so the locations aren't actually that far apart, then you cross said bridged distance.

May I repeat: At no point do you approach the speed of light, and at no point do you reverse your position along the time axis of the universe!

>>19375427
We don't know if Relativity holds at superliminal speeds. There's no way to check.
We know it works for everything short of that, and for light, but we can't verify anything above light speed for obvious reasons.

>>19375430
Space-warping still violates causality, and is still time travel, if at any point moves instantly, or faster than c.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. You can have all-knowing oracle AIs that spout the answer to any question in perfect documented detail, computers that give answers instantly but have to be guarded for the time it would take them to calculate it, lest the prophecy fail, etc. Time travel is a great plot device.

ITT: Sperglords sperg lordfully.

>>19375467
How does warping space violate causality?

Ok, if FTL travel is magic and dragons are magic then everything in roleplaying games are magic. Hell, Die Hard movies are magic because how else does Bruce Willis take so many punches and thwacks to the head yet stays standing. The problem sounds less like the magic in the system but the way magic is being used in the system AND your inability to roleplay a character in a different universe. So, either take some acting classes or find a game where the "other than our own world elements" fit.

>>19375430

You are still breaking causality. You are traveling faster then light not when you reach speed C and beyond, but when you mess with light-like intervals.

But I highly doubt you even have enough physics to mess with it, so to make it short: YES, what you are talking about is magic

>>19375439

No. Go study physics.

>>19374973
Every time the mother of face Caterpillars is on screen Act-ing is a downer moment for that show.

Her getting dragons was, foreshadowed a few times in the books. And the way that the series is going the fact that dragons are back in the world kind of ushered in a new age of magic.

>>19375427
>Well, we know relativity is a fact
We know that relativity is a fact under the circumstances where we can prove it. Outside said circumstances it is still a theory.
And it wouldn't be the first theory to eventually tumble, history can easily tell you that.

>>19375381
Because the only definition of past and future that makes sense in a world with relativistic spacetime (past = all events which could affect you, future = all events which you could affect) means that if you could go faster than the speed of light, you could enter your past. All sorts of experiments have been done showing we're in a relativistic universe. As going back in time violates causality, and scientists like causality, they're reasonably sure you can't go faster than light.

Think of it as like there being two balls and three cups. One is labelled "Relativity", one is labelled "No Time Travel", and one is labeled "FTL". The experiments that have been done show there is a ball under the cup labelled "Relativity", so we know the other ball is either under "FTL" or "No Time Travel". If it's under FTL, then you know it's not under "No Time Travel", and a double negative cancels out, so if there is FTL there is time travel.
I hope you understand what a ball is and what a cup is.

>>19375525
>theory
I don't think it means what you think it means.

Now go back and study physics and science, please. You have no idea what you are splurging about

>>19375490
if from any perspective, you go faster than c, you violate causality. no excuses, no loopholes.

But guys, I know physicists and they have stated there is nothing inherent in the universe that prevents travelling backwards in time. So, if we can potentially do it in our universe, it isn't magic.

>>19375430
Yeah, we get it. It's just that one guy being deliberately obtuse.

>>19375578
What Causality-anon is claiming is that, if you have a fictional universe where there is FTL but no time travel, then the FTL is magic, because in our universe FTL implies time travel.

>>19375547
Must we argue semantics?
The fact is, no matter how often you tell me to accept something as a fact that isn't completely proven, it doesn't get any more of a fact. Pretentious assholes like you that thought they had IT completely figured out have existed for millenia. And sadly will continue to exist for millenia. But as they will emerge time and time again, they will also time and time again eventually find that they actually -were- wrong about IT. Because there are things that still elude our grasp, no matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise.
That is what history tells us. With undeniable prove. I know that you don't want to see it. But this is actually a fact.

>>19375547
Or you could explain to him what the word theory means. But saying "outside of those circumstances it's a theory" is so laughable.

Other way around... seriously, other way around. In those circumstances it is THE theory. Outside of those circumstances it does not apply. That is how a theory works.

CITIZENS OF /TG/. THE LOCAL INQUISITOR IS ATTEMPTING TO FIND THE CHARACTER PDF's. THIS THREAD CAN GO NOWHERE UNLESS YOU ARE ABLE TO PROVIDE SOME HINT OF WHERE THEY ARE.

THIS IS A BOARD WIDE LOCKDOWN. IT ENDS WHEN THE CHARACTER PDFS ARE FOUND. PLEASE HELP US LOOK

>>19375467
>you broach one law
>therefore you must have supermagitek

You have flight, therefore you must have flying cities.

You have have computers, therefore you must have Deep Blue conquering the world.

You have Asperger's Syndrome, therefore you must be a massive, raging niggerfaggot about every game.

Peace, I'm out.

>>19375564
Which would be an awesome thing to say, if we had any evidence for that whatsoever. Which we don't. In fact, it's trivially easy to conjure up scenarios that work just fine, like two objects traveling at 2/3c in opposite directions. Relative to one another, they're going at 4/3c. PIME TARADOX!

Also, call me back when you've reconciled with quantum mechanics.

>>19375612
Or there is a luminiferous aether, that is, an actual medium through which light is moving. That would radically alter how electricity and magnetism work, though.

Why is everybody talking about magic or the lack of it? Seems to me OP is saying he's tired of fantasy in general, not just the magic.

Are there no good historical RPGs? Modern-day RPGs? Those would be the obvious answer. If there really are none, I'd suggest near-future/post-apocalyptic stuff that avoids any handwavey technology.

>>19375639
>In fact, it's trivially easy to conjure up scenarios that work just fine, like two objects traveling at 2/3c in opposite directions
Oh, I get it. This is the human ritual known as trolling.

>>19375596

It's more than one guy, and you are all wrong.

Let's you can create a magical door that opens between your house and another planet in a distant star. We can call it whatever you want.

So you are warping space. Fine. And you decide you take a stroll. Your speed is way way way less than C, but you managed to cover great distance when you cross the door.

This event right here violates causality. Because information of what happens on that star can only reach earth in about X amount of years, but to you that happens before. You are technically traveling through time.

>>19375639
>it's trivially easy to conjure up scenarios that work just fine, like two objects traveling at 2/3c in opposite directions. relative to one another, they're going at 4/3c.

Sigh. This is exactly what relativity is about man, you're just showing your ass. Relative to each other, they'd be going about 3/4c. If they were each .99c, then relative to each other, they'd be going about .99999c, and so on.

>>19375613

It's not semantics.

And you have no clue what you are talking about. The theory of relativity is not something that could be wrong in the future. Just like green in a million years will still be green. Just like people in ancient Greece thought that water was wet and fire burns.

Relativity is another innate aspect of our universe, and you have no idea what THEORY means.

What you are talking about is HYPOTHESIS.

>>19375688
Let's assume this door cannot be closed; it will now link the house and the distant planet forever.

How can the door be used to exploit time travel and create, say, a computer that can solve difficult problems in no time at all.

>>19374973
I won't deny its a nice change of pace compared to everyone and their brother ripping off the "Age of Mortals" horse shit where anything magical goes away with your writer runs out of ideas and feels like rehashing the same old metaphors, though I dislike how its applied.

I read/watch/play fantasy to escape from the "mundane" world, not watch a world with magic turn into yet another mundane world.

>>19375688
Wouldn't information traveling through space technically go the long way around? I mean, what's the difference between that and if you cast a spell which increased the distance to a location if you exited through any point except the door?

>>19375728
>The theory of relativity is not something that could be wrong in the future
Wut. What level do you study science at?

>>19375688
>walk into this thread
>what the shit is going on here

1. Go look at how JumpShips work in Battletech.
2. Tell me what would happen.

The important bits are, shit orbits star for a week, ship gathers energy, ship makes a jump and arrives before the visual image of it making the jump does.

What happens?

>>19375688
And you can -prove- that the universe can't possibly process information faster than light how?
Oh yes that's right you can't.
You just -think- it can't. Because you derive that from other observations you made you can actually prove. But for the matter at hand there is no proof.
So actually it could be that everything works completely different from the way you think it does and just coincidentally rhymes with your theory in the places where you can actually prove it. It's not like that hasn't ever happened in science before. OH WAIT.

tl;dr go fuck yourself until you have travelled over the speed of light and thus prove of what you THINK is a fact.

Magic works when it's integrated into the setting rather than just slapped on to it. Also when magic is more of a learned thing that requires great skill and effort, rather than just a natural talent.

>>19375688
so like this.
1. earth end of 2012 ->instant travel warp gate-> arrive at star in 2011, because it's instant travel
2. fly back normally, arrive at earth beginning of 2012
3. hold conversations with yourself who no longer needs to go through the gate, since you already have, repeat the process to spawn more clones, clones manipulate the stock market with future knowledge, etc

>>19375728
>and you have no idea what THEORY means.
>What you are talking about is HYPOTHESIS.
This is actually arguing semantics

>The theory of relativity is not something that could be wrong in the future
and this is bullshit

>>19375766
>>19375731
see
>>19375788

>>19375688

That is not Information, that is Knowledge. And you've just opened the path for philosophers to come barging in and change the question.

>>19375731

OK. Assume that the star X of planet X-eria emits a single photon traveling in the direction of our star Sol and is caught by a telescope in beloved Terra. This is information and can be whatever, a radio signal or what have you. Anthing that can be used as information.

Now, you have a magical door in your backyard and you observed the event in X-eria. Let's say it's the ending of X-eria's Female Single Lawyer, a popular show in X years later that is transmited from X-eria.

You have the knowledge now. You know what will happen in the show and you can use this information as you wish.

>>19375688

No he's not, the information that's reaching earth is just outdated by X years.

>>19375797

Nice PhD in Physics you have there, Anon. It seems that you do know what you are talking about.

>>19375788
>>19375804
>leave 2012, arrive at star in 2011, because it's instant travel

wat

>>19375839
The matter of deluded "I have it completely figured out" physicist has already been treated accordingly in this thread so I am not even going to bother.

>>19375816
Okay. You now have that information earlier than you would have had it if you had needed to wait for it to traverse the distance without a gate.

How does that help you create an infinitely fast computer, or travel into Earth's past?

>>19375839
Well, Relativity could be proved wrong. That's why we have Special Relativity, regular old normal relativity didn't totally work right.
In 20 years we might have a Theory of Special Snowflake Relativity.

>>19375880
>http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.articles/1991/TempComp.html

>>19375867
The star is a year away. Going there instantly is going to a year in the past.

>>19375839
No way of knowing whether that's true, but if so I'm confused. I was under the impression that the religious caricature of scientists was that they thought they knew everything, but that real scientists were always the first to say that what they have describes the way the universe works but is always open to revision when new data comes in. I mean, that's what makes science science, no?

Or is it something special about Relativity that makes it somehow absolutely true and immune to revision?

>>19375933
>Going there instantly is going to a year in the past.
You have done that, yes?
You have undeniable proof that the universe can't possibly, under the right circumstances process information faster than light, yes?

>>19375962
Maybe it could. We don't know if it can, but we do know that processing information faster than light is mathematically equal to time travel. By definition. hence this thread, full of people talking about how FTL is time travel.

>>19375962

Anon. You don't understand. You probably don't have the physics background to understand. You probably never took STR or GTR or Quantum Physics.

>>19375933
Could you provide a quick explanation of how you would use the gate for infinitely fast computing, for those of us who want a quick answer?

>>19375996
No I didn't but I do know that an actual scientist (and believe me I had enough contact with academics, even from the field of physics to know that) wouldn't be so cocksure about anything and would admit that there is a chance, however slim, that a 'proven' theory could be wrong.
Honestly you sound like someone who just made a bachelor in physics, or maybe even is just on the road there.

>>19376005
ok. computing takes time, right? programs are divided up into tiny tiny slices of time. to get (1+1)*2 takes two steps: add and multiply. imagine each step takes 1 second.
with time travel, you can take negative time to do things.
so you add one plus one, that's one step, 1 second. go back in time 1 second to the beginning at 0 seconds with the solution, the problem is "now" 2*2. do that, go back to the beginning at 0 seconds, the problem is complete. since the problem is "now" complete, you never have to do it because you've "always" had the solution.

>>19376028
>>19376028

Masters. But that's not important.

The thing about relativity is that you can't "disprove" it. You can work around it and eventually have FTL (which is possible and I never said it would). But to give you an example how intrinsic GTR is, it would be like trying to disprove that water is wet. It's something that IS. It's like saying something Green is Red.

>>19376139
I understand how time travel enables infinitely fast computing, I just don't understand how you could use the gate to do this.

Imma try to cut through the physics and ask again: are there actually any historical/modern real world RPGs? I really think that's what OP's after, and this thread seems to have started on one diversion by talking about magic in fantasy worlds and then gone off on another about ftl and time travel.

>>19376167
The instant-gate goes backwards in time. The distance it goes backwards in time (e.g. 1 year) is equal to the distance it travels in space (e.g. 1 lightyear).

>>19376221
But how do you use the gate for infinitely fast computing? Tell me about the setup.

>>19376166
Look I am really not seeking to disprove relativity here. As you noted yourself and I openly admit I do lack the knowledge to do that.
All I am saying is that there is a possibility that relativity might not hold true under certain circumstances due to factors that are as of yet out of our grasp of understanding while coincidentally the 'actual fact' concurs with relativity in all the circumstances where we can prove it. And I am not saying that this has to be the case. Just that there is a chance, however slim.
And this chance would mean that there could be FTL without time travel even if it is extremely unlikely.

Water being wet is actually a good example. We know for a fact that water is wet in any circumstances where we are able to prove it. But what if there was a hypothetical circumstance under which water wasn't wet that we weren't able to prove either? That wouldn't invalidate anything we know about water now. It just would add to it.

>>19376005
That doesn't make any goddamn sense. If you have the ability to move an object in space instantaneously, it doesn't follow that you can time travel. It means your light cone can exists in multiple places, and you can arrange for messages to arrive in the future by warping to a place X light years away and sending out a signal, but it doesn't send you back in time.

I have never had anyone, ever, explained the whole 'FTL = time travel' bullshit equation in a way which made any goddam sense and didn't sound like they were just parroting something they heard once.

>>19376166
That's not an example, those are just analogies. I do find the idea that a scientific description of the universe just IS correct very strange. To quote Hawking:

"A theory is a good theory if it is an elegant model, if it describes a wide class of observations, and predicts the results of new observations. Beyond that, it makes no sense to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what reality is independent of theory... the positivist position I have outlined seems the only possible one for someone who is seeking new laws, and new ways, to describe the universe. It is no good appealing to reality because we don't have a model-independent concept of reality."

>>19376263
build a gate that travels x nanolightseconds distance instantly, or convenient time/distance small enough to fit on a computer, or in a building. calculate an equation, beam result through the gate, use the new result to start the same equation.

what's it good for? one example is breaking encryption. grinding away at a code can theoretically solve it eventually, but it would take billions of years, or longer than the age of the universe. with this, it's decrypted instantly.

C'mon /tg/, don't be silly. Reality exists in the mind. There is no external reality. Thus nothing can be proven beyond a theory because the very senses by which you observe and theorize cannot be proven to really be sensing anything other than what we theorize is firing neurons.

> Every once in a while there'll be a scene where some cool political scheme is coming together. Then I'll remember that one of the guys in the room is the reborn avatar of some god, and I just want to groan.

Sounds more like it's the mary-sue-warning-sign power escalation that irritates you, not magic itself. Like, if you played in a modern setting, it'd be annoying to have a party member who always *has* to play a millionaire.

>>19376284
> All I am saying is that there is a possibility that relativity might not hold true under certain circumstances due to factors that are as of yet out of our grasp of understanding

That boils down to "We don't know everything yet [because I insist we don't, not because of any actual evidence that this particular inconvenient theory is wrong], therefore I get the magic I want".

>>19376397
we entangle those neurons with the physical world through a process called science.

>>19376398
More like
"We don't know everything yet [...], therefore I get the magic I want without it being necessarily coupled to another magic that I don't want in my setting"
Because FTL and time travel are magic, yes, but I don't want them inseperable due to a theory saying that under circumstances unproven they can not possibly be seperate.

>>19376397
Yes, a la the Hawking quote >>19376359. But the idea that it is categorically impossible for one of those theories to be proven wrong, at any point in the future and in all possible universes... seems to me that's the same as saying 'this theory IS external reality'. It's a degree of certitude too far.

>>19376393
Let's work with the gate we already have, which links two worlds one lightyear apart. If a man walks through the gate from Earth to the other planet (Alpha), waits for five minutes to tick over on his watch, and then walks back through the gate to Earth, how much time has passed on Earth while he was on Alpha?

>>19376454
no, no, no. FTL and time travel aren't magic, they're the same thing. And super unlikely in this universe. When FTL and time travel are treated as separate things, that would be lolmagic.

>>19376393
No, that's fucking retarded. You have a door. You're sending signals through the fucking door. Putting a computer on two sides of a stargate doesn't magically make it able to go back in time and give itself the answers to it's own questions. I don't care if you are getting instantaneous transport of 100 light years - the fact that you are 100 light years away doesn't make you go 100 years back in time.

Unless the gates are nano-scale and allow you to bypass conventional wiring you just have an ordinary computer that's spread out and you're not getting any magic jumps in computational power or solutions out of thin air because you aren't traveling back in time.

>>19376473
In most fictional universes, five minutes.

I'm not saying thats how it would work in real life, but thats how most settings treat it.

>>19376480
...by the current knowledge we have they would be.
But we do not have achieved ultimate knowledge yet so they could be seperate without magic, as even relativity could be invalidated in certain or all cases by future knowledge. However slim that chance might be.

Do we really have to go in this circle forever?

>>19376524
I'm not asking about fictional universes. I'm asking about the current understanding of this one. Assuming the FTL gate exists as described in this universe, how much time would pass on Earth?

>>19376398
>That boils down to "We don't know everything yet [because I insist we don't, not because of any actual evidence that this particular inconvenient theory is wrong], therefore I get the magic I want".
Not that anon, but no it doesn't. You're attributing that motivation to him/her and you might well be right, but as a simple statement 'there exists a possibility that this theory may at some point be disproven' is surely fine. That's just scepticism and is pretty basic to science of any kind.

>>19374435
>Not using magic or advanced technology to build upon the intrigue
Politics become a very interesting and difficult thing when magic is the norm.

>>19376543
I suppose that that would depend on the exact working of the gate and how it is connected between the ends, etc.
I would say still 5 minutes, since we're already positing completely impossible tech here.
If the transition is instantaneous than the person isn't actually travelling at all, ergo no dilation.
That would depend on how the gate does its thing though, since actually implement it would require information to travel between its end points.

>>19376563
I think OP doesn't like fantasy in general, though.

>>19376583
Then, with this gate alone, is there any way to construct an infinitely-fast computer?

>>19376598
If there's no dilation than no. Information cannot return before it is sent out, so you can't mess with time.
However, actually implementing the gate in reality would require dilation, ie moving backwards in time, and that fucks up causality.

>>19376473
>Let's work with the gate we already have, which links two worlds one lightyear apart. If a man walks through the gate from Earth to the other planet (Alpha), waits for five minutes to tick over on his watch, and then walks back through the gate to Earth, how much time has passed on Earth while he was on Alpha?

Ugh. ok, -2 years +5 minutes. From the perspective of earth, he travels a year back in time going there, travels 5 minutes forward, then a year back again coming home.

>>19376473
>Let's work with the gate we already have, which links two worlds one lightyear apart. If a man walks through the gate from Earth to the other planet (Alpha), waits for five minutes to tick over on his watch, and then walks back through the gate to Earth, how much time has passed on Earth while he was on Alpha?

-2 years +5 minutes. From the perspective of earth, he travels a year back in time going there, travels 5 minutes forward, then a year back again coming home.

>>19376617
Well, that doesn't sound right to me at all, but I guess I have some reading to do.

>>19376519
>the fact that you are 100 light years away doesn't make you go 100 years back in time.
guess why they're called years? because that's how fast light travels. photons experience 0 time because they're going at maximum speed. experiencing 0 speed, an observer would travel 100 years forward in time.

>>19374435
Sounds like you need some Eclipse Phase.

>>19376617
That's obviously why you build some sort of delay into the gate that suspends the traveller until the proper amount of time has gone by.

>>19376596
I think he's hung up on the fact that he thinks it detracts from the seriousness or grittiness of the situation.

>>19376617
No, that's dumb as shit. The gate is instantaneous - he takes a step, he spends five minutes, he comes back. From Earth's perspective he's spent five fucking minutes away from Earth, not -2 years.

Even time dialation as experienced by a ship going close to c or better only sends the occupants into the future as far as they are concerned. Time appears to stop for them, and it continues as normal for everyone else. There is nothing that sends information to the past, and there's nothing magic about the concept of FTL that allows it.

>>19376706
Maybe, but again, the obvious answer would be historical RPGs. Do they even exist?

>>19376730
Yes?
I'm not sure if there's a dedicated system for them, but you could always use GURPS.

Guys, the portal doesn't actually affect speed. It's an 'as crow flies' vs 'as the soldier stumbles' problem.

It's like how the fastest way to drive to work straight there, but you can't do that because there is no road. If they build a road from your house to work you do not time travel each morning. You drive a shorter route and arrive earlier than you would otherwise

When you use the portal you arrive at your destination some amount of time after you left. Depending on the distance you might be able to return and watch your shenanigans on the other end of the portal. You are not seeing you, you are seeing light that reflected off you and took the long way around. Which admittedly is kind of odd.

What it does fuck with is space, what with there being two 'as the crow flies' routes between point A and B, because point B is in two different places. Both of which are in the same place.

>tl;dr: You take the high road, and I'll take the low road, and neither of us will travel back in time on our way to Scotland.

>>19376722
from his perspective it's 5 minutes. I'm not about to draw out the math, but you can make closed loops that appear not to violate causality when viewed from the outside.

strictly speaking though, either way he's stepping outside the light cone of Earth. your way, he simply picks a point to come back in that's after he left, not before.

>>19376730
This could be a really interesting discussion, actually: if RPGs allow you to be anyone (or anything) and do anything, why are so many of them set in fairly generic/familiar fantasy/sci-fi/occasionally horror universes?

But sadly, such a discussion is impossible because this thread is SCIENCE.

>>19376683
No, they're called light years because that is how long it takes for light to travel a year. A light-year is a measure of distance, not time, sperglord. That's like saying that you're going to spend 8 miles in the movie, then go meet your sweetheart for dinner in 12 leagues and a foot.

Everything I have ever read about FTL is that, at best, it allows someoe being transported via FTL to reach the future via time dialation, but nothing about the concept sends information or a person to the past.

Educate me if I'm wrong, but it seems like it'd be really easy to play L5R and tell the players they can't play Shugenja. Only Bushi and Courtiers.

Unless you're saying that having ANY magic in your setting kills it for you. Then that won't work. Play Eclipse Phase. Or GURPS. Or, if you just mean generic fantasy magic, play any number of WoD games.

ASOIAF, btw, is magic from the very beginning. The prologue of the first book has people getting killed by white walkers. The story is about magic returning to the world, after hundreds of years. If you didn't understand that by the end of the first book/season, I'm suspect you weren't paying attention.

>>19376547
> You're attributing that motivation to him/her and you might well be right, but as a simple statement 'there exists a possibility that this theory may at some point be disproven' is surely fine. That's just scepticism and is pretty basic to science of any kind.

Well, yes, and no. "This theory may be disproven" is normal, acceptable, even encouraged. But you need to have some strong basis to run with that - like finding cases where it doesn't work. And then you need a replacement theory that works for all the cases the old one did work, plus the newly discovered cases where it didn't. You don't get to pre-emptively assume the theory is broken, and then also assume the side effects you want from a replacement theory that you don't have.

The extra problem with applying this specifically to relativity is that it has held up perfectly under rigorous testing of even the weirdest bits of wtfness implied by the math. Scepticism here is extremely weighted *towards* supporting light speed limits.

I've noticed that /tg/ is jaded as fuck and hates anything that isn't gritty realistic medieval combat.

>>19376889
I've noticed that /tg/ is composed of people with diverse tastes.

>>19376873
This; for example, GPS satellites move quickly compared to ground observers, so relatively slower in time, so for the desired precision, calculating the change in clock speed requires using general relativity.

If relativity didn't work, we would have different, Newtonian, signals coming from GPS satellites.

>>19376889
Combining internet tough guys, try-hards, aspies and neckbeards and that's what you get.

>>19376799
>No, they're called light years because that is how long it takes for light to travel a year.

Wow, WTF did I just write? They're called light-years because that is how far light travels in a year, not how long. Herp, derp derp.

>>19376873
Oh yeah, absolutely. I think we're on the same page here. I'm not arguing anything about the theory being wrong or ftl travel being possible or anything like that, just the abstract principle that a theory CAN be wrong. I mean, that's why there's been rigorous testing, right?

This entire thread is pic related.

>>19377055
No it's not, it's SCIENCE.

>>19376986

I can't think of a situation where a modern Theory has been wrong, just built upon by other theories.

Take Gravitational theory for example. Newton proposed that objects gravitate heavier objects and so on and so forth. What the theory lacked was the reason why.

Einstein came and explained why the earth pulls us in. Was Newton wrong? Does our F =ma changes because Einstein discovered interesting quirks about our universe? Nope. It was only built upon.

That's why GTR can't be proven wrong, because it is right. We just haven't seen certain conditions that say otherwise. And even if we were to find them, nothing about GTR will change, only addendums will be added

>>19377055

The entire thread is people confused by other people and not understanding what's going on.

Also, I stand with my original comment of OP being an idiot with Game of Thrones.

White walkers were already there since before we knew Ned Stark existed.

Is there a universe where FTL accelerates the craft and leaves it's image behind traveling at the speed of light.

I ask because I like the idea of space slowly filling with the phantom afterimages of ships that have long since finished their journeys.

>>19376787
So it's not actually Faster Than Light Travel.
It's Farther Than Distance Travel.

FTD just doesn't roll off the tongue the same way FTL does.

>>19376986
Yeah.

Also, I'm afraid to try explaining the FTL time travel thing to the guy who doesn't understand it. Because it's very hard to explain.

Some NOVA episodes that aired around November had some very good visuals on that, though. Showing a big chunk of timespace in a 3D representation and then rotating the thing and cutting slices at angles to show how different frames of reference literally have different pasts and futures. I would need something like that to really show it, not text. I would want to actually show in the 3D model how I could send a message faster than light and have the response arrive before I sent the original message.

>>19377116
>implying OP mentioned Game of Thrones

>>19377098
Again, though, the people who test it work on the assumption that it CAN be wrong. Otherwise they'd never test it. You seem to be going back to asserting the absolute objective impossibility of the theory being wrong, i.e. denying scepticism altogether. How can you say that 'certain conditions' that you don't- that you literally CANNOT- know anything about will only ever add to the theory? Again, you're claiming absolutely certain knowledge about all possible futures here.

>>19377203

He did, right here

>>19374973

>>19377237
I stand corrected and suitably chastened. I didn't even recognise the picture, in fact.

>>19377162
There are some neat graphs on wikipedia that show how different reference frames can see the same event taking place at different times relative to another event. I still don't really understand FTL time travel, but I haven't studied it much, either.

This would be so much easier to reconcile if the two planets could be treated as being in the same frame of reference.

>>19377275

It's ok. I was attracted to the thread by the image because I love GoT but all I got was science and OP disliking magic.

Seriously, what's wrong with magic? It's awesome and makes settings more wonderful.

>>19377299
I got the impression that OP disliked fantasy- or at least large parts of most fantasy- altogether. Seems like he wants roleplay that isn't fantasy (at least in the sense of different sentient species, magic, gods etc) or sci-fi altogether.

>>19377157
The distinction is this:
You are not moving faster than light. However, you are travellign faster than light, in that the 'route' you take allows you to get there before light leaving from the same point would arrive. At no point are you actually moving with a velocity higher than c.

>>19377203
> Again, you're claiming absolutely certain knowledge about all possible futures here.

No, I am claiming that not all things are equally likely to be true. We use observation to sort them out. Observation puts breaking light speed in so small a zone of possibility that it is entirely justified to question someone who is repeatedly saying "b-b-but what if?".

Like, if he was insisting that leprechauns were stealing his right socks out of the wash.

>>19374435
OP. Reading this I've come to take it that you would prefer to avoid playing in a campaign that uses elements that are impossible or improbable, and would prefer one with heavy social themes.

I have a suggestion for you. It might seem a bit freeform larpy, but hear me out.

Speed dating. Go sign up for a speed dating event and create a character. Then go to the event and play your character all night long with other people trying to play a character who is both normal and interesting.

If you do well you may even form a party and turn it from a oneshot into a full fledged campaign!

>>19377299

>Seriously, what's wrong with magic? It's awesome and makes settings more wonderful.

OP Here.

I don't like things that are wonderful.

I know that I could just houserule out the magic from 7th sea or WOD, but the real trouble is that I would first have to find five other people who hate hope and magic as much as I do.


Also, I know game of thrones was foreshadowing the hell about magic from the very beginning. What I meant by the inclusion of the picture was that GRRM's world is the antithesis of the sort of a world I hope for. Nothing could please me less than a world where magic is growing stronger.

Also, very very unrelated, the model I've seen for sending a message backwards through time with the help of FTL involves three or four ships traveling at subluminal speeds sending superluminal communications. Each ship would be experiencing a different dilation of time, the last ship in the chain would be able to send a message to where/when the first ship had been before it even sent the first message.

>>19377470
I'm not criticising the questioning and I'm not saying that all things are equally likely, and I'm certainly not talking about breaking the speed of light at all. All I'm saying is "there exists the possibility that this theory may at an arbitrary point in the future be changed due to new data that we at present have no conception of".

Leprechaun analogy might apply to what that anon was saying, but certainly not to what I'm saying. My statement is more like 'there exists the possibility that somewhere at some time in this universe a leprechaun may exist'. I'm certainly not saying leprechauns existing or not existing are of equal likelihood.

>>19377485

That sounds interesting, but I get tired of romantic subplots pretty fast. Maybe I could write a character and then go to a political rally or something? Or maybe I could look for a job In Character, and then try to improve my workplace in character.

>>19377631
Run a GURPS Modern campaign.
Boom, no hope or magic. In game or out.

Also not sure why you would associate magic with hope. Would you prefer a system where Magic is inherently harmful to the person using it, and in fact to reality? Where the hope lies not in magic, but in ending its use?

I noted you mentioned Call of Cthulhu as having magic earlier, but its also one where the pcs are actively trying to stop magic users from using it, and where if they dabble in it they are likely to be punished. Also every 'magical' entity is at best only kind of evil, except for Bast, and people don't generally run Bast.

>>19377631
well yes, most people don't like working with depressing assholes, especially when they are PLAYING A GAME that involves PRETENDING TO BE SOMETHING YOU AREN'T.

>>19375381
Actually, we can get up to greater than 99% of the speed of light pretty easily now. Particle colliders have been getting up to relativistic speeds for decades. Also, fast muons made in the upper atmosphere due to cosmic rays and we've being doing measurements of them for ages. Relativity is as closed to proved as you can get. Of course, we have no idea how it acts at velocities greater than c, as it's impossible to accelerate through c.

>>19377689

What I dislike about Call of Cthulhu is that it's impossible to use it to tell a story about Empiricism overcoming superstition. Although I'm usually pretty fond of you can't win scenarios, I don't like them so much when it's rational men being inevitably defeated by the occult.

>>19377755
Any scenario where the investigators win is a victory for empiricism over superstition.
In CoC, superstition is believing that the entities out there are kind, and that they can benefit you if you serve them. Empiricism acknowledges their existence, but also acknowledges that any contact with them is bound to end badly, and that nothing good will come of serving them.

>>19377781

But the investigators never win in Call of Cthulhu.

>>19377713
That's a pity. I like what I am and I like being what I am. I'd like to still be what I am when I play roleplaying games.

>>19377755
it's Lovecraft.
have you read any of his works?
because he has very definite ideas of the capabilities of science and human rationality.
You might not like them, but if you run a game that goes directly against those ideas then that game is definitely not Lovecraftian

>>19377755
But that's the point of CoC.
That'd be like playing a game of Rogue Trader where the party is actually broke rather than comparably broke.

Again, I do find it interesting that there don't seem to be many (any?) popular historical RPGs. Seems either like a gap in the market or something that people for some reason just Do Not Want.

>>19377807
Despite what people say, you can win in Call of Cthulhu. Many of the investigators may die in the attempt, and it may be difficult, but it is always possible to repel the coming of Nyarlathotep, to destroy the Deep Ones, etc.

>>19377830
You can run a non Lovecraftian game using CoC. There's nothing in it saying "The players must always lose".
Most published campaigns are written so that they are winnable, albeit at great costs.

>>19377807
hey my character won my delta green campaign.
I mean sure, in the epilogue it's established that he was shot in the back by his former ally after carving an elder sign into his chest (he wasn't very sane by this point).
But the last roll of the campaign was him jumping out of a moving car to shoot one helicopter into another helicopter with magic.
I WON.

>>19377853
>You can run a non Lovecraftian game using CoC.\
no you can run a non-Lovecraftian horror game using BRP, the game system CoC uses.
CoC is playing a Lovecraftian game in BRP, without the Lovecraft you just have BRP and horror

>>19377893
I was going by your idea of Lovecraftian, which specifically includes his ideas on science, rationality, etc.
You can run a game using the Mythos that doesn't reflect those in Call of Cthulhu, following all of its rules and mechanics and systems. Nothing in the system requires you to use his themes.

>>19377831
>>19377830

Yes, I know how lovecraft felt, and I know how the game is written. I can't use it to tell the sort of story I want to tell, and so I don't play it. I thought it was evident that I was explaining why I don't play call of cthulhu. I don't try to use the game for something it wasn't meant for. I don't use the game at all.

>>19377863
I don't like delta green. Not only is empiricism being defeated by superstition, the empiricists are resorting to senseless violence and jingoism as they lose.

>>19377935
>I only use systems in the exact way the authors intended me to use them
I'm sorry, but that seems to me like a ridiculous attitude to have.
Also, the Authors of CoC wanted players to be able to win, and they wrote the game as such. Victory is possible.

>>19377935
You must hate reality then, given how well empiricism does in our day to day lives.

>>19377755
It's not the occult. It's just something the PCs are far too stupid to understand.

Mount and Blade?
Mount and Blade!
As far as table top, I'm fucked. ;-;

>>19377924
>following all of its rules and mechanics and systems. Nothing in the system requires you to use his themes.
You mean BRP.
because that's what the rules mechanics and system are. Basic Rule Play system.
I suppose you could also use character and creatures from Lovecraft, but portraying them counter to Lovecrafts themes, philosophies, characterizations and intents. But why would you do that?

>>19377935
>senseless violence and jingoism
what?
also, empiricism isn't being defeated. it's not that science doesn't work, it's that their is more to the universe than mankinds brains are capable of handling.
for example the Mi-Go are portrayed as scientists even in lovecrafts original stories.

>>19374435
I have a place for you OP.

>Tired of the fantasy in fantasy.

Then do something else.

>>19377935
You realize that in the Mythos universe we're the side of superstition right?

We're superstitious fools stubbornly clinging to fake rules because we're too worthless to understand the real ones.

>>19378010
Actually, no. The base system is BRP, but CoC has additonal and different rules and stats than that.
Also, the Mythos has been expanded considerably from Lovecraft's original work, and CoC contains much from that expansion. Derleth's entities are included, for instance. It's not all there, but its certainly okay to include new things, to add stuff to the setting, etc.
Its a roleplaying game. You can always change whats in the setting or system.

well since you posted a game of thrones pic i assume you're familiar with that setting, which is pretty low fantasy. and the fantasy elements that are there are ludicrously arcane and practically unknowable, to the point that merely striving after them is dangerous as fuck.

feel free to try out that fantasy, just keep in mind most people would like to slay the dragon, if it's there...

>>19378051
Game of Thrones honestly isn't that low fantasy.

>"Oh Fuck, not another elf!"

And that was before Tolkien's basic world archetype was copied by every fantasy author ever.

>>19378048
some of Derleth's works are included, but the creators (wisely) removed the not lovecraftian aspects of is work.
While is considerable debate over what exactly consitutes Lovecraftian work, I do feel that the people involved in CoC and Delta Green did a good job of keeping the game within the themes and believes of HPL. Minus a lot of the racism.

>>19374893
Hellboy 2 wasn't so much of a deviation from the "elves like trees" archetype as much as it was a changeling/Fae story told with the hellboy cast. The elf guy had more reverence for his own world of fae than the world of man. not just the huge plant thing.

I can't be the only /tg/ lurker that didn't draw direct connections to old fae myths and even the Changeling WOD games of the past.

OP, go try to write a fantasy game that doesn't slavishly devote itself to the accepted tropes of the genre.

Let us know how the fantasy community treats you.

The problems isn't the games, it's the players. Magic is only a problem when some fat cunt wants his reborn dragon in the form of a human with super mind control powers to magic his way out of any and every situation he finds himself in.

>>19378155
Nobody else has really ever had the same hardon for elves that Tolkien did.

In fact, I think you're doing fantasy writers on the whole a disservice. How many fantasy novels actually use elves? That aren't spinoffs of D&D or some video game franchise? Well there's the Shannara series and... hmm.

Don't blame fantasy authors for ripping off Tolkien, blame game writers for ripping off D&D.

>>19378217
>changeling/Fae story told with the hellboy cast
People that like Hellboy, based on the Hellboy movies, are the fucking worst. The movies are not good.

>I can't be the only /tg/ lurker that didn't draw direct connections to old fae myths and even the Changeling WOD games of the past.
No, of course you weren't - possibly because the names are the fucking same as the names in Irish mythology.

Anyone that thinks Changeling, as in WoD, is old-school mythology needs to go unfuck themselves too.

>>19378236
It can work, but the successful ones tend to have been attached to more major IPs. Like a few of D&D's settings are pointedly not slavishly devoted to the accepted tropes of the genre.

>>19378217
Hellboy 2's plot was also agressively stupid and the entire last half hour was spoiled in the first 15 minutes.
Also the characters didn't so much pass the idiot ball around, but cloned the idiot ball so each one could hold their own through the entire fill.

YES I'm mad

>>19378217
I didn't draw any connections to "old fae myths" because I know perfectly well that people didn't give fairy stories such grandiose titles, but I did think that Hellboy 2 was the first time I'd seen an honest attempt at an elf onscreen in a long while, not counting the Lord of the Rings.

>>19378257
>not enjoying the hellboy movies
The fuck is wrong with you? Are you some cunt who read the comics and saw the movies were different and threw a hissy fit?

>>19378257
>Anyone that thinks Changeling, as in WoD, is old-school mythology needs to go unfuck themselves too.
is it okay if I think its a cool and very modern take on the old concept of the fae and changeling?

>>19378293
The movies are like, average at best. Sorry bro. They're not very good.

>>19378293
They're bad films that exist to showcase some cool monster designs. Sorry bro, you can't argue this. It's just how it is.

>>19378313
Yes.

>>19378290
>honest attempt at an elf
What does this even mean.

>>19378315
That's all film is, eye candy. Why are you complaining?

>>19378293
not that guy, I'm this guy >>19378279.
Personally I liked that first hellboy movie. It had some serious flaws, but was overall enjoyable and I think about as good of a hellboy film as we could get.

Hellboy 2 managed to fuck of the characters. Not because they were different from the comics, but because they completely ignored and undid all the character development in the first movie. Plus the multiple idiot balls and the whole "give away the entire ending by 15 minutes in" thing

>>19378345
>That's all film is, eye candy.
Ha.

>>19378359
Both of them were pretty bad. The second was better because it had more interesting design.

>>19378257
>>19378279
Didn't say it was terribly good, but an example of using non traditional archetypes for villains.

And No WOD "ling" isnt very accurate for myths but it's a good start into making stories where the fair folk aren't necessarily "good guys"

Think about it the plot structure was a little interesting, the daemon from Hell itself is the "good guy" and raised among them. where the Villains are the pretty elves who point out humanity's obvious flaws and shortcomings. Concept is sound, but spoiled in poor execution.

>>19374435
If that's the kind of game you prefer, you might have to run it yourself and hope your friends go along with it. For what it's worth there's no shortage of games that can handle low-magic fantasy. Reign, GURPS, WFRP, RoS, BWheel, hell D&D is fine even you just have more preconceptions to get over.

The trouble is really that the further you get away from the genre conventions the harder it is to make a good game. It's difficult enough to tell a decent story of political intrigue or whatever without having to allow for player agency. Play D&D straight and you can get away with throwing a new weird monster at them every week.

>Nobody else has really ever had the same hardon for elves that Tolkien did.
Paolini did.
/tg/ has Dwarves
40k has Space Marines
Rice has vampires
Lucas has Jedi
Friedman has Tarrant
Bay has Explosions

It's a slot each author fills with something else, but at their hearts they are all Tolkien's Elves.

>>19378375
>And No WOD "ling" isnt very accurate for myths but it's a good start into making stories where the fair folk aren't necessarily "good guys"
You could also use: actual myths. Which Hellboy is clearly much more templated off of, even if it's action movie as fuck.

>>19378293
Shut up and give me back my giant alien squid!

>>19378384
>Explosions
Uh-huh.

Fa/tg/uy made indie RPG in this link that offers options for a game like OP described. Not a fan, myself. Seems a bit all-over-the-place, but I figure others might enjoy. Combat system looks pretty cool.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/?wab2ththh6r7ctw

>>19378389
hmm...

nah. it's a mashup of horror and fantasy and comic book stuff.

>>19378429
>comic book stuff
No shit, maybe you should read some of that.

>>19378334
I just meant that it's an original work which actually uses the classic archetype of pointy-eared, arrogant, handsome-in-a-skinny-kind-of-way elves.

Despite being regarded as a cliché, these guys don't actually exist outside of trashy games and The Lord of the Rings itself. And Guillermo del Toro took your basic elf archetype and played it completely straight, and it was badass as hell. I respect that.

>>19378489
>basic elf archetype
How?

>>19378497
Didn't I just say?

>pointy-eared, arrogant, handsome-in-a-skinny-kind-of-way

>>19378396
I said the same thing about Watchmen.

>>19378504
So that makes an elf to you? So like, early years Guts, from Berserk, he's an elf?

>>19378489
He also worked on Splice and Megamind which I did like. But yeah Guillermo knows his shit, I'm kinda interested to see what happens when the Pan's Labyrinth producer does to Pinocchio.

>>19378543
They're also immortal fairies, that counts for something.

What is it about the elves from Hellboy 2 that makes them anything less than completely, stereotypically elven? I don't see any way in which they deviate from what everyone knows about elves.

Can't believe that no one has done this yet

>>pic related

GG cold hands , gg

I'm less bothered by "XTRME" fantasy elements, than by standard fantasy themes.

I've long found that what I actually want out of "fantasy", is a "fantasy setting" with themes and plots that are more of what we'd commonly associate with "modern" or "science fiction" or "horror" stories.

>>19374435
what is that an image of? a Fremen Litch?

>>19378713

Yes. Yes, yes it is.

>>19378706

The thematic core of high fantasy and science fiction tend to be problematic to jam together though.

>>19378713
A white walker

>>19378748
Not really, in fact there are a bunch of crossovers that explicitly do mix fantasy and sci-fi. Think Inversions, or Lord of Light.

>>19375788
>>19376644
ITT someone pretends they have a physics degree.

Alright, anon. Pretend you've just left the Hooker Planet on a spaceship. From the point of view of the kids you've left behind, you're leaving at some velocity v. From your point of view, though, the *planet* is moving away from *you* at velocity -v (same speed, opposite direction). Which one of you is right? To the best of our understanding, you're both right: there's no universal anchor that defines "really at rest". This is the crux of special relativity: all inertial reference frames (not experiencing any acceleration) are equal, and they all experience the same laws of physics. (Dealing with non-inertial reference frames - ones experiencing acceleration, including gravity - is the domain of general relativity.)

Let's pretend that it's well-defined to travel at the speed of light or faster. Now, your spaceship speeds up until it settles down at exactly the speed of light, and you get bored so you conduct the following experiment: you try to measure the speed of light by aiming a laser pointer at the wall opposite your direction of travel and having a machine tell you how long it takes for the beam to appear on the wall after you turn it on. Well, you're in an inertial frame of reference, so all of the laws of physics apply to you, including the speed of light. If the wall is 3m away from you, the machine measures about a time interval of about 10^-8 seconds.

>>19378706
In theory Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay can do that. It can have a noir-y/political corruption-y/horroy-y feel to it.

I don't know how it's generally played, though. People might well just set off on long-prophesied quests to slay dragons or something.

>>19374973

Okay, no. Fuck you. Literally the first chapter of the entire series is about magical evil snow elf necromancers. Literally the first chapter. Take this 'there is no magic in Westeros' bullshit and pike the fuck off.

>>19378826

But you conduct your experiment as you pass the Truck Stop Planet, where some guy looks out the window and sees you derping. From their perspective, the photons emitted by your laser pointer aren't going anywhere, because the velocity of the photons cancels with the velocity of the ship. But they're in an inertial reference frame too, so all light - including the light from your laser pointer - has to travel at the speed of light from their perspective. The only way to reconcile these two possibilities is if the Truck Stop Planet observes your experiment taking zero time to conduct, with the photons travelling zero distance in that time interval.

Note, however, that "getting somewhere in less time than it would take light" (e.g. portals) is not inherently forbidden by relativity (c.a. Alcubierre drive). It does fuck up causality, though (for the same reason that special relativity fucks up the idea of simultaneity, Google it if you're curious).

>>19378774

No, see, I'm thinking of the core tenet of high fantasy (an anthromorphic or otherwise corporeal bbeg that can be slain with a sword, that embodies some abstract concept or moral problem such as corruption, greed, or overall evil) that doesn't mesh with the core tent of heinlein style sci-fi, which takes an existing technology and projects it into the future, examining the ways in which future society could potentially be impacted by the technology.

They don't seem to mesh well, is all.

>>19374973

>The picture is added because I don't like the direction ASoIaF is going. At the beginning, magic was dead but as the series goes on things just keep getting more magical and I hate it.

That's like the whole thing of ASoIaF, though. The series starts out as a low-magic, low-fantasy world of political intrigue and high adventure and assholes being assholes, but will end as high-magic, high fantasy, with an overarching BBEG (the undead necromancer snow elves) and a prophesied hero who will slay the evil (possibly Dany, possibly any other character that fits the Azor Ahai/Stallion Who Mounts the World prophecy).

What do you think 'A Song of Ice and Fire' is referring to? For myself it hints a final conflict between the white walkers and whoever commands the dragons.

>>19378949
I know some people are upset about this but seriously who didn't see this coming.
If after you finished book one of ASoIF you didn't realize "magic is coming back", you're an idiot

>>19377351
It still has issues. The most obvious one is that for any two events seperated by a spacelike interval, you can choose an arbitrary reference frame in which either one of them comes before the other, or indeed in any other temporal relationship.

>>19374435
We just GURPed our way though the medieval time period. Specifically we freed king Steven from the false Queen of England.

>possibly Dany, possibly any other character that fits the Azor Ahai/Stallion Who Mounts the World prophecy
>Stallion Who Mounts the World prophecy
So the great hero of prophecy who will right the unrightable wrongs, fight the unbeatable foe, and run where the brave dare not go is going to fuck the world with his giant cock?

That's remarkably unsurprising.

>>19379719
I think that given who the writer is, it will be terribly shocking if the forces of good actually triumph.

>>19379740

Azor Ahai isn't the "forces of good". He's the "forces of penis". He's going to fuck Westeros a new asshole and they will like it.

IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT THEN DON'T PLAY FANTASY GAMES. JESUS CHRIST ITS NOT THAT HARD PLAY SOME LOW TECH LOW MAGIC SETTING OR CREATE YOUR OWN.

OR PLAY WOD OR GRIMDARK HERESY OR SOME OTHER DONKEY CRAP.

DON'T TRY TO FORCE YOUR "HO HUM i'M TIRED OF FANTASY IN FANTASY GAMES" CUZ YOU SOUND LIKE A TARD.

>>19379852

Wod is still fantasy, it's just modern fantasy.

Dark heresy is space fantasy.

>>19378748
>>19378774
>>19378831
Right, 706 here.
I think that's part of why Warhammer Fantasy interests me at all.

But my favorite example of the whole "Modern/Sci-Fi Themes in a Fantasy World" setting is Eberron. I feel like so many of its themes are just... /not/ fantasy. And that's a good thing. Obviously some still are, but when you have:
>artificial humanoids
>mega-corporations
>mass-transit
>alien invaders
>twisted horrors from beyond
>cold-war style intelligence services, and spy-vs-spy
I just feel like those themes tend to dominate the setting (for the best), even while sitting beside "normal" fantasy elements.

I love you dorks.


So I ask this.

You are traveling from point A to point B in space. Travelling through normal space, this trip will take you 10 years travelling at the speed of light.

HOWEVER

The ship you are driving uses a type of drive that, instead of travelling quickly, simply bypasses the route through an alternate dimension, a sub-space.

Relative to light, yes, you did win, but wouldn't relativity be ignored in this instance as you dropped out of this universe to bypass its rules?

Does this break causality?

>>19381410
Rule of thumb for if a method of FTL breaks temporal causality:

If you can FTL travel to a place, send a lightspeed signal, and then FTL travel to somewhere else and receive that signal, congratulations, you've bent time like a pretzel and modern science has no fucking idea what happens next.

>>19381410
>>19381520

For reals, this is the equivalent of using portals to break the second law of thermodynamics.

We can conceive of the possibility of breaking these natural laws...but have no frame of reference for the possible consequences.

I like how Charles Stross handled the problem in his scifi series, which allowed for causality violations, but had a nigh omnipotent AI who worked damn hard to prevent them to preserve its own hide. Governments that tried to break causality quickly found their entire star system destroyed through subspace shenanigans.

>>19374435
>>19374844

FTL causality issues are based on calculations that make FTL impossible.

On topic: FTL is theoretical physics, not magic.

>>19378419
Read the quickstart.

>A lucky thrown rock from a peasant might strike a knight in the head, killing him.

It's Mount & Blade, guys. Except with some wizards in the woods and Vampires in mansions.
Who, I presume, may also be killed by lucky rocks.

>>19381520
I really don't see how that bends causality at all. It's just a hyper-fast version of throwing a frisbee into the air, running underneath it, and catching it as it comes back down.

Terms to search:

Carcosa Wacky Races
Metal Earth
Netherwerks
Tekumel

Cheers.

You fuckers want realism in your fantasy. Here's your realism. You are a dirt farming serf. You have to grow enough cabbages or else your local lord sends you to debtors prison. Roll a dice to see how long until you contract a disease, then roll another dice to see how long you live in horrible lingering pain.
You bitches probably can't even handle the realism.

>>19383456
It's not really a problem if you're throwing the frisbee to yourself, but say you throw it to your friend who's flying away from you at 0.9c
From your frame of reference, his watch is about 2.3 times slower than yours, so if you wait 10 seconds before you throw it, his watch will say 4.3 seconds when he catches it. The part where it gets weird is that from his frame of reference he's standing still and you're the one flying away, which means that your watch is going slower than his. If he throws the frisbee back to you, from his frame of reference your watch will say 1.9 seconds.
What this means is either you catch the frisbee 8.1 seconds before you throw it (time travel), or one of you has an invalid frame of reference (relativity is wrong).

Relativity itself doesn't say anything about time travel being impossible, but scientists say it would be a bad idea to attempt it. If you imagine Cause as a microphone and Effect as a loudspeaker, building a time machine is like putting the microphone next to the loudspeaker, only instead of sound you're dealing with zero-point energy. Science says this would not end well for anyone trying to use the time machine.

>>19384382
/sigh.
I want setting consistency in my fantasy, that's all. I also like magic, in part to reduce the amount of lingering diseases.

I'm a simulationist. I like the setting to approximate meaningful physical rules instead of running on pure narrativium, because otherwise there would be little challenge for either player or character.

Are there any ski-fi settings, where gravity "spreads" faster than light, and FTL and overall technology is built upon this fact?

A) Play in settings that don't suck.

B) Play in sci-fi instead.

>>19384766
Alan Dean Foster's Flinx and Pip series, created by GURPS as "For Love of Mother Not", has gravity drive. A projector at the front of the ship creates a tiny gravity well. The ship falls towards it, which pushes the projected gravity well forward. A ship using the KK drive falls out of relativity and enters Space Plus. The voyages can be long, months long, but far less time than standard travel. Most intraplanet communication is by courier.