New NESes, ideas, development, etc

[Terrance888]

No it's not. A barbarian state may have a large supply of manpower, copious allies, and occupy valuabel trade routes. It is not inherent of a civilization to always/hardcoded be 1EP = 1 Professional Army while a barbarian state always has 1EP = 2 Rabble, no questions asked, no room for change, no possibility of exceptions, RAW. It is not inherent that a civilization has 7 stages of stability while a barbaric state has 5: why not just use the same stability system and make it more volatile as needed? Sure, there WILL be rules differences that REFLECT differences, but the difficulty of playing barbarians shouldn't because there's a rule that every ruler's death results in a civil war or that half your people can't understand you no matter what you do or that barbarians obviously mean you have no urban areas greater than 5 people no matter what. Rather, those are specific cultural issues which barbarians may or may not have and which may or may not help define them as barbarians, but should be dealt on a case by case, and not a hardcoded RAW, basis.

Difficult by design would mean the RULES are what are stopping or causing barbarians from thriving. Difficulty by situation would mean the SITUATION and STORY are what are stopping or causing barbarians from thriving. You certainly can have both, LOE is just saying he prefers to not do the first.

Hardcoding takes away flexibility and makes things more gamey, which may or may not be the point.

 

[Dachs]

You're making a lot of arguments about things that I never mentioned or even appeared to mention. Like this EP nonsense. I couldn't care less about the specifics of how LoE manages his game's economy, or stability levels, or hardcoding, or any of that janx. All I asked was why "barbarians" couldn't be intrinsically more difficult to play [from a NESer's typical point of view/playstyle] than "civilized" groups.

You also appear to be operating on a different understanding of the word "barbarian" than I am, because you think that they can have "large supplies of manpower". It's hard to tell, because you blew some smoke about culture, but unless you're going off on some entirely new and unanticipated understanding of the word "barbarian", you're referring to some sort of vast infinite horde archetype, and those simply don't and can't exist.

 

[Seon]

The difference between civilized and barbarian, to be honest, is really fuzzy at best.

I for one wish to play as a semi-barbarian elven civilization.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Honestly, I don't even feel that "barbaric" is a descriptor we should use. LoE should limit the races we can use, and the rest of the world are small tribes.

 

[Lord of Elves]

That's an irrelevant distinction. "Don't make it because they're 'civilized', make it because of the reasons they're civilized!"

Oh what an irrelevant, useless line of criticism. The point is that I have no intention hard-coding into the mechanics of the game that playing as a "non-civilized" culture will be more difficult, always, everywhere, because reasons.

This is a completely pointless contention.

 

[Thlayli]

Well since this is a fantasy NES, you can handwave whatever you want. I'm taking 'barbarian' here to mean 'lower levels of technological development and institutionalized bureaucracy as compared to their neighbors,' which historically is a recipe for slaughter or assimilation for the barbarian if there are civilized neighbors around, but it can obviously mean lots of different things in this universe depending on the specific context of that barbarian group and the resources and magics they might have access to.

Like, for example, if there's a confederacy of goblin tribes that can't really work metal on their own but can raise youngsters to full warrior adulthood in five years, that changes the dynamic against a neighboring human civilization with iron working that would in other circumstances be totally dominant. And etc. etc.

Map is decent, and the sense of vastness and not knowing the edges of the world *is* what you want for traditional high fantasy (that being a Tolkienesque trope in and of itself) but you really need to add climates, mountains and rivers, brah.

 

[North King]

Maybe it's superflat?

...sorry, lame joke. =/

 

[Terrance888]

Break a leg!

 

[Gem Hound]

If it is superflat, how am I going to carve my fortress out of the rock?

 

[talonschild]

Downward.

 

[Gem Hound]

Downward.

No. I mean where is my grand entrance hall carved in the side of half of a mountain going to be?

 

[talonschild]

You can build a mountain with the excavated rock!

 

[sophie]

I only support playing as barbarians if they are made weaker than the civilized races at first. That way they would start off picking at the edges of empires instead of immediately having a chance to sack the equivalent of Rome.
some uncontrolled demons.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

If only there was a "Like Post" capability.

 

[Gem Hound]

You can build a mountain with the excavated rock!

Now... that is a great idea!

 

[Immaculate]

LoE,

Will you be allowing player-designed species appropriate to the setting? Or stick to the classical list? (if this has already been answered, someone just jump in okay?)

 

[Arrow Gamer]

I am fairly certain he said he wants it to be only the traditional, to help the reconstruction, but that he is open to suggestions.

 

[Lord of Elves]

On Magic and Those Who Wield it

Perhaps the most dangerous and unpredictable of creatures in the world is the mage. Mages, or practitioners of magic, are reclusive, eccentric or downright insane and dangerous. Magic is not properly understood by anyone and what little is known by the mages is guarded jealously. It is generally thought by most cultures that magic was given by the gods or a god to the peoples of the world as an inheritance of their majesty and celestial supremacy. Regardless of where it comes from magic is generally accepted to exist innately within the world, a natural force ready to be manipulated by those who are attuned to it. Mages are born, not made, and the ability to manipulate the world's natural “reserve” of magic is instinctual and cannot be taught. Those with magical abilities often make their skills evident early in life and are isolated from the rest of society either by choice or by necessity. There are certain magical skills which can be taught, under specific conditions, but rely on the assistance of a mage to be productive. The greatest mages lived in the mythic dawn of the world and all magic has, to the best knowledge of most scholars, both been derived from their achievements and faded since their time.

Magic is by nature unpredictable. Even when practiced by experts it has been known to bring down terrors from unknown realms upon unfortunate mages. For this reason, among others, mages are often exiled from the rest of society and forced to live in enclaves amongst each other. Throughout history there have been many great mage lords who ruled over non-magical populations, but their power was limited by their own physical presence and that of their adherents, and the lands that they ruled were small. Nonetheless they played great roles in the history of the world and were influential in their times. What this means for players is that it is possible to play as a powerful wizard. However, mage polities will be significantly limited in comparison to “regular” states and will be reliant on the lifespan of the ruling mage, his adherents/apprentices, and any other mages working on concert with him. Additionally they will be limited by the prescripts of magic.

Magic in the beginning of the NES will be significantly stronger than later on. Regardless it will continue to be unpredictable and generally will not consist of shooting fireballs from one's fingertips or raining fire and brimstone down from the heavens. There is no universal conclave of magic and magical practice unless you create one. Going beyond the bounds of understood magic, which is generally subtle and involves the creation of hallucinations, induction of visions and extremely limited teleportation, will very likely result in the summoning of a Lovecraftian abomination that will devour your mage(s) hole and destroy an entire settlement. As a result mage polities are likely to resemble Saruman ruling from Orthanc more than a large bureacracy of mages running a magocratic society. Of course, alliances of magical states are entirely possible, and could change this dynamic significantly if played well.

Concerning the Peopling of the World

It is generally thought by most scholars that elves, dwarves and gnomes are the only civilized peoples native to the regions of the world currently known to science and magic. The race of men and the race of orcs, as well as goblins, are thought to have originated far south across the Great Barrens and came to the known realms many thousands of years ago. It is my desire that ideally there will be some method to the madness of player starting locations, and human cultures for example will be encouraged to start in the south around the “not-Mediterranean.” The first several turns will constitute a BT through the primordial, quasi-prehistoric period of the world. During this period players will be in charge of broader cultures, as opposed to polities, and as the first several turns continue they will gradually take charge of single polities as opposed to larger culture groups within a race. The ultimate goal of this is to mimic in some degree the complexity and realism of Tolkien's history, wherein the various human kingdoms are descended from common cultural ancestors, et cetera.

Here is the initial player culture template:

Culture Name: [ex. Ayanmur elves]
Starting Location: General area your culture originates in
Society: Description in brief of the general character of your culture and how it is organized, political preferences and social mores, etc.
Religion: Description of existing religion(s) in your culture and their beliefs and mandates
Mythos: Description of the mythic origin of your people
Economy: Description in brief of the most basic elements of your culture's economy; if you are a plains people do you rely wholly on agriculture or have your people been known to expand to the seas and fish, do they mine, etc
Country Names: Potential names for polities arising from your culture. More relevant later on
Person Names: Common names for members of your culture of both genders
Place Names: Titles your culture might give to different places, or just general terms like the words for town or fort, etc.

On the Art of Warfare

Nine out of ten scholars agree that warfare is a threat to your health. Most wars in the history of the world have been very bloody affairs that have been fought by large armies of mustered men-at-arms and professional soldiers. These clashes have shaped the world as it is understood and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Here's another cool fact, stats are a pain in the rear. It is my intention that stats should be as minimalist as possible, and as stats generally appeal to the more wargamey aspects of NESing I intend to introduce the stats here.

Example!
Empire of Ayarurmur (Elven)/SomeGuy96
Economy: Strong
Economic Description: Based entirely on Bitcoin
Population: Large
Army: Large
Army Description: Legions of fedora-wearing neckbearded soldiers repulsing the enemy with their ignorance and foul stench
Navy: Large
Navy Description: Boats what float

You may argue that this is overly-simplistic but this is a fantasy NES and whether one player has 66,000 spearmen and the other as 57,000 is missing the point. Warfare is going to be very important in the NES, obviously, but the actual mechanics of the fighting is not the focus. The focus is the narrative.

And All Other Loose Ends​

Concerning the Race of Giants
Of generally unknown origin, the giants are a barbaric people that resemble the civilized races in some aspect, but are grotesque, impossibly stupid and incredibly large. Standing at twelve feet tall at the shortest, and sixteen at the tallest, giants are incapable of intelligible speech and instead communicate basic, object needs like hunger, pain and so on. Giants live in small packs and are generally too busy killing each other to pose a threat to most civilized cultures. They normally reside in mountains and are dangerous only when provoked.
Concerning the Race of Trolls
Similar to the giants, trolls are large, grotesque but human-like creatures that are known to reside in woodlands, hills and mountains. Trolls are markedly more intelligent than giants and have an intelligible language. Some trolls are smarter than others, however, and many subsets of troll are just as dumb as their presumed giant cousins.

Yes, uncivilized races will be playable. Goblins and lizardmen will be playable and can be "civilized" under the right conditions, however, up until that point players will control nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes as opposed to established societies. I am considering removing lizardmen altogether because I am planning to maintain only the traditional high fantasy races.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

I'm VERY much looking forward to this!

 

[Gem Hound]

*stares* When does the NES start?