02-06-2023, 03:15 PM | #161 |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
Shape Earth is an interesting spell. It has multiple modes, and multiple potential economic uses... the trick is to figure out which one.
I've already compared it to plowing, and its no good there. (see post 152) For ordinary digging in ordinary soil, our ST 10 farmer can move 20 cf/hr, and a team of three can move 80 cf/hr. If they have ST 11 (which is not too unlikely), they get a +20% boost. Our Mage can move 6 cubic yards in the same time, or 162 cf/hr, as many as six men. The mage doesn't slow down in hard clay, digging like 8 men, and while digging at half speed through rock, still digs like 8 men. If competing against wooden tools, the mage's effectiveness doubles. I'm not sure how much call for digging on the manor there is, its classically unskilled and thankless work. apparently a lot of it was required, but I'm not sure how much. If the mage can get enough of it to work constantly, he can earn a good living, collecting the pay of six to eight men. Working 300 days a year, collecting the pay of six men, the digger can make 1800d. The question is if a digging mage will have enough work, and if they will be able to command the full price of the people they replace: I suspect work will be moderately plentiful, (250 days worth) and they can get get at least four men's worth of pay. That's 1000d a year: as much as a low-level craftsman. The shape earth modes are not done being analyzed: a shape stone mode could use some exploration, as is using it for construction. Construction is a really hard question though, because its so dependent on demand.
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02-07-2023, 02:09 AM | #162 | ||
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: UK
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
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Even without the earth-to-metal part, Earth to Stone might still make a big difference to an economy, as you could make metal ores out of soil. Idle off-topic thought. A spell that turns any ore into its metal sounds as if it might be useful, at the world-building level, and a straightforward way of doing things and not as OP at the worldbuilding level as just being able to conjure up any metal from any random soil. However, that might have drastically OP unintended consequences at the individual/adventuring level. Why? Well, feed it a handful of salt. For that matter, could Earth to Stone itself produce sodium metal? "Simple metal" seems almost completely meaningless as an explanation of what you can produce. Possibly it means "the GM should use their own discretion, only metals that aren't especially game-breaking are allowed, no producing a cubic yard of gold". But if so, that would be circular reasoning in this case since the original proposal seems to be exactly to see how far we can break the setting using RAW. Since Shape Earth has a duration of one minute, does that mean that you can cast Shape Earth and then cast Earth to Stone on the results? That might allow for very quick work and/or very unstable and/or large items compared to what can be made out of clay before converting it into stone. Might or might not be reasonable to allow creating arbitrarily complex shapes infallibly using Shape Earth, though. An alternative might be to require an IQ roll or an Artist (Sculptor) roll, similar to how Control does in Powers.
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02-07-2023, 10:15 AM | #163 | ||||
Hero of Democracy
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
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I'm hoping to break things just as badly with ceremonial magic and the agriculture spells, to be honest, I just haven't gotten there yet. I don't think the abundant metal is actually going to ripple than badly: if people are still struggling to feed themselves, its mostly irrelevant. It does raise material wealth, but that's something most fantasy settings over-estimate in the first place. Looking at what the metal ends up used for, I'm actually not seeing a lot of demand in a TL3 manor. LTC3 indicates that metal plows only really become universal at TL4, and that gives about a 30% reduction in plowing time. Metal Cookware, fire handling tools, abundant tools, and nails are also nice, but I don't know how much of a further economic boost they give. craftsmen and soldiers see a LOT more benefit, but unless you can increase the number of people who fall into that category, it might not matter in grander terms. Quote:
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"Simple" is a terrible word here. Bronze is explicitly included, and its complex, while almost no-one lets the spell make gold, and its an element. My interpretation is to include iron and bronze, as they are explicitly mention, and including Copper, Tin, Lead, and Brass. Gold and Silver are out, and I think I'm going to include mercury there too. Various steels are the hardest question, but I'm leaning towards being only able to make mild steel. I'd lean against sodium being a valid target. Really anything that isn't an "ancient" metal. Quote:
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02-07-2023, 11:21 AM | #164 |
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Join Date: Mar 2012
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
Ok, a look at replacing the smith. I'm leaning heavily on LTC3 here, which has a lot of good info for this. Raw clay costs .20$ a lb and 80 lbs of it can be produced in a day. This is likely the target material for earth to stone in finished products. Compare this with $6.90 for Iron, or high and geographically variable numbers for Bronze with an semi-historical suggestion for the ancient Mediterranean that looks like $30 for 10% tin bronze.
If a tool (like a hatchet or Adze) has 1.5 lbs of Iron and costs $40 to make, including a $5 haft*, it requires a smith $10 of iron and $25 worth of labor** to make, or just over 10 hours. The mage can make do with .30$ of clay, an hour of FP recovery, and the work needed to set up the forms***, sharpen the tool, and pound in the haft. This number is going to vary a bit from tool to tool, but my guess is it is generally from 30 minutes to two hours. I'm not 100% sure, but it looks like bigger tools might not cost that much more than small ones in this new state of affairs. I'm not sure if the molding takes out the skill of the smith: getting right is probably its own skill. I don't know what to call it. Making a thin scythe doesn't look terribly easy though. So if these tools are typical, The mage can spend three hours to produce ~$35 of tools. That's about $2300 a week... or 163.5d, if using the conversion in post #91. If we discount the cost of the iron (its cheap around, here, right?), we get $1630 a week, or 116.5d. But this is per week, still for astronomical gains: 116d a week is 5,800d a year. That's not as bad as we've seen before, but its still economy warping. If he can find buyers. Also, armor and swords probably need special consideration. *Looking at the Jo, club, and light staff in Low-Tech's weapons table, this is between $5 to $15: for an axe or adze (both $40, 2lbs), we'll go with $5. **By LTC3 iron manufacturing, a full smith is paid $900 a month. he's presumed to have helpers, so the production per month is $900 * .55 = $495, and the per hour is 1/200th of that: $2.475 an hour. The village smith, who doesn't have helpers, gets paid full and produces $2.20 worth of labor in an hour. ***For a big solid lumpy tool, like a hammer or axe, the same molds used to cast bronze will work. It fact, you can make the molds better, because you can turn them into stone. You make the mold by forming clay around a tool you want to copy, one on each side. You pack the mold with clay, and cast the spell. Then you need to sharpen and attach the haft. Yes, I've been watching "How to Make Everything" on youtube.
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02-07-2023, 05:50 PM | #165 | |
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
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The cost for Essential Earth is in the Errata (http://www.sjgames.com/errata/gurps/4e/magic_2.html) Good analysis. It also argues (to a certain extent) for the lords of the manor (going back however many generations) to have the mage who teaches the Earth spells spending some time every year making more of the land Essential. And have that be encouraged, in much the same way that infrastructure and utilities are better off being done by bodies that don't have to worry about profits (which is usually governments, which are the economic bodies that don't have to worry about profit under most circumstances). And as it's permanent, definitely get people thinking long term in this case; as it's a spell that doesn't have an immediate gain. Granted, the crop takes only 1/3 the time before needing to be harvested, so if you are in an area that had two crops per year, you now have 6. (The Willamette Valley, in Oregon, grows stuff all year round, as the winters are pretty mild.) One of the things I learned about farming (from relatives in North Dakota) is that ditching is often required to drain fields, as there can be too much rain. If there isn't a good way to drain it (and ND is really flat) the crops will be flooded and ruined. Shape Earth would work here too, in addition to plowing, making earth berms for water retention, digging wells, making walls and hedgerows, etc. With Earth to Stone as well, that makes creating foundations for buildings very easy, even if you don't just make all of the buildings stone. As for the economy-destroying Earth to Stone (metal), unless they deliberately flood the market (assuming they don't have more important things to do) there just aren't enough mages with that particular spell to have that big of an effect. Although peasants might have an easier time getting their hands on silver mirrors and golden candlesticks. The economy would adjust. Most people won't be affected, as they are still trying to put enough food on the table, even with the "advances" of Essential Earth and Bless Plants. Except that now, Harvest time comes more often, and everyone is more busy. Except the herders. They still get to laze around looking after sheep and practicing their slinging skills. Unless you have the Hair Growth spell, in which case you are doing a lot of shearing. One casting of that spell is 58 days worth of wool growth. Depending upon breed, sheep need to be sheared once or twice a year to keep their wool from getting too matted. That's 6 or 3 castings of the spell per animal. Might be good for some quick cash, but I haven't really thought about how cost effective it might be. The enchanted item is much more effective; it gives an hour's worth of the spell (assuming you take it off as soon as possible...it grows hair for an hour after it's been removed...do NOT leave it on!). That's 114 years worth of wool, so unless you are having mutton that evening, shear it as fast as you can while the wool is growing for the next hour. Might need a couple shearers per animal, as the wool grows fast. That item costs 100 energy to enchant, not that any of the manors are likely to have an enchanter...any enchanter will likely migrate to the city, or be bought up by monied interests. And while Hal said that "social contracts" will keep the greedy, powerhungry people in charge from somehow taking them away, I don't buy it. They will come up with a "legal" reason to get someone with that skill set, if they exist.
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Warmest regards, StevenH My current worldbuilding project. You can find the Adventure Logs of the campaign here. I try to write them up as narrative prose, with illustrations. As such, they are "embellished" accounts of the play sessions. Link of the moment: Bestiary of Plants. In a world of mana, plants evolved to use it as an energy source. It is also the new home of the Alaconius Lectures, a series of essays about the various Colleges of Spells. |
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02-08-2023, 12:35 AM | #166 | ||||
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: UK
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
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Alternatively, if they did produce that much gold and silver - well, maybe that's how there's so much treasure in some dungeon fantasy settings :-D In that case, things might be going on much as before but using barter, and/or some other kinds of portable valuable goods as currency, instead of gold, silver and copper coins. It might not make a lot of difference to most things, as you and ericthered mentioned - you can't eat gold, and nor can you burn it as firewood. One possible rule (if somebody wanted a coherent rule) might be that mages can only produce metals with which they're personally familiar. That seems like it would rule out sodium metal, other alkali and alkali earth metals such as magnesium metal, types of steel that hadn't been invented by other methods yet and radioactive metals (some players might be cheeky enough). Though gold and silver would still be possible if the mage had some already for comparison. Might have to just say "can't do that", if you were going to rule out gold and silver. Gold and silver, and to some extent mercury, seem to have a special status in alchemy as the "highest metals", so that seems sort of appropriate for magic. Another thing is whether to count transparent quartz as a gemstone (and therefore out of bounds) for the purposes of Earth to Stone. That might be a useful thing to be able to make, before glass was readily available (although, like the metals, it might still need polishing). Going by Wikipedia, it seems to have been used in large chunks compared to most gemstones but still not what you'd call cheap. Maybe possible but more difficult, with what MoS you get determining how transparent the quartz is (success by 0 giving you bog-standard white quartzite, possibly still useful for something but isn't the item that was ordered). Quote:
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02-08-2023, 10:46 AM | #167 | ||||||||||||
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
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I'm planning an analysis of how business looks for mages who work with smiths instead of trying to replace them. Armor and swords are specifically interesting: I don't think that the casting method is going to work well for armor, which needs a thin, uniform thinkness, and blades seem to benefit from being worked a little. Quote:
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02-08-2023, 11:33 AM | #168 | |
Hero of Democracy
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
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By LTC3, Sheep give 4 lbs of wool per acre-year, and does this with 2 animals. Getting an extra acre-year of growth takes 24 energy (4 hours of FP). And you get pretty much the full value, because you cast for 1 and then continue the spell for however much FP you have, so you don't drop 25% of your FP at skill 12. The work to sheer a sheep seems to be about 30 minutes according to Mount Vernon (which employs people who sheer sheep the 18th century way). So with 4 hours of FP and 1 hour of sheering, you can generate 4 lbs of wool. with the 50 hour week I've been using, that's 40 lbs for a grueling week. If using a CF+3 sheep (yes, that's what LTC3 calls it) you can double the yield to 80lbs of wool a week. But this is a cost 1 Spell. So if you get it to skill 15... you can cast it as long as you have daylight hours, and it seems it doesn't kill you. If you sheer all the sheep yourself, you are pulling in 4 lbs an hour with bog standard sheep for 200 lbs of wool a week. If you just cast the spell all day, you can have 2 lbs of wool ready a minute. You will need 30 men working sheering to keep up with your output (you take a minute per sheep, they take 30). All of you will produce 120lbs of wool an hour, and 24,000 lbs of wool in a month.... but remember we have to pay the sheers, and that's going to cost a month's pay for 30 people, something like 750d. As a side note, Haircut is right next to hair growth in the prereq chain, but at 2 FP, its almost as slow as traditional sheering, especially at skill 12 where 1/4 of the spells fail. Probably not worth it. But we don't have a price for wool, and the only one I can find, in DF8, indicates that sheering sheep is not worth the time: $0.20 per lb of wool indicates you earn $.40 per hour sheering sheep, and with a 200 hour work-month, you earn $80. So the rest of this analysis waits on a better price for wool. 40lbs of wool per week sounds like you might be able to make a living off of it though.
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02-08-2023, 12:34 PM | #169 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
Hi All,
I've largely kept quiet about my thoughts on some of the things you're bringing up, and as I spoke to one individual about, one of my long range plans is to explore concepts that are part of... World Building. That being said - here are some thing to keep in the back of your minds when we discuss things. A) GURPS FANTASY 1st edition introduced the basic framework of spell working. It also introduced the history of Yrth and established a backdrop of things. The Banestorm is the result of a major spell backfire that was ceremonially cast. In many ways, that event moves at the speed of "plot" as opposed to having any kind of game realism baked into the system. By this, I mean that if you look at the spell critical failure table, you don't see a single even there that is comparable to that of the genesis of the Banestorm B) GURPS 2nd and 3rd editions did not have Magery 0 - and GURPS 3rd edition revised didn't even have it. It took the introduction of GURPS COMPENDIUM I to bring that nugget into being. Note that the original concept of mageborn was that each level of magery was 10x higher than the subsequently improved level of magery. Right now, you get to explore what Magery 0 is capable of - and sad to say - once you spend your "coins" (aka mageborn) towards a single purpose, you won't be able to do any of the higher level magics that people look at saying "with Magery 2 and enchantments, you can create X, Y and Z". Without an academy system of teaching, students will only be able to engage in apprentice/master style study of spells, and if a mage dies - his ability to teach as well as practice given spells will diminish. C) you may end up with a mageborn 1 NPC, but if he has no teachers - EVERY single spell that is magery 1, will take twice as long to pick up. If a person with an IQ of 10 Magery 1 tries to study a spell that will be used in ceremonial casting - you have to be VERY careful to include the fact that ceremonial castings are not the same as singular castings. D) Until the advent of GURPS MAGIC 4e including powerstones that did not require the power stone be a gemstone - large powerstones were prohibitively costly to where even a 10 point power stone was not cheap. All of what you're doing now is based on GURPS MAGIC for 4e. Later, we will look at GURPS GRIMOIRE (called GURPS CLASSIC GRIMOIRE) and GURPS MAGIC 2nd edion (called GURPS CLASSIC MAGIC) to see how the slight but definite differences in rules may have an impact on the world being designed by either yourselves - or readers who stumble across this thread in the future. Bear in mind - I'm trying not to set in stone ANYTHING so much as to get you to think about what trying to make a true TL 3 like fantasy environment entails using the rules as written, be it the unadulterated GURPS MAGIC for 4e with zero restrictions, or GURPS MAGIC for 4e with restrictions (and the reasons behind those restrictions discussed here in the future) or GURPS MAGIC for 3e's spell lists only, with some of the GURPS GRIMOIRE spells utilized as well. World Building is one thing. Having a more intimate understanding of the game world you are presenting to your players - can only be enriched if you first occupy the "game environment" as if it were real, and try to imagine what you'd do if you lived in such a world. So - first - unrestricted Magic for 4e, along with the concepts of Magery 0 to see what kind of impact that has on the world. Then, simple pruning of spells that may or may not be allowed in a future campaign world you may want to run. And finally, the bare bones set up I tend to use for my own campaigns. Why the Bare Bones approach? Ask yourself one simple question... Yrth's background history was first written when all they had was GURPS FANTASY 1st edition (if you want the spell list presented in the volume, let me know and I'll send a text file for you with that list). Then came GURPS MAGIC 1st and 2nd editions. Then came GURPS GRIMOIRE, and finally, we got GURPS COMPENDIUM. The simple question is this: Can Yrth's background be described using the spell lists given with Fantasy 1st edition? Can the history of Yrth survive intact, the introduction of spells from GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition? Can the History of Yrth survive the introduction of spells from GURPS GRIMOIRE? The truth is - with the advent of unrestricted Spells from GURPS MAGIC for 4e - the history of the Banestorm and of Yrth (largely unchanged from GURPS FANTASY 1st and second editions) and expanded upon in GURPS BANESTORM, could not survive intact. Too many of the spells in GURPS MAGIC for 4e, would cause the society to change from TL3 to something akin to TL3+2 or even TL3+3. Even Germ Theory alone would change that in a big way. **shrug**
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02-08-2023, 12:43 PM | #170 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
For those who might be interested...
Download a free demo version of FANTASY GROUNDS, and we can make an arrangement to try and get a conference going with as many people as can meet at any one given time. I'm located in the Eastern Standard Time Zone, and work Third shift with odd days involved (ie I work Saturdays and Sundays). This means that people in Europe or throughout much of the American states can eventually schedule a time where I should be available. 8 to noon Mondays through Fridays - I am usually available Monday nights are reserved for my Cyberpunk Online game group once it resumes again after an unexpected hiatus. So - you want to try and get together for a more or less real time chat session of idea slinging and discussion, contact me via email and I'll see what can be done.
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