Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
1/23/2016
|
That's an excellent point about the use of harpoons in whaling - their purpose is to transfix the whale (or zee-monster) so that it can then be worn down and taken intact. And, whether you're throwing it with your own arms or launching it out of a cannon, it's got to be more or less the same basic weapon to fulfil that purpose.
Also, yeah, the Correspondence basically is programming! Excellent description!
Also also, I bloody love Fallout: New Vegas, but I will point out there than its best weapons, too, tend to be unique items with a story behind them rather than just whatever's biggest and blastiest. Hell, it's a Fallout tradition (all the way back to the original Wasteland) that one of the best guns is a Limited Edition BB Gun - the New Vegas equivalent was bonkers powerful for a stealth build. (4's a bit of an exception, but 3 and 4 are exceptions to Fallout rules in a lot of ways, having been made by a different developer altogether.)
--
Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
|
|
|
+4
link
|
Nanako
Posts: 536
1/23/2016
|
Kittenpox wrote:
Seems like we're getting into a discussion about monster-hunting rather than a discussion about comparing the various professions in general. Also, it looks like someone's going through and giving the thumbs-down to many of Nanako's comments. (As indicated by their grand total of *MINUS* 61 across all posts, even after I put a few of them back up to +0.)
I did notice that, it seemed a little rude. some of my recent points haven't really been addressed, but just sort of downvoted as some kind of passive agressive sniping
I should clarify, with my correspondence programming analogy, i didn't necessarily mean it's just some kind of arcane invention to be programmed. Rather i was implying that it might be the programming language in which the universe is written, which would at least sort-of explain its reality warping powers. Writing it is akin to opening the console in a game and typing commands.
Kittenpox you seem rather nice.
And on a semi related note, i'm glad that, one way or another, this spirited discussion is keeping the thread high on the forum list, so my poll can gather many more votes. i like large data samples
--
Sunless Skies needs engine and speed control mechanics. Have a look at my design proposal for implementing it
http://community.failbettergames.com/topic25687-a-design-for-engines.aspx
|
|
|
+2
link
|
Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
1/23/2016
|
Yeah, I definitely get what you mean. Or, as the fellow for whom the Hill is named might put it, studying the Correspondence is like opening up reality to see the gears inside, and trying to rearrange them to make them do what we want. Except the gears are made of seven-dimensional light and they tell a time far more ancient than any of us can even comprehend.
--
Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
|
|
|
+2
link
|
Nanako
Posts: 536
1/23/2016
|
Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook wrote:
Also also, I bloody love Fallout: New Vegas, but I will point out there than its best weapons, too, tend to be unique items with a story behind them rather than just whatever's biggest and blastiest.
As a counterpoint, i'd like to mention that the Fat Man exists, and even non-unique variants of it are typically more powerful than just about everything else.
but we are getting a little off topic now
--
Sunless Skies needs engine and speed control mechanics. Have a look at my design proposal for implementing it
http://community.failbettergames.com/topic25687-a-design-for-engines.aspx
|
|
|
-3
link
|
Passionario
Posts: 777
1/23/2016
|
Unsurprisingly, Passionario is a Midnighter. Secrets, after all, are what is left after both money and power run out.
--
Passionario: Profile, Story, Ending
Passion: Profile, Appearance
|
|
|
+2
link
|
Guest
1/24/2016
|
Just wanted to add that the bad commentary referral I mentioned was criticizing others for comments to you I cannot comment on due to their removal, Nanako. I find your replies polite and civil and personjally apologize if in any way it was referring otherwise. Controversial? Debatable. But never rude. Whether anybody has given "thumbs down" or not isn't the question (as is their option) as much as polite posting. If we're getting into Passive aggressive posting here, that requires Dr. Schlomo and is a whole discussion I'm not going to do here or in private as (my personal decision ) personally inappropriate for me to comment.
And I could debate that Sunless Sea is what was created from the development of London and the civilizations detailed there from the stories of FL, but you brought up some excellent points on how the civilizations could see themselves, so I'm happily looking into that such as the Chelonate, the Correspondence and so forth.
(Oh, and Steampunk vs Fallout was the 19th vs. 20th Century, but excellent points of the 1950's Allusion Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook. Between that and the Whaling Metaphors, I am looking at this many different ways, which is the point of discussion, so my hat tipped to all repliers of this!)
edited by the truthseeker on 1/24/2016
|
|
|
0
link
|
Parelle
Posts: 1084
1/24/2016
|
The Correspondence is programing in not an actual language perhaps, but in machine code. Binary. As in, something deeper and below an intelligentible syntax itself. Like knowing what the 1's and 0's mean, and how changing a single one can destroy all the work you've done... Like looking through a Magic Eye picture until it snaps into an image (and some times wishing you hadn't).
Nice. I like the analogy.
--
Parelle, Lady Joseph Marlen. The Singular Librarian. A Midnighter, a Player of the Marvelous.
pages from a dusty bookshop: a badly updated FL changelog | Useful Guidance and Explanations
|
|
|
+3
link
|
Pyrodinium
Posts: 639
1/24/2016
|
Kittenpox wrote:
Seems like we're getting into a discussion about monster-hunting rather than a discussion about comparing the various professions in general. Also, it looks like someone's going through and giving the thumbs-down to many of Nanako's comments. (As indicated by their grand total of *MINUS* 61 across all posts, even after I put a few of them back up to +0.)
I can't blame them. The first few paragraphs of the OP does seem to talk down on Monster-Hunters. Having that huge picture of the Monster-Hunter's identity plastered there with unflattering words doesn't help. There's I think four to five lines at the bottom of the OP which talked about what the OP is all about. However, I think by the time that people should have been reading those lines, they're probably slightly offended already and are instead thinking about a rebuttal.
I do agree that the downvotes are in poor form though.
Kittenpox wrote:
What I'm trying to say is that regardless whether you think bone weapons or cannonballs are better for the task of monster-hunting, or what your personal belief is regarding a deliberately obscure piece of lore in a text-based browser game, there's no need to downvote someone's comments indiscriminately.
Let's avoid getting all toxic about this, yeah? We can do better, surely.
edited by Kittenpox on 1/23/2016
That is indeed unfair and I agree with your suggestion. Let's have a vigorous discussion here but let's not spill that to other areas of the forum.
--
My profiles: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Pyrodinium
(A Monster hunter on the hunt of his twin brother's killer. Overprotective dad of his twin's daughter)
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Rudolph~of~Taured
(an indeterminate person of potentially rubbery lineage)
* All social actions except photographers and loitering welcome!
|
|
|
0
link
|
Nanako
Posts: 536
1/24/2016
|
the truthseeker wrote:
And I could debate that Sunless Sea is what was created from the development of London and the civilizations detailed there from the stories of FL, but you brought up some excellent points on how the civilizations could see themselves, so I'm happily looking into that such as the Chelonate,
I feel you might be a little disappointed, the chelonate isn't explored too much in sunless sea. A couple fragments of their culture can be gleaned from a few quests that require a stop at the chelonate, but otherwise visiting it doesn't reveal much besides that they really love killing things, and have a huge pasison for meat, bones, and carving.
--
Sunless Skies needs engine and speed control mechanics. Have a look at my design proposal for implementing it
http://community.failbettergames.com/topic25687-a-design-for-engines.aspx
|
|
|
0
link
|
Nanako
Posts: 536
1/24/2016
|
Pyrodinium wrote:
There's I think four to five lines at the bottom of the OP which talked about what the OP is all about. However, I think by the time that people should have been reading those lines, they're probably slightly offended already and are instead thinking about a rebuttal.
I do believe the start of my OP was an explanation of why i made the poll, and a bulletpointed list of questions for readers to answer .That was the main focus of the thread, the sections below it were more my answers to my own questions. perhaps i ought to have placed them in a second post.
--
Sunless Skies needs engine and speed control mechanics. Have a look at my design proposal for implementing it
http://community.failbettergames.com/topic25687-a-design-for-engines.aspx
|
|
|
-1
link
|
Nanako
Posts: 536
1/24/2016
|
On a different note, i'd like to ask about the campaigner path.
The T1 profession, campaigner, is something taken from revolutionaries, if i recall correctly. So i imagined the profession as a sort of lobbyist/protestor, who writes letters, pickets things, and generally tries to push the revolutionaries agenda wherever a political ear can be found. Presumably their salary is paid out of revolutionary funds from their wealthy benefactors.
This profession line seems, at first, a directly political one, and i'd expeect it to lead to becoming a Member of Parliament or somesuch
But then, tier 2 is mystic, i've no clue what that's all about, and tier 3 is the even more obtuse Glassman, which i gather has something vaguely to do with visiting parabola, and i don't see any sort of connection to politics at all.
This profession line seems to have fahrenheit syndrome. Can anyone explain what in blazes is going on there?
edited by Nanako on 1/24/2016
--
Sunless Skies needs engine and speed control mechanics. Have a look at my design proposal for implementing it
http://community.failbettergames.com/topic25687-a-design-for-engines.aspx
|
|
|
-1
link
|
Sara Hysaro
Moderator
Posts: 4514
1/24/2016
|
The Campaigner can also be affiliated with the Church, in which case you're spreading the word about religious matters. Being a Mystic seems like being a prophet, and you move on from visions and trances to exploring Parabola itself.
--
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Sara%20Hysaro
Please do not send SMEN, cat boxes, or Affluent Reporter requests. All other social actions are welcome.
Are you a Scarlet Saint? Send a message my way to be added to the list.
|
|
|
+1
link
|
suinicide
Posts: 2409
1/24/2016
|
You can also become a campaigner from the church. Both the church and the revolutionaries are about strong belief. (In god, and that what they are doing is right). So I always considered them less political, and more about just persuading people they're right, with a crowd backing them up, demonstrating their effectiveness.
Mystic is more of the same, but it seems to be getting into more of the fantastical elements, such as dreams and mirrors.
For glassman, I'm not sure, but I think they're using parabola to gain knowledge on the future/past somehow, and creating arguments to change events that way.
But keep in mind I chose to be a correspondent, so take that with a grain of salt, and perhaps believe someone who actually became a Glassman.
edited by suinicide on 1/24/2016
--
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/profile/sunnytime
A gentleman seeking the liberation of knowledge, with a penchant for violence.
RIP suinicide, stuck in a well. Still has it under control.
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Anne Auclair
Posts: 2215
1/24/2016
|
I think of campaigner as a sort of free range do-gooder and/or troublemaker. The Victorian period and early 20th century overflowed with social reform movements (temperance, public hygiene, poor relief, vegetarianism, animal welfare, conservation, anti-slavery). Whether you have a major issue you're campaigning for is up to you (I've linked my character's campaigning to her efforts against the soul trade).
--
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Anne%20Auclair
|
|
|
+1
link
|
MrBurnside
Posts: 188
1/24/2016
|
I take a slightly more Foucauldian approach to the language of the Correspondence and to Fallen London in general. In it, as in any language, words possess definitions, allusive reference, idiosyncratic associations as well as carrying context, subtext and interpretive shifts. The Correspondence is the language of those who shape the rules of heaven and earth. To refer to speaking or writing the Correspondence as being functional in a sort of “Chinese Room” exercise seems, somehow, to be missing the point.
Mass, energy, light, or even more arcane things like souls or life need not be affected by the Correspondence in reproducible or consistent ways. Just in ways that the Judgments find convenient, practical or pleasantly ironic. Any words or syntax needn't even mean the same thing to different people or at different times.
In a way this goes back to the idea of a harpoon being the (or “a”) tool of the Monster-Hunter. It's application is not merely one of joules, but one of force. The force with which a Hunter can wield such a tool may be less a question of the tool and more a question of the hunter. And the way a tool cuts or bashes or explodes may in fact depend more on what is being hit, than what hits. An enormous, bitter, old, angry wizard of a fluke may be bothered less with high-explosives then with a magically empowered piece of an enormous, bitter, old, angry wizard of a fluke.
That said... mechanically, any weapon-slot item that provides Dangerous is just too out-classed by Exotica items to use.
It's almost enough to make me wish K&C didn't exist. Almost.
edited by MrBurnside on 1/24/2016
edited by MrBurnside on 1/24/2016
|
|
|
+3
link
|
Guest
1/24/2016
|
I actually was interested in the Campaigner branch myself, not having tested it before (and have a character just for that now.) I'm curious if I will take the Revolutionary thinking approach or bully pulpit Church approach. (Having a Glassman cool pair of glasses in the end doesn't hurt either.) I'm curious for those who look at it in a Role-playing perspective for more on why do Revolutionaries become Mystics? (My thanks to Sunicide for the Church perspectives and Anne Auclair for the first stage Campaigner perspectives, of course.)
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
1/24/2016
|
the truthseeker wrote:
I'm curious for those who look at it in a Role-playing perspective for more on why do Revolutionaries become Mystics?
Whatever their reasons, it doesn't always work out for them - poor July.
--
Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
|
|
|
+6
link
|
TheThirdPolice
Posts: 609
1/24/2016
|
My thoughts as a revolutionary Glassman:
The Campaigner is a classic radical passing out pamphlets or spittle.
To be honest the Mystic stage didn't feel like a good fit. You're either scamming people or you believe you have mystical visions. Not much room for roleplaying outside those boxes.
But once you're a Glassman, you are advancing in an incredibly illegal realm. Whether you're trying to Liberate or just overthrow the Masters, Parabola entices for its near-immunity to your enemies' control, and for its own dread power. At this point it's the Church Campaigners who might wonder why they chose this career — [spoiler]although I believe the Bishop of Southwark is trying to attract Fingerking allies in a war against Hell, so you could be working for him.[/spoiler]
--
Excessive Corpse & Tender to Irreal Ravens
Lover of Flawed Souls
And with especial pride, Worst Screwup of the Decade!
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Nanako
Posts: 536
1/24/2016
|
MrBurnside wrote:
That said... mechanically, any weapon-slot item that provides Dangerous is just too out-classed by Exotica items to use.
It's almost enough to make me wish K&C didn't exist. Almost.
edited by MrBurnside on 1/24/2016
edited by MrBurnside on 1/24/2016
exotica items ? i'd love a clarification here
--
Sunless Skies needs engine and speed control mechanics. Have a look at my design proposal for implementing it
http://community.failbettergames.com/topic25687-a-design-for-engines.aspx
|
|
|
0
link
|
Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
1/24/2016
|
Knife-and-Candle weapons. Specifically, the Waxwail Knife, which provides +20 Dangerous. You have to have won a lot of duels to earn it, but, well, some people are very committed to duelling.
--
Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
|
|
|
+1
link
|