《Notebook of possibilities》fantasy foundation, and the mixture a system causes
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Many fantasy stories are either litrpgs or psuedo litrpgs, this classification comes about by having a system with number metrics that allow for a more easily visible numeric representation of various strengths and weaknesses held by characters, objects, animals, and everything in between.
This creates issues for authors for various reasons. On one hand, you can't exploit a system if it doesn't exist, and even just looking at our own reality, there is a sort of system in place, but this has been defined by humans, for humans, and is considered the frameworks of our reality, Through these efforts we have not only found basic laws of our reality, grouping them together under the title of Physics, but broken it down into various statistics to be a more manageable chunk of knowledge, like how gravity is a force, but velocity is a speed with direction, and how everything has mass, and then, and this is the pain in the ass part, the way it all comes together and reacts and interacts and how this creates new numbers for other things.
Now, this is important to a fantasy story why?
The answer is really quite simple. As an author, we have created a world, and we have decided arbitrarily on various points of data which, regardless of what we attempt, is within the frameworks set up by the hardwork of our physics based predecessors.
Example; An ogre is somewhere around 400 plus pounds, maybe even on the light side, over 6 or 7 feet tall, and swings a tree trunk like a club. guess what, i was already wrong in my assumptions because a 7 foot ogre, covered in fat, thick skin, with digits described as sausaged easily weighs in at a 1000 pounds or more. a 400 pound ogre would likely actually be a few month old ogre infant, assuming such a thing exists in the story, or its gonna be an orc before it can evolve into an ogre. the tree trunk, assuming standards would be an oak tree, would probably weigh a couple hundred pounds. if we divide by ten on either side of the equation of what is being tossed around, that would be like saying a hundred pound man, swinging a ten pound bat. possible, but it might seriously offbalance him on the backswing. so we have to further increas the ogres weight to anywhere from 1400 pounds minimum as a scrawny ogre, to a whopping 2600 pound fatass behemoth of slavering jaws, thigh thick fingers, and a whole jabba the fatass worth of rolls of fat. just to swing that 100 pound tree trunk like it was a bat. and after that, we have giants. no less than maybe 7 thousand? maybe? its hard to say, because a tree trunk, from an oak, would be a thick stick to a giant. swung like a short club, or maybe a short sword.
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yes. this is fucking terrifying to put into numbers. it gets WORSE. if you wanna make an unbreakable system, you need to account for physics. and then you just fuck with biology by using mana and magic as a stopgap for how some ten to twelve foot tall humanoid weighing a ton or two can walk around and not die instead of existing.
The good news for all this hardship of trying to actually make it functional is simple, people can technically grab the actual physics based equations just like you did, and put the numbers in to follow along, not that many would actually want to.
the hard part comes with fucking with physics, because thats EXACTLY what stats are supposed to do. This is the real bitch of the system creation process. how do stats affect the biology, strength would increase muscles and mass, and dexterity increases density and flexibility? but then you go from a plausible 220 pound well muscled near 6 foot young man, into the clearly superhuman point of muscle density that can only be described as possible because macguffin says so. the macguffin being magic, and the system.
On top of all that, you need to figure out HOW the stats interact with physics as well as biology. Does strength bring an integar variable? or is fractions allowed? how far down a decimal would you allow? Would strength be added? Multiplication? A power number? How would it affect the characters upper limit dealings with the world?
Thats important for equations. if i had to guess, there would be a numeric way to measure muscle density, and then a perctentage multiplier of the possible maximum amount of force that can be applied, and then you take into account wind up, distance traveled, resistance from atmosphere, liquid, gas, vacuum, maybe even plasma if thats an equation we have access to, and then you work in how strength changes the upper limit on strength, and how that can be increased or decreased by gravity... so on and so forth.
The point I'm basically working towards is the idea that you AREN'T writing a book. you're designing a simulation and giving various points of reference which are documented by your story.
This is a very difficult task, its physics after all, and we can't even make a computer capable of handling the equations to create a simulation of our entire universe as it is, and here I am saying the most unbreakable system needs to not only incorporate what cannot yet be simulated, but complicate it by adding further variables, and then you have to also be able to break it back down to be a variable that is known at any point during the story. Its a very tall task, because thats not necessarily a good story, its just a firm foundation to make it so it's harder to crack the bedrock and find something from.... Beyond, so to speak. in other words, an exploit. something so beyond what you expected or accounted for, that it shatters the boundaries of strength in your story simply because of one fact.
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You didn't find the exploit, so it was never taken into account, and its not in the history, there is no plausible reason at the moment why this could not happen, and nothing to declaim the plausibility of someone stumbling on it.
Which is why having such an iron clad system built on what we can figure out is so important to be able to handle continuity.
things only get more complex if stats aren't even an integar, but a variable in and of themselves. like saying one point of strength for a giant is not equal to one point of strength for a human. this would further complicate matters because race would come with further variables than just effects on skill levels, leveling, and the like, instead you get that races would also have their own values for stats, which complicates a bit on halfbreeds and whether or not this is a baseline truth for all members of a race, or if one would need to instead make a sort of range generator for the value which would then be multiplied by the actual stat numbers.
in which case... you just owned yourself, to use a colloquialism, because now EVERY race has to be documented beforehand so you can keep continuity straight. a brutal task if you ever want to make a beastiary, as you would need to make two or three separate versions as a primer for the story. one for you, which has the hidden values, the shown stats, the skill progression, and maybe important cultural facts. then the public one, which gives average stats and age values, common stats, and more about culture and history, and then the definitive edition, which has everything but the history, as if to say that its a beastiary of potentially useable beasts for a different fantasy setting. The titles for the beastiaries would naturally be a bit different, as maybe the DM version has everything as opposed to the "definitive" edition.
but thats why i have a hard time creating a story. short stuff is fine, relatively easy even. but the hard part is defining everything with a clear cut set of numbers and values, and then, keeping continuity going properly without leaving some major gap in the story. which would become a serious issue for me without basically writing three separate books, or more, detailing the physics, the equations, maps, beastiaries, character glossary, elements, stat names, classes wheel. EVERYTHING. there is so much i have to figure out before i could be serious, and that is all before figuring out a plot, any arcs, characterizations, and logical and illogical choices to be made because going for some sort of silver path i built into the system would not be allowed.
As has been said before, balance in all things, as is right. if i were to complete my 'research' so to speak, all things would have balance. darkness may be blinding, but its not as fast, or does less damage, lighting would be fast and cause either a short stun, or have low damage. there could be no overwhelming winning element or spell in any or perhaps all branches, simply because that would be unfair in such a system, and would create bias, which, might technically be a plot tool, but that is easily remedied by having less research into various elements. just because the basics of each element may be like the root of a single giant plant, each and every specific branch will be different, but equivalent length, if that makes sense.
Like if lightning were considered a very strong element, that could be because no one had realized earthquake was a plausible spell, there are many options, and it all depends on how i could balance and check things.
the same goes for any author. it all depends on what you think something could do, but if you aren't careful and a bit creative, you may miss simple exploits in your own system.
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