And now for the proper reply to NW_Kohaku:
1. BlurrinessI will concede "hard to imagine one without the other," but "one bleeds into the other" was a poor choice of words on my part. I'll need to work on that one. What I really had in mind was something more like what you outlined in the Improved Farming Thread, specifically the section on Fertilizers in reply #3:
Here's another important aspect to remember with using fertilizers, however: They rarely have one direct effect for using them. There are about a dozen different variables for soil for a reason. Everything you do to the soil will have an impact on more than one variable, not all of which are good. This means overreliance upon any single resource will come back to bite you later on when you've managed to turn your soil toxic by trying to just apply the same fertilizers in absurd quantities to just force your soil to keep growing a single crop over and over.
Again, "Everything you do to the soil will have an impact on more than one variable, not all of which are good." In other words, I assume that most actions, at least the ones that impact spheres at all, will impact several spheres simultaneously, and not necessarily only paired dualism ones. That "Other Spheres" section was to look for actions particularly likely to have these sorts of overlapping results.
Well, farming nutrients and spheres are two totally different kettles of fish.
Part of the point of farming was to be a bit more blurry and indistinct, and not to force players to rely solely upon a single resource to get farming done. This is because farming needs the presence (or lack thereof) of every type of nutrient.
Spheres, however, really shouldn't all be present all the time. If every single sphere was active all at once, and all had similar effects, how would you even be able to tell when something is happening because of one sphere or the other? If you can't tell the difference, why bother having them distinguished at all?
I see "every sphere present all the time" as inherently difficult to avoid. There is the caveat about oppositions. There is also the caveat that it might not be strong enough to have much effect, but the number for it is always there, and actions that can shift it are always available (or at least can always be made available by constructing the right building, assuming all the materials required for that building are available).
I will see what I can do about re-arranging and re-phrasing my text file to make major sphere
effects a bit more distinct. Still, I generally see spheres,
especially physical major spheres, as broad enough that shifting only one at a time is effectively impossible, just like shifting only one soil variable at a time with fertilizer (or by growing plants) is effectively impossible.
Of course, proper implementation of temples might shift this, particularly with furniture options like a fountain or
eternal flame.
2. Bottom Up DesignO: Fire shares the Light minor sphere with Sun, but the two have little common ground beyond this.
You're blending vague concepts and then forcing your conclusions to adapt to the theory. As the old joke goes, "When the map and the land disagree, you can usually assume the land is right." Perhaps it's better to work from the ground up, as it were, rather than the top down, and start with actual game effects, and work towards spheres from there?
This ties back to my use of the current Good / Evil / Savage placeholders to predict the behavior and mechanics of sphere-based surroundings, referenced in
my previous post (section 3: Placeholders). The current surroundings are very much top-down. Animal people do not mesh at all with any of the other effects of Savage surroundings. In the current Evil surroundings, I can accept undead as related to plague-bearing evil rain, but I don't see what either has to do with beak dogs, harpies, or silver barbs. And don't even get me started on the Good surroundings. I can't make heads or tails of
anything they do.
That seems to also cover most of the objections in
the spoiler section of your second major critique in reply #40.
3. CavernsI'm not so much a fan of making Caverns a sphere. Rather, they should be the places where spheres come to occupy.
Caverns is in the current official sphere list, so I used it. What you see is what you get. Feel free to advocate dropping Caverns if you feel the need. I can re-arrange things if it comes to that. Most likely Earth would be the new major sphere for that section.
4. Moon5. MOON
M: Balance; Boundaries; Coasts; Dawn; Dusk; Rebirth; Twilight;
S: (AGRICULTURE) Spring; Fall;
T: I am using Moon to represent the liminal, things that aren’t quite one thing or the other, including things in transition.
Twilight or Boundaries would probably make a better "title sphere" than "moon", because moon is associated with night, which is associated with darkness. (. . .)
I just can't really come around to agreeing with concepts like that Moon should be associated with concepts of Boundaries instead of Boundaries, itself. I'd personally see Moon associated with Night or Dreams or Darkness in my own conception. (And in the 40d lists, Moon is friends with Night and Sky, and opposes nothing, not even Sun... I also have a Male Dwarf deity of Moon and Stars in my current fortress.)
The primary reference in my head was actually "Sun, Moon, and Stars;" not "Day, Twilight, and Night." As with "Civilization / Wilderness" vs "Physical / Mental" in my previous post, these are different references to mostly the same idea, but there is a different emphasis and focus, and that difference is the source of disagreements about where concepts fit in the different versions of the categories. You have a point that lumping Moon under Twilight doesn't make sense, but my lumping was the other way around.
The stereotypical reference of Moon is the full moon, and have you seen how bright the full moon is? It might not be up to the vigorous standards of full daylight, but it's certainly bright enough for nearly anything I might want to do (at least outside; shining through a window is sometimes another matter). This description also applies to most of Dawn and Dusk (collectively "Twilight"). Due to the similarity of conditions, the full moon blurs into Twilight, and is distinct from Night. Twilight, a boundary between Day and Night without quite being either (as shown by
crepuscular creatures in real life), spreads to Boundaries in general, which includes Coasts.
Meanwhile; Moon, Twilight, and Night are all physical spheres; Dreams is a mental sphere, so I can't place it in the same category. It might be allied, but remains distinct.
I'm not sure how death is opposed to the seashore. Nor how moon is associated with Spring and Fall while not with Summer or Winter. In fact, "Death" traditionally (in places like the Tarot) has been used to describe transitions, with the afterlife and the mortal life being the two opposites that death lies between. Since we have a game where we're supposed to be capable of walking into a land of the dead, that's probably an angle worth considering. (Hence I prefer the idea of "immortality" or "undeath" being in opposition to a "natural cycle" of life, death, and rebirth.)
I am willing to support your proposed "natural cycle <=> immortality" re-working, with Death as part of the "natural cycle" and undead as part of "immortality." However, in the current game, undead (immortality) are part of the Death sphere. What you see is what you get.
The "natural cycle" does not fit under the current implementation of Death, so it had to go somewhere else, and it wound up under Moon.
5. Cold and Darkness4. Some of the magical wildlife associated with frozen biomes (the ice wolf, for example) might benefit from being split off into a distinct “cold” sphere (Winter and possibly one or more additional new spheres like Snow, Frost, or Ice). On the other hand, biome and surroundings in the current game are almost completely independent of each other. A distinct “cold” sphere would be much more difficult to apply outside the cold biomes (Tundra, Glacier, and possibly Mountain) and this goes against that precedent.
5. Since “cold” is being treated as part of Darkness, other cold effects, such as snow and hail, might be more common in areas where the Darkness sphere is strong. Freezing rain, and the resulting glaze ice could be especially Fun.
Assuming cold and darkness are aligned why?
This ties into my decision to split "Seasons" into "Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter." These four are partial mirrors to, respectively: "Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Night."
Sun claims Day and Summer. The season of Summer generally features long Days and short Nights. Sun also shares Light with Day, and warmth with Summer.
Stars (referred to as Darkness in my major sphere list) claims Night and Winter. The season of Winter generally features short Days and long Nights. Night shares cold with Winter. As a secondary reference, Stars is specifically a
clear night, which allows things to cool off a lot more than a cloudy one.
Moon claims Twilight, which is Dawn and Dusk. These mirror, respectively, Spring and Fall. Spring (Dawn) is a transition from Winter (Night) to Summer (Day). Fall (Dusk) is a transition from Summer (Day) to Winter (Night).
Spring and Fall were also claimed by Agriculture, because the work of farming tends (at least in real life) to be concentrated in Spring (planting) and Fall (harvest).
6. Rot and Butchering3. The real answer here comes back to decay. Leaving the bodies from a defeated siege out to rot will align your area with Death. Burying them in coffins as promptly as feasible will remove this effect.
4. Related to this, leaving the remains of wild animals you use for target practice to rot will align your area with Death, while bringing them in for butchering tilts you more toward Nature.
5. How you deal with sieges can also affect things. Obsidian casting them will not increase your area’s Death alignment, since there is no body to decay. This falls under Fire instead.
6. A designated and stocked hospital will also align your area away from Death. Successfully treating someone might be an even stronger hit.
Most of this is fair enough, but I'm not sure why butchering is more towards nature, exactly. I still think that births and celebrations of life (possibly including weddings or other parties) can be a means of countering death-alignment.
Butchering the animals you kill implies that you will proceed to eat them. This is part of the Hunting minor sphere. Hunting is claimed by Nature, which is a reference to predation and "Nature red in tooth and claw."
7. Water8. WATER
M: Fish; Fishing; Lakes; Muck; Oceans; Rivers; Salt;
If you made "seas" the sphere, salt would make sense, but not water. Isn't salt kind of opposed to water?
I don't live especially close to any lakes, and don't visit the stream a few miles down the street very often, but when I hear (or read) [SPHERE_WATER], my first thought is Oceans. I guess I could associate fresh water with Rain, which would shift Rivers and Lakes toward Weather, but then it's harder to avoid just dismantling the Water major sphere entirely, and you keep referring to a "Sky, Oceans, and Earth" triad, which would be disrupted. I don't understand what you want me to do here.
The official sphere list presented Water as an obvious major sphere, just like Caverns. What you see is what you get.
8. Physical and MentalFor reasons already expressed, I think that distinctions between Civilized and Wilderness spheres are superfluous.
(...)
[T]his is an extremely particular lens through which one views the world that sort of implies that someone has to always be trying to divide things into nature/civilization pairings to even start finding these pairs.
(...)
Apparently, you see this nature/civilization conflict as some core part of your philosophic viewpoint on the world
With Nature/Civilization re-phrased to Physical/Mental (or possibly Body/Soul) in
my previous post (section 2), I do see a sharp distinction between these two categories as "a core part of my philosophic viewpoint." This is not a conflict; it is a qualitative difference of categories. Physical things interact with other physical things; mental things interact with other mental things. I can't mix the two and get anything coherent.
Physical is the thing itself; Mental is thoughts about that thing. This is where the Physical/Mental pairs come from.
> Starting with a physical major sphere, the mental counterpart is the kinds of thoughts it tends to invoke.
> Starting with a mental major sphere, the physical counterpart is the kinds of things that tend to invoke those thoughts.
This is the only way I can tie physical and mental spheres into a single system.
Even with the re-phrasing from Wilderness/Civilization to Physical/Mental, I don't intend to shuffle the major spheres much. Some examples:
Agriculture is a mental activity because it requires goals (have food later on), prediction (a seed will grow into a plant), knowledge (this particular seed will grow into this kind of plant), planning (designating and sowing a particular field), and discipline (keeping the field watered, weeded, and so forth).
Art is a mental activity because the goal is to get a particular emotional reaction from an audience. In this context, emotions are mental, not physical; emotion and intellectualism are both contained within mental.
With the shift in phrasing from Wilderness / Civilization to Physical / Mental, Mental spheres are those in which a sentient mind (usually but not always in an active role) is an indispensable component. Physical spheres are those for which the mental component
is dispensable.
"If a tree falls in a forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a noise?"
Yes!Sound may be physical, but Song, Music, and Speech are all mental spheres. There is a speaker and (usually) a listener.
9. MiscellaneousNow that all that's covered, most of the rest of what I want to say will be fairly quick.
You at one point say, "obviously, Rainbows are colorful (Painting)," meaning that, clearly, Rainbows and Painting are things that people always intrinsically associate as being natural/civilized analogues of one another. No, this is not obvious. You then go on to say that clouds are clearly analogues of sculpture, because "clouds have interesting shapes." (And nothing else in nature can have an interesting shape that would be naturally associated with such things? I've certainly never heard of an association between clouds and sculpture... if anything, they've been more associated with paintings as far as I've heard.)
Rainbows are colorful. What
else am I supposed to associate color with?
As for clouds and sculpture ... Art in general is a complete mystery to me.
(Tristan Alkai does not care about art one way or another. ... He is completely unmoved by art or the beauty of nature.)
This one was a shot in the dark, and apparently I missed.
To go into the civilized, the problem is, Law Versus Chaos, ironically enough, in fantasy classically is the contest of civilization and nature.
Law and Chaos are both mental, since both require a mind that recognizes (and cares about) the distinction.
The main fantasy series off the top of
my head (Lord of the Rings and Sword of Shannara) both represented Chaos (at least "the chaotic city," as covered in the main Dualism section) with a specific
sentient villain (Sauron and Brona, respectively). Neither represented Nature; in fact, both represented Blight to some degree. What are you referring to that I missed?
You hold up "Scholarship" as the opposite of "Festivals" and then say it's really Stoicism versus Emotions or Enlightenment versus Romanticism, which isn't a very good fit at all. (Although that says a lot about your personal views on education...) Keep in mind, Romanticism was very much about the written word (especially Poetry, which is friend to Scholarship) and returning to a more classical education.
I'm not done with the soon-to-be-renamed Mental major spheres section yet, which is why I haven't posted it, but I did place Poetry in Art; and Dance, Music, and Song were all shared between Art and Festivals.
More to the point, there already is an overt effect attached to "Festivals" in the game, and that is partying, and it already has an opposite, which is "HARD_WORK" as a value, and several spheres might appropriately fill that spot, but "Labor" is probably the best to take up. (Or, to put it more directly, "Labor versus Festivals" makes more sense.)
When I looked among
the personality trait Beliefs for an opposite to Hard_Work, the one that stood out the most to me was Leisure_Time. I can sort of see Merriment, but it seems to me like a very distant second. I see Merriment conflicting with Stoicism first, then with Decorum, Hard_Work, and Introspection, in that order.
You also then go into a dualism of Happiness versus Misery, which is then explained to not simply be the same thing as the last dualism, but that this is actually a sub-dualism of Order and Chaos, where this time, Happiness is Order, while Misery is Chaos, whereas Festivals are Chaos, as well. This implies that Happiness and Festivals are somehow opposed, while Festivals and Misery are aligned. (I suppose if one has seen too many cheap fairs and carnies, though...)
Misery is associated with Chaos; Festivals is also associated with Chaos, but that does not imply that Festivals and Misery are associated with each other. Order <=> Chaos is broad, and was divided into aspects of City, Individual, and World for a reason.
In my list, the major sphere Misery claims the minor spheres Jealousy, Nightmares, Revenge, Silence, Suicide, Thralldom, and Torture. Of the three aspects of Order <=> Chaos, Misery is associated with the City.
The major sphere Festivals claims Gambling, Games, Luck, Lust, Revelry, and Rumors. Three more are shared with Art: Dance, Music, and Song. Of the three aspects of Order <=> Chaos, Festivals is primarily associated with the Individual (Gambling and Games) and to a lesser degree the World (Luck).
Misery and Festivals do
not have an overlap of their own, and in fact have very little to do with each other.
Since when are crafts supposed to represent progress in opposition to agriculture's tradition? Again, these are very subjective (to the point of being particular to an individual's connotations on a term) readings of these terms, when everything I've seen in Toady's use of these spheres are far more literal-minded than this.
Apparently another re-phrasing is called for. Lord of the Rings in particular was, at least in part, about the conflict of
industry (technology and progress) with traditional ways of doing things (Agriculture and perhaps Crafts). The Communist Manifesto was more direct about it.
You are right that the conflicts of
Mother Nature, Father Science and
Magic vs. Science are both very traditional, so I felt the need to represent them somewhere.
I suppose I might try re-arranging the minor sphere lists to put technology under Scholarship instead.
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Topic: Organizing the Spheres (Read 13422 times)