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[Tiruin]

@GWG: ((One word: Microorganisms.))

((One word: Huh?
Four words: That was not helpful.))

words and things

I believe that's why some of us are more concrete, so that we can actually worry about getting shit set up for the rest of you.

((Thanks. I can't help but wonder why you should need to do that at all, though...))

Let me expound your confusion by drawing out a spoiler and keeping things brief.

Spoiler: First, on Religion and Godhood, based on mythology (click to show/hide)

Things didn't count as a first try. Or a second. People had time. People made use of it. People had little actions.

People didn't complain. Because they had time.

However, on forum games--the facade of time dwindles as people see things not happening to their time, as the whole concept is worldwide. Timezones. So every minor god would see their act as the most crucial thing of their lives, when the fact is that without them (or them doing minor things to benefit the whole), the major acts wouldn't have gone any smoother.

Look into mythology, history and theology. Some religions have pantheons of minor gods representing certain aspects of life. Why were these so many? They were given the idea of creating and having order over these things, and being subordinate to elder creatures.

But they still mattered. They had the flashy gadgetry in their hands.

It just takes time.

Spoiler: Second, Microorganisms?! (click to show/hide)

Yeah. Your EVERYTHING is based on these lil' things we call microorganisms, to term it bluntly.

Every living creature is filled and made by these things. No decomposition works without microorganisms.

No birth, death, growth, synthesis or creation may work without microorganisms.

Unless you're dealing with metal and rock. Which are mostly inorganic elements. Bleh, I'll expound this below.

Spoiler: Third, IronyOwl! :D (click to show/hide)

This game is about diversity. I wasn't kidding when I said Irony was brilliant--he left a lot of space to be filled.

A lot of space.

Thing is, being Gods, we work things as what is assumed to be the generality. We created regions and general fauna and flora--we didn't have to define exactly HOW these domains exist, splitting it down into the different kingdoms, phylums, classes, orders and the other taxonomic ranks.

They exist. Basic. Simple.

And an ecosystem thrives on simple things. It's just complex in the way that these simple things are numerous. Very numerous to count.

We could spend our turns doing specifications. Or generalities.

However, the basis of what you're arguing about would take troves of information to back up. Something that could be easily simplified by most of what Irony has placed down.

I could explain how a full ecosystem works down to their minor aspects. That would take a lot of time. You think size matters? It darn well does, but not in the method that provides a clear, sureproof way of defining an ecosystem.

[GreatWyrmGold]

((What four things are you thinking of that would create a whole ecosystem, and how many of them generate Belief?))

((Grass, deer, wolves, worms. Not necessarily a good ecosystem, but presumably self-sustaining, no?

((Not really. To pick the most obvious issue, a lack of decomposers. Worms can only do so much, unless we assume that by "worms" you mean "all the worm species that could be needed" rather than "all species of worms needed to fill the roles of breaking down organisms".))

((I don't see why the worms couldn't be generalists, or why you'd need a separate kind for every season and soil depth. Certainly not just to keep your tribe from starving to death assuming they're good hunters, at least.

((It's not just earthworms. There's other kinds of worms, too, you know...))

But sure, let's see a list of every creature or role you think is necessary to have a functioning ecosystem.))

((I'm not confident enough in my abilities as an ecologist to create a list of creatures and say, "If you had these you'd have everything you need for an ecosystem!" But for a professional's estimate, take a look at the list of species in Biosphere 2. There were apparently 3,800 of them...and there were still issues, so that may not be enough.))

((Because that's boring. Making everything that isn't a humanoid or someone's special poison bird some sort of generic, nondescript tree or assumed carnivore food source doesn't result in a very interesting or immersive world, and it opens up issues with what exactly is out there. Can poison frogs be assumed in a rainforest? Bison on plains? Lions on savannas? Messenger-worthy birds in forests?

((Notice that I didn't request any animals larger than a rat. So, that would disallow bison and lions. As for poison dart frogs and "messenger-worthy" birds (seeing that just about any bird could do with a short enough distance and a small enough message), why not?))

((Because now people are handwaving paralyzing venoms and assassin beetle swarms in, and the ecosystem still doesn't have any trees or large herbivores anyway. What's the point? If you want or need it, create it.))

((The problem is, no one has and there's no reason to think they will. If someone doesn't care about making every single species "interesting," why not just let them stick some mundane rats, trees, etc, in so the world works?))

If the whole focus of the game was on making mythical beasts and leading your human empires against each other, I could see handwaving everything that wasn't magical or wearing armor. Since the focus is to create an entire world, and indeed, possibly more than one world, it doesn't make any sense to just shrug off massive portions of it just because everyone wants to go for the juicy stuff first.))

((Rats are massive? Guppies are massive? Fungi are massive? Bugs are massive? Grass is massive? Bacteria are massive? All I'm basically asking that all be basic stuff needed to make regions work be assumed to exist and not require time, power, and effort to exist, because it's kinda silly to make a "forest" or "grassland" region if you need to make the trees, grass, and all the organisms needed to let them survive separately from the region itself.))

((You're complaining about them and insisting they're absolutely vital, so apparently so.

((If you define "massive" as "anything anyone cares about," then naturally you can point to anything someone asks for as being "massive".

All you're asking for is me to handwave everything you don't personally find interesting yet. What kind of grass or trees or vermin or diseases a place has can have a huge impact on all that interesting stuff that comes later.

((And why does every species have to be "interesting"?))

It's not silly to make a grassland area, because you can make the conditions favor grasses; more importantly, it's not silly to make separate, discrete regions with qualities you desire. What is silly is trying to make Schrodinger's Grasslands that have no concrete features beyond being grasslands, then trying to add interesting things to your generic quantum plains.))

((The problem is that this was apparently not clear, because people have been making regions with the assumption that basic species will be in place. This gets especially ludicrous in forests, but since most biomes are basically defined by flora, it's always an issue. If a desert region and a forest region look the same when first created, why bother distinguishing between the two before the plants are actually added?))

((Really, what's so interesting about making rats, bacteria, and plants just so the world can actually survive? You want to know another reason no one's making these vital aspects of the ecosystem? They've only got a limited time in-game, and want to make something interesting. These little basic building blocks needed for a functioning ecosystem eat into the players' limited resources and don't benefit them.))

((Plenty of people have made or tried to make interesting plants already, so I'd say the answer is the same as everything else- you're creating something. If you don't find creating your own tribe just to have worshipers interesting, that aspect is going to be boring for you, sorry. If you're that set on it, figure out a way around it; otherwise, just create dung beetles or elves or a desert and get it over with.

((Plants aren't enough. Bugs aren't enough. Rats aren't enough. There are uncounted species on this earth, and they all interact in ways that are needed for the ecosystem to survive. Take out a few species here and there, and you don't completely ruin the ecosystem. If you have only a few (or even a few dozen), on the other hand, you're in trouble no matter what those few dozen are.))


((Again, I ask you: Why not make the basic, boring species, and if someone wants to add an "interesting" rat-niche creature or tree whatever, it can live there? Seriously, is it any fun to create a neat creature that promptly dies off because no ecosystem has been created yet?

And another consideration: Are these species being assumed to be there really so much worse than assuming there is a sun? You were fine with a huge glowing celestial body for free, why not some little species? Especially since it would be a lot less time- and Belief-consuming to make a star than all the little critters needed to make the world work.))



((Tiruin: My issue is basically that we have to spend time and whatnot describing each little creature we want to add, no matter how mundane or vital it is. Why? Why do we need to do that?))

[hops]

((Because everyone is making their creation really gimmicky. It makes sense for Scionox and co. to make evil magical faunas, but it doesn't quite make sense for others at this point.))

[Tsuchigumo550]

((I'm just trying to set up ONE FUCKING FOOD WEB. It does make it easier if people will stop making sentients and focus on the lower parts- we each make a edible plant or easy-to-hunt animal (or just small, a herbivore is what I'm getting at here) and then the next turn we doctor it up where we failed and shift to carnivores and apex predators. After that, decomposers, and then, we ROMP ABOUT WITH OUR GODLY GENITALS FLOWING FREE IN THE BREEZE.))

[GreatWyrmGold]

((I'm busy trying to help support things. The tumors should spread and help. Assuming that they defy physics the way I intended...hold on, let me check...))

[hops]

((Yep, Lawydia is now helping N'Kari on the KeyGateway, which makes me regret not making Travel one of her spheres. Next turn she'll be helping on the faunas.

That said, are there any way to expand your spheres?))

[IronyOwl]

((It's not just earthworms. There's other kinds of worms, too, you know...))

((I don't see how this addresses the point. If you've got "worms" filling the "eat dead stuff and make things plants can eat better" role, what does the size of the real-world Annelida or Nematoda have to do with anything whatsoever?))

((I'm not confident enough in my abilities as an ecologist to create a list of creatures and say, "If you had these you'd have everything you need for an ecosystem!" But for a professional's estimate, take a look at the list of species in Biosphere 2. There were apparently 3,800 of them...and there were still issues, so that may not be enough.))

((And what makes you say I intend to enforce a similar level of complexity for this game?))

((Because now people are handwaving paralyzing venoms and assassin beetle swarms in, and the ecosystem still doesn't have any trees or large herbivores anyway. What's the point? If you want or need it, create it.))

((The problem is, no one has and there's no reason to think they will. If someone doesn't care about making every single species "interesting," why not just let them stick some mundane rats, trees, etc, in so the world works?))

((Of course they haven't, there's never been an opportunity to. They've tried to shovel life and other conditions into creations where it didn't work that way, though, which I'd say is a pretty good precedent for deciding their desert tribes have poisonous bugs available when the time comes.

If they don't care about making every species interesting, they can wait for someone else to make them first, or they can make one for the sake of themselves and the world having one. I hardly think that amongst six players with an edge and, what, eight cycling in and out, expecting a single from of edible fauna or decomposing agent anywhere you expect life is putting a massive strain on every single player to personally waste massive quantities of time fiddling with eight different species of tree-eating bugs apiece.))

((You're complaining about them and insisting they're absolutely vital, so apparently so.

((If you define "massive" as "anything anyone cares about," then naturally you can point to anything someone asks for as being "massive".

((But you just admitted they're important. You claim the world can't live without them. You can't say something's a piddling irrelevant detail in the context of bitching about how the entire world's going to fall apart if nobody deals with it.

Imagine if this were a squad-based shooter game, and I said you couldn't just have "ammo," you had to have different types of ammo- calibers, materials, payloads, etc. You could go on to make all manner of different caliber and quality and payload rounds, or you could shrug and create one arbitrary round for rifles and one for pistols and maybe one for assault rifles or sniper rifles, and then you'd ignore it entirely.

You hopefully wouldn't insist that there's thousands of real-world ammo types and the squad can't operate without them but they're also boring and stupid and nobody cares so I should just assume you have access to a Schrodinger's catalog of vaguely defined Whatever You Need ammunition.))

All you're asking for is me to handwave everything you don't personally find interesting yet. What kind of grass or trees or vermin or diseases a place has can have a huge impact on all that interesting stuff that comes later.

((And why does every species have to be "interesting"?))

((What's the point of a species that isn't? Why mention that there's over 2500 species of beetles if not one will ever in any way become relevant?

I mean, if you absolutely want to create boring beetles, that's fine. You can do that. I require you to describe your creations, not make them interesting. But if you're going to make boring beetles, I do insist that it's because you felt the beetles of this world should be boring, and not because your handwaving got out of hand.))

It's not silly to make a grassland area, because you can make the conditions favor grasses; more importantly, it's not silly to make separate, discrete regions with qualities you desire. What is silly is trying to make Schrodinger's Grasslands that have no concrete features beyond being grasslands, then trying to add interesting things to your generic quantum plains.))

((The problem is that this was apparently not clear, because people have been making regions with the assumption that basic species will be in place. This gets especially ludicrous in forests, but since most biomes are basically defined by flora, it's always an issue. If a desert region and a forest region look the same when first created, why bother distinguishing between the two before the plants are actually added?))

((I take full responsibility for communicating how the game is supposed to work to players. That said, I really suspect that this is purely a case of them not reading it at all or deciding they'll try anyway, because I don't really see what wasn't clear. Other than the counterintuitiveness of creating a place you're trying to name "The Verdant Swamp" when it hasn't actually got any trees or vines.

There are three reasons to distinguish between regions prior to plants and animals actually inhabiting them.

One, I felt the need to have discrete regions. This naturally lends itself to multistage projects.

Two, you can define basic properties like temperature and what grows well in the soil. A forest and a desert probably won't look the same on creation, because one will probably be a lifeless expanse of dry sand, while the other will be a lifeless expanse of fairly good, reasonably moist soil, possibly with rivers running through it.

Three, this allows flora and fauna to spread or die out naturally, as opposed to being locked in or out of a region because this particular forest wasn't created with wolves in it or this hellish volcanic basin used to have pine trees so obviously it still does.))

((Again, I ask you: Why not make the basic, boring species, and if someone wants to add an "interesting" rat-niche creature or tree whatever, it can live there? Seriously, is it any fun to create a neat creature that promptly dies off because no ecosystem has been created yet?

((And again I answer: That's pointless. You don't need a thousand nameless rat variants padding the ecosystem and mucking with just what everything has available.

Presumably, it is indeed not fun to create a neat creature that dies off immediately because there's nothing to support it. To me, the solution to this would be to ensure that you don't create things unless they can survive in the place you're creating them, not make them anyway and then hope the game warps itself around accommodating whatever you feel like working on at the moment.

I mean, would you suggest I remove temperature if someone made snowmen in a desert? That wouldn't be very fun, but that's presumably why you shouldn't do that.))

And another consideration: Are these species being assumed to be there really so much worse than assuming there is a sun? You were fine with a huge glowing celestial body for free, why not some little species? Especially since it would be a lot less time- and Belief-consuming to make a star than all the little critters needed to make the world work.))

((I said the exact opposite of that. There is no sun. There has never been a sun. There will never be a sun until and unless one is created.

The current world(s) isn't a freezing hellish abyss because I went ahead and took general light levels and temperature as some of those moderate qualities you can define in regions on creation- in essence, I assumed everyone wanted their place to not be a cold dark hell even though there's no sun, and decided not being a cold dark hell in the absence of a sun was an acceptable way for worlds to work.

Incidentally, another example of this philosophy- if you want a sun, make a sun. If you think you can get by without one, do so. If you prefer not having one, better yet. I'm not going to auto-add a sun just for the hell of it or because nobody wants to make it themselves but "we need one."))

((Yep, Lawydia is now helping N'Kari on the KeyGateway, which makes me regret not making Travel one of her spheres. Next turn she'll be helping on the faunas.

That said, are there any way to expand your spheres?))

(("Expand?"

You can change them with an appropriate motivation and action, but there's no way to "expand" them, as in make more of them or make them more powerful or something.

That said, I'm not entirely happy with the current way they work. I'm not sure I see a good way to do it, but something more along the lines of "whoever has made the most plants gains the plant sphere" might be interesting and more natural.

Actually, this might tie nicely into how mortal worship works. Hm...))

[GreatWyrmGold]

((It's not just earthworms. There's other kinds of worms, too, you know...))

((I don't see how this addresses the point. If you've got "worms" filling the "eat dead stuff and make things plants can eat better" role, what does the size of the real-world Annelida or Nematoda have to do with anything whatsoever?))

((Earthworms don't do everything, you know.))

((I'm not confident enough in my abilities as an ecologist to create a list of creatures and say, "If you had these you'd have everything you need for an ecosystem!" But for a professional's estimate, take a look at the list of species in Biosphere 2. There were apparently 3,800 of them...and there were still issues, so that may not be enough.))

((And what makes you say I intend to enforce a similar level of complexity for this game?))

((The fact that you brought up bacteria, for one. Or that you brought up the failing ecosystems to begin with, for that matter. Or that you asked what species I thought would be necessary.
Building on that idea, here's basically what just happened:

You: "It would only take four creations to make a stable ecosystem!"
Me: "Which four?"
You: "Grass, Deer, Wolves, Worms."
Me: "That is insufficient."
You: "Then list all the species you think would be needed."
Me: "Probably about 3,800."
You: "Why do you think I'm going into such detail?"

You seem to have a bit of a goalpost-moving issue...in that you suddenly switched which side of the field was yours, right after I made a goal.))

((Because now people are handwaving paralyzing venoms and assassin beetle swarms in, and the ecosystem still doesn't have any trees or large herbivores anyway. What's the point? If you want or need it, create it.))

((The problem is, no one has and there's no reason to think they will. If someone doesn't care about making every single species "interesting," why not just let them stick some mundane rats, trees, etc, in so the world works?))

((Of course they haven't, there's never been an opportunity to. They've tried to shovel life and other conditions into creations where it didn't work that way, though, which I'd say is a pretty good precedent for deciding their desert tribes have poisonous bugs available when the time comes.

((So...what makes you think that players will suddenly change?))

If they don't care about making every species interesting, they can wait for someone else to make them first, or they can make one for the sake of themselves and the world having one. I hardly think that amongst six players with an edge and, what, eight cycling in and out, expecting a single from of edible fauna or decomposing agent anywhere you expect life is putting a massive strain on every single player to personally waste massive quantities of time fiddling with eight different species of tree-eating bugs apiece.))

((WHY. DOES. EVERY. SINGLE. SPECIES. NEED. TO. BE. INTERESTING? You've never answered that. What's so bad about having some rats? Do you need to make this world so alien?))

((You're complaining about them and insisting they're absolutely vital, so apparently so.

((If you define "massive" as "anything anyone cares about," then naturally you can point to anything someone asks for as being "massive".

((But you just admitted they're important. You claim the world can't live without them. You can't say something's a piddling irrelevant detail in the context of bitching about how the entire world's going to fall apart if nobody deals with it.

((...Remind me again why the importance of the organisms is germane? You're saying that anything important has to be specifically created by the players?))

Imagine if this were a squad-based shooter game, and I said you couldn't just have "ammo," you had to have different types of ammo- calibers, materials, payloads, etc. You could go on to make all manner of different caliber and quality and payload rounds, or you could shrug and create one arbitrary round for rifles and one for pistols and maybe one for assault rifles or sniper rifles, and then you'd ignore it entirely.
You hopefully wouldn't insist that there's thousands of real-world ammo types and the squad can't operate without them but they're also boring and stupid and nobody cares so I should just assume you have access to a Schrodinger's catalog of vaguely defined Whatever You Need ammunition.))

((However, I would assume that the types were being abstracted out unless otherwise noted; I wouldn't assume homogenity.
You are the one who said that there were no rats, bugs, plants, bacteria, etc, until we made them. You are the one who insisted that we pay this much attention to detail. You are the one requesting that we need to create every organism that exists.

I'm the one who wants regions to come with the basic organisms.))

All you're asking for is me to handwave everything you don't personally find interesting yet. What kind of grass or trees or vermin or diseases a place has can have a huge impact on all that interesting stuff that comes later.

((And why does every species have to be "interesting"?))

((What's the point of a species that isn't? Why mention that there's over 2500 species of beetles if not one will ever in any way become relevant?
I mean, if you absolutely want to create boring beetles, that's fine. You can do that. I require you to describe your creations, not make them interesting. But if you're going to make boring beetles, I do insist that it's because you felt the beetles of this world should be boring, and not because your handwaving got out of hand.))

((I'd accept that, if it wasn't for the fact that without those beetles and the thousands of other species we need, the world would die. In other words, you're presenting us with a Morton's Fork: Either you make a lot of boring species that are needed for the world to work, or you make a lot of "interesting" species that are needed for the world to work.
What I want to know is, why do we need to make every species?))

It's not silly to make a grassland area, because you can make the conditions favor grasses; more importantly, it's not silly to make separate, discrete regions with qualities you desire. What is silly is trying to make Schrodinger's Grasslands that have no concrete features beyond being grasslands, then trying to add interesting things to your generic quantum plains.))

((The problem is that this was apparently not clear, because people have been making regions with the assumption that basic species will be in place. This gets especially ludicrous in forests, but since most biomes are basically defined by flora, it's always an issue. If a desert region and a forest region look the same when first created, why bother distinguishing between the two before the plants are actually added?))

((I take full responsibility for communicating how the game is supposed to work to players. That said, I really suspect that this is purely a case of them not reading it at all or deciding they'll try anyway, because I don't really see what wasn't clear. Other than the counterintuitiveness of creating a place you're trying to name "The Verdant Swamp" when it hasn't actually got any trees or vines.

((As far as I noticed, it was generally and understandably assumed that little details like boring bushes, boring bugs, boring bacteria, etc, would be taken care of until you off-handedly mentioned that such things were not so.))

There are three reasons to distinguish between regions prior to plants and animals actually inhabiting them.

One, I felt the need to have discrete regions. This naturally lends itself to multistage projects.

Two, you can define basic properties like temperature and what grows well in the soil. A forest and a desert probably won't look the same on creation, because one will probably be a lifeless expanse of dry sand, while the other will be a lifeless expanse of fairly good, reasonably moist soil, possibly with rivers running through it.

Three, this allows flora and fauna to spread or die out naturally, as opposed to being locked in or out of a region because this particular forest wasn't created with wolves in it or this hellish volcanic basin used to have pine trees so obviously it still does.))

((Remind me, how does starting with basic life change ANY of these?))

((Again, I ask you: Why not make the basic, boring species, and if someone wants to add an "interesting" rat-niche creature or tree whatever, it can live there? Seriously, is it any fun to create a neat creature that promptly dies off because no ecosystem has been created yet?

((And again I answer: That's pointless. You don't need a thousand nameless rat variants padding the ecosystem and mucking with just what everything has available.

((Precisely. Why are you making us make every little species of rodent, every species of arthropod, every species of anything that exists?))

Presumably, it is indeed not fun to create a neat creature that dies off immediately because there's nothing to support it. To me, the solution to this would be to ensure that you don't create things unless they can survive in the place you're creating them, not make them anyway and then hope the game warps itself around accommodating whatever you feel like working on at the moment.

((What's wrong with letting regions start with those basic animals?))

I mean, would you suggest I remove temperature if someone made snowmen in a desert? That wouldn't be very fun, but that's presumably why you shouldn't do that.))

((No, but that's hardly a good comparison. A better one is: If the game was about making snowmen, I would suggest not setting it in a desert.

And that's ignoring that many deserts actually get below freezing fairly commonly. Even ignoring the ice caps, the Gobi is pretty cold.))

And another consideration: Are these species being assumed to be there really so much worse than assuming there is a sun? You were fine with a huge glowing celestial body for free, why not some little species? Especially since it would be a lot less time- and Belief-consuming to make a star than all the little critters needed to make the world work.))

((I said the exact opposite of that. There is no sun. There has never been a sun. There will never be a sun until and unless one is created.

((Okay, sun-like activity. But, really, you set your sights too low. Why not force players to create matter and time? Natural laws? How about the concept of existence?
Really, how much are you going to force players to create, and how much can you just assume is there?))

The current world(s) isn't a freezing hellish abyss because I went ahead and took general light levels and temperature as some of those moderate qualities you can define in regions on creation- in essence, I assumed everyone wanted their place to not be a cold dark hell even though there's no sun, and decided not being a cold dark hell in the absence of a sun was an acceptable way for worlds to work.

((Why not go a step further and assume that we wanted our forests to have trees, our deserts to have beetles, our oceans to have zooplankton, our just-about-everywhere to have rodents?))

Incidentally, another example of this philosophy- if you want a sun, make a sun. If you think you can get by without one, do so. If you prefer not having one, better yet. I'm not going to auto-add a sun just for the hell of it or because nobody wants to make it themselves but "we need one."))

((And we were getting by without a sun. Yet we can't get by without someone creating a species for each niche?))

[Tiruin]

((I'd accept that, if it wasn't for the fact that without those beetles and the thousands of other species we need, the world would die. In other words, you're presenting us with a Morton's Fork: Either you make a lot of boring species that are needed for the world to work, or you make a lot of "interesting" species that are needed for the world to work.
What I want to know is, why do we need to make every species?))

((I'd like to point out the potential of a strawman here. Which sounds more like a misconception.

IronyOwl was basing his observations on the current turn.

We're missing things to eat. He's also keeping it simple, and pointing us at what we currently lack as opposed to what the whole world in definite detail lacks, in order to sustain our creatures.))

[GreatWyrmGold]

((Perhaps I leapt to conclusions when he mentioned that there were no bacteria...but given bacterial importance to an ecosystem and the fact that that statement was alongside several other categories of organisms which are almost as vital for an ecosystem, it was more of a step than a leap.))

[Tiruin]

((Hm.

Good points.

Though I'd like this discussion to continue later on after we flesh out the world. Perhaps when most major Gods' belief scores number <2, and the world is failing, perhaps? We can apply realistic logic to it later

Steps. Leaps. My opinion here is not to blow up something before we take the third step. It's always the first ones which are the hardest/give the most derision anyway.  ))

[IronyOwl]

((It's not just earthworms. There's other kinds of worms, too, you know...))

((I don't see how this addresses the point. If you've got "worms" filling the "eat dead stuff and make things plants can eat better" role, what does the size of the real-world Annelida or Nematoda have to do with anything whatsoever?))

((Earthworms don't do everything, you know.))

((...and your point is? I see no point here whatsoever.

Draw me a picture, because I am not getting the connection between "Earthworms aren't the only type of worms that exist" and "To create an ecosystem that won't fall apart in this game requires more than one creature in the decomposer slot."))

((I'm not confident enough in my abilities as an ecologist to create a list of creatures and say, "If you had these you'd have everything you need for an ecosystem!" But for a professional's estimate, take a look at the list of species in Biosphere 2. There were apparently 3,800 of them...and there were still issues, so that may not be enough.))

((And what makes you say I intend to enforce a similar level of complexity for this game?))

((The fact that you brought up bacteria, for one. Or that you brought up the failing ecosystems to begin with, for that matter. Or that you asked what species I thought would be necessary.
Building on that idea, here's basically what just happened:

You: "It would only take four creations to make a stable ecosystem!"
Me: "Which four?"
You: "Grass, Deer, Wolves, Worms."
Me: "That is insufficient."
You: "Then list all the species you think would be needed."
Me: "Probably about 3,800."
You: "Why do you think I'm going into such detail?"

You seem to have a bit of a goalpost-moving issue...in that you suddenly switched which side of the field was yours, right after I made a goal.))

((I didn't bring up bacteria, someone asked about it. I mentioned that there were none.

I brought up the failing ecosystems because you have nothing whatsoever. I never said there weren't enough worms that specialize in breaking down exoskeletons. I never said these bushes only have four types of pollinators. I never even said there was nothing eating these things and thus their population was getting out of control.

I said there's nothing to eat. As in, literally nothing to eat. Thus, things can't eat, and they're therefore starving to death instead.


There are no moving goalposts, at least not on my end. There's certainly no switching of which side of the goalposts I'm on. There's me telling you how the game works, and there's you bitching and moaning because it's not 100% realistic, by which I mean handwaved in the manner of your choosing.))

((Because now people are handwaving paralyzing venoms and assassin beetle swarms in, and the ecosystem still doesn't have any trees or large herbivores anyway. What's the point? If you want or need it, create it.))

((The problem is, no one has and there's no reason to think they will. If someone doesn't care about making every single species "interesting," why not just let them stick some mundane rats, trees, etc, in so the world works?))

((Of course they haven't, there's never been an opportunity to. They've tried to shovel life and other conditions into creations where it didn't work that way, though, which I'd say is a pretty good precedent for deciding their desert tribes have poisonous bugs available when the time comes.

((So...what makes you think that players will suddenly change?))

((...

I don't understand how you could have read this. I want you to read it again and tell me exactly what you see, because this is some Twilight Zone bullshit.

"They haven't done X!"
"Of course they haven't done X, they never had the chance. They've done Y though, which I'd say is a good precedent for X when the time comes."
"So what makes you say they'll suddenly change?"
"...?"))

If they don't care about making every species interesting, they can wait for someone else to make them first, or they can make one for the sake of themselves and the world having one. I hardly think that amongst six players with an edge and, what, eight cycling in and out, expecting a single from of edible fauna or decomposing agent anywhere you expect life is putting a massive strain on every single player to personally waste massive quantities of time fiddling with eight different species of tree-eating bugs apiece.))

((WHY. DOES. EVERY. SINGLE. SPECIES. NEED. TO. BE. INTERESTING? You've never answered that. What's so bad about having some rats? Do you need to make this world so alien?))

((Because that's boring. Making everything that isn't a humanoid or someone's special poison bird some sort of generic, nondescript tree or assumed carnivore food source doesn't result in a very interesting or immersive world, and it opens up issues with what exactly is out there. Can poison frogs be assumed in a rainforest? Bison on plains? Lions on savannas? Messenger-worthy birds in forests?

If the whole focus of the game was on making mythical beasts and leading your human empires against each other, I could see handwaving everything that wasn't magical or wearing armor. Since the focus is to create an entire world, and indeed, possibly more than one world, it doesn't make any sense to just shrug off massive portions of it just because everyone wants to go for the juicy stuff first.))

((What's the point of a species that isn't? Why mention that there's over 2500 species of beetles if not one will ever in any way become relevant?

I mean, if you absolutely want to create boring beetles, that's fine. You can do that. I require you to describe your creations, not make them interesting. But if you're going to make boring beetles, I do insist that it's because you felt the beetles of this world should be boring, and not because your handwaving got out of hand.))

((If you wanna make rats, feel free. If you wanna make elves on Earth, ew.))

((But you just admitted they're important. You claim the world can't live without them. You can't say something's a piddling irrelevant detail in the context of bitching about how the entire world's going to fall apart if nobody deals with it.

((...Remind me again why the importance of the organisms is germane? You're saying that anything important has to be specifically created by the players?))

((I'm saying that in a game about creating things, the important parts should be either created or come about through interaction with those creations.

Case in point: The sun. I didn't think that was important, so I didn't enforce it. I don't care about the exact composition of the atmosphere or how much mass the current world(s) has either, because, again, it's not relevant. If a player starts fiddling with it, it might become relevant.

But until then, I'm not going to piddle around with the effects of vacuum or biodiversity of hair mites just for the hell of it. It's irrelevant and fiddly.))

Imagine if this were a squad-based shooter game, and I said you couldn't just have "ammo," you had to have different types of ammo- calibers, materials, payloads, etc. You could go on to make all manner of different caliber and quality and payload rounds, or you could shrug and create one arbitrary round for rifles and one for pistols and maybe one for assault rifles or sniper rifles, and then you'd ignore it entirely.
You hopefully wouldn't insist that there's thousands of real-world ammo types and the squad can't operate without them but they're also boring and stupid and nobody cares so I should just assume you have access to a Schrodinger's catalog of vaguely defined Whatever You Need ammunition.))

((However, I would assume that the types were being abstracted out unless otherwise noted; I wouldn't assume homogenity.
You are the one who said that there were no rats, bugs, plants, bacteria, etc, until we made them. You are the one who insisted that we pay this much attention to detail. You are the one requesting that we need to create every organism that exists.

I'm the one who wants regions to come with the basic organisms.))

((You sure you read that example? That was exactly my point.

GM: "You have to create ammo types!"

OPTION 1: "Meh. I'll create 9 mm stainless steel pistol rounds, half-inch stainless steel rifle rounds, and whatever shotgun shells are made of. Done."
OPTION 2: "Ooh, I'll create 9 mm hollow point pistol rounds, and then 9 mm armor piercing pistol rounds so we're good no matter what. And then we'll want some 3/8th inch incendiary rifle rounds, and some 2-inch semi-grenade incendiary rounds for when we want to burn organics, and then we'll want armor-piercing 3/8th in rounds and do we want a bigger rifle just in case? Ooh or maybe a shrapnel round for that grenadey thingy OR WHAT ABOUT HALF INCENDIARY HALF SHRAPNEL that'll be awesome and and and..."

OPTION 3: "THIS IS BULLSHIT DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY AMMO TYPES THERE ARE IN REALITY WE CAN'T FUNCTION WITHOUT THEM BUT I DON'T WANT TO MAKE THEM WE SHOULD JUST HAVE ACCESS TO ANYTHING THAT EXISTS OR THAT WE NEED BECAUSE THIS IS STUPID."


So I ask again: Why the everloving fuck would you choose Option 3?))

((What's the point of a species that isn't? Why mention that there's over 2500 species of beetles if not one will ever in any way become relevant?
I mean, if you absolutely want to create boring beetles, that's fine. You can do that. I require you to describe your creations, not make them interesting. But if you're going to make boring beetles, I do insist that it's because you felt the beetles of this world should be boring, and not because your handwaving got out of hand.))

((I'd accept that, if it wasn't for the fact that without those beetles and the thousands of other species we need, the world would die. In other words, you're presenting us with a Morton's Fork: Either you make a lot of boring species that are needed for the world to work, or you make a lot of "interesting" species that are needed for the world to work.
What I want to know is, why do we need to make every species?))

((You don't need "a lot" of them. Nobody said you needed "a lot" of them. I don't know what tightassed biologist is whispering in your ear right now, but you should probably tell him to shut up.

I'm not offering you a Morton's Fork. I'm telling you to make things when they're interesting and necessary, not handwave legions of things into existence. You're concluding that this means, what exactly? That I expect you to spend the next 4800 turns making different species of beetle? That I'm going to laugh and say "NOPE ONLY FIFTY VARIETIES OF LIFE THE WEB OF LIFE COLLAPSES LOLOLOLOLOL" the whole game?

How exactly do you think the game operates at this point?))

((I take full responsibility for communicating how the game is supposed to work to players. That said, I really suspect that this is purely a case of them not reading it at all or deciding they'll try anyway, because I don't really see what wasn't clear. Other than the counterintuitiveness of creating a place you're trying to name "The Verdant Swamp" when it hasn't actually got any trees or vines.

((As far as I noticed, it was generally and understandably assumed that little details like boring bushes, boring bugs, boring bacteria, etc, would be taken care of until you off-handedly mentioned that such things were not so.))

((I don't see any evidence of either of those. One or two people misunderstood/forgot/tried it anyway, and that was it. Someone forgot if he could create life everywhere at once also, that doesn't mean everyone assumed it until I mentioned otherwise.

If you want to argue that it was an understandable misunderstanding/lapse/go at it, you'll need to explain why my directions weren't clear or why people could be expected not to have read them.))

There are three reasons to distinguish between regions prior to plants and animals actually inhabiting them.

One, I felt the need to have discrete regions. This naturally lends itself to multistage projects.

Two, you can define basic properties like temperature and what grows well in the soil. A forest and a desert probably won't look the same on creation, because one will probably be a lifeless expanse of dry sand, while the other will be a lifeless expanse of fairly good, reasonably moist soil, possibly with rivers running through it.

Three, this allows flora and fauna to spread or die out naturally, as opposed to being locked in or out of a region because this particular forest wasn't created with wolves in it or this hellish volcanic basin used to have pine trees so obviously it still does.))

((Remind me, how does starting with basic life change ANY of these?))

((Well, your question was what the point of granting regions traits on creation was, not why starting without any life was preferable. I already mentioned that one a lot elsewhere.

But as an addendum, I'll throw in that having all those thousands of species in each and every single region would make it very messy to try to figure out how new species would interact, or how the ecosystem as a whole would respond to other changes.))

((Again, I ask you: Why not make the basic, boring species, and if someone wants to add an "interesting" rat-niche creature or tree whatever, it can live there? Seriously, is it any fun to create a neat creature that promptly dies off because no ecosystem has been created yet?

((And again I answer: That's pointless. You don't need a thousand nameless rat variants padding the ecosystem and mucking with just what everything has available.

((Precisely. Why are you making us make every little species of rodent, every species of arthropod, every species of anything that exists?))

((Because if there's a species of rodent, it should be because a god made it for a specific reason, not because "BUT THEY EXIST IRL!"))

I mean, would you suggest I remove temperature if someone made snowmen in a desert? That wouldn't be very fun, but that's presumably why you shouldn't do that.))

((No, but that's hardly a good comparison. A better one is: If the game was about making snowmen, I would suggest not setting it in a desert.

And that's ignoring that many deserts actually get below freezing fairly commonly. Even ignoring the ice caps, the Gobi is pretty cold.))

((The game's not about making snowmen. It's about making landscapes. Snowmen can come into that, but it's not the sole point.

I don't want to start with a planet and stars and sun and moons and other planets and ecosystems and forests and mountains just so somebody can jump STRAIGHT into making their elves. This isn't a game about making elves. Elves can come into it, but it's not the sole point.))

And another consideration: Are these species being assumed to be there really so much worse than assuming there is a sun? You were fine with a huge glowing celestial body for free, why not some little species? Especially since it would be a lot less time- and Belief-consuming to make a star than all the little critters needed to make the world work.))

((I said the exact opposite of that. There is no sun. There has never been a sun. There will never be a sun until and unless one is created.

((Okay, sun-like activity. But, really, you set your sights too low. Why not force players to create matter and time? Natural laws? How about the concept of existence?
Really, how much are you going to force players to create, and how much can you just assume is there?))

((As I mentioned, I'm going to force players to create as much as I feel is relevant and interesting. I realize this may be somewhat arbitrary, which is why I'm careful to explain what does or doesn't need to happen when asked or when I feel it might come up.

This is why, for instance, you don't need to create the sun or time or gravity or legions of beetles, but you do need to create food sources or lands or worshipers. The former can be done without unless someone wants to mess with them directly. The latter raise interesting points about the specifics simply by existing.

The current world(s) isn't a freezing hellish abyss because I went ahead and took general light levels and temperature as some of those moderate qualities you can define in regions on creation- in essence, I assumed everyone wanted their place to not be a cold dark hell even though there's no sun, and decided not being a cold dark hell in the absence of a sun was an acceptable way for worlds to work.

((Why not go a step further and assume that we wanted our forests to have trees, our deserts to have beetles, our oceans to have zooplankton, our just-about-everywhere to have rodents?))

((And your beetled treed forests to have vast empires of technomagic timetraveling elves using their shackled gods to power their universe-creation engines?

That would be boring. Hell, why am I rolling for any of this? I should just make a freeform godhood thread and then take off.))

Incidentally, another example of this philosophy- if you want a sun, make a sun. If you think you can get by without one, do so. If you prefer not having one, better yet. I'm not going to auto-add a sun just for the hell of it or because nobody wants to make it themselves but "we need one."))

((And we were getting by without a sun. Yet we can't get by without someone creating a species for each niche?))

((If you define "niche" as "something these creatures eat," then no. If you define niche as ">0.5 mm drought-resistant detrivore arthropod focusing on skin tissue," that's all you.))

[GreatWyrmGold]

((It's not just earthworms. There's other kinds of worms, too, you know...))

((I don't see how this addresses the point. If you've got "worms" filling the "eat dead stuff and make things plants can eat better" role, what does the size of the real-world Annelida or Nematoda have to do with anything whatsoever?))

((Earthworms don't do everything, you know.))

((...and your point is? I see no point here whatsoever.

Draw me a picture, because I am not getting the connection between "Earthworms aren't the only type of worms that exist" and "To create an ecosystem that won't fall apart in this game requires more than one creature in the decomposer slot."))

((There's more than one step in decomposition. That's my point. Most organisms, worms included, only do one step. Is that clear enough for you?))

-snip-

((I didn't bring up bacteria, someone asked about it. I mentioned that there were none.

((You still stated that there weren't any. Silly me thinking that "No bacteria" means "No bacteria," huh?))

I brought up the failing ecosystems because you have nothing whatsoever. I never said there weren't enough worms that specialize in breaking down exoskeletons. I never said these bushes only have four types of pollinators. I never even said there was nothing eating these things and thus their population was getting out of control.

I said there's nothing to eat. As in, literally nothing to eat. Thus, things can't eat, and they're therefore starving to death instead.

((Then...why did you bother mentioning the lack of bacteria?))

There are no moving goalposts, at least not on my end. There's certainly no switching of which side of the goalposts I'm on. There's me telling you how the game works, and there's you bitching and moaning because it's not 100% realistic, by which I mean handwaved in the manner of your choosing.))

((I think that the issue is a communication issue. To me, it seems like you were basically saying that we had to create every single species of organism you want to exist.))

-snip-
((So...what makes you think that players will suddenly change?))

((...

I don't understand how you could have read this. I want you to read it again and tell me exactly what you see, because this is some Twilight Zone bullshit.

"They haven't done X!"
"Of course they haven't done X, they never had the chance. They've done Y though, which I'd say is a good precedent for X when the time comes."
"So what makes you say they'll suddenly change?"
"...?"))

((They've had the chance before. It's called "Every turn". Explain what's different this turn.

And don't just say "The famine". That will, at most, prompt them to make food of some kind.))

((If you wanna make rats, feel free. If you wanna make elves on Earth, ew.))

((To me, it seems that you are--as noted--giving us a Morton's Fork, with a third point that I suppose makes it a Hobson's Choice.
If I'm reading you correctly, we can either make "boring" animals in each niche needed for an ecosystem; make "interesting" animals in each niche needed for an ecosystem; or not make any animals for some niches, causing ecological disasters. Please explain how this is wrong.
I'm not sure why I'm saying this, since I already said basically the same thing, but maybe this time will get you to understand what I'm saying/asking.))

((I'm saying that in a game about creating things, the important parts should be either created or come about through interaction with those creations.

Case in point: The sun. I didn't think that was important, so I didn't enforce it. I don't care about the exact composition of the atmosphere or how much mass the current world(s) has either, because, again, it's not relevant. If a player starts fiddling with it, it might become relevant.

But until then, I'm not going to piddle around with the effects of vacuum or biodiversity of hair mites just for the hell of it. It's irrelevant and fiddly.))

((Okay, I have no idea what you're actually doing.

You seem to be mentioning that there won't be so much as bacteria without direct player action one page, and the next you're basically dismissing the very existence of any organism under an ounce as irrelevant.

What. Is. Going. On?))

Imagine if this were a squad-based shooter game, and I said you couldn't just have "ammo," you had to have different types of ammo- calibers, materials, payloads, etc. You could go on to make all manner of different caliber and quality and payload rounds, or you could shrug and create one arbitrary round for rifles and one for pistols and maybe one for assault rifles or sniper rifles, and then you'd ignore it entirely.
You hopefully wouldn't insist that there's thousands of real-world ammo types and the squad can't operate without them but they're also boring and stupid and nobody cares so I should just assume you have access to a Schrodinger's catalog of vaguely defined Whatever You Need ammunition.))

((However, I would assume that the types were being abstracted out unless otherwise noted; I wouldn't assume homogenity.
You are the one who said that there were no rats, bugs, plants, bacteria, etc, until we made them. You are the one who insisted that we pay this much attention to detail. You are the one requesting that we need to create every organism that exists.

I'm the one who wants regions to come with the basic organisms.))

((You sure you read that example? That was exactly my point.

GM: "You have to create ammo types!"

OPTION 1: "Meh. I'll create 9 mm stainless steel pistol rounds, half-inch stainless steel rifle rounds, and whatever shotgun shells are made of. Done."
OPTION 2: "Ooh, I'll create 9 mm hollow point pistol rounds, and then 9 mm armor piercing pistol rounds so we're good no matter what. And then we'll want some 3/8th inch incendiary rifle rounds, and some 2-inch semi-grenade incendiary rounds for when we want to burn organics, and then we'll want armor-piercing 3/8th in rounds and do we want a bigger rifle just in case? Ooh or maybe a shrapnel round for that grenadey thingy OR WHAT ABOUT HALF INCENDIARY HALF SHRAPNEL that'll be awesome and and and..."
OPTION 3: "THIS IS BULLSHIT DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY AMMO TYPES THERE ARE IN REALITY WE CAN'T FUNCTION WITHOUT THEM BUT I DON'T WANT TO MAKE THEM WE SHOULD JUST HAVE ACCESS TO ANYTHING THAT EXISTS OR THAT WE NEED BECAUSE THIS IS STUPID."


So I ask again: Why the everloving fuck would you choose Option 3?))

((I didn't. I chose a slightly modified Option 1: "We can assume that different ammo types exist, but we're not going to bother with them." Emphasis on the assumed to exist, because that's the crux of this issue.))

((You don't need "a lot" of them. Nobody said you needed "a lot" of them. I don't know what tightassed biologist is whispering in your ear right now, but you should probably tell him to shut up.

((You do, however, need a lot of species. It's a bit irrelevant if you need a quarter million or only a thousand, because neither number will be reached.))

I'm not offering you a Morton's Fork. I'm telling you to make things when they're interesting and necessary, not handwave legions of things into existence. You're concluding that this means, what exactly? That I expect you to spend the next 4800 turns making different species of beetle? That I'm going to laugh and say "NOPE ONLY FIFTY VARIETIES OF LIFE THE WEB OF LIFE COLLAPSES LOLOLOLOLOL" the whole game?

((Not exactly, but that sounds something like what you were saying.))

How exactly do you think the game operates at this point?))

((Anything we make exists. Anything we don't explicitly make does not exist, to the detriment of what may exist. Regions do not come with any life.))

-snip-

((Remind me, how does starting with basic life change ANY of these?))

((Well, your question was what the point of granting regions traits on creation was, not why starting without any life was preferable. I already mentioned that one a lot elsewhere.

But as an addendum, I'll throw in that having all those thousands of species in each and every single region would make it very messy to try to figure out how new species would interact, or how the ecosystem as a whole would respond to other changes.))

((Why do you need to worry? Most species would react as well as the others. Or, you could look to real life for inspiration. A new species of herbivore is introduced and outcompetes the native herbivores? Hm, what did rabbits do to Australian vegetation and predators? Stuff like that.
Or...just assume it exists and leave it there.))

((Because if there's a species of rodent, it should be because a god made it for a specific reason, not because "BUT THEY EXIST IRL!"))

((Should the gods be forced to make every single species they made with a separate action? That's like saying a verse in Genesis should be devoted to each species God made on the Earth.))

((The game's not about making snowmen. It's about making landscapes. Snowmen can come into that, but it's not the sole point.

((I assumed you were making a metaphor.))]

I don't want to start with a planet and stars and sun and moons and other planets and ecosystems and forests and mountains just so somebody can jump STRAIGHT into making their elves. This isn't a game about making elves. Elves can come into it, but it's not the sole point.))

((So, this is entirely about making each little grain of sand at the beach that is your world its own unique snowflake-shape? That doesn't make the beach special, it makes it hazardous to walk on. A world that's different from Earth just 'cause is less relatable but otherwise about the same.))

((As I mentioned, I'm going to force players to create as much as I feel is relevant and interesting. I realize this may be somewhat arbitrary, which is why I'm careful to explain what does or doesn't need to happen when asked or when I feel it might come up.

This is why, for instance, you don't need to create the sun or time or gravity or legions of beetles, but you do need to create food sources or lands or worshipers. The former can be done without unless someone wants to mess with them directly. The latter raise interesting points about the specifics simply by existing.

((...You didn't notice that my complaints were on needing to create legions of beetles and the like?))

The current world(s) isn't a freezing hellish abyss because I went ahead and took general light levels and temperature as some of those moderate qualities you can define in regions on creation- in essence, I assumed everyone wanted their place to not be a cold dark hell even though there's no sun, and decided not being a cold dark hell in the absence of a sun was an acceptable way for worlds to work.

((Why not go a step further and assume that we wanted our forests to have trees, our deserts to have beetles, our oceans to have zooplankton, our just-about-everywhere to have rodents?))

((And your beetled treed forests to have vast empires of technomagic timetraveling elves using their shackled gods to power their universe-creation engines?

((Yes, because beetles are just like technomagic timetravelling elves and totally fall into the guidelines I suggested. Because those elves would be so boring to spend time creating.))

((If you define "niche" as "something these creatures eat," then no. If you define niche as ">0.5 mm drought-resistant detrivore arthropod focusing on skin tissue," that's all you.))

((Actually, for the purpose of this discussion I'm defining "niche" as "purpose an organism plays in the environment". A bit off from the technical definition, but it captures the relevant issues.
The simple fact is, there are no general-purpose detrivores. Just like there are no organisms in Africa which eat both grass and large organisms, or no predators worldwide which eat megafauna and insects, or no seaside herbivores that eat seaweed and palm tree leaves.
Making one would make about as much sense as making a magical tree that feeds anything and everything.))

[Tsuchigumo550]

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN.

TAKE EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT ECOSYSTEMS AND THROW IT OUT A WINDOW. WALK OUTSIDE. PARK A CAR ON IT. STAB IT. GET RID OF IT.

WE ARE NOT RUNNING A PERFECT SIMULATION OF THE EARTH. WE DO NOT NEED 3800 INSECT TYPES. WE NEED ONE TO GET THINGS GOING. THEN, LATER, IF WE FEEL LIKE IT, WE CAN CREATE 3800 INSECT TYPES ASSUMING THERE'S TIME FOR IT.


Trust me. I realize god games cause a lot of arguments, but you are literally complaining about the game engine here. It's like asking Toady to remove dwarves from Dwarf Fortress. It's nonsensical and getting us nowhere.

[Tiruin]

((Let's get with the actions before theoretically pouncing on the whole thing with theoretical discussions as well as comparison and allusion to the one thing we all know and cherish: our RL ecosystem, shall we?

@GWG: There's a perfect reason why we've lived past no sun/moon.

We're only lacking sustenance.

Let's get on with the turns and then get the debate going on later.))