TangibleLight's recent activity

  1. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games

    TangibleLight
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    I haven't been online in some time - both work and coursework have picked up recently and I haven't had much time to play survival. However I have been working off-and-on and made progress on the...

    I haven't been online in some time - both work and coursework have picked up recently and I haven't had much time to play survival.

    However I have been working off-and-on and made progress on the stasis chamber system on my local Paper server. Here's a brief video showing the current stasis chamber:

    • Each unit has 16 chambers which can hold many ender pearls. Just throw a pearl straight up into the chamber, no special alignment needed. Two units can fit in one chunk, giving a maximum capacity of 32 players per network, but I would only build one unit for now.

    • Each chamber reports whether there are any pearls currently inside, unlike other designs which count how many pearls should be inside. Therefore if you die or log out, your pearl disappear and the light indicates this.

    And here's a brief video with the last iteration of the wireless receiver.

    • Each receiver is individually addressed by the levers on green concrete.

    • The signal strength sent to each receiver is given by the levers on blue concrete.

    However I am not happy with this iteration. I had seen Chronostasis Showcase and had the idea to use the signal strength system to identify the stasis chamber. However, since the wireless receiver I'm using is vertically oriented rather than horizontally oriented like in Chronostasis, I think it is better not to go to signal strength and instead just decode the binary signal directly.

    It will be bulkier, but ultimately it will be cheaper to build in survival, as a vertical decoder is just a bunch of walls. You can see how this would fit in directly above the walls on the stasis chamber.

    I don't have a video of it, but I also have a cute destination selector using an arrow in an item frame centered in a ring of 8 redstone lamps. As you right-click the arrow to rotate it, the lamp for the current destination illuminates and the destination signal is locked in. It's basically this idea but wrapped up into a circle. If rotating the arrow proves too tedious/slow, this button panel is a drop-in replacement that operates on basically the same principle.

    So the usage will be: Rotate the arrow to the desired destination; walk to your stasis chamber; open a trap-door to reveal a button; press the button. Then, once you arrive, check that the lamp is still on in your chamber. If not, reload it by throwing some ender pearls upward.

    3 votes

  2. Comment on The Donald Trump US administration accidentally texted me its war plans (gifted link) in ~society

    TangibleLight
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    Obviously I can't speak for anyone else but part of me wants to believe it's intentional, because I want to believe there is someone with influence that has retained their scruples. Unfortunately,...

    It's just not clear to me why multiple people want to write this fiction.

    Obviously I can't speak for anyone else but part of me wants to believe it's intentional, because I want to believe there is someone with influence that has retained their scruples.

    Unfortunately, both Occam's and Hanlon's razors mandate that I do not believe it. Accidentally tapping on the wrong contact on a touch screen is by far the most reasonable explanation unless other evidence comes out.

    Instead it's exposed a MAJOR security breach in a way that can't be covered up, and can (hopefully) lead to action to prevent it from happening again.

    Part of the reason that it's a major security breach is because accidents like this can happen. It should not be surprising, then, that an accident like this has happened.

    even the fact it went to the editor-in-chief is a major boon

    But I do want to believe. Really, the unlikelihood of that one point is the only reason I entertain the idea.

    4 votes

  3. Comment on Why is everything binary? in ~science

    TangibleLight
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    I'm aware, which is why I haven't chimed in till now. The details on how binary numerals work doesn't really have any bearing on their main point on human psychology. But There is a name for this:...

    But yes this isn't really an educational video on computer binary.

    I'm aware, which is why I haven't chimed in till now. The details on how binary numerals work doesn't really have any bearing on their main point on human psychology.

    But

    They mean if you literally count each bit as 1 you can count up to 8

    There is a name for this: unary numerals. It is quite literally not binary. Similarly, a single transistor is not a memory cell, and you can't represent characters with only one bit each. That the author uses these words as such reveals that they're only using the tech-y jargon as a metaphor without really understanding it. Which is fine, I suppose, since those details don't have much bearing on their point.

    I think a better entry into the post would have been to talk about information theory instead of computation. A bit is the fundamental unit of information. With many bits of information, you can express nuance and detail. As you remove nuance, you remove bits, and eventually you're left with only a single bit of information. Yes or no, in or out, friend or enemy.

    To relate this back to the psychology of things, my guess is that groups of people have this tendency to remove (or ignore) nuance, thereby removing bits of information from their collective state. Then as a whole we trend toward these binary categorizations.

    3 votes

  4. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games

    TangibleLight
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    It is new behavior with 1.21.4. Ender pearls now load their chunk, vanish when you log out, and re-appear when you log back in. Pearls have always vanished on death, but that's a gamerule since...

    It is new behavior with 1.21.4. Ender pearls now load their chunk, vanish when you log out, and re-appear when you log back in.

    Pearls have always vanished on death, but that's a gamerule since 1.20. A while ago I floated the idea of turning that off to mostly negative response. But I've since come around and I think it's probably better to keep the default behavior.

    1 vote

  5. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games

    TangibleLight
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    I think this is the most robust and featureful the stasis chamber is going to get. https://i.imgur.com/ImBCcos.mp4 Simply throw ender pearls up into the magazine as fast as you can. Everything...

    I think this is the most robust and featureful the stasis chamber is going to get. https://i.imgur.com/ImBCcos.mp4

    • Simply throw ender pearls up into the magazine as fast as you can. Everything aligns automatically.
    • The magazine reports how many pearls it has. The count is how many pearls are currently in the machine. It resets if the player dies or logs out and the pearls vanish.
    • You teleport back to the main floor.

    The main body is a 3 wide footprint, which is bigger than I'd prefer, but I think the compromise is acceptable. It can be tiled 2-wide by reflecting and offsetting every other chamber. That's a bigger footprint than I'd prefer, but I think it's an acceptable compromise. If you are near the edge of the block, the ender pearl can hit the wall and teleport you up into the machine - you'll either fall back down naturally (no fall damage due to the water) or can easily swim out. I've never gotten it to teleport me into the machine if I'm anywhere near the center of the block.

  6. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games

    TangibleLight
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    The ender pearl prototype works! (screenshot) The bigger receiver will look something like this, with several of the dispenser modules stacked on top of each other. Each one of those lamps is...

    The ender pearl prototype works! (screenshot)

    The bigger receiver will look something like this, with several of the dispenser modules stacked on top of each other. Each one of those lamps is individually addressed across all the copies of the receiver; so all I need to do is connect that signal to the appropriate stasis chamber.

    Compacting the improved stasis chamber is more difficult than I expected, though. There are a lot of limitations on how to move the ender pearls about in such a way that they cannot hit the walls; otherwise there's a chance you're teleported into the belly of the machine. Clearly not desirable. Doing a lot of testing with tick warp to try to make sure things are reliable.

    If I can get it to work reliably the design will be something along these lines (screenshot) where you throw several pearls into the chamber and it lets you know when it needs reloading. The pressure plate also detects the number of entities present, so I could have it warn when there's only one left.

    One of the points I'm struggling to make reliable is to have it automatically align the pearls, so the player doesn't need to do anything other than throw their pearls into the machine. I think it is possible to detect the pearls falling through, but again, the timing and making sure pearls don't hit the wall is very tricky. Also, as it stands the design wouldn't fit into one floor of one chunk, so I'd either need to build vertical or compromise elsewhere on the design at some point.

    3 votes

  7. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games

    TangibleLight
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    It occurs to me that these "devlog" type posts might work better on the ~comp "What have you been working on" recurring thread. I might make a post there that goes into more detail on how exactly...

    It occurs to me that these "devlog" type posts might work better on the ~comp "What have you been working on" recurring thread. I might make a post there that goes into more detail on how exactly the thing works, and break out some diagrams and screenshots to explain the circuitry.

    A couple small updates:

    If two people at different waypoints initiate a teleport at the same time, it might send an invalid command or teleport the wrong person. I need a "lock" signal that will instead reject all teleports if more than one waypoint requests a lock at the same time; however this signal needs a more complex protocol than the wireless receivers I've already designed, so it might take a while to figure out. (A hard problem.)

    Turns out this is super easy! Signals interfere with XOR, so I just add a special "lock" bit. If there's only one transmission, the bit is set and the teleport occurs. If there are two transmissions, the bit is not set and the teleport is rejected. Being able to rely on that lock bit also simplifies the receiver, since I can do away with a good amount of synchronization logic and just use that signal to activate some components.

    There is still a problem if three stations request a teleport at the same time, but there's an easy fix: assume that won't happen. Even the chance of two overlapping requests seems small; the odds of three overlapping requests should be negligible.

    The final bit count is 1 (lock) + 3 (destination) + 6 (player) + 1 (report).

    Compact the enderpearl stasis chambers and wireless redstone item chambers into a single-chunk footprint. Redstone components can exist in adjacent chunks, but all the entities need to stay within a single chunk to minimize overhead. (Probably a hard problem.)

    Not much of a problem. This can be done as up to four rows of 16 stasis chambers in the ceiling.

    Compacting the wireless redstone is achievable by stacking it vertically rather than horizontally, which also happens to make routing the signal a bit easier.

    Encourage players to replace their enderpearl after teleporting. I can dispense an enderpearl to the player after they teleport, but the details depend on how the stasis chambers are arranged. I probably shouldn't prevent the player from leaving without replacing the pearl (things should fail-safe) but it might be good to have a more substantial reminder of some kind than a simple sign. (Should be easy, just needs some thought.)

    I was under the impression that stack separators don't work on Paper server, but that is not true! It works fine! So I'm now working on a multi-enderpearl magazine. Existing designs I found count how many pearls should be in the magazine, which breaks if the player dies and the pearls vanish. So instead I am working on a version that uses a pressure plate to directly check if any pearls are in the magazine, and report that with an indicator light. The challenge, though, is that pressure plate must go in the same spot that is usually used for entity alignment, which means I need to align the pearls in-flight before they land in the chamber. The timing is tricky but I think it can be done.

    2 votes

  8. Comment on To those who have been trying out Kagi: what do you think of it? in ~tech

    TangibleLight
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    I doubt it. The only thing I might watch out for is if there's any kind of quota on the number of sharing links you can use. I don't think there is, and I don't see any way to even check how many...

    I doubt it. The only thing I might watch out for is if there's any kind of quota on the number of sharing links you can use. I don't think there is, and I don't see any way to even check how many I've created, so I don't think it would be an issue.

    1 vote

  9. Comment on To those who have been trying out Kagi: what do you think of it? in ~tech

  10. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games

    TangibleLight
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    Update! The issue was not one with the Paper server or configuration, but a problem with my "simpler" contraption. It is exactly the issue with redstone dust; I accidentally made a locational...

    Update! The issue was not one with the Paper server or configuration, but a problem with my "simpler" contraption. It is exactly the issue with redstone dust; I accidentally made a locational machine that happened to work where I built in on my test world and happened not to work where I built it on Tildes. Very frustrated because I could've been working on this project since December!

    I think I will start sharing a sort of dev-log both to hold myself accountable, and also share any progress I make on the test world that isn't visible on Tildes server.

    The guiding principal of the thing is that "teleport the wrong person" is a critical failure mode that should be avoided if at all possible. Authentication or error correction is worth adding complexity to the protocol.

    The second guiding principal is that it should be accessible to the community and not difficult to operate. If a failure occurs, it should be clear whether it's an issue that needs my attention (eg. busted transmitter) or if the player can easily fix it (eg. missing pearls). Error reporting is worth adding complexity to the protocol.

    The current to-do list I need to resolve before I can start building the thing on the server:

    • If two people at different waypoints initiate a teleport at the same time, it might send an invalid command or teleport the wrong person. I need a "lock" signal that will instead reject all teleports if more than one waypoint requests a lock at the same time; however this signal needs a more complex protocol than the wireless receivers I've already designed, so it might take a while to figure out. (A hard problem.)

    • Make a foolproof selection panel to avoid accidentally teleporting the wrong player. I had considered an authentication system with "access cards" and named item filters to prevent this, but I think it adds too much frontend complexity. Therefore I'll just rely on the "lock" signal to avoid erroneous requests and the "don't be a dick" game mechanic to avoid malicious requests. (Should be easy.)

    • Create a "completed" signal to indicate if the system thinks a teleport occurred. This way you know whether a failed teleport is a problem with the machine (bug me about it) or a missing enderpearl (go replace your enderpearl and don't bug me about it). (Should be easy.)

    • Compact the enderpearl stasis chambers and wireless redstone item chambers into a single-chunk footprint. Redstone components can exist in adjacent chunks, but all the entities need to stay within a single chunk to minimize overhead. (Probably a hard problem.)

    • Encourage players to replace their enderpearl after teleporting. I can dispense an enderpearl to the player after they teleport, but the details depend on how the stasis chambers are arranged. I probably shouldn't prevent the player from leaving without replacing the pearl (things should fail-safe) but it might be good to have a more substantial reminder of some kind than a simple sign. (Should be easy, just needs some thought.)

    I also need to put more thought into exactly how many of these things I want to build, and how many players I want to support. At the moment I'm thinking 3 bits to identify the waypoint (which means I can build no more than eight waypoints) and 5 or 6 bits to identify the player (which means I can support no more than 31 or 63 players). I also need to reserve some of the address space for other commands. It's easier to have more address space and not use it than to run out of address space and need to expand it. I'll probably run 6 bits for the player identifier, and only gradually add stasis chambers if/when I get requests for more capacity.

    The more pressing issue is the footprint: how can I fit so many stasis chambers into a single chunk? I am sure it is possible but it will take time to design. Like I said, I'll only gradually expand the system but I do still need a plan for where to put these things if they're ever necessary in the future.

    On the control panel, the idea is to have a panel where you hit a block to select the "current destination", then you hit the player button to request to teleport to that destination. I figure to make space for players to customize their buttons a bit, to make it easier for people to identify and less likely to accidentally teleport the wrong person. I'll also put trapdoors over the buttons, so you have to lift the cover before pressing like a beefy emergency stop button. I hope it'll feel satisfying and straightforward to operate.

    2 votes

  11. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games

    TangibleLight
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    Thanks! I got most of it up, but the cables took more cobbled deepslate than I expected. I don't want to completely deplete community storage, it's already pretty low. IIRC @GravySleeve mentioned...

    Thanks! I got most of it up, but the cables took more cobbled deepslate than I expected. I don't want to completely deplete community storage, it's already pretty low.

    IIRC @GravySleeve mentioned they have a tunnel bore somewhere? Do you have any surplus of cobbled deepslate from that? Otherwise we could go mining or run the bore for a while to replenish the deepslate supply.

  12. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games

    TangibleLight
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    oh no No I just like how the perspective of the skewed top is odd when viewed from the ground lol. Maybe I need to focus on getting some more up and floating to avoid accidental resemblances. I am...

    oh no

    No I just like how the perspective of the skewed top is odd when viewed from the ground lol. Maybe I need to focus on getting some more up and floating to avoid accidental resemblances.

    I am also in distress because I don't know how to complete the bottom dark gray bit. I tried a couple designs and they ended up... phallic.

    Edit: The strange effect is strongest down in the forest to the north east. Walking around near this piece of basalt there's this illusion where it's hard to tell any depth to it.

    1 vote

  13. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games

    TangibleLight
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    Well, that didn't happen. :/ I did hop on for like 5 mins at some point and tried running the contraption. It is still broken. I'm really starting to think the machine itself is broken, although...

    Things are improving, though, so I'll try to make some time this weekend to hop on to work on that and catch up with anyone online.

    Well, that didn't happen. :/

    I did hop on for like 5 mins at some point and tried running the contraption. It is still broken. I'm really starting to think the machine itself is broken, although I'm not quite sure how. I updated my testing server to 1.21.4, and although the design works there I also observed some strange behavior with redstone dust that I wasn't expecting. I'm wondering if that's making the machine position-dependant and breaking the one on Tildes server.

    There is a "simple" test I can do to see if that's the cause; set up a long series of droppers and repeaters high in the air, and just watch how the items fall. If I see the pattern - it's an issue with my contraption. If there's no pattern - it's an issue with the server.

    I'm planning to hop on and do that tonight, and whatever the results of that experiment I'll spend some time working on that cable-stayed bridge over the swamp.

    @teaearlgraycold could you confirm which build of Paper the server runs? Do you know of any non-default settings around item or entity behavior? It would help debugging to configure my test server as close to the Tildes config as possible.

    3 votes

  14. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games

    TangibleLight
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    You can also use it for anything where you want to send a redstone signal a very long distance (monitoring farms or chunk loaders) or across an air gap (eg. a floating control platform for a PVP...

    You can also use it for anything where you want to send a redstone signal a very long distance (monitoring farms or chunk loaders) or across an air gap (eg. a floating control platform for a PVP arena).

    cubicmetre - We Made Helldivers in Minecraft

    We Made Helldivers in Minecraft has some use cases.

    They store the locations of all the trial chambers in a big lookup table; this is far too big to fit inside the floating destroyer build, so they use wireless redstone from the ship to remotely fetch coordinates from the lookup table and transmit them back to the destroyer.

    They use an enderpearl stasis chamber to return to the destroyer; at the end of the video he places a series of redstone components attached to a daylight sensor. That sequence of components is a minimal wireless transmitter.

    docm77 - G.L.O.B.E. - I made the internet in Minecraft

    Docm77's recent videos also have some use cases. In his video last week G.L.O.B.E., he builds a simple single-player stasis network, however that design is not suitable for multiple players. The stasis chamber is nice in that it can be re-used without refilling the ender pearl every time, but it would break if the player dies. I also think that stasis chamber won't work in Paper servers, but I haven't tested it.

    I haven't watched it yet, but his video this week is titled I made the internet in Minecraft so I assume he transmits some more sophisticated data in that video.

    Edit: Aha! In his new video, it seems like Doc may have figured out the reason the items are dissappearing from the test receiver I built on Tildes. It's a good lead! Something I'll need to look into if I do continue the project.

    I have an idea to build a small network of multi-player enderpearl stasis chambers. (A bit of discussion about this from December). I'd build a few waypoints around the server - and only a few, to minimize performance impact - each with a bank of stasis chambers for several players. Any "registered" player can teleport from any waypoint to any other as long as it has their enderpearl.

    It is also possible in principle, although I'm not sure it's a good idea, to create a special "home" waypoint which is unique for each player that wants it. It would keep a chunk loaded and wireless receiver running at their base whenever they're logged in. I'm not sure if or how much it would impact performance. (It would also be a lot more time-consuming to build!)

    I don't expect any of this to have much impact at all, but I don't really want to push things too far, you know? All told the whole system should be no worse than a large mob farm or item sorter.

    There are a few things in the way that I still need to deal with:

    • Wireless redstone may not work at all on the server, in which case the project is dead. This was the case in 1.21.1, which is why I stopped working on it in December. As such there are still a few technical issues to solve, but I'm sure the core of the project can work.
    • We will keep enderPearlsVanishOnDeath enabled for performance reasons, so if a player dies they'd need to refill their enderpearls at all the waypoints. The enderpearls also temporarily vanish when the player is logged out, so some extra logic needs to go into the stasis chambers to deal with that.
    • To help minimize impact, I want each waypoint to only load a single chunk. I'm confident this is possible, but it will take some effort to compact everything into the small footprint. The goal is to fit them into parallelepiped monoliths like the ones at my base.
    • Is it desirable to allow players to trigger each other's stasis chambers? It would be very frustrating to be accidentally (or intentionally) teleported without consent, but it might be nice to say "hey, let's both meet at waypoint X, can you teleport me there with you?" This could be prevented with a sort of "access card" system but it adds a lot of complexity and makes the whole thing harder to use.
    1 vote

  15. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games

    TangibleLight
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    This thing. It is a wireless receiver that works based on item entity IDs. Item movement behavior depends on their entity ID, which in turn depends on the order in which they're created. By...

    This thing. It is a wireless receiver that works based on item entity IDs. Item movement behavior depends on their entity ID, which in turn depends on the order in which they're created. By carefully timing the droppers, you can create items with a specific expected order. Elsewhere in the world, you can dispense an extra item to disrupt that order and detect it remotely. I did not build a transmitter, so that receiver should stay off, but something on Tildes server is disrupting the item order.

    On the right side of the machine is a lever: flip that on. The redstone lamp to the left ought to remain off, indicating no disruptions to the item order. This worked in a locally-hosted Paper 1.21.1 server, but on Tildes 1.21.1 it would flash randomly indicating constant disruptions. It could be that Tildes was on an older patch of Paper - some early versions of Paper 1.21.1 broke this functionality - in which case the 1.21.4 update should have fixed the problem. But I suspect a plugin or datapack is the culprit, in which case the update won't fix anything.

    There's also an issue that some items disappear from the machine which I never bothered debugging, so if you're inclined to test it yourself you might need to go through all the droppers in the contraption and make sure they all have some items inside. I think it's because the machine is not attached to any chunkloader so when I'd fly away items would despawn. I didn't worry about debugging it much because that contraption is really just to test that the functionality works at all, any proper build would use a more lag-friendly variant. But this temporary design is easier to troubleshoot.

    Edit: I just logged on real quick to test it, it still seems broken. A shame. It might be that I built the contraption incorrectly so maybe I'll try running a different design or debugging it locally, but I really don't see any pattern in how it behaves... I guess we'll see but probably table the project.

    2 votes

  16. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games

    TangibleLight
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    I poked around on the map and saw someone laid out a southbound extension to the rail network out past the swamp to my monoliths. Thanks! The tracks out over the swamp give me an idea to build a...

    I poked around on the map and saw someone laid out a southbound extension to the rail network out past the swamp to my monoliths. Thanks! The tracks out over the swamp give me an idea to build a cable-stayed bridge over that area for the rail.

    I haven't been online in some time... I've been struggling with some mental health issues that have made it difficult to really engage with anything. Things are improving, though, so I'll try to make some time this weekend to hop on to work on that and catch up with anyone online.

    I also see the server is updated to 1.21.4 - I will try the wireless redstone contraption again but I'm not very hopeful. IIRC from my previous testing, it seems likely that one of the datapacks on the server is messing with entity IDs and preventing the mechanism from working. If that's the case, and it's not just the Paper version, then upgrading won't have fixed anything. Fingers crossed!

    Edit: Ah, it looks like @creesch and @dhcrazy333 are working on that line. Thanks for extending it out to the monoliths!

    5 votes

  17. Comment on Do you have a game that you love from “before your time?” in ~games

    TangibleLight
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    I always feel nostalgic for Myst. I first encountered it in middle school - probably some time around 2010? I was born in the late 90s, and Myst came out in '93 - at the time I didn't know any of...

    I always feel nostalgic for Myst. I first encountered it in middle school - probably some time around 2010? I was born in the late 90s, and Myst came out in '93 - at the time I didn't know any of the history or technical aspects of the game, only that it was supposed to be a very good puzzle game. I had pencil and paper out with a bunch of notes, the whole thing. I remember it as a great experience.

    In some way it didn't really feel janky at all, many of the other games I played around then were Flash browser games, many of which use the same prerendering techniques. I think learning more about the history of the project after the fact added some depth to it.

    4 votes

  18. Comment on Open to collaborate and draw something for you in ~creative

    TangibleLight
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    Maybe my description form the worldbuilding thread https://tildes.net/~creative/1m7e/tildes_worldbuilding_thread#comment-eyly Prompt Follow a winding road through foothills, passing villages and...

    Maybe my description form the worldbuilding thread https://tildes.net/~creative/1m7e/tildes_worldbuilding_thread#comment-eyly

    Prompt

    Follow a winding road through foothills, passing villages and rolling farmland. Up ahead, a great metropolis wraps around the base of a small mountain whose peak rises impossibly sharp and steep up through the clouds and beyond sight. To the left of the spire are a long mountain range and scars in the earth, like the spire itself were dragged through the earth by the gods. The sky that way is dark and gloomy, leading toward nighttime in the shadowfell. The spire - and the shadowfell itself - casts a long shadow far to your left, triggering thunderstorms as that cool nighttime air from the shadowfell begins to collide with the warmer humid air of the material plane. To the right of the spire is a bright afternoon coastline, the sun reflecting off the water busy with sailing ships around the docks. The spire cuts between these two background scenes like a bad photoshop, but the foreground is rolling hills and light-play that blends smoothly between the two. The feywild is not visible at all from your current position: you would have to pass through or around the city, looping counter-clockwise about the spire, to see it.

    I've tried a few times to draw this but I haven't figured out perspective and landscapes. I think I just need more practice with "typical" landscapes to figure out how to do that perspective before I'll get something "atypical" like this prompt right.

    2 votes

  19. Comment on Tildes worldbuilding thread in ~creative

    TangibleLight
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    I have some half-baked setting I have worked on a bit for a TTRPG, but I ultimately set it aside. DM'ing is a time consuming endeavor that I haven't been able to commit to. Life happens. Things...

    I have some half-baked setting I have worked on a bit for a TTRPG, but I ultimately set it aside. DM'ing is a time consuming endeavor that I haven't been able to commit to. Life happens. Things seem to be looking up, though, so maybe I should dust this project off.

    The core of the setting is a mathematical pun - zeros and poles - the north and south poles of the setting are poles in that mathematical sense. The surface of the "planet" is flat so there is no true north or south. Feel free to throw in some east and west poles, and other fantastic far-away poles beyond those. Read "north" as toward the north pole and "east" as toward the east pole. If we're talking about poles, we can also talk about branches about those poles. That is, travelling once around a pole does not bring you back where you started, but instead brings you to the same position in a different branch of the surface. Travel around the pole again and find yourself on yet another branch. Finally on the third time around, you find yourself at your original position.

    At the time I planned on using this for DnD, so I adapt the planes with this meaning. The feywild and shadowfell are accessible about the familiar four poles (north, south, east, west), or certain spells can shunt you up or down between the branches. The fantastical far-away poles connect certain branches to the other DND planes. For example you could read the many abyssal planes as a pole of infinite degree. You can also imagine strange topologies where distances are not equal - two poles might be thousands of miles apart in the material plane, but travel once around either of them and find yourself only a few miles away in a lower branch. All together the surface weaves around itself and into itself as a great tree of branches, and in principal you could travel anywhere with the correct winding and weaving around the poles.

    I really like it from a worldbuilding perspective because it brings a bunch of questions. How does the economy or politics work if travel between the planes is so easy? How does the geography work around the poles? How does the weather work? How do the sun and moon and stars work? How does it fit into mythology?

    The four major poles are of great importance for nonmagical folk, being transportation hubs to settlements on all three of the prime branches. As nonmagical folk can simply walk around into the feywild or shadowfell, they have more of a presence there near the poles - but the other planes also bleed out into the material plane in the same way. The eastern pole is surrounded by ocean on all sides for many miles, but as such serves critical for trade routes in that region. The southern pole is situated on a temperate coastline in the material plane, and has a large port settlement built up around it.

    Think what it would look like to travel up to this settlement. Follow a winding road through foothills, passing villages and rolling farmland. Up ahead, a great metropolis wraps around the base of a small mountain whose peak rises impossibly sharp and steep up through the clouds and beyond sight. To the left of the spire are a long mountain range and scars in the earth, like the spire itself were dragged through the earth by the gods. The sky that way is dark and gloomy, leading toward nighttime in the shadowfell. The spire - and the shadowfell itself - casts a long shadow far to your left, triggering thunderstorms as that cool nighttime air from the shadowfell begins to collide with the warmer humid air of the material plane. To the right of the spire is a bright afternoon coastline, the sun reflecting off the water busy with sailing ships around the docks. The spire cuts between these two background scenes like a bad photoshop, but the foreground is rolling hills and light-play that blends smoothly between the two. The feywild is not visible at all from your current position: you would have to pass through or around the city, looping counter-clockwise about the spire, to see it.

    There's a trick you can do by cutting and taping a few sheets of paper together to build a model Riemann (hyperbolic) surface like this, where you can refold the parts of it to move the branch cut around and view different portions of the surface. You can only do this in paper around one pole, so I wouldn't be able to build a world map this way, but I think I could build a real folding map of the region surrounding the port town.

    Something I struggle with, though, is story. I have this setting and drop the players into it... now what? By design, the setting doesn't interfere much with game mechanics, so I could run some preexisting module... but I could also do that in any other compatible setting. I need to work out how to integrate things in a way that keeps the setting relevant but makes things engaging for the players.

    2 votes

  20. Comment on New users: Ask your questions about Tildes here! (v4) in ~tildes

    TangibleLight
    Link Parent
    I don't always use it to mean an edit, really it is just a stylistic choice. It's a break between sections without an explicit heading. The intended semantics of it is Thematic Break, although...

    I don't always use it to mean an edit, really it is just a stylistic choice. It's a break between sections without an explicit heading. The intended semantics of it is Thematic Break, although clearly not everyone uses it in the intended way.

    2 votes