I've been thinking about exploring ideas.
I make roughly one world setting every two months - that is, a fully realized setting for a game or story. Drawings, descriptions, rules if it's a game, the works. It's fun.
One of the reasons I do it is because I'm curious to know how far a given concept can be pushed, and in what directions. This is the sort of thing that an author means when they say "I write SPECULATIVE fiction, not SCIENCE fiction!"
As you create these worlds, you find some things you consider to be real gems. See, designing a world isn't just making a world that holds together. The point of designing a world is to make a world that says things, that shines at people. Anyone can create a world where the politics of the elven kingdoms make sense... it's far more difficult to make a world where anybody gives a shit about the politics of the elven kingdoms.
I guess you could say that the point of a world is to clutch the human mind, not to be rigorous or clever or even interesting, although all of those are often helpful at keeping your grip.
So the more recent of my worldish creations have mostly been about providing a scaffold: clear marks and leads stretch across the world so that players or storytellers can follow (as loosely as they prefer) and see what the world has to offer. All the pretty and ugly things I came up with when I was thinking up things that followed from the basic ideas of the world.
Is there any kind of common understanding of this concept? This idea of worlds as a scaffold, as a guide book? Is there any forum for people who want to trade worlds and fragments and explore and write down what they find? A kind of improv storytelling where the idea isn't to do stand-up, but to explore?
Because there are many worlds, and many concepts. And even within a world of my design, there are things I didn't think of.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Designing Fantasy Races
"I don't want my world to be another generic fantasy world with generic D&D races!" you shout.
"Okay!" I shout, "Why are we shouting?"
How can you create fantasy races that are unique? (That includes, of course, fantasies that are modern or science fiction or any other setting - not just medieval fantasies.)
Stuck in a mental trap, you see every race you brainstorm up seems just like some other race somebody already made famous.
Let's go over a good way to create fantasy races.
Steal from Tolkien.
No, no, wait, I'm being serious. Instead of thinking "elves dwarves orcs hobbits", think about what those races mean to the story.
Each race is a lense to view the theme. In the case of Tolkien, the theme of the world can be thought of as "war against dark forces".
The orcs are those that have become dark forces. The dwarves are those that clashed and lost. The humans are those that are fighting right now. The hobbits are those that are getting drawn in. The elves are those that are above, that remind you that there is something besides the dark.
Quick and dirty, sure, but fundamentally the races can be thought of in that manner. Each race highlights a different part of the struggle, from a different angle.
This can easily be adapted to suit your own fantasy world.
For example, if your fantasy world's theme is "steam powered mecha fighting it out", you can create races to highlight it. In Tolkien fashion, you have a race that has embraced the abuse of mecha, a race that was destroyed after a long fight with mecha, a race that is currently fighting with mecha, a race that is beginning to fight with mecha, and a race that is above mecha.
From that you can expand the race into as human or inhuman a race as you want them to be. Classically, races in role playing games are pretty close to human, but every near-human variant is already established in your audience's eyes as a particular stereotypical race.
For example, our species that fought with mecha for a long time before losing and being destroyed. We can say that they would be adapted to fight in/with mecha. So they would be small (smaller pilots are better) and they would be good with machinery (repairing mecha) and they would be hardy (to live through smoke and steam and the steel mills).
Well, that's obviously fantasy dwarves, isn't it? Or maybe you could argue for gnomes. Either way, hardly original!
Now, if you want you could theoretically make them more unique by making them less human. But you have to go pretty far afield before you get to anything unique, and even then your audience will automatically lump them together with whatever popular race is vaguely similar. So even if we make our dwarflike people unique by letting them directly plug into their mecha through personal mechanical interfaces, now they'll just get called "borgs" or "shadowrunners", depending on the graphics we use to represent it.
Personally, I don't feel you have to make a race look distinct. They should look distinct enough from their other in-world counterparts, but it's basically impossible to come up with a visual that won't be automatically matched up with an existing, popular visual.
Instead, you should focus on making the race feel like a part of your world. Even if your races have exactly the same standard names - elves, dwarves, orcs, and so on - if they play a particular role in your world, they become a new and interesting species. And the main way to define a role is in how the species highlights your world's theme.
An example of this is Shadowrun, which has all the standard fantasy races, but uses them as lenses into the theme of a class struggle. This means that elves and orcs feel very, very different from Tolkien versions, because they represent elitists and the underclass rather than representing victory over and betrayal to dark forces.
There is no limit to the number of races you can create in this manner. Simply assign given regions different subthemes and make the races of that region highlight that theme.
For example, "steam powered mecha battling it out" might be a subtheme on the overarching theme of "use and abuse of technology". We could have another region which has the subtheme "oppression via technology", and create races for that. We don't want to use the same approach, because that leads to very samey races, so we might create lenses that highlight different actions that oppress, rather than different states of oppression. For example, we might have a race that specializes in surveillance, a race that specializes in computation, tracking, and paperwork, a race that specializes in "nonlethal" police actions, and so on.
This "theme-powered" method of creating unique races will result in races that feel unique and, more importantly, support the theme of your world intrinsically, making your world more immersive and profound.
"Okay!" I shout, "Why are we shouting?"
How can you create fantasy races that are unique? (That includes, of course, fantasies that are modern or science fiction or any other setting - not just medieval fantasies.)
Stuck in a mental trap, you see every race you brainstorm up seems just like some other race somebody already made famous.
Let's go over a good way to create fantasy races.
Steal from Tolkien.
No, no, wait, I'm being serious. Instead of thinking "elves dwarves orcs hobbits", think about what those races mean to the story.
Each race is a lense to view the theme. In the case of Tolkien, the theme of the world can be thought of as "war against dark forces".
The orcs are those that have become dark forces. The dwarves are those that clashed and lost. The humans are those that are fighting right now. The hobbits are those that are getting drawn in. The elves are those that are above, that remind you that there is something besides the dark.
Quick and dirty, sure, but fundamentally the races can be thought of in that manner. Each race highlights a different part of the struggle, from a different angle.
This can easily be adapted to suit your own fantasy world.
For example, if your fantasy world's theme is "steam powered mecha fighting it out", you can create races to highlight it. In Tolkien fashion, you have a race that has embraced the abuse of mecha, a race that was destroyed after a long fight with mecha, a race that is currently fighting with mecha, a race that is beginning to fight with mecha, and a race that is above mecha.
From that you can expand the race into as human or inhuman a race as you want them to be. Classically, races in role playing games are pretty close to human, but every near-human variant is already established in your audience's eyes as a particular stereotypical race.
For example, our species that fought with mecha for a long time before losing and being destroyed. We can say that they would be adapted to fight in/with mecha. So they would be small (smaller pilots are better) and they would be good with machinery (repairing mecha) and they would be hardy (to live through smoke and steam and the steel mills).
Well, that's obviously fantasy dwarves, isn't it? Or maybe you could argue for gnomes. Either way, hardly original!
Now, if you want you could theoretically make them more unique by making them less human. But you have to go pretty far afield before you get to anything unique, and even then your audience will automatically lump them together with whatever popular race is vaguely similar. So even if we make our dwarflike people unique by letting them directly plug into their mecha through personal mechanical interfaces, now they'll just get called "borgs" or "shadowrunners", depending on the graphics we use to represent it.
Personally, I don't feel you have to make a race look distinct. They should look distinct enough from their other in-world counterparts, but it's basically impossible to come up with a visual that won't be automatically matched up with an existing, popular visual.
Instead, you should focus on making the race feel like a part of your world. Even if your races have exactly the same standard names - elves, dwarves, orcs, and so on - if they play a particular role in your world, they become a new and interesting species. And the main way to define a role is in how the species highlights your world's theme.
An example of this is Shadowrun, which has all the standard fantasy races, but uses them as lenses into the theme of a class struggle. This means that elves and orcs feel very, very different from Tolkien versions, because they represent elitists and the underclass rather than representing victory over and betrayal to dark forces.
There is no limit to the number of races you can create in this manner. Simply assign given regions different subthemes and make the races of that region highlight that theme.
For example, "steam powered mecha battling it out" might be a subtheme on the overarching theme of "use and abuse of technology". We could have another region which has the subtheme "oppression via technology", and create races for that. We don't want to use the same approach, because that leads to very samey races, so we might create lenses that highlight different actions that oppress, rather than different states of oppression. For example, we might have a race that specializes in surveillance, a race that specializes in computation, tracking, and paperwork, a race that specializes in "nonlethal" police actions, and so on.
This "theme-powered" method of creating unique races will result in races that feel unique and, more importantly, support the theme of your world intrinsically, making your world more immersive and profound.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Dialog Games
Another day, another conversation about how dialog trees are pathetic.
So, you talk to an NPC in a game. You choose - for the millionth time - the "good" option. Well, that's how you decided you were going to play this time.
This is games offering "choice"? This is our concept of "dialog"?
Can we make dialog more interesting?
Sure can! Let's talk about how!
First, we have to ditch the idea of a dialog tree. We need a complex and shifting play field.
For example, look at Pac-Man. You don't simply choose to win or lose. You move left, right, up, and down in an attempt to eat all the dots. But even that would be boring: you have enemies chasing you, trying to eat you. So you've got to eat the dots while always keeping an eye on where the ghosts are. Can't let yourself get hemmed in... unless there's a power pill here, in which case getting hemmed in guarantees you'll get at least one of the bastards!
This is a game: a relatively simple set of inputs affects the gameworld in a straightforward way, and you need to handle the changing challenges. Whether it's a puzzle game where you try to put together a jigsaw, or a platformer where the challenge is in not falling, or a rhythm game where you have to tackle the beats as the flow down the stream. They are all the same: basic inputs to tackle a series of challenges.
A dialog tree, on the other hand, is a highly unique set of inputs for each sequence, and you have only the faintest idea of what the challenges even are!
To make dialog into a game, we need to A) make the inputs more universal, B) make the conversations evolving challenges, and C) let the player see further, so they can see what's coming down the line and how their inputs are affecting it.
There are actually a lot of ways to do this.
One is to simply map the conversation onto an existing game. For example, we can have you play Pac-Man every time you get into a conversation. The higher your score and the more lives you have left at the end of the conversation, the better the outcome. Something similar was actually tried with Leisure Suit Larry's recent game: you had to literally steer your conversation, hitting the right notes and avoiding the fails.
This isn't terribly interesting, though. It doesn't take advantage of what a conversation actually is. What are some other options?
We could make conversation a real-time situation where you control your basic body language using the left stick and the shoulder triggers. Instead of choosing to be good or evil, you physically move closer, show interest, doubt, encourage, etc. While this makes the controls more universal, it doesn't actually give the player any way to see challenges coming down the line.
The key to this whole affair is actually seeing what's coming. Once you have an idea as to how to do that, parts A (controls) and B (evolving challenges) naturally begin to suggest themselves.
For example, we could give characters subtle animations to give clues as to how they are reacting to your actions. This makes the game one of identifying a character's clues and chasing the positive ones while evading the negative ones. This essentially makes every character a puzzle - which is not a bad thing, although it's not one particularly high in replayability or diversity.
Another option is to flat-out display the conversation topics and emotions as physical objects with shapes and proximities to each other. Sounds similar to making it "Pac-Man Social Play", but in this case you can actually embed the social in the play very deeply.
For example, you can put in a kind of social "gravity": if your conversation steers towards a sensitive topic, the conversation is repelled by the instinctive redirection of the NPC. If the course is such that the repelling isn't strong enough and the conversation impacts on the sensitive topic, that starts up a whole new conversation within the "event horizon" of the sensitive topic as the NPC begins to defend themselves or panic or whatever.
So you can plot a course through their hang-ups, ideals, moods, and so on. Probably with an actual line indicator showing your medium-distance future, allowing you to tweak the vector of the conversation to make things go smoother.
This kind of conversation can be easily controlled using a simple "turn/accelerate" IO, where the IO doesn't directly relate to your own dialog, but instead makes your dialog reflect the setting somewhat. For example, if you turn your dialog-ship more towards someone's love of the king of their fantasy nation, then your dialog would naturally turn towards that king.
You could make it significantly more interesting - for example, agreeing with someone's views versus challenging them. It might be better to think of it as whirlpools that have a particular direction of spin, rather than simply blobs.
The point here is that you can invent a kind of game which actually reflects the socializing you're doing.
"But the dialog... how will you generate the dialog? Are you going to write a billion lines of dialog?"
Nah. During the conversation, you'll mostly be focused on the game of steering the conversation. The actual commentary during that time can be pretty generic - short and informative statements like "mumble mumble king mumble mumble?" "OH! Mumble mumble mumble!"
The only dialog you actually have to write at "full depth" is the transition dialog - the dialog you would normally get in a normal game when selecting whether to be good or evil, or when getting briefed on the situation. You don't need to write up every line for every possible position you could possibly be in.
It would be good to have more depth to your dialog than less. If you can write a few dozen lines about likely topics for that character pair, it'll be a lot more interesting. You could even mark them as colored spots on the map, so players can aim for them. Put some of them daaaaaaaangerously close to failure zones.
Until natural language generation improves, having characters with detailed, contiguous conversations is basically impossible. But there is something to be said for "more mumbling, more freedom of conversation" instead of the dialog trees of today.
Of course, focusing on conversation means that the dialog is the main point of the game. So you can't think of it as serving the same in-game purpose that dialog does today. Instead, you have to invent a new position for it...
Hm, gotta think more. This post is just in passing.
So, you talk to an NPC in a game. You choose - for the millionth time - the "good" option. Well, that's how you decided you were going to play this time.
This is games offering "choice"? This is our concept of "dialog"?
Can we make dialog more interesting?
Sure can! Let's talk about how!
First, we have to ditch the idea of a dialog tree. We need a complex and shifting play field.
For example, look at Pac-Man. You don't simply choose to win or lose. You move left, right, up, and down in an attempt to eat all the dots. But even that would be boring: you have enemies chasing you, trying to eat you. So you've got to eat the dots while always keeping an eye on where the ghosts are. Can't let yourself get hemmed in... unless there's a power pill here, in which case getting hemmed in guarantees you'll get at least one of the bastards!
This is a game: a relatively simple set of inputs affects the gameworld in a straightforward way, and you need to handle the changing challenges. Whether it's a puzzle game where you try to put together a jigsaw, or a platformer where the challenge is in not falling, or a rhythm game where you have to tackle the beats as the flow down the stream. They are all the same: basic inputs to tackle a series of challenges.
A dialog tree, on the other hand, is a highly unique set of inputs for each sequence, and you have only the faintest idea of what the challenges even are!
To make dialog into a game, we need to A) make the inputs more universal, B) make the conversations evolving challenges, and C) let the player see further, so they can see what's coming down the line and how their inputs are affecting it.
There are actually a lot of ways to do this.
One is to simply map the conversation onto an existing game. For example, we can have you play Pac-Man every time you get into a conversation. The higher your score and the more lives you have left at the end of the conversation, the better the outcome. Something similar was actually tried with Leisure Suit Larry's recent game: you had to literally steer your conversation, hitting the right notes and avoiding the fails.
This isn't terribly interesting, though. It doesn't take advantage of what a conversation actually is. What are some other options?
We could make conversation a real-time situation where you control your basic body language using the left stick and the shoulder triggers. Instead of choosing to be good or evil, you physically move closer, show interest, doubt, encourage, etc. While this makes the controls more universal, it doesn't actually give the player any way to see challenges coming down the line.
The key to this whole affair is actually seeing what's coming. Once you have an idea as to how to do that, parts A (controls) and B (evolving challenges) naturally begin to suggest themselves.
For example, we could give characters subtle animations to give clues as to how they are reacting to your actions. This makes the game one of identifying a character's clues and chasing the positive ones while evading the negative ones. This essentially makes every character a puzzle - which is not a bad thing, although it's not one particularly high in replayability or diversity.
Another option is to flat-out display the conversation topics and emotions as physical objects with shapes and proximities to each other. Sounds similar to making it "Pac-Man Social Play", but in this case you can actually embed the social in the play very deeply.
For example, you can put in a kind of social "gravity": if your conversation steers towards a sensitive topic, the conversation is repelled by the instinctive redirection of the NPC. If the course is such that the repelling isn't strong enough and the conversation impacts on the sensitive topic, that starts up a whole new conversation within the "event horizon" of the sensitive topic as the NPC begins to defend themselves or panic or whatever.
So you can plot a course through their hang-ups, ideals, moods, and so on. Probably with an actual line indicator showing your medium-distance future, allowing you to tweak the vector of the conversation to make things go smoother.
This kind of conversation can be easily controlled using a simple "turn/accelerate" IO, where the IO doesn't directly relate to your own dialog, but instead makes your dialog reflect the setting somewhat. For example, if you turn your dialog-ship more towards someone's love of the king of their fantasy nation, then your dialog would naturally turn towards that king.
You could make it significantly more interesting - for example, agreeing with someone's views versus challenging them. It might be better to think of it as whirlpools that have a particular direction of spin, rather than simply blobs.
The point here is that you can invent a kind of game which actually reflects the socializing you're doing.
"But the dialog... how will you generate the dialog? Are you going to write a billion lines of dialog?"
Nah. During the conversation, you'll mostly be focused on the game of steering the conversation. The actual commentary during that time can be pretty generic - short and informative statements like "mumble mumble king mumble mumble?" "OH! Mumble mumble mumble!"
The only dialog you actually have to write at "full depth" is the transition dialog - the dialog you would normally get in a normal game when selecting whether to be good or evil, or when getting briefed on the situation. You don't need to write up every line for every possible position you could possibly be in.
It would be good to have more depth to your dialog than less. If you can write a few dozen lines about likely topics for that character pair, it'll be a lot more interesting. You could even mark them as colored spots on the map, so players can aim for them. Put some of them daaaaaaaangerously close to failure zones.
Until natural language generation improves, having characters with detailed, contiguous conversations is basically impossible. But there is something to be said for "more mumbling, more freedom of conversation" instead of the dialog trees of today.
Of course, focusing on conversation means that the dialog is the main point of the game. So you can't think of it as serving the same in-game purpose that dialog does today. Instead, you have to invent a new position for it...
Hm, gotta think more. This post is just in passing.
Monday, December 12, 2011
GITS and Anonymous
I think this essay covers topics most geeks are pretty familiar with, but I can't remember actually reading an essay on these topics before. So here it is: the essay about self-organizing "hacktivists", futurism, and Ghost in the Shell.
Like most geeks, you've probably mused about the faint echoes in your mind between what you saw in Ghost in the Shell and what you've heard about Anonymous. I'm going to try to draw the line between them.
I will be using the term "meme" colloquially. Don't think about what a meme is too hard, that's not the point of this essay.
...
In Ghost in the Shell, arguably the most interesting plot line is the "laughing man" plot line. I call it "the plot line", but it's actually just one line in a theme that shows up many times in various GITS series and incarnations.
The basic idea is that people are not so distinct as they seem. They are easily manipulated into doing things either consciously or unconsciously. Obviously, this is not a unique insight. However, the spin GITS puts on it is interesting: the creation of a 'deep' internet allows this to happen with such fluid speed that the unconscious and semi-conscious actions of the participants can form a 'life form' with its own 'will'.
As an example, in one GITS plot line, people begin to do things for no discernible reason, but they all act towards a single aim. The people involved have no idea what they are doing, nor do they have any knowledge of the secret aim. They have been programmed - not by invasive surgery or brainwashing, but by the unending tides of memes they have been exposed to on their immersive internet. The memes are somewhat directed, but also have a life of their own, since the directives of the original source emerged from the nature of the memes, and are therefore echoed by the participants.
In another plot, one man serves as a hub, allowing participants to enter his personal brain/computer. While there, their sense of self is weakened and they can participate in projects such as sharing memories and computing whether P = NP. They can also be programmed to act in certain ways while outside his personal brain/computer.
This sort of thing is hardly GITS-unique. GITS may have been a popular and compelling example, but there are literally millions of science fiction stories with this same fundamental set of ideas. For example, it is a common conceit to have a VR MMORPG which goes crazy and begins to use/screw up/damage the participant's minds. This is super common in Japanese stories, perhaps because they usually cling to a spirit/body duality, but it also happens in Western stories. Finder did a particularly interesting job of it, for example.
I guess you could say it smacks of an "ascension" ideology. The idea that we can overcome our humanity and, well, go to heaven or whatever. However, I am specifically thinking of it in mechanistic terms. That is, I'm not posing some mythical energy state we can merge into, and I'm not relying on the concept of a spirit or soul. Just people who might become something different than what they currently are, within the limits of physics and biology.
...
Which brings me around to the other end of this rope: Anonymous.
Anonymous and the various similar groups operate in a way that was impossible without the internet. Decentralized, the theory is that any given Anonymous operation can take place with no leader, or perhaps with only a transient leader given a fairly minor role.
In a real sense, the "leader" of an Anonymous operation is largely a memetic broadcaster. Aside from posting specific meeting times if necessary, their job is to yell about whatever they feel is happening that needs to be smashed. And if enough other voices pick up the shout, it becomes an action.
The nature of the memes they broadcast is such that if another person is "infected", they will act in the interests of the original broadcaster. Not because of brainwashing or coercion, but because they will draw the same conclusions.
For example, Anonymous moved against the Church of Scientology. They did not do this because someone wanted to and convinced everyone else to go along. They did it because most people who heard what Scientology was doing reached the same conclusion: the church must be punished. This created a pocket of action, a group of people who, despite their anonymity, all wanted the same thing.
This is a very powerful tool. If there were leaders, not only would the targets be able to strike back, but the followers would also judge which actions they should join based on the leader. This would limit them - "oh, that leader believes things I don't agree with, this action can't have any merit..."
In many ways, this is a very close mirror of the GITS idea, although without the CG bling. This is a group of people who suppress their identities and sequester the majority of their personality and opinion off in a corner so that they can work together with other people doing the same thing very fluidly.
In a very real manner, the Laughing Man is fact. A science fiction concept that is not just possible, but is happening in the real world at this very moment.
To be honest, I would call them "Laughing Man Groups" if I wanted to give them a distinct category. That's the level of similarity I see here, even though Anonymous is only a tiny seedling of the concept.
...
What about the rest? What about where this is going? What about the next step? What about the fact that a lot of the stuff that these Laughing Man Groups are doing is horrible?
Well, a lot of the science fiction around this concept is based on the idea of subverting someone's brain. Forcing them to act. And I doubt that'll happen any time soon. But it doesn't have to: simple cooperation is more than powerful enough.
And as for horribleness, please remember that these are just groups of people. The jerks and assholes are over-represented at the moment because jerks and assholes tend to be the ones that delve into the darker parts of the internet where this kind of organizing is happening. When it becomes common, I can see it being used for a lot more positive aims.
I can see the methods of transmitting memes and forming task participation becoming a lot slicker. I can see people cooperating almost instantly, trusting their connections have a good reason for their requests. I can see people starting to get very good at prioritizing memes as to which ones are more important, not simply more offensive.
I can also see corporations and governments attempting to form or subvert these kinds of environments, which could be interesting.
Can I see something like a VR game which takes place inside the designer's head?
Well, now we're talking about a serious leap in technology.
Everything I've described in the past few paragraphs could happen with today's technology. Anything more is probably science fiction.
For now.
Like most geeks, you've probably mused about the faint echoes in your mind between what you saw in Ghost in the Shell and what you've heard about Anonymous. I'm going to try to draw the line between them.
I will be using the term "meme" colloquially. Don't think about what a meme is too hard, that's not the point of this essay.
...
In Ghost in the Shell, arguably the most interesting plot line is the "laughing man" plot line. I call it "the plot line", but it's actually just one line in a theme that shows up many times in various GITS series and incarnations.
The basic idea is that people are not so distinct as they seem. They are easily manipulated into doing things either consciously or unconsciously. Obviously, this is not a unique insight. However, the spin GITS puts on it is interesting: the creation of a 'deep' internet allows this to happen with such fluid speed that the unconscious and semi-conscious actions of the participants can form a 'life form' with its own 'will'.
As an example, in one GITS plot line, people begin to do things for no discernible reason, but they all act towards a single aim. The people involved have no idea what they are doing, nor do they have any knowledge of the secret aim. They have been programmed - not by invasive surgery or brainwashing, but by the unending tides of memes they have been exposed to on their immersive internet. The memes are somewhat directed, but also have a life of their own, since the directives of the original source emerged from the nature of the memes, and are therefore echoed by the participants.
In another plot, one man serves as a hub, allowing participants to enter his personal brain/computer. While there, their sense of self is weakened and they can participate in projects such as sharing memories and computing whether P = NP. They can also be programmed to act in certain ways while outside his personal brain/computer.
This sort of thing is hardly GITS-unique. GITS may have been a popular and compelling example, but there are literally millions of science fiction stories with this same fundamental set of ideas. For example, it is a common conceit to have a VR MMORPG which goes crazy and begins to use/screw up/damage the participant's minds. This is super common in Japanese stories, perhaps because they usually cling to a spirit/body duality, but it also happens in Western stories. Finder did a particularly interesting job of it, for example.
I guess you could say it smacks of an "ascension" ideology. The idea that we can overcome our humanity and, well, go to heaven or whatever. However, I am specifically thinking of it in mechanistic terms. That is, I'm not posing some mythical energy state we can merge into, and I'm not relying on the concept of a spirit or soul. Just people who might become something different than what they currently are, within the limits of physics and biology.
...
Which brings me around to the other end of this rope: Anonymous.
Anonymous and the various similar groups operate in a way that was impossible without the internet. Decentralized, the theory is that any given Anonymous operation can take place with no leader, or perhaps with only a transient leader given a fairly minor role.
In a real sense, the "leader" of an Anonymous operation is largely a memetic broadcaster. Aside from posting specific meeting times if necessary, their job is to yell about whatever they feel is happening that needs to be smashed. And if enough other voices pick up the shout, it becomes an action.
The nature of the memes they broadcast is such that if another person is "infected", they will act in the interests of the original broadcaster. Not because of brainwashing or coercion, but because they will draw the same conclusions.
For example, Anonymous moved against the Church of Scientology. They did not do this because someone wanted to and convinced everyone else to go along. They did it because most people who heard what Scientology was doing reached the same conclusion: the church must be punished. This created a pocket of action, a group of people who, despite their anonymity, all wanted the same thing.
This is a very powerful tool. If there were leaders, not only would the targets be able to strike back, but the followers would also judge which actions they should join based on the leader. This would limit them - "oh, that leader believes things I don't agree with, this action can't have any merit..."
In many ways, this is a very close mirror of the GITS idea, although without the CG bling. This is a group of people who suppress their identities and sequester the majority of their personality and opinion off in a corner so that they can work together with other people doing the same thing very fluidly.
In a very real manner, the Laughing Man is fact. A science fiction concept that is not just possible, but is happening in the real world at this very moment.
To be honest, I would call them "Laughing Man Groups" if I wanted to give them a distinct category. That's the level of similarity I see here, even though Anonymous is only a tiny seedling of the concept.
...
What about the rest? What about where this is going? What about the next step? What about the fact that a lot of the stuff that these Laughing Man Groups are doing is horrible?
Well, a lot of the science fiction around this concept is based on the idea of subverting someone's brain. Forcing them to act. And I doubt that'll happen any time soon. But it doesn't have to: simple cooperation is more than powerful enough.
And as for horribleness, please remember that these are just groups of people. The jerks and assholes are over-represented at the moment because jerks and assholes tend to be the ones that delve into the darker parts of the internet where this kind of organizing is happening. When it becomes common, I can see it being used for a lot more positive aims.
I can see the methods of transmitting memes and forming task participation becoming a lot slicker. I can see people cooperating almost instantly, trusting their connections have a good reason for their requests. I can see people starting to get very good at prioritizing memes as to which ones are more important, not simply more offensive.
I can also see corporations and governments attempting to form or subvert these kinds of environments, which could be interesting.
Can I see something like a VR game which takes place inside the designer's head?
Well, now we're talking about a serious leap in technology.
Everything I've described in the past few paragraphs could happen with today's technology. Anything more is probably science fiction.
For now.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
New Economies
So, everyone's talking about how we're entering a "post job" economy, and how we need to grow a new economy because this one's broken.
I agree, so here's an easy-peasy crash course on a few aspects of the situation.
An economy isn't. There is no such thing as some kind of monolithic entity known as "economy". The thing we think of as an economy is a diverse set of very different things which happen to share some common reference points (money).
As people are aware, what we normally call "the economy" is faltering pretty badly. A combination of super-effective mechanization/outsourcing and corporate greed has led to massive and seemingly unending unemployment. A lot of people are languishing with no cash, even becoming homeless.
Of course, as many people point out, the factories and farms and homes are all still there, ready to house, produce, and distribute goods. The problem is that the control systems have gone haywire, denying access to those goods.
Some people would claim this is why we need to centralize control over these - to guarantee people don't fall through the cracks.
Personally, I disagree. While I think some things should be centralized, "the economy" is much too large and complex to manage centrally. Something like health care can be centralized, because humans are humans everywhere: if you get cancer in Texas, you need the same kind of care as if you got cancer in Taiwan.
But if you have an economic depression in Texas and Taiwan, the solution may be very, very different. Economies are far more different from each other than people are.
...
A lot of people have basically given up hope, insisting either that there is no economy capable of keeping everyone participating well, or that there is no point in looking because we'll all be dead in 2020 due to global warming.
Well, let's look at a few kinds of "economies". Or, more accurately, a few ways to try to manage the production and distribution of goods.
One way is the classic ultralarge marketplace, which is more or less what we have now (although it comes in some variations). Regardless as to whether it's capitalist or socialist or whatever, the structure of an ultralarge marketplace is that the strongest members are the largest members, and they can use their clout as they see fit.
A plus side of this is that you can really get an economy of scale going - find the best places to generate the things you need, organize the production line for maximum efficiency, and so on. You can also externalize the costs really easily, since you can destroy people or places on one side of the planet to maximize profits on the other side.
To me, the big problem with ultralarge markets is that when the big players start getting controlling, there's nowhere else to go. If they decide to fuck you, you get fucked. It doesn't even have to be a centralized set of authorities: the big players are strong enough, and have enough shared concerns, that even without a concrete central authority they will just automatically collude to screw over whoever they decide to screw over.
Ultralarge markets are enabled by global currency (and global currency exchanges), as well as the ease of transporting goods from nation to nation. There's nothing inherently bad about these things, but it's worth mentioning.
Now that the ultralarge market is starting to fuck us over, some people are thinking of self-sufficient markets. These are basically where you try to build yourself a farm and get ready for the coming apocalypse, your intention being to be as self-sufficient as possible while still allowing for some trade between you and your neighbors.
It may be technically possible to live this way, but it's not a way which is very comfortable or good. Putting aside the lack of variety, the lack of economic "slack" will kill you. If you get sick, what happens? No doctors. If there's a drought, what happens? No foreign food imports. If a bandit shoots you, what happens? No cops.
This kind of economy isn't an economy at all. It's desperate subsistence farming with the help of some vaguely modern practices and technologies.
However, there are plenty of other kinds of methods to use!
Local markets are a fairly well proven method. A local government (such as the town) prints up local scrip and sets it at a specific conversion rate to the national currency. This encourages locals to buy and sell from other locals. It is critical that the local scrip have a specific conversion rate, which is why this is typically backed by a local government, often with the help of a bank: it is quite similar to the idea of a bank lending out cash, and it is possible to have a 'run' on the scrip if you're too clumsy about it.
The reason a scrip is preferable to a simple "buy local" campaign is because it exerts far more pressure to buy local, to the point where locals can begin setting up or expanding local businesses due to their advantage over non-local businesses who will typically not accept the scrip.
Local markets are rarely as efficient or diverse as larger markets. However, when the large market is abusing you, a less efficient positive number is better than a more efficient negative number!
Local scrips are already beginning to bloom here and there, but they have a fundamental weakness. Well, two, if you count the fact that the federal government doesn't much like them. The actual, non-legality flaw is that they are only really useful when the larger economy is screwing you over. The efficiency of the modern workplace is high enough that once you get back on your feet, your local currency will not guarantee jobs. There's only so much business you can do locally, and the number of people it takes to do that business will steadily decline as the local economy becomes better established and begins to polish its performance.
The underlying problem we face is that all the jobs we used to do can be done more effectively by machines and software. Well, we could therefore try a protectionist economy, where advanced robotic labor and outsourcing to other nations is outlawed.
I consider this to be a terrible idea. Not only does it mire us in the nineteenth century, it actually doesn't protect us from the economies of other nations which run at a full robot-powered sprint. This means you have to put huge import tariffs on their goods to keep your local economy competitive, and that can easily lead (I would say "always leads") to isolationism, instability, and general governmental foolishness.
Well, is there an economy which allows everyone to participate while allowing for hyper-efficient production and service?
Sure: create a bevy of new categories of goods and services.
It's uncomfortable, depressing, and sometimes dangerous to lose your job, but that is made a hundred times worse if you lose your job because the whole industry you worked in is being automated away.
And don't think anyone's immune. Virtually every current industry is slated to be automated away, from construction to accounting. The seeds are there, it's just a matter of how fast they bloom.
The question is: how can you help someone who was fired from a dying industry to transition to a growing one?
Well, the answer is easy: make it a service. You can embed it in the unemployment office, you can make it an internet forum, you can do a social network for it. It doesn't have to be government-powered, it doesn't have to not be. As long as it is something that a 45-year-old factory worker knows exists and is willing to use, it'll really help. Adult education.
Of course, one issue is that growing industries these days aren't growing as fast as the old ones are being automated/offshored. However, that's a disconnect that doesn't have to exist. There are plenty of industries which could explode... if we wanted them to. We could repair all the roads. We could install solar panels everywhere. We could create a Citizens' BioBrigade which monitors and catalogs the local ecosystems and bacteria.
The real question is, of course, "where does the money to do that come from?"
Ahhhh. Now we're getting to the crux of the matter. Money.
The reason our economy is in the shitter is because of the companies that control the money. All our currencies are tied into the same network, and therefore whenever anyone rips out a part of that network, the backlash gets felt by everyone, everywhere.
So... maybe what we need isn't a new kind of economy, but a new kind of money. Or, at least, a new method of distributing money, since there are plenty of people who are doing reasonably well and are happy to help fund new markets.
Anyway, I don't have the answers. But I think it's time to start talking and trying everything we can.
And if you're a mayor looking for a solution, I strongly recommend looking into local scrip.
I agree, so here's an easy-peasy crash course on a few aspects of the situation.
An economy isn't. There is no such thing as some kind of monolithic entity known as "economy". The thing we think of as an economy is a diverse set of very different things which happen to share some common reference points (money).
As people are aware, what we normally call "the economy" is faltering pretty badly. A combination of super-effective mechanization/outsourcing and corporate greed has led to massive and seemingly unending unemployment. A lot of people are languishing with no cash, even becoming homeless.
Of course, as many people point out, the factories and farms and homes are all still there, ready to house, produce, and distribute goods. The problem is that the control systems have gone haywire, denying access to those goods.
Some people would claim this is why we need to centralize control over these - to guarantee people don't fall through the cracks.
Personally, I disagree. While I think some things should be centralized, "the economy" is much too large and complex to manage centrally. Something like health care can be centralized, because humans are humans everywhere: if you get cancer in Texas, you need the same kind of care as if you got cancer in Taiwan.
But if you have an economic depression in Texas and Taiwan, the solution may be very, very different. Economies are far more different from each other than people are.
...
A lot of people have basically given up hope, insisting either that there is no economy capable of keeping everyone participating well, or that there is no point in looking because we'll all be dead in 2020 due to global warming.
Well, let's look at a few kinds of "economies". Or, more accurately, a few ways to try to manage the production and distribution of goods.
One way is the classic ultralarge marketplace, which is more or less what we have now (although it comes in some variations). Regardless as to whether it's capitalist or socialist or whatever, the structure of an ultralarge marketplace is that the strongest members are the largest members, and they can use their clout as they see fit.
A plus side of this is that you can really get an economy of scale going - find the best places to generate the things you need, organize the production line for maximum efficiency, and so on. You can also externalize the costs really easily, since you can destroy people or places on one side of the planet to maximize profits on the other side.
To me, the big problem with ultralarge markets is that when the big players start getting controlling, there's nowhere else to go. If they decide to fuck you, you get fucked. It doesn't even have to be a centralized set of authorities: the big players are strong enough, and have enough shared concerns, that even without a concrete central authority they will just automatically collude to screw over whoever they decide to screw over.
Ultralarge markets are enabled by global currency (and global currency exchanges), as well as the ease of transporting goods from nation to nation. There's nothing inherently bad about these things, but it's worth mentioning.
Now that the ultralarge market is starting to fuck us over, some people are thinking of self-sufficient markets. These are basically where you try to build yourself a farm and get ready for the coming apocalypse, your intention being to be as self-sufficient as possible while still allowing for some trade between you and your neighbors.
It may be technically possible to live this way, but it's not a way which is very comfortable or good. Putting aside the lack of variety, the lack of economic "slack" will kill you. If you get sick, what happens? No doctors. If there's a drought, what happens? No foreign food imports. If a bandit shoots you, what happens? No cops.
This kind of economy isn't an economy at all. It's desperate subsistence farming with the help of some vaguely modern practices and technologies.
However, there are plenty of other kinds of methods to use!
Local markets are a fairly well proven method. A local government (such as the town) prints up local scrip and sets it at a specific conversion rate to the national currency. This encourages locals to buy and sell from other locals. It is critical that the local scrip have a specific conversion rate, which is why this is typically backed by a local government, often with the help of a bank: it is quite similar to the idea of a bank lending out cash, and it is possible to have a 'run' on the scrip if you're too clumsy about it.
The reason a scrip is preferable to a simple "buy local" campaign is because it exerts far more pressure to buy local, to the point where locals can begin setting up or expanding local businesses due to their advantage over non-local businesses who will typically not accept the scrip.
Local markets are rarely as efficient or diverse as larger markets. However, when the large market is abusing you, a less efficient positive number is better than a more efficient negative number!
Local scrips are already beginning to bloom here and there, but they have a fundamental weakness. Well, two, if you count the fact that the federal government doesn't much like them. The actual, non-legality flaw is that they are only really useful when the larger economy is screwing you over. The efficiency of the modern workplace is high enough that once you get back on your feet, your local currency will not guarantee jobs. There's only so much business you can do locally, and the number of people it takes to do that business will steadily decline as the local economy becomes better established and begins to polish its performance.
The underlying problem we face is that all the jobs we used to do can be done more effectively by machines and software. Well, we could therefore try a protectionist economy, where advanced robotic labor and outsourcing to other nations is outlawed.
I consider this to be a terrible idea. Not only does it mire us in the nineteenth century, it actually doesn't protect us from the economies of other nations which run at a full robot-powered sprint. This means you have to put huge import tariffs on their goods to keep your local economy competitive, and that can easily lead (I would say "always leads") to isolationism, instability, and general governmental foolishness.
Well, is there an economy which allows everyone to participate while allowing for hyper-efficient production and service?
Sure: create a bevy of new categories of goods and services.
It's uncomfortable, depressing, and sometimes dangerous to lose your job, but that is made a hundred times worse if you lose your job because the whole industry you worked in is being automated away.
And don't think anyone's immune. Virtually every current industry is slated to be automated away, from construction to accounting. The seeds are there, it's just a matter of how fast they bloom.
The question is: how can you help someone who was fired from a dying industry to transition to a growing one?
Well, the answer is easy: make it a service. You can embed it in the unemployment office, you can make it an internet forum, you can do a social network for it. It doesn't have to be government-powered, it doesn't have to not be. As long as it is something that a 45-year-old factory worker knows exists and is willing to use, it'll really help. Adult education.
Of course, one issue is that growing industries these days aren't growing as fast as the old ones are being automated/offshored. However, that's a disconnect that doesn't have to exist. There are plenty of industries which could explode... if we wanted them to. We could repair all the roads. We could install solar panels everywhere. We could create a Citizens' BioBrigade which monitors and catalogs the local ecosystems and bacteria.
The real question is, of course, "where does the money to do that come from?"
Ahhhh. Now we're getting to the crux of the matter. Money.
The reason our economy is in the shitter is because of the companies that control the money. All our currencies are tied into the same network, and therefore whenever anyone rips out a part of that network, the backlash gets felt by everyone, everywhere.
So... maybe what we need isn't a new kind of economy, but a new kind of money. Or, at least, a new method of distributing money, since there are plenty of people who are doing reasonably well and are happy to help fund new markets.
Anyway, I don't have the answers. But I think it's time to start talking and trying everything we can.
And if you're a mayor looking for a solution, I strongly recommend looking into local scrip.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Participating in the Emergent Internet
So you like the idea of the internet getting better and better. You want to do your part. You share cool things with your friends - and with strangers, you're not particular.
But maybe you could do a little more? You know, make the internet better without actually putting any effort into it?
Can do!
The internet of the future is not simply sites, but links. Who links to what? What links to who?
To help build this, simply remember that there are two kinds of posts - two kinds of content. One kind introduces new stuff, while the other kind reshares that stuff. Both are important. Creators are often not very good at the whole "resharing" thing, while people who reshare continuously get very, very good at knowing what will make a splash with who. They're different jobs.
Right now, you're a resharer. You find something interesting and want to share it. So you do.
Well, if you want to help the internet grow and flourish, you need to give credit.
Nothing about giving credit diminishes your reshare. Giving credit makes you look like not a dick. So let's give credit!
First and most importantly, give credit to the original poster - the person who originally created the content. If you're sharing directly, this is easy: just link to the page you got it from. But even if you are sharing a reshare of a reshare of a reshare, give a link or a name-drop to the original source. If you can't find the original source, say so.
Then make sure you give credit to the other resharers who, like you, are striving to make the internet more interesting. If you read someone's resharing of a Shatner video and want to spread the love around, link to the original video and to the resharer's post. Links are free. If it's a long chain of links, or of the sharer's link is not something you want to directly link to for some reason, no problem. Do a "via" and tag everyone. "via +doggydoggydoggy and @mobileskunkarmor" or whatever.
Pretty easy, right? Just link. LINK LINK LINK LINK. Links are free. Just get in the habit of linking. The more threads you connect, the better a netizen you are.
...
What, you want a more advanced course? Okay.
If you want to be a good citizen of the internet, one part of that is being a filter to purify all the bad citizens.
Bad citizen number one shares images and animated gifs by reuploading them to imgur or G+ or whatever. The cool image just pops up in his stream. Even if he doesn't claim he created it, he certainly doesn't give any link love to the author!
Well, simply post the link yourself. A simple reverse image lookup at http://images.google.com/ can give you the source. Don't make any accusations, just a simple comment that says "original source -> LINK". Chances are, the author isn't intending to be a dick, and if he gets upset at you, well... problem solved, he's going to lose a lot of followers and his reshares won't matter.
Bad citizen number two shares direct links to the original author, but never gives any "via" credit. Sure, maybe they stumbled across every single article on their own. More likely, they're leeching off other resharers, aggregating other, interesting people's work and pretending they did it. Make no mistake: finding and distributing interesting content is work, and these leeches are not doing anyone any favors.
A big giveaway is if more than 2/3 of the posts they make are links with no real added commentary. If someone links to a news article and says "I think this is probably a sign that France might be about to raise interest rates 0.1%", that's probably okay. If someone just posts a link to the news article, sans comment, they may be resharing without giving credit to the resharer they originally got the link from.
I don't know what to do in these situations, aside from keeping in mind that the guy probably doesn't consider a resharer's work to be of any value. Funny, considering they are a resharer themselves.
EDIT: There are some people who reshare privately. Maybe Maggie doesn't want her parents to know she's gay, or whatever. If someone has reshared privately, use your best judgement as to whether to include them in your credits or not. If you're thinking this deeply, you're probably not a type 2 bad citizen, no worries.
Questionable citizen 3 makes derivatives and post them without links to the original. For example, creating an animated gif but not linking to the video you ripped it from.
In these situations, I recommend simply linking to the video, if you can find it. Done simply, it should be okay. For example, "ha ha, I loved that bit. Here's the full video->"
Remember that the questionable citizen in question actually did a fair amount of work. They're not really leeches, just clumsy.
...
Following these guidelines will hopefully result in a culture of clear link love. Sort of a dawning of the age of Aquarius sort of thing, except geeky. Do your part for the internet: LINK!
But maybe you could do a little more? You know, make the internet better without actually putting any effort into it?
Can do!
The internet of the future is not simply sites, but links. Who links to what? What links to who?
To help build this, simply remember that there are two kinds of posts - two kinds of content. One kind introduces new stuff, while the other kind reshares that stuff. Both are important. Creators are often not very good at the whole "resharing" thing, while people who reshare continuously get very, very good at knowing what will make a splash with who. They're different jobs.
Right now, you're a resharer. You find something interesting and want to share it. So you do.
Well, if you want to help the internet grow and flourish, you need to give credit.
Nothing about giving credit diminishes your reshare. Giving credit makes you look like not a dick. So let's give credit!
First and most importantly, give credit to the original poster - the person who originally created the content. If you're sharing directly, this is easy: just link to the page you got it from. But even if you are sharing a reshare of a reshare of a reshare, give a link or a name-drop to the original source. If you can't find the original source, say so.
Then make sure you give credit to the other resharers who, like you, are striving to make the internet more interesting. If you read someone's resharing of a Shatner video and want to spread the love around, link to the original video and to the resharer's post. Links are free. If it's a long chain of links, or of the sharer's link is not something you want to directly link to for some reason, no problem. Do a "via" and tag everyone. "via +doggydoggydoggy and @mobileskunkarmor" or whatever.
Pretty easy, right? Just link. LINK LINK LINK LINK. Links are free. Just get in the habit of linking. The more threads you connect, the better a netizen you are.
...
What, you want a more advanced course? Okay.
If you want to be a good citizen of the internet, one part of that is being a filter to purify all the bad citizens.
Bad citizen number one shares images and animated gifs by reuploading them to imgur or G+ or whatever. The cool image just pops up in his stream. Even if he doesn't claim he created it, he certainly doesn't give any link love to the author!
Well, simply post the link yourself. A simple reverse image lookup at http://images.google.com/ can give you the source. Don't make any accusations, just a simple comment that says "original source -> LINK". Chances are, the author isn't intending to be a dick, and if he gets upset at you, well... problem solved, he's going to lose a lot of followers and his reshares won't matter.
Bad citizen number two shares direct links to the original author, but never gives any "via" credit. Sure, maybe they stumbled across every single article on their own. More likely, they're leeching off other resharers, aggregating other, interesting people's work and pretending they did it. Make no mistake: finding and distributing interesting content is work, and these leeches are not doing anyone any favors.
A big giveaway is if more than 2/3 of the posts they make are links with no real added commentary. If someone links to a news article and says "I think this is probably a sign that France might be about to raise interest rates 0.1%", that's probably okay. If someone just posts a link to the news article, sans comment, they may be resharing without giving credit to the resharer they originally got the link from.
I don't know what to do in these situations, aside from keeping in mind that the guy probably doesn't consider a resharer's work to be of any value. Funny, considering they are a resharer themselves.
EDIT: There are some people who reshare privately. Maybe Maggie doesn't want her parents to know she's gay, or whatever. If someone has reshared privately, use your best judgement as to whether to include them in your credits or not. If you're thinking this deeply, you're probably not a type 2 bad citizen, no worries.
Questionable citizen 3 makes derivatives and post them without links to the original. For example, creating an animated gif but not linking to the video you ripped it from.
In these situations, I recommend simply linking to the video, if you can find it. Done simply, it should be okay. For example, "ha ha, I loved that bit. Here's the full video->"
Remember that the questionable citizen in question actually did a fair amount of work. They're not really leeches, just clumsy.
...
Following these guidelines will hopefully result in a culture of clear link love. Sort of a dawning of the age of Aquarius sort of thing, except geeky. Do your part for the internet: LINK!
Monday, November 14, 2011
Fictional Religions
This post discusses the creation and use of fictional religions for video games/fictional worlds. Please do not view it as an attack on your real-world religions or religious beliefs.
I've played a lot of fantasy games, read a lot of fantasy stories. They tend to have a lot of gods in them.
Normally, these in-world religions fall into two camps. 1) Religions that are funhouse mirrors of real-world religions (AKA the "crystal dragon space jesus"). 2) Religions whose pantheons exist to cover the facets of the game world that the players will care about. IE, simplifying your pantheon into "goddess of healing", "god of thunder", "goddess of trade", "god of evil", etc.
I don't really have a problem with the first approach, if you're doing it on purpose. However, the second approach is really pretty boring. So let's talk about how you might create some fictional religions that have some real heft.
...
Religions are not gods. This is a critical point to make. You can have gods without religions, and religions without gods. You can also have religions which have betrayed their god, or their god was killed, or whatever.
Religions serve a purpose to a group of individuals (not necessarily people). A god is just a super-powerful entity. The only time the two are very tightly linked are if you are assuming prayer-powered gods, a concept which was briefly popular in the late 90s and early 2000s. Nothing wrong with that idea, has some fun meat to it, but let's not limit ourselves to it.
So lets deal with religions and gods separately.
...
Here's my thoughts on gods!
Most of the time, our stories do not need gods that are extensions of religions, or religions that are extensions of gods. Instead, we need to think about A) what a god is and B) what purpose the religion serves.
In many fantasy settings, the gods are basically just big people. Big, immortal people. If that's the case, that's fine. However, if that is the case then it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a god to have a single, specific domain.
Sure, Thor was the god of thunder. And he liked being the god of thunder. But he also had a hand in storms, oak trees, strength, protection of mankind, hallowing, healing, fertility, and drunken binges.
In the real-world religion, these were added to Thor as he merged with various predecessors and cult gods, in the same way that Tyr was demoted from highest god to "that guy that guards the bridge". Unless your fantasy religion's god pops down to say "hey, actually, I don't do that kind of thing you just prayed for, try the temple down the road", people will keep attaching new domains to their favorite god. Eventually, a favorite god can be promoted to "the high god" or "the only god".
In a fantasy religion, Thor could be an actual person running around doing things, and it's easy to see that his domain might end up much the same. It's the sort of eclectic mix you might get by looking at a real person's interests. So the two (worshipping a human-like god and letting a religion grow over time) can have very similar results if you like.
On the other hand, there's a lot to be said for gods that aren't human-like. Or maybe some gods that are and some gods that aren't.
Some of the most compelling gods in games have been gods of ancient religions that have a very alien tint to them. Not all the details can be teased out. Was Xikobaz the goddess of darkness? Well, the translation isn't so simple, and parts of the tablets have been broken, but that thing coming out of the well is on fire, so maybe not?
When you're thinking of a god in a fantasy game, you need to decide what sort of manifestations the players/audience is likely to find.
If you've got human-like gods, you may actually run into them out in the world, maybe even fight them. That can be fun.
But as you start stepping away from human-like, you start getting gods whose powers are more subtle. Maybe you'll meet Cmirkl, ancient sleeping god of shell and bone. But even before you meet him, you'll see the creatures his power creates, the landscapes his existence twists, the temples built to him by people long forgotten by time... or perhaps by people who failed to exist at all, in the end.
Generally, I rank gods on a "queasiness scale".
1) Just a big, superpowered humanoid. Or animal, whatever. Probably has an eclectic mix of powers. Example: Thor, Superman.
2) Seems like a big, superpowered humanoid, but has some crazy powers hidden underneath, such as time travel or infinite polymorphing or dream walking. Example: Loki, Odin.
3) May appear in a humanoid form, but only to interact with humans. Powers leak and bleed enough that being in their presence is probably not wise. Still, recognizably a god. Example: Crystal Space Dragon Jesus, Gaia, Dream.
4) Does not exist primarily in our universe, and doesn't really understand much about humans. Often called "sleeping", because "ignoring us" really doesn't sound so good. Bleeds power like a sieve, can be seen as either a god or a force of nature, depending on how you squint. Example: Cthulhu (sometimes).
5) Largely incomprehensible. Maybe dead, or doesn't exist yet? Anyway, treat it like a bizarre force of nature, not a god. Example: Cthulhu (sometimes), King in Yellow.
Now, what purpose does the religion serve?
1) Cargo cult bullshit. Try to deal with the chaos by worshipping. Has no real effect.
2) Contains the god. Or wards them off. Or sates them. The religion keeps the god from going ballistic on you.
3) Curries favor. The god gently exerts pressure in favor of their worshippers. This is a small but noticeable actual advantage. Otherwise it's just cargo cult stuff.
4) Explicit favors. The god grants magic, miracles, personal appearances, sends angels, whatever. The power of this religion is absolutely undeniable.
5) Respect. The religion doesn't offer up much in the way of powers, but exists out of respect for the deity. Functionally, this usually means the religion is a storehouse of best practices for a given domain, or for emergency responses when something takes a supernatural nose-dive.
...
Religions are fundamentally about the people doing the worshipping. You can say that a religion is a set of beliefs, rituals, and general practices. However, those don't exist separately from the practitioners. As time passes, the religion evolves in tandem with the civilization it is part of, and some of the older beliefs, rituals, and practices are downplayed or forgotten while new ones come around.
Since this is a fantasy setting, there may be some magical enforcement. For example, it could be that you worship this idol because if you don't, it will kill you. Really - if you miss a day, it will come awake at night, hunt you down, and stab you with a mystic spork.
However, in the absence of such pressures (and even with such pressures), religions still exist in a cultural setting, and serve a cultural purpose. To that end, we can split our religions into a few basic types, all of which can be monotheistic, polytheistic, deistic, etc.
1) Stable state religions. These are religions where, in theory, everyone is part of the same religion. These are typically very old, and are often the source of stability in societies more than 100 (fictional) generations old. These are typically extremely stagnant. The top is usually rife with corruption unless you're doing an idyllic view of things, but at the level of an individual town's church it can be as oppressive or friendly as your story demands. Keep in mind that really oppressive religions tend to get in trouble and become...
2) Unstable state religions. This is where there is a state religion, but it is losing its grip. This leads to much scrabbling in the form of witch-hunts, oppression, and other nastiness. This is often caused by the rise of other religions (often because of mass immigration), but can also be caused by severe trouble, such as a sudden spike in the number of dragons roaming the land. Either way, this religion is burning all its goodwill very fast, and it is unlikely it will ever recover. Eventually it may become...
3) Fractured religions. This is where the religions have the same core beliefs and share most or all of the same holy books/relic/magic. However, they have some rift between them which causes some of the population to belong to one, and some to belong to the other. How bitter this feud is depends on the age of the split: the older, the milder, assuming the religions continued to occupy the same lands the whole time. The split usually happens for tribal reasons, not liturgical ones - that is, you side with your kin against their kin. The differences are usually a list of very minor issues, plus one side tending to be more strict than the other.
3) Minority religions. When a small but significant number of the population belongs to a given religion. While the majority may not be completely happy about it, a minority religion is not an outlaw religion, and they are more or less left to worship in peace, aside from as much racism as you care to plug into your setting. Keep in mind that what is a minority religion here is often a more pervasive religion in someone's homeland, but the main religion and the branch are often under very different pressures, and their beliefs, rituals, and practices may change in different directions in only a year or two.
4) Outlaw religions. Whuh-oh, don't tell anyone you worship Xegelbaz, or you'll find yourself in the gaol for sure. Maybe the witch-hunt is ongoing. Maybe the practitioners have been rounded up into "work camps". Maybe it's just a standing order to report practitioners, but nobody really expects to find one. In the real world, this often happens due to a conquering religion, but in the fantasy world it may be because the magic resulting from this worship is sinister.
5) Conquering religions. This is a religion which is or was a state religion, but has decided that the world needs to be conquered. Conquering religions will use overwhelming force against other religions and the nations that believe them - the tools of the sword, the economy, and the proselytizer. The way this works is that the old religion is outlawed, while a branch of the conquering religion is created which incorporates some of the conquered religion's practices (a spoonful of sugar makes the religion go down). Please note that conquering religions are often rapidly changing themselves, as well: this is not a stagnant religion.
6) Secret religions. How many worshippers are there? Impossible to know. Often a conquered religion, or an inherited-by-bloodline religion. Any way you cut it, nobody admits it, they all worship in secret. If the fantasy world gives out magic for your religious worship, this can be a very powerful secret!
7) Rebellious religions. A minority religion or cult which decides to enter mainstream by fomenting rebellion, or attaching itself to rebellion which is already fomenting. The "us vs them" logic of a rebellion makes it very, very easy to recruit people and turn them into zealots for your church. If your rebellion succeeds, maybe you'll be a state religion in the new nation...
8) Bored-to-action religions. This arises somewhat rarely, but I thought I'd mention it. When society has plenty of people who are interested in changing (themselves or the world), branches of existing religions may pop up organized around that philosophy. Of course, just as likely are secret societies, NGOs, etc.
9) Cults. Everyone loves a good cult! Please keep in mind that a cult has a pretty specific definition. Rather than use it loosely, I'm using it specifically: this is a religion, regardless of size, which uses at least half of these techniques:
A) Assigns a new name or identity when you join/rank up.
B) Isolates practitioners from nonpractitioners.
C) Promises access to secrets if you can rank up enough.
D) Promises experiences not permitted by cultural norms/laws.
E) Has a single, obsessive leader.
F) Follows one core tenet, insists that all problems can be solved by it.
G) Uses physical or emotional stress to make people vulnerable to suggestion.
H) Subverts the hold of the government over its practitioners via secrecy or bribery.
10) Dead religions. Dead religions are a really interesting topic, and also include any religion which is mostly-dead (<20 practitioners). Because this is fantasy, dead religions may still have a lot of power. For example, stumbling into a temple to the ancient goddess of dreams and hallucinations may not be a very comfortable experience...
If you read this far, you're really, really patient. What do you think?
I've played a lot of fantasy games, read a lot of fantasy stories. They tend to have a lot of gods in them.
Normally, these in-world religions fall into two camps. 1) Religions that are funhouse mirrors of real-world religions (AKA the "crystal dragon space jesus"). 2) Religions whose pantheons exist to cover the facets of the game world that the players will care about. IE, simplifying your pantheon into "goddess of healing", "god of thunder", "goddess of trade", "god of evil", etc.
I don't really have a problem with the first approach, if you're doing it on purpose. However, the second approach is really pretty boring. So let's talk about how you might create some fictional religions that have some real heft.
...
Religions are not gods. This is a critical point to make. You can have gods without religions, and religions without gods. You can also have religions which have betrayed their god, or their god was killed, or whatever.
Religions serve a purpose to a group of individuals (not necessarily people). A god is just a super-powerful entity. The only time the two are very tightly linked are if you are assuming prayer-powered gods, a concept which was briefly popular in the late 90s and early 2000s. Nothing wrong with that idea, has some fun meat to it, but let's not limit ourselves to it.
So lets deal with religions and gods separately.
...
Here's my thoughts on gods!
Most of the time, our stories do not need gods that are extensions of religions, or religions that are extensions of gods. Instead, we need to think about A) what a god is and B) what purpose the religion serves.
In many fantasy settings, the gods are basically just big people. Big, immortal people. If that's the case, that's fine. However, if that is the case then it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a god to have a single, specific domain.
Sure, Thor was the god of thunder. And he liked being the god of thunder. But he also had a hand in storms, oak trees, strength, protection of mankind, hallowing, healing, fertility, and drunken binges.
In the real-world religion, these were added to Thor as he merged with various predecessors and cult gods, in the same way that Tyr was demoted from highest god to "that guy that guards the bridge". Unless your fantasy religion's god pops down to say "hey, actually, I don't do that kind of thing you just prayed for, try the temple down the road", people will keep attaching new domains to their favorite god. Eventually, a favorite god can be promoted to "the high god" or "the only god".
In a fantasy religion, Thor could be an actual person running around doing things, and it's easy to see that his domain might end up much the same. It's the sort of eclectic mix you might get by looking at a real person's interests. So the two (worshipping a human-like god and letting a religion grow over time) can have very similar results if you like.
On the other hand, there's a lot to be said for gods that aren't human-like. Or maybe some gods that are and some gods that aren't.
Some of the most compelling gods in games have been gods of ancient religions that have a very alien tint to them. Not all the details can be teased out. Was Xikobaz the goddess of darkness? Well, the translation isn't so simple, and parts of the tablets have been broken, but that thing coming out of the well is on fire, so maybe not?
When you're thinking of a god in a fantasy game, you need to decide what sort of manifestations the players/audience is likely to find.
If you've got human-like gods, you may actually run into them out in the world, maybe even fight them. That can be fun.
But as you start stepping away from human-like, you start getting gods whose powers are more subtle. Maybe you'll meet Cmirkl, ancient sleeping god of shell and bone. But even before you meet him, you'll see the creatures his power creates, the landscapes his existence twists, the temples built to him by people long forgotten by time... or perhaps by people who failed to exist at all, in the end.
Generally, I rank gods on a "queasiness scale".
1) Just a big, superpowered humanoid. Or animal, whatever. Probably has an eclectic mix of powers. Example: Thor, Superman.
2) Seems like a big, superpowered humanoid, but has some crazy powers hidden underneath, such as time travel or infinite polymorphing or dream walking. Example: Loki, Odin.
3) May appear in a humanoid form, but only to interact with humans. Powers leak and bleed enough that being in their presence is probably not wise. Still, recognizably a god. Example: Crystal Space Dragon Jesus, Gaia, Dream.
4) Does not exist primarily in our universe, and doesn't really understand much about humans. Often called "sleeping", because "ignoring us" really doesn't sound so good. Bleeds power like a sieve, can be seen as either a god or a force of nature, depending on how you squint. Example: Cthulhu (sometimes).
5) Largely incomprehensible. Maybe dead, or doesn't exist yet? Anyway, treat it like a bizarre force of nature, not a god. Example: Cthulhu (sometimes), King in Yellow.
Now, what purpose does the religion serve?
1) Cargo cult bullshit. Try to deal with the chaos by worshipping. Has no real effect.
2) Contains the god. Or wards them off. Or sates them. The religion keeps the god from going ballistic on you.
3) Curries favor. The god gently exerts pressure in favor of their worshippers. This is a small but noticeable actual advantage. Otherwise it's just cargo cult stuff.
4) Explicit favors. The god grants magic, miracles, personal appearances, sends angels, whatever. The power of this religion is absolutely undeniable.
5) Respect. The religion doesn't offer up much in the way of powers, but exists out of respect for the deity. Functionally, this usually means the religion is a storehouse of best practices for a given domain, or for emergency responses when something takes a supernatural nose-dive.
...
Religions are fundamentally about the people doing the worshipping. You can say that a religion is a set of beliefs, rituals, and general practices. However, those don't exist separately from the practitioners. As time passes, the religion evolves in tandem with the civilization it is part of, and some of the older beliefs, rituals, and practices are downplayed or forgotten while new ones come around.
Since this is a fantasy setting, there may be some magical enforcement. For example, it could be that you worship this idol because if you don't, it will kill you. Really - if you miss a day, it will come awake at night, hunt you down, and stab you with a mystic spork.
However, in the absence of such pressures (and even with such pressures), religions still exist in a cultural setting, and serve a cultural purpose. To that end, we can split our religions into a few basic types, all of which can be monotheistic, polytheistic, deistic, etc.
1) Stable state religions. These are religions where, in theory, everyone is part of the same religion. These are typically very old, and are often the source of stability in societies more than 100 (fictional) generations old. These are typically extremely stagnant. The top is usually rife with corruption unless you're doing an idyllic view of things, but at the level of an individual town's church it can be as oppressive or friendly as your story demands. Keep in mind that really oppressive religions tend to get in trouble and become...
2) Unstable state religions. This is where there is a state religion, but it is losing its grip. This leads to much scrabbling in the form of witch-hunts, oppression, and other nastiness. This is often caused by the rise of other religions (often because of mass immigration), but can also be caused by severe trouble, such as a sudden spike in the number of dragons roaming the land. Either way, this religion is burning all its goodwill very fast, and it is unlikely it will ever recover. Eventually it may become...
3) Fractured religions. This is where the religions have the same core beliefs and share most or all of the same holy books/relic/magic. However, they have some rift between them which causes some of the population to belong to one, and some to belong to the other. How bitter this feud is depends on the age of the split: the older, the milder, assuming the religions continued to occupy the same lands the whole time. The split usually happens for tribal reasons, not liturgical ones - that is, you side with your kin against their kin. The differences are usually a list of very minor issues, plus one side tending to be more strict than the other.
3) Minority religions. When a small but significant number of the population belongs to a given religion. While the majority may not be completely happy about it, a minority religion is not an outlaw religion, and they are more or less left to worship in peace, aside from as much racism as you care to plug into your setting. Keep in mind that what is a minority religion here is often a more pervasive religion in someone's homeland, but the main religion and the branch are often under very different pressures, and their beliefs, rituals, and practices may change in different directions in only a year or two.
4) Outlaw religions. Whuh-oh, don't tell anyone you worship Xegelbaz, or you'll find yourself in the gaol for sure. Maybe the witch-hunt is ongoing. Maybe the practitioners have been rounded up into "work camps". Maybe it's just a standing order to report practitioners, but nobody really expects to find one. In the real world, this often happens due to a conquering religion, but in the fantasy world it may be because the magic resulting from this worship is sinister.
5) Conquering religions. This is a religion which is or was a state religion, but has decided that the world needs to be conquered. Conquering religions will use overwhelming force against other religions and the nations that believe them - the tools of the sword, the economy, and the proselytizer. The way this works is that the old religion is outlawed, while a branch of the conquering religion is created which incorporates some of the conquered religion's practices (a spoonful of sugar makes the religion go down). Please note that conquering religions are often rapidly changing themselves, as well: this is not a stagnant religion.
6) Secret religions. How many worshippers are there? Impossible to know. Often a conquered religion, or an inherited-by-bloodline religion. Any way you cut it, nobody admits it, they all worship in secret. If the fantasy world gives out magic for your religious worship, this can be a very powerful secret!
7) Rebellious religions. A minority religion or cult which decides to enter mainstream by fomenting rebellion, or attaching itself to rebellion which is already fomenting. The "us vs them" logic of a rebellion makes it very, very easy to recruit people and turn them into zealots for your church. If your rebellion succeeds, maybe you'll be a state religion in the new nation...
8) Bored-to-action religions. This arises somewhat rarely, but I thought I'd mention it. When society has plenty of people who are interested in changing (themselves or the world), branches of existing religions may pop up organized around that philosophy. Of course, just as likely are secret societies, NGOs, etc.
9) Cults. Everyone loves a good cult! Please keep in mind that a cult has a pretty specific definition. Rather than use it loosely, I'm using it specifically: this is a religion, regardless of size, which uses at least half of these techniques:
A) Assigns a new name or identity when you join/rank up.
B) Isolates practitioners from nonpractitioners.
C) Promises access to secrets if you can rank up enough.
D) Promises experiences not permitted by cultural norms/laws.
E) Has a single, obsessive leader.
F) Follows one core tenet, insists that all problems can be solved by it.
G) Uses physical or emotional stress to make people vulnerable to suggestion.
H) Subverts the hold of the government over its practitioners via secrecy or bribery.
10) Dead religions. Dead religions are a really interesting topic, and also include any religion which is mostly-dead (<20 practitioners). Because this is fantasy, dead religions may still have a lot of power. For example, stumbling into a temple to the ancient goddess of dreams and hallucinations may not be a very comfortable experience...
If you read this far, you're really, really patient. What do you think?
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