I would find it incredibly refreshing and interesting.

>>44055218
Holograms or Hallucination?

If you can make someone hallucinate sight, sound and smell you can make them think that something is solid.

Oh, and a neat idea. Let's casters do interesting stuff but with hard limitations. Can't unlock doors, fly, teleport and stop time. Can distract, turn invisible, terrify and manipulate.

>>44055218
Sounds like a decent idea.

>>44055299
Wait, don't answer that OP. Worked it out myself.
Both, of course.

Hologram style illusions work best on crowds. It is right there to see and experience.
Hallucination style illusions are best on small groups or singular targets.

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>>44055218
One of the rare ideas I see around here that I would really applaud. If you can weave it into the ruleset appropriately, without making it OP/underpowered, it could be actually fantastic and I would take it over "fireball, roll for damage" style magic any time.
Have an Albino.

>>44055218
This actually seems like a way to balance casters and martials.

>>44055218
>What if the only form was Imaginem

Does that mean that divination can show other places, but not other times? I'm using Ars Magica as an example since what you're describing is essentially what Imaginem does. It deals with sensations, so it allows for the projection of sensation (clairvoyance), but it cannot show things that could not ever be experienced by anyone's senses since they already did or didn't yet happen.

Unlike human magicians, fairies seem capable of changing reality at their whim. This has always baffled and frustrated magical experts, who knew magic can only work on the mind. The laypeople took it for granted ("fairies are more powerful beings with more powerful magic"), but some people remained suspicious.

It turns out that fairies aren't like this because they have more powerful magic, they're like this because they ARE more powerful magic. The reason everything seems possible within the fairy realm is that it's all just a grand illusion, a big play the fairies are part of. They seem capable of changing reality because when they appear in reality, they take a piece of the grand illusion to it with them, which is what they're actually changing. This is why fairy magic seems transient - the effects don't fade (because they never happened), the piece of the fairy realm illusion itself fades away. Fairies are illusory beings with illusory intellects (hence their sometimes baffling behavior - they're buggy AIs). They only appear to be capable of shapeshifting and divination in their realm (the clue that something's off: they can only accurately divine things that have or are currently happening inside the fairy realm, never outside it).

The fairy realm was never another dimension: it was a programmed magical construct, the greatest illusion ever made, by the master illusionists of the Dreaming Empire which legend says has vanished aeons ago without a trace. In fact, the Dreaming Empire may or may not have ever existed... If it did, it didn't disappear because it was destroyed, it disappeared because its people eventually became completely disconnected from reality. All their accomplishments and glories were illusory (fairy), so they never made anything real and eventually starved away in reality because they only ever ate fairy food. Legend has it the people of the Dreaming Empire journeys away into fairy... And the legends are chillingly right.

>>44055475
>tl;dr: the fairy realm is the still running magical VR internet of an ancient magical civilization that disappeared because they lost all interest in non VR things

Do enchantments still work? Can you ensorcell a blade to appear to burst into flames, or to whisper advice about form and technique?

>>44055488
I suppose you could make it sound like it's doing those things. Whispered advice, in this case, would obviously be of limited utility (unless you can "program" an illusory intellect smart enough and perceptive enough its advice would be of actual value, which I imagine is the case with "fairy blades" according to >>44055475)

>>44055475
>>44055483
What if some members of the Dreaming Empire (Royalty? Priesthood?) have uploaded their own intellects into the grand illusion? Or at least tried i.e. modeled the "smartest", most self-aware fairy entities after their own personality

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On this day, /tg/ has managed to create a philosophical cyberpunk game set in a medieval fantasy.

>>44055218
Congratulations on the communion of simplicity and peculiarity

>>44055899
So an average day on /tg/ then.

>>44055915
What does that even mean?

>>44055975
It's both simple and strange.

>>44055218

I actually had a similar idea not long ago, where magic was based around perception and sort of came from thinking about Jasper Maskelyne, a stage magician who used legit stage magic techniques to fuck with the Germans in North Africa during WW2; he made a city seem to move, made it seem like Allied forces were way more numerous, made trucks look like tanks etc.

Anyway, in my notes for this idea there were three basic types of casters: Illusionists (who added images to the world, i.e. created illusionary walls, altering appearances etc), Occultists (who removed images from the world, i.e. invisibility, camoflague etc) and Mentalists (where were more like psions than wizards, telepathically influencing perception directly). Mentalists were of course the most powerful, but rarest; both Occultists and Illusionists commonly multiclassed into rogue or bard because obviously.

There was an Italian RPG from a couple of years ago that had a very similar premise - it looked like a standard fantasy fare but in truth it's all nanomachines. It didn't really catch on but it won an award at the biggest Italian games con.

Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden:_the_Deceit

>>44055899
I think the first time I saw the very same bloody premise was like ten to twelve years ago in some pretty mediocre anime, so I would not exactly consider this an achievement.

What I'd recommend focusing on is actually the original premise, without the unecessary and somewhat cheap sci-fi elements. The idea that magic is just mastery of illusions and manipulation - preferably in a human-only world could actually be really amazing.

>>44056442
Yeah, but once you base a setting on the idea of illusions the question of a fully illusory reality and of why people wouldn't just fully immerse themselves in one inevitably comes up. It's a fascinating issue to explore, and that's a really original take on it.

>>44056554
It's totally amazing if you are the kind of people who thought Matrix was the deepest sci-fi of all time. Otherwise, it's a waste opportunity to make an interesting setting really good in favor of indulging the most rudimentary "highschool philosophy" and one of the most over-used pseudophilosophical tropes of all time.
There is absolutely nothing original about it, neither is there anything fascinating about it.

ITT: fucking awesome ideas for world-building. Is this even still /tg/?

I haven't seen stuff this good around here in years.

>>44056580
I think it's less about the question of "is reality an illusion" (which you're calling "high school", for some reason, even though it's busied humanity's greatest thinkers for centuries and still does), and more about the question (possibly relevant to the posthuman approach/singularity theory) of "if it were possible to create a perfect illusory reality, why would anyone object to being in it?". /tg/, in particular, tends to be filled with exactly the type of guys who drool all over the ideas of VR and mind uploading/virtual existence as some kind of holy grail of being, so it is relevant to the discussion.

>>44056678
Actually, I find both of the questions pretty fucking highschool level of philosophy, and more importantly: that question is not a very good basis for a TTG setup, and DEFINITELY not a good basis for fantasy TTG setup.
OK, if you are interested in this kind of debate, we can discuss the pros and cons of the thought experiment scenario of being able to create perfect virtual realities. And if you are really good, you could perhaps go and make an semi-interesting (if a bit worn-out) distopia short story, but that is about it.

Trying to shoehorn it into a fantasy scenario is just damn stupid though and shows how utterly clueless you would have to be about what to do with the original fantasy setup.

>>44056698
>who was that moron Descartes and why's he considered the father of modern thought?

>>44056698
>An idea can only ever be explored in a fictional setting possessing superficial surface elements X, Y and Z

The nice thing about genre fiction is that in the end of the day there's no difference. Call it illusion magic or virtual reality, say it comes from an elf or a computer. The idea's the exact same. Comes down to whether you want to talk it over against a background of towers or skyscrapers.

>>44056757
The difference is that you don't expect it in a fantasy game. That's why it's called a twist. New way of thinking about an old idea. Otherwise, there's no real "point" to the setting, beyond balancing casters somewhat.

>>44056724
>who was that moron Descartes and why's he considered the father of modern thought?
Somebody who explored this idea four hundred years ago and who is now commonly taught about in highschool. Hence this being a subject matter suitable for highschool debate. And to be honest even he realized pretty quickly that it's a pretty damn fruitless line of thought, really just an thought excercise useful for his own proof of the necessity of God.

>>44056757
>The nice thing about genre fiction is that in the end of the day there's no difference.
First of all, no. There is a difference between exploratory speculative fiction, and romantic and symbolic fiction.
Second of all: You are taking two or three popular models to work with certain elements, each of them being fairly calcified into a number of generic elements and tropes, but for good reasons - like all tropes they stem from having certain universal appeal and being understandable. Then you are mashing these two models together regardless of where the appeal of each one of those comes from, making the strenghts of each one cancel each other or at least waste a fucking ton of effort on a part of the fiction that does not in any way compliment the other part.

So, no: the two fictions, speculative and symbolic are not the same fucking things, and execution fucking matters on top of that.

This is a stupid, boring, and most importantly incredibly played out idea. It has been done a thousand times and it has never really been interesting to anyone old enough to drink.

>>44056678
>>44056698
>>44056724

OK, so gather round, kids. Story time.

Cartesian skepticism is a fascinating topic. Yes, some of the greatest philosophers in history have debated it. Yes, it remains unresolved, at least in the sense that we've no way to independently establish an objective reality.

The reason people are getting pissy about it is this. Back in the 80s and 90s, post-modernist french philosophy got really popular among the literary crowd, especially young english professors. They took concepts like social construction (useful in the social sciences) and started applying it to everything. Including the physical sciences.

Eventually it merged with neomarxist SJW theories and mis-applied philosophy of science books like Thomas Kuhn's, and started to claim that stuff like physics and mechanical engineering are entirely social constructs created by the white male capitalist patriarchy to oppress minorities. They literally were saying that physical sciences were fake and all that hard math was just a complex ritual used to keep people out of their white male privileged playground.

Mage: The Ascension is based pretty much entirely on this line of thought. They come out and say so in the main 1st ed book. Except that for young English lit scholars, this was how they really thought the world worked.

In 1996, Alan Sokal popped the bubble. He is a (left-wing) physicist who was horrified by what was happening in academia. So he wrote a parody article claiming all kinds of fake pseudoscience and got it through peer review and published in one of their top journals. Then he came clean and wrote about positivism, empiricism, and that there really is such a thing as truth.

The discipline collapsed. The journals folded up, many young academics didn't get tenure, and the whole field was discredited. The post-modernists these days have retreated to claiming that they never believed what at the time they said they believed, or that they were just misunderstood.

>>44056827
>Then you are mashing these two models together regardless of where the appeal of each one of those comes from, making the strenghts of each one cancel each other or at least waste a fucking ton of effort on a part of the fiction that does not in any way compliment the other part.
>GOD HELP US ALL, HE'S BREAKING THE AGE OLD GENRE CONVENTIONS, I WANT OFF THIS RIDE

>>44055218
So, entirely mental stuff? So high level spells dominate other people and stuff? I'm cool with it. Sorta a learned telepathy? With different patterns having different effects? Casters will definitely be more rogue-like then. I wouldn't limit magic to a class then, instead have it just be something people can learn. So diplomats might learn spells to strengthen their own minds and weaken others, thieves might learn to make themselves unnoticable, etc.

Could be lots of fun if done right.

>>44056849
Don't talk shit about my homie Kuhn. He might not be the brightest nigger around, but he started (or continued) the historization of science and broke some of the positivist claims that those Vienna circle faggots were making. As I agree that motherfucking postmodernism, poststructuralism or whatever else it's called, is a bad choice for the methodology of natural sciences, its polar opposite is just as bad if not worse. There are ways to make science both historically (and socially) relative and remain scientific realists. There are also examples of productive application of social constructionism in both sociology and philosophy of science. Standford school is one of those.

>>44056849
None of this really justifies letting that bitter aftertaste encourage shitting on people who, through either accident or design or keen incisive intellect, managed to avoid that whole debacle.

>>44055218
I once ran it where anything that wasn't an illusion was twice as difficult to cast/maintain as anything that was, and things that were were already notably difficult to cast.

>>44055576
Obviously ALL fairies are the former citizens of the dreaming empire. When they "Die" they just have to respawn
> TIL fae are just humans stuck in the ultimate MMORPG on Hardcore mode. Also explains why some Fae, like Mab and Titania are immortal, they never switched to Hardcore mode.

>>44056849
>the discipline collapsed. The journals folded up, many young academics didn't get tenure, and the whole field was discredited.

This is how we know you're a hard sciences student. Did many scholars make fools of themselves? Yes - but that's because they've missed Descartes' original point. The man himself never tried claiming that his skepticism "ruled out" or "disproved" the laws of physics, of which he was actually extremely fond (in fact, he never "disproved" anything because everything he was dealing with was the POSSIBILITY of things being or not being nonexistent, not the CERTAINTY of it, an important distinction which he himself repeatedly referred to). The "field" of skepticism didn't "collapse" like a physical theory proven wrong because you can't collapse a school of thought. Evidently, the subject itself still busies people the world over, hence the success of films like The Matrix or Inception (as well as creative reinterpretations of basically every mythological work ever written, although these tend not to be taken as seriously, which is saying something), and while the ideas have evolved they are still being hotly debated in academia. When you're writing fiction, you don't confront your reader with the deepermost nuances of a philosophical theory, you present it in a fashion they'd be able to think about and which would hopefully stimulate them to. I consider that a far nobler goal than paying dues for the billionth time to the ancient and esteemed conventions of the fantasy genre, or whatever's bothering you about daring to introduce "concepts from science fiction" into it.

>>44056849

This line of thought informed a generation of sci fi. Including the Matrix, which was itself derived from earlier films like Dark City. Plus you have identity films like Robocop and Bladerunner, (and again Dark City). It makes for great fiction, but it IS a pretty-heavily mined out concept by this point.

The reason people are so hostile is that there's an immense amount of political baggage that went along with this stuff. And especially because lit crit and poly sci types were starting to use it to attack support for the physical sciences. If *everything* is just socially constructed, then why bother with engineering or math at all? It's all so cold-hearted and logical anyway. Better to look to our eloquent, socially conscious english professors for leadership.

So the lit crit angle was dropped, but that crowd formed the nucleus of the modern campus fascist movement. Hence the bitterness.

Now with all that said, I think OP's "all magic is illusion" idea is great. And so is "faerieland is an ancient magical illusion VR system run amok". Both are great ideas and could make for a fantastic campaign. But grognards who remember the science wars of the 90s will be rightfully bitter when people bring that shit back up.

>>44056849
A whole bunch of things wrong with that one. For starters, Cartesian skepticism is not exactly fascinating for anyone with rudimentary philosophical education. It's also not exactly unresolved: Cartesius himself solved immediately (the problem of Cartesian skepticism wasn't actually meant as a problem, but as a curious thought experiment serving to cement Cartesian proof of God's existence), and a whole bunch of other solutions exist - Sperber's theory of relevance being one particularly good example.
Second, the postmodernism was not based on Cartesian scepticism, but rather on combination of the semiotic revolution (triggered by Saussure "Introduction to General Linguistics) combined with Marxistic doctrines of power conflict, exaggerated by the teachings of Frankfurt school of philosophy, all of that covered with a hefty amount of idealism and utopism sparked by the experience of WW2 and it's implication to modernism and positivism.
Third, it's very much misleading to claim that "Sokal bursted the bubble", considering that radical linguistic and social constructivism is still the absolute MAINSTREAM of all liberal and social studies, and postmodernism became THE formative doctrine of the general public. Sokal Affair, while amusing, did not really actually impact anything.

>>44056939
>the fairy world looks generally amazing and wonderful because it was made by wish-fulfilling Dreaming Empire otakus out for waifus
>the fairies themselves tend to be universally attractive and powerful because they're either the semi-intelligent remnants of player avatars or NPCs meant to sycophantically appeal to their self-importance
>the parts of the fairy world which are scary and the fairies which are mean are either buggy, high-difficulty or were originally programmed by perverts

The whole idea makes a disturbing amount of sense. I'd play a game or three about the world in which the Dreaming Empire was a thing. It's giving my Dragon Age vibes, except it's clever.

>>44055218
Potentially interesting but you would need to define what is acceptable and how it is achieved. Like if its just sleight of hand etc then that implies certain limits. If its magic then you need an explanation as to why its thusly restricted

>>44056941
>>44056955
Man, you sum up rather evocatively what is wrong with ivory-tower academia and academics.

>>44056925

Kuhn's idea of paradigm-breaking is clever and interesting. But not empirically supported. Try looking at Crowston and coordination theory to understand why.

Like I said at the beginning, there are applications for social constructivism. Like, say, entirely *social phenomena*.

If you don't believe there's an underlying objective reality, however unreachable in its pure form, then why the hell are you in the sciences in the first place?

>>44056869
>GOD HELP US ALL, HE'S BREAKING THE AGE OLD GENRE CONVENTIONS, I WANT OFF THIS RIDE
It's not about breaking genre conventions, but rather in understanding what works and what does not. Two problems here:
A) innovation for the sake of innovation is usually the safest way to create something absolutely shitty and
B) you are "breaking genre conventions" by doing something every pisspoor fourth-grade fantasy writer and his cat has done a billion times already? Yeah, good luck with that.

You are not inventing anything new or original, and you are doing it without having the faintest idea of how and when things work.

>>44056969
Honestly, I think this is an idea we should expand on and add to 1d4 as an alternate Fae definition. I feel like it's worth keeping.

>>44056983
>Kuhn's idea of paradigm-breaking is clever and interesting.
Kuhns idea of paradigm breaking is clever and interesting, but the actual implications of it, as well as general understanding of what science is and what it's good for are mindboggingly bad and in the long run, the moron has done academia some of the biggest disservices since Marx.
Seriously, we'd be better off erasing Kuhn from history at this point. He was a moron with one accidental good idea used completely wrong and formed in entirely wrong context.

>>44056977
I don't think the problem is with ivory-tower academia per se. The problem is with some greater social regulatory mechanics and broader social philosophies.

>>44056936

Agreed. I was explaining it, not excusing it.

>>44056941

I'm a social sciences professor. I'm critiquing Lecann and Latour and Sontag, and to some extent Kuhn. Not Decartes.

>>44056955

The ones who got tenure before Sokal are still around, and still trying to spin that this was all some kind of colossal misunderstanding. Nobody believes that but them, and I don't even think they believe it, deep down. Just because some are still around and crowing about it doesn't mean that they weren't utterly discredited.

>>44056977

Right there with you. Can we get back to fantasy game worlds and illusion magic? I think this would be the basis for a fantastic game concept, and it sucks that it's being derailed (including by me, for which I apologize).

>>44056948
As the first guy who started criticising the idea, it had absolutely NOTHING to do with the political baggage. Yeah, I'm the first one to criticise relativistic and naive-form-constructivistic epistemology and the political and philosophical trends that accompanied those, but I can perfectly well differenciate between reality and fiction.

The concept of radical epistemic skepticism does not bother me in fiction in the slightest.

The problem I had was different: A) presenting the concept as something novel while it's actually incredibly worn out at this point, and B) the context of it, specifically it being needlessly forced into otherwise fairly functional classical fantasy fiction for the sake of it.
My problem really was exclusively with the quality of fiction that would inevitably come out of it.

>>44056986
>You are not inventing anything new or original, and you are doing it without having the faintest idea of how and when things work.
You're right, it wouldn't bring anything new to any sort of fictional story, but it would add an unusual dimension to any tabletop game where it was introduced. Too many GMs are afraid to move away from the "standard" tropes. So in light of the purpose of this board it has plenty of value. It's final worth is of course in the individual execution. Your objections, however, belong on /lit/, not /tg/

>In this thread, /tg/ discusses philosophy!

>>44057065

What makes a game based on Fae-as-VR different is that epistemology stories always include a question about what's really real. It's supposed to call into question the idea that even the physical world isn't some kind of Matrix. And in most settings, it's left ambiguous even to the GM, not just the players.

This isn't doing that. The author is explicitly saying up-front that FaeVR is *not* objectively real. In fact, much of what distinguishes it are tells that it *is* just a load of fakery, however realistic it might seem.

So FaeVR isn't the matrix or inception because while it *includes* illusion and VR, it uses them as mechanics, not story themes. It's using a prop from those kinds of stories, but it's not actually telling that kind of story.

Much like you can have guns and fistfights in a movie without it suddenly being an Action Movie.

>>44057057
>The ones who got tenure before Sokal are still around
Neither Sokal, nor anyone else prevented Derrida getting an honorary doctorate, stopped the ONSLAUGHT of postmodernism and later left-wing constrictivistic ideologies in sociology, anthropology, politology, as well as the emergence of new "fields" like critical theory, gender studies, post-colonial studies, world-system studies etc...
And they don't play anything as a misunderstanding because they are not actually threatened by anything. They happily continue the road Lyotard, Derrida, Rorty and Marx painted up - except they moved from simple pluralism-ad-absurdum to a next logical level: political conflict-based ideology.

The fundamental problem with this school of thought is not the fact that it's actually self-defeating (which it is), but rather that it can be simply and quickly transformed into a purely political agenda. Which is what happened and Sokal did not do jack shit about it. I don't think he ever could too: the problem was that those people never actually cared for reason to begin with, so proving that they are unreasonable did not really threaten them.

>>44057081
>Too many GMs are afraid to move away from the "standard" tropes.
This IS a standard trope. You want to do something differently than most GM's do: DO SOMETHING RIGHT. Do it WELL. Take a concept and execute it in a way where the concept actually exhausts it's potential. Do magic that feels mysterious, do elves that inspire awe and curiosity, present monsters that actually do instill fear and anxiety.

There is plenty of cheap pseudophilosohical gimmicks and pointless twists around, too many GM's are mistaking them for good fiction-building. Do the opposite: don't do gimmicks, do simple concepts executed right for a change.

>>44057081
>>44057139

Agreed. This part of the conversation belongs on /lit/, not /tg/.

With that said, having been on /lit/, /tg/ is doing a much better job of it than they usually do. I sometimes think that /tg/ is what would happen if /lit/ gets really drunk one night and gets fucked by /k/, slinks off embarrassed the next morning, and then nine months later has an unwanted child who's more talented than she is, if not nearly so snooty.

>>44057057
>I was explaining it, not excusing it.
This is rather contraindicated by >>44056948 when you say that "grognards who remember the science wars of the 90s will be rightfully bitter when people bring that shit back up".

I suppose this is a misunderstanding that stems from the difference between having the right to /feel/ bitter about a subject and having the right to /act/ bitter towards people because of it.

>>44057159
>What makes a game based on Fae-as-VR different is that epistemology stories always include a question about what's really real.
I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly, but I suspect you completely and utterly misunderstood the fucking POINT OF A MYTHOLOGICAL FUNDAMENT OF FANTASY. Because mythology does not ask the question of what is real. That is analytical point of view. The reason why people indulge fantasy in the first place is because they seek the appeal and romantism of MYTHOLOGICAL mindset. That is the whole fucking point - to not have to ask "are fairies real", but to embrace reality in which they ARE real.
Suddenly throwing analytical speculative approach into it just completely and utterly contradicts the original mythology-based concept.

Fairies are SYMBOLS of something that mattered to humans. People enjoy fantastic and magical stories, because they like to indulge their ability to read and comprehend SYMBOLS.
VR and fucking matrix are ANALYTICAL concepts. People indulge those because they enjoy indulging their analytical and speculative capabilities.

The two don't fucking mix very well.
It's the exact same fucking stupidity as creating a world full of dragons and centaurs and then suddenly asking about the genetics and dietary problems that it implies: if that is what you are doing, you don't understand what makes fantasy AND sci-fi interesting subject for people to begin with.

Holy shit, the first delve into an ancient Dreaming Empire ruin would be fucking terrifying. I can imagine that being done in a movie or video game. You first enter it "through" the fairy land, and it's glorious and magnificent and all... then you open your eyes... And see only immense, incredibly high, pillared underground halls filled with nothing. Just endless, endless spaces gathering dust and cobwebs. No furniture, no treasures, no people except maybe skeletons sitting in corners. Sitting on chairs. Lying on the floor. No signs of struggle, no scorch marks. No decorations on the walls. No rubble that wasn't caused by the passage of time.

The greatest magical civilization in the world didn't go out with a bang, but a happy, sleepy moan.

>>44057169
>do simple concepts executed right for a change
Let me get this straight: you don't think that "all magic is illusion" is simple enough?

>>44057190
>gets fucked by /k/
And double stuffed by /d/, desu. We all insert our fetishes to some extent or another. Even if it's just apperance of our self-inserts.

>>44057288
>Let me get this straight: you don't think that "all magic is illusion" is simple enough?
What?
My entire point from the fucking start of the thread is "magic is based on illusion" is a great concept, what I'm trying to dissuade people from is bogging it down with completely unnecessary, boring, worn out bullshit about VR and shit.

And just to make something clear: OP did not state "all magic is illusion", but rather - all magic is BASED on illusions. There is a considerable difference between the two. One states that magic users only can influence the perception of the others, while the other can be interpreted as everything supernatural being some kind of grand, overaching illusion.

>>44057259
>The reason why people indulge fantasy in the first place is because they seek the appeal and romantism of MYTHOLOGICAL mindset.
Or, you know, because the definition of "fantasy" in the literary sense is far from set in stone, and for many people all it means is that people wear cloaks and fight with swords, and that's what they feel like reading about at the moment. You could claim it's "not really fantasy", but who gives a shit? There're cloaks and swords in it.

>>44057169
>This IS a standard trope
You clearly have a different caliber of GM from me. Mine are afraid to do anything that's not a "classic" trope, no idea why. But this sort of quirk would be refreshing at my local tables. So please stop assuming your experiences apply globally, or even nationally.

>>44057373
Jesus, you people aren't great at reading comprehension. I'm not talking about anything being "real" fantasy, I never said anything even remotely close to that.

I'm talking about fucking FUNCTION, not form. I'm talking about what makes fantasy appealing, psychologically, and what are the underlying principles and mechanics driving the genre.

>>44057384
I'm sorry to hear that, but saying "people in my country read Twilight exclusively" does not make Dan Browns books good, if you get my point. I don't see why we should not talk about what makes a good fiction good fiction just because there is a small portion of people who can't read at all.

>>44057259
>Fairies are SYMBOLS of something that mattered to humans.
And, like all symbols, can be reappropriated or have their meaning change or evolve. I doubt many people these days see a fairy and think "minor nature spirit". Using "fairy" (as an adjective) to refer to something which is fantastical in a wish-fulfilling, unreal, even kind of pathetic way has:
A. Been done before and
B. More relevance to the concept as it was presented. If you want to get /lit/ about it, than ask yourself what the theme of this setting is. From what I gathered, it was illusions and their distinction (or lack thereof) from reality. The mythical concept of fairies has no place in it, but this one most certainly does. You could refuse to call them fairies if it makes you feel better but the word serves its purpose in here. I guarantee you that dragons didn't originally symbolize psychological conventions imposed by society - does that mean that Also Sprach Zarathustra was wrong to use it in the context it did?

>>44057422
You're saying that using concept X in fantasy is wrong, because fantasy is exclusively about concepts Y, Z and M and it's wrong to try anything else in it (or that it would inevitably result in a fantasy which "isn't executed well", which is the same thing). Which is stupid, no matter how smart a person you otherwise are or what academic words you try prettifying the idea with.

>>44057427
>I doubt many people these days see a fairy and think "minor nature spirit".
Actually that is pretty much exactly what they think. Which is the main reason why it's still such an attractive fantasy concept.

>From what I gathered, it was illusions and their distinction (or lack thereof) from reality.
And what does that have to do with the theme of complex mixture of awe and uncertainity that forests and nature invokes that we embodied into the symbol of a fairy?
Why do you DELIBERATELY PLAY on a concept that I'll guarantee everyone will immediately understand and identify, just to throw it into a context where it has no fucking meaning? What is the fucking point?

What does the concept, the meaning behind the concept of a strange natural spirit, have to do with space-VR? Why mixing them, other than for a cheap surprise. And even if that is your explicit intention, to make the "Oh my god I thought it was a fantasy but really, it's all sci-fi, magic is nanomachines and dragons are genetically modified warmachines" - what exactly are you achieving and saying by that?

>I guarantee you that dragons didn't originally symbolize psychological conventions imposed by society
Actually, dragons always symbolized any kind of (potentially destructive) power that is outside of individual's control. So in that sense, Nietzsche did use that symbol pretty well. He evoke something that people think of with fear when he spoke about something he believed people should be afraid off, or already are afraid off.

Again: what relevance is meaning of the symbol of a fairy in a sophomoric Matrix knock-off?

>>44057477
I don't see any actual counterargument to what I've said so far.

I like the idea of all magic being illusory and of an ancient civilization "living on" as an illusion.

>>44057422
>I don't see why we should not talk about what makes a good fiction good fiction just because there is a small portion of people who can't read at all
That's like saying "pulp fiction is bad because it's easy to understand."
No, it's not. It just doesn't have any deeper meaning. Sometimes a story is JUST a story. And if you aren't capable of relaxing and enjoying it as such, I honestly feel bad for you. Dan Brown is entertaining simple fiction. It's not deep, it has not political meaning. But the conceit that everything must have a deeper meaning is a hubris of the college sheltered academic with a poor understanding of the real world. As someone who has been shot at, blown up, and watched his best friend die 3 feet from him, let me tell you, sometimes all you need is an escape from reality, and there's no shame in that, despite what your sheltered attitude may believe.

>>44057364
You may want to read OP again.

>>44057548
>Actually that is pretty much exactly what they think. Which is the main reason why it's still such an attractive fantasy concept.
No, most people in my area simply thing "supernatural entity, neither good nor evil, sorta a grey third party. The switzerland of the supernatural world."

You are suffering from academic conceits that have no grounding in common perception, like most of /lit/

>>44055218
Does the setting have supernatural elements which aren't illusory? Are dragons, giants, prophetic visions, ghosts etc. also illusions (or don't exist)? Could a fantastic being (but which is natural within the context of the setting) have abilities we would consider magical, but which aren't magical in-setting/illusory? If there's a real dragon, would it breath illusory fire?

>>44057707
>would it breath illusory fire?
Dhalsim is now a dragon

>>44057548
>"Oh my god I thought it was a fantasy but really, it's all sci-fi, magic is nanomachines and dragons are genetically modified warmachines"
When was that ever said? All I saw was people suggesting magic would be used as a tool in the same way that science fiction sometimes uses computers, and that doing that would allow a fantasy story (because it runs on magic) to explore an idea normally associated with science fiction (virtual worlds).

>>44057548
The relevance of the fairy in a world of VR is that the fairy is, as well as a nature spirit, associated with deception, glamour, and the replacement of wonder and mystery with fact, reason, and solidity.

When VR and ubiquitous AR start to undermine the nature of the real, of course you'd expect the return of spirits of flux and uncertainty.

>>44057645
>That's like saying "pulp fiction is bad because it's easy to understand."
Most pulp fiction is bad, you can't really deny that. Not because it's easy to understand, but because there is nothing really to understand in the first place.
And the subject of discussion here is, or at least I thought it was: QUALITY of the fiction. "Yeah, paper can withstand anything" as the saying in my country goes: you can write what ever you want: the real question is why would you want to make such story. If you can actually chose between writing a GOOD story, and writing "just a story", why the hell do you chose the latter?

The reason why we debate this, the reason why OP brought this idea up was presumably because he was interested in judgements of others regarding the QUALITY of the idea, and that is what I'm debating here: if you are not interested in debating what makes something good or bad fiction, then we have nothing to talk about, but then I don't understand why you are here discussing this in the first place.

>>44057690
First of all, I have no idea why you insist I must be from /lit/, or even assume anything I've said so far has anything to do with /lit/. This is actually a general narrative theory, and TTG's are a narrative platform to a massive degree.
Second of all, again, I'm sorry but I don't see how your bad GM invalidates anything that I've said. And my argument here is that the magical VR thing is not actually better than the standard "supernatural entity etc..." you've described in the first place.

>>44057548
Jesus Christ, we get it dude, you're a professor, you're super duper smart, you read all the right books and can quote all the right figures. Can you please return to /lit/ and let everyone else enjoy the discussion?

>>44057707
I sort of like the idea that the base world, the real, physical world is not too dissimilar from our own, but that there may be an illusory "dimension" or "realm" that overlays everything, in which various fictitious animals and "figments" may live.

>>44057548
>Nietzsche
More proof that you are using an academic's standard and believing it has any sort of grounding in common belief. The majority of humanity doesn't have time to deconstruct the meaning of the archetypes of the fantasy they enjoy, as they're too busy working to provide your (figurative) bread. The simplest explanation is often correct, with the deeper and more complex deconstructions being merely an academic conceit meant to justify some jackass' doctorate and thence extended to every aspect of the genre.

The fact is, almost everyone's thought patterns are less complex.

>>44057772
That strikes me as a little bit TOO science-fictiony, to be honest. I liked the magic thing, and the faerie realm being an ancient MMORPG is an awesome twist, but I'd rather it be a twist on a more standard fantasy world than an otherwise mundane one. Maybe a gritty, otherwise low-magic fantasy world (Westeros?), but not absolutely mundane. Like, there are giants, but they're just some kind of evolutionary offshoot that looks more like an enormous ape (again, a la ASoIaF), or dragons are just an animal which naturally evolved in that world to be big, flying, and breath fire (or acid, or whatever).

Throwing more sci-fi ideas into the mix: dwarfs are remnants of the Dreaming Empire who refused to buy into the whole "perfect fantasy world" thing and moved under the ground, where millennia of natural selection and inbreeding have turned them into grumpy midgets. Hence the traditional dwarfish distaste for magic and elves. They might actually be partially immune to it (maybe they evolved in the first place from those people who had an extremely weak affinity for illusions, which in the Dreaming Empire resulted in them being treated as an inferior species and shunned).

>>44057750
It was a bit of an exaggerated example, but the fundamental problem, forcing fantasy and mythological concepts into analytical speculative fiction remains the same. My problem is that exploring an idea normally associated with science fiction through fantasy clichés is neither original concept, or concept that would actually enrich anything and anyone.

>>44057757
You yourself pointed out above that the LACK of uncertainity is the only actually original idea this brings forward. And fairies, while sometimes deceptive themselves - ARE NOT DECEPTION themselves. That is the problem here. You are associating the existence of a fairy with deception, rather than the behavior of one.

>>44057764
>>44057784
The amount of insecurity masked by passive-aggression in these posts is rather worrisome. I'm not a professor, I'm not from /lit/ either, and I have no fucking idea why is it so unbearable for you people to be challenged by something or someone.
As for the mention of Nietzsche, I was not the one who brought that up in the first place.
And as for people not willing to reconstruct the meanings of archetypes of fantasy... Well, first of all, I assume all of us here actually invest quite a lot of time into studying fantasy and indulging it in many ways. Especially those of you who GM actually ALREADY INVEST AN ENORMOUS amount of time and effort into narrative theory and the nature of the tools it uses. They don't use the academic-like lingo that I use, but they are doing it non-the-less: just by asking themselves "how to make the story more entertaining?".
So I don't see why just talking about it in a more specific language is in any way inappropriate. You might find the way I talk odd, even obnoxious and I don't blame you for that, but we are, after all, talking still about "what makes a good story for a bunch of people who like fantastic stories" at core.

>>44057857
Nah. Dwarfs (and goblins, and trow, and other nasties) are more like some fantastic depictions of the Picts, or of Unseelie fairies. They ARE descendants of the Dreaming Empire: those of them who didn't quite wither away into nothingness (because they couldn't bring themselves to completely embrace the fantasy) but nevertheless inbred and malnourished themselves into a race of hideous, vertically challenged mutants. In folklore, dwarfs are often used as examples of supremely ugly, bitter creatures, as well as being deceptive and greedy. In here, they live underground, eating bugs and mushrooms and fearing the sun (they probably look like a hairy Gollum), but they're so good with illusions that they normally turn their burrows into splendorous golden halls and whatnot. You bet they'd be better about that situation.

Now that I think about it, it's a lot like a reverse of the situation of the Narnian dwarfs in The Last Battle. The dwarfs can (and most of the time, do) live in a magnificent, rich world, but no matter how much they try, they can never bring themselves to truly, TRULY believe the illusion and sink into it like their Dreaming Empire ancestors did. After weeks of counting their gems in the illusion, they just can't tear away from the fact that they haven't eaten anything in real life, and that means having to return to reality for a few hours and remember that, in reality, they're living in a filthy hole eating worms.

>>44057857
Fair enough, though I hadn't meant that the setting would be entirely mundane. I suppose I was thinking of the illusory dimension as something more akin to a "spirit realm" of sorts that was a natural feature of the world eager than something that humans had constructed. It would be the place where dreams, omens and visions came from, and if would be from studying this other realm that magic users learned to manipulate and create lusions themselves. The Dreaming Empire, of course, would have been the most adept at this, creating whole other dream worlds pf their own design.

If the Dream Empire does have modern day descendants, I thing I'd rather repurpose elves for the role.

>>44057957
I just want dwarfs to be dwarfs. This setting has enough TWEESTS in it.

>>44057957
>>44057979
Sorry, meant to link to >>44057952

>>44057957
The thing about spirits and demons and all is that they're generally assumed to be real. The "fairy dimension" is by definition a giant illusion. If there really are spirits and demons, than they must come from somewhere else.

Which begs the interesting question of ghosts. Can the spirits of the dead really return in this setting, or are they, too illusions? Either maliciously created by charlatan necromancers or inadvertently by people's expectations (as in, it turns out that all of the spells for "communication with the dead" merely connect you with an illusion saying what you secretly want it to say). Or tie the whole concept together, and say all "ghosts" are just illusions from the Dreaming Empire which were originally uploaded into the fairy realm/"illusory world". I'd imagine in a situation like this, the people of the world would make up stories to explain why it seems impossible to summon any ghosts from earlier than whenever the Dreaming Empire died. Maybe "the Underworld is closed off" or something.

Of course, in that case, the whole mystery aspect of the setting is severely diminished, so I'm not in favor of that. Either no ghosts, or ghosts come from somewhere else (maybe necromancy is a different "kind" of magic, which the people of this world don't consider magic at all. That's cheap, but fantasy's done that before).

>>44057992
>>44057979
Agreed. What if Dwarves in this setting are of your classic fantasy stock, and are harder to beguile and are less susceptible to illusory magics due to their pragmatic and down to earth natures? Perhaps they made war with the Dreaming Empire / Elves in the distant past.

Just spitballing ideas.

>>44057763
>he was interested in judgements of others regarding the QUALITY of the idea,
NO, he was interested in others regarding the FUN of the idea. An entirely different metric

>>44058068
I dig the evolutionary offshoot ideas.

Maybe dwarfs originate from people who lived underground and mined some kind of metal (the ubiquitous "Cold Iron") which interferes with illusions? It explains why they act like your classical fantasy dwarfs, and it's a neat explanation for why they're immune to magic (less of an inherent trait and more because all dwarfs spend most of their lives in environments saturated with tiny particles of the antimagic metal. Presumably, a dwarf who was raised on the surface would not share that immunity to magic, but the other dwarfs would simply justify it by claiming that his surface upbringing has made him "mentally undwarfish")

>>44058109
Or they're just a subspecies which evolved underground somewhere cold, leading to them being short, stocky, hairy, and being able to see in the dark. Dwarfs are hairy pygmies. Otherwise, they're not too overly different from humans. Their culture is different, but what do you know. Half-dwarfs might even be something.

There. Evolutionary offshoot, without any of the bizarre TWEESTs.

>>44058145
In which case the magic immunity would be cultural, not biological. Not because they're "down to Earth", but because they learn from an early age to beware of illusions/skepticism/whatever.

It might have something to do with their lessened reliance on eyesight. Since they live underground, dwarfs naturally have sharper hearing, touch and smells than humans, and they perceive their environment using a more even mix of all of their senses. Dwarfs aren't immune to illusions PER SE, but since most illusions aren't quite entirely PERFECT, they stand a higher chance of telling them out because they'll pick on details the humans would miss.

>>44057888
I'm not the people you were talking to, but please believe me when I tell you that there is a difference between challenging people with your ideas and being an abrasive dick. You've come off as a gigantic turd, to use the layman's jargon. Consider for a moment the possibility that not every objection someone has to you is rooted in insecurity (though in some cases it surely is).

As a ready-to-hand example, you don't threaten me in the least and I'm still shaking my head at your inability to communicate your ideas effectively.

>>44057888
>As for the mention of Nietzsche, I was not the one who brought that up in the first place.
Yes you were, a ctrl+F literally does not show it before you. Your assumption of deeper study is a conceit that you need to lose. I'm sorry we all aren't as smart as you. We're fighter's talking with an archemage.
There, are you satisfied?
Will you stop telling us how we're wrong for enjoying a concept that's refreshingly new to us now?
Because that's literally what's happening. We're liking a concept and you're saying that it's bad/stupid/superficial. And you don't seem to understand that we don't care. We're STUPID by your metric. Let us be, we like it, and we don't want you complaining. Just leave the thread if you don't like it.

It's easy, just hit the big red X to the top right.

>>44058109
If this setting's Cold Iron equivalent were used extensively in Dwarven machinery, it also gives a reasonable enough explaination for the idea that magic doesn't work on or around technology that sometimes comes up.

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>>44058189
This I like. Big nosed, big eared pygmy dwarfs, sniffing around for reality.

>>44058302
>I love the smell of existence in the morning

>>44058105
>An entirely different metric
Not really, considering that the amount of fun you are having with the idea is one of the indicators of the quality of the idea.

>>44058198
And why exactly is that? What is so awful about what I've said so far? Aside for me pointing out the amount of passive agression (which I can't really explain otherwise than due to insecurity), which I think was justified considering the content of the two posts that it responded to.
Please, explain to me what is so incredibly awful about what I've said so far.

>>44058202
>Yes you were, a ctrl+F literally does not show it before you.
If you'd bother to actually look up the conversation, you'd find that my post was a direct reply to a post that provided the case of the use of dragon as a symbol in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

>Your assumption of deeper study is a conceit that you need to lose.
Why?

>I'm sorry we all aren't as smart as you.
Why the FUCK are you taking this personally? It's not about who is smarter here, at least it's not about that for me. It's about fruitful discussion. I'm using all the tools I can offer. If you don't care for them, ignore me, but there is no bloody reason to reply to me and accuse me of anything, or to turn this into a discussion about who is smarter: Since I know my own intellect, I don't actually think (and never thought) anyone here is dumber than me: I'm just probably used to different form of discourse, which is precisely why I think what I'm saying COULD BE OF SOME USE to you people.
And again, considering the format of this discussion and it's completely anonymous and non-consequential nature of it, I assume the actual attention that I'm getting a measure of whenever what I'm saying is of any relevance.

That is all. I'm trying to debate what makes a fantasy story good. Maybe in an odd manner to you people, but I don't see why that causes such problems - especially since you all seem to be understanding me quite well (with exceptions).

>>44058302
>>44058318
So if you brought a dwarf to the fairy realm, would they just get nauseous/dizzy from all of the "kind of right, but not exactly" sensory stimuli everywhere? Like a person subjected to prolonged bombardment with flashing lights and a barely audible whine in the background?

Can dwarfs themselves do magic? I see no reason they wouldn't be able. They might even be pretty good at it.

Can we put this thing on the wiki? This is really something.

>>44058332
>>Your assumption of deeper study is a conceit that you need to lose.
>Why?
I literally don't have time to read Nietzsche, not if I want to do my job. And if I don't, 70,000 people willl not have clean water tomorrow. The only reason I'm up arguing with you is because I took a day off for my birthday. But your assumption that everyone who plays over analyzes like you do is definitely a conceit of the current ruling class. Some of us don't have the luxury of dissecting every sentence for possible meanings. In fact, most Americans are working 60+ hours a week. So consider that before you condemn us for being shallow. (Which is absolutely what it seems you are doing)

>>44055218
Real illusion, like faking it and getting people to think you're a powerful magician? Or fantasy illusion, where you create images that aren't real but are still actually supernatural?

>>44058429
I'm assuming the second, but that leads to the question of just how different the two are.

>>44058332
>Not really, considering that the amount of fun you are having with the idea is one of the indicators of the quality of the idea.
That's utter and absolute nonsense. If that were true, no one would have fun with Rifts, D&D, or X-World crap.

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>The faerie world is simply the grandest illusion

I can imagine this scene happening after a person gets kidnapped by the fairy lord or something. After (apparent) decades of slavery. Just standing up to the mighty godlike king, regardless of their threats and promises, no matter how much you believe that they will or have or are currently hurting you.

And it's every bit as epic.

"You have no power over me. "

And then they opened their eyes.

>>44058534
>3 minutes and 16 seconds have passed. Your friends are literally JUST considering calling 911.

Sounds like a badass intro to a urban fantasy campaign.

>>44058332
>What is so awful about what I've said so far?
It's more the delivery than the content at this point. You're just not recommending yourself to anyone with an eye for this sort of thing.

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>>44055218
It's called real life, there's a couple of really good spells that can create fistfuls of the local currency if you know the proper verbal and somatic components.

>>44058534
Except that it usually doesn't work that way. Seeing through someone's trick isn't very useful if nobody else does. That's kind of how power works. If you call out the emperor for having no clothes, the whole crowd won't suddenly agree with you; they'll fucking hang you. Or in this case, every other slave would turn on the one who had the sudden epiphany and demonstrate that power may be intangible, but that doesn't mean it isn't real.

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>>44058597
Wait until you hear about the artifacts that do that nonstop.

>>44058332
>you people
>multiple times
wow, seriously?

>>44058598
Don't you become immune to an illusion after disbelieving in it? It's been a while since I've read the PHB but I'm pretty sure disbelieving is strong.

>>44058639
You can also snap your allies out of it once you disbelieve. You point the illusion out to them or something like that. Then they're all like "OH, really? I totally didn't see that."

>>44058417
>I literally don't have time to read Nietzsche, not if I want to do my job.
And I'm not actually asking you to. For the last time, I mentioned the name Nietzsche in direct response to a person who used one of his works as a counterargument to mine.

>But your assumption that everyone who plays over analyzes like you do is definitely a conceit of the current ruling class.
I'm not sure if I understood you right there, but I have to warn you about falling victim to ideological BULLSHIT like Marxist theories of classes and projecting this kind of political interpretation into basic social interactions. Seriously, this only leads to resentment, and resentment is about the most dangerous emotion you can find yourself falling into.

Second of all: I never said you people are shallow, I merely invited you to a discussion from a point of view you might not hold normally. Again, your participation in it is volutary. You people don't think about fantasy the same way I do? All the more reason to offer the point of view and let you chose whenever you want to indulge it, or not. It's you, and only you who are projecting some kind of prestige struggle, and even worse, political implication into the debate. And I must once again warn you of particularly the second aspect, because that is some fucking DANGEROUS shit you might have brewing there.

>>44058596
>It's more the delivery than the content at this point.
First of all, how about you people not being such a god damn drama queens? This is literally like from a stereotype of a woman from Friends - "It's not about what you said, it's the TONE!" Seriously, this place is 18+ anonymous board, one would assume that you people aren't this fucking obsessively sensitive.
Second of all, I'm still curious about the specific examples of what is so awful about what I've said. Especially in the context of this site.

>>44055218
What about spells like Suggestion?

>>44058388
The might get somewhat nauseous and dizzy, and they might even develop mild feelings of distrust and paranoia.

I would imagine that to a Dwarf in this setting, who can "smell reality" and who may have an inborn or ingrained ability to distinguish truth from illusion, spending time in Tir Na Nog might be especially disquieting. Everything they see is like an optical illusion being viewed from a slightly wrong angle and everything they hear sounds as if it were recorded in reverse and then played back rightways. They would feel as if they are being constantly lied to on the most fundamental level.

>>44056757
Maybe if you don't consider hard SF to be genre fiction.

Can we all just agree to ignore the professor and get on with our lives? This thread is literally really good if you just read around all of his posts.

>>44058657
Which is unrealistic. Just being told something does not convince you of it, especially the unconscious part of your mind that falls for illusions. And how do they know that the one party member who disagrees is right? Maybe he's seeing the illusion of empty space.

And illusions in the more figurative sense work in rather the same way. If enough people believe something, it doesn't matter whether it's true or not; you're going to suffer if you don't at least pretend to agree.

>>44058705
The question is, is there "smelling reality" a mystical ability or just an extension of their senses being sharp and them being used to using a lot of them (rather than relying on like 80% sights and 19% hearing, like humans)? Like, are they ACTUALLY smelling the illusion, or is there ability to identify illusions an extension of their ability to subconsciously say (through physical means) "this doesn't smell like the real thing."

>>44058746
Physical thing. Dwarfs are like dogs. Bat dogs. With cat eyes.

>>44058746
I think it might be a little bit of both. They might have an instinct for distinguishing between reality and illusions that is innate and intrinsic to Dwarfdom, but that instinct is honed and improved much like any other Dwarven tool by their culture and system of values.

>>44058683
>Marxist theories of classes
Truthfully, I haven't even studied enough to know what you mean there. You reference terms, assuming everyone else will know what you mean, instead of explaining yourself in plain language,
>You people don't think about fantasy the same way I do? All the more reason to offer the point of view and let you chose whenever you want to indulge it, or not.
The particular language you use to express your view has implied that those who do not agree with you are ignorant & of lesser value than you for not understanding what you say and why you say it. That is what I mean by the conceit of the educated. True, it could literally be just a miscommunication due to lack of education on the part of those of us who could not afford a college education. But if that is what it is, your assumption of knowledge excludes many people. And by the liberal narrative is itself unacceptable. So, if you want to include liberal politics, you need to pander to the lowest common denominator and then some.

However, if you intend an expectation of knowledge & study before people take part in a dialogue, then by all means, continue in a similar vein.

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>>44058812
The beard is just an advanced form of whiskers.

>>44058683
Nah, man. There is such a thing as acting like a massive jerk, and it's not related to content. The very fact that you are referencing something from friends without acknowledging the multi-faceted humour that made it funny to more than one type of person and how it completely demolishes your point and illustrates your ineptitude in effective co-existence with people.

>Seriously, this place is 18+ anonymous board, one would assume that you people aren't this fucking obsessively sensitive.
As soon as one might assume that an people on an 18+ anonymous board would have the skills to express themselves without a style of delivery that was at best a red herring and at worst an active detriment to their message.

>LOL you guys are total faggot pussy babies. But please, could you expend effort on me to explain how I'm such an asshole, despite my demonstrated incapacity and disinclination to internalize such information?
I have hope that you can understand why this is an extremely ineffective - not to mention passive-aggressive and bad-faith - way to ask people for help.

I mean, look. I understand it's frustrating to be found wanting without an adequate inventory of how exactly you are wanting. I'm sorry you don't have the tools to function effectively in this space, or to even learn how to do so in the scope of this thread. But pity doesn't earn you special treatment. You sink or swim here based on your ability, and you've fairly sunk yourself.

>>44058881
>You reference terms, assuming everyone else will know what you mean, instead of explaining yourself in plain language,
Just revisit what you meant by this particular statement:
>But your assumption that everyone who plays over analyzes like you do is definitely a conceit of the current ruling class.
Which is a political interpretation of what I've said: you literally assumed that what I'm saying is in any way connected to a political conflicts and power struggle between different social classes. Which is the fundamental assumption of Marxism: the assumption that different social classes are inherently in conflict, and imposing various things on each other.
Furthermore:
>The particular language you use to express your view has implied that those who do not agree with you are ignorant & of lesser value
That is again another basically political, or at least moral overinterpretation of what I've said. There is a degree of irony in you constantly accusing me of being too intelectual, while you are over-analyzing and over-interpreting everything I've said far beyond reasonable. I'd say you have quite an enormous capacity for thorough analysis complex interpretations, you are just aiming it in a very wrong direction:
If you used exactly the same amount of effort that you invest into finding ways to interpret things I say as personal attacks aimed at you into just studying trends in fantasy storytelling, you'd easily rival me or even surpass me in this regard.

I've never actually said any of those things, those are things you projected into what I've said. And that is the whole problem. I'm not saying that I'm smarter than you people, but for some reason that is what you WANT TO HEAR, and you selectively interpret what I've said to fit that assumption. Hence the whole Nietzsche conflict we had.

>your assumption of knowledge excludes (...)
You do realize that if you don't understand something, you can actually ask, right?

Can't we just ignore the fucking asshole? We had a nice thing going without him.

>>44058946
>your ineptitude in effective co-existence with people.
That is an interesting assumption on your part. That particular joke wasn't exactly complex or multifauceted: it made fun of an age old stereotype about gender differences.

>As soon as one might assume that an people on an 18+
For starters, one might assume that people who make massive insulting accusations towards other regarding how they talk, they would be able to provide a single example of what they have an issue about.
And when I talk about an example, I don't mean actually embarrasing strawman like:
>LOL you guys are total faggot pussy babies. But please, could you expend effort on me to explain how I'm such an asshole,
You see, if I ever have a problem of treating you people fairly, it's because of shit like this. You are (presumably), an adult - this above is not something suitable for an adult to do. It's actually pathetic. So if you haven't been treated fairly by other people, which made you so massively insecure that what I've said here offended you, it's probably because you try to get away with shit strawmans like this.

You have one more chance to give me an example of where was anything I've said actually inadequate. Not to make up riddiculous one.
And keep in mind (and this is really, REALLY IMPORTANT): it's EXTREMELY EASY to misinterpret something as an attack when you have entered the discussion already having a self-esteem issue. Go and fucking double check your side of the discussion, to make sure that you aren't just projecting something into what I've said. Because people do that, a lot.

>>44059200
Could you put on a trip when you post? Please?

>>44059154
Yeah. In-depth discussions on intellectualism aside, I feel like we should discuss a bit of potential worldbuilding and setting history if there are still others in the thread interested in the original idea.

I'm still partial the the thought that there may be an overarching dream realm from which the magic users of this setting learned to craft their own illusions.

I like the idea that the Dreaming Empire were an ancient culture of High Elf types that mastered the art of illusion to such a high degree that they were able to create their own dreamworlds, which they populated with illusory intelligences just as sophisticated as any real person.

I like the idea that Dwarves may have fought a war against the Dreaming Empire in the distant past which still colors their opinions of elves in the present, and that they have an innate ability to distinguish between reality and illusions, at least on a subconscious instinctual level.

These are just my opinions though.

>>44058716
All you have to do is filter his first post in 4chanX. It makes reading the thread much smoother too.

What, you don't have 4chanX? You uncivilised barbarian.

>>44059254
see
>>44059307

>>44059307
...

Fuck Rome? We'll pillage it and piss on the ashes?

>>44059290
>I'm still partial the the thought that there may be an overarching dream realm from which the magic users of this setting learned to craft their own illusions.
That's just Dragon Age

>>44059254
>Could you put on a trip when you post? Please?
The "hide" button is right to the far left of the "Anonymous" window in the upper-left corner of the post window.
But a really good question is: why are you so insanely offended by this? What exactly is wrong with you that you literally can't handle what I'm saying, to a point where you are near begging me to stop?
This is a very, VERY SERIOUS QUESTION for you. Because I really never said anything that would deserve the hysteria you people seem to be falling into. You yourself should be alarmed with how you are reacting here.

>>44059391
Is it? I'm not really familiar with Dragon Age.

>>44059401
I have participated in the debate this far, but I will hazard a guess that there are some participants in this thread that would like to focus on worldbuilding in-line with the premise in the OP, and are finding the debate something of a hindrance to doing so.

>>44055218
>"That's a neat idea. Do you have anything else to actually make it an interesting setting, or is that the only part you've come up with so far?"

>>44059474
Which was what I was doing before people started insulting for the audacity of doing just that.

And at this point I'm just genuinelly confused and curious because there are people really fucking mental and I can't even get them to tell me what have I done wrong. Which actually is an issue for me, because I genuinelly want to know what I did wrong. The insults started back when I simply provided justifications for why I think the core idea might not be such a good idea.
Is that the issue? Is it unacceptable to provide opinion that does not align with majority of the thread? And are we really sure environment where providing an opinion countering other ones is a ground on actually flinging insults?
I did not start this fucking circus.
I'm just wondering, what the fuck happened here, really. And I honestly think more people than just me should ask themselves the same.

What's the name of the setting? Dreaming Empire? Waking Empire (since it's fallen...)? Chimera? All In Your Mind? Realm of Illusion?

>>44059474
Confirming that you are absolutely correct. Magic based on illusion and the fae as a massive still-functioning illusory construct, a grand hallucination constructed by the greatest wizards of a bygone age? That's cool.

Is making the whole setting about "what if WE'RE the illusion, dude?" boring unless done with absolute brilliance, mostly because it's overplayed? Yes.

But, y'know, that's totally irrelevant; none of that is required by the former cool shit. VR can exist in your setting without every story becoming the Matrix movies or eXistenZ.

>>44059555
Again, I have tried keeping out of the debate, so this will be the last post I write pertaining to it.

It's my belief that some participants in this thread are chaffing at your discussion because they have come to this thread not because they wanted to debate the intellectual merits of the ideas presented in the thread's first few posts, but because they wanted to explore and extrapolate on those ideas, crafting a setting or at least a few set pieces that they found appealing. The thread, I am presuming, was begun with worldbuilding and creative collaboration in mind. As such, no matter how intellectually sound or well reasoned your debate is, it is not conducive to the goals of worldbuilding and brainstorming that many hope to achieve here.

>>44059706
THIS. Jesus Christ, the OP doesn't even specify that absolutely convincing illusory reality is available to modern wizardry. For all you know, the skill died with the Dreaming Empire.

Which would make every single part of this debate, from beginning to end, totally irrelevant to the setting.

I just wanted to talk about cool applications of illusion magic, and perhaps other strange things that may wander this world.

>>44059654
If I can dare to actually revisit the original argument (and if people start throwing more tantrums over it, I'll stop, I swear): My question is why rooting all of this in conventional fantasy.

The presence of conventional fantasy tropes seems distracting and not really complimenting the core idea. Various forms of Gods and strange spirits not automatically associated with high fantasy could serve the same role, but without creating a distraction and making the player ask why are all these products of almost unlimited manifestations human imagination have to be the same as typical motives of western folklore and mythology.

The premise like this could greatly benefit from more paradoxical imaginery. This is a concept of a world that plays heavily with the image of a world where reality itself is almost falling appart, and putting concepts that basically scream "we are playing this fantasy safe and familiar" seems contraproductive.

>>44059706
I've thoughts that would be best done by first evaluating the concept itself, looking into it's strong and weak points. I think that is a fairly natural way to address ideas - if you want to extrapolate on something, it seems normal to me to first see if it's worth extrapolating on, and if so, in what ways.

I think there are actually two ideas, or at least were initially (back when I started posting) floating around here:
A) conventional fantasy, where magic is "reduced" to the ability to alter perception, but not physical reality, and
B) a matrix-esque concept of a world existing as multiple levels of reality, under the assumption that what appears to be conventional fantasy is an elaborate VR.
What I was trying to say is that 1) I think the first idea may be more worth following than the second one, and 2), if you want to follow the second one, I'd think it would benefit from removing the elements of conventional fantasy from it.
That is basically it. The extend of my point.

>>44059759
As for unusual applications of illusion magic and strange things wandering the world, I'm interested in what might remain of the Dreaming Empire in whatever is considered the "current age" of the setting. We already have faerie/Tir Na Nog, a fantastical dreamland created whole-cloth by the dreamers for their entertainment. What else might they have created?

I can imagine that the Dreamers might have left many ruins scattered around their lands, cities, roads, aqueducts, temples and the like that are now haunted by illusions that are like a cross between a ghost and a glitchy videogame NPC.

>>44059907
To expand on this idea, imagine the player characters exploring the ancient ruins of a Dreaming Empire city.

They're looking for several rare texts , but don't have very many clues to go on. But they're in luck! In one of the old shops they discover an illusory greeter, standing at attention beside the doorway.

While its responses are limited and the player characters must ask it the right questions, it may be able to provide directions to the library from the shop.

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>"Is it just me, or did the resolution drop a bit?"

>>44058388
Well, the way its projected, most illusions traditionally end up being very visual over anything else, so a species that has poor eyesights but makes up for it with other senses would be generally more resistant to standard illusions.

>>44056969


This.

I'd add that excitingly bizarre or monstrous appearances can be explained as npc monsters that ancient players were supposed to vanquish. The whole mess of fantasy tropes canbe explained asfollowing an ancient script written to amuse.

>>44055218
Could they make illusory noise? Because illusion or not, making someone's ears ring on demand is an underrated power IMO.

>>44060675
But are the monsters real or illusory?

We know dwarfs are definitely a real race. I got that so are giants and dragons (after a fashion). What about unicorns? Minotaurs? Griffons? Basilisks? Trolls?

>>44060919
I think that it was suggested that the setting is a relatively "low fantasy" sort of place.

>>44060919
Well, if you take away their magical abilities, I don't see a reason unicorns and griffons couldn't be "natural creatures" (though the unicorns I'd much rather see as fairy beings, they're just too associated with that sense of glamour and beauty). Same for trolls, probably, unless it's like a type of smaller, civilized giant (I dig Norse mythology trolls with tails and big noses who are generally morally ambiguous and as smart as people). A basilisk might just be a type of incredibly venomous reptile.

Minotaurs... Don't really know. Kind of fantastic, and not precisely a genre staple. Only like them for the monstergirls treatment they sometimes get. That's a fantasy if there's ever been one.

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>>44061062

So could you cause someone to feel pain still?

>>44061407
Why not? Burn them with illusory fire, stab them with an illusory knife. Feed them illusory poison. They just wouldn't die from it, which at a certain point might break the illusion.

>>44061442
I dunno man, getting the feeling that you've been shot in the dick could take a long while for you to give a shit that its a illusion

>>44061496
Better question: if you remove a guy's arm with an illusory sword, and the illusion has it being cut, would they still be able to feel their hand? Move it?

>>44061442
People can work themselves up into heart attacks over nothing, it's called a panic attack.

"Illusory" pain is nothing to scoff at cause nocioception is notoriously difficult to quantify. Really all pain is illusory if one wishes to look at in such a way, it exists as nothing but perception and reactions.

>>44061546
Shit, it would take some real illusionist skill to make his hand seem like it's going through where his hand once was even though they're really just touching

>>44057764

Actually I'm the professor, or at least one of them. I only outed myself because someone asked. I'm not the lit-crit thesaurus pants you replied to.

Quality of the story in an RPG isn't what some critical theory decides is acceptable. It's what you and your players have fun with. I love bashing skulls and kicking ass, I play to get away from the academic bullshit. I think that magic-as-illusion is a cool idea, as is faeVR.

Playing to please somebody who isn't at the table is a losing proposition.

This reminds me of all the 'fantasy' books/television I watched as a kid. They always seemed to end with 'his magical powers was just his imagination' or 'it was all a dream'. To be honest I hate the idea and I don't think that it should ever be used. Illusion magic on the other hand is great but not in this form.

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>>44055218
Sastipe, mulo.

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>>44061774
Lore of the Clans really did right by the Ravnos. The original idea was some really crineworthy stuff, what with the "pathologically criminal gypsy liars", but the added lore completely transformed them for me. One of my favorite clans now. They took all that crap from their basic concept and by weaving it through Indian mythology and Buddhist philosophy really gave them a completely different flavor (sure, the other Clans still think of them as pathologically criminal gypsies, but now it's just the surface of the pond).

You think trickster criminals=illusion magic, but really, the Ravnos do illusions because they're the Asuras. They're the sacred demons. Reality is an illusion, and they take it apart. By mastering illusion, they show people the path to the truth. To deceive, they must deceive themselves. They are slaves to their passions because no curse could be crueler to someone who can see the path to enlightenment. Their dharmas are burdened to remain in this illusory world, dreaming of dreams of a world without dreams. It's nearly poetic.

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This needs to be on 1d4chan. We can't let an idea like this just die.

>>44062807
Then put it there, oh foolish anon.

>>44062807
It's archived. Sadly the "professor" nitwit will probably have made it completely forgotten.

>>44063342
A pity. It wasn't an innovative idea, but it was an amusing one that I wanted to find more about.

>>44063275
>>44063342
I think we could still save the thing. Problem is, there's not enough of a thing here to save on the wiki. Just a very general concept. We need to at least come up with some things, i.e. general history, races, organizations, cosmology, what have you.

>>44062807
>"Lord, what fools these casuals be!"

>>44063392
Well, let's get cracking then. What's the biggest way to fight beyond illusions? Why would people leave the implied safety of society to go adventuring? What are the fae implied to be (as being ambiguous is prolly the best route for them imo)? What are the purpose of the goggles?

>>44063481
>not seeing your entire culture crumble away into dust because you spent your entire existence grinding on Fair Elfland Online

>>44059200
>That is an interesting assumption on your part.
No assumption involved; I am watching it demonstrated before my eyes.
>That particular joke...
You are over-analyzing and projecting.

>accusations
Not accusations, man. We're not pointing to some hypothetical act outside of our personal knowledge, but rather describing interactions we have directly experienced from you.

>shit like this
>not something suitable for an adult to do
It was a direct paraphrase of what you said, in the hopes that you would realize the problem with the way you communicate. Trying to flip that onto me? Is extremely juvenile.

>if you haven't been treated fairly by other people, which made you so massively insecure that what I've said here offended you
Massive projection, hombre. I'm not offended and I'm treated almost disgustingly well by the people in my life. Also, insecure is not a word I think I've ever had applied to me by anyone who knew me. But, you've clearly made up your mind about me so I guess there isn't much use telling you that.

>Nah I'm not being a dick, you're just projecting.
Seriously think about the personal responsibility you are abdicating with this sentiment. Does it really do you justice? I doubt it.

>>44063483
>What's the biggest way to fight beyond illusions?
Given that this is first and foremost a fantasy setting, distinguished from others by the unique nature of magic in it, I'd say these would be swords and arrows.

>Why would people leave the implied safety of society to go adventuring?
Treasure?

>What are the fae implied to be?
Thought we agreed they were remnants of the grand illusion that killed off the Dreaming Empire?

It's hard to strike a balance between "generic fantasy world" and "one cool gimmick". This needs more fluffy filling beyond the illusory thing. Think of it as a world like any other - it needs kingdoms, and people, and persons. Then you can delve into how the presence of illusionists changes it.

Speaking of which, how common are those illusionists? I see them as being pretty rare, but not quite unknowable, if you know what I mean. Like, "not every peasant might see one in their lives, but they'd definitely see someone who's seen one (even if it's on their one trip to the nearest city)."

And what would the capabilities of magicians be exactly? Illusion's a broad thing. Can illusions have tactile influence? Can they become solid? Can they become intelligent, or independent? What about illusory environments? If you create an illusory bird, which you can presumably control, then send it away somewhere, would you be able to see through its eyes and effectively spy? When you light and illusory torch in a dark room, do you really see what's in it, or is the illumination illusory too? Can illusory damage kill? Can illusions be used for divination (seems to be a common question, but it is important. Historically, magic and divination were practically synonymous throughout most of time and places)

>>44063708
It should affect every sense. If you get hit by a not!fireball, it still feels like a fireball. You still see your clothes and flesh burning, you still feel it, it just doesn't actually happen.

>>44063708
Lore of the Clans specifically gives Ravnos the ability to create an illusion which they can see through, which the Clan elders explicitly use to create illusory birds for spying and sending messages. Then again, the Ravnos are dealing with a big Buddhist "reality is all in your mind" situation, and they can do stuff like eventually cause their illusions to become temporarily or permanently real or kill people with illusory swords, so we're not talking about the same thing as this setting.

>>44063872
Are we not talking about the same thing? Seems pretty elvish to me.

The elves are AWARE they're an illusion. Some accept it, some feel anger or desire for the material world, others revel in their existence as only sensed and possibility.
They're the closest to magic, but as a consequence are aware of their own fragility.

>>44064119
I'm talking about a clan of vampires from the CWoD which is all about illusions and the applications thereof. Nothing to do with elves.

>>44064657
We don't care, talk about VRORPG Elf illusion

>>44064657
..keep up, I'm commenting on similarities. Don't worry, I won't use any metaphors around you again. It seems they're a mite too difficult for your to handle.

bump? maybe?

>>44065885
I think Chimerstry is relevant, if nothing else.

>>44066803
Didn't have much else to, I just mentioned they could do a lot of shit with their illusions which eventually came up to "they're not even illusions, they're a temporary reality", which doesn't help us much since we want to focus on the fact that they aren't real.

What's the name of the main human kingdom?

Man, this thread ought to be used as a cautionary tale for how one person's assholery, if not ignored, can destroy a promising concept.

>>44055218
Currently in the middle of writing a novel in which the main character has illusion powers. Essentially, they can trick your senses into sensing things that aren't there. They can't affect the real world in any way, and they're constantly surrounded by people who can throw tanks one-handed or generate antimatter with their minds. So illusions would seem like a pretty shit power. You can't, after all, affect people. Just their five senses.

So I've put quite a bit of thought into this. But you're thinking too small. There are more than five senses.

Make your target see and feel prison bars. Most everyone will give up trying to escape or attack you, your only problem is when people try to break the bars. You can always blind people by making illusions immediately in front of their eyes. Throw off their sense of balance to knock them into the floor. Bombard their sense of temperature until they feel like they've been thrown into the sun, then crank their sense of pain to 11. Obscure their sense of time so they can't tell how long things take. They suffer for what feels like eons but is actually just a few seconds. Some people will suffer severe health problems, some might even die immediately.

Illusions are scary versatile if you're using an appropriate number of senses. Characters can essentially do anything, so long as they're doing it to another person.

Unless you're trapped in an avalanche, or are about to be hit by a nuke, you're pretty free to win all the time. Make an illusion of the area around yourself so you become effectively invisible, then make several illusory duplicates of yourself. Trap them, blind them, make them hurt, and when they're out of it, walk over and calmly slit their throat.

The point of this character is that he gradually becomes broken, because everyone in this setting is broken. Do not make everyone in an rpg broken. Your players will die continuously and they will hate you.

>>44063483
>>44063708
It may be wise to make this into a new thread to avoid the philosophical flame war above us, men.

>>44075599
Well, there's quite a lot you can't do with illusions. Can't get any real information (unless the Ravnos bird trick from above works), can't fly or teleport, can't save yourself from an environmental hazard, can't directly manipulate people's thoughts (sure, you could make something scary appear, or yourself look like a hot woman or a friend of theirs, but you can't just make them outright scared, or love you, or trust you. And for the last one, you need to know how their friends look and act). You can't directly control them into performing an action, mess with their memories, or do much directly to their physical bodies. You can't stop a bullet that's already your way.

Illusions are very versatile, but they're actually not the most versatile school out there. I think that's part of what makes this a good idea for a setting. It puts a serious curb on wizards' power.

>>44076235
I didn't mean to imply that they were omnipotent by any stretch, simply that they were versatile to the point of absurdity when facing living opponents, which they almost always would be. A clever illusionist can defeat a normal with one well-placed illusion, but they're still beatable. In some ways they are the squishiest of wizards, in fact. But man, can they crowd control effortlessly.

>>44071971
Voracnia

Had a setting sort of based on this idea that the player characters were Lucid Dreamers. Every person had their own little bubble where their dreams took shape in the Dreamscape. Lucid Dreamers were fully conscious of this world, and the more powerful a Lucid Dreamer was the bigger the bubble was (which was their field of influence centered on their in the Dreamscape).

Lucid Dreamers would be player characters trying to gain power while int his other world while they slept, fight off Nightmares and enemy characters (being defeated allows a lucid dreamer or nightmare to steal some of your power, shrinking your field of influence. being defeated enough can cause you to revert back to a regular Dreamer and forget all about this world).

There would also be people who try to figure out who you are in the waking world. One of the plots I wanted to run would be about Lucid Dreamers suddenly being killed as a very powerful person in the dream would track them down and players would have to use the dream to find clues on to who this was and find a way to stop them.

But yea its basically a regular world setting and all the magic and fantasy stuff would be set in a dream world.

so I was thinking about applications of this type of magic. On the one end of the spectrum, you have the ability to create existence, albeit illusionary. Wouldn't the opposite end of the spectrum be to remove it? your invisibility spells and other flavors of "prevent people from perceiving me" magic. My next thought: who would this be of the most use to? People who don't want to be found, obviously. Could be handy to thieves and spies. From there I hit on the idea of a secret society, Illuminati style. What if some small remnant of the Dreaming Empire diverged from the fae realm and stuck around as a hidden group, using magic to conceal their existence? One could give them any number of motivations, depending on the needs of the campaign - restoring the empire, hunting mages to prevent a second fae realm, hoarding power, whatever works for your campaign.

It also occurs to me that this magic could be weaponized. A curse that essentially makes you a formless ghost would be fairly brutal.

>>44077505
Sounds legit. Reminded of the Stravaganza book series. People entered not!Renaissance Italy and did stuff there in their dreams. Thing is, the not!Italy wasn't quite a dream but a true other world. Citizens of that world could become dreamers in our world. A little harder to do because the bridge between worlds was formed from ours to theirs, but still doable. You could tell a dreamer because they lacked a shadow in their 'dream'.
Oh, and body-death while dreaming transferred your shadow over, making you a citizen of the other world. Your dream self dying was just flat out lethal. Translated to a heart attack or something for your sleeping body. Couple of characters let their bodies die intentionally to take advantage of their diseaseless dream bodies or to take advantage of medical technology in the other world.

>>44055218
So who's more funky bullshit /tg/ illusionists or diviners, they're both on the "softer magic" spectrum and not being able to snap there fingers and blast someone.

>>44077672

The last part was something I was thinking of. That if you get strong enough, your Dreamself can persists after your waking body dies

Part of it was the idea of just having a sort of secret society type thing, mixed with the virtual reality type genre, and general supernatural stuff. I think though its something that would work better as a video game than an actual tabletop game.

>>44077545
I would think that it be less "removing illusions" and more "haphazardly stacking illusions". You want to be invisible? Stack an illusion of the area around you without you in it on top of where you are. Want to get rid of someone's illusory fireball? Do the same thing. Their illusion is still there, but it's undetectable, and thus pretty useless.

>>44076235
>Illusions are very versatile, but they're actually not the most versatile school out there. I think that's part of what makes this a good idea for a setting. It puts a serious curb on wizards' power.

This.

I think we have to distinguish between illusion magic as a particular source of power and illusion as the only thing magic is capable of in a setting. The latter fits better with what OP was saying, and more importantly helps define the world better.

Here's a question, if we're still interested in FaeVR: what happens to your body while you're in faerieland? Are you comatose? Does time compression mean that you don't go anywhere? Does all this happen in a "he's not anywhere" kind of empty void, or something like D&D's demiplane of shadow?

Remember, we're not positing that magic isn't real and that it's all an illusion. We're saying that magic IS real but that it's only capable of creating illusions.

Also there's this guy's idea: >>44056332 of having three schools of magic: Illusionists, Occultists, and Mentalists. Do we want to keep that?

BTW not only does this help casters balance perfectly with martial and rogue characters, but it puts natural limits on their ability to bypass the plot. Also you can then add more themed supernatural-but-not-quite-magic systems like chi powers and have them compete successfully with "real" magic.

As to that one asshole, just ignore him. (Reminder: the only self-admitted professor in the field thinks this is a great idea and to hell with literary criticism.) I say just bull on past him and keep going.

>>44077803
I think it should be like a holodeck. You're there, everything else isn't.

>>44077852

Now see I think the coolest would be where, if you're in Faerieland, then you're in some sense nowhere. Like, your location is undefined, exactly as if you'd left the plane.

If the magic ends early, then you reappear in your previous location.

The problem with the holodeck idea is that when you go to faerieland, then you're in an overlay on top of the real world. So how do you handle all those interactions? How do you keep it from being obvious that it's all artificial? I'd love something subtle enough that my players won't guess the truth, enough that the magic and especially the fae NPCs matter as allies or enemies.

>>44077803
>>44077852
I was imagining something like the holodeck scenario, except that everything is illusory, including you, created by some deity or other. Casters can add illusions or dispel their own, but not directly remove the environmental illusions (read:everything else). Faerie(if we're keeping them) would be able to manipulate reality, because they're tuned into the same thing as the maybe deity. So Faerieland would be more like a geographic location than an a separate dream state.

The Illusionists, Occultists, and Mentalists could function so long as we specify that the source and function of the power is the same, it's just applying it in different ways. The idea being that Illusionists make things perceivable by everybody, Occultists make things perceivable by nobody, and Mentalists make things perceivable by one person in particular.

Also, a natural requirement for this kind of magic is general area or line of sight. If you can't see what you're manipulating, you might be doing it wrong, or you might not be able to do it at all.

>>44077968
Well, illusions don't end with sight and sound. If you can trick the rods and cones in your eyes, and your eardrums, you can trick the nerves in your skin, adding a sense of touch, the sensation of resistance. And of course, the holograms react accordingly.

I personally think the way the illusions should work is they directly affect the person's senses. That tree isn't a hologram, it's not even there.

The person being tricked's brain is directly receiving the signal showing there's a tree there.

If they touch the tree, their brain receives the signal telling them that it's rough, hard, and giving a lot of resistance.

>>44055299
I'd say allow a former of "time stop" but just really slowing their perception down so it seems time has stopped

>>44078014
There's a difference between feeling a touch on your skin and having your muscles and bones actually meet resistance. Your body movements assume the resistance of solid matter; in the absence of solid matter they don't stop themselves as though there were solid matter there. So you couldn't lean on an illusionary wall. Even if you just put your hand on it, you'd notice that your hand went right through it even if you felt the sensation of touch in your hand.

>>44055218
ITT: martials applaud nerfing casters, more news at 11

>>44078227
You could have some kind of hyper-advanced haptic feedback for that. Sound waves and vibrations which cause pressure.

>>44078150
That's the idea for mentalists. The only difference between the schools being who the illusion is affecting. An Illusionist would seem to create holograms, because the illusion is set to affect everyone, whereas a Mentalist targets one person specifically.

>>44078227
>>44078267
The sensation of resistance is often good enough though. Most people will lightly touch a wall, if at all. Almost no one tries to run through them. The second you allow actual pressure to apply and not just for a person to think that there is pressure, you just transformed every caster into a conjurer.

>>44078199

Yeah but then you don't get the chance for players or really alive NPCs to interact if they enter faerieland at different times. And screws up game pacing if someone enters and someone else doesn't.

Not that I mind a little time/space fuckery. That's traditional for faerie stories, gives the GM a ton of leeway for story purposes, and probably makes the world hold together better.

>>44078238

It's a nerf, but limiting magic to illusion, divination, and mind-affecting still gives you considerable power. Hell, I'd still allow destiny-based powers that are low-key but still potent.

>>44078267

I think the closer we get to real world physics and neurology, the further away from good fantasy we get. Remember, this isn't "fantasy world powered by science" like McAfferty or Saberhagen wrote. It's STILL magical-- it's just putting some hard limits on magic and magical beings.

>>44078291
Yeah, fair point on the pressure thing.

Alternate shitty suggestion: Every wall collapses if you try to lean on it.

>>44078003
>>44077968

Then the fact that it's all illusionary is purely academic. That makes it a lot less interesting.

On the holodeck, force fields and replicated matter are used for anything the users have to touch. So a lot of it is really there and not purely a trick of the light, making it not a good comparison.

Suppose that this illusionary kingdom were a massive shared dream, but everyone there still existed in a sort of shabby guest house or mental hospital. As much contrast between the dream and the reality as possible. Servants who are fully in the real world and not experiencing the dream have to take care of all the real-world bodies while their occupants are dreaming.

>>44078309
It's more likely you'd just pass through the wall. If the caster is paying attention they might make it look like the wall's crumbling with you, but the effect is really the same.

>>44078325
I'm specifically talking about Faerie/the fade/dreaming empire, rather than a caster's spell.

>>44078324
The problem with that idea is that the dreaming empire won't work in that case, since they're all supposed to be dead/in the illusion. I'd suggest golems to take care of them, but that's not possible with this magic system, and robots are too high-tech.

>>44078324
True, if it is all illusory, and the faerie manipulate that, it'd be the same if it was real and they manipulate reality itself.

>>44078324
>>44078364
VR as a world you can go to only really works with sci-fi because future tech can sustain your body. If we're limiting magic to only illusions, that wouldn't make sense. I don't think dream state will work, unless it's literally a dream: you're only there for a couple hours at a time, and you can't control when you're pulled out.

>>44078324
>Then the fact that it's all illusionary is purely academic.

No. In the fae realm, everything is "real" because it's ALL an illusion. You can eat the food, sit in the chairs, etc. There, the fact that it's an illusion is academic, at least up to the point that you can't suffer real lasting harm that would carry over to the real world... unless you die of fright or pain.

In the real world, it's all illusion. No lasting effects. Players may not understand that it's an illusion, but they will understand that magic is incapable of creating genuinely lasting effects.

(Side point: how are we going to come down on shadow conjuration, where you create something quasi-real that has a physical reality until actively disbelieved? Could you sit in a conjured chair? Be blocked by a conjured wall? Climb a conjured ladder? My vote is yes, but I'd like to hear other opinions. Either way, the effect should be non-lasting and easily dispelled.)

>Suppose that this illusionary kingdom were a massive shared dream, but everyone there still existed in a sort of shabby guest house or mental hospital. As much contrast between the dream and the reality as possible. Servants who are fully in the real world and not experiencing the dream have to take care of all the real-world bodies while their occupants are dreaming.

That's a good idea, but a bit of a departure from where we were going.

>>44078405

But it does fit with the faerie tales: if you eat the food of the fae or stay there too long, you'll never be able to leave. Because your physical body eventually dies.

Might not work in an RPG setting, but the idea isn't half bad.

>>44078408
Things appear to form because you can touch them, but any weight or force doesn't apply. Walls can be run through, chairs don't support weight, illusory fires don't burn down houses. Otherwise you're a conjurer, not an illusionist.

>>44078405
We have the ability to feed comatose people and change their diapers without magic. If people in the real world were taking care of you, you could stay in there for quite a while.

>>44079714
Depends on how long you're staying. My main concern was muscle atrophy, but that's more a of a long-term problem.

>>44079714
We're talking medieval fantasy here.

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>>44078199
big brother?

I'd say make divination a wholly separate thing. Like, some people (who may or may not otherwise be wizards/illusionists) simply have the "ability" of prophetic visions, which naturally happen at random but, with practice and the use if ritual methods, may eventually be induced at will.

>>44078518
No, that's not how illusion works. Illusion can provide tactile feedback until it is disbelieved or "broken".

>>44080200
Hypothetical scenario:

Person A makes an illusory chair. The chair interacts with Person B's senses, but is otherwise not real.

Person B jumps onto the chair.

...okay, so what is holding him up? He may sense the chair, and even feel the wood of it, but there's nothing actually *there*, that's why it's an illusory chair and not a conjured chair. Illusions make you sense things that aren't really happening. Conjurations bring new objects into being.

Person B will crash to the ground, because they cannot stand on the belief of a chair.

I think you're talking about a specific system or game with a different definition than we're using. If you look earlier in the thread you'll repeatedly see anons establish that we're talking about illusions of the "you think something's there but it's not really" variety

>>44080298
You're being too simplistic about this. Of course "illusion" means it's not really there in a physical sense.

Belief is a powerful thing. People under hypnosis who think they are chained, will strain against invisible bonds, and when people try to help them they may even strain against their helpers while thinking they are trying to escape with all their might.

There are two ways that you can handle your hypothetical scenario:

1. Jumping on the illusory chair constitutes too strong a challenge to its existence and the illusion is either "disbelieved" (still in play and visible but able to be seen through by everyone who saw the dissonant act) or outright dispelled.

2. Person B falls through the chair, and this causes some confusion, but he and any observers under the illusion's sway attempt make mental excuses for why this might have happened in order to avoid the dissonance, ie. "he must have missed and fallen to the side", "he landed funny and knocked the chair over, that's why he stumbled", or maybe "he broke the chair when he jumped on it and it fell to pieces". This is where someone's "resistance" to illusion or "strength of sight" might come into play, helping them realize an illusion before the average person. Of course, this can still lead to disbelieving or dispelling depending on the lore, but usually requires successive and intensifying triggers for the disbelief.

Basically, there more ways to handle illusion magic than you seem to think. Illusions as merely "non-solid holograms that make no noise" are a relatively modern invention. (This last is just the most narrow definition of illusion magic; please note that I am not accusing you of this).

the main antagonist (not to call her BBEG because that's someone else entirely) of the story I'm writing right now is using voice imitation and ventriloquism as her main tools of fucking with people, does that count? like, "vocal" could be a different category of magic than "alchemy" or "hypnosis" in this setting, if you were to have different classes of wizards

>>44080663
nevermind, I shouldn't post before reading the thread

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It sounds a bit like Don't Rest Your Head.

>>44061062
Unicorns can be the descendent horses of the Dream Kingdom, that just have the "skin" stuck in them to look glamorous, people always search for the unicorns to find a quest, or learn from his wise words, or follow in his mystic paths, but at the end of the day is just people following a completely normal horse allucinating stuff.

>>44077505
Sounds cool

>>44055218
I had the idea of a setting like this, but more Unknown Armies in the mix.

People can affect the connected conciense of the world, they can jump in the dreams of people, they can plant ideas in people, but they are susceptible to the demons in human conciense, a serial killer could create some serious shit for the Gifted.

Things like Ascending from Unknown Armies would work like, in just a second, you become one of the most famous people in the world, and everyone remembers your great acomplishment.


The main idea is, if trickery, illusions, lies, data gathering a placebo effects are the way that magic in our real world works, what if those things are a source of power? instead of lies looking like incredible magic, magic could create incredible lies.