How NOT to Conworld.

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eldin raigmore
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by eldin raigmore »

Of all of those only #6 "Preaching"
Veris wrote:6. Preaching. I'm not going to bother reading about a conworld if its description is peppered with its creators worldviews, regardless of whether I agree. You can tell me about your conpeoples' gods without sacchrine gush about how humans "need something to believe in" or that "they're stupid for believing in these gods, which are actually false." Needless to say, I almost never read about "utopian" conworlds, because they're invariably based on the half-baked ideals of their (typically very) young creators.
actually irritates me enough to make me stop reading.

You should note that I'm an atheist, my conworld Adpihi is full of believers (whom I respect), and it's not heavy on conflict (at least, not religious conflict; and even the eventual interspecies conflict is more politics than war).

I'm not young now but I was when I started it.

So maybe someone might think my own conworlding is an example of #6. I don't, but it's something for me to try to avoid.


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I really think this thread has a lot of impoliteness on it.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Chagen »

Well, good thing New Earth and Techaria (and the other Primordial Worlds, if they count) of Full Auto don't do this.

On the other hand, The PEV (Primordial Earth Verse, the name for New Earth and the four Primordial worlds collectively) has other things that may turn you off. Like, being as extremely over-the-top as possible.

Let me just say that 4-barrelled shotguns are not considered that strange in the PEV.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Micamo »

Chagen wrote:Let me just say that 4-barrelled shotguns are not considered that strange in the PEV.
Anyone can make something bigger and more complicated. What takes intelligence, and a lot of courage, is to head in the opposite direction.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

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Micamo wrote:
Chagen wrote:Let me just say that 4-barrelled shotguns are not considered that strange in the PEV.
Anyone can make something bigger and more complicated. What takes intelligence, and a lot of courage, is to head in the opposite direction.
So does this mean Full Auto shouldn't have tanks the size of cities (granted, they aren'y used anymore and they existed solely as a dick-waving contest) or the cannons the size of skyscrapers that fire 30-foot long shells at speeds high enough to tear a rip in the slace-time continuum?
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Trailsend »

No, it means that anyone can make something bigger and more complicated, but what takes intelligence, and a lot of courage, is to head in the opposite direction. (Note the lack of "should" or "shouldn't" there.)
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Chagen »

Trailsend wrote:No, it means that anyone can make something bigger and more complicated, but what takes intelligence, and a lot of courage, is to head in the opposite direction. (Note the lack of "should" or "shouldn't" there.)
But then people should head in the opposite direction, then.

But Full Auto was meant to be a universe that played liberally with the rules, and was built on adventurous fun anyway.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Thakowsaizmu »

Chagen wrote:But then people should head in the opposite direction, then.

But Full Auto was meant to be a universe that played liberally with the rules, and was built on adventurous fun anyway.
No, only if they can.

And that sounds like every other sci-fan thing.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Trailsend »

Chagen wrote:
Trailsend wrote:No, it means that anyone can make something bigger and more complicated, but what takes intelligence, and a lot of courage, is to head in the opposite direction. (Note the lack of "should" or "shouldn't" there.)
But then people should head in the opposite direction, then.
It is not the case that if one option requires more intelligence and courage than another, then all people ought to pursue the former. For example, there are situations like this:
Chagen wrote:But Full Auto was meant to be a universe that played liberally with the rules, and was built on adventurous fun anyway.
where that is not the case. ;-)
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

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Thakowsaizmu wrote:
Chagen wrote:But then people should head in the opposite direction, then.

But Full Auto was meant to be a universe that played liberally with the rules, and was built on adventurous fun anyway.
No, only if they can.

And that sounds like every other sci-fan thing.

Well, Full Auto does have its distinctions.

One of its main unique points is that it's Fantasy, Cyber Punk, AND Diesel/Steam/Gear Punk at the same time. Most sci-fi/fantasy picks only one, but I crammed all three together for the hell of it.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

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Chagen wrote:So does this mean Full Auto shouldn't have tanks the size of cities (granted, they aren'y used anymore and they existed solely as a dick-waving contest) or the cannons the size of skyscrapers that fire 30-foot long shells at speeds high enough to tear a rip in the slace-time continuum?
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Do these things have a function other than showing off how "creative" you are?

I can do it too. MY conworld has tanks the size of an entire supercluster with googol guns just one of which can shatter the entire multiverse if it were ever fired! It doesn't take any creativity at all to take something and just make it "bigger and better."
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

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Micamo wrote:
Chagen wrote:So does this mean Full Auto shouldn't have tanks the size of cities (granted, they aren'y used anymore and they existed solely as a dick-waving contest) or the cannons the size of skyscrapers that fire 30-foot long shells at speeds high enough to tear a rip in the slace-time continuum?
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Do these things have a function other than showing off how "creative" you are?

I can do it too. MY conworld has tanks the size of an entire supercluster with googol guns just one of which can shatter the entire multiverse if it were ever fired! It doesn't take any creativity at all to take something and just make it "bigger and better."
Well, the entire point of Full Auto is to be utterly riduculous and over-the-top in a "Holy shit, that's awesome" way. I haven't even gotten to the Mecha Monks yet.

Yes, Mecha Monks. As in, guys who use Martial Arts. With Mecha.

That is my goal. To make things so damn ridiculous that you stop going "this is retarded" and start going "oh my god this is so stupidly over the top I can't help but find it awesome"
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Micamo »

Chagen wrote:Well, the entire point of Full Auto is to be utterly riduculous and over-the-top in a "Holy shit, that's awesome" way.
I guarantee you, no one is going to have this reaction to your work except for you. And maybe your mother.
That is my goal. To make things so damn ridiculous that you stop going "this is retarded" and start going "oh my god this is so stupidly over the top I can't help but find it awesome"
Helpful tip: If movement in a direction elicits reactions of "This is retarded", continued movement in that direction will not make the problem go away.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Ànradh »

Micamo wrote:Helpful tip: If movement in a direction elicits reactions of "This is retarded", continued movement in that direction will not make the problem go away.
lmao A revolutionary idea for some people, I feel.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Chagen »

Micamo wrote:
Chagen wrote:Well, the entire point of Full Auto is to be utterly riduculous and over-the-top in a "Holy shit, that's awesome" way.
I guarantee you, no one is going to have this reaction to your work except for you. And maybe your mother.
My own friends did.

Also, you might want to look up the show Tenga Toppa Gurren Lagann.


Helpful tip: If movement in a direction elicits reactions of "This is retarded", continued movement in that direction will not make the problem go away.
It takes a special kind of person to like immense over-the-topness.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Micamo »

Chagen wrote:My own friends did.

Also, you might want to look up the show Tenga Toppa Gurren Lagann.

It takes a special kind of person to like immense over-the-topness.
"Special" indeed.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Chagen »

Micamo wrote:
Chagen wrote:My own friends did.

Also, you might want to look up the show Tenga Toppa Gurren Lagann.

It takes a special kind of person to like immense over-the-topness.
"Special" indeed.
I meant "Special" as in "somewhat odd". You know, some things just appeal to some more than others.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

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Chagen wrote: So does this mean Full Auto shouldn't have tanks the size of cities (granted, they aren'y used anymore and they existed solely as a dick-waving contest) or the cannons the size of skyscrapers that fire 30-foot long shells at speeds high enough to tear a rip in the slace-time continuum?
Doesn't mean so, it means you shouldn't put it there unless there's a good enough explanation for it.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Veris »

Trailsend wrote:
Veris wrote:Huh. I feel the exact opposite. You can conworld ad hoc, but to conlang you sorta have to understand linguistics. I mean, you don't really HAVE to, but if you don't, you'll just end up making a cipher of your 1lang.
I think this goes both ways. To conworld you sorta have to understand anthropology, ethnography, sociology, economics, biology, climatology, etc. (barring any rewritten rules of physics, but even then). You don't really HAVE to, but if you don't, you'll just end up making a cipher of your native culture or someone else's conworld (like, say, Tolkien's elves).
Fair, but I say one is more common than the other. It's comparatively easy to imagine a new culture, even if you're unfamiliar with any but your own. It's comparatively hard to imagine a new language, if all you know is the one you were raised speaking.
Lodhas wrote:I only have humans in my conworld because the original intent behind it was as background lore for a video-game or tabletop RPG or something similar and I knew at least some people would bitch if they had to be the funny looking creature with absolutely no sex-appeal.
That's quite an opinion of your fellow gamers.
Zumir wrote:Anyway, back on topic. One of the things that annoys me most in fantasy is the tendency to have species be equivalent to civilizations, made even worse if those "races" are clearly identifiable as actual cultures.
Oh! Yeah! How could I forget that?

Hmm, but would I consider it eye-rolling or deal-breaking? I suppose it depends. If it's your first conworld, I'd say it's eye-rolling. We all tend to do that at the beginning, I think. If you're a long-time conworlder, however, and you pull something like that, it'd be more deal-breaking for me.
joey wrote:
Veris wrote:Deal-Breakingly Bad
4. A map with tons of unpronouncable, discordant names. Nothing personal, but like this. My ten-year-old nephew, who just started conworlding, makes stuff like that, and I only appreciate it 'cause he's my nephew, and is young. Someone in their twenties or thirties (or god-forbid, fourties) should be able to do better. Either way, my interest nosedives when I see something like that.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's wrong with those names? Anyone can pronounce them. Sure there are some cs and xs and umlauts, but those are far from essential in determining an estimated pronunciation for a casual observer. Plus, they're all from fully-developed, fully-explained conlangs with fully-developed, fully-explained orthographies created by the mapmaker, Mark Rosenfelder, here.
Nothing's "wrong" with them, but stuff like that turns me off. It looks weird-sounding for the sake of weird-sounding. It looks like someone just sat down and came up with a bunch of funny-sounding words and slapped them on a map. And it looks all discordant. Look at any map of a chunk of Earth with places named and it's much more harmonious.
joey wrote:If that turns you off, what turns you on?
Are you coming on to me?
MrKrov wrote:
Plus, they're all from fully-developed, fully-explained conlangs with fully-developed, fully-explained orthographies
This is the bit I had an objection. You don't need to be a little patronizing bitch about pronunciation.
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Thakowsaizmu wrote:
Micamo wrote:Jaela was designed because every D&D player is a closet pedophile.
What the hell is a jaela? And it's better than being one of those people who likes dragons. People who like them all have Oedipus complexes...
Wait, what? I don't think that means what you think it means.
Qaar wrote:
Thakowsaizmu wrote:
Micamo wrote:Jaela was designed because every D&D player is a closet pedophile.
What the hell is a jaela?


I second that
You lazy clods! I provided two links when I very first mentioned Jaela.
eldin raigmore wrote:Of all of those only #6 "Preaching"
Veris wrote:6. Preaching. I'm not going to bother reading about a conworld if its description is peppered with its creators worldviews, regardless of whether I agree. You can tell me about your conpeoples' gods without sacchrine gush about how humans "need something to believe in" or that "they're stupid for believing in these gods, which are actually false." Needless to say, I almost never read about "utopian" conworlds, because they're invariably based on the half-baked ideals of their (typically very) young creators.
actually irritates me enough to make me stop reading.

You should note that I'm an atheist, my conworld Adpihi is full of believers (whom I respect), and it's not heavy on conflict (at least, not religious conflict; and even the eventual interspecies conflict is more politics than war).

I'm not young now but I was when I started it.

So maybe someone might think my own conworlding is an example of #6. I don't, but it's something for me to try to avoid.
Well, if you were anything near as well-written back then as you are now, I probably wouldn't've thought you were being preachy. It's not the mere fact of having something like a race of devoutly religious conpeoples, or a conworld with no gods, that makes it preachy. It's when the way the author describes the world makes it clear that it reflects his or her personal world view, and the conworld itself is little more than ego masturbation.

While it's difficult to tell whether a conworld is coincidentally this-or-that or a result of preachiness, I think a good general flag is lack of diversity. Like, if you have someone make a conworld and all its inhabitants are devout believers of the same, monotheistic god who bears a suspicious resemblance to a certain bearded old man in Earth mythology, it's a good indication that the author is a devout Christian or whatever, and if you don't share his beliefs, you probably won't be that interested.

Although even that isn't necessarily grating. It's only when the attitude is "I made this conworld this way because it reflects the Truth I know in my Heart from God" or the author comes out and says "this world is what I think would be the best sort of world" that it's grating.

...

Narnia sucks.
eldin raigmore wrote:I really think this thread has a lot of impoliteness on it.
Please, folks, let's try to stay civil.
If something someone says pisses you off, wait ten seconds or ten minutes or ten hours to respond; if you're still pissed off, don't respond on-thread, use a PM or something instead, or don't respond at all.
I wonder if asking someone to be civil on the internet has actually ever worked...
Chagen wrote:Well, good thing New Earth and Techaria (and the other Primordial Worlds, if they count) of Full Auto don't do this.
Whathe--? No! No, that's not a "good thing" at all! You don't have to please me, or any other jerk who randomly says "x, y and z thing are stupid."

Ugh! It always sucks that when I post something - not just here but anywhere on the internet - and say "man, X thing is like, way bogus," tons of people flock in to reassure us that "oh, I don't do X thing." As if they have to please me or something. Or announce to the board that they don't do something someone else considers lame.
Chagen wrote:On the other hand, The PEV (Primordial Earth Verse, the name for New Earth and the four Primordial worlds collectively) has other things that may turn you off. Like, being as extremely over-the-top as possible.

Let me just say that 4-barrelled shotguns are not considered that strange in the PEV.
Wait, did I say over-the-top stuff turns me off? I can't remember.

Either way, you're new here, right? Don't let Micamo get to you. Or anyone else. They're mostly insecure neckbeards who do nothing but dump on other peoples ideas. Just do what you want with your conworlds and don't worry about pleasing anyone else.
Chagen wrote:That is my goal. To make things so damn ridiculous that you stop going "this is retarded" and start going "oh my god this is so stupidly over the top I can't help but find it awesome"
You're a fan of Gurren Laggan, aren't you? :p
Chagen wrote:
Micamo wrote:
Chagen wrote:Well, the entire point of Full Auto is to be utterly riduculous and over-the-top in a "Holy shit, that's awesome" way.
I guarantee you, no one is going to have this reaction to your work except for you. And maybe your mother.
My own friends did.

Also, you might want to look up the show Tenga Toppa Gurren Lagann.
XD
I wrote what I wrote above before reading the rest of the topic, heh.
Micamo wrote:
Chagen wrote:Let me just say that 4-barrelled shotguns are not considered that strange in the PEV.
Anyone can make something bigger and more complicated. What takes intelligence, and a lot of courage, is to head in the opposite direction.
*busts out laughing*
Sorry, I just imagined that after you said that, you dropped a mic you were speaking into and walked off stage to let everyone reel at the weight of your profundity XD

You should write for Lucas.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Ànradh »

Veris wrote:
Lodhas wrote:I only have humans in my conworld because the original intent behind it was as background lore for a video-game or tabletop RPG or something similar and I knew at least some people would bitch if they had to be the funny looking creature with absolutely no sex-appeal.
That's quite an opinion of your fellow gamers.
I know, but unfortunately more accurate than you'd think.
In any case, whatever the reason, someone will object to playing 'ugly' or 'strange-looking' characters and including humans is a sound strategy.
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Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Post by Micamo »

Veris wrote:That's quite an opinion of your fellow gamers.
Some of us prefer to keep roleplaying as a bedroom activity, thank you.
Either way, you're new here, right? Don't let Micamo get to you. Or anyone else. They're mostly insecure neckbeards who do nothing but dump on other peoples ideas. Just do what you want with your conworlds and don't worry about pleasing anyone else.
My problem with the sentiment of "I don't have to listen to you because the only person who matters is me" is it's the universal cop-out. It's what you say when you refuse to change your mind but you've run out of arguments to those who disagree with you. Falling back on it is one of the surest signs of rationalization.
*busts out laughing*
Sorry, I just imagined that after you said that, you dropped a mic you were speaking into and walked off stage to let everyone reel at the weight of your profundity XD

You should write for Lucas.
A more accurate picture would be me throwing the mic into the audience and then running off the stage sobbing to go hang myself.
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