Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker: Magic and Technology

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 2:59 pm

...You Lost Me wrote:
name_here wrote:Can we get the B and the E in the title of this thread to switch places?

It's really starting to bug me.
Dammit! I hadn't even noticed that till now...

This is actually not the only thread with the letters mixed up like that.

Manxome · Post by **Manxome** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 2:32 am

FrankTrollman wrote:The fact that Teleportation is a short distance displacement effect that does not target the end location is important because of the way sympathetic magic works. It doesn't have two targets (the origin and the end point), because then people could use linking to cover large distances.

No; you are being dumb. It's entirely possible to have a Teleportation spell that requires you to have a link to both the object and destination but that also fails if they are too far apart. Conversely, it's also entirely possible to have a "shift object X meters" spell where "X" is allowed to be a few trillion.

The only thing in your description that prevents someone from teleporting between Earth and Mars is the word "short", which you could hypothetically have or not have completely independently of any of the other distinctions you have made.

Now, making it so that you only need a link to the object being teleported and not to the destination isn't a bad idea; it's probably simpler and more consistent with other spells compared to the alternative, at least if we assume that a small distance limit is going to be in place. But that has absolutely nothing to do with allowing or preventing interplanetary teleportation.

jadagul · Post by **jadagul** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 2:48 am

I understand the point Frank is trying to make (now; I didn't the first time). Which is that if teleport is written as "target creature/object is transported to target location" you have to write in a special exception that the two targets have to be close by--and this contradicts the rest of the magic system. It'd be a weird patch. Whereas if you write teleport as "object within 50 meters of target moves to location within 50 meters of target" then there's no weird patch stuck on top of it.

Endovior · Post by **Endovior** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 2:58 am

I don't know about that last... if it's weird for Teleportation to have a requirement that it's two targets have to be within X distance of each other, it's also weird that it, y'know, has two targets... which means that casting a sympathetic Teleportation from a distance can very well mean having four actual objects involved.

Unless, I suppose, you consider Telekinesis to have two targets, being the item you're moving and the place you're moving it to, in which case that'd also adhere to the same system, and probably have a similar distance limitation at that.

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 3:06 am

I've just realized that we're all still thinking in terms of "go to", when teleportation is explicitly "come from".

It works like this: you have a similarity link to a magical symbol, and that's the origin of the spell. The spell is "Target within 50 meters of origin is teleported to the spell's origin." If you have a similarity link to a magic circle inside the marsbase, you can ping that similarity link to pull an astronaut in from Mars's surface. You can do this no matter where you are, even if you're back on Earth or in Alpha Centauri, because you have a similarity link there. However, you can't pull anything over to Mars, even if you're standing right next to it, because you don't have a focus which is simultaneously A) on Mars and B) within 50 meters of the target.

Endovior · Post by **Endovior** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 3:35 am

Your explanation doesn't make sense. I think you screwed up on wording somewhere, because you've not actually made a coherent point.

Manxome · Post by **Manxome** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 4:03 am

jadagul wrote:I understand the point Frank is trying to make (now; I didn't the first time). Which is that if teleport is written as "target creature/object is transported to target location" you have to write in a special exception that the two targets have to be close by--and this contradicts the rest of the magic system. It'd be a weird patch. Whereas if you write teleport as "object within 50 meters of target moves to location within 50 meters of target" then there's no weird patch stuck on top of it.

It's exactly the same patch in both cases, which is that you have to add the phrase "within 50 meters" to the spell text. You can include or omit that phrase totally independent of pretty much any other decision you could possibly make about how teleportation works.

You can say "choose an object, then choose a point [within 50 meters of that object]; that object teleports to that location."
Or you can say "choose an object, then choose a direction and a distance [up to 50 meters]; that object teleports that distance in that direction."

Perhaps you have some bizarre psychosis that makes one of those sound like an ugly hack and the other not, but if so, that's just you.

Vebyast wrote:I've just realized that we're all still thinking in terms of "go to", when teleportation is explicitly "come from".

The reason we're doing that is that Frank's spell actually IS "go to", and he only used the phrase "come from" because he thinks it means something radically different from what normal people think it means. Read Frank's post again:

FrankTrollman wrote:We normally think of Teleportation as "going to" somewhere. So wherever the "target" is would be where you end up. Teleportation in this "comes from" somewhere instead. The target is the person being teleported and the effect is a few meters of spatial shifting.

Frank actually says that it is "comes from" because it takes a "nearby" person (one you have a link to) and makes it go to a distant point (not very distant, due to the completely separate range limit, but not necessarily a place you have a link to).

I'm not completely sure whether Frank is just hopelessly confused or is actually deliberately using words to mean the exact opposite of their ordinary meanings, but he was very explicit that the "target" (the thing you need to have a magical link to) is the object being teleported, not the place where you want it to arrive.

Endovior · Post by **Endovior** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 4:20 am

Yeah, it is a hopelessly obfuscated statement. 'Comes from' doesn't actually make any more sense then 'goes to' in this case, since you're not summoning people to you, the mage, you're moving them around a little wherever they happen to be.

jadagul · Post by **jadagul** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 5:03 am

Vebyast raises a good point (and if he's right, I was wrong before and I didn't actually understand what Frank was saying).

Manxome, it's not exactly the same. Because the magic system is very clear about what a legal target is. There's a few conditions that'll let you target something: if you touch it; if you touch it with your aura, which is limited by distance (say 50 meters); if you have a sympathetic link to it. And this last one is what screws stuff up.

To illustrate, I'm going to write three different spells that on the surface seem to do exactly the same thing.

1) Target object moves to target location.

2) Target object moves up to 50 meters.

3) Object within 50 meters of target moves to target.

Now, the base use case of these is the same for all three--you can move something fifty meters. But once sympathetic links come into play, they're wildly different. (1) takes two targets, and you can target anything you have a link to. So if you have a link to a spot on Earth, and a link to a spot on Mars, you can move stuff from Earth to Mars. You could write a limit into the spell that stops this, but this is really unnatural given the targeting setup we have for magic.

(2) and (3) are less different, but still have different implications. With (2), you can set up a sympathetic link to a spot right outside of your life dome on mars. People go stand in that spot, and a mage on earth can move them 50 meters into the dome. But the target is outside of the dome, so people outside can screw with it.

(3) you set up a sympathetic link to a spot inside the dome. People stand outside the dome, and you can move them inside the dome. This would be much harder for anything outside the dome to screw with.

And you could totally describe (2) as "comes from" and (3) as "go to", since in (2) you're targeting the source and in (3) you're targeting the destination. (1) is both at once--you target the source and the destination--and that screws with stuff given the prevailing magic paradigm.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 6:24 am

jadagul wrote:Vebyast raises a good point (and if he's right, I was wrong before and I didn't actually understand what Frank was saying).

Manxome, it's not exactly the same. Because the magic system is very clear about what a legal target is. There's a few conditions that'll let you target something: if you touch it; if you touch it with your aura, which is limited by distance (say 50 meters); if you have a sympathetic link to it. And this last one is what screws stuff up.

To illustrate, I'm going to write three different spells that on the surface seem to do exactly the same thing.

1) Target object moves to target location.

2) Target object moves up to 50 meters.

3) Object within 50 meters of target moves to target.

Now, the base use case of these is the same for all three--you can move something fifty meters. But once sympathetic links come into play, they're wildly different. (1) takes two targets, and you can target anything you have a link to. So if you have a link to a spot on Earth, and a link to a spot on Mars, you can move stuff from Earth to Mars. You could write a limit into the spell that stops this, but this is really unnatural given the targeting setup we have for magic.

(2) and (3) are less different, but still have different implications. With (2), you can set up a sympathetic link to a spot right outside of your life dome on mars. People go stand in that spot, and a mage on earth can move them 50 meters into the dome. But the target is outside of the dome, so people outside can screw with it.

(3) you set up a sympathetic link to a spot inside the dome. People stand outside the dome, and you can move them inside the dome. This would be much harder for anything outside the dome to screw with.

And you could totally describe (2) as "comes from" and (3) as "go to", since in (2) you're targeting the source and in (3) you're targeting the destination. (1) is both at once--you target the source and the destination--and that screws with stuff given the prevailing magic paradigm.

Exactly. Once you have the virtual proximity of sympathetic linking, it makes a really big difference what is being targeted and what is not.

Because the target is the point it "comes from" and the effect is a spatial shift, you can dimension door past a wall without having a link to whatever is on the other side, but you can't teleport across the world.

-Username17

Endovior · Post by **Endovior** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 7:01 am

That's a much better explanation then any we've had so far; it actually makes sense, now.

Manxome · Post by **Manxome** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 7:26 am

Whether you need a link to the object, the destination, neither, or both does change something.

But none of those permutations are either necessary or sufficient to block interplanetary teleportation. And the measure that you have implicitly proposed to stop interplanetary teleportation is compatible with all of them.

You're talking about two totally unrelated things. Both of them are real things that actually have some impact on the game, but they are totally unrelated and you are conflating them for no reason that I can discern.

I don't know how I can make it any clearer.

Also, on terminology:

FrankTrollman wrote:Because the target is the point it "comes from"

First of all, you said earlier that the target was the person being teleported, not a point where the teleport originates. Secondly, you originally stated "come from", in the imperative voice--implying it was a command, not a description. Which doesn't work at all.

But more importantly, you explicitly said that your spell creates "come from statements" as opposed to "go to statements". In a cyberpunk game, no less. If that wasn't an intentional reference to computer programming, your geek status is hereby revoked.

What a go to statement does is send execution from "here" (where the instruction is being executed) to a location that you specify. A "come from" instruction has also been defined--as a joke, of course, but a reasonably well-known one--which does the opposite: it causes execution to jump to the "come from" instruction whenever it reaches a location specified by that instruction.

If you're going to make an analogy from those instructions to teleportation spells, "come from" is obviously a summoning spell that can transport a distant object but only to your vacinity, and "go to" is obviously a teleport that can only transport an object within your reach but can send it far away. Which means your proposed spell (which requires "proximity" to the object but not the destination) is "go to", not "come from".

Even if your description makes sense on some level (which I'm pretty sure it doesn't without redefining your spell and reconjugating your verbs, and it's very tenuous even then), it flies in the face of every reasonable expectation and is an incredibly bad way to try to communicate your point.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 7:35 am

Manxome wrote:I don't know how I can make it any clearer.

You not being wrong would help.

What a go to statement does is send execution from "here" (where the instruction is being executed) to a location that you specify.

Jesus fuck. No. A "go to" statement targets the determined place that you end up. A "come from" statement is only used in some very shitty programming languages, but what it does is target place you started from.

It's a question of targeting, and in this case what you need to have in order to begin and end your teleport bamf in different places. You are making something that is already fairly complex and technical even more complex and stupid by introducing crazy talk.

-Username17

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 8:05 am

I know nothing about computers, but I do know natural English. If you told me teleportation was a "come from" effect I would naturally expect it to move things from a targeted point to the caster, not to a an arbitrary non-targeted point. If you told me it had a range limit, I would assume that referred to the distance between caster and target.

The best way to explain what you mean is something more like "Heartbreaker does not have any teleportation spells capable of sending things to a targeted point. Instead it has displacement spells, which move a targeted creature or object a small distance in any direction."

Endovior · Post by **Endovior** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 8:09 am

Uh... fuck, that was worse again. I already knew how it worked, and just reading that made me have to read like the whole thread three times to be sure I actually understood it properly.

We are using Jagadul's type 2 teleport, yes? A spell that targets spot X, and can teleport anything contiguous with spot X to anywhere within a 50 meter radius of X, correct? I can get what you think you mean when you say 'come from'... but that's actually a really stupid and counterintuitive way of putting it. As a suggestion, try explaining it without saying either 'go to' or 'come from'. You're not allowed to use those words anymore, because you can't actually convey the concept you're trying to convey by using them.

jadagul · Post by **jadagul** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 8:11 am

Manxome wrote:Whether you need a link to the object, the destination, neither, or both does change something.

But none of those permutations are either necessary or sufficient to block interplanetary teleportation. And the measure that you have implicitly proposed to stop interplanetary teleportation is compatible with all of them.

You're talking about two totally unrelated things. Both of them are real things that actually have some impact on the game, but they are totally unrelated and you are conflating them for no reason that I can discern.

I don't know how I can make it any clearer.

If our spells were written D&D style (or M:tG style), you'd be right. Because D&D spells specify in the spell what you can target. So it's not at all weird to have a spell whose target line reads something like "one creature/object and one location within 100 meters." That's perfectly sensible.

But if I understand what Frank is trying to do, spells in CFH do not have a target line. Because "what is an acceptable target" is hardcoded into the magic system, and so it'll be really weird to have a spell that limits what you can target. (A lot of them will implicitly limit what you can target sensibly, but there's no reason why you can't target a boulder with a mind-reading spell or whatever. You'll just be really bored). So you really, really can't have both the person and the destination be "targets" without weirdness happening.

Now, I'd completely missed the other bit that Frank pointed out, which is that if the destination is a target then you can't teleport yourself through a wall unless either the wall has a hole in it or you've been there before. So we really don't want the "destination" part of the teleport spell interacting with the targeting mechanics at all.

I'm not sure whether this is a huge side-issue or a really good testing ground for figuring out how the targeting mechanics actually work and what implications they have. I suspect the latter, though.

Playing around with the ideas...let's think about long-range communication, which I think we do want. Then a few different types of spells we could have:

1) two targets, can see and talk to each other. So one stands in a targeting circle on Mars and the other stands next to the mage (or in another targeting circle the same mage is attuned to) on Earth. The mage casts the spell, those two people are in contact.

2) send a message to target. Guy on Earth wants to talk to guy on Mars, uses mage to send a message that ends up in the targeting circle on Mars. we could have a temporary version (here's the message, it runs and then is done) and an ongoing one (I'm projecting whatever I see to the target of the spell). This would actually be a twist on an illusion power: if I can make a sound/image of a guy appear in front of me, I can use the sympathetic link to make that same sound/image appear in a targeting circle, and then it's just a matter of continuously relaying what the message-sender actually wants to send. So I guess "send a fixed message" is actually exactly the same spell as "create a visual/auditory illusion." If we're letting people do that.

3) receive a message from target. Otherwise known as "Scrying," except in this case on someone who knows he's being scried on and is okay with that. So we get an image of whatever's at the targeting circle and show it to people where we are. If you have a mage doing that on either end you get videoconferencing.

Edit: I do, however, agree with basically everyone that "come from" is confusing. I understand what Frank's trying to say now (I think? Unless I've totally misrepresented you, Frank?) and I agree that the description is accurate, but it is hopelessly confusing (and objectively so, in the sense that a whole string of people were confused).

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 8:27 am

So, can you...

[*]Teleport yourself to a place within LOS?
[*]Teleport yourself to a place not within LOS?
[*]Teleport someone within LOS to a place within LOS?
[*]Teleport someone within LOS to a place not within LOS?
[*]Teleport someone you're linked with to a place within your LOS?
[*]Teleport someone you're linked with to a place not within your LOS?
[*]Do any of the above with a sustained portal effect instead of an Instant duration effect?

And is there at any time going to be distance limits on how far apart the source-point and the destination-point can be from each other?

jadagul · Post by **jadagul** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 8:40 am

Lokathor: I think those questions don't actually interact with the magic system the way it's supposed to be set up. You can teleport anything you can target to anywhere within X meters of it, where X is some number fixed by the system I don't know. I think Frank is killing line of sight as the determining factor. But you can teleport yourself a short distance, whether you can see the destination or not. You can teleport someone who's close enough to you to target a short distance, whether you can see the destination or not. You can teleport someone you're linked with a short distance, whether you can see/are linked with the destination or not. No idea about the portal. And the whole point of this setup (well, one of them) is that there's a hard (and probably fairly low) cap on the distance a teleport can travel.

Manxome · Post by **Manxome** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 9:04 am

FrankTrollman wrote:You not being wrong would help.

I could possibly help un-confuse you if you gave me a hint what part you (insanely) disagree with; so far you haven't mustered anything even resembling an actual reason for disagreement, you just keep restating your position without justification.

Let me break it down:

Imagine a spell that teleports an object you choose (that you must have a link to) to a location you choose (that you must also have a link to), but only works if the object and location you pick are within 50 meters of each other.

1. Do you agree that this is a coherent description of an effect that could (possibly with some details filled in) be used in some hypothetical game?

2. If yes, do you agree that this spell could never be used to teleport someone directly between Earth and Mars, if they were in anything resembling their current orbits?

3. If yes, do you agree this example demonstrates that you can have a teleport spell where both the object and the destination are "targets", but where interplanetary teleport is impossible?

Now, imagine a spell that teleports an object you choose (that you must have a link to) any distance you choose (without limitation) in any direction you choose.

4. Do you agree that this is a coherent description of an effect that could (possibly with some details filled in) be used in some hypothetical game?

5. If yes, do you agree that this spell could hypothetically, under some circumstance, be used to teleport a person directly between Earth and Mars?

6. If yes, do you agree this example demonstrates that you can have a teleport spell where the object is the "target", but where interplanetary teleport is still possible?

If you answered "yes" to all of the above, then you have admitted I am completely correct about the teleport distance limit. If you didn't, I'd damn well like to hear a coherent reason for it.

FrankTrollman wrote:
What a go to statement does is send execution from "here" (where the instruction is being executed) to a location that you specify.
Jesus fuck. No. A "go to" statement targets the determined place that you end up. A "come from" statement is only used in some very shitty programming languages, but what it does is target place you started from.

It's a question of targeting,

You do realize that your game uses "targeting" in an incredibly specific technical sense that is not even remotely applicable to these computer instructions?

You just said nothing that actually contradicts my argument (other than the word "no"), and your own argument is entirely based on conflating a vague, generic definition of "target" with your incredibly specific technical definition in this game. Yes, there is *some* sense in which a "go to" statement "targets" its destination, but your proposed teleport spell also "targets" its destination in the same way. That's not a difference between your spell and a "go to".

The functional difference between "go to" and "come from" is: in "go to", the origin is implicit in the instruction's location and the destination can be anything; in "come from", the destination is implicit in the instruction's location and the origin can be anything.

And if you intend to base your argument on the fact that I somehow completely misunderstand the meaning of basic computer instructions, you should be aware that I hold a degree in computer science and am currently employed as a professional programmer.

Manxome · Post by **Manxome** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 9:12 am

jadagul wrote:If our spells were written D&D style (or M:tG style), you'd be right. Because D&D spells specify in the spell what you can target. So it's not at all weird to have a spell whose target line reads something like "one creature/object and one location within 100 meters." That's perfectly sensible.

But if I understand what Frank is trying to do, spells in CFH do not have a target line. Because "what is an acceptable target" is hardcoded into the magic system, and so it'll be really weird to have a spell that limits what you can target.

The spells in this system obviously must have some custom-per-spell choices that you make when you cast the spell, otherwise "...and choose a distance and direction" wouldn't be available as a solution in the first place.

As long as we've got that, this is just an issue of terminology. If you really don't want to have a spell that says "Second Target: a point, that must be within 50m of first target (in addition to the usual restrictions)", then you just rephrase it to say "...target reappears at a point you choose, which must be within 50m of the target's original position, and also must be a location you could legally target using the normal spell targeting rules."

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 9:17 am

jadagul wrote:Lokathor: I think those questions don't actually interact with the magic system the way it's supposed to be set up. You can teleport anything you can target to anywhere within X meters of it, where X is some number fixed by the system I don't know. I think Frank is killing line of sight as the determining factor. But you can teleport yourself a short distance, whether you can see the destination or not. You can teleport someone who's close enough to you to target a short distance, whether you can see the destination or not. You can teleport someone you're linked with a short distance, whether you can see/are linked with the destination or not. No idea about the portal. And the whole point of this setup (well, one of them) is that there's a hard (and probably fairly low) cap on the distance a teleport can travel.

I think this too, but the questions are valid because they are questions that players will ask of their GM. I think that the answers are the same as what you're saying, but I'm not positive and so it falls to Frank to explain.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 9:25 am

Manxome wrote: "...target reappears at a point you choose, which must be within 50m of the target's original position, and also must be a location you could legally target using the normal spell targeting rules."

No, see, we're specifically not having that limiting clause. That's what Frank was trying to get across (although he did conflate the issues as you correctly called out).

You can target anything you can see or you have a linked item to. If you want to teleport into the next room over, you can't see it. But we want you to able to do it. So you only need to see yourself, not the destination point. That's why the destination point is not a target.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 9:26 am

Manxome wrote:Imagine a spell that teleports an object you choose (that you must have a link to) to a location you choose (that you must also have a link to), but only works if the object and location you pick are within 50 meters of each other.

1. Do you agree that this is a coherent description of an effect that could (possibly with some details filled in) be used in some hypothetical game?

2. If yes, do you agree that this spell could never be used to teleport someone directly between Earth and Mars, if they were in anything resembling their current orbits?

3. If yes, do you agree this example demonstrates that you can have a teleport spell where both the object and the destination are "targets", but where interplanetary teleport is impossible?

That would require you to smuggle a sympathetic link into a building before you could teleport into it. It's not the same thing at all.

-Username17

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 9:32 am

Meaning it'd be much easier for the mage to call for reinforcements or get himself some gear . . because he can simply leave some links with goons or guuns and BAMF them to himself in times of need?

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 1:26 pm

God damn, people. I already posted a perfectly coherent rewording of the teleportation clause on page one. Here's how it works:

1. You establish a connection to the object somehow.
2. You decide how far you want it to move in what direction.
3. You cast your teleporting spell, targetting the object.
4. The object is now displaced relative to where it started.

At no point do the terms "distance between target and caster" or "distance between caster and end point" come into play here.