The Tippyverse

[woodenbandman]

Can someone render unto me a link which details the Tippyverse in detail? I am strongly considering modeling a campaign setting in the tippyverse.

[Yora]

More details please. "Tippyverse" seems to be unkown to google. ^^

[Nohwl]

tippyverse is a world where full casters rule everything. food and everything else is taken care of by traps, and rogues and other classes that can break those traps are hunted down and killed.

[Roland St. Jude]

I'd be surprised if you find a thread that explains "tippyverse" in detail. It's not like Tippy sat down and explained in detail what his 'verse was like. The term arose as a (potentially pejorative) description of the type of universe poster Emperor Tippy used as the default in his discussions here. I know he used the term at some point, but I don't think he ever set out a description of it, so much as had a description foisted upon him given that his assumptions varied so much from others assumptions.

So you may find one off answers to this question like:

There is no such 'place' as the Tippyverse. The 'Tippyverse' is a place where Players can actually do whatever they like and 'RAW is Law' and GMs apparently don't exist. Magic seems to work a different way when Tippy describes it.

and

The term "Tippyverse" refers to a world ruled by wizards, akin to what is described in nearly all of Tippy's posts.

and

Tippyverse is like the horizon: more of a concept than a corporeal being. Very few people would actually run a campaign inside such a society since it does not match the standards of fantasy universes that most people like.

And I'm sure you sense the pejorative tone there, though it's a pretty accurate description of what most people mean by "Tippyverse."

This post by Tippy sort of gives you a flavor for the underlying assumptions, but is far from a "detailed" explanation.

Taken to explain the base failure of elliott20's post.

Magic has existed for a very long time. How long depends on the game. But if it is not a new invention (last thousand years or so) then it has already altered the economy to such an extent that their is no baseline, at all.

Teleporation Circle makes it so that moving goods by ship never even comes up. There is no reason to ever even think of sending goods by ship. Create Food and Water traps means that farming (if it exists at all) is only a specialty used to grow delicacies. The effects of teleportation on warfare means that nations never form in the traditional sense (a traditional nation can't defend it's claimed territory). Fabrication traps mean that the need for raw materials or even work are eliminated.

If magic is a new invention (or at least teleportation magic) then it's a different story. But if it's been around for thousands of years (or from the beginning of time) then you have to throw out the entire non-magical economy and start with the effects of magic.

If a single cleric can feed a nation by creating a single magic item then why does farming ever exist? Once the magic exists there is no reason for them not to use it. You go straight from a hunter gatherer society to a post farming society.

If a single wizard can make an item that spits out a suit of clothes made of the finest silks and of the finest manufacture every second then why does a cloth making industry ever come to exist?

If a single wizard can construct an entire city in under a week on his own (and do so better than any non magical builders) then why do people not have houses?

---
Ultimately economics and economies rest on the idea of a certain amount of non trivial work and effort being needed to produce a product that someone else needs or wants. Magic in D&D removes that base need. It's free energy.

add to this other comments on how a sufficiently prepared wizard can divine threats in advance, defeat any foe, mind rape, clone, and enslave many beings, and you sort of get the sense of it. Wizards, or perhaps just one wizard, runs the multiverse.

And I don't disagree that a completely unmediated RAW universe (made up of rules only and stripped free of any common assumptions about a fantasy medieval setting) will get you a Tippyverse, but I don't imagine too many people would want to play there as their fantasy medieval setting. ymmv.

[Starsinger]

Wizards, or perhaps just one wizard, runs the multiverse.

Pretty sure her name was Cindy.

[Yora]

But I liked Tim.

[Roland St. Jude]

Pretty sure her name was Cindy.

I miss Cindy. Haven't seen her around in quite a while. For a while there though, she was every where I looked.

[Keld Denar]

I haven't seen Tippy in so long. Probably cause he hasn't been online in 5 months. His user profile says (Last Activity: 04-08-2009 02:37 PM).

And yea...Cindy was one of the earliest incarnations of an Orb powered Incantatrix that I remember seeing, a style which is now known as "the Mailman" over on CharOp (RIP CharOp)...I guess cause he delivers the boom.

Probably makes your job a bit easier though, Roland...since a goodly number of his posts seem to incite randomly placed {scrubbed} markings.

[Grynning]

I don't think Tippy really expected anyone to play in such a 'verse either...I think he was just pointing out the absurdity of D&D arcane magic existing side-by-side with the standard grungy peasants, dark ages, low fantasy elements. Arcane (and divine) magic in 3.x was really pretty world-breaking and it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense as to why people wouldn't use it to advance their society.

[Matthew]

To add to answers so far, I generally think of it as a place where "the game serves the rules; not vice versa". That is to say the game rules are the actual physics of the world and no room is left for ambiguity.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

And I don't disagree that a completely unmediated RAW universe (made up of rules only and stripped free of any common assumptions about a fantasy medieval setting) will get you a Tippyverse, but I don't imagine too many people would want to play there as their fantasy medieval setting. ymmv.

Well, to be fair, D&D has never really been a fantasy medieval setting. Sure, it's a fantasy setting, and it has medieval trappings, but generally "fantasy medieval" implies "historical western Europe + magic"...and unless you're playing a low-magic, low-wealth campaign without 3rd+ level spells, most items, and all the weird monsters, D&D doesn't exactly fit that mold at all.

When it comes right down to it, I'd rather have the Tippyverse (or at least a lesser version of it) than the standard world the rules assume: PCs are awesome and can do all this cool stuff, but the world as a whole is stuck in faux-medieval times and is pretty much in stasis unless the PCs come and screw it up. I mean, if even one spell was used by NPCs as your typical crafty PCs use them, the world would be entirely different: cure disease or other cure spells can eliminate most causes of death in medieval times, fireball makes almost every strategy of medieval warfare obsolete, and so forth. It makes no sense for PCs to be able to waltz up and slaughter entire armies with spells, because unless the world was created within the last year, there wouldn't be any massive armies to kill!

A lot of people look down on interesting uses of magic as "cheesy" or "broken" or whatever, things like shrinking rocks and putting them in bags of holding, or traps that make food--but that's exactly the kind of thing most of us would do in real life if we could use magic, look at it and think "Wouldn't it be cool if we could do X?" It's kind of like when all the superhero comics have the heroes act stupidly for plot reasons and comic fans think of a hundred ways the hero could have gotten out of it if they had bothered to think. In the same way, for the characters in D&D it is real life, so assuming those Int 20+ wizards use their spells logically rather than keeping the world in medieval stasis sits better with me.

And yea...Cindy was one of the earliest incarnations of an Orb powered Incantatrix that I remember seeing, a style which is now known as "the Mailman" over on CharOp (RIP CharOp)...I guess cause he delivers the boom.

Actually, it's so named because the build focuses on getting damage in without resistance: "Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail, shall impede the delivery of the mail" turns into "Neither AC, nor SR, nor saves, nor miss chances, nor immediate-action teleports, nor [...] shall stop this orb of X from completely wrecking your day."

[Je dit Viola]

Actually, a campaign with wizards ruling the world could be fun, if played with certain ramifications:

1. The wizards ruling the world became corrupt and greedy, so:

A. Rogues are hunted down for their trap-conquering abilities
B. Sorcerers are hunted because they're 'not worthy of magic'
C. The peasants and commoners return to poverty because the wizards stop caring
D. Because the wizards managed to kill a couple gods, the remainder of the gods are in hiding
E. Everyone 'in hiding' could be the PCs; aka rogues, sorcerers, bards, 'traiterous' wizards, paladins, clerics (their gods can only give limited support), and so on
F. The goal of the campaign is to restore order to the universe by getting rid of evil wizards

So, by that, you can choose PCs of any class, and you have to stay in hiding while hunting down wizards. Could be fun.

[Doc Roc]

A lot of people look down on interesting uses of magic as "cheesy" or "broken" or whatever, things like shrinking rocks and putting them in bags of holding, or traps that make food--but that's exactly the kind of thing most of us would do in real life if we could use magic, look at it and think "Wouldn't it be cool if we could do X?" It's kind of like when all the superhero comics have the heroes act stupidly for plot reasons and comic fans think of a hundred ways the hero could have gotten out of it if they had bothered to think. In the same way, for the characters in D&D it is real life, so assuming those Int 20+ wizards use their spells logically rather than keeping the world in medieval stasis sits better with me.

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto Dice what is cookie-shaped.

[Ent]

Actually, a campaign with wizards ruling the world could be fun, if played with certain ramifications

As long as it wasn't in the Tippyverse.

[Arakune]

You could say Eberron or the new 4th edition implied world is the soft version of Tippyverse: magic on everyday life and lots of technomagic stuff, but for the sake of simplicity/lazyness/gentleman agreement the high level wizards doesn't screw with the world THAT badly on a 'mundane way' when they bother: normaly they want to unmake/rule/destroy all the creation and multiverse, so that takes a lot of time.

Can anyone take the offer to make a "true" Tippyverse?

[Tavar]

I don't have the post, but Tippy actually made a somewhat reasonable point that the Tippy-verse actually has something for every level of the game: at low levels, you're in the area right outside the massive cities, at mid levels you're out farther afield, and at upper levels you're building a new city/operating in the cities.

Can anyone take the offer to make a "true" Tippyverse?

I remember that Tippy did that, and even might have run a game in it. Can't find the post, though.

[Myou]

Actually, a campaign with wizards ruling the world could be fun, if played with certain ramifications:

1. The wizards ruling the world became corrupt and greedy, so:

A. Rogues are hunted down for their trap-conquering abilities
B. Sorcerers are hunted because they're 'not worthy of magic'
C. The peasants and commoners return to poverty because the wizards stop caring
D. Because the wizards managed to kill a couple gods, the remainder of the gods are in hiding
E. Everyone 'in hiding' could be the PCs; aka rogues, sorcerers, bards, 'traiterous' wizards, paladins, clerics (their gods can only give limited support), and so on
F. The goal of the campaign is to restore order to the universe by getting rid of evil wizards

So, by that, you can choose PCs of any class, and you have to stay in hiding while hunting down wizards. Could be fun.

Or, the wizard does a good job ruling the world, and hires you to sort out problems for him rather than doing everything himself.

[Morty]

It's a rather well-known fact that magic in D&D can do more than the designers expected. Personally, I think it's because the spells were designed with adventurers in mind - so that they can have fresh water and food readily, for instance - without putting much thought into what effect would they have on the world at large. Of course, I see no reason to play in a setting I find unfun just because the rules allow it. I guess it makes me non-trendy to want to play in a classical medievalesque fantasyland, but I don't really care.

[Mike_G]

As with everything else in the rules magic was geared towards adventuring. It works for the Wizard in the party, and for the Evil Sorcerer nemesis, but not so much for the rest of society, or we wind up with every peasant hut being turned into the Looney Toons "House of Tomorrow."

This is the same issue with things like Profession, which works for the party members to earn a few gold while sitting around town waiting for the Wizard to research his spells, but is crap at simulating jobs for normal people. Profession: Dung Shoveling pay the same as Profession: Cartography. It's tyhe whole "why would anyone take Commoner as a class" argument. IC, you don't "choose" your class, any more than IRL we can't all choose "Millionaire" or "Nuclear Physicist." Some people don't have the luxury of "picking" Cleric, they inherit the family hog farm, not a legacy slot at the Seminary of Pelor, and scrape out a living with pig **** on their heels for the rerst of their lives.

D&D, be it the magic system, or skills or any of it, works best when simulating Adventuring. It falls the hell apart when trying to model Life in a Medieval Village.

[Thrawn183]

I don't have the post, but Tippy actually made a somewhat reasonable point that the Tippy-verse actually has something for every level of the game: at low levels, you're in the area right outside the massive cities, at mid levels you're out farther afield, and at upper levels you're building a new city/operating in the cities.



I remember that Tippy did that, and even might have run a game in it. Can't find the post, though.

I actually thought about those posts a lot when I designed my own campaign world. I remember how it made sense that there would be highe level areas (cities) surrounded by this incredible wilderness where nobody cared what happened.

I really like the idea of a setting where it makes sense to go from level 1-20 because the world is actually built to handle it. You don't have level 1 commoner farmers next to the forest where there's apparently a CR 16 Battletitan Dinosaur running around.

[Johel]

Can anyone take the offer to make a "true" Tippyverse?

So...many...possibilities.

A world torn in a century-long war between clerics (magic is the gift of the gods. Thou shall not use it without being chosen by them) and wizards (Gods are just epic spellcasters with inflated pride. And I shall become one). The people torn in between are dirt-poor as most wealth is sunk into magic item creation...

A world ruled by a powerful magocratie because a group of wizards actually created a item that allow people to cast wishes at will, without XP cost. Since then, reality itself is relative. Also, "they" watch us...

A world ruled by a powerful theocracy because severe censorship on magic made it impossible for wizards to actually learn high-level spells. Depending of the church's boss, it can be paradise or hell but in both case, magic is a divine monopoly and we are all ants...

A world where there's nobody above 6th level...but where spellcasters are so common that there's tons of "at-will" items, making physical work unecessary. Welcome to the 22th century...

[RagnaroksChosen]

I miss tippy.

[Roland St. Jude]

Well, to be fair, D&D has never really been a fantasy medieval setting. Sure, it's a fantasy setting, and it has medieval trappings, but generally "fantasy medieval" implies "historical western Europe + magic"...and unless you're playing a low-magic, low-wealth campaign without 3rd+ level spells, most items, and all the weird monsters, D&D doesn't exactly fit that mold at all.

This seems to me a needlessly narrow definition of "fantasy medieval." For example, it seems to preclude high fantasy, a well-accepted part of medieval fantasy. But that's just an example, my objection to is broader than that; it just seems too narrow to encompass what people understand as fantasy medieval. But, even accepting your definition of "historical western Europe + magic," D&D largely fits that mold. I'm not sure why "+magic" has to be limited to low magic or stick to non-weird monsters to remain "fantasy medieval." I suppose at some point, breaking enough conventions may force a given game to be called just "fantasy," but I think the default is firmly a fantastic medieval setting.

When it comes right down to it, I'd rather have the Tippyverse (or at least a lesser version of it) than the standard world the rules assume: PCs are awesome and can do all this cool stuff, but the world as a whole is stuck in faux-medieval times and is pretty much in stasis unless the PCs come and screw it up. I mean, if even one spell was used by NPCs as your typical crafty PCs use them, the world would be entirely different: cure disease or other cure spells can eliminate most causes of death in medieval times, fireball makes almost every strategy of medieval warfare obsolete, and so forth. It makes no sense for PCs to be able to waltz up and slaughter entire armies with spells, because unless the world was created within the last year, there wouldn't be any massive armies to kill!

I agree with the consequences, and I think that's why most people don't want to go down that road. They want to muck about in a medieval-ish setting not one that's become industrialized or modernized by magic. So despite the possibility for that under the rules, the games themselves and players in practice have prevented that. They do this by social strictures on magic or simply hand-waving (just stating that society stopped somewhere along the continuum between the low-magic setting you describe as fantasy medieval and the magic-dominated world of Tippyverse.)

Aside: Like you, I'd prefer "lesser Tippyverse" to either extreme, though my preference would probably be much "lesser" than yours.

A lot of people look down on interesting uses of magic as "cheesy" or "broken" or whatever, things like shrinking rocks and putting them in bags of holding, or traps that make food--but that's exactly the kind of thing most of us would do in real life if we could use magic, look at it and think "Wouldn't it be cool if we could do X?" It's kind of like when all the superhero comics have the heroes act stupidly for plot reasons and comic fans think of a hundred ways the hero could have gotten out of it if they had bothered to think. In the same way, for the characters in D&D it is real life, so assuming those Int 20+ wizards use their spells logically rather than keeping the world in medieval stasis sits better with me.

I'm not so bothered by the medieval stasis; I want to adventure in a medieval w/magic (and magical monsters) setting. I don't want to adventure in that is the logical result of food-making traps and disease-curing traps. I'm willing to accept whatever rationale (such as suspicion of magic or hoarding of Church secrets) or even handwaving it takes to create such a setting. If that's a medieval stasis, I'm fine with it. In fact, if what you'd prefer is a "lesser Tippyverse" you probably agree with this practice, you just differ about where to halt the progress.

That said, I don't look down on someone who prefers the more common magic or look down on that as "cheesy" or "broken." It's just a preference about how one wants their setting to look and willing they are to impose restrictions on RAW (via rule or setting) to get there.

[Matthew]

That said, I don't look down on someone who prefers the more common magic or look down on that as "cheesy" or "broken." It's just a preference about how one wants their setting to look and willing they are to impose restrictions on RAW (via rule or setting) to get there.

I totally look down on them from the window of my ivory tower, or maybe from an ivory crow's nest, given the day and all...

[Johel]

For "The Tippyverse by Tippy himself" :
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showp...5&postcount=24

Was it that post ? The concept is... well, it actually sounds cool to run a campaign in the wild. Something like :
"Your city has just been invaded and destroyed.
You and the few thousands who survived must now head to another city. Most high level spellcasters have been killed during the battle so there's no way to just use magic. Most of the magic items have been left behind and it's not safe to return (hordes of demons, whatever...).

Nearest city is 1 month on foot.
But rumors speak of the ruins of an old city, about 1 week from here.
While most people want to head for the nearest city (who's responsible for your city's destruction, by the way), you and your merry band want to find the ruins, where you hope to find some left-over magic items."
Good luck.

[Tavar]

You know, the Tippy-verse in that post kinda sounds like the Teraport wars from Shlock mercenary.

[Johel]

Me, it reminds me of debates with a friend, after a lot of vodka, about how society could evolve if we could automate most things.

Being quiet inept at anything social and extremely logic-oriented at that time, his idea was that the society could be divided between the "Labores" and "Reproductores".
In the Tippyverse, the wizards are basically the "Labores", the few elite people, gifted with unusual intelligence at birth and educated so they would become great wizards and craft magical "traps", items, golems and such (aka, be useful to the citadel).
The rest of the citizens are basically "Reproductores" : they provide the necessary demographic pool from which talents can be picked while the mass is left in a semi-hedonistic life with no job, no ambition. Just the drive to survive and multiply.

[shadow_archmagi]

A "Tippyverse exploded" could be a great excuse to set up a magical version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

[Yuki Akuma]

So... The Tippyverse is the Exalted First Age?

[Haven]

Maybe I'm missing something in the tone of Tippy's posts but I don't understand why the Tippyverse inspires so much vitriol. To me, it just seems like a rather brilliant thought experiment in taking the rules of the game to their ultimate conclusion, which can be really useful for worldbuilding (if you take things back a notch, of course).