The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy

[QuidEst]

This was a very interesting read. Thanks!

It seems to me that being small and obscure is a decent defense against armies and the like. Self-sufficiency isn't difficult, so you could have a high-level wizard or cleric who decides to leave his city and set up a small community. Heck, if he got some followers, they could find a demiplane to isolate themselves on. Certainly, that's an exception- it just seems like something that would be interesting to throw into a campaign.

The logical structure for a city, so far as I can tell, would be powerful people near the points military force (with a few exceptions, people who want to keep apart, etc.) and the poor further away. The cities are crowded, after all, so you'll probably always have people who risk the lack of protection by living just outside it. What do other people think? If a caster has access to a personal teleport, would (heh…) telecommuting make more sense?

Attacking another city doesn't seem like it would be quite as much of a threat as it might seem- your city is left without its army, and the attacked city can alert the other seventeen cities that it's wide open. With so many parties neutral opportunists to any given conflict, I feel like the cold war might be a little more stable than it might otherwise.

[Endarire]

I'm trying to imagine how and at what speed an E6 Tippyverse would evolve into a full-scale Tippyverse, assuming the E6 limits were removed.

Sounds like an interesting campaign idea!

[Wookie-ranger]

Tippy = win!
this idea is awesome, definably have to try to play it at some point.
However:

1: can we agree on that even a 7 level PC can effectively have infinite wealth (gp) thanks to the very simple diamond creation trap that someone pointed out earlier? what would that do to the economy/inflation? could a PC simply go out and buy every item in the DMG with his/her infinite amount of cash? or would high level items be restricted?

2: a group of city states that life far removed from the outside and have near infinite power. they created powerful magic to help them in their daily life and to protect themselves from they other city states. Netherese much?

edit:
3: given infinite wealth and thousands of years time, why not just build a wall of golems that so tightly together that nothing can pass through. and the forbiddence or whatever teleport protection spell starts exactly behind the golems? no that i think about it. why not make an entire sphere or golems? the ones on the 'roof' made permanently invisible or mode of invisible iron; or just have an illusion of a perfectly nice sky above the city and from the outside it looks like one gigantic metal sphere. like a dyson sphere as in the TNG episode "Relics" a while back.

[Aquillion]

edit:
3: given infinite wealth and thousands of years time, why not just build a wall of golems that so tightly together that nothing can pass through. and the forbiddence or whatever teleport protection spell starts exactly behind the golems? no that i think about it. why not make an entire sphere or golems? the ones on the 'roof' made permanently invisible or mode of invisible iron; or just have an illusion of a perfectly nice sky above the city and from the outside it looks like one gigantic metal sphere. like a dyson sphere as in the TNG episode "Relics" a while back.

You couldn't start work on that quietly, though, or do it quickly. Other cities would find out what you're doing, and they'd gang up on you in self-defense (since once you've completed it, you could attack them with impunity.)

Much like how World War I started, in part, because the German military establishment was terrified of Russia's planned modernization of its forces (after which any long-term German military victories would have been implausible) and were determined to spark a large-scale war in Europe before that happened.

[Wookie-ranger]

Much like how World War I started, in part, because the German military establishment was terrified of Russia's planned modernization of its forces (after which any long-term German military victories would have been implausible) and were determined to spark a large-scale war in Europe before that happened.

ok, lets not get into real world history. but that statement is simplifying it to the point of simply being wrong. that was (to an extend) a factor but there is SO much more to it then that.


back on topic:
The dyson sphere would still be possible but it would also end up with an arms race, the same as with the shadesteel golems, weirdstones, wish traps, etc. in the end everybody would have one. so if everyone has one, the playing field would still be the same.

the important thing to think about is the time frame we are talking about. thousands of years! given the rapid exchange of goods, services and knowledge the amount of advancements would be exponentially increasing by the day (or almost anyway)! and this does not even account for changes in the speed of time (wish traps), demi-planes with different a different speed of time, or simply gateing in someone/thing from mechanus to help you build the whole thing. given enough resources there is always a way to make/have made something in the blink of an eye.
remember we are talking about infinite resources, not just very very very much.

[Anecronwashere]

Why not make it simply incredibly hard to invade, rather than impossible?

Set up Forbiddance everywhere, overlapping Weirdstones everywhere with the only gap being the exact centre which has your TCs.
Have invisible flying patrols, visible flying patrols, invisible guards on every corner, all with the ability to set off signals to bring the main army in immediately.

As soon as someone pops in somewhere that isn't the TC-area (using Wish to get there) they are attacked with the army mobilizing to that position.

Add in some mutual-defence contracts with some other cities and everyone who displays an overt action of war gets invaded by 2+ cities and their armies.
Of course, you should totally add in the clause "this contract may be voided if you take overt military action against another city without overt military action from said city first" so you don't have to back the attackers (and hopefully so do the other cities so all Attackers are mobbed without any support)

[Fable Wright]

Hm... since the cities have traps of Fabrication, Create Food, Create Water, something sticks out to me... why didn't any cities cut off the teleportation circles? They don't need trade anymore for essentials, and magical items created without traps could be brought into a city without the need for such large-scale teleportation devices. What could the other cities offer in bulk that merits the use of TCs anymore, that makes it worth the risk of invasion by the legions? Merchants could have some Ring Gates and facilitate commerce like that rather than bulk teleport that could be used for armies, with occasional teleports for special order items. Why are TCs used anymore?

[Hecuba]

Hm... since the cities have traps of Fabrication, Create Food, Create Water, something sticks out to me... why didn't any cities cut off the teleportation circles? They don't need trade anymore for essentials, and magical items created without traps could be brought into a city without the need for such large-scale teleportation devices. What could the other cities offer in bulk that merits the use of TCs anymore, that makes it worth the risk of invasion by the legions? Merchants could have some Ring Gates and facilitate commerce like that rather than bulk teleport that could be used for armies, with occasional teleports for special order items. Why are TCs used anymore?

The TC doesn't require anyone casting it on the receiving end: as such, not having one in your city doesn't protect you from other people using one to reach your city. You have to proactively protect against it, which is more difficult and more expensive.

[gkathellar]

Why not make it simply incredibly hard to invade, rather than impossible?

Yeah, that's the whole idea.

Set up Forbiddance everywhere,

Forbiddance allows for SR, and so is of limited usefulness.

overlapping Weirdstones everywhere

All of the problems of Weirdstones vs. Wish-based removal mentioned above.

Have invisible flying patrols, visible flying patrols, invisible guards on every corner, all with the ability to set off signals to bring the main army in immediately.

This is already sort of implicit.

As soon as someone pops in somewhere that isn't the TC-area (using Wish to get there) they are attacked with the army mobilizing to that position.

Unless you don't know they've arrived. That might also be a thing.

But yeah, in general that's the whole point of having a major city where you can concentrate your forces.

Add in some mutual-defence contracts with some other cities and everyone who displays an overt action of war gets invaded by 2+ cities and their armies.

Except that mutual defense contracts of that type are practically impossible to maintain. But yes, alliances would be of great use. It's just that you don't always know where the invaders are from, or how trustworthy your allies really are.

In short — almost everything you suggest is already implicit in the Tippyverse. It doesn't change the fact that TV-type settings are basically the only way to realistically account for the presence of magic.

[Roguenewb]

Okay, I think I can destroy this world....

Genesis: 8 trillion times speed. My Warforged Wizard brings the supplies for a Wish (Quickened Wish Trap) Trap. Once that's completed, .0015 rounds on Prime, the Warforged Wizard begins to make thousands of different Wish traps for whatever different kinds of items he wants to make. Each 6 seconds, activating his original Trap, the Wizard can make anything. He makes a creation forge inside his plane, and expands his plane by using a Genesis trap all the time. I don't wanna do the math, but I'm pretty sure the plane is larger than the real world in less than a round of time on Prime. Maybe he makes thousands of warforged with thousands of genesis traps so that they can keep making the plane huge. Every time he makes a warforged, he mind-rapes it with a mind-rape trap so that they serve him completely and utterly. After exactly 42 rounds on the Prime (for the lulz) he simultaneously ports a Quintillion level 20 wizards (fully leveled by crafting effiges with traps so they get xp perfectly) for each creature on the Prime.

If there is a creature that can handle a quintillion level 20 warforged wizards, I've never heard of it. If nothing else, they can just alternately fire Disjunctions and Orbs of Force to make sure that those creatures are annihilated, in one round. It is totally impossible to stop this plan by RAW.

I hate spell traps, with a passion, and heh, I don't even need them. My level 20 Warforged Artificer can craft a scroll, make the plane, build a creation forge and use warforged Elation/Good Hope/Distilled Joy to craft anything. Use activated wondrous items can do anything that traps can do, without the cheese, and they are actually more powerful.

I destroy the Tippyverse. In a round. Goddamn Genesis.

[Tyndmyr]

Okay, I think I can destroy this world....

Genesis: 8 trillion times speed. My Warforged Wizard brings the supplies for a Wish (Quickened Wish Trap) Trap. Once that's completed, .0015 rounds on Prime, the Warforged Wizard begins to make thousands of different Wish traps for whatever different kinds of items he wants to make. Each 6 seconds, activating his original Trap, the Wizard can make anything. He makes a creation forge inside his plane, and expands his plane by using a Genesis trap all the time. I don't wanna do the math, but I'm pretty sure the plane is larger than the real world in less than a round of time on Prime. Maybe he makes thousands of warforged with thousands of genesis traps so that they can keep making the plane huge. Every time he makes a warforged, he mind-rapes it with a mind-rape trap so that they serve him completely and utterly. After exactly 42 rounds on the Prime (for the lulz) he simultaneously ports a Quintillion level 20 wizards (fully leveled by crafting effiges with traps so they get xp perfectly) for each creature on the Prime.

If there is a creature that can handle a quintillion level 20 warforged wizards, I've never heard of it. If nothing else, they can just alternately fire Disjunctions and Orbs of Force to make sure that those creatures are annihilated, in one round. It is totally impossible to stop this plan by RAW.

I hate spell traps, with a passion, and heh, I don't even need them. My level 20 Warforged Artificer can craft a scroll, make the plane, build a creation forge and use warforged Elation/Good Hope/Distilled Joy to craft anything. Use activated wondrous items can do anything that traps can do, without the cheese, and they are actually more powerful.

I destroy the Tippyverse. In a round. Goddamn Genesis.

1st, it's not clear that Genesis can do this. Time is certainly arguable as a trait, and there's no particular reason to think that a trillion times faster is reasonable. If it is...the tippyverse has likely already found and utilized it. If not, you fail.

2nd. A trap of quickened wish is ludicrously expensive.

3rd. Thousands of Genesis traps would require kind of a lot of resources. This is getting very ridiculous.

[Fineous Orlon]

The Tippyverse is fascinating and fun, it's just very blackbox, or 1 supplement away from not working. After all, ELH, 1 such supplement, is already ruled out.

What I mean, is that since there are no more rules for 3.5 being officially published, there is no development within the rules reflecting many casters or power blocs in the TV working to overcome, or end run around, the rules that make the wheels run in TV.

I mean, really, if someone in the Forgotten Realms tried to initiate a Tippy-city, and Harpers found out, there would be a prestige class that could undo Tippy-conditions, or Regional Feats to bypass Tippy-defenses, etc...

In fact, the excellent work to create the Tippyverse [perhaps intentionally] points a few fingers at things to change or tweak in the rules to head towards the new abbreviation RACSD, or Rules as Common Sense Dictates...

.... and yet the TV also sounds like a very fun setting!

[Deth Muncher]

I was just thinking, there's a job/series of jobs that would pop up in each major city. This is entirely just a tangential thing, but funny to think about - I remember many pages ago, there was the mention of how because of the instantly teleporting army problem, inter-city wars could be very strange. And so, I figure there would end up becoming a small job of someone (or someones) casting Greater Anticipate Teleport, and then setting up a communication network between cities, similar to a train station.

You're in City A, you want to go to City B. The teleport clerk in City A shoots a Message (or using Sending Stones, or whatever) to City B, saying "Hey, we got a teleport coming in." Person teleports, is confirmed in City B, and all is well. If there's an unauthorized teleport, then the city can get to readiness hopefully very quickly, as the teleport clerks would be sounding alarms.

This is a completely unimportant meandering, but something I thought you all might find funny.

[rweird]

Roguenewb: If you can do it, someone in TV could do it before you, and someone else would have done it too and would have made a plane that goes at 100 trillion years there = 1 round in TV and overrun your plane, and someone would overrun his plane, and someone else would do the same thing, because this, TV is using scying, contact other plane, forsight, etc. for people that will try this and have a rapid response team, because there are so many wizards of about the same power and nobody wants this, they predict him doing it and kill him. This is assuming you can change time like that,though if you want to destroy TV, you could all you need to do is play Pun-Pun.

[Gavinfoxx]

And what would a Tippyverse City do against an air fleet or a sky navy or whatever attacking the city with barrages at standoff range, from large numbers of high speed airships or spaceships, which were teleported in and then opened up, with extreme range weapons, and are in loose formation? And the group of the ships kept extremely mobile (like circling the city or something)?

[Jack_Simth]

And what would a Tippyverse City do against an air fleet or a sky navy or whatever attacking the city with barrages at standoff range, from large numbers of high speed airships or spaceships, which were teleported in and then opened up, with extreme range weapons, and are in loose formation? And the group of the ships kept extremely mobile (like circling the city or something)?

Generally? With MAD methods (Mutually Assured Destruction - also known as a Doomsday Device), or by anticipating it and setting up similar levels of available force.

[Man on Fire]

All Hail Redcloak!

After reading first post I have issues with the idea.

1. It’s not a world ruled by a single all powerful wizard who mind rapes the opposition (at least not traditionally).
2. It’s not a 1984/Parinoia/Big Brother world where freedom does not exist and the government controls every facet of life

It should be because we don't have that in D&D and it would give players something to accomplish. What impact can players have on this world? Save few villages? Nothing they can accomplish will have a lasting effect, because at some point another teleporting war will erupt. With one of those two you at least give the party something to fight against. Here you just have another cliched setting and quite frankly, I don't see the appeal - if I can play a game with just dungeoncrawls and same old same old I can play Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonalnce, so why should I choose setting in which everything will be undone by another war in future, that is bound to erupt? And I can sacrifice a bit of realism for it, nobody will die because of not applying mass teleport spells to history and if somebody would I can just homebrew ring of anti-teleport field or other greater dimension lock or whatever else I want. Even this for unathorized teleportations will do.

It was never that and was always as attempt to make a setting that allowed all forms of play across a broad spectrum of levels and play styles while still maintaining suspension of disbelief, verisimilitude, and an inability for the PC's to drastically redefine the world with even a modicum of common sense.

Yeah, I'm not buying that. Any setting in which PCs cannot redefine it can be burned for all I care. If I'm a PC then I want to redefine the setting. I want to introduce the change that will have full, lasting impact and then I want to start another game 50 year later and see how things turned out. Your setting is good only if it would be created as consequence of PCs direct actions - they introduced teleportations, things went out of hand and now hundred years later new party is dealing with the mess. But as it is now? If party cannot change things, then it's a crappy setting.

Sorry, I'm not seeing any use of this. there is no need for a setting in which the only appeal is a bit of realism, when entire concept of most popular form of the game, dungeoncrawl, is completely devoid of it and removes any impact PCs can have on the world. And if I want the setting in which magic wars devastated the world, I'll play Dark Sun.

[Iamyourking]

You're joking right? The ability for the players to radically change the world is the absolute worst thing that an RPG can have; and the Tippyverse's overall stability is one of its best features. The only way that could be better was if it was an already established setting; that way there would already be important characters to do things and ensure that the players stay out of the story at large. Knowing that there is a good chance you will mess up the careful balance of a setting makes for miserable players, miserable DMs, and deeply unpleasant games; and if you keep it up too long you end with World of Warcraft's expansions.

[Gavinfoxx]

I thought one of the main points of playing pen and paper games over other types was the fact that you have agency and can have dramatic and lasting impacts on the world around you?

[Iamyourking]

Maybe, as long as it is minor and ultimately unimportant. You can still have interesting stories without any lasting effect though, and obviously ability to influence the world as a whole and gameplay are totally unrelated.

[TuggyNE]

[snip]

It sounds to me like you personally dislike several of the basic premises of the setting. That's fine, but it's impossible for that to translate into meaningful critique; attempting to do so boils down to "Your idea is stupid, here's how you should completely change your conception." This is radically different from critiquing other aspects of the setting, which are usually derived from the premises in some way, because there it's less about subjective personal preference and more about the internal logic of the setting.

If you don't like a premise, take it out in your own game, and see how the setting changes. Or just, y'know, don't use the setting. Don't just come into an explanation thread and say "Oh yeah, this is terrible, I don't like the basic idea here" — that's rude and doesn't help anyone. What would probably work better is to start a new thread with your ideas of how to modify the Tippyverse, and work from there.

[Gavinfoxx]

Maybe, as long as it is minor and ultimately unimportant. You can still have interesting stories without any lasting effect though, and obviously ability to influence the world as a whole and gameplay are totally unrelated.

What exactly do you mean by minor and unimportant? Lasting and dramatic is not minor and unimportant!

I want to be a hero who forever changes the face of the world... that's kinda the point of playing the game....

[MukkTB]

After some thought I've come to the opinion that a civilization would not need to get into single city states. In the modern era we have countries that include multiple cities even though the military possessions of any one city could wipe out multiple other cities. IDK. I mean if the enemy started porting in soldiers to attack something all the defenders have to do is port all their soldiers to the same place.

Edit - If battle is instead waged by some RAW legal equivalent of the locate city bomb then putting all of your civilization in one city is actually pretty foolish.

[Iamyourking]

Of course they're different things, that's the whole point. The world should be essentially the same when the game starts and when it ends, unless one of the actually important people, which is not and never will be the players, changes it. For example, one of my favorite RPGs is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I don't go into it thinking I'm going to kill Archaon or save the Empire from Orcs, I know perfectly well that at most I might play a minor part in a greater plot and not die horribly in the process. That's whats great about it, you can have your fun and be involved in a perfectly interesting, if small scale, story and know that when you're done the setting won't be noticably different from when you started.

However, this is getting off topic; so why don't you respond to this and we'll leave it at that?

[Gavinfoxx]

Of course they're different things, that's the whole point. The world should be essentially the same when the game starts and when it ends, unless one of the actually important people, which is not and never will be the players, changes it. For example, one of my favorite RPGs is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I don't go into it thinking I'm going to kill Archaon or save the Empire from Orcs, I know perfectly well that at most I might play a minor part in a greater plot and not die horribly in the process. That's whats great about it, you can have your fun and be involved in a perfectly interesting, if small scale, story and know that when you're done the setting won't be noticably different from when you started.

However, this is getting off topic; so why don't you respond to this and we'll leave it at that?

Uh. Why should this be the case? What you are describing is a particular type of gritty setting where player characters are essentially helpless to change things -- WFRP is at a MUCH lower power level. That's appropriate for that setting and that gaming style. However to say this is a universal truth and is desirable in all situations is completely and patently wrong. I, for the most part, prefer grand games where I DO make change, rather than ones that I don't. The ones where the setting doesn't dramatically react to what I do, I just play computer RPG's for that.

[Iamyourking]

I'm sorry, I shouldn't disparage people's personal preferences. I somewhat lost my temper because Man on Fire was coming off so strong about stable settings being bad and snapped at him; but now I've taken a few minutes to calm down and acknowledge that your way of playing is perfectly legitimate as long as you are willing to do the same for mine.

[Tavar]

The Players in the TV can effect things: they can try and make a new city. Find some ancient artifact. Defend their city and strike back in a war. Stop some growing dead magic zone.

Hell, they could even create one, dooming the world.

Yes, many of these aren't possible for a low level character, but that's not really a mark against the setting, unless you assume that every PC, by virtue of being a PC, is able to greatly change the setting.

[Eldan]

I'm sorry, I shouldn't disparage people's personal preferences. I somewhat lost my temper because Man on Fire was coming off so strong about stable settings being bad and snapped at him; but now I've taken a few minutes to calm down and acknowledge that your way of playing is perfectly legitimate as long as you are willing to do the same for mine.

I think what came of as being a bit annoying was how total you made your statement. You didn't say "I prefer games where players leave the world basically intact", you said "Players should not have an impact", which is very different.

As for me, I quite love games where the world is totally different in the beginning from how it was when it started of.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Yeah, I'm not buying that. Any setting in which PCs cannot redefine it can be burned for all I care. If I'm a PC then I want to redefine the setting. I want to introduce the change that will have full, lasting impact and then I want to start another game 50 year later and see how things turned out. Your setting is good only if it would be created as consequence of PCs direct actions - they introduced teleportations, things went out of hand and now hundred years later new party is dealing with the mess. But as it is now? If party cannot change things, then it's a crappy setting.

I could be wrong, but I don't think the "inability to change the setting" indicates that no matter what the PCs do, they ultimately have no effect. I mean, that certainly can be the case, but that would be a choice of the DM, not an aspect of the setting. What the stability of the setting does is make it so that a PC can't make such grand sweeping changes easily through exploitation of the rules. They have to actually work at it, have adventures...play the game, rather than play the system.

[Iamyourking]

I think what came of as being a bit annoying was how total you made your statement. You didn't say "I prefer games where players leave the world basically intact", you said "Players should not have an impact", which is very different.

As for me, I quite love games where the world is totally different in the beginning from how it was when it started of.

Which is precisely why I apologized, I was coming across too strong because I thought he was coming across too strong.