Erfworld Thread XI: Finally, it's HAMMER-TIME!

[HandofShadows]

Maybe Noah has or had some sort of outside source of information? The only other Erfers we have seen that know about such things have a connection to someone or something that is from off Erf.

[Lizard Lord]

What interests me is Paige's hatred of the Titans (or as she refers to them, the Authors of Scripture) and her attempts to publish a very blasphemous book about them.

[super dark33]

Signamancy seems to be related in large part to the references in erfworld, so kt just makes sense that a master signamancer will know more Words and Visuals from Earth, in the same way Paige knows what arrows flying by sound like despite not ever being in a battle, and like how Hippiemancers in general know what Peace is despite Erfworld bekng built on constant war.

[tomaO2]

There's been a new update. Anyone recognise where Tanya came from? Cause I do!

Spoiler

Show

Youjo Senki. One of the best military focused manga I've ever read. Love the humor in it too. Great read. I wonder when Rob got into that series.

[deuterio12]

Tanya the Evil got her own anime some time ago, and Rob's clearly a general anime fan that with including Archer from Fate/Stay Night.

Still original Tanya is supposed to be a magical girl and spent most of her time in land/air, so finding her in a ship as a magicless warlady just feels somewhat out of place.

[JavaScribe]

New page.

The format is a little annoying.

[keybounce]

Which nation was Tricky -Nixon- again? Was it Carpool?

EDIT: Well, the auto-filter is working on one of the character names. Lovely.

[Lizard Lord]

Which nation was Tricky -Nixon- again? Was it Carpool?

EDIT: Well, the auto-filter is working on one of the character names. Lovely.

King Dickie is the ruler of Haggar.

[Kornaki]

King Dickie is the ruler of Haggar.

Which, in case you forgot, is prominently displayed on his stationary.

[HorizonWalker]

Controversial opinion time:

Book 2, while perfectly coherent, was still bad.

Let me explain:

See, Erfworld Book 1 wasn't just a wargame webcomic. It was a comic that contrasted a cutesy aesthetic with brutal and violent content- summed up by Parson himself in one of the Klogs: "[...]everything is cute. Like it's been made safe for children. The people even look like children. Except that then they die." It was a story about free will and the horrors of war, in a very obvious way, and all the worldbuilding was basically just a paper-thin backdrop to facilitate the main point of the story. It wasn't perfect; a few things here and there fumbled and missed the target. But it worked and it was still good.

Book 2, however, moved away from the horrors of war thing to look more into free will, but did so in a dumb way that's hard to care about. Yeah, Erfworld, it WOULD be pretty ****ed up if a witch killed you then raised you from the dead with all your faculties intact but bent towards loyally serving her. But could you maybe get back to the part that actually happens in real life and is worth exploring, like how Parson did horrible things to people and was never sure if it was because he chose to do it or because Duty made him do it? That was actually interesting and linked into other interesting subjects like culpability, which is very relevant to war.

Book 2 wasn't awful. But it was the beginning of the decline.

[tomaO2]

So, two years ago, a little project known as Erfworld RPG was announced. The original goal was this.

What's our current Goal?

We're tackling this in discrete phases. All of 2017 is dedicated to working out stack battles.

By the end of the year, we aim to have a complete rule system to model stack-on-stack combat. We're going to start with the fundamentals (two stabbers meet two pikers in the field) and build up to the complex cases (a Level 5 warlord is leading a stack with a Level 1 mounted warlord, who is screening for a caster throwing Shockmancy, while receiving cover fire from nearby non-stacked archers, etc.)

After a lot of work, for whatever it is worth, the battle is done.

Every aspect of this battle has worked out in my RPG ruleset. It's the cultivation of my months (years? not sure the exact amount of time I've put into this, and I know I've taken long breaks) of work. A fully functional rule-set that is complicated enough to allow for a battle that includes a "Level 5 warlord is leading a stack with a Level 1 mounted warlord, who is screening for a caster throwing Shockmancy, while receiving cover fire from nearby non-stacked archers".

I've made mount rules. I've made screening rules, I've made leveling rules, I've made size modifier rules, I've got stacks, I got fliers, I got a complete unit creation system that allows you to make facsimiles of most of the units you can find in Erfworld. I even got a concept for how tribes work. The only thing I don't have is casters, which is an absurdly complicated proposition, and not something I feel should even be in at this stage anyway. Magic is a bunch of rule breaking. Also, I haven't made mass combat rules, but that wasn't part of the original goal outline anyway. It's something I need to do, but it's not something that needs to be included at this time.

This is my serious effort to create a working RPG system that models stack-on-stack combat, as was listed as the original goal of this project. I know it's got flaws in it, and it's not like I'm a professional at this sort of thing either. That said, if anyone here has an interest in that what sort of rules Erfworld might have, this is my stab at it.

[deuterio12]

Controversial opinion time:

Book 2, while perfectly coherent, was still bad.

Let me explain:

See, Erfworld Book 1 wasn't just a wargame webcomic. It was a comic that contrasted a cutesy aesthetic with brutal and violent content- summed up by Parson himself in one of the Klogs: "[...]everything is cute. Like it's been made safe for children. The people even look like children. Except that then they die." It was a story about free will and the horrors of war, in a very obvious way, and all the worldbuilding was basically just a paper-thin backdrop to facilitate the main point of the story. It wasn't perfect; a few things here and there fumbled and missed the target. But it worked and it was still good.

Book 2, however, moved away from the horrors of war thing to look more into free will, but did so in a dumb way that's hard to care about. Yeah, Erfworld, it WOULD be pretty ****ed up if a witch killed you then raised you from the dead with all your faculties intact but bent towards loyally serving her. But could you maybe get back to the part that actually happens in real life and is worth exploring, like how Parson did horrible things to people and was never sure if it was because he chose to do it or because Duty made him do it? That was actually interesting and linked into other interesting subjects like culpability, which is very relevant to war.

Book 2 wasn't awful. But it was the beginning of the decline.

Yeah, things getting worst since book 1.

Another example of that is link magic uber nukes. In book 1 Hamster uncroaks the volcano, which has some foreshadowing (they are in a dead volcano, got a croakmancer that can make dead things move again and a dirtmancer specialized in earth stuff) and was used as the finisher that won them the battle. Then in book 2 we have Kingworld being used pretty early with basically no foreshadowing (in particular since we see a single caster) and although it should set up a winning scenario for the royals, they manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Meanwhile Ansom was a worthy opponent in book 1 who could react to Hamster's tactics and pull counter-plans, while Trems in book 2 basically takes the worst possible actions at every turn, completely falling for Hamster's tactics and the only way he survives with some of his side is when Charlie takes direct charge.

[tomaO2]

I'll partially disagree with that. The problem wasn't Charlie's spell, it was the lack of consequences.

I have vivid memories of that scene and I thought, like everyone else did, that links are absurdly dangerous. Why, you could even point back and see that Charlie had been linked to Vanna for quite awhile, and when Slately tried talking to her, there was a warning not too. This is because of book 1 going over how reminding the caster of their personal identity can destroy the link.

There was definite foreshadowing, and it was an exciting twist at the time. We all agreed Charlie had accomplished a big thing, but also kept waiting for the other shoe to drop to explain what he had to give up for it. The answer was, of course, nothing. Which ended up being disappointing. We expected a double edged sword like how the volcano exploding killed off BOTH sides, I personally expected that GK's unfinished turn would start back up again at some point, but it just ended up being a super move by Charlie.

Things go worse from there, with all sorts of thinkamancer super links that don't have any bad effects, but the worst example was Charlie and TV's Dollmancer. Charlie could do a link and it took about 10 seconds. No risk of backlash either. It was completely contrary to how it was done with Vanna. It was the jump the shark moment for thinkamancer links. They had been stretching it for a long time, but this was just too much.

Rob relied way too much on links to move the story, instead of clever tactics, and the story suffered for it.

[deuterio12]

Excellent point, for all its power the volcano was indeed a desperate "LET'S ALL DIE TOGETHER!" move, plus it could only work in GK itself since there aren't that many dormant volcanos in Erfworld, while Kingworld had zero drawbacks and there's no reason why it can't be pulled anywhere anytime. Ah wait, there's a mention of big juice cost, but that's really meh compared to blowing yourself up with your enemy.

And can't forget the maphack table that although gave GK a massive strategic advantage, also demanded three precious mancers to be unavailable for anything else 24/7.

Then there was also Wanda frying her own brain due to not being careful enough while dabbling in thinkmancy, and that was fate-protected super-talented Wanda. If she could mess up that badly, anybody could. It was a great story element that could explain why most mancers hesitate to try out new stuff, they could suffer terrible backlash if they slip. But did we ever see any mancer fry their own brain while trying out new magics or even just mentioning it? Nope. Instead there's a magic arms race where suddenly everybody's trying to outdo each other and there's no more risks, no more drawbacks. Well, there was big think blowing itself up trying to hack the arkenpliers, but that one should've been already dead and pulled more hax in a few strips than the rest of the comic put together before going out with a bang.

So yeeaaahhh, I can totally understand why you decided to just fully skip mancers with your Erfworld game.

[-D-]

Controversial opinion time:

Book 2, while perfectly coherent, was still bad.

How is this controversial opinion? Everyone knows Erfworld started getting bad around Book 2 but given the number of troubles Erfworld was in at the time, with the change of artist and Xin family misfortunes, was thought by me as just growing pains.

Turns out these weren't growing pains, just sign of general decline.

So, two years ago, a little project known as Erfworld RPG was announced. The original goal was this.

After a lot of work, for whatever it is worth, the battle is done.

Your move is both commendable and unreasonable, given the subject matter. I do wonder how are you going to integrate Erfworld's magical system into it, given it's a cluster**** of puns and references, that has various effects that should be translated in-game (at least partially).

[Anteros]

The maphack didn't feel that gamebreaking because by the time we knew every side couldn't do it they lost it.

[tomaO2]

Your move is both commendable and unreasonable, given the subject matter. I do wonder how are you going to integrate Erfworld's magical system into it, given it's a cluster**** of puns and references, that has various effects that should be translated in-game (at least partially).

Well, it's not like I haven't given casters any thought whatsoever, there is just a lot more useful stuff to work on, that isn't a bunch of craziness.

Currently, I'm refining the warlord template. I'm very excited about this because I've come up with a genuinely new idea. It's been stated from book 1 that royals have a small stat bonus, so that's how we thought of it, that they have a bonus. However, we also know that Jillian could hide that she was a royal, even though she should have had the small stat bonus as well. In fact, when Vinnie asked Asnom if he thought Jillian was a royal, he said "special, extra no comment." There's also the fact that we don't know the difference between royals and nobles, other than royals can trace their line back to the titans.

Given all these facts, I came up with a simple solution. Nobles don't have a bonus, promotion has a penalty when promoting to a higher rank unit. When I think about it, Stanley being a promoted unit is a specific source of contention for Ansom, and it was a point that Stanley was promoting his warlords too.

This means that promoted warlords are the weak ones, and all the other differences from nobles, to barbarians, are cosmetic. I also add that heirs count as a rank 3 warlord, and get extra specials as a result. So, I have now successfully divided up the differences between nobles, royals, barbarians, non-nobles, and promoted units, into two seperate builds. Rank 2, and rank 3, warlords. With promoted rank 2 warlords getting a -1 cbt/def. Rest is roleplay. This boils down the many different warlords I have seen up until this point into two simple templates, and I have a general list of specials for them.

Rank 2 warlords have scout (can withdraw from battle), command (can order other units to withdraw from battle; must be in same terrain hex), leadership (can give combat/defense bonus; creates stacks that have a stack bonus with the total stack number limited to level), purse (can store smuckers, needed to claim a level 0 city; however, always must pay minimum 1/2 upkeep per turn), and a variable special for the last one.

Rank 3 also have fate's favour (can roll 2 dice when doing a combat/defense/saving roll and take the more favourable result; negative- all units that character is stacked with must roll 2 dice when making a saving throw, and take the worse result), and a second variable special.

I really like Fate's Favour. It gives a massive advantage to these warlords, which are basically the player characters, without giving them an overt advantage, such as higher hit points. It's really easy to die in this game. Even at full hit points, one lucky attack and you are gone.


Anyway, when I get around to casters again, I'll probably make it a set list of spells for each class, and list a juice cost, with mastery upgrades giving power cost reductions. I'll see how that ends up going.

Thinkamancy links, and arken tools, would be GM approved roleplay only.

[Morty]

The volcano croakamancy link was already pretty risky, in terms of writing. It sort of teetered between being an unexpected, desperate and clever move and a twist that comes out of nowhere and saves the hero's bacon. But it was horrific, wiped out what was left of GK's forces and gave both Parson and Sizemore tremendous amounts of guilt. It was also a thing Parson could do that no one else did because they didn't think of it, showing that he's an alien presence in Erfworld. Finally, it took a team of Thinkamancers to untangle them. So, on the whole, people were willing to accept it as a dramatic twist and not a cheap one.

But then links started happening more and more frequently and accomplished whatever had to be accomplished at the time. So the original super-link's drama and danger were watered down to the point of meaninglessness.

[Anteros]

Currently, I'm refining the warlord rules. I'm very excited about this because I've come up with a genuinely new idea. It's been stated from book 1 that royals have a small stat bonus, so that's how we thought of it, that they have a bonus. However, we also know that Jillian could hide that she was a royal, even though she should have had the small stat bonus as well. In fact, when Vinnie asked Asnom if he thought Jillian was a royal, he said "special, extra no comment." There's also the fact that we don't know the difference between royals and nobles, other than royals can trace their line back to the titans.

Or maybe they just can't see stats on units that aren't from their own side. Or there's enough stat variance among warlords that it's really impossible to say if someone is royal just from their stats.

[Morgaln]

In addition, the volcano croakamancy was only useful because Stanley had already abandoned ship. Otherwise, it would have not saved Gobwin Knob. As such, it had very specific circumstances that couldn't be recreated anywhere, anytime.

[deuterio12]

Or maybe they just can't see stats on units that aren't from their own side. Or there's enough stat variance among warlords that it's really impossible to say if someone is royal just from their stats.

Yeah.

Plus it just feels like bad taste to create a rule that's never mentioned in the comic just to punish promoted warlords while leaving every other single kind of warlord the exact same rules wise.

This is, Stanley was the only character in 4 books who was actually to fight Caesar head on. Even royal Jillian was easily forced into submission by Tee Vee's chief warlord, but the one time Caesar fights a promoted warlord, Caesar actually loses. And before anybody goes "muh arkenhammer did it all, Stanley has -4 to all combat stats and suckorz at everything whitout it!", remember that he was already a promoted asskicking warlord before ever finding it. He didn't start GK's promotion tradition, King IV Saline did.

Not to mention Hamster himself eventually started promoting troops to warlords.

[tomaO2]

Or maybe they just can't see stats on units that aren't from their own side. Or there's enough stat variance among warlords that it's really impossible to say if someone is royal just from their stats.

The whole point of seeing stats is so you can see stats. It would be useless not to see them from enemy units.

Yeah.

Plus it just feels like bad taste to create a rule that's never mentioned in the comic just to punish promoted warlords while leaving every other single kind of warlord the exact same rules wise.

This is, Stanley was the only character in 4 books who was actually to fight Caesar head on. Even royal Jillian was easily forced into submission by Tee Vee's chief warlord, but the one time Caesar fights a promoted warlord, Caesar actually loses. And before anybody goes "muh arkenhammer did it all, Stanley has -4 to all combat stats and suckorz at everything whitout it!", remember that he was already a promoted asskicking warlord before ever finding it. He didn't start GK's promotion tradition, King IV Saline did.

Not to mention Hamster himself eventually started promoting troops to warlords.

Hmm, this seems to be a sticking point with people, bit I think you are misinformed.

First off, this is an old rule that was mentioned way back in book 1.

https://archives.erfworld.com/Book%201/88
"Royal and noble units have slightly stronger stats, and level faster."

The simplest explanation for this line is that nobles have slightly stronger stats than promoted warlords, like Stanley, like the warlords Stanley promoted. Not that they have slightly higher stats than any other kind of warlord. They don't have higher stats than barbarians, or else Jillian would have been given away as not being one.

Also, Stanley was an asskicking PIKER, we don't really know much about how well he did as a warlord before getting the hammer.

Honestly, it's not a big penalty, when compared to the leadership bonus, and the fact that a warlords usually fights in a stack, which can also give a bonus. It's just enough that promoted warlords will be looked down upon by popped warlords.

[HorizonWalker]

Another bad thing that happened to the plot/worldbuilding was in Digdoug, where it was revealed that the Magic Kingdom was full of desperate casters who'd do anything for a stable upkeep, and yet, when Gobwin Knob had a bunch of money and only one city left, with an army five turns away...

...the incredibly obvious move of just hiring a bunch of casters from the MK was never discussed or considered. Probably because at the time, Rob knew that it would kill the tension if Parson was able to actually get his hands on reinforcements.

This is something I'm complaining about mostly from the perspective of someone who wants to write Erfworld fanfiction, but has hit a few roadblocks along the way, but it's still a dumb thing to establish, I think. "Casters are the most powerful thing ever." "Also, there's a kajillion of them starving in the Magic Kingdom, absolutely begging for the chance to turn to your side permanently and have a stable upkeep."

[Aquillion]

In addition, the volcano croakamancy was only useful because Stanley had already abandoned ship. Otherwise, it would have not saved Gobwin Knob. As such, it had very specific circumstances that couldn't be recreated anywhere, anytime.

Ehhh. If they planned it in advance, they could easily have had him skip town for that purpose - in fact, all they'd have to do is have him leave, then immediately fire the volcano.

Bigger problems are:

1. The need for a volcano, as mentioned.

2. The fact that it utterly destroyed the city and killed every GK noncaster that hadn't left with Stanley (a planned escape could potentially avoid this, but you'd probably only be able to save fliers and a few people riding them.) The only reason GK was able to recover from this was because of the Arkenpliers + the money the hack produced - without both of those, they would have gotten crushed by a followup force, since the volcano would have done more long-term damage to them than to their attackers.

[deuterio12]

Another bad thing that happened to the plot/worldbuilding was in Digdoug, where it was revealed that the Magic Kingdom was full of desperate casters who'd do anything for a stable upkeep, and yet, when Gobwin Knob had a bunch of money and only one city left, with an army five turns away...

...the incredibly obvious move of just hiring a bunch of casters from the MK was never discussed or considered. Probably because at the time, Rob knew that it would kill the tension if Parson was able to actually get his hands on reinforcements.

This is something I'm complaining about mostly from the perspective of someone who wants to write Erfworld fanfiction, but has hit a few roadblocks along the way, but it's still a dumb thing to establish, I think. "Casters are the most powerful thing ever." "Also, there's a kajillion of them starving in the Magic Kingdom, absolutely begging for the chance to turn to your side permanently and have a stable upkeep."

That still makes me pretty mad.

Not to mention the royal coalition had plenty of money (that they can afford to march a massive overkill army) while complaining about their lack of magic support and even bend over to pay Charlie's exhorbitant fees for a few archons, but they also never consider to just hire some of those reality-breaking mancers who are willing to work for just some coin and bread.

Speaking of which the whole "Mee Kay is so special they have their own unique currency that stands separate from smuckers". But thing is if smuckers can pay for an unit's upkeep, and so can the Mee Kay's unique currency, then you have a conversion rate right there, but every character just ignores it.

[tomaO2]

My guess is that it seems to be some sort of a cultural issue. Casters like to say independant, even if the alternative is death, and if there is one thing that Dig Dug showed, you want to be rock solid in your trust of a caster. They are powerful force on your side, but they can be equally dangerous double agents. Charlie is the ultimate example of how hiring an independent contractor will screw you over, and over, again.

Also, on the topic of rands, I think a rand doesn't have a set value, instead, it is an upkeep substitute. One rand equals one day of upkeep, regardless of the smucker cost of upkeep. If this is the case, then value varies. High upkeep units would prize them at a much higher rate than lower upkeep casters.

[HorizonWalker]

That still makes me pretty mad.

Not to mention the royal coalition had plenty of money (that they can afford to march a massive overkill army) while complaining about their lack of magic support and even bend over to pay Charlie's exhorbitant fees for a few archons, but they also never consider to just hire some of those reality-breaking mancers who are willing to work for just some coin and bread.

I think it's Erfworld falling into the same trap a lot of fantasy media falls into: you either play a caster or suck.

Speaking of which the whole "Mee Kay is so special they have their own unique currency that stands separate from smuckers". But thing is if smuckers can pay for an unit's upkeep, and so can the Mee Kay's unique currency, then you have a conversion rate right there, but every character just ignores it.

It's an inconsistent conversion rate; a Level 1 caster would probably have a lower upkeep than a Level 10, if measured in shmuckers. But if measured in rands, then everyone's got the same upkeep of one rand.

Frankly, though, for my money, what I want to know is where rands come from. Shmuckers are made by cities. Rands? No clue.

[Aquillion]

Frankly, though, for my money, what I want to know is where rands come from. Shmuckers are made by cities. Rands? No clue.

My assumption is that they're created using a link-up, probably using Turnamancy + Carnymancy to skip upkeep or the like, or Turnamancy + Mathamancy or Carnymancy + Mathemancy to create a transferable stat that can be spent to zero your upkeep for a turn. (Maybe Moneymancy, but they're supposed to keep Moneymancers in check...)

[Morty]

I think it's Erfworld falling into the same trap a lot of fantasy media falls into: you either play a caster or suck.

Casters were already plenty powerful in the first book, more valuable than a whole regiment of other units... but yes, in time I think it got worse. The story started to lean too much on casters doing amazing spells and turning it inside out.

[HorizonWalker]

Casters were already plenty powerful in the first book, more valuable than a whole regiment of other units... but yes, in time I think it got worse. The story started to lean too much on casters doing amazing spells and turning it inside out.

Right, casters were powerful, but at the same time, we saw... what, five casters working for Gobwin Knob? One of whom died before getting to do anything on her own. They were strategically important, but it was also completely possible to overwhelm casters with infantry. The armies still mattered. Parson had more casters than Ansom, and yet Parson still had to do war crimes and do inventively awful things in order to not die, because Ansom really did outnumber him ten to one(Some rough estimates based on the more precise unit headcounts given in-story put GK's forces at 1,000 and the Coalition at 10,000), and that really did matter.