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Thread: Reality Hacking
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2019-09-17, 08:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Reality Hacking
Brainstorming / musing / discussing the idea of magic as "hacking reality" -- that reality itself (in the game / fiction setting), physics and metaphysics, operates something like a computer.
Thus working magic is sending an instruction or set of instructions to reality in a "coding language".
The universe is actually running the equivalent of machine code. If you have a specific creator or creator deities, they used this.
The highest-order deities (other than the creators) are effectively using assembly language.
Spells are written in various high-level languages, allowing for multiple "traditions" or "schools" in the same setting.
Freaking scary "eldritch" entities are also able to work in or "hack" the "machine code", making them a real threat to the deities despite not having the raw power that the deities do.
This is a spin-off from another thread, and these posts:
And then there was the following exchange:
So I'm starting another thread.Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2019-09-17 at 08:17 PM.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2019-09-17, 08:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
I'm actually building a bit of unified magic system with this kind of concept in mind, with all forms of magic springing up from some form of reality hacking to make the magic system, but the reality hacking doesn't really do anything itself- its just used to make magic systems that does things.
and that the reality hacking is the result of this proto-magical metaphysical cosmic force called Thesis which naturally tries to define, order and organize all things in some manner. that Thesis is this programming language and it doesn't just exist for magics benefit, but to try and make everything in the universe make sense as constant self-updating process. its ability to make these new magic systems is a side effect of it constant interaction with its opposing force, Antithesis which seeks to makes glitches, anomalies and exceptions to Thesis's efforts in defiance of Thesis's all-defining nature, since Antithesis does not want to be defined, so the new magic systems can be invented and thus not work on the same rules as another is the result of Thesis having to redefine and update itself to account for such exceptions. (in fact now that I think about, Antithesis is probably the one who made magical energy in the first place, but Thesis was the one who started make rules about it.)
Of course, I personally allow the Thesis programming language to be usable not just by gods but by mortals to make the magic systems, thus resulting in magic systems being something you can create and invent in setting, but of course some are more popular than others, some are dead or unused magic systems, some are complex and are some seemingly basic and results in a lot of magic systems that most people probably wouldn't see as necessary.
but thats just my thoughts on this sort of concept. there is much more on this magic system I'm making, but this all thats really relevant to this thread.
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2019-09-17, 08:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
https://qntm.org/ra
Might interest you. Personally, I think the magic as programming trope is a little worn out and kind of transiently topical. Like in viking times when writing was rare and important, it was "zomg dude runes are magical", and now that computer programming is important, it's "zomg dude programmers are like wizards".Join the 3.5e Discord server: https://discord.gg/ehGFz6M3nJ
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2019-09-17, 09:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2019-09-17 at 09:30 PM.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2019-09-17, 09:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
As an actual programmer I have issues with the magic-as-programming language idea.
The primary difference between fully developed languages (thats languages that have all the useful options built into them) is speed and ease of use. Machine will be faster than assembly, assembly will be faster than basic languages, basic languages will be faster than object oriented languages. But its basically the reverse for how easy and fast it is to write any given program.
Now you could reverse the order and it would make more sense. Gods get to say "planet Earth = new planet (habitable) {oceans: 7, minerals: 'high'};" and they get a nice planet using high level code, if they want changes they can define or refedine them sort of on-the-fly. Your grand high wizards are declaring a pointer to a struct, defining all the variables in the struct, entering the values, and then managing to get a demi-plane out of it, but they can't change what was set in the first place. A first level wizard would be checking his cheat sheet for the op-code for the multiplication operation and writing down what memory registers he initalized to hold the two numbers (that's what coding in assembly is like, annoying, slow, and easy to make mistakes in).
Your outer planes weirdness wouldn't really even be programming. It would know about buffer overflows, page file operations, race conditions, and hardware weaknesses. Using that knowledge of the operating system and hardware to force faults, throw errors, and expose data in ways that the programmers wouldn't be able to affect or counter.
Perhaps a better analogy would be permission levels in the operating system. The creator has root level access and can do stuff like delete users with impunity and tell the os to kill it's own processes. Gods have admin level access to run any programs and control users within their user groups. The mortal casters get to use and write apps but don't have access to the operating system, if they run a program that doesn't have an end condition (infinite loop, no interface) they have to ask an admin to kill the process. Then your SLAs or inherent abilities are just a group login with predefined apps they can use and no other access at all.
In this scenario the elder abominations are black hat hackers doing phishing attacks or trying for open com ports over wi-fi in order to insert viruses.
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2019-09-17, 11:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
So we have two scales here, somewhat inverted in comparison to each other.
One based on how close one is working to the fundamental level of reality and how directly one's "code" runs on the "hardware", and the other based on how quick and easy it is to write something and have it work.
Interesting.
A third scale has appeared.It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2019-09-18, 12:24 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
+1 to this. In this paradigm, I would view higher level spell slots as essentially more and more complex machine code macros. Gods, of course, have the best and most complicated macros, ie high level languages and libraries like Python. The first level wizard can create a small macro to change something he's very familiar with—his hand into a heat source like an oven. And it can shoot some impressive fire!
At 2nd level spells, he's created a macro that can create a custom object with heating properties, like a sphere made out of flame.
At 3rd level spells, he's able to create a macro that can redefine any arbitrary pointer in a reasonable distance to an extremely high temperature range, creating a fireball out of thin air!
...On the other hand, at 9th level spells, he has a veritable library of macros, pointing to a near-arbitrary set of creature forms and he can just type wizard.BecomeDragon() and keep spamming that.
There is a quirk of this, because some low level things can corrupt data in ways that high-level languages can't easily fix. And that can be a good setting building thing! After all, if you corrupt a pointer to a bit of reality (Private Sanctum), not even the gods will be able to tell what you do in there, with all their macros and high-level commands. It takes a wizard on the ground to free that memory with a dispel... giving you a very reason for clerics.Last edited by Fable Wright; 2019-09-18 at 12:25 AM.
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2019-09-18, 07:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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2019-09-18, 07:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
That's more or less how it works in the Unsounded webcomic. Might be work looking at for inspiration.
My FFRP characters. Avatar by Ashen Lilies. Sigatars by Ashen Lilies, Gullara and Purple Eagle.
Interested in the Nexus FFRP setting? See our Discord server.
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2019-09-18, 07:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
Have you read 'Elantris' by Brandon Sanderson (or 'The Emperor's Soul', which uses a similar magic system)? The magic system is somewhat like you describe, with the magic itself using a set of fundamental runes describing basic concepts, and a simple spell generally consisting of a base rune with some modifiers describing what you want to do, while more complicated spells would require more symbols. For example, a 'Fireball' spell would be the rune for fire, with some additional symbols indicating how far away it needs to explode and how big the explosion needs to be.
Jasnah avatar by Zea Mays
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2019-09-18, 07:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
As something to perhaps help, I'll share my attitude towards programmer, as a programmer.
I grew up playing a lot of RPGs and reading a lot of fantasy, and the idea of magic had a huge appeal to me. I think a large part of what I love about programming is that it feels like magic to me. So I'm sharing something sorta from the reverse attitude: not making a magic system akin to programming, but describing how programming is akin to magic.
I have this base stuff (usually raw data stored in a table), and I want to transform it into other stuff (usually different data based on raw data, or tables/graphs based on data). The code I type is like entering the strange runes or saying the arcane words that reshape the stuff according to what I want.
Though, to go off some stuff already mentioned in this thread, that would be the wizard-type of using a high order programming language to reshape reality on fixed constraints (e.g., what the languages' syntax allows for).
Maybe that helps, maybe it doesn't, but I wanted to share that bit in case it could help with any worldbuilding.
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2019-09-18, 09:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
I enjoyed Rick Cook's take on this. Throwing out some random thoughts.
This is a system that runs without power. Plucking the strings of reality, inserting code, altering code or settings is what changes reality. That could lead to some imbalances if all you have to do is think the changes. In Cook's books the protagonist essentially puts a bunch of simple cantrips together into an operating system that can allow for the creation of powerful magics. Of course that also makes it vulnerable to catastrophic infinite loop errors. What powers the system?
I've always thought of Vancian magic as script-kiddies finding the reality manipulating tools of the creator(s). The current users aren't sure what the magic was originally used for but know that when they do things just right it gives them an effect they can use.
One word that really makes this paradigm appeal to me: viruses. I've used this before (infernal viruses) but there are so many possibilities. A magic virus that shuts down a spellcaster (blue screen) or just shuts down their ability to cast spells. A virus that hijacks spellcasters and turns them into a bot net that can be used to carry out super powerful attacks (even against the gods? cool) A virus that grounds out magical power so a spell-caster is unable to cast at full strength. And reality altering viruses? Oh, boy. You could even make the case that some creatures are nothing more than self-replicating programs. Celestials? The protective daemons created by the creators. Devils? Corrupted daemons. Demons? Pure malicious viruses. I mean, you could really go to town on this.
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2019-09-18, 09:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
IMO, it usually feels like gods are utilizing rather high-level structures, with limited comprehension of low-level details. Now, arguably, you could make some form of Wizards that are "mini gods", utilizing a scaled down version of language of the gods, optimized to run on mortal hardware. But, conceptually, Wizards with their spell research feel like they're doing somewhat trail and error poking at lower-level systems, hoping that they've translated the instruction manual / circuit diagrams correctly.
The Muggle knows that he can push these buttons on dishwasher to wash his dishes. He masters using reality as designed. The Wizard works to adjust the nozzle size and settings to pour himself a glass of cold water - and, at higher level, uses the dishwasher to make ice cubes.
Eh, it could work, I suppose. Personally, I view D&D Wizards as using reality as written exactly as much as the Fighter does. They just focus on different areas. Writing a Wizard from scratch as a reality hacker should end up, IMO, as a cross between a 2e Wild Mage, and a WoD Mage.
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2019-09-18, 09:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
Originally Posted by TelokOriginally Posted by Fable WrightPrincess Celestia's Homebrew Corner
Old classes, new classes, and more!
Thanks to AsteriskAmp for the avatar!
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2019-09-18, 10:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
About customization: a good high level language will retain the ability to do low level operations, you just almost never need to. You don't need to reference a memory address to flip a bit to set something, there's a command for that. You could do it if you wanted to, but its extra work for the same result.
About speed: the speed difference in high versus low languages is, in reality, quite small with a decently efficent program. If its a sloppy program with lots of extra loops or bad sorting or something then its bad no matter the language. Also a lot of what people think of as high level is really interpreted languages that have an interpreter using resources. But the only time a user would notice a difference is when something consumes most/all cpu resources for at least a couple minutes. Even then the time difference is a couple seconds at the most. Just choosing a better sorting method on a single large data set can erase that entire difference.
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2019-09-18, 11:20 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
Have any of you read the Cast in <string> books by Michelle Sagara (also known as the Chronicles of Elantra)?
The immortal races all have a Name at their core that grants them life. Said names are written in the Old Tongue, the language of the Ancients who created worlds. Stories told in the Old Language can affect reality in ways much more powerful than "ordinary" magic. Knowing someone's Name gives you power over them, assuming you have sufficient will to overcome theirs. The elements' names are also written in the Old Tongue, and if you know the Name of Fire, you can summon it (just be careful not to summon more than you can control). These True Words can be used to, say, transform people into sentient buildings with powers over their interiors, and even the surrounding lands. Some immortals see the name as a weakness, and attempt to divest themselves of them (which usually doesn't turn out well for them).Warhammer 40,000 Campaign Skirmish Game: Warpstrike
My Spelljammer stuff (including an orbit tracker), 2E AD&D spreadsheet, and Vault of the Drow maps are available in my Dropbox. Feel free to use or not use it as you see fit!
Thri-Kreen Ranger/Psionicist by me, based off of Rich's A Monster for Every Season
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2019-09-18, 12:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
Princess Celestia's Homebrew Corner
Old classes, new classes, and more!
Thanks to AsteriskAmp for the avatar!
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2019-09-18, 12:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
There are two sorts of people, those who understand programming, and those who don't. The neat thing is that nobody fully understands programming.
That Matrix quote about rules being broken is wrong, programs follow the rules, explicitly and always, they don't always do what was intended, because a programmer failed to make the intentions explicit in the programming, but the program always exactly follows the rules.The end of what Son? The story? There is no end. There's just the point where the storytellers stop talking.
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2019-09-18, 12:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
I've seen that series recommended before, I'll have to check it out.
Funny thing is, in my setting that uses "ur language", the exact opposite is true of many of the "immortal" (ageless) beings -- they're the ones without "true names". They don't come from the solar/creator deities, and weren't created using the "ur language".It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2019-09-18, 03:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
In this setting, the immortals are the first "children" of the Creators, and as such required Names to bring them to life. Humans, aerians, leontines, etc., are later creations, after the Creators (or possibly early creations of the Creators) learned how to bring things to life without giving them a Name. And any race that doesn't need a name is mortal, with a normal sub-century lifespan. Some of the immortal races never 'wake' after birth until a Name is delivered to them, while others are little more than beasts until they find their Name.
Warhammer 40,000 Campaign Skirmish Game: Warpstrike
My Spelljammer stuff (including an orbit tracker), 2E AD&D spreadsheet, and Vault of the Drow maps are available in my Dropbox. Feel free to use or not use it as you see fit!
Thri-Kreen Ranger/Psionicist by me, based off of Rich's A Monster for Every Season
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2019-09-18, 03:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
Absolutely. But I view high level slots as executing existing programs, not coding them on the fly. And it's really easy to do low level operations that bork or manipulate data in ways that a running program might not have error handling for. And error handling is a hugely expensive operation.
Speaking as an embedded engineer:
You will never convince me, ever, to run an operating system in Python, or do timeline processing for microsecond based hardware operations in Java or Matlab. Nor will you convince me to use Javascript to do big data crunching.
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2019-09-18, 06:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
Eh, to me the idea still had merit. The points of programming I'm using essentially boil down to:
-You need to run it on something. In my seeing this is the World(OS)/Universe (physical architecture).
-There are multiple languages, each of which has advantages and drawbacks. Learning multiple languages is fairly common among professional magicians.
-The universe does exactly what you tell it to do. I hope it's what you wanted it to do.
I've been wavering over whether learning a spell should count as 'compiling' it or if spells need to be rewritten every time, but I'm leaning more and more towards the former, which means that a lot of this comes up during spell design rather than casting.
Suffice to say, this isn't a D&D setting, but it is one that plays with a lot of fantasy tropes. This came up after I was happy with what I did with dwarves (renowned for their immaculately trimmed beards, skill at painting and music, and cuisine) and moved onto magic. In play it doesn't change a lot rules-wise, because I'm going for a rough analogy rather than basing magic on programming, but it does have some changes to the thematics of the setting (to start with inborn magic is pretty much out).
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2019-09-18, 06:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
I like the idea of spells basically being exploits, bugs, and viruses.
Which also makes magic a lot less predictable and more dangerous.
It also means that doing magic might expose you to various levels of corruption/virus/bugs.Last edited by kyoryu; 2019-09-18 at 06:34 PM.
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2019-09-18, 06:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2019-09-18, 06:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2009
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- In my library
Re: Reality Hacking
Yes, and from an in-setting perspective very little of this is known (it being a millennia or so since the AoL, which ended with a global societal collapse, and so a lot of information is distorted). It's really something that never comes up except as the reason the magic system has the quirks it does. You can overcomplicate stuff.
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2019-09-24, 03:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-09-24, 05:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-09-30, 10:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
I THINK there's a path from Mage: The Ascension that believes their magic works like this. And because it's Mage, they are probably right.
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2019-10-01, 12:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Reality Hacking
The character Krona from Grrl Power has this exact super-power.
https://grrlpowercomic.com/