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A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

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Mind you, this would be a great moment to switch main characters.

What with the young, protagonist-shaped boy getting a nearly-divine mission.
 
Azel said:
Mind you, this would be a great moment to switch main characters.

What with the young, protagonist-shaped boy getting a nearly-divine mission.
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I wouldn't want to shift focus entirely, but I would enjoy some Marco interlude arcs. Perhaps starting as he gets dragged along by Ysilla Royce on his first Doppelrat hunt, @DragonParadox?
 
Azel said:
Mind you, this would be a great moment to switch main characters.

What with the young, protagonist-shaped boy getting a nearly-divine mission.
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I don't think it would be a good idea to switch to anyone in the Imperium, even if we did start a new quest.

I mean, any imperial PC would always have the overpowering backup of Viserys and the companions, throwing a shadow over all risks we take and decisions we make.
What good is a quest where the answer to any problem at the outer limit of your own abilities is "Call for imperial aid and recieve a fuckton of firepower far in excess of any foe you are currently facing"?
Because let's be honest, that is Viserys standart-reaction when it looks like something might be too much for the local forces.

Edit: And even beyond the immediate issues, questers would keep more of an eye on the greater Imperium than the current Protagonist most of the time, and propably question every decision DP has VIserys enact, trying to push that towards the most optimal one.
 
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Artemis1992 said:
I don't think it would be a good idea to switch to anyone in the Imperium, even if we did start a new quest.

I mean, any imperial PC would always have the overpowering backup of Viserys and the companions, throwing a shadow over all risks we take and decisions we make.
What good is a quest where the answer to any problem at the outer limit of your own abilities is "Call for imperial aid and recieve a fuckton of firepower far in excess of any foe you are currently facing"?
Because let's be honest, that is Viserys standart-reaction when it looks like something might be too much for the local forces.

Edit: And even beyond the immediate issues, questers would keep more of an eye on the greater Imperium than the current Protagonist most of the time, and propably question every decision DP has VIserys enact, trying to push that towards the most optimal one.
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Sadly, you are entirely correct here, but it still feels like a nice passing-of-the-torch moment.

It's pretty much the reason why I barely ever write omakes for ASWAH anymore and why the idea to make a companion quest with lower-level characters in the Imperium went nowhere.
 
Azel said:
Sadly, you are entirely correct here, but it still feels like a nice passing-of-the-torch moment.

It's pretty much the reason why I barely ever write omakes for ASWAH anymore and why the idea to make a companion quest with lower-level characters in the Imperium went nowhere.
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My preferred option (in the unlikely case of another quest in the ASWAH-world) would be to start at a much earlier point, when Viserys was still in Braavos or earlier, and then derail the whole thing.
Whenever I thought about the cultist game idea from ages ago (playing as a cultist to one of the various factions in conflict over Planetos, most likely Fiends) I always thought the point when Viserys is at Mantarys would be a perfect starting point.
 
We, uh, can start a new quest in the established setting. Technically.
Just gotta run it as one directly opposed to the Imperium.
Would be something of a Hardcore mode Cultist Simulator, because Inquisition. And Imperial Deity. And idiotically strong PCs in power.

Edit: partial Artemis'ing.
 
egoo said:
We, uh, can start a new quest in the established setting. Technically.
Just gotta run it as one directly opposed to the Imperium.
Would be something of a Hardcore mode Cultist Simulator, because Inquisition. And Imperial Deity. And idiotically strong PCs in power.

Edit: partial Artemis'ing.
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Not on Planetos, not at this point.
Even I would call bullshit if some rando cultist could take root within our Empire by now.
At most a heavily empowered and supported agent of a hostile force (starting with Mindblank and crazy boosted skills at least), but that takes us right back into the high-level game from the start, which is somewhat missing the point.
 
There's always the Upper Planes to start a low-level quest. Would be hard, but it's far enough away from everything else that there would be little interference between the plots, baring some rumor mill stuff.
 
Azel said:
There's always the Upper Planes to start a low-level quest. Would be hard, but it's far enough away from everything else that there would be little interference between the plots, baring some rumor mill stuff.
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That sounds possible, sure the world is extremly dangerous and filled with higher-leveled monsters, but so is Faerun.
And the planes have very different flavors, Heaven being highly dangerous outside the single, devil-controlled city, Nirvana being a warzone with various degrees of danger and several powerful factions.
Elysium is the most varied, every shard of it being whatever the QM wants it to be, with the only consistency being a relativly large problem with Demons.
 
Artemis1992 said:
That sounds possible, sure the world is extremly dangerous and filled with higher-leveled monsters, but so is Faerun.
And the planes have very different flavors, Heaven being highly dangerous outside the single, devil-controlled city, Nirvana being a warzone with various degrees of danger and several powerful factions.
Elysium is the most varied, every shard of it being whatever the QM wants it to be, with the only consistency being a relativly large problem with Demons.
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Elyisum is more of a free for all, as pretty much everyone can seize a chunk that is sufficiently isolated to serve as a beachhead. At the same time, resources are so scarce that it's not really all that useful to have territory there unless you need it as living space, so the large realms kinda ignore the place.
 
Azel said:
Elyisum is more of a free for all, as pretty much everyone can seize a chunk that is sufficiently isolated to serve as a beachhead. At the same time, resources are so scarce that it's not really all that useful to have territory there unless you need it as living space, so the large realms kinda ignore the place.
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I remember that part about it being slowly falling into the Abyss, so I assumed that besides the "bit of everyone" there would be a majority of demons.
After all it's prime real estate compared to most of the Abyss, so the Demonlords will have interest.
 
Artemis1992 said:
I remember that part about it being slowly falling into the Abyss, so I assumed that besides the "bit of everyone" there would be a majority of demons.
After all it's prime real estate compared to most of the Abyss, so the Demonlords will have interest.
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Yeah, they are a problem, but more in the sense of "dangerous wildlife" than any organized effort. The Abyss is operating on Crab Mentality after all, so any "organized" effort to claim parts of Elysium doesn't last very long.

So you mostly have disjointed wilderness with the occasional trade outpost of other planar empires. A bit like Africa used to be before the mid 19th century.
 
Looking for Crab Mentality spurred a small wiki-walk and I just found out that a women won the 2009 Nobel Prize for economics for disproving "the tragedy of the commons".

Article:
It was long unanimously held among economists that natural resources that were collectively used by their users would be over-exploited and destroyed in the long-term. Elinor Ostrom disproved this idea by conducting field studies on how people in small, local communities manage shared natural resources, such as pastures, fishing waters, and forests. She showed that when natural resources are jointly used by their users, in time, rules are established for how these are to be cared for and used in a way that is both economically and ecologically sustainable.


I can't help but feel that, on average, economists are short-sighted, anti-social cunts and since they interact a lot with other economists, they therefore assume that everyone is a short-sighted, anti-social cunt. There is no other way to explain why the idea of people not being self-destructive morons is somehow a Nobel Prize grade reveleation in the field.
 
Azel said:
Looking for Crab Mentality spurred a small wiki-walk and I just found out that a women won the 2009 Nobel Prize for economics for disproving "the tragedy of the commons".

Article:
It was long unanimously held among economists that natural resources that were collectively used by their users would be over-exploited and destroyed in the long-term. Elinor Ostrom disproved this idea by conducting field studies on how people in small, local communities manage shared natural resources, such as pastures, fishing waters, and forests. She showed that when natural resources are jointly used by their users, in time, rules are established for how these are to be cared for and used in a way that is both economically and ecologically sustainable.


I can't help but feel that, on average, economists are short-sighted, anti-social cunts and since they interact a lot with other economists, they therefore assume that everyone is a short-sighted, anti-social cunt. There is no other way to explain why the idea of people not being self-destructive morons is somehow a Nobel Prize grade reveleation in the field.
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Not sure if I should rate insightful, funny or hugs, all three work equally.
 
Azel said:
Looking for Crab Mentality spurred a small wiki-walk and I just found out that a women won the 2009 Nobel Prize for economics for disproving "the tragedy of the commons".

Article:
It was long unanimously held among economists that natural resources that were collectively used by their users would be over-exploited and destroyed in the long-term. Elinor Ostrom disproved this idea by conducting field studies on how people in small, local communities manage shared natural resources, such as pastures, fishing waters, and forests. She showed that when natural resources are jointly used by their users, in time, rules are established for how these are to be cared for and used in a way that is both economically and ecologically sustainable.


I can't help but feel that, on average, economists are short-sighted, anti-social cunts and since they interact a lot with other economists, they therefore assume that everyone is a short-sighted, anti-social cunt. There is no other way to explain why the idea of people not being self-destructive morons is somehow a Nobel Prize grade reveleation in the field.
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"The Tragedy of the Commons" is one of those concepts that must always be viewed through the lens of culture.

Just because Culture A, B, E, and J doesn't properly husband their natural resources, that doesn't automatically mean Cultures C, D, F, etc., will be equally as destructive.

This is Anthropology 101 stuff, but then again, anthropology and economics are about as closely related as web development and rocket science.
 
Goldfish said:
"The Tragedy of the Commons" is one of those concepts that must always be viewed through the lens of culture.

Just because Culture A, B, E, and J doesn't properly husband their natural resources, that doesn't automatically mean Cultures C, D, F, etc., will be equally as destructive.

This is Anthropology 101 stuff, but then again, anthropology and economics are about as closely related as web development and rocket science.
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I don't think it's related to culture at all. The two big questions are "are people acting short-sighted / are unknowing of the effects" and "are the people making decisions impacted by the negative consequences".

The tragedy comes to pass when people either don't know any better, in which case the usage will adapt to either halt the degradation or even to reverse it, or if the people who profit from the damage being done have no reason to care about the damages, such as how a US company CEO has no reason to care about Brazilian rainforest being burned to graze cattle on the land.
 
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