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My GURPS books I bought myself for xmas have arrived, Horror and Low Tech.
I have started reading little bits of Low Tech.
So far, China invented everything first. Everything. By several centuries.
They had some very useful plants, like bamboo, and insects, like mulberry silkworms and some lacquer bugs.
They also figured out how to make small quantities of high quality steel several centuries before everyone else.
There are also a whole stack of things where Arabic writing people got there first.
Honestly, Europe doesn't seem to be much cop at all in the first four tech levels.
We are not impressive.
If I'm thinking post apocalyptic low tech though it should be a bit different. Like, a lot of their problem was not having the theory. Trying to figure out chemistry without the periodic table of elements, or with working with earth water air fire as your basic elements, rather complicates things. Being unable to distinguish between different salts also makes things tricky, with recipes saying salt from location x because that was the closest they could get to saying a particular chemical. If you've had all that knowledge, and have posters of the periodic table, what happens after the fall? You no longer have an industrial tech base, post atomic zombies or whatever, so some things are not available. If global travel shuts down then some elements just aren't going to be available locally... at least without a lot of recycling. All tech would look like Tony in the cave, smashing up the incredibly advanced but useless to get at the 2 grams of shiny shiny metals. So what tech level would that be?
Alternate tech paths are usually written as TL (2+1) or whatever, but I'm thinking more TL (8-4). They're medieval again, not actually medieval.
Of course once you've ever had nanotech we're into sufficiently-advanced-science territory, and I'm just using the Magic rules for it. But that's kind of sidestepping the point.
Still, it's easier to use the rules for Soul Jar than to figure out a tech path that leads to brain mapping of a sort that's still useful to the select few.
Now I just have to decide what size gem they use for a jar, and where is most convenient to place ( Read more... )
Okay, so, if I found it as easy to write my dissertation as I do to design entire worlds, I would probably be done by now.
but then if I found it as easy to write the stories as do the worldbuilding, I'd have at least two novels worth done, from the worldbuilding for Incorrupt and for the Stone Circle.
Probably a lot more, those are just last year and the year before.
A lot of this stuff, I don't really start with the rule books, I have characters in my head and bits of plot and I just go through the rules to sift out interesting bits to build on.
I'd never roll something up and go oh no I can't make that work now.
This stuff is fun.
Even with a headache.
(Headaches are annoying.)
I have started reading little bits of Low Tech.
So far, China invented everything first. Everything. By several centuries.
They had some very useful plants, like bamboo, and insects, like mulberry silkworms and some lacquer bugs.
They also figured out how to make small quantities of high quality steel several centuries before everyone else.
There are also a whole stack of things where Arabic writing people got there first.
Honestly, Europe doesn't seem to be much cop at all in the first four tech levels.
We are not impressive.
If I'm thinking post apocalyptic low tech though it should be a bit different. Like, a lot of their problem was not having the theory. Trying to figure out chemistry without the periodic table of elements, or with working with earth water air fire as your basic elements, rather complicates things. Being unable to distinguish between different salts also makes things tricky, with recipes saying salt from location x because that was the closest they could get to saying a particular chemical. If you've had all that knowledge, and have posters of the periodic table, what happens after the fall? You no longer have an industrial tech base, post atomic zombies or whatever, so some things are not available. If global travel shuts down then some elements just aren't going to be available locally... at least without a lot of recycling. All tech would look like Tony in the cave, smashing up the incredibly advanced but useless to get at the 2 grams of shiny shiny metals. So what tech level would that be?
Alternate tech paths are usually written as TL (2+1) or whatever, but I'm thinking more TL (8-4). They're medieval again, not actually medieval.
Of course once you've ever had nanotech we're into sufficiently-advanced-science territory, and I'm just using the Magic rules for it. But that's kind of sidestepping the point.
Still, it's easier to use the rules for Soul Jar than to figure out a tech path that leads to brain mapping of a sort that's still useful to the select few.
Now I just have to decide what size gem they use for a jar, and where is most convenient to place ( Read more... )
Okay, so, if I found it as easy to write my dissertation as I do to design entire worlds, I would probably be done by now.
but then if I found it as easy to write the stories as do the worldbuilding, I'd have at least two novels worth done, from the worldbuilding for Incorrupt and for the Stone Circle.
Probably a lot more, those are just last year and the year before.
A lot of this stuff, I don't really start with the rule books, I have characters in my head and bits of plot and I just go through the rules to sift out interesting bits to build on.
I'd never roll something up and go oh no I can't make that work now.
This stuff is fun.
Even with a headache.
(Headaches are annoying.)