Comments by "p11" (@porky1118) on "Overly Sarcastic Productions"
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@legrandliseurtri7495 I agree. If it's in a fictional world, I would always call it fantasy, though.
But I don't like adding too common fantasy elements.
For example the common fantasy races aren't that interesting (elves, dwarfs, etc.), especially if it's a typical medival setting.
Adding new races doesn't seem too interesting to me anymore. Why do you need them? Most of the time, you could also just add a new country or tribe of normal humans, who just have a different culture.
I prefer realistic fantasy worlds. Magic is fine to me, but I prefer more physics based magic systems (energy preservation) and only use it, when there is no good explanation using physics. So Sci-Fi is often better. But without space travel preferably.
One of my recent ideas for a fantasy world is not like most fantasy worlds, which add new races, creatures, magic and technologies. Mine only has one race, which has only one gender, no differences in age, no other animals, only one edible food...
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You can try to improve the world, but then it gets worse in a different way.
Maybe a more realistic example:
If you give people money, who are too stupid to earn their own money, they will more likely reproduce, and in a few generations, there are not enough people, who can work, anymore, to feed everyone, and even more people have to die.
But letting them die now, even if we can help them, is not necessarily a good solution as well.
Or you could say, there is a good solution: Preventing poor people, who want to have free money, from getting children.
But if this was really the best solution to that problem, why isn't this done? It probably has bad sites, too.
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I like to use an extended version of the structure of Mother 3 instead of the three act structure.
It has an intro and 8 chapters.
My extended version adds four extra chapters, the last three being a thee act structure.
The intro should be clear, a small introduction to the world
The first chapter is still some kind of introduction and setup of the story.
The second and third tell two different stories, which belong together, but show different sides of the same aspect.
At the ending of the third chapter, both chapters are resolved together in some way.
From the fourth chapter onwards, something changed completely.
The fourth chapter introduces these changes while being a setup for chapter 5.
Chapter 5 resolves this setup and prepares chapter 7.
In chapter 6, not much happens, but it's important.
Chapter 7 is the longest chapter. It explores the rest of the world in a more dynamic structure and might be a bit repetitive. It's basically an own structure in itself.
Chapter 8 is something completely different. It does not revisit any established places. And it resolves the story in some way, while leaving a lot of questions.
That's basically the structure of Mother 3 a bit more abstract, so you have more creative freedom.
For example chapter 2 and 3 in Mother 3 are about different characters, which work for opposite sides at the same time. But in a story I wrote using this system, it's about two different concepts explored by the same person.
My first extension adds a ninth chapter, which shows the world after the main conflict is resolved.
My second extension adds three more chapters, which tell a side story.
In chapter 10 something is discovered, which might still lead to problems.
In chapter 11, they try solve the problem, but fail.
In chapter 12, they finally manage to really solve the problem.
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I recently started to think, I should start small.
I could write the same story twice, but in the first one, only the health of the hero's mate is threatened, in the second one, the universe will be destroyed forever.
Which of these stories is better?
In the first one, you can at least raise the stakes in a sequel.
In the second one you could lower the stakes in a sequel? Can this be interesting? At least it's something, you don't see very often.
You can think "What's worse than having the whole world destroyed?"
Maybe it's worse, when everything is destroyed but you, but you cannot die.
Or your mate dies. Only everyone you like dies. And if you find new friends, they die shortly afterwards.
Or maybe there just is no real danger anymore. What kinds of stories can you make under this premise?
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Some problem needs to be addressed when having magic in your world:
If anyone can theoretically learn magic, and magic is powerful, then after a few hundred years it's likely, that some crazy idiot will learn magic and destroy everything.
A society, where everyone has much power, which cannot be controlled well, will most likely destroy itself.
In our world, many people have access to power, for example in a bunch of countries many people have deadly shooting weapons.
But a single person can just kill a bunch of persons, until they are killed themselves, since most people don't want someone to use the power in such a way, and are able to prevent it.
And our super weapons are mostly in the control of a few people, and it's not that easy for some crazy idiot, who doesn't care about the world, to get full access to them, so it's not that likely to happen.
But in a world, who anyone could get powers much stronger than pistols, maybe even at the level of nuclear bombs, it's likely they will just destroy themselves.
So defense magic might be the only way not to die. So if there is a powerful magic system, the defense would most likely have to be stronger than the attack.
Or alternatively it could be very complicated to use powerful magic.
If only very intelligent people, who are happy with their life and normally don't want the world to be destroyed, are able to learn the powerful types of magic, they probably won't destroy the world.
If you spent many years of your life to get good at magic, would you really want to destroy everything?
Or would you rather want to help your people, rule the world or have "fun" using your powers in a sustainable way?
Remember, even if you plan to destroy the world in the long run, there will be other macicans, who will probably kill you before.
So it wouldn't be a good idea to start doing evil things in the world and be discovered shortly afterwards.
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You could destroy the world, and when you want to add more content, it's prequels.
Maybe there are multiple character arcs, which are told one after another, and either stop, when the character dies or when the world is destroyed.
So in the first character arc, the character just has a happy end, gets old and dies.
In the second, the character dies unexpectedly.
In the third one, the world is destroyed.
And after that, you know, that the world will be destroyed after a certain time.
Except something weird happens and the world is not destroyed at the same time in the arc of another character.
Similar to that weird comic movie, where all women are naked and have big breasts and a big green ball tells stories about how it destroyed the world to a victim, and in the last story it tells, the green ball is destroyed and after it recognizes that, it's also destroyed in the present...
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My current main character is also a CMHB.
Most of the time she does not need her badass powers, but just has a relaxing life.
If the situation requires it, she can be as badass as she needs to be. She just unpacks her "ultra instinct" and so basically wins every fight.
I don't think, I'd ever let her lose.
And it's also not that surprising.
She just has her powers, she probably learnt them a few centuries ago, and she knows about her powers, she does not have amnesia. She just does not often think about it.
She does not feel the need to tell anyone about it. Other people only recognize her powers, when they cause a situation, where she needs them.
And some of them are really impressed or afraid afterwards.
Just like when I do my regular programming job, and then I face a problem wher I need some complicated math, I might just use my not really secret math power to solve it, without telling anyone about it. Often noone knows, what I really did, just that it works. And when they see, what I did, when they know a bit more about my work, they might be impressed (but probably not afraid, at least not yet).
Sounds like I can't write characters with a different personality than me :P
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I found a way to circumvent this problem:
In my current fantasy world, men don't exist.
There might be a bunch of men, but it's very common to be a girl.
And I somehow didn't fall into one of these archetypes, I guess.
There's one like a mother/mentor, so this is kind of archetypic.
But the other ones I can't tell in a few words.
One travels a lot, and is not at home most of the time, kind of conservative, etc.
One is pretty strong, mostly because of technical knowledge, but also likes to relax a lot, is a bit chubby and does not like to go outside often except for training about once a day.
I guess, they don't even fall into typical male archetypes...
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The story I want to write, also will be based on internal motivations, not on external ones.
But that's difficult.
I don't want to have these motivations:
* "my situation turned bad, I want do restore it" (girlfriend abducted; village destroyed; lost job)
* "my situation was bad all along, I want to improve it" (living in a dystopia; being lonely)
* "my situation is fine, but it will be bad, if I don't act" ("they will find me"; the government starts to take freedoms away, but noone does anything against it)
* "my situation is fine, but it can get better" (founding a band, finding the lost father)
I might want to have a situation like this: "my situation is already nice, it does not need to change"
But it's very difficult to have a story with a premise like this.
The situation itself would basically have to be interesting.
You could follow a person on their regular work or hobbies, which would be more interesting in a fantasy world or if that work/hobby is interesting.
There could even be small bad things happening, but nothing too serious.
Probably would end up being comedy...
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I recognized this in my own fantasy world, and started do work on new ones.
That fantasy world had a bunch of races, and even if not everyone of that race had the same trait, there was at least that preference.
* the "armor humans" mostly live in caves, are strong, not very emotional, especially the men, the women maybe a bit, but more at the level of human men
* the "bird humans" value traditions, live non monogamous (males have harems, but when they leave, the women look for another men)
* "amphibian humans" can be very wise and intelligent, but also tend do be playful.
* elves don't have much personality, are emotionally stable, live very long and stay young for long. They were made to be used as slaves.
* and humans act different depending on where they live.
* and if a fantasy creature lives long enough in a place, where multiple races live, they often adopt their behaviors
I guess my races are not that stale, or at least it could be changed to be better, but I somehow didn't like the premise of having many different races anymore.
The "hat" thing can probably also thought of as a bias, but in reality not everyone is like that, even in works, where you see it.
But why do you have to add "bird human" instead of just adding a new culture, who consists of the same race as everyone, but they live non-monogamous and are more traditional in comparison?
Most of the time cultures are enough and races are not necessary, especially races with so many differences to the "default" race (probably humans).
If these races are nor really important to the stories, just use standard races.
Or find a reason, why you need bird humans.
The best reason probably would be the ability to fly.
But that's not enough. Besides that, it needs to be important to the story, that other people cannot fly. Else you could just add a civilization, where everyone is a "bird human" or "angel" or whatever flying race you prefer.
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The people of my fantasy world are immortal in the way where you don't die naturally and have improved healing powers.
I also want to touch the concept of immortality, but it probably won't be the main focus.
I don't fully agree about the stuff you say. It's a matter of perspective.
Even in my probably finite life, I often have very good moments and bad moments.
And I would probably do the same if I knew I couldn't die.
The main problem is, when you are immortal, and your friends aren't.
But in real life, it's already similar. Most of your friends don't stay friends for many decades.
And during your life even most of your relatives die and sometimes are replaced by new ones, move away or start avoiding you, etc.
So you have to find new friends every few years anyway.
Or maybe you are just happy alone.
You could do a lot of things when immortal.
One day you read a book you already read a few hundred years ago, and only remember it being good.
For some time you train until you become the best boxer in the world, and then just go on and do different things again.
Maybe you are very dedicated in something and will become the person, who knows more than everyone else about a topic.
Maybe you just want to appreciate some interesting mathematical concepts and what they have to do with the real world.
Maybe you teach every new generation about the best N64 games (assuming new people are coming).
And on the other hand, you could also just kill yourself if you really had enough.
Maybe you would kill yourself even earlier.
Most people know, they will die anyway some day, so even if they don't like their live, they will most likely just go on. Maybe it will get better again.
If there is no specific ending, you might just quit early. Like when watching a movie, and you don't like it, but you know it's almost over, you would also just watch the end.
Maybe I would have killed myself during some kind of existential crisis, but then thought "I will die anyway, let's just enjoy life for now".
But after thinking a lot, and even imagining a bunch of stories about immortal characters, I guess I would just want to stay living.
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