[Torg] Why 0-21? Or why not?

[Chris]

Again skipping ahead in the email.

On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 4:10 PM, Jasyn Jones <jasynj at gmail.com> wrote:

> Which brings us back to a few days ago:
>
> "Other than your reconnection House Rule, you've not indicated why a 0-21
> is any worse than 0-33. Or, for that matter, why 0-30 is better than either
> 0-21 or 0-33.
>
> "You can do what you want, I'm not arguing that, but since your only
> objection is 'it messes with my House Rule on reconnection', it doesn't
> convince. I don't use that rule (tried it, immediately discarded it), and
> even if I did I wouldn't sabotage other ideas just to keep it. No
> reconnection rule is good enough to justify ruining a better axiom chart."
>
> There, argument mooted. You don't have to try and prove that my charts
> don't implement your House Rule, I've conceded the point.
>

How did this turn into a discussion on 0-21 vs 0-33 vs 0-30? The first
message I saw in this thread was asking why you wouldn't simply boil the
axiom levels down to 0-10, with everything extraneous being left out. The
0-21 and 0-30 variations both leave empty holes, and from what I read of the
0-30 in some other post, it seems that a lot of what goes above 21 or 22, or
whichever number it was is left for things that have not been accomplished
by any known cosm, but may be out there somewhere. Thus, for all intents and
purposes (or "intensive purposes" for any newspaper editors who don't know
the difference), the charts are largely the same, perhaps with the exception
of specifics as to what goes where, in which case they may be 40-70%
different.

So, what were we arguing pointlessly over again? Oh yeah, "why don't we just
make it 0-10 with each axiom being listed on a line with anyone who shares
its axiom rating?" I think. Well, because it takes out the differences
essential for knowing how different two axioms are especially when there are
quantifiable differences that can be measured between them. Screw social
structures and norms, I'll just use technology as my example:

There is a long period of time when we were stupid and used the same
primitive tools, but made minor discoveries/inventions/etc. This corresponds
to gaps in the original chart saying stuff happened, and we can attribute
things to this value, but we don't have a society (cosm) that we're using
(so far) that really lives here. Or maybe we do, and we just haven't told
you yet.

Reducing it simply from 33 down to whatever, even 30, eliminates at least
some of that time/progress gap between axiomatic levels, and obviously, the
more levels you remove, the more you lose that sense of difference. Sure,
you have the numbers associated with the things you have, but sometimes it
is nice to have the things in between, as well.

The things for example, that might be recognizable and usable by someone
from society A, if they can recognize it as similar to something they know,
but it would be easier for some than others. Ignoring the fact that a 1860s
rifle is a dead thing and someone from the living lands wouldn't touch it,
aside from it being dead, they might identify it as a club, and if they felt
so inclined in a dire situation, would use it as such. Someone from Aysle
might recognize it as something the dwarves make, and possibly know how to
use it. Someone from the Star Sphere on the other hand would know exactly
what it is, and how to use it, but would detest doing so because of its
inferiority or something.

How do we know just how differently people will react to things in a given
axiom, be it magical, technical, etc? By how different the two ratings are,
and 0-10 does not give us that perspective. Hopefully, having answered what
appeared to be the original question, with lots of pretty pictures, and
colorful drawings... well, examples anyway, this thread can die. Mostly I
say this because it looks like at this point it has been usurped for the
purposes of arguing a completely different point altogether and has gotten
off topic, but feel free to say I'm wrong, stupid, or what have you and
continue berating each others' opinions instead of having a useful
discussion that progresses the topic in a meaningful direction.

Thank you and have a nice day.
-chris
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