I’m not a big fan of the term “enlightened races”, but it exists and it’s convenient, so I’m adopting it. This refers to those races who naturally (without system fuckery) form societies. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Aliens, etc…
This is not quite synonymous with “sapient”. Leaving aside the offspring question (i.e. are human babies sapient? It’s arguable), the distinction matters because non-enlightened creatures (i.e. monsters) can ascend to sapience, even if they don’t start that way.
Let’s get that out of the way, first: Sentient and sapient are not the same thing, even in standard English. However, the distinction is not commonly used/recognized. I’m drawing the line at “conversation”. If something has some level of intelligence but cannot converse – which is not at all the same as “communicate” – it’s sentient but not sapient. Dogs, cats, and dolphins are good examples. I refuse to speculate whether or not they can converse amongst themselves. Conversation with ME is what matters (and they’re perfectly justified in thinking I’m the not-sapient one for not being able to converse with them).
The only other level of “alive-ness” that I’m going to be concerned with is behavioral. This is the (frankly ridiculous, but convenient here) Skinner theory of stimulus/response. The behavioral/sentient line is harder to draw than the sentient/sapient line (and my line is not the only possible one). Right now, I’m drawing the line at “fear”. If something can be afraid, it has enough intelligence to be sentient because fear means that it is projecting into the future. If it only reacts after something happens, then it’s behavioral. This may end up being too broad (for narrative purposes) so I may change my mind.
The difference between a “monster” and an “animal” is that monsters are systemized – they, too, have levels, attributes, and skills. An animal is not. It is what it is and cannot advance. Plant monsters exist. So do just plain plants.
Plants are entirely behavioral. They may react, but they’re not sentient. Animals may be purely behavioral (ants), but may also be sentient (dogs). Neither advances. They are what they are and they stay that way. For simplicity, there are just plants and animals. The other kingdoms (between one and seven, depending) are not relevant. If I decide the story needs mushroom monsters, they’re plants, not fungi. Insects are animals.
Monsters (plant or animal) can advance. The big difference between monsters and enlightened is that they start at a lower rung. Generally speaking, a monster will start sentient and may advance to sapient. Note “may”. It’s not guaranteed. Death is the biggest barrier, but “really stupid” may also apply. For example, a slime monster is mostly behavioral. While it is theoretically possible for a slime to advance to sapience, they’re generally lucky to advance to sentience. I’m looking forward to reading Syl, which has a slime as the protagonist; it’s in my Kindle, just haven’t gotten to it, yet. Everybody Loves Large Chests is another example of this; a mimic is the protagonist (and it’s just as silly as you would expect from the title). [Wow, there are 13 of those, now; I’ve read the first two or three.]
Note that, despite my definitional line, sentience/sapience is a continuum, not a hard boundary. So is behavioral/sentient.
I’m stealing tier/rank C as the monster sapience boundary. Tier/Rank (I haven’t settled on which word I’m going to use) is how system-integrated one is. Our newly integrated humans on Earth start at “G”, which is “off the bottom”. Those born, including monsters, in a systemized world start at “F”, at least, depending on the tier of the parents.
Note: Our intrepid werewolves are an exception because they need to be tier F in order for the shape-shifting to work. There will be other exceptions. Yes, this means that they have an advantage. However, they are the main characters so need to become over powered (it’s how the genre works) and the system does want to be helpful so that Earth is not completely overrun by the rest of the multiverse. There will be lots of “advantages” scattered about.
That means that if you want a talking dog companion, you need to find (or create) a dog monster, not a dog animal, then level it up to tier C (or at least close; we can be generous to species we like). My intrepid werewolves are going to try to change a wolf into a werewolf. This is going to fail. However, it is going to upgrade the wolf from animal to monster (tier F). The current plan is to advance that wolf to sapience, but it’s going to take some time. It will be an authorial adventure in avoiding continuity errors by not making her too smart too soon.
The generally accepted tier/rank ladder is: F, E, D, C, B, A, S, then god. Fighting up-level is generally considered do-able, but dangerous. Fighting up-tier is generally considered wildly difficult to impossible. The power/strength change is exponential, not linear, but perhaps not strictly/purely. If it were purely exponential, E would be 12 times strong than F, which is fine. So is D being 12 times stronger than E, which is 144 times stronger than F. Then it starts going insane.
What does it even mean to be a thousand times stronger than someone? I can bench-press 200 pounds (on a good day, in my 20s). Bench-pressing 200,000 pounds doesn’t seem possible, but that may be due more to size/shape than the weight. A fully laden European swallow Boeing 747 weighs 200,000 pounds. No one is going to bench-press a 747; it’s not a strength issue, it’s shape issue. 200,000 pounds of lead is about 8 cubic meters, which could presumably be shaped into something press-able; it’s not that big. Maybe this isn’t so bad. That’s tier C compared to tier F. Tier B would be 20,000 times stronger than tier F, which would be a 40,000,000 pound bench-press. I’m not sure what sort of surface one would need to be on to press 40,000,000 pounds without simply crushing the bench and/or what’s under it, but tier B creatures are rare (and details certainly do not matter for the first series, let alone the first book).
Mechanics Digression: My current plan is that level 12 results in a tier-up from G to F. This will be the moment when Luke realizes the system works in base-12. E gross (144), D chiliad (1,178), and C myriad (20,736) is the likely progression, but those numbers grow fast; exponential growth does that and base-12 surprisingly (to me) more quickly than base-10; already double at just the fourth power. Either leveling remains linear so level 20,736 is not an insane goal (2,985,984 XP) or the tiering is linear (144, 288, 432, 576, etc…) and leveling becomes exponential, which is the usual pattern.
With exponential leveling, the breakpoints move to divisible-by-twelve. 1,584 XP to get to level 11, but 20,736 to get to level 12. 39,744 XP to get to level 23, but 497,664 to get to level 24. This also quickly gets out of hand, with level 60 requiring 2,149,908,480 XP. Even with linear tiering, level 144 looks out of reach or at least delayed beyond what a narrative structure (i.e. book) will support.
Trying to calculate “exponential both” blows up my spreadsheet (#NUMBER error) figuring out the number of XP to get to level 20,736.
Clearly, I need a new algorithm. The exponential level formula is currently 12^(int(level/12)) + level*(12^(level/12)+1), which grows too fast unless everyone in the multiverse is below level 144 (1.8E+17). And that’s not total; that’s just from level 143 to level 144. The linear one is just 144*level, which is only 20,736 XP to level 144.
I have a little while to figure this out. Level 12 is still a few chapters away. Maybe real numbers, not just integers, for the exponents.
I still have not codified how XP is gained. Killing stuff definitely works, but I’m not sure I want everyone to go all murder-hobo to level up – although this is my backstory about why the world ends, but there’s a big difference between “can” and “must”. And there are the non-combat classes to consider. For example, there is no logical justification for making a Chef go out and kill things to level up, although if he wants to, go have fun – and then serve the monster. Beating the crap out of something also works “you have defeated X, experience earned” is already written. Skill levels definitely go up based on exercising the skill, in combat or otherwise. I still haven’t quite figured out level. I also haven’t decided whether race and class levels are split or not. Right now, no one has a class, yet (must be tier/rank F to get one and everyone is G, still). Having both seems a bit redundant.
This is one reason I’m not doing “profession”. Class is sufficient. We don’t need a third thing to keep track of. The big question is: Is there any point in Human Level 15, Chef Level 10 or is Human Chef Level 12 sufficient? I’m leaning toward a single level for both race and class, and my current spreadsheets reflect that. Status quo has momentum, so if I’m going to change my mind, it will need to be soon or I will have a lot of copy/paste to do. Note that people can still do not-class things and get non-class skills. There is no reason that a Human Swordsman Level 12 cannot have a level 20 cooking skill.
And what are the class options? Is Swordsman an option? Or is it the more vague Warrior with lots of (or high level) sword skills? Same thing with “Chef” or “Blacksmith”. are they “Craftsman” class with specific skills or a class? Remind me why I thought LitRPG was a good idea. This needs to be resolved at the same time as the XP algorithm because level 12 (which is rank/tier F) is when class selection becomes a thing.
Notice that I’m doing all my info dumps on this blog. This will not be dumped in the book(s). Some of it may be discovered, but it’s not going to be laid out like this. I need to put my notes somewhere. Why not here? I did create a new category for this.
Marked Up 