Elves being crew on silt skimmers, airships, and submarines

[Taven]

I get your arguments, but I think they are needlessly complicated. To me it was always just that they have to travel under their own muscle power. That means, ropes and other tools are fine because they are still moving themselves through some internal reservoir of energy. Silt skimmers are not being powered by elven leg-power and are therefore taboo. (They use wind and stuff right?) No external power can be used to move them. Easy enough, right?

I think Flintstone cars are the obvious solution to elven mobility problems.  

I agree with what you're saying, really. My arguments are complicated (maybe even needlessly so).

The biggest complication seems to arise with the rope argument, since (as I hypothesized in my long-ass post) you could argue that a rope is about arms, not about legs. A silt skimmer (with the silt pole) is also about arms (until you use the sails, anyway, but even then you could argue that it's elf arms or muscles adjusting it).

At least I'm having fun? 

[musashi]

Sailing a boat is a massively physical affair on the part of the sailor. Boats didn't get comfortable until engines came along.

And yeah I don't think either Taven or I are taking the "debate" seriously. Just sharing in a mutual laugh.

[racurtne]

Yeah. I didn't take it very seriously either.  See Flintstone car comment.

He asked if people understood his arguments. I said yes. 

[racurtne]

Sailing a boat is a massively physical affair on the part of the sailor. Boats didn't get comfortable until engines came along.

I am quite aware of how sailing boats is physical....I wouldn't characterize it as moving under your own power though.

I'm a student of History, and very well informed on these things.  

Also, boats became even less comfortable with engines at first. Coal powered ships were hell.

[Molten Heart]

What does the elven roleplay documentation say about why elves don't ride mounts/wagons?  Lets take a look:

Elves and Mounts:

The mixture of pride, nomadic tendencies, and the natural ability to run makes all elves ridicule the riding of mounts. To rely upon another beast to carry one around is considered an extreme sign of weakness among elves (even more than the inability to steal!). Even at the point of exhaustion, and when it comes to life and death situations, an elf would never admit to riding a mount. Even in the rare case of old age and in sickness, elves would refuse to ride about on a mount.

It is sometimes said that most elves forgive the riding of mounts by other races, but this isn't entirely true. While they realize that it is customary for some other races to ride mounts, they still perceive it as a sign of weakness. It usually doesn't change much, however, as the pride and tribal nature of elves makes them think of others as weak to begin with. This aversion to beasts of burden does not extend to pack animals. Most elves have always, and always will rely upon all manner of beasts to carry things around. Similarly, there is no aversion to using beasts as a source of food, as work animals, or in just about any other function other than riding.

This suggests that the reason elves don't ride is that riding makes one weak (when they could be running), or even just appear to be weak (because they aren't running).  Is it weak to ride in on a silt skimmer?  Especially when there is no running alternative method of travelling the silt sea?  I don't think riding a skimmer would be shameful for an elf, or make them look weak.  I think it'd be more realistic for an elf to brag about facing the inherent dangers of sailing the silt sea.

[Taven]

Clearly, we need to make a foot-powered cannon. Alternatively, a magick powered cannon (provided that the elf casts all the spells themselves, of course).

This cannon would have no practical application other then shooting elves places (not for killing purposes, like an arrow, but strictly for movement purposes).

[racurtne]

Clearly, we need to make a foot-powered cannon. Alternatively, a magick powered cannon (provided that the elf casts all the spells themselves, of course).

This cannon would have no practical application other then shooting elves places (not for killing purposes, like an arrow, but strictly for movement purposes).

Big conveyor belts with tens of elves running to wind rope up to launch their companions. 

[Taven]

This suggests that the reason elves don't ride is that riding makes one weak (when they could be running), or even just appear to be weak (because they aren't running).  Is it weak to ride in on a silt skimmer?  Especially when there is no running alternative method of travelling the silt sea?  I don't think riding a skimmer would be shameful for an elf, or make them look weak.  I think it'd be more realistic for an elf to brag about facing the inherent dangers of sailing the silt sea.

It's saying that relying on a power other then your own is weak.

Mounts take effort, but the power of propulsion is coming from the mount, not from the elf.

Skimmers take effort, but the power of propulsion is coming from the wind, not from the elf.

Magickal movement, if the elf is using their own magicks, the power is coming from the elf's internal ability to use magick.

Magickal movement, if the elf is not using their own magicks, the power is coming from the other magicker or magick source, not the elf.

[Taven]

Clearly, we need to make a foot-powered cannon. Alternatively, a magick powered cannon (provided that the elf casts all the spells themselves, of course).

This cannon would have no practical application other then shooting elves places (not for killing purposes, like an arrow, but strictly for movement purposes).

Big conveyor belts with tens of elves running to wind rope up to launch their companions. 

Dude, not okay. I'm not going to rely on other elves to move me, are you crazy?! This would be a sign of weakness.

The cannon has a mechanism which stores energy from my foot pedaling. I then enter the cannon, and flick a switch, which uses the stored energy to launch me into the sky!

[racurtne]

Clearly, we need to make a foot-powered cannon. Alternatively, a magick powered cannon (provided that the elf casts all the spells themselves, of course).

This cannon would have no practical application other then shooting elves places (not for killing purposes, like an arrow, but strictly for movement purposes).

Big conveyor belts with tens of elves running to wind rope up to launch their companions. 

Dude, not okay. I'm not going to rely on other elves to move me, are you crazy?! This would be a sign of weakness.

The cannon has a mechanism which stores energy from my foot pedaling. I then enter the cannon, and flick a switch, which uses the stored energy to launch me into the sky!

Gah, you're right. Such a terrible oversight on my part. We're in agreement on Flintstone cars though, right? I mean, they can sit -while- they run.

[Taven]

Gah, you're right. Such a terrible oversight on my part. We're in agreement on Flintstone cars though, right? I mean, they can sit -while- they run.

If we can have a special cannon they use to shoot them into the air for movement purposes, we can totally have a flintstone car. Because who wants to stand when running, really?

We still need to rely on mounts to carry our shit though. Because sticking it in the car would mean we'd have to rely on our legs to carry it, and we only need to carry ourselves, not our stuff.

[Fujikoma]

Did I seriously read a post back there that said that being an asshole should be enforced with the same spirit that elves not riding on shit is? Because I think that's fucked. Having been through some shit that bent and broke my perception of others, and my perception of myself in twisted and horrible ways that were extremely difficult to recover from (despite now I have a mental illness to deal with which isn't making anything any easier), I'd rather not treat even virtual characters this way unless I think the characters deserve it. I do have a finite range of characters I am willing to play, maybe not with all the same traits that everyone else prefers to play theirs with, maybe not completely in line with what SHOULD be played.

Maybe I'm missing the point of the game? I thought the point was to have a good time in an imaginary environment, even while your character gets horribly mauled by some terrible thing and drama happens and all that stuff. Fine, cool, bad shit happens, I don't want to be forced to be a fountain of bad shit though because, heh, rules.

[Taven]

Did I seriously read a post back there that said that being an asshole should be enforced with the same spirit that elves not riding on shit is? Because I think that's fucked. Having been through some shit that bent and broke my perception of others, and my perception of myself in twisted and horrible ways that were extremely difficult to recover from (despite now I have a mental illness to deal with which isn't making anything any easier), I'd rather not treat even virtual characters this way unless I think the characters deserve it. I do have a finite range of characters I am willing to play, maybe not with all the same traits that everyone else prefers to play theirs with, maybe not completely in line with what SHOULD be played.

Maybe I'm missing the point of the game? I thought the point was to have a good time in an imaginary environment, even while your character gets horribly mauled by some terrible thing and drama happens and all that stuff. Fine, cool, bad shit happens, I don't want to be forced to be a fountain of bad shit though because, heh, rules.

I assume you are talking about the behavior of people toward magickers, breeds, and other undesirables.

I think the posts in this thread have been focused on looking at the vNPC side of things, and if all vNPC elves behave the same way that elves do. There was some discussion about why elf behavior is required to be a certain way, and why other behavior is allowed to be more flexible. There was one post that maybe hating breeds/magickers should be required.

You can make your own thread which talks about the complexities of PCs obeying/bending the documentation for how they behave. If it's really important to you, I recommend doing so!

[LauraMars]

Did I seriously read a post back there that said that being an asshole should be enforced with the same spirit that elves not riding on shit is? Because I think that's fucked. Having been through some shit that bent and broke my perception of others, and my perception of myself in twisted and horrible ways that were extremely difficult to recover from (despite now I have a mental illness to deal with which isn't making anything any easier), I'd rather not treat even virtual characters this way unless I think the characters deserve it. I do have a finite range of characters I am willing to play, maybe not with all the same traits that everyone else prefers to play theirs with, maybe not completely in line with what SHOULD be played.

Maybe I'm missing the point of the game? I thought the point was to have a good time in an imaginary environment, even while your character gets horribly mauled by some terrible thing and drama happens and all that stuff. Fine, cool, bad shit happens, I don't want to be forced to be a fountain of bad shit though because, heh, rules.

It was a tongue in cheek suggestion. I was implying that forcing people not to play the exception (to anything ever) by making it an unbreakable rule was a bit silly in a game where basically every character makes an exception to the docs at some point or another.  Sorry I didn't make that more clear, if mine was the post to which you're referring.

[BleakOne]

You dudes think about this too much. 

If you really want to play an elf who rides, special app it and see if the admins will allow it. Otherwise, you are on of the 99.9% of elves who don't ride.

[Fujikoma]

Or you're a breed who looks like and elf.

[musashi]

Yeah, even if staff approve your special app everyone will just think you're a half elf that looks like an elf anyway.

[Fredd]

 leg powered paddle skimmers. problem solved.

[musashi]

No man, you see if you consult Taven's chart you'll see that, after we tweak it one more time and make it yet more needlessly complicated, that when an elf is using a tool in order to do something they couldn't normally do but they are using their legs to do it with ... ... In silt ... Well that adds a -5 modifier to their comprehension roll and knocks the result back down into the not allowed category.

Ad hoc reasoning is fun  

[Fredd]

No man, you see if you consult Taven's chart you'll see that, after we tweak it one more time and make it yet more needlessly complicated, that when an elf is using a tool in order to do something they couldn't normally do but they are using their legs to do it with ... ... In silt ... Well that adds a -5 modifier to their comprehension roll and knocks the result back down into the not allowed category.

Ad hoc reasoning is fun  

What you just said made me question my own intelligence

[musashi]

Story of my life man.

[Vwest]

Playing an elf sounds like an excessively complicated pain in the ass.

[BleakOne]

Playing an elf sounds like an excessively complicated pain in the ass.

Much like elves themselves? 

Joking. 

[number13]

I know I'm a little late to the party, but it's helpful to have some perspective on how this silliness started:

In Dark Sun, elves prefer to run. They can and do ride mounts. Tribes own wagons. But elves have a strong bias for getting around on their own two feet.

In Arm: the Very Early Years, elves prefer to run. But codewise, it's better to ride a mount and keep your stamina high. So the immortals of the day said, "OK, RP is going to be enforced now. You better have a damn good reason for riding if you are riding as an elf."

Then later, after it became apparent there was too much weasel room, the statement changed to, "OK, now RP is REALLY doing to be enforced. No PC elves can ride a mount, ever."  It's been that way for more than a decade. Probably edging close to two decades, maybe.

Somewhere along the path, the everyone lost sight of why the decision was made. It instead became the common interpretation that elves are utterly insane. And here we are again, trying to justify the unjustifiable.

[number13]

More pertinent to the debate:

Elves can't ride mounts because they have a coded advantage to desert travel (or at least d-elves do).  Being able to to ride a mount gives them too much of an advantage, which was occasionally abused in the Early Days of Yore.

Elves can use climbing gear and rope because they have no coded racial super power for climbing. (...that I'm aware of.)

Elves can't use silt skimmers because they can't ride mounts, even though they have no coded racial super power for otherwise traversing the Sea.