TomatoThief

Automobiles would allow them to travel further from the community, which would subject them to modern temptations that lure individuals from the community. Note that I was not offering an all-encompassing justification for the entire Amish way of life. I was just providing a piece of oft-unknown insight into why they choose what (and what not) to shun.

I've only found two veins since 78, and they were both uniform. One was all rich, the other was all poor. Honestly, I prefer it this way. When each block has a chance to be any of the above, there is no sense of excitement or disappointment. You know that a vein with 30 blocks will always produce roughly 30*(0.5 * 25 + 0.2 * 15 + 0.3 * 35). Basically, your functional average is equal to the parenthetical part of that equation, which each block producing an average of 26 ore units. However, when the whole vein is one quality, there is a real tension as you break that first block, waiting to discover your fortune or fate. Regards, TT

To clarify on the Amish and technology: They do not shun modern technology for the sake of being simple and old fashioned. They shun technology which they feel harms the sense of community. A good example of this is telephone use. If you can can call your friend across town, then you have no reason to travel to their house to have meaningful face-to-face conversation. Most Amish communities do have a phone or two for emergencies. Another example is construction. The Amish - who are by no means poor - could hire a builder to come in with excavators, and cranes, and crews to quickly build houses and barns. But doing so would deprive them of the ability to have an entire community gather together for an entire day to raise a barn for one of their members. Regards, TT

Hear, Hear! TT

My current world is probably three months old. I couldn't tell you because some meal prep bug has it perma crashed. Anyway, I was still eating on the same deer I killed on day 1, without ever salting it. Based on your post, I think there are several things you may not know. Rot is exponential. The more rotted something is, the faster the rot increases. You can remove rot with a knife. Put the meat and a knife in the crafting grid and take the output. Made easy by shift clicking food from inventory to grid, and grid back to inventory. Takes about 4 seconds to process 8 units of meat. As far as I can tell, this causes no durability hit to the knife. Light increases the rate of rot. I put my excess meat, freshly cut of rot, into clay vessels. I then dug one hole down in my straw hut, placed the vessels in the hole, then covered it with straw. I took meat out only as I needed. I'm guessing you know food stacks, but if you didn't... food stacks up to 160 oz. I know meat comes at 160 already, but as it rots it's good to consolidate.Regards, TT

"Magic" is a term commonly used to refer to anything supernatural - literally translated, above or beyond the limits of the natural. This requires a second definition describing what is natural. For mankind, this definition is dynamic as we push the boundaries of scientific knowledge. We are claiming supernatural territory with understanding. Think of gravity, electromagnetic attraction, atomic structures, quantum dynamics, and the observance that time itself is not a "thing". Even within our understanding that these things are natural, our understanding of their nature is so woefully inadequate that there is more room than not for magical things to be done with them. We are still cavemen, poking and prodding, observing reactions often without understanding why; we are just learning to be less surprised over new discoveries while calling ourselves intelligent for it. I have observed three primary manifestations of magic in fiction. The first is the worst: Deus ex machina. A God from the machine. This is a child's magic. This is Disney magic. I need a mouse to turn into a horse so he can pull this pumpkin carriage, so... magic. It is understood that some beings are magical, and can alter the fabric of reality through sheer intent. Or with a wand, maybe. There are usually limitations, but only so much as to advance the plot. The evil witch cannot alter the world on a whim. Limitation implies an exhaustible resource which is never defined or addressed. Second is better, but not good: Spells. Ancient knowledge wrapped in a learnable package. The old ones understood real magic, and for convenience or posterity bound magical effects into artifacts, animals, or incantations. The knowledge is lost, but the artifacts remain to be discovered and abused by modern fools. Most adolescent fantasy falls into this category. Terry Goodkind's "The Sword of Truth" series is an excellent demonstration of this category. Third is an attempt to define magic as a natural system beyond (or within) our own, which interacts with our own nature in mundane to extraordinary ways. This requires some or a great deal of narration to keep it from appearing as the worst variety of magic. Here is an example of our challenge: Fireball is a common "spell" of the second variety of magic. So what is a fireball? Are you heating the air around you, why doesn't the rest of the air combust, is there material that is burning, was the material conjured from somewhere else, if so then where, where was the energy taken from to heat the air, why does the fireball move and in the direction you want, why does the target combust when most materials in Nature have a higher combustion temperature than can be provided by a "fireball", does the target explode, if so why, what happens to the air that used to be where the fireball is now, how big of a fireball can you make and what limits the size, how fast can you make them... and so on, and so on. Most importantly, what are the biological features you possess that allow you to interact with and manipulate magic? If you are not prepared to understand these questions (if not address them in print) then I don't think you are prepared to author a fantasy setting with magic. One of my favorite systems of magic is Patrick Rothfuss' "Name of the Wind". I'll not get into the weeds; this is just a plug for a great series. So, what does this look like in Minecraft? The following is more heavily my opinion - the application of aforementioned principles - regarding this specific game. First, magic is a substance (supernatural matter) that exists concurrently with natural matter. Matter and magic interact with each other in ways that must be understood by the player. To be understood, the player must perceive through underdeveloped sense. This is a sense that the player is initially unaware of, and can be exercised to provide greater perception, and eventually manipulation of magic. The presence of magic in natural matter is faint, but can be felt more strongly in certain locations, near certain substances. Let's say for argument that obsidian, being incredibly dense, attracts magic over time (magic and matter share gravitation attributes based on density? Maybe? Or are there other properties of attraction?). In places with great quantities of natural forming obsidian (that's been there for ages), the player is more likely to sense magic. Once sensed, the player strains to "hear" it better, in so further developing the sense. This is passive, and should take a long time to happen. The player can only expedite the sense by working near sources of "power" (magic). In my mind, this fits nicely with volcanoes often symbolizing places of power, also that they bring forth ancient matter from the depths, along with the magic attached to it. Interjection: Why aren't volcanoes in Minecraft, anyway? Volcanic lava block, periodically flows (thus overflows) upward by 8 blocks, burninating the countryside. Do it. Fast forward. You have developed your magic sense to where you can feel magic within one chunk. The first manifestation of magical ability is to scry through natural matter by closing your eyes and focusing. Picture the wolf-link on Zelda Twilight Princess. Initially all you see is density of magic - areas of potential interest. You're looking through dirt, stone, and water, to see ores (maybe? or mobs?). As you spend more time "listening" to the magic within certain blocks, you become attuned to them. The resolution of the magic you see while scrying becomes understandable. You can now filter your perception for block types, but you can only "home-in" at a much closer range. Perhaps a developed player can detect large scale sources of power from 50 chunks away, but won't know there's a diamond unless he's 8 blocks away. Long range scrying can manifest itself as a very low resolution extra-body experience. This requires no consumption of any kind of magical resource, and requires as much physical effort as hearing a noise. Enough with sensing magic. How do we interact with it? One of the properties of magic is that while it gravitates to matter, it does so slowly. It only indirectly obeys natural gravity in that matter gravitates to itself, and magic gravitates to matter. As a player moves, he is creating wakes of magic that slowly settle back into place. We can assume that magic is highly compressible under certain conditions (or perhaps it is multi-dimensional, with multiple "blocks" occupying the same natural space, implying a limit based on the number of dimensions), and is somewhat cohesive, only slowly expanding once compressed. In this manner, the player can literally scoop a ball of magic through willful gestures. The magic will slowly bleed through the player's hands, but can be stored in containers (or solid material) based on that material's properties. I have mentioned that obsidian attracts matter, but perhaps Spruce wood is composed of a unique latticework of material that, while it doesn't attract magic, serves as a barrier to it. All materials can serve as containers of magic, but different materials will bleed it at different rates. Crafting a magic siphon from a block of obsidan surrounded by magic insulating walls and pistons might be a good idea. Now we can see it, we can move it; but what can we do with it, in a practical sense? First let's talk about magical essence. Not only is magic drawn to matter, but over time the structure of the magic itself will settle into an alignment which resembles the matter. Magic which has occupied a block of iron has a decidedly different super-nature than that occupying a block of gold, or an ocelot. Just as matter shapes magic, so too can magic shape matter. Again, magic moves slowly, and is shaped into essence even more slowly. It may take a game month for one obsidian block to "fill" with magic, and even longer for the filled magic to become the essence of obsidian. It seems as though I am speaking of transmutation. So if you were able to force the essence of gold into a block of coal, the magic will overwhelmingly reassemble into the essence of coal. However, if you were to maintain the structure of the essence resisting the coal's influence, then over time the coal may restructure itself into gold. This should require tremendous energy and time to maintain for dissimilar blocks, and less for similar blocks. It stands to reason that real-world devices, and the magical essences they create, could facilitate this task. Biological creatures and plants would come equipped with their own essences. Depending on the creature's affinity for magic, their essence will remain and decay for a period of time after their matter is destroyed. If the player or creature is strong enough, the essence may find a way to persist longer, or renew itself indefinitely, possibly even re-manifesting itself in a similar creature. Now we know that the player has a magical counterpart, which loosely resembles him, of strength (stability) proportional to the player's affinity to magic. We know that magic aligns itself to the physical makeup of matter, but let us assume that once matter becomes sentient, the magic begins to align itself with the player's thought. The most useful and feasible feat is the projection of the player's self onto other objects. In other words, with enough discipline, the player can convince himself, thus the magic that makes up his essence, that the wood 8 blocks away is actually a part of him. If he is successful, he gains control not only over himself, but the magic that makes up the block of wood. Now the player has a direct super-physical link to his target. A block's essence changes depending on every property imaginable, including temperature, which just refers to the level of excitement of atomic particles. Since the difficulty in changing matter is relative to how closely the desired result is to reality, changing temperature is reasonably one of the first tasks the player should accomplish in the practical use of magic. Convincing a 37-degree block of wood that it is a 47-degree block of wood is much easier than convincing it that it is a chicken. With enough focus, experience, and access to energy (depending on the task), the player should be able to ignite certain blocks, or facilitate their ignition through conventional means. Some other effects I can imagine that work well with this system include: projecting a void in the air then releasing, calling a violent implosion; "hiding" a block, creature, or self in part or whole from natural gravity; gaining the power of suggestion over simple life forms, and functionally increasing the strength of attack by temporarily increasing weapon mass at the time of impact. Ultimately I would not want to see magic be the end-game replacement of natural living. Finding diamonds should always be preferable to creating them, but magic could facilitate their discovery. However, with enough effort a diamond may be transmuted if, say, you only needed one more for your pick. Igniting enemies may become viable against certain or lesser enemies, but any creature of any worth would have enough affinity to resist such intrusions on their essence. Further, the level of devotion to increasing your mastery of magic should come at a very tangible cost, that playing without magic or with only minor effects is just as desirable as full on trans-body lichdom. Does this kind of magic belong in Minecraft? Maybe not. But magic in fiction is a hot topic for me, and I felt like talking about it here and now. Thanks for reading. -Daeghen