Isn’t this counteracted in many species by having a faster metabolism?
Also I think the second and third point wouldn’t have much of an impact on species at the size or larger than corvids, which are the smallest sapient creatures IRL
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That’s certainly true. You can see this in the Antarctic shrew. But with a high metabolism, it also increases the metabolic demand for more food, which in polar regions is not exactly a common thing.
And well… the brain is a very high energy consumer. The human brain consumes about 25% of our daily calorie intake.
Quite right. Reference to the other 2 laws is mainly attributed to a small scale that equates to anyone smaller than a corvid. or sparrow at the very least. Therefore, any intelligent creature smaller than at least 20 cm can be disqualified just because of this.
Besides, I want to point out that the brain is a very sensitive area. Damaging it is pretty much game over. But if you have a relatively large brain, it also becomes more vulnerable. Large creatures according to the cube law show less vulnerability with a large brain (elephants and orcas) compared to small creatures (octopuses), so a larger one with a larger brain is better relative to a small creature with a large brain in terms of vulnerability.
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Did you mean the arctic one?
Yap
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For big species, would a disadvantage be overheating, slow reaction speed and low population?
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Mostly yes. Overheating and slower response can certainly be a disadvantage, but population size is relative to a number of factors - type of reproduction, parental behavior, growth rate to maturity and food availability relative to population size (or ecological carrying capacity).
Egg laying vs. birth is certainly a topic that can be discussed and not go into detail.
Parental behavior - K vs. R strategy can certainly affect adult population size or population growth rate
Growth rate - how fast the baby grows until it is strong enough to stand on its own - the faster the metabolic demand is higher.
And food availability is clear from it.
For example - Brachosaurs - egg laying R strategy approximate relative to very fast growth rate (evidence in bones) with high food availability.
Elephant vs. extreme K-strategy breeder, normal or slow growth rate (I don’t know) with large food availability.
Who do you think has a larger population?
According to evidence - it’s the Brachosaurus in the long term. Even though they are much larger than elephants, they still have some biophysical techniques and solutions that contribute to population size.
Feel free to ask questions about this.
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They would still be capped harder in terms of population due to them taking up more energy per individual no?
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That the biggest factor about how much energy the population can take for individual without harming the ecological envermant
bigger brain and higher metabolism take even more energy, mean that even more energy for unit its a factor’ limited the size of a population
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Indeed. Also would smaller sizes generally be “stealthier” than the larger ones?
Naturally. Try to find belgiumroaches in your house. But there are always exceptions, but in general, the law of size is simple: the bigger you are, the less they will be able to eat you.
Being small means being at the mercy of others and therefore, you need tools to support your metabolic consumption and also survive another day.
I would believe that if you ever create a creature for a forum game, its limitation will not be the point system like in Remmortal, these are more like a quota of traits that you can choose with an energy requirement. Intelligence is probably like a set of tools that you can put separately, also takes energy (like problem-solving ability, creativity, communication, etc.) and size determines the energy threshold (depending on the environment) that its population can support itself in the chosen area (a similar size is given between all, regardless of size). As a rule, the smaller the creature, the greater the energy quota, but the relative effectiveness of the non-intelligent features is also smaller (because smaller means you are more vulnerable) but at the same time, the intelligent energy consumption is smaller the larger the creature because of physical programs to balance the small-large ratio.
It will be a numbers game already, but I assume that interesting things can be created and inventions that can increase the population’s energy consumption quota, such as spherification or migration, are also preferred.
And building the race can definitely be interesting and interactive
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Would speed remain consistent between the sizes or would it increase in a direction?
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Speed is an interesting thing.
The fastest land animal is the cheetah. But the fastest animal relative to body mass is Paratarsotomus macropalpis, which moves at a speed of 322 body lengths per second or 2096 km/h- much faster than the cheetah, which is only about 16.
Apart from that, it is also a biophysiological limitation on the creature - the cheetah’s skeleton is built for speed with flexibility and a long tail for fast navigation, but it tires quickly due to the inefficient respiratory system of mammals. In contrast, insects - which have a passive respiratory system, are very strong accelerators such as the Tiger beetle which is able to accelerate in one second to a speed of 6.7 km/h - or 176 body lengths - which is much faster than the average human walking speed.
Conclusion - Body mass contributes to the speed capacity of a creature, as long as the biophysical system and physical capabilities (aerodynamics, power and friction) of the creature are able to support it
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Right, so you need a bit more than just a size increase to increase the speed aswell
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Not sure
So, I would allow exceptions to this rule, like Eldritch-Storm-thing from the original TR2 plan or something like Doom’s giant one eyed sky crocs from PWH, but I think the base adult size for a race would be like 50 feet?
Things like Elder Featherhorns could grow larger, and like I said there could be exceptions, but something like that. Maybe 100 feet to account for races longer than they are tall, like a giant serpentine or dragon race or something, but they too could be like Featherhorns and just grow over time instead of starting at that size
Not sure on a lower boundary for size, but I ain’t letting anybody be microscopic or anything (might make exceptions for races who are swarms/nanotech/etc, individuals/communities made of microscopic members)
This is interesting. Not sure I’ll actually apply it, as I’m already very much breaking the square cube law with large sizes, but maybe I could use it in some capacity. Prolly not though
This is also interesting, but even less applicable I think to a fantasy game. Particularly for a disadvantage for small races - this kind of disadvantage would simply have their entire civilization avoid water, which while a disadvantage isn’t the kind I want, as it limits small aquatic civilizations
Hmmmmm
This isn’t really a disadvantage for small civilizations, but it might influence the lower bound I allow on small civilizations without some form of external mind/hive mind
At the same time, it does limit races such as the smaller bounds of the fairies or shrunken people like humans in “Honey I shrunk the Kids” or Who’s from “Herbert Hears a Who”
I’m realizing that on a base level, smaller races requiring less food doesn’t necessarily make sense. Might change that, might not cause it’s a nice counterbalance to large races needing more
Oi, I don’t need more disadvantages for large races lol
I think I’ve taken sustenance into account, not sure if I should take reaction speed into account (because Large is already balanced). I will most likely not be taking overheating into account
I considered giving small races a Mobility bonus when applied to stealth, but already have enough benefits when it comes to small races
This is why I didn’t give Large races a Mobility bonus in addition to the Offense and Defense ones
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Maybe the limit should be in weight and not dimensions?
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That doesn’t really work due to hyper-dense and extremely light, airy races, but thanks for the idea
Anyway I’ll work on typing out sustenance next
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Couldn’t those extremes be tuned with such (dis)advantages so that a weight limit does work well with them?
While I appreciate the idea I don’t really like it. It creates a whole tone more variance than just size does imo, and so while height has its issues I like it better than weight/density
That said, I do need to figure out the exact threshold for smaller sizes. Larger sizes will be fairly easy but smalller thresholds less so
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I think in the previous iteration it was “no smaller than the limit of being visible to the human eye” iirc?
No, I can’t find that anywhere within the rules for TR. I actually don’t think I had any rules for size, just didn’t think about it ig
It’s possible I said it somewhere else, but it’s not in the main rules
Though reading through the rules reminded me I had a Carrying Capacity/storage mechanic, will need an updated version of that, maybe inbuilt into the available area system?
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