> join in on my first sandboxy game ever, run by a friend

>>52600719
>Party is slowly driven to madness as they oversee a superbridge project against monsters, roving bands of brigands, striking workers, and how to split the tolls.

A bridge too god damn far.....

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>>52600735

Goddamit, anon, I can hardly contain my excitement even without these saucy pitures you paint with your words.

I'm especially surprised seeing how we're starting as little more than commoners. But hell, the DM is known for doing shit like hotswapping DnD for Rogue Trader in the middle of campaign, so maybe this time we'll get, dunno, Exalted.

Sorry for creaming so much, but I'm just so goddamn excited to see someone actually preparing maps and stuff for the game that promises to be fun.

>>52601136
>, the DM is known for doing shit like hotswapping DnD for Rogue Trader in the middle of campaign

Hey, I've heard of that one!

You'll have fun.

I'm preparing to run my first Shadowrun game soon. I'm filling every pore in my body with lore. Hopefully, it'll be a blast.

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>>52601136
This?

>>52600719
Alright, I'm going to go full retard here but how did historical civilizations even build bridges? What I assumed was always
>Find an undeep area to wade across
>Start building the foundations on both sides
>Stretch out to eachother
But given that you either can't access the other side or that the crossing is just too wide for the aforementioned to work (like in OP's scenario), how would for example the Romans do this shit? It boggles the mind, or at least the mind of an uneducated idiot like myself.

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>>52603352

Wew

>>52604284
The only method of building really massive megastructure type bridges in the ancient world that I'm aware of is to get Alexander the Great really really pissed off.

>>52603352

Wow

Dunno, maybe. I guess I can ask him if that's from his game.

>>52604506
>It turns out the only feasible way to construct a space elevator is to resurrect Alexander the Great and get him mad enough to invade the moon.

>>52605345
>Some Americans decide to launch a tablet that reads "Darius was here, Alex is a loser" to the surface of Mars and see what happens

>>52605426
>Alexandria on Mars by 2021

>>52604506

Alexander didn't build a bridge, fuckwit. He built a mole, an artificial peninsular which when completed connected the island of Tyre to the mainland.

Getting back to the douchebaggery posed by the OP's moron of a DM, you aren't going to be building a 10-40km long bridge with classical/medieval technology. Even Xerxes "bridge of boats" at the Hellespont won't fit the bill.

The problem will have to be solved by magic.

>>52604506
Actually, the Romans did it, using wood, simple mechanics, and their concrete. It's actually a fairly simple method:
Get a shit ton of tree trunks, build portable walls from them. They need to be high enough to be above the high tide line, and to sink into the river bed enough to provide support.
Make primitive pumps. A series of Archimedes Screws is what the Romans used early on.
Get a barge big enough for your equipment, and choose the location for your mid-span supports. You can build them one at a time, so don't panic if you don't have the funds to build all of them at once.
Make sure you have ladders.
Start dropping your walls, in the shape of a box. Attach them at the corners to make sure they don't collapse. You'll keep adding supports against the river flow as you go further down.
Start using the screws to remove the water, building troughs attached to the walls so you can keep moving the primary screw further downwards, with more screws for each trough. If you want, you can build screws with the greatest length the materials allow, meaning you have to build less troughs. Also do what you can to waterproof the walls. Water flow is your enemy.
Get down to the bottom, and dig out the riverbed there. Pour your concrete, with a slot for the forms you need for your bridge supports. Let it cure. Build up your forms, pour concrete, let cure. Keep going until you reach the height you need. If this river will be a major shipping lane (if we go with the fucking huge Nile in OP's post, it will be), them make sure a minimum of two of your supports can handle the weight of a drawbridge, with a big enough distance between them for ships to pass through.
As you finish supports, pull the walls so you can use them again. Build forms and scaffolds to build the actual transit structure of the bridge.
Open the bridge and make bank off the tolls.

>>52605611
>>52605900
Admittedly, the Romans never built a bridge that long. This technique was most often used for making their docks, but it did see use for bridge building. In some occasions, the supports were pre-poured and cured in sections, with holes to allow structural connectors between them.

>>52605900
>>52605929

Let me reiterate the most important point and the point you're deliberately ignoring:

TEN TO FORTY KILOMETERS.

It's not a mole. It's not an aqueduct. It's not a dock, breakwater, dike, dam, or canal. It's a BRIDGE which has to cross a 10 to 40 km wide "river". It's akin to building the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel with classical/medieval technology.

Of course the idea of a 40km wide river is complete nonsense, not that the idiot OP's moronic DM could understand that. Portions of the Amazon come close, especially during the rainy season when the river floods the lands beside it. Most of that "river" width in that situation is actually swamp which could be "crossed" by dikes and causeways.

While the Amazon's mouth is 300+ km wide, it's also full of islands and swamps so a bridge crossing the river there would actually be a collection of bridges and causeways connecting preexisting islands and crossing swamps.

TL;DR - The OP's DM is a moron and the OP is too stupid to call him on it.

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Okay folks, I'll bite the bullet and ask the question.

How would you go about building a 20-something kilometers long megabridge with late Iron Age levels of technology and, dunno, Greyhawk levels of magic? You do have access to huge pool of resources, can hire mages, necromancers and buy magical items, but, obviously, the less you spend the better.

Yeah, I know I'm posting a pier.

>>52606428

I think the OP is just happy about his upcoming game, and surprised at the amount of resources the characters are - supposedly - going to command, man.

Although if I ever play with you, I'll remember to get my rivers straight.

>>52606524
Magic.

https://youtu.be/MEAdskdbn3E

Building a bridge can't be that hard......

>>52606842
What kind of magic and how powerful would the magicians involved have to be?

>>52606931
Moses level wizard, split water, build bridge, close water, easy peasy

>>52606950
So, a mid-level druid and mid-level wizard working together then.

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>>52606979
>mid-level wizard

>>52606979
Even easier would be catching/summoning/bribing a water elemental and an earth elemental.

Oh great powerful elemental of water please parts these waters for us, oh great elemental of earth.....bridge pls

Would be done in a day

>>52606997
In 3.5 druids get Control Water at 7th level, and Wizards get Wall of Stone at 9th level.

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>>52603352
>Shit_that_never_happened.png

It's even poorly-written. Just ugh.

>>52607078
You don't get my reference, do you?
Youjo Senki is pretty much about the war between God and a Japanese salaryman turned smug loli who tipped his fedora so hard it caught God's attention

>>52607124
Sorry. I'm not a pedophile, so I don't watch anime.

>>52607136
Let me tell you about christmas cakes

>>52607020
Me again now that I have elementals stuck in my head,

Would it not be possible to bound small or tiny air elementals to act kind of like suspensors for the bridge super structure, that would then remove the need to remove the water first or even add supports at all, plus you'll be left with a pimp looking floating bridge of magic

>>52606842
>>52606950
>>52606979
>>52607020
>>52607078

These are all good starts. The OP's group will have to build this bridge with magic. Pilings, screw pumps, caissons, concrete, and all the rest aren't going to get the job done.

>>52607124
I wasn't even aware you were trying to make a reference. I just thought you were poking fun.

>>52603352
>all of this happened in a single session
>a single session where 3 people were late to it and it still had enough time for him to do fuckloads of shit
oh well at least it's a funny story

>>52607412
>Not playing from 14 to 23.

>>52607184
At a 10~40km river, magic will be the only way to do it, but why stop at just a bridge, why not go all the way and have a magical 'monorail' for what of a better word, using carriages pulled by the undead, who will never tire, running back and forth 24/7, you could even expand that to run a non-stop transport network for the whole kingdom

>>52607500
Carriages pulled by corpses would never be fast enough, even if you used dead horses. To span that distance quickly you'd need an alchemist to transmute a shitload of giant lodestones to make a crude maglev system across the entire river.

>>52607521
Ahh yes, but undead are a whole lot simpler to create/replace, slow and steady wins the race anon, plus the hire fees plus the cost of the loadstone will massively eat in to your profit, 10,000 gold on wizards and loadstone or free stolen corpses who will never join a union

Question, why not save Time and Money buy just having some docks build at either end and have an assortment of boats to haul shit across?

This river is wider than the shorter area of the English Channel. It's harder to cross a fucking river than to get from Britain to Continental Europe.

>>52607920
Just get a boat man, this anon is right.

>>52607920
Boats = pretty nice

Magic floating bridge = fucking awesome + tourism revenue

>stuck somewhere for over a year
>story is good, but pacing is wack
>plagued with timing problems, person issues, hiatuses
>combat takes 3.pf years
>we've been on the "last part" for a few months now

>>52607521
as impractical as it is, how if you bight two parallel bridges with both having slight angles pointing to opposite shores. then rig up some rails (or if you want to have fun with it water pumps) and you can then ride gravity down and across the river

Can we turn this in to a general fantasy engineering thread, I don't want to start a whole new thread just for it to charge straight to page 10, so general magical engineering thread?

>>52608243
that sounds like a great Idea, I've enjoyed this thread a lot so far

>>52606428
Are you assuming that this nonsensical 40km river wouldn't have islands too?

>>52601136
>the DM is known for doing shit like hotswapping DnD for Rogue Trader

Epic tweest shit like this is just sad.

>>52608701
I've all ways had a thing for undead 'automation' but it's incredibly hard to pull off with out seeming like 'le ebil necromancer', I just like the idea of swapping menial monotasks to undead slaves, farming, mining, even in the use of machines like looms or grind stones

>>52608243
For a moment, let's ignore conjuration, portals, and growing/shrinking objects, since those tend to break logic the hardest.

Even without those, magic would make construction of an insane bridge easier. Artificial islands could be made by briefly stopping the river and moving earth from elsewhere/taking stone from another part of the riverbed and raising it as pillars.

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>>52606524
That depends on the circumstances. The Romans were known to build incredibly long bridges by just building one arch after the next until they were across. In theory, there's no limit to the length of such a bridge.

The problem is that it severely limits navigation of the river, since no ship taller than the arches can pass through.

>>52609044
You could go one step further with geomancy, you could just raise land on one side (where you are) and span the whole river in one large stone arch, dropping down supports when ever you need too, the main issue I for see is travel time, at 40km wide and the average walking human pace of 4km/h your looking at a 10 hour river crossing at best

>>52609033
Farming in particular requires a lot of small tasks that mindless undead are unsuited to.
You require intelligent handlers to:
>Identify when to plant or harvest
>Tell the difference between a bee and a locust, and to eradicate the latter
>Identify and remove dying or diseased plants, to reduce needless labor
etc

Mining, too, requires intelligent handlers to direct the menial mindless workers.

>>52609137
With mining though I could see it as 3 separate groups, the first group of undead to basically stop mine non-stop all ground in front of them, then a second to 'human' chain the spoil up to the surface, and then the last group with an intelligent handler sorting the material in to useable/valuable/refineable

And with farming I agree with you, especially when it comes to the backbreaking labour like ploughing, cultivating and other related tasks

I do also enjoy the idea of an undead mass transit system, undead horses who never tire moving goods and freight up and down the kingdom with a sentient/human/golem driver to handle the delivery paper work

>>52609358
>>52609137

I always like the idea of a magically inclined civilization that summoned Earth Elementals to go into the ground and pull the ore itself out of the ground instead of having to do all that messy "mining" stuff that puts peoples lives at risk.

>>52609358
Of course, in the case of mass transit, you need to make more skeletons to replace the ones that wear out. But horses are easy to make.

For mining, it might be wise to have a handler in the mine proper, to push the miners towards useful ore, instead of just scripted tunnels or random movement. A group to build supports might also be wise.

>>52609380
But what lives are at risk if your work force is all ready dead?

But wouldn't an elemental get a bit pissed in having to give up part of 'it's self' to assist in your magical mining operations?

>>52609402
Ahhhh I forgot about supports for the mine, even with a handler with each group you would still only need say one or two handlers for say 20 undead miners if not more

Also on the subject of horses that would open up a whole new industry as your subjects strive to selectively breed a horse with larger/denser bones to increase the longevity of the undead horse highway

>>52605611
Oh sit I didnt know that guy was showing up in this thread....

>>52600719
How do you do sandbox right? I never got to play a long term one because the GM would end it because lazy or just being a faggot.

okay so what if you just bound an ice elemental to freeze the top layer of the river and have it esquort people across?

>>52609520
Water would go over the ice from the sides that aren't reachable by the elemental wouldn't t?

>>52609558
Plus you have the more blatant fact that it's pretty difficult to move on ice at any pace, unless you some how manage to equip your party with skates first

>>52609652
>>52609558
ice elementals in the form of huskies on a bobsled?

>>52609688
Or even better, have two ice elementals form two separate bridges, both with slight downward angles and create ice slides across the river, fast and effective

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>>52609751

>>52606428
>How dare a tabletop game be unrealistic!

>>52609826
>how dare you not read the whole thread

We've moved well past Captain Anal and his hatred of fun

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Why go over the river at all?

>>52604284
Pretty much like this but using wooden cranes + pile drivers made out of baskets of rocks, and several hundred people.

>>52610053
>trade
>traveling time
>invasion

Why cross a river irl

>>52610283
Fuck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEAdskdbn3E&t=4s&ab_channel=TopGear

>>52610053
It would be much more expensive to dig holes. Now if you mean flying, not impossible.

>>52610792
Instead of flying, how about we turn true ocean going ships in to air-ships with the power of magic and friendship. Then we could become pirates of the air, raiding across the seven skies wherever adventure may take us

>>52610881
I don't think it's a Final Fantasy Campaign anon, though that would be cool.

>>52610973
>tfw ffxv campaign never

>>52610973
The op stated it was a sand box game, so we can become what ever we want to be, now won't you join me for high adventure on the good air-ship Titanicus

>>52611006
If I didn't work nights, or have to post from my phone, I'd be quite happy to run a FF-inspired sandbox game, possibly using the 3.5 eberon books as they include some nice tech stuff, we could play by post, if any one was interested that is

>>52600735
>>52601136
Just wait till it's finished and the trolls start moving in.

>>52611106
Snack, who do you think BUILT this fucking bridge?

>>52611064
I've never played by post before, how does that work?

>>52611336
It's more collaborative creative writing with the dm leading the narrative, with very few dice rolls, that's the way I've all ways played any way, plus it allows the story to continue even when people are not all ways able to get online all together, so one session could be spaced out over a few days to a week with players posting if and when they can, like I previously mentioned, I work nights (UK based) so for me to actively play a game is near on impossible as I'm either asleep when every one else is available or I'm having to post from my phone at work

>>52606428
That's like building a bridge across the Strait of Dover (33km)

Apparently a tunnel is easier

>>52606428
>Plays a game with dragons and magic
>Anon draws the line at a 10km wide river

>>52606428
Imagine what's across the river. Or what else lies in the dangerous unseen world.

>>52605900
Damn it anon, now I'm get sucked into Caesar's hype machine over his tactics in Germany again. Asshole wrote his propaganda two thousand years ago in a different language and I STILL have a hard time not buying into it.

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>>52606524
With sand.

Lots of sand

>>52611792
Why not rocks? I'm sure if you threw enough rocks into the water, it'll eventually create a floor that rises up to surface.

>>52611822
You can do either, or really. Topple a mountain and use it's corpse to construct a sturdy base across the water body and then put dirt and sand across the top of the rocks to produce a land bridge. The bonus is if the land bridge is wide enough, it can have things built ontop of it, roads, stores, inns, homes, farms, ect.

>>52611792
Good idea. Large amounts of moving water will never be able to overcome a wall of sand spanning the entirety of a river.

>>52611336
>>52611620
Umm, can I join?

>>52611917
Is it possible to just siphon it dry? What kind of technology is capable of that though.

>>52611935
Keep an eye on the game finder general thread over the next day or so, I need to fix my Skype so we can actually organise something, or post your contact details now and I'll keep you informed

>>52611772
>>Plays a game with dragons and magic
>>Anon draws the line at a 10km wide river

No, it's more like this:
>>Plays a game with dragons and magic
>>Anon draws the line at bridging a 10km wide river WITHOUT USING MAGIC

Understand?

>>52611792
>With sand.

Already suggested and refuted. Alexander built a CAUSEWAY not a bridge. A bridge lets the river keep flowing. Causeway, if it isn't washed away, becomes a weir.

>>52611936
The water has to go somewhere.

>>52611985
They could create a kingdom that runs on all the water they took out.

>>52611968
Have you ever tried Discord?
I can do skype, but Discord has been a lot less fucky for me since I started using it.

>>52612005
I can do discord, I'm not too fussed either way

>>52612002
How do you figure? That's an insane amount of water to be diverting.

>>52611620
Can I join even if I know nearly nothing about FF?

>>52612063
No problem at all, I knock off work in an hour or so, if this thread is still up I'll post a discord link here

>>52612091
So you sleep until the afternoon?

>>52612169
Generally I sleep from 9am gmt till around 5pm-ish

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My own shadowrun game that's on indefinite hiatus because of player drama bullshit.

I loved running that game, man.

>>52612201
How does one not cause player drama

>>52612063
Discord server is up, 3.5 Final Ebberon Fantsy

>>52612510
Link?

>>52612538
https://discord.gg/72bxq8f

Try that, its bloody difficult to do it from a phone

>>52612546
Works fine to me.

>>52612091

Another anon here. Do you have any particular ideas in mind about the game?

>>52600719
Natalia poloskwhatever is so waifu

>>52612546

Never actually used Discord. Please excuse my ignorance, but would you be using voice chat during part of this, video, or purely text?

>>52612602
I have a few vague ideas, join the discord and we can hash something out between us, I'd rather UN something that every one would enjoy than just 'I'm dm like it or fuck off'

>>52612618
Text mainly, as I've previously stated I work strange hours gmt, so it's tough for me to be online most days, with text I could post an update to the story, and then peoples characters can progress through it together if and when they can get online, it does lead to slightly slower gameplay, but does help build a stronger narrative as you have time to plan your actions and put more time in to your writings

>>52612657
Give me a few minutes and I'll be on the discord.

How much longer you plan to be on?

>>52612696
An hour or so at best, my bed is calling for me

>>52612713
Another guy here, how much of Eberron do I need to know to join in?

>>52612751
Not much, its 3.5, I just like the aesthetic of ebberon

>>52612713

So wierdly I can't get discord to load. I think this may be my fault. I managed to close the tab when it was first trying to load, and now it won't connect now that I'm trying again. It isn't asking me to re-enter a name, so I'm guessing it isn't exactly refreshing the whole thing.

>>52612336
One talks to people like a real person when one has a problem with them, sort it out above board and with the intention of finding a solution, not proving yourself the "winner" of that interaction.

>>52612785
Did you get it fixed, anon?

>>52600719
I'm going to be running Delta Green for a few friends in a couple of weeks. That will also be my first experience running a system like CofC, so I'm curious to how it'll go. Planning on writing it so each session is like an X-Files episode.
>Side note: How stable is Delta Green's combat system? I may need to throw more in than usual so the murderhobo convert doesn't get bored.

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>>52600719
Mummy!
>>52612611
Mummy is the best isn't she?

>>52613991
What did he mean by this?

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>>52609061
use pic related to build islands & have drawbridges at the gaps.

>>52606428
What part of "The Romans never built one that long" did you not comprehend?
Yeah, the river is bullshit. The method could be used, at extreme expense, by building it as basically a connected series of smaller bridges. That's why our modern bridges are so big, and tend to have cables to support their weight: we don't build a fucking huge series of small supports - we build huge ones and use our materials to make the spans as big as possible. Because one fucking huge support is still cheaper over all than a bunch of smaller ones.
>>52607920 is right: Boats are the answer.

>>52610973
>not a final fantasy campaign
>do some early grinding and maybe beat up garland and you'll have a bridge built to the mainland

>>52606524
I get a bunch of stone slabs, and bind the souls of criminals inside of them. Slowly, throughout the years, I use the souls to keep the stones in place and pile them on on top of the other to make legs. Then I do the same thing but with like, lots of souls, or elephant souls or some shit, with big long rocks and I make the top. Done. Until then, it is paddles and rafts.

>>52604284
Suspension bridge faggot, do you even engineering?

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>>52600719
>build a bridge
>FLOOD SEASON
>build that bridge again LOL
>also everybody downstreams is really pissed about the damage your bridge did to their everything

That's not even getting into the fact that you basically built a fortification across a formerly free waterway, making you an enemy of everybody using it.

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>>52607443
That's how it's done. One or two weekends a month, both days, meetup at 11 and session end when everyone's tired.

>>52611792
>>52611917
>>52611974
Okay but what if you built a bunch of large circle things for the water to go though and had them spaced along the causeway?

>>52606524

I was about to ask "how deep is the water" but then I saw you write "greyhawk levels of magic" which is "arbitrary bullshit" tier.

Find somebody who can do bullshit like Rain of Colorless Fire and get them to do Rain of Conveniently Sized Boulders until you have a bridge.

If you're rolling back on the magic, then we are again at "how deep is the water," because that has a lot of effect on how to go about this.

>>52615279
you know i'm kinda feeling this bridge plan now as long at it's a drawbridge because then not only can you toll the bridge traffic but you can Toll the fuck out of the boat traffic too.

>>52609751
>Or even better, have two ice elementals form two separate bridges, both with slight downward angles and create ice slides across the river, fast and effective

The exertion to get to the top of a bridge is greater than the ease of skating across.

>>52610302

he said

>over

and posted a dorf

come now.

>>52615357
How deep are rivers anyways?

Couldn't you just build the bridge over land, put it on wheels, and drop it into the giant river? :^)

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>>52612017
Cool beans

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>>52600719
Go full on NAP

>>52615373
but it'd be fun