SBURB GAME MECHANICS

I have to wonder, regarding the ultimate riddle and ectobiology, if EVERY person that plays Sburb (or I guess is destined to) created themselves in the game paradoxically, or if it's just the successful session. Like, the other groups of humans we knew were playing Sburb as well back in Acts 1 & 2, or hell, FEDORAFREAK who canonically made it into the Incipisphere and is implied to have ascended to godtier... did they all make themselves as well? Or is it just the Egbert-Harleys and the Strilondes who were made in the game since... they beat the game which meant their babyselves had to be sent back to Earth from the veil at some point? I guess no meteor associated with your birth (and no dreamself), then you're basically destined to lose... except the beta kids were essentially destined to lose and half of the fucking plot of the comic is that they break and bend the rules of the game to their advantage, finding a seemingly impossible solution to overcome the fight for existence!!!

also, I would LOVE to learn more about tiers. Not just god tiers, but the echeladder and if that's just something everyone has. But yes, also the actual God Tiers. I know it's mostly just a joke, what with how they only show up once and the Kiddy Campersash is basically the dying cry of Problem Sleuth-esque bullshit-game-mechanics-as-comedy in the story, but like IDK it'd be funny if that kept being a thing. Like imagine after killing Spades and Union Jack in Collide, after the explosive black hole that takes out a chunk of Dirk's fucking whatever planet, there's just a bunch of achievement badges floating around for them to go back and collect?

(Also, do only underlings drop anything? I guess with the Carapacians, they're moreso quest-related NPCs and background characters so it'd be weird and fucked up if you got grist for killing them.)

I wonder if every Sburb session has designated symbolic materials for each player that ties into their land (oil for john, chalk for rose, amber for dave, uranium for jade). Or if any session could have dream bubbles (since that was specifically a request of Feferi to the horrorterrors).

what i wanna know is what came first, grist or fruit gushers?

@rng_malrab thanks for your long reply!

Caliborn and Calliope were born naturally, so I think ectobiological player creation is more of a trend than a mandate. The cherubs do have their own temporal fuckiness, but the fact that Omega kids in HS2 will also be players suggests that natural born people being able to play the game is intended to be possible!

Since tiers are supposed to be the "levels" of SBURB, I've always thought the Kiddy Campersash was the set of achievements, just like you! If I remember right, Caliborn already had some on his when we are shown the sash, so maybe you can get achievements before you God tier too? I think it would be really cool if SBURB had achievements, preferably loads of them. It would be interesting. We know each tier gives boondollars (and possibly more?) as a reward and that reaching the tiers requires some form of (solely combat or not?) prowess to be shown by the player.

IIRC, underlings are created by Derse and given to the command of the Denizens; and they are given the grist that they hold. Does this mean grist is created somehow, or is it given from a hoard? I don't know! But underlings likely are designed to carry grist, as it's a (mostly) non physical resource. The denizen has their hoard, but I don't think we're given an inclination to think they drop grist themselves. To add to that, I think it's been hinted that lands do have exclusive grist, though I usually tend to think that there is a finite (unless you alchemise more) list of grist, some of which are exclusive for specific types of land.

Creating dream bubbles would be hard work that requires you to both be aware that horrorterrors are capable of creating such constructs, have an ability to commune with them and also give them reasons to create the bubbles, but if these things are true I don't see why not!​

I really wish we got to see more of the Fraymotifs then what we were given. I love speculating about what the Fraymotifs we didn't get to see would look like. We were given names for the Fraymotifs for Breath and Time (Ivories in the Fire) and Breath and Space (Fantasia's Inhale), but we never get to see those in action. And, there are some in Collide that we see but don't get named. We also told that the trolls bought all their Fraymotifs before their final fight but we never are given any names or see them used. Fraymotifs are just one of those parts of Homestuck that I think should've gotten a little more elaboration and can be easily forgotten if you're a casual reader.

I second the fraymotifs thing (@rinshn) cuz yeah it would be kickass.

fortunately, the lack of known or named combinations of aspects means that every homestuck fan trying to make some homestuck fangame can just bullshit up their own fraymotifs (oh gog imagine a homestuck hero shooter and the fraymotifs are like team-ups in Marvel Rivals)

Also @mithrifer re: grist hordes. I haven't touched the end of Homestuck really since I read it for the first time (besides rewatching collide repeatedly) but IIRC, every denizen has, like, a game-spoilingly massive horde of grist, so I imagine Derse provides the underlings, the underlings go to the lands, and then the denizens of each land give their protective little mischief-making imps and slime monsters little bits of the fat stash. (Imagine the denizen as the parent giving their underling children an allowance of grist to use).

As for where grist comes from and how it's made, since all the grists are different materials, I imagine they're the Incipisphere's equivalent of naturally occurring elements. It's a boring answer but yeah grist types = periodic table makes about as much sense as any explanation you could give to grist existing and I think it fits the whole "creating a new universe" shtick of the game.

Also I completely forgot that the Omega kids were all naturally born, despite having read (and re-read) all of BC. I just regularly forget that lmao. Although that raises an only-slightly-related question: does everyone to ever live have a dreamself? Or just those destined to play the game? Dammit, Barack. Once again throwing everything into question with your holographic appearance at the end of the Candy route (they really just gloss over Obama convincing C.Dave to kill himself beside M.Karkat pointing out the ridiculousness of it, don't they?).

I really like the ceramic porkhollow. Might be my favorite recurring gag, but I'm glad it didn't overstay it's welcome.
Also, while the Sylladex, Captchalogue, and strife Specibus are gaming abstractions, I find it interesting that they aren't apart of SBURB. I know this thread is for Sburb mechanics, but I think how the characters adapt and treat the Sylladex system as opposed Sburb is very fascinating in how it represents that depiction of Homestuck as an adventure game.

John famously has a lot of trouble with his Sylladex in the beginning despite it being something he's supposedly lived with all his life, while everyone is mostly able to get the hang of the Sburb mechanics without questioning it despite it being completely new and reality-altering.

Taking the perspective of Homestuck as an adventure game and the reader as the player, this makes more sense.

A person playing a game for the first time will often struggle with the basic mechanics in silly ways that wouldn't make sense for their character to have the same difficulty with. This is especially true for mechanics as convoluted as the Sylladex.

Conversely, the player's suspension of disbelief would allow them to engage with new systems like the construction mechanics of Sburb without it having the paradigm-shifting relevance that the character they are playing as really ought to be experiencing.

Am I making sense? Am I rehashing stuff that's already been explored? Speaking as a four-month old Homestuck here.

@rinshn @rng_malrab

I wholeheartedly agree, fraymotifs are always awesome and it's a shame that we don't see them more often. I think what we did get still gives us a little to talk about though. We know that they are like special attacks and that there are both solo and team-up versions of them. That they are connected to music, at least thematically... Though what we don't know is quite a lot too haha. Like, once you buy them, can you use them whenever you want, or are they one time use? Do classes matter to fraymotifs? What about generally the player themselves, are they person specific? So much to think on.

I think that's a pretty fun headcanon you have about grist hordes, btw, M.

Dreamselves are a little tricky... I think if you have skaian precognition or wake up in the incipisphere you have to have a dreamself and therefore the ability to play a game, you're likely destined for it or were set up by a temporal force, but I'd argue theoretically anyone could play the game and have both their session and their dreamself made after the fact. As you might know, sessions are "older" than the games they are the settings of, but I don't think you would retroactively gain memories of your dreamself doing things, since that would be impossible, as even if to the POV of the carapacians and other game constructs it has always existed, in your POV it's only just come into being. HS2 might confirm this, I don't think any of the Omega or Delta kids have mentioned dream abilities just yet, but it might not either.

@mutteredverbatim

The porkhollow is cute! And yes, talk of sylladexes, modii and specibi is welcome here.

I wouldn't be hasty with the assumption that they are unrelated to SBURB, but they are constructs that can exist independently of the game (like Mom's laboratory, transportalizers or the frog temple) and them being very game-y systems that are unique yet tie perfectly into the game makes them interesting for me, like you've said.

Without alchemy, how are modii developed? Do they use the magical-technological systems such as ~ATH in order to have all the abilities and incredible amount of variety they posess?

I think you're right in why the characters were hardly surprised by the magic house construction of SBURB when they've been living with sylladexes their entire lives. Nothing would really surprise you at that point.

@violentjester

Betty Crocker owns Fruit Gushers ;)