this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 33 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

One time in a DND game I had a dungeon with the property "you'll never find what you're looking for". This has a bunch of fun effects. Among them when the players found a spiral stairway around a hole, they tried to find the bottom and, because of the rule, could not reach it. They tried to go back up, and couldn't reach the previous floor either.

So they decided, since they have feather fall, to just jump into the central hole and find the bottom that way.

They fell for an uncomfortable long time. They passed the other party members who had split up (and couldn't find them).

Good times. Players heads were very fucked with.

They did eventually figure it out.

[–] tautalas@lemmy.world 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)
[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 10 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

One of the clues they found was from a survivor from the antagonist's party who had gone in ahead of them. He said the boss-man had kept asking them lots of questions about their youth, where they'd grown up, their hobbies. Just a lot of personal questions. The survivor didn't know why, since boss-man had never taken an interest in them before.

spoiler for my old dnd gameThe trick is to walk without looking for anything in particular. If you just walk without a conscious goal, you'll eventually find the room with the macguffin. The antagonist's strategy was to keep them talking about stuff so they're distracted, and not thinking about what they're looking for.

[–] TheOakTree@lemmy.zip 2 points 54 minutes ago

What if you kept descending the stairs in anticipation of... more stairs? Would the stairs cease to manifest? And would this lead to the macguffin?

[–] fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk 3 points 8 hours ago

Was the musician "Bono" part of your D&D group, and did he later write a song about the experience?

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 26 points 12 hours ago (10 children)

Now I'm wondering how long a person would have to be falling at parachute speeds to die and become skeletal.

[–] elfpie@lemmy.eco.br 4 points 8 hours ago

You can use the math below and correct the years to be close to 5. But we would end up with a mummy because of the conditions (wind leading to dessication).

[–] ClockworkOtter@lemmy.world 10 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Or how long the living guy would have to be free falling to catch up with the person who's a dessicated corpse?

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Far longer than his lifetime, I'm sure.

[–] ClockworkOtter@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Let's say, for argument's sake, that they are falling in "ideal conditions" and it takes the person 2 days to die (they had the shits when they jumped) and a further two days to dry out. With a parachute open they could be falling at about 10mph (or possibly even slower as they lose further moisture!). 4 days at 10mph is 960 miles

The live person is the best person at skydiving to have ever lived, and spends most of the time not in the panels at 350mph (almost at the speed record). 960 miles at 350mph only takes 2.7 hours.

Maybe not so long after all?

My maths could be completely off though - haven't used it much in years.

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 hours ago

That body's skeletized, which would take a lot longer than 2 days. Would being constantly falling slow down decomposition? Maybe.

[–] notreallyhere@lemmy.world 17 points 11 hours ago (1 children)
[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 13 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

I meant how far, not how long.

[–] my_hat_stinks@programming.dev 9 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

According to this article freefall speed is anywhere from 120mph to 200mph for a human depending on position, that's roughly 190-320km/h. The radius of Earth is 6,371 km so you'd be traveling one Earth every 40-60 hours. In 80 years you'd cover between 133 and 224 million kilometers (82-139 million miles), traveling an entire Earth 28 to 47 million times. Interestingly this is still only roughly 10% the radius of the solar system, but it would get you to the moon and back 173 - 291 times. Space is big.

With the parachute open obviously you're a little slower, this article says 16-32 km/h. That's close enough we can just divide the other estimates by 10, so you'd travel about 13-22 million km (8-14 million miles) or 1% the radius of the solar system.

There's a very good chance these numbers are a bit off, rough calculations that I didn't bother to double-check.

[–] elvith@feddit.org 4 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

I wonder... How does gravity affect you inside the earth?

In very simple thoughts: You fall down to the middle of the earth and accelerate (ok, friction would get you to the stated terminal velocity) and the decelerate on your way "up" on the other side.

A bit more complicated: But this is just a hole, meaning there's mass all around us. So this attracts us. But right in the center, we should be attracted by all mass around us in all directions. So I guess it pulls is into the center of mass? Or maybe it cancels all out and there is no gravity?

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago

Yes, in the center of Earth gravity cancels itself out. Even if there's a huge hole making it asymmetric.

With the parachute open, you'll fall slower and slower until you barely go past the center and then continue to slow down while you oscillate around it. At 32 km/h, you would need about 3 months to get there, but with all the slowing down you'll probably stay on the path for a few years.

[–] my_hat_stinks@programming.dev 3 points 10 hours ago

This is getting well outside my area but my understanding is that if you were approaching the center of the earth gravity would gradually decrease until you have effectively no net pull at the core. This is because the mass above you is still attracting you too so at the core you're pulled equally in all directions. Using the same principle you'd essentially be free-floating if you found yourself in a hollow "shell" planet, presumably because the pull from whichever area of the shell is close to you is offset by there being more shell pulling you away.

[–] ramble81@lemmy.zip 8 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Assuming you don’t bring any food, the usual survival times: 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. So a minimum 3 days… on the other hand, the time to turn into a skeleton would be much, much longer.

Edit: Since I wanted to do some math, it looks like skydiving is about 120mph in free fall and then 20mph with the parachute open. Let’s say you got scared/bored of free falling after an hour and open your chute, that would be 71 hours before dying. So you would have traveled 1,540 miles (assuming earth gravity, wind resistance, etc). Someone who hasn’t pulled their cord would catch up to you after 12 hours, so very much within the “alive” window.

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[–] Shieldtoad@sh.itjust.works 31 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Does 'pushes' mean you get pushed into the pit or does it mean you get to push someone else in the pit?

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 10 points 11 hours ago

its a 2 for 1 in the company world, pay 5$ to push someone who paid 5$ to get pushed. 😸

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 26 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

"Uh... Boss? The pit isn't bottomless anymore."

"You better figure out how to make it bottomless again!"

[–] Saapas@piefed.zip 4 points 10 hours ago

It's pretty surprising that AI wrote probably the best greentext ever

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 13 points 13 hours ago

> be me
> bottomless pit supervisor

[–] Maestro@fedia.io 8 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

...why do you need a parachte in a bottomless pit? It's not like you need it to land?

[–] ButteryMonkey@piefed.social 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Have you ever stuck your head out a moving car window, into the high force wind, and found it very difficult to breathe? That’s what I imagine sky diving is like (not something I particularly want to try), and a ‘chute would slow that enough for comfortable breathing, I imagine.

[–] Maestro@fedia.io 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I went sky duving once, with a free fall. You can breathe just fine ☺️

[–] ButteryMonkey@piefed.social 2 points 10 hours ago

Fair enough :) maybe that’s different or maybe I’m just weird. I’ll never know 😁

[–] joyjoy@lemmy.zip 14 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

What's the updraft situation like in the bottomless pit?

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 42 points 14 hours ago (6 children)

In a normal deep but endful pit, you'd feel an increase in air pressure as you got deeper as you floated slower and slower. Eventually there will be enough bodies forming a buoyant layer (or, simply bodies lining the bottom of the pit) that you could carve climbing apparatus out of bones and climb back up, feasting on raw flesh as you ascend the wall of the pit. That, or the heat from the biomass of bodies would lift you and your parachute up a decent amount.

In a bottomless pit, there is no increase in air pressure, the air just falls right through with no resistance because it hasn't reached the end. You'd think that this creates a huge suction at the top of pit, sucking people into it, but no because the air just falls at the same rate that cold air leaves a room in a house, creating perhaps a slight draft into the pit. No bodies at the bottom, no layer of buoyant air, you're just falling. Might as well control your ascent, with some careful parachuting, hook up with some hotties mid-fall, and then embrace the eternity of it

[–] ynthrepic@lemmy.world 21 points 14 hours ago (1 children)
[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 11 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

It's how I met your mother

[–] ynthrepic@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)
[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 1 points 4 hours ago

Bison: "Bi son? Bye son."

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

If there is an infinite column of air, the air entering or leaving the pit should be more or less constant, all else being equal outside the pit. But if there is a finite column of air falling into a vacuum, then there is an infinite vacuum, and I think the pit starts sucking air at the speed of sound.

[–] LeninsOvaries@lemmy.cafe 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Actually, there's a finite amount of air in the pit, but it's not falling. It's already settled around the planet's midpoint. The pit keeps going forever, but gravity starts pulling the other way after a while

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

A hole through a planet is not a bottomless pit. Like any normal hole, it is bounded on both ends. A bottomless pit has one bounded end and one unbounded end.

[–] LeninsOvaries@lemmy.cafe 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

What if the pit is subject to shell theorem?

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[–] jjagaimo@sh.itjust.works 8 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

You'd have to ask the inspector

[–] joyjoy@lemmy.zip 14 points 14 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Cypher@lemmy.world 28 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

This one’s no good I can see a bottom.

Next!

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 9 points 13 hours ago

supervisor (whispering): "holy shit, he's good!"

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

Basically this happened in an episode of Adventure Time.

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