Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => Topic started by: Thot on November 14, 2019, 12:22:09 PM
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There is Kulthea, and, unofficially these days, there is Arda. Both are traditionally played with RoleMaster.
But I am the type of guy who likes to build his own worlds. You can find some intro about a campaign in such a world in this (http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=17505.msg212541) forum thread. Am I alone with that? What kinds of worlds have you created for use with RoleMaster? Do you use the concepts of good and evil, of immortal elven races, high and low men, extremely powerful magic at high levels, etc.?
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Worldbuilding is the whole reason for GMing as far as I am concerned. :)
I've commented on my setting here http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=16116.0 but in short I am aiming for a fairly traditional fantasy feel which under the hood is long post-technological, deriving all magic power from ultra-tech remnants. Instead of magic and technology being in conflict, they are just two names for the same thing. There were entities described as "gods" in the mythology but they were people who retained mastery of magic the longest; that was a long time ago. Some believe that some of them will return "from the stars."
Rearranged magic realms and professions in order to support that too. So, good and evil are social constructs, morality comes from and is enforced by people (which isn't to say it isn't important, but it's not magic). Elves tend to live longer because their inherent magic is based around the manipulation of living things, and as such they are good healers and usually in good health, despite not being inherently immortal -- but the most magically capable among them may live a very, very long time.
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I've always been a world-builder as well, although mine focuses in part on having an in-game explanation for the realms of magic as well as history based on the lifespan of the more common peoples (I always hated the 'thousands of years when nothing happens' fantasy trope).
I redid professions and quite a few of the skills and skill costs, shuffling skills into places I felt worked better for my world and frankly getting rid of quite a few. I also designed specific cultures and then associated character races with them. I have players roll for origin, which also makes things interesting.
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"World-Building", it's a strange fixation that GM's have. ;)
A long time ago, I'd sit and imagine a world then try and map it, plonk a few capital cities around the place, name some oceans, seas and rivers etc. Now I'm older I've got mapping software, that makes that bit easier, but damn it the players get distracted so easily by other things (life, D&D, the latest craze, work etc).... and all that "work" gets unused. Some people, lacking the time, might "buy" a setting, or players get excited "by" a setting, and again all that "work" gets to be unused...
So, to the point, yes I do. But I don't expect them to be used! So it's more of a hobby, like modelling railways... LOL.
The reality of the situation is that I'm more likely to "make stuff up as we go along" or "let the players do it" or "shamelessly steal stuff from other systems" than sit down and design a specific campaign world to use with games now... or more likely, just use the "real" world.
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Based my entire campaign around Sanctuary - Thieves World setting. Very rich setting with many memorable NPC's.
Over the years I have added my own world building ideas but have essentially used the city itself as the centre of adventures.
PCs are now poised to explore a bit more of the world beyond the city in search of a number of temple strongholds used by an evil cult (The Bloody Hand - a vampire worshippers hell bent on resurrecting their banished masters).
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Personally, I always like to have a specific world exist for a narrative reason. So each world needs to have some special features that "justify" its existence - and use in a campaign. One world may be about what would "REALLY happen" if necromancy worked (so a world were things happen differently than in usual fantasy worlds). Another might be (as my above linked thread from a few years ago) a world to which magic comes after it used to not exist (which is a great way to familiarize players with an unknown magic system).
Currently it's itching me to do something with RMFRP again, and I am contemplating various options for that "reason to exist" for my world. I am still in the very early stages, but I enjoy this process a lot. :)
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I'll be converting MERP and running in Middle Earth once I convince my group to play.
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I'll be converting MERP and running in Middle Earth once I convince my group to play.
So you prefer to adapt existing worlds? Why is that?
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I'll be converting MERP and running in Middle Earth once I convince my group to play.
So you prefer to adapt existing worlds? Why is that?
id guess its because its a lot less work and you can still modify and tweek tings to suit your tastes/players. u get the best of both worlds if u are prepared to put in the time.
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I have done a fair bit of work on describing a new world itself and 'how things work'. Races, Cultures, Magic, Relgiion, etc., but I pretty much steal maps from other sources for the most part.
However, it's just as likely I could end up simply using Middle Earth (even if the players don't realize it for some time) next time around.
Possibly even combining the two to some degree (i.e. the players are from another, potentially unknown, area of the world, venture out and find what is Middle Earth as we know it).
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I'll be converting MERP and running in Middle Earth once I convince my group to play.
So you prefer to adapt existing worlds? Why is that?
I don't have near enough time to create a world and do it justice. Using an existing and well-developed world makes things vastly simpler. Also, Middle Earth is familiar to almost every gamer under the sun.
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It is of great value to have images in everybody's mind to summon when describing something, indeed.
I have run campaigns in self-created worlds and in the creations of others. Both are fun, but I must say that I did not find it less work to run a campaign in an existing setting... quite the opposite, actually. In order to do the source justice, a lot of research is required where I can just make stuff up when needed in a self-created campaign setting.
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I have run campaigns in self-created worlds and in the creations of others. Both are fun, but I must say that I did not find it less work to run a campaign in an existing setting... quite the opposite, actually. In order to do the source justice, a lot of research is required where I can just make stuff up when needed in a self-created campaign setting.
I'm all about making stuff up in existing settings, too. That's typically done on the fly unless I purposefully put prior thought into it. Books are inspiration, not straight jackets.
- Familiarize myself only with the history of the world in broad strokes: what happened during first, second, and early third ages.
- A more detailed history of the region they're in. Anything prior to the third age is flavor unless it later comes up in a campaign, at which point I read that section or source book in between sessions.
- Read the source books for their nation (Gondor) and city (Minas Ithil). In this case I'll also read Mordor, since Minas Ithil is right next door.
- Grab a premade adventure and use it as the seed for the campaign.
- Create future adventures by following as naturally as possible from the choices PCs made in previous ones. These tend to follow Node-based scenario design (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/7961/roleplaying-games/node-based-scenario-design-part-2-choose-your-own-adventure), so there's lots of room for player choice in where things go.
If something comes up in a session that I don't remember, I make it up and note it in my books. Everyone knows that this is an alternate history, since that allows players to affect the world on a grander scale. For example, if they find one of the hidden elvish rings of power and throw the nations into chaos, so be it. Note: that actually happened in one campaign, though I was a player and not the GM.
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I'm using a word that was created by the players way back in the <ahems> decade. We've just added to it as we wanted a new region. Once I got a hold of the Quellbourne book and subsequently Green Gryphon Inn, I added that region to the gaming world. I just fell in love with everything about it. That is the one section of our gaming world that is Shadow World-esque. And once I get my Haalkataine book, I have a feeling that will also be added to the gaming world. :)
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Worldbuilding is the whole reason for GMing as far as I am concerned. :)
This preatty much contains my take on the subject. I almost exclusively run my own settings, and in time they grew to very complex worlds, with different regions and specific cosmogony and magic. Even the races are usually custom ones and in some settings I also have specific classes.
I just find difficult to use someone else's world, even if sometimes I incorporate some other settings element.
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I'm close to jdale on this, but I have to admit empirical evidence also shows I'm a better world-builder than I am player, so I went with my strength.
I have all the material I've used for adventures and my world going back to the late '80s. Some of the early stuff I would say isn't quite what I want in the world now, and since I'm on my 5th or 6th set of players in that world, I do have the freedom to change it. But mostly it's been almost 4 decades (oof) of building, adding detail to areas I still use, and filling in areas that were blank on the "map". Each new group of players prompts different questions about how something works in part of the world, and I fill it in.
I don't know how many here remember the old list-serve for Rolemaster. One of the things I loved on that (and here, but it's a different beast) was the amazing expertise people had on real-world historical topics, and fantasy literature. I still have some printed posts from doctors who had studied medieval medicine, historians who had worked on bronze-age cultures, etc. I have, in all honesty, learned more about the real world and the people in it from gaming, than I learned in getting my Ph.D.
And when I go senile, hopefully at some distant date, I have no doubt where I'll be living in my mind...
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Sure I did! A wandeful one, too. I re-writed some spells, classes, talent/flaws,races and cultures. My world has over 40M of people and is forged in my mind and my campaings. I'm a Master of Rolemaster since 1993 and used the same world since, modifying it an designing it over time.
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I am truly terrible at world building and do not enjoy it.
I would rather give the players a few broad strokes to set the tone of a game world and then let the detail unfold as the game goes on, or use a published world.
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Since I started GMing in order to get ideas / further the world I was building, which became the de facto location of all the game systems I GMed, from AD&D 1st, RM2, D&D 3rd, Palladium system, and several others, I'm not really sure it answers your question but…
Well, so, no, I didn't create a world "for use with RoleMaster", I used RM2 for the world I created. :p
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Both.
I use existing settings when I find them convenient or when I have invested too much in them (Shadow World being a prime example of the latter, the Forgotten Realms being a good example of the former), but I also develop my own settings when I want something specific that I cannot find in an existing one I know of, or if using an existing one would be too much work (for instance, if I want to GM a fantasy campaign in an urban setting, I would probably design my own, because it is easier to build things on the run than try to absorb everything that has been written for Ptolus, for instance).
Using the same setting over and over again with the same players (even with different characters) has the advantage of cutting down the players learning curve, which is a huge side benefit.
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World building is part of the joy of being a GM. My world started in the early 90's, and went with me as I explored different systems. I borrowed from games, books, etc.
I have tried to play in established settings, but feel constrained, so I just use elements I like.
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World building is part of the joy of being a GM. My world started in the early 90's, and went with me as I explored different systems. I borrowed from games, books, etc.
I have tried to play in established settings, but feel constrained, so I just use elements I like.
nice! i have done something similar and for same reasons. off the shelf campaigns just seem to lack what i like and i also have been heavily influenced by films and books (esp David Gemmel's novels eg. Drenai Saga).
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I tend to use the geography from some book (i.e. Thieves World, Thomas Covenant, Belgariad) and then populate it with my religions, RM races, etc. I do this because it saves a lot of work and because I really don't have a good grasp on how geographical features affect weather.
I also am currently using the Norse gods as a basis for religion because I think that it helps the players to have a basic grasp of the gods since the characters, even the nonreligious ones would have some knowledge of the gods (and my group doesn't like to do a lot of homework). :/
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Do you build your own worlds for RoleMaster?
Yes. Always.
rmfr
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Thot,
I answered quickly without reading the thread. Here is more...
Am I alone with that?
No. I know for fact that most persons who gravitate towards being Gamemaster always create their own worlds. I'd even be willing to say that at least 9 out of 10 GMs have at least made the attempt. I'd even be willing to say about half succeed in creating a campaign world. If like my wife and I many decades ago, the GM can even make it collaborative effort between the GM and the players. Although my wife and I were the co-GMs, our players also aided in adding things, places, cities, islands, etc., etc.
What kinds of worlds have you created for use with RoleMaster?
Same as anyone else. A rock planet similar to Earth.
Do you use the concepts of good and evil, of immortal elven races, high and low men, extremely powerful magic at high levels, etc.?
Good and Evil? Of course. No matter what, there is always good and evil.
Immortal Elves? No. But there are some species very similar with some very long life spans.
High men? C'mon. This is a clean game. Got enough drug addicts in reality. Don't need any in role playing. >-P
My wife and I, and me by myself, have renamed them to Noble Humans. On my current world of Onaviu, there are the Alnara Altais (similar to Common Humans), the Alnara Anur (similar to the Noble Humans), and the Alnara Avari (no RM equivalent, but human-based).
As for magic, our world of Udava was a very low magic world. Magic Items tended to have also been lost items and in the interim became very potent items. On Onaviu, magic is sp prevelant, anyone with the abilities can wield Power. They could also wield Psion. However, Psion is viewed as being EVIL. Wielding Power is neutral, depending what the wielder does with it.
Now for some addenda. I am a very accomplished astrophysicist focusing into Celestial and Orbital Mechanics (stellar system construction). In fact, I have even constructed the entire stellar system of which Onaviu is an intricate part. If using the software Celestia (https://celestia.space/), you could travel all over this stellar system to see the other worlds there. Unfortunately, the amount of data defining that system is incredibly huge. Even zipping still leaves it at over 12GB, mostly due to the texture files. (http://Here is an image capture where I learned of an impending eclipse.) (https://imgur.com/yfakXlf) I know for fact that you cannot have orbiting celestial bodies without an eclipse occuring. I just did not know when it was occuring until I looked at Onaviu, with its moon Ondero, one day and realized the next play session was the eclipse. And it was through the use of Celestia that I found how the eclipses occur at a regular pattern. Here is PDF export (https://1drv.ms/b/s!AvSZnal-KHWVsyNTjNVRtes8HJaA) from the ODT file I have.
I am also a geologist and volcanologist working at the world's largest land-based caldera. Super-volcano for those in the civilian world. I work at Yellowstone National Park as a Field Technician and Data Analyst. I have another degree in Global Climatology, thus I have a very good understanding how landform assemblages affect the global climate and local climate patterns.
All of my studies, whether personal or profesional, have given me the knowledge to know how to create a stellar system, its planets, and the focus world in particular. With the Onaviu system, three worlds ended up within the "Goldilocks Zone." However, I have only focused upon Onaviu for now. Perhaps my players may step up and work on the other two worlds.
rmfr
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No. I know for fact that most persons who gravitate towards being Gamemaster always create their own worlds.
A fact?
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No. I know for fact that most persons who gravitate towards being Gamemaster always create their own worlds.
A fact?
Yes. Every GM I have ever known personally always ended up making the attempt at creating their own world. Until I met another GM in person who has not, then I shall revise that statement.
rmfr
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Well, a fact for arakish. ;)
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Well, a fact for arakish. ;)
Yeah. More "subjective personal experience" than "fact." :)
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Well, a fact for arakish. ;)
Well, a fact for arakish. ;)
Yeah. More "subjective personal experience" than "fact." :)
ROFL :wave:
Yeah, it is a more personal experience than fact, but it all I got to go on. ;)
rmfr
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What kinds of worlds have you created for use with RoleMaster?Same as anyone else. A rock planet similar to Earth.
Errr, not anyone else, I think. My main world is a ball of chaotic matter surrounded by magical energies, the interaction of both creating "stability" in form of islands, thus floating on an ocean of chaotic matter. The ball itself is floating over a cup made of black crystal, standing on the back of one of the five Divine Beasts, who take turn carrying it. The journey through the heavens (a "year") takes the form of a eight-shaped figure and lasts thirteen months (of three weeks, each of thirteen days, each of twenty-six subdivisions [comparable to earth's notion of hour]), each Beast carrying the cup holding the world for one month in each "loop", then all of them resting the sixth month; the thirteen month, the gods reshuffle the state of the world.
So, not a rock planet, and hardly similar to Earth. ;)
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Well, I stand corrected. Cool world OLF.
rmfr
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Thanks arakish.
OTOH, I don't know, but I feel surely there are many GMs whose worlds aren't similar to Earth. I mean, what's the point of playing a medieval fantasy game if your world is merely a scifi world with magic replacing ESP? Where all modern laws of physics hold true? Especially since the inhabitants of your world would most certainly hold such a point of view! Medieval people think the world is flat? Make it actually flat! After, probably your world has gods, such as, for instance, a sun god who carries the sun in his chariot every day around the world. So, how could it be that your world is actually a rock planet circling a giant ball of fire? ;)
Us modern boring people say people from ancient times imagined a world with gods to explain all the natural phenomenons they couldn't explain, and view the world in an incorrect way because their understanding of the laws of physics were incorrect. But a fantasy world is such a world where gods are real so why wouldn't the world itself be exactly how its people view it?
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I think it's pretty hard for most people to get past their preconceptions of how the world works. That's great if you can break those expectations, it forces players to think from a more in-game perspective.
My RMU game has real-world physics because of what I'm doing with the magic system, but in our LARP, the stars are actually features of the dream realm, which is visible from the waking world (this is why astrology works, glimpsing the movements of the stars gives you hints about what most people are dreaming about). The moon is literally the celestial palace where the guardians of the dream realm are based.
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I fell in love with Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. I've woven a lot of bits and pieces into my game world. 8 day week, "Heere be monstyrs", "and heere", "and heere too", The mysticism of the number 8, the Colour of Magic (Octarine), etc. Lucky for me, the players haven't explored much by sea, but the rumour is that the world really is flat.
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mapping my worlds for my players to see is one of my joys :D
(https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3153d8_16d11e71d045f43cf3ca0d602c5b01f4.jpg/v1/fill/w_728,h_734,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/3153d8_16d11e71d045f43cf3ca0d602c5b01f4.webp)
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mapping my worlds for my players to see is one of my joys :D
That is eerily similar to the game world I played in while back. Extremely similar to the game world we played in, including the marsh and the rivers.
Do you know Mike???
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mapping my worlds for my players to see is one of my joys :D
That is eerily similar to the game world I played in while back. Extremely similar to the game world we played in, including the marsh and the rivers.
Do you know Mike???
mike who lived south of SAIT in calgary? or mike from the tailor park?
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I tend to create my own worlds although I do try to use established settings. The problem I have, I feel I cannot do them justice or run these settings correctly.
My worlds are usable only skeleton frameworks with only the basic map and starting location completed. The rest, including pantheon, would be created as needed.
The latest I made was set right after the fall or withdrawal of the dominating power of the region (they kept themselves hidden, but was in fact Fair Elves). They used crystals as conduits for Agony spells to keep the population enslaved.
All I had mapped out was the starting area and city which was walled off into sectors.
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I adapt existing worlds. I've been playing Merp and then RMSS for about 16 years now (damn just scared myself with that number) and we started out in Middle Earth. A few years after the war of the ring. In the years that followed the group fell apart and got rebuilt a few times.
Somewhere along the line I became GM and started a campaign 200 year after the war of the ring. It gave me enough freedom to play with politics, war and even to some extent geography. Now at the end of that campaignarc (which lasted several years and multiple GM's with me as 'head') we opened the doors of Midnight and Morgoth placed part of his essence in a boy.
At the same time Mentalism escaped into the world. (We switched from Merp to RMSS and this justified the presence of Mentalism in the world)
Now we're playing 200 years later (so 400 years after the war of the ring) and have departed greatly from the lore of middle earth. Yes some cities are left but the political landscape has changed and we are very much a part of that change.
In this adventure the group will be transported for the first time to Shadowworld. I bought a boatload of Shadowworld stuff in an online auction a few years back and I've been dying to use it. They will (shortly) be transported there and I will build a completely new Island.
On the topic of worldbuilding:
I'm going to try my hand at it with the introduction of a new realm where the players are displaced. If it catches on and the players like it I will most likely expand on it in the years to come.
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I think it's pretty hard for most people to get past their preconceptions of how the world works. That's great if you can break those expectations, it forces players to think from a more in-game perspective.
My RMU game has real-world physics because of what I'm doing with the magic system, but in our LARP, the stars are actually features of the dream realm, which is visible from the waking world (this is why astrology works, glimpsing the movements of the stars gives you hints about what most people are dreaming about). The moon is literally the celestial palace where the guardians of the dream realm are based.
In my setting mortal beings who became demi-gods did so using Mentalism.
Essence is harnessing elemental energy.
Mentalism is using the power of your own mind to manipulate your own or other living thing's energy.
Channeling is gathering and receiving energy from an 'idea' which is sort of being 'broadcast' into the world by (typically) other living things.
So, demi-gods are basically Channeling the Mentalism energy from sentient creatures.
This means that even if a living creature is not, in any way, religious it may be inadvertently providing energy to a god or demi-god simply by believing in or doing something. This also means that you could, potentially, kill a demi-god of say... the forest... by destroying the forest itself. If the demi-god was drawing its power from the forest itself (those trees are alive and therefor have an energy that is being gathered by that demi-god) once that forest has been destroyed the demi-god will be powerless and likely revert to whatever form it held before demi-god-hood.
If the entire world is at war, the god of war will grow stronger.
If the world is at peace, the god of war will be weak.
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In the past I dabbled at building a world, but more recently I have kind of cobbled together my favourite locations and NPCs from a combination of MERP & SW books into a setting. I find it makes it easier to have these familiar places because we have less time to play. Most of us are gaming to enjoy the down time from work & family obligations, so for me to use Bree or Kelfours Landing as adventure "hot spots" in the same "world" builds some nice repetition into the game and saves time.
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I am currently using the Dreamlands of Call of Cthulhu supplement as a campaign setting. I changed it a little bit while adding elves, dwarfs and halflings.
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I think it's pretty hard for most people to get past their preconceptions of how the world works.
It may be easier than you think. As I wrote when I asked for some feedback (https://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=19485.msg231347#msg231347), one easy move is to change the units for measuring length, time or even weight. Merely changing the naming goes a lot toward that goal, though changing the units' scaling is even better. The key idea IMO is to make the changes small that it doesn't disturb the players' scale of things yet big enough so as it reminds the players that, no, you're not on Earth. For instance, my days last 26 miletz (the equivalent of hours) and my years 13 months, which is close enough to Earth's 24 hours and 12 months, yet different enough in that a gwaedan year is roughly 1.63 earth years.
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I am currently using a heavily home brewed version of shadow world minus the weird stuff like space travel, flowstorms, etc just made it somewhat low magic just old school fantasy world with monsters and people who use magic :)
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I am currently using a heavily home brewed version of shadow world minus the weird stuff like space travel, flowstorms, etc just made it somewhat low magic just old school fantasy world with monsters and people who use magic :)
I tend to do the same. I don't mind the odd tech element in my fantasy, but my players find it kind of jarring. They don't seem to mind adding fantasy elements to their tech gaming though, so when we play Spacemaster, we often visit Kulthea.
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I normally create my own worlds. I've made worlds based on the Dishonored video game series, Etheria from the old Warlords PC game, lots of fantasy and steampunk worlds. I don't think I've used a published RM world yet. We'll be starting a Middle Earth game with RM soon, so I won't be able to say that any more!
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Hey everyone,
It's been quite a while since I've logged onto the forums (sort of got lost in the server change shuffle). It's good to be back. I'm enjoying catching up on all these great discussions.
Well, enough about me being back, I had better answer the question ;D
I've been developing my world of Nytheun since about 2009. I also have a Pulp world (Jeopardy Exile) and a Sci-Fi Galaxy (my Argentrooper Chronicles). Ironically, none of these worlds have ever been used for actual play - though they've all used RM/SM/Cyberspace in their development. I guess that's what happens when you go gun-ho on world building & only ever use those worlds in Creative Writing. ;)
When it comes to Nytheun (my fantasy millieu), it's basically an RM world (with some hints of SM, sort of like Shadow World in that respect…). One of the original ideas for the world was to build it to be able to use every supplement released for RM/RMSS/RMFRP in one way or another. And I'm pleased to say I've kept true to that vision. The magic system is built around the movement of Mana from Earthnodes (RMCI) to Anti-Magic Zones (SUC) via Ley Lines (and Negative Lines as well - which is a whole other concept). Every profession listed in RM2 & all the Companions is available in some way (maybe not every culture, but across all the cultures, every Profession exists). There are aliens that have landed on the planet that are refugees from a massive galactic empire that self-destructed in a civil war - as well as a race of extra-planetary beings (from one of the moons of a planet in Nytheun's solar system) who have drastically changed the history & balance of power on Nytheun (hello SM2, thank you :D ). Elementalism (Elemental Companion - the major gods are all related to particular elements) and Psionics (SM/SUC) have a large influence on the world as well, and there are some cultures that have developed Ki powers (Oriental Companion). I've created standing armies (War Law); Navies (Sea Law); Fortresses (Castles & Ruins) as well as a dark, magical underground 4-8-0 Locomotive that steels the souls of those unfortunate to be seduced by its song (Armoured Assault). For the record, it serves the Goddess of Fate & Death. There's a deeper story behind this, one I'm still figuring out. There's one culture that has begun developing steam technology & is starting to become a little Steam Punkish (RMCVI comes into play here as well as At Rapier's Point in a strange way).
So yeah, you could say its a high-magic world :P
Just a few examples of how RM has helped me create worlds. Keep rolling those 66's :)
Nightblade ->--