Topic: Do you build your own worlds for RoleMaster?

[Thot]

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  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.?

[jdale]

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.

[intothatdarkness]

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.

[Grinnen Baeritt]

"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.

[Druss_the_Legend]

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).

[Thot]

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.

 

[Ginger McMurray]

I'll be converting MERP and running in Middle Earth once I convince my group to play.

[Thot]

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?

[Druss_the_Legend]

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.

[Cory Magel]

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).

[Ginger McMurray]

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.

[Thot]

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.

[Ginger McMurray]

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, 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.

[Spectre771]

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.

[Fingolfin80]

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.

[Jengada]

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...

[Xaeion]

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.

[Peter R]

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.

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

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

[MisterK]

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.