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Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => Topic started by: David Johansen on January 07, 2011, 07:31:48 PM
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On the "Products You'd Like To See" thread, I proposed an open generic fantasy setting in which writers could be assigned their own sections to detail. Key to this would be ground rules to keep things on an even keel. A setting bible so to speak. So here's a broad notion.
The universe is a perpeptual war between light and dark. These overarching powers are occasionally personified in beings of light or darkness but are generally remote and inapproachable even for the gods.
There are many gods, with weaker ones being fairly local and greater ones having gathered power and spread their worship over larger areas. Gods are a race of beings rather than personifications of principles. They have specialties and interests but are not automatically good or evil any more than people are. Nor are gods fueled by the faith of their worshipers, instead they gain political power in the world without violating treaties between various tribes of gods.
The origins of the various races is lost to history and hotly debated. It remains a mystery and nobody gets to do orcs descended from elves stories.
The main setting area is a continental landmass in the northern hemisphere. There are three close neighbouring continents with some land bridges and a vast ocean to the east.
The great elven empire began to fall a thousand years ago and the final pocket crumbled a hundred years ago. The cause of this decline was many elves turning to darkness but this is not widely known.
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How would you divvy up the land among the authors. . .and how would you avoid or reconcile conflicts?
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There are a handful of strongholds of civilization in a growing dark age. Without the power of the elven empire's mostly human legions old enemies and threats are arising as are new ones. These maintain a late medieval level of technology while the vast majority of the lands are limited to dark ages technology.
The north is home to a war like race of barbarians. No surprises there. There are spirits of cold and madness which seek to see the world frozen forever. These beings occasionally possess warriors making them berserkers. The barbarian gods are quarelsome and dour beings as harsh as the northern wastes. (So more Conan, less Warhammer...)
The eastern continent is home to a rising human empire which is looking westward. Merchant ships are often covers for spying and mercenaries from the east may be soldiers sent to infiltrate stabile kingdoms and eventually overthrow them.
The Western ocean is a forboding place of mad storms and deadly rocky reefs. Dragons come from the west and it is said the realm of monsters lies beyond the ocean.
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How would you divvy up the land among the authors. . .and how would you avoid or reconcile conflicts?
I'm thinking at least initially a mega hex per writer gives them each seven hexes to detail. Probably go first come first serve for land grants though it's rumoured that back in the day the Traveller land grants were assigned by throwing darts.
But first and foremost the way to avoid conflicts is clarity on matters of tone, power level, and content from the beginning.
I'm afraid conflicts become the province of the editor. They okay the proposal, review the draft document, and insist on changes. I'm afraid if it came down to some kind of board the politics of it would be problematic.
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To the south is a continent of jungles, deserts, and scattered ruins. Tribes and primitive kingdoms abound as do lizardmen. Here's I'm thinking the Lizardmen should be classic alligator headed types that like people as a light snack. A bright new empire is rising in the south, forward thinking, rational, and brave.
Across the main continent, the orcs, long ghetoized and nearly extinct during the ages of the Elven empire are growing strong in a world better suited to their brutality.
In hidden fastnesses, Dark elven sorcerers are conjuring dark forces for their own mad ends. Dealing with dragons and demons alike in their quest for ever increasing mystical power. The thing a dark elf sorcer fears most is another dark elf sorcerer.
The dwarves and goblins find themselves strangely at peace in the new order. Goblins and dwarves always got along better with each other than elves in any case and now there's room for both. While they have imperial ambitions both races are leaning to building an economic power base. How long they can go without starting to kill each other is anyone's guess. At any rate, the only people who aren't uncomfortable with this strange alliance seems to be the dwarves and the goblins.
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Tone And Scope
And now we come to the quick of it. Over all, I believe this project would be best suited to a lower level, lower key campaign style. There shouldn't be an overarching meta plot, just various smaller conflicts with a sense of greater dangers lurking in the background. Small kingdoms to save from small dragons. Plenty of room for player characters to make their place in the world and still have something new to see over the next hill.
Higher level areas exist but not in the sense of level appropriate zones. The tower of a mad sorcer can be very high level, but it's localized. And there are plenty of subtle signs in the area to discourage the foolhhardy.
While there are great powers of light and darkness these are very distant ideological forces and most people, even most monsters, demons, and gods, are just living. Wars are fought for political and economic reasons rather than broad philosophical ideas. The gods work through their earthly agents and tend to fight their own wars in their own extraplanar realms. Most neighbouring tribes of gods intermarry and party as much as they make war.
Magic items are valuable and only the most minor trinkets are ever found for sale. Magic shops are unheard of and certainly don't resemble a Walmart in any case. Where a local alchemist has some questionable sword with a slight aura or the like, it will cost a fortune and be of poor quality at best. You have to earn the good stuf.
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What might be kind of fun is if the hex or mega-hex areas developed by authors might be, to a degree, interchangeable. Like when you take a selection of tiles to build a dungeon map. You take a selection of countryside sections and build the continent of interest to you. Workable?
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Well, I think there'd be an official map but modularity would be a major goal and making the megahexes geomorphic would be a good idea. So you could easily line up rivers and mountain ranges when you reshuffle the map.
It might even be set up so map reshuffling happens. Like The Great Juju in the old Kings and Things board game where you just pick up the tiles reshuffle and layout the map again. Perhaps not so comically but I could totally see grey areas that bleed into each other and switch places through misty moors trackless deserts and the seas.
That might even be a neat framing for the whole thing. Lost lands, maybe with the fall of the Elven empire geography itself has become a bit shakey.
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This sounds like an excellent idea,
Here's my attempt at something suitable, feel free to gut it as required.
To the North West there is an advanced culture, worshiping a seemingly benign deity, but rapidly conquering their neighbours in a ongoing crusade. Off the coast there is a large island chain, which is home to several distinct peoples, human, elves and halflings, each with their own culture. In the forests of the islands, elves, cut off from their homelands and becoming displaced by the upstart humans, fight a drawn out campaign against all invaders. Nomadic dwarves live further north amongst the polar ice-flows hunting whale and seals and trading in oil and furs.
Recently the advanced culture on the mainland has established itself on the largest island in the chain and has embarked on a campaign of religious and cultural indoctrination. Their foothold is tentative due to the difficulty in getting reinforcements and supplies from the mainland, but they are gaining ground.
Rough seas and dangerous coastlines limit trade to a few well established trade routes which are occasionally preyed on by pirates. Great underground passages, cut by a long lost civilisation provide alternative trade routes, but these too are often subjected to banditry.
Remnants of an ancient people dot the landscape in the form of great architectural works, crumbling under the weight of ages.
The general tone of the area is one of ongoing conflict and the struggle to maintain ones culture. Set against this ongoing struggle is the question of what happened to those who went before.
Magic is generated the motion of the elemental planes moving against each other.The elemental planes, in contact with each other and being dissimilar in nature began to move relative to each other and the “friction†between the planes generated the great sea of magic that powers all spell casting. Like an ocean, this sea of magic has currents and eddies such that some areas areas are rich in magic (earthnodes for example).
Anyhoo, hope something is useful.
Cheers
Chris
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Yeah, that's the type of detail. It might be a bit larger area per writer than I had in mind but then again, I've got no idea how many writers would be interested in staking a claim.
Good point about the magic needing an explanation though. I hadn't put much thought into it. There might even be multiple explanations from multiple schools of thought. Yours certainly would appeal to mages.
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Heh, just wait and see what the mages think of the gods :)
In the beginning there were the six elemental lords:
Fire, earth, water, air, light (energy) and nether (entropy). Each carved out a portion of the multiverse as there own thus creating the elemental planes.
The elemental planes, in contact with each other and being dissimilar in nature began to move relative to each other and the “friction†between the planes generated the Ethereum Arcane, the great sea of magic that powers all spell casting.
The material plane coalesced as a result of fluctuations within the Ethereum Arcane and with its creation came the inevitable rise of intelligence, first drakes and their kin, then the lesser mortals.
The presence of intelligent thought imposes, to a greater or lesser degree, a pattern on the Ethereum Arcane, (essentially this is how spell casting works). With sufficient entities contemplating the same things (what is lightning for example), a permanent pattern is established and may develop sentience. Thus were created the gods.
The gods, once created are almost impossible to completely destroy as the pattern established within the Ethereum Arcane is a new “stable†state so to speak, and while it can be dissipated, it tends to re-establish itself given sufficient time.
Only through the channeling of truly vast quantities of nether can the pattern be sufficient perturbed for it to be fully dissipated. This is well beyond the ken of mortals.
Being entities of pure magic, the gods are able to manipulate the flows of the Ethereum Arcane at will and have influence anywhere where it is present.
As one leaves the material plane and heads out towards the elemental planes one enters a realm of increasing chaos. Strange creatures spontaneously appear and disappear within this realm. Some of these creatures have found ways of holding onto their existence by latching onto the patterns generated by the intelligent races of the material plane. These patterns are twisted by the chaos of their home realms and as a consequence such creatures tend to be unfriendly. Typically such creatures latch onto the ‘vices’ of the mortal races and, as they rely on such patterns for their very existence, work through mortal agents to encourage such thoughts. These are the various daemons and daemon lords.
Whilst they do not have the complete control over the Ethereum Arcane that the gods have, they do have a fair amount of power over the flows of magic and can channel such power to any mortal followers that they may have.
There is an advantage to having more followers. Think of a god as a standing wave in the fabric of reality. Each new follower increases the amplitude a little more, thus a god without followers exists, but only barely, to the point where they are on the brink of no longer being sentient.
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My, you mages go to such great lengths to explain away simple things.
This world is a dream, an illusion, a fancy of the gods and if we serve them well, they will remember us and love us and hold us in a better, happier dream when we have proven ourselves. Magic is our will disturbing their grand dream and while it can make amazing things happen it disturbs their pleasure in the dreaming and those who use it are soon forgotten. Yet some are so foul that they cannot be forgotten and so are damned to eternal torment thus becoming demons.
So it is writen on the wall in the great temple and it could not be that such a great writing that cost so many lives and blood would be done for any foolish reason.
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I am reading this thread. This has promise. Keep thinking and talking, please.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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My, you mages go to such great lengths to explain away simple things.
Such, one could argue, is the nature of mages :D.
On the mainland, to the East of the great advanced empire is a collection of city states, yet to be swallowed up. Outwardly unified, the city states, ruled over by a number of Merchant princes, are in a constant state of flux. Borders change on a daily basis and subtle schemes are an expected part of day to day life. Invasion of these Merchant Principalities has proven difficult, as an invader is welcomed but is rapidly lost amongst the twists and turns of law and politics within these lands.
Guilds, professional, craft and trade, are an important part of society in all of these North Western lands and these guilds often imprint an indelible mark on their members to indicate their rank and belonging. Such marks include the mundane, such as tattooing (normally on a readily visible place, the cheeks of the face are popular), and less mundane, such as the magical sigils of various mage and metalist guilds.
Guilds provide a measure of protection for their members, a place to rest and free meals, providing the member is in good standing. Guild law is harsh, and impersonating a guild member is a particularly serious crime. Guilds also provide their members with a source of work with most guild houses having some sort of notice board listing currently unfulfilled contracts.
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On the "Products You'd Like To See" thread, I proposed an open generic fantasy setting in which writers could be assigned their own sections to detail. Key to this would be ground rules to keep things on an even keel. A setting bible so to speak. So here's a broad notion.
I like the idea generally, but there can be some issues... I'll explain...
The universe is a perpeptual war between light and dark. These overarching powers are occasionally personified in beings of light or darkness but are generally remote and inapproachable even for the gods.
This works because it is really the nature of most settings. Good vs. Evil, it's "genric" enough.
There are many gods, with weaker ones being fairly local and greater ones having gathered power and spread their worship over larger areas. Gods are a race of beings rather than personifications of principles. They have specialties and interests but are not automatically good or evil any more than people are. Nor are gods fueled by the faith of their worshipers, instead they gain political power in the world without violating treaties between various tribes of gods.
This, in my opinion, is becoming too specific to be broad. The part about the gods being a race of beings. For example, it has major implications for Channeling Magic. How does it work if the gods are not fueled by the faith of their worshipers? Does all Channeling Magic come from a "Sphere" that ebbs and flows with the strength of that idea in the world?
The origins of the various races is lost to history and hotly debated. It remains a mystery and nobody gets to do orcs descended from elves stories.
This works, but you need to be careful to make a rule that no one determines how it actually happened in their particular world. They can have their version of a theory that their population believes.
The main setting area is a continental landmass in the northern hemisphere. There are three close neighbouring continents with some land bridges and a vast ocean to the east.
I think far more land masses need to be present, many separated from each other completely. In this way you can have a base setting overall, sections that can later be written in with 'official' material, and still have land masses that fans of the system can fill in with their own material.
The great elven empire began to fall a thousand years ago and the final pocket crumbled a hundred years ago. The cause of this decline was many elves turning to darkness but this is not widely known.
If you're talking about your part the world it works, but if you're talking the entire world it's too specific again.
Basically I think you just need to come up with how the world itself works - not the races within it. What are the physics of the world? How did the races evolve to their beginnings? Where they went from there could be individual to each portion of the world.
I think the most specific you'd want to get is where does magical power originate from? Mentalism you can explain as developed by a race itself somehow. So long as the base mechanics of it as the same you can explain away how each race figured it out differently. Channeling would be something collective created by worship... but is it worship that powers a deity that then provides the power to the upper end of followers, or is it worship of an idea that only some people can then draw upon? Essence is the one that sort of has to be more set. It, most likely, needs to be a power already present in the world that is being tapped into. Akin to the magnetic field around the world, or the elements, or life itself.
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I've been doing something sort of along the lines of what you're describing here, but I used HARP as the base system and Earth as the world.
http://www.realroleplaying.com/rmsmf/index.php?board=327.0
And yes, I've found many of the arguments made above to be unavoidable.
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The great elven empire began to fall a thousand years ago....
How about, instead of elves (over done), it was an empire of dwarves that ruled the lands from their mountain and hill strongholds, through the might of their technology. The dwarves were manufacturing steel equipment when everyone else was still using copper or just beginning to use iron. They could also maybe have (or had) early steam engines. (I find it hard to believe that elven skirmishers with their bows would be much of a match for heavily armored dwarven troops - especially when those troops could keep discipline.) Also, the dwarves, being the miners of the world, had access to the natural materials needed by the others, so they were (and still are, to a degree) able to hold that over the other races.
To me, it seems as though a race more attuned to building and construction*, would be more likely to be the ones to put together a large empire.
*Plus, they have an SD bonus, whereas elves with their negative SD mod are unlikely to be disciplined enough to put up with a very structured/ordered society. I think elves should be portrayed more like vikings in culture, clannish, but not prone to putting together a larger nation (unless they have to).
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To offer a few thoughts that might help.
Any "Mega Hex" will have 6 sides.
1) The absolute easiest way to handle it would be to say that all borders must be ocean. . .of course, you'd then end up with an island or micro continent world, but you'd then have no problems with borders, and the tiles would all fit together in both official and any other configuration.
2) The second way to do it would be to establish the first mega hex, with established terrain, then as each additional person comes in, make them take a hex that borders an already established hex. . .which would determine (or at least affect) the terrain in the two adjoining hexes. . . .of course, as you went on, you'd start getting hexes where it has 3, 4, 5 or even 6 hexes bordering established hexes. . .some authors might object to being handed a hex in which they are only truely "free" in just two or even just the center hex due to being in a surrounded hex. . .those might end up being hexes the editor takes over to "fill in". . .which might also give the project a bit more overall tone associated with the core editor, who approves author hexes, but also fills in those less desirable surrounded hexes. Likely the editor would also fill in the "Open ocean" hexes, unless a 7 hex chunk of open water covers an undersea civilization an author wanted to do.
3) The most complex would be starting off multiple editorial starting hexes, or even just having the initial author's hexes start it off . .very far apart. . . .so that completely different areas expand out. . .only to merge together much later when the hexes expand out to each other and touch.
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Well, I basically wanted a reason for there to be a wide spread dark age and small kingdoms rather than large ones. Fallen elven empires are a pretty generic fantasy trope. The current growing goblin / dwarf trade alliance is the closest thing to an empire on the main continent at present.
Giving people an island or continent in a world with many continents seems to defeat the purpose to me. At that point one can just have the writers make their maps fit this hex and let people paste them together however they want. I want there to be interaction between people's creations because that's what would make an interesting project. Admittedly it also creates many problems.
I wanted to define the nature of gods to a lower key approach to reduce their impact on the world. I'd much rather have the player characters making their own mark in the world than endlessly fighting the wars of the gods or have divine matters writ small upon the world. I would say that the divine realms are not directly geographically adjacent to the physical world and that a priest's faith is sufficient to draw power from their god wherever they are and leave it at that.
The problem is to create a unified setting that is broad enough to allow creativity while still having a unique character that makes it interesting to read and gives the various areas some thematic consistancy. Think of it in terms of a shared world anthology like Thieves World.
I was thinking that requiring a one megahex separation of creator controlled zones might overcome some issues. But I really would like some collaborative things like warring kingdoms by different creators.
I've always intended that the core map be defined before land grants are made. The objective is a consistant world with many creators, not a disparate set of creations that are nominally in a single mileux.
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Where does the power for Channeling come from? From the gods. Where do the gods get there power? From themselves. That what makes them gods. The "powered-by-their-worshipers" trope is an RPG and modern fantasy cliche, but it is hardly generic. A race of gods, with innate powers far greater than those of mortals, is a far better fit for real mythologies and therefore deserves to be considered "generic" if anything does.
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I think you're going to find that you need an 'official' world base to start with (that would really need to be established by the publisher). To many individual writers are going to have wildly different ideas about many, many things. One persons "must have" fundamental will often directly oppose another.
For example... Elves on the decline. Why? What if on my continent elves are still at the height of their power? Some of the ideas here are good, but they need to be part of that persons own little part of the world, not the 'world view'.
A collective effort will only work as an official setting if there's is strong control and oversight. Lucas has kept a very strong hand in the Star Wars books even through they are written by various authors because this problem cropped up almost immediately.
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Where does the power for Channeling come from? From the gods. Where do the gods get there power? From themselves. That what makes them gods. The "powered-by-their-worshipers" trope is an RPG and modern fantasy cliche, but it is hardly generic. A race of gods, with innate powers far greater than those of mortals, is a far better fit for real mythologies and therefore deserves to be considered "generic" if anything does.
Ah, but this is just your opinion of where it comes from. Maybe in my world it comes from the collective idea of something. They are not compatible as a set-in-stone world rule. You aren't giving a generic setting for me to add to... you are asking me to write within your world.
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Where does the power for Channeling come from? From the gods. Where do the gods get there power? From themselves. That what makes them gods. The "powered-by-their-worshipers" trope is an RPG and modern fantasy cliche, but it is hardly generic. A race of gods, with innate powers far greater than those of mortals, is a far better fit for real mythologies and therefore deserves to be considered "generic" if anything does.
Exactly, on the other hand I did go with less broadly absolute gods and more local spheres of influence.
And yes, Cory, as I said from the start, ground rules and oversight are essential. We're talking about a COLLABORATIVE world building exercise. You can have it your way any time you want by making your own world.
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The problem is to create a unified setting that is broad enough to allow creativity while still having a unique character that makes it interesting to read and gives the various areas some thematic consistancy. Think of it in terms of a shared world anthology like Thieves World.
I was thinking that requiring a one megahex separation of creator controlled zones might overcome some issues. But I really would like some collaborative things like warring kingdoms by different creators.
This is an interesting idea and could be a mini-game in itself. Give each author land grants as far from each other as possible and let them develop outwards until they come into conflict with others. Then have some editorial/community vote for who wins (or flip a coin).
Cheers
Chris
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Or massive on line War Law games :D
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Where does the power for Channeling come from? From the gods. Where do the gods get there power? From themselves. That what makes them gods. The "powered-by-their-worshipers" trope is an RPG and modern fantasy cliche, but it is hardly generic. A race of gods, with innate powers far greater than those of mortals, is a far better fit for real mythologies and therefore deserves to be considered "generic" if anything does.
I would say that the channeling issue would be summed up from the info in the first couple of paragraphs by the original poster.
The universe is a perpeptual war between light and dark. These overarching powers are occasionally personified in beings of light or darkness but are generally remote and inapproachable even for the gods.
So if there are beings that even the "Gods" can't fathom would be a great way to explain it. Perhaps these beings can tap this energy and parcel it out amongst the priests of the world, a la Dragon Kings from the Dark Sun setting.
On the other hand it could be a great adventure hook to have the players fiqure out.
Dragon Kings and Dark Sun are trademarks belonging to Wizards of the Coast. I hope i did not break any rules by mentioning those.
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Something i would like to see would be a Lizard Man culture based off of the Danish, Norse & Swedish viking cultures. They could raid and pillage their way to riches and lands and perhaps even trade with the afore mentioned Dwarf/Goblin trade cartel.
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Why have elves at all? Or dwarves? Or hobbits. Seriously, WHY???
Because dnd does it? Or thats how Tolkien wrote it? Rubbish.
Unless a world has a damn fine reason to have elves and dwarves and hobbits, then why bother with them at all?
In my world of Yem, Humans and Orgres were the dominant races, with the trolls the common enemy (remnants of the once ruling troll gawds who enslaved all). No elves or dwarves or hobbits, though I did have arcane master fey gnomes.
In another setting were the dragons were lord of all, we had elves and orcs and drawves and humans and hobbits and all that because when the dragons cursed there slave race for rebelling, they were splintered by the magic and formed into monstrous races that could not stay united against the dragons.
All I'm saying is forget the syereotypical races and focus on the WHY of the who, wich will allow for a consistent setting with the races it needs, not just the races of tradition.
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Lots of good ideas, lots of legitimate gripes. Earlier I used a world project I was doing as an example, not because I was trying to sell the idea or anything, but because it's the one I'm most familiar with and already contains a fair amount of these same lines of argument.
Overall - Is it a planet, that is, a sphere with an atmosphere and all that? Is it flat and on the back of a turtle? Is the turtle imaginary and deceased? Get a consensus on what the world is from the major contributors. Assuming it's a basically earthlike world, "land grants" can go by obvious geographic barriers. Leave that definition a little loose, it's a planet, it will have things that don't fit into neat categories. Also don't forget that weather systems, volcanic eruptions and such are not going to respect land grant boundaries. There has to be some sort of Kyoto Accord equivalent for this sort of thing, and it needs to apply to catastrophic magic use, too. And yes, that means the power gamer can't destroy everything with his worldwrecker spell, bonus, but here's the downside: That also means you as a GM can't use the catastrophic fumble you prayed for for the guy who richly deserved it cannot be turned into "a vast space where the grass will never grow again, and is now used by wizards to instruct their apprentices in The Dangers."
Gods, etc. - It wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that it's verifiable. Somewhere out there is someone who can say, "Yep, it's magic all right, and it's being drawn from _____ source." Therefore the latitude you have in your definition of "God", "soul", "angel", etc. has to fit within a common framework of rules for that kind of magic use. Beyond that, why should you care what Gods they worship on the other side of the impassable mountains, or why? Those aren't the real Gods anyway, right?
Races - Personally, I like this attitude
All I'm saying is forget the syereotypical races and focus on the WHY of the who, wich will allow for a consistent setting with the races it needs, not just the races of tradition.
In my own defense, the reason I have the races I do is because I started that world project in the mid 80s using RM1, the concept of "build your own race" was still years in the future.
But at the same time having a selection of different races for each area will result in instant chaos the moment there is trade between areas (Just cos it says it's impassible doesn't mean it is. A GM can't draw a box so big his players can't crawl outside it), quite aside from being a tough premise to swallow from the start. If you assume that evolution is slow, it kind of implies that a world old enough to produce sentient life is old enough to have selected such sentient life down to a comparatively few species. Personally I'd suggest 2 - 4 races present on a planetary scale, and beyond that "niche races" would require "niche ecologies" to support them. In short, you'd find the cities of the lizardmen in The Great Swamp, but lizardmen really don't do well anywhere else, that sort of thing.
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Well, I was looking at elves and dwarves and orcs because they're in this game called Rolemaster. No, really, you can look it up. But even if they weren't, one of the design goals is modules that non-rolemaster fans will want to buy and drop into their games using that other system, then the world needs to be sufficiently generic for that.
Now just for fun we could set aside a corner of the world to be completely bizzare and give some people land grants there if that's what they want. The southern or eastern continent would both work just fine. Now, in my own Rolemaster campaign world there's a continental scale parasite called Tzoldria and it's a very odd place. In fact the hyphae it sends out are actually what people call hell. (heaven's in geosynchronous orbit and hell's underground) Suppose for a moment, what with soft areas being cannon for the world, one of those continents used to be far away but keeps getting closer and closer?
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This sounds like something that was attempted a few years ago.
Some of the problems I saw then:
1) Control: Who controls the thing, are others willing to let them control it, $ and control, and control because a lot of gamers do not like to give it up but win, win and win.
2) Collaboration: everyone following the rules and when and who can violate the worlds rules. Because these small violations make the world a more interesting place.
3) Material Quality: It is hard to get everyone on the same page on quality and just what is expected in their section.
BTW, Some of the above ideas sound a lot like some other proposed settings I have been looking at or in the past have been settings. But that does not mean it will not work or be good in any means. It is just my 2 cents.
MDC
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I hate to sound like I'm shooting this idea down somewhat... but what is happening here is a insignificant compared the arguments that would occur once things actually started to get developed in such an endeavor.
One person wants Elves in their twilight, maybe one person wants elves as a main power, maybe one person doesn't even want elves to exist. Things like that can't be the 'standard' for the whole world if you really want a world built by a collaborative effort of fans.
Explain the most basic things for the entire world only. Things that couldn't possibly change. One good example...
- Peoples idea of and explanation for magic is GOING to vary, but if you aren't going to leave it up to the people who decide to use the world you should probably at least set it up so that they all have a common basic idea behind them. The most base origin of Channeling, Essence and Mentalism. Then there could be multiple forms of how that basic origin gets manipulated. Essence could simply be energy and some people pull it from the elements (Fire, Cold, Air, Water, Light), some pull it from magnetic fields, etc. Channeling is really the same basic concept, but in one land is absorbed by 'deities' from their followers and channeled to their minions (which includes Channeling using mortals), in another it is a general concept or idea that people pull power from, and in another the very powerful beings that don't need followers and instead just gather it themselves somehow and then dole it out. Mentalism is simply developing the power of your mind, but different lands could have very different explanations for it.
Consider that maybe, in a world with primarily isolated continents Elves developed in one land, while Dwarves developed in another, and on another maybe there are intelligent dinosaurs and not, what we would consider, humanoids.
If you aren't willing to look at it this way, then you don't want a collaborative effort. You want people to write in YOUR game world.
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Well, I guess that any roleplaying game is a social contract. One attempt I recall, had an exasperated Tim eventually anounce that we would do a medieval fantasy world for everyone else and a Victorian London game for me. Now, I was talking about a multi world setting in which Victorian London was a Tanelorn / Paradise city at the center of all things but it was certainly off the map.
The reason I think this can work, is that ICE can simply say, "We are building a GENERIC fantasy world and we are doing land grants. If you don't want a GENERIC fantasy world, go write for someone else because that's not what we're doing."
The sad truth is that Tekumal, Jorune, and Talisantia are at best foot notes in the industry. Like it or not the elves and dwarves fantasy is the single biggest market segment in the industry and will until my debutants at a posh party diceless "princess diaries" game brings roleplaying to twelve year old girls where it belongs. ;)
It's a funny thing but I have this theory that ICE needs products that can appeal to the market beyond the Rolemaster niche. Sure I'd like a fantastic Victorian London where you can set sail and wind up in Barsoom. Or a very straight up western game. Or a primeval world where humans are neolithic savages and lizardmen rule the earth.
But I can always write those. There are at least a million things I wouldn't be pitching to ICE that aren't Rolemaster related.
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Cory;
I agree that some basic rules need to be worked out and put forth as non-changeable except by the main author.
IMHO it should also be decided what books are going to be used as the "world" game focus. IE RMSS/FRP with all Companions, that gives you some good rules to work with and an idea about what is going to be required.
Now that does not mean your section has to have all of those things but it does provide and outline to work with.
IMHO divine beings are very important to define for any game with channeling magic. Once the main author creates the rules then their can be rule exceptions or small changes for various sections of the world.
Also if I was going to work on then project I would like a larger area to work with. The smallest being defined by culture. IE a nomadic culture would have a larger area than a city centric culture.
MDC
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If my sainted cleric wanders in the wilderness until he has crossed the impassible wasteland and come to _____... okay, how does his magic with his Gods work in your section?
Inquiring minds are gonna want to know.
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Also if I was going to work on then project I would like a larger area to work with. The smallest being defined by culture. IE a nomadic culture would have a larger area than a city centric culture.
That might be a way to go. I was thinking to divide some cultures and stuff but yeah, a little more geographic and cultural divisions might work better than hexes. Not as wargamey anyhow.
Part of the problem is that Rolemaster has somewhat self selected for intelligent or perhaps educated fans. The old eighties paradim where game companies can be disdainful of their customers and be arrogant and unapproachable is worthless in a world where anyone can put out a professional looking product and market it world wide on the internet.
But wanting other people to write my world? No, everything I wrote here was off the cuff based on what I believe might be a servicable market niche. I think over-the-top, irrational, cartoonish settings may be hitting their saturation point and there is not much being done today that is structured and believable.
If my sainted cleric wanders in the wilderness until he has crossed the impassible wasteland and come to _____... okay, how does his magic with his Gods work in your section?
Inquiring minds are gonna want to know.
Planar locations are not directly geographically equivilant and the cleric's faith forms a conduit.
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Explain the most basic things for the entire world only. Things that couldn't possibly change. One good example...
- Peoples idea of and explanation for magic is GOING to vary, but if you aren't going to leave it up to the people who decide to use the world you should probably at least set it up so that they all have a common basic idea behind them. The most base origin of Channeling, Essence and Mentalism. Then there could be multiple forms of how that basic origin gets manipulated. Essence could simply be energy and some people pull it from the elements (Fire, Cold, Air, Water, Light), some pull it from magnetic fields, etc. Channeling is really the same basic concept, but in one land is absorbed by 'deities' from their followers and channeled to their minions (which includes Channeling using mortals), in another it is a general concept or idea that people pull power from, and in another the very powerful beings that don't need followers and instead just gather it themselves somehow and then dole it out. Mentalism is simply developing the power of your mind, but different lands could have very different explanations for it.
I suspect that these sorts of decisions can't be made by committee and need someone to say "this is how it is". I see this thread as more of a brainstorming session for ideas which can be revised at a later stage, once these decisions have been made. With that in mind we should all be prepared to chuck out anything that doesn't fit at that point in time.
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One thing I'm pretty sure of is that the setting needs to support the existing rules framework. From the most basic stand point we are talking about setting and adventure modules for a roleplaying game. While we may be looking for a more mythical, nuanced feel, it's important to keep the end in mind and create something people can actually play.
I always thought the old ICE magazine Grey Worlds was a particularly evocative title.
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I suspect that these sorts of decisions can't be made by committee and need someone to say "this is how it is". I see this thread as more of a brainstorming session for ideas which can be revised at a later stage, once these decisions have been made. With that in mind we should all be prepared to chuck out anything that doesn't fit at that point in time.
Precisely. Just wanted to make sure everyone understood something like this isn't like getting together to play the weekend game. If it's an 'official' setting there will be a baseline freelancers would be given to work from.
Granted, throw out all the idea ya'll want, just don't get your feelings hurt if/when they aren't potentially used. (I'm saying this as a Freelancer, not as a decision maker).
OH, and yammahooper... why Elves? Because it's RM, which came from MERP, which is the epitome of "Elves." ;)
And, as someone else mentioned, because I think one of the goals of RM should be to start going after D&D customers again (or, really, just advertising it's existence at all again).
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Okay, let's start a real fight.
"Elves" What is an elf exactly? We've already ruled out definition by origin.
Obviously the Rolemaster elves need to exist but not necessarily in the same cultural context.
From that root we have a race that is immortal (or close enough anyhow), fair and beautiful, craft wise, and innately magical. But do we need to assume high elves are the most ancient and favored of the gods? Are wood elves tree hugging hippies or elven barbarians? Mine are generally celtic and human sacrificing. "That's why the gods made humans so short lived and fast breeding. The gods like to be fed regularly." Okay, I've never had anyone like a single one of my elf NPCs in thirty years of gaming.
Now, I'm not talking about the sloppy shuffle like "High Elves are Samurai." But I'm thinking it would serve ICE's needs well if we dodged around a certain well known fantasy propery's tropes.
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The only way I could see setting creation by committee actually providing an advantage is if it tapped into real expertise. If you had your landforms created by a professional geologist, the climate zones built over those by a professional climatologist, and so on and so forth, then I'd be interested, as it likely would provide a more "realistic" world than I can come up with on my own or download from the many freely-available setting already on the internet.
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Okay, let's start a real fight.
"Elves" What is an elf exactly? We've already ruled out definition by origin.
Obviously the Rolemaster elves need to exist but not necessarily in the same cultural context.
From that root we have a race that is immortal (or close enough anyhow), fair and beautiful, craft wise, and innately magical. But do we need to assume high elves are the most ancient and favored of the gods? Are wood elves tree hugging hippies or elven barbarians? Mine are generally celtic and human sacrificing. "That's why the gods made humans so short lived and fast breeding. The gods like to be fed regularly." Okay, I've never had anyone like a single one of my elf NPCs in thirty years of gaming.
Now, I'm not talking about the sloppy shuffle like "High Elves are Samurai." But I'm thinking it would serve ICE's needs well if we dodged around a certain well known fantasy propery's tropes.
Well, elves and humans can interbreed as can orcs and humans. Given the lack of half-dwarves and quarterlings (half-halflings), this would suggest, to my untrained amateur eye in any case, that elves, humans and orcs have only recently diverged from each other on the humanoid family tree. Dwarves, halflings and trolls must have branched off much earlier.
Seriously though, why do humans get all the cultural variations whereas the other races don't? I have celtic elves, much like you have discussed, though sans the human sacrificing (more warring though) and I have desert elves, darker skinned and master horsemen, who lead human traders through the Great Desert to the Caliphates of Suravar, for a small fee. Likewise the Umli are a race of arctic dwelling dwarves who specialise in working whale bone, whereas their more traditional cousins live in cities carved into the face of the mountains.
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You know, that might be a good hook between the two of you.
Suppose for a moment that we're looking at an evolutionary world. Magical yes, but none the less a world where divergent evolution is culpable for things more often than gods and wizards.
I know I was all for muddying the origins to make things less set in stone, but the idea catches my fancy.
Suppose Gods are a hyper evolved homind strain that has literally migrated to a higher plane. Elves, humans, and orcs are also divergent strains. Dwarves, goblins, and trolls are more like cryptids, last leavings of otherwise dead lines. Now suppose the absence of magic is the evolutionary disadvantage.
One might go as far to see magic as an evolutionary accelerator. The gods soaked up a huge chunk of juju early on and were literally absorbed into the magical field. I think lineages of gods would be interesting. What happens to the religion of a god who dies of old age? Do his kids have a sucession crisis?
That doesn't mean people don't have all their own wild theories on where stuff comes from. Evolution doesn't leave its notes behind.
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"Elves" What is an elf exactly? We've already ruled out definition by origin.
Perhaps we/ICE/them might want to consider a menu-style development. Present the races available, let the GM decide on the mix for his/her world?
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Well, if this is developing one world, each developing 7 hexes of a mega hex of the worldmap, then it's all one world, isn't it?
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Warning vanity post not really relevant to the topic :D
Heh, my homebrew campaign take on things is that half-orcs are a aberration within the orcish genome itself. Every one in a thousand orcs is born less brutish and more intelligent. This is considered a curse and the offspring is half as good as an orc, hence a half-orc.
Based on that idea, my homonid family splits into a gracile and robust form somewhere around homo habilus (Spelling sorry) or homo erectus. The robust form further develops to give orcs, gobilns, trolls and giants whereas the gracile form leads to humans and elves. Halflings come about from human stock as a form of pygmyism and dwarves are a completely different genus which arrived from offworld eons ago.
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There's no reason why Tile 345 couldn't have a crazy warlock or alchemist in it's past named Moreau who created a horde of variant races/creatures. . . or any other "local creation myth".
Similarly no reason why Tile 241 couldn't have purple skinned, horned, bat winged demon looking people who happen to be refugees from a dimensional rift 400 years ago.
Unless the central Bible says "No inter dimensional rifts, No warlock created races, no alchemists creating new races."
Which in the end, is why multi author story projects that resemble this usually start off with a core bible of immutable laws that-are-not-broken. . .
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Yes, the idea is to develop parts of a single world as a whole. At least some of my inspiration would be the classic Hyborea ancients campaign in the early days of modern miniatures gaming.
Generally a more realistic world with a more realistic tone is what I'm suggesting. Because I think it fits Rolemaster's place in the industry. Not anally medievalist like Chivalry and Sorcery, but, still trying for some authenticity and avoiding just solving everything with magic.
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One thing I'm pretty sure of is that the setting needs to support the existing rules framework. From the most basic stand point we are talking about setting and adventure modules for a roleplaying game. While we may be looking for a more mythical, nuanced feel, it's important to keep the end in mind and create something people can actually play.
Precisely. Just wanted to make sure everyone understood something like this isn't like getting together to play the weekend game. If it's an 'official' setting there will be a baseline freelancers would be given to work from.
Okay, let's start a real fight.
"Elves" What is an elf exactly? We've already ruled out definition by origin.
This is why I posted that link earlier.
http://www.realroleplaying.com/rmsmf/index.php?board=327.0
It wasn't in hopes of having anyone adopt it. It's to give you a guide to a lot of "oops, I just realized we'll need to decide this too" type things. And keep in mind, by using Earth as a basis, I saved myself immense amounts of "oops, I just realized we'll need to decide this too" type things. You know, all that stuff done by the real geologists and climatologists, it's Earth, I didn't have to make any of it up or decide any of it, I just had to find it and write it down.
And even with that, and having the D&D/Tolkein/RM "standard fantasy" to work off of, there's still lots of little details. And that's "lots of little details" while still at the "broad brush" stage, too. Things like how magic works, and why. Where dragons come from. That kinda stuff.
One of the things I thought I couldn't avoid was the creation of a new Academic/Scientific skill, Thaumatology. I just can't see the idea that humans exist on a world where magic works, and yet there are no scientists trying to discover the nuts and bolts of why it works. Humans, at least, are too curious to let it lie.
Which in the end, is why multi author story projects that resemble this usually start off with a core bible of immutable laws that-are-not-broken. . .
...which is what I meant by "some sort of Kyoto Accord"...
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Well, there is a small but consistent interest in an ancient earth / bronze age I've noted on rpg.net over the years.
That would be one way to go, though I some how suspect that since Rolemaster doesn't use Jenga blocks, spinners, and pig entrails to resolve actions it would probably be rejected in that quarter.
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That would be one way to go, though I some how suspect that since Rolemaster doesn't use Jenga blocks, spinners, and pig entrails to resolve actions it would probably be rejected in that quarter.
Dang I've been doing it wrong all these years. No pig entrails. Sheesh
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Well, I'm pretty sure there's a specific rpg designed for every remaining gamer at this point. I'm also pretty sure that the more fractured the alternatives become the stronger D&D becomes as the only core choice.
I think that's something we all need to keep in mind. I suspect any one of us could easily churn out a thosand pages of our own system and schill it on rpgnow. Honestly with Rolemaster's reputation for complexity it might make more money. What ICE has to offer is a name with some history and recognition and existing fans.
This is why I think a generic setting is the way to go. Yes, ICE could bring out ICE's new and improved rpg about playing Jewish slaves in ancient Babylon using clay tablets and cuniform marked dice for resolution. But once it finds that one guy who wants it. What then?
How then does one sell a setting in the modern market place? Offer something better with a good hook. The opportunity to write a section of the world seems like a pretty good hook in a world where most gamers can manage to build 20 pages or so of good material.
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Another thing to keep in mind is that if the parts of the setting are isolated enough from one another, you can have more settings on a single map by dividing them on the overall story timeline as well as geographically. The block of hexes (or the span from the Misty Mountains to the Emerald Plains, and from the Sea of Ice to the Sea of Storms, or whatever) that was once the Great Kingdom of _____ looks much different after the ice age, or the asteroid strike, or whatever. So okay, you the GM can have _____ grant of land for _____ years. After that, what it is and who gets it depends on the effects of _____.
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HOw about this universe has mankind as its base race. Now when all NPC's behave in human fashion, at least we understand the how and why of that (lets face it, no one plays aliens, they play humans with pointy ears).
During character creation, players will design their PC within a framework that defines elven, dwarven, hobbitish, trollish, et al characteristics as the awakening of their inner magic psycy.
So the world is full of the traditional races, who are literally demi humans. A human breeding with a human or demihuman always produces a human, who may or may not (probably will) eventually awaken the same demi human traits (or none for humans that dont awake, etc).
All I'm saying is have some freaking GOOD reason to have elves and dwarves and whatnot. Should not be that difficult.
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What happens if someone takes a tile and does not turn anything in? What happens if they turn in substandard work? What happens if they turn in 1/2 and someone does the other 1/2?
The above are some of the problems I have seen in the past.
Low Era settings get some of the old crowd but tend not to get the young crowd who tend to buy more stuff. Magic tends to excite players more than GM's but GM's also tend to rely on it.
Also anything on the open boards can be used by anyone from any company. If this is serious I would think people would like to move it to a secure location and limit who can and cannot see the posts.
MDC
P.S. a 1/2 ling and a 1/2 ling always produce a 1/4 ling as 1/2x1/2=1/4.
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Well, magically enhanced evolutionary divergence is similar to awakening or what not.
I was thinking that an "everybody is still peoples" approach would be good. Yes, even the orcs have reasons for the things they do. I wouldn't go all the way down the poor, poor, orcs line of thinking though. I think they should be vermin, but not totally irrationally nastyevilbad killing machines. Fast breeding, fast growing, hungry, territorial, ignorant, and agressive sure but not outright screw everyone all the time evil.
One good thing about smaller land grants is that undeveloped hexes simply remain undeveloped hexes. People who get an area done can do another, possibly developing the seven border mega hexes around their first one.
Substandard work is an issue. I never said this idea didn't require a great deal of oversight. Still, I'm thinking it depends on the available talents. Possibly some kind of an artistic exchange or mentorship could be arranged.
On the other hand people are not paying for the priviledge of writing an area and ICE wouldn't have any obligation to publish stuff and the writer could probably repurpose it if its rejected outright.
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P.S. a 1/2 ling and a 1/2 ling always produce a 1/4 ling as 1/2x1/2=1/4.
You can buy them for two bits at the slave market.
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All I'm saying is have some freaking GOOD reason to have elves and dwarves and whatnot. Should not be that difficult.
That's what I tried to do. Dwarves were humans that were genetically engineered for asteroid mining. Elves were humans that were genetically engineered to be interstellar explorers and terraformers.
Then there was a war with "apocalyptic" results.
Cover and simmer for 8000 years or until tender. You can still see the tendencies and aptitudes built into the original stock, but they've diverged more or less from their origins.
Yes, even the orcs have reasons for the things they do. I wouldn't go all the way down the poor, poor, orcs line of thinking though.
Mine are the "proud, proud" orcs. The closest I could describe their culture is as a cross between Vikings, Mongols and Comanches. Raiding and fighting is what they do. To act as if you fear death is to shame yourself.
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They're the ones who taunt the barbarian for being such a wuss. And they mean it, too.
;D
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heh
Bear in mind though that I'm just throwing stuff at the wall to see if it sticks. I've got no authority here whatever. If ICE didn't listen to a word I say it would hardly be the first time.
One advantage I see to a somewhat bland general setting is it puts the focus on the author's characters and locations instead of hiding behind "awesome" visuals of improbable and absurd feats and outfits.
"Grounded" I think that may be the key word. Because let's face it, the young kids aren't Rolemaster's target market. The average role playing gamer is now in his forties.
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Grump Old Fart;
My races are close to yours but a bit different and I have not really done Orcs yet. But I might take the Tolkien approach and just breed them.
MDC
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Well, if elves are closely relate to humans but more attuned to magic one might expect the orcs to be the flip side of that. What does it take to thrive in a world with dragons and ogres when magic just isn't your friend? Perhaps orcs have a culture like ancient Sparta, stoicism is the highest goal and even basic nurturing is discouraged. Add to that children that are more able and mobile at younger ages and faster maturation and females that are just as robust as males or maybe larger and able to fight when fully pregnant.
Incidentally, I think it might be nice to step away from ogres as a humanoid giant race and make them magical abominations with wide ranging features and powers. That way the Jinn, ogres, oni and such can all be the same class of beings. In my own settings I generally do the same with halfings, brownies, leprechauns, and pixies. Local cultural variants of a single race.
Trolls, on the other hand should be scary. As craftwise as the dwarves, large as ogres, magical as elves, and brutal as orcs. A monster race condemned to earth for the affront of rising up against the gods. Too often trolls and ogres are interchangable.
Giants could be unique magical creatures with strong elemental ties.
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An old man and a small boy clambered up the side of a ruin littered hill. It was mid day and the old man was breathing heavily. The boy stooped to pick up a curious stone, soft blue cut through with streaks of silver. The old man snapped “Take nothing away from this place, it’s bewitched.â€
The boy looked around at the fallen pillars, graceful and richly colored, “They’re pretty but they’re just rocks,†he laughed back. “There’s no Ogres or Hungry Ones here, just pretty rocks and bushes.â€
“The Hungry Ones and Ogres have too much sense to come here,†the old man growled at the child’s sass. “The power of the old Empire is still strong here. Some say their rulers lived forever and were mighty sorcerers, that they were not men at all but magical creatures, fair and fickle.â€
“I’m going to live for ever and be a mighty sorcerer too.†The boy laughed.
“Don’t say that,†warned the elder. “Never say that here. They’ll hear and come for you.â€
“Who? There’s nobody here? Nobody’s been here for almost forever.â€
“Not since before I was born. But when I was young and impudent, my grandfather brought me to this hill and told me how great and strange the towers on this hill were when he was a boy.â€
The boy squealed, “Totally forever and ever and ever.â€
Shaking his head the old man looked around fearfully. “I tell you boy,†he said, “they are still alive somewhere and this place is theirs and they are aware of it.â€
“Then what happened to them grandpa? Why did they go?â€
“Have you seen the man Oldar in the village?†the old man asked with a smirk.
“Yes, he’s really fat and always eating something.â€
“He eats because he is hungry. Just like some of the old lords grew hungry, never satisfied, unfulfilled and they turned on their fellows like starving wolves.†the old man shuddered and glanced around at the growing afternoon shadows. “We should get going, this is a bad place to be come twilight. Especially for imprudent young scoundrels.â€
As the old man set off back down the hill the boy tucked the beautiful stone in his pocket and followed. Glancing back, the sun gleamed through the fallen stones, and for a moment, it seemed like their shadows were like tall slender men beckoning him.
Suppressing a gasp he trotted down the hill following his grandfather and the shadows, the shadows followed him all the way home.
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For some reason this reminds me of something I wrote elsewhere:
I can all too easily picture some future party members noticing an otherwise unremarkable rock on someone's mantlepiece...
"Yeah it's a rock from Medicine Wheel, about 20 miles or so off that way."
"Isn't that some sort of ritual power place or something? Is it safe to take rocks from there?"
"Oh I didn't take it from there, it came through the wall."
:o
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:D
I guess I'm just trying a different tack on this whole debate. Sometimes its easy to lose sight of tone in all the discussion of game specifics.
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Explain the most basic things for the entire world only. Things that couldn't possibly change. One good example...
- Peoples idea of and explanation for magic is GOING to vary, but if you aren't going to leave it up to the people who decide to use the world you should probably at least set it up so that they all have a common basic idea behind them. The most base origin of Channeling, Essence and Mentalism. Then there could be multiple forms of how that basic origin gets manipulated.
I like that example, not least because I've been discussing that very question in my own world building process. Just for grins, here's what I have as a 'Thaumatology 101: Fundamentals of Magic' kind of premise:
Magical power is inherent in the shape of the universe, a side effect of quantum theory "many worlds" interpretation. Put in layman's terms, everything that involves a choice creates and destroys entire universes of which you are never aware. If you can hold the reality of that fast disappearing reality that just happened in your mind perfectly enough, power flows from that universe to this one, through you. If it weren't for that, the Law of Conservation of Energy would freeze you solid the first time you tried a fireball.
In short, magical ability is predicated on the ability to precisely define a reality in your head that is independent of the outside universe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychotic_disorder
Psychosis (from the Greek ψυχή "psyche", for mind/soul, and -ωσις "-osis", for abnormal condition) means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality". People suffering from psychosis are described as psychotic.
Sane people can't cast spells. Duh.
:o
So... if you are a spellcaster, you do begin the game with some form of psychosis, we can decide which one based on your stats. You will never be rid of this psychosis throughout the game. At least you had best hope not, because if you are ever completely "cured", you won't be able to cast spells until you acquire another one.
???
Grump Old Fart;
My races are close to yours but a bit different and I have not really done Orcs yet. But I might take the Tolkien approach and just breed them.
I suppose you could say I "took the Tolkein approach" with mine. Mine were genetically engineered, or if you prefer, "created through geomancy" by the elves. You know, the guys who were genetically engineered to be terraformers? Yeah, they came up with the idea as something to hunt down and exterminate dwarves. Worked fairly well too, but of course, they went wild, and now they're as much of a problem to everyone else as they ever were to the dwarves.
In all honesty that's probably the biggest stretch in my entire game premise, the idea that these designed-to-be-life-sciences types didn't think through all the consequences of creating a new apex predator.
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The source of magic (esseance) in my world is the etheral plane, which radiates the energy. The etheral plane is two dimensional, like a sheet of paper, with "mountains and valleys" across the surface of that paper that pool and fill with various amounts of mana, if you will.
This plane stretches across the mutlverse. Some places have magic, some dont. Magic is directing and shaping this mana via force of will/spirit. The souless cannot weild magic.
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The important distinction in my rationale is that the caster's insanity is what powers his spells, but his control of that insanity is directly proportional to his control over his spells. So in a practical sense, if they want to be any good they can't be really badly insane (at least not outwardly), but if they want to be able to do it at all they pretty much have to be at least slightly quirky. The more noticeably insane they are, the wider berth you want to give them.
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I think tying insanity to magic is probably a bit too setting specific / non generic for the project I'm proposing.
It is an interesting idea, just not particularly generic or core to the Rolemaster rules.
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I didn't start out that way, I arrived there by trying to explain how magic works the same way despite the various methods of gathering and shaping power. Also keep in mind that 'tying magic to insanity' may be slightly too simplistic, because if you don't have exceptional control of it you're effectively powerless anyway. So you have to be sane through deliberate effort, rather than because your sanity is unchallenged. After all, you challenge your sanity every time you cast a spell. Also, 'insanity' is a term too black-and-white in its connotations to be really useful in game terms. By this standard, Joan of Arc and Gandhi were "insane". They were capable of believing utterly in a reality other than the one that existed before their eyes, even as they kept their eyes open to the reality around them.
All that said, it may still be too non-generic to be useful, I agree. Other than as an example of the kind of agreement that has to be made across all "land grants" and all parts of the setting's timeline. This kind of agreement is what allows the guy who studies magic as if it were a science in one land grant/time period, the religious fanatic in another and the hypnotist in yet a third to all use the same rules, despite the fact that they all have very different explanations for "how do you do that?"
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How about a wiki (secured login, of course) to allow authors to choose which continent/hex to choose for their article/adventure, with a summary/overview for the adventure (I.e. Isle has humans and elves working together. A lich has taken residence under the isle and launching undead to kill more villiages for its army)
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An old man and a small boy clambered up the side of a ruin littered hill. It was mid day and the old man was breathing heavily. The boy stooped to pick up a curious stone, soft blue cut through with streaks of silver. The old man snapped “Take nothing away from this place, it’s bewitched.â€
The boy looked around at the fallen pillars, graceful and richly colored, “They’re pretty but they’re just rocks,†he laughed back. “There’s no Ogres or Hungry Ones here, just pretty rocks and bushes.â€
“The Hungry Ones and Ogres have too much sense to come here,†the old man growled at the child’s sass. “The power of the old Empire is still strong here. Some say their rulers lived forever and were mighty sorcerers, that they were not men at all but magical creatures, fair and fickle.â€
“I’m going to live for ever and be a mighty sorcerer too.†The boy laughed.
“Don’t say that,†warned the elder. “Never say that here. They’ll hear and come for you.â€
“Who? There’s nobody here? Nobody’s been here for almost forever.â€
“Not since before I was born. But when I was young and impudent, my grandfather brought me to this hill and told me how great and strange the towers on this hill were when he was a boy.â€
The boy squealed, “Totally forever and ever and ever.â€
Shaking his head the old man looked around fearfully. “I tell you boy,†he said, “they are still alive somewhere and this place is theirs and they are aware of it.â€
“Then what happened to them grandpa? Why did they go?â€
“Have you seen the man Oldar in the village?†the old man asked with a smirk.
“Yes, he’s really fat and always eating something.â€
“He eats because he is hungry. Just like some of the old lords grew hungry, never satisfied, unfulfilled and they turned on their fellows like starving wolves.†the old man shuddered and glanced around at the growing afternoon shadows. “We should get going, this is a bad place to be come twilight. Especially for imprudent young scoundrels.â€
As the old man set off back down the hill the boy tucked the beautiful stone in his pocket and followed. Glancing back, the sun gleamed through the fallen stones, and for a moment, it seemed like their shadows were like tall slender men beckoning him.
Suppressing a gasp he trotted down the hill following his grandfather and the shadows, the shadows followed him all the way home.
So did the old man take the boy there because he knew of the shadows? And was offering the shadow his next servant since her was dieing?
MDC
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No, the old man took the boy to transfer oral history as it had been given to him in his turn. The old man never took anything from the ruins. I'm debating whether it's stronger as a vingette or if it would bear a novel.
As far as setting standards. I propose the core rules of Rolemaster are the standard. Feel free to introduce local variations like wizards who are mad as hatters but don't tell everyone else that's how magic has to work everywhere, localized mana oddities could even be a feature. (hmmm, is Mercury or Lead a major component popular in the area?)
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I am just saying maybe in the past when he was a boy he did the same as his young charge. So the pattern repeats itself.
MDC
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The ill favored boy was the only survivor from his village. As the other children became accustomed to his, hunched, silent form, they ceased to fear him and soon took to tormenting. They called him Shadow Ridden and delighted in knocking him down and throwing small stones at him when the grownups were not watching. For their part the adults came to fear and hate the boy as well. Many had friends and relations in the destroyed village and asked in whispers how it was that he was spared to be found wandering in the burning wreckage among the corpses of people and animals horribly torn as if by beasts but not devoured.
His only allies were the local priestess and the strange old man who dwelt in a tumble down shack on the edge of the forest. To the priestess the boy’s strange silence and obedience was a welcome respite from the irreverent chaos of the other children and she delighted in singling him out for special teaching and tasks. The old man was only grudgingly tolerated by the villagers himself and was grateful for the strange boy’s whispered warnings of planned pranks and vandalism.
As for the shadow ridden boy, he hungered for companionship and if the priestess’s well intentioned attention brought down the other children’s wrath on him or his friendship with the old outcast brought on dark glances and whispers from the adults, at least he was not alone, swallowed up by the murmuring shadows that clung at his heels alive with memories of his family’s panicked cries of horror and fire.
For a while it seemed as though this state of affairs would endure. Over the course of three winters, the boy grew from a sallow wretch to a lanky ghost, pale and haunted by the present as much as the past. The lives of the village’s humble farming folk were often harsh and brief and the burden of adulthood was mercilessly loaded on half grown youths. His life became a long and painful blur of muddy fields, weeds, vegetables, grain, and harsh rebukes.
But there came a day when the lord who lived a day’s journey to the north came to the muddy little village. He was young, having taken on his father’s mantle a scarce two years earlier, and so handsome in his crimson doublet and jet black hose that many pretty, young girls found themselves locked in the cellar by their fathers. With the lord came a small army of men at arms and knights in armor, for he was raising the levy to march with him in the service of the king to make war in a distant land for reasons even he could scarcely explain.
The farmer in who’s hay loft the pale, unwanted youth lived, was not a cruel or unjust man, but his own son, only two years older, was very dear to him and when the cry went up, his choice was easy. The sheriff who came seeking recruits was presented with the scrawny boy, and while he suspected better material was to be had, the day was late and his feet and back were getting sore, so he clapped the lad on the shoulder and said they’d see to it he’d get up properly.
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Nice I like it, it sounds a little like the Deads of Packshinaron (Sp?) that I read in the 80's but the person was a girl. It also reminds me a little of the writings of Kate Elliot. But then a lot of fantasy stories start out the same-ish way ... as they have to.
MDC
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Nice I like it, it sounds a little like the Deads of Packshinaron (Sp?) that I read in the 80's but the person was a girl. It also reminds me a little of the writings of Kate Elliot. But then a lot of fantasy stories start out the same-ish way ... as they have to.
MDC
Deeds of Paksenarrion and the Crown of Stars novels are some of my favorite fantasy works. Liked them so much i named my dog after Paks.
Keep up the writing.I am liking what i am reading.
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Here's a suggestion that would help to explain the various inconsistancies that may arrive.
Before The Beginning
Not many years ago or perhaps an eternity or never the dark power known as Rotgarth grew so great as to threaten worlds without end. Its dark fingers crept across planes and realities undermining the very foundations of all creation. Yet that dread one’s rise did not go unheralded nor unchallenged: heroes fell seeking answers in the growing darkness, heroes fell bringing the dire warning to thousands of dying worlds, heroes fell standing against endless darkness and unbeing, heroes fell taking the fight to the enemy beyond space and time, and heroes fell to save what little remained of hope and light. The world as it is known today is a patchwork of sundered realms, broken histories, and fading legends. None now remember the great doom which was averted, the worlds shattered and lost beyond even the void, the scars on the very foundations of all that is, was, or will ever be. The histories of kingdoms stretch back thousands of years and yet even these may be naught but flickering remembrances that never were. The world as it is may be a heartbeat or a thousand years old but there are none left to know it. Even the gods themselves are only aware of the world as a precarious and precious island poised on the brink of oblivion, shielded by the light. Of all the millions of heroes who stood against darkness, only thirty seven remain, who, having sacrificed all else forever stand guard against the shadow of oblivion, sleeping in the light.
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Isn't the hard problem the interaction between hexes?
I mean, there is not much point in sharing a world if the different parts don't tie together. If every hex is self contained and can not make an impact on neighbor parts then they for practical purposes are in different worlds.
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Sort of like a zoo, with separate honeycomb slots for each "collection" element.
True, if Pastaav has a tranquil late medieval kingdom at peace, and my neighboring hex is hordes of orcs ruled over by an ancient and somewhat mad dragon who has no interest in conquest but sends his goons out on raids aimed purely at loot and destruction, there will likely be issues on the border. . .and Pastaav's hex will either become an militant, fortified hex or be overrun. . .making my ideas swamp his ideas and forcing him to adapt to my situation. . .unless there's a barrier at the border.
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Which is why I suggested that borders of land grants should be major geographic barriers. So that yes, in theory the
hordes of orcs ruled over by an ancient and somewhat mad dragon who has no interest in conquest but sends his goons out on raids aimed purely at loot and destruction
who live along the northern gulf coast of Mexico and the lower Rio Grande valley could force the GM of the
tranquil late medieval kingdom at peace
in the central US Rockies to completely rethink his setting concept...
...but only by crossing the Jornada del Muerto.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jornada_Del_Muerto
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Isn't the hard problem the interaction between hexes?
I mean, there is not much point in sharing a world if the different parts don't tie together. If every hex is self contained and can not make an impact on neighbor parts then they for practical purposes are in different worlds.
Well, geographic borders would certainly be more organic. However the intention is a collaborative world with some oversight, so the collaborators should be allowed to work out the details. The dragon and his orcs might have some very good reasons for leaving the peaceful kingdom alone, ranging from mutually assured destruction type deterants, powerful magic, and bribery.
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True, but that suggests (to me, at least) that instead of a more "first come, first served" method of dividing land grants, there should be a fair amount of discussion/collaboration between the various GMs and a lot of decisions made regarding the degree of interaction between GM X's area and GM Y's area before land grants are even considered. That way if 2 GM's want little to no interaction, the barrier is akin to the Himalayas, if they want a lot, it's more akin to the Urals.
Also don't lose sight of the fact that yes, sheer distance is a barrier (like, say, St. Louis to Denver), but it is a barrier whose effectiveness can be counted on to decrease over time. Populations grow, civilizations spread out.
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Actually, one thing I was going to propose is that people commonly believe one continent is getting closer and is some sort of predatory landmass but in fact, trade is just improving as innovations and shared knowledge of navigation, ship building, and sailing increase.
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Hmmm... I can't help wondering... if, for example, western Europe is a land grant, and the eastern seaboard of the US is a land grant... is the north Atlantic yet another land grant?
On the one hand, it seems to impose a lot of limits on the GM of the N Atlantic, for example in terms of population density, available races, etc. On the other hand, it means neither the "lord" of W Europe nor the "lord" of the US eastern seaboard has to learn a completely different environment (ocean) to the depth he knows his land grant in order to have the same detail and "realism" if you will in an ocean voyage as he has in, say, the caravan from Lisbon to Paris.
(Note: I keep using examples from Earth for the sake of all the assumptions about the example that don't have to be explained, eg Himalayas vs. Urals as barriers, not because I'm assuming, insisting or even recommending that Earth be the game world.)
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Greetings
A lot of this then comes back to the effective size of land grants - one thought is that maybe these could be population based, so a relatively urbanised northern 'Italy' contrasts with, say, open 'Magyar' lands - you've probably got the same number of exceptional individuals and interesting locales and stories, just over a different number of square kilometres/miles/leagues.
Regards
Edward
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I guess the real question is "How many people are interested in doing this and how much land needs to be set aside for future use?"
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Well I've become a HARPer, and have my own world building thing going. I'd probably enjoy helping you guys hammer out the details, just because I'm masochistic that way, but there wouldn't be any point in me wanting a land grant in it. Granted, I'd happily do the same with the Earth world project and HARP if there was enough interest, but that's a subject for a different thread, no?
It is a very pertinent question though, not least because I've gotten the impression that most world building projects suffer from insufficient scale. Among other things, I noticed this with my Earth project, I mean I've been working just on N America for something like 25 years now and in a practical sense it's still too big. I'm still discovering new things, and I still can only just barely manage to build a campaign so incredibly huge as to justify that much space to put it in.
Given that, assuming normal (eg earthlike) physics and further assuming a world large enough not to have to adjust everything to account for low gravity, short horizons, etc.... I'd think you'll want half a dozen or so people at a bare minimum. 10 or 12 might be better if you can get em, especially if you want to allow them to choose where they are on the overall story timeline as well as geographically. For example, if your world has a glacial period, you might have one or more GMs who specifically want to play in the "Ice World" period.
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hmmm...really I forsee the ice world lying in the future not the past if what I've written is chosen as a foundation.
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Past or future either one, if the conditions and the backstory are laid out so that you can have active games going on there simultaneously with your "present day" setting, you have, in a practical sense, increased the "size" of your world.
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If we need at least a dozen contributors, a bigger world may only be needed a few years down the line as people come and go but it's worth keeping in mind.
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Well now I say that you'd need X number of contributors at a minimum to justify Y sized world.... but then again, there's no reason why every continent on a given world has to be in use as game territory either, especially at the beginning.
If, for example, you only have 4 people collaborating on a shared world project, you might be able to give them all a good balance of "isolated enough to do your own thing" and "interactive enough that a party could unintentionally find itself changing GMs" that would please all concerned in a continent the size of Africa or S America, could probably do so in a continent the size of Asia, and should certainly be able to do so within Eurasia/Africa/Australia/Indonesia/Micronesia. And of course, multiply the possible number of settings according to whether you're counting oceans as more land grants, and the same dirt in a different era as another land grant.
But that doesn't mean that continent has to be the only landmass on the planet either. It just means that all the continents/land grants added later have to agree with the same "setting physics" that was established for the original four, and the original four have to agree not to explore very far (if at all) into land grants that are only "potentials" thus far. That's where the difficulty comes in, as the GM has to find a way to "wall off" a section of the game world in such a way that no one can bypass it. I have yet to see a GM build a "game board" so large that the party couldn't find a way out of the box.
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I think the large collaboration project could be useful in Spacemaster due to the fact that 'tiles' could be planets and therefore you really could design your own complete idea into the setting.
IMO, a collaboration simply wouldn't work as an official game system setting if everyone is working in the same world. If you separated contributors sections by continent it could work, but the more contributors you had the faster it would fall apart.
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This might work if someone sets the overall parameters of the world. ICE would need to set out the gods, races, cultures, history etc. so that everyone develops from the same pool. I can't see this working if everyone participating is working off their own ideas.
There would need to be a common template that is filled out for each land grant. Population, races, economies, allies, enemies, histories, etc.
Histories would be one of the hardest items. Imagine having one land grant speak of some cataclysmic event that reshapes the land and the neighboring lands have no mention or effect of it.
If there is no one controlling vision, this effort doesn't have much chance of a cohesive feel.
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This might work if someone sets the overall parameters of the world. ICE would need to set out the gods, races, cultures, history etc. so that everyone develops from the same pool. I can't see this working if everyone participating is working off their own ideas.
There would need to be a common template that is filled out for each land grant. Population, races, economies, allies, enemies, histories, etc.
I agree that this is what would have to be done. Just throw in a little oversight from The Powers That Be.
Histories would be one of the hardest items. Imagine having one land grant speak of some cataclysmic event that reshapes the land and the neighboring lands have no mention or effect of it.
That, actually, would still be possible. Earthquakes, smallish scale meteor strikes, volcanoes erupting, floods, tidal waves, plagues, etc could be examples of events that explain away localized cataclysms. You could even go so far as to say just about anything was the wrath of the gods inflicted upon any number of people(s).
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To use another Earth based example, you could just require that the GM whose land grant includes Hawaii isn't allowed to have a tsunami as a game device without first getting agreement from the GMs whose land grants include the coasts of Asia, Australia, N America and S America.
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That's what makes it a collaborative effort.
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I have had a number of thoughts on this matter. I wish to review a number of scenario proposals that have arrived in my inbox and do some more deep thinking on how this could be made to work, at least as an initial experiment. Then I will make some suggestions hopefully in the next week.
Best wishes,
Nicholas