Thot,
I answered quickly without reading the thread. Here is more...
Am I alone with that?No. I know for fact that most persons who gravitate towards being Gamemaster always create their own worlds. I'd even be willing to say that at least 9 out of 10 GMs have at least made the attempt. I'd even be willing to say about half succeed in creating a campaign world. If like my wife and I many decades ago, the GM can even make it collaborative effort between the GM and the players. Although my wife and I were the co-GMs, our players also aided in adding things, places, cities, islands, etc., etc.
What kinds of worlds have you created for use with RoleMaster?Same as anyone else. A rock planet similar to Earth.
Do you use the concepts of good and evil, of immortal elven races, high and low men, extremely powerful magic at high levels, etc.?Good and Evil? Of course. No matter what, there is always good and evil.
Immortal Elves? No. But there are some species very similar with some very long life spans.
High men? C'mon. This is a clean game. Got enough drug addicts in reality. Don't need any in role playing. >-P
My wife and I, and me by myself, have renamed them to Noble Humans. On my current world of Onaviu, there are the Alnara Altais (similar to Common Humans), the Alnara Anur (similar to the Noble Humans), and the Alnara Avari (no RM equivalent, but human-based).
As for magic, our world of Udava was a very low magic world. Magic Items tended to have also been lost items and in the interim became very potent items. On Onaviu, magic is sp prevelant, anyone with the abilities can wield Power. They could also wield Psion. However, Psion is viewed as being EVIL. Wielding Power is neutral, depending what the wielder does with it.
Now for some addenda. I am a very accomplished astrophysicist focusing into Celestial and Orbital Mechanics (stellar system construction). In fact, I have even constructed the entire stellar system of which Onaviu is an intricate part. If using the software
Celestia, you could travel all over this stellar system to see the other worlds there. Unfortunately, the amount of data defining that system is incredibly huge. Even zipping still leaves it at over 12GB, mostly due to the texture files.
I know for fact that you cannot have orbiting celestial bodies without an eclipse occuring. I just did not know when it was occuring until I looked at Onaviu, with its moon Ondero, one day and realized the next play session was the eclipse. And it was through the use of Celestia that I found how the eclipses occur at a regular pattern. Here is
PDF export from the ODT file I have.
I am also a geologist and volcanologist working at the world's largest land-based caldera. Super-volcano for those in the civilian world. I work at Yellowstone National Park as a Field Technician and Data Analyst. I have another degree in Global Climatology, thus I have a very good understanding how landform assemblages affect the global climate and local climate patterns.
All of my studies, whether personal or profesional, have given me the knowledge to know how to create a stellar system, its planets, and the focus world in particular. With the Onaviu system, three worlds ended up within the "Goldilocks Zone." However, I have only focused upon Onaviu for now. Perhaps my players may step up and work on the other two worlds.
rmfr