Topic: Professions versus material

[Lord Garth]

As some of you probably know from a thread in the RM2/RMC forums, I've written a book which resembles a RM2 companion in terms of contents. As I finish off this project of mine I'm thinking about embarking on a second one. I've had a lot of fun, even though it's a lot of work, and my dog isn't going to walk himself anyhow, so I have a good 80 minutes every day of creative time. Every day, rain or hail.

I've already conceptualized the first seven professions I'd like to include in this second take, but I've been giving it some thought and even though they will end up somewhere in written form eventually, I've also been thinking about giving writing something more akin "Underground races and cultures", dealing with something completely else, obviously, a crack.

So I'd like to ask your opinion on what you think could be more interesting, a source book or a "companion".

[yammahoper]

If by source book you mean setting, then setting wins.  Races, cultures, flora and fauna, maps, history...a setting made for and by a RM player would be the cats meow.

A companion that deals with a group, like demons, undead, elementals, feys, ogres, trolls, giants, dragons, whatever, would be nice, as long as it details their culture, history, races, magic, technlogy/weapons/medicine/etc.

[intothatdarkness]

Setting hands down. IMO one of the issues with the Companions was that they were often rules designed for a specific setting, but didn't give enough (or any) information about that setting. Leads to issues when you are "cutting and pasting" from a number of different settings to make a book.

[gandalf970]

A setting for sure, easily wins out for me.  As previously mentioned all the goodness of specific races, classes and backgrounds tied to a specific area would be fantastic!!!

[markc]

  IMHO, a setting would be the best as you can release other material as needed for it. But a setting can be a big undertaking as well.
MDC

[Lord Garth]

Interesting replies.

I really didn't have a setting in mind, but since I write a lot of my GM material I have one IMO good potential setting, complete with a lot of maps, history, key NPCs, politics, economics and the such written down from my past campaign. Right now it's a 140 page word document, in Spanish, so I'd have to go back and translate and flesh out some stuff, but at least 50% of the work is already done.

[markc]

Interesting replies.

I really didn't have a setting in mind, but since I write a lot of my GM material I have one IMO good potential setting, complete with a lot of maps, history, key NPCs, politics, economics and the such written down from my past campaign. Right now it's a 140 page word document, in Spanish, so I'd have to go back and translate and flesh out some stuff, but at least 50% of the work is already done.

 That is the way to go, IMHO. Use what you have and then modify it based on feedback from others.
MDC

[Cory Magel]

I guess it partially depends on what hat I want to wear and where I think the RPG market is.

Personal preference would be for source material that is setting generic for the most part.  Give me everything I might want to drop into my setting, but leave the setting itself mostly to me.  RM users mostly have their own setting or a heavily modified commercial setting (because they've 'stolen' a setting and used it as their basis - I do this all the time... for example I have a map of Ankh-Morpork and I have Ptolus both as cities I can use).  Providing more options to mesh into their setting, to me, seems the most useful.  Everything from a pre-packaged ready to go city to a book of fully fleshed out (yet somewhat generic) NPC's for example.

However, if I actually published my own game system I'd want to develop a setting, even if it is just a basic canvas that the gamer can layer on top of.  Essentially I'd create a basic world to start with and have varying levels of detail throughout the world.  One book would simply describe the planet and the environment, continents, mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans, etc, etc.  Then expansions would get into races, cities, kingdoms, political makeup, creatures/monsters, magic, deities, and so on.  This is so that a customer could simply pick up the basic starting setting and build on top of it (buying only the books that give the details they don't want to have to develop) or they could buy all of it and use it as-is if they didn't want to have to do any of the work themselves.  I would make sure I set it up so that it would be very easy for gamers using other systems to pick it up and 'steal' it for their setting in that game system.  Cross system pollination always helps - it's how RM originally showed up on the radar for us even if we didn't realize it at the time.

[intothatdarkness]

A setting for sure, easily wins out for me.  As previously mentioned all the goodness of specific races, classes and backgrounds tied to a specific area would be fantastic!!!

That's how I put mine together, actually. The core area is pretty well detailed, but there are enough outlying areas (whole continents, actually) where GMs could build their own stuff using the basic setting rules as a framework.

[pastaav]

Personally I see very little point with a setting. Most people around have their own settings and will be reluctant to switch unto somebody else. Parts of a setting that can be dropped into a setting is a different thing. In this case I am not speaking about continents or countries that somehow are supposed to be dropped into a setting but smaller parts.

A region of a mountain country with local rulers, plots, local celebrities and string of adventures/adventure ideas that shows how to make use of your new material would be much more easy to fit into any given game world. With other words there is little point with a setting that start at the macro level and describe the big bads and the good guys that struggle at a global level. This material will be hard to fit into most settings and gives little flavor. Instead you can have a local organization that serves as the representatives of the big bads. Just tell the GM that this trading house is a front for the local division of evil doers and suggest at certain points in the plot when representatives of the global evil might make an appearance to instruct the minions if the GM desires so.   

[Lord Garth]

Well as many of you probably know I've started a "Wasteland Companion", which should fit somewhere in the middle between professions and source material. I'm shooting for 12-15 professions which will be developed around the concept of a concrete setting, the Wasteland.

The Wasteland itself should be able to fit in most game-worlds/campaigns. I envision it as how a vast area (think small continent or perhaps a big peninsula) is left after a cataclysmic power is unleashed. As ever, I am a RM2 player so that's the system I have in mind. The idea here is to give a social/religious/fauna overview which players can adapt to their own game setting.

I only really started a few weeks back so that's going to take me a good few months, but thanks to my dog I get a lot of walks which is when I come up with most ideas.

[markc]

Great news, more new products.
MDC

[Lord Garth]

Great news, more new products.
MDC

If you dare take a look at another project of mine again, I promise I'll make an effort to learn how to better edit and write Markc!