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Your Homebrew Setting

SUPERSUGASUPERSUGA Registered User regular
edited January 2007 in Critical Failures
I think pretty much anyone who's GMed and a great deal of people who've played an RPG will at one point or another have thought about creating their own Campaign Setting. The benefits are obvious but there must be thousands of settings that people have worked away on for hours and then never saw the light of day due to lack of interest from a gaming group or unwillingness on the creator's part.

It's about time we got them all out, this is the place to whore out your campaign setting be it Fantasy, Sci Fi, Horror. Give us an idea of the concept and you might just inspire someone to horribly rip you off.

I've got a folder full of incomplete settings myself so I'll tap into those for this thread a little later when I've got access to my own computer.

The biggest problem I face when creating a setting? Thinking of something completely awesome and having someone tell me, no mattter what the idea, "Planescape has that already".

SUPERSUGA on
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  • Panda4YouPanda4You Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Vintermark (Winter Ground, rough translation): A sort-of-postapocalyptic scandinavia (where I live) set in 80's. Cold War erupts into nuclear hotness but no bombs hit us directly, maybe a couple erupt in the atmosphere above, but generally society goes back 60-70 yrs due to rationalization of most everything and lack of an outside world to do trading with. The skies are fucked up from the worldwide bombings and temperatures drop a good 10-15 C's or so. Also, this affect sunlight so days seem darker/shorter.

    In the middle of this, things start to go bump in the dark. This is never really discovered or proclaimed, but people that live on the fringes of wilderness seem to be very concerned about being home at the hearth when night falls. Maybe the havok arounf the world opened something unseen, noone knows since extraordinarily few see something like this and survives let alone talk about it. In this cold dark world there's plenty of opportunities for things that want to prey on the alone and tired.

    The idea is a pretty old-school horror (ya know, Chock or CoC) game with influences from old folklore concepts: Wolves, winter and harsh conditions. No knowledge or material has been lost since the "apocalypse" only happened 4-5 years ago, but since all nearly all production of modern goods has stopped you have to be very careful with what resources you got. Cities and towns have reverted back to 1900 ways of surviving, assisted/controlled by a understaffed military.
    I was very interested in the Hell on Earth deadlands setting but thought most of the material was poorly written (authors' "redneckness" shine through every now and then), and wanted to put together my own, more horror-oriented version of it.

    Panda4You on
  • SUPERSUGASUPERSUGA Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    After I overcame my fear of treading on Planescape's toes I decided that an extra-dimensional setting needn't just be Planescape 2. I decided to give it a shot if only to see if I was capable of making a setting on a scale beyond the usual little low-fantasy worlds I tend to create.

    Degrees: The One-Hundred-and-Ninety Designs of Everything.

    So everything has to be created. Those who created existence itself were known by many names to those like you or me. The Gods, The Creators, little is known so far as details go. There were more than one of them and they are responsible for our existence, the rest seems a bit trivial.

    The first design was a horrible failure. The designers quarreled over everything and before they knew it existence was crammed with an impossible mess of a thousand different ideas all trying to coexist. In a short amount of time everyone had something to complain about so it was agreed that a fresh start was in order. Despite most everyone's best efforts a design just couldn't be agreed upon. What was agreed was that it would be best if everyone just made their own designs and kept them seperate. Of course keeping them seperated didn't last long and that's how we have got where we are today.

    Travelling through Degrees isn't all that difficult, at least for someone from the Tenth like myself. Sure it has its risks but so does everything. A lot of numbers got thrown around at first but I'm happy with what they're all saying now. One-Hundred-and-Ninty. That sounds about right.


    - B.S. Nyson, The One-Hundred and Ninety Degrees of Everything: A Guide

    So my concept was that there was once a large pantheon of Gods that ended up each creating their own universe, or Degree as they are called. These One-Hundred-and-Ninety Degrees make up a loop and through recently developed means it's possible to travel to adjacent Degrees but no jumping to the other side of the loop!

    The main challenge of this setting is coming up with loose descriptions for 190 different universes. Only the most powerful of the Gods were able to create universes as large as ours, so most aren't even as large as the Earth. Some of the smallest are about the size of a football pitch. Humans are found on about two-thirds of them, for somewhat unbelievable reasons. Needless to say it's sometimes difficult to understand the Gods' ways of thinking. They're all gone now, though, presumably.

    The Twenty-First is a no-gravity sea of fog where giant whales swim around happily. The One-Hundred-and-Third is a stormy sea where abandoned towers sticking up from the jagged rocks and cliffs now serve as prisons for the inhabitants of adjacent degrees. The One-Hundred-and-Twenty-Eighth is similar to how you would imagine a gigantic human ant-farm and the Fiftieth is probably similar what you see when you picture Dante's description of Hell. There's a crusade working its way around the loop as well as the inescapable tourists.

    SUPERSUGA on
  • MegaMan001MegaMan001 CRNA Rochester, MNRegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    SUPERSUGA wrote:
    Good stuff.

    I really, really like that idea - but I think you may be making it needlessly more difficult by having 190 different universes.

    Maybe start with something a little more manageble, like 66.

    MegaMan001 on
    I am in the business of saving lives.
  • SUPERSUGASUPERSUGA Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    MegaMan001 wrote:
    SUPERSUGA wrote:
    Good stuff.

    I really, really like that idea - but I think you may be making it needlessly more difficult by having 190 different universes.

    Maybe start with something a little more manageble, like 66.
    I went through so many numbers it's unreal. Nintey-nine? Nah, sounds too... obvious. Sixty? Not enough to sound like a lot. 190 fitted just right. Most of the Degrees will be described very briefly to give the GM a great amount of freedom. If you need something to exist there'll be a number of Degrees that aren't described in detail outside of what you need for travelling through them and onto the next.

    "Giant Cows? Erm... yeah, there's some of them over on the Eighty-Second! Just go up past that big red mountain"

    I plan to have two-sentance summaries for all of them by the New Year and then I'll flesh them out one by one. I wanted there to be enough so that simply travelling ten or so degrees around the loop would be different every time. There's some repetition, sure, and some copying. One of my inspirations for this was thinking about a teacher setting a piece of work to a class of children, such as painting a picture of something. Some will go down obvious paths, some will get fed up halfway through and scribble all over it, some will come up with something you hadn't even thought of and some will peer over their classmates shoulder and copy them. This is why there are humans all over the place, do you realise how much effort it is to actually design an sapient species? Most of the Gods couldn't get their heads around it so tried their best to copy Humans and throw them in there.

    Many of them will be rather small and simple. A forest containing a few different species or a series of caves with a river flowing through. One is a big underground cave containing a huge godlike shark, that God was clearly more interested in making one awesome creature than fancy landscapes. I like to think that most of the Gods weren't very powerful at all and creating a world for them was like the first time you opened up the Quake level editor and you decided to keep it small. They may have been the creators of the universe but they weren't Gods in the traditional sense.

    SUPERSUGA on
  • Dex DynamoDex Dynamo Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Starting from the top...

    Farlan: Home to the first transcontinental railroad, Farlan consisted of X countries, all regularly competing for control.
    -Xylusia, home to the railroad, a steampunk influenced industrial center. There is an increasing gap between rich and poor, the haves and have-nots of Xylusia, a fact that is not helped by the arrogant aristocracy and trigger happy national guard, causing the nation to begin to talk of revolution. This talk is capitalized upon by Fnipper Oneshoe, probably my all time favorite villain, who planned on sparking revolution, installing his enemies as figures of power, and taking over the country in it's wake. All of this while in cahoots with...
    -Maladros: A huge, expansive, romanesque country headed by Viktor Maladros, the arrogant king enslaving the somewhat peaceful ork people and forcing them to attack the railroad stations in a tribal fashion, causing distress and distrust among the Xylusian people(Fnipper had planned on selling the railroad to Maladros, whose military obsessions would be well suited to such a magnificent form of transport).
    -Xilanscia: Communist, metal banning elf home that has taken a stance of non-involvement with the conflict. Mainly because they were grappling with the Hand of Kraka Zinthor, an evil church devoted to summoning an Old God of nightmares with moles all over the continent. The Hand has targeted Xilanscia because Calahan Gordren, ruler of the nation, has the creature summoned by the cult to use in a ritual trapped in a glass bubble in his basement.
    -Fuevalvo: The southern desert nation ruled by rival gangs and businesses competing for the rich natural resources- oil. The PCs never came here.
    -Emerald Hills: The Shire. I don't know why it was here, it just was. I never even used it in my campaign, but it was there, up in the corner of the continent, and it was the Shire. In my defense, it was my first campaign setting.

    I'll pull out my notebooks later and post some more.

    Dex Dynamo on
  • EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    What an awesome idea for a thread!

    The "Planescape did it" mentality frequently strikes home when I talk to P&Ping friends about any campaign setting concepts: especially because my Apheiropolis idea (that's horribly abused Latin for "infinite city") was basically just Sigil in a ludicrously technological setting.

    Edcrab on
    cBY55.gifbmJsl.png
  • InxInx Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    I have a setting in my head that I ran my very first game in.

    I never fleshed it out too hardcore, but basically, the world and its denizens are based off of those claymation Christmas movies - Rudolf and the like - and various other Christmas stories. For example, a famous general who happens to be a giant nutcracker could make an appearance.

    So if you're into a fantasy winter setting, love christmas and cheesiness, and want something lighthearted that can go dark at any second (the one shot I ran was pretty dark), then by all means, rip me off.

    Inx on
  • LardalishLardalish Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    SUPERSUGA wrote:
    MegaMan001 wrote:
    SUPERSUGA wrote:
    Good stuff.

    I really, really like that idea - but I think you may be making it needlessly more difficult by having 190 different universes.

    Maybe start with something a little more manageble, like 66.
    I went through so many numbers it's unreal. Nintey-nine? Nah, sounds too... obvious. Sixty? Not enough to sound like a lot. 190 fitted just right. Most of the Degrees will be described very briefly to give the GM a great amount of freedom. If you need something to exist there'll be a number of Degrees that aren't described in detail outside of what you need for travelling through them and onto the next.

    "Giant Cows? Erm... yeah, there's some of them over on the Eighty-Second! Just go up past that big red mountain"

    I plan to have two-sentance summaries for all of them by the New Year and then I'll flesh them out one by one. I wanted there to be enough so that simply travelling ten or so degrees around the loop would be different every time. There's some repetition, sure, and some copying. One of my inspirations for this was thinking about a teacher setting a piece of work to a class of children, such as painting a picture of something. Some will go down obvious paths, some will get fed up halfway through and scribble all over it, some will come up with something you hadn't even thought of and some will peer over their classmates shoulder and copy them. This is why there are humans all over the place, do you realise how much effort it is to actually design an sapient species? Most of the Gods couldn't get their heads around it so tried their best to copy Humans and throw them in there.

    Many of them will be rather small and simple. A forest containing a few different species or a series of caves with a river flowing through. One is a big underground cave containing a huge godlike shark, that God was clearly more interested in making one awesome creature than fancy landscapes. I like to think that most of the Gods weren't very powerful at all and creating a world for them was like the first time you opened up the Quake level editor and you decided to keep it small. They may have been the creators of the universe but they weren't Gods in the traditional sense.

    This sounds like an awesome idea. Would you make this available for free to all us lowly forumers?

    Also what kind of a campaign would you run with this? (this is why Im not a DM)

    Lardalish on
  • EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Well, I'm just thinking that the intentional vagueness of that kind of setting would work wonders: some degrees might never have had contact with others, and maybe a few don't even know about the nature of their world (i.e., they think their degree is the only one out there).

    I guess you could do anything the campaign's story called for, basically... :o

    Edcrab on
    cBY55.gifbmJsl.png
  • SUPERSUGASUPERSUGA Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Lardalish wrote:
    SUPERSUGA wrote:
    MegaMan001 wrote:
    SUPERSUGA wrote:
    Good stuff.

    I really, really like that idea - but I think you may be making it needlessly more difficult by having 190 different universes.

    Maybe start with something a little more manageble, like 66.
    I went through so many numbers it's unreal. Nintey-nine? Nah, sounds too... obvious. Sixty? Not enough to sound like a lot. 190 fitted just right. Most of the Degrees will be described very briefly to give the GM a great amount of freedom. If you need something to exist there'll be a number of Degrees that aren't described in detail outside of what you need for travelling through them and onto the next.

    "Giant Cows? Erm... yeah, there's some of them over on the Eighty-Second! Just go up past that big red mountain"

    I plan to have two-sentance summaries for all of them by the New Year and then I'll flesh them out one by one. I wanted there to be enough so that simply travelling ten or so degrees around the loop would be different every time. There's some repetition, sure, and some copying. One of my inspirations for this was thinking about a teacher setting a piece of work to a class of children, such as painting a picture of something. Some will go down obvious paths, some will get fed up halfway through and scribble all over it, some will come up with something you hadn't even thought of and some will peer over their classmates shoulder and copy them. This is why there are humans all over the place, do you realise how much effort it is to actually design an sapient species? Most of the Gods couldn't get their heads around it so tried their best to copy Humans and throw them in there.

    Many of them will be rather small and simple. A forest containing a few different species or a series of caves with a river flowing through. One is a big underground cave containing a huge godlike shark, that God was clearly more interested in making one awesome creature than fancy landscapes. I like to think that most of the Gods weren't very powerful at all and creating a world for them was like the first time you opened up the Quake level editor and you decided to keep it small. They may have been the creators of the universe but they weren't Gods in the traditional sense.

    This sounds like an awesome idea. Would you make this available for free to all us lowly forumers?

    Also what kind of a campaign would you run with this? (this is why Im not a DM)
    Hey, I'm certainly not hording it away in secret. Once it's a little more fleshed out I'll probably stick it in a wiki and make it public.
    What I like about it is that there's a lot of scope for what sort of campaign I could run. I could have the players start out thinking we're just in some fairly generic setting (there's quite a few "normal" degrees out there) and then at some point after a few small-scale adventures I'll drop them into an adjacent degree and have someone drop the bombshell on them. If you want to look at the other end of the spectrum the party could be a group of reknowned adventurers that are tasked with capturing or killing someone or something that was last seen twenty degrees away. There's plenty of scope for some really high-level stuff but also plenty for the low-level too, which is where my own heart lies. You can almost think as every degree as being a plot hook. I'd love to roll a D190 at the start of a campaign to see where the party are going to be starting out from. I love rolling on huge charts.
    Getting into the right degree is going to be a task in itself, as it's not like you can just hop through them willy-nilly. I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to handle inter-degree travel yet but I want it to be necessary to have to spend a bit of time on degrees you pass through. I was thinking each time you move to a different degree within a given amount of time (let's say 12 hours) there's a cumulative chance that you slip through the middle of the loop and appear on a random degree. So if you're just moving through one it's 2% or something. Going through two will be 4%, three 16% and if you try four you're pretty much guaranteed to end up somewhere else.
    I like this idea as groups will have to plan their journeys carefully, making sure they don't end up stranded on a really nasty degree. I want to avoid the obvious gates but it seems like it's the most plausible method. I'll think of a twist on them. I don't want big glowy portals, it's more like you somehow gain access to movement in the fourth spacial dimension so you just move in the right way and... you're somewhere else.

    I doubt I'll actually DM with this setting. I really don't have much experience DMing, I just have a blast writing settings. Not sure which system I'd use with this one. D20 would seem obvious but I have some gripes with D&D. Perhaps a modified D20Modern or GURPS. If things turn out well enough I'd certainly consider running a Game On if there's sufficient demand. Bear in mind this is waaay off finished at the moment though. Once I've broken past 100 degrees I'm probably going to be grovelling to everyone here for help. I'm approaching fifty at the moment and find myself coming up with ideas throughout the day.

    SUPERSUGA on
  • INeedNoSaltINeedNoSalt with blood on my teeth Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    I posted this a long time ago on the Wizards forums. The idea was just an excuse to force an evil party to work together.
    INNS wrote:
    Figured I'd post this up here. It's still a work in progress, but I figured I'd get the idea out there early on, and see what sort of feedback I can get. The idea is to run an evil-aligned campaign with a definite reason for the characters to work together towards a common goal. The idea is that this huge, stagnant evil empire formed on a world endless millenia back. When their first world had reached the point where it could no longer support life (and they tried to keep it viable for as long as possible), the Empress and her most capable technicians and wizards came together to find a solution. It might've been obvious: Move. Huge gates were opened up to other Prime Material worlds, and those working for the Government or chosen by representatives of it migrated to the new world.

    No longer is any effort given to maintain any world for any amount of time. The empire moves, rebuilds, rebuilds, rebuilds, and continues to rebuild until there is nothing left to take from the planet... and then they move again. Those who are lucky are not left behind to die with the world. Unfortunately, (fortunately?), there are no more 'emtpy' worlds to move to. Every world before was a beautiful expanse of neutrality, where any traces of sentient life were so insignificant and primal as to be considered irrelevant. But now, the only options for further exodus are inhabitted, worlds where great kingdoms have already arisen, where good and evil are already firmly in place.

    It is discovered that they simply cannot open portals necessary to move to these new worlds, especially not in the numbers necessary to overcome the existing peoples of the land. Experts are chosen (PCs will be these experts - they'll begin play in the area of level 5-7, 'high' for regular mortals from their world) to 'subdue' the world. Their job is to, roughly put, give Evil and edge. When the primary force in the world is Evil, and Good and Hope are just fading thoughts, the Empire (referred to in the write-up above as 'The Government') will begin their invasion, cutting down any who refuse to serve them.

    And then the process will begin again... rebuild, rebuild, rebuild, infiltrate, invade, rebuild...

    Fluff:

    The backdrop of Corruption is a dying world, a planet shredded from massive strip mining operations, a world where all of the forests have been torn down for wood, where even the oceans have been dried. The world of Corruption is a raped world, and it will no longer support life.

    This is not, of course, the first time The Great Civilization has torn a world to death - it has been that every world, for uncountable ages, has met demise at their hands, though nobody truly knows it anymore.

    Characters in the Corruption campaign should have a reason for volunteering or, (more likely), being volunteered to be the first to step across the threshold into the New World. Many factions seek to have earily influence in the New World - they are explained below.

    [insert description of 5 of the major political powers of the Old World, who the Players would work for, here.]

    INeedNoSalt on
  • SUPERSUGASUPERSUGA Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    I posted this a long time ago on the Wizards forums. The idea was just an excuse to force an evil party to work together.
    INNS wrote:
    Figured I'd post this up here. It's still a work in progress, but I figured I'd get the idea out there early on, and see what sort of feedback I can get. The idea is to run an evil-aligned campaign with a definite reason for the characters to work together towards a common goal. The idea is that this huge, stagnant evil empire formed on a world endless millenia back. When their first world had reached the point where it could no longer support life (and they tried to keep it viable for as long as possible), the Empress and her most capable technicians and wizards came together to find a solution. It might've been obvious: Move. Huge gates were opened up to other Prime Material worlds, and those working for the Government or chosen by representatives of it migrated to the new world.

    No longer is any effort given to maintain any world for any amount of time. The empire moves, rebuilds, rebuilds, rebuilds, and continues to rebuild until there is nothing left to take from the planet... and then they move again. Those who are lucky are not left behind to die with the world. Unfortunately, (fortunately?), there are no more 'emtpy' worlds to move to. Every world before was a beautiful expanse of neutrality, where any traces of sentient life were so insignificant and primal as to be considered irrelevant. But now, the only options for further exodus are inhabitted, worlds where great kingdoms have already arisen, where good and evil are already firmly in place.

    It is discovered that they simply cannot open portals necessary to move to these new worlds, especially not in the numbers necessary to overcome the existing peoples of the land. Experts are chosen (PCs will be these experts - they'll begin play in the area of level 5-7, 'high' for regular mortals from their world) to 'subdue' the world. Their job is to, roughly put, give Evil and edge. When the primary force in the world is Evil, and Good and Hope are just fading thoughts, the Empire (referred to in the write-up above as 'The Government') will begin their invasion, cutting down any who refuse to serve them.

    And then the process will begin again... rebuild, rebuild, rebuild, infiltrate, invade, rebuild...

    Fluff:

    The backdrop of Corruption is a dying world, a planet shredded from massive strip mining operations, a world where all of the forests have been torn down for wood, where even the oceans have been dried. The world of Corruption is a raped world, and it will no longer support life.

    This is not, of course, the first time The Great Civilization has torn a world to death - it has been that every world, for uncountable ages, has met demise at their hands, though nobody truly knows it anymore.

    Characters in the Corruption campaign should have a reason for volunteering or, (more likely), being volunteered to be the first to step across the threshold into the New World. Many factions seek to have earily influence in the New World - they are explained below.

    [insert description of 5 of the major political powers of the Old World, who the Players would work for, here.]
    A "New World" is a theme I love to reuse in a most of my settings. I like the idea of there being the established world of law and order and then a wild frontier where most of the people there are running from the old world for one reason or another. The problem is I always end up making them dusty plains and then you're stepping too far into our own history for my liking. I don't really like the players to be able to say "oh, so this is just like the Wild West?"

    Your setting sounds cool though, very nice.

    SUPERSUGA on
  • PkmoutlPkmoutl Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    We had one we were working on called Thalos.

    Unfortunately, only two of us actually did anything to develop the world other than being a general, stale D&D-out-of-the-books world. Anything we did to any of the races as far as changing their societies or any history we wrote was completely ignored. I had changed Halflings around to be more of the Small Man, Big Temper types, rather than fucking Hobbits. But that was completely ignored. We also made it so that there was a race of Gnomes who never set foot on land. They lived on barges and controlled all the trade. IGNORED.

    So I finally told the rest of the people that were supposedly working on it that whatever they did was fine, I was done with the whole fucking setting since nothing I did even mattered. That's when they all admitted they never read a damn thing we came up with because it was "too much information at once."

    Ten pages on the history and social levels of the Elves was the shortest and most basic I could make it. Oh, and that was ignored too.

    So I have kind of a sore spot when it comes to homebrew worlds right now.

    On a related note, if anyone wants to borrow my ideas, I can see if I can dig them up.

    Pkmoutl on
  • JCMJCM Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    I once did a UFO:Enemy unknown (Xcom to the heathen) setting, for a whole 2-month campaign, using WOD rules and some especialty customization.

    Best campaign ever, especially the final 2 days where the surviving players reached Mars.

    JCM on
  • Zetetic ElenchZetetic Elench Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    JCM wrote:
    I once did a UFO:Enemy unknown (Xcom to the heathen) setting, for a whole 2-month campaign, using WOD rules and some especialty customization.

    Best campaign ever, especially the final 2 days where the surviving players reached Mars.
    Fuck yes. Was it more strategy based, or...? I must know more.

    Zetetic Elench on
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  • JCMJCM Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    JCM wrote:
    I once did a UFO:Enemy unknown (Xcom to the heathen) setting, for a whole 2-month campaign, using WOD rules and some especialty customization.

    Best campaign ever, especially the final 2 days where the surviving players reached Mars.
    Fuck yes. Was it more strategy based, or...? I must know more.

    Basically the 10 players were the entire X-com team. They themselves had to hire scientists, engineers, and even mercenaries who they had to train.

    Two of them even learned to pilot, and I tried my best to follow the game's "your turn" and "alien turn" setting... the do-it-yurself base designs, research and politics are all there, changed a few items on the resarch tree and added different classes of aliens for them to fight, and also added a "protect the VIP" and "find the alien infiltrator" mission styles, and wasted a good month drawing it all.

    Im actually thinking of running a Terror from the Deep campaign, but I did promise the players I would notch down a bit the difficulty (6 died during a mission in a city which was zombified by Crhyssalids, and had to come back as new rookie soldiers), I think that a Lobsterman would traumatize them for life.

    JCM on
  • SUPERSUGASUPERSUGA Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    JCM wrote:
    JCM wrote:
    I once did a UFO:Enemy unknown (Xcom to the heathen) setting, for a whole 2-month campaign, using WOD rules and some especialty customization.

    Best campaign ever, especially the final 2 days where the surviving players reached Mars.
    Fuck yes. Was it more strategy based, or...? I must know more.

    Basically the 10 players were the entire X-com team. They themselves had to hire scientists, engineers, and even mercenaries who they had to train.

    Two of them even learned to pilot, and I tried my best to follow the game's "your turn" and "alien turn" setting... the do-it-yurself base designs, research and politics are all there, changed a few items on the resarch tree and added different classes of aliens for them to fight, and also added a "protect the VIP" and "find the alien infiltrator" mission styles, and wasted a good month drawing it all.

    Im actually thinking of running a Terror from the Deep campaign, but I did promise the players I would notch down a bit the difficulty (6 died during a mission in a city which was zombified by Crhyssalids, and had to come back as new rookie soldiers), I think that a Lobsterman would traumatize them for life.
    I think I speak for everyone when I say that is totally awesome. Goes to show there are probably a heap of awesome settings from games that most haven't even considered as an RP setting, or at least inspiration for a setting. Looking at the CD rack on this old computer which contains the castoffs from my PC game collection I see... Battlezone, Republic: The Revolution and Descent. Throw them together for cold war social upheaval in tunnels on the moon? Maybe not.

    SUPERSUGA on
  • EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    SUPERSUGA wrote:
    I think I speak for everyone when I say that is totally awesome.

    Damn right!

    X-Com rocked my world, but I think I'm in the minority amongst players because I actually prefer Apocalypse to the originals (probably simply because my PCs at the time could barely run the earlier games).

    You know how Apocalypse, as a game, was horribly toned down from the original concept due to time constraints (no longer interactive characters running each corp/society, no assassination or diplomacy with actual individuals, no supply convoys for particular organisations etc)? P&P wouldn't have that difficulty: you could go the whole hog, because you're not restricted by voice actors or coding limits or whatnot...

    Pkmoutl: I completely empathise. Collaborative projects- particularily insanely epic sci-fi- tend to wear me down quickly because no one ever cares about anything that's outside of the box. It always has to be the same goddamn staples and cliches: and I don't mean reinterpreted, people seem to want them word for word :|

    Edcrab on
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  • INeedNoSaltINeedNoSalt with blood on my teeth Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Pkmoutl wrote:
    Ten pages on the history and social levels of the Elves was the shortest and most basic I could make it. Oh, and that was ignored too.
    I wouldn't read that either.

    INeedNoSalt on
  • EmperorSethEmperorSeth Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Among my "real" (AKA ones that lasted more than a handful of episodes) I designed two campaign settings. The first was an exercise in improve, more or less. Before the setting was even made, I ran a prologue adventure where the players each selected a pre-generated 10th level character. Each one was singly working to find the Quill of Destiny, an artifact that lets the user rewrite the future itself. After the adventure, I had approximately a week to take what the characters wrote and transform it into an entire campaign setting, plus the first adventure. It...was a busy week. It didn't help that two of the three characters who survived to use the Quill were evil and wrote about becoming the leaders of evil empires, armies of enslaved dragons, the daylight being cut to a quarter of its normal length, etc. I ended up coming with a world where the majority of the good races have hidden underground, the drow went pragmatic and sided with good over the overwhelming evil forces, and an entirely new pantheon was created (though I basically just ripped it off from an earlier video game design I had.)

    The campaign revolved only indirectly around the evil empires and the dark, light-sucking and blocking moons they released into space, though. It instead focussed on a rogue, fallen goddess of the new pantheon that was reawakening. Because the Quill was in use for so long, countless civilizations rose and fell from its power for eons, which the formerly buried goddess discovered. As a result, the party slowly encountered modern, futuristic, and psionic remnants from past civilzations which threatened to undermine the cycle of the Quill and repetition of their dimension. It was a good campaign, but it sadly ended on a sour note. Half the players moved out of the state, and while we tried running online, epic level gaming is very slow using that method, so soon we had to give it up. I got some information from them to finish up the Story Hour fiction I worked on and complete the narrative, but I was hoping for a real conclusion.

    I'll do a write up for Mesion, the second campaign I'm still fairly early into, next time.

    EmperorSeth on
    You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
  • HorseshoeHorseshoe Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Pkmoutl wrote:
    We had one we were working on called Thalos.

    Unfortunately, only two of us actually did anything to develop the world other than being a general, stale D&D-out-of-the-books world. Anything we did to any of the races as far as changing their societies or any history we wrote was completely ignored. I had changed Halflings around to be more of the Small Man, Big Temper types, rather than fucking Hobbits. But that was completely ignored. We also made it so that there was a race of Gnomes who never set foot on land. They lived on barges and controlled all the trade. IGNORED.

    So I finally told the rest of the people that were supposedly working on it that whatever they did was fine, I was done with the whole fucking setting since nothing I did even mattered. That's when they all admitted they never read a damn thing we came up with because it was "too much information at once."

    Ten pages on the history and social levels of the Elves was the shortest and most basic I could make it. Oh, and that was ignored too.

    So I have kind of a sore spot when it comes to homebrew worlds right now.

    On a related note, if anyone wants to borrow my ideas, I can see if I can dig them up.

    I feel ya, man. I have players who can't remember what they did last week, don't take notes to compensate for it, and won't read a short writeup that I put together for them of the last session before gaming because they "don't have time". And then during the game: "Duh... why do I have this in my backpack? Wait, who is that guy?"

    Sometimes it makes me want to yell: "No matter how long it takes you to read, it took me longer to write, you garbage fuckers!"

    Thus, I don't even bother with homebrew campaigns. Why put all the work into it when I can just keep using Greyhawk, and they can keep on ignoring it and not remembering anything about the Flanaess.

    Horseshoe on
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  • SUPERSUGASUPERSUGA Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Horseshoe wrote:
    Pkmoutl wrote:
    We had one we were working on called Thalos.

    Unfortunately, only two of us actually did anything to develop the world other than being a general, stale D&D-out-of-the-books world. Anything we did to any of the races as far as changing their societies or any history we wrote was completely ignored. I had changed Halflings around to be more of the Small Man, Big Temper types, rather than fucking Hobbits. But that was completely ignored. We also made it so that there was a race of Gnomes who never set foot on land. They lived on barges and controlled all the trade. IGNORED.

    So I finally told the rest of the people that were supposedly working on it that whatever they did was fine, I was done with the whole fucking setting since nothing I did even mattered. That's when they all admitted they never read a damn thing we came up with because it was "too much information at once."

    Ten pages on the history and social levels of the Elves was the shortest and most basic I could make it. Oh, and that was ignored too.

    So I have kind of a sore spot when it comes to homebrew worlds right now.

    On a related note, if anyone wants to borrow my ideas, I can see if I can dig them up.

    I feel ya, man. I have players who can't remember what they did last week, don't take notes to compensate for it, and won't read a short writeup that I put together for them of the last session before gaming because they "don't have time". And then during the game: "Duh... why do I have this in my backpack? Wait, who is that guy?"

    Sometimes it makes me want to yell: "No matter how long it takes you to read, it took me longer to write, you garbage fuckers!"

    Thus, I don't even bother with homebrew campaigns. Why put all the work into it when I can just keep using Greyhawk, and they can keep on ignoring it and not remembering anything about the Flanaess.
    Take it online! There are frequent times when I have little better to do than read some made-up stuff by some guy.

    SUPERSUGA on
  • EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Wiki's for the win!

    Until your friends flood the place and start putting outlandish PC outlines everywhere, forcing you to put a restrict note on it and defeating the whole point of the exercise :?

    Edcrab on
    cBY55.gifbmJsl.png
  • RankenphileRankenphile Passersby were amazed by the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderator Mod Emeritus
    edited December 2006
    Pkmoutl wrote:
    We had one we were working on called Thalos.

    Unfortunately, only two of us actually did anything to develop the world other than being a general, stale D&D-out-of-the-books world. Anything we did to any of the races as far as changing their societies or any history we wrote was completely ignored. I had changed Halflings around to be more of the Small Man, Big Temper types, rather than fucking Hobbits. But that was completely ignored. We also made it so that there was a race of Gnomes who never set foot on land. They lived on barges and controlled all the trade. IGNORED.

    So I finally told the rest of the people that were supposedly working on it that whatever they did was fine, I was done with the whole fucking setting since nothing I did even mattered. That's when they all admitted they never read a damn thing we came up with because it was "too much information at once."

    Ten pages on the history and social levels of the Elves was the shortest and most basic I could make it. Oh, and that was ignored too.

    So I have kind of a sore spot when it comes to homebrew worlds right now.

    On a related note, if anyone wants to borrow my ideas, I can see if I can dig them up.

    tl;dr

    Rankenphile on
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  • EmperorSethEmperorSeth Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Horseshoe wrote:
    Pkmoutl wrote:
    We had one we were working on called Thalos.

    Unfortunately, only two of us actually did anything to develop the world other than being a general, stale D&D-out-of-the-books world. Anything we did to any of the races as far as changing their societies or any history we wrote was completely ignored. I had changed Halflings around to be more of the Small Man, Big Temper types, rather than fucking Hobbits. But that was completely ignored. We also made it so that there was a race of Gnomes who never set foot on land. They lived on barges and controlled all the trade. IGNORED.

    So I finally told the rest of the people that were supposedly working on it that whatever they did was fine, I was done with the whole fucking setting since nothing I did even mattered. That's when they all admitted they never read a damn thing we came up with because it was "too much information at once."

    Ten pages on the history and social levels of the Elves was the shortest and most basic I could make it. Oh, and that was ignored too.

    So I have kind of a sore spot when it comes to homebrew worlds right now.

    On a related note, if anyone wants to borrow my ideas, I can see if I can dig them up.

    I feel ya, man. I have players who can't remember what they did last week, don't take notes to compensate for it, and won't read a short writeup that I put together for them of the last session before gaming because they "don't have time". And then during the game: "Duh... why do I have this in my backpack? Wait, who is that guy?"

    Sometimes it makes me want to yell: "No matter how long it takes you to read, it took me longer to write, you garbage fuckers!"

    Thus, I don't even bother with homebrew campaigns. Why put all the work into it when I can just keep using Greyhawk, and they can keep on ignoring it and not remembering anything about the Flanaess.

    Yeah, I sort of know the feeling. The trick is to having just one or two players who semi-give a damn, and just working the story around them. If they're mostly interested in the combat elements, let them enjoy that element more. Alternately, slowly work the story elements into the gameplay. But then, I'm not sure how much of my current group is interested in the story either, so I don't know how useful this will be.

    EmperorSeth on
    You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
  • EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    That's true: if you keep the setting project small and enclosed there's less chance of it collapsing (or worse, continuing for ages despite total apathy between the participants).

    Heh, actually knew a really bright guy who was working on a game system, not just a setting. Considering it was something he'd come up with over the course of a month, it actually wasn't that bad: but eventually he saw sense and decided to just put his story into practise through D20 Modern (or was it GURPS he chose?) rather than killing himself making an actual system.

    Edcrab on
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  • JCMJCM Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Wohoo, thanks to this thread I brought up the UFO session to one of my mates (who had played it) and now there's a grroup of 6 signed in for the holidays.

    Only he has played it before, but Ive been sketching all afternoon, will post the alien designs as soon as I finish scanning them.

    Beween this, my comic and some side projects, my holidays are already planned.

    JCM on
  • JCMJCM Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Ok, made a new thread and posted the aliens, will be posting the research tree, weapons and character sheets and I make them.

    JCM on
  • SnazelSnazel Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    I love my homebrew, I've always been one of those nerds that much prefers to GM than actually play.

    My current homebrew features a shattered 'shard' of a former world, that has been hurtled into the astral plane. The survivors of this cataclysm now cling to life on a decaying rock in the middle of the astral plane.

    The world 'survives' by opening trade routes back to the prime material plane, exchanging magic and technology for food, water and other vital supplies.

    The world survives this way for a century, without much fanfare, but now the Githyanki have realized they are there and the drums of war are starting to beat.

    It has a "Planescape" concept, in that I can take my adventurers anywhere, to any distant realm. They've even traveled to Forgotten Realms, as well as other themed worlds. The "shard" that they call home is just a base of operation in which they can travel anywhere our imaginations can think of.

    The world itself is dead and decayed with no sunlight (just dull twilight of the astral plane). So the world itself is quite hostile and rather celestial and abstract.

    Yeah, its pretty basic and derivative, but it works well and we have a fun time playing within it.

    Snazel on
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  • EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Snazel wrote:
    Yeah, its pretty basic and derivative, but it works well and we have a fun time playing within it.

    And that's all that matters :wink: Planescape-esque multiple worlds seem to be a popular theme for sprawling custom universes...

    I GM'd a game using The Window not too long ago. Incredibly simple and straight forward (to the point of pissing off some hardcore P&Pers I knew), but it was just what was needed to interest a group of casual gamers that began life as a creative writing workshop: and, of course, it's really damn easy to make new stuff in it :D

    Edcrab on
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  • SnazelSnazel Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    *nod*

    It's nice to be able to beg and borrow from anything new that comes along.

    I get some new supplement, or see an interesting idea in Dragon, I can cop it, twist a little and insert the idea right into the campaign.

    I wouldn't call it plagarism, I call it "heavily influenced by something I recently read". Semantics perhaps, but despite the borrowing I do, the campaign does wind up establishiing its own flavor.

    Snazel on
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  • HorseshoeHorseshoe Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    SUPERSUGA wrote:
    Horseshoe wrote:
    Pkmoutl wrote:
    We had one we were working on called Thalos.

    Unfortunately, only two of us actually did anything to develop the world other than being a general, stale D&D-out-of-the-books world. Anything we did to any of the races as far as changing their societies or any history we wrote was completely ignored. I had changed Halflings around to be more of the Small Man, Big Temper types, rather than fucking Hobbits. But that was completely ignored. We also made it so that there was a race of Gnomes who never set foot on land. They lived on barges and controlled all the trade. IGNORED.

    So I finally told the rest of the people that were supposedly working on it that whatever they did was fine, I was done with the whole fucking setting since nothing I did even mattered. That's when they all admitted they never read a damn thing we came up with because it was "too much information at once."

    Ten pages on the history and social levels of the Elves was the shortest and most basic I could make it. Oh, and that was ignored too.

    So I have kind of a sore spot when it comes to homebrew worlds right now.

    On a related note, if anyone wants to borrow my ideas, I can see if I can dig them up.

    I feel ya, man. I have players who can't remember what they did last week, don't take notes to compensate for it, and won't read a short writeup that I put together for them of the last session before gaming because they "don't have time". And then during the game: "Duh... why do I have this in my backpack? Wait, who is that guy?"

    Sometimes it makes me want to yell: "No matter how long it takes you to read, it took me longer to write, you garbage fuckers!"

    Thus, I don't even bother with homebrew campaigns. Why put all the work into it when I can just keep using Greyhawk, and they can keep on ignoring it and not remembering anything about the Flanaess.
    Take it online! There are frequent times when I have little better to do than read some made-up stuff by some guy.

    You know... after the Spacemyth thing runs its course I may do just that.

    ((You know, they need an emoticon for when someone says something that makes you think and you cock your head to one side, and nod forward once with this sort of "hmm!" look on your face... I need that emoticon right now.))

    Horseshoe on
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  • Zetetic ElenchZetetic Elench Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Edcrab wrote:
    I GM'd a game using The Window not too long ago. Incredibly simple and straight forward (to the point of pissing off some hardcore P&Pers I knew), but it was just what was needed to interest a group of casual gamers that began life as a creative writing workshop: and, of course, it's really damn easy to make new stuff in it :D
    Just followed your link and wow, that system really appeals to me. I guess because of its flexibility - after reading through, I instantly got an idea for a gorkamorka-type game that would work really well in that system. Which obviously, is completely not what the system was designed for, but that just shows how adaptable it is.

    Hot.

    I may actually make something of this.

    Zetetic Elench on
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  • SUPERSUGASUPERSUGA Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Horseshoe wrote:
    SUPERSUGA wrote:
    Horseshoe wrote:
    Pkmoutl wrote:
    We had one we were working on called Thalos.

    Unfortunately, only two of us actually did anything to develop the world other than being a general, stale D&D-out-of-the-books world. Anything we did to any of the races as far as changing their societies or any history we wrote was completely ignored. I had changed Halflings around to be more of the Small Man, Big Temper types, rather than fucking Hobbits. But that was completely ignored. We also made it so that there was a race of Gnomes who never set foot on land. They lived on barges and controlled all the trade. IGNORED.

    So I finally told the rest of the people that were supposedly working on it that whatever they did was fine, I was done with the whole fucking setting since nothing I did even mattered. That's when they all admitted they never read a damn thing we came up with because it was "too much information at once."

    Ten pages on the history and social levels of the Elves was the shortest and most basic I could make it. Oh, and that was ignored too.

    So I have kind of a sore spot when it comes to homebrew worlds right now.

    On a related note, if anyone wants to borrow my ideas, I can see if I can dig them up.

    I feel ya, man. I have players who can't remember what they did last week, don't take notes to compensate for it, and won't read a short writeup that I put together for them of the last session before gaming because they "don't have time". And then during the game: "Duh... why do I have this in my backpack? Wait, who is that guy?"

    Sometimes it makes me want to yell: "No matter how long it takes you to read, it took me longer to write, you garbage fuckers!"

    Thus, I don't even bother with homebrew campaigns. Why put all the work into it when I can just keep using Greyhawk, and they can keep on ignoring it and not remembering anything about the Flanaess.
    Take it online! There are frequent times when I have little better to do than read some made-up stuff by some guy.

    You know... after the Spacemyth thing runs its course I may do just that.

    ((You know, they need an emoticon for when someone says something that makes you think and you cock your head to one side, and nod forward once with this sort of "hmm!" look on your face... I need that emoticon right now.))
    Do it! Sounds like a cool setting. I've ground to a halt with my setting what with Christmas and all, must get that rough list of degrees finished and then the real fun can begin.

    SUPERSUGA on
  • AresProphetAresProphet Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    Should I ever decide to start DMing I'll probably use the custom setting that I'm fleshing out in a couple of under-construction NWN modules. It started as a setting for a novel that I'm not sure I will, or even want to, finish. The premise is this: what happens when you get six power-hungry people together, give them knives, and tell them that the last one left alive wins?

    The Background

    Ebriel is in a fantasy world populated by humans, with a very small number of elves remaining after every other race vanished millenia ago. They're really special people, you don't get to play one because most of them are famous figures I use as NPCs. There's some magic, but humans never were very good at it to begin with and what they learned from the elves ages ago has only become weaker with time. Spellcasters in this setting cannot just magick everything right, they have to study rigorously to achieve control over a limited sphere of magic (such as transformations, summoning, energy manipulation, scrying) which tend to be of limited use in combat. There are some druids that tap into a more powerful, wilder form of magic that exists in the world, but it's generally feared because it (a) involves inhuman, animal behavior and (b) all magic is pretty much despised in the corner of this world my games take place in.

    The Location

    That corner is the continent of Ebriel, a landmass about half the size of Australia. It's far to the north of all of the more civilized continents where empires flourish and people are generally more sophisticated. Ebriens are a clannish people whose history is littered with failed attempts at unifying the various provinces and kingdoms that have risen and fallen over the years. The one thing they always unite for is to repel any outside influences with brutal efficiency. There isn't a kingdom in the world that openly maintains alliances with any Ebrien province, though there are several independent merchant companies that trade with the southern port-city of Luthalle.

    That city is the entry point for anyone venturing into the continent, tucked away on an isolated peninsula behind the massive Auril mountain range. Luthalle is separated from the other provinces and has existed under the same ruling family for a few hundred years, untouched by most wars. It's better to be allied with Luthalle than to try to conquer it and lose armies just crossing the Aurils. This city, affectionately dubbed The Hive by traders the world over (it has always been ruled by a queen, whose loyal servants are known for being particularly bloodthirsty when crossed), is the primary place of interest for characters in Ebriel.

    What keeps Ebriel so cut off from the rest of the world is its location. Each winter the northern seas freeze into a solid sheet of ice and snow, locking the continent away from all other civilization until spring thaws re-open the seas. These "winters" can be only a few months, or may stretch much longer, more than a year. "Summers" typically last eight to ten months, though there are tales of sudden freezes in midsummer when winter came without warning.

    The people of Ebriel count their seasons differently from the rest of the world, where they come like clockwork. They have no true calender, as any attempt at officializing one has usually ended when its patron authority was toppled or assimilated. Luthalle has adopted the southern calender as its own and most records of Ebrien history are recorded using it by the wizards there (who, incidentally, operate the only school of magic on the entire continent).

    An entire industry exists in the ports of Ebriel of various smugglers and pirates who ply the seas on either end of a freeze, daring to deliver cargo for extortionate prices when more prudent sailors would come ashore until spring. The only provinces with a substantial navy are Scavryst (out of necessity) and Istaine, and lawlessness prevails on the frigid northern seas.

    The Intrigue

    Six independent provinces exist in Ebriel at this point in its history: Luthalle (the southern port), Therben (a forested region with an important river port, Thornhold), Drull (in the northern Aurils, where the peaks aren't so high and the ground is rich with ore), Ebriel (historic seat of the empire that ruled Ebriel until twoscore years ago, Crownkeep), Istaine (far to the north, gripped by near-perpetual winter), and Scavryst (a craggy island a hundred leagues east of Ebriel itself). Alliances between the provinces and their various rulers have never remained stable. Power struggles define the politics of the continent, with each ruler trying to maneuver himself into position to reclaim the fallen Crownkeep Empire as his own. Each baron or baroness distrusts the others, and will do whatever is necessary to take the throne for himself.

    Those that do not actively pursue emperorship are just trying to keep their little slice of the continent as theirs independently. Scavryst enjoys an advantage, isolated by the seas which freeze each winter, while Luthalle is too powerful and to odisinterested to be a target. The remaining four provinces are at each others throats, though open war has not been declared; armies do not yet march in Ebriel, though they are gathered in every corner, waiting.

    The player finds himself in the midst of a climate of stifled hostility and suspicious alliances, and can either find work for one of the various rulers trying to one-up the others, or find his own ends hindered by an untrustworthy baron.

    The Story

    The"present" history of Ebriel stretches over about twenty years, beginning a few years before the Crownkeep Conquest, where the surviving son of the former emperor strikes several decisive blows against competing barons. His Legions eventually put all six provinces under his control, but only for a few months before the Legions turn on the emperor and declare themselves independent authorities over all Ebriel; during the turmoil of this coup the entire Legion established on Scavryst (the Legion of Crows) is brutally exterminated by the native clans, and all contact with the island is lost. No ship that has sailed toward the island has ever been heard from again.

    During this Legion Era, the Legions simply let Ebrien life continue as normal, while ruthlessly squashing any attempts to overthrow their control. Their rule is largely benevolent, and those ten years mark the longest peace the continent has known. Though Luthalle remains relatively independent they declare themselves allied with the Legions and work with them.

    The Legion era comes to an end when ex-Legion members who were loyal to the emperor and fled after his rule was broken reform the Legion of the Phoenix, a crusade to restore the "rightful" Crownkeep Empire from its ashes. They work in secrecy for the decade the Legions rule and gather their forces, and when they strike every province is pitted against the others in a bloodbath. The present history of Ebriel ends here.


    The point of this setting is a backdrop of rich political intrigue where players can start out as pawns of one of the ruling forces on Ebriel and eventually become a notable figure who has an impact on the history of the continent. Or they can try to make a living on the side as a mercenary, or bandit, or smuggler, or trader, and try to keep from becoming an enemy of somebody with an army at his disposal.

    I could probably write two or three times as much of this on any one province of Ebriel, Scarvyst in particular has a really rich history that I love fleshing out.

    I'm discovering that worldbuilding is excruciatingly hard, though.

    AresProphet on
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  • SUPERSUGASUPERSUGA Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    I guess these two questions would belong here.

    1) For a relatively low-magic (or rather, lower than D&D) setting that has more skill based characters than class-based I've heard that D20 modern is a good place to start. I want magic to be there but not a focus or a necessity for the party and I want a character to be described along the lines of "He's a strong guy who's a lumberjack, is athetlic and healthy and has skill x and skill y" rather than "He's a fighter/swashbuckler" or something. My main concern is that this will be for a fantasy setting so won't be in a modern setting at all. Is it usable for this with the odd tweak? Is there a better system out there that will do this job?

    2) I've used random landmass generators before, fractal and otherwise, but they've never really looked convincing to me. Anyone have any advice for a free piece of software I can use to generate landmass shapes? Moutains and rivers etc. would be a huge bonus.

    January will be the month I press on with my setting and unveil it in Wiki form, perhaps allowing others to add input.

    SUPERSUGA on
  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    I feel for all those DM's that have had players shit all over their hard work. I had a similar experience to PK's:

    I was DM'ing for some college buddies and I had put together an entire campaign setting that was a complete departure from "traditional" d&d. I had a world ruled by an empire that was founded by dragons and ruled in their stead by elves that worshiped them as ancestors. The elves themselves were diveded up in to clans based on the type of dragon they "descended" from, red or black or silver etc.

    This empire used gnomes as a sort of bureaucracy race to keep all the financial stuff in order. Humans and Orcs served side by side in an expansionist military called the genesai and had done so for all of recorded history. The halfling race was basically wiped out, existing only as secret court assassins for the elven nobility. Dwarves had been banished to the fringe of the empire, where they toiled as farmers, after the "uprising" millenia before that had resulted in them losing the right to grow a beard or keep hair on their heads.

    The whole campaign was going to revolve around the fact that the dwarves and the few humans that worked with them had found gods and were attempting to overthrow the empire. The world itself was just an island in the astral plane that the dragons had created together and populated with creatures for their own entertainment. A vast world full of defined conflict and turmoil.

    What do I get for pc's? A dwarven fighter, a half elf Wizard (sorcery was the only magic available in the setting), a human ROGUE and an elven CLERIC.

    Then they bitched because there weren't any goblins to kill in the whole damn empire.

    God damn I hate players sometimes.

    OptimusZed on
    We're reading Rifts. You should too. You know you want to. Now With Ninjas!

    They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
  • INeedNoSaltINeedNoSalt with blood on my teeth Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    I think the fact that a human rogue is out of line should be reason enough for you to reconsider your own campaign setting, where every race was so pigeonholed that 'dwarven fighter' and 'elven cleric' are problems.

    INeedNoSalt on
  • TalonrazorTalonrazor Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    Wait what.

    Every human ever was in the military. Along with the Orcs?

    So not a single one could be rogue?

    And you wondered why your players bitched?

    :?

    Talonrazor on
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  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    edited January 2007
    I think the fact that a human rogue is out of line should be reason enough for you to reconsider your own campaign setting, where every race was so pigeonholed that 'dwarven fighter' and 'elven cleric' are problems.
    It wasn't really that they were pigeonholed, it's that I was trying to break away from the traditional D&D stereotypes, and they just showed back up. The rogue wasn't that big a deal, but I had outlawed clerics for ALL races and put up favored souls and shugenja in their place. There were also no wizards in the setting, and dwarves were not allowed to where heavy armor or carry weapons under imperial law (their favored class was Monk). Basically, it was just my player's unwillingness to play anything but the most cliche characters that really pissed me off.

    Edit: And not all humans were in the military. Like I said, the rogue wasn't that big of a deal.

    OptimusZed on
    We're reading Rifts. You should too. You know you want to. Now With Ninjas!

    They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
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