|
Dameius posted:Eh, everything is "inspired" from something else before it. Oh yeah, want trying to denigrate. It just had some familiar chords, which can be a good thing.
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2019 17:44
|
|
Glory to Italia! 
|
|
| # ? Jun 12, 2024 09:09 |
|
|
I love hearing about all the homebrew settings and ideas that people in this thread have and the inspirations they use to get there.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2019 04:18
|
|
|
ILL Machina posted:Oh yeah, want trying to denigrate. It just had some familiar chords, which can be a good thing. Yeah, I'm not gonna lie - the idea was less about the orcs and more about "you live in Nishapur; do you let it get sacked by Ghengis Khan in the name of a greater good?" and the whole idea of 'civilizing the orcs' came mostly out of thinking about Elder Scrolls orcs. It wasn't until you mentioned it that I saw the Warcraft 3 links, which is pretty cool IMHO; sometimes we get inspired by stuff we forgot we were inspired by, and sometimes there are connections we don't see!
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2019 04:33
|
|
|
The light was stolen by the Cult of Light who believe they are working on behalf of the God of Civilisation. They have been living in seclusion for thousands of years, passing traditions down through generations, lying in wait until the prophecy told them it was time to act. Since the beginning of creation, the God of Civilisation and the God of Chaos were in constant conflict. Great wars raged between themselves and their minions across the universe. Over innumerable millennia the war raged sapping the powers of both gods, until eventually the God of Civilisation proposed a truce. The ethereal plane would belong to the God of Civilisation, the plane would belong to the God of Chaos and the material plane would be split between them. At the beginning of this truce, the God of Civilisation created 'Points of Light' to protect the humanoids and her followers from the God of Chaos. Over time civilisation grew and spread the Points of Light across the material plane, gaining more and more territory and pushing back the monsters and aberrations into smaller and more remote pockets of the world. The civilised nations slowly lost their belief in the Gods over time as science, philosophy and the trappings of civilisation took precedence over ancient tales and creation myths. But the Cult of Light did not forget. They had long foreseen that as belief in the old gods wanes in the world, so do the protective powers of the lights. This is self evident to the cultists as more and more incursions from the chaotic monsters have occurred over the last decades and are ever increasing. The solution the Cult of Light have come to is that civilisation has grown decadent and is on the verge of collapse. In order for a civilisation capable of truly defeating the God of Chaos once and for all to survive, it must be purged and started again from nothing, led by true believers - namely themselves. They have launched their scheme to steal Points of Light from around the edge of the civilised world and have discovered a dangerous arcane ritual that can extract the energy from them, rendering the Point of Light inert. This they believe will bring the downfall of the non-believers as the monsters, aberrations and demons overrun the known world, only for the Cult of Light to step out from the shadows at the last possible moment and rescue the desperate people using the immense power they have siphoned from the Points of Light to defeat evil and lead this new, renewed civilisation to victory in the final apocalyptic battle against the God of Chaos. However, not all is as it seems. One such cultist, Alell the Wanderer, took it upon himself to travel the world searching the edge of civilisation for anything that may help the forces of good in the imminent battle to come, but what he discovered shocked him. He found an old ruined shrine to the God of Civilisation beyond the furthest known extent of the Points of Light - close enough that he was able to journey there (with some difficulty), but far enough out that it seems impossible it could have been built there. Furthermore it seems impossibly old, far older that the most ancient temples of the known world and of a bizarre unknown architectural style. Alell took some of the runic inscriptions he found at the site back with him to study and has been hard at work trying to translate them. So far he has discovered that these texts also speak of the Points of Light, the battle between Light and Chaos but they are so badly damaged and broken it's difficult to reconstruct them much further. He has however pieced together one rune that tells of other settlements, even deeper into the depths of the Chaos lands, far beyond the safe haven of civilisation. How anything could ever have been built there Alell cannot conceive, but he has decided he must venture forth to discover what lies there. But to do so traversing unknown terrain filled with myriad dangers he will need help from fellow hardy adventurers. The true story that the party can discover (with or without Alell's help depending) is that the agreement between the God of Civilisation and the God of Chaos was for the material plane to be entered into a 'harmonious' cycle. It will begin almost entirely in Chaos, with small pockets of Light. These pockets will naturally grow until almost all of the world is Civilised. Then the Civilised will sabotage themselves and allow Darkness to almost totally envelop them, with only a small outpost of light hanging on. This ebb and flow takes around 5000 years each cycle, with the end of each cycle resulting in the deaths of many millions of humanoids at the hands of Chaos. Though perhaps without this arrangement between the gods Civilisation would never flourish at all in the first place. It turns out that one of the precursor civilisations discovered a way to weaponise the Points of Light and redirect their power directly at the Gods, trapping them in their plane and preventing them from exerting any influence at all over the material plane. They somehow managed to communicate this to the God of Civilisation and offer to try and entrap the God of Chaos in the underworld for ever more, winning the war of the gods once and for all, but the God of Civilisation rejected their offer. Why they did not know. The true reason is that the God of Civilisation and the God of Chaos are not separate gods, but faces or aspects of the same one true god, as indivisible as your left brain is from your right brain. Thus the ultimate end of the campaign is the players deciding whether to use power of the Points of Light against God, banishing him from the material plane forever thus ending the cycles of the rise and fall of humanoid civilisation and the destruction it brings, but also removing all Divine Magic from the material plane (all magical healing is gone for example) and removing all supernatural protection from monsters, aberrations and the undead forever more. Or to let the cycles continue as they have before. mass effect
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2019 01:51
|
|
|
tanglewood1420 posted:as indivisible as your left brain is from your right brain.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2019 02:15
|
|
|
I'm not sure if this is EXACTLY the right thread, since this is looking more for game design advice, but gently caress it close enough. Anyways, I've ran a couple roleplaying games on discord for my friends, and we're starting up a pokemon-based one. Previously the games I've ran for them have been fairly light mechanically, much more focused on roleplaying and creative problem solving rather than pure mechanical mastery - the combat rules have been fairly light, with few stats that don't change often, and minimal dice rolling. My GMing style has been fairly light and matter-of-fact, instead of directing players we play a lot of it by ear and create a story together - i'll often start the game with only an end goal for the players to achieve and some ideas for NPC motivations and background actions, but nothing I try to get tied to. The players like being the stars of the story and like being the driving forces in the story that steer the direction it heads, so I try to make that the primary focus - NPC feelings and actions are mostly there to complicate things for players or help them if they're trying to achieve something particularly weird. We don't use discord for voice chat, instead using different text channels as different physical spaces within the in-game world, moving players between them at will. So if someone is at the hospital they'll be at the "Hospital" text channel, only able to see other players that are also at the hospital but they won't know what other players are up to, etc. A very heavy focus on keeping player knowledge in line with their character's knowledge. The games have also been played mostly in a pseudo-real-time play-by-post style, since none of us can consistently meet up at designated times to play. Anyways, I plan on keeping all of those elements, as the players seem to really enjoy them and work well with them. We want to do a Pokemon-themed game, and everyone seems stoked on it being set in the wild west with a pseudo-gold-rush / oregon trail story of rushing to the west. I've got no problems with this, but it does pose a handful of problems with the system, and the players' preferences and experiences. First, pokemon themselves tend to be the ones with stats, so I'm not sure how number crunchy to make the system - the players tend to check out and get confused if there's too many numbers to keep track of, and while I think they'd be fine managing the number of stats in pokemon for a character I'm a little worried all the different stats for each individual pokemon could be overwhelming, especially if dice rolls are tied to those stats. The players find dice rolls are fun so I don't want to eliminate them, but I feel like going "okay, find your charmander's special attack stat, and roll it against their special defense" would start bogging down the gameplay for them more than they'd like. Previously, I've set up simple saved rolls so I could just tell the players "okay, roll dexterity" or whatever and they just type in "/roll $dexterity" or whatever and it automates the rest, so it's really mechanically easy on them. Having a bunch of stats for a bunch of different pokemon might get overwhelming for them, and the discord bot we've been using can only store 128 different dice rolls, so with 6 stats per pokemon with 6 pokemon per player that'll fill up quick. My best idea is to let the players know their pokemons' stats and tell them what to roll, like "Water jet uses your special stat, so roll 3d6" or whatever, but there might be a bit of a disconnect for them in regards to that or it might feel like i'm just telling them what to do. Second is a problem with the theming and the system itself. The system works best when the players are confined in a restricted area, like a city or a building, so that they're forced to interact with each other. Too large of an area for players to explore and they wind up just wandering around solo with NPCs, which isn't that fun. Obviously this poses a problem with the open frontier of the west, since then players could just wander around forever, even with a dedicated goal and me pushing them towards each other. The players enjoy not being fully cooperative, and being able to betray each other or form alliances at will, so even if I start them with some kind of "okay you're in a wagon train party headed west" I'm not sure how well it would pan out. My best guess for a solution to this is to have rather large areas be bound to a single discord text channel, so like "the prairie north of pallet town" or "Mount Moon Pass" or something, so even if players are fairly far away from an in-game perspective, the out-of-game perspective would push them together. This might be a little weird thematically though, since it wouldn't make much sense for people several miles away to be able to talk clearly to each other. I could theme things in the world as being like "this route is the only safe passage along this pass, so you both take it" but that wouldn't stop the players going "nah, Player is dumb, i'm gunna ride my rhyhorn off-road" or whatever. I'm also open to general suggestions beyond these two sticking points, I haven't actually done any research into currently-existing pokemon systems because why would I do research before barfing up all these words????
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2020 02:19
|
|
|
CodfishCartographer posted:
Trust me that there are plenty of folks who barf up plenty of words without being arsed to do the research. That said, let move on to your situation. I see two possible takes here. Take One: The concept behind Pokemon is that players capture/enslave/trained supernatural creatures and pit them against instead each in contests. Sort of like cock or dog-fighting with less chicken/canine fatalities, right? So, how about the idea that your players are going into some new/unexplored area to capture whatever pokemon(pokemen?) are there to take back to players to train? Maybe with the idea that they can keep some of them for their own use. And perhaps some extra reward for whichever person capture the most/best pokemon. That way you set up a cooperative situation of the players having to work together to get the pokemen. But you have the idea of competition because whoever gets the most/best will get something extra. Take Two: The PCs are Pokemon who are sick of being used as slaves/toys in gladiatorial combat for the amusement of a bunch of nasty hairless apes (humans). So, they're leaving to find some new home/sanctuary away somewhere else. Of course, other, wilder pokemon are already there, so the PCs will need to cooperate to make a place for themselves. And inevitably humans with their enslaved Pokemon will come, so the PCs will have to work together with friends they made in the new land to kick those nasty apes back where they came from (after freeing their Pokemon and getting them to join Pokemon Liberia). Everyone fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Jan 1, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2020 03:27
|
|
|
Finding a favourable NPC trainer or otherwise RPing a "liberated" Pokemon sounds pretty rad. I like the first one though. Lots of fun angles to the "world behind the games". There was another goon itt who was doing a Pokemon style campaign, I think? There's actually a Pokemon discord bot game that might give you some ideas.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2020 04:53
|
|
|
I mean I'm pro laziness and my suggestion would be to take Pokerole and then just adjust for your manic discord real time situation The Pokerole rules are simple as crap and have player and pokemon stats, but they are super simple My only gripe really is you kinda end up with a (small) sheet per pokemon, but it's a trade off I'm willing to make
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2020 16:21
|
|
|
There's a system explicitly for playing Pokemon in the works that I'd be glad to pm you. Some of this stuff, though... Why wouldn't you tell your players to make characters that have a reason to stick together? e: when I say explicitly for playing Pokemon, I mean just a Pokemon, no trainers
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2020 16:27
|
|
|
Thanks for the suggestions everyone! I'll check out pokeroll, and pitch them the ideas of working with NPC trainers / being pokemon themselves, see how they like the ideas. As for why I wouldn't tell the players to make characters that wanna stick together, we've ran this system in a few games previously with this same group of players and while it started out as somewhat cooperative, the players enjoyed being free to make their own allegiances and betray each other at will. At first I was hesitant over it but after embracing it, it's mostly been going fine ever since. Admittedly there is the occasional time where one group of players leaves another behind, but usually that loner player can then go find a different group to join up, now having juicy info on the other group, or they have fun hunting down the original group that left them behind.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2020 20:33
|
|
|
I think using the geography of a discord channel in place of the fantasy geography is really clever but wouldn't hit if the party didn't have a reason to be in multiples at once.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2020 20:47
|
|
|
Been racking my brain trying to figure out an interesting encounter for my game. My players are goons but hopefully they aren't going to read this (or will read this line, stop, and go away  )3.5e Eberron game. My PCs are going into Q'Barra, on the hunt for the phylactery of a dracolich they killed previously. I have the basics of the area fleshed out (spoilers just in case): kobolds working for the dracolich have "offered" themselves as supplicants to the linnorm living in the ruins, and have put his phylactery somewhere in his chambers where he obsesses over all sorts of divination spells/effects/magic items including several functioning Demon Glasses (obsidian mirrors that let him scry and use Legend Lore) to attempt to discern the Draconic Prophecy and how he can twist it to become a dragon god. Kobolds are working to unite the lizardfolk in the area by force, ostensibly to assist the linnorm in its bid for deification but actually to provide a massive army for the dracolich once it can get the linnorm dead and seize the body. So for the big fight, I have precious little. I just have a big room with some evil mirrors and a dragon in the center, and I'm drawing a blank for anything good for the mirrors to do or for the dragon to do. I've done enough (probably too many, honestly) "boss fight with adds" type encounters so I'd like to avoid that if I can. Any ideas?
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2020 22:01
|
|
|
I like the idea of the dragon telekinetically manipulating the mirrors somehow and using them to create spell-like effects. It could...
The mirrors are technically adds, I guess, but they don't do anything on their own. For the ones that emit damage or are physical obstructions, the dragon just sets them up and they do their thing every turn until disrupted, turning the battlefield into a maze of damage fields and barriers. The others give the dragon a bunch of extra tricks that the party can whittle down, either by attacking the dragon and forcing it to drain its mirrors to survive, or by attacking the mirrors directly.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2020 22:20
|
|
|
The mirrors are each tuned to a PC and each spit out an (in)appropriate figure from their past. They can only damage and be damaged by their intended target. Really play up the evil divination angle. They might be better with the kobold army. The mirror fueled opposition would then provide an incentive to fight the dragon right now. If the party waits around to rest and prep spells for the dragon the mirrors will regenerate their foes, or a mark 2 version. Sometimes you just need a straight up brawl with a dragon.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2020 23:05
|
|
|
Grey Hunter posted:Seems kind of lame from a festival stand point, but the focus on consulting maps and getting high off herb broth could lead to some fun plot threads. quote:Have them come into possession of a map that glows with a new and undiscovered location on Wintershield. I used Wintershield for a bit of coincidental flavor and as a reason to keep most shops closed on their arrival day. I made it sound like the only shops still open were setting cheap copies of maps (being hawked by a market claiming their authenticity) and the Starbucks-alike serving herbal teas. One of the warlock party members, on a lark, used her detect magic invocation so I had them notice a glowy off-shelf map that the vendor claimed pointed to a distant island that is the reputed refuge-home of the lost avian creator race, ancestors to the aarakokra (one of which is in my party). They stole it from him. Wouldn't have had an idea ready if you hadn't said something and made me think on it. Much appreciation. ILL Machina fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Jan 2, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2020 02:54
|
|
|
Writing an adventure is hard, guys. I love the Ebberon setting and am trying to build an adventure that includes a heist on a lightning rail train. Because my mind is dumb, I keep thinking of motivations for everyone involved and so now I need to write an opening adventure that leads the players to the heist. So now I’m trying to put together a story that involves the draconic prophecy and parts of said prophecy unconsciously being added/written into pieces of art. A painting, a book, a statue, a building, and a song. I’ve evolved the idea to a dragon engineering a situation that forces the group to be tied together by the prophecy. The dragon has been trying to make this happen for over a hundred years, and with the group, finally succeeds. This group is then part of a prophecy that will release one of the Daelkyr, but only because there’s a chance a few hundred years in the future it will lead to the Daelkyrs death. Or something like that. My goal is to have the group collect the disparate pieces of this individual prophecy, believing they are doing a “good thing”, and having it turned midway on them. Does this sound dickish?
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2020 21:27
|
|
|
Lucas Archer posted:Writing an adventure is hard, guys. I love the Ebberon setting and am trying to build an adventure that includes a heist on a lightning rail train. Because my mind is dumb, I keep thinking of motivations for everyone involved and so now I need to write an opening adventure that leads the players to the heist. Sure, but in a reasonable way. Plenty of stories involve the heroes unknowingly working for the bad guy. Just let them have a decent chance of doping out what's going on and perhaps turning the prophecy items against the bad guy. But don't force them into the position of doing stuff.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2020 22:23
|
|
|
Lucas Archer posted:Writing an adventure is hard, guys. I love the Ebberon setting and am trying to build an adventure that includes a heist on a lightning rail train. Because my mind is dumb, I keep thinking of motivations for everyone involved and so now I need to write an opening adventure that leads the players to the heist. It sounds like you're having a blast with writing the setup to this now, but always bear in mind that one way to generate motivations for a party to be running a heist on a lightning rail train is to tell your players "So, for the campaign I'm about to run, I would like you to generate me a character whose backstory gives them a reason to join a heist on a lightning rail train".
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2020 22:42
|
|
|
You could always open with the train heist on the understanding that everyone has a compelling reason to be there, and then collectively fill in those reasons during and after the first session. If you want the twist, tell them they've been fooled and ask them how it happened. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Jan 2, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2020 22:52
|
|
|
I’m a big fan of giving players leading yet open-ended questions during character creation that will ensure everything lines up properly. So if you want to ensure all the player characters have reasons to be running a lightning rail train heist, simply ask them why during character creation: “Your character is about to pull off / plan a heist on a lightning rail train in an attempt to steal <whatever the treasure/goal is>. Why are they doing this?” This will guarantee each character has some kind of motivation to pull off the heist, but is open-ended enough to let players have a lot of creativity over their character. Maybe they just want fame/fortune from successfully pulling off the heist. Maybe they’re trying to get the treasure to pay for an operation for their dying son. Maybe they’re being blackmailed into it by a political rival somehow. Maybe they’re trying to impress a crime organization, and the heist is a “test” to gain membership. This also gives the players opportunities to help with worldbuilding in ways that are specific to their character - maybe you hadn't planned on including a crime organization, but now you can try to work that into the story since it's relevant to one of the players. If a player can't think of a compelling reason why their character would be involved in a train heist, then honestly nothing you could have done to force them to do so would have left them happy anyways. At that point it's time to either rework the opening set piece or (more likely) talk to the player to see if you can figure out a reason why their character would be motivated to do so.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2020 23:24
|
|
|
Everyone posted:Sure, but in a reasonable way. Plenty of stories involve the heroes unknowingly working for the bad guy. Just let them have a decent chance of doping out what's going on and perhaps turning the prophecy items against the bad guy. But don't force them into the position of doing stuff. Whybird posted:It sounds like you're having a blast with writing the setup to this now, but always bear in mind that one way to generate motivations for a party to be running a heist on a lightning rail train is to tell your players "So, for the campaign I'm about to run, I would like you to generate me a character whose backstory gives them a reason to join a heist on a lightning rail train". Elector_Nerdlingen posted:You could always open with the train heist on the understanding that everyone has a compelling reason to be there, and then collectively fill in those reasons during and after the first session. I feel dumb for not even thinking of that, but of course it's perfect.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2020 23:27
|
|
|
Yeah it's important to note that one of the most important things to do when you're thinking "how do I get my players in this situation" is to just... ask your players about it. Most players - not all, there are exceptions - are more than willing to meet you halfway and come up with something that works for you and will be fun for them.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2020 01:21
|
|
|
Lucas Archer posted:That's the goal, absolutely. Their sponsor will be the main source of information about the prophecy initially, but if they go to other sources or investigate it for themselves, I plan on having indications that their sponsor is lying to them. Hell, for a real twist, you could pull a National Treasure. Have the sponsor make his pitch, the PCs check it out, realize that it's BS, but then end up robbing the train anyway to protect the items from being stolen by another group that the sponsor gets to help him.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2020 01:24
|
|
|
habituallyred posted:The mirrors are each tuned to a PC and each spit out an (in)appropriate figure from their past. They can only damage and be damaged by their intended target. Really play up the evil divination angle. TooMuchAbstraction posted:I like the idea of the dragon telekinetically manipulating the mirrors somehow and using them to create spell-like effects. It could...
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2020 04:12
|
|
|
Lucas Archer posted:I feel dumb for not even thinking of that, but of course it's perfect. Nah, you're not dumb. If you're at all used to doing solo creative stuff, then it's a real headfuck trying to shift your thinking away from "I am the creator, making this for an audience that will experience it later" to "We are currently making this together as both creators and audience".
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2020 04:18
|
|
|
I'm working on a new setting for my next campaign which will likely be PF2e, which pre-supposes as a system a fairly high magic world, and magic items are fairly commonly purchasable by the players. My preference has usually been for lower magic worlds because, I dunno, I have a weird hangup about the implications of magic in a nominally medieval world and stuff. There's a bad cantrip in 5e for instance that basically turns every 1st level sorcerer into the world's greatest road/canal building machine and I think that is silly. I don't know that I expect 'realism' from my elfgames, but then actually I do want some semblance of logic. Forgotten realms/golarion style stuff has never really done it for me because it doesn't acknowledge that the world would not be stuck in a pseudo-medieval stasis if there are wizards wandering around. Eberron tries to think through that, but I'm not really all that into the magitech. My current thought for this new setting is basically that magic is common because it is the only way that the civilized races can continue to eke out an existence in a world where true evil is common and organized and itself possessed of powerful magic, but I'm not so sure I am completely in love with that. How have y'all justified/made logical sense of high-magic settings?
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2020 18:47
|
|
|
Kaiser Schnitzel posted:How have y'all justified/made logical sense of high-magic settings? A lot of settings make magic incredibly highly controlled, regulated, or shunned. That can become an interesting bit of political intrigue. Does an oppressive government control all spellcasting, and lock up anyone who practices magic on their own? Maybe the college of wizards is a powerful entity in its own right, or maybe they're being controlled unwillingly by a merciless dictator under threat of violence, or maybe they're an underground group that has to practice in secret. You could probably lift a bunch of X-Men storylines but it's about mages instead of mutants.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2020 19:00
|
|
|
Kaiser Schnitzel posted:How have y'all justified/made logical sense of high-magic settings?
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2020 19:05
|
|
|
Kaiser Schnitzel posted:How have y'all justified/made logical sense of high-magic settings? my game is a decade old and started as Pathfinder Rise of the Runelords; they made it to ~lvl 20 and beat the bad a few years back so we started over at 1st level in 5e, twelve years after the boss fight that changed subtly how magic works (to explain 5e's differences- I had one PC who spent the whole battle messing with artifacts and essentially 'hacking' the assistance Karzoug was getting from other planes, and it was the perfect opportunity to go 'well you beat him but also you broke magic a lil bit') anyway blah blah blah our version of Varisia is the most custom-fleshed out, so it becomes the home base, especially Magnimar. The way it's approached is with a lighter touch on realism, but magic attitudes run basically along three lines depending on which city's culture is predominant: Magnimar is a barely-governed libertarian hellscape where you just have to deal with either buying wards or being a big enough deal that loving with you would be a bad idea, and hoping you don't cross a wizard anyway. There are problems with high magic being used like this, and that leads to stories Riddleport is run by a Pirate Queen, and you'd think this would make it more lawless than Magnimar- but Big Mags is run by the wealthiest person in town, while Riddleport is run by an elected pirate in a process akin to a labor union- magic isn't technically heavily regulated here, either, but most mages know that the Pirate Queen wields incredible loyalty, a handful of powerful artifacts seized on raids, and looks dimly on those who gently caress with her people Korvosa is the most trad medieval of the cities, a heavily-regulated near-theocracy run by both a duke and an ecumenical council. This is where magic is mostly illegal without a license and they go to great lengths to enforce it, going as far as to commit small evils "in the name of the greater good" the rest of the place is mostly lawless frontier, unless you run into patrols from the cities, so reactions would be varied
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2020 19:43
|
|
|
a) you go full grimdark with it, magic is a powerful force that ultimately exacts a terrible price but must be used to keep the forces of darkness at bay, etc. b) Eberron/13th age style, magic subs in for what we would consider modern technology. c) just handwave it (the d&d route) d) make your magical stuff bespoke and tie it into the thematics of your campaign (better for something more storygamey) At the end of the day I think the existence of magic would have severely bent the arc of history away from the sort of faux-medieval stuff that D&D has forced most fantasy into the shape of, so it's really about how much you want to hurt your brain thinking about hypotheticals instead of spending your effort making a world that's fun to play around in.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2020 20:04
|
|
|
There are fully magically built cities in forgotten realms. I think their explanation, despite having magic destroyed and rekajiggered after the Sundering and Spellplagues, is that you either have to study real hard or be divinely inspired to do magic. Most people in the world don't/can't learn cantrips, let alone first circles. This leads to most folk trying to live normal lives until a zealot or other extremist shows up with magic. The people who would be building bridges have other more important business withtheir schools/study/sect. There were magocracies that existed for a long time and created magical artifacts that affected the world long after the fall of that civ (see: the Netherese). The normal cycle seems to be that some wizards and sorcerers try to keep amassing power once they taste it, which usually leads to bad things like necromancers. Most of the "good" magic users, like most adventuring parties, are positioned to counter the powerful and power hungry. Or they go to lead societies afterwards. Most of the attempts to drastically reshape the world by magic are either invalidated by some god action or cause more harm than good. Those things, coupled with the general inaccessibility and mistrust/fear of it by most of the populace, makes it a bit more mundane than it could be. You could see the benevolent overlords leaving the little people to their tiny lives, mostly free from magic because they themselves want it to be. There are lots of issues around easy access to other physical realities/planes, but I guess if you can get past the other stuff that's just a little extra. And with perfect memory spells and summoned servants you'd think there'd be lots of automation. Leave it to adventuring parties and dedicated research teams to explain the mysteries and incongruities of the world. ILL Machina fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Jan 4, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2020 20:35
|
|
|
Kaiser Schnitzel posted:
In my campaign, the empire the party is in has magic under tight control. Using magic leaves behind radiation and a sort of "residue" from barely noticeable (cantrips and first level stuff) to lighting up like a beacon to those trained to notice such things (like level 9 spells). The imperial forces use special anti-magic special forces to track down and kill or recruit magic users. Warlocks, druids, and sorcerers are all just straight up banned and are kill on sight for these guys. Clerics are the inquisitor class in this police structure. Bards and wizards, having to study their magic, are more controllable and can be sanctioned. Those capable of wielding magic are extremely rare, so much so that the vast majority of the people within the empire can go their whole lives without seeing any magic outside of, like, a village witch or shaman. It does exist in large quantities though, especially on the fringes and borders of the empire. The reason for the tight control is that magic always has a huge price to pay, even if it isn't noticeable right away, and monsters are attracted to magic. So in places where there are magic items, there are tons of monsters. Of course, it's also convenient that those who decide what magic is sanctioned are themselves powerful magic users, and make sure nobody can really threaten their position at the top. This control is under a lot of pressure as the empire is in the midst of a once-4-way-now-3-way civil war (after the party accidentally obliterated their allies of convenience).
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2020 22:29
|
|
|
The world's only gotta work long enough for the duration of your campaign. If your wizard wants to spend all their time building roads and canals with their cantrip, go ahead and let them, then talk about how they got a main road named after them in the epilogue.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2020 12:14
|
|
|
Making it straight illegal to be a spellcaster sounds crappy and tedious. There aren't rules for hiding magic or noticing it, and in a world what magic James Bond is waiting to assassinate or capture every rogue mage, it's completely up to the DM to mitigate the risk of discovery for the players so they don't become paranoid drama-ruining maniacs. Putting a powerful organization/religion that preaches how dangerous unlicensed magic is (but isn't actually the law of the land), on the other hand, means that some people and places might be hostile or unreasonable, but it doesn't have to be the focus of every single adventure.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2020 18:19
|
|
|
Kaiser Schnitzel posted:I'm working on a new setting for my next campaign which will likely be PF2e, which pre-supposes as a system a fairly high magic world, and magic items are fairly commonly purchasable by the players. My preference has usually been for lower magic worlds because, I dunno, I have a weird hangup about the implications of magic in a nominally medieval world and stuff. There's a bad cantrip in 5e for instance that basically turns every 1st level sorcerer into the world's greatest road/canal building machine and I think that is silly. I don't know that I expect 'realism' from my elfgames, but then actually I do want some semblance of logic. I tend to run with the assumption that there's some sort of limiting factor on spells that, when you're trying to perform them at large scale, makes them less useful than just doing the thing yourself -- this is usually some combination of 1. It's physically exhausting. Casting Move Earth a few times in the heat of a battle is one thing, but clocking in at 9am and casting Move Earth solidly 'till lunchtime will break you. 2. It's expensive. The cantrip counts as 'free' but only because you're generally just using it a few times: if you're using it in large-scale, you need to start using consumable reagents. 3. It's difficult to teach. You can teach someone how to dig a ditch in a day, but it takes years or more of study before you're able to cast Move Earth reliably -- by which time you have far better things to do than dig some drat trench. 4. It's risky. If some idiot peasant wields his shovel wrong, worst-case scenario he's going to lose a few toes. If he casts Move Earth wrong, there's no telling what kind of clusterfuck you're in for.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2020 19:35
|
|
|
Have there be a God of Labor or something who frowns on such things. Sure, you could hire a wizard to dig your canal with his magic, but doing so angers both the Ditchdiggers' Union and their divine patron, who will send plagues of locusts or whatever until you see sense and hire good, honest laborers to do good, honest work. The God of Magic isn't going to argue, because he didn't imbue mortals with the power to shape time and space and warp reality so they could be ditchdiggers for goodness' sake! For bonus points have the God of Labor's faith be the state religion of one nation so that you have an excuse to have D&D Communists. In my experience the easiest answer to "why don't people do X in a fantasy RPG setting" tends to be "the Gods said so."
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2020 01:43
|
|
Tias posted:Inspired by Dawn of Worlds, I'd like to run a series of solo stories for friends where they play deities involved in the creation of a fantasy world, interspersed with or culminating in games together where they attempt to solve myths together or possibly fight one another. I ran Dawn of Worlds for a group of 4 (myself included) and then used the resulting world to run a series of one-shots plus a long campaign with those same players. In my experience, the rules are only as stiff as the player's imaginations. We came up with a world-splitting gorge filled with giant mushrooms, fiery bubbling marshlands, habitable undersea volcano tubes, and more. For species we came up with drug-addicted tundra fox creatures, tiny humanoids with angler fish type lights attached to their heads, hive mind mermen, body snatcher eels, and tiny "dust-mote" creatures that travel around in what are basically hamster balls so they don't get stepped on. Running games in this collective world has been a highlight of my GMing. That said, I do not think it would be fun to run one-on-one (if that's indeed what you mean by "solo stories"). Too monotonous and too much mental effort heaped onto too few shoulders. And it's not something I'd want to do more than once in quick succession. There is A TON of note-taking. My notes for the world we created spans two google sheets and a doc and easily clocks in at over 5000 words.
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2020 16:44
|
|
|
I need some ideas for a low stakes 'heist' The set-up is this: the party wants to retrieve a sentimental item from a large, gimmicky tavern in a medium sized-city (eberron setting). The item belongs to an npc friend of theirs, the tavern is being run by their family whom they are estranged from. The party is only in town for the night and is on their way to Sharn for a Big Tournament Arc, so getting in trouble with the law could be risky for them. The owners of the tavern would be very adverse to selling the item, and would probably get real upset if they found out who the party was operating on behalf of. What are some fun ways to spice this up without being too absurd/trivial? The party is high enough level that any real combat obstacle that the tavern could pose would be beyond trivial, and they are pretty goody-two shoes so wouldnt want that outcome anyways. Maybe the item is in an incredibly inconvenient spot? Maybe there's a bizarre guest in the tavern that complicates things? Maybe they have live velociraptor shows and they sleep in the same room as the item?
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2020 23:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 12, 2024 09:09 |
|
|
The item is on display in the main room. The bartender uses the item as an ad-hoc tool as part of their work (maybe it's a handle on one of their taps?). There's some kind of competition going on regarding that kind of item (e.g. comparing craftswork, or maybe the item is functional like a bow or axe) so there's dozens of lookalikes floating around. The item is broken and the tavern keeper doesn't dare admit it because it's valuable and they used it as collateral for a loan.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2020 23:47
|
|