|
I missed this thread when it first happened, but it's in line with a lot of stuff I'm working on and thinking about right now. I've been leaning in more of a "extremely dense, relatively small, open-ended" direction (inspired in part by Hot Spring Island), but this resonates pretty well with that. One way I've found to (partially) fight against the colonialism angle is to change what the PCs are hunting for out there in the wilds. I really like how GP=XP turns XP into a common but restricted physical object scattered throughout the setting, and getting it being usually but not perfectly aligned with the actions the PCs are expected to be doing anyway leads to some really fun and interesting situations, but making the players into genuine treasure hunters delving into the lands of other sentient civilizations leads to some real ugly imperialism real easy. I'm experimenting with making XP come primarily from research and diplomacy, instead. Whenever the PCs encounter something new and unknown to 'civilization' (be it a monster, archeological site, relic, society, etc) they get XP if they spend some time studying it--an action which inherently involves them intertwining themselves with it a bit and potentially getting into trouble; the monster attacks, the site has a set of stairs leading ominously down, the relic is trapped, the society members want to ask a favor, etc. Diplomacy means establishing contact and setting up friendly relations with new societies--you get XP as your relationship with the faction increases, probably as you do quests/etc for them. Lots of the societies are at odds with each other, so it'll be hard to forge strong relations with all of them at once, but it's rewarding if you can. Adventurer-naturalists don't have a spotless track record on not being racist in real-world history, but it's way better than the conquistadors that fantasy heroes are traditionally modeled off of. All of this works much better if there's some line of interconnected secrets tying the setting together from behind the scenes, since it really puts an emphasis on understanding the setting and its dynamics. One issue that seems tough for a West Marches game in which you aren't hopelessly at odds with all the other intelligent creatures you encounter is forcing the players to go home at the end of the session. If a huge part of the game is trying to forge deeper and deeper into the wilds it feels like the desire to recuperate from a forward position with some friendly lizardpeople would be really appealing, but it also breaks the core premise of the game pretty badly. Treasure has a nice natural 'it's heavy, and the only place you can dump it is the home base' quality to it, but in a game where that's less emphasized I don't have a great answer on why the PCs need to go all the way to home base each session.
|
#
¿
Aug 29, 2021 04:14
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 11, 2024 06:02 |
|