Folding, Spindling and Mutliating Settings

[Michael Hopcroft]

Have you ever wanted to take a published setting and do something entirtely different with the material than what the authors intended?

 

I've always wanted to use the bare bones of Harn (the map, the basic profiles, etc.) and do something different with it. Harn is low fantasy, but what I wanted to use it as the backdrop for something epic?

 

I've also wondered about using Medieval Eurpoe for that sort of thing. Maybe changing the hisotry around a bit, and making the Mongol invasion into something entirely different.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Folding, Spindling and Mutliating Settings

 

i've often used the mongol invasion for inspiration and stuff, and done things that you should never do to a setting (see my LotR hack slash setting), but not tweaked it in the same way you describe.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Folding, Spindling and Mutliating Settings

 

I was thinking that the Mongols could have the backing of a power that forces the medieval world to ackowledge the existence of magic, and also forces the Christians and the Muslims to realzie they have a common enemy that alone one cannot defeat, but together they might have a slim chan ce of survivial....

 

And that's Lord Roy the Ruthless to you!

 

Would it help if I told you where Ruth was?

[Curufea]

Re: Folding, Spindling and Mutliating Settings

 

It's what my Western Shores is (currently).

Take the politics of the Itallian City States, put it in Holy Roman Germany, rip out the Norse Gods and base most of the economy/day-to-day living on Harn.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Folding, Spindling and Mutliating Settings

 

I'm either running in the same campaign setting as they have it or it is my own world. And I absolutely loath having anything similar to another campaign setting.

[Markdoc]

Re: Folding, Spindling and Mutliating Settings

 

Have you ever wanted to take a published setting and do something entirtely different with the material than what the authors intended?

 

Of course - I always assumed this was standard operating procedure!

 

At the moment, I am busily whacking chunks out of the classic Pavis Runequest setting to fit into my game. Instead of being a ruined city in the middle of the desert, it's become a coastal city destroyed by a wizardly earthquake. Half of it's slipped into the bay, the other half partially buried by landslides. The fortified towns inside the ruins in the original setting become islands. Instead of walking through the dry and dusty ruins and burrowing underground under the hot sun, the payers will have to scull about between fog-wreath'd, algae-dripping ruins in little boats over half the terrain and dig - literally - into the hillside in search of the good stuff buried during the landslides on the other half. In the meantime, the people who live there attempt to stop the wholesale looting of their ancestral home and organise some sort of resistance against the recently arrived Samadrian army, which is attempting to hold down their new possession, pacify the hnterlands, loot the vaulable stuff themselves and tax anyone they can catch to pay for all of this.

 

The basic atmosphere has changed from Bronze age to late medieval/Gothic mixed with a bit of Clark Ashton Smith and the major goal from reassembling a magical council to reviving a long-dead godling. Even so there's a powerful lot I can reuse without much effort: but it's changed enough that even if players know the original setting, odds are good they won't recognise it.

 

cheers, Mark

[prestidigitator]

Re: Folding, Spindling and Mutliating Settings

 

I also ran a Vampire: The Masquerade game in which everything published about the vampiric world in the official settings was albsolutely untrue. Most notably' date=' Caine was a creative fiction and served as a code when referring to the Manichaean Archons of darkness.[/quote']

In my WoD campaigns, Caine is simply a creation story preferred by several groups such as the Camerilla. The players themselves don't know it, but, "generation," is simply a general indication of power, and vampires in fact slowly (very slowly) gain power ("decrease," in generation) with age if they do not resort to Diablerie. By the way, I decided this almost a decade before Requiem came out.

 

Sorry. Quite out of context, but that one struct a chord and I wanted to chime in.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Folding, Spindling and Mutliating Settings

 

Would it help if I told you where Ruth was?

 

yes please.

[AlHazred]

Re: Folding, Spindling and Mutliating Settings

 

Oddly enough, my very successful Fantasy Hero campaign uses the Harn setting. Everybody made 50+50 characters using standard templates. I put them in a castle on the frontier (i.e., I made it up). Then, I had large black ghost ships (the death-hulks) sail onto shore to break open and disgorge hordes of undead gaunts (zombies) and ghosts (wraiths). The undead hordes had been created by six-armed skeletal beings, an undead race each individual of which was based on 180 points.

 

It became very epic, with the PCs slowly gaining in power level. Now they can match up to the regular foes, right at the close of the campaign. It's been very satisfying. Though I do regret all the excellent Harn material I'll not be able to use...

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Folding, Spindling and Mutliating Settings

 

yes please.

Ruth is at the corner Starbucks, eating fudge and drinking a white chocolate iced mocha.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Folding, Spindling and Mutliating Settings

 

Ruth is at the corner Starbucks....

WHICH ONE?!!?!?!??! Arrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!

[tkdguy]

Re: Folding, Spindling and Mutliating Settings

 

Oh heck yeah! I remodelled Warhammer's Old World to my taste, removing lots of stuff and adding my own touches.

[LordGhee]

Re: Folding, Spindling and Mutliating Settings

 

twenty years ago I took over a campain that was in the time of robin hood, it went well and lasted 2 years, the politics of henry and elenor (spell?) was great back ground and involed the player easy.