Campaign: The Dying Earth

[Robyn]

Disclaimer: This is not intended to be a "ready to GM" setting. You may be able to steal ideas from it, or even reverse-engineer your own explanations for this world and run it steadily for a while - but it won't be the same. I have developed this setting over the last 5+ years, each detail following clearly and unambiguously from those before, carefully crafting it into a well-integrated whole. I will not casually share it with anyone I have not known and trusted for years; I will permit most players to explore this setting only through their characters.

 

Short blurbs

(If you're short on time, or have no interest in reading about a different world setting just for the fun of it, scrutinize this screamsheet for signs of whether it's worth your time to continue.

 

Alternate-history Earth with Europe the equivalent of Japan and China the equivalent of Europe. Mysticism is as commonplace and revered as science, whereas science has been relegated to the contempt we now hold "magic" in. Government exists only to coordinate large groups of people and protect the rights of the individual, that right being held highest in the land.

 

Details that have not yet been filled in may be supplemented with input from the players conditionally: I, as GM, will have the sole responsibility of representing the interests of those entities that have influenced and charted the course of history, but remain unknown to the characters.

 

The PC's will be Unimportant to the campaign world, but central to the campaign itself. They will be low-powered, and weaker than the average NPC on the street (they must rely on luck and their wits to survive). Survival itself is more a matter of finding food and temporary shelter through barter (the PC's are unlikely to have their own dwellings) than battling enemies, though duels are common. The PC's will be either police, or assisting the police in some capacity. Choose your desired characters accordingly, and post them to this thread for review and dissection.

 

I'll offer NPC slots in the sense that you can play just to see what it's like, even if you're not planning to stay, but with the equivalent of a single episode (or perhaps recurring) in the campaign: not going to play a major role, and probably going to vanish if the game starts to pick up in speed or complexity. These characters may be upgraded to PC status if you commit to the campaign, or you can abandon them and generate a new character.

 

You may pick up whatever rare or common items you come across, but only what you paid for stays with you reliably). As for all other aspects of the system, I am still working on the conversion, but if you can justify your abilities within the original system, an implementation is guaranteed "no matter the cost" in HERO (the primary standard of "point balance" is the original system; if conversions result in one PC having seven hundred points while another requires three thousand, they will still be considered equally low-powered). Experience will not be gained during the course of play; your characters are not weak "but learning", they are weak "and shall remain so indefinitely". It may be possible to change this destiny through one of the campaign crossroads.

 

Players who want to explore a new world and new characters, not just roleplay a character who is engaged in self-exploration and learning about the world, are desired. During the course of play, things that the characters thought to be true will turn out to be less than true, and their very understanding of reality will shift. The players will learn about the game world primarily through their characters, and be accordingly limited by the character's preconceptions. Because of this, an ability to separate your character's knowledge from the knowledge of other characters is necessary, but an ability to separate your character's knowledge from your knowledge is not.

 

Being able to enjoy action-paced adventure is highly recommended; contests will only seldom take place physically, however. The characters will also be challenged in social and mental arenas SFX-wise; the "action" will be descriptive, and rolls take place at appropriate intervals along the way. Dice will not be used for mental challenges - expect having to figure out how the other person thinks, or for introspective adventures, how your character thinks.

 

You can PM me for an E-mail address. I'm not interested in getting spam from spiders that crawl this forum. At this time I plan to run the game through HERO Central, but if the players all want PBeM I can do that instead.

 

More detailed information is available in a ZIP archive. A list of its contents follows:

 

Campaign setting - Historical (The history of the campaign world, as it differs from our own.)

 

Campaign setting - Characters (The characters that must, should, and may be played.)

 

Campaign setting - Characters (follow-up briefing)

(A copy of additional setting info already released to another potential player after inquiries were made.)

 

Campaign - Name and Direction (Why this whole campaign belongs in the Dark Champions forum.)

 

Gameplay - Combat (Getting hurt, healing, and staying alive.)

 

Gameplay - Mechanics (How we can manage to run/play this.)

 

Setting - Policework (Common knowledge about how it works.)

 

Gameplay - Truth (Why truth complicates, not eliminates, intrigue.)

 

Characters - Children (An optional, but valid, character. Also provides useful background information.)

 

Gameplay - Timing (Current plans for running this through the forums.)

 

Gameplay - Observation) (How the PC's will ever become entangled in the plot.)

 

System - Philosophy (An outdated introduction, but still useful for understanding the original gameplay theory.)

 

Style-RP correlations (A few conceivable criticisms of the system, and their counterpoints.

 

In closing, I am at a point in the development process where I find it time-inefficient to just randomly generate details for the area local to the PC's. This is where players or kibitzers need to step forth and present a character idea (native to New China), whereupon I shall fit it into the world and begin laying out information visible from that perspective.

 

So, what are you curious about? What more details would you like, in what area, before you begin to offer any details of your own?

 

[Edit: double-checking the file by downloading it from the forums, I found that the contents are obfuscated under another layer of compression. If you have this problem too, open the file as if it were another .zip archive, and you should be able to extract the original files.]

[Savinien]

Re: Campaign: The Dying Earth

 

Are you wanting to run an online game within this setting? Where are you going to run it? HeroCentral?

[Robyn]

Re: Campaign: The Dying Earth

 

Are you wanting to run an online game within this setting? Where are you going to run it? HeroCentral?

 

Yes. Sorry for not putting that information in the main message, I have it within the attachment somewhere. I'll edit that appropriately.

[Savinien]

Re: Campaign: The Dying Earth

 

Okay. Cool.

 

I'll check it out more closely and get back to you.

[Haven Walkur]

Re: Campaign: The Dying Earth

 

...[The PCs] will be low-powered' date=' and weaker than the average NPC on the street (they must rely on luck and their wits to survive). Survival itself is more a matter of finding food and temporary shelter through barter (the PC's are unlikely to have their own dwellings) than battling enemies, though duels are common. The PC's will be either police, or assisting the police in some capacity....[/quote']

 

Robyn, if your PCs are weaker than the average NPC, it seems very unlikely they'd make effective police officers...or be much fun to play. And if the primary concern of the PCs in the game is finding food and shelter in order to survive, then I can't see them caring much about police-work -- or anything else for that matter! In the sort of gritty, tooth-and-nail struggle for survival that you've set up, nothing matters but food/shelter/survival considerations. The PCs won't have the luxury of doing anything but trying to survive.

[Robyn]

Re: Campaign: The Dying Earth

 

Robyn' date=' if your PCs are weaker than the average NPC, it seems very unlikely they'd make effective police officers...or be much fun to play.[/quote']

 

Not being stronger than the opposition, or even as strong, means you need to "cheat"; outthink them, roleplay your way through instead of rollplay. In other words, rely on luck and your wits to survive.

 

The fun comes from character interaction, thinking up such clever plots to outwit everyone else with, and being outwitted in return. It's not, strictly speaking, an anti-gamist philosophy, because it doesn't focus on losing instead of winning as the prerequisite of fun; it simply isolates the "fun" from the prospect of winning or losing, and lets you enjoy the ride either way.

 

And if the primary concern of the PCs in the game is finding food and shelter in order to survive' date=' then I can't see them caring much about police-work -- or anything else for that matter! In the sort of gritty, tooth-and-nail struggle for survival that you've set up, nothing matters but food/shelter/survival considerations. The PCs won't have the [i']luxury[/i] of doing anything but trying to survive.

 

Good food spoils and they don't have a permanent residence. But food and shelter are relatively easy to barter for, leaving plenty of leisure time for trying to improve their lot in life, or just socializing with others if that's what they desire. It's not a "gritty, tooth-and-nail" struggle, so much as a utopian paradise that simply happens to include a lot of nomadic types - such as your PC's. The goals of food and survival take such prominence in the campaign because they are recurring - every day can be a new quest for these essential elements (or another night spent sleeping in the cold).