Historical Earth or Fictional World?

[bluesguy]

I use the Valdorian Age - which I have modified/expanded and played with.

I find the Valdorian Age easily lends itself to an almost post-apocalyptic tone. The great magic empires and the wonders they created are long gone' date=' with crumbling ruins scattered about to mark their passing. The warped and degenerate remnants of the non-human races are barely clinging to isolated enclaves. Civilization is almost divided up into islands surrounded by savages and wilderness. The very structures of social order seem to be crumbling.[/quote']

 

You described the situation very well. We have been playing for +2 years and here is the entire list of 'monsters' they have run into: skeletons/zombies, carrion crawler, Uruk-hai, trolls, and a friendly shambling mound (after the druid talked to it). Their human opponents have ranged from assassins, to spartan styled warriors, bandits, thieves, nobles with lots of political pull, a serial killer, a wizard (dead), a sorcerer (dead), and two necromancers (one dead and one not).

 

What I love is every time the characters run into a monster - even something they have seen before (skeletons/zombies), the players role play up the fact that these creatures are something out of legends.

 

And when they run into magic they 2x freak out, especially three of the characters who are from Valdoria - because Valdorians hate magic.

 

 

Those of you who like to design your own settings' date=' do you ever create female-dominant cultures to help balance out the patriarchal societies? Or do you prefer to just equalize the genders generally?[/quote']

 

The way I handled it was to make the Cynthians a matriarchal society where the high priestess/druid passed on her mantle of power to the most power young priestess/druid within each tribe. There are war chiefs during times of raids/wars (which can be men or women) and direct the raids/wars - it is always the high priestess who is the final 'decider'.

 

It is a good balance against the Valdorian culture which I am running like a medieval/feudal system where women are not generally regarded as equal to men.

[Orion]

I generally prefer to play in a fictional setting where the gods are real and manifest themselves on occasion at the Thieves World level, and magic is known, but uncommon and low powered. I would be willing to run or play in a straight historic campaign, but have never met anyone else that was interested. If I were running one, I'd probably choose lesser known periods in time, such as early Babylonian or Sumerian, the Sea peoples raiding Egypt, or northern Europe a little after the Roman Empire collapsed. I'd stay away from anything later than 1200 AD. Since I prefer very detailed settings, I am more likely to pick an existing one and further detail and/or modify small section of it, rather than create my own.

 

If doing a historic setting, or one emulating a certain time period, I keep with the various social mores and rules of that time. I don't consider the PCs to be the special snowflakes or the exceptions to the rules, and expect them to have characters that would fit into the norm. Depending on the setting, the race. religion, or sex of the character may limit opportunities. I refuse to put 21st century sensibilities into a historic setting. To me, keeping to the historic norms is part of the interest in playing within it. If someone just absolutely has to have something that doesn't fit, these days I'd just run a different campaign in which it was okay.

[Lord Liaden]

I generally prefer to play in a fictional setting where the gods are real and manifest themselves on occasion at the Thieves World level, and magic is known, but uncommon and low powered. I would be willing to run or play in a straight historic campaign, but have never met anyone else that was interested. If I were running one, I'd probably choose lesser known periods in time, such as early Babylonian or Sumerian, the Sea peoples raiding Egypt, or northern Europe a little after the Roman Empire collapsed. I'd stay away from anything later than 1200 AD. Since I prefer very detailed settings, I am more likely to pick an existing one and further detail and/or modify small section of it, rather than create my own.

 

If doing a historic setting, or one emulating a certain time period, I keep with the various social mores and rules of that time. I don't consider the PCs to be the special snowflakes or the exceptions to the rules, and expect them to have characters that would fit into the norm. Depending on the setting, the race. religion, or sex of the character may limit opportunities. I refuse to put 21st century sensibilities into a historic setting. To me, keeping to the historic norms is part of the interest in playing within it. If someone just absolutely has to have something that doesn't fit, these days I'd just run a different campaign in which it was okay.

Based on your stated preferences, I would highly recommend Testament for the D20 system, by our community's own Scott Bennie. It translates the Bronze and Iron Age Middle East as depicted in the Bible's Old Testament into gaming terms, with much regional historical and cultural information, but including the magic and miracles. Read about it here

[Nolgroth]

I generally prefer to play in a fictional setting where the gods are real and manifest themselves on occasion at the Thieves World level, and magic is known, but uncommon and low powered. I would be willing to run or play in a straight historic campaign, but have never met anyone else that was interested. If I were running one, I'd probably choose lesser known periods in time, such as early Babylonian or Sumerian, the Sea peoples raiding Egypt, or northern Europe a little after the Roman Empire collapsed. I'd stay away from anything later than 1200 AD. Since I prefer very detailed settings, I am more likely to pick an existing one and further detail and/or modify small section of it, rather than create my own.

 

If doing a historic setting, or one emulating a certain time period, I keep with the various social mores and rules of that time. I don't consider the PCs to be the special snowflakes or the exceptions to the rules, and expect them to have characters that would fit into the norm. Depending on the setting, the race. religion, or sex of the character may limit opportunities. I refuse to put 21st century sensibilities into a historic setting. To me, keeping to the historic norms is part of the interest in playing within it. If someone just absolutely has to have something that doesn't fit, these days I'd just run a different campaign in which it was okay.

How come I'm just reading about this? Where was I when this was released? It looks like Amazon only has copies from outside sources. Is this book published in PDF format anywhere?

[Steve]

I generally prefer to play in a fictional setting where the gods are real and manifest themselves on occasion at the Thieves World level, and magic is known, but uncommon and low powered. I would be willing to run or play in a straight historic campaign, but have never met anyone else that was interested. If I were running one, I'd probably choose lesser known periods in time, such as early Babylonian or Sumerian, the Sea peoples raiding Egypt, or northern Europe a little after the Roman Empire collapsed. I'd stay away from anything later than 1200 AD. Since I prefer very detailed settings, I am more likely to pick an existing one and further detail and/or modify small section of it, rather than create my own.

 

If doing a historic setting, or one emulating a certain time period, I keep with the various social mores and rules of that time. I don't consider the PCs to be the special snowflakes or the exceptions to the rules, and expect them to have characters that would fit into the norm. Depending on the setting, the race. religion, or sex of the character may limit opportunities. I refuse to put 21st century sensibilities into a historic setting. To me, keeping to the historic norms is part of the interest in playing within it. If someone just absolutely has to have something that doesn't fit, these days I'd just run a different campaign in which it was okay.

You can find it at drivethrurpg.com in PDF form. There is also a supplement for the Hittites, I believe.

[Lord Liaden]

I generally prefer to play in a fictional setting where the gods are real and manifest themselves on occasion at the Thieves World level, and magic is known, but uncommon and low powered. I would be willing to run or play in a straight historic campaign, but have never met anyone else that was interested. If I were running one, I'd probably choose lesser known periods in time, such as early Babylonian or Sumerian, the Sea peoples raiding Egypt, or northern Europe a little after the Roman Empire collapsed. I'd stay away from anything later than 1200 AD. Since I prefer very detailed settings, I am more likely to pick an existing one and further detail and/or modify small section of it, rather than create my own.

 

If doing a historic setting, or one emulating a certain time period, I keep with the various social mores and rules of that time. I don't consider the PCs to be the special snowflakes or the exceptions to the rules, and expect them to have characters that would fit into the norm. Depending on the setting, the race. religion, or sex of the character may limit opportunities. I refuse to put 21st century sensibilities into a historic setting. To me, keeping to the historic norms is part of the interest in playing within it. If someone just absolutely has to have something that doesn't fit, these days I'd just run a different campaign in which it was okay.

Green Ronin's own online store has a PDF of Testament for sale: http://www.greenronin.com/store/product/grr1019e.html

 

And here's The Hittites supplement on RPGNow: http://www.rpgnow.com/product/19208/Testament%3A-The-Hittites?term=testament+hittites&it=1

[Nolgroth]

Thanks. An initial Google search did not show such handy details. Something to look forward to for an upcoming game/mini-campaign that I am planning.

[Lord Liaden]

One thing that does annoy me about many fictional game settings, is that the designers seem to be either ignorant or dismissive of real-world geography. Settings such as Talislanta or D&D's Mystara cram an unbelievable variety of climates and ecosystems into far too small a space, or else create simplified macro-environments like continents that are primarily forest or desert; and later try to justify these things using weird magical phenomena. I think that the Greyhawk setting is one of the most credible in its balance of diversity to area, probably because it was inspired by and patterned after real medieval Europe and the Middle East.

[Nolgroth]

One thing that does annoy me about many fictional game settings, is that the designers seem to be either ignorant or dismissive of real-world geography. Settings such as Talislanta or D&D's Mystara cram an unbelievable variety of climates and ecosystems into far too small a space, or else create simplified macro-environments like continents that are primarily forest or desert; and later try to justify these things using weird magical phenomena. I think that the Greyhawk setting is one of the most credible in its balance of diversity to area, probably because it was inspired by and patterned after real medieval Europe and the Middle East.

That does not bother me nearly that much. California has just about every terrain and climate type except for tundra (or so I've been told) and it is a relatively small area, geographically speaking. The one-climate continent is a little on the annoying side though.

 

I like Greyhawk, but sometimes having an implausible world filled with magical terrain features is just what the imagination doctor ordered.

[Michael Hopcroft]

One thing that does annoy me about many fictional game settings, is that the designers seem to be either ignorant or dismissive of real-world geography. Settings such as Talislanta or D&D's Mystara cram an unbelievable variety of climates and ecosystems into far too small a space, or else create simplified macro-environments like continents that are primarily forest or desert; and later try to justify these things using weird magical phenomena. I think that the Greyhawk setting is one of the most credible in its balance of diversity to area, probably because it was inspired by and patterned after real medieval Europe and the Middle East.

Sci-Fi has the same problem with one-climate planets. Most of the planets in the original Star Wars trilogy are like that -- Hoth is ALL tundra and continual blizzard, Endor is completely covered by forestland, Tatooine is all desert, etc. In reality, Hoth and Tatooine would not be capable of supporting life at all.

 

And don't get me started on Arrakis....

[Markdoc]

People might say that California has pretty much every kind of terrain, but they'd be totally and utterly wrong. I lived there for years and travelled to pretty much every corner of the state, and it has about what you'd expect: a Mediterranean climate on the coastal side of the mountains, shading off to desert on the landward side. I can attest from personal experience that it's got about as much climactic variation as Greece or Italy - and indeed of much the same kind, plus a bit of desert, all packed into ... a larger area.

 

To be honest, people say the same thing of New Zealand: "It's like the whole world packed into one country!" But really, it isn't. It has about the same range of environments as California (not the same ones, though), or for that matter, France.

 

So I agree with the criticism. I think realistic geography helps, not just to get a feeling of verisimilitude, but because unrealistic geography says to me that the creators of the game world really didn't think about the setting very much - either that, or they're just not good at it. In either case, why would I be interested?

 

It's more than just nit-picking: if the game is going to be more than just hack n' slash, the setting plays an important role.

 

As an example, in a D20 game from a few years ago, we turned up (as starting adventurers) in some podunk village. Our role (as it turned out ) was to defeat a band of marauding goblins - pretty standard intro stuff: a bunch of strangers have to band together to survive, etc - but on arrival, my wife (who was new to roleplaying) was all fired up to investigate the "mysterious village" - I mean, it was on no major trade route, was almost unknown, but it had three big spacious, stone built inns! Who were they intended to house? It had masses of big, expensive houses. The locals all pretended to be poor farmers, but then how come they lived in these mansions? Who built the expensive fortifications? Where were the military who must obviously man such an important outpost? etc. She was actually kind of deflated, when everyone else assured her it was just a village. That it wasn't really intended to make any kind of sense. As it turned out, that was pretty indicative: our characters spent most of the rest of their brief lives under a major city in an extensive sewer system that housed all kinds of nightmare creatures, killing thing and every few days retreating upstairs to rest and sell the loot garnered. It's also indicative that all of the group refers to places in that game as "that village with the goblins" and "that big city" etc., because none of them were places, as such. They were just very loosely sketched concepts.

 

Contrast that with last weekend's game. The players refer to places by their proper names (well, many of them ). They refer to people who live in those places by their proper names not "that one old guy from the village where we fought some goblins" Last game we had a hard choice and I clinched the argument by referring to prophecy we had heard 3 years back (game time) and about 4 years (real time): everyone still remembered it. It's still a D20 game world, and it still makes little sense economically (podunk nowhere towns still have big inns ) but at least by attempting to inject some basic design sense, it engages the players much more deeply.

 

cheers, Mark

[Old Man]

One thing that does annoy me about many fictional game settings, is that the designers seem to be either ignorant or dismissive of real-world geography. Settings such as Talislanta or D&D's Mystara cram an unbelievable variety of climates and ecosystems into far too small a space, or else create simplified macro-environments like continents that are primarily forest or desert; and later try to justify these things using weird magical phenomena. I think that the Greyhawk setting is one of the most credible in its balance of diversity to area, probably because it was inspired by and patterned after real medieval Europe and the Middle East.

YMMV. My daily commute takes me through a (former) swamp, temperate rainforest, rocky desert, and beach sand dunes. If I were a few hundred miles southeast I could add high altitude snowy mountains, coniferous forests, and barren fields of hardened lava. I don't think this place would even fill a Greyhawk hex.

[Markdoc]

One thing that does annoy me about many fictional game settings, is that the designers seem to be either ignorant or dismissive of real-world geography. Settings such as Talislanta or D&D's Mystara cram an unbelievable variety of climates and ecosystems into far too small a space, or else create simplified macro-environments like continents that are primarily forest or desert; and later try to justify these things using weird magical phenomena. I think that the Greyhawk setting is one of the most credible in its balance of diversity to area, probably because it was inspired by and patterned after real medieval Europe and the Middle East.

Sure - but there's a huge difference between a mountain environment in a tropical, temperate or northern region (there's even a difference in what constitutes a mountain environment at different latitudes). Beach sand dunes? Even though you can get some whopping big beach dune areas, the largest of those barely qualifies as an ecosystem (sure it does for bugs, small mammals and microbes, but we're talking "large enough to sustain things the PCs will interact with")

 

Lord Liaden has a point. A beach - even a good beach with swimming - and a snowy mountain can both exist within an easy drive of each other, but that does not create a pair of climates or environments capable of sustaining wholly different cultures and life forms (or at least it doesn't on Earth). I think the confusion between terrain and climate is maybe what caused some games to have stuff all mashed together really close without any thought of how they interact with each other. That's why I said that California has the same range of climates as Greece - which also has sunny beaches, thick woods and snowcapped mountains - plus desert (Greece has bare dry rocky places where almost nothing grows, but nothing big enough to be called a desert).

 

It cuts both ways: there's no reason for "the Desert Kingdom" not to have snowy mountains or lush jungles within its boundaries (as well as plenty of desert), but typically the RPG desert kingdom is all-desert, all the time. Of course, the jungle kingdom, is all jungle, all the time, and sometimes they're right next to each other, with no intervening environmental zones. Doesn't that strike you as odd?

 

What's really odd, is that it's so unnecessary: I've never encountered a game world that mandated the world be physically small outside an on-line MMORPG (there it obviously has to be small enough to cross in real-time, if you don't utilize portals, etc. I can't see people paying a monthly fee to spend months crossing the steppes, for example). Why not space things out?

 

Of course, if you want weird magical terrain, that's a whole 'nother ball game. Indeed, in our current D20 game, we've just about reached the point where the PCs can start to create their own small universes (something that apparently caught our GM off guard: it seems that she's never had PCs want to do that before). But heck, if you could make your own private universe, who wouldn't? But that's not the problem here.

 

Of course, the same thought patterns (or lack of thought patterns) that goes into fantasy geography also goes into fantasy cultures, with the same results. You get monolithic cultures spanning huge areas, which abruptly cut over into totally different cultures sitting right alongside. All very strange.

 

cheers, Mark

[Lord Liaden]

I bow before the eloquence of the Markdoc.

 

Oerth, the world of Greyhawk, was my introduction to game-world design on this scale with this kind of thoughtfulness, and made me appreciate how that can make a fictional world seem more real, and characters based in it feel grounded and rounded. The land and environment have both a rational consistency and random diversity that feels like the world I know. "Humans" are not just generic, but have different ethnicities with their own languages and cultures, and a history explaining why they ended up where they are and how they are. The various demihumans and humanoids are, unfortunately, the usual uniform cliches, but at least they aren't all shoved into their own singular corners of the world. They're spread throughout, and the major races have more than one nation in which they're the dominant population, interacting politically and economically with the realms around them.

[CrosshairCollie]

Yeah, for me, that falls into the category of 'more detail than I really need to enjoy a game'.