So while I just mentioned that part of LL rules system is that all clerics have the same spells, and while the most current version of D&D comes close to that (saved by feats that give access to special prayers based on the god you pick), most fantasy systems usually give each cleric some difference depending on the god they follow.
So, the thought just popped into my head, do we add a new rules system that give clerics something extra based on their worship? And if not, how do you explain, in universe, why all clerics have access to the same spells, regardless of the deity they swear fealty too.
Hmmm, something to ponder
Thursday, April 8, 2010
On: Rules System: Why Labyrinth Lord, Why Any Rules?
When you go about making a setting, usually you have a rules system in mind when making it, often one you're currently playing. And while this is partially the case for the remake of Deminar, it's quite a simple question to ask, "Why build the setting for any one rules system at all?"
While making it for a specific rules set means it's easy for a group using that system to just pick up the product and use it, you could potentially reach a wider audience with no rules in place at all. After all, we could easily populate the map, point out towns and say "Mostly humans live here, along with some elves (we're not using elves, but stay with me)," and let people take their favorite fantasy rules system, and put humans and elves stats there no problem. We can say "there are goblin tribes in those hills," and you can easily find goblin stats (of probably equivalent challenge across multiple systems) in every fantasy game.
So why choose a system? Well, for me, I think a rule system is actually the first step in setting the tone of setting. Hiding in every rules set is a sense of how the "default setting" works, even if the rules have no Proper Names anywhere in it. There's an implication on how things work within the very rules themselves.
If we were to design this for 4th Edition, there's a huge feel of the setting that changes, 4th edition has characters on par with superheroes, wizards can cast magic as often as they want, and there is a huge variety of PC species to choose from that all live and work together. LL and it's roots in B/X are quite different, characters require a lot of adventuring before they rise up to superhero level, all clerics have the same spells, magic is rare and it is hard to cast more then a few at a time. There are comparatively fewer races and they don't all mesh together in the same town.
While our setting could work in 4th edition, or indeed any fantasy game, the gritty low magic undercurrents that we want to establish, the large vast dangerous sky the separates nations, these things work best with LL. So the question becomes, did we start to build the setting this way because of LL or did LL come along and fit so nicely into how we want to build our setting?
While making it for a specific rules set means it's easy for a group using that system to just pick up the product and use it, you could potentially reach a wider audience with no rules in place at all. After all, we could easily populate the map, point out towns and say "Mostly humans live here, along with some elves (we're not using elves, but stay with me)," and let people take their favorite fantasy rules system, and put humans and elves stats there no problem. We can say "there are goblin tribes in those hills," and you can easily find goblin stats (of probably equivalent challenge across multiple systems) in every fantasy game.
So why choose a system? Well, for me, I think a rule system is actually the first step in setting the tone of setting. Hiding in every rules set is a sense of how the "default setting" works, even if the rules have no Proper Names anywhere in it. There's an implication on how things work within the very rules themselves.
If we were to design this for 4th Edition, there's a huge feel of the setting that changes, 4th edition has characters on par with superheroes, wizards can cast magic as often as they want, and there is a huge variety of PC species to choose from that all live and work together. LL and it's roots in B/X are quite different, characters require a lot of adventuring before they rise up to superhero level, all clerics have the same spells, magic is rare and it is hard to cast more then a few at a time. There are comparatively fewer races and they don't all mesh together in the same town.
While our setting could work in 4th edition, or indeed any fantasy game, the gritty low magic undercurrents that we want to establish, the large vast dangerous sky the separates nations, these things work best with LL. So the question becomes, did we start to build the setting this way because of LL or did LL come along and fit so nicely into how we want to build our setting?
Monday, April 5, 2010
Musing: Species Pt. 2 or Why the Humans Must Prevail
So can you make a fantasy world without fantasy staples?
Yes, I think so, with one small "but" edged in there.
I for one don't really think I want elves or dwarves in Deminar, unless we do something to radically alter their culture. Not because I *hate* either species like some people who like fantasy do (I know plenty of pretentious geeks who feel they're somehow "above" other geeks because they think elves are overplayed and don't like them), but because I want something a little different in the setting. What will effectively replace them? Possibly another species with a culture tweak, or possibly nothing at all, with the new Player Species being nothing like Dwarves or Elves.
Will people still want to play it? Sure, I think so, some might be miffed and never want to wander into our sandbox because they like a particular species, but I know plenty of fantasy worlds that don't have iconic species, friendly or hostile (Dragonlance never had Orcs, and technically never had halflings, but they really did), and still did just fine. However, I think you can't eliminate one particular species without really making the game difficult to into. And that's the plain ol' vanilla humans.
Humans are essential to getting players, because, no matter how exotic some players want to go, it's really hard to play anything but a human properly, so it's always a good staple to fall back on.
Let's honestly look at Elves for a second, in their Tolkien style, like most FRPGs use, these guys live for hundreds of years, magic comes to them naturally, and they have a fey quality about them. How does anyone truly embrace that mindset? I've DMed with a good number of players, many who have played elves, and while some were great roleplayers they weren't truly thinking like someone who was two hundred years old and who magic comes as naturally to them as speaking does to us. Why? Because it's impossible to do. If anything, we're playing humans with slightly elven nods, even myself as DM, you can't play such an alien mindset, and if you tried to force everyone too, they wouldn't have fun anymore and taking fun from players is the harshest sin a DM can commit.
So I believe that you have to have atleast the human option available (unless you're going for a very specific genre, like say a *shudder* anthro game), especially if you want to have a game a DM can use to attract new players. People new to RPGs tend to either pick the weirdest available species or fall back on being human because if you're going to act like someone, human is the easiest to do.
So, yes, there will be humans in Deminar. I already said I don't want half-breeds, but will any of the other "standards" make it in? Will there be Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings? Probably not all of them, and some that do make it, might not be completely recognizable (see Dragonlance Kender or Dark Sun Elves), but you'll see humans.
Yes, I think so, with one small "but" edged in there.
I for one don't really think I want elves or dwarves in Deminar, unless we do something to radically alter their culture. Not because I *hate* either species like some people who like fantasy do (I know plenty of pretentious geeks who feel they're somehow "above" other geeks because they think elves are overplayed and don't like them), but because I want something a little different in the setting. What will effectively replace them? Possibly another species with a culture tweak, or possibly nothing at all, with the new Player Species being nothing like Dwarves or Elves.
Will people still want to play it? Sure, I think so, some might be miffed and never want to wander into our sandbox because they like a particular species, but I know plenty of fantasy worlds that don't have iconic species, friendly or hostile (Dragonlance never had Orcs, and technically never had halflings, but they really did), and still did just fine. However, I think you can't eliminate one particular species without really making the game difficult to into. And that's the plain ol' vanilla humans.
Humans are essential to getting players, because, no matter how exotic some players want to go, it's really hard to play anything but a human properly, so it's always a good staple to fall back on.
Let's honestly look at Elves for a second, in their Tolkien style, like most FRPGs use, these guys live for hundreds of years, magic comes to them naturally, and they have a fey quality about them. How does anyone truly embrace that mindset? I've DMed with a good number of players, many who have played elves, and while some were great roleplayers they weren't truly thinking like someone who was two hundred years old and who magic comes as naturally to them as speaking does to us. Why? Because it's impossible to do. If anything, we're playing humans with slightly elven nods, even myself as DM, you can't play such an alien mindset, and if you tried to force everyone too, they wouldn't have fun anymore and taking fun from players is the harshest sin a DM can commit.
So I believe that you have to have atleast the human option available (unless you're going for a very specific genre, like say a *shudder* anthro game), especially if you want to have a game a DM can use to attract new players. People new to RPGs tend to either pick the weirdest available species or fall back on being human because if you're going to act like someone, human is the easiest to do.
So, yes, there will be humans in Deminar. I already said I don't want half-breeds, but will any of the other "standards" make it in? Will there be Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings? Probably not all of them, and some that do make it, might not be completely recognizable (see Dragonlance Kender or Dark Sun Elves), but you'll see humans.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Musing: Races... I mean species, damnit, species!
The next few steps in our Design project involves placing the various towns, hamlets, towers, ruins, and lairs that make up any good fantasy land, basically places where the "friendly races" and "hostile monsters" hang out for the PCs to interact with. So, naturally that has me thinking about what creatures are going to show up not only our first area, but the world as a whole.
Firstly, we need to stop saying "Races," they're not races, they're species, they're biological different from one another, a race is a subtype of a species, so we'll be calling them species from now on.
The easiest thing to do is use the "player races" presented in the AEC as the friendly species, after all, then everyone can just pick up the AEC and decide what "race" they want to play and start making a character. However, that brings up some problems, one of which is that it can kill the uniqueness of your setting.
Also, one of tagline of Omniscient Projects is "A Little Reality in a Fantasy Setting," which may sound like an oxymoron, but hear me out. Sean and I are detail people and we don't like to settle with "because we said so," when we can take things apart and see how they work from the inside. Because of that, we tend to design stuff under the philosophy of having to have a plausible reason why it's there and doing what it's doing (granted the plausible reason can involve fantasy elements like magic and other plans, but there's still a reason).
I mention this because I have to call out one of my biggest dislikes in terms of species, half-breeds. The Half-Elf and Half-Orc just don't make sense! First of all, they're elves and orcs are separate species from humans, so genetically, it's impossible. And why does the mix only work with elves and humans and orcs and humans, why not halflings and orcs or dwarves and gnomes or humans and halflings? Also, if you argue that, maybe in the setting Orcs and Elves are distant offshoots of humanity (or the other way around), why do they breed true? When you normally get two similar species to mate, you normally end up with a sterile offshoot (like a mule), so why is it, half-elves and half-orcs exist (especially cause in most D&D settings, they're not related to humans at all, elves are fey for crying out loud)? So, for me, half-breed species are right out.
Now, I talked about making a setting unique, and one thought that tends to go through a designer's head is to take out all the standard fantasy troupes to really stand out. No humans, elves, dwarves, or anything, instead all weird creatures are the PCs, Lamia, Sphinx, Newly Made Up Crystal Thing, Three-Headed Sloth Species, etc. This can actually hurt you, more so then help you stand out, remember, there are certain elements of fantasy that are expected by an audience, you go too far out there, and you potentially scare people off. RPers have been playing elves and dwarves and halflings for decades now, to completely leave out all of them (or worse still, humans, the easies species to pick cause they're, well, us), and people don't want to give it a try because they don't want to learn how to play a brand new species.
So balance is key, we want to mix up a lot of elements to make the world unique, but we don't want to go so strange that no one wants to give us a shot. A good way to do that is to make familiar friendly species different a bit in culture but retain their core being, or pick a fairly common monster and make it a friendly species.
Of course, the more entirely new species you decide to use, the more new rules you have to write up and try to mesh into the rules already in place.
As of now, we haven't written off the final selection of either the playable species or even which ones exist as monsters. But, atleast you can see where the thought behind our choices is.
Firstly, we need to stop saying "Races," they're not races, they're species, they're biological different from one another, a race is a subtype of a species, so we'll be calling them species from now on.
The easiest thing to do is use the "player races" presented in the AEC as the friendly species, after all, then everyone can just pick up the AEC and decide what "race" they want to play and start making a character. However, that brings up some problems, one of which is that it can kill the uniqueness of your setting.
Also, one of tagline of Omniscient Projects is "A Little Reality in a Fantasy Setting," which may sound like an oxymoron, but hear me out. Sean and I are detail people and we don't like to settle with "because we said so," when we can take things apart and see how they work from the inside. Because of that, we tend to design stuff under the philosophy of having to have a plausible reason why it's there and doing what it's doing (granted the plausible reason can involve fantasy elements like magic and other plans, but there's still a reason).
I mention this because I have to call out one of my biggest dislikes in terms of species, half-breeds. The Half-Elf and Half-Orc just don't make sense! First of all, they're elves and orcs are separate species from humans, so genetically, it's impossible. And why does the mix only work with elves and humans and orcs and humans, why not halflings and orcs or dwarves and gnomes or humans and halflings? Also, if you argue that, maybe in the setting Orcs and Elves are distant offshoots of humanity (or the other way around), why do they breed true? When you normally get two similar species to mate, you normally end up with a sterile offshoot (like a mule), so why is it, half-elves and half-orcs exist (especially cause in most D&D settings, they're not related to humans at all, elves are fey for crying out loud)? So, for me, half-breed species are right out.
Now, I talked about making a setting unique, and one thought that tends to go through a designer's head is to take out all the standard fantasy troupes to really stand out. No humans, elves, dwarves, or anything, instead all weird creatures are the PCs, Lamia, Sphinx, Newly Made Up Crystal Thing, Three-Headed Sloth Species, etc. This can actually hurt you, more so then help you stand out, remember, there are certain elements of fantasy that are expected by an audience, you go too far out there, and you potentially scare people off. RPers have been playing elves and dwarves and halflings for decades now, to completely leave out all of them (or worse still, humans, the easies species to pick cause they're, well, us), and people don't want to give it a try because they don't want to learn how to play a brand new species.
So balance is key, we want to mix up a lot of elements to make the world unique, but we don't want to go so strange that no one wants to give us a shot. A good way to do that is to make familiar friendly species different a bit in culture but retain their core being, or pick a fairly common monster and make it a friendly species.
Of course, the more entirely new species you decide to use, the more new rules you have to write up and try to mesh into the rules already in place.
As of now, we haven't written off the final selection of either the playable species or even which ones exist as monsters. But, atleast you can see where the thought behind our choices is.
Building a Fantasy Sandbox: Steps 7-10: Seriously This Time!
Okay, so now we have the basic layout of an area 150X200 miles, so, what's next?
7. Draw in mountains
Easy enough, we already said we wanted a volcano on the one "lair" island, and I pictured the lower island with a huge peak, with a lake below it, that had a river that tumbled off the edge as a waterfall down towards the surface, so I want atleast a mountain there too.
Here's what we come up with:
We put some mountains on the upper edge of the big island and at that point decide that the upper island actually broke off from the big one, so naturally the mountain range continues onto that island too. So I added the range for continuity and finish off Step 7.
8. Draw in rivers
9. Draw in hills using them to divide the region into distinct river valley
Again, I know I want that lake with the river, and I figure there needs to be atleast a water source on the big island as well. In my original cruddy paint sketch I drew the island in the upper left as having mostly hilly terrain with a river that comes from one hill and disappears into another, a good way to hint at a small underground network below the hills.
Once again, I start adding stuff:
Moving along pretty good now. What's next?
10. Draw in vegetation (swamps, forests, desert, etc)
Last but not least, forest, the desert I already did because I knew that was a whole island in of itself.
So I start plopping down trees:
As you can see the entire lower island and the non mountainous upper island are entirely woods, that means they're not settled human style yet (but that doesn't mean they're not yet settled) At the very least, the lower island makes for a good spot for the big island settlers to get lumber. The bit empty on the large island will be farmland, areas where the humans cleared out space so they could make food.
So that wraps that up, next up will be adding the places where living things... uh, live.
Of course, first we have to decide what living things exist on our world.
7. Draw in mountains
Easy enough, we already said we wanted a volcano on the one "lair" island, and I pictured the lower island with a huge peak, with a lake below it, that had a river that tumbled off the edge as a waterfall down towards the surface, so I want atleast a mountain there too.
Here's what we come up with:
We put some mountains on the upper edge of the big island and at that point decide that the upper island actually broke off from the big one, so naturally the mountain range continues onto that island too. So I added the range for continuity and finish off Step 7.
8. Draw in rivers
9. Draw in hills using them to divide the region into distinct river valley
Again, I know I want that lake with the river, and I figure there needs to be atleast a water source on the big island as well. In my original cruddy paint sketch I drew the island in the upper left as having mostly hilly terrain with a river that comes from one hill and disappears into another, a good way to hint at a small underground network below the hills.
Once again, I start adding stuff:
Moving along pretty good now. What's next?
10. Draw in vegetation (swamps, forests, desert, etc)
Last but not least, forest, the desert I already did because I knew that was a whole island in of itself.
So I start plopping down trees:
As you can see the entire lower island and the non mountainous upper island are entirely woods, that means they're not settled human style yet (but that doesn't mean they're not yet settled) At the very least, the lower island makes for a good spot for the big island settlers to get lumber. The bit empty on the large island will be farmland, areas where the humans cleared out space so they could make food.
So that wraps that up, next up will be adding the places where living things... uh, live.
Of course, first we have to decide what living things exist on our world.
Musing: Flying Mounts
So airships are very prevalent, a form of almost parallel technological evolution throughout the scattered island nations, and while their form and function vary to a degree, they are everywhere.
But why did I not discuss flying mounts? Surely there are lots of flying mounts in fantasy worlds, from wyvern to griffons, pegasus to perytons, the list goes on and on. And while I'm sure there are many places that use them, they don't hold the same impact as airships, for several reasons:
1. Transport Size: A flying mount can only carry a few people, airships can be made to be massive, transporting soldiers, passengers, and cargo across the skies.
2. Safety: Floating Rock airships are relatively safe, whatever is keeping the stone afloat, it does so no matter what you do to it, there hasn't been a case of an airship just falling out of the sky for no reason. Flying mounts are not nearly as safe, even raised from a hatchling they're still wild animals and aren't 100% predictable and simply not enough time has passed to domestic any of them.
3. Practicality: Training a mount takes time, you have to raise it, teach it, reinforce your teaching. You also have to feed it, keep it healthy, breed it or find new eggs/young to keep the cycle going, on the flip side, floating rock is everything and doesn't need anything but space.
So flying mounts are more of a specialty item, nobles will ride them when they want to show off, knightly orders may use them like the knights of old did with horses on the ground, some might even be used like draft animals to pull airships along, but there aren't huge queues of transport flying mounts about in the world and certainly not WoW style mount outposts where someone will just throw you on the back of a flying mount and it will always go the EXACT same way to the EXACT same destination (and both magically disappear and reappear at each area to save on a mounting/dismounting animation)
But why did I not discuss flying mounts? Surely there are lots of flying mounts in fantasy worlds, from wyvern to griffons, pegasus to perytons, the list goes on and on. And while I'm sure there are many places that use them, they don't hold the same impact as airships, for several reasons:
1. Transport Size: A flying mount can only carry a few people, airships can be made to be massive, transporting soldiers, passengers, and cargo across the skies.
2. Safety: Floating Rock airships are relatively safe, whatever is keeping the stone afloat, it does so no matter what you do to it, there hasn't been a case of an airship just falling out of the sky for no reason. Flying mounts are not nearly as safe, even raised from a hatchling they're still wild animals and aren't 100% predictable and simply not enough time has passed to domestic any of them.
3. Practicality: Training a mount takes time, you have to raise it, teach it, reinforce your teaching. You also have to feed it, keep it healthy, breed it or find new eggs/young to keep the cycle going, on the flip side, floating rock is everything and doesn't need anything but space.
So flying mounts are more of a specialty item, nobles will ride them when they want to show off, knightly orders may use them like the knights of old did with horses on the ground, some might even be used like draft animals to pull airships along, but there aren't huge queues of transport flying mounts about in the world and certainly not WoW style mount outposts where someone will just throw you on the back of a flying mount and it will always go the EXACT same way to the EXACT same destination (and both magically disappear and reappear at each area to save on a mounting/dismounting animation)
Friday, April 2, 2010
Building a Fantasy Sandbox: Steps 5 and 6 - Almost
Let's move along, basically this is the start of where we'll be restarting again and again as we make more and more islands and clusters and build our world.
5. Grab a 8.5 by 11 sheet of hex paper.
Well, I'll be using a computer mapping program and I won't be overlaying the hex until after putting down all the cool terrain features, but, okay, got one!
6. The scale should be so that it represents a 200 by 150 mile region
Okay, so, the most important thing about picking your "opening" region is that it needs to both facilitate low level play and call out what makes your setting so different from the millions of others. A task that's not as easy as it sounds, as a lot of settings comes up with cool things, but those things would only be something a high level character could ever interact with.
For us, we wanted to do a "starting hub" cluster of islands. We have an idea of doing atleast one large "Super Island" that is bigger then the 200X150 mile range, but taking a chunk out of that to start would disguise the fact that the world is floating islands.
On the other hand, just dropping a bunch of floating islands with a few small towns and a cave or two of kobolds would just take your standard "Medieval Europe with some Mystical Monsters," and put them up on islands, and still not be unique.
In the end we wanted to hit a few key ideas:
1. Have a central "safe house" island that has atleast one town advanced enough to show both our swashbuckling airship elements and basic steampunk elements.
2. Have sister islands to show how island communities have used technology to connect islands to one another (cable cars!) but make them unique (visually at the very least) from the central island.
3. Have atleast one "lair" island, that is the main baddie area for the PCs to go off and kill things to liberate this cluster from fear of attack.
In the end, we came up with this:
The island is the center will be the main starter island of the area, within it's "harbor" will rest a steampunk advanced town that features airship docks and plenty of story hooks. The island will not feature any full size lair or dungeon, but there will be small threats that need to be quelled.
The islands below are sister islands, each settled and connected to the main island through a variety of magical and steampunk ways, they'll feature something unique about them to make them a change of pace for characters who travel there.
The two small rocky islands off the tips of the central harbor will pulled in to house dock security, currently I picture large towers with a huge ballista and other anti-ship weapons purchased on rocky landscape.
The islands two the right are going to act as our lairs and main baddie islands. Each will have atleast one full size dungeon, and they overlap because the one with the standard grassy terrain is actually floating above the desert one. The desert one is there for variety, drifting into this cluster thousands of years ago.
We haven't fully fleshed out what will be on the upper islands yet, mad druids, evil undead, ancient ruins? We'll figure that out as we go, we just wanted to have more options available.
So, you can see, everything low level characters need are within one convenient 150X200 mile area, places to shop and learn, places to delve and kill, and places to explore and discover. Eventually they'll be leveled enough to want to ply the skies with their own airship, at which point, a whole new cluster or isle will be ready to be made.
5. Grab a 8.5 by 11 sheet of hex paper.
Well, I'll be using a computer mapping program and I won't be overlaying the hex until after putting down all the cool terrain features, but, okay, got one!
6. The scale should be so that it represents a 200 by 150 mile region
Okay, so, the most important thing about picking your "opening" region is that it needs to both facilitate low level play and call out what makes your setting so different from the millions of others. A task that's not as easy as it sounds, as a lot of settings comes up with cool things, but those things would only be something a high level character could ever interact with.
For us, we wanted to do a "starting hub" cluster of islands. We have an idea of doing atleast one large "Super Island" that is bigger then the 200X150 mile range, but taking a chunk out of that to start would disguise the fact that the world is floating islands.
On the other hand, just dropping a bunch of floating islands with a few small towns and a cave or two of kobolds would just take your standard "Medieval Europe with some Mystical Monsters," and put them up on islands, and still not be unique.
In the end we wanted to hit a few key ideas:
1. Have a central "safe house" island that has atleast one town advanced enough to show both our swashbuckling airship elements and basic steampunk elements.
2. Have sister islands to show how island communities have used technology to connect islands to one another (cable cars!) but make them unique (visually at the very least) from the central island.
3. Have atleast one "lair" island, that is the main baddie area for the PCs to go off and kill things to liberate this cluster from fear of attack.
In the end, we came up with this:
The island is the center will be the main starter island of the area, within it's "harbor" will rest a steampunk advanced town that features airship docks and plenty of story hooks. The island will not feature any full size lair or dungeon, but there will be small threats that need to be quelled.
The islands below are sister islands, each settled and connected to the main island through a variety of magical and steampunk ways, they'll feature something unique about them to make them a change of pace for characters who travel there.
The two small rocky islands off the tips of the central harbor will pulled in to house dock security, currently I picture large towers with a huge ballista and other anti-ship weapons purchased on rocky landscape.
The islands two the right are going to act as our lairs and main baddie islands. Each will have atleast one full size dungeon, and they overlap because the one with the standard grassy terrain is actually floating above the desert one. The desert one is there for variety, drifting into this cluster thousands of years ago.
We haven't fully fleshed out what will be on the upper islands yet, mad druids, evil undead, ancient ruins? We'll figure that out as we go, we just wanted to have more options available.
So, you can see, everything low level characters need are within one convenient 150X200 mile area, places to shop and learn, places to delve and kill, and places to explore and discover. Eventually they'll be leveled enough to want to ply the skies with their own airship, at which point, a whole new cluster or isle will be ready to be made.
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