Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[WillowLuman]

So how about a game set in the Preatoria universe from City of Heroes? Premise is basically this:

The whole world has been consumed by the Devouring Earth, a collective of eldritch nature monsters. All except for the city-state of Praetoria, protected by a combination of sonic fences and Emperor Cole, the most powerful superhuman on Earth. This little bubble of safety is a seeming utopia, full of happy people and beautiful and clean cityscapes maintained by an automaton workforce. However, all is not as it seems.

Anyone with special abilities or unique talents is conscripted into the Praetors, those charged with keeping the Emperor's order. The media is tightly controlled, and psionic police on every corner monitor the minds of the citizens. There is deadly competion amongst the ranks for the Emperor's favor, and despite all this subversive element still exist. Some fight for freedom, though they count among their rank those too violent for even the Praetors to find a use for. Some fight to control what criminal enterprise there is to be had here.

The players would take on the role of newly minted Praetors, and from there, it would be up to them to find their way through the world. There is room for good or evil as either a Loyalist or a Resistance member.

[Tawa]

After tiring of yet another D&D game after the first fight (a result of feeling that the plot I'd created was cliché, the characters unmemorable, and that my worldbuilding was lacking,) I think I'll take a shot at it again. Maybe it'll stick this time. So anywho, I have two questions.

1: I know that Pathfinder is pretty popular and widely considered to be an improvement over D&D 3.5. Is it easy to play Pathfinder when all you have is the Pathfinder SRD and a couple of D&D 3.5 core rulebooks to fill in the gaps?

2: Is anybody interested in a low-magic campaign heavily based on Norse mythology? Like, to the point that the pantheon is just the historical Norse set, without any names changed? There would still be magic, but primarily in the vein of magical artifacts in the style of Norse legends.

[TheBiggerFish]

Like what kind of artifacts are we talking?

[Tawa]

The Mead of Knowledge, Tyrfing, that kind of thing with interesting effects you can't always just assign numerical values to.

[GiglameshDespair]

What was the plot you planned, out of curiosity?

[TheBiggerFish]

The Mead of Knowledge, Tyrfing, that kind of thing with interesting effects you can't always just assign numerical values to.

But, like, what do they do?

[Tawa]

What was the plot you planned, out of curiosity?

Generic lich goes Jagar Tharn on the emperor of the biggest country and incites a bunch of wars between other countries (unwittingly involving the players)--the encounter with the mercenaries was his attempt to spark one between the northern kingdom and some other place--I'm not sure which one. He waits until both sides in each war are worn down and intervenes as a third party, taking over the southern continent. The players would have stumbled across a pocket of resistance, who send them to the northern continent's kobold theocracy to request aid in a sort of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" situation and take back the southern continent, culminating with a fight against the lich.

I have since gained of a taste for more nuanced villains.

I also didn't really think about the logistics of "scrawny half-dragon people from a barren wasteland cross the ocean to fight the armies of like five different countries combined" and such, or how Lord Cliché managed to build such a giant empire in such a short amount of time, which is, needless to say, practically impossible, barring some sort of universal mind control artifact or something.

Oh, and I disliked my world map--I realized in hindsight that if these were "continents", one of them was basically Antarctica (nearly uninhabitable--like 4/5 of the thing was empty space, the kobold country was clustered around a volcano for some reason) and the other one was probably around the size of Africa, but there were only five countries on said Africa-sized continent, which is pretty silly given the setting no matter how you slice it. I've since moved on to different practices--splitting countries up over non-arbitrary lines (rivers, mountain ranges, various features that come as a result of it being a fantasy setting,) providing a map of only part of the continent in the style of maps of Europe, and moving to a more "several smaller countries with a couple major powers here and there" type of approach.

The Mead of Knowledge, Tyrfing, that kind of thing with interesting effects you can't always just assign numerical values to.

But, like, what do they do?

Fill in for the lack of spellcasters, mostly. This kind of thing is what I'm getting at.

[Rolepgeek]

What was the plot you planned, out of curiosity?

Generic lich goes Jagar Tharn on the emperor of the biggest country and incites a bunch of wars between other countries (unwittingly involving the players)--the encounter with the mercenaries was his attempt to spark one between the northern kingdom and some other place--I'm not sure which one. He waits until both sides in each war are worn down and intervenes as a third party, taking over the southern continent. The players would have stumbled across a pocket of resistance, who send them to the northern continent's kobold theocracy to request aid in a sort of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" situation and take back the southern continent, culminating with a fight against the lich.

I have since gained of a taste for more nuanced villains.

I also didn't really think about the logistics of "scrawny half-dragon people from a barren wasteland cross the ocean to fight the armies of like five different countries combined" and such, or how Lord Cliché managed to build such a giant empire in such a short amount of time, which is, needless to say, practically impossible, barring some sort of universal mind control artifact or something.

Oh, and I disliked my world map--I realized in hindsight that if these were "continents", one of them was basically Antarctica (nearly uninhabitable--like 4/5 of the thing was empty space, the kobold country was clustered around a volcano for some reason) and the other one was probably around the size of Africa, but there were only five countries on said Africa-sized continent, which is pretty silly given the setting no matter how you slice it. I've since moved on to different practices--splitting countries up over non-arbitrary lines (rivers, mountain ranges, various features that come as a result of it being a fantasy setting,) providing a map of only part of the continent in the style of maps of Europe, and moving to a more "several smaller countries with a couple major powers here and there" type of approach.

Advice: Don't make a world map to start. Start small and build up, unless you already know exactly how you want to build it up and what everything's gonna have. Also, considering magic, it isn't too hard to build an empire in a fairly short time. Long as taxes aren't too bad and you aren't cruel enough to be hated, only to be feared, one ruler is much the same as another. Leave their culture alone and 'ey, there you have it.

[Tawa]

-snip-
Also, considering magic, it isn't too hard to build an empire in a fairly short time. Long as taxes aren't too bad and you aren't cruel enough to be hated, only to be feared, one ruler is much the same as another. Leave their culture alone and 'ey, there you have it.

I was thinking less that it would be hard to build such a large empire, more that there was no way that he'd be able to conquer literally the entire continent without me constantly timeskipping.

It was supposed to be somewhat open-world too ("Semi-Open World" was, quite literally, in the thread title,) which I didn't really think about when I wrote the plot.

Man, that thing was full of holes now that I take the time to think about it...

Advice: Don't make a world map to start. Start small and build up, unless you already know exactly how you want to build it up and what everything's gonna have.

Ehh, I don't really like that sort of approach. Admittedly, it works for small-scale heroic fantasy in the style of Conan the Barbarian, where the player characters come in to some new place, quaff ale, and kick ass, since it's just about the heroes' personal adventures. But when you have the whole world set up beforehand, you can set up an epic-scale campaign where there's forces at work beyond what's happening to the heroes, and where the heroes can travel to specific locales with specific goals in mind.

Just my opinion though. :v

(Admittedly, I love the process of worldbuilding; I love drawing maps and creating cultures, feeding words through Google Translate to use as country names... different strokes for different folks, I suppose.)

[Rolepgeek]

You can have stuff working behind the scenes without having where specifically or who specifically they are set in stone yet. I'm saying build it up as you need it, so the world is more organic in make-up. Seriously. My best games have been me winging it with an overall goal in mind. Makes sure it stays a mystery, too, until you feel satisfied about revealing it.

Plus, when they're low-level, it will be just about their personal adventures.

[Chiefwaffles]

Got a game idea floating around. Not really planning on doing something like this right now, but still wondering if it has any potential or not. Some components are probably a bit ambitious, but it's really due to the fact that this is mostly brainstorming-type stuff. This was also originally noted down on my phone, and I may have missed some shorthand/general "roughness" while editing it. Just a warning.

Done in turns: a single nation up against the world (in other words, up against the GM).
Nation is headed by the player leader and ~3? ~6? player "cabinet members", each cabinet member controlling a certain aspect of the nation.

The leader can be replaced by a cabinet member through a variety of ways. Cabinet members can gain support from the populace, other cabinet members, or simple prepare by themselves. They can replace the leader peacefully, "peacefully", or violent ally, in a number of ways ranging from a free election to a coup d'état.
The leader can also manipulate the cabinet in various ways. Executions, replacements, changing of position duties (e.g. Making one person able to do nothing as their position to limit power). But there should be some kind of consequence. But small enough consequences so cabinet members have to be relatively stealthy in their attempts to gain power.

Then under the cabinet, there's one more "level" of players - notable officials. These people quarrel amongst their selves to reach a list of GM-chosen candidates for the cabinet if for whatever reason the leader needs a new one. Can allow the populace (aka GM) to choose the new cabinet member their selves for an approval boost, or choose themselves. Leader can also try to manipulate elections to get what they want and that approval boost. Notable officials also can have the occasional opportunity for some influence in the actual game or cabinet.
Basically notable officials are a glorified 'audience'. But their main purpose is to serve as a pool for new leaders and cabinet members. Kind of like an interactive waiting list.

Additional idea: If a cabinet member or leader is looking at a list of candidates picken from notable officials, their names should maybe be replaced with pseudonyms to prevent anything resembling a popularity contest/whatever. Maybe. Main idea is that this would prevent people from going "hey I know that guy from somewhere else and he'd definitely act this way so I pick him".

But basically, the summary is a political intrigue "simulator". This kind of genre is definitely not new, but something like the idea just laid out could be interesting. The main focus would be on individual players and their attempts at gaining more power and influence, with external events serving as mostly a background and chances for new opportunities to rise.

[Xantalos]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B969888pWakxd0pmWU9mcy1MY00/view?pref=2&pli=1

Uh.
Yeah. Found this.

[kj1225]

Would anyone be interested in a mostly freeform style Pokemon RPG type game? It would mostly be based on the anime though things not covered in it are first defaulted to other Pokemon media, and then to me/someone who offers a suggestion that I approve. I'm probably going to use a region that was already mapped out for the sake of being able to keep track of where the players are and what they may encounter. I am of course up for suggestions for other things to think about or maybe ignore.

[Twinwolf]

I'd play, probably. I assume the system would, since you said "mostly freeform", be more based on the show then the games??

[kj1225]

Indeed, though I would use the games to help dictate some of the concepts such as using it to establish a base of how powerful certain moves are or how quickly they move/how accurate they are or how many times you can use them.