World Generation

[Trifletraxor]

Originally Posted by lawrence.whitaker

The idea behind Questworlds was that Chaosium would define a base world, with geography, politics, cults and so forth, that was distinct for Glorantha but would be developed by fans, leaving Chaosium (back when they had it) to work on Glorantha's specific development.

Did they really define the base world, or did it just stop with the idea?

The concept's great in theory but it never really developed in practice - perhaps because, really, shared worlds require an enormous amount of commitment and resource to properly develop. There was no intrawebnet back then, and its taken the www to really offer the online collaborative tools necessary to make shared world development effective.

I can see how such a project would halt without the internet to coordinate the efforts.

Whilst Gwenthia's being developed as product for publication, the intention was always to develop it to a certain stage and then release it as a basis for others to then develop as they wished. The existing body of Gwenthia is offered under the Creative Commons licence and does provide a very good basis for world sharing and development, using BRP as a system, if people want to.

But with a CC lisence, which would limit it to non-commercial fanwork, it wouldn't have any chance of becoming BRP's "new Glorantha". I can also see how it would take a very different path from the "official" Gwenthia taht is going to be developet, if the BRP version would be based only from the free Gwenthia pdf (gotta print that out at work and read the whole document soon). Could f.ex. the BRP group make derivative work of future official Gwenthia stuff too, or just the free pdf?

Originally Posted by frogspawner

If the "QuestWorld" concept allows travel between worlds, then it's easy. Anybody who has their own world, and wants to take part in the project, can publish what they have. (Perhaps in the downloads section of this very site, if Mr.T would be so kind).

I never have been that big a fan of world jumping, as it's difficult to create a believable universe from it, having f.ex. fantasy and hard sci-fi in the same universe would break the suspense for me. Also, creating the "new Glorantha" would more work than a single person could handle, it would need cooperation. With everyone having their own world, the effort would be divided into several different projects. I think a roof over the project would need to be made, whether it was fantasy or sci-fi (which I think would need to be two different projects). It would need to be inclusive enough to cater most people needs too. To allow both high fantasy and fantasy earth aspects in the same setting, some event may have happened, with worlds collided. Everyone could pick a part of the world to develope, or develope parts together. Magic-lite areas could be explained by their god giving them some sort of protection from magic.

If you like someone's setting, and develop additions to it, just ask them if they'll include it as "canon" for their world - if they don't like it, you can mark it up as a "parallel of XXX's world" and publish anyway.

This I think, is a really good idea! A license for the project could state that a derivative work could be made and published from all parts of the project, but the author of that "part" could determine whether it could use a "canon" or "parallel" stamp on the work. That's a great idea actually.

Is nobody interested in this project? Doesn't anyone want to put their own world forward as a prospective 'New Glorantha' for BRP?

I'm definitely interested. Anyone else? Loz, can you tell us anything about how you went about to create Gwenthia?

SGL.

[Atgxtg]

What killed Questworld wasn't the lack of the internet, but that it came out at the end of the RQ2 era, and got dropped once RQ3 sprang into being.

The idea was a good one, and one that is worth reviving.

The motivation behind it was that since Glorantha was Greg's baby, no one could really add much to it. The countries, history, cultures and religions were already made and there wasn't much freedom for authors.

What Questworld did was create a world that people could work with. Chaosium did up the basic geography, weather patterns and ocean currents, and one section of the world, a couple of new cults, and even tossed in a scenario book so you didn't feel like you just bought an empty box.

The world was sufficiently large, and comprised of a bunch of islands, making it possibly to have some different levels of development on the world, if desired. Or radically different cultures, or isolated cultures, or a naval power.

Then the RQ3 deal went through and Steve Perrin sort of vanished from Chasoium. RQ was no longer the in house system, and Questworld went into limbo.


When MRQ was starting up a few people considered doing a shared world, but the project fell through after MRQ was released.

The idea is a good one though.

[Daefaroth]

Originally Posted by Trifletraxor

<snip>
I'm definitely interested. Anyone else? Loz, can you tell us anything about how you went about to create Gwenthia?

Looks like the first step was to define the physical world and lock in the design. That right there pre-defines all the spaces that can be used for differing cultures and areas where those cultures will interact with each other.

It will also help define weather and ocean currents which, in turn, define accessible natural resources, plant life, and overland and water-based trade routes. Fertile land with water sources give rise to settlements. Apply a little imagination and bang!..instant gaming world with a high level of consistency.

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by Trifletraxor

This I think, is a really good idea!

Ta. Your mention of QuestWorld/gateways sparked it off. I think the 'gates-between-worlds' idea is the best approach, though, so let me try to convice you...

I never have been that big a fan of world jumping, as it's difficult to create a believable universe from it, having f.ex. fantasy and hard sci-fi in the same universe would break the suspense for me. Also, creating the "new Glorantha" would more work than a single person could handle, it would need cooperation. With everyone having their own world, the effort would be divided into several different projects. I think a roof over the project would need to be made, whether it was fantasy or sci-fi (which I think would need to be two different projects). It would need to be inclusive enough to cater most people needs too. To allow both high fantasy and fantasy earth aspects in the same setting, some event may have happened, with worlds collided. Everyone could pick a part of the world to develope, or develope parts together. Magic-lite areas could be explained by their god giving them some sort of protection from magic.

But, just like the authors retain control over what is canon in (their original version of) their worlds, the GMs have control over where gates used in their campaign can reach. Some GMs could run a "No Sci-Fi Worlds" policy, others "No Magic Worlds" - no problem. If it's all one world, that's a bit difficult.

Obviously I'm interested. Sadly my own world is made from bits of various other commercial works (Harn, Moorcock, Tolkien, Glorantha, Dragon Warriors, Cthulhu... - yes, 'colliding worlds' is a good excuse, isn't it? ). I'd have to spend months bowdlerizing it or be sued by half-a-dozen corporations, I expect.

As for dividing the effort, I'd hope that a fairly small number of worlds would emerge as favourites, and effort would naturally be concentrated on them. Since my world is too derivative for publication, for example, I'd be happy to be inspired by someone else's fresh vision and try to add to it.

Originally Posted by Daefaroth

Looks like the first step was to define the physical world and lock in the design. ... Apply a little imagination and bang!..instant gaming world with a high level of consistency.

Well, consistency might be a problem, but GMs can pick and choose worlds to avoid anything they think too inconsistent. However, some world-building GMs, or maybe even most, would prefer a totally blank canvas, I suspect. With 'gates' they can simply use their existing world as-is. That's faster than instant - it's already there!

[Daefaroth]

Originally Posted by frogspawner

Well, consistency might be a problem, but GMs can pick and choose worlds to avoid anything they think too inconsistent. However, some world-building GMs, or maybe even most, would prefer a totally blank canvas, I suspect. With 'gates' they can simply use their existing world as-is. That's faster than instant - it's already there!

I'm right there with you.