Retconning a familiar setting for BRP?

[soltakss]

Look at most Sci Fi series nowadays, and even going back some, you have races/species in abundance. Nobody blinks an eye at Klingons, Vulcans, Mimbari, Vorlons, Peacemakers and so on.

So, why have a problem with intelligent species on a fantasy world?

Sure, you have to have a reason for them being there, they don't just pop out of nowhere, or perhaps they do.

I like having different species, it adds flavour and a certain amount of exoticism that playing humans all the time just doesn't give you. When there are different cultures of the same species the game gets even better as you don't always know what they are going to do.

[Atgxtg]

Going along with Rurik's List and RMS's comment.

My two cents:

1. Each Author gets a good sized island, or chunk of an island for their "kingdom/empire, whatever". Islands give up a lot of advantages, both in terms of isolating and interacting with other lands.

2. Players can share landmassess if they choose to. So if two people want to have neighboring kingdoms that are at war or whatever, they can, but we don't get tiny pricipality right next to major empire by accident.

3. Any big freaking powers need to be approved. This is just so one guy doesn't writes up "Super Rome/Lunar Empire" and can eat up everyone else's land and culture right off the bat. At least not without other people wanting to do that sort of story. IF someone wants a huge empire that is isolated and has a bunch of nasty neighbors to deal with and doesn't bother the rest of us, that should be okay.

4. I'm for human centric. I think you get better cultures that way. That said we could tweak the humans by culture the way RQ3 did with LotN and Vikings. We could have a mysterious non-human culture or two, but overall I think the non-humans work best when they are exotic. A hostil "enemy" species might be a good addition.

5. I'd like to see a mix of technological ability. I'm not talking Conan with a laser pistol, but more along the lines of certain kingdoms being more advanced in one or more fields. For instance, some lands might be able to produce medieval or gothic plate while other might not. Another might have early cannon or just better seige engines, another the best mages, and so forth.

An example from history would be the Welsh warbow, or longbow. It tends to make every RPG weapon list, but historically is was a specialty and required the yeomanry to get it to work. Most of the really good bows in the past were cultural specialties, and we could do something similar on outr world.

6. Working up who has what resources would be nice for trading purposes.

7. Sea lanes. We can decide who is in contact with whom and how. Not to mention why.

8. Reglion. Like Rurik said. We can make it a central part of the cultures. Ideally we should link as cultural specialties with this. So the greatest sailors would probably hold a Sea or Strom god in high regard.



9. We could work up a "rating system" to sort of the various cultures if it would help. That could be useful it we wanted to give a thumbnail description of how they rate against each other. This could help with trading, and for the inevitable conflicts that will arise in play after we have the world worked up. This could be something simple, like rating countries in terms of size, military power etc, or more detailed, noting metallurgically level or some such. Something like Warlords of Alexandrias method might be a start.

[Rurik]

I think Gloranth... uh, I mean some other past not open worlds did an excellent job of making cultures unique enough that there is great diversity just in playing humans, and can see RMS's point (and I'm thinking about that god thing).

But Races are part of what most people consider 'fantasy' settings, and I have no problem including them.

RQ originally had Elves and Dwarves and Trolls and whatnot, and those were accessible to people coming over from other games. In fact the races evolved into Aldryami, Mostali, and Uz and became quite different from the norm. However, being able to say to someone new 'this is an elf' makes them accessible to a new player - more so than 'this is an 'Freenhahrrhrri'.

A game may shy away from fantasy tropes to be unique, and so have unique races, such as the Freenhahrrhrri, when if fact the Freenhahrrhrri may have much more in common with the pointy ear pansies of standard fantasy than the Aldryami do (bunch of friggin vegatables that they are), but by giving them a weird name they are harder to accept.

So I really don't mind elves, dwarves, and trolls - it is just important to set them apart from the standard to give them their own flavor. Even Orcs are OK by me - just not Hobbits or Halflings - screw them.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by soltakss

Look at most Sci Fi series nowadays, and even going back some, you have races/species in abundance. Nobody blinks an eye at Klingons, Vulcans, Mimbari, Vorlons, Peacemakers and so on.

So, why have a problem with intelligent species on a fantasy world?

Sure, you have to have a reason for them being there, they don't just pop out of nowhere, or perhaps they do.

I like having different species, it adds flavour and a certain amount of exoticism that playing humans all the time just doesn't give you. When there are different cultures of the same species the game gets even better as you don't always know what they are going to do.

But generally those "species' aren't alien species at all, but really just humans with funny ears, noses or whatnot. Klingons are Vikings with a bit of samurai thrown in, along head ridges.
In Sci-Fi these species usually serve as menaces that the more enlightened humans can show their superiority to. We don't need to do that in Sci-Fi.

I think the problem is that there is a tendency to make the humans bland, and just rely of the non-humans to provide the difference between cultures. And then by acting "elvish".

I think we would be better off to put detail into the human cultures. Take away the head ridges and Klingons could just as easily be a human culture.

So, unless there is something about a species that would make it different from humans (like maybe a race of lizards who guard their ancestral nest while their young hatch), we should just ignore the species stuff and concentrate on the culture.

I don't want to see the "cut & paste" humans that are in most RPG worlds. Lets give all the cultures some flavor. Then right up a world of cannibals!

[Rurik]

Fantasy archetypes could be represented by cultures - the forest people, the mountain people, the underground people, but have them all be humans.

Though really I think races proper would probably have broader appeal.

[lawrence.whitaker]

1. NOT at standard fantasy late middle ages setting.
2. Magic is common
3. Myth and Religeon is prominent and real.
4. Emphasis on realistic setting with enough wackyness to keep it fun.
5. Familiar races that are in fact unique, so you can say to a new player 'elf' and have them learn through play that 'elf' does not mean Galadriel.
6. Wacky races.
7. Strong emphasis on cults and religeon as primary sources of culture, belief, and magic.
8. Damn strong detailed starting settings and scenarios.

Precisely the mandate Gwenthia was developed under. And including Ax's technology idea, too.

I'd say one thing: embarking and a shared world is fun, but its heaps more work than you probably bank on. And it has to gel. One of the problems is avoiding different nations become silos. There's always going to be interplay between countries; they don't develop in complete isolation, so you'll need a framework to ensure the setting feels real.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by lawrence.whitaker

Precisely the mandate Gwenthia was developed under. And including Ax's technology idea, too.

I'd say one thing: embarking and a shared world is fun, but its heaps more work than you probably bank on. And it has to gel. One of the problems is avoiding different nations become silos. There's always going to be interplay between countries; they don't develop in complete isolation, so you'll need a framework to ensure the setting feels real.

Yeah. The hard bit is getting everyone all on the same page. TO some extent you want them all on their own page so they they create something different than the next guy. But that also leads to culture clash.


We are probably better off if we put up a little synopsis of our cultures so any glaring conflicts can be worked out in advance. That way if someone wants a culture with black powder weapons the rest can hash it out and see if some compromise could be reached. Like maybe some microgramism or magical curse that prevents blackpowder from working in certain lands.

[Rurik]

I want pink powder weapons.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Rurik

Fantasy archetypes could be represented by cultures - the forest people, the mountain people, the underground people, but have them all be humans.

Though really I think races proper would probably have broader appeal.

I have a temporary solution for this. Why don't we just write the culture up as we want it to work, and then decide later if it is a offshoot of humanity or something else. Obviously things like dragonmen or centuars would be non human, but elves, dwarves, orcs, and hobbits could be either human or not.

So if non-human is a central part to the concept it will be. Otherwise, it can all be decided as the world evolves.

[fmitchell]

Originally Posted by Rurik

Fantasy archetypes could be represented by cultures - the forest people, the mountain people, the underground people, but have them all be humans.

Once I had a similar idea: dwarfs were really short humans who wouldn't live in caves or wear armor if not for bigoted Big Folk, elves were clannish forest dwellers whose extreme physical similarity and odd naming conventions made outsiders think individuals were immortal, and orcs were seemingly peaceful village dwellers who on moonless nights donned grotesque masks and did depraved things.

Originally Posted by Rurik

Though really I think races proper would probably have broader appeal.

One thing I like about Glorantha is that the nonhumans are truly nonhuman: elves are plants, Mostali think like robots, and trolls have their own strange culture ... not to mention morokanths, dragonewts, etc.