Retconning a familiar setting for BRP?

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by Triff

There's nothing wrong with the "gates" approach, but doesn't create much of a cooperative world, unless there's something to bind it all together. Then everyone would just work on their own projects, as we do now.

Ah, but we haven't published our own projects, and given other people permission to develop parts if they feel inspired (or have we?). I believe we would be inspired to add to other people's worlds, and I hope authors would be generally willing to accept such contributions. Then - Bingo! Co-operative worlds.

Originally Posted by Rurik

6. Wacky races.

Great list, Rurik. (Surely Dick Dastardly and Muttley would require a license, though? ) Seriously, I might add characters - like Rurik himself.

I'm not into gates per se, I agree if you want gates you can just put them in ANY worls to link to ANY OTHER world.

They'd be under GM control of course. No need to make 'em fixed gates: maybe spells or similar (like Corum?).

Originally Posted by RMS

I'm going with the basic premise that anyone who receives worship, gains power from that, so an emperor who receives worship from his subjects really does gain power in the world, and conversely can dispense that power to his worshippers how he sees fit. This is a two way street, so that if a minor god loses his worshippers he loses real power and potentially his divinity and can return to being mortal. Anyhow, I'm going off topic here, but if anyone has ideas on some reasonable way to model this I'd love to hear it.

OK. My take on this, to avoid the problem of having to have an exact current worshipper-count, is that souls who have become attuned to gods through worshipping them go to their version of heaven/hell when they die - where they act as a power-source for that god (until exhausted/reincarnated/whatever). Like Drohem's avatar! (An interesting side-effect of this might be, if a pogrom were carried out against a god's worshippers that god would actually become more powerful for a while - and so have more divine wrath available to exact retribution...

Originally Posted by soltakss

I like having different species, it adds flavour and a certain amount of exoticism...

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

I'm for human centric. I think you get better cultures that way.

Uh, oh - trouble already...

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

1. Each Author gets a good sized island...
2. Players can share landmassess...
3. Any big freaking powers need to be approved...
4. ...
...

Uh, oh - lots of rules already...

Who'd administer? Who'd arbitrate? Take it from someone who knows...

Originally Posted by lawrence.whitaker

I'd say one thing: embarking and a shared world is fun, but its heaps more work than you probably bank on.

That's why I say 'Gated Worlds': Authors do as they please, having final authority over any contributions; and GMs can easily avoid worlds they don't want to use. We'd avoid a lot of unnecessary work, and could get on with the real job... world creation.

Originally Posted by Rurik

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...
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.

I agree. Someone on another thread was just saying how the wacky names in Tekumel made it unplayable for them!
How to make 'em different, though? I liked the Harn idea of insectoid Orcs spawned by a huge larva-like queen; Elves - should be soulless, dangerous child-stealers (but why? and how to role-play them?); Dwarves - selfish, sociopathic, more like trolls really; Trolls - like Norse giants (or Greek titans/legendary monsters, or Grendel?). And no Ducks.

[Atgxtg]

Sorry about introducing some rules, but unless we work out something between us, then I don't see this working. One guy will make something that can and will eat up three quarters of the world in the first year of campaigning.

If this is all going to be on the same world then we need some similarities in what we design.

For unusual cultures races, what we could do is keep the number of syllables down to two or three and not string together a lot of consonant combinations. Something like, say "Ruriks" would be easy to pronounce, something like "Atgxtgs" wouldn't.

[lawrence.whitaker]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

Sorry about introducing some rules, but unless we work out something between us, then I don't see this working. One guy will make something that can and will eat up three quarters of the world in the first year of campaigning.

If this is all going to be on the same world then we need some similarities in what we design.

I completely agree. A framework is essential. I know the aim is to have fun - and you will - but there has to be a set of ground rules (no pun intended) or the world won't seem coherent. The gates idea is a teensy bit of a cop-out; it'll be far more satisfying if you get some framework together and work to it to produce a coherent, but original, world.

Gwenthia used several mechanisms. First, we had an arbtrator. Next we had a weekly conference on IRC to discuss common elements such as magic, religion, and so on. Then we had a 'History Game' where we designed Gwenthia's history and integrated it as a group, despite comng up with disparate ideas. We also established a wiki so that ideas could be shared, amended, and collaborated on. Finally, Pete Nash put together a questonnaire that asked people to answer certain questions about their realm such as 'Who have you invaded and who has invaded you'? 'What culture developed as a result of these invasions?' This helped blur the edges of the silos we'd come up with indvidually.

Its taken about 3 years to get Gwentha to the point its at now, and it still isn't finished. So be prepared for a haul!

I'm not saying you need to do all these things - just outlining how the Design Mechanism did it. But yes, you will need rules. They needn't be too strict, but they do require buy-in.

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by lawrence.whitaker

The gates idea is a teensy bit of a cop-out; it'll be far more satisfying if you get some framework together and work to it to produce a coherent, but original, world.

I'd rather call it an opt-out - out of all the rules/restrictions/difficulties you mention.

Anyway, is there any reason we can't do both and see which is best?

[lawrence.whitaker]

I'd rather call it an opt-out - out of all the rules/restrictions/difficulties you mention.

Anyway, is there any reason we can't do both and see which is best?

Okay, opt-out it is. . Note I said a teensy bit of a cop-out - meaning that, whilst its intriguing enough idea, I can see that the am to try to get round some things that are, really, going to prove inevitable. So not a complete cop-out by any stretch, but even using gates as a central mechanism you'll still need some ground rules to operate to.

Of course you can do both, but even in the gate version you'll be surprised at how much effort you need to go into a shared world, so doing two versions will still be heaps effort.

Look, I'm not trying to put anyone off. Developing a shared world is great fun and working on Gwenthia was a blast. But, like anything worthwhile, it will require quite a bit of committment from those involved.

I'd offer to get involved myself and get something kickstarted, but I simply don't have the time. I've still got Gwenthia to work on in addition to my usual writing workload. But, I'm keen to see something develop and the approach taken.

[Rurik]

Originally Posted by lawrence.whitaker

Look, I'm not trying to put anyone off.

Yeah, we know you are just trying to scare off the competition. (seriously though thanks for the input - you obviously have the experience in this area)

How many people are serious about this? I've been busy lately but see my free time returning. Other than a couple of projects simmering on the back burner I've already got some ideas, some based on earlier plans and some sparked from this thread (the human only idea is growing on me).

Sow how about a roll call - who seriously wants to take a stab at this?

If there are enough participants to get rolling maybe our benefactor can create a sub forum so we can have threads on the different issues we will be tackling.

[Trifletraxor]

I've opened a poll to see if we can get any numbers here.

While some people would want to cooperate to make a shared world, others might be willing to let their settings/worlds take part in a shared universe.

Both are good. With some sort of creative commons license (which is one of the things we must discuss), this would increase our chances of finding viable community developed settings.

An easy way to combine it, would be to say that the shared world project, form one of the worlds in the shared univers project.

SGL.