Show Me The Setting! (Part Two)

Show me the setting (part two)

Hello again, honored readers. Assuming, of course, that someone is actually reading this other than myself and the accidental visitor who actually intended to click on “that other blog” about Llama bondage or whatever the hell it was you actually wanted to read about! It is October 17th, 2010.

Sorry for the long delay. Starting my new job sort of interfered with my witless rambling about RPG’s.

I know. It’s really inconsiderate of them, but… what can you do? :) At least they’re paying me well.

Okay, in our last episode, we were creating a new setting out of whole cloth. Because chiffon wrinkles too easily, we were instead focusing on one of the “dominant” cultures for the setting genesis. Which, I have yet to name, but I’ll be getting to that shortly.

This is called a “top-down” worldbuilding technique. Rather than starting out at “random village #24” and adding on in a (more-or-less) holistic fashion in accordance with the flow of the ongoing narrative of the game being played, we are building the “big picture” of the setting first before “drilling down” to the fine details. Top-down or bottom-up, worldbuilding is a personal preference.

Now, before we move on, I think we should name our happy little culture, don’t you? I like using random generators, since it comes up with all sorts of wacky crap I’d never consider. My personal preference for names is the “Everchanging Book Of Names,” known as “EBON” for short. Just google it, it’ll come up if anyone wants.

I’ll try something simple first. I have an EBON “chapter” for Scottish names. Clicking on the ‘Generate 5’ option, I get the following: Sanet, Hud, Ricolm, Jane, Janet.

Damnit, Janet, I don’t love you! (Yeah, I went Rocky Horror there just for a bad joke). These don’t fit my ‘image’ of this culture. I want something a bit more exotic, but still pronounceable by humans! Let’s try Celtic, shall we? I switch chapters to generic “Celtic” names and get the following: Devoni, Cevonus, Aurii, Casotomii, Tuci.

Hmm, for “Celtic” names, isn’t it interesting they all have the Roman habit of ending with the letter “i” or “ii” to indicate tribal or group affiliation? For example, “Devoni” would imply (If I recall my Latin correctly) “the people of Devon.” But, it’s all good, because I like these names. In fact, I’ll probably use several of them.

Men, women, and miscellaneous other-gendered individuals of the reading public, allow me to introduce you to our newest RPG culture: The D’evoni, citizens of D’evon, the City-That-Floats!

Okay, I modified it a bit. It gives it character without being too obnoxious. J

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Now, in the last blog post, it was determined the D’evoni were once merpeople, who were cursed to become air-breathing Humans, with the worst of the worst becoming Ogres. The city of D’evon, ripped from it’s once-stable home on the floor of the Mother-Ocean, now floats on her silvery surface due to exotic and dangerous D’evonian magic. Of course, you probably worked that out on your own, since it’s known as “the City-That-Floats.” Names like that doesn’t exactly suggest chinchilla breeding is an important and dominant factor in D’evonian society, now does it?

Let’s consider the logistics of a large city floating on the surface of a salt-water ocean for a minute. This city would make the odiferous olfactory insult that is Venice, Italy seem positively parched! Sewage, always a problem for a large city, would have a place to go (IE: into the ocean), but that much raw sewage wouldn’t just vanish instantly. The wide water ways of D’evon, the City-That-Floats would not be particularly pleasant to smell. Logically, the ‘vermin’ of the city would be crabs and other crustaceans, which would help ‘recycle’ some of the shit (literally) the city generates. Probably assisted by other ‘bottom-feeder’ fish. However, this would still result in large algae blooms, possibly with a seasonal ‘red-tide.’ This means the waters around the city would be oxygen-poor, most likely with periodic (if large) “fish kills” due to the algae blooms in the water.

So, the City-That-Floats is also the city-incapable-of-feeding-itself-using-strictly-local-resources. To say nothing of the problem of potable water sources in the ocean!

But, I have a plan! (surprisingly enough, it does not involve twice as much gunpowder as plan “A”)

I’ll incorporate this little region we’re flushing out here into the larger context of my Fourteen Worlds of Ta’ar setting. Yes, I’m actually going to give details about it now, if minimally. I’ll decide which of the Fourteen different planets (hence the name) our setting is on at a later date. But, for now, I’ve decided upon the following:

• The region is an inland sea, sheltered by a single continent all around. Although it is an Ocean in every sense of the word, most of it isn’t very deep. Like the continental shelf deep, at most.
• The “mainland” surrounding this inland sea (the Mother-Ocean, which is also the title or epithet of the primary Deity of this particular geographic feature), although lush and fertile, has become uninhabitable for the intelligent races like Humans and all the other races (like Dwarves, Elves, and crap like that) within recorded history, but beyond living memory.
• This “setting” is, for this reason, geographically isolated from the rest of the Fourteen Worlds of Ta’ar, and can be used as a ‘stand-alone’ setting for this reason, even though it is part of the larger continuity of the Fourteen Worlds.

The “Game” would be set on the communities living on the Mother-Ocean or its various islands. I’ll call this splatbook/worldbook “Men and Monsters of the Mother-Ocean” I’ll have this all converted into a PDF and available on some website or another eventually.

Obviously, people living on/near the ocean will need some source of fresh water, something to eat, and resources. I prefer a ‘low-magic’ setting, so any idea which includes “magically converting massive amounts of salt water to fresh water” will not be considered. It might be possible in small quantities, but a thoroughly non-magical means would be preferred. So, I’ll cheat and say the inhabitants of the Mother-Ocean have domesticated some form of aquatic plant that stores fresh water inside of it somehow, perhaps in some form of body cavity or the like.

Why do this? Because I like the idea. It’s consistent with the setting so far, qualifies as a ‘low-magic‘ but still fantasy solution, and I “see” a setting where the ‘farmers’ and ‘common laborers’ are actually on small boats, fishing and ‘farming’ the water-pod-plants or whatever we‘ll call them. And, since drinkable water would be a valuable commodity in this salt-water ocean setting, it isn’t a great stretch to imagine plot hooks involving “water raiders” in a world where a cup of water is more valuable than silver!

It’s getting late, and I’ve got to get ready for work on Monday, so I’ll flesh out more details next time.  But, just for fun, here's a picture of the Mother-Ocean:

Show me the Setting! (Part One)

Hello again. It is October 7, 2010, and it’s time for more of my witless rambling!

In my last blog post, I articulated my belief that an internally-consistent and well-developed game setting is playable, no matter the system. Now, again I would like to point out that a good system makes playability much easier. But, there is more to a game than just the rules.

Show me the setting! I can take it from there.

How am I going to make this point? Well, by doing what I love: WORLDBUILDING!

For my personal setting, The Fourteen Worlds of Ta’ar, I created a random generator to help me along. Pulling that up, I click on “Generate” and end up with the following:

This culture is on the ocean. It is a Human dominated society living on the surface in a floating city made by merpeople, with a noticeable minority of Ogres in the population. It has a sophisticated iron-age level of technology and a sophisticated understanding of magic. It is a very large sized culture organized along small family/clan lines traced matrilineally, and is controlled by a malevolent queen.

This culture has a reputation for being the home of a retired military leader of great skill with many skilled miners as followers supporting the local military, for having access to good farmlands, for the diversity of their economy, and for their important trade links with other cultures, but is also known for rumors of the dark rituals involving Charms their leaders practice, for their knowledge of some unspeakable and blasphemous theological matters of Learning mortals should not practice, and for the shocking poverty of the cultures lowest classes and for the abusive way their society treats clerics.

It is a polytheistic society, worshiping a caring female deity of Trade, a sad female deity of the Sea, a silent male deity of the Home, a forgiving male deity of Dreams and a neutral female deity of Murder. The members of this culture are fairly devoted to their beliefs.

Its military force is large for the size of its culture, is well trained in most aspects of combat and is fairly well equipped. It has an abundant amount of shields and a small number of magically enchanted engineers. This military force is widely seen as being a superior fighting force by the society. The military is mostly apathetic regarding politics. It does have some minor disloyal elements within it.

Ok, we have a sophisticated culture, living in a floating city on the ocean. At first glance, it has a human dominant population, with a high level of technology and magic. Matriarchy, lead by a “Malevolent Queen.” Now, I created my little generator to create both positive and negative ‘traits’ for the culture, but I don’t think these people are going to be very nice. In this context, words like “very large” and “sophisticated” should be taken into account in context with the region/setting/world the culture is set in as a whole. One region’s “very large” culture might be another regions backwater village!

Now, what I look for is an “in.” Something that grabs me and enables me to “see” or otherwise get a good grasp on the society. Lets look at the second paragraph again:

Hmmm… they are a agricultural and economic powerhouse, with the strong trade links that would imply. This may be a center of trade in this area, and are thus most likely a net exporter (deliberately or otherwise) of their cultural biases and normative point-of-view to other cultures in the region. Beyond that, the ‘positive’ aspects of this culture are fairly standard ‘vanilla’ fantasy, if you look past the whole “living on a floating city in the middle of the ocean” thing.

The ‘negative’ aspects are a bit more interesting, but I’m not really ‘seeing’ them yet. Their leaders practice dark rituals involving Charms (in this context, a “Charm” is a type of magic that makes non-permanent changes, for good or bad; in their target). The “blasphemous theological matters of Learning” thing seems odd. It’s a theological, rather than philosophical cultural practice, which may seem a very fine hair to split for some people. But, what people think and what people believe in often have little to do with each other, and can express itself in all sorts of interesting internal sociological aberrations.  However, I'll come back to this point later, because I'm not seeing it at the moment.  

Let's move on.  Hmmm... "shocking poverty in the lower classes" in a trading center?  Well, that implies a seriously non-equitable distribution of wealth and/or power in this society, as well as the very strong possibility of an "officially stratified" division between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ in society. Perhaps this can work with the line in the first paragraph: “organized along small family/clan lines traced matrilineally, and is controlled by a malevolent queen.” Obviously, we have some illusion of a ‘nobility,’ with women in charge of small ‘households.’ Certain “merchant-houses” rule as gender-restricted plutocrats (Plutocratrix? Heh, that’s just too funny not to use!). With a small percentage of Ogres in the society, perhaps this is a “minority rule” situation, where the statistically dominant element in the population is Human and the “elite” elements of society are the minority Ogre oligarchy based on wealth from trade? Hmmm… that’s interesting. I like it! The number of non-tyrannical Oligarchies in “real world” Earth history have been so rare as to the point of being almost legendary, it really wouldn’t be too hard to conceive of Ogres assuming a dominant and exploitative role in a fictional society.

Well, that tells me a little about the ruling class, but I’m not yet really getting a good ‘view’ of this society yet. Lets look at the next paragraph:

It is a polytheistic society, worshiping a caring female deity of Trade, a sad female deity of the Sea, a silent male deity of the Home, a forgiving male deity of Dreams and a neutral female deity of Murder. The members of this culture are fairly devoted to their beliefs.

Okay, they are polytheistic, worshipping multiple deities, with a reasonable level of devotion to those beliefs. Now, the primary reason I include religion in the generator is to see who the culture has felt the need to pray to and find a place in their hearts to revere. As well as being helpful for PC’s playing clerics, it gives another potential “in” for understanding the culture. For example: A violent Orc nation probably will not worship a Virgin Goddess of Puppies! Although that would be really interesting, it doesn’t really fit the “cultural psychology” of most sane civilizations.  This only charts out the 'dominant' deity or deities in the culture, leaving the door open for the possibility of an entire pantheon of 'lesser' deities if it becomes necessary/interesting.

Well, they worship a “Caring Female Deity of Trade.” No big surprise there. Matriarchy, Trade Center, Plutocratic. Not to hard to determine she is one of the dominant Deities of our little as-yet-unnamed culture! The next is a “Sad Female Deity of the Sea.” Well, it is a floating city made by Merpeople, so sea power is obviously going to be in the forefront of most people’s thinking. But, why is she sad?

Hmmm… perhaps the people once were the Merpeople who built the city? Damned for the Sin of Pride, the ancestors of the City-That-Floats were forever cast out from the Mother-Ocean and condemned to breathe the dry air above it’s shimmering surface for the rest of their lives. Those who were most monstrous at heart (in other words, the leaders) were judged by the Mother-Ocean more harshly than most during the Time-Of-Judgment, and made into Ogres. Everyone else in society were turned into “normal” Humans. Now, after many generations, the Mother-Ocean is still worshipped. She is, after all, their holy mother.  The people of the City-That-Floats and their inhuman leaders have long-ago given in to their dark urges and the monstrous appetites it implies, and in doing so have found a wicked delight in this new form their Mother-Ocean has ‘blessed’ them with.

The Goddess of the Mother-Ocean, in short, is sad because her plan to punish her wayward children and teach them a lesson has completely failed. The Mother-Ocean (the goddess, not the actual large body of water) is a perfect archtype of the kind and loving parent who has finally learned she has given birth to children of unrepentant wickedness that she is now totally powerless to stop.

Next up on the Deity parade is a “Silent Male Deity of the Home” and a “Forgiving Male Deity of Dreams.” Well, that sort of fits. As a culture descended from an exiled population, these two deities (brothers, perhaps?) would represent a cultural yearning for the security of the past (with “home” being a metaphor for that safety) and the hope for the future (with “dreams” the obvious metaphor for an idealized utopian vision of that future).

But, wouldn’t that contradict the previous paragraph? Not necessarily. Already, we’ve indicated a divide between the Human-populated lower social classes and the Ogre elite in this society. Perhaps the oppressed Human majority keeps this secret hope of eventual redemption and forgiveness alive in spite of, rather than with the support of, their Ogrish overlords? That would also explain why these two Deities are male in a female-dominated society. The obvious “empower those who are disenfranchised” metaphor, combined with a promise of future forgiveness should be a center point of this particular bit of theology. Perhaps even wrapped up in some form of messianic belief of their comming savior? Yeah, you don’t see that often in many fantasy RPG’s.

Since the men are probably the ones doing the manual labor on behalf of the women in this culture (even amongst the Human lower-classes), a message of redemption and forgiveness brought by the Twin Brothers, Sons of the Mother-Ocean may be the only thing that keeps hope alive amongst the opressed. The Twin Brothers promise the coming of the King-Of-The-Waves someday, who is destined to bring a peaceful balance on land and in the sea with the Mother-Ocean. The second paragraph indicates a “shocking poverty of the cultures lowest classes and for the abusive way their society treats clerics.” This would fit in well here, as the secretive priests preaching the coming of the King-Of-The-Waves amongst the oppressed masses of Humanity, a fact obviously opposed strenuously by the Ogrish elite and the Queen Plutocratrix.

Finally, we have our last important Deity, a “Neutral Female Deity of Murder.” Well, this would be another reason clerics are treated abusively! After the Time-Of-Judgment, the Ogrish elite found for themselves a new, darker deity that appealed to their cruel appetites. The Bride-Of-Knives is not “openly” worshipped or even acknowledged in the City-That-Floats. But, even the lowest of the low in the City-That-Floats knows “a friend of a friend” who can whisper words of revenge into the ears of women in dark robes and sharp knives. For a price too horrible to contemplate for any but the desperate and the obsessed, vengeance can be obtained.  Dark Goddess, mix in some assassin and the implication of organized crime for flavoring, and mix until smooth.  Add Salt, Pepper, and Vodka to taste!

Now THAT gives me something to work with! I have a good ‘view’ of this culture, which I will continue describing on my next blog entry.

Caerwyn 

Confessions of a Setting Whore

Hello, Everyone.

My name is Caerwyn ... and I am a Setting Whore

Hi Caerwyn

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm probably something of an anacronism in the RPG world today.  Many of my opinions (which are entirely my own, I speak for no one else but myself in today's blog post/rant) have been formed long ago when I started playing role-playing games. And I've been playing since the early 70's. 

You, my unnamed and unknown reader, are free to agree or disagree with as much of this post as you wish. 

That's the joy of the RPG hobby: It's flexible enough to support all our different points of view.

In today's world of role-playing games, where people talk about "rules-light" and "rules-heavy" systems way my generation once deliberated the merits of "new" Duran Duran over "old" Duran Duran, my opinions on what is and is not important may not resonate with everyone.  But, lets begin:

There are a lot of very intelligent people out there, most of whom are probably smarter than I am, who have given a lot of thought about creating and delivering the perfect RPG game system, where each element is a finely-tuned RPG machine, delivering maximum RPG RPM's to the players blessed to game upon its surface.  Many of those games are truly inspired.  Others are shockingly insipid.  All rely on varying definitions of "perfections."  For many people today, system really does matter.

Show me the setting.  I'm the GM, I can take it from there.

Now, as systems go, I prefer a skill-based, classless system over a class-based one, which often are more focused on "niche protection" than any sort of "reality."  This, in my opinion, is especially true for class-based systems that have "feats" or "powers"that are often one or more of the following:

1. just skills-by-another-name, often skills and/or abilities the character should already have.
2. Feats or Powers that are actually skills that should (in my opinion) be role-played out by the player, and not be at the mercy of some predictable and exploitable system mechanic.
3. Nothing more than KEWL POWERS that would only warm the cockles of some DBZ-loving munchkinesque power gamer trying for some platonic ideal of "the Perfect Build."

I prefer systems where the focus is on the character as a person, rather than the characer as some sort of nameless race/class/alignment combo, typically with the aforementioned kewl powers!

Personally, I don't want there to be any sort of focus on "builds" at all.  But, if there simply has to be such in the game, I prefer the system to support a "perfect build" that is something other than the tired old "nameless paranoid sociopathic killing machine with no background, a trenchcoat and katana, who robs the bodies and sells the organs on the black market after the kill" cliche as the only option and everything else either badwrongfun or totally unsupported by the system.

I like roll-under, percentile-based die mechanics over some insane dice-pool or some trendy dice mechanic.  The standard "d20" has been done to death.  Yes, I know a lot of people feel a roll-under mechanic doesn't "scale well" or is "counter-intuitive."  I also know a percentile-based system isn't exactly Earth-shatteringly original.  But, these are MY preferences in a system, and I like a simple and easy-to-use mechanic.

I like a system where the game rules "fade into the background" during play.  Nothing irritates me more than when the rules get in the way or otherwise assume a dominant role.  I'm here to PLAY, damnit!  (I'll avoid the tired, cliched "Roll-Play VS Role-Play" argument. We've all seen it before.)

I like a system that supports a flexible, non-vancian magic system when it's appropriate for the setting.  Obviously, magic in an RPG about athletescompeting in the modern Olympics would make little sense, although such a game would be interesting to play!).  I prefer the magic system to be flexible and unpredictable, rather than having huge lists of spells that players can predict, and invariably are reduced to "magic missile, fireball, lightning bolt, cone of cold."

I like a system that can make a grubby, excrement-covered NPC peasant farmer just as easily as it can create an Elven Wizard (or whatever).

I especially like a system where both the farmer and the wizard I just referenced are just as playable (in their own way) as the other, are equally supported by the system to BE just as playable (again, in their own way), and are made the exact same way using the exact same rules.

I like a system that supports the old-school "hero's path' from zero hero. Yes, it's cliched, but I like it. Hello, Horatio!  Welcome home, old friend!  :D

I also like a "traditional game" system, with the old GM/Player divide, rather than be forced to conform to some long essay about player empowerment or innane rant about deprotagonization in the game book/pdf.

Wow, my spell checker REALLY didn't like the word "deprotagonization." Do I sound like a petulant old grognard yet?

For what really matters (to me, at least) isn't the system, but the setting.

There is a word I wish every GM, Gamer, and Game-Designer would learn.  It's "Verisimilitude."

Honestly, I'm not sure how to pronounce it, but it means "truthlikeness."  In this context, it is a measure of the quality of the realism of the game setting described.  Now, 'realism' does not necessarily mean "like the real world."  For purposes of this discussion, I'm trying to address the quality of a settings internal realism and how "true" the setting is to that internal paradigm. 

A setting can be all sorts of crazy, and still be playable.  For example: A setting where the Players are sentient wedges of cheese telepathically disputing the validity of the color blue in a Jungian vs Freudian psychoanalytical framework.  It is my belief that, if the setting is put together coherently in accordance with the truth of its own internal paradigm, it's playable.  Even if the 'internal logic' it adheres to is totally batshat crazy, if it's true to the paradigm of its own internal reality, it can be played (and enjoyed) by someone. 

Now, some systems will be able to handle a wacked-out setting better than others.  But, if the setting is good, then a good GM can run it.

Now, I fully understand there are gamers out there who want nothing more "realistic" out of their game than some variation of: "Kick the Door, Kill the Orc, Take His Delicious Pie."  I am not one of those gamers.  I want to know why the orc has the pie in the first place.

For me, its all about immersion into the paradigm of the setting.  It is a WORLD, not just the background noise for rolling the dice the system tells me I should be rolling.

I like richly detailed, realistic settings where things like economics, religions, societies, hell even the cuisine makes sense in the context of the setting as described.  The actions of the player characters should be part of the ongoing narrative of the setting paradigm, and it should all mesh together seamlessly, preferably without the intrusion of the game system.

Even if the GM never uses the details, they should be there.  Even though most players will take the paradigm of the ongoing narrative and fill it with penis jokes, the setting matters.  Because, just as we all play differently and want different things from a game, someone will look upon some random bit of information and think to themselves "Hmmm... I can USE that..."

For that purpose, I have created the Fourteen Worlds of Ta'ar.  I've created the sort of setting I want to play in, and I think others will find something of value in it as well.

Does system matter?  Yes, of course it does.  But it is not the only thing that matters.  In the end, the system is just a series of rules to be used BY the players who are running their character IN the setting.  It's all about the setting, and I love it.  That's why I am a settings whore.

Caerwyn

The Fourteen Worlds of Ta'ar

Hello!

Today is October 1, 2010, and this is the first official post of my blog.

My name is Scott Cornett, and I own and operate Caerwyn Enterprises out of Phoenix, Az.

This Be Me!

This blog was created by myself, and is about an RPG game system and setting I have created.

Are you ready to enter the Fourteen Worlds of Ta'ar?

Here's your first peak:

Lake Llaya, on the Lands of Light

A mysterious obelisk on one of the Moons of the Storm

A sunny summer day on the Darklands

Congratulations, you have just entered the Fourteen Worlds.

In future blog posts, I'll be describing the places, faces, and races of the Worlds of Ta'ar.  As well as the game system specifics and "Actual Game" play. 

But, for now; I hope you take this time to enjoy the new world available to you.

© all text and images posted are the copyright of Caerwyn Enterprises, Phoenix Az