So my DM usually runs pretty cool games with lots of interesting twists, but right now we've started a new campaign. He (at least he says) that he designs his worlds before the players play, which I think is a valid method for those who like world building.
The game starts with us being young children of a peaceful but primitive tribe on a small secluded island.
* So what do our people believe in? Nothing, there is no religion, the gods are dead.
O.o? My people have no religion? Are my people daft? Do they just not care to explain how or why the happenings that go around them go around? Ugh... Whatever... No one has questioned
* So what do my people eat? Fish and what they can forage. That's it.
They apparently have never hunted birds, small mammals, or even taken to eating insects. This suddenly becomes extremely relevant when you're trying to survive in the woods after your home is burned down in the middle of the night by strange humanoid creatures with covered in shiny material.
* The woods have never been explored.
Really? What did the people do with their time? For whatever inexplicable reason they were just afraid of the woods or do they just lack curiosity?
And while the game technically can go on with out these questions being answered, I find role playing a character from a society with absolutely no ambition what so ever frustratingly difficult. For now, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt because usually his games get really good.
Anyone else ever end up in game where the world is frustratingly nonsensical?
* The woods have never been explored.Really? What did the people do with their time? For whatever inexplicable reason they were just afraid of the woods or do they just lack curiosity?
Where, exactly, were they foraging? Only on the sand dunes? I mean, what?
"The Village" was a fun movie. It would make a lousy campaign setting.
* So what do my people eat? Fish and what they can forage. That's it.They apparently have never hunted birds, small mammals, or even taken to eating insects. This suddenly becomes extremely relevant when you're trying to survive in the woods after your home is burned down in the middle of the night by strange humanoid creatures with covered in shiny material.
Wouldn't birds, small mammals, and insects constitute things you could forage? I know forage comes from a root related to fodder, but when it comes to people hunting down food, I don't think it's quite so specific as to refer to just vegetation to graze.
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From a game I'm currently playing in:
The unnamed king of an unnamed land has hired the party to reclaim an unnamed island that has reappeared after vanishing 2000 years ago. The king says the island belongs to his kingdom and he wants to visit in a year's time so our job is to wipe out all the threatening monsters and put up flags on all the resource mines before he gets there. To accomplish our task, we've been given a free boat ride to the island and that's really about it.
The king, for his part, sent over about 50 men ahead of us to set up a camp and be murdered by kobolds. Only about 20 of these men were still alive when we arrived to the island and none of them ever leave the camp or seem to do anything productive. The only guy in the camp with a name is the king's third cousin's nephew's mother's hairdresser's adopted son from a fourth marriage or something and all he does is sit in his tent while making fun of poor people. The only sort of healer the camp has access to is a level 1 adept who seems to be terrified of work, other people and magic.
Early on, the whole campaign was basically cobbled together from half-formed ideas and short, one-shot style modules and now, it's become heavily influenced by a big, poorly-written module adjacent to a train station.
My guess is the problems with the campaign mostly come from a lack of time to prepare so I'm rolling with it.
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I was once in a campaign where the DM insisted that we all roll random backgrounds based on a big stack of tables from some product in the 80s. He thought that it would flesh out our backgrounds more. Half of us randomly ended up immune to disease, and, despite insisting I could come up with a background just fine on my own, I rolled up some monstrosity that involved oddities like my PC's father was cursed never to stay in the same place, but settled down in retirement to become a farmer. There were more apparently contradictory things in my background, but that's the one I remember most vividly.
Later, over email, he admitted that this particular background made no sense, and offered a reroll. I responded by taking that steaming pile of dice and writing a whole story, defining a new culture of seafaring wandering gnomes, with a culture of constant exploration and a need of new ideas--kind of like the Bleaching, years before I saw it here.
He replied, "See how great the random system is?"
* The woods have never been explored.IF these woods are extensive enough, I could see the tribe viewing them as a place filled with evil spirits and thus avoid going into them too deeply or even using them as a source of wood and other materials...
The existence of spirits would imply some sort of religious belief, at the very least a system of superstitions and taboos. This would have been my first thought as well, however.
If they're not under some really powerful enchantment, then this is just pitiful design.
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The existence of spirits would imply some sort of religious belief, at the very least a system of superstitions and taboos. This would have been my first thought as well, however.
Not necessarily...
Evil is evil...
They don't HAVE to be actual spirits. This "evil" could be literally anything that stays hidden away within the woods and kills any trespassing tribesmen...
The existence of spirits would imply some sort of religious belief, at the very least a system of superstitions and taboos. This would have been my first thought as well, however.Not necessarily...
Evil is evil...
They don't HAVE to be actual spirits. This "evil" could be literally anything that stays hidden away within the woods and kills any trespassing tribesmen...
I disagree in this context. If something is inherently evil, then it is in direct contrast to what is perceived as good by the observer. That creates a stigma, wherein the aforementioned superstition develops.
But that's just my opinion. I just don't see a way for a group of people NOT to develop some belief system, rudimentary though it might be. Even if they are just based on "evil spirits" in the forest, they would want to ease their minds by attempting to appease those spirits or forces. Look at tribal cultures throughout history - spiders pulling fire down from the sun in a basket made of webbing, bulls that shoot jets of fire from their anus, and elephant women who lose their skin and become human women. All explain things they sought to rationalize.
The reference to the gods being dead was the out of game explanation to why there was no belief system. It actually was specifically stated that our people never knew gods existed, our people didn't know much of anything. Their most advanced technology was the spear (which I'm rather baffled that they even knew how to make that) and the only other things our people have built are huts. We don't even know what BOATS are. Nothing but Spears and Huts (and fire).
They had to towns apparently (before they were burned down) that lied on the beach. The furthest they've ever gone into the forest was a few feet to forage and gather sticks. Because "ooh, ahh, forest scary", the only reason they never entered because they thought the forest was scary.
While trying play off my character as the child she was, in a sterile environment, her response to Kain's mention of the 'shiny' people burning down the town as doing it because they're evil, with a pouty face she responded "What's evil?". And thus our DM replied that [the other player] developed the concept of evil.
And then the food, I had specifically asked about small animals, birds, and eggs. The response I got was that they all hid in the forest, so our people never went after them.
I mean out of game, I can't help but feel that the people deserved to die, being as unambitious as they were and without culture, that is just pitiful.
I don't know. I almost feel like maybe are DM is just getting lazy on us or something.
I really hope that the second session will be really good. And I kind of am hoping for it to turn out that there was an enchantment on our people to act so... nonhuman.
We started a really variant game using the Pendragon system which has unfortunately failed.Basically our village was a tribe of neolithic herders who got caught up in events that just confused the hell out off us..bad tribes with strange weapons made off metal(which was almost unknown to our folk)strange beings from legend who we took to referring to as elves, loads of wierd portents and signs none of which really made sense except that it all worked and then at, the end of the first part of the campaign arc,we all found out we were...
The existence of spirits would imply some sort of religious belief, at the very least a system of superstitions and taboos. This would have been my first thought as well, however.Not necessarily...
Evil is evil...
No. Only posting an "Is [X] Evil" thread is evil!
From a game I'm currently playing in:
The unnamed king of an unnamed land has hired the party to reclaim an unnamed island that has reappeared after vanishing 2000 years ago. The king says the island belongs to his kingdom and he wants to visit in a year's time so our job is to wipe out all the threatening monsters and put up flags on all the resource mines before he gets there. To accomplish our task, we've been given a free boat ride to the island and that's really about it.
The king, for his part, sent over about 50 men ahead of us to set up a camp and be murdered by kobolds. Only about 20 of these men were still alive when we arrived to the island and none of them ever leave the camp or seem to do anything productive. The only guy in the camp with a name is the king's third cousin's nephew's mother's hairdresser's adopted son from a fourth marriage or something and all he does is sit in his tent while making fun of poor people. The only sort of healer the camp has access to is a level 1 adept who seems to be terrified of work, other people and magic.
It sould awesome the way you describe it. Pity that the GM was not witty enough to pull this off (... it could have been really funny).