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So... Heroes or murder hobos? Which is it?
I'm writing a world which seems safe. It has dangers, but the Kingdom has things well in hand. Go about your business citizen.
For low levels, I intend for them to work out their own character motivations and goals, leaving the high-level problems for high-level NPCs. They'll run into "the village needs PCs" problems, but the forces of evil are being held at bay. The opening stages are where they interact with the world as it is, find out which parts are working well, what parts a powerful PC might be interested in changing, and what manners of impending doom might spill out later. Basically exploring, gaining money/xp, establishing themselves.
After they've established who they are, what they can do, and why they care about the world, THEN the world can go to hell and need them to go rescue it.
That's the kind of game I'd like to play in, so it's the kind of game I'm trying to write.
Well, are you're PCs adventurers or heroes? There's a difference. In the original D&D campaigns, Blackmoor and Greyhawk, the PCs were adventurers. They weren't out to save the world, they were out for fortune and glory. They drove the action, especially in Blackmoor, were some of the PCs took up the roles of the bad guys in the setting. However as D&D was published some people took their inspiration from heroic fantasy like Lord of the Rings. D&D had creatures from Lord of the Rings, yes, but originally it was more inspired by sword and sorcery like Conan and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. So some of the new guys started to take their games in different directions, which came to dominate the D&D game with Dragonlance and 2nd Edition. Both playstyles are valid, but they are different, though they can certainly overlap.
So, what's the point of this history lesson? Well adventurers need opportunities to seek fortune and glory, like treasure-filled ruins. Heroes need opportunities to be heroic, which means there must be something to strive against, like diabolical villains. Whether the world should require the PCs depends on who the PCs are.
Of course you could argue that in a well ruled, populated and explored world there won't be a lot of treasure-filled ruins.
Even Conan or Fafhrd & the Mouser didn't live in a world of uber-competent rulers and generals. Conan at least, profited from a number of corrupt, incompetent rulers. Both as a mercenary captain and when he took the throne of Aquilonia.
He also played the hero role quite well, once he got involved with a situation.
Perhaps there won't be as many dungeons, but that doesn't mean no dungeons at all. In a way such a campaign would be the counterpoint to the "Points of Light" philosophy that 4e points out (it wasn't named that before, but it did exist). You'd have Points of Darkness in a sea of Light instead of the other way around. Also I'm not saying that a adventurers PCs would require a peaceful world like the OP describes. Rather I'm saying that such a peaceful world would have no need of heroes, and thus if you're designing a world for heroes that world should require heroes. Though, adventurers can prosper in a peaceful world by making their own adventure, but that might not be a nice thing to do...
So... Heroes or murder hobos? Which is it?
How about thieves that are good enough they don't have to murder everything.
:{D
I'm writing a world which seems safe. It has dangers, but the Kingdom has things well in hand. Go about your business citizen.
For low levels, I intend for them to work out their own character motivations and goals, leaving the high-level problems for high-level NPCs. They'll run into "the village needs PCs" problems, but the forces of evil are being held at bay. The opening stages are where they interact with the world as it is, find out which parts are working well, what parts a powerful PC might be interested in changing, and what manners of impending doom might spill out later. Basically exploring, gaining money/xp, establishing themselves.
After they've established who they are, what they can do, and why they care about the world, THEN the world can go to hell and need them to go rescue it.
That's the kind of game I'd like to play in, so it's the kind of game I'm trying to write.
Stability is not nearly as fun as factionalism and multiple civs in contest, with rural and monster factions in the mix.
Stability is not nearly as fun as factionalism and multiple civs in contest, with rural and monster factions in the mix.I'm writing a world which seems safe. It has dangers, but the Kingdom has things well in hand. Go about your business citizen.
For low levels, I intend for them to work out their own character motivations and goals, leaving the high-level problems for high-level NPCs. They'll run into "the village needs PCs" problems, but the forces of evil are being held at bay. The opening stages are where they interact with the world as it is, find out which parts are working well, what parts a powerful PC might be interested in changing, and what manners of impending doom might spill out later. Basically exploring, gaining money/xp, establishing themselves.
After they've established who they are, what they can do, and why they care about the world, THEN the world can go to hell and need them to go rescue it.
That's the kind of game I'd like to play in, so it's the kind of game I'm trying to write.
I agree!!
It can also be really unusual for some of the monster civs to actually be the good guys. Enlightened lizardfolk city states for instance.
I am a fan of enlightened minotaurs myself.
...and many other beings, but some can still stay monstrous.
Yeah, one char in my game is a monk trained by a minotaur sensei at a monster monastery.
The other above-ground minotaurs are living it up as successful mercs. Mmmmm that greataxe damage.
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I'd say they get along well with their "cousin" race in my world setting, who happen to be a homebrew race inspired by a somewhat obscure source. Then again, I'm spreading "monster" races everywhere, so I have things like Aztec High Elves competing with an empire of Serpentfolk who follow a deity inspired by Quetzalcoatl while both are preyed upon by other locals of the jungles such as ferocious (but not always evil) Pirahnafolk called the Napici Namah in one place, and an analogue to Egyptians fighting off Babylon-inspired undead while having uneasy business deals with Gnolls as well as the occasional Suli clan or Thri-Kreen mercenary party.
And suddenly I feel inspired to work on my setting again once I get home from work. Thanks for the help, guys!!
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Setting up the otyughs as a natural counter and predator of the lizardfolk was good fun, the otyughs are the originators of democracy (too solo and not tribal, so they prefer assemblies and votes on major decisions). Thri kreen lost their traditional taste for elves in exchange for fey and become fairy devourers.
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I have a lot of civilized monsters actually. Half-orcs, orcs, goblins, kobolds, and the like are all civilized (although world issues have resulted in their populations being somewhat different). Also, I've tried to destroy the racial differences (so that an orc of one nationality has more in common with an elf of similar nationality, then an orc from another country).
I do like the Points of Darkness idea, and thats how I tend to play it. The heroes go and deal with problems in dark, forgotten corners, or deal with huge problems when they become evident, as opposed to being required every minute of every day to keep farms from being overrun with ankhegs or the like.
I've never been a fan of the 'convienant hellmouth' idea though. It strains my disbelief in games like Elder Scrolls where a city has a roiling complex flooded with the undead within strolling distance.
I've never been a fan of the 'convienant hellmouth' idea though. It strains my disbelief in games like Elder Scrolls where a city has a roiling complex flooded with the undead within strolling distance.
It makes some sense to me, plus it's much more convenient from a story standpoint.
Look at the real world, major cities have major problems. New Orleans pretty much goes from crisis to crisis, but being situated at the mouth of the Mississippi, it's too important as a trade hub to abandon completely. No, I don't want to bring politics into this, just using a troubled city as an example.
Big cities attract all sorts of people, and in a fantasy world that includes deranged cultists who want to open a hellmouth. They aren't just going to wander off into the wilderness and do it where it won't disturb anyone, they're going to do it where their masters think it will cause the most death and destruction.
Pulling from the real world again, we've been struggling with organized crime forever in the US. They've tried hard to stamp it out, especially in regards to drugs, but even though there are competent and experienced law enforcement officers, problems still occur.
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Stability is not nearly as fun as factionalism and multiple civs in contest, with rural and monster factions in the mix.
That's the kind of game I'd like to play in, so it's the kind of game I'm trying to write.
I agree. But I disagree that it's most fun to start there. Jumping into a world of backstabbery and chaos with your only investment what you've wrote in your backstory and read in the campaign description isn't as fun as making it your world and then having it threatened.
I want the PCs to be players in the factionalism, rather than pawns being pushed around by NPCs. I want to give them the time to carve out their own power center in a setting where they choose which toes to step on to attain money and power, rather than getting tossed back and forth on the waves of established powers.
I want to let them explore the frontier, squish local threats, solve tricky but low-power problems, and find their own niche in the political ecosystem. That way, when they get involved in power plays between civs and monsters, they have something at stake.
I am certainly not for players being pawns, fetch quests get really old fast.
I am certainly not for players being pawns, fetch quests get really old fast.
I wasn't thinking fetch quests so much as getting dropped into competing faction world and meeting the NPC that says, "Help my faction! We align with you and we'll give you treasure."
Ok, why the hell not? You just got here, that's a reasonable quest hook, let's go.
Except now you're playing reactively. You might decide to turn on the NPC later, but it'll probably be because he lied to you, or another side is even better, or something like that.
You're still being driven by what the NPCs want and what the NPCs are doing.
If you have time to settle in first before getting swept up in competing factions, you have time to develop what your characters care about in the terms of the campaign setting beyond what meshes with their alignment and backstory.
If they spend 3-4 sessions establishing themselves as freelance adventurers with a reputation, they'll have allies, contacts, and enemies. Then when the infighting starts, the NPC shows up, says "Help my faction! We align with you and we'll give you treasure," and the PCs have a way to put it in context.
I'm not saying you can't start in the middle of political intrigue and have it work, I just think it PCs feel more important and involved if they are already established before considering taking sides.
We are into free will, determinism and agency aren't we?
Stepping outside of a railroaded adventure reveals a lot more options, the first npc offering you work doesn't hold some driving sway. He can be told to f*** off and the game doesn't end because of that.
We are into free will, determinism and agency aren't we?
Stepping outside of a railroaded adventure reveals a lot more options, the first npc offering you work doesn't hold some driving sway. He can be told to f*** off and the game doesn't end because of that.
True. Its just providing a satisfying reason to do that beyond 'my character is paranoid/ornery by nature'.
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One thing that strikes me in the description of your world is that it is very efficient. In fact, too efficient. It is far more efficient than the RL world, for example.
Incompetent leaders, stifling bureaucracies, opposing viewpoints and the undermining of rival powers even when confronting a common enemy, or just plain old misunderstandings are not tropes of RPG, but elements of a real world.
Your world sounds too perfect. Like a painting done by one person (or even a few people). There is no place left for new artists, because they are living in the masterpiece of the previous ones.
For there to be growth in a world (and that is what PCs are : agents of change and growth), there must be destruction of the old.
In the setting you described, there is no such death of systems, but only a continual progress and improvement, fully endorsed by the powers that be.
What then can the PCs hope to be except cogs in this well-oiled machinery ? How can they be exceptional ?
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Again, limitation of not wanting to get into TLDR Grognard territory.
The magic running nation is basically stifled under its 'protective' bueracracy, which is designed to intentionally flummox practically everyone into non-action to attempt to prevent them from destroying themselves with their magic.
The current movement of civilization is also on an 'up kick' following the destruction of the prior world-spanning empire. The new nations have had a few hundred years to re-establish and learn. This is the age where the empires with their strange wonders and well-appointed cities that normally would be ruins in a standard DnD session, aren't.
The overly stratified and lawful nature is actually, strangely enough, an overarching plot point. The world's intrinsically out of balance in that regard. Things are becoming stable, controlled, and the forces that would otherwise provide the balancing have increasingly found themselves defeated and marginalized. Evil diminishes with each one of their black crusades, as I ascribe to the belief that Evil is intrinsically an inferior, parasitic as opposed to active force. The forces of chaos have only lunatics and mischief causers amongst their divine ranks. The rilmani (from waaay back from 2e) basically routinely show up to try to 'fix things' by giving power to chaotic or even lawful evil entities in the hopes of restoring a world they view as being hideously out of balance, so out of balance they view it as endangering the 'balance of the multiverse'.
The national stability is pretty good. The dimensional stability because of this stuff is another issue entirely.
Nations and businesses routinely make use of kolyrauts for major business deals.
Cities remain watchful for planar incursions that might flood their streets with lemures, manes, or overly judgemental archons. But this results in Governments better at rapid response and recovery.
Extraplanar beings are /always/ up to something. Erinyes sneaking about, causing problems, workign within bueracratic systems. New magical devices or ancient artifacts capable of modifying the world's very nature prizes in races conducted by the great powers and the heroes.
And of course, over a lot of this looms the awakening of the Big Good when the Big Bad tries his hand one too many time. With the somewhat looming prophecy that he will 'Destroy all that is not Good.'
So its not like the players don't have things to do. Its just that say my nation of Talcara doesn't wet themselves when a single dragon shows up somewhere (they have dragons in their military), or a bunch of ogres attack an isolated mountain fort (thats what the muskets and cannon are for). Neither issue though is precisely welcomed, and if a bunch of heroes show up to deal with it, its damn more efficient then taking a dragon off of his duties guarding the capital, or redirecting the army (whose been at war with another country for the past thousand years for reasons they can't even remember).
Quick Edit: Also, the world itself is somewhat...malleable due to the fact that Maps in my campaign setting actually have the power to make changes to the world itself. So..there are situations where borders literally change, countries have historically just /disappeared/ people and all, or /appeared/ people and all, so there's almost always a frontier, or something somewhere where someone wants something explored, or exploited (in the good way). As well as hundreds of tiny islands that appeared in the last twenty years that people have been clammoring for, ruins in the strange interior of the jungle continent, etc.
Its not outside the realm of possibility either to have a bunch of undead pirates just /show up/ somewhere, who act as if they just sailed off the coast 2 months ago when it was really closer to 2,000 years.
2000 year old pirates on galleys! With khopeshs' and feats not seen for a millenia.
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2000 year old pirates on galleys! With khopeshs' and feats not seen for a millenia.
"Yarr! C'pn, our weapons' speed seems to have mysteriously ceased being relevant!"
"You scurvy dogs, which one of you reprobrates stole my saves.... How am I to know if'n I am defeated by a wand, or breath weapon, yarr"
"Cap'n! My attack bonus be going in a positive, rather than negative fashion!"