06-09-2017, 09:28 PM | #101 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
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Re: What Do You Want For Yrth
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Case in Point? I had a campaign in which an Elven woman was possessed by a mage who had used a powerstone as his soul stone. He could posses her if he know the spell sufficiently well enough to not need arms or hands or words (which he did) an sufficient energy (which the powerstone did). Long story short? They saved a wagon full of screaming children and a frightened wagon drover being pursued by what looked like bandits (no two dressed the same no standardized armor or heraldry). When the two heroes drove off the pursuing bandits with archery fire (They were elven archers), they later met up with the nearby town and entered the inn, where they promptly overheard the story of how the rescuers were driven off from saving the kidnapped children by an army of archers hidden in the edges of the forest. They were THIS close to saving the kids. That's when the players thought "oops - we'd better go save the kids". Then, after killing the villain, it was "oops, she was possessed by an evil one, our bad". GURPS MAGIC and YRTH has so much potential - if you use discretion over what spells you allow and disallow. That's why I loved those Alaconius Lectures so much back in the day. |
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06-09-2017, 09:45 PM | #102 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Re: What Do You Want For Yrth
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06-09-2017, 10:49 PM | #103 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
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Re: What Do You Want For Yrth
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It is sometimes funny when someone would point me towards an Alaconius piece in answer to a question I pose, without them realizing I wrote them. As mentioned, I've always enjoyed looking at the history of any game world and imagining "what if magic as written, really worked". |
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06-21-2017, 06:49 AM | #104 | |
Join Date: Jan 2010
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Re: What Do You Want For Yrth
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None of the players has ever heard any word about Yrth. They don't have any access to the book. So whatever they feel, it can only be influenced by the setting as their characters perceive it. The main point that makes my players feeling somehow uncomfortable about Yrth is: How to live in a "political correct" real world, meet the other Players in real life on a "political correct" basis, but play in a "we or they" setting between Muslims and Christians? Maybe it's just "too close to a political real-life issue" - and if that's the point, then I don't see any easy solution. My interim solution is: have the party move to Sahud - where they have to go anyway, as one character is a KiDoKa (Midgard Game Term, but I guess I don't have to explain this) and needs a teacher to improve his core abilities. Then I have time to come up with the perfect solution... ... or at least with a semi-perfect one... I guess that maybe this semi-perfect solution could be to stress that it's not THE Christians against THE Muslims. Maybe I need some civil war with several Christians and Muslims on each side of the conflict, making it a conflict for power, not a religious conflict. I guess that Caithness could be a good starting point for that. |
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06-21-2017, 09:04 AM | #105 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Re: What Do You Want For Yrth
Or Tredroy, for somewhere that representatives of both religions from out of town could want to cause problems for their own gain while opposing factions of their co-religionists might cooperate try to protect the status quo.
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06-21-2017, 10:52 AM | #106 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: What Do You Want For Yrth
Quote:
__________________
"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
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06-21-2017, 12:17 PM | #107 | |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: What Do You Want For Yrth
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The issues on Yrth are those of a Christendom largely unaffected by the Reformation (1500s-1600s), and Islam largely unaffected by the Mamluk uprising (1300s-1500s); which makes them very different from contemporary Earth religions. Acknowledging that the Crusades happened isn't problematic or insensitive. Treating the Yrth conflicts as based in the politics of that place, rather than Earth's, shouldn't be either. |
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06-21-2017, 07:07 PM | #108 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: What Do You Want For Yrth
Quote:
In other words trying to find a fixed chronological border between Medieval and Modern times is impossible. Indeed it has been argued that many terrorists seem to live in a fantasy of romanticized Medievalism, and in fact there has always been a lot of that going around whenever there was extremist political violence in the past two hundred years and it was not just Muslims who did it. Just because there are new problems does not mean the old problems are not still there and indeed the main thing new is adding modern technology to the mix. It is hard to see how the Wahabis are really all that special in Islamic fashion. Even Israel could have been founded at any time someone was not paying attention enough to Palestine to mind if some Jewish organization LBOed it the way it (metaphorically)happened in real life. Which means any time Crusading was out of fashion and Jihading was directed elsewhere. All that was needed was, money, influence, a charismatic Jewish leader and enough Jews motivated enough to dig and fight. Money and influence were definitely available. The fact that Israel was not founded in the Middle Ages just means they did not bother, not that the presence of Israel marks a dividing line between the problems then and the problems now. In any event the fact that enough players are going to identify Crusade and Jihad with modern problems is an indication that Medieval problems are modern problems. Medieval problems have never been forgotten. You can read about them in Victorian literature and even political analysis. In this instance, like so many, thinking them so makes them so and people think them so. The real problem is not whether or not they are real as whether or not players can maintain enough detachment to use them in a game.
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"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison Last edited by jason taylor; 06-21-2017 at 07:57 PM. |
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06-22-2017, 01:59 AM | #109 | |
Join Date: Jan 2010
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Re: What Do You Want For Yrth
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Maybe I should encourage them to read about El Cid... ... and especially about the coalitions in that war... But the main problem is that it's my task as SL (German for GM, but sounds like "Esel", which translates to "donkey", so it is kind of a "True Name" of all GMs) to make this clearer in the game world, and that could be the General Problem of Yrth? Because at least in my campaign it can't be any of the other problems mentioned so far, as my players couldn't have perceived any of them so far. |
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06-22-2017, 09:06 AM | #110 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: What Do You Want For Yrth
Quote:
__________________
"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
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Tags |
wishlist, yrth |
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