09-17-2018, 11:21 AM | #11 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Shoreline, WA (north of Seattle)
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Re: [Creative] Trying to build a fantasy setting.
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But enough about hew-mons. What about the rest of your setting? What's the big elemental conflict that's driving adventure? What are the little points of civilization, and why haven't they spread out into the not-fearsome wilderness? How did that Lost civilization fall, and what kind of wonders and dangers can be found in its ruins? TBH, this is starting to look more like a Studio Ghibli setting than classic dungeon fantasy, which is pretty interesting to me. |
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09-17-2018, 11:32 AM | #12 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: [Creative] Trying to build a fantasy setting.
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__________________
Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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09-17-2018, 11:48 AM | #13 | |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: [Creative] Trying to build a fantasy setting.
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The storytelling reason: if the non-humans really are just humans with funny bits, why do you need them in the story at all? Just use all humans, and it will save you a lot of exposition about something that ultimately doesn't matter, by definition. Even stories about aliens are really about "what it means to be human". The point of using the aliens is to contrast with human thought, or as mirrors for subsets of human thought (often "planet of hats") or to provide an outside viewpoint looking in. Our stories are by humans and for humans, after all. The other SF possibility is simply exploring what's possible for its own sake -- but then, that also presumes the non-humans think differently than humans. Otherwise, you're just exploring the way humans think. If you do want humans, just with funny bits, then perhaps you'd be interested in pushing that notion even further. See Trans-Human Space, for instance -- or a fantasy analog with minds/souls hopping between bodies, if not simply created avatars. Or with fantasy trappings, perhaps you could use a race of shapeshifters. That way, the funny bits are not only extraneous, they're changeable and interchangeable, no more central that what clothes people are wearing. That might help focus your story on the only thing that doesn't change -- the minds, souls, personalities, motives of the characters involved. |
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09-17-2018, 12:45 PM | #14 |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: [Creative] Trying to build a fantasy setting.
Fantasy worlds, be they literature or RPG, need to have protagonists the reader/player can identify with. That is almost always perforce human.
If you don't want humans to be the dominant species/culture, fine. The PC's are humans from somewhere distant, shipwreck here with no way home. Fill your world with fantasy stereotypes and we don't need humans. You've also done nothing original. Tell me I have to play a Prootwaddle and I am out, I can have no idea how you think it should be played. You would have to give me a novel's worth of background material to read before I could play, at which point I'd probably decide I hate them and want to play something from a race dedicated to exterminating them. |
09-17-2018, 12:55 PM | #15 | ||
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: [Creative] Trying to build a fantasy setting.
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What I was doing was starting with fantasy stereotypes; associating each with a distinct environment (for example, elves with forests or woodlands); deciding on size, robustness/gracility, and sexual dimorphism; and picking a few racial mentality traits using the system in GURPS Space. I also associated each race with an animal species or two (dwarves, for example, with naked mole rates), though I didn't tell the players that. This seemed to produce a coherent enough image for them to work with, though that might be peculiar to my particular players.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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09-17-2018, 02:13 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: [Creative] Trying to build a fantasy setting.
Um... go to a bookstore, start looking at books in the SF/Fantasy section. It won't take you a long time to find one where the protagonist is an alien or supernatural beast. If you want a shortcut, head for the paranormal romances.
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09-17-2018, 02:24 PM | #17 | |||
Join Date: Jun 2017
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Re: [Creative] Trying to build a fantasy setting.
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Sorry, they are one of my buttons. Quote:
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09-17-2018, 03:50 PM | #18 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: [Creative] Trying to build a fantasy setting.
C. J. Cherryh's Chanur novels are wonderful, if now old enough to be nearly classics.
__________________
Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
09-17-2018, 05:13 PM | #19 | |
Join Date: Jun 2017
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Re: [Creative] Trying to build a fantasy setting.
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Points of Civilization: Power. Maybe something like vertical ley-lines where they have a finite radius but massive height. Or some other system with a similar result. The point is if you want high-tech comforts you have to stick close. Why haven't they spread?: Even if you can't transfer the power outward there would definitely be people who'd want to expand. In these cases, though, the wilderness has a mind of its own: build and take too much and it fights back, stay small and it doesn't bother you. There's also probably some philosophy/religion of being green that cropped up after the Ancients fell (even if we all know people never really follow those as strictly as they say). What happened to the Ancients?: They tried to use the Points of Power to reshape what was then a more-hostile world. And they succeeded in making the current one. Including the new elemental system/wilderness that fights back. And since the Ancients were big on exploitative industry it epicly bitch-slapped them. What is the other competing elemental system?: An older one that didn't really care about what the Ancients did. In many ways it's a more "natural" system that way. As a faction it wants to take the world back to the time before the Ancients changed things, not for any Evil reason but because it's a crotchety old thing. |
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09-17-2018, 05:17 PM | #20 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: [Creative] Trying to build a fantasy setting.
This makes me ponder what defines old enough to be classic (they were reprinted in omnibus editions back in 2000/2007, but that's clearly not sufficient).
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