GURPS Fantasy , shared world, recruiting

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

My initial 'zone of development' will be a region of temperate uplands- green, rolling hills. The inhabitants are a TL2 nation of pastoralists [sheep and goats].

These folk worship a local pantheon of gods. These gods are depicted as human-like, although the male gods have horns like rams and the goddesses have long, curly hair like fine wool. The head of the little pantheon is a mother-figure, at once the young shepherdess and the older midwife.

Huh. That setup doesn't inspire me much. I guess I thought you'd be letting each person contribute their own "fire" to an entire world, which you would police for consistency with your assumptions and rules, as well as helping to steer interactions between "palettes."

So if I have my blasingdell area, with some TL3 kingdom (to be left unspecified, but if a suitable candidate came from another participant, so be it) to the northwest, then you could mix and match locales, so long as they are consistent with your rules.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Huh. That setup doesn't inspire me much. I guess I thought you'd be letting each person contribute their own "fire" to an entire world, which you would police for consistency with your assumptions and rules, as well as helping to steer interactions between "palettes."

So if I have my blasingdell area, with some TL3 kingdom (to be left unspecified, but if a suitable candidate came from another participant, so be it) to the northwest, then you could mix and match locales, so long as they are consistent with your rules.

Oh, I was planning on adding in material of my own, as well. Are there objections to this? I am surprised by that.

In any case, my intention is certainly to encourage you all to develop your own regions and cultures. When I typed 'my initial zone of development' I didn't mean for you to assume that your stuff had to be placed there! Jurgen has his own idea for a region/culture, as does Tantric.

[tantric]

If you truly feel that Powers is necessary to model your culture's traditions, then use it. What I am trying to avoid is too much mechanical complexity, and also the presence of 'super powers' or 'psionics.' All magical powers should be affected by mana, of course. Any alternate set of abilities should not 'trump' standard magic. Options are fine, blowing the 'standard magic' right out of the water is not.

If you are using spirits, I suggest that you consider that spirits may themselves be composed of/infused with mana.

I see what you're getting at. That's very workable. So, for instance, if this culture believes that spirits grant their magic, a bit of modular abilities for knowing different groups of spells at different times is reasonably simple and is just a tweak on standard magic. Well, that might be a bit complicated, but I see the point. KISS. Yes, the nature spirits would be semi-sentient bits of mana. Spiritblooded would most likely be humans with Magery and Supernatural Features (and Dependency - Nature Aspected Mana?)

[Figleaf23]

combatmedic, I have a suggestion --

Instead of recruiting a small core of creators to commit to what looks like being a substantial content requirement, why don't you throw it open to more people to contribute perhaps smaller elements of the project.

You could write up a 'bible' for contributors to follow, and ask for one- or two- page treatments of their proposed elements.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by tantric

I see what you're getting at. That's very workable. So, for instance, if this culture believes that spirits grant their magic, a bit of modular abilities for knowing different groups of spells at different times is reasonably simple and is just a tweak on standard magic. Well, that might be a bit complicated, but I see the point. KISS. Yes, the nature spirits would be semi-sentient bits of mana. Spiritblooded would most likely be humans with Magery and Supernatural Features (and Dependency - Nature Aspected Mana?)

Yes, we are on the same page.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

combatmedic, I have a suggestion --

Instead of recruiting a small core of creators to commit to what looks like being a substantial content requirement, why don't you throw it open to more people to contribute perhaps smaller elements of the project.

You could write up a 'bible' for contributors to follow, and ask for one- or two- page treatments of their proposed elements.

I cannot write the setting bible until the setting itself has taken on a more definite shape. If I throw it wide open now, we're likely to have mountains of clashing material. That's why we start with a smaller group of contributors.


Don't be intimidated by 'content requirement.' A page or two on any given culture or nation is good enough. You don't have to crank out encyclopedia entries. Get the core ideas out there, and some little flashes of color, and you can build on it later, possibly with help from your peers.


edit- This doesn't mean that we cannot expand the number of contributors at a later time. For now, based on my experiences working with groups on various projects, nine is a good cut-off point.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Barbarians from the east are better than orcs, for this setting, as you suggest.


The terrain chnage caused by the magic device- what was it like? Was the local mana field affected in some way?

It flattened the terrain, forming a giant (!) bowl that settled the entire local area. The mana WAS impacted, IIRC..the farther away from blasingdell, the closer to normal mana one got.

The device was sunk under blasingdell (Blazing Dell, btw...it burned for generations in my little universe) and became a major goal for the Big Bad ("Sterick the Red") who was reanimated when Orc Magi (Barbarians from the East) managed to transfer his imprisoned soul in the Paladin who came to stop the Orcs. They'd picked out one of their own to house the body; when the Paladin killed him, the ritual-bearer hit him with the Staff of Transferrance (or something similarly pretentious).

I actually ran the Rise of Sterick the Red as a prequel, resulting in the deaths of all the PCs one at a time, with one escaping mortally wounded (leaving a trail for the future PCs to follow) and the Paladin got possessed, and started killling the rest of the PCs.

If you PM me with an email address, I'll dig up what I had and send it.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Oh, I was planning on adding in material of my own, as well. Are there objections to this? I am surprised by that.

In any case, my intention is certainly to encourage you all to develop your own regions and cultures. When I typed 'my initial zone of development' I didn't mean for you to assume that your stuff had to be placed there! Jurgen has his own idea for a region/culture, as does Tantric.

Ah. YOUR own region of development; I thought as editor you meant the entire world's...we good.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Ah. YOUR own region of development; I thought as editor you meant the entire world's...we good.

Yeah! Now we are on the same page.

[griffin]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Gods work behind the scenes, or at a distance, most of the time. The appearance of a deific avatar would be a highly unusual event, but it has happened before.

Champions of the gods exist- I had already mentioned the possibility of 'clerics' with Power Investiture. Such people are not terribly common.

That works for me.

Flying cavalry may be problematic. It seems very over-the-top and high magic for this setting. Neither the magic beasts nor the magic items that would allow for it are very common in this world. It is possible that it exists someplace in the setting, but I doubt that it is very common.

That's unfortunate as Agramar's suggestion is more in line with the rather cinematic fantasy setting I'd be interested in developing and gaming in.


Not sure what you mean by martial arts.[/QUOTE]