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Old 01-21-2018, 10:18 AM   #21
Soyt Gose
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Default Re: Share your settings for TFT

I’m new to this forum, but I’ve been playing off and on since 1980 (I think). I’m still in contact with one of my best friends from back then even though we have moved a dozen times or so and we play weekly on-line.

I’m not sure if this is what you are looking for in this thread, but the environment we’ve been using since the mid 80’s has been “Starchia.” I started it after becoming tired with “high magic” environments where supposedly magical races like elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. were common place.

It also coincided with playing Grail Quest and deciding it would be fun to run a campaign in a low-magic world where players were basically human heroes, and magic, its users, magical races and monsters were shadowed in mystery.

It is an island world about five times the size of the British Isles, with miserable weather and little wealth, set roughly in the time equivalence of the 9th century. I’ve tweaked some monsters and magic use so that players don’t know what they are dealing with. I’ve also created new monsters and spells just to keep it all shrouded in mystery.

The real enemies are usually other humans, other nobles with competing goals, but adventures intersect with mysterious witches and undefined monsters. When a dark-cloaked stranger’s staff starts glowing, it actually scares characters. On of the best sessions ever was the first time they ran into trolls, and without any idea that these lumbering monsters were going to get back up and attack again after being put down.

Anyway, it’s been going a long time, and we’ve recruited others to play who’ve never played in any other type of environment.
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Old 01-21-2018, 10:50 AM   #22
Chris Rice
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: London Uk, but originally from Scotland
Default Re: Share your settings for TFT

Quote:
Originally Posted by Soyt Gose View Post
I’m new to this forum, but I’ve been playing off and on since 1980 (I think). I’m still in contact with one of my best friends from back then even though we have moved a dozen times or so and we play weekly on-line.

I’m not sure if this is what you are looking for in this thread, but the environment we’ve been using since the mid 80’s has been “Starchia.” I started it after becoming tired with “high magic” environments where supposedly magical races like elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. were common place.

It also coincided with playing Grail Quest and deciding it would be fun to run a campaign in a low-magic world where players were basically human heroes, and magic, its users, magical races and monsters were shadowed in mystery.

It is an island world about five times the size of the British Isles, with miserable weather and little wealth, set roughly in the time equivalence of the 9th century. I’ve tweaked some monsters and magic use so that players don’t know what they are dealing with. I’ve also created new monsters and spells just to keep it all shrouded in mystery.

The real enemies are usually other humans, other nobles with competing goals, but adventures intersect with mysterious witches and undefined monsters. When a dark-cloaked stranger’s staff starts glowing, it actually scares characters. On of the best sessions ever was the first time they ran into trolls, and without any idea that these lumbering monsters were going to get back up and attack again after being put down.

Anyway, it’s been going a long time, and we’ve recruited others to play who’ve never played in any other type of environment.
My first TFT campaign was set around the town of Hawkmarsh which lay at a crossroads in the middle of a huge swamp. I remember Snakemen and Marsh Lizards, Will-o-Wisps, Ghosts, Marsh-Pirates, Goblin invasions, a resurgent evil temple deep in the swamps. I particularly remember having fun with characters who hadn't chosen the literacy talent:

NPC "I have a job for you, it pays well. Can you read?".

PC "No."

NPC, "good take this message to the ruined temple and give it to the guards you find there. Tell no one. It's a secret...".

The message read, "here is another idiot for the mines"
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Old 01-21-2018, 09:21 PM   #23
Soyt Gose
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Default Re: Share your settings for TFT

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Rice View Post
My first TFT campaign was set around the town of Hawkmarsh which lay at a crossroads in the middle of a huge swamp. I remember Snakemen and Marsh Lizards, Will-o-Wisps, Ghosts, Marsh-Pirates, Goblin invasions, a resurgent evil temple deep in the swamps. I particularly remember having fun with characters who hadn't chosen the literacy talent:

NPC "I have a job for you, it pays well. Can you read?".

PC "No."

NPC, "good take this message to the ruined temple and give it to the guards you find there. Tell no one. It's a secret...".

The message read, "here is another idiot for the mines"
Haha. Nice. And, you wonder why illiterate people are so suspicious.
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Old 01-25-2018, 03:57 PM   #24
JohnPaulB
 
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Location: Portland, Maine
Default Re: Share your settings for TFT

I took all the gaming fantasy gaming books that had dungeons or land maps and pieced them together to form my own partial continent. That way I could reference any of them if needed.

I started out with Midkemia (from Midkemia Press), put in Kel and surrounding area (from ITL), Land Beyond the Mountains (From Metagaming), Conan's Lands (From GURPS Conan), Various Banestorm Lands (from GURPS Fantasy), and many many other dungeons & towns.

Not that I ever gamed it, but it was fun creating it.

- Hail Melee
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Old 01-26-2018, 06:19 PM   #25
BrotherBill
 
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Default Re: Share your settings for TFT

Kessel is a world with freshwater oceans, which means salt is an extremely valuable commodity, literally worth its weight in silver. Lodes of salt are mined, and caravans carry it to the various cities and realms. Most of the mines are in dangerous places, and all caravan routes are prone to banditry, or interventions by local lords. The mines themselves require manpower, and press gangs of slavecatchers are a reality common folk have to deal with...
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Old 01-28-2018, 10:01 PM   #26
Prootwaddle
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
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Technically, I run Wyrmfire on Cidri, but...

My campaign is set on a Island chain in the same shape as Japan, known currently as the Meji Empire. There are three kingdoms in the Empire: Minatocho, Sanyashi, and Morijima, which correspond to the central, southern, and northern islands. Minatocho is the most powerful of the three kingdoms, and home to the Emperor. It has a few big cities that are industrialized, and somewhat steampunk. But for the most part, it's still a fantasy Japan. Basically, they only support the modernization of the country by taxing the peasants to within a n inch of their lives. It's also home to the Wyrmfire University for Heroes, where my players went... before the Civil War started, and the Emperor tried to kill his son by blowing up the newly completed national railway. Sanyashi is a Buddhist theocracy, and also somewhat mercantile (they became part of the empire due to a trade deficit. Sanyashi is fighting agains the Empire in the Civil War, and they are currently winning. In contrast to Minatocho, they are a cosmopolitan rather than human dominated culture, and very traditional rather than technologically progressive. Morijima is almost whole non-human, recent acquisition to the empire, which is fairly barbaric. Morijima's Princess is an NPC who is part of the party, and was sent to Wyrmfire to begrudgingly learn how to be courtly. She's a wild child, rather literally as she is a Kitsune (half-fox). Anyways, she's a friend of one the PCs, who she views as an older brother. The Imperial Garrison in Morijima is about to find itself one of the last groups of Imperial Troops... mainly because most of the Army was in Morijima on campaign when the Civil War started, and independent Lords have been taking their units back home piecemeal.

My players are stuck in all that mess, trying to end the war, protect the prince, and eventually stop the insane Emperors plan. All in a days work for Wyrmfire Students!

(There is a portal, currently nonfunctional, on the island chain. If all goes well, the party should have use of it soon. That will unlock the rest of Cidri.)
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Old 01-31-2018, 11:34 PM   #27
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: Share your settings for TFT

I have plenty on my plate getting my old setting materials organized, but I was so inspired by re-reading Ursula Leguin while traveling in the pacific last week that I had to pull out a fresh notebook and start jotting out new stuff inspired by her Earthsea cycle. I am trying to avoid parody, both because it is kind of lame and because I'd never be able to share something that just takes her ideas. But there is an infinitude of space to play in, inspired by her worlds of water and diverse lands, a caste of mighty but ultimately flawed magicians, and a deep past of dark magic. But somehow the part I zeroed in on with details turned into a hawaii-like chain of islands being unified and transformed by a king who made a deal with the devil to obtain outside military advantages...
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Old 02-07-2018, 08:55 PM   #28
BrotherBill
 
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Default Re: Share your settings for TFT

I tended for all these years to play in the basic arena combat form of the game. We developed a way of making this an ongoing game by creating opposing schools of combat wizards.
Players initially create, say, 7 basic (32 point) wizards. In each campaign round (1 month) the following occurs:
1) Duel: One wizard of each school may call out by name a wizard of another school. The named wizard may refuse the duel, at a cost of 4 prestige points to his school. This cost is adjusted by 1 for every attribute point difference between the wizards, e.g., a 32 point wizard may refuse a 36 pointer's challenge with no prestige loss; a 33 point wizard forfeits 5 prestige if he refuses a 32 point wizard's challenge.
If the challenger wins, his school gains 5 prestige, and the defender gains 2, each adjusted for total attribute points as above. If the defender wins, his school gains 5 prestige, the defender losing 2, both adjusted for total attribute points.
2) Challenge: Each school must offer a challenge, stating the number, type and attribute total of combatants. Offering or accepting a challenge gains a school a number of prestige points equal to the attribute total above 32 per figure, with no penalty for refusal. The winning side gains 5 prestige (adjusted for attributes, but never lower than 1); the loser gains 0, adjusting for attributes.
3) Open combat: The Empire provides a "fight card" of, for example, 1 die 6 foes. The first round might be a 32 point wizard, the next a pair of 36 point heroes, a gargoyle, dire wolves, etc. A number of such opponents should be drawn up by both players and randomly drawn. Each school has the option to accept each combat; should both accept the same combat, they must bid for it the school willing to face the combat with the wizard(s) of the lowest total attribute points gets the combat, the other player playing the imperial side. Alternatively, one school may sell the right of combat for whatever cost in "prestige points" the other will accept. If a school beats the imperial opponent, it gains 5 prestige points: if the imperial side wins no points are gained or lost for either player.
4) Bookkeeping: after the three "combat" sections, the schools count their wins and losses, and prepare for the next month:
a) Character attributes: any wizard who survived a combat gains 1 attribute point to add to his ST, DX or IQ. If his IQ increases he may learn 1 new spell or talent.
b) Training: any wizard may forget one spell or talent and replace it with another each month. Each spell beyond this free exchange costs the school 2 prestige points. Schools must announce how many points are spent, but not what spells/talents they are spent on.
c) Recruitment: basic wizards are recruited to return the school to its original number of figures. The school may attract a higher level of recruit: each attribute point over 32 costs 2 prestige points. You may not recruit a figure with a higher attribute total than your most advanced current figure.
After recruitment, the next campaign turn begins. Play may continue indefinitely, or players may declare the first school to produce a 50 point wizard, or amass 100 prestige points, to be the "winner".
5) No figure may fight more than once a month.
6) Optional rules:
a) Ransom: unconscious figures, or ones who surrender, become captives of the victorious school. Their original school may ransom them by paying the captor school 1/2 of the cost it would take to recruit them (rounding up). If the ransom is not paid, the capturing school may recruit them at NO prestige cost; should they decline, the figure becomes property of the emperor.
b) Blood price: slaying a helpless figure is legal, but dishonorable. Players must pay the ransom cost of a helpless figure slain in combat to the offended school.
c) Running away: a figure may flee the arena by exiting from the hex he entered by. Each figure that runs away costs its school 2 prestige.
d) Limited spells: players may opt to limit the availability of some spells say, only the College of Necromancy knows the undead summoning spells or the Death spell, or the Elves were the first to summon unicorns and tigers and won't teach anyone else how, etc.

This is one way to have a long running game without having to have every player available for every game.
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Old 08-02-2018, 03:27 PM   #29
DrewAstolfi67
 
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Location: Salem Oregon
Default Re: Share your settings for TFT

Hi, so glad this game is coming back...it was my favorite back in the day. I still use some worn out copies of the cardboard counters in my other games.

Back in 1982 when the world and I were both young I created a setting to run some adventures in that I still kind of like and occasionally think about.

The setting didn't have a name. It was a kind of land of the lost - a place you would arrive in via gate and then get stuck in - whether it was a remote and isolated part of Cidri or not, I never decided. It was a burned desert beneath a huge blue sun. Once it had been different, greener, wetter, cooler and in the distant past was a colony of a technologically advanced race. But long, long ago something had gone wrong - maybe terraforming running down, the victim of some dimly remembered apocalypse or just the world grown worn out and old - I was never specific about this, although I would occasionally throw out hints in one direction or another - which got the players speculating creatively.

The setting was bounded by impassable mountains, waterless deserts, a nuclear wasteland and a mostly evaporated polluted seabed. In between these boundary markers was a habitable land with three city-states and a set of points of light type villages. There were populations of true humans, mutant distort tribes, and an indigenous race of smart bugs (taken from TFT, but with some additions).

The land was habitable in part b/c in the long distant past the Ancient Ones had built a network of canals, condensers, and water pumps to bring water to the setting. They also created most of the magic items - for example, no one in the setting remembered how to make strength batteries, so you could only get ones left over from the long ago golden age. I liberally stole items from Gamma World to fill out the technological background for these ancient ones.

The city-states were tough places - sort of sword and planet slave states where small true human elites ruled over the masses, while the villages were freer places. The PC's spent most of their time around the City of the Glass Tree a giant pre-Collapse artifact that among other things drew water from the air. It was ruled by a strange tyrant who looked like a young human girl but was really something else (I never figured out what!). Her army of the air were Amazons on Rocket Sleds who once arrested the PC's and condemned them to the Salt and Light Mines (you had to wear sunglasses or go blind in this "dungeon". There was also a University (with scholar patrons), and some interesting neighborhoods to the city. Some of the adventures were city-based, and there was a big urban conspiracy going on in the background involving a set of duped research minded sorcerer/mechnicians and willing cultists trying to put a malevolent artificial intelligence back together (the cult of the crystal mind) that filled out a couple of adventures.

The wild wastes between the city-states was a slowly decaying no man's land good for adventures. Dinosaurs wandered the wastes. There was a motile forest of land anemones, another area called the Cracks where there were, er, ahem, deep cracks leading into the center of the earth and from which Goo and worse things occasionally emerged, and in a third adventure site there was a crashed starship that I lifted and modified directly from D&D (the barrier peaks module, S3 I think?).

From the first session (an escape from slavery), the players decided the world was a trap and there was a PC driven metaplot about escaping the world to find somewhere better to live.

A few years ago I started to convert this setting to an OSR folio (for Matt Slepin's Under a Dying Sun project) but I never finished it, and if I am honest some of my old notes were pretty juvenile - I kind of wince at my portrayal of the Amazons for instance! So I stopped the conversion after a while (and my current group is not as interested in this kind of weird milieu anyway).

Still, my friends and I had a lot of fun with this and I remember loving the flexibility of TFT to make crazy settings that had nothing to do with the middle ages/ Ren-faire default setting of the other games we played.

Last edited by DrewAstolfi67; 08-02-2018 at 03:35 PM.
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Old 08-02-2018, 04:07 PM   #30
Oneiros
 
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Default Re: Share your settings for TFT

The longest TFT campaign I ran oddly wasn't fantasy, but horror - modern day Earth, set in and around the southern Illinois town where I was at in college.

A lot of traditional stuff, like the head of werewolf clan running the Anthropology department, plus liberal pillaging of the Call of Cthulhu game for creatures and new spells. Also some War Games (the movie) influence, as the central plot of the campaign revolved around demons summoned and encoded into the school's mainframe trying to bring about the end of the world. The Apocalypse at 1200 baud, baby!

I only wish I had thought of a concept introduced in GURPS a few years later - Earth is a low mana world, which carries a penalty to cast a lot of "normal" spells, and possibly longer casting times. Sometimes when the players were feeling a bit silly, they'd get into shenanigans like casting Magic Rainstorm in a local bar. Having to go through an elaborate ritual and risk losing ST anyway might have dissuaded that a bit...

Last edited by Oneiros; 08-02-2018 at 04:38 PM.
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