The Campaign Builder's Guild

i've been working on
1. fleshing out my rogue trader campaign and customizing some of the background
- finalising warp paths/jump point map
- putting some actual consept behind the weird hints i've been dropping

2. doing some concept writeups for an eventual after-the-end weird science fantasy campaign

Quote from: XeviatI have been looking for ways to shave down my entries. Any thoughts on a restricted number of topic headings for culture entries in a Character chapter? I need to limit them to something small so new players can read over them quickly.

i guess you already know that, but focus on those aspects as will come up during regular play. reading a one page essay on the courtship traditions of the Gold Elves of Lireánderamal might be interesting, but it is totally pointless in a game that focuses on killing things and taking their stuff. Maybe have some bullet points of the three biggest do's and don'ts of a culture, here's an example from some of my notes:
- Always address superiors or strangers with their title, never with their name unless specifically asked to do so. If you do not know their title, choose an appropriate honorific.
- Always ask permission before entering a building for the first time to appease the spirits that dwell in the walls
- Always follow a verbal or written contract to the letter.
- Never unsheathe a weapon without the express purpose of shedding blood, its warspirit will be angry if it is woken, but not fed.
- Never eat in the presence of strangers and/or persons of the opposite gender unless they are related to you by blood or oath.
- Never seek combat on holy days.

Quote from: Cataclysmic CrowThe reason magic and technology are often seen as opposing forces is possibly because the purpose of magic is to break the laws of nature, which is just what science seeks to study. But in a way, science also seeks to bend the rules or at least take them to their extreme.

that's what i was trying to say. with magic ~ chaos, i don't mean it's random or unstructured, but it breaks the fundamental laws of nature/physics, especially those concerning conservation of energy and creation of matter from essentially nothing (are these the right phrases? english isn't my first language), which sets it dead on against science. again, this is my personal interpretation, but magic is, well, magical *because* it defies those laws. if magic can be scientifically explained, it ceases to be magic and becomes "The Art", "Science", or "Applied Physics".

Quote from: Cataclysmic Crowhumans believe that rubbing the head of a gnome makes you lucky.

you don't rub gnomes, you rub elves, duh! ;)

@topic: while differentiating between race and culture is definitely right, those two should be connected. e.g. a race with a very active metabolism would give a lot of significance to eating (banquets or hunts), while a race with large sensitive ears would set much importance into cleaning/grooming (themselves, each other, ritually), etc.

Quote from: Luminous_Crayonmagic and technology are set up as equals and opposites, grudge match time

i wouldn't qualify this as a cliche, imo that's a valid driving factor of a world or even a conflict, more of a trope. if you boil it down, magic kinda stands for chaos, freedom, spirituality, and preservance of old traditions, while technology represents order, rules, reglementations, progressive spirit and so on. best example: arcanum - of steamworks and magick obscura. sure, it's been done before, but it's still more original than good vs evil.

just some cliches i'd like to add to the mix:

- "always chaotic evil" in the sense of evil being totally socially dysfunctional to the point where evil = sociopathic rage+slaughter
- "league of evil" the opposite: we work together because we are evil. no common agenda, no shared beliefs, except everyone's a douche. this only works on a small scale, like a city's outcasts or the schoolyard bullies.
- "cultivated vampires" it was cool in the hammer horror times and we really had a blast when our group had a sidequest around a lord something who "does not drink vine", dresses in outdated finery and bids you to "enter, of your own free will". but seriously, that was overdone when we hit the nineties and should only be used in affectionate parody.
- "the EVIL empire" or as i think of it "eragon-syndrom": the established (and reviled) form of state is a non-hereditary monarchy. and it's evil, because it does terrible things like enforce taxes, draft men in times of war and retaliates against acts of terrorrism. i have seen a goatload of campaigns and adventures, where after some time fighting "the enemy" you start to wonder why you are even rebelling in the first place.

Quote from: GhostmanWhat is divinity but an OOC mechanic/descriptor? To a character living within a setting, should there be any way to tell the difference between a genuine deity and some powerful magical dude? Could there be any way? And if not, would it matter?

I'm only going from a dnd perspective here, but it's a god if your belief in grants you spells as a cleric. belief in cookies will not grant you access to the delicious pecan butter and choc-chip domains, while belief in big ole' bahamut will give you sth like valour domain and stuff. :)

my personal taste (i, too, have ranted on this^^) is to have distant or at least covert gods, not FR style pop-stars, but the concept of apotheosis is intrigueing. one the one hand it proves the existence of gods (you just made another), on the other it disproves their "divinity". if anyone can become a god, there's no real "divine mandate", they are just a bunch of powerful dicks who like to get adored and grant you spells for it.
for the relationship between deity and belief, i am a total fan of gaiman's american gods and the way he represents the life cycle of gods (it's also in sandman, especially when dream visits basset).

so, yeah. post kinda random, i guess. :)

Quote from: sparkletwist

Quote from: SteerpikeThat might be even more awesome.  Become the protectors of a tribe of primitives, worshipped as gods (whether you cultivate this or not), guarding against the gargantuan wild beasts, trying to introduce/accelerate technological progress with limited means.

This is something I've thought would be fun, too. The setting itself would probably be pretty loose, as the game would be something of a cooperative world-building exercise as well as a campaign setting-- the PCs would have much more influence over things on a grand scale.

It can be part of a more established setting when the characters aren't directly involved, though, and instead get to live in the world that results. Something like this is essentially the distant past of Crystalstar, for example. :P :)

something along the lines of what steerpike suggested has been around for ages, namely mystara with its immortals. only that the immortals aren't/weren't perfect (thus generating conflicts). same with lovecraft's dream cycle, where the dreamers are beings somewehre between "mortals" and gods and have kind of a protector job. i still think a mary sue setting is one where the stauts quo is god and no conflicts ever occur, because everything is mind-numbingly perfect. :D

Quote from: SteerpikeI think if I was DMing I'd call those people PCs.

that's kinda my point. normally, doing the important stuff is up to the pcs, but not if there's a setting full of mary sues around who can do it better (*cough* elminster *cough*).

Quote from: SteerpikeOf course, the real conflict could come in when the perfect people have to deal with societies of contrastingly far less perfection.

fellow citizen, there is no such things as imperfection. and if there were, you wouldn't have to worry about it. we have people for that who are more than willing to endure such inhuman worries. ;)

To answer the original question: Does evil pay in my settings?
In the short run: yes. If you don't give a rat's arse about what people think of you and how your actions hurt others, you have a shorter and more direct way to your goal. The problem is: if you play evil in the sense of Dark Lord Stabhappy McDumbass, sooner or later you'll tick someone of who has the clout or the purse to get people to shut you up. If you are clever about it - no repercussions. Y'know, like in real life. ;)
IMO, the best game for moral "education" or conundrums is Dark Heresy. As an inquisitorial agent, you fight for mankind's survival. The question is simply how far you will go when there are few people who have jusrisdiction over you. "Power corrupts - absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Even with muffins, it would be boring. ;)
If everyone's the same (and perfect), what's the point of existence? sitting around all day thinking "golly, what a perfect and peaceful world i live in. I could take a bath, now." Going on from what Fritos said, life would be one big telenovela, and even if you want to enact change, you are gently dissuaded from this irrational impulse. If you ever have a problem, their is people powerful/influential and altruisitc enough to solve it for you.
That would be a Mary Sue setting for me.^^

what's important with post apocalyptic settings is the question: what was the apocalypse? climate shift? pandemic? meteor strike? nuclear holocaust?
the last two severly limit the survival possibilities for anything bigger than a cockroach and the follow up to them isn't an arid wasteland but a world choked by dirty snow under an eternal black sky.
also, you won't have to worry about architectural relics - modern day rebar inforced concrete will decay in 500-700 years and after the first millenium, there won't even by scrap metal left.
mutation is tricky. depending on how far you want to take realism (and again depending on what coused the end), radiation doesn't give you telepathy, only vestigial fingers, hair loss and leukemia.
one of the cults that is a staple of post-apocalypse is the tech cargo cult, like the brotherhood of steel in fallout or the mechanicum in warhammer 40k
another good source of inspiration for a different sort of post-apoc world are king's dark tower books.

[spoiler]finally got to see it yesterday. i really liked it (though, sadly, it doesn't beat Dark Knight as No 1 comic-related movie), here's some thoughts:

things that were great:
- the intro. loved it.
- the flashbacks in general were very good, especially manhattan's.
- intro/outro music
- da dada DA da dada DA da (the manhattan-in-vietnam-with-ride-of-the-valkyries-scene)
- all the details, like the "obsolete models" sign outside mason's garage, the comedian's combination of hustler and a gun and the subtle inclusion of kovacs in the first half of the movie (although i thought it wasn't him standing outside the cemetary, it was moloch.), ozymandias' statue with the quote on it (i love that poem).
- rohrschach's death scene

things that were meh:
- the ending. not the no-squid business, but the fact that the others know manhattan killed rohrschach. it's supposed to be AMBIGUOUS, and it goes against nite-owl's character to just accept it in the end. also: why can they just return to their normal lives? they staged a PRISON BREAK!. :(
- some parts of the soundtrack, 99 luftballons and that godawful version of Halleluja, especially.

from what i read on the net and also here on the board, one of the major complaints was the amount of gore and nudity. like steerpike, i thought it was a nice change to actually depict the character's as less-than physically perfect. it was, well, honest. (also, being a slightly overweight nerdy guy with glasses, i totally identify with nite-owl.^^)
While the gore was quite jarring at times, i thought the director did that on pupose, especially to contrast manhattan's almost angelic appearance with the people-bursting-like-dropped-melons schtick. (also, using a powersaw instead of a blowtorch actually makes sense: it's easier to handle, lighter and actually cuts through steel pretty fast. ;) )
really looking forward to the dvd and watching it in english.[/spoiler]

Quote from: Cataclysmic CrowAnd it isn't an honor to eat your dead. It's a necessity. You don't absorb the person (that's why you leave out the pieces connected to identity) but the raw materials only, raw materials that go into the human pool to eventually make new humans. Dog meat belongs in the dog pool of components and cow meat belongs in the cow pool and so on.

okay, now i get it. :) it is still a bit askew, though, in my opinion. unless this cult stems from an area where food is very scarce, there is no actual need to eat your dead. generally, i got the impression that when ritually eating parts of animals, enemies or your aunt, you do it so the person "lives on" (in case of your aunt), or you take on traits of what you eat (e.g. a tiger's heart). it's still a cool idea, but eating your dead for purposes of closed-circuit recycling feels a bit clinical for an artistic society.

Quote from: Cataclysmic CrowAnd when i wrote about combat i was considering a scenario where you didn't yourself get hit (that's a risk that is completely up to you whether you'll take). They just frown upon taking a life. You can subdue people if you want to (and are allowed to by law). Just don't kill anyone.

i see. still, when all forms of life are considered beautiful, i guess there'd be a lot of true pacifists among the hallowers.

this is a pretty interesting concept. some thoughts:
you write that comat to the death is frowned upon. but isn't all form of combat bad for your own beauty? like, you know, from smashed out teeth to severed limbs.
i have to say, tho, that the cannibal and vegan parts don't match for me. if it's an honour to take someone's aspects into yourself, can't you also honour an animal in that way?
also, do they do drugs to enhance their perception?
if yes, this would be a very popular religion, i guess. serving god by doing sex, drugs, sitting around and staring at stuff. ;)