The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: Crippled CrowWhat we should try and make is a setting that everybody wants to add to.

That might just be impossible. People have different tastes, that can't be helped.

There seems to be 2 groups forming in this thread, those that want total freedom to make what ever they want and those who want to put some common threads through each world to make a more plausible 'galaxy.'

Honestly, I want to maximize creative freedom yet also have a set meta... I suppose I want everyone to make what ever they want but there has to be more rules and more restrictions than Nomadic is proposing. The reason for this is that, in the end, all we'll have are a thousand individual worlds with no rhyme or reason for their shared existence.

I say we steal an idea from Star Wars - there will be 3 'rims' in our universe. The Inner-Rim will be very magical and other worldly. The Mid-Rim will be more technological (due perhaps to their distance form the Magical center of the universe?). And the Outer-rim will be less magical and less technological, on the whole, but will can also be more fantastical because of ancient tech and powerful beings.

The Outer rim will be very isolated from the rest of the 'galaxy' and thus the creators of outer-rim Spheres have more creative control. Mid-Rim will be much more connected through Shipping lanes and easy portals. The inner-rim is... Well it too would be isolated but be far more magical and otherworldly and more prone to being very exotic locals (like an entire Sphere of Horror or a Sphere where one can, literally, enter other people's dream clouds, or etc.).

EDIT: I hope this is a compromise both groups can agree on!

Quote from: LlumI think I remember seeing something like this on a forum (wizards) where every poster was the Creator of their own little world/plane/what have you and they could dictate whatever they wished about their own thing.

Wouldn't we save a lot of time and effort if we gathered all existing settings and just glued them together? Why bother starting a project when the result won't be any different (in terms of how well the worlds fit into the overall supersetting).

Quote from: Elemental_ElfThe reason for this is that, in the end, all we'll have are a thousand individual worlds with no rhyme or reason for their shared existence.

Couldn't we just assume there's a reason but never say what it is?

I suppose. I'm just playing Devil's advocate here, offering other ideas.

Maybe the sun could be a sort of portal to Chaos/dreamscape/Divine force of creation/mutation energy.
Would we have one single system with the three rims? Or more? Is space actual space or is it some kind of not so terrible space? Are we still going with the Old Ones idea? And are we just going with whatever transportation we want?

I think Elemental_Elf is on to something, I don't think that the two groups are irreconcilable. I think we could use a "meta" framework that leaves an area open for whatever someone wants to create, no matter how it bothers to fit it. While still having elements that people can choose to use.

To tweak the "Rims" meta a bit, the outer realm could be the outer edge of creation, where all the raw creation stuff is, getting there is difficult/strange so people can control how they want to travel to be possible and have free reign on everything else. (Now the raw creation bit doesn't have to stick, just the concept).

This would leave the Inner and Middle Rims to have their own specific "meta" traits. Really we could have as many "Rims" as we want. However we don't want it to get crazy where everyone has their own Rim (unless thats what people wish).

Hmm, i'm still saying that if we don't have a framework of some kind, this won't be a setting but a connective framework. A point that a good deal of others have also made. that being said, i like the three rims approach

EDIT: as far as the 3 rules go, the idea of each of us not wanting to join the project because we want to make our own world is sorta silly. If you want to make your own world you might as well just do it. There is no point in interaction between worlds if it is random anyway; they have to be linked by something for it to matter. This is a project to create a collective setting. I wasn't part of Cebegia, but i looked at it and i can see why people found it constricting. but you can easily make a framework that isn't constricting in the same way without sacrificing options and limiting creativity.

Llum, I love the idea of the Outer Rim/Realm being the newly created portions of the 'galaxy!'

I think 2-5 Rims/Realms is all we need any more and it will get confusing (unless rims/realms become finite sectors of space). Perhaps the inner most realm is the most technological realm, having been created eons ago.

Hmm, what if we had 2 Rims - Inner and Outer - and between these 2 were sectors (large concentrations of Spheres) that each had their own diverse Orthologies. Think of the galaxy as a pizza pan. At the center is the inner realm, on the periphery of the pan is the outer realm. In between these 2 lie massive clumps of dough and ingredients; some have peperoni, while others are smothered with Anchovies and Peanut butter.

So if I were to create (just an example) a world that is an infinite flat plane, with no suns or stars but an athmosphere that emits light, and this world can be exited & entered only by performing a ritual sacrafice (which prompts a spirit to open a mini-wormhole), how would I fit it into the three-rim framework? I guess it'd be on the outermost rim, but how does it fit there, or should it even be visible from space? And where would travelers from this world show up when they exit it via the ritual? Do they just pop in the middle of empty space? Presumably they could not go directly to another world unless said world has allowed travelers to enter in this manner.

So long as we can have places where both magic and technology are high-level.

As I see it the problem arises that if you ask for logic first '" "Won't the people with lasers conquer all the people with pointy sticks?" '" then you've restricted yourself before you've started.  Instead if we say what we want first '" "We want people with pointy sticks to live next to people who have lasers without getting conquered." '" then we can get that down and come up with a reason later.

Well each sphere could be seen as finite on the outside but infinite on the inside. What the denizens of your Sphere see as a wormhole would be called a Portal on other Spheres. to open a portal to another world you would have to follow the normal rules for Portal travel for both your world (i.e. Sacrificing a person for your Sphere and what ever arcane laws the Sphere you are trying to enter may have).

This mechanic could definitely be used to keep some people's Spheres less accessible than others.

Of course that relies on Spheres being more Mystical bubbles than planets.

Ghostman, what if your world was on the inner rim with a magically luminiscent ceiling in a giant hollowed out world sphere :)
Although this would be a bit too much for my taste you could have a small globe suspended inside another one to create the "infinity" effect.

EDIT: and the spirits could let them astral project to wherever they want to go.

As to where you would fit your infinite flat world, I figure it would be on the "edge" of the Outermost Rim. On the Rim it looks finite (lets say you see a sphere) but as soon as you step inside your world, it would be infinite. Kinda a bad explanation, but do you understand what I'm saying?

For the Rims I think the Outermost Rim should be the one where anything/everything goes. The succesive inner "Rims" could have different "meta" ways of tying together, just an idea. This doesn't necessarily have to be a Magic and Tech dividing line.

Lets say on the Inner Most "Rim" space is liquid (cause its compressed so much ok?) So people "swim" from Sphere to Sphere. The Second "Rim" would have air instead of vacuum for space (not always breathable, but some kind of gas-state substance). The Third "Rim" could have real vacuum. The Fourth "Rim" is connected by nothing, there's no actual anything between the Spheres (travel is only possible by portal/gate type things) then the Outer "Rim" is the special one where people can choose whatever type of transport they want to reach their realm.

So Magic and Tech Spheres can be side by side in the first "Rim" and one my travel between them by Space-Boat, magical sea turtles or whatever.

Once again, this is just a suggestion on how to classify the "Rims" by "meta-ness". Feel free to take apart/find flaw with the idea.

Hm, looking at it from that angle, it could just as easily be a star or any other common object that acts as an anchor for an infinite pocket dimension. With that kind of stuff anything becomes possible :-p