Creating a setting after a long break

[lightseyasylum]

Hello all, I'm new to the CBG community, and I want to start by saying hello to everyone.  Also, I want to apologize if this is in the wrong place, but this is where I thought it would fit best.  I have what I think is a really good idea for a campaign setting, however I have a couple of questions:  What rule system is used most today?  How difficult is it to actually put together a group willing to test out a new setting?  Is there a place to find a group willing to work with me on this new setting?  These questions may seem odd to most people, so I figure I should explain my situation.  I started playing tabletop RPGs when I was pretty young, with AD&D 2e.  I played the Dark Sun campaign setting most, although I also tried out the Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft settings as well.  I stopped playing for years, and didn't start back until I met some people playing D&D 3e in Forgotten Realms.  I got into it for a couple of years, and then my group disbanded and everyone went their own ways.  It has been a very long time since I tried to play any tabletop games, so I'm completely out of the loop.  To make matters worse, I suffer from PTSD and severe social anxiety, so any help I get will have to be almost exclusively online, because frankly I'm afraid of people.  Am I chasing a dream that should have died with my childhood, or is there any way I might be able to do something worth doing?

[SA]

Definitely not chasing a dream. We do online roleplaying right here, mostly DnD 3.5 (I think; don't quote me), and I believe stuff also goes on via IRC. I'd say 3.5 and its successor Pathfinder RPG are the most popular systems around. I wouldn't touch 4E with a telekinetic push, but then I'm a crazy person.

Between these first steps and your final goal there is the deep and wide and wonderful world of setting creation. We're all on board to help you with that.

So welcome!

And help yourself to some cabbage.

[LordVreeg]

yes, if nothing else, feel welcome.  We are worldbuilders, and it souinds like that is what you are looking to do.  Nothing wrong with dreams.

[Steerpike]

Warm welcome, lightsetasylum!

I'd agree that Pathfinder/3.5 is probably the most popular overall, although alternate systems like GURPS, FATE, and 4th edition D&D are also pretty popular as well, and there are a variety of OSR ("Old School Renaissance") gamers out there who prefer "retroclones" of earlier editions of D&D.  An example of this latter type of system would be Lamentations of the Flame Princess, which has free rules (sans artwork).

The rules for Pathfinder are also open and free, and can be found here.  In case you're not familiar with it, it's almost identical with D&D 3.5 (and, indeed, is fully backwards-compatible with it), but slightly more balanced.

In my experience, it's not hard to find willing players on this site.  I've run several very successful games here over IRC (in fact, you can read logs of some of them - check out the links in my signature), including long-term campaigns, one-shots, and episodic games.  Some of these were very standard games, some featured a plethora of bizarre houserules, and some had barely any statistics at all.  I've also run various crazy forum games, play by posts, and other weird stuff.

We're not the most populous forum around, and there are other sites around where online games can be set up (Giant in the Playground or therpgsite for example), but I've never had trouble recruiting players here.

In terms of working on a new setting, you've come to the right forum.  This site is specifically designed for world-building; you can find lots of settings here, both posted in the forum itself and on the wiki.  Members here are happy to read stuff, critique, offer suggestions, or give input on specific setting issues, as Theopteryx notes.

In short, you should be able to find a lot of help and support for building a world and the running games with it here.

Dreams are our bread and butter.

[lightseyasylum]

Thanks, everyone.  It's nice to know that I'm not being silly.  I have a lot of ideas for my setting, and I'm going to start fleshing it all out now.  I will be checking out the rules for Pathfinder, and also 3.5e to see which works the best for my ideas.  It really means a lot for you all to welcome me, and I really appreciate it.  Hopefully I will have more than just an introduction to post soon!

[lightseyasylum]

Okay, so here's a few of the ideas I have for this  whole setting:

-It's going to be a pretty RP heavy setting.  There will obviously be combat, but that's going to be secondary.

-Magic is very highly regulated.  If you aren't a soldier, or don't have written documentation allowing you to do so, magic use is a grave offense.

-It's going to be a high-fantasy setting in a dystopian rule.  Almost a "Forgotten Realms" meets "George Orwell's 1984" or "Equilibrium" type setting.  No one does anything without the permission of the government.

-Most people never see outside the walls of the city they are born in.  The government has everyone believing that they are constantly at threat of or really being attacked by outsiders.

-The world has only been this way for about 5000 years.  Before that, everything was much more liberal.  The "Old Gods" decided that they would no longer meddle in the affairs of men, so everyone was left to fend for themselves.  Over time, everyone forgot about the "Old Gods" and a few rose up to claim the world as their own.

-Almost all cities are controlled by the central figurehead of the worldwide government, and the cities and smaller communities that are not are considered evil, primitive beasts.

-No one outside of the top handful know how vast the world is anymore.  Maps have been changed, travel all but cut off, and the stories of the way things used to be are not only outlawed, but also believed to be fiction.

I don't know how well this is going to play out, but I'm hoping it will not only be enjoyable create, but also to play.  I still have a long way to go, and much more that I haven't posted yet, but any and all critique is welcome.  If anyone has any ideas that can further the setting, great.  If anyone thinks that something should be changed or taken away, also great.  I think I'm going to use Pathfinder rules for this, because it seems like it will accommodate the high-fantasy world and is not too difficult to transition to based off my last experiences with 3e.  With the whole world basically being a mystery to almost everyone, it leaves plenty of room to grow by my hands, the community, and anyone who decides to play in the setting down the road.

[Lmns Crn]

Welcome.

You seem cool, and so do your ideas. Online play is totally feasible, and I think it's got a lot of recommending factors.

Thanks for posting. I'll hope to have more useful things to say to you soon!

[SA]

5000 years is a massively long time. Are the cities comparably old? If so, constrained as they are by their authoritarian regimes, how have these cities transformed throughout the period? Have they grown outward or upward or have they stagnated? Do they sag beneath the weight of millennia? Are the people suppressed and miserable or riotous and malcontent or fat and complacent or distracted by their own debauched excess?

Does Fantasy Big Brother manufacture trumped up threats from beyond city walls or is the barbarism of the wilds a reality? Is it a surveillance state supported by divinatory CCTV, with a sorcerous Homeland Security scrying through every mirrored surface? Do the people trust the state and does the state trust them?

Are there New Gods to replace the old? If so, are they real or the products of mortal faith or else another system of control? Is there divine magic and if so what is its source? Is arcane magic as feared as it is controlled? Is it a rational fear?

What mysteries lie beyond city walls? What secrets are concealed within them?

Will player characters have the power to change this world? Will it be worth changing? Defending? Destroying?

[sparkletwist]

It's going to be a pretty RP heavy setting.  There will obviously be combat, but that's going to be secondary.

I think I'm going to use Pathfinder rules

While Pathfinder isn't quite as combat centric, as, say, D&D 4, it's still (at least in my opinion) designed around and basically driven by the combat game. Combat effectiveness is one of the main goals of character optimization, and it's also where a lot of the rules tend to focus. On the other hand, it has comparatively fewer mechanics to support and encourage RP. If you want a combat-light and RP-heavy game, you might do better to choose a system that would support that style of play more; I tend to like FATE, so I'll throw that out there, but there are plenty of other systems that might encourage such a thing, too.

The world has only been this way for about 5000 years.

I wouldn't really put "only" with "5000 years." 5000 years is, as Theopteryx observed, a massively long time. 5000 years ago was like 3000 BC. Even in fantasy with certain long-lived races causing a certain stretching of the timescale, it's still a long time for most of the rest of us.

[lightseyasylum]

@ Luminous Crayon:  Thank you for the kind words, and I hope to hear something from you soon.

@Theopteryx:  Although 5000 is a long time, it isn't more than a handful of generations for some of the races of a high fantasy campaign.  I wanted to make sure that no one alive today would have remembered the change, but wanted it to be close enough for some to have handed down stories.

Some of the cities will be as old, or older.  A lot of the cities will not be.  Many will have grown to some degree, but many will have started to choke themselves out.  

Many of the shorter-lived races will be too young and too naive to know that they are suppressed even though they really are.  There will be an elitist class that feels that they are above the law, and will be given certain privileges, however they are no more than another tool for the government to use or a scapegoat in certain situations.

As for the situation beyond the walls of the cities, it's a bit of both.  There is much more going on than just "attacks from the barbarians."  Many of the threats are at the least exaggerated, if not fully fabricated.  The real attacks come not from those wishing to harm the innocent, but those wishing to save the world from the tyranny it faces (the longer-lived races with stories and family histories telling of what life used to be like, etc.).

There is no divine magic in the mainstream, however I was thinking of possibly having a rogue-god or two pushing to restore the world to it's former glory, but not sure on that idea yet.

There will be a sort of arcane INS, if you will, that tries to monitor everything all the time, but it will obviously be flawed.  We can't have the antagonist knowing everything, now can we?  And no, the state trusts no one.  The people are divided, as I stated a bit earlier in the post.

I have toyed with the idea of having fabricated "New Gods" to replace the old, but obviously have to figure out a way to disguise the fabrication since there will be no divine magic coming from them.  The fear of the arcane is only as much as it could be used against the state.  They have no problems using it to further their goals, but will tolerate no one outside of their own using it as it could become a threat.

As to the question of the mysteries inside and outside the walls, the answer is as infinite as the imagination.  I have planned for a few adventure ideas to bring the PCs out of the cities, and once there they will have to decide whether they want to reintroduce themselves into a world of control or brave the unknown in the hopes of living in freedom.

I hope very much that the PCs will change the world.  It could be worth changing, but who am I to say?  I want this to be a world that is constantly evolving.  I can write the past, but I hope the players will write the future.

[lightseyasylum]

@sparkletwist:  I haven't seen the rules for FATE, I will have to check it out.  And I hope I explained the reason for the whole 5000 years thing.

[SA]

I...have to figure out a way to disguise the fabrication since there will be no divine magic coming from them.

Perhaps certain arcane spells (like Wish, if very high levels are involved) are presented as divine intervention. Perhaps magic is regulated in part so that ubiquitous spellcraft does not make a mockery of the priesthood's own "miracles".

I can write the past, but I hope the players will write the future.

Right on.

[sparkletwist]

Personally, I'm not really sold on the time scale. 5000 years of basically the same social organization isn't the story I'd want to tell by a long shot and I don't really buy into it-- but that's me, so you should do what works for you.

I am definitely in favor of the whole "I can write the past, but I hope the players will write the future," approach, though. That's the same thing I try to do with my settings.

[Lmns Crn]

There will be a sort of arcane INS, if you will, that tries to monitor everything all the time, but it will obviously be flawed.  We can't have the antagonist knowing everything, now can we?  And no, the state trusts no one.  The people are divided, as I stated a bit earlier in the post.

Maybe the evil and overreaching "Big Brother" kind of government is inefficient due to infighting and backstabbing among its own employees. You work for the powerful rules-everything organization because you desire power, and that means you desire advancement within its ranks, the upper hand over your colleagues, etc. Maybe your rationale for why the government doesn't just always crush the players is that Minister A has one piece of the puzzle, Department B has another, and even though they work for the same cause, they hate each other so they keep their secrets.

This also encourages you to add some more "handholds" to the idea of the government, putting a couple of details out there (or at least names or the names of positions) so that players are encouraged to think of the government not as a monolith, but as having many complicated moving parts. Maybe even to think of their relationship to those moving parts individually some of the time.

I think if you make it a little more granular, you can have the best parts of an Orwellian omniscient ubergovernment but also make it a thing that players can specifically interact with at a level beyond dread (because it's tough to really do anything with a giant undifferentiated oligarchic mass except for run away, in whatever uninformed direction you suppose "away" might be.)

I have toyed with the idea of having fabricated "New Gods" to replace the old, but obviously have to figure out a way to disguise the fabrication since there will be no divine magic coming from them.  The fear of the arcane is only as much as it could be used against the state.  They have no problems using it to further their goals, but will tolerate no one outside of their own using it as it could become a threat.

So, what if the "new gods" do a different thing besides grant magic, in the traditional "old school D&D clerics" style? (I'm using too many quotation marks, I've got to cut that out.)

For instance, if the New Gods are basically really powerful wizards (or technologists, or artificial intelligences, or whatever) masquerading as gods, maybe they empower their followers through different means.

Let's say I take the most boring but standard possible bonus in pretty much every game system, and talk about a stat boost. We'll talk about stamina/constitution/endurance (whatever you want to call it) first, because people will want that-- everyone wants to be healthier-- and because as a fake god, it's useful to me to have servants that are a little tougher than normal.

Since I am a spellcaster of pretty ridiculous power and a minor stamina bonus is a pretty minor effect, let's increase the scale. So I custom-make a spell that lets me give a stamina bonus to hundreds or thousands of people at a time, and the duration is so long that it's effectively not even a concern. Most importantly, I can withhold or restore the benefits at will, for individual targets, during the duration of the spell.

So, because I am a caring god and a powerful god, those who serve me are tough and tireless while they enjoy the gift of my favor. If one of them screws up, I can take my gift away from just that person, and maybe give it back if they grovel enough. This benefits me because it makes people want to serve me (they want the benefits, and because they've seen the evidence of my power, they know they want to be on my good side), and it ensures that once I have servants to do my divine bidding, they're more effective (because of their augmentation).

So, expand out from there. Beyond just stat boosts, New Gods' servants might all be networked into a spell-powered hive mind with each other. They might be able to tap some kind of shared memory bank full of skills and information. They might be teleported away at the brink of death and revived to be sent back to the mission field. They might have strange immunities and invulnerabilities. These things might all be powered in the same way (Sekret Wizzarde Gods using mass-target, long-duration, turn-off-at-will buff spells, essentially), but they can be as weird and freaky as you want your New Gods to be. Maybe different New Gods have a different style of shaping up their followers.

That way, functional reality is that priests of the Old Gods run around preparing and casting spells provided by their patrons, and priests of the New Gods run around with always-on augmentations provided by their patrons. Different feel to it, but close enough it makes for a clever (in my opinion) way to counterfeit divinity within your system.

Some of the cities will be as old, or older.  A lot of the cities will not be.  Many will have grown to some degree, but many will have started to choke themselves out.  

I've always liked the idea of unreliable narrators in setting design. Maybe "Our civilization is 5,000 years old and has endured without changing" is the world government's official party line, and some people in the setting believe it and others doubt, but you as the setting author sort of tapdance around the issue of whether or not it's strictly true. That way, people get to obsess over their interpretations!

[SA]

5000 years of basically the same social organization isn't the story I'd want to tell by a long shot and I don't really buy into it

That's exactly why I find it so intriguing. That kind of longevity demands some pretty comprehensive systems of control. I think of it like a bucket of compost: the container stays the same but the contents sure as hell don't. I want to know how society has... fermented.