Pitfalls in Campaign Creating and Building

[Jürgen Hubert]

- Evil races are ALWAYS ugly or strange-looking

Drow, orcs, goblins, hobgoblins... do I have to go on?

Drow are ugly? :?:

[Stargate525]

I'd call 'em strange-looking.

[Polycarp]

But aren't they just elves with a different color scheme?

[Elemental_Elf]

If you talk to my friend... No, no they are not. Talk to me then yes, yes they are.

Who defines the definition of the difference between a 'glossy paint job' and a totally new write up for a common race? Its all very subjective.

[Ra-Tiel]

[...] One of the weaknesses of say a game like Earthdawn or Elfquest is that everything really interesting has already happened. The setting is still kind of interesting but in a sort of 'ho hum, let's kind of...wander around...' kind of way.[...]

I strongly disagree. Saying that everything interesting in ED has already happened because the Plague is over, is like saying that everything interesting in Eberron has already happened because the Great War (or whatever that was called) is over.

There's ALOT of interesting things going on in ED even after the Plague. The elf schism, the Terran Empire, forgotten Cairs, some horrors still wandering Barsaive (like Constructor or Chantal's Demon), and so on.

Anyways...  :ontopic:

- breaking stereotypes just for the sake of breaking them (eg, tree-hugging dwarf druid)
- confusing "interesting NPCs" with "freaky NPCs" (eg, a halfling fighter cutting off and collecting the thumbs of everything he kills)
- forcing romances or family ties on PCs to which the player didn't give his consent

[Jürgen Hubert]

- In your quest for originality, don't forget that you will also have to explain your concepts to your players. And they might nod off if you take longer than 15 minutes to explain.

[Tybalt]

[...] One of the weaknesses of say a game like Earthdawn or Elfquest is that everything really interesting has already happened. The setting is still kind of interesting but in a sort of 'ho hum, let's kind of...wander around...' kind of way.[...]

I strongly disagree. Saying that everything interesting in ED has already happened because the Plague is over, is like saying that everything interesting in Eberron has already happened because the Great War (or whatever that was called) is over.

There's ALOT of interesting things going on in ED even after the Plague. The elf schism, the Terran Empire, forgotten Cairs, some horrors still wandering Barsaive (like Constructor or Chantal's Demon), and so on.

Perhaps it was just me, but while I did see possibilities I found that it just didn't seem to interest either of the groups I tried it with. Maybe it was just my frustration speaking.

[Jürgen Hubert]

I strongly disagree. Saying that everything interesting in ED has already happened because the Plague is over, is like saying that everything interesting in Eberron has already happened because the Great War (or whatever that was called) is over.

There's ALOT of interesting things going on in ED even after the Plague. The elf schism, the Terran Empire, forgotten Cairs, some horrors still wandering Barsaive (like Constructor or Chantal's Demon), and so on.

Perhaps it was just me, but while I did see possibilities I found that it just didn't seem to interest either of the groups I tried it with. Maybe it was just my frustration speaking.

In Earthdawn, the Scourge created a blank slate. All the power groups in the world had been decimated and the political status quo was no more - so there was suddenly room for new people and groups to establish themselves. The time of the horrors is past (though not completely gone) - now everyone is scrambling to make the world anew in their own visions.

And the player characters should be at the forefront of their change. The world is no longer headed towards massive destruction - but where is it heading? No one knows - but everyone is trying to make their own answers reality.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

- In your quest for originality, don't forget that you will also have to explain your concepts to your players. And they might nod off if you take longer than 15 minutes to explain.

I like this, but I think I would change the "fifteen" to "five" ;)

[Elemental_Elf]

- In your quest for originality, don't forget that you will also have to explain your concepts to your players. And they might nod off if you take longer than 15 minutes to explain.

I like this, but I think I would change the "fifteen" to "five" ;)

With my players... more like 3 and the guarantee of free food :P

[snakefing]

* There's no need to assume that multi-racial, multi-cultural, cosmopolitan "adventuring parties" are the norm for role-playing adventures.

[Bill Volk]

My new least favorite RPG setting trope is Medieval Stasis.
(And I don't care what the troper on that page thinks about Planescape, it's still the worst perpetrator of this. I love Planescape to death, but things have worked in more-or-less the same way in that setting for possibly hundreds of thousands of years, to the point where people hardly even bother with calendars anymore.)

Here's another bullet point for you: Medieval Europe did not last all that long. That doesn't mean that every culture in the world has to always be on the march forward to better and better technology, because that often isn't the case, but practically everything will change. If the history of a setting spans tens of thousands of years of people speaking the same languages and hitting each other with the same +1 swords, my Bad Fantasy Alarm goes off.

Even worse, when post-medieval technology does turn up in a fantasy setting, it's often because of gnomes or other borderline-comedic characters, and the new technology never catches on or progress beyond a certain point. These surprisingly uncreative "inventors" will always invent the same kinds of things, again and again, for thousands of years, with no effect on the setting. It's like these silly little men never tire of tickling the fourth wall.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

* Basing a setting (or part of one) on a real-world culture is one thing, cloning said culture is another. There's nothing wrong with adapting a historical period for role-playing purposes, or even adding some fantasy elements reflecting the myths of the times, but at least admit that's what you're doing. If your setting is inspired by ancient Greece, then it should be similar to it, not the same but with the names changed.

I'm confused on how much of this is too much:
Is it ever okay to file the serial numbers (i.e. name) off a real-world idea but keep the rest of it intact?
Is it worse to use something whole-cloth without any in-setting context?

[LordVreeg]

- In your quest for originality, don't forget that you will also have to explain your concepts to your players. And they might nod off if you take longer than 15 minutes to explain.

I like this, but I think I would change the "fifteen" to "five" ;)

With my players... more like 3 and the guarantee of free food :P

Funny, I was just thinking that the listening duration was not a constant but a variable dependent in the quality of the wine that evening.


I agree strongly with what Bill Volk mentioned, that the players find more veracity in a world whose history is not merely a list of dates and conquests, but also an evolution of ides.  I specifically have my PC's involved with the rise of guilds challenging the older power groups, as well as the rise of racial integration as a challenging conflict the PC's needed to deal with.

One of my PC's afterwards played briefly (all my groups only play once every three weeks) in another groups in a group where orcs anf ugly things were always bad, and said it was too unrealistic...

[Stargate525]

My new least favorite RPG setting trope is Medieval Stasis.

I wish he would give analysis in his examples. I disagree vehemently about Tamriel being included. The Entire history, I think, spans a scant three hundred or so years.