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Post by Bannanachair on Dec 15, 2017 23:43:51 GMT -4
I'm considering writing a new fantasy RP, inspired by some joking around done by Duck and I on Happy's Coural thread. However, I have one big flaw with my worldbuilding: That is, I either make the whole world one homogenous thing (Soliraex Desert, Land of Ferinox) or I include only one small region of the world, and then plan on just adding more stuff later (Siege of Dorthol et al., my D&D campaigns Winterpond and Orevod Peninsula). The one world that I made that has at least superficial cultural differences from place to place was Kingdoms of Grefyle, but even then the majority of those cultures were mentioned only in the OP and all eleven pages that transpired took place in the northernmost region of the world, known as The Tundra. I'm thinking that for this, I'll draw some inspiration from all my old worlds and storylines, and also throw in some things which, as Duck said on the Coural thread, are underrepresented in fantasy. So here are my ideas so far: - There is an island that is home to a powerful magical order, which might or might not bear some resemblance to the Arcane Order of the Green Tower from the RP of that same name, guarded by krakens. I'm thinking that these guys will be rather reclusive and secretive, like an isolated monastic order.
- Krakens will populate all the world's oceans, at roughly the same frequency as dragons (so maybe one kraken for every ten to a hundred thousand people, I'm still deciding), but will be weirdly abundant around the island where the spellcasters live.
- Dragons will be in this. I can not decide if I want the intelligent, cunning dragons that can talk to people that you'll see in some media or the dragons that are just monsters with animalistic intelligence that you'll see in others. Tikobe, Duck, Benzo, Tails, I know for a fact that all four of you are going to see that I'm doing a fantasy RP and express interest: Please share your thoughts on this matter.
- Like in Kingdoms of Grefyle, the farthest north will be home to a region called The Tundra, which will have Ice Orcs, or maybe something similar but given an original name. Either way, it'll be too cold for normal human habitation (think the Lands of Always Winter from ASOIAF or anything north of the arctic circle in the real world), but not so cold that people can't go there at all.
- I've always thought that, due to the popularity of elves in fantasy, faeries got rather ignored, especially in fantasy that includes a secondary world. As such, I want the fae to play a role in this world. If everyone is disgusted and repulsed by the idea of a faerie appearing in this I'll drop it, but if you guys are even just neutral towards it I will include it, because faeries have the potential to be awesome.
- I obviously want the standard array of high fantasy human kingdoms and duchies and villages and towns and cities, inhabited by humans who are not magic, and also a couple who are. Let's just make sure that this is written down as we're doing brainstorming because I don't want to forget the humans.
- If I decide to add demons or devils to this world, which I might (but I'm still on the fence about it) one of the aforementioned human nations obviously needs to be a city state run by an oppressive tyrant demon worshipper who uses demon magics to prevent the faeries or kraken-riding wizards or Ice Orcs or good kingdoms from stopping him. Maybe it'll be a small kingdom instead of a city state. Either way, this is an idea I'm toying with throwing into the mix.
- I'm also considering including the following things: Cyclopses, unicorns, wyverns, elemental magic of some kind, shadow magic of some kind, spider people (like whassername that we spent ten pages of Land of Ferinox dealing with or like the Spider in the engine control room in the much more recent space ISRP), snake people, harpies, giants, undead, vampires and gods of some sort or another.
- On that note, I'm leaning towards a "no Elves or Dwarves" type thing, and I'll try not to replace Elves with Elf-like creatures and Dwarves with Dwarf-like creatures. That said, though, I do quite like the Eladrin from 4th edition D&D much moreso than vanilla elves, so if any elves are included in this at all, it'll be those guys and not your standard tree-hugging archers. I'll also connect them somehow or another to the faeries if I include them.
- I want a bit of interesting history for the world in advance of making it, of course. I won't do it all, though; I'll just do it in broad strokes and fill in the details with whatever's convenient for the plot at the time.
- I'll want to do an actual map instead of just describing it, but I can't do maps, so I'll need one of you to help me. It doesn't even need to be a full world map, but I would like a map of a large portion of the world, and especially all of the known world known to the people of the region where this will primarily take place. Maybe a continent a couple thousand miles large, with it's own political whatnots, and then off to the side a couple more continents, where closer to the main continent more stuff is known, but eventually it just fades away. Like the map of ASOIAF.
Does this seem like it would make a fun fantasy world worth RPing in? These ideas of mine are really my sales pitch to you. If this whole thing seems like I'm cramming in too many ideas into one world please tell me, but if it sounds like you'd enjoy adventuring around this world, please tell me that as well. Also, if any of you can think of something else cool that's not in a lot of fantasy that you'd like to see in a fantasy RP, please mention it below. I'm still brainstorming this, so for now basically nothing's been eliminated as a possibility (and, unlike all my more successful fantasy RPs, I want to do a lot of worldbuilding before I make the RP public).
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Post by Bannanachair on Dec 16, 2017 0:00:20 GMT -4
Also, I forgot to mention, this will be completely open-world, like Land of Ferinox. I'll control the environment and NPCs and you tell me what you want your character to do, but aside from that you can go and do whatever you want. I'll give you plot hooks if you want them, or you can create a character with something in mind: "I want to get the wizards to get their krakens to help me avenge my family, who were killed by the demon-worshipping city government," "I want to lead a brave expedition into the Tundra to seek wealth for my people," etc.
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Post by Tikobe on Dec 16, 2017 0:22:38 GMT -4
Alright, since you asked, I'll pitch in.
> In traditional mythology, elves are a member of the fae. I've always been a fan of creative spins for races based on mythology, but I've found out that there should always at least be one similar thing or you might as well just make a new race. I support the elves having a connection to the fae.
> Fae should definitely be a thing. One of my biggest complaints with fantasy is not enough faeries.
> Demons are nice as a default enemy that you can pull out a "villain just for the sake of villainy" trope with. That's simply because we expect demons to be evil. If you include demons and use them like that, I think you set a standard that all non-demon villain type characters (Assuming you use anything like that) need to at least have a strong motivation. That being said, I do not support defaulting to "villain just for the sake of villainy" even with demons, so I encourage you to figure out something interesting to support it and make it stronger. For example, when I was coming up with a story that had demons in it the demons themselves were not inherently evil. They were souls of the dead that were rejected from that world's version of heaven and were given warped, ugly bodies. In addition, the demons lost all sense of morality and compassion, causing them to develop crazy ideas that are harmful to others because they don't think about what it'd do to others. That's only an example and you don't need to do it, but at the very least let it make sense about why humans are putting their kingdom in the hands of demons.
> Dragons. I honestly don't know. Lately I've been having a declining taste for writing fantasy because everything's been done to death and everything I do is cliche no matter how hard I try, and both of the routes you've suggested fall into that category. So now tell me: Are there gods? Are there higher beings? Is there a reason why you need a flying, fire breathing lizard who's lived for possibly a hundred years to speak and play the wise, wizened monster type character? If there isn't, then I would recommend saving dragons as something that can serve the role of the krakens.
> Isolated wizards are another thing generally done to death. They're not bad, and I don't blame you for doing it at all. Just felt like I should say it.
> What drives the world? Is there a conflict? Is there something that's coming that'll move the world forward? I've tried it, but I've found that just going into a crypt, killing a minotaur and then going to a mountain to kill a giant and then to this to kill that and so on doesn't really work very much.
Those are just my two cents. I support the idea actually and I look forward to it.
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Post by Bannanachair on Dec 16, 2017 11:46:55 GMT -4
Alright, since you asked, I'll pitch in. Your ideas and thoughts are all quite interesting, and I'll be addressing them one at a time. In traditional mythology, elves are a member of the fae. I've always been a fan of creative spins for races based on mythology, but I've found out that there should always at least be one similar thing or you might as well just make a new race. I support the elves having a connection to the fae. Aye, if I do include them they'll be the closest thing to a civilization that any type of faerie has. I figure it'd be hard to go complete mythological and ignore everything done to them in fantasy, so I'm obviously going to be including some elements of elves from fantasy as well as elves from mythology, but if and when I do add them they will be fae, just seelie fae who have a bit more open contact with the mortals than, say, a pixie would. Fae should definitely be a thing. One of my biggest complaints with fantasy is not enough faeries. Any specific types of faeries that you recommend? Faerie mythology exists in a lot of cultures from Ireland to Greece, and though I'm leaning more heavily towards Irish/Scottish/Celtic faeries, I'm curious about your input. Demons are nice as a default enemy that you can pull out a "villain just for the sake of villainy" trope with. That's simply because we expect demons to be evil. If you include demons and use them like that, I think you set a standard that all non-demon villain type characters (Assuming you use anything like that) need to at least have a strong motivation. That being said, I do not support defaulting to "villain just for the sake of villainy" even with demons, so I encourage you to figure out something interesting to support it and make it stronger. For example, when I was coming up with a story that had demons in it the demons themselves were not inherently evil. They were souls of the dead that were rejected from that world's version of heaven and were given warped, ugly bodies. In addition, the demons lost all sense of morality and compassion, causing them to develop crazy ideas that are harmful to others because they don't think about what it'd do to others. That's only an example and you don't need to do it, but at the very least let it make sense about why humans are putting their kingdom in the hands of demons. I agree that demons should be more three-dimensional, but I don't see why the players, who will be playing humans, need to understand the demon's private ideologies and goals (which will probably be to use the world to gain more influence in Hell, or something like that). And yeah, I'll think of a reason why humans would put their government in the hands of demons, and I have a couple ideas already that I'm mulling through in my head. If I like them, I'll post them, or if they'd be better as secret reasons I'll keep them as a secret. Dragons. I honestly don't know. Lately I've been having a declining taste for writing fantasy because everything's been done to death and everything I do is cliche no matter how hard I try, and both of the routes you've suggested fall into that category. So now tell me: Are there gods? Are there higher beings? Is there a reason why you need a flying, fire breathing lizard who's lived for possibly a hundred years to speak and play the wise, wizened monster type character? If there isn't, then I would recommend saving dragons as something that can serve the role of the krakens. Dragons are hard, because I really like them and want to include them, and I haven't ever really done anything with them (though I had plans for them in both in the Siege of Dorthol sequels which I never posted and in a D&D campaign that fell apart after literally one session), but at the same time they're also a cliché and I don't want to bore people. I guess we'll see if other people really like the idea of dragons. If nobody has strong opinions one way or another I'll just go with what I feel like as I'm writing it, and hopefully their inclusion won't be too off-putting to anyone here. Isolated wizards are another thing generally done to death. They're not bad, and I don't blame you for doing it at all. Just felt like I should say it. I think that people should know about the wizards, and I think that people should even know where to find the wizards, but I don't think that Wizard HQ should be easy to get to, if that makes any sense at all. What drives the world? Is there a conflict? Is there something that's coming that'll move the world forward? I've tried it, but I've found that just going into a crypt, killing a minotaur and then going to a mountain to kill a giant and then to this to kill that and so on doesn't really work very much. I don't think that I want there to be one thing driving the entire world, per se. I want the world to be a dynamic and changing place, of course, but I don't want everyone in the world to be acting and reacting around one thing. I think that people and nations next to demon kingdom would be driven by fear of that threat, for instance, but I don't see why someone a thousand miles away would be driven by that particular conflict, because they'd have their own things where they are to keep them busy and drive them instead. I hope that that makes sense. Those are just my two cents. I support the idea actually and I look forward to it. Honestly it's kind of hard not to be interested when the pitch is "krakens, wizards, faeries, demons, a frozen wasteland to the north and also maybe some other stuff". I'm looking forward to seeing your CS. |
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Post by Duck14 on Dec 16, 2017 16:10:57 GMT -4
I really want to collaborate somewhat in this and will do more next time I have internet.
I come back properly on the 20th of Jan but will make sure to have some proper access before then. Great stuff so far.
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Post by Bannanachair on Dec 16, 2017 16:13:31 GMT -4
I really want to collaborate somewhat in this and will do more next time I have internet. I come back properly on the 20th of Jan but will make sure to have some proper access before then. Great stuff so far. Thanks, man. If you have any cool ideas that you want to see just list them and I'll make all the weaving it together in a way that makes sense my job. |
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Patriot
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Post by Patriot on Dec 16, 2017 18:51:59 GMT -4
I really want to collaborate somewhat in this and will do more next time I have internet. I come back properly on the 20th of Jan but will make sure to have some proper access before then. Great stuff so far. Thanks, man. If you have any cool ideas that you want to see just list them and I'll make all the weaving it together in a way that makes sense my job. you better not abandon this one TIM |
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Post by Bannanachair on Dec 17, 2017 0:07:10 GMT -4
Thanks, man. If you have any cool ideas that you want to see just list them and I'll make all the weaving it together in a way that makes sense my job. you better not abandon this one TIM I shall make no promises. But hopefully I won't abandon this. I think that this will be fun. |
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Post by Tikobe on Dec 17, 2017 21:25:38 GMT -4
Alright, since you asked, I'll pitch in. Your ideas and thoughts are all quite interesting, and I'll be addressing them one at a time. In traditional mythology, elves are a member of the fae. I've always been a fan of creative spins for races based on mythology, but I've found out that there should always at least be one similar thing or you might as well just make a new race. I support the elves having a connection to the fae. Aye, if I do include them they'll be the closest thing to a civilization that any type of faerie has. I figure it'd be hard to go complete mythological and ignore everything done to them in fantasy, so I'm obviously going to be including some elements of elves from fantasy as well as elves from mythology, but if and when I do add them they will be fae, just seelie fae who have a bit more open contact with the mortals than, say, a pixie would. Fae should definitely be a thing. One of my biggest complaints with fantasy is not enough faeries. Any specific types of faeries that you recommend? Faerie mythology exists in a lot of cultures from Ireland to Greece, and though I'm leaning more heavily towards Irish/Scottish/Celtic faeries, I'm curious about your input. Demons are nice as a default enemy that you can pull out a "villain just for the sake of villainy" trope with. That's simply because we expect demons to be evil. If you include demons and use them like that, I think you set a standard that all non-demon villain type characters (Assuming you use anything like that) need to at least have a strong motivation. That being said, I do not support defaulting to "villain just for the sake of villainy" even with demons, so I encourage you to figure out something interesting to support it and make it stronger. For example, when I was coming up with a story that had demons in it the demons themselves were not inherently evil. They were souls of the dead that were rejected from that world's version of heaven and were given warped, ugly bodies. In addition, the demons lost all sense of morality and compassion, causing them to develop crazy ideas that are harmful to others because they don't think about what it'd do to others. That's only an example and you don't need to do it, but at the very least let it make sense about why humans are putting their kingdom in the hands of demons. I agree that demons should be more three-dimensional, but I don't see why the players, who will be playing humans, need to understand the demon's private ideologies and goals (which will probably be to use the world to gain more influence in Hell, or something like that). And yeah, I'll think of a reason why humans would put their government in the hands of demons, and I have a couple ideas already that I'm mulling through in my head. If I like them, I'll post them, or if they'd be better as secret reasons I'll keep them as a secret. Dragons. I honestly don't know. Lately I've been having a declining taste for writing fantasy because everything's been done to death and everything I do is cliche no matter how hard I try, and both of the routes you've suggested fall into that category. So now tell me: Are there gods? Are there higher beings? Is there a reason why you need a flying, fire breathing lizard who's lived for possibly a hundred years to speak and play the wise, wizened monster type character? If there isn't, then I would recommend saving dragons as something that can serve the role of the krakens. Dragons are hard, because I really like them and want to include them, and I haven't ever really done anything with them (though I had plans for them in both in the Siege of Dorthol sequels which I never posted and in a D&D campaign that fell apart after literally one session), but at the same time they're also a cliché and I don't want to bore people. I guess we'll see if other people really like the idea of dragons. If nobody has strong opinions one way or another I'll just go with what I feel like as I'm writing it, and hopefully their inclusion won't be too off-putting to anyone here. Isolated wizards are another thing generally done to death. They're not bad, and I don't blame you for doing it at all. Just felt like I should say it. I think that people should know about the wizards, and I think that people should even know where to find the wizards, but I don't think that Wizard HQ should be easy to get to, if that makes any sense at all. What drives the world? Is there a conflict? Is there something that's coming that'll move the world forward? I've tried it, but I've found that just going into a crypt, killing a minotaur and then going to a mountain to kill a giant and then to this to kill that and so on doesn't really work very much. I don't think that I want there to be one thing driving the entire world, per se. I want the world to be a dynamic and changing place, of course, but I don't want everyone in the world to be acting and reacting around one thing. I think that people and nations next to demon kingdom would be driven by fear of that threat, for instance, but I don't see why someone a thousand miles away would be driven by that particular conflict, because they'd have their own things where they are to keep them busy and drive them instead. I hope that that makes sense. Those are just my two cents. I support the idea actually and I look forward to it. Honestly it's kind of hard not to be interested when the pitch is "krakens, wizards, faeries, demons, a frozen wasteland to the north and also maybe some other stuff". I'm looking forward to seeing your CS. Honestly, you can't do worse with dragons then what I did with O-Lord's Game, where there were different kinds of dragons and five of the them were the first beings on the planet and were responsible for shaping the world. Cliched as all hell, but in my defense the point of the world of O-Lord's Game was to be cliched. |
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Post by Bannanachair on Dec 17, 2017 21:58:56 GMT -4
Your ideas and thoughts are all quite interesting, and I'll be addressing them one at a time. Aye, if I do include them they'll be the closest thing to a civilization that any type of faerie has. I figure it'd be hard to go complete mythological and ignore everything done to them in fantasy, so I'm obviously going to be including some elements of elves from fantasy as well as elves from mythology, but if and when I do add them they will be fae, just seelie fae who have a bit more open contact with the mortals than, say, a pixie would. Any specific types of faeries that you recommend? Faerie mythology exists in a lot of cultures from Ireland to Greece, and though I'm leaning more heavily towards Irish/Scottish/Celtic faeries, I'm curious about your input. I agree that demons should be more three-dimensional, but I don't see why the players, who will be playing humans, need to understand the demon's private ideologies and goals (which will probably be to use the world to gain more influence in Hell, or something like that). And yeah, I'll think of a reason why humans would put their government in the hands of demons, and I have a couple ideas already that I'm mulling through in my head. If I like them, I'll post them, or if they'd be better as secret reasons I'll keep them as a secret. Dragons are hard, because I really like them and want to include them, and I haven't ever really done anything with them (though I had plans for them in both in the Siege of Dorthol sequels which I never posted and in a D&D campaign that fell apart after literally one session), but at the same time they're also a cliché and I don't want to bore people. I guess we'll see if other people really like the idea of dragons. If nobody has strong opinions one way or another I'll just go with what I feel like as I'm writing it, and hopefully their inclusion won't be too off-putting to anyone here. I think that people should know about the wizards, and I think that people should even know where to find the wizards, but I don't think that Wizard HQ should be easy to get to, if that makes any sense at all. I don't think that I want there to be one thing driving the entire world, per se. I want the world to be a dynamic and changing place, of course, but I don't want everyone in the world to be acting and reacting around one thing. I think that people and nations next to demon kingdom would be driven by fear of that threat, for instance, but I don't see why someone a thousand miles away would be driven by that particular conflict, because they'd have their own things where they are to keep them busy and drive them instead. I hope that that makes sense. Honestly it's kind of hard not to be interested when the pitch is "krakens, wizards, faeries, demons, a frozen wasteland to the north and also maybe some other stuff". I'm looking forward to seeing your CS. Honestly, you can't do worse with dragons then what I did with O-Lord's Game, where there were different kinds of dragons and five of the them were the first beings on the planet and were responsible for shaping the world. Cliched as all hell, but in my defense the point of the world of O-Lord's Game was to be cliched. Honestly I don't think that you can do dragons without them being a cliché. If they're not a fantasy cliché of any sort, then they're not dragons. |
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Post by Duck14 on Dec 18, 2017 17:11:39 GMT -4
Honestly, you can't do worse with dragons then what I did with O-Lord's Game, where there were different kinds of dragons and five of the them were the first beings on the planet and were responsible for shaping the world. Cliched as all hell, but in my defense the point of the world of O-Lord's Game was to be cliched. Honestly I don't think that you can do dragons without them being a cliché. If they're not a fantasy cliché of any sort, then they're not dragons. Most of the stories a friend and I have set in our D&D/story world has taken place in a period after a dragon cull. We mainly did so to force ourselves to do stuff outside of the stereotypical dragon story. But then it also made it so much more interesting when we actually used dragons because they weren’t common at all to begin with. But I don’t mind their use. As I don’t mind the use of Elves and Dwarves (personally love Dwarves) I would miss them. A large sprawling world has a place for every species. Like let’s see Fauns and Satrys dancing around a wood fire while the Elves and Dryads try to drive them away. Let’s see Selkies and Mermen fight for their underwater kingdoms which face constant threats from the everpresent Krakens. Why not have Kelpies trick humans shortly before drowning them? Why not have giants and rock golems fight over dominance in the northern mountains? That’s a lot of what ifs and I have plenty of ideas. There’s plenty you can do and there’s a lot of fantasy species and mythology that you can draw on. Of course, you’re going to run into cliches but that’s part of the fun. |
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Post by Bannanachair on Dec 25, 2017 19:03:47 GMT -4
I've been thinking about the human kingdoms and nations that I'll include in this a bit, and I'll probably upload some pitches within a few days to see what looks good and what doesn't. I've also been thinking about the society, and here's what I want human PCs to be able to be: - Kings. I think it would be cool if one or two of you had characters who are kings.
- Noblemen, either under a king or under another nobleman who's under the king, in the feudal society of the Human kingdoms.
- Knights, because knights are awesome. Either knights in service to some king or lord, or part of a knightly order, or hedge knights who go from place to place being anything from bandits to chivalrous honourable heroes.
- Courtiers in the courts of the nobilities and royalties, though without being major landed nobility themselves.
- Priests, with religious affiliations of one kind or another.
- Merchants, either acting on their own, or as part of a large guild. More wealthy merchants would have whole fleets of ships and whatnot that they could send out without being present, but playing as a traveling merchant who directly sells to customers sounds like it could be interesting as well.
- Traveling bards, because that sounds awesome
- Thieves of any kind, from pickpockets to burglers, either working on their own or as part of a guild.
- Wizards, alchemists, astrologers or some other member of a learned organization
- Soldiers, fighting in the frontlines of a war between various kingdoms in the world of this RP.
- Generals, leading armies and directing battles
If you can think of anything else you'd want to be able to do in a fantasy RP as a human, please let me know and I'll see if I can fit it in to this world somehow. It shouldn't be hard, but my main concern is that I'm overlooking something, not that there's something that will be hard to implement here. |
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Post by Bannanachair on Dec 26, 2017 19:51:58 GMT -4
So, here are my ideas for how to distinguish the various Human cultures and make them all seem different from one another. Even though there are going to be other fantasy races in this, I don't want the humans to be one large, homogenous, cultural and cartographical blob. It took me a while to decide how to do this, but then I looked at The World of Ice&Fire, and I came up with several ways of distinguishing various cultures, so that we have something to go off of for when we make the kingdoms of this RP. Please note that this post makes more sense if you're a fan of ASOIAF, but it should make sense regardless: - Different religions. When you think of Westeros, which kingdom do you think of as being the most clear and distinct, where you can immediately tell if something is from that kingdom? It's The North, of course. And why is this? Why are they so culturally different to the rest of Westeros? It's because they follow the Old Gods instead of the Faith of the Seven. (Likewise, White Harbour is seperate from the rest of the North for largely following the Faith, and the Blackwood Vale in the Riverlands is notable for still worshipping the Old Gods. Plankytown and the Orphans of the River are known for following the ancient Rhoynish religion as well). I think that, if we have multiple religions, or multiple interpretations of a religion (or multiple religions, each with multiple sects and interpretations) that we will be very quickly able to create some cultures around that.
- The next thing on my list is weather. Several Westerosi kingdoms are very defined by their weather, notably the North (which is cold) and Dorne (which is hot and dry), but the Stormlands also stands out as an example of this. Because this is fantasy, and I want this to be fantastical, I say that we take this one step further than GRRM did and add in magic, fantasy weather, like the Ashfalls and the Mist from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. I'm not saying that we need to steal those weather phenomena specifically, but the idea of fantasy weather is a good starting point.
- Geography is the next thing on this list. After The North and Dorne, the two most distinct Westerosi kingdoms are the Iron Islands, which are islands and therefore defined by their geography by definition, and the Riverlands, which is a region that has a lot of rivers. However, it goes further than this: The Westerlands and the Vale of Arryn are very mountainous regions, and the Stormlands is two forests divided by a mountain range. Regions within kingdoms are similarly defined: The Fingers are a set of peninsulas, Tyrion goes on a long tirade about the differences between the Salty, Stony and Sandy Dornish, and within the North regions such as The Neck, The Barrows and the Mountain Clans similarly stand out - and that's without going into all the islands (Tarth, Bear Island, The Three Sisters, etc.). So I think that, for this RP, areas defined by their geography (both mundane geography and fantasy geography) would be cool.
- Culture is also a good way of defining kingdoms (though in-universe, of course, it would be the other way around). The Vale of Arryn has high standards for honour, while Dorne is a very sexually liberated kingdom where people aren't embarrassed about their bastards. So basically different cultural attitudes towards things would be an easy way to distinguish different kingdoms.
- Linguistics is a good way to do it as well. We don't need to create a language, just a consistent set of sounds for given names. Aegon, Daemon, Rhaegar and Danaerys are all Valyrian names, while Eddard, Robert, Brandon and other more normal sounding names are standard Westerosi names, and Tyrion, Tygett, Tywin, Tyrek, Tytos, Tybolt, Tywald, Tion, Tyland, Tymond, Tywell, Lancel, Lanna and Lann are all Lannister names. Across the Narrow Sea you get Illyrio, Yollo, Syrio, Ferrego and Areo as names from the Free Cities (I stuck primarily with Pentoshi and Braavosi names, but Areo is Norvoshi: Volantis follows Valyrian naming patterns, and I don't know any Lysene, Myrish, Toroshi or Qohorik names). If we establish naming patterns for various societies and nations, it will be an easy way to flesh out the kingdoms rather than just "and these are the good-guy kingdom names, which are all basically interchangeable".
- Magic, I think, might be a good way to make this distinction. It was mentioned somewhere, I forget where, that Valyrians used fire magic and blood magic (hence the house words of House Targaryen), and that the ancient Rhoynar (prior to Nymeria's Thousand Ships) used water magic from the Rhoyne, and that's a major cultural difference between them. This trope is a lot more common in Brandon Sanderson's novels, with the Terris people of Mistborn using Feruchemy instead of Allomancy, and with basically every nation in the world of Elantris having its own method of magic (most notable AonDor and whatever the Dhakor monks do).
So, those are my ideas for how to make the kingdoms and empires of humanity distinct from eachother. I don't know whether this is stealing from GRRM or drawing inspiration from him, but I think that it should work for our purposes. Of course, if anyone can think of other ways to give different nations and societies unique feels, please post below! This is a discussion, I haven't even started writing the RP yet! |
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Post by Bannanachair on Dec 28, 2017 19:01:07 GMT -4
So nobody has any input to provide here at all? Alright, I'll move on to the next phase of my planning and type something up later today.
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Post by Bannanachair on Dec 28, 2017 21:12:14 GMT -4
I also need a good idea for a name. I don't want to name this RP after the continent/world, and so I need a good suggestion. Here's some ideas that I've come up with on my own, but I don't like them very much: - Kingdoms of Steel and Spells - There will be kingdoms, and people will be using spells and fighting with swords
- Lands of Legend - It's alliterative, there is land, and there will be legends
- Fantasy RP - It's descriptive
So, does anyone have any ideas? Maybe something better will come to mind when I deal with more specifics of the world. |
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Post by Bannanachair on Dec 30, 2017 3:09:53 GMT -4
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Post by Tikobe on Dec 30, 2017 3:25:25 GMT -4
I haven't looked at this in a while, actually. I've been a little busy... And fraid not. I'm not really good with names myself. |
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Post by Bannanachair on Dec 30, 2017 3:31:49 GMT -4
I haven't looked at this in a while, actually. I've been a little busy... And fraid not. I'm not really good with names myself. Oh. Well, I also added a few more ideas to this over the past few days: What are your thoughts on them? |
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Post by Tikobe on Dec 30, 2017 3:54:35 GMT -4
I haven't looked at this in a while, actually. I've been a little busy... And fraid not. I'm not really good with names myself. Oh. Well, I also added a few more ideas to this over the past few days: What are your thoughts on them? Very well. First are your suggested roles. > King. Noble. Courtier. General. As interesting as a concept that it is, I would never roleplay a character in any of those roles as long as I'm expected to remain in that position. I would have no problem if I just hoped on some adventure but as for actually having to sit there and discuss politics while doing actually very little I would hate it, and you would hate it. Why would you hate it? Because if one character becomes a king and one becomes an adventurer you'd be doing two different roleplays in one world. You'd be doing something like an indirect Sims game for the king where while the king acts as if he's an individual entity and interacts like one but through those interactions you present him choices that'll change the kingdom and force him to suffer the consequences of his choices. Otherwise, that roleplayer will do nothing but sit on his ass all day and would likely quit after about 1-3 days into the roleplay. The only one of those roles that could counter this issue is the General but Generals manage wars and so you have to keep on fighting to maintain that (I will stress once more, however, this only applies if you expect the roleplayer to not be an adventurer. If something happens and the king's like "Yeah sure, I'll hope along" that'll get rid of the issue). However, you have to make a system for the roleplayer who's an adventurer where he's on a journey. Neither one of those are bad, I've actually debated using the "indirect Sims" thing before, but doing both at the same time on the same thread is a catastrophe and you will burn yourself out before the week is over. Trust me, I've learned this when I did the "Worlds of Hesym" ISRP a long time ago (Well, not this specifically, but managing nine different worlds with different rules, cultures, stories and life quickly brought that ISRP to an end and the situation there's similar enough to what I'm trying to explain to you). As for your idea on trying to make the cultures distinguishable, I thought we already did all of those. I mean, I'm pretty sure I do... Finally, all of those names are terrible. I'm not trying to be offensive here, but Fantasy RP really is the best one of those three. Anyways, that's just my two cents, take it or leave. I meant no offense by this, my apologies if you took offense. |
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Post by Bannanachair on Dec 30, 2017 4:31:41 GMT -4
Oh. Well, I also added a few more ideas to this over the past few days: What are your thoughts on them? Very well. First are your suggested roles. > King. Noble. Courtier. General. As interesting as a concept that it is, I would never roleplay a character in any of those roles as long as I'm expected to remain in that position. I would have no problem if I just hoped on some adventure but as for actually having to sit there and discuss politics while doing actually very little I would hate it, and you would hate it. Why would you hate it? Because if one character becomes a king and one becomes an adventurer you'd be doing two different roleplays in one world. You'd be doing something like an indirect Sims game for the king where while the king acts as if he's an individual entity and interacts like one but through those interactions you present him choices that'll change the kingdom and force him to suffer the consequences of his choices. Otherwise, that roleplayer will do nothing but sit on his ass all day and would likely quit after about 1-3 days into the roleplay. The only one of those roles that could counter this issue is the General but Generals manage wars and so you have to keep on fighting to maintain that (I will stress once more, however, this only applies if you expect the roleplayer to not be an adventurer. If something happens and the king's like "Yeah sure, I'll hope along" that'll get rid of the issue). However, you have to make a system for the roleplayer who's an adventurer where he's on a journey. Neither one of those are bad, I've actually debated using the "indirect Sims" thing before, but doing both at the same time on the same thread is a catastrophe and you will burn yourself out before the week is over. Trust me, I've learned this when I did the "Worlds of Hesym" ISRP a long time ago (Well, not this specifically, but managing nine different worlds with different rules, cultures, stories and life quickly brought that ISRP to an end and the situation there's similar enough to what I'm trying to explain to you). I have a couple ideas in mind. As a king or a noble or a courtier, I don't think that I would focus so much on the realm management as the cloak-and-dagger political intrigue of the court (think of the King's Landing chapters from ASOIAF if you want a good idea). Now, realm management would obviously come into it, but it would be a lot more indirect, and taking court, aside from really important plot-progressing things, would be largely dealt with through timeskips, unless the RPer in question wanted to deal with them. I've done both kinds of RP before, and I think I have an idea as to how to meld them together seamlessly so that it's fun for everyone. As for your idea on trying to make the cultures distinguishable, I thought we already did all of those. I mean, I'm pretty sure I do... Well I've historically been shit at doing that. I've done it somewhat for different fantasy races (Elves have longer names and live in forests, etc.), but I've never actually tried to do it in an original way and properly. I have a few ideas for this and I think they'll be quite fun. Finally, all of those names are terrible. I'm not trying to be offensive here, but Fantasy RP really is the best one of those three. I only listed them because they were terrible and to demonstrate that I need help with names. I agree wholeheartedly that "Fantasy RP" is the best name of the three. Maybe "Tim's Fantasy RP" might be a better name, to distinguish it from, say, Duck's Fantasy RP and Tikobe's Fantasy RP? But yeah, I already knew that those names were shit. I just need better suggestions. Anyways, that's just my two cents, take it or leave. I meant no offense by this, my apologies if you took offense. I took offense that you thought me meek enough to hold back. Come on, criticize this! Give it all you've got! |
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Post by Bannanachair on Jan 1, 2018 19:31:11 GMT -4
Very well. First are your suggested roles. > King. Noble. Courtier. General. As interesting as a concept that it is, I would never roleplay a character in any of those roles as long as I'm expected to remain in that position. I would have no problem if I just hoped on some adventure but as for actually having to sit there and discuss politics while doing actually very little I would hate it, and you would hate it. Why would you hate it? Because if one character becomes a king and one becomes an adventurer you'd be doing two different roleplays in one world. You'd be doing something like an indirect Sims game for the king where while the king acts as if he's an individual entity and interacts like one but through those interactions you present him choices that'll change the kingdom and force him to suffer the consequences of his choices. Otherwise, that roleplayer will do nothing but sit on his ass all day and would likely quit after about 1-3 days into the roleplay. The only one of those roles that could counter this issue is the General but Generals manage wars and so you have to keep on fighting to maintain that (I will stress once more, however, this only applies if you expect the roleplayer to not be an adventurer. If something happens and the king's like "Yeah sure, I'll hope along" that'll get rid of the issue). However, you have to make a system for the roleplayer who's an adventurer where he's on a journey. Neither one of those are bad, I've actually debated using the "indirect Sims" thing before, but doing both at the same time on the same thread is a catastrophe and you will burn yourself out before the week is over. Trust me, I've learned this when I did the "Worlds of Hesym" ISRP a long time ago (Well, not this specifically, but managing nine different worlds with different rules, cultures, stories and life quickly brought that ISRP to an end and the situation there's similar enough to what I'm trying to explain to you). I have a couple ideas in mind. As a king or a noble or a courtier, I don't think that I would focus so much on the realm management as the cloak-and-dagger political intrigue of the court (think of the King's Landing chapters from ASOIAF if you want a good idea). Now, realm management would obviously come into it, but it would be a lot more indirect, and taking court, aside from really important plot-progressing things, would be largely dealt with through timeskips, unless the RPer in question wanted to deal with them. I've done both kinds of RP before, and I think I have an idea as to how to meld them together seamlessly so that it's fun for everyone. If I'm wrong and you're right and that style of RPing is dragging the rest of it down, I'll cut it out and say "hey guys, the RP is too different for characters α, β, γ and δ than it is for characters a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h and i, and the clash of tones is jarring and hard to work with, so I'll be cutting out the storylines about α, β, γ and δ and make those PCs into NPCs." I don't think that it'll come to that, though. |
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Post by Tikobe on Jan 2, 2018 15:57:11 GMT -4
I have a couple ideas in mind. As a king or a noble or a courtier, I don't think that I would focus so much on the realm management as the cloak-and-dagger political intrigue of the court (think of the King's Landing chapters from ASOIAF if you want a good idea). Now, realm management would obviously come into it, but it would be a lot more indirect, and taking court, aside from really important plot-progressing things, would be largely dealt with through timeskips, unless the RPer in question wanted to deal with them. I've done both kinds of RP before, and I think I have an idea as to how to meld them together seamlessly so that it's fun for everyone. If I'm wrong and you're right and that style of RPing is dragging the rest of it down, I'll cut it out and say "hey guys, the RP is too different for characters α, β, γ and δ than it is for characters a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h and i, and the clash of tones is jarring and hard to work with, so I'll be cutting out the storylines about α, β, γ and δ and make those PCs into NPCs." I don't think that it'll come to that, though. Eh, really it's just a concern of mine based on past experiences. It's what happened to me and I don't want it happening to anyone else. Could happen, could not, we'll see. |
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Post by Bannanachair on Jan 4, 2018 10:32:47 GMT -4
So I've been thinking about dice systems for a while now, and I'm thinking that I'll have some parts of this RP be dice-based. I don't know what system I want to use: Maybe a preexisting one, maybe I'll make something up, or maybe I'll use one that I already made (It's a good thing I salvaged that from ROBLOX!). In all likelihood, I'll use some combination of the three, depending on what the dice roll is for. And that leads me to what I want to use dice rolls for: - Personal Combat: I really like my D60 system for combat with small groups of people, and I've tested it once before with Pirate a bit over a year ago, so I know that it works as a system. I might flesh it out a bit further with a couple more modifiers, or I'll codify who/what kinds of things have what amount of health. I haven't really tested this system with single combat, though I'd be fine with getting a volunteer or two for that.
- Knowledge: Something simple to determine if you're able to remember a piece of knowledge as-yet unintroduced to that character off the top of your head. Say you want to see if you can remember some information about someone's family tree: Roll a dice and I'll add a modifier for how learned you are in that particular area, and set a DC depending on how hard the check is meant to be. Obviously, if it makes sense within the RP for your character to know something there's no use bothering with a roll: This is just for stuff where either option would make sense.
- Research: If you want to find out some information and you have a library nearby, I'll roll to see what you can find on the topic that you're researching. Let's say that someone claims to be the heir to some dynasty that's been thought to be long-dead, and you want to see if that's possible, and you have a library nearby. With some dice rolls, I'll be able to determine if you can find any information to prove/disprove that that's possible, how long it takes and if you just give up in frustration.
- Stealth, Perception, Bluff and Insight: I think I'll actually skip these ones. I think it's stupid that if you're meant to be a master of deception and get three bad rolls in a row you'll look like a joke, and so I'll determine this stuff simply by what makes sense for the narrative and character. I don't know if you guys disagree with me on this, but I'm completely open to debate and discussion if you do, so long as we keep it civil.
- Magic: I'll need to figure out a magic system before doing anything here, but if the idea of magic is that it's inherently probabilistic, there's definitely going to be dice. Even if that's not the idea behind it there's probably going to be a randomness aspect to it.
- Health, Diseases and Poisons: If you get sick, I'll roll to see if things get better or worse, and if an antidote is provided, I'll roll to see if it's successful. I don't have an inkling of an idea more advanced than this, but it's worth mentioning here that I'm thinking of it.
- Jousting: I actually have an idea for this already. Both jousters will have a number that determines their skill in jousting, and both will roll a dice (or I'll roll a dice for both, more likely). If one side has a much larger number (say the difference between the two numbers is greater than or equal to 10 or 12) then that person wins; if they have a much smaller number they lose, and if the numbers are within a safe range then both jousters survive that tilt. I want jousting to be a thing because I thought that The Hedge Knight was an awesome book.
- Other games that involve chance: I want to make up a dice game or two that can be played by characters. I think that that would be cool. Like, you go into a tavern, sit down and place a few coins on the table, and you're handed a dice or cards or something and we can roleplay an actual gambling game. This will be more of a novelty, I think, than something that will be used regularly in the RP, but it might be vaguely interesting.
So, what do you guys think? If you dislike anything, please tell me without hesitation. If you have ideas, please tell me without hesitation. This goes not only for this post, but for all the other stuff I've posted here so far. |
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Post by Duck14 on Jan 6, 2018 7:21:49 GMT -4
I’ll let you know when I have more consistent internet. Haven’t read anything recently because of that. |
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Post by Bannanachair on Jan 6, 2018 7:25:39 GMT -4
I’ll let you know when I have more consistent internet. Haven’t read anything recently because of that. Okay. When do you get internet? |
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