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Post by Merkuri on May 31, 2004 8:15:56 GMT -5
Also, Merkuri, I like your concept with the system of planets that have varying technological levels (I think its' pretty damn cool to be honest), but I have one question: What's to keep the more advanced culture from landing and conquering the planet with a lower tech level, and or corrupting it's social and technological advancement? In my original concept of Godlings, the universe was post-apocalyptical. Everything had been broken and changed. The main reason why the high-tech planets didn't land on the low-tech planets was that they couldn't find them. They had lost the technology for long-distance flight travel without the aid of what I called "starways" (wormholes, tunnels through space, whatever you want to call them). So you couldn't get to a planet unless it had a starway nearby. And, of course, none of the low-tech planets had starways because then they would have become high-tech planets again. It was possible to get to them, but without the right technology or knowing exactly where the planet was that you were heading for, you were pretty much taking shots in the dark. Now, the drawback to this is that there's an upper limit on the tech level, but there's always the possibility that tech from before the apocalypse could be rediscovered, for those games where the players and/or GM want a very very high tech world. Of course, then for that GM's incarnation of our universe the low-tech worlds would probably go bye-bye (unless somebody came up with a "prime directive" of sorts, but I doubt it). And I think X has a point that we should put off on the system discussion until later. Either that or we could start up another thread about system and we could just discuss setting/theme here.
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Post by Shadowdragon on May 31, 2004 11:44:18 GMT -5
Having a die system isn't going to eliminate the problem of players being too attached to their characters...all they have to do is submit a number that benefits their characters. There are automatic die rolling systems out there, that I've heard of, but what are the rights that protect it (the concept/software)? Is it even a feasible option? Actually I use one of the E-mail die rollers in my 2nd ed AD&D campaign right here on this site. It works out well and both the player and DM get emailed the results. It's Irony Games Dice Server, and I'm not the only one to use it. It's a publicly available utility on the Irony Games site. Irony Games Dice Server
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X
Peasant
No-name
Posts: 16
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Post by X on May 31, 2004 21:57:05 GMT -5
Merkuri>>
Excellent.
Now, how many planets are we looking at here? Half dozen? Dozen? More?
And just to help clear things up some (to keep the A's from mixing with the B's), I agree with you in that maybe another thread, dealing with the technical aspects of the setting, should probally be started up for brainstorm.
It'll help keep focus I think.
Maybe even a single thread for every given world...primitive world, medieval world, modern world, future world, etc.
Or whatever it is that you got in mind...
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Post by EK - Shadow of Death on Jun 1, 2004 0:03:15 GMT -5
To have something like that would solve the problem of expandability - each GM could host a game on a seperate world. Of course, we could create a few "stock planets" for them to base a campaign on, but encourage creation of unique planets (or continents, regions, cities, etc.)
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Post by Merkuri on Jun 1, 2004 12:14:09 GMT -5
Yes, I'd be in favor of creating a few "stock" planets and encouraging GMs to make their own planets.
Do we want to have some sort of overreaching plot (or theme, as I had originally intended)? I think we should, at least for the sci-fi part of it. Something to incorporate the apocalypse (or whatever device we're using to prevent planetary contamination). Then we could work two or three planets in to the sci-fi "plot" and then do a few more separated planets. Maybe one each for primitive, medieval, and modern (and maybe one more sci-fi planet that's independent of the main sci-fi plot). Or do we want to do one world for a set of "themes" rather than time periods? We could do one world for Outcasts and one for More Than Human, for example (or even go wierder and say stuff like, "this is the planet where the trees are purple and people walk on their heads). Perhaps we should try and do one "example" world for each of the world types we expect GMs to make (whatever those "types" turn out to be)?
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Post by EK - Shadow of Death on Jun 1, 2004 22:26:57 GMT -5
I think we should narrow down our overriding themes to 2 or 3 choices and then stick with that to begin with. Maybe a combination of Outcasts and More Than Human, Godlings, and Planeshifters. This way we would only have three types of planets, and thus three themes, to worry about.
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Post by Merkuri on Jun 2, 2004 16:20:37 GMT -5
I vote we make Godlings the theme that goes with the over-arching sci-fi plot. First, because we're taking everything else from my original Godlings idea, we might as well take the rest. But seriously, Godlings would be hard to implement on a small-scale (i.e. one planet) since it involves the cosmology of the whole universe (that the gods are dead), plus it explains the apocalypse that's keeping the planets apart (the war that killed the gods). So if we use it, we should probably use it in the broad-universe plot. It would be pretty fun to have just one Godling show up on one of the isolated planets, s/he could be the uber-bad guy that the PCs have to take out, since I imagine Godlings would be pretty powerful compared to the other PC types we've been throwing around. If we're going with the multi-planet idea, then I think we can just throw out Planeshift altogether. If one of the "planes" is a whole universe, then they all have to be universes with their own planets, and that'll be too much trouble. And if we don't talk about the other planes than the Planeshifters don't really have any sort of advantage or plot-hook anymore. We can go back and do them later in a separate universe if we want, but for now I say we leave it out. Outcasts and More than Human could be their own little worlds. More than Human, especially, seems like a good candidate for constraining it to a single planet. Outcasts probably would be better as a multi-planet deal, but we can constrain that to a different part of the universe, maybe a handfull of planets instead of the one. Now, the only issue I have with this is that we don't have anything that's medieval based. I think we need a planet based around medieval times, simply because medieval games have such a large and detailed roleplaying history. Most gamers will probably expect a fantasy/medieval game. Godlings is sort of fantasy, but if we use it as the over-plot then we're combining it with sci-fi. I think we need just one more planet as a medieval/fantasy world, perhaps a generic one with a D&D-esque feel. And remember, we don't have to detail all these planets. We can leave some of these up to the GM's imagination, too. In fact, I recommend that we don't try and flesh out every single aspect of each planet we come up with. We should have just enough to set the basic history and feel of the place. The details are up to the individual GMs.
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Post by EK - Shadow of Death on Jun 3, 2004 22:30:15 GMT -5
How about if we make the planets in different galaxies? That way even if we have an over-arching sci-fi plot in one galaxy, it'll be tough (if not impossible) for them to get to the next galaxy. We can have a sci-fi galaxy, a medieval galaxy, a (god-forbid) Wild West galaxy, etc. We could have different solar systems that housed the different theme elements, or even have them all on the same planet.
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Post by nonameapparent on Jun 5, 2004 7:48:22 GMT -5
this might sound alittle weird but here it goes: there is only one world or plane or whatever, but there are alot of alternative realities. This way all sorts of themes could exists in the same world and Merkuri`s planeshift idea could be used to link it all together. Though I would prefer if it was a astral projection-thing and taking host in people on the "otherside"...
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Post by Merkuri on Jun 6, 2004 18:38:58 GMT -5
How about if we make the planets in different galaxies? That way even if we have an over-arching sci-fi plot in one galaxy, it'll be tough (if not impossible) for them to get to the next galaxy. We can have a sci-fi galaxy, a medieval galaxy, a (god-forbid) Wild West galaxy, etc. We could have different solar systems that housed the different theme elements, or even have them all on the same planet. Well, it's just that the idea of Godlings (at least my interpretation of it) relies on the fact that the gods are dead. Unless each galaxy has it's own set of gods... which is entirely possible. Just because Godlings is the over-arching plot doesn't mean it has to have it's fingers in everything... just that it can. The only thing that might be difficult is the fact that you couldn't have any gods on any of the other worlds, but I think it would be fun to keep the possibility that Godlings could pop up on any planet at any time, without even knowing what they were. They'd be good to use as villans, IMO. Still, if you ask me, the galaxies are too far apart. It makes it pretty much impossible to get from one to the other. While it shouldn't be common for worlds to interact, it should be possible (unless the GM deems it otherwise). I think if we do use the galaxy idea then they should be linked somehow, by wormholes or something. Perhaps wormholes that are particularly difficult to navigate, for whatever reason. Perhaps we should put all of our worlds in one galaxy and invite GMs to create their own galaxies, which may or may not be linked to the "stock" galaxy. this might sound alittle weird but here it goes: there is only one world or plane or whatever, but there are alot of alternative realities. This way all sorts of themes could exists in the same world and Merkuri`s planeshift idea could be used to link it all together. Though I would prefer if it was a astral projection-thing and taking host in people on the "otherside"... I like this idea. It's interesting. At the same time, though, I think it would be more fun for GMs to create their own planet rather than an alternate dimension. With a new planet you can do anything. With an alternate dimension you still need to conform to the pre-existing universe.
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Post by EK - Shadow of Death on Jun 7, 2004 8:57:11 GMT -5
I like the idea of wormholes. Galaxies are pretty hard to traverse as it is, and even with faster-than-light travel, it would be near-impossible for a species to traverse it. Besides, do we really want a high-tech sci-fi world to be able to come in contact with a medieval world? The results could be quite dangerous.
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Post by Merkuri on Jun 7, 2004 13:55:13 GMT -5
do we really want a high-tech sci-fi world to be able to come in contact with a medieval world? The results could be quite dangerous. And quite fun, if you do it right. If you have a few sci-fi travelers who wrecked in a medieval world and had to keep their other-worldliness a secret until they can be rescued, that can make for a fun campaign. While I agree it should be very hard to mix worlds, it should be possible. Let the GMs decide whether or not they want it in their campaigns, let's not automatically rule it impossible. Another concept I had with Godlings is that travel and communication had been severely impaired from the apocalypse. It could take days or weeks to get between inhabited planets by wormhole (and eons by normal space), and since the planets were so far apart it even took years for radio signals to get from one planet to another, so messages had to be ferried by ships through the wormholes. Basically, I was trying to enforce the time-scale of a medieval travel and communications system on this sci-fi universe. You needed couriers to get your messages from one planet to another, no telephones or radio signals. And it could take days or weeks for an emperor to get a message to the outer reaches of his empire, so you'd get situations like armies moving on orders that have long since expired, they just didn't get the word yet. The lack of instantaneous communications and travel can make things very interesting.
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Post by EK - Shadow of Death on Jun 7, 2004 15:55:34 GMT -5
And quite fun, if you do it right. If you have a few sci-fi travelers who wrecked in a medieval world and had to keep their other-worldliness a secret until they can be rescued, that can make for a fun campaign. While I agree it should be very hard to mix worlds, it should be possible. Let the GMs decide whether or not they want it in their campaigns, let's not automatically rule it impossible. Fine, but what's to stop the sci-fi people from conquering the world by forcing its leaders into submission? They may be few, but with a few displays of power, they could easily convince a few warlords that they are gods or something else. The Spanish did it in the Americas - what's to stop an enterprising pirate from doing it there? Another concept I had with Godlings is that travel and communication had been severely impaired from the apocalypse. It could take days or weeks to get between inhabited planets by wormhole (and eons by normal space), and since the planets were so far apart it even took years for radio signals to get from one planet to another, so messages had to be ferried by ships through the wormholes. Basically, I was trying to enforce the time-scale of a medieval travel and communications system on this sci-fi universe. You needed couriers to get your messages from one planet to another, no telephones or radio signals. And it could take days or weeks for an emperor to get a message to the outer reaches of his empire, so you'd get situations like armies moving on orders that have long since expired, they just didn't get the word yet. The lack of instantaneous communications and travel can make things very interesting. I like this a lot. We could expand this to give humans the technology to build wormholes and contain them via gates (or something). Of course you need to build a gate at either end of the wormhole before it becomes useable, so they could serve as routes between an empire's colonies.
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Post by EK - Shadow of Death on Jun 7, 2004 15:57:30 GMT -5
Wait a sec - I think we've settled on a theme. If there aren't any more theme suggestions, shall we start working up the setting details?
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Post by Merkuri on Jun 8, 2004 13:55:43 GMT -5
I'm good with the planets/universe theme.
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