[Design] Setting choices

So, I've been considering the setting for the RPG Design Contest throughout the day, and I've come across three candidates. In all but one case, these were ideas that have been percolating in my consciousness for some time, and when I realized the theme of the contest, knew they would be prime candidates. The problem quickly became a matter of narrowing things down, rather than trying to come up with material.

In brief, my three main setting concepts (with really basic titles) were:

1) Space Colonies: The three main nations are all based off colonial-era european nations (A France/Rome hybrid, The English Commonwealth, and Spain/Russia), transplanted into a fantasy universe. The nations are competing against one another in a space race, trying to colonize the various pulp-like planets of their solar system. Each planet is very pulp in nature, in a sort of "John Carter" vein. There are no spaceships, however (space is still very lethal to humans, though "Space Suits" are similar to the "Dive Suits" you see in very old sci-fi), with travel between planets taking place in magical plants, shaped around human-built hulls and launched into space in bizarre organic space terminals that no nation has the power to create.

It sounds weird, I know - but it makes sense in my head, and if I had a few pages, it'd make more sense than it does here. "Magic" in this setting would be centred around the strange plants, as well as scientifically-minded wizards in a traditional steampunk vein. The actual spells and operations of magic would be rather different, though, being able to produce strange effects that would always have a drawback and would tend to replicate old-era sci-fi ("The Invisible Man", "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde").

2. The Dreamers: The apocalypse happened three years ago... and nobody remembers it. One day, everyone just started sleepwalking... and not everyone woke up. Those who did woke up, scarred and bruised, months (or, in some cases, more than a year) after the actual event. In fact, three years after the fact, there are still a few sleepwalkers around, mindlessly milling about and just aware enough of their surroundings to scavenge a bare minimum of food and water for survival.

Those who have awakened are in the possession of bizarre powers that are being labelled as "psychic" - some can move objects, read thoughts, or even walk through walls. However, many animals have changed, either mentally or physically, and millions of sleepwalkers have seem to become possessed and twisted into a variety of malicious psychic beasts that prowl the night.

3. Cthulu in Venice: This idea is a new one, though it is based off an old CoC Campaign I ran about five years back. Essentially, the PCs are all members of the Catholic Church, in an off-shoot sect designated to investigate "heresies against God" - everything from Elder Gods to Mummies to Vampires to Cults to Serial Killers. Set in a semi-historical (and much enlarged) Venice during the Renaissance following the Black Death, the PCs are given Carte Blanche from their immediate superiors, but have to keep their investigations quiet from the public, as well as the Church Proper (if the mother church found out one of it's own was investigating occurences of the supernatural officially condemned, there'd be hell to pay).

Naturally, it'd be a horror game, equal parts "Call of Cthulu" and "The X-Files". PCs wouldn't just have to solve the supernatural case, but would also have to conceal their activities from various conspiracies and the public.

The "Magic" in this theme would be the various supernatural creatures trying to destroy the PCs. Also, as in any good horror game, PCs would have the option of turning to obscene and "Ungodly" rituals to destroy their enemies... but they would have to pay the price.

***

Now, those are my three ideas. ANd I had to narrow them down to one. I did this by taking a long walk through an uncommonly-cold Victoria winter, shivering my way through snowbanks and weighing the pros- and cons of each setting.

The main theme of the contest is "magic", and I've shown that each example is centred around something magical - the first revolves around the unexplained plant spaceships as well as unexplained pseudoscientific "magic"; the second centres around how psychic powers have changed the face of the planet; and the third is based around the paranormal side of "magic", with PCs rarely, if ever, "Casting Spells".

Each setting addresses the main theme, but they do not all address the optional sub-themes, as I soon realized. And this is where I began to narrow down my search. Some settings deal with a sub-theme better than others, and I decided that I should go with the setting that covers as many sub-themes as possible. I'm not going to take apart each setting piece by piece; that would be monotonous for both of us. Instead, I'm going to skip ahead and fill you in: I decided upon the second setting, because it hit all of the sub-themes. The other two missed out in a few different ways (Setting #1 is difficult to give a source of magical energy to, without turning the pseudoscientific magic into "science"; "Prophecy" can only work if it follows a sort of Manifest Destiny vibe; and I'm having a problem trying to work in an "Omni-present threat" that works in such a large setting. Setting #3, meanwhile, cannot be a city-based horror game and still feature a "ruined city" prominently, and with it's church overtones becomes hard to factor in a prophecy unless it's something along the lines of the Necronomicon, which has been done to death, if you ask me).

Here's how "Dreamers" tackled each of the sub-themes:

Source(s) of Magical Energy: Where does the magic come from? The problem with this question is that if you explain it too much, you start to take away the "magic" of the magical.

I had a problem figuring out a source of magical power for the second setting, until I started thinking about the sleepwalking NPCs still shuffling around the city streets. When I realized there was already an element of "Sleep" in the game, I started thinking about dreams, and decided to merge the "Dreamlands" (a sort of astral plane accessible only while asleep) with the existing psychic powers.

Those who are still "Sleepwalking" are stuck in the dreamlands, and even awakened characters still have vivid dreams that would figure into the game (I haven't figured out how yet). This is one of those flashes of inspiration that expanded upon the game when I was trying to figure out how to make this sub-theme fit - and it really helped to cement the game in my head.

Ruined City: You can introduce ruined cities into almost any RPG fairly easily, because they exist fairly readily. But there is a difference between adding in a ruined city and making a ruined city (or cities) a major theme of your game. Shadowrun, for example, has quite a few Ruined Cities ("Bug City" - former Chicago, being the big one, though zombie-infested Richmond, British Columbia is another), but when I think of Shadowrun, I do not instantly think "Ruined Cities".

Of course, as a post-apocalyptic setting, "Dreamers" has many abandoned cities. While the apocalypse is recent, I knew the campaign would have many monsters, and I quickly decided that some of these monsters could really decay a city fast. Vancouver, for example, is inhabited by giant worm creatures (Purple Worms?) that burrow beneath the city - causing some buildings to collapse.

To be honest, "Ruined Cities" was probably the easiest sub-theme to include into the setting. PCs will be interacting with these cities frequently, as they will be a primary adventuring site. PCs will sneak into them to attack enemy groups, or scavenge through the ruins in search of whatever macguffin they currently require.

Prophecy: Prophecies give a game a sort of meta-plot, and help give the GM an idea of what the game should be about. The question becomes one of how to reveal the prophecy, and just what the prophecy is about.

In the Dreamers, I knew fairly quickly that I wanted the prophecy to be tied to the Dreamlands, meaning PCs (and NPCs) would uncover clues about what was going on as they slept. I sort of imagine the situation to be similar to the The Stand, with each group being fed information they have to piece together themselves. I also decided that it would be cool to have the sleepwalkers mumble pieces of the prophecy and offer glimpses into the future - and even have a few write down shippets of the prophecy as graffitti on city walls.

Near Omni-Present Threat: What does this mean? I pondered this for a bit, and eventually came to the conclusion that it meant a single source of danger for all PCs (and maybe most NPCs, too). The threat should always be at least in the background, and could be a driving motivation for events in the game world. In Earthdawn, this would be the Horrors and the polluted Astral plane. In Shadowrun, the threat would be the corporations.

In the Dreamers, the omni-present threat comes in the form of those humans who never "woke up" but are not "sleep-walking". These are, essentially, humans who lacked latent psychic powers when the apocalypse happened, and so succumbed to the dark side of the Dreamlands. They are now stains upon both the waking and dreaming world, and wander about in packs, attacking.

That might sound like "zombie", but I knew right away that I didn't want zombies in my post-apoc game. Instead, these "Nightmare Runners" (to use a spur-of the moment name) are fast, cunning, and co-ordinated, though they attack in smaller numbers. Also, they have psychic powers that they are really unable to control. Finally, each region offers a different version of Nightmare Runner; in one place, they may be very fast and capable of incredible leaps, while in another they may have an inate camoflage ability.

Because cities had the highest density of humans, they also have the highest density of Nightmare Runners (who will only attack Awakened; for some reason, nothing preys upon the Sleepwalking, not even vermin - there seems to be a compulsion that prevents people from harming the 'walkers). Those communities that exist have to create strong defenses to keep them safe from Nightmare Runner raids. The abundance of the Runners forced people to the more easily-defendable islands (I should mention that this game will be set in the Pacific Northwest, my home), as opposed to the open mainland.

(This design choice also means that boats become the primary means of transportation, which I love, since it means that the PCs will have their own ship. Having your home base always with you is great, since the PCs can upgrade their floating home and actually benefit constantly from doing so. It also allows the GM to have NPCs that stay on the ship but are still almost always accessible to the PCs, greatly enhancing campaign cohesion).


***

So, there it is. The setting I've decided to go with is a post-apocalyptic game centred around psychic powers and a supernatural "dreamworld". Of course, the surface has just been barely scratched. The next question (which will be looked at next time) is this: do I begin to fully describe the setting the game will be located in next, or do I instead focus on the mechanics of the game, and maybe backwards-engineer some of the setting to fit the mechanics later on? Which should come first in a design project: setting or mechanics?