Discussion - LEW 4th Edition

Voda Vosa · Jun 22, 2008

How long will it take, and what are the main impediments, to have a living 4E World?

Atanatotatos · Jul 9, 2008

So what happened to the project?

Phoenix8008 · Jul 10, 2008

Atanatotatos said:
So what happened to the project?

My question exactly. I just came back to check on this thread after awhile away. Doesn't look like much is happening. Is this because WOTC hasn't gotten out the guidelines which tell us how we can or can't operate a Living World (fansite policies, etc)?

As for requiring everyone who plays to have their own access to the books because there isn't an SRD, I don't think it would be a major hurdle. I mean, if you don't have the books, how have you played 4E enough to know you'd like to play it in a Living World online? At least with 4E, all the stuff a player needs is in one book, the PHB. DM's need all 3 (or at least the PHB and MM, as the DMG seems alot more HOW to DM than the constant rules reference that the 3E DMG was), but there are usually fewer DM's than players and again if they are gonna DM here, then they probably already have the books to DM in a RL game as well.

Knight Otu · Jul 10, 2008

I think a main problem is that no one seems to want to take charge of the problem (I really shouldn't have posted that bit about preparing polls - I'm too distracted by other things to do it properly). The fansite policy might be a factor to some, though I don't think it'll be as much of a "Don't" as the GSL is.

covaithe · Jul 11, 2008

It does seem like the project needs a champion if it's going to get anywhere. Someone who is willing to sink some real time into it.

Atanatotatos · Jul 11, 2008

What are the major things that need to be done?

Phoenix8008 · Jul 11, 2008

Maybe we don't need ONE person. If we can figure out what various tasks need done, perhaps all of us here can help with a piece of the pie and we can put it all together without waiting for a single superperson with lots of free time to come along. I'd be willing to help, but like most others, there's no way I could be THE MAN.

Do we at least know what we CAN do? What are the possible barriers right now? Lets all brainstorm and make a list of what needs done so we can get some traction and try to move this along. Knight Otu, I assume the polls you were talking about were to get votes on different ideas that have been proposed in order to narrow down the options of world background story type stuff? This will probably end up being the same as the list of what we need done.

I'll put some stuff down shortly with a general list of what I can think of that we need. Then maybe we can list what options have been thrown out for each so far to help build the polls or whatever.

Phoenix8008 · Jul 11, 2008

Okay, the first question we need an answer to is CAN we use the default setting material in the DMG? Because looking back through the thread some, alot of the discussion boils down to how much default stuff we use versus homebrew stuff that we come up with. So no polls can even use that as an option unless we know that we legally can use that material. Does anybody know the answer to this question yet? I don't know if it's a GSL matter or not because I know zippo about the GSL.

Phoenix8008 · Jul 11, 2008

Okay, from what I've thought of so far, the major items we would need to decide on are these (please add to this list if you can) :

-Pantheon (default, homebrew, or mixture)
-Setting type (points of light or something else)
-Starting city/location (default DMG city, homebrew, or mixture of those)
-Surrounding areas (general info only? Not much specific very far out at the start?)
-Meta rules and such (judges, # of characters, forum thread setup, etc)

The smaller the world area we limit ourselves to at the start, the quicker we can get stuff up and going. Using default stuff (if even possible and if people vote for it) could speed up the process as well.

Some of the ideas I've read in this thread that I liked:
-Starting location on a peninsula near ocean/sea with enough wilderness around to provide starting adventure locations and maybe some varied enviroments. Also some nearby smaller islands.
-Possible access to Astral Sea from ocean travel (similar to how some areas of world naturally link to Feywild or Shadowfell. Maybe some deep caves could connect to elemental chaos as well?)
-Peninsula has natural barrier which kept some devastation from catastrophe at bay. Maybe high mountains with tunnels through that have been taken over by monsters. This could be a neat way for characters to affect the world. If PC's can clear the paths and secure the trade routes, the starting city can reestablish trade with outside world?

P.S.- For anybody reading all the above and thinking 'Gee, he's posting alot about this, maybe he does have the free time to be THE MAN.' Sorry, not really. This is just because it's Friday and work isn't very busy today, so I'm allowed to surf the net or whatever when not working. Most days I'm too busy to post this much.

Knight Otu · Jul 11, 2008

Phoenix8008 said:
Knight Otu, I assume the polls you were talking about were to get votes on different ideas that have been proposed in order to narrow down the options of world background story type stuff? This will probably end up being the same as the list of what we need done.

Pretty much. The one poll I really had the options for would be campaign type - Points of Light or no, Greek model, Nentir Vale, and the like.