New Discussion Thread

Voda Vosa · Sep 21, 2008

Well maybe I posted This on the wrong place. What I need is feedback, suggestions, corrections and any other "'tions" you want to give me.

Atanatotatos · Sep 21, 2008

A question. It's been some time since a subforum in the Living Worlds forum was asked for in the meta forum, but there was no reply.
I honestly thought it would have been no issue seeing the success the initiative is having, plus a living world for 4th edition didn't certainly come as a surprise.
Does anybody know what's up regarding the matter or the reason why there was no response?

garyh · Sep 21, 2008

Atanatotatos said:
A question. It's been some time since a subforum in the Living Worlds forum was asked for in the meta forum, but there was no reply.
I honestly thought it would have been no issue seeing the success the initiative is having, plus a living world for 4th edition didn't certainly come as a surprise.
Does anybody know what's up regarding the matter or the reason why there was no response?

I have no idea why we haven't even gotten a reply. I agree, I didn't think it'd be a big deal, either, given how fast this project is growing and that there are already three full-fledged forums like it.

Atanatotatos · Sep 21, 2008

What about mailing a mod or Morrus? Would it be useless or annoying?

garyh · Sep 21, 2008

Atanatotatos said:
What about mailing a mod or Morrus? Would it be useless or annoying?

I think it'd fall into "annoying." Surely they've seen the thread in Meta. Maybe they're having secret moderator conversations about if/when to upgrade private forums to full forums. It'd be nice to know if that's the case, though.

Atanatotatos · Sep 21, 2008

garyh said:
I think it'd fall into "annoying." Surely they've seen the thread in Meta. Maybe they're having secret moderator conversations about if/when to upgrade private forums to full forums. It'd be nice to know if that's the case, though.

Yeah. Well, I suppose we can only wait then ^_^
(coming from the ruthless massacre in my game...)

Dunamin · Sep 21, 2008

Not that I mind the current game chatter, but when more adventures eventually get running it would be nice if OOC discussion on a specific adventure is kept to a so-dedicated OOC thread to keep general discussion threads a bit more clear.

I'm not jealous of the players that are already out adventuring. Not at all. :blush:

Atanatotatos · Sep 21, 2008

Oh. Sorry. Anyway, no, Alexander is still waiting to explore the transitive isles too^^.
My comment was about my own game where Garyh had just posted. Sorry for the OT

Dunamin · Sep 21, 2008

Atanatotatos said:
Oh. Sorry. Anyway, no, Alexander is still waiting to explore the transitive isles too^^.
My comment was about my own game where Garyh had just posted. Sorry for the OT

Oh, I was actually referring to the one active L4W game (and not being entirely serious - its fun to observe other games).

Graf · Sep 22, 2008

Dunamin said:
Not that I mind the current game chatter, but when more adventures eventually get running it would be nice if OOC discussion on a specific adventure is kept to a so-dedicated OOC thread to keep general discussion threads a bit more clear.

I'm not jealous of the players that are already out adventuring. Not at all.

I agree. If people come to the general thread and it's two pages of OOC thread about one adventure they may get a bit tired. Could we keep OOC talk for specific games in some OOC thread maybe?

[d]--[/d]

Daunton as proposed and approved is about 30 miles across. I.e. small.
We've gone back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.
And back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and so on.

Because it's close to the center everyone wants to adjust it to perfectly match their own ideal setting. And usuallly we have a big discussion and we explain that the setting is for everyone and that if you want to make up a big zone hundreds of miles wide and stock it with all your favorite things you should make a near or a far land.

And so we agree (or at least argue until everyone is exhausted ) and then a month later someone posts as if the conversation never happened....
It makes me

And someone says they want to change the central zone (usually make it bigger and put something they really like right in the middle of it), someone else, often me, says (again)
That's not what this setting is about. It's not about one persons ideas being important and and one person defining a big central zone that pushes out everyone else's ideas to the fringes.

Because its a setting for everyone, and while Daunton and the Proximate Isles have many places for smaller dungeons, and portal and zones that lead to the feywild and lots of other cool stuff in it's not supposed to be a big continent where one or two people can put whatever they want and everyone else has to use that forever and ever.

I guess that there's this feeling that if your idea isn't RIGHT ON TOP OF DAUNTON then it doesn't matter but that's not the case.

Just do what Dunamin and Goblin King and Voda Vosa and Ken Hood have done and make up your own Near or Far Land. They've all done fantastic creative bang-up work and contributed to the setting. (Sometimes without even really trying to make up a far land or a near land)

Arguably Dunamin's Ea concept radically changed the whole setting, and it did it by being so engaging and fun that players voluntarily flocked to create characters based from it, and DMs have talked about running adventures and so forth.
He didn't say I need to have my idea be the center of everything. He was cool just making his idea and letting nature take it's course.

I'm not trying to say Dunamin agrees with me btw. I'm just using his contributions, Ea in particualr as an example of thesort of organic development is really embodies the "living setting ideal".
People create, some really good ideas appear, they germinate with input from the community and the setting as a whole evolves in wonderful new (and totally unexpected) directions.

Short circuiting that process by saying "there is this central zone, directly connected to Daunton which is in the center of the map and filled with this x that I personally like a lot", seems to me, to be a betrayal of the spirit of a living setting.

[d]--[/d]

To a certain degree, I suppose, I subscribe to the idea that the setting is supposed to be a sort of "competition of ideas".

Everyone has their own ideas, and they all "compete" on equal footing. The crazier ideas are "further" away so that when they all reach Daunton they're modulated to have equal pull on the setting.
Sure the Gith are tearing apart Ea and they're this huge force, and the Imperium could potentially invade and rule a big chunk of the world but they're both far off and when a Githyanki Wizard meets an Eladrin Legionnaire in a bar with a wizard from O and a halfling who's never left Daunton save for the one time he went to Bacarte to drop off a package they all stand together, as equals.

I can't get behind the idea that we should blowing up Daunton to this tremendous size so that somebody can park their favorite setting/zone/adventure right on top of it and then say "THIS IS THE CENTER. EVERYTHING IN THE SETTING MOVES; EXCEPT FOR MY IDEA WHICH THE MOST IMPORTANT."

There is/are space for dungeons and weirdness near Daunton (has nobody noticed that mountain in the middle of the map? What is it? Why is the whole place surrounded by cliffs, could there be stuff in them thar hills?)
There is space for adventures, and even for a mega-dungeon or two. And that's not even talking about the Shadowrift, the Monastery on Mykronos' Sanctuary, islands with buried treasure, and any of another dozen or so ideas, etc.

Or other islands that could float into or out of proximity with Daunton. (I know one's appeared already in someone's backstory... I can't remember where)

But Daunton is the center of the setting and its small by design. So that DMs can each make their own zone and understand that their contribution, whether it's the first idea, or the 10th or the 50th will be, potentially, just as meaningful as any other idea.

[d]--[/d]

I don't really know why this keeps coming up.... I mean... I've explained why it was small. I think that 300 square miles of dense forest (connected with the feywild) has lots and lots and lots of space for adventures. (30x30 isn't small unless you're thinking car...)

But.... as I've kinda argued (at such great length as to almost feel dizzy seeing the same posts over and over again). If you want to add something significant to the setting, something that needs 1000s of miles to work....

I have all these questions that boil up like ....

... why can't it be connected by the feywild, by a henge, by another portal, by ship or whatever to the setting?

...why do you have to redraw the map so that it focuses on your idea?

...why aren't you comfortable allowing your idea to exist on parity with all the other great ideas we've had from everyone else?

...what if we blew up the island and somebody else wrote the central zone. Would you be so keen on it?
...what I with my high-epic ultra-weird storytelling was the one who got to define it....?
(would you love it if Daunton was suddenly this little city attached to thousands and thousands of of miles of Imperium?

Or of Ea?)

No? Even if you would be keen I'm sure that someone else wouldn't. And we want that someone else, who is probably a good person and fun to play with to feel comfortable playing with us.

[d]--[/d]

Daunton as proposed and approved is Sigil. It's not Silverymoon.

I'm all for having a Silverymoon, but not as the center-and-most-important-part of the setting. Silverymoon -isn't- the center of the FR, but it's one of the most popular areas because it's a great idea.

Great ideas work because they're great. I think we should trust that great ideas will get the attention they deserve without being shoehorned into the middle of the map.