Any interest in a systemless, "shared world" environment?

I'm wondering, is there any interest in a 3rd party, systemless, "shared world" environment? I am currently developing such an environment for my own testing purposes (i.e. for fun), but am wondering if I should proceed and offer it to the community. Here's the pitch:

Presenting Aster; A resource for RPG Gamemasters

Aster is a public domain map dataset providing clean, legible maps and thorough geographic information that portray the world environment in an idealized manner.

You can place any type of fantasy adventure on Aster, from high fantasy sword & sorcery to post-apocalyptic wasteland -- any module can be dropped into this suitably generic, believable world.

Because your time is valuable, you shouldn't have to spend so much of it creating maps and calculating weather patterns. Aster has been created to give you a well-understood environment that supports just about any kind of game concept you'd like to play.

Small, one-off side-trek sessions to epic campaigns involving world wars, cataclysms and high-seas adventure -- all can be easily generated with an entire planet at your creative fingertips.

Have you ever wanted to run a 'Sense-of-Wonder' travel campaign? Tell your Players to pack their bags and head in any direction -- the world awaits, with countless picturesque vistas and features just miles apart.

Are you putting together a Living World campaign involving multiple GMs and Players? You can all collaborate to create adventure threads using a shared world, with each decision the Players make creating ripples across the globe.

The potential for great adventures are limited only by your imagination.

Put the roots of your homegrown campaign into Aster's fertile soil.

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Here's the map (lo-res for easy previewing):



And a sample at full resolution:



A high resolution, zoomable, interactive map would be presented à la Google maps, with feature name labels linked to a Wiki for thorough information. (For an example, check out what the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages has done for Skyrim's environment, except Aster will wrap like any other world map.)

The interactive map is built with Leaflet.js, and the map itself was created using Natural Earth free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com.

So what do you think? Is this something you folks could use?

Those are great maps!

Maybe I am not the target audience, but I don't get the point here. To me, you have two kinds of game masters - those who use other campaign worlds and those that create their own. It seems to me you are not serving either group.

Again, I could totally be missing what you are offering - if so I apologize.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify, pogre.

This dataset would be provided to give GMs a 'leg up' on their own homebrew campaign creation. Aster is not a traditional "campaign setting," like Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms. It is not associated with any rule set or game genre. There are no monster lists or historical back-stories, just the geological record.

I agree with your statement that there are two types of Gamemasters - those who use pre-built campaign worlds and those that create their own. Aster is designed to help the latter group streamline the creation process by giving GMs a fully realized "base" world to place their own cities, castles, dungeons, etc.

That allows virtually any GM to utilize the assets provided to enrich their own campaign without spending the time needed to generate maps, weather, geological feature names, etc., and without the need for conversion or adjustment from existing campaign settings into your preferred rule set - you can spend your time completing your pantheon of gods, or historical timeline instead.

For example, you could create a module of almost any kind using your preferred rule set, setting up encounters and adventure hooks, and place it anywhere on the map. It saves you the trouble of having to generate feature descriptions and climate, or simply "hand-waving" the terrain and weather details.

It also has the added benefit of being a "shared world," meaning multiple GMs or groups of GMs can share assets based upon a common basemap. Players will also have the opportunity to know all there is to know about the world their Characters live in, without being privy to your carefully crafted story and setting secrets.

Plus it would be in the public domain, meaning you can do whatever you want with it - at no cost to you.

Please note: feature name labels (like rivers, mountains, swamps, cave systems, etc.) would be linked to a Wiki for complete information about those areas, so it's more than just a pretty map.

I hope that clears it up a bit for everyone. Please feel free to ask any other questions, I can provide any details you need.

I'm surprised this hasn't gotten just a little more interest. Can you guys can help me understand what your needs are a bit more?

Would this serve you better as a full-fledged Campaign Setting, maybe in a GURPS-style format? It seems to me the more I narrow the scope of the environment to a particular historical setting, the fewer people can use it (without loads of conversion).

For example, if I set the world in a fantasy setting like AD&D (Medieval high fantasy), only those who are interested in fantasy will find it useful, excluding all those who enjoy, say, some kind of Post-apocalyptic setting.

I would like to provide as much value as possible to as many people as possible. I thought leaving it as a completely blank slate (civilizationally speaking) would help as many GMs as possible -- but there seems to be little interest.

I've got a cool interactive map and useful, wiki-based content delivery system -- what more can I offer to help ease your workload as GMs?

Help me help you.

Uzri'el said:

I'm surprised this hasn't gotten just a little more interest. Can you guys can help me understand what your needs are a bit more?

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I don't quite see the point of this.
Either I'm using a published setting, or I'm using a homebrew setting. In the latter case, why would I need a 'shared world'? I'm the only GM, and there's only my campaign with my group of players.
Also, I'm typically not interested in a generic Earth-like setting. If I create my own setting, it's usually a bit more fantastic than that, otherwise I could save me the effort and just use vanilla Forgotten Realms.

A 'shared world' would actually make more sense, if you provided one for a published setting. It could then be of similar use as 'Project Redcap' for Ars Magica's 'Mythic Europe' setting. I.e. you could take inspiration from other groups' covenants and characters and maybe use them as a basis for npcs in your own saga.

I don't like shared worlds because you end up with the worst elements of bad pastiche such as silly names including anagrams and puns. I like my worlds to be "straight" and a sensible naming system is part of that.

Look at FR: You have Ed Greenwood going to a lot of trouble to create a naming system that feels right then along comes Bo'b Sal'va'to're with names that, at best, can only be described as silly. And that's what happens with a shared world: Different people come in with different sensibilities which can grate against the sensibilities of others using that world.

That said, I love the maps. If I ever got around to creating my own world I would possibly steal those.

Jhaelen said:

I don't quite see the point of this.

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To save you time when you are creating your homebrew setting, and helping out those with, let's say, 'novice-level' cartographical skills. You can spend your time on creating your module, fleshing out "City1," with all the buildings, NPCs, etc., and then just drop it into the pre-made world. I suppose if I need to explain, I have missed the mark.

Again, would this serve you better as a full-fledged Campaign Setting? I'm here for your guys' input in order to make this resource useful for as many as possible.

The 'shared world' concept is me thinking GMs can share their content with others, whoever that may be. That way, if someone else makes a "City2" module, he can reference your "City1" content and build verisimilitude in the Campaign Setting -- your shared setting.

For example: If the author of "City2" uses a futuristic setting, he can refer to the ruins of your Medieval "City1," the remnants of a long-forgotten civilization. Or whatever, I'm just spit-balling...

I could have explained this better, and perhaps actually thought about how you could all share your content --maybe a special area on the site for collaborations and downloads?

Plus, if everyone is sharing content, you get new, fresh material for free.

Jhaelen said:

I'm typically not interested in a generic Earth-like setting. If I create my own setting, it's usually a bit more fantastic than that, otherwise I could save me the effort and just use vanilla Forgotten Realms.

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Of course, that is your choice -- I'm not suggesting this will suit everyone's particular needs. It's just a resource like any other. I was just hoping some could find value in it. Regarding "just [using] vanilla Forgotten Realms" ... I go back to it not being associated with any rule set or game genre -- you would essentially be doing the same thing (saving yourself the effort), just with Aster's map, and anyone else using a different rule set can also use it, without the need for conversion.

I don't know; maybe this is all a bit too "outside the box" -- I was just thinking that half of the gamers out there brew their own Campaign Settings, and most of the rest use the Forgotten Realms. In addition, many homebrewers consider the Realms as a sort of "default" that they can use to build their own worlds. I only want to give another option, that's all.

Scrivener of Doom said:

I don't like shared worlds because you end up with the worst elements of bad pastiche such as silly names including anagrams and puns. I like my worlds to be "straight" and a sensible naming system is part of that.

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All the Geographical names (mountains, rivers, swamps, oceans, etc.) will already be named, each hyperlinked to a Wiki page for further details about that particular feature (like this: Olomana (mountain)).

Scrivener of Doom said:

That said, I love the maps. If I ever got around to creating my own world I would possibly steal those.

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That's the whole point of this.

Uzri'el said:

To save you time when you are creating your homebrew setting, and helping out those with, let's say, 'novice-level' cartographical skills. You can spend your time on creating your module, fleshing out "City1," with all the buildings, NPCs, etc., and then just drop it into the pre-made world. I suppose if I need to explain, I have missed the mark.

Again, would this serve you better as a full-fledged Campaign Setting? I'm here for your guys' input in order to make this resource useful for as many as possible.

The 'shared world' concept is me thinking GMs can share their content with others, whoever that may be. That way, if someone else makes a "City2" module, he can reference your "City1" content and build verisimilitude in the Campaign Setting -- your shared setting.

For example: If the author of "City2" uses a futuristic setting, he can refer to the ruins of your Medieval "City1," the remnants of a long-forgotten civilization. Or whatever, I'm just spit-balling...

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Thanks for the additional explanation.

After re-reading your original post, I realized I missed an important detail:
This isn't about a tool to create a (shared) world, it's just about using the shared world you created as a basis for a homebrew setting. Eh. To be frank, that's not something I'd ever be interested in. If I don't get to create my own world, it's not 'my' homebrew. It's not much different from using a published setting, except this one doesn't have any details, except those created by whoever decides to create something to populate the world.

In fact, I'd be more worried about keeping others from creating content that doesn't fit my vision of this (shared) world, than I'd welcome anyone creating something. Your 'spitball' is a perfect example for this: So, I'm spending time and effort to develop a small region with a medieval city and surrounding villages only to have someone put a spaceport in the middle of it? Ugh!

So, sorry, I guess, I'm absolutely not your target audience!

That's understandable. Except that you wouldn't need to worry about the spaceport (that's way in the future, as far as you and your personal group are concerned) or any other content created by others - you can simply ignore it and not use it.

You can merrily continue to create module after module set in Medieval times, sharing with those interested in Medieval high fantasy (or just keep it for yourself, for that matter), and those interested in the futuristic settings can do the same. You don't have to share anything if you don't want to. But it's an available option to those who would like to share (besides, none of the shared material would be shown on the online map, it would be in it's own separate area). Plus Aster would be in the public domain, meaning you can sell your Medieval modules if you wish.

How is that not a win?

Look, I'm not here to try and make you use this resource, or try to win you over. You can feel free to not use it and go your merry way, never concerning yourself with it ever again (but I do appreciate the feedback ).

But I know for a fact (since I've read post after post about it on these very forums) that there are some novice homebrewers out there who aren't sure how to make their own world setting -- with all that entails, or others who lack the cartographical skills to make an effective world map for their campaign, or those who simply do not have the time. That is just one portion of the target audience. The others include those described in the original and subsequent posts.

Let me make this easy for everyone to understand -- Aster is just a supplement like Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms -- without being locked in to a particular rule set or content genre, allowing the GM complete control of the setting details (magic, gods, tech, etc.). Consider it like a big, empty, ready to use sandbox for your next campaign. Does no one find that useful?

Additionally, the map will be served up digitally, like Google maps, meaning you can click and drag the map around, zoom in and out and so on from your devices. No more unfolding that huge, tattered paper map, unless you want to download the original 889 MB, 21600 x 10800 pixel file and print it yourself.