Homebrewers: Huzzah!

Getting hot in here!

Wow, everybody! Cool off and maybe get back on topic?

I don't seem to recall Arcady ever asserting that Kalamar's superiority is "scientific fact" to any other setting. What he said on another thread is that the geography of the Kalamar setting is geographically accurate...and that that is a scientific fact. To bring the argument to another thread is just...not nice.

Soooo...back on topic...

letseee...something about halflings ruling the world...

While I recently started using this software called WeatherMaster (I saw advertised in Dungeon actually) - I have never been the kind of world creator that cares about prevailing tides, detailed weather systems, etc. . .

As far as I'm concerned that stuff only matters in terms of how it serves the story whether it be a storm at sea or a blizzard or a drought. . . I really have a lot more cultural details to worry about than whether or not it is possible for people to grow crops at a certain altitude.

Of course, for the sake of verisimiltude you cannot have things contridict each other - you can't have a blizzard in the middle of the summer, or make sea travel so dangerous that is unreasonable to believe that sea-trade even rose up to be a main form of economic power.

But recently I had a discussion with a friend who was telling me that gravity on Aquerra had to be less than Earth's because it was so much smaller - you know what I say - SHUT UP! - The gravity is what I say it is. . . And what does it matter how far the moon is from the world, etc. . . etc. . .?

What matters much more to me are things like, is the history rich, are the cultures "realistic" in how they develop and interact, are the details of people, places and customs, laws and traditions and holidays and all that stuff woven together well enough to allow for immersion of the character in the setting?

Re: Getting hot in here!

Rune said:

Soooo...back on topic...

letseee...something about halflings ruling the world...

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Actually, the topic WAS slamming Arcady and Nightfall...

Seriously, I can agree with Psion that home-brew settings hold the most appeal for mystery and DM intimacy of knowledge, without slamming Arcady or Nightfall.

I've read the threads in question, and Arcady's only point was to state that Kalamar was better in terms of Geography and Political Structure than most campaigns out there.

Does the "In my opinion" really need to be spelled out?

And as for what setting he touts the most... *ahem* He has a huge pretty picture in his .sig - What's this? a Homebrew world? Hmmm.... This one is not even a mystery.

nemmerle said:

But recently I had a discussion with a friend who was telling me that gravity on Aquerra had to be less than Earth's because it was so much smaller - you know what I say - SHUT UP! - The gravity is what I say it is. . . And what does it matter how far the moon is from the world, etc. . . etc. . .?

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Just tell him it has a denser core. Or that the gravitational constant is different in your universe.

Really, this is the type of thing that would unsettle me, too. If you have a "baseline realistic" world, then I think you should try to adhere to that (now it your world is a disk on the back of four elephants on a gaint turtle swimming through space, all bets are off).

In my campaign, the orbital radiuses of my moons will be right for their size and period. I imagine that most of my current batch of players wouldn't care, but I would know.

As far as I am concerned, there is a great deal of effort that one could put into a world to make it feel realistic, but as with any other segment of DMing, you should only do as much work as will be noticed by the players, or will bug you personally. If a desert wouldn't form in some place due to the fact that the prevailing wind from the sea won't support it, chances are that unless you have some player taking a geography or climatalogy course, they aren't going to notice. All they are going to care about is the sabre-wield dune raiders and the ancient mummy infested tombs in the destert.

Now if you do have that one player in your group, you might want to appease him, if for nothing more than to boost his/her SOD and hence enjoyment of the game. But then, you may not have the right knowledge or time to research what it should be... if they know the difference, then perhaps you should put them to work on the proper map modifications.

Arcana

Nightfall said:

Btw, Psion, any chance you'll get around to reviewing Arcana, Soceities of Magic?

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I got it today. My first impression is very positive. Lots of neat ideas, a lot more flexible than Touched by the Gods (frex, each society has a section full of alternate ways you can handle the society... very convenient).

And it has a "demon magic item" system much better than Demonology or DLoM presented, IMO. Good stuff. This could be "5" material.

mouseferatu said:

Having created numerous homebrew worlds, I can assure you that it doesn't really take all that much time, if you approach it properly.

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And in fact, it can be a time saver in the long run. If you keep track of all the little bits you create in the course of an adventure (and I can't stress enought the importance of not creating something in detail until you actually need it!) you can reuse those bits - the NPCs become recurring characters, the places become familiar haunts of the PC's etc.

Since you're intimately familiar with all your won details and ideas, you spend much less time "prepping" your module - reading it to make sure you understand the important points the author was trying to get across - you know them because you're the author.

arcady said:

As for my tastes; I find it silly of Nightfall to say he's not a zeolot like me. I would say the same of him myself. I always figured things between him and me were more in jest but it's good to know he takes it more seriously. Albeit dissapointing.

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You finding it silly. I'm just not gonzo over trying to prove a point to people that probably won't listen. I do take what you say mostly as jest, since you seemed to take everything else so darn seriously. I don't take most of what you say seriously anymore than I would Psion calling me the Anti-Christ's love child. The fact of the matter is this. I've been on BBs and chats for a long time. Very little phases, since I've heard it all before. Really while words have power, the fact is, most of those words have the force of a fog cloud when we are talking about communicating over the net. So please Arcady, do as you will. I respect you for being human. After that, there's little else I care to respect about you.

Re: Arcana

Psion said:

I got it today. My first impression is very positive. Lots of neat ideas, a lot more flexible than Touched by the Gods (frex, each society has a section full of alternate ways you can handle the society... very convenient).

And it has a "demon magic item" system much better than Demonology or DLoM presented, IMO. Good stuff. This could be "5" material.

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Mm interesting! I had read about the Servants of Decay in the preview. They seemed like pretty cool fellas to try out in my SL campaign.

I would like to see more about those Demon Magic item system, since I think it would work well. I had the same problem you did with Demonology, at least in using CRs. Course Necromancy and Wild Sorcery definately proved a lot better. I keep getting scary thoughts of using a lich with Lace feats, Necromantic feats, and a few Monsters of Faerun powers as well.

*thanks Tsyr for his kind words* *chuckles to self* Sorry Tsyr, but I find it more than a tad amusing you like Lorem(sp) and yet you have as your tag line, the quote from The Great Hunt. (Thinks it's the Great Hunt)