D&D (2024) Heroes of the Borderlands

[occam]

Balance of Terror might be a better comparison to KotB though. Are the Romulans evil monsters? Clearly not. Does the hero fight and kill them anyway, without being less than heroic? Sure.

I don't think there's any evidence of a community of noncombatant family members living on the Romulan ship, though.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Back to the new boxed set, we got very little info about any of these projects, but I'm intrigued -- and happy -- about the Borderlands not being explicitly set any place. It's not hard to find places to drop it in existing campaign worlds, and I suspect there will be boxed text giving suggestions, but not having setting elements to untangle/reflavor makes life a little easier for new DMs, whom this product is aimed at.

I'm not a new DM, but if this is decent, I can definitely see picking this up to run a new campaign late next year.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Would you create a different world if you wanted to play horror / survival vs fairytale vs heroic fantasy? This is not all that different, the caves can be a stand in for a town or for a war camp, depends on the type of story you want

I would, I suppose. I just never think of worldbuilding in terms of, "what kind of story do I want"?

 

[Micah Sweet]

?

The game literally is an unfolding story.

I cannot grok your position at all.

What do you play for?

To create an imaginary world, as real as I can, that the players interact with as they see fit through their PCs. Story can and often does come from that, but it is not the point.

 

[Scribe]

To create an imaginary world, as real as I can, that the players interact with as they see fit through their PCs. Story can and often does come from that, but it is not the point.

But the story is happening regardless. Did you disable the trap? Did you slay the orc? Did you learn the spell?

All of that is story.

"Did you count the weight in your pack." is not what people are going to talk about a month after the fact.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But the story is happening regardless. Did you disable the trap? Did you slay the orc? Did you learn the spell?

All of that is story.

"Did you count the weight in your pack." is not what people are going to talk about a month after the fact.

Like I said, emergent story is great. I prefer to focus on setting.

 

[Scribe]

Like I said, emergent story is great. I prefer to focus on setting.

OK, I mean I understand that you are a setting first guy, but that setting still serves to tell a story at the table. I guess that was my confusion.

Even Warcraft, famously 'the world of Azeroth is the main character' with its emergent story for lack of a better term to what we players did, is still a story, its just that its a story as part of that world.

Yeah?

 

[Micah Sweet]

OK, I mean I understand that you are a setting first guy, but that setting still serves to tell a story at the table. I guess that was my confusion.

Even Warcraft, famously 'the world of Azeroth is the main character' with its emergent story for lack of a better term to what we players did, is still a story, its just that its a story as part of that world.

Yeah?

Yeah. I just don't see creating a story as the primary purpose of RPGs.

 

[Scribe]

Yeah. I just don't see creating a story as the primary purpose of RPGs.

Huh. I dont even know what to say about that. Its literally unavoidable, and is to me the underlying foundational point of the genre.

 

[Oofta]

OK, I mean I understand that you are a setting first guy, but that setting still serves to tell a story at the table. I guess that was my confusion.

Even Warcraft, famously 'the world of Azeroth is the main character' with its emergent story for lack of a better term to what we players did, is still a story, its just that its a story as part of that world.

Yeah?

But there's a difference between setting the stage, deciding what motivates the various NPC and factions along with what steps are likely and having an outline of a story. In the former, there are things and events for the party to interact with, but what happens (including the plans of non-player actors) may change based on what they players decide and do. With the latter people are funneled into certain storytelling points and certain events are predetermined.

A lot of modules take the storytelling approach and are fairly linear. There's nothing wrong with that, but the other approach is more of a sandbox that shifts and changes as a campaign progresses. Like with everything, it's on a scale from a railroad where the PCs have to march to the tune of the story beat drummer to dumping PCs into an environment with zero predetermined goals, threats or motivations.

Personally I don't get too caught up in terminology, but that's my understanding of the difference.