Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
I'm re-reading Unseen Academicals, one of Terry Pratchett's final Discworld novels, and Ankh-Morpork is in its near-final state. And I think more GMs should just be ripping it off and filing off the serial numbers (which would be a very Ankh-Morpork thing to do).
Yes, it started as Lankhmar + Victorian London, but by the end of Pratchett's life, it was an incredibly cosmopolitan fantasy setting, which lots of thoughts about how dwarves (of all genders), trolls, zombies, vampires, gnomes, golems and goblins fit into the city, along with fantasy tech, like semaphore stations, that are more plausible than how many RPG cities work. (I ended up stealing the semaphore stations wholesale for my Ptolus campaign, and they've been a great improvement.) There's also paper money and stamps, which don't seem like a big deal until you start figuring out the implications of each, as Sir Terry always did.
In Unseen Academicals -- which is largely about street football -- there's even a digression about how dwarven cultural values impact where they live in the city and that, as they actually value being deeper under the earth, Ankh-Morpork might eventually have more residents underground than above it (starting with the dwarves reopening and expanding the ruins of previous cities that modern Ankh-Morpork is built upon) and thus, potentially, more dwarf inhabitants than not.
That's really clever and very gameable. And if you didn't tell a non-Discworld reader where you stole the ideas, they'd think you a master worldbuilder.
Once the Discworld RPG hits the streets, I'll be interested to hear how much of this they lay out for gamemasters there. Similarly, it's probably worth hunting down a copy of The Compleat Ankh-Morpork to see how gameable that is.
Yes, it started as Lankhmar + Victorian London, but by the end of Pratchett's life, it was an incredibly cosmopolitan fantasy setting, which lots of thoughts about how dwarves (of all genders), trolls, zombies, vampires, gnomes, golems and goblins fit into the city, along with fantasy tech, like semaphore stations, that are more plausible than how many RPG cities work. (I ended up stealing the semaphore stations wholesale for my Ptolus campaign, and they've been a great improvement.) There's also paper money and stamps, which don't seem like a big deal until you start figuring out the implications of each, as Sir Terry always did.
In Unseen Academicals -- which is largely about street football -- there's even a digression about how dwarven cultural values impact where they live in the city and that, as they actually value being deeper under the earth, Ankh-Morpork might eventually have more residents underground than above it (starting with the dwarves reopening and expanding the ruins of previous cities that modern Ankh-Morpork is built upon) and thus, potentially, more dwarf inhabitants than not.
That's really clever and very gameable. And if you didn't tell a non-Discworld reader where you stole the ideas, they'd think you a master worldbuilder.
Once the Discworld RPG hits the streets, I'll be interested to hear how much of this they lay out for gamemasters there. Similarly, it's probably worth hunting down a copy of The Compleat Ankh-Morpork to see how gameable that is.
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