Forked Thread: Describing a setting in 12 bullet points

[Iron Sky]

Reading these gives me tons of ideas of stuff to incorporate into my games.

We allowed to do homebrew as well, or just published settings?

Exalted

* There are many types of Exalted: Solars, Lunars, Terrestrials, Siderials, Abyssals and all dwarf mortals with their power
* Exalted can look like normal people or they can wear armor and artifacts of Orichalicum, Soulsteel, or Jade that mortals can't even lift
* The Realm is at the center of creation, ruled by the Terrestrials/Dragon-Blooded with powers over the elements
* The Empress, the ruler of the Realm for centuries, who alone knows how to use the mighty Realm Defenses has vanished
* Solars, Lunars, and Abyssals are labelled Anathema by the Realm, who sends the Wyld Hunt to take them down
* The world is surrounded on all sides the formless chaos of the Wyld, where anything and everything is possible and the Fey Courts hold power
* In the distant First Age, the Solars ruled Creation, the Lunars served as their companions, the Terrestrials their servants, the Siderials their advisors
* The Yozis, the Primordials that were imprisoned by the Gods, cast a curse on the Exalted that caused the First Age to end in terrible war, the Solar's hunted to extinction and their souls locked away
* The primordials that died in the war with the gods fell "beneath" Creation and their dying dreams creating the Underworld, the shadowy world the exists in paralled and "below" Creation
* Shadowlands exist in areas of terrible slaughter or gruesome dark deeds; there the Underworld overlaps with Creation and anyone who enters the Shadowland will walk into Creation if they leave by day and will walk into the Underworld if they leave at night
* The Deathlords arose in service to the dead gods of the underworld and corrupted the stolen souls of Solar Exalted to create the Abyssals, terrible and awesome mockeries of the Solars
* The players can be any of these things, can reshape the face of Creation... or destroy it

 

[Fallen Seraph]

We allowed to do homebrew as well, or just published settings?

I am tempted to put down homebrew as well.

 

[Bumbles]

We allowed to do homebrew as well, or just published settings?

Do whatever you like I say. It's all good.

 

[Cadfan]

My homebrew setting. I can only come up with 10 points, as I like to keep things as simple as possible and as focused on the characters the players design. For example, point 1, elves and dragonborn only, is based on the players only choosing to create elves and dragonborn pcs. Had it been dwarves and orcs, then we'd have a game about dwarves and orcs.

1. Elves and Dragonborn, only.
2. 50 years after the mother of all wars between the two, with the elves emerging victorious.
3. A younger generation that's looking to the future, favoring cooperation between the races.
4. An older generation mired in anger over the past, the victorious elves looking to punish the dragonborn, and the rebellious dragonborn unwilling to accept the new world order.
5. An economic boom as both races, sometimes together and sometimes apart, rebuild and reestablish the civilization that was destroyed in the war.
6. But new threats have arisen in the power vacuum left behind as the two largest forces for civilization tore each other apart.
7. From the tropics, the lizardfolk are emerging as the Crawling God wakes from a long slumber, intent on reestablishing a dark order from hundreds of years in the past.
8. An order of wizards, grown powerful with dark magics mastered during the desparation of the war, schemes amongst the highest reaches of society.
9. New economic concerns profit from the construction and the exploration of the world, with little regard for the ethics or long term consequences of their excesses.
10. And what are the kobolds up to, really?

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Well my Homebrew:

1. Bizarre races are common, with no dominant species in numbers. They range from Humans to Non-Humanoids beings.
2. The closest being to "gods" are Weavers (inspired by Perdido Street Station's Weavers) they are musicians. With their cross-dimensional limbs and claws they pluck and tone the vibrations of Strings altering their sound and reality itself.
3. Both science and pseudoscience are common. From Strings, Parallel Realities, Probability/Quantum Mechanics and pseudoscience such as Aether, Hollow Earth and Psionics.
4. Technology/Steampunk and Magi-Tech are rampant: Difference engines, firearms, steam-contraptions, constructs (AI and punch card personalities of real people), punch cards, atomic weapons, trains, etc. To Magi-Tech like non-eculidean difference engines, probability maker machines, Torque bombs (also inspired by Perdido Street Station), the Tower.
5. Two different Parallel Realities have begun to meet, especially in one city. Various sections of the city if you allow to "see it" lead into the other reality and ghost images of the other reality are common.
6. Social, race and political tension is high. The largest being the tension between realities, one which is prospering the other in fear of being wiped out from Torque storms ravaging their reality (Torque storm are Strings whose vibrations have gone berserk)
7. Rogue scientist, criminals, and activist are common roles for PCs who usually are involved in dealing with the city-state, other rogue parties. Many plots relate to the use of science and/or magic and trying to manipulate or control realities.
8. Mechanically and most Fluff wise anything goes. It is likely to have some place in the world.

Hmm... Could only think of 8 big ones.

 

[Kunimatyu]

You don't need 12 bullet points to set the stage for a setting - it can be done with even less. Here's my background bit for a 3.5 E6 game I ran based on the "Encyclopedia of Mu".

_________________________________________________

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-Ozymandias, Percy Shelley


The world of Mord is dying. Countless eons ago, it was a place of great beauty, a green jewel shining among the stars, but the slow passage of time has taken its toll. Forests and fields have been swallowed by the ever-expanding red desert, and the great ocean has been reduced to to a few meager brineflats. The works of the Old Ones -- mighty pyramids capable of sailing the void, metal stamped in the likeness of mind, hieroglyphs written in the strange language of Maths -- lie forgotten beneath the red sands, waiting for storms or arcane knowledge to bring them to light.

In dark Lemuria, the Witch-King sits atop his throne, gathering practitioners of dark and loathsome arts while the noble houses squabble over the scraps of power at his feet. His sorcerous followers make pacts with forces from forgotten epochs, and winged shapes wearing the faces of men darken the skies of Lemuria. It is whispered in the streets of his capital that the Witch-King has acquired a demon in the shape of a sword, a creature capable of consuming history itself...

To the east, the fanatical legions of Hy-Brasil are joined daily by new believers, eager to prove their worth to their Damsel Messiah so that they may be one of the 144,000 who join her when she ascends and leaves the wastes of Mord forever.

In the west, citizens of the decadent city-state of Atlantis sit idly in their crystal domes, unconcerned with the growing armies of Lemuria and Hy-Brasil. Under the domes, the few surviving masters of enigmatic tradition of psience use their strange powers to grow powerful crystal weapons, strange alien beasts, and -- according to some -- even human life itself...

In times such as these, heroes are sorely needed -- will you restore Mord, or abandon it to its fate?

 

[Hussar]

Well, I'll take a stab:

Scarred Lands

• The progenitors of the gods, the Titans are defeated
• The war to defeat the Titans has only recently ended.
• The mortal races are picking up the pieces left over from the Titanswar
• The world is very, very dangerous.
• The people of the world are divided into those that follow the Gods and those who want to bring back the Titans.
• Civilization is limited to tiny pockets along the coastlines and the interior of the continent is largely wastelands and home to very, very bad things.
• The Gods take an active role in day to day life.
• If it's got more than the regular number of limbs, don't eat it.

 

[M.L. Martin]

Ravenloft:
- Gothic Fantasy: tragic heroes in a world of supernatural horror and insidious corruption.
- Evil is Rewarded... And Punished: evil deeds bring more power and corruption, until the evildoer becomes trapped in a prison of his own making.
- The World is Beautiful By Day and Terrifying By Night: By day there's hope, beauty and love. Night brings despair, horror and rage.

Supplementing this:
- Good is Punished . . . And Rewarded: Heroes face a lot of handicaps, but can win if they're steadfast, clever, and willing to make sacrifices so others don't have to. Doing the moral thing is more important than doing the valiant thing. (William W. Connors, DRAGON #315)
- Heroes Are Alone: Ravenloft tends to isolate heroes from allies, familiar settings, ordinary folk, and sometimes even each other.
- Evil Has The Upper Hand: The villains in Ravenloft drive the situation, and the heroes are typically cuaght in it and have to fit their way out.
- The Villain Has A Story: Not only do the villains drive the situation, but they have histories, motives and reasons for both being what they are and doing what they do. That's why so many Ravenloft villains are humans or once-human beings, instead of monsters--it makes them easier to relate to.
- Bit By Bit: Ravenloft plots aren't revealed all at once, and the villains don't open with their strongest attack. Secrets are pieced together, horrors are unveiled gradually, and PCs risk suffering a death of a thousand cuts.

(A lot of this comes from the Black Box and from the design summary in Thirty Years of Adventure.)

 

[Noumenon]

As I see it the purpose of this thread should be for people who have no idea what anyone is talking about when they say "Dragonlance." So if you're putting a paragraph for each bullet point that's too much, and homebrew sort of clogs up the thread.

I would like to see somebody do "Dark Sun," and I'm not sure I get Dragonlance yet.

 

[wingsandsword]

As I see it the purpose of this thread should be for people who have no idea what anyone is talking about when they say "Dragonlance." So if you're putting a paragraph for each bullet point that's too much, and homebrew sort of clogs up the thread.

Frankly, I don't see a problem with paragraphs, I specified that in the Original Post as an upper limit for these bullet points. For describing a setting to someone who knows D&D but knows nothing that specific setting, 12 reasonably short paragraphs is still pretty dang concise. If you can convey it in 12 words (!), 12 phrases, or 12 sentences so much the better, but 12 paragraphs isn't bad at all.

I also don't see anything wrong with homebrew, there are only a few dozen official D&D settings, and that's combing through to obscure 2nd edition sub-settings to get that far, and when you add in professionally published 3rd party settings that's still a relatively small number. No point in putting an arbitrary limit on this, if somebody has a fully fleshed out homebrew they want to share. Heck, somebody just might run with that brief synopsis, flesh it out on their own and run a campaign in it.