NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4560787" data-attributes="member: 54707">Rich, this is a very long thread that so far I have only had time to briefly skim. I read the first page completely and some of the other entries, including the last page.In my campaign world my players operate out of the City of Constantinople, circa 800 AD.Your city description, based upon what I have read thus far, greatly resembles Constantinople (down to the wards, or districts, or quarters, which in Constantinople were called Demes, from the same root as demos, or people, as in democracy) in the way it is arranged, basic geographic positioning, naming contrivances, etc.  I mention this since yours is an entirely invented city (we use the real one of that era) and could incorporate, assuming you have not already done so, elements from Constantinople (and there are many fascinating and even secret and not generally well known ones, such as the Cistern system) of any era, creating a sort of super, or idealized, Constantinople. Indeed you could incorporate elements from practically any city in history, of any era, to color your urban domains and it seems your last page description does just that by reminding me of private collector shops in London during the Victorian age.Anyways I thought you had a good idea for a campaign setting, and especially for an "adventuring base of operations." A good, interesting, consistent, and fascinating base of operations makes the entire difference between an ordinary set of Campaigns, and an ordinary milieu, and a truly terrific and fascinating milieu and campaign background. Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire of that era has been a superb base of operations for my players, indeed it has been the most successful and interesting setting I have ever DMed and I've been playing for over 30 years now. Where the characters live and how they operate (sanctioned by both the Emperor and the Orthodox church) adds elements of realism and interest that could not be achieved by looser, less directly emphatic home associations. In other words the land and city and peoples of the game are in many respects just as engaging as real world peoples (indeed one reason I started using Constantinople was precisely because I wanted to inject elements of historical virtual reality into the game, so that the religious, political, social, cultural, and military backgrounds of the game became as important to the players as the adventures and missions themselves) and are as important to explore in that respect as any mission the players are sent on, or any ruin they infiltrate.The background you are developing reminds me in many ways of a setting of this type, where background and milieu are integral to the game itself, and in my experience, renders a far more satisfying game to play. My players are as often eager to undertake a spying mission against the Persians, or to fight Viking raiders out of Russia as they are to explore deserted ruins and kill monsters. You develop opportunities like that (so that every aspect of the world the players explore is interesting) and I think your setting will succeed admirably.</blockquote>

Verification