Origins of a setting

[dmccoy1693]

Hmmm. Interesting ideas...

If you want planar conflict, #4 is for you.

Something similar to Stargate SG-1 except there are gates to various planes all over the place? Is that what you mean? So you'd essentially have a "port city" surrounding the gate where people and extraplainer people would come and go. Vacation spots for people from the plane of fire in a material plane's volcano "because our magma is creamer then their magma." Where going to a different plane is about as common as going to the next major city. And so on? Is this what you mean?

If you want relics of ancient conflicts, and a sense of really, really long history, then #1 was for you.

So you mean things like Erfworld's Arken tools or Exalted Realm Defense Grid? Ruins of cities from ancient times. Tomes scribed in some language long forgotten. And instead of a "dungeon crawl" the players cut their teeth on "tomb raiding." Is this what you're talking about?

 

[Ry]

All I meant was #4 was the only one that really mentioned the planes, but it does cast conflict in terms of those planes. #1 suggests a really, really long history.

The stuff I'm working on, though, isn't OGL gaming material - I'm just trying to create cool ideas that work together as a distinctive setting that anyone can use or even publish, so long as I'm credited.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Honestly, I've never thought that a definitive creation myth was very important--or even necessarily desirable--for a campaign setting. A hell of a lot of settings start off with the old "In the beginning, there was nothingness / darkness / chaos / a big cosmic sandbox..." bit, and then drone on about the soap operas of the gods for a few pages, and I really haven't been able to see that stuff as interesting for a long, long time.

I haven't started a setting with "how the world came to be", like, ever, as far as I can recall. Even when I start setting design from a cosmological or global perspective, which I haven't done for a while, the question of "How did it start?" has never seemed to me to be as interesting as "What's it like now?"

I mean, that's the actually relevant stuff.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I haven't started a setting with "how the world came to be", like, ever, as far as I can recall. Even when I start setting design from a cosmological or global perspective, which I haven't done for a while, the question of "How did it start?" has never seemed to me to be as interesting as "What's it like now?"

I mean, that's the actually relevant stuff.

In theory. Ry's ideas mostly do a good job of being immediately relevant and creating distinct worlds.

 

[Ry]

I haven't started a setting with "how the world came to be", like, ever, as far as I can recall. Even when I start setting design from a cosmological or global perspective, which I haven't done for a while, the question of "How did it start?" has never seemed to me to be as interesting as "What's it like now?"

I mean, that's the actually relevant stuff.

Hi mhacdebhandia - see this post for how this stuff plays to - or at least helps sketch - the "What's it like now?" answer.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I vote that it doesn't matter a whit, and the gods themselves may not know. The only time such information need be definitive is when it is important to lay it out for the PC's for some reason.

For example, I tend to think of all my campaign worlds as having deities who BELIEVE that they created the world at some point in the past, but that _I_ created the world and about the time this truth is discovered or given to the PCs/players is about the time the campaign is going to shut down anyway because I don't do Epic Rules games. Meanwhile the PC's are far too busy killing bad guys and looting their stuff to worry about the truth of the dawn of all existence.

 

[Ry]

I vote that it doesn't matter a whit, and the gods themselves may not know. The only time such information need be definitive is when it is important to lay it out for the PC's for some reason.

For example, I tend to think of all my campaign worlds as having deities who BELIEVE that they created the world at some point in the past, but that _I_ created the world and about the time this truth is discovered or given to the PCs/players is about the time the campaign is going to shut down anyway because I don't do Epic Rules games. Meanwhile the PC's are far too busy killing bad guys and looting their stuff to worry about the truth of the dawn of all existence.

Hi Man in the Funny Hat - see this post for how this stuff plays to - or at least helps sketch - the stuff that's relevant to the PCs. Also remember that this question is designed not just to decide a point of fact for my own personal campaign, but test the waters for what concepts should be guiding me as I make editorial decisions about material coming in from others.