Player's Guide 4 Objectives

[Michael Morris]

I've begun work on the 4th iteration of the Player's Guide of my setting, and I've set some goals for it. Comments welcome of course, this is more a list of objectives for what I wish to accomplish with the book and a partial outline of it.

Anyway, for those not familiar with Dusk, it is a campaign setting I've been hawking since Internet time immemorable it seems. Anyway, I've begun rewriting the Player's Guide a 4th time. This time I had a couple of goals

1) Actually finish the damn thing. Dusk III was never truly finished.
2) Write about what interests me and what I feel is important to the setting. 3) Stop worrying about supplying crunchy bits in the book. Add what is necessary, and leave the rest out.

With those things in mind I began to thing about what was unique about my setting. For awhile I had lamented it as "yet another generic fantasy setting." Then, while I was paging through Eberron I noticed something.

Each setting that's came out in the last year or so has tried to outweird what came before it. While that's all fine and well, this pursuit of the prevailing zeitgeist has led to a lot of settings with real short support lives. I've been supporting my setting, on and off, for 8 years now. I paged through the older Player's Guide and looked for what it had that nothing else has - and at long last I found it.

You know, it's kind of weird to finally listen to yourself after 8 years. What makes Dusk unique has been in front of me for some time. Simply put, it is an "intimate" setting. What I mean by this is all the materials I've written have stressed to players that they should flesh out their characters to quite a bit of intimate details. Things that other settings gloss over, if they touch at all, has long been something I love to write about.

And so now I know, and the fun part is - now that I know what I want to write about Dusk 4 has already proven to be much easier to prepare.

I haven't started completely from scratch - I've kept large swatches of 3, but instead of concentrating on yet more prestige classes and other crunch, I'm going to detail the cultures and societies of my world and do it in a manner that ignites my player's creative fires and is fun to read.

For the first time I have a group I'm writing this book for. The Guide must introduce them to the setting on my terms.

And it's been fun. Here's the current outline.

Introduction
Chapter 1: Character Creation
- Ability Scores
-- What Ability Scores Mean
- Character Races
-- Female Halflings
- Character Classes
- Skills
-- Rolling 1 and 20
-- Proficiency
-- Checks without Rolls
-- Skill Descriptions
- Feats
- Alignment
-- Alignment's Effects
- Description
-- Eyes & Face
-- Gender
-- Race
-- Age
-- Movement
-- Clothing
-- Distinguishing Marks
-- Voice
-- Strengths & Weaknesses
-- Likes & Dislikes
-- Mental Problems
-- History
-- Character & Campaign History
-- Homeland
-- Parents
-- Contemporaries
-- Childhood
-- Role Models
-- Other Prior Events
-- Enemies & Allies
-- Birthdays & Anniversaries
-- Goals
-- Reaching Goals
- Creativity Spurs

Chapter 2: Playing the Role
- Physical Action
- The Truth of the Moment
- Externals
- Rules of Improv
- Physical Contact Rule
- Encounters
- Warm Up Technique
- The Emotional Trap
- The Myth of Character
- Play Nice

Chapter 3: The Human World
- A. The Telzoan World
-- Life & Death
-- Wealth & Trade
-- Nobles & Commoners
-- Riot & Disorder
-- Legal Status of Women
-- The Telzoan's and "Others"
-- Magic & Miracles
- B. History
-- Origins of the Peoples
-- The High King
-- Division of the Empire
-- Attempts at Reunification & Conquest
-- The Rise of Pentalism
- C. The Natural World
-- The Heavens
-- Myths of the Heavens
-- The Seasons
-- Myths of the Seasons
-- Natural Disasters
-- Myths of Disasters
- D. The Social World
-- Feudalism in Telzoa
-- Family & Kinship
-- Address & Title
-- Customs
--- The Rituals of Birth
--- The Rites of Passage to Adulthood
--- The Rites of Marriage
--- Funeral Rites
-- E. Character Classes Among Humans
--- Barbarians...
-- F. The Spiritual World
--- The Religion of Telensitary
--- The Religion of Pentalism
--- The Listralan Way

Chapter 4. The Elven World
- A. Elven Physiology
-- Sense of Sight
-- Sense of Hearing
-- Extrasensory Ability
-- Longevity
-- Eustral Cycle
- B. The Elven World
-- Life & Death
-- Wealth & Trade
-- Seelie & Unseelie
-- She-elves
-- The Elves' and "Others"
-- Magic
- B. History

etc. for each race.

 

[Turanil]

3) Stop worrying about supplying crunchy bits in the book.

I agree with this. There is already so many crunch book everywhere, that I would prefer short paragraphs on how integrating their "crunch" than finding new one. For example what place for WotC Unearthed Arcana material; how integrating Monte's Arcana Unearthed classes and magic system; etc.

By the same token, describing intimately is a great thing, especially if it gives you clear guidelines on what makes an elf, dwarf, etc., different from a roleplaying perspective (how to portray them significantly I mean).

 

[Fiendish Dire Weasel]

Wow, this sounds pretty cool. Though I must admit it's very different than I know what appeals to most players I play with, I know I'd be interesting to see it in depth.

As far as less crunchy bits, being a vile rules lawyer I lust for crunchy bits, but that aside I think somtimes crunchy bits can go a long way to add flavor to a world and interest people who would otherwise not pay a lot of attention to the world. At the same time, I think I would rather have a book of flavor than of crunchy bits if I was looking for a new game world, so if you have limited resources, focusing on the fluff over crunch is probably the best idea.

Crunch can always be added later, and if fleshing out the fluff (I hate that term now that I think about it) is your priority you can always find someone you're comfortable working with to help work out the rulesey stuff. Some people are better at one more than the other kind of writing (I know I am).

 

[Michael Morris]

Oh, the rulsey stuff is in the form of Art of Magic, which will be released next year. The Guide isn't completely devoid of crunch - it has some 30 feats after all and numerous variant classes - but crunch isn't being inserted for it's own sake.

 

[Fiendish Dire Weasel]

Oh, the rulsey stuff is in the form of Art of Magic, which will be released next year. The Guide isn't completely devoid of crunch - it has some 30 feats after all and numerous variant classes - but crunch isn't being inserted for it's own sake.

Ah, I understand better now.

And I must admit I agree with you there too. Crunch for the sake of crunch tends to go poorly.

 

[Kealios]

Any chance of requesting a copy of this? Seeing other people's work is inspiring, and often a good catalyst for providing other avenues of creativity for myself.

kealios@sbcglobal.net

 

[Michael Morris]

Any chance of requesting a copy of this? Seeing other people's work is inspiring, and often a good catalyst for providing other avenues of creativity for myself.

The previous 3 editions have been free - but I'm thinking the 4th will be the first I'll be charging for. Art of Magic is hoped to go straight to print, but the Dusk: Player's Guide will be a PDF.