ZEITGEIST Post-Zeitgeist Setting and Adventures Discussion (Spoilers!)

[arkwright]

Per this thread, it would seem that the boffins behind the Zeitgeist AP are keen to author new material.

We’re finally going to make a hardcover ZEITGEIST setting book (and a stand alone WOIN-powered ZEITGEIST RPG).

For that we need a writer! This is a big job for the right person - a compilation of existing setting material throughout 13 adventures and two guides. This is, of course, a paid gig.

Are you reliable, familiar with ZEITGEIST and either 5E or WOIN? Ready to tackle a sizeable project? Let me know!

It's not unlike Star Wars or Dragonlance in that respect, in that the original story changes the setting.The current intention is to move the timeline on and set this after the original campaign, as a base to start new adventures.

We're going with a 'default' choice with the original AP as a background historical element. It's a new setting, almost, with new adventures to come.

I'd like to invite any and all interested parties to discuss the topic, so that perhaps Adslahnit and my's discussion doesn't clog Morrus' job posting.

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

I have already given many of my thoughts in the linked thread, mostly concerning the feasibility of a post-adventure-path setting, and what it would take to make a new setting ripe for actual adventure.

As I say in the thread, I do not think "Zeitgeist: All the Lights in the Sky: A Dieselpunk Space Colonization Setting" would be a bad idea. The Golden Legion is already magical dieselpunk, and they are still out there, much like the Gidim, waiting to serve as antagonists.

 

[Roko Joko]

It sounds cool and I'm happy to see Lanjyr get some love. Personally I'd prefer material set before the AP, so that it you could use it as background for the AP, and because I'm more interested in a pre-industrial version of the setting.

 

[arkwright]

Can I ask if there's any specific place in pre-industrial Lanjyr you're interested in, Roko? Or is it the overall concept of pre-industrial Lanjyr?

 

[Roko Joko]

I just imagine that more technology would make the setting more mundane.

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

As I mention in the previous thread, by the time the adventure path is complete, there are radical new technologies: duplicants (great for communications and having a presence across the world), biplanes, automobiles, mega-airships, and so on and so forth. Tinker Oddcog's inventions are also worth noting, particularly since they include computers, electricity, and rockets. Advancing the timeline makes the setting at least dieselpunk, if not further than that.

 

[SanjMerchant]

I dunno, I sort of feel like making a canon setting set AFTER the events of the Adventure Path kind of undercuts the sense of choice and meaning involved.

As it stands, no one resolution has any more (or less) canon-weight than any other, meaning that whatever choice your PCs settle on is "real" (at least as real as anything gets in a place that only exists as something imagined by a bunch of people sitting around a table talking to each other).

If there's an official published book that details what happens after, then any choice your players make just... feels less significant. Like playing to the non-canon ending in a video game. Yeah, you did it, but does it REALLY count that you carried Kastore or the Brotherhood of Nod or the Soviets or Archibald Ironfist to victory if you've got a sequel in hand that says, "Nope, didn't happen that way"? And, conversely, if you know how everything is "supposed" to shake out, did you really choose that or did you just see the boxes you needed to tick off and go for them?

(EDIT: Even the technology level is pretty swingy. Did you save Oddcog? That's gonna swing it at least a few decades of real-world progress in one direction or the other. Did you bind the Gremlin plane? If so, the Medieval/Renaissance stasis trope is in full effect. Even without it, the various influences and complications of various combinations could make advancement a lot faster OR a lot slower.)

Personally, I'd rather see a Yersaol Wars campaign setting or something, if the powers that be are going to try to continue turn this particular mill.

 

[RangerWickett]

As far as I know, every group that has finished picked Jiese, Av, and Caeloon.

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

I pitched the idea of a modular setting in the other thread myself, but it was shot down. It is a shame. I am worried that it will be terribly hard and invalidating to present a "canon" outcome.

Planar configurations really are one of the major sticking points here, along with technologies developed.

 

[SanjMerchant]

As far as I know, every group that has finished picked Jiese, Av, and Caeloon.

In an adventure path whose resolution involves a small group (either the party or Nicky and his inner circle) remaking the entire cosmology to better suit their ideals, tastes, and/or whims, going with majority rule on what's canon seems a bit off brand. ;-)