Dragongirl
First Post
:: puts up a sign reading "Please don't hijack the thread".::
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What kind of Earth society/culture would you like written up?
- Thread starter Dragongirl
- Start date
Dr. Strangemonkey
First Post
to be or not to 3e
I hold the standard for the first category to be something along the lines of Oriental Adventures and Swashbuckling Adventures in feel and structure and for D20 specifically.
Cultural:
Middle-Eastern Adventures book.
Meso-American or Andean adventures book.
Barbarian/Mongol/Nomad Adventures book.
Fertile Crescent
Historical/Cultural:
Rome/Hellenistic
Dark Ages, done well and 'accurately' that is
Napoleanic
Myceneans/Minoans
And I have never seen a game that really satisified me for tapping into the Conan-style genre of fantasy where everything is trippy, mysterious, gritty, and diverse. Hackmaster could do it if the world was a little more cohesively detailed.
I like the way the books mentioned at top merge both historical periods and literary genres and then inject a high portion of 'generic' fantasy.
I hold the standard for the first category to be something along the lines of Oriental Adventures and Swashbuckling Adventures in feel and structure and for D20 specifically.
Cultural:
Middle-Eastern Adventures book.
Meso-American or Andean adventures book.
Barbarian/Mongol/Nomad Adventures book.
Fertile Crescent
Historical/Cultural:
Rome/Hellenistic
Dark Ages, done well and 'accurately' that is
Napoleanic
Myceneans/Minoans
And I have never seen a game that really satisified me for tapping into the Conan-style genre of fantasy where everything is trippy, mysterious, gritty, and diverse. Hackmaster could do it if the world was a little more cohesively detailed.
I like the way the books mentioned at top merge both historical periods and literary genres and then inject a high portion of 'generic' fantasy.
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India might not seem a promising topic, but I loved DMing a player through the OD&D Hollow World Scenario 'Nightstorm' by Allen Varney, set in the India-esque land of Shahjapur - it's so different from standard D&D settings, everything was much more fresh, vibrant and exciting. So I'd vote for a 'high fantasy' India-type setting. Nightstorm worked so well because it contrasted the grinding poverty of the vast cities with the incredible opulence of the nobles and a rich mythical feel, with rogue Ganesha-statues, sinister Immortals, the boundary between waking and dreaming where reality breaks down and you enter the time stream... 
It'd be possible to do a 'bad' India supplement too - you have to avoid making it read like a dry history textbook. The worst sourcepack I ever bought I think was 'The Horde' on Forgotten Realms' Mongols, dry-as-dust and tedious as hell. The contrast with the D&D Gazetteer on The Ethengar Khanate - same subject, handled completely differently - was immense. I don't know why, but D&D Mystara stuff so often knocked the socks off its AD&D equivalents in terms of freshness, vitality and an exciting fantasy flavour. It could veer into abject whimsy (Ierendi: the Holiday Island!), but I generally found the Mystara stuff well worth getting.
It'd be possible to do a 'bad' India supplement too - you have to avoid making it read like a dry history textbook. The worst sourcepack I ever bought I think was 'The Horde' on Forgotten Realms' Mongols, dry-as-dust and tedious as hell. The contrast with the D&D Gazetteer on The Ethengar Khanate - same subject, handled completely differently - was immense. I don't know why, but D&D Mystara stuff so often knocked the socks off its AD&D equivalents in terms of freshness, vitality and an exciting fantasy flavour. It could veer into abject whimsy (Ierendi: the Holiday Island!), but I generally found the Mystara stuff well worth getting.
Campaigns I have run:
1. Book of Mormon alternate timeline in the Americas.
2. Iroquois Confederacy and other Great Lakes confederacies in the medieval period.
I would certainly say that both of these worlds are well-suited to D&D (I combined them).
1. Pre-history bronze age during or after the ice age.
2. Pre-historic timelines of
(a) Atlantis
(b) Lemuria/Atlantis
(c) the Heliolithic Theory (as propounded by H G Wells for instance)
3. Any credible monotheistic D&D variant be it
(a) The frontier of medieval Islam (e.g. Byzantium, Russia, India)
(b) Medieval Europe with interceding saints, etc.
(c) The Buddhist Missionary Effort
I'm sure it may be that some of this is covered in some supplement I haven't heard of but my implied criticism here is that D&D should be able to adapt to monotheism more readily than it does.
1. Book of Mormon alternate timeline in the Americas.
2. Iroquois Confederacy and other Great Lakes confederacies in the medieval period.
I would certainly say that both of these worlds are well-suited to D&D (I combined them).
1. Pre-history bronze age during or after the ice age.
2. Pre-historic timelines of
(a) Atlantis
(b) Lemuria/Atlantis
(c) the Heliolithic Theory (as propounded by H G Wells for instance)
3. Any credible monotheistic D&D variant be it
(a) The frontier of medieval Islam (e.g. Byzantium, Russia, India)
(b) Medieval Europe with interceding saints, etc.
(c) The Buddhist Missionary Effort
I'm sure it may be that some of this is covered in some supplement I haven't heard of but my implied criticism here is that D&D should be able to adapt to monotheism more readily than it does.
zouron
First Post
there are more then a few cultures I would really love to see, though my biggest wishes would be:
Native American Indians (come on they rule!)
Dark ages roughly 500-1150, especially stuff concerning the plagues etc.
and lastly a bit of a different one would be the early hunter gatherer societies where we had both homo sapien and neathertals (sp?) running around at the same time, that would so totally rule.
Native American Indians (come on they rule!)
Dark ages roughly 500-1150, especially stuff concerning the plagues etc.
and lastly a bit of a different one would be the early hunter gatherer societies where we had both homo sapien and neathertals (sp?) running around at the same time, that would so totally rule.
Dragongirl
First Post
Seems like the eastern indian society may be the most sought after. I do agree that it could be hard to do right and not just be a textbook. Maybe that is why it has not been touched on much so far, but we can hope.
Sir Osis of Liver
Explorer
i'd like to see Babalonian culture done up.
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