Where Is The Present (In Your Game)
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Man in the Funny Hat
Hero
I have variously used all three options, past, present and future in different campaigns. But I don't know that I have ever had my decision as to which I wish to use cemented in place at the start of any of them, and even less often has it actually factored into play.
I had an incident in one campaign where players found some kind of teleportation gate. I had a big list of possible destination planes and one of them was present day, real-world Earth. One player wound up there and I realized I had nothing prepared and no particular plan as to how to proceed. I made a couple of percentile rolls to determine lattitude and longitude and put the character on a cold, windy bluff looking south over the ocean in Tierra del Fuego. Had he decided to explore I'd have given him a really interesting adventure, but seeing nothing of particular interest he just went back where he came from.
The great thing about D&D is that it's fantasy in the first place so time and space are malleable and negotiable at just about any stage.
I had an incident in one campaign where players found some kind of teleportation gate. I had a big list of possible destination planes and one of them was present day, real-world Earth. One player wound up there and I realized I had nothing prepared and no particular plan as to how to proceed. I made a couple of percentile rolls to determine lattitude and longitude and put the character on a cold, windy bluff looking south over the ocean in Tierra del Fuego. Had he decided to explore I'd have given him a really interesting adventure, but seeing nothing of particular interest he just went back where he came from.
The great thing about D&D is that it's fantasy in the first place so time and space are malleable and negotiable at just about any stage.
Me too. My first house rule is: "The Rules of modern Physics, Chemistry and Biology do not apply. Do not even try." There are four elements. There is no such thing as DNA. Gravity works the way it did in Spelljammer.
Technologically, the future of my game world would probably look more like Iron Kingdoms than anything else. But frankly, Father Dagon will probably keep that day from ever coming.
Krensky
First Post
Well, my two current (well, one current and a long time fiddling project) games are sort of in the neither. My Stargate game is set in 2016 (the week of thanksgiving at the moment), so despite some fancy tech, I'd still call it the present, but it is seven to eight years in the future.
My other ins a modern (in the way historians use the term) fantasy (things are a mix of elements drawing from the period roughly between 1715 and 1915), except that the actual year is in the mid five digits.
My other ins a modern (in the way historians use the term) fantasy (things are a mix of elements drawing from the period roughly between 1715 and 1915), except that the actual year is in the mid five digits.
Angel Tarragon
Dawn Dragon
Tale of the Twin Suns is unique. The current present of the world has magical portals in every major city in the western lands of Seracia, plus Sunrise City on the East Coast of the continent. Basically any town of Village or larger size has such a portal network. These are today's equivalent of ariports.
Scry Screens.
The nobles and the wealthy are able to afford these. They function like TVs and also allow for tele-confrencing.
Mass Production.
It has happened. Only a handful of metropolises have the manufacturing plants, and due to the portal network, every city connected to it benefits from this. Newspapers are common and can be bought in every settlement.
Parcel system.
Every settlement in the civilized lands has a mail delivery system in place. Key buildings are whwere one can go to have your mail picked up and sent for a small fee. Ring Gates are used to allow for instantaneous delivery to a Parcel Shop anywhere else; a hub exists that allows sorting of mail to get to its proper destination.
Arcane Firearms.
Gunpowder and blackpowder will never work in the Tale; the physics of the world won't allow it. Instead firearms do exist that allow wielders of the arcane to produce spell-like effects with devices that resemble guns. The item is not considered a Magical Device and thus those that have the feats Arcane Understanding & Arcane Firearms Proficiency are able to use them without having to have ranks in Use Magic Device.
Other Tech.
I've yet to decide on other tech adaptations.
Underlying Feel & Tone.
The feel of the civilized lands equates to Earth's own Gothic Era. The exception to this is the Elven Empire. In the Elven lands, buildings that scrape the sky exist and they combine their magics with those of dwarves to sculpt buildings right out of the ground. The combined magics are able to create any kind of building just by extracting the needed components from deep within the earth. In this regard, the heavily colonized eleven cities might resemble the Bronx and have a New York style skyline.
The Future.
Assuming the civilized lands don't get swallowed up by the savage Scaled Kingdom and/or aren't enslaved by the scaled folk, then future ill be brighter than Earth's. Plollution will be eliminated before it can adversly affect the atmosphere due to fast developments and intermingling of science and magic and will jump ahead a generation, right over our modern era and into a steampunkish future heavily resembling Dragonstar.
Scry Screens.
The nobles and the wealthy are able to afford these. They function like TVs and also allow for tele-confrencing.
Mass Production.
It has happened. Only a handful of metropolises have the manufacturing plants, and due to the portal network, every city connected to it benefits from this. Newspapers are common and can be bought in every settlement.
Parcel system.
Every settlement in the civilized lands has a mail delivery system in place. Key buildings are whwere one can go to have your mail picked up and sent for a small fee. Ring Gates are used to allow for instantaneous delivery to a Parcel Shop anywhere else; a hub exists that allows sorting of mail to get to its proper destination.
Arcane Firearms.
Gunpowder and blackpowder will never work in the Tale; the physics of the world won't allow it. Instead firearms do exist that allow wielders of the arcane to produce spell-like effects with devices that resemble guns. The item is not considered a Magical Device and thus those that have the feats Arcane Understanding & Arcane Firearms Proficiency are able to use them without having to have ranks in Use Magic Device.
Other Tech.
I've yet to decide on other tech adaptations.
Underlying Feel & Tone.
The feel of the civilized lands equates to Earth's own Gothic Era. The exception to this is the Elven Empire. In the Elven lands, buildings that scrape the sky exist and they combine their magics with those of dwarves to sculpt buildings right out of the ground. The combined magics are able to create any kind of building just by extracting the needed components from deep within the earth. In this regard, the heavily colonized eleven cities might resemble the Bronx and have a New York style skyline.
The Future.
Assuming the civilized lands don't get swallowed up by the savage Scaled Kingdom and/or aren't enslaved by the scaled folk, then future ill be brighter than Earth's. Plollution will be eliminated before it can adversly affect the atmosphere due to fast developments and intermingling of science and magic and will jump ahead a generation, right over our modern era and into a steampunkish future heavily resembling Dragonstar.
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Jack7
First Post
Thundarr?
(I like Thundarr by the way. I used to think the show silly, but recently I've been rewatching it. That show was well written and way ahead of it's time in relation to plot/storyline. The other morning I saw an episode dealing with modern Chimeras, though they didn't call it that (they just said "an experiment dealing with creating a new form of life." It implied a lot about up-coming and futuristic technology and science which is only now starting to pan out. It had a lot of silly science, like cars or charter planes lasting for 2000 years, but it also was quite inventive and insightful on some other issues.)
We play and I DM/GM six RPG worlds, or settings, or milieus.
D&D/Fantasy - Humans set in Constantinople circa 800 AD. Not humans set in geographically identical world with very different cultures than human cultures.
Pulp - Set in America, circa 1930, but traveling around the world. Often uses real history as basis for scenarios.
Military/Law Enforcement/Espionage/Intel - set in present time during War on Terror (with background on Cold War) and using real, current or projected events as bases for mission/scenarios.
Superhero (more like genetically or otherwise modified individuals) - set in same time frame as game immediately above.
Sci-Fi - two games, both set in future. One in the Federation, one outside the borders of the Federation and only involving intelligent, artificial, and/or alien life. Extrapolates upon current science.
So I guess time wise it's a wash. As for whether these worlds are like ours or not, four are our world (minus the superhero and related stuff) and two are not our world, but maybe something kinda roughly similar will develop. But I doubt it. Then again you never really know.
