|
Post by hengest on Oct 20, 2019 19:34:28 GMT -5
The town described here is not appropriate for a first adventure or for introducing players, I think. I want to situate it some distance away from a hub-city so that it can be a known place, but with a distinct culture. Not to say that I plan to develop a lot of cultural material here...but I want a central hub on the map and then my town some ways away for a second or third adventure, perhaps after overland travel. More thoughts later.
|
|
|
Post by hengest on Oct 21, 2019 11:44:44 GMT -5
Want to put the town some ways away, as said.
But...possibly smaller population center a week's travel away. That place is more normal, perhaps the origin of the PCs. The town will be a destination after initial exploration and overland adventure.
Need to set up these population places and create / generate some terrain and items between them and around them and see where this goes.
|
|
|
Post by mao on Oct 22, 2019 6:54:19 GMT -5
Want to put the town some ways away, as said. But...possibly smaller population center a week's travel away. That place is more normal, perhaps the origin of the PCs. The town will be a destination after initial exploration and overland adventure. Need to set up these population places and create / generate some terrain and items between them and around them and see where this goes. You don't need anything but the bare bones of a kingdom or Duchy to run your town, just give a few reasons that the PCs would stay there
|
|
|
Post by hengest on Oct 22, 2019 8:03:46 GMT -5
Want to put the town some ways away, as said. But...possibly smaller population center a week's travel away. That place is more normal, perhaps the origin of the PCs. The town will be a destination after initial exploration and overland adventure. Need to set up these population places and create / generate some terrain and items between them and around them and see where this goes. You don't need anything but the bare bones of a kingdom or Duchy to run your town, just give a few reasons that the PCs would stay there But I want it to make a touch of sense?
|
|
|
Post by mao on Oct 22, 2019 8:12:51 GMT -5
You don't need anything but the bare bones of a kingdom or Duchy to run your town, just give a few reasons that the PCs would stay there But I want it to make a touch of sense? Make the PCs too worried about what is happening to care about the rest of the world, you could also make the setting like ravenloft or the Twighlit Zone, and make it nebulous
|
|
|
Post by hengest on Oct 22, 2019 8:47:03 GMT -5
But I want it to make a touch of sense? Make the PCs too worried about what is happening to care about the rest of the world, you could also make the setting like ravenloft or the Twighlit Zone, and make it nebulous Unfamiliar with Ravenloft but will look into it...I like nebulous but also concrete.
|
|
|
Post by hengest on Oct 22, 2019 8:56:19 GMT -5
mao Or Brigadoon...I like that idea.
|
|
|
Post by hengest on Oct 22, 2019 20:57:48 GMT -5
1) Town, described elsewhere on this sub, Brigadoon-style? Accessible only sometimes, once a month? How to work this? (Further details to be revealed once I can get them coherent)
2) Nearby location, normal (to be determined)
3) Elevated location--the dwelling place of the Faerry (for purposes of this post, tentatively inspired by Arneson's Faerry in AiF...in some form)
2 always accessible and has access to outside world (undefined for now)
1 magically restricted entry except...
3 technically unrestricted, but near-impossible for access by normal folk.
|
|
|
Post by mao on Oct 25, 2019 13:40:42 GMT -5
Go with what you feel like you want to. As long as your honest to new players you don't need to make a lot of combat. D&D doesnt have to be run that way. Go deep,deep deep into your comfort zone. You could come up w an outline of your combat encounters and i could help you fill in the blanks so it would run well In all honesty my games are heavy on combat due to that being my strongest skill set. Yours will be mystery and mood. Supernatural and Twilight Zone.
|
|
|
Post by mao on Oct 25, 2019 13:42:04 GMT -5
Also, I would love to see your thoughts on Magic Items!
|
|
|
Post by hengest on Oct 25, 2019 18:58:47 GMT -5
mao Sorry, how do you mean? Like magic items for this setting?
|
|
|
Post by mao on Oct 26, 2019 5:04:12 GMT -5
mao Sorry, how do you mean? Like magic items for this setting? yup
|
|
|
Post by hengest on Oct 28, 2019 19:03:30 GMT -5
Go with what you feel like you want to. As long as your honest to new players you don't need to make a lot of combat. D&D doesnt have to be run that way. Go deep,deep deep into your comfort zone. You could come up w an outline of your combat encounters and i could help you fill in the blanks so it would run well In all honesty my games are heavy on combat due to that being my strongest skill set. Yours will be mystery and mood. Supernatural and Twilight Zone. I would like to be able to run quick and exciting combat. I would like not to have to avoid it for fear of it being like the slogs I have experienced as a player. I would appreciate talking more about this sometime.
|
|
|
Post by hengest on Oct 28, 2019 19:15:12 GMT -5
Alright, as of this moment, I want the following (I am still treating this sub as a clearinghouse for my notes and thoughts, so no promises). Oh, also i am going to try to hide fewer of my thoughts from you guys.
1) The Town. The place described here with the mysterious network of cellars that no one worries about. I imagine a (limited) giant vertical dungeon that formed over time by continual burial and re-burial of layer after layer of inhabited area. The current inhabitants are unaware of the history of this place, but in principle you can go very far "down" and find that different things have set up shop in these "safe zones" away from human habitation. Something close to this.
2) I am not sure here, but also The Normal Town.
3) The Clouds. Here I am really taken with the more medival faerry races from AiF. I want to do something with them, even if not much mechanically. I see this are high above The Town, difficult to access, perhaps related in some way to the history of The Town. This place should be secret, hidden, discoverable only after major adventure.
And while I know people will say this is too much and I want to hear that if that's the response, I feel attached to these notions and I will at least keep worrying them. Probably.
|
|
|
Post by mao on Oct 29, 2019 6:54:36 GMT -5
Great stuff.
|
|
|
Post by hengest on Oct 29, 2019 19:20:28 GMT -5
Regarding the history of The Town again, I am now a little more certain that it has some connection to The Clouds. Further, and more important for immediate development and an early adventure, The Town can be divided into four layers. More and less than a "random" megadungeon.
1—The Town proper. People live here, etc. Travellers visit.
2—The Cellars. People use these for everyday purposes and know that some are connected in ways not consistent with the uses they are put to today.
3—The Empties. Maybe some curious souls have poked their noses into these chambers in recent decades. They are below the lowest cellars that are in use, but do not seem different, except for containing very little of interest.
4—Down Deep. There is no hard border between this area and The Empties, but you will know when you are Down Deep. You may encounter someone.
Down Deep is what the Townies want not even to know about. And for the most part, they don't.
There is a history to The Town, and although most must remain unknown, there is a degree of cultural continuity between what was once there and The Town that is now on top of what was. That is why children's rhymes and games, passed down in an unbroken chain of oral culture, may be the best (if confused) source about what we call Down Deep.
Hey-oh, one, two, Hey-oh, three, four Momma left the cellar door Open, she can't talk no more
***
Mary had a fella Handsome as a lord They went down a-kissing Where the vegetables are stored Mary came back home again Her fella stayed down deep And you went off to kiss him When your momma was asleep
|
|
|
Post by hengest on Oct 29, 2019 21:51:07 GMT -5
The faerry races in AiF are different enough from the Tolkien-esques of "classic" DnD that they look beautiful. I'm not sure that I want to use any outright, but I'm not ruling it out.
While I likely don't want to use it, I like that they can't abide light. Nocturnal cloud-dwellers? Maybe something to that...
While a certain tone in a setting is good, some variety is also good, otherwise the setting becomes an exercise in maintaining tone and that reeks of unreality. Our world feels real because it is rich, not because it's all the same.
I don't want solid horror. To me that's pointless.
|
|
|
Post by mao on Nov 6, 2019 6:31:08 GMT -5
If you don't want to do horror then the fairies is prob the way to go, they can easily be shrouded in mystery and can be in great variety.
|
|
|
Post by hengest on Nov 6, 2019 20:49:48 GMT -5
If you don't want to do horror then the fairies is prob the way to go, they can easily be shrouded in mystery and can be in great variety. I mean I'm not against horror, but I wouldn't want pure horror. I kind of hoped these piecemeal posts, for now, would be useful as inspiration for someone or just as one-off things to use. The tone is too similar throughout (some exceptions)—I wouldn't want playing in Evening Bell to have this time constantly. There has to be plenty of respite. I may write more about what I want and am aiming for. I guess I'll try to write it now. I want to know that I have plenty of "joints" in the setting, not just adventure hooks but memorable experiences that signal to the players and characters that they are on the edge of another world. And I want to try to do that in fairly few words, with units that should be meaningful or at least suggestive to most people who might play. Otherwise, I'm very interested in - collapsed and abandoned things, not limited to underground structures
- semi-pocket worlds: pieces of a world that are accessible but mostly ignored or shunned
- the borderlands between civilization and wilderness, day and night, known and unknown
- being "homeless at home": getting lost in or inside of a very familiar place
So naturally I go to those things first. But I need plenty more to make the setting work.
|
|
|
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Nov 8, 2019 12:13:41 GMT -5
I make a lot of use of pocket/semi-pocket worlds from very small to very large.
|
|
|
Post by mao on Nov 9, 2019 6:32:54 GMT -5
mao Or Brigadoon...I like that idea.
|
|
|
Post by hengest on Nov 9, 2019 10:34:34 GMT -5
I'm working on a couple images to support a new post, nothing fancy, but it's going to be a couple days before I can post them. Edit: Never mind, new thread started. and thanks to Admin Pete for telling me how to link in the images.
|
|
|
Post by mao on Nov 27, 2019 16:59:18 GMT -5
I think you have 3 diff ways of going at this.
1) go for brigadoon: the whole place is littered w what you have posted and mystery drips from every cofner, kind of like living in The Twilight Zone
2) sprinkles:: Every once in a wile throw one at them, make them special
or 3) make them all in one geographical spot next to normal world, this is the approach I am taking in the thing I am working on(inspired by you)
|
|
|
Post by hengest on Nov 27, 2019 18:38:31 GMT -5
I think you have 3 diff ways of going at this. 1) go for brigadoon: the whole place is littered w what you have posted and mystery drips from every cofner, kind of like living in The Twilight Zone 2) sprinkles:: Every once in a wile throw one at them, make them special or 3) make them all in one geographical spot next to normal world, this is the approach I am taking in the thing I am working on(inspired by you) Happy to see what you're working on!
|
|
|
Post by mao on Nov 27, 2019 18:55:31 GMT -5
I think you have 3 diff ways of going at this. 1) go for brigadoon: the whole place is littered w what you have posted and mystery drips from every cofner, kind of like living in The Twilight Zone 2) sprinkles:: Every once in a wile throw one at them, make them special or 3) make them all in one geographical spot next to normal world, this is the approach I am taking in the thing I am working on(inspired by you) Happy to see what you're working on! It's a ski lodge minitown that grows and shrinks each building is a separate entrance to the Twilight Zone. No house can be visited twice. It is for adventurers in a near by dungeon. Thats all I got so far, it's on the back burner
|
|
|
Post by hengest on Nov 27, 2019 19:40:52 GMT -5
Happy to see what you're working on! It's a ski lodge minitown that grows and shrinks each building is a separate entrance to the Twilight Zone. No house can be visited twice. It is for adventurers in a near by dungeon. Thats all I got so far, it's on the back burner Sweet idea. A ski lodge for medieval adventurers? Or like a portal found in our world?
|
|
|
Post by mao on Nov 27, 2019 19:43:30 GMT -5
Medieval
|
|
|
Post by hengest on Nov 27, 2019 20:47:25 GMT -5
I dig it. I'm in a low spot. Look forward to hearing more, if you have it. I'll riff on it or just enjoy it and do my own stuff.
|
|
|
Post by mao on Nov 27, 2019 21:19:05 GMT -5
I dig it. I'm in a low spot. Look forward to hearing more, if you have it. I'll riff on it or just enjoy it and do my own stuff. Do you want to collaborate on the ski lodge?
|
|
|
Post by hengest on Nov 27, 2019 21:39:57 GMT -5
I dig it. I'm in a low spot. Look forward to hearing more, if you have it. I'll riff on it or just enjoy it and do my own stuff. Do you want to collaborate on the ski lodge? Yeah, do you have a working method to suggest, or we just wing it?
|
|