Started writing again, developing the setting of the world and nations our Dagorhir units are from.
Building it right now as a Microlite20 setting.
Site is Feedback is welcome.
The World of Beuttleria
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The World of Beuttleria
by Maeglin Dubh » Mon Sep 06, 2010 1:13 am
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Maeglin Dubh - Squirrel Monkey
- Posts: 18
- Joined: Tue Jun 02, 2009 5:17 pm
Re: The World of Beuttleria
by Rob Lang » Mon Sep 06, 2010 7:44 am
Been following your blog for a while and the setting is intriguing. To help the monkeys here on 1km1kt, could you give us...
A synopsis of its main themes.
What you're going to do with the game (free/free+POD/publish possibly)?
How is your game different?
Why should we play your game?
What sort of feedback would you like (use of English, things we like/don't like)?
Also, to help the monkeys (who are a simple lot), how about putting together a PDF of what you have so far? Just a simple thing, does not need to be complete. Ensure you include those things that will make your game unique.
Welcome back to writing!
A synopsis of its main themes.
What you're going to do with the game (free/free+POD/publish possibly)?
How is your game different?
Why should we play your game?
What sort of feedback would you like (use of English, things we like/don't like)?
Also, to help the monkeys (who are a simple lot), how about putting together a PDF of what you have so far? Just a simple thing, does not need to be complete. Ensure you include those things that will make your game unique.
Welcome back to writing!
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Rob Lang - Admin Chimp
- Posts: 3262
- Joined: Thu May 20, 2004 4:51 am
- Location: Reading, UK
Re: The World of Beuttleria
by Maeglin Dubh » Mon Sep 06, 2010 8:45 am
Once I have more of the actual crunch (all I have right now is a list of nationalities) I'll PDF it.
A synopsis of its main themes.
The setting is based on the college my Dagorhir unit is based at. Certain prominent dorms have become nations in the setting, giving new Dag fighters something to anchor their backstory to.
The game is aiming to provide a fairly familiar setting, non-magical, with an interesting and (within the confines of paper) somewhat realistic combat mechanic. It's built using the Microlite20 system, and replaces Armor Class with Dodge/Parry values, using armor as Damage Reduction.
The setting provides opportunities for combat, political conflict, or even economic ventures (trade between the nations is an important part of the setting, and the Iron Papacy, the pseudo-villains, wield most of their power through money and politics.)
In what we are currently considering to be the current age of the world, there is something like peace, in that no wars have been declared, but the Papacy is striking at Beisilli and Bongiorno through proxies (primarily the steppe bandits) to keep them dependent, since Bongiorno lacks a powerful military arm. Another aim is trying to draw Beuttleria into the fold, but this mostly takes the form of naval interference against the Beuttlerian protectorate of Shelton's Well. It's a time when a DM could start a campaign and have the whole world ready to erupt in war, or start a series of espionage missions as the world enters into something like the Cold War.
What you're going to do with the game (free/free+POD/publish possibly)?
Game will be free, and as soon as we're done with the setting we'll probably be using it for most of our games at or around the college, since we've found the magic in most published 3.5 modules to be what ruins the fun for everyone (had two modules run recently, both of which resulted in almost certain doom for multiple party members without prior knowledge of what sort of powers were waiting for us, which is basically impossible in a one-shot.)
How is your game different?
From most fantasy? There's no magic. None at all. Some pseudo-magical effects might be present, but from another source. In D&D terms, there are no Supernatural effects, only Extraordinary effects. There are deities, with three main religions existing on the continent; the strict monotheism of the Iron Papacy, the monotheistic worship of the Forge God by the dwarves, and the Beuttlerian religion based on the idea that the Forge God (or the Unknown One; the Beuttlerians and the Beisilli have similar theology, but the Beuttlerians name the aspects of the central deity, whereas the Beisilli don't stray too far from the Iron Papacy's doctrines for appearance's sake, and therefore remain pure monotheists in service to a god they call Unknown) has divided into multiple aspects to better care for his world.
Elves and Dwarves both exist. The Elves are displaced, and have cross-bred with outcast raiders from the Iron Papacy, Beisilli, and Bongiorno, resulting in several half-elves among the steppe raiders. The Dwarves reside only in the Beuttlerian mountains, in fortresses of worked and carved stone. They do not live underground, but are also very xenophobic and don't like to leave their fortresses.
Why should we play your game?
Because you don't like high-level (cap is at 6), high-magic (there is none), complicated character generation (three stats, and we normally use an array of 16, 13, 10 before racial modifiers), endless skill lists (there are five skills; Physical, Subterfuge, Knowledge, Communication, and Survival) or a number of other things that d20 brings along with it that Microlite fixes.
Because you -do- like settings that aren't full of dungeon raids against kobolds to start off every campaign. Or settings where magic items don't turn your character into a Christmas tree by level 5. Or settings where playing a martial character isn't the worst option mechanically. Or settings without a defined evil, where you can basically be a bunch of PC's from any nation, and not feel like an evil party (as stated earlier, the Iron Papacy are pseudo-villains, in that they are a suppressive theocracy, and fairly opposed to Beuttlerians, but they're hardly evil, and playing as adventurers from the Iron Papacy doesn't have any penalties to it).
What sort of feedback would you like (use of English, things we like/don't like)?
I'd like the setting to make sense. We're still working on the timeline, and on the interactions between the nations. We also want to work on populating the land with some decent threats (the giants are one, and every once in a while dire animals turn up. Also, gryphons and rocs live in the northern mountains. We're considering carefully what critters we add, and modifying some, since we want to stay fairly close to the non-magical theme. If something seems too out-of-place for the setting, let me know. I also want to be careful to avoid painting the Iron Papacy as a generic evil empire, so if that seems to come across, let me know so I can revamp the tone slightly. They're not nice, not by a long shot, but you shouldn't be shouting "Remember Alderaan!" as you charge into a border skirmish.
A synopsis of its main themes.
The setting is based on the college my Dagorhir unit is based at. Certain prominent dorms have become nations in the setting, giving new Dag fighters something to anchor their backstory to.
The game is aiming to provide a fairly familiar setting, non-magical, with an interesting and (within the confines of paper) somewhat realistic combat mechanic. It's built using the Microlite20 system, and replaces Armor Class with Dodge/Parry values, using armor as Damage Reduction.
The setting provides opportunities for combat, political conflict, or even economic ventures (trade between the nations is an important part of the setting, and the Iron Papacy, the pseudo-villains, wield most of their power through money and politics.)
In what we are currently considering to be the current age of the world, there is something like peace, in that no wars have been declared, but the Papacy is striking at Beisilli and Bongiorno through proxies (primarily the steppe bandits) to keep them dependent, since Bongiorno lacks a powerful military arm. Another aim is trying to draw Beuttleria into the fold, but this mostly takes the form of naval interference against the Beuttlerian protectorate of Shelton's Well. It's a time when a DM could start a campaign and have the whole world ready to erupt in war, or start a series of espionage missions as the world enters into something like the Cold War.
What you're going to do with the game (free/free+POD/publish possibly)?
Game will be free, and as soon as we're done with the setting we'll probably be using it for most of our games at or around the college, since we've found the magic in most published 3.5 modules to be what ruins the fun for everyone (had two modules run recently, both of which resulted in almost certain doom for multiple party members without prior knowledge of what sort of powers were waiting for us, which is basically impossible in a one-shot.)
How is your game different?
From most fantasy? There's no magic. None at all. Some pseudo-magical effects might be present, but from another source. In D&D terms, there are no Supernatural effects, only Extraordinary effects. There are deities, with three main religions existing on the continent; the strict monotheism of the Iron Papacy, the monotheistic worship of the Forge God by the dwarves, and the Beuttlerian religion based on the idea that the Forge God (or the Unknown One; the Beuttlerians and the Beisilli have similar theology, but the Beuttlerians name the aspects of the central deity, whereas the Beisilli don't stray too far from the Iron Papacy's doctrines for appearance's sake, and therefore remain pure monotheists in service to a god they call Unknown) has divided into multiple aspects to better care for his world.
Elves and Dwarves both exist. The Elves are displaced, and have cross-bred with outcast raiders from the Iron Papacy, Beisilli, and Bongiorno, resulting in several half-elves among the steppe raiders. The Dwarves reside only in the Beuttlerian mountains, in fortresses of worked and carved stone. They do not live underground, but are also very xenophobic and don't like to leave their fortresses.
Why should we play your game?
Because you don't like high-level (cap is at 6), high-magic (there is none), complicated character generation (three stats, and we normally use an array of 16, 13, 10 before racial modifiers), endless skill lists (there are five skills; Physical, Subterfuge, Knowledge, Communication, and Survival) or a number of other things that d20 brings along with it that Microlite fixes.
Because you -do- like settings that aren't full of dungeon raids against kobolds to start off every campaign. Or settings where magic items don't turn your character into a Christmas tree by level 5. Or settings where playing a martial character isn't the worst option mechanically. Or settings without a defined evil, where you can basically be a bunch of PC's from any nation, and not feel like an evil party (as stated earlier, the Iron Papacy are pseudo-villains, in that they are a suppressive theocracy, and fairly opposed to Beuttlerians, but they're hardly evil, and playing as adventurers from the Iron Papacy doesn't have any penalties to it).
What sort of feedback would you like (use of English, things we like/don't like)?
I'd like the setting to make sense. We're still working on the timeline, and on the interactions between the nations. We also want to work on populating the land with some decent threats (the giants are one, and every once in a while dire animals turn up. Also, gryphons and rocs live in the northern mountains. We're considering carefully what critters we add, and modifying some, since we want to stay fairly close to the non-magical theme. If something seems too out-of-place for the setting, let me know. I also want to be careful to avoid painting the Iron Papacy as a generic evil empire, so if that seems to come across, let me know so I can revamp the tone slightly. They're not nice, not by a long shot, but you shouldn't be shouting "Remember Alderaan!" as you charge into a border skirmish.
-
Maeglin Dubh - Squirrel Monkey
- Posts: 18
- Joined: Tue Jun 02, 2009 5:17 pm
Re: The World of Beuttleria
by Maeglin Dubh » Wed Sep 08, 2010 10:59 am
Is that helpful information?
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Maeglin Dubh - Squirrel Monkey
- Posts: 18
- Joined: Tue Jun 02, 2009 5:17 pm
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