Friends world take a l@@k! (Critism Welcome!)

[PooAvenger]

Friends world, two interpretations, what do you think?

Amvoria:

A bunch of gods created the world, Amvoria, by dividing the different jobs amongst them, one makes a species, another decides what climate goes where, ect. The gods agreed upon the most numerous race being human, because of their versatality and adaptability. The humans were so popular in fact that a few gods took the concept of the human and in their eyes improved on it creating elves and dwarves among others. The gods decided that their work was done and let their creations loose in their world. About 1000 years after the creation of Amvoria, the true desires of men have been unvield as the current ruler of a kingdom decided that he didn't have enough power so he ordered his court spellcasters and clerics to create a gauntlet that could grant him the powers of a god. He became an evil and despotic dominator, striking down anyone who defied him. He destroyed every dragon, and broke up the continent of Dracka in his rage. He could have destroyed all of Amvoria if it wre not for a group of great adventurers who slew him. The leader of the adventurers was awarded the kingdoms throne. He ordered that the gauntlet be locked up so that it could never be used again. He brought the world to a time of peace and prosperity, until he was mysteriouly killed by some unknown weapon in the year 1075.
-Friends original thing

Amvoria:

Jergawrash creates the world from nothingness, he then decides to make pitiful creatures to fight between themselves for his own amusement. He decides that the most numerous should be humans because of their inablility to stop hurting their own selves. Jergawrash made the other races to be like the humans so the lust for battle would be in them as well. Though the elves didn't have as much lust for battle as the powerful orcs did so Jergawrash cursed them to be small and frail. The elves turned their back on Jergawrash and created the arcane arts by mimicking the god. 1000 years later, Redular the king of Warsford the small southern kingdom of Amvoria, ordered his court spellcasters to create "The Gauntlet of Omnipotence" a device that he could use to destroy the evil god forever. Jergawrash saw Redular's machinations and decided to slay him, but not before Redular destroyed all of Jergawrashs' physical manifistations on the world: The dragons. Destroying the dragons though had its own consiquences as the continent of Dracka broke apart from the use of the gauntlet. Jergawrash put Redular II in charge of the kingdom of Warsford as he would continue to serve the war god in his constant amusment. Redular II was slain though in the year 1075 by Dwelz the Liberator, in an attempt to free the world from the tides of war.
-My little thing

What doyall think? Critisism Welcome!

[Jaltum]

Well, yours has more names. Both of them are pretty cliched--his in the Tolkieny way, yours in a more modern dark and angsty mode, with the cruel god who creates life as a gladatorial deathmatch.

Both of them need more polish to be really catch the imagination as writing (vs. a guy giving his friend a quick synopsis of a hack fantasy novel informally) but I don't know if you meant criticism of the ideas or the writing.

(If the latter... with all due respect, your spelling needs work.)

Both of them come off a little pro forma, as if it's all been done a thousand times before. Which it has. But the gods just kind of randomly divying up the tasks of creation in the first one--it's like a gaming group making their 1001st party. Okay, who's going to be the cleric this time? Etc. It's kind of blah.

Either one works as a generic homebrew world background, I guess; you've got your basic shattered empire, which is handy for lots of purposes, and your Great Mystical McGuffin that's obviously going to be putting on a big blue hat and driving the engine of your plot.

Personally, if my DM hauled out either of these, I'd be more inclined to roll my eyes at the second one. It's just a little... I don't know. The DARK GOD OF DARKNESS creates a world of WAR. He lets you rule for his DARK AMUSEMENT.

EDIT: It also has, very much, a metagaming feel. It's very obvious that this a world being created to play D&D in. For instance, in both cases, you say the gods "picked humans to be the most numerous." Um. Picked them from where? The PHB? The gods would've created a dominant race, embodying characteristics (flexibility or masochism, depending on which story) they found favorable. Who, you know, through the magic of high fantasy would end up being identical to humans, but.

Same thing goes for saying the evil king was killed by "adventurers." An adventuring group is a standard commodity in D&D terms. Real worlds have... military squadrons. Motley crews of heroes. A group of friends, hardened by a lifetime of peril. In a setting like OotS, an adventuring group being internally known and recruited as such is normal. That's a comedy. In Eberron, it's normal. That's a sort of swashbuckling adventurer's paradise. This kind of setting might have an occasional group that we, as people who play D&D, would call an adventurer's group, but I can't see that they'd be common enough to be a known commodity setting-internal.

EDIT2: And if this dude killed all the dragons and broke a continent, how exactly did five non-epic adventurers whup him?

[PooAvenger]

Ok, thanks for your help!

I see you've said that "This world was obviouslly made to play D&D in," and it was. My friend and my interpretation were obviously made to play d&d in.
I think our problem is making it less obvious; any tips?

EDIT: And I think the adventurers were epic is the point. Imo, still a little far-fetched. He said the gauntlet would be like an unlimited Wish spell...

[dauphinous]

I think you're trying too hard to do something cool. It also sounds like you are trying to do one of two things:

Either:
Justify an uber-magic item that someone can find out about and use to gain Ultimate Cosmic Power, only to get thwarted by the PCs.

Or:
Make a background for a campaign world.

Which is it?

[PooAvenger]

Kinda both,

My friend needed a campaign to DM, watched TV, got inspired, and wrote this up.

He wanted both a world and a campaign so yeah...

[Jaltum]

I see you've said that "This world was obviouslly made to play D&D in," and it was. My friend and my interpretation were obviously made to play d&d in.
I think our problem is making it less obvious; any tips?

Things in the game world have to make a certain amount of sense even if you take away the D&D aspect.

Not every single thing--you're never going to justify hit points, for instance. But when you talk about the setting and the history, take the mechanics away. At least describe things in story-internal terms. If you discover you can't do that--that's something you have to change. (An example of this is 'picking humans', as I noted above.)

[dauphinous]

Ah. That explains it. Creating a campaign world is usually best done by starting smaller than the creation story. You can find a lot of resources all over the place, including here in various locations on that subject.

The times that I have done it, I have started with the gods themselves. Not their actions, or what they did to create the world, but what are they like. How many do I want? What does each one represent (you can translate this as which domains they offer to clerics if you want)? What alignments will be represented, and which one will be which? What gender is each one? And so on.

After that, I don't even waste 5 seconds coming up with how the world/races/etc. was created. The people I play with don't care and it never comes up. Your uber-item doesn't have to be a part of that story. If you really want it to, remember that the gods pay attention in d&d worlds. They grant power to their clerics and interfere in the lives of mortals. You have to decide how the item was actually created in the first place, because something that powerful is going to be very, very difficult to actually accomplish. You have to decide why the gods allowed it to exist and to continue to exist.

[PooAvenger]

In my version that was explained, not to sure about him.
Ill show him the thread the next time I see him.