Setting design help.

[Anon-a-mouse]

Two questions...

1. I have an idea for a setting which subverts standard fantasy RPG cliches. So rather than orcs being evil warlike monsters, they are hapless primitives, portrayed as evil warlike monsters to justify killing them and taking their land. Elves, rather than being distant benevolent authority figures, would be capricious unacountable medlers in human affairs, for example. Do you think this is a gimmicky 'one idea' thing, or a decent basis for a setting?

2. Has anyone ever posted general guides to designing worlds/settings/maps for a fantasy RPG, and if so can someone link to them? I searched, but couldn't find anything.

[Cataphract]

Well, no offense, but aside from the fact it's been done before in various degrees, there's a problem.

The point is, how much your different races are actually different sentients instead of humans in funny suits (aka the Star Trek problem). The problem is, in most fantasy settings, they are. Reversing them simply makes them the opposite kind of humans in funny suits. So no, as much as you can make a setting out of it, it's hardly one worth playing any more than the usual cliche stuff.

As for guides, I have found a very, very good one right here:

http://www.giantitp.com/Gaming.html

Last Category.

[FirebirdFlying]

As above, make sure that your other races are actually other races, not just other cultures. Think about what makes orcs really different from humans, elves, etc.

And this (http://www.seventhsanctum.com/www/wwwfull.html) has some interesting stuff (though less about maps and more about people). Somebody reposted a nice guide to mapping in the Arts and Crafts section a while ago; I'll see if I can dig it up.

[Drolyt]

Agree with the above. Inverting the cliche in no way makes it less cliche. One thing you have to remember is that cliche isn't necessarily bad, but the important thing is to try and make your characters people. The setting you describe could definitely work and be made interesting, but only if your characters are made into actual, you know, characters, instead of walking stereotypes (regardless of whether you use atypical stereotypes). So maybe the Orcs are for the most part everyday people who are villainized in order to justify slaughtering them, but make sure to give Orc characters actual personalities. Same for the Elves, its fine to make the Elven nation fond of meddling in other peoples business, but give individual Elves their own in depth character. In fact what you are describing might be more interesting if you do it without races, making the people you are describing just normal humans. Build up the savage people to be bad guys, but make it so eventually the PCs realize that they are really the victims. It can make for a nice twist.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I don't think that inverting the races' clichés is a bad idea as such - you'll get more mileage out of it if you let the preconceptions that most people have about the races stand as the normal way of thinking, but then portray the races in the inverted way you suggest.

In your example, you said that orcs might be primitive and misunderstood, and subject to culls and genocide - that's way more interesting if the PCs are involved in discovering how warped the common view of the orcs is. Look at the colonial history of humanity for examples.

I don't think I've ever encountered any playable fantasy race that has been anything other than a mirror on the human condition, so don't try too hard.
(Prepare to be 'corrected' with dozens of examples.)

[Drolyt]

I don't think that inverting the races' clichés is a bad idea as such - you'll get more mileage out of it if you let the preconceptions that most people have about the races stand as the normal way of thinking, but then portray the races in the inverted way you suggest.

In your example, you said that orcs might be primitive and misunderstood, and subject to culls and genocide - that's way more interesting if the PCs are involved in discovering how warped the common view of the orcs is. Look at the colonial history of humanity for examples.

I don't think I've ever encountered any playable fantasy race that has been anything other than a mirror on the human condition, so don't try too hard.
(Prepare to be 'corrected' with dozens of examples.)

Of course it's always a mirror of the human condition, because all art is (and for simplicity we'll just call your Orc Barbarian art). On the other hand though you don't have to be obvious about it, and you can make your characters actually fleshed out and realistic. So I think the above is a good idea, have the players come to realize their views on the "Orc Issue" are messed up, that's no excuse to turn the Orcs into a race of hats. Give them personality, make them memorable.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Yes, one must always flesh out cultures and races - the generic cliché descriptions are there for a guide, and each character and settlement of a race needs to have its own raison d'etre.

To plug this into the OP's inverting preconceptions idea, you could have most orcs be primitive people who are just looking out for themselves, with a variety of different cultures from tribe to tribe - but one or two of the tribes are the ones who have given the race a bad rep, because they are pursuing a vendetta against those who took their lands some centuries ago.