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Yora
2012-09-17, 03:07 PM
I am preparing for a new campaign at the end of the year, possibly with the third or fourth playtest version of the new D&D edition, or alternatively E6 or Dragon Age RPG, or maybe something entirely else.

I've been working on a basic setting for ages, but that still leaves planning for a campaign and adventures. I got a couple of ideas, but I'd really like to share wth others what kind of things work well, what doesn't doesn't, and how to make it fun an interesting in general.

* Equipment is probably always a good place to start. More important than what weapons and armor actually existed in the bronze and iron age is what most people would expect to exist in such societies.
Regarding weapons, spears, daggers, and bows are probably the standard gear for most NPCs, whith one-handed axes and shorter swords also making common appearances. I'd stay away from two-handed swords, rapiers, crossbows, and flails, as well as the more sophisticated polearms like halberds, ranseurs, guisarms, and such stuff. However, kukris, falcatas, and khopeshs can greatly add to the game if you show the players some practical designs rather than over-stylized ceremonial ones. (Good: [1] (http://home.comcast.net/~patane8/watch/kukri04.jpg), [2] (http://gallery.military.ir/albums/userpics/greek-falcata-sword_2.jpg), Bad: [1] (http://www.kaboodle.com/hi/img/c/0/0/27/4/AAAADHtfjQAAAAAAACdOug.jpg?v=1231837932000), [2] (http://www.eldritch.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/s/p/spartan_falcata-32b_40.jpg), Good/Bad [1] (http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f204/ColonelMarksman/SapparaKhopesh.jpg))
For armor, everything that is non-metal is great. For major characters, chainmail, scale armor, and breastplates also make great additions that make them stand out from the common warriors and hunters. Plate armor and other full body metal armor should be left out.

* For classes, the focus should probably be on those that rely heavily on physical fitness and wilderness skill, like fighters, berserkers, rangers, outdoor-themed thieves, scouts, and the like.
What does not work well is anything that implies some kind of formal organization, like wizards in fancy robes with libraries and orders of paladins. Such classes can be made to work, but would probably have to look quite different, like giving the wizard a stag skull headdress and making him meditate to a spirit of magic rather than puring over tomes, or making paladins into brotherhoods of spirit warriors who paint runes on their skin and observe strict rules of purity to maintain their supernatural powers against unnatural beings.

* In a savage tribal world, most settlements would be small villages or camps inhabited by a single group of people. Big cities where people from different races and countries live together would be very rare and could be portrayed as strange and dangerous, as they do not obey the normal rules by which the outside world works.

* In tribal societies, the major NPCs can very often be chieftains or shamans, rather than a mayor, a king, a wizard in his tower, or the local parish priest.

* Putting a greater emphasis on different languages could make a great difference. Even when there is a common language spoken everywhere, not every person might know it, and PCs might need to be taken to a shaman or the chieftains advisor to communicate with the locals. Or they can try out different langes in the hope that some of the people they encounter speak one of it.

* Slaves. In most games, it's assumed that slaves are random people kidnapped on the street by the villain. Having normal farmers and benevolent chieftains keeping slaves, whose ancestors have been slaves for generations, would be weird and emphazise that this world works differently.

* In games like D&D, where magic can become extremely powerful, it can be a good idea to cap the maximum level that player characters and NPCs can reach. Most of the interesting limitations are lost when people can just buy rings that allow them to speak every language or make magic plate armor appear out of thin air with a spell.

* I also find that in such settings, it works much better to differentiate people not as Good and Evil, but more along "ours" and "not ours". NPCs should ask the characters for help because they friends or their group are allies of the characters group and they need to stand united against common threats to their control over their land. Not because of mercy or because it's the right thing to do.
Allegiances (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/resources/systems/pennpaper/modern/smack/allegiances.html) are a nice system to have the players have it on their character sheets what the priorities of their character are.

* Lots of use of non-intelligent monsters. Being a tribe warrior is not just about fighting other warriors, but also about fighting the terrible beasts of the wilderness. Instead of being random encounters, hunting a particularly dangerous monster can be the entire adventure, or it might be the actual boss fight, after which defeating its handlers is only the wraping up of the adventure.

These are some ideas I have so far. But those are mostly optical. Are there any ways to make the campaign actually play differntly than a common medieval fantasy game?
Though more optical tweaks are of course wellcome as well.

Arbane
2012-09-17, 04:24 PM
These are some ideas I have so far. But those are mostly optical. Are there any ways to make the campaign actually play differntly than a common medieval fantasy game?
Though more optical tweaks are of course wellcome as well.

Well, D&D's got a bunch of basic assumptions, a lot of which D&D breaks:

"PCs accumulating gear over the course of the campaign" - Conan started most of his adventures either dead broke and hung-over, or running away from his LAST adventure.

"There are multiple non-human intelligent races" - Have everyone play humans. Nonhuman intelligent creatures, if they appear at all, should be REALLY WEIRD.

"Magic is common, safe, and reliable" - Magic is creepy and WRONG. Using it breaks the Natural Order Of Things in a very bad way. The second most common cause of magicians dying is 'killed by something they summoned'. (Most common, of course, is Conan. :smallbiggrin:)

Hm... I'd suggest checking out some games other than straight D&D. RuneQuest, Conan d20, Iron Gauntlets, and even Exalted all try to do non-Tolkienesque fantasy, and arguably do a pretty good job of it. GURPS can manage it pretty well, too.

Yora
2012-09-18, 04:02 AM
"There are multiple non-human intelligent races" - Have everyone play humans. Nonhuman intelligent creatures, if they appear at all, should be REALLY WEIRD.
I think that really applies only to campaigns in Hyboria or those that try to emulate it. I don't see any reason not to have other fantastic races as well.

However, I would keep their number fairly limited. If you have 30 races, it would likely be assumed that each of them has their own complete civilization with everything that includes, which would make the place seem rather crowded. But I think something like The Elder Scrolls with 10 or so races shouldn't be a real problem.

Vikingkingq
2012-09-21, 01:50 AM
I think that really applies only to campaigns in Hyboria or those that try to emulate it. I don't see any reason not to have other fantastic races as well.

However, I would keep their number fairly limited. If you have 30 races, it would likely be assumed that each of them has their own complete civilization with everything that includes, which would make the place seem rather crowded. But I think something like The Elder Scrolls with 10 or so races shouldn't be a real problem.

Well, it would be a departure from Conanesque. Unfortunately due to R.E Howard's less than advanced racial thinking, human races treat each other with fear and hostility that we normally expect from the still problematic "always chaotic evil" paradigm in D&D - non-humans are seen as even more horrific and "degenerate." The larger problem is that coexistence is problematic in a Conanesque context.

Now, if you want to go general barbarian with multiple sapient races, I think it's doable - but we have to find a way to reject the "rubber forehead alien syndrome." Non-human races should be genuinely unsettling and alien in their behavior and psychology - and barbarians should treat them as otherworldly creatures, rather than "joe halfling from down the street." In turn, if humans are at a premedieval level of technology and organization, it might be quite interesting to have fantasy races be more advanced than humans in the way that Elves and Dwarfs were in the pre-Sigmarite Warhammer Fantasy human tribes.

Yora
2012-09-21, 04:45 AM
Well, but I think that really only applies to actual Hyboria clones. I was using the description only as a generalization to give some indication of the genre.

Actually, I just started with revising the main races for my own setting. Just having humans, elves, gnomes, lizardfolk, and beast-men seems a bit too narrow than it needs to and adding one or two additional original races might give the world some new directions to develop to.
However, you are almost never really original from the start, you usually start with something familiar and then alter and expand it so much that it eventually becomes unrecognizable.
Dark Sun is the clear fist place to look at, but Thri-kreen might actually be a bit too much. And even the new dragonborn are already a lot like advanced lizardfolk. Can anyone direct me to other interesting sources for nonstandard races in a low-tech setting?

Terraoblivion
2012-09-21, 04:53 AM
This kinda makes my head hurt. You're trying to emulate the kind of loose society and thin population of the Northern European bronze age, but with a large chunk of visuals from the ancient Middle East, right?

That brings up the obvious point...ancient Middle Eastern civilization was heavily urban, especially in Mesopotamia. Also, kings very much existed even in Northern Europe, as did large scale social organization as early as the neolithic.

So basically, what I'm saying is...forget about bronze age, iron age or whatever else that has any relation to reality and pick equipment, architecture, clothes and so on based on what fits the narrative you're emulating and safely forget everything about actual history or prehistory. It basically doesn't fit any of what you're going for anyway and will just produce busywork and undermine your vision.

JellyPooga
2012-09-21, 05:57 AM
Personally, for something Conan-esque, I'd probably outright ban any magic using Player Characters (at least as far as classes or their equivalent goes) and limit it to NPC's only. Make magic very powerful, but also equally dangerous. If the players want to dabble, scrolls, magical artefacts, rituals and generally emulating the evil sorcerer will allow their otherwise mundane characters to perform magical stuff, but hit them with the danger at every turn...the scroll burns their hands when read, the artefact has a diabolical side-effect, the ritual summons a powerful demon that escapes their summoning circle and generally emulating a sorcerer inspires the locals to grab their torches and pitchforks and run you out of town...

Yora
2012-09-21, 06:04 AM
I do not intend to work with accurate representation. Rather with stereotypes from Sword & Sorcery fiction.

- People live in small villages.
- Most villages are self-governed with no centralized government.
- The warrior class has a monopoly on power.
- Weapons and armor are limited to pre-roman technology.
- Social identiy is based on the village community or a cluster of interrelated villages (a "clan" in the loosest sense of the word).
- Monsters roam the lands beyond what is cleared around the villages.
- Trade is mostly by barter, with communities exchanging goods they can produce exceptionally well.
- There are countless gods and spirits and people worship those that protect their community without questining the gods of other communities.
- Supernatural worlds touches the world of humanoid beings and while they are invisible to the eye, one needs to take care to stay clear of places where beings can cross over and to protect oneself and ones home from the influence of otherwordly beings by wearing amulets, inscribing runes, speaking words of power, and performing hand gestures of power.
- Magic is a powerful force of defense against monsters and spirits, but it can also bring curses and cause corruption if not handled by specialists with the uttermost care.
- There are artifacts of magical power, that can be weilded by humanoid people but can only be created by supernatural powers, like swords and armor with major enchantments, gems that can bind demons, or idols that bring fertility to the lands around them.

Conans Hyboria and Dark Sun are just two settings in which many of these archetypes are incorporated and presented to a larger audience.

In the end, King is just a word that can mean almost any concept of rulership. Also, while we known of the Bronze and Iron Age Empire as urban societies, it's because that's where all the big buildings were located that survive as ruins, and where all the accounting was done. But you still had to feed the cities and the armies and the amount of people working on fields and living mud brick huts could often have been twenty times as large. And then you have consider all the people who live neither in the cities nor in the surrounding agricultural plantations. I don't think there are even any estimates for all the subsistence farmers and nomads who would also have been living within the empires without ever seeing a government official.


If the players want to dabble, scrolls, magical artefacts, rituals and generally emulating the evil sorcerer will allow their otherwise mundane characters to perform magical stuff, but hit them with the danger at every turn...the scroll burns their hands when read, the artefact has a diabolical side-effect, the ritual summons a powerful demon that escapes their summoning circle and generally emulating a sorcerer inspires the locals to grab their torches and pitchforks and run you out of town...
For my campaign, I actualy have something similar in place. And I agree that evil magic is a major, if not even essential archetype for such worlds. Dark Sun has its version of it with the Defilers and Preservers.
I made a distinction between shamanism and sorcery. In shamanism, you channel the energies of nature to slightly alter the environment within its normal limitations. Accelarate healing, rapid plant growth, increased vigor, resistance to the elements, making things ignite into flames, make stone crack, and so on. Also it allows to subdue spirits of nature, as they are part of the essence of the environment. On the other side sorcery is intrinsically "unnatural". It is the channeling of energies and powers from beyond this world, that ignore and violate the natural order. It is powerful and versatile, but it's toxic to the very nature of things. Using sorcery taints you, being targeted by sorcery taints you, and creatures from beyond this world and objects that hold their essence taint the environment around them just by being there. And creatures who have the taint inside them continue to spread it. They do not produce it, but as they recover from the taint and their own bodies regain some of their purity over time, it ends up being passed on to other people and the places they pass through. Like radiation or mercury poisoning. For a few individual encounters with sorcery, it doesn not cause much of a disruption for protagonists, but those who regularly fight sorcerers and demons become an environmental danger themselves. Wherever they go, the spread the taint, and whoever gets near them also gets some of it. Which makes it so important to fight all sorcery at every opportunity. Every sorcerer adds taint to the world and you can never get rid of it again. You can only spread it around evenly so the effect it has is minimized in any given place or person.

Joe the Rat
2012-09-21, 09:41 AM
A few thoughts.

On PC Races: Keep it simple. This type of setting tends to be rather humanocentric - a thousand and one races - or even 10 playable may undermine that.

That said, one way to approach this is to make each race a "nation" - specific geographic and/or political regions that share some common culture, language, and possibly even an organized government. Possibly. Cimmerians. Stygians. Picts. Only now they're not just "foreign" people, they're different. (personal note: if you use halflings, paint them blue.)

If you are planning to start in an area, limit your players to the indigenous and bordering race-groups.

Another way to play this is to say "To hell with them" and drop humans out entirely. Now race becomes more important - it's where you're from. This will take the ethnic group factor up to 11 - if "blending in with the locals" is part of your game plan, you may have problems.

On Magic: Warlocks (which have made it into the current playtest) fit well here - they are getting their power from other beings, and not necessarily in a good way. The other side of this is the more "communing with gods and spirits types" - It's really hard to differentiate wizards and clerics and druids in this type of setting. You kind of have to pick the spell profile you want, and stick whatever name you like on it.

The other piece of this is knowledge - "good" or "evil," magic-wielders can do what they do because they know the rituals and secrets to invoke various Powers.

Keeping it limited in the party is fair. You should probably keep the classes down to match. Paladins... Yeah, unless your gods are far more directly manipulative than in the inspirational material, skip it. Clerics cover the fighting priest thing well enough.


On Technology: While you want to keep a logical tech level, what you decide to include with greatly influence the aesthetics of the place. What you are calling chain might not necessarily be "traditional" mail of rings, but some sort of metal-based flexible mail, lighter and less protective than metal scale. Lots of wood, hide, and bronze should be in play.

Materials in use are relevant for the types of weapons possible: If you're building with bronze, longswords are Right Out, but iron can keep them in play. Flails are still a reasonable option, though - particularly if the design is fresh from the "agricultural implement" phase. Big Swords are semi-iconic, but I doubt anyone will fault you for breaking that stereotype. Big honkin' axes work well enough. Light crossbows would exist at this point in terms of real-world technology, but excluding them would be fine. To spice it up, throw in all the hurled weapons you can find. Boomerangs can be fun.



Are you considering including the ancient (and possibly prehuman) lost ur-civilizations element? That can add a whole other layer to things - and also explain where these big ancient temples and lost knowledge comes from in a setting where rubbing two sticks together is still a pretty clever idea.

Lapak
2012-09-21, 11:15 AM
I do not intend to work with accurate representation. Rather with stereotypes from Sword & Sorcery fiction.

- People live in small villages.
- Most villages are self-governed with no centralized government.
- The warrior class has a monopoly on power.
- Weapons and armor are limited to pre-roman technology.
- Social identiy is based on the village community or a cluster of interrelated villages (a "clan" in the loosest sense of the word).
- Monsters roam the lands beyond what is cleared around the villages.
- Trade is mostly by barter, with communities exchanging goods they can produce exceptionally well.
- There are countless gods and spirits and people worship those that protect their community without questining the gods of other communities.
- Supernatural worlds touches the world of humanoid beings and while they are invisible to the eye, one needs to take care to stay clear of places where beings can cross over and to protect oneself and ones home from the influence of otherwordly beings by wearing amulets, inscribing runes, speaking words of power, and performing hand gestures of power.
- Magic is a powerful force of defense against monsters and spirits, but it can also bring curses and cause corruption if not handled by specialists with the uttermost care.
- There are artifacts of magical power, that can be weilded by humanoid people but can only be created by supernatural powers, like swords and armor with major enchantments, gems that can bind demons, or idols that bring fertility to the lands around them.
I think the problem here is that most of things aren't true of Howard's Conan stories. Lots of large cities, plate armor, fully developed trade, monsters are extremely rare... I think you've got a good fix on the setting you're going for, but comparing it to Hyboria (or Dark Sun, for that matter, which is very urban-developed and has extensive trade; only the lack of metal keeps tech down there) is just confusing the issue. A lot of S&S has fully developed societies as a backdrop.

Yora
2012-09-21, 11:17 AM
Does it help you when I completely remove the pseudo-Conanesque mention in the thread title? Any Idea for something better than just "barbarian themed"?

Lapak
2012-09-21, 11:33 AM
Does it help you when I completely remove the pseudo-Conanesque mention in the thread title? Any Idea for something better than just "barbarian themed"?Well, like I said, I think you do have a pretty good fix on what you're trying to present. Your OP goes well beyond cosmetic elements and into plot. But here's my two cents:

The 'standard' reasons for adventuring (treasure, glory, crusading against evil) don't really apply in a barbarian setting. Cash-money treasure isn't worth the trouble - you'd do better to stay at home and clear another field for the village in terms of resources gained. Glory is worth seeking, but unless the legendary beast you slay was actually menacing your village no one you know is going to hear about it or care, other than if you return and boast of your deeds. So setting up actual adventures could be complicated. So, why are these folks wandering around in a setting where 'outsiders' are suspicious by default and probably not liked much?

Possibilities:
- They're not (wandering around, that is.) Star Trek:DS9 style, where they are people of significance in their tribe and the adventure comes to them.

- They're exiles and/or last survivors. Tribe cast them out or was wiped out, or they left voluntarily, and they need to find or make a place in the world. Bonus: party is given to reason to stick together, because literally no one else in the world is going to be their friend by default.

- Civilization has come knocking at the door. (I like linking to things, so here. Have a link to Vattu (http://www.rice-boy.com/vattu/).) The PCs need to deal with a larger, more organized group that has arrived on the edges of the barbarian territory. Could play as Colonialism/Imperialism Must Be Repelled, or Nation-Building Barbarians, or a few other ways.

But that's where I'd go next in your world-building: put together a campaign premise that fits. The usual adventuring doesn't apply.

Arbane
2012-09-21, 11:40 AM
You could always play vikings.

DrewID
2012-09-22, 10:14 AM
My first thought when I read this thread was of The Giant's sadly incomplete "The New World" series of articles, which created their low magic setting by using the d20 Modern rules. And while I think that might work, they're a bit out of date.

A way to restrict magic and at the same time create an impetus for adventuring might be this: each tribe has its Shaman, and each Shaman has his or her apprentice. Yeah, I know, it's sounding kind of Sith-y, but hear me out. The PC's are all from the same tribe. In a conflict with some sort of creature, both the tribe's Shaman and his apprentice were slain. You can't very well go shopping for a new Shaman, since admitting the loss of a Shaman is to admit to a huge, gaping hole in your defenses; sort of a tribal "Kick Me" sign (only much worse). A band of young Warriors and Scouts (why, yes, those would be the PC's) have been tasked with questing for the magic that the tribe needs to survive.

DrewID

Topus
2012-09-22, 10:50 AM
- People live in small villages.
- Most villages are self-governed with no centralized government.
- The warrior class has a monopoly on power.
- Weapons and armor are limited to pre-roman technology.
- Social identiy is based on the village community or a cluster of interrelated villages (a "clan" in the loosest sense of the word).
- Monsters roam the lands beyond what is cleared around the villages.
- Trade is mostly by barter, with communities exchanging goods they can produce exceptionally well.
- There are countless gods and spirits and people worship those that protect their community without questining the gods of other communities.
This sound also like native americans tribes, if you want to add some exotic flavour to the mix. By the way you can easily set it in the european early bronze age (adding a bit of magic and fantasy), so you have the harldy urbanized europe with the last pre-indoeuropeans tribes who struggles against the second wave of indoeuropeans. You have holy sacred places like stonhenge, or carnac or any other cromlech-full place. You have important blood related bonds with tribes because memories of people migrations and languages parenthood are strong and not already faded (you can even plot on finding the indoeuropean urheimat). And, after all, you have the chimera of the ancient and wealthy cities of the near east and the rich cretese merchants.

Yora
2012-09-22, 01:16 PM
That's something that I also noticed before some time ago, but always keep forgetting. It really matches a lot with late big-budget western portrayals of Indians. Which of course is as much of an idealized carricature as the entire american history until the civil war, but captures the atmosphere very well.

What also works quite well is Asterix. Apart from the jokes about contemporary france, the way the gauls live can also be taken as a good reference.

Yora
2012-10-01, 02:57 AM
Is anyone familiar with Scarred Lands? Some of which I read sounds like it might fir quite well, but others seem to be about a completely different type of world.