The Big Questions

[Malachi Lemont]

I'm pleased to see a lot of community world building threads. I love how people on this forum enjoy cooperating to make an idea really come to life. So I would like to add one more team project to the mix. Here's something to think about:

I've found that my favorite fictional worlds are the ones that raise deep questions. They share just enough in common with the real world to make them relevant to our everyday lives, but have enough differences that we can escape in them. They allow us to explore how we might live our lives if that one thing were different.

So I want to see what you all think about starting a project that's built around several of the essential themes of humanity. Take a theme, put a new spin on it, and build a world from it. As for details like how many continents, and what kind of helmets people wear, that stuff's important too, but it'll come later. Right now, I want to ask the question, what should this world really be about?

Here are some options I came up with. You can vote for as many as 3, but if you feel most strongly about one, vote for just that one. Feel free to add more to the list:

Our fictional world should primarily explore issues of:
- Gender roles?
- Religion?
- Race and ethnicity?
- Sexuality?
- Warfare and Violence?
- Family structure?
- Wealth and Economics?
- Science?
- Health and sickness?
- Art?
- The Young and the Old?
- Death and Dying?

I know that many of these are highly sensitive issues, and must be discussed with extreme caution. But I think that is exactly the reason they should be discussed. If we want to create a world that means something to lots of people, it has to address themes such as these. Even so, if there is one particular theme that you feel is way too personal, I will take it off the list or remove this thread immediately.

Please let me know what you think. Once we have agreed on some of the major themes, I will move onto other issues like the minor themes, the tone of the world, and the characters.

Thank you.

[Tridax]

O-kay... First things first, I think that the world must have an established timeframe. Medieval? Modern? Futuristic? Steampunk? There are much more. From there should go other questions like religion and stuff.

(I have rarely seen worlds set in a grimdark renaissance, totally legit.)

[Malachi Lemont]

Right. I was going to open up a vote for time setting next, after we decide on the main themes. But I like your idea of a Renaissance setting. Early gunpowder, early age of exploration, but no industrial revolution yet - lots of good story potential there.

Still, do any of the themes I suggested strike your fancy? Anyway, thank you for responding to my post so soon.

[Mx.Silver]

Sickness and health. It's very rarely featured in fantasy to any real degree, despite having been an extremely prominent factor in the time periods the genre bases itself on. If use, death is likely to come into it as well, by extension.

The Renaissance historically had a big effect on art, but that's not directly implied by the tech level (neither are Religion, Sexuality, Ethnicity, Gender Roles etc.). So no obligation to include it unless you're setting it in the actual historical period.

[Malachi Lemont]

Good choice, Mr. Silver. I'm going to leave the big questions up for a while to see if anyone prefers something else. For this project, I'm not going to use a strict voting system for every decision we make - because that takes a long time and people tend to lose interest. Instead, I'll probably take the first good idea I see, and then wait to see if anyone protests before I move on. Sound good?

[D20ragon]

This sounds cool, and needed in the world of gaming.

[KevlarTheD]

I'm interested in the themes of Death & Dying in dungeons and dragons, especially because there are so many ways to circumvent it: un-dead and resurrection and gates to the celestial planes, to name a few.

I recently started a world build that I'm hoping to play around with this in. One idea I had was to remove necromancy and the undead from the game entirely, and have death be more 'finite'. I also thought of dropping divination and seeing what kind of culture would form when you have no knowledge or control of life force energy/knowing the unknown, but there exists real magic

[Tridax]

Sickness and health. It's very rarely featured in fantasy to any real degree, despite having been an extremely prominent factor in the time periods the genre bases itself on. If use, death is likely to come into it as well, by extension.

The Renaissance historically had a big effect on art, but that's not directly implied by the tech level (neither are Religion, Sexuality, Ethnicity, Gender Roles etc.). So no obligation to include it unless you're setting it in the actual historical period.

Sickness usually makes me think of bubonic plague as a subgenre. Maybe some more original ideas could be proposed.

As of death and dying... I feel this could also save place for such theme as Young and Old. Think of it, the old are either afraid of death or know its inevitable, whereas the young don't really care about it.

[Malachi Lemont]

Here's an idea I had: maybe in a fictional culture, the sick, old, and dying are all considered "half way between life and death." Therefore, they are believed to be able to communicate with the dead and warn the living about what is to come. However, this isn't exactly true, even within the context of the constructed world. What do you think?

[Mx.Silver]

Sickness usually makes me think of bubonic plague as a subgenre. Maybe some more original ideas could be proposed.
Yeah, the Bobonic Plague tends to get fixated on. I was thinking more about disease as a general aspect of life and cause of death.
The Black Death is attention grabbing because it was sudden and remains one of the most devasting disease outbreaks in human history, but disease wasn't particularly uncommon outside of plague. Small Pox, for example, was around for millenia and did kill quite a lot. Leprosy's another disease with an even greater lengevity. Really though, quite a lot of diseases were both prevalent and more lethal than they are today simply because people didn't know much about it, nor did they have access to much in the way of effective treatments. Blood-letting was considered a go-to treatment for illness for centuries, despite it being basically worthless in nearly all cases.

Note also that quite a lot of children died from disease. One of the things it's easy to forget in the modern world is how low our child mortality rates are when compared to the rest of human history.



Here's an idea I had: maybe in a fictional culture, the sick, old, and dying are all considered "half way between life and death." Therefore, they are believed to be able to communicate with the dead and warn the living about what is to come. However, this isn't exactly true, even within the context of the constructed world. What do you think?

Older people I can see as being viewed with sort of insight - especially if the culture has some form of ancestor worship. Dying is possible, although it may depend on how the individual in question is dying.
The sick though? Not so much. The sick generally get isolated, or worse. Most healthy people aren't going to want to hang around sick people, especially not when they think it's possible they themselves might catch the disease.

[Malachi Lemont]

The sick though? Not so much. The sick generally get isolated, or worse. Most healthy people aren't going to want to hang around sick people, especially not when they think it's possible they themselves might catch the disease.

A good point. In this case, I suppose they would have some knowledge of the contagiousness of some diseases. There might be some hard feelings toward the sick for infecting the rest of society. But on the other hand...

Think how many people (especially in the old days) died and still die of cancers and genetic diseases that weaken you slowly and are not contagious. I was wondering if an alternate society might view this process as sort of a transitional period to death, and treat the person like a ghost or oracle. There might even be a rare case where the dying person became healthy again, causing all sorts of cultural uproar.

[Mx.Silver]

To jump on a tangent, your comment about 'oracles' gives me an idea.
Leaving aside the issues of the sick, assuming that the belief is that being near death gives you insight then one might expect this to be part of the main religious structure. What I mean by this is that some members of the priesthood could be dedicated precisely to putting themselves in near death states, through say self-starvation, blood-letting or consuming poisons, so as to receive 'higher insight'. Symbolic representations of this sort of behaviour could also be present in standard religious ceremony.

From a sociological standpoint, this also provides a stabilising effect to the belief because it establishes a hierarchy of legitimacy when it comes to these insights. "Well, understanding the visions is a difficult task that takes a lot of training and faith. So obviously what Jeff was raving about snakes coming out of the walls isn't going to be true."

[Malachi Lemont]

You raise some good points, Mr. Silver. Religion almost always stems from the need to understand death. Religion is also often tied up in the class structure of a society, and this new world will probably be no exception. Do you want to start planning out more of the concrete details, like the technology, the geography, and the number of cultures involved?

[Tridax]

How fast would industriality progress with such views on life and death? I don't think it would slow it that much though.
And I think I need an explanation on how people view life if death is higher insight. Just a preparation period in which you learn to embrace what is beyond the end?

[Malachi Lemont]

Another good question. In my opinion, seeing death as a spiritual transition does not diminish the value of life - it enhances it. But theology aside, suppose this setting had a strong cultural divide between the young and old:

The young are viewed as "masters of life," and rule over earthly affairs. They are the Kings and Queens, soldiers and judges, merchants and guild masters.

The old folks, on the other hand, are "masters of death" and, while sometimes denied a place in the mundane world, have ultimate authority over spiritual matters. It could be kind of an honor with a catch - the old are both revered and excluded. Also, maybe the elderly could be in charge of medicine and healing, under the belief that they could transfer what little life they have left to the sick.

Any more thoughts on economic and religious structure? Also, let's start naming things. Like the world, and the major countries / cultures. Any ideas?

[FlyingWhale]

I'm interested in the themes of Death & Dying in dungeons and dragons, especially because there are so many ways to circumvent it: un-dead and resurrection and gates to the celestial planes, to name a few.

In my current world, magic is dying and disease becomes a reality. Luckily there is a paladin and favored soul in the party. But unless one of those two make a big sacrifice and preform a ritual... Not much they can do at lower levels. Getting diseases removed is a bit of an ordeal. Proper healing like that is pretty rare, making up about 5% of the healing community. Much more intense when the players know that death is something they should worry about when adventuring.

That said, I always do my best to incorporate health and sickness in ways other than HP. HP is used for combat and nothing else, it doesn't represent any where near the whole spectrum of health that pcs have. Neither does ability dmg.

Good questions, op.

[dasein]

Gender roles is always an interesting one--I'm fortunate to have a feminist gaming group who always tries to play female roles as realistic and non-stereotyped.

Usually, I experiment by inverting the gender expectations in a few societies. In one of my experiments, I just reversed the gender roles in dwarven society--and had the PCs figure out the hard way that they should have had their female sorceress speak for them, and not the male ranger who was accustomed to. However, I've grown to think this tactic is a little heavy-handed, and I'd really like to try a more subtle approach.

Race/ethnicity is probably the biggest social issue that pervades my worlds. As I think the Giant is trying to point out in OotS, the fact that the "evil" races are fodder for first-level adventures--no questions asked--strikes me as far too reminiscent of racism. Thus, I've tried a few things--one of the easiest (and again, heavy-handed) ways is just to force your PCs to play some of these "evil" races. I played in one campaign where we were all kobolds, goblins, or orcs. In my homebrew world, I specifically created a nation of genocidal elves--that forced the PCs to confront racism in its barest form, especially the player who was an elf but was allied with the non-elf party members. I was considering putting him across the battlefield from a (genocidal banner-waving) family member at one point, just to see if he could deal with the situation.

And you don't even need to explore fantasy races to explore race/ethnicity--frankly, the fact that most humans are portrayed as white is already an oversight. And even when non-white-skinned humans are present in a fantasy world, it's usually as some exotic culture at a corner of the map.

[Malachi Lemont]

I agree with everything you just said, daesin.

I enjoy creating worlds that put a new twist on familiar concepts, rather than completely invert them. This is especially true in the case of gender roles. As you said, a simple reversal of the traditional patriarchal system - that is, giving women most or all of the political, social, and military power - strikes me as overly simplistic and a bit immature. But I find it fascinating to think about how gender roles might have developed slightly differently.

The same goes with race. If I want to create a serious fantasy setting, I usually prefer to leave out the fantasy races - the intelligent non-humans, that is - because they tend to put constraints on the diversity of humanity itself. Maybe you would be interested in helping me create a world that involves a serious look at issues of conflicting cultures and ethnicities.

I think I'm going to use this thread just for brainstorming. I'm about to create a new thread for the actual world-building project.

Edit: And here it is. Welcome to Tyternus. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=297948)

[Mx.Silver]

Just to clarify, is your other thread based on the premise we've been bouncing around here? I ask because I've a long, rambling post in the works about that but it probably wouldn't be applicable to the world you're describing in the other thread.

[Malachi Lemont]

This thread is solely for bouncing around ideas of any variety. The "Tyternus" thread is completely different. It's a specific world with certain parameters.