Dystopias

[mister__joshua]

Hi Playground

I've always had a love of dystopian settings in my RPGs. Something about the hopelessness appeals to me as a great place to set a game.

I've been playing with some ideas for a 5th edition setting for my group that I can run with. I'm looking at a hopeless world, every day is a struggle, that sort of thing. I'm now deciding how to approach it, and what to change within the world to support it.

I never played, but was always interested in Fantasy Flight's Midnight setting, which is best described I think as Middle Earth if Sauron had won. It's got it's own unique world and restrictions on magic.

I'm trying to break my thoughts down into sections.

The Event:
Some event in the past has caused the dystopian world. This could be a recent event or an event long since passed with the effects still felt. Here are a few ideas I had

* The BBEG has won: The world is rules by this tyrannical ruler and his minions. This is similar to the idea in Midnight.

* Scorched Earth: Something has happened to make the surface of the earth uninhabitable. Society breaks down in a scrabble for food and resources. The Dwarves (having underground homes) are attacked by all surface dwelling races seeking refuge. Something along those lines.

* Death of the Sun: Maybe the death of a Sun God? Whatever the cause, the sun no longer shines on this world. The underground races, no longer confined to the darkness now thrive on the surface.

* War in the Abyss: Or any of the lower planes. Something has happened that caused Fiends to walk the material plane in large numbers. This idea has been done before so I'd have to approach this one from an 'after the fact' angle. The world after 1000 years of demonic rule.


Or some combination of those ideas.


There will be many thematic changes but I want to try and avoid changing mechanical aspects of the game as much as possible. Some changes will be necessary, and the world by it's very nature will change priorities. Spells like Create Food and Water will be like gold dust to whole communities.

Races will have their flavour altered depending on the world, but that's why I need to work in stages. Classes such as Fighter, Rogue and Sorcerer will remain largely unchanged. Druids will be rare but valuable in most of the proposals, but probably also very angry and resentful. Especially setting like Scorched Earth will make Druids interesting. Wildshape will be restricted by their being very few animals. Playing Clerics will depend on how the pantheon has developed following the Event and whether the gods are even accessible following something like Death of the Sun God. Paladins will struggle to find ideals in a world in chaos. These are all interesting characters to play. Wizards will be troubled by the lack of stores of Knowledge throughout the world.



I guess what I'm looking for after typing all that is just some thought and ideas/opinions. Has anyone created or run a setting like this before? How did the players find it? What were the character and story motivations/objectives. Did the players leveling up break the dystopia slightly, and was this an annoyance or a welcome change?

Thanks

Josh

[WickerNipple]

Have you looked into Dark Sun?

Though this could equally be, after-Dying Earth.

[mister__joshua]

Never heard of Dark Sun, I'll take a look

Thanks!

[Nargrakhan]

Ravenloft is another dystopia setting -- especially the earlier editions when Paladins could be sensed by the big bads 24 hours a day. It's basically a giant world prison where the all-powerful wardens have a cruel detachment and mischievous streak with the prisoners, and entire communities of innocent people are stuck in that prison just trying to live a normal life... with little to no idea they're part of a prison.

Some places in Ravenloft are just miserable... while others are outright nightmare zones.

[Jamesps]

Never heard of Dark Sun, I'll take a look

Thanks!

Dark Sun has always been my favorite DnD setting by far and above (though I've never tried spelljammer). The apocalypse in Dark Sun is a very slow one that's still ongoing during the setting. Basically the use of arcane magic drains the world of its life force, but humans being humans, we still go about using it to forge empires and dominate the populace (yeah all the big bads of the world are or once were human which is another thing going for it in my book)

[Valefor Rathan]

The second half of FF3(6) and the Overlord games would be good too.

I like this idea a lot.

[Grayson01]

I always like my Dystopias with political power strugles. Maybe you could go with there were no heroes. There were only powerful evil Warlords (Of multible classes and skill sets) that faught. The Battles between the Warlords cause the Catastophies. An Eldric War engine (A Warlock Warlord could have had it constructed to fight a Wizard Cabal) tore a hole in the earth here opening a casum to the abyss which allows Demons to pass on to the Material Plane and also is what spawned the race of Teiflings.
(I have always loved the Valenar Eberon Elves and the Good Orcs from The Eldeen Reaches) So you could have a Desert Empire of Elves who invade the Forest/jungle Orcs and they use some ancient Crystal to Destroy the Orc Forest kindgom (Scorching the Earth). The Orcs could be a Druidic Order and their homeland being destroyed is what caused the Druids to be come scarce and few and far between and also what made the class branch out from the Orcs to other races.
The Capital's political body could have been infiltratied by Criminal Orginization that corrupted it's governing body and pushed it into a state of disarry. Mayeb a Sorc Halfling focusing on some enchanments and other skills could be the head that was the main infiltrator. The Criminal Orginization could have horded all the food (inorder to drive up demand and price and to have a firm hand on the power) which could have been then destroyed by a rival orginization or just by a crazed cult. Maybe refugies from the Druidic order that despises civilization went destroied the farm land and food stores to force the city's callaps, and with the corrupt goverment incontrol no one in power cared enough to restabilize the city causing it to become a despotic getto.

[Scirocco]

My world (Nostralia https://sites.google.com/site/nostralia35/) had the Ancients (Humans as it turns out) mastering magic and opening capital G Gates all over the place to gain riches and destroy their enemies (flooded the Illithid civilization out by opening a Gate to the Elemental Plane of Water). After a while they had opened so many Gates that they broke the linkages between planes barring a few stable Gates.

End result? They ripped giant holes into the Far Realms, and that Elder Evils planetoid, Atropos or whatever it was called came down and destroyed nearly all life in Nostralia, with the ancient humans only saving themselves by becoming undead with the Pact of Annihilation. Nowadays people are afraid to using planar magic incase it opens new rifts to the Far Realms and those who can hole up in shielded metropolises while the poor are left to fend for themselves in the wilds.

Also there's evil dwarves that are simultaneously the Wal*mart of the shattered world and the sweatshops of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Why enslave people when you can charge people to live on the poisoned lands where they work themselves to death?

[Valefor Rathan]

So this is going on - http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?384233-Catastrophic-Dragons-in-5e&p=18420898#post18420898

Cross link? New idea?

[mister__joshua]

I'm all for a community/collaborative effort if a few people wanted to get involved and have similar lines of thinking.

The Catastrophic Dragons would play very well into the Scorched Earth event, with a little bit of BBEG thrown on top.

[mr_odd]

I'm all for a community/collaborative effort if a few people wanted to get involved and have similar lines of thinking.

The Catastrophic Dragons would play very well into the Scorched Earth event, with a little bit of BBEG thrown on top.

Yeah, you could keep the party confined to underground for a while until they discover that some communities survive above ground. They are in constant danger, and at one point maybe even get attacked by the dragons.

[mister__joshua]

After a bit of pondering here's an idea I think I'm going to try running with and see how it goes. It will use the Catastrophic Dragons in JamesIntrocaso's thread, cos I think they're cool. There are some fundamental changes in the world from what would be considered a 'normal' world.

Note: This isn't written in a Story view. That'll come after. This is just an overview. I'll move this to the World-Building Homebrew sub-forum when I've got more to it.

The world began like most fantasy worlds, and had an age of prosperity. In this world natural disasters as we know them didn't exist. Weather patterns were regular and mild. Druids were pleasant and happy. With the age of prosperity came the abusing of resources. Over mining, deforestation, the overuse of arcane magic, over fishing and hunting. The druids of the world changed and became withdrawn and haggered. They traveled preaching the end of the world and telling people to repent (this has large parallels to the modern day global problems). Finally, after the warnings were ignored the nature god (Obad-hai like, but with a different name. An unlikely enemy, and I like unlikely enemies) could take no more of the destruction and abuse and the earth began to fight back. (S)He started with the animals, controlling them like puppets, and with his prophets the Druids. He then unleashed the Catastrophies (the catastrophic dragons. Maybe 4 diffrerent types and Legendaries). These brought weather changes never before experienced. Deep freezes, insane heat, terrible winds. He was trying to wipe out the races that abused the planet. These would also be the only Dragons in the setting.


That's the start of it anyway. From there I'm still plotting. Either the Catastrophies were too powerful to control and ran amok, or the god(s) decided to let them wipe out the humanoid races.

This setting would then have some of the other ideas I liked, like the Dwarves being driven out by other races seeking to settle beneath ground. Subverting the normal order of races and classes.

Any initial thoughts?

[Jlooney]

After a bit of pondering here's an idea I think I'm going to try running with and see how it goes. It will use the Catastrophic Dragons in JamesIntrocaso's thread, cos I think they're cool. There are some fundamental changes in the world from what would be considered a 'normal' world.

Note: This isn't written in a Story view. That'll come after. This is just an overview. I'll move this to the World-Building Homebrew sub-forum when I've got more to it.

The world began like most fantasy worlds, and had an age of prosperity. In this world natural disasters as we know them didn't exist. Weather patterns were regular and mild. Druids were pleasant and happy. With the age of prosperity came the abusing of resources. Over mining, deforestation, the overuse of arcane magic, over fishing and hunting. The druids of the world changed and became withdrawn and haggered. They traveled preaching the end of the world and telling people to repent (this has large parallels to the modern day global problems). Finally, after the warnings were ignored the nature god (Obad-hai like, but with a different name. An unlikely enemy, and I like unlikely enemies) could take no more of the destruction and abuse and the earth began to fight back. (S)He started with the animals, controlling them like puppets, and with his prophets the Druids. He then unleashed the Catastrophies (the catastrophic dragons. Maybe 4 diffrerent types and Legendaries). These brought weather changes never before experienced. Deep freezes, insane heat, terrible winds. He was trying to wipe out the races that abused the planet. These would also be the only Dragons in the setting.


That's the start of it anyway. From there I'm still plotting. Either the Catastrophies were too powerful to control and ran amok, or the god(s) decided to let them wipe out the humanoid races.

This setting would then have some of the other ideas I liked, like the Dwarves being driven out by other races seeking to settle beneath ground. Subverting the normal order of races and classes.

Any initial thoughts?


I really like the idea, the only real problem I see is that in this world their couldn't be racial patron gods. If the nature god (i'm going to assume there is only one in your world) decided "Ok kids, time for punishment" wouldn't uncle Bloodhammer Ruinsteal the god of orcs or Greenfeet God of elves be like "But...I love my kids. They didn't do this, why should they be punished?

[Shining Wrath]

Plagues are always good for bringing about dystopia. Think "The Stand".

Or Zombie apocalypse. Someone Cleric was asking for Divine Intervention and got an answer he didn't expect from a Death god.

Your first question ought to be "Can this dystopia be fixed"? It's a tremendous story arc if the PCs are trying to remove the cause of all this badness, but then you lose the setting for future campaigns. Unless, of course, they cure the problem, but it will take 10,000 years for the world to return to normal.

[mister__joshua]

With the Gods, there are 2 options. Either go with a Monotheistic religion (God, known for wrathful disasters) or a reluctant consensus among the gods that the population needed to go for the future of the realm.

As for 'fixing' it, I always like that as an eventual idea after many adventures. An eventual possibility but not an easy task for sure!

[Shining Wrath]

With the Gods, there are 2 options. Either go with a Monotheistic religion (God, known for wrathful disasters) or a reluctant consensus among the gods that the population needed to go for the future of the realm.

As for 'fixing' it, I always like that as an eventual idea after many adventures. An eventual possibility but not an easy task for sure!

I give you Calvin, the Old God.

http://cdn2.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1025851/bill4.gif

[Valefor Rathan]

Yes, this.

Two dueling gods? Nivlac and Sebboh?

[mister__joshua]

Moved to here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?384497-Fantasy-Dystopia&p=18429248#post18429248) if anyone wants to get involved.

Thanks

[Finieous]

I never played, but was always interested in Fantasy Flight's Midnight setting, which is best described I think as Middle Earth if Sauron had won. It's got it's own unique world and restrictions on magic.


Midnight rocks!*

Another idea I've played around with is an old world where magic is dying, eventually reaching a tipping point that causes civilization to collapse. You've got ruins that brave or foolhardy scavengers pick over for magical remnants, devolved mutant magical creatures (e.g. dragons transforming over generations into giant lizards with vestigial wings), and magical races facing extinction (elves have become vampiric "wights" who feed on the blood of living creatures for the little bit of magic it contains). If you want some possibility to save the world, maybe magic isn't just fading -- maybe there's a sleeping god entombed in some sunken continent that is slowly consuming the world's magic; banish Cthulhu and restore magic to the world.

* I created it, so I'm biased. :)

[mister__joshua]

Midnight rocks!*

Another idea I've played around with is an old world where magic is dying, eventually reaching a tipping point that causes civilization to collapse. You've got ruins that brave or foolhardy scavengers pick over for magical remnants, devolved mutant magical creatures (e.g. dragons transforming over generations into giant lizards with vestigial wings), and magical races facing extinction (elves have become vampiric "wights" who feed on the blood of living creatures for the little bit of magic it contains). If you want some possibility to save the world, maybe magic is fading -- maybe there's a sleeping god entombed in some sunken continent that is slowly consuming the world's magic; banish Cthulhu and restore magic to the world.

* I created it, so I'm biased. :)

That sounds ace, and just the sort of thing I was thinking of. It requires a lot of sweeping changes though that are far too great in scope for a quick campaign setting*. I'd definitely be interested in playing it though. :)

In a setting like that I don't think it's necessary to have it 'fixable'. There are plenty of adventures to set in the world as it is, and societies will develop/evolve new ways of coping without the magic. I'd be interested to see how this interact with the various character classes.


*ie. The amount of time I've got I'm looking at something I can quickly set some broad rules and assumptions for and build as I go.