Working Title: Broken World

[ADZAELL]

http://adamelliottdesign.blogspot.com.au/

So, I am working on a homebrew world design for my players, and would loves some feedback. I am slowly working through it over the last 12 months, but I plan to really ramp work up starting this month as my amount of free time has increased.

Broken world is set as a sort of post-apocalyptic world, in which there was a war between those faithful to the gods, and those that were not. The war was mostly humans against each other, with the other races caught in the collateral damage.

When the Gods realised they had lost, they punished the world with a series of calamities that almost destroyed the world. It is now 200 years later, and the world is a very different place.

Let me know what you think?

[avr]

I'll look over it more when I get a mo, but the first thing that occurs to me is that this blog desperately wants a table of contents page so that people can find what they're after. No, the list by posting month is not an adequate substitute.

[ADZAELL]

I'll look over it more when I get a mo, but the first thing that occurs to me is that this blog desperately wants a table of contents page so that people can find what they're after. No, the list by posting month is not an adequate substitute.

That's a really good point :) I'll work on that today.

[unglitteringold]

So, I skimmed over a bit and was a touch overwhelmed. Is there anything in particular that you're interested in getting feedback on, or are you just looking for general impressions?

(I would have just replied to the posts on the blog, but I'm at work and the computer won't let me post anything, only read)

- Love it; it's something that I would want to play. (I would be the last paladin of a holy order that died out because of vows of chastity, searching to gain experience and resources to establish a new church/training grounds dedicated to rescuing orphans and raising them in the ways of the faith to revive the church. Just, you know, if you ever run this in roll20 or something.)
- I approve heartily of cutting out the extraneous races (gnomes, halflings, and the half-races). I think focusing on your core races has freed you to explore your fascinating homebrew races.
- I'm down with the grey areas. I've always felt that moral/ethical restrictions should be based on experience. Personally, I used them to structure the world, but I don't require characters to strictly adhere to alignment structures either.
- I like the divide between Divine and Arcane punctuated by the fear towards the divine casters (which makes sense given the cause of The Breaking).
Arcane Magic - I too have struggled with arcane magic. Removing classes almost always makes people immediately want to play nothing but those classes. Thoughts - no one can start as a magic class (except sorcerers) and they must work towards acquiring things, like a wizard book, like a witch mentor, like a magical instrument or instructor, etc. To deal with sorcerers, I don't know how this would work in your setting, but I gave them an adversary. Sorcerers in my world are rare because they are hunted by super magical boogymen who work for a powerful sorcerer who doesn't want anyone to become more powerful than her. As a result, children who show magical promise are "brought into military protection" which means they are raised until they can be thrown on the front lines because they are super powerful.
Anyway, that's just an example of what I did. If someone wants to play a magical character, they have to suffer plot consequences or be controlled by the military. Most people are turned off by both those, and those who want to play along have a great time. Example: I had someone who wanted to play someone with magical talent who kept it hidden to avoid drafting. They had magic, but could only use it in very limited capacity to avoid being caught. (Because, of course, there is a substantial reward for the turning in of casters.)
- Without context this isn’t super meaningful to me, but it looks good. I get an idea of the places, and if I was making a character, I’d say, “Where should I be from?” I would expect you to give me some options based on my concept, then I’d read up on them and their neighbors, so I think the resource if a success in that capacity.

- I like that you explain the cultural/political underpinnings of why the nations of the faithful didn’t just band together. Also, the thought of Delan just running around teaching people how to be psionics is rather terrifying. I like how you can see the small things snowballing into The Breaking.
Note - I’m very interested to know more about the myth of the man. This is a timeline, but I would be interested in reading “the story,” sotospeak.

- Oo! My favorite! I love pantheons. Seems like a good base - you hit all the major points. I can’t wait to read more about what’s going on in the pantheon.

- Okay. Echo gods? Awesome. I mean, yes. Fapping right now. Dwarf zombies - love it. This explains why the dwarves are part of society now, and fills the mountains with undead horrors. #GoodTimes
So, note about the magic issue - you could just make every arcane magic wild magic. “Want to cast light? Roll percentile dice. Oh, 75? Well, good job, you now glow. Did someone prepare remove curse today?”
- Same issue I had before with the context. Seems solid, but until I make a character and am weighing options, it’s hard to critique. I suppose I would like a sense of what the people are like? This is one of the areas where alignments are a useful shorthand, but since you’re working in the grey area, it’s hard to stamp and label things. However, without stamps and labels, it can be difficult to cultivate a basic understanding of things at a glance.
- Solid. I like that the different types of humans “will have access to slightly different ancestry traits, and possibly even feats.” I run an almost entirely human setting, so I appreciate the attention to variances within the race.
- Perhaps Dokari and Vetakis could have slightly different traits? Example, Vetakis could have +2 Con, +2 Int and -2 Wis Since they are more gypsy like? Perhaps Vetakis could have a normal base speed and be encumbered as normal, but lose stability?
- Are there physical differences between the subcultures? Do they look different from one another?
- Since they have a -2 Cha, it might make sense to give them a +1 bonus when using social skills against other Ophiduans. Also - what do they eat?
- Vulcans? :P I’m not too familiar with Psionics, but just at first glance, it looks sort of… well, broken? They’re better at Psionics, and get a bunch of psionic abilities, and have psionic aptitude…. Just seems like having a psionic Maenad might dominate a party. But as I said, I have never played a psionic, so perhaps they are not as powerful as I’ve come to believe through cultural osmosis.

[ADZAELL]

So, I skimmed over a bit and was a touch overwhelmed. Is there anything in particular that you're interested in getting feedback on, or are you just looking for general impressions?

(I would have just replied to the posts on the blog, but I'm at work and the computer won't let me post anything, only read)

- Love it; it's something that I would want to play. (I would be the last paladin of a holy order that died out because of vows of chastity, searching to gain experience and resources to establish a new church/training grounds dedicated to rescuing orphans and raising them in the ways of the faith to revive the church. Just, you know, if you ever run this in roll20 or something.)
- I approve heartily of cutting out the extraneous races (gnomes, halflings, and the half-races). I think focusing on your core races has freed you to explore your fascinating homebrew races.
- I'm down with the grey areas. I've always felt that moral/ethical restrictions should be based on experience. Personally, I used them to structure the world, but I don't require characters to strictly adhere to alignment structures either.
- I like the divide between Divine and Arcane punctuated by the fear towards the divine casters (which makes sense given the cause of The Breaking).
Arcane Magic - I too have struggled with arcane magic. Removing classes almost always makes people immediately want to play nothing but those classes. Thoughts - no one can start as a magic class (except sorcerers) and they must work towards acquiring things, like a wizard book, like a witch mentor, like a magical instrument or instructor, etc. To deal with sorcerers, I don't know how this would work in your setting, but I gave them an adversary. Sorcerers in my world are rare because they are hunted by super magical boogymen who work for a powerful sorcerer who doesn't want anyone to become more powerful than her. As a result, children who show magical promise are "brought into military protection" which means they are raised until they can be thrown on the front lines because they are super powerful.
Anyway, that's just an example of what I did. If someone wants to play a magical character, they have to suffer plot consequences or be controlled by the military. Most people are turned off by both those, and those who want to play along have a great time. Example: I had someone who wanted to play someone with magical talent who kept it hidden to avoid drafting. They had magic, but could only use it in very limited capacity to avoid being caught. (Because, of course, there is a substantial reward for the turning in of casters.)
- Without context this isn’t super meaningful to me, but it looks good. I get an idea of the places, and if I was making a character, I’d say, “Where should I be from?” I would expect you to give me some options based on my concept, then I’d read up on them and their neighbors, so I think the resource if a success in that capacity.

- I like that you explain the cultural/political underpinnings of why the nations of the faithful didn’t just band together. Also, the thought of Delan just running around teaching people how to be psionics is rather terrifying. I like how you can see the small things snowballing into The Breaking.
Note - I’m very interested to know more about the myth of the man. This is a timeline, but I would be interested in reading “the story,” sotospeak.

- Oo! My favorite! I love pantheons. Seems like a good base - you hit all the major points. I can’t wait to read more about what’s going on in the pantheon.

- Okay. Echo gods? Awesome. I mean, yes. Fapping right now. Dwarf zombies - love it. This explains why the dwarves are part of society now, and fills the mountains with undead horrors. #GoodTimes
So, note about the magic issue - you could just make every arcane magic wild magic. “Want to cast light? Roll percentile dice. Oh, 75? Well, good job, you now glow. Did someone prepare remove curse today?”
- Same issue I had before with the context. Seems solid, but until I make a character and am weighing options, it’s hard to critique. I suppose I would like a sense of what the people are like? This is one of the areas where alignments are a useful shorthand, but since you’re working in the grey area, it’s hard to stamp and label things. However, without stamps and labels, it can be difficult to cultivate a basic understanding of things at a glance.
- Solid. I like that the different types of humans “will have access to slightly different ancestry traits, and possibly even feats.” I run an almost entirely human setting, so I appreciate the attention to variances within the race.
- Perhaps Dokari and Vetakis could have slightly different traits? Example, Vetakis could have +2 Con, +2 Int and -2 Wis Since they are more gypsy like? Perhaps Vetakis could have a normal base speed and be encumbered as normal, but lose stability?
- Are there physical differences between the subcultures? Do they look different from one another?
- Since they have a -2 Cha, it might make sense to give them a +1 bonus when using social skills against other Ophiduans. Also - what do they eat?
- Vulcans? :P I’m not too familiar with Psionics, but just at first glance, it looks sort of… well, broken? They’re better at Psionics, and get a bunch of psionic abilities, and have psionic aptitude…. Just seems like having a psionic Maenad might dominate a party. But as I said, I have never played a psionic, so perhaps they are not as powerful as I’ve come to believe through cultural osmosis.

Thanks for all the feedback :) It is awesome to get some from someone not in my gaming group.

I am slowly trying to expand the cultures and races more now in individual posts. I am trying to give the overview, then drill down into specifics piece by piece.

At this stage, yes, I am more looking for people to give general feedback and tips/suggestions.

Maenad are not homebrew race, they are from Ultimate Psionics / Psionics unleashed by Dreamscar press.

[unglitteringold]

Maenad are not homebrew race, they are from Ultimate Psionics / Psionics unleashed by Dreamscar press.

Ah! That would be why I don't recognize them. I suppose it is a bit disconcerting to see a race molded to a class? But if it's balanced already, then I suppose that's fine.

[Salasay]

I may have missed this part in the blog, but it appears that you haven't set up a concrete geography. Personally, I find conceptualizing and planning easier if I can envision who is where on world wide level. That way the politics of rivalries, histories of war, explanations for why certain features are where they are in terms of culture (to give an example from IRL, most of Russia's international policies and expansionism can be explained by its sever lack of natural barriers to protect itself from invasion.) You could also make the name "Broken World" literal and add some interesting eccentricities to the landscape. For example, the first thing I thought of when I read the title was of a world consisting entirely of separate chunks of earth floating near each other and connected by bridges.

On the whole, I like the post-apocalypse-but-not-post-civilization theme. I could see a lot of plot lines that are dark and cynical, but all of them have a happy ending (Think Pre-SmallFavors Dresden Files). That kind of theme would make the campaign setting very interesting.

[avr]

I like it too, mostly. If I'm reading it right there's exactly 1 small playable race, and it's very inhuman. If there could be another that might be popular with your group; little people who are surprisingly dangerous/sneaky/magical are a common character concept, and it's easier to identify with more human types. It may not be an issue with your exact players.

Clerics are not really PCs with this change - their resource schedule is too different to the other characters. Which is fine if that's what you want, there are druids and oracles to fill the same role.

[ADZAELL]

I may have missed this part in the blog, but it appears that you haven't set up a concrete geography. Personally, I find conceptualizing and planning easier if I can envision who is where on world wide level. That way the politics of rivalries, histories of war, explanations for why certain features are where they are in terms of culture (to give an example from IRL, most of Russia's international policies and expansionism can be explained by its sever lack of natural barriers to protect itself from invasion.) You could also make the name "Broken World" literal and add some interesting eccentricities to the landscape. For example, the first thing I thought of when I read the title was of a world consisting entirely of separate chunks of earth floating near each other and connected by bridges.

On the whole, I like the post-apocalypse-but-not-post-civilization theme. I could see a lot of plot lines that are dark and cynical, but all of them have a happy ending (Think Pre-SmallFavors Dresden Files). That kind of theme would make the campaign setting very interesting.

I have hand drawn a rough map, and i am using a map design program to create it as well. Campaign cartographer is just a bit of a learning curve for me at the moment :)

[Salasay]

I have hand drawn a rough map, and i am using a map design program to create it as well. Campaign cartographer is just a bit of a learning curve for me at the moment :)

Honestly, for the map of my Paramyth, I just made a pretty clean drawing of the map, scanned it into paint and cleaned it up.