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Walk Hard
2017-01-29, 09:54 PM
I am slowly building up a homebrewed setting to play in at some point later on in the year with my group, and have drawn a bit of a blank on what I want to run exactly.

We usually play RoleMaster but I am looking at running a 5E fantasy game and have spent time in learning the system and now that I am at the actual setting building/generation/plot/what have you am a little bit stuck this time around.

Thats where the PlayGround comes in!!

What weird/whacky/interesting/cliche things have you guys/gals encountered over the years that have been fun to play?

I am looking for anything here really that can be expanded on, so anything from bad guys/good guys or city/country ideas, generic over-arcing plots and the likes could you suggest.

I am hoping to see a bundle of different and (potentially) random ideas that I can (hopefully) weave together into a fuller plot/setting.

I have spent and will be spending a bit of time reading up on the various (and might I add Great) campaign journals on here for extra ideas, but feel free to post any here that are a bit more obscure if you think they will help.

Vitruviansquid
2017-01-29, 10:16 PM
Everything is cool if you present it in a cool way.

Everything is flat and lifeless if you present it in a flat and lifeless way.

Walk Hard
2017-01-29, 10:20 PM
Agreed.

Not really what I am aiming at though, I have plenty of DM experience and have no issues with that, just looking to see what stories or things you may have done yourself that I could potentially incorporate into my setting :)

GreatDane
2017-01-30, 10:50 AM
This is from the 3.5 forum, but I'm sure you can dig up some cool stuff!

DM's Aid: Share Your Campaign, Plothook, and Encounter Ideas (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?482528-DM-s-Aid-Share-Your-Campaign-Plothook-and-Encounter-Ideas)

AceOfFools
2017-01-30, 01:04 PM
Factions and internal devising within organizations is always great for generating conflict, plot hooks and new options for PCs to pursue.

Walk Hard
2017-01-30, 04:13 PM
Thanks GreatDane, exactly the sort of stuff I am after :)

Any specific ideas there AceOfFools??

I do like having organisations that want the PCs to do certain tasks which are intertwined in some way, especially when the PCs manage to inadvertently make allies and enemies by helping others out

Cluedrew
2017-01-30, 08:36 PM
Personally, one I like is come up with a setting gimmick and then flush it out until it isn't a gimmick anymore.

Say for example (although this might not be a great one) you have a cube setting. I've seen that slapped onto... at least 2 settings and as far as I know neither of them did anything with it. But what sort of changes would living on the cube make? For example, with a moderately tall tower and a sufficiently powerful telescope you might be able to see a quarter of the way around the world. What sort of effects would that have on communication? Exploration? Military Tactics? How does one get over the edges? Is it hard? Perhaps it was hard until just recently. So you have 6 worlds with very little connection for thousands of years suddenly pushed together. That might be a bigger deal that discovering the new world.

Light! How does the sun orbit? Do the sides get the same amount of light, what are the cycles like are days always the same length? Are their four seasons? Eight? Six? If you can figure that out I would be interested just for all that.

redwizard007
2017-01-31, 09:45 AM
As previously stated, factions, or even better, factions within factions.

I built a world with 4 gods. That was it. Good, evil, chaos, and order. I mapped them to the four elements, made their homes pocket dimensions accessible from specific places in the world, and gave them armies of alignment or elemental specific outsiders as servants. Pretty straightforward so far...

Then I wrote up their major religions, (or lack of one for chaos...) then came factions within the church. The good god had LG, NG, and CG splinter groups as well as an ultra orthodox group. There were even some subdivisions within those factions. Rarely, there was direct conflict between the sects of a given church, but tensions between them were great sources of fun for my players. It would have been even better if we ran more political games, but alas, our evenings were more focused on murdering greenskins.

Walk Hard
2017-01-31, 02:58 PM
I like the sound of that cube idea - it is new to me.

I will absolutely have a think on how to apply that or something similar.
How would you approach the edges of the cube world?, how would gravity work once you reach the edge?, why is the world a cube? was it always a cube?

Cluedrew
2017-01-31, 04:57 PM
I don't know. I have never built a cube world setting, I picked it because I have seen it used as an example of a bad gimmick. As I recall in "The New World" article in this very site (actually if you haven't read them yet I would recommend it as it is relevant, click on Gaming on the side of the site, I would recommend reading them in order). But my point is that really it is what you do with it that is important. I've seen the same trick used as a throw away visual and as a center piece to the setting.

As for gravity... I imagine there would be six gravitational fields, pointing down at the six sides of the cube. Not towards the center, that would result in a sphere. Around the cube them right overlap creating areas with higher, diagonal gravity. Or maybe they end and there is no gravity? You can decide that part, I don't think there is a logical conclusion.

As for why... I can't think of some explanation that would have it change from a sphere to a cube so maybe it always has been. There are a lot of possibilities, try to pick something that fits with the other things you want for your setting, from particular elements to tone.