Wheel of Time: War of Power campaing ideas

[HamHam]

I've been thinking about various campaigns I might run in the future, and one that I think might have potential is a Wheel of Time game set in the Age of Legends, or more specifically right before, during, and after the War of Power.

I'm mostly using The World of RJ's WOT as a source along with the actual books (and some passages from the old d20 WoT RPG book) and altering some things to be more cool. Mainly, the War of Power itself is supposedly only 10 years long according to TWoRJWoT which I think is decidedly lame.

Instead, I'm thinking of having it last some 500 years (though the true nature of the threat may not be known for the whole of it). The main point of this would be that channelers can live several hundred years, easy. So while many generations of normal humans would live and die during the war, some Aes Sedai (both those serving the Light and those who have forsaken it) will be alive through the whole thing, like seemingly immortal gods of war compared to everyone else. And later new generations of channelers who have never known a world of peace will naturally have friction with those born before.

I've also been thinking about how such a war would play out. You start out with no one possessing the tools or even the knowledge of war. The first bursts of violence would involve people turning ordinary objects like knives and axes to lethal purpose. Eventually someone would dig firearms out of some library archive and modern guns would enter the mix. Weaves intending for fighting, like fireballs, would be unknown until someone invented them.

A particular ability that would find new use is cuendillar. There is absolutely nothing preventing you from making cuendillar plate armor. So what I'm imagining is Stormtrooper-like body armor that is utterly impenetrable. Once introduced, this would quickly make guns obsolete. High explosives would probably still work because it won't stop the shockwave from causing internal injuries. But melee weapons would suddenly become very important because they can stab into the spaces between the plates thus bypassing the armor. The only weapon from the War of Power we have specific reference to is the "shocklance" which I would have as a directed energy weapon that heats up the cuendillar causing massive burns on the other side even though it can't penetrate it. Or maybe microwaves that aren't absorbed by it or something?

The main problem right now is I have no idea what system to use. It would have to somehow be able to handle starting out as characters with no real combat skills along with the varying levels of weapons technology from swords to guns to giant robots with lasers. Also magic.

But I think it could definitely make for an interesting setting, as the characters face the forces of evil on one side and the destruction of their own civilization on the other.

[Ernir]

Giant robots, WoT-style spellweaving and energy weapons, all in one game?

Sounds like a job for GURPS. They say it is good for this kind of thing.

[Forbiddenwar]

I'm mostly using The World of RJ's WOT as a source along with the actual books (and some passages from the old d20 WoT RPG book) and altering some things to be more cool. Mainly, the War of Power itself is supposedly only 10 years long according to TWoRJWoT which I think is decidedly lame.

Instead, I'm thinking of having it last some 500 years (though the true nature of the threat may not be known for the whole of it).

easy, considering time is a wheel and that the war of power then has endless variations for as long as the wheel turns.

[KillianHawkeye]

The problem with running a WoT-based game is that channelers weren't designed to be balanced with non-channelers. In the books, there are very few exceptions to this rule, which makes gameplay with a mixed party of channelers and non-channelers difficult to run.

You might theoretically be able to find a game system that allows for party balance, but then you face the problem of increasing divergence from the source material. Unless you don't view that to be a problem.