Wheel of Time

[Rucket]

Let's have a chat about the Wheel of Time.

It's one of my favorite fantasy series out there, and I kind of want to see a MU of it at some point, especially with the Amazon series in the works. I know there were a couple of threads last year, but they haven't been posted in in quite some time and well, I'm kind of starting at a blank slate here.

I have some key ideas of what I would want to do:

1. Center the base grid in Tar Valon. Let's be honest, it's the center of the world, and since you'll have people wanting to play Aes Sedai and Warders, it makes perfect sense to center a game here and then have rooms dedicated for adventures here and there.

2. I want to use Ares and FS3 because I'm not a huge fan of any of the RPG systems that were made for the IP, so I'll need to think up some ways of figuring things out. I miss quirks from the older system, but maybe that can be added in some how? Worth looking into. Anyway, I view Saidin and Saidar as attributes with Earth, Fire, Air, Water and Spirit as skills. Maybe that's too simplistic? I don't know, but it feels like simplicity would be better, less for folks to learn?

3. Time-frame wise, would probably be best to center it towards the books, but take out feature characters. Give PCs a time to shine as this is 'their time around the wheel', so to speak. Also the kingdoms of 'Randland' have far more details written about them with culture and stuff, so it'd be easier for people new to things to get a sense for how people from Illian or Arad Doman are compared to realms during Hawkwing's time, for example.

Anyway, that's where I'm starting from. Sorry if some of this sounds like a bit of rambling, but I was doing some thinking as I was typing! Now to open up things for advice and other discussion and all that.

[Doozer]

I've heard of the Wheel of Time and someone tried to explain the story to me but I've never read the books.

I am a fan of Aresmush and have been tinkering with it's set ups. So I'm useless in everything else but that.

[Runescryer]

I like the idea of removing the 'Main Characters' so that the focus can be on the PC's. However, just playing Devil's Advocate here, that leads to another problem, IMO. If the setting and events of the WoT series are in use, someone has to be the Dragon Reborn to fight off Tarmongaiddon. So, you seem to be trading Super-Special NPC's for a group of Super-Special PC's that all the prophecies revolve around.

Just something to think about and plan around.

[Groth]

@Runescryer said in Wheel of Time:

I like the idea of removing the 'Main Characters' so that the focus can be on the PC's. However, just playing Devil's Advocate here, that leads to another problem, IMO. If the setting and events of the WoT series are in use, someone has to be the Dragon Reborn to fight off Tarmongaiddon. So, you seem to be trading Super-Special NPC's for a group of Super-Special PC's that all the prophecies revolve around.

Just something to think about and plan around.

Depending on what you're looking for in a Wheel of Time game, you could ditch most of the apocalyptic storyline and just keep the setting, an alternative history where Tarmon Gai'don happens 100 years later.

[Raemira]

The beauty of the Wheel of Time theme is that there are alternate worlds / dimensions (via the portals) and that you can create any setting / background / history you want because those worlds each have their own. That means the main characters from the books don't ever have to exist, and you can plop things down in any timeline format you want.

[WildBaboons]

I had had a similar idea but just haven't had time to loop back to it yet (https://musoapbox.net/topic/1771/wheel-of-time-mu-sh-x?page=1). There's lots of good discussion in there if you haven't read it yet.

system wise I am curious to see what Spirit Lake does with their magic system in FS3 as at cursory look it seems like it could be adapted to channeling pretty well.

Setting wise you need to ask yourself what the setting is defined as for you. Book 1 is a different setting than book 3 which is differrnt than book 10. Ariel, SeanchN, Asha'man, dreadlords, power level of channelers, all these are affected by timeline choice.

[Rucket]

@WildBaboons said in Wheel of Time:

I had had a similar idea but just haven't had time to loop back to it yet (https://musoapbox.net/topic/1771/wheel-of-time-mu-sh-x?page=1). There's lots of good discussion in there if you haven't read it yet.

system wise I am curious to see what Spirit Lake does with their magic system in FS3 as at cursory look it seems like it could be adapted to channeling pretty well.

Setting wise you need to ask yourself what the setting is defined as for you. Book 1 is a different setting than book 3 which is differrnt than book 10. Ariel, SeanchN, Asha'man, dreadlords, power level of channelers, all these are affected by timeline choice.

Yeah, I skimmed that thread and was taking some notes of some of the discussion already.

Spirit Lake does have some interesting stuff going on with it's magic system, but I guess I'm kind of stuck on -- is having a more simplified system better where someone can roll Saidar + Fire to make a primarily fire-based weave, or would actually writing out specific weaves be better. I think the first one can be better for people not so familiar with the setting, while the second adds a bit more for character options?

[WildBaboons]

Yeah, that's a design choice but "known weaves" like fireball, firebar, rolling rings, healing, shielding, etc are pretty much a direct sub in for "known spells"

[krmbm]

@Rucket said in Wheel of Time:

3. Time-frame wise, would probably be best to center it towards the books, but take out feature characters. Give PCs a time to shine as this is 'their time around the wheel', so to speak.

This has always been my preference for WoT settings. AU, so the world remains familiar and easy to play, but the heroes from the books aren't around.

The only hard part of not setting it after the books is how you allow for male channelers.

[Auspice]

@krmbm said in Wheel of Time:

@Rucket said in Wheel of Time:

3. Time-frame wise, would probably be best to center it towards the books, but take out feature characters. Give PCs a time to shine as this is 'their time around the wheel', so to speak.

This has always been my preference for WoT settings. AU, so the world remains familiar and easy to play, but the heroes from the books aren't around.

The only hard part of not setting it after the books is how you allow for male channelers.

This would likely be where an AU (as referenced above) comes in.

[Sunny]

I'd be interested. I didn't get into the setting until after people stopped making mushes, but I played the tabletop game tabletop for years and years and loved it.

[gryphter]

I would love to see a Wheel of Time game of any stripe running on an Evennia engine, personally. I might even consider throwing real money at such a thing to see it happen.

[Packrat]

I suspect that there will be a surge of interest once the TV series becomes a thing in a year or two, which might be a good time to launch such a game and ensure it gets a sustainable player base.

My only actual experience with a WoT MUSH though was one that I forget the name of many years ago where I let staff persuade me to play the Taraboner crown prince who was in disguise as a knight errant/minor noble and was searching for a bride in foreign courts. Which was a cool concept but not a good choice when I had minimal interest in being swarmed by waifish noblewoman competing to be the shortest and most in need of a courteously rapacious knight.

[Rucket]

@gryphter said in Wheel of Time:

I would love to see a Wheel of Time game of any stripe running on an Evennia engine, personally. I might even consider throwing real money at such a thing to see it happen.

I played around with an Evennia install at one point, and while I can totally understand why you would, I guess I would really need to take a good bit of time to learn stuff before even attempting such a thing, haha.

[WildBaboons]

What Rucket said. from ease of install, use and modification Ares really is awesome. There are some quirks in not a fan of but unless someone has a lot of time on their hands Ares would be the way to go even if you make your own stat/combat system

[krmbm]

Yeah, Ares is knocking it out of the park on Spirit Lake, with the ability to portal-RP and read forums, mail, etc. The quality-of-life improvements are coming pretty quickly, too.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@tat has done a really bangin' job making FS3 usable for a magic game, which I didn't think was possible a year ago. I suspect some of what SL is doing would translate all right to WoT.

[Sparks]

@gryphter said in Wheel of Time:

I would love to see a Wheel of Time game of any stripe running on an Evennia engine, personally. I might even consider throwing real money at such a thing to see it happen.

The thing is, Ares is a complete game in a box. You may need to modify a few things, but it has forums and bboards and everything already written, so unless you have something you really want to change (like adding magic to FS3), mostly you just need to set up theme and pick which dice system you want to use.

Evennia is incredibly powerful, but it's really more a framework to be used to build a game. It's more like MOO or LPMUD in that sense, where you still need a 'core' to actually give you functionality. And there's not really any 'standard' cores for Evennia (though Arx's code has been released freely and could admittedly be used as a core). So if you want to do an Evennia game, you can make it exactly what you want, it will be totally bespoke, but it will be a lot more work.

If you don't have incredibly specific needs, Ares is absolutely the best path to getting a game up and running.

(I admittedly slightly prefer Evennia from a coding standpoint, but that's just because Python is a language I use every day, whereas I touch Ruby maybe once a year.)

[faraday]

@Sparks That's the same general advice I give folks considering Ares vs. Evennia. If you like the way Ares does things and just want to tweak/extend it, it's a good choice. If you hate what comes out of the box and want to do something very different - use Evennia. Evennia is a perfectly good codebase; it just has different ambitions: MU*-building toolkit vs. MUSH-in-a-box.

[Tat]

@Rucket For what it's worth, Spirit Lake's code is all viewable on git and I have no issue with anyone snatching what they want (with credit), if it works for you. Though fair warning, the magic code I've done has its sticky fingers all over FS3 plugins and some other core plugins and at this point I couldn't even tell you what they all are.

That said, one of the reason Spirit Lake's magic works on FS3 as well as (I think) it does is because we wrote the world and the magic to fit how FS3 does and does not work. There ARE some things that just aren't easily accomplished, so that's a thing to keep in mind.

Anyway, I'm happy to answer questions if you get to a point where you have any.