Wheel of Time
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I also like the setting that @Three-Eyed-Crow suggested, with an NPC Dragon Reborn and no canon characters. I would, however, change that to keep the rulers the same, so that nations respond to PC actions in ways that players can expect/understand easily enough. So you have Morgase, and you might even have Elayne, but she's going to be off-screen, doing Novice stuff, not out adventuring with PCs. You don't have Mat or Perrin, and if you have Rand, he's off-screen (although an "unknown" NPC Dragon Reborn might be even more fun) doing Dragon Reborn stuff, and once he's all super-powerful, he can be used to course-correct by Staff, but otherwise stays out of PC-doings.
This is generally my preference for -any- setting that involves canon characters: make them background, use them to make the world react in predictable-ish ways, and use them as quest-givers/course-correctors, but don't every have them just sitting down for a drink with a PC or group of PCs.
Also, I like during-books or just before-books because it's a more familiar setting to everyone. An interesting twist on this might be during the Aiel War, or during the Dark Purges that followed in the White Tower.
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Yes, I am very much pro-around the books time. As both @Three-Eyed-Crow and @Seraphim73 noted, it's far more familiar, and there's a LOT more information on the nations, cultures, customs, etc. than if you wanted to base a game on the Trolloc Wars, or during Hawkwing's Time.
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@Seraphim73 said in Wheel of Time:
An interesting twist on this might be during the Aiel War
I was thinking just that. It allows you to center the game around Tar Valon, while all the nations and leaders will be present. You'll even have Aiel, which you don't really see outside this period and the time of the books. Its also close to the time of the books, so not much is different.
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@lordbelh And after the Aiel War is over, you've got the search for the baby Dragon Reborn and the Dark Purges that follow.
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One of the most interesting campaign setting ideas I've run across was an Alternate Timeline where Rand and Nynaeve Burned themselves to death clensing Saidar (and other equally drastic ends occurred to the rest of the canon characters).
Oops...so much for that Dragon Reborn....now what?!?
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I've always liked the idea of a world that picks up where the novels left off. Nobody knows what happens and we'd be free to let our world evolve as we see fit. I think the heavy hitters from the novels need to be present in the world, but not played; they should be busted out, as suggested above, for course correction and background flavor. Maybe Perrin is building Manetheren while Mat is in Seanchan with Tuon, etc. Rand is just... out there somewhere, wandering, doing Things.
It would be a lively world inclusive of all the things and details we read about. I like the idea of a setting focused in Tar Valon, perhaps a short while after the end of Memory of Light -- this would give us the opportunity to have some sense of stability return to the world. I imagine we could play out the integration of the Black and White towers. Again, Logain and Egwene should be carefully-handled NPCs.
Bonding raises an important and sensitive issue, whether we're talking Aes Sedai to Warder or Asha'man to Aes Sedai, and it's a place where some careful thinking and rulecrafting needs to happen to prevent abusive situations. High potential obviously exists for the creeps and dweebs of the hobby to really assert control over others in concerning ways, and this is not limited to bonding -- there's already been mention of binding with air, etc.
With careful handling of epic NPCs and rules to prevent weirdos being weirdos, this could be a rich and satisfying game to play.
Hating haters and their hate since a year that neither rhymes nor alliterates
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@gryphter said in Wheel of Time:
I think the heavy hitters from the novels need to be present in the world, but not played; they should be busted out, as suggested above, for course correction and background flavor.
I'm on the exact opposite side of this fence. I much prefer having the main canon characters not exist at all.
I really like the idea of setting it right at the end of the Aiel War. Maybe spin the ending a little differently so that there was some kind of loose truce (allowing for Aiel to be playable, since people love them for some reason).
What are your thoughts on the power levels, out of curiosity? Are we talking the early books, where Moiraine is considered completely bad-ass because she can make her staff glow? Or later, where people are lobbing fireballs like it's NBD?
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@krmbm It's an interesting question. Both extremes would be fun to play, and the latter would be much more fun to code, I think. However, Moiraine is such a BA at the beginning because she's the only channeler we've encountered. Once we start to meet others, the sense of power really changes -- yes, our principal characters begin to grow stronger, but we're also treated to a view of the world where channeling is increasingly common and the things Moiraine did in the EotW become downright pedestrian in comparison.
So I would argue that the sense of power we have as readers at the beginning is a false, forced perspective. It's not really true to the setting and we have to mostly ignore the movements of larger powers and outside forces. Although the Dark One and his Forsaken are only beginning to stir, there are still many powerful Aes Sedai out there doing things, and we do already have people attempting to fulfill the prophecies and assert themselves as the Dragon Reborn.
I do like the idea of playing out the salient events of the novels in an alternate timeline with new PCs or NPCs emerging as the big players -- your Amyrlin Seat, your Dragons true and false, your ta'varen.
I suppose what it boils down to is I love WoT. If a game exists that isn't a sand box, I will show up, no matter the details. I would love love love to see it in Evennia rather than Ares, though that seems to be a minority view, but I like the Arxcode base for WoT in the way it handles orgs and economies of resource, as well as other things. The higher complexity of the code is a factor, true, but I'm not being coy when I say I would be a contributor financially to seeing this exist. So like, if someone is out there seriously considering a WoT build on Evennia, we should chat. I would back this. I don't know if my wallet feels so freely about an Ares build, just because I've never really felt attracted to the interface and elements that come out of the box. Ease of connection while on a VPN for remote work is a huge factor for me also, and Evennia nails this with its web portal client.
Food for thought, and stuff.
Hating haters and their hate since a year that neither rhymes nor alliterates
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@gryphter said in Wheel of Time:
Once we start to meet others, the sense of power really changes -- yes, our principal characters begin to grow stronger, but we're also treated to a view of the world where channeling is increasingly common and the things Moiraine did in the EotW become downright pedestrian in comparison.
It seems to me that, in the beginning, Moiraine fatigued just from doing her little spells, and Lan was all "THIS IS HARD ON HER YOU DUMB BUMPKINS" when she did whatever it was with her staff at the town meeting and then when she stepped over the fence in that town by the river (I can't remember the details now, and am too lazy to check). Cut to the battle at Tear, and she's torching Trollocs like a boss. Same character, same power levels, just later in the books.
It felt less like readers had gotten more taste of the One Power than Jordan as a writer had gotten more taste of the One Power and wanted to step up his game.
To me, anyway.
Edit to add: I definitely agree that either way is playable - high power or lower. But it needs to be documented what power levels we're really looking at. I prefer the "OP is rare and precious and should be used sparingly" vs. "I use magic for all the things," but I'm down for either.
I suppose what it boils down to is I love WoT. If a game exists that isn't a sand box, I will show up, no matter the details. I would love love love to see it in Evennia rather than Ares, though that seems to be a minority view, but I like the Arxcode base for WoT in the way it handles orgs and economies of resource, as well as other things.
From a player perspective? I disagree. Ares is significantly more end-user friendly. My dislike of Arxcode's excess complexity and difficulty to learn for a new player is pretty well-stated, so I'll just leave it at: I would much rather have a simplified system that's fun and easy to use and has a nice web front-end than a bunch of code that makes me growl and jump through hoops instead of actually RPing.
I like roleplay. I really dislike ticking +boxes.
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I think if you were mindful in the approach, you could balance the way you use these systems so that the people who enjoy those elements as part of a sort of civilization simulator (guilty) can engage them, but those who really want to focus on the granular RP and largely ignore those systems should be empowered to do so without consequence. This would take careful thinking to achieve, but could be done if it was maintained as a focus point through the planning and creation of the game, imho.
Evennia and the Arxcode base can be very flexible. At Ithir for example they made critical changes to the systems; they gutted prestige and social clout and social rank from the code because it didn't work for their setting. Similarly the creators of a WoT game could tweak the elements of the system to streamline it to the intended use, and the removal of unnecessary parts could help to relieve some of the heavy systems lifting in the player experience.
I say all this very blithely as a non-coder, but I know there are some geniuses out there who love to do this stuff and help people get and keep games up, particularly if they can get some compensation for their time and effort.
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@krmbm said in Wheel of Time:
Ares is significantly more end-user friendly. My dislike of Arxcode's excess complexity and difficulty to learn for a new player is pretty well-stated,
I've enjoyed the back and forth you and @gryphter have been having! Interesting things to consider between the two, but I just wanted to highlight this and add: Arx code can and should be used for future fantasy games, if that's what people are looking for, but I feel like the setting needs to fit it. @org leadership and management stuff seems a bit beyond what most people would want out of the Wheel of Time.
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@Rucket I suppose it comes back to what sort of power level people want to play, and in tandem with that, what level of control a character or organization would be able to assert on the world.
There are so many groups and organizations in WoT, from your Andors and Cairhiens to the Tinkers and Illuminators, White Tower, Black Tower, Darkfriends, Black Ajah... the list could go on. The way that Arxcode would empower those groups to feel real and wield real power over the world, as well as compete with and influence one another, feels like a fit to me.
This of course assumes people would want such a thing, where they pick a nation or a group and pursue whatever the goals of that group are. To me it sounds great. We could really organically rewrite the plot based on the actions (@actions?) of the players and orgs of the game. But then, as stated above, I greatly enjoy the feeling of being in a realistic civilization simulator, a thing I realize is not universal.
Hating haters and their hate since a year that neither rhymes nor alliterates
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Remorseless double post because it would also be great to just play a very small slice of the setting, like the Two Rivers for example, and really preserve the feeling of mystery and fear, of being powerless in an increasingly hostile world and lean into how you're going to cope with and react to that.
ETA: You can't really go wrong with WoT, no matter how you spin it.
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@gryphter said in Wheel of Time:
There are so many groups and organizations in WoT, from your Andors and Cairhiens to the Tinkers and Illuminators, White Tower, Black Tower, Darkfriends, Black Ajah... the list could go on. The way that Arxcode would empower those groups to feel real and wield real power over the world, as well as compete with and influence one another, feels like a fit to me.
Yeah, I think if you were going hard into Daes Dae'mar - playing Cairhien maybe? Having a civ-simulator would be yay.
But still.
Fuck @actions.
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@krmbm said in Wheel of Time:
Yeah, I think if you were going hard into Daes Dae'mar - playing Cairhien maybe? Having a civ-simulator would be yay.
Yeah, there's definitely a version of WoT that I think would fit with the domain stuff Arx seems to be building, but none of the fantasy-adventure stuff is married to the code. I like the combat system but I pretty much like anything that automates combat, Ares or Arx or otherwise. It's probably a matter of whether you're more comfortable coding one or the other at this point.
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It really depends on what gane you're wanting to play theme wise and code wise.
If you're wanting late books level channeling with all the fancy weaves and powers that's going to be heavy custom no matter what you go with.
early books/new spring time would probably be good with Spirit Lake type system with little modification.
political Game then Arx may be the way to go.
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@WildBaboons said in Wheel of Time:
political Game then Arx may be the way to go.
Yeah I think you have to look at the sum total of all the coded systems that you intend to make for your game.
Ares comes with a ton of social features out of the box, and a fleshed-out web portal, but it doesn't have much of anything in the way of in-game systems because a) those are highly game-specific and I don't see much point in trying to make a generic econ system, for instance, and b) I hate those type of systems personally so my motivation to make them is nil.
So if you want a lot of in-game immersion/economy/organization/crafting/etc. type code, then an Arx-derivative Evennia platform may well give you a leg up when all's said and done, even if you have to cobble together some of the more MUSH-like features yourself.
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@gryphter said in Wheel of Time:
Ease of connection while on a VPN for remote work is a huge factor for me also, and Evennia nails this with its web portal client.
Separate post, not really related to this - but Ares also offers both a simple portal client similar to Evennia and a way to play entirely through a web page much in the same way that forum software works. I can use that through a VPN and many other folks are able to RP from school/work, so if something in particular isn't working I'd love to know about it.
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Guys have so many options for being 'special' in the Wheel of Time that not being able to make a Channeler character isn't a hardship at all. Everything from Gleeman to Illuminator to Dreamer to Wolfbrother to Warder or Thieftaker, nobles, scholars, rogues and such.
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@Bad-at-Lurking Right, being a channeler is the Real Ultimate Power but the setting also makes it seriously distrusted and potentially dangerous in most areas. Most places seem to have male dominated societies - but ones that are fucking terrified of Aes Sedai coming in like wrecking balls and being something that they just do not have an answer against and must defer to. They do not like it though.
