New Edition: Setting

[Ice9]

It is absolutely imperative that the players have a grasp on how "physics" works in the game.

I've got to disagree with this one, to some extent. While knowing the basic physics (like gravity existing) is important, the presence of a few Incarnum users in a far-off kingdom is more like Quantum Physics. Not everyone knows it, and not everyone has to. Heck, if the characters are level 1, there's a lot of things they might not know.

As for element types, I'd be fine with just calling fire/electric/cold/etc all "Red" damage, or going with Physical/Energy ala HERO. But I don't see why fire would be special - what's so great about fire?

And why are Giant Frogs a power creature for "Rational", aka Blue? I thought the whole "Blue = Water" thing was being ditched.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

But when they are killed one alone they are not reincarnated, for while just one Dryad lives, Parvati lives. And so long as she is alive they are not fully dead. All Dryads once killed go to the land of the dead and await reincarnation. But it is a long wait because it can't proceed until every last Dryad is slain.

And then you have a nature/fey oriented cult that believes that being partially dead and awaiting reincarnation is a horrible thing. So they try to help the Dryads in the land of the dead by shortening their wait for reincarnation. So they decide to genocide the Dryad race.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Much earlier in the thread, there was talk about a 'proportionate number of worlds and alignments.' It made me think of the six Buddhist realms, since that's one per color and one for the 'prime material' made up of all five. I see Frank's already using 'Lokas' as the term for planes of existence, so he's probably way ahead of me, but just to get the names out there...

Naraka: The hell of torment and aggression. Red.
Pretaloka: The hell of desire unfulfilled. Black.
Tiryagyoni: The world of animals and instinct. Green.
Asuraloka: The world of egotism. Blue.
Sumeru: The center of all. Mixed.
Tusita: The pleasant places. White.

Obviously this is from a viewpoint where White has won the propaganda war. Presumably all of the realms contain places which are better and worse to be in.

It also occurred to me that since there are supposed to be many different sub-realms of each of these realms, I see Sumeru at the center of a great multitude of worlds, all the rest tilted towards particular colors (or mixes of colors) as they approach the color 'poles.' Since at 20th level you can conquer a world yourself, by 25th level you are firmly established in the World Economy, where the currency, appropriately enough, is whole worlds.

[Cielingcat]

If we want to go with the Magic feel more, you could become a Planeswalker at level 20 and no longer care about worlds in general unless you had some reason to be there.

[RandomCasualty]

1198982569[/unixtime]]If we want to go with the Magic feel more, you could become a Planeswalker at level 20 and no longer care about worlds in general unless you had some reason to be there.

I never bought into the idea that high level characters just fade away to never never land out in the planes. You're going to have some epic characters who just decide they'd rather reign on the prime than serve out in the planes. All your friends are on the prime and you're worshiped like a god.

I just don't see why you'd decide to head out to the planes. I guess some wanderers might, but if you're the classic hero, you help your own people, even if it's just minor stuff, rather than going off to find glory in some far off land nobody has even heard of.

This isn't a MMORPG where people just go to the next zone because they're looking to level. Not everybody even cares about just going and acquiring levels. Most sane heroes are going to hear that there's a bunch of demons in hell and just say "Great. let them stay there." There's rarely anyone worth saving down there anyway.

Personally I think things should *always* stay prime focused. The whole planeswalker thing never made any sense to me. It really only works for the treasure hunter/knowledge seeker archetype. Real heroes have zero reason to just randomly go to the planes. They'll stay back and defend their homeland.

[Koumei]

Here are some reasons to go to Hell. Er, to literally travel there.

1. Devils have kidnapped your girlfriend! Are you a bad enough dude to rescue your girlfriend?

2. Devils come out of Hell, to the Prime. They then cause trouble. What if there was a way to stop them from being able to? Whether it's "kill all of them" or "find a way to close off the link, so that anyone in Hell has to travel through Acheron, Mechanus, three other places, then Neutral Good Land, just to go to the Prime. All the while getting slapped about by other Outsiders.

[Username17]

1198982179[/unixtime]]Naraka: The hell of torment and aggression. Red.
Pretaloka: The hell of desire unfulfilled. Black.
Tiryagyoni: The world of animals and instinct. Green.
Asuraloka: The world of egotism. Blue.
Sumeru: The center of all. Mixed.
Tusita: The pleasant places. White.

Obviously this is from a viewpoint where White has won the propaganda war. Presumably all of the realms contain places which are better and worse to be in.

First off, there are a bunch of different versions of the six worlds. I was going to use Asuraloka as the world of the jealous titans (the Asura), who would be Red. That would put Naraka as Black (since it's where you are reborn if you suck), and Pretaloka (where there is no food) as Blue. Pretaloka would be mostly underground, extending down to Patala, and there woldn't be anything to eat there.

I was thinking not only that some of the places should be nice or awful in each of the worlds, but that sections of these other worlds should be continuous with sections of the human world. The City of Brass is part of Pretaloka because people there only eat wind and fire, but it's also seriously in the mountains of the human world and you can go there and talk to them.

So deep in the woods you are just in Tiryagyoni. It's a separate world and everything, but there are ways to physically walk there. I think that it should also be literally a separate world in that if you don't go back the right way you get to completely different geography, but there should definitely be ways in and out on foot.

-Username17

[Crissa]

�gThe way I heard it, the founders felt that being forced to kill random monsters would somehow give the students a valuable experience�c you know, help us build character?�h She gave a little laugh. �gHow getting into fights is supposed to make somebody a better sorcerer or bard is beyond me�c but, you know, it makes more sense than some of the old policies they cling to.�h

[Username17]

Anyways. Magic Weapons. The game needs to determine what system it is using for magic weapons up front and in your face, because you can't really combine systems.

Iconic Weapons
"By the power of Grayskull!"
Some story heroes have weapons associated with them. Charlemagne, He-Man, King Arthur - you know which weapons they take into battle. And that's cool actually. And I can easily imagine a game system where indeed weapons were very rare and possibly bonded to individual people.
Advantages: Character differentiation and branding.

The Golf Bag
"Wait a minute, why a blessed crossbow bolt?"
Characters in the Buffyverse go to weapon racks and pick weapons appropriate for occassions. The original Hawkman did that too. And it is very easy to imagine a system in which special weapons were common and you swapped them around situationally.
Advantages: Gotta catch em all. Variety.

The Prize in the Game
"Now that I have the Sword, you are all doomed!
In Saberhagen's Sword novels there are in fact 12 magic swords. In the whole world. You search for them, you fight for them, and whoever has one or more of them has a huge advantage. This is how it works in a lot of stories, and it is easy to imagine a system where things work this way.
Advantages: Goal oriented, magic items are optional to the game.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1200169393[/unixtime]]Anyways. Magic Weapons. The game needs to determine what system it is using for magic weapons up front and in your face, because you can't really combine systems.

I don't know, i think you almost have to be able to support all three of them, because they're all iconic to fantasy stories.

And there's a bit of overlap too. Excaliber can be both a prize and an iconic weapon, it just depends on where the story starts. If it begins with Arthur's quest to acquire Excaliber, then it's a prize. If it begins with Arthur simply carrying the weapon, then it's an iconic weapon.

If anything, I think we could incorporate them all via a system of magic item points you can use that determine how many magic items you can carry for your given adventure. You may spend all your points on a single badass iconic weapon, or you may choose to alternate them wtih stuff you've got in your bat cave. Even in situations like Buffy, where they store various weapons and occasionally bring them out when needed, you don't see Buffy running around with a big backpack full of weapons. You can only use a set amount of things at a time, and I think we should stick with that. So even if you are playing "collect em all" you can't use em all on the same adventure.

As for iconic weapons, I think it'd be cool if the weapons grew based upon the stuff you did. That's how it seems to work in myths, where if you use a sword for something like killing dragons, the sword becomes known as a dragonslayer sword, and stuff like that.

[the_taken]

Players don't get XP, but weapons do? I was agreeing up 'till that point.

[Crissa]

Iconic weapons merely need a way to get around the 'special weapon' rules, or at least delay it.

I think the 'twelve swords' campaign world is doable - just make sure that the iconic sword is a character class - like Fighter, but he happens to have (or can have) one of the Hackmasters. If the bonuses are inherent in the classes, then it doesn't matter if there are twelve swords you'll never see in the game.

That's it; bonuses need to based upon the class not upon the weapon. Even if it is excalabur, that just means Podrick can't break it, not that he can pull it out of the stone.

-Crissa

[angelfromanotherpin]

I favor a combination of Iconic Weapons and the Golf Bag; that is, magic weapons are a class feature, but you can swap them out between adventures. Maybe you need to justify having the new weapon (by beating a guy with a flaming sword in a previous adventure), maybe you don't (by beating a guy with a flaming sword in a previous untold adventure).

That way, even if Sivapirabu usually wields a mace with a piece of Verethragna in it, but wants to change up a bit, he can leave it at home and bring a sword with a piece of Agni in it instead.

I think the flavor for why Sivapirabu doesn't just carry both should be relationship-based. When you kick a guy with a flaming sword to death, you have to spend some quality time reassuring his weapon that you'll respect it. Later on, you can't let one of the weapons see you with the other one, or they'll sulk.

Of course, at a high enough level, the 'magic weapon' class feature should let you carry two or more at once, 'cause you're pimp.

[RandomCasualty]

1200175189[/unixtime]]Players don't get XP, but weapons do? I was agreeing up 'till that point.

It's not XP points, it's more like bonding points or something, where you can only have a set number of weapons bonded to you at one time. That point total doesn't change. So it means you can always choose a similar loadout, or you can go to your batcave and choose different stuff.

I figure iconic weapons would be cheaper point wise, but have the drawback that they permanently absorb your points. So if you're Arthur, you must bring Excalibur along all the time. You lose a bit of versatility that way, since you can't just go back to the batcave and swap out Excalibur for a better weapon, but Excalibur is generally a better weapon for its point value.

[the_taken]

Well that's different. But the way you described it made me think that continuously hitting dragons with one sword would give that sword the dragonslayer property. Removing XP leveling for players, but using genocide to make individual weapon more awesome at genocide.

[Username17]

Of course, at a high enough level, the 'magic weapon' class feature should let you carry two or more at once, 'cause you're pimp.

Agni has three arms because he carries three things. I just want to put that out there.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1200214594[/unixtime]]Well that's different. But the way you described it made me think that continuously hitting dragons with one sword would give that sword the dragonslayer property. Removing XP leveling for players, but using genocide to make individual weapon more awesome at genocide.

Oh, as far as gaining new properties on weapons, i was thinking something like if you kill a really important dragon, your sword gets some extra ability that now makes it a dragon slayer weapon.

It's a common thing in mythology where a weapon tends to acquire properties based off stuff it's done. So because a warrior used a special sword to kill a dragon, it suddenly becomes known for being good at killing dragons.

Mechanically, it's just handled like a piece of intangible treasure, only it's not a physical treasure, but an item enhancement treasure. It's like handing out a weapon augment crystal, only it's just some magical essence that binds with your weapon instead of a true crystal.

[Koumei]

I just realised something. We don't have planes any more, do we? Now I can't use the pun-based scenario I was dying to utilise.

I like my puns. I ran a con game that was basically "Romeo and Juliet" + "Taming of the Shrew", with mind flayers. I called it "An Illithid Affair". Say it out loud and imagine you have a lisp and you'll see why it's funny.

This other idea involved Yuan-ti. Essentially, the Yuan-ti take over an entire plane of their own, and use that to Astrally Project to other planes to attack people they don't like.

I was going to call it Snakes on a Plane.

[Username17]

There are sort of planes, they are just co-terminous in locations with our world.

Patala is a region of Pretaloka which is full of Naga (who are the source material for Yuan Ti), and it's another plane of existence. There just happen to be regions of Sumeru which are also in Pretaloka.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Oh, excellent, so we can still have Snakes on a Plane. I'm sold.

[JonSetanta]

My vote for The Snake Plane is in.

[virgil]

Considering the setting posited, the Prize doesn't sound like it would fit.

It would seem that you can easily mix iconic weapons with the golf bag. Some people have their single weapon, and others have shark repellant in their belt. This would require 'attunement' to be significant, and I don't know if the power-vs-versatility ratio can be balanced properly; unless attunement mechanics are unneccesary to have the two work together.

If the combination of those two is not viable, then I would have to err toward the side of The Golf Bag, especially since upgrading your weapon is going to make it look like something else anyway.

[virgil]

As stated by Frank, there's a problem of glut when it comes to variations on extradimensional spaces. The basic concept is fine, and any particular incarnation is fine; but having every permutation available is right on up there with slowly degrading the setting because there's no such thing as consistency.

Considering the nature of the setting for TNE, a variation of D&D with Hindu as the basis, choosing something that coincides with those myths would be ideal. Unfortunately, I'm not versed in Hindu myth to know how they handle such things. I could see something semi-mythical about it if we do a gestalt of demi-space/mansion-space; where you can walk a flat path in a field and end up at a small house on a mountain top that doesn't exist on any map.

Also, do we want to have the major aspect of Hindu mythology where anyone can ask for a boon/benediction from the gods so long as they perform penance, assuming we let it be sane in implementation? Hiranyakashipu is probably the most obvious examples of what could be done with it, having his 'one' wish be

O my lord, O best of the givers of benediction, if you will kindly grant me the benediction I desire, please let me not meet death from any of the living entities created by you. Grant me that I not die within any residence or outside any residence, during the daytime or at night, nor on the ground or in the sky. Grant me that my death not be brought by any being other than those created by you, nor by any weapon, nor by any human being or animal. Grant me that I not meet death from any entity, living or nonliving. Grant me, further, that I not be killed by any demigod or demon or by any great snake from the lower planets. Since no one can kill you in the battlefield, you have no competitor. Therefore, grant me the benediction that I too may have no rival. Give me sole lordship over all the living entities and presiding deities, and give me all the glories obtained by that position. Furthermore, give me all the mystic powers attained by long austerities and the practice of yoga, for these cannot be lost at any time.

[Cynic]

As stated by Frank, there's a problem of glut when it comes to variations on extradimensional spaces. The basic concept is fine, and any particular incarnation is fine; but having every permutation available is right on up there with slowly degrading the setting because there's no such thing as consistency.

Considering the nature of the setting for TNE, a variation of D&D with Hindu as the basis, choosing something that coincides with those myths would be ideal. Unfortunately, I'm not versed in Hindu myth to know how they handle such things. I could see something semi-mythical about it if we do a gestalt of demi-space/mansion-space; where you can walk a flat path in a field and end up at a small house on a mountain top that doesn't exist on any map.

Also, do we want to have the major aspect of Hindu mythology where anyone can ask for a boon/benediction from the gods so long as they perform penance, assuming we let it be sane in implementation? Hiranyakashipu is probably the most obvious examples of what could be done with it, having his 'one' wish be

O my lord, O best of the givers of benediction, if you will kindly grant me the benediction I desire, please let me not meet death from any of the living entities created by you. Grant me that I not die within any residence or outside any residence, during the daytime or at night, nor on the ground or in the sky. Grant me that my death not be brought by any being other than those created by you, nor by any weapon, nor by any human being or animal. Grant me that I not meet death from any entity, living or nonliving. Grant me, further, that I not be killed by any demigod or demon or by any great snake from the lower planets. Since no one can kill you in the battlefield, you have no competitor. Therefore, grant me the benediction that I too may have no rival. Give me sole lordship over all the living entities and presiding deities, and give me all the glories obtained by that position. Furthermore, give me all the mystic powers attained by long austerities and the practice of yoga, for these cannot be lost at any time.

You know the penance thing is really construed as something that's easy to do.

This is something that takes many thousands upon years to accomplish.

SInce the hindu mythos is measured in Brahma years (100 brahma years is roughly 305 trillion human years or so me thinks, can't remember my brahmin training, I've been a bad hindu) and thus these sort of penances are rather out of the reach of most PC characters.

the Hiranyakashapu wish or the Ravana wish or the any of the other *insert Hindu Demon lord* wishes are all really what would be rather appropriate as TNE EPIC.

[Username17]

Such things are essentially flavor text for why a particular Rakshasa happens to be an ass kicking 17th level dude who shoots blue fire out of his many hands, rather than an in-game mechanic that players will use.

It's one of the many routes to level gain that PCs won't usually bother with.

-Username17