Let's Build: One (1) Kick-Ass* Setting

[The Rose Dragon]

Huh. I was gonna start the new poll tonight, but it turns out it's a tie between Low Magic and Rising Magic. Any suggestions on how to break the tie?

((I could cast a vote myself, but it would be unfair so early in development.))

[Sanguine]

Huh. I was gonna start the new poll tonight, but it turns out it's a tie between Low Magic and Rising Magic. Any suggestions on how to break the tie?

((I could cast a vote myself, but it would be unfair so early in development.))

Rock Paper Scissors?

On a more serious note you could put the magic level somewhere between the two.

[DragonOfUndeath]

[roll]1d2[/roll]
1 = Falling
2 = Rising
Why did that not work?

[Mystic Muse]

[roll]1d2[/roll]
1 = Falling
2 = Rising
Why did that not work?

Pretty sure it only works in the PBP forum.

[roll]1d2[/roll]

See?

[Sanguine]

[roll]1d2[/roll]
1 = Falling
2 = Rising
Why did that not work?

Rolling doesn't work on this part of the forum. Also it's Low Magic not Falling that's tied with Rising Magic.

Edit: Frikkin' Ninja pony.

[Admiral Squish]

Idea:

Magic has always been there, and has always been growing, but it's very slow, very stuck in it's traditions. Meanwhile, technology has been rapidly advancing and has far outstripped the usefulness of magic. The main reason for this is while it takes years of training to cast a fireball, it takes 30 seconds to pick up a rocket launcher. Still, magic has it's uses, and when combined with technology, the two harmonize to produce truly spectacular results.

[Fable Wright]

Tie-breaker vote: Rising magic. That work?

[AtlanteanTroll]

Tie-breaker vote: Rising magic. That work?

All hail the great DM of Darkness!

[Lemonus]

Idea:

Magic has always been there, and has always been growing, but it's very slow, very stuck in it's traditions. Meanwhile, technology has been rapidly advancing and has far outstripped the usefulness of magic. The main reason for this is while it takes years of training to cast a fireball, it takes 30 seconds to pick up a rocket launcher. Still, magic has it's uses, and when combined with technology, the two harmonize to produce truly spectacular results.

Personally, I like this idea.

[DragonOfUndeath]

Personally, I like this idea.

Thirding the idea

[Sanguine]

Thirding the idea

I'll fourth it.

[The Rose Dragon]

Tie-breaker vote: Rising magic. That work?

It would, if the voting wasn't over for this round. Though your opinion is appreciated.

Anyway, I will come back to this one to break the tie, but I already wasted too much time, so I'll just start the fifth round, which is about the (supernatural) inhabitants of this campaign setting. There are five options, and I have a clear favorite this time around, so let's see if you can figure it out.

The options are:

1. What a Lovely Imagination You Have: In this option, humans are literally the end-all, be-all of the supernatural world (there might be aliens with magic out there somewhere, but it does not affect the setting proper). There are no werewolves, vampires, demons, angels or anything. There might be highly specialized supernatural traditions that mimic some of them (such as shapeshifters being mistaken for werewolves), but they are only practitioners of magic rather than cursed, blessed or possessed of a unique lineage.

2. Humans Are the Real Monsters: In this option, there are clearly non-human supernatural beings. The exact make-up might differ, but they likely include the traditional set of infernals, celestials, undead and Fair Folk. However, the origins of all these creatures can be traced back to a human sorcerer, whether it is a curse of vampirism lain on a noble family or creating angelic life from scratch. There are no supernatural beings not tied to humanity in some way, no matter how alien the result.

3. Terra Arcana: In this option, when Earth was created, it was created with all the supernatural beings in it. Humans may or may not be the dominant force of the supernatural world, but they are certainly not the only ones who call it home. Some magical beings still might originate from magicians, human or otherwise, but most have simply always been there.

4. The Tide of Twilight: In this option, magic is not native to the world. It might be a recent introduction, or it might have been there since the dawn of creation, but the supernatural is clearly coming from somewhere else. When the tide of twilight rises, it brings with it the magic and the monsters, but it takes away nothing when it recedes, leaving many refugees from beyond, as well as empowering man with talents. Humans are likely the top dogs in the magical world, but if the tide rises once more, this might change quickly.

5. Interreality Immigrant Integration Institute: In this option, there are two worlds connected to each other. One is our sweet ol' modern Earth, while the other is where everything else is coming from. They might be distant from each other, where the other world is a fantastic reality of its own, or they might be very intertwined, where the wrong doorway can take you from one to the other without warning. Either way, the connection between the two brings magic to our Earth, as well as thousands or more "pioneers" from either side settling in the other.

In each case, the specific flavor might change, but the broad strokes will remain the same.

[AtlanteanTroll]

The Tide of Twilight.

Did you see Admiral Squish's idea? I missed it (originally), but it seems really good.

EDIT: The it's been their a while version.

[Vva70]

Terra Arcana, definitely.

[Admiral Squish]

Terra Arcana. I'm tired of 'suddenly: MAGIC!' campaign settings. I want magic to have always been there, to be just another force of nature, not some alien power that was added on to the world.

[The Rose Dragon]

Terra Arcana. I'm tired of 'suddenly: MAGIC!' campaign settings. I want magic to have always been there, to be just another force of nature, not some alien power that was added on to the world.

Well, to be fair, only the latter two are like that. The first three all accept that magic has been there for as long as humanity. They just differ on what the non-humans are like.

[Demons_eye]

Dont know if I can vote as I just now noticed this but mine would go for: Terra Arcana. I really like the idea of Interreality Immigrant Integration Institute but it reminds me too much of a Tales game

[Sanguine]

Terra Arcana get's my vote. Though I like IIII as well.

[bryn0528]

I'll cast my vote to Interreality Immigrant Integration Institute. I like the idea of magic having been there since always/at least for quite some time, yet also being something intrinsically separate from mortal life (which helps to reiterate the Wardens of the Night theme, I think).

Well, to be fair, only the latter two are like that. The first three all accept that magic has been there for as long as humanity. They just differ on what the non-humans are like.

Honestly, I feel like none of them are like that (unless you so choose to make them as that). With the Interreality Immigrant Integration Institute option, the worlds could have been connected since the dawn of time.

[flabort]

Terra Arcana. No doubt.
Supernatural races were always there, even before humanity (In some cases). And humanity was made with the world, not from immigration of any sort.

I like the "Magic was always there, but rapidly rising technology passed it, and then combination is even better" Idea from Admiral squish. If we need to vote on which developed first/faster, or whatever, between tech and magic, I'd vote for this.

[Lemonus]

I'll vote Terra Arcana.

[DragonOfUndeath]

Terra Arcana
We might as well close voting now, almost everyone is voting for this, it's gonna win by a landslide

[Sanguine]

Terra Arcana
We might as well close voting now, almost everyone is voting for this, it's gonna win by a landslide

Ah but in the first round when we were voting for Genre it initially seemed that way with Super Hero and then Modern won the day with almost everyone stating they wanted Urban Fantasy as a subgenre.

[The Rose Dragon]

We might as well close voting now, almost everyone is voting for this, it's gonna win by a landslide

It might, but I'd be extremely cross with you.

((Not that it won't work; I already have several ideas for each of them, subject to extreme modifications in latter rounds, but you are voting for what I think is the most boring and overused option and wasn't even going to be there except for a last minute addition to divide the votes a bit.))

[Sanguine]

Can I change my vote? I'm thinking I like Humans Are the Real Monsters best now. If not I understand and am content with Terra Arcana it is an interesting option in it's own right after all.

[The Rose Dragon]

Can I change my vote? I'm thinking I like Humans Are the Real Monsters best now. If not I understand and am content with Terra Arcana it is an interesting option in it's own right after all.

You can. I'd rather you didn't, but you can. It causes too much bookkeeping problems most of the time, though this is a rather small project, so I can probably live with it.

[Admiral Squish]

It might, but I'd be extremely cross with you.

((Not that it won't work; I already have several ideas for each of them, subject to extreme modifications in latter rounds, but you are voting for what I think is the most boring and overused option and wasn't even going to be there except for a last minute addition to divide the votes a bit.))

It's only boring if you decide to make it boring. Everything's been done before, if you step back far enough.

I'll enumerate my problems with the others.
What a lovely imagination you have: Biggest issue is there's no other beings. I like being able to play around with non-human characters. I think an innate part of fantasy is the presence of non-humans.

Humans are the Real Monsters I could kinda see something like this, but to be honest, if I want an urban fantasy game based around humanity, I'd play WoD.

Tide of Twilight Going back to the first issue, we're dealing with magic as an alien thing. A force that is not native to this world, a corruptive thing, an alien thing. That's how it is in pretty much every setting I've seen. It fosters an Us-VS-Them mentality that I was really hoping to avoid for once.

Interreality Immigrant Integration Institute Another 'magic is alien' option. And again, not a fan. Except now, instead of the supernatural being an outside force with no clear 'face', now we polarize it even further and turn magic into an invasion force.

[Icedaemon]

I do prefer Terra Arcana. That said: While the magical beings evolved and existed alongside humanity, the more human-like ones are of the 'once human' variety. I would also go for more obscure myths, or mythological creatures which might be common in fantasy but not in modern fantasy. In the medium-high-magic setting this appears to be becoming, Will-o-wisps are swamp creatures seen as common pests. Assuming we are using an earth-based map, a unique creature from a region's ancient folklore is now a part of the said region's fauna. If there are playable non-human species, they should be a fair bit different from human - if someone desperately wants to play a dwarf, they might at most play a human with dwarfism and a nice beard. An 'elf' is what a foolish commoner might call a psycho who mutilates his or her ears and uses magic to drain other people to retain their own youth. So, yes. I apparently vote for a mix of Humans are the Real Monsters and Terra Arcana.

In addition: I would really be wary making a modern-like world where anyone can easily use magic. High technology is difficult to come up with, so unless magic is inherently dangerous to use and/or not available to everyone, there would be no real need to develop proper technologies. I realize that your prior posts point out that you have a similar understanding, but I did want to stress this.

Even in a world where magic is not readily available but still prominent enough for wizards to make several magical items, the level of technology would and should be lower than it was on Earth of a similar time period, since problems that needed a technological advancement to solve were solved through magic instead. That the previous round was won by Wardens of the Night would imply to me that this is a world where there is justified friction between groups differentiated by how magical they are, among other reasons.

Idea:

Magic has always been there, and has always been growing, but it's very slow, very stuck in it's traditions. Meanwhile, technology has been rapidly advancing and has far outstripped the usefulness of magic. The main reason for this is while it takes years of training to cast a fireball, it takes 30 seconds to pick up a rocket launcher. Still, magic has it's uses, and when combined with technology, the two harmonize to produce truly spectacular results.

I do like the basis of this idea (save for the magic is growing portion - I feel magical energy should be constant in a closed system, just like all other forms of energy; unless you meant that as in 'understanding of magic has been growing'). However, you are looking at it from the point of view of the user, not the originator.

While picking up a rocket launcher and learning how to use it would be easier than learning how to cast fireball, it is not easy to invent and perfect rockets or for that matter to come up with the concepts and technologies that are needed for rocketry in the first place, especially if one wishes to cause explosions and has the option of buying a wand of fireball or even learning how to cast a spell. The earliest Chinese rockets, as well as the first cannons, were wildly inaccurate and mostly had a psychological effect, which would not matter nearly as much in a world where wizards who can throw fireballs are common. Thus, something would have had to prevent the persons who invented rocketry, who would obviously be intelligent enough to do so, from learning magic, or made inventing rocketry safer or better some other way. Granted, fireballs also needed an archmage to create the spells in the first place, but that only requires one genius. A rocket launcher requires several successive geniuses backed by a good infrastructure.

Basically, I am saying that if magic is not rare but technology has developed alongside it, magic has to have such a huge price, immutable danger or learning curve that most of the brightest people of several, if not nearly all regions consider technology the better choice.

Options that I've come up with:

• Spells are literally powered by a person's soul, meaning that using magic slowly erodes one's willpower and/or personality.
• Spells are powered by souls, but not always the caster's. This is the explanation I prefer since it gives a reason for demons to literally need to feed on souls to power their magical abilities and retain their immortality.
• Spells cause something similar to D&D Taint.
• Spells have a noteworthy failure chance - willpower increases the maximal power of a spell that one cast, while intelligence decreases the failure chance. However, even genius-grade minds can often fail a spell.

Edit: One more notion:
The prime reason I can see for 'suddenly: Magic!' settings is that the creators want to use a world that is very close to our Earth, but still have magical creatures. The world's history would be wildly different if magic actually ever existed and most people really don't want to create a magical world and think of all the implications and differences this leads to as well. If we do go with the 'magic has existed all along' concept, we should probably look into the altered world history (assuming we are using Earth in the first place).

Just off the top of my head: The Basques are currently held as the probable last remnant of pre-Indo-European culture in Western Europe. Would they be so marginalized in a magical world, assuming that their magical prowess was vaster than that of the invaders given that they had time to settle and possibly study?

Don't get me wrong though, on this we agree completely - settings where magic just suddenly came out of nowhere have been done too often. I like working on alternate history anyway.

[Othniel Edden]

Humans Are the Real Monsters

I like this one because though this may be the case its only an origin story. An interesting origin at that, not mythological, but fascinating.

[Thinker]

5. Interreality Immigrant Integration Institute