Author Topic: Seeking Input on the Tone of the Campaign World  (Read 1178 times)

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InnaBinder

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Seeking Input on the Tone of the Campaign World
« on: August 17, 2011, 03:40:27 PM »
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I'd like to get some thoughts from the Hivemind on how this setting's history might shape the worldview of the inhabitants, and how that worldview might, in turn, influence the tone of the campaign.  In particular, I'm looking for thoughts on how natives to this setting would view outsiders, and practitioners of magic (including psionics/incarnum/vestiges).  My players' characters are from "somewhere else," so the worldview of the inhabitants need not even remotely resemble their own.

History:
[spoiler]For over a hundred generations as the humans reckon time, the Very Old fang dragon Maallaakkuuhhn and his forbears held dominion over the other sentient races.  Tribute and sacrifices were regularly demanded and provided, and draconic progeny could be found throughout the land.  So long, and so absolute, was their reign that they grew complacent, and careless.  A silverbrow human diviner, Illakern, used his magic to discover that Maallaakkuuhhn prepared his defenses at the same time each day, and that he was considerably more vulnerable than usual during that time.  With the help of several others whose self-sacrifice was the distraction he needed, Illakern infiltrated Maallakkuuhhn's lair and struck him down.  He was hailed as a hero and made sovereign over all the known world.

For his first act, he opened up an entire island off the coast, and invited all half-elves and half-orcs [both of which breed true] and shifters - the bastard races - to make a new kingdom there, selling the idea to them as a chance to be free of prejudice, while telling the other races that they could be rid of the nuisances.  The offer was accepted, and now those races are only found on the island, save for envoys, traders, renegades and diplomats.  While the [dragonblood] races were mostly unaffected, half-dragons and those of more 'monstrous' appearance became anathema, hunted and forced into slave labor, unwelcome even among the other half-breeds.

Illakern never forgot the lessons of preparation and vigilance that he took from the defeat of Maallaakkuuhhn, and drilled those lessons into his progeny.  Each succeeding Illakern generation became a more skilled and more paranoid Diviner, until there were whispers that the family had contracted the Questing madness that afflicts some dragons.  Still, their power is as absolute as any the dragons ever held. . . .[/spoiler]
« Last Edit: August 17, 2011, 05:23:59 PM by InnaBinder »
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WarlockLord

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Re: Seeking Input on the Tone of the Campaign World
« Reply #1 on: August 17, 2011, 07:43:22 PM »
Looks pretty grimdark to me. 

If I were doing this, I'd have the ruling diviner class simply eliminate any other magic users out of paranoia.

Nachofan99

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Re: Seeking Input on the Tone of the Campaign World
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2011, 03:40:57 PM »
I see it as a Big Brother/Dystopia.  Complete with "Thought Police" and "Time Police".  It's probably not *at all* what you were thinking, but, why not have the party attacked for things they "will(might) do in the future".

Or have them get rounded up as "Future Criminals" or "Future Rebels".  Another possibility is that the party is somehow immune or highly resistant to divination spells/effects, but those around them (friends/family) are not.

Another neat spin on it would be a little bit more "Minority Report".  Say that the world is a "Utopia" and NO crimes are committed.  However, people are REGULARLY arrested, tried and executed for "Future Offense".  Over time, it has become less and less probable that these actual time streams would ever come to pass, and some of the authorities have simply been abusing their powers, while others have gradly gone further and further insane or unable to divine accurately.

Grim, sure, but also interesting.

PhaedrusXY

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Re: Seeking Input on the Tone of the Campaign World
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2011, 04:04:46 PM »
Check out Phillip K. Dick's story "The Variable Man". It's available for free as an audiobook download from librivox. It's short, and could give you some further ideas.

It is a sci-fi story, but the premise is that the goverments of the world have such powerful predictive computers that wars are almost never actually fought anymore, and new superweapons are never actually built, because by the time one group comes up with an idea for anew  strategy or superweapon, the other group will have predicted that development, and came up with their own (theoretical) countermeasures, which makes the actual development/deployment of the 1st groups strategy/weapon pointless.

Enter the "variable man". The premise of the story on this point is kind of weak, but "The Variable Man" is a guy who accidently gets brought into the "present/future" from the "past" in an experiment. Somehow, this makes him inherently more unpredictable than the normal residents of the present/future, and throws off everyone's prediction computers, throwing the world into a panic, and everyone scrambling to use this guy as a weapon, basically.

Needless to say, this kind of plot would work a lot better in a D&D campaign world like yours, rather than the futuristic setting of Dick's story, as the idea of an unpredictable "outsider" could be a lot more plausible.


I like the idea, but I think I'd have a hard time running a campaign like this, if the ruling faction's power is so absolute, and the populace so trusting of them (see Minority Report). If the PCs wind up going against them, they'll be facing insurmountable odds with no safe havens or allies to turn to...
« Last Edit: August 18, 2011, 04:06:19 PM by PhaedrusXY »
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

rot42

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Re: Seeking Input on the Tone of the Campaign World
« Reply #4 on: August 18, 2011, 05:41:14 PM »
Check out Phillip K. Dick's story "The Variable Man". It's available for free as an audiobook download from librivox. It's short, and could give you some further ideas.

Thank you for the link - I love Dick.

Expanding on a character who makes divinations go all wonky, you could design the campaign world such that everyone on the continent is a blood descendant of Maallaakkuuhhn, and the government's divinations use that connection. 100 generations, especially with a dedicated breeding project, is plenty of time - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor. That could give the ruling class another reason to exile all those other people to the island, where they keep tabs on them (as much as they care to) via a powerful artifact with a limited range. The sea lanes are constantly monitored, and any islanders with a compelling reason to visit the mainland must submit a scrying focus when they are issued their traveling papers.

If you have read the later Dune books, Herbert has an interesting premise that the future is mutable to those who can foresee it. This gives any diviner a strong incentive to avoid spreading the knowledge; fewer hands on the steering wheel, as it were.

Going back to the original post, you describe a world steeped in magic (in my experience, low-magic is not an area where D&D excels anyway), though paranoid rulers tend to dislike powerful people unless they can co-opt them. I would go with a stagnant society with a heavy bureaucracy. Think classical China: heavy social pressure to maintain the status quo, the best and brightest compete for the privilege to join the system (at least, I am not aware of any Robin Hood type folk heroes; for game purposes it makes enough sense), and sharply delineated classes. Have the mainlanders casually collude in vastly overcharging any strangers and diligently curry favor with the government by reporting any unlicensed magic users ... unless the players make a better offer. Give the players a Bluff check whenever they are observed using psionics/incarnum/whatever to have the observer interpret the effect as merely weird but mundane. Venal officials can both provide plot hooks and help steer the players back on track.

Outright rebellion would be a complicated affair indeed. The ruling elite diviners will likely be powerful enough to overcome direct defenses, but a side effect of concentrating power is that it limits the number of eyes available to watch the scrying pools. They should diffuse responsibility so asking a Contact Other Plane returns either a hazy answer (every snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty) or points them to some innocent citizen who had the misfortune to accidentally pull the linchpin.

InnaBinder

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Re: Seeking Input on the Tone of the Campaign World
« Reply #5 on: August 18, 2011, 11:32:09 PM »
Thanks very much for the input so far and the additional materials from which to draw, guys.

EDIT:  The metaplot, including things I'm stealing borrowing from above, or that mirrored where the metaplot was already headed:

  • The fact that the PCs are from "somewhere else" - another Material Plane - was already going to give the Diviner trouble in tracking them; I like the idea of all the other folks having a touch of the dragon's blood as the reason.
  • This means the PCs can't be scryed directly, but that leaving a swath of destruction in their wake will, ultimately, make them track-able.
  • They've been tasked by the god that tossed them there with "ending the Diviner's reign of terror," with knowledge of the above abilities and constraints
« Last Edit: August 21, 2011, 11:18:37 AM by InnaBinder »
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