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I'd like to ask your recomendations on something
8 years ago
So I destroyed a world recently.
Neat that.
I run a tabletop rpg with my friends (and anyone interested *blatant advertisement intensifies OWO*) with a world that I've been working on for years. its own stories, lore, narrative, and peoples abounding on this high-fantasy sapphire in the cosmos. Adventures have been had, legends forged, its all been fun!
But for a while now, I've been feeling absolutely miserable about the game and world. The adventures had gotten convoluted against each other and relations with some folks ended in terrible toxicity. Others have been terribly frustrating to the point where I explod in rage on chats sometimes, and only recently had we actually gone and talked about our issues.
I didn't want to continue in a world choked to the point where I can't play it anymore, so I decided to purge it in a cataclysmic fire.
Of course, my players decided to save the world, sometimes complaining to me about how THEY were miserable about the affair (it didn't help that I timed it around Christmas) and I caved on some issues (again, because it was Christmas), but the apocalyptic instance for the planet happened regardless.
A spectacular battle of gods and destruction itself closed the Fifth Saga of my game's world.
...
Now comes the busy work of opening the stage on a rebirth! >w< Quite frankly I don't know what to do.
I tried redrawing the maps and pondering stuff, but it all felt too familiar and same-y, and I didn't want to risk a lapse back into bad habits for geographical investment. Characters and Npcs had all been saved moments before the big bang of doom, though I've been thinking of starting the game a bit into the future, like a century before any player characters return to the world or something (they basically got tele'd out into a cosmic sleep while the fireworks happened).
I've got a lot of ideas going through my head, but I want to know what you guys think!
How should I proceed? How do I make sure the fantastical place feels fresh enough to enjoy but not so alien that the players wont feel invested? How did FF14 do it!? XP lol!
but yeah, if you have any experience, stories to share, suggestions, ideas of your own, please do comment them! anything might help, especially since I was kind of planning to open the stage to the Sixth Saga after New Years (no rush though, its a loose planning atm)
How do I avoid convolution and how do I work out bad habits from players? I'd rather not dump them from the game since they are friends and all XP again, feel free to comment
Much Love guys!
~Frosty
Neat that.
I run a tabletop rpg with my friends (and anyone interested *blatant advertisement intensifies OWO*) with a world that I've been working on for years. its own stories, lore, narrative, and peoples abounding on this high-fantasy sapphire in the cosmos. Adventures have been had, legends forged, its all been fun!
But for a while now, I've been feeling absolutely miserable about the game and world. The adventures had gotten convoluted against each other and relations with some folks ended in terrible toxicity. Others have been terribly frustrating to the point where I explod in rage on chats sometimes, and only recently had we actually gone and talked about our issues.
I didn't want to continue in a world choked to the point where I can't play it anymore, so I decided to purge it in a cataclysmic fire.
Of course, my players decided to save the world, sometimes complaining to me about how THEY were miserable about the affair (it didn't help that I timed it around Christmas) and I caved on some issues (again, because it was Christmas), but the apocalyptic instance for the planet happened regardless.
A spectacular battle of gods and destruction itself closed the Fifth Saga of my game's world.
...
Now comes the busy work of opening the stage on a rebirth! >w< Quite frankly I don't know what to do.
I tried redrawing the maps and pondering stuff, but it all felt too familiar and same-y, and I didn't want to risk a lapse back into bad habits for geographical investment. Characters and Npcs had all been saved moments before the big bang of doom, though I've been thinking of starting the game a bit into the future, like a century before any player characters return to the world or something (they basically got tele'd out into a cosmic sleep while the fireworks happened).
I've got a lot of ideas going through my head, but I want to know what you guys think!
How should I proceed? How do I make sure the fantastical place feels fresh enough to enjoy but not so alien that the players wont feel invested? How did FF14 do it!? XP lol!
but yeah, if you have any experience, stories to share, suggestions, ideas of your own, please do comment them! anything might help, especially since I was kind of planning to open the stage to the Sixth Saga after New Years (no rush though, its a loose planning atm)
How do I avoid convolution and how do I work out bad habits from players? I'd rather not dump them from the game since they are friends and all XP again, feel free to comment
Much Love guys!
~Frosty
* As one example, I'm thinking of the medieval Eastern Roman Empire or even China compared with Western Europe during that time.
** As happened with Berlin iRL... or Texarkana in the pretty-far-future Canticle for Leibowitz story.
Reading over what you have written, it seems that it isn't the world itself but the toxicity, the drama, the character interaction that has become a problem for you. Which means that if you drag n drop all the same people, with the same relationships, into a new world, it's just going to be the same issue with a new backdrop. You need a more fundamental change.
Maybe something happened with the people-save function, and the people/cultures/races/etc all got hopelessly jumbled and scattered across the new and unknown world. This prevents the same old polities from just starting fresh wherever they got dropped. Make sure that no one's army got too big a chunk in the same area. This does several things which would be a refreshing change from your previous world:
* Racial-based nations would be almost impossible to found, because the individuals of those races are scattered all over the place. This may mean the extinction of some of the more xenophobic races, depending on how they handle things.
* In some places, you have a true mixed-race homogeneous culture. In others, they segregate as best they can (i.e. the 'orc district', the 'goblin ghettos', 'the elven sector'). While this can put an end to racial-based hatred, it could also spark it because each minority is individually scared for their personal survival. And there IS no clear majority (other than maybe Humans if there was just so dang many of them that it would be impossible to not have more humans than anyone else in any given area).
* A hostile territory could cause the immediate founding of city-state like polities. Basically 'I don't care if we're supposed to hate each other, if we don't get some walls up to protect each other, we're all dead' sort of attittude. You could even explore the 'benevolent tyrant' archetype here. Someone who is NOT good or even particularly lawful, but IS a strong leader who, while harsh, also delivers his version of 'law' even-handedly. Someone who might eventually evolve into a BBEG if he goes power-hungry, or someone who is seen as some kind of hero if he just keeps people safe in his region for it to flourish. Large nations would take a long time to develop because the land itself is hostile to pacification. You'd see a progression much like Greece. You'd start off with large city-states like Athens or Troy, then you'd see trade routes being discovered between them (merchants would have to be a special kind of crazy to establish, but would also have a chance at crazy amounts of wealth, and *NOT* someone you screw with), then slowly you'd see political ties between the city-states, then finally a nation as they 'merge'. This is a long-term generations trend, not something that happens overnight.