The Second Apocalypse
Earwa => General Earwa => Topic started by: What Came Before on June 04, 2013, 06:29:11 pm
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Seeing as we have music threads and art, I went ahead with this. Bit of a fuff post, but what the hell.
We've all known for ages now that Mr. Bakker's great work developed out D&D sessions he played with his brother some 20 years ago. And I've wondered since I got hooked into the series: anyone tried reclaiming those roots? I mean, surely there are some tabletop gamers among us with an interest. I know I'm no great philosophical mind, but I love the story, the questions it raises, and the magnificent world-building. I've been pondering building a module for the series using White Wolf's World Darkness (new) mortals and some of the other base supplements (no supernaturals, obviously). I've had a hell of a time modeling sorcery, seeing as it is an 'I win' button in purely man-to-man terms. Still pondering Gnosis and I feel Anagogis will be far easier to model.
So, has anyone ever tried this? Run a tabletop game for it?
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I plan on getting back to D&D later this year, but it'll be awhile before I'm comfortable statting up the Inchie brothers who may be the best use of the aberration subtype in D&D history.
I actually wanted to go back and make a spell system based around Earwa's magic but that, as you point out, is a pretty big undertaking.
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It's madness, really. I've looked at Second Sight and Mage: The Awakening for ideas. It can be done, but I don't know if I'm able enough to get it done properly. So many variables. I may, for the moment, just have it be a set piece sort of thing. It'd certainly keep a cinematic flair for the whole story. I'm pondering running a story based around a core of Scalpoi and seeing where it runs from there. Stating out Aurang and Aurax would be rather crazy. Millennial experience and utter depravity...actually...you could use the Vampire: The Requiem book on ancients for some of that work. Save the sorcery. That may not be terrible.
I would wholly support seeing that pair of freaks as aberrations in D&D. Let me know if you get to that.
But sorcery is the ever slippery conundrum. I still maintain that Anagogis will be the easiest to model. The mechanics wouldn't be too bad and you tack on all the prose and poetry it demands fairly easy.
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The world would be particularly hard to model in D&D on anything other than a superficial level. Sorcerer is fairly easy to convert to most game systems, but the Gnosis is hard to balance against other types of sorcery. If PCs don't have access to being Gnostic Sorcerers or Dunyain, then the balance issues become more manageable. I'll go into detail about what I perceive to be the issues if you want.
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Nerf sorcerer...
I really can't see how you would balance them for PC's. Plus leveling would be at least as problematic as their power levels.
Maybe allow hedge witches only.
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Nerf sorcerer...
I really can't see how you would balance them for PC's. Plus leveling would be at least as problematic as their power levels.
Maybe allow hedge witches only.
In a D&D system? No chance at all. Which is going to be a problem, because being a sorcerer in Earwa is really cool and that's going to make some players unhappy. That's not true with every game, because game balance isn't necessarily just about combat. Black Crusade, for example, divides characters into Traitor Legionaries and mere mortal humans and the Traitor Legionaries are quite superior at direct combat. The key isn't to get obsessed with "equality" but make sure everyone has something useful to contribute. Given the social prejudice against sorcerers and the existence of chorae, this is doable.
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Of course, there's only maybe one sorcerer in every couple hundred thousand people - the Schoolmen are impressed by maybe 200 sorcerers, so sorcerers are fucking rare. Hedge witches, such as the ones who make whore's shells and wathi dolls and all that good stuff would be much more likely. Even a few wizards, who've cobbled together a few basic shamanistic cants on the border of Earwan civilization would be more likely than full-blown sorcerers of rank.
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Well, if I began using WoD, it'd be somewhat easier, but sorcery is the 'I Win' button even with Damnation hanging over their head. And really, we all know how PCs would like their shiny awesome power. :P Damnation is something to be roleplayed out (or outright ignored by twinks). Wizard cults would be a fine balance to that, hrm. Dunyain wouldn't be accessible, too game breaking in power comparison. No, these would be worldborn men running round the wilderness of Galeoth and Meori shimming skinny skulls for a test bed. Sorcery would purely be set piece mayhem right now. I would make Chroae available at a ridiculous cost in merit or bonus point costs (in the WoD tradition), but I doubt they'd be readily taken.
May even make the players part of the original company The Captain once ran before they were whittled down.
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the whole sorcerer balance issue is one i've grappled with myself. i actually made a very good start on skinning D&D 4e, way back in the day, but my group rebelled when they were informed there were no magic items, and sorcerers started at 15.
i think its possible, but you'd need your players to all be fans, so they can swallow the sorcerer issues. cause you have to have a sorcerer. c'mon. whats the fun without at least one?
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the whole sorcerer balance issue is one i've grappled with myself. i actually made a very good start on skinning D&D 4e, way back in the day, but my group rebelled when they were informed there were no magic items, and sorcerers started at 15.
i think its possible, but you'd need your players to all be fans, so they can swallow the sorcerer issues. cause you have to have a sorcerer. c'mon. whats the fun without at least one?
I admit, I got a good laugh.
"No magic items?! What is this bugger shit?!" Just give them some Wathi dolls and free damnation, everyone will be sated. Unless everyone's running around on topoi and have a Chroae to smote some Wights, people wouldn't be too keen at first. But with the right group, you could make it sing.
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I vote the name be Earwa: The Censoring
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Tempting! I'll see if I can get to work on some mechanics for Anagogis sometime soon. Hash out something workable. I know I've got half done stats for Sranc and Bashrag around here somewhere.
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A thought: instead of modeling sorcery outright, why not a stopgap similar to Inrau's badly truncated learning? Sure, Aurang's Synthese wiped the floor with him, but the boy had one of the most awesome pre-death moments in the whole first book. Amplified strength, speed, and fiery blood of your enemies? Yes, please.
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A thought: instead of modeling sorcery outright, why not a stopgap similar to Inrau's badly truncated learning? Sure, Aurang's Synthese wiped the floor with him, but the boy had one of the most awesome pre-death moments in the whole first book. Amplified strength, speed, and fiery blood of your enemies? Yes, please.
It would be one way of including the Gnosis without overshadowing everyone else. A handful of spells, and middling ones at that, but enough to seriously throw down when necessarily.
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Aye. It was probably one of my top moments from the first book. Boy died like a champ.
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Here's hoping he's not damned for it... :cry:
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He's technically a suicide. In all probability he's damned for that, not counting the sorcery.
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I just go with the assumption that everyone, save that one mouse over there, is damned.
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Only Zoidburg has been a good boy...
I was considering making a text based browser based game for this, if anyone wants to consider that angle? I already have generic registration and guest code written up. Just a matter of what play is about for a player.
On magic, I think you've got to slip out of the 'rules only model the physics of the universe' design focus. Characters could have luck points (or 'the world conspires' points), which they can spend to luckily avoid being within the gaze of a sorcerer, or even other events. Ie, how Cnaiür avoiding being killed by looters on the battlefield. Or what a lack of conspires points lead to with Xinemus's rescue attempt.
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Huh, never really thought of it that way. That's an excellent idea. I hadn't really thought of that point honestly. Despite the pain of the scene with the looters, only extreme luck saved Cnaiur. Bless narrative rulings.
More to ponder. And I like the idea of a text based game.
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So when people think about it, where does a primarily text based game gravitate to in the setting? To me it gravitates toward the Scalpers - it seems ideal for a bunch of players to come and do the genre expectation of games - battling something.
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That's basically what the setup I've got going is. Scalpoi plying their trade. But with World of Darkness, it tends to deviate from the deplorable D&D norm. I love the Storyteller system for it. It's not really about loot. But to get players interested in the setting? Gotta go basic first.
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Heh, I can't help but drift from the norm, it seems. My simulationist (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/) spidey sense is tingling, particularly the idea of the game being setting. I'm more of a gamist (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/21/) or small time narrativist (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/) inclined gamer, myself.
On a side note, this ( 'A hard look at Dungeons & Dragons') (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/20/) might be of interest to people in general.
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There's nothing at all wrong with it, no. There have been deep arguments between gamists and narrativists in Exalted, my game of choice. I simply can't stand the debate. I know mechanics, they're okay, but I cleave deeply with the maxim I've held for years - story first, mechanics later. It's created issues with some players who disagree, but overall, the idea has served me well.
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Depends if by story that refers to predecided story, decided prior to the game session. There's quite a bit of spontanious story in the pursuit of loot. Or even other character goals - the riddle of steel RPG had a system where you wrote in the characters goals and got bonuses if you followed them (note: it wasn't a trait system, where you are penalised or forced to conform to the trait).
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Indeed. Have you run much White-Wolf material? It's purely story, sure, there are traits and shite, but it's about the story and the characters action within. Some of the players know the books and will have ideas and they'll certainly be built in. But it'll be a short test game with x goal in the beginning, then swerve off the beaten path (as all good plans do) due to PC action or something that just goes awry. May have Sranc stats soon.
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I haven't run white wolf at all. Viewing it from afar, mechanics wise, they seem conventional combat engines, only simulating physics of the game universe. Like with my luck example, you don't see mechanics which manage the meta level of story arrangement. So story might control where combat occurs, but what controls or influences where story occurs is...not part of the rules.
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Indeed. As it shouldn't be. But that's been my experience and preference in these things.
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Sorry for perhaps rasing a dead post to the top of the forum list, but did this go anywhere or did it die the beginning of June? I'd have to admit I know little of dnd and less about text based games, but reading through this it sounded interesting.
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Sweet zombie Jesus, I leave for a week or so and the Misc. forum explodes. As for the text-based game, I cannot answer. But I'm slowly plucking together an Earwa based mod for WoD.
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Whats WoD?
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In the mean time I decided to make another project (http://fightcycle.freehostingcloud.com/login.php) I would actually complete (the core of) within a few days. I realised that a scalper game would have an indeterminant point of completion - and from experience, I tell you those drain your enthusiasm. So I decided to bang off a different text based game in the mean time. Which I've almost finished polishing off.
I still have the Scalper game (tentatively called 'Scalper Legion') files on my comp. Often the process is attempting to lure enthusiasm out of prospective players before putting in more enthusiasm yourself (while they meanwhile attempt to lure enthusiasm out of you before putting in enthusiasm, lol!). So I'll turn my mind to luring enthusiasm soon! :mrgreen:
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WoD = World of Darkness aka White Wolf Games products.
I think scalpers are a great option. I recruited a new playgroup after my first one mutinied on me and played a game where they were the Skin Eaters, escorting Achamian. Worked well for a limited time game. For a more open ended solution, i'd just throw the whole balance thing out the window. You could really use any of the D&D type games.