Unamed Game: Looking for a little advice

[Harlequin]

Almost-empty post... add Brokedown Palace by Stephen Brust to contracycle's list, as long as you don't mind mixing some Magyar myth with your Slav.

[Keith Senkowski]

My own personal recomendation would be Poland by James A. Michener, the Polish Way by Adam Zamoyski, and the very useful site historicaltextarchive.com as great resources.

My question would be: what has made you want to change the setting?.....Did you discover a problem with the setting? Is it simply because of the huge amounts of fantasy RPGs out there?

I think a part of it is my knee-jerk reaction to the vast number of  "fantasy" RPGs out there.  I didn't really find a direct problem with the setting.

Like I said the basic structure of the system doesn't tie into the setting but the other stuff, which I'll give you a for instance.

Since it is a setting where the characters are placed in the role of investigator in the vein of X-Files, Millenium, and Kolchak the Nightstalker I developed a horror mechanic which guages a character's reaction to a horrific situation.  I also made a Corruption mechanic to measure a character's decent (or lack there of) into darkness with examples of how they can be changed.  The magic system is all ritualistic type stuff as well as medium/psychic type stuff.  All these mechanics are there to maintain the supernatural evil aspect of the setting.

Other things, like the skills, weapons, and even services, are detailed in such a way to make them a part of the setting as opposed to a list of stuff.  I'll give an example:

Lodging
   Inns and taverns have become more and more common as travel between regions has increased.  In Voria, inns and hostels can be found in all the major cities.  In areas of high traffic smaller inns can be found in the outlying regions and at crossroads.
   Most countries in Northern Polian and the Heartlands have fewer choices for inns as the population tends to be smaller.  Taverns are much more common, offering villagers, merchants, and students places to eat and drink.
   In the South inns are rare, but along the major trade routes caravasaries can be found.  A caravansary is a single building surrounded by a large courtyard meant for housing caravans.  The building often contains a store, a tavern, and occassionally other services.
   In the Narrlachi Khanates a system of way stations, called Karams can be found.  Each Karam is a fortified building that has a large stable and is only 25 miles away from the another Karam.  A detachment of ten soldiers guard it as it is used by the khans as a communication network.

I've tried to infuse every part of the book with information about the setting to give a sense of gravity.

Keith

[Kirk Mitchell]

This Corruption mechanic intrigues me. In an RPG that I am currently working on, I have been trying to work out a mechanic for the exact same type of descent into darkness. Mine is a point based affair, whenever a certain criteria is met, the character has the option of becoming momentarily very powerful, but much less human. Once all of the points are used up, the character is effectively dead. How does yours work?

So you don't actually attempt to enforce or promote using items as parts of the setting? I think that was made clear earlier in the thread but I'm afraid that your example doesn't really demonstrate the encorporation of items and skills into the setting using details. If you don't want to reveal too much about the game, that's ok, I'm just curious.

So, what do you intend to do? Will you transfer to a different setting? If you are seriously considering that, what kind of setting would you want to change to? Would it have any real effect on all that work, or would the new setting accomodate your previous rules (not the basic rules, but the rules that tie directly into the setting).

Kirk

[Keith Senkowski]

How does yours work?

Each character starts with a Corruption Rank of 1.  Whenever certain actions are taken, the character has the chance of gaining another rank.  At a certain rank (I think 4, but I don't have it in front of me right now) the character begins to take in inhumane characteristics/mutations/powers.  The characteristics/mutations/powers start small, but at the higher Corruption Ranks they get rather drastic.  

I have been toying with the idea of creating some form of cultural benefit/negative to using items/skills, but I am afraid of getting too heavy handed with the rules.  There is no class system in the game and character's gain new skills/stuff by actions in game, not through a point buy system or level system.

I think I am going to stick with the setting.  I've invested a lot of time and effort creating and refining the it.  I plan on creating a couple of other settings.  The one I have been toying with for a while I like to call Spear of Destiny.  WWII, Nazis, the occult, and special forces types.  It is always fun killing Nazis.

[Jake Norwood]

1) I agree about the Nazi bit.

2) I'd add (as always) ANything written by Henryk Sienkiewicz, esp. Quo Vadis, the "Trilogy," and Krzyzacy ("The Teutonic Knights" in translation). These are the definitive Polish historical novels, and they touch on some of your topics very forcefully.

3) I haven't played any fantasy RPG other than TROS for more than a con session since writing it. If your mechanics support the kind of play you intend, then I'll play yours.

Jake