Possible TRoS Campaign Worlds

[Shadeling]

hi all !

what do you think of the Hârn background (www.columbiagames.com) : semi-historic, very well detailed, knights everywhere, ...

I am also reading the "song of fire and ice" cycle by George RR Martin. Interesting ...

JF

I think both would make great TROS worlds.

[Jake Norwood]

hi all !

what do you think of the Hârn background (www.columbiagames.com) : semi-historic, very well detailed, knights everywhere, ...

I am also reading the "song of fire and ice" cycle by George RR Martin. Interesting ...

JF

And, AFAIK, people are currently using them as such. Spartan on our forum is doing Harn, last I checked, and some guys on RPG.net are doing GRR Martin. Do searches for both.

Jake

[tauman]

I gotta add my two cents to this discussion:

Melnibone (or Moorcock's other Eternal Champion stories & settings)
Deryni (written by Katherine Kurtz, with "psychic" magic)
Dying Earth (Jack Vance)
Lord Darcy (Randall Garrett, fantasy-based mysteries)
Fred Saberhagen's Books of Swords-based world (really, rules as-is with flavor)
Chronicles of Amber (Roger Zelazny)


Really, the only thing you need to run these is flavor and a tailored magic system (uh-oh, sounds like my last thread).

There seems to be about 5 basic magic systems in stories and games
1. Impressed Spells (i.e. D&D-like, as used in Dying Earth)
2. Summonings and Conjurations (Elric, et. al.)
3. Mental/Psychic-like (Deryni, Amber, etc.)
4. Overt (i.e., high-power, exhaustion or spell-points or skill based)
5. Rules/Laws based ("Master of Five Magics", or Randall Garrett's "Lord Darcy")
6. ??

It would be not too difficult design a few relatively complete systems and use whichever one fit your campaign at the time (or more than one to contrast different magic systems from different cultures, etc.)

Has anyone ever read Zelazny's Dilvish stories? If so, how do you suppose the "Awful Sayings" would fit into TROS?

I won't even go into sci-fi settings...

[Brian Leybourne]

Hmm.. I agree with most of your suggestions except Dying Earth.

The feel of D.E is completely alien to the feel of TROS. D.E isn't about heroism, passions, drives, gung-ho machoism, and it's especially not about conscience. Folk in Dying Earth are jaded, selfish, out for themselves only, apathetic, and combat each other with their wit, not with blades.

Completely different feel. If you want to play D.E, get the D.E RPG, it's a pretty good match feel-wise with the literature (I was involved in the playtesting early on, but later had to drop out, sadly). TROS is good for just about anything else though.

All IMO of course.

Brian.

[tauman]

I guess it would be sort of pointless to run a Rhialto-level game with TROS, as combat (and to some extent SA) would basically be irrelevant, but I think a Cugel-level game might work quite well. While the characters in Dying Earth might be "jaded [and] selfish", these can be used as drives as well as honor and heroism. OTOH, I can see how a TROS game set in Dying Earth would quickly deviate from the original feel of the setting.

Steve

[arxhon]

Another good setting would be the world of the Wheel of Time (please, no flames about the books). The magic mostly fits, but the whole 5 spheres of the One Power or whatever would require a little jiggering.

[John Resotko]

Hello,

I'm new to both the Forge and TROS, but I'll give you my thoughs about adapting fictional gameworlds as your setting (now that I've read the rules and worked up my first few characters).  Let me first express my thanks to everyone involved in creating the current version of the TROS book.  Finally, all my days of sport fencing can now actually apply to what I do in an FRPG!!!  Hurrah!

Some obvious setting choices came to mind as soon as I read the rules:

Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar series
Howard's original Conan series
The "Thieves World" anthology series
Most, but not all, of Moorcock's fantasy series (The Eternal Champion multiverse, Warlord of Mars, etc.)  Warlord of the Air might be a stretch, but there is distinct possibilities for a "Steampunk" setting using TROS.

Some not so obvious settings that I think would adapt really well into the TROS system, with some tweaking and adaptations for their weirder magics are:

some kind of Ars Magica RPG-like setting
Roger Zelazny's "Dilvish the Damned" stories
Fred Saberhagen's numerous "Swords" books, and the prequel to that fictional world, the "Empire of the East" trilogy
Terry Prattchett's Discworld novels

(What!?!, how dare I suggest that HUMOROUS fictional world would make a good TROS setting!?!?! TROS is supposed to be DARK!!! Well, if you don't believe me, you haven't read the novel LORDS AND LADIES yet, have you? It's got one of the best depictions I've read in a long time of the Fey as creatures Not To Be Messed With.) (grin)

Other good choices have already been mentioned, so I won't repeat worlds that others have suggested.  I just want to say I'm happy to have such a realistic combat system available, and a good friend and long-suffering "GM" I know plan to try our hand at adapting at least one of our favorite fictional world settings to TROS in the near future.