Ok, second attempt here. I'm starting a new thread instead of reviving the old one.

I've recieved some heavy flak because of my use of the concept of "standard fantasy" to describe my world, so I'll try to use it as little as possible (only once so far in this thread ;) )

I'm trying to create a really magical world where the focus still isn't on magic, but on the stories of heroic adventure.

Currently the story is set a few hundred years after the fall of the mighty land of many kingdoms (how do I give it a name which isn't "Empire"?). The realms, once split into many kingdoms had been united by Scyld into one great land. Roads had been built, a lingua franca established and peace had reigned until the fourth in the line of kings so abused his reign that the people rose up against him.

After his death, the most prominent rebel leader himself died in mysterious circumstances and the world was plunged into many wars between self declared kings and warlords. (It is in this time of civil war the game is set.)

But all had not been good during the reign of man. They had slain most of the witchpeople and made the rest into homeless drifters. The mystic trolls of great wisdom had been forced into the depth of the forests. With the dwarves they made peace only because the dwarven mine towns where of little use to them. The goblins were enslaved for their great talent of languages.

Of the other races they killed them where they could.

But now there are no soldiers patrolling the old guard towers. The hobgoblins, stronger and meaner cousins of the enslaved goblins have returned in great numbers. The Ogres, a magical shape shifting race of great magical powers, once defeated by the witchpeople millennia ago are coming back too. Attracted by the scent of blood of the battles where men slay men in their ambition for power. And in the night even deeper secrets lurk in the ever changing guise of "The Dark" which makes the dead rise against the living.

In the north, the frost giants still live, sometimes journeying south on solitary treks of destruction and plunder.

The wilderness has grown dark and dangerous since the now legendary rule of the great Kings. Villages has to fend themselves from both the dangers of the wild. But sometimes, men themselves are even greater monsters than the inhumans.

It was a time of terrible tragedies and great perils, but also of noble heroic deeds which would live on in the times to come.

The players will play either as humans, trolls, witchpeople, dwarves or goblins.

The trolls and the witchpeople possess mystic powers which most of which is totally unknown to the race of man. They live for centuries and can accumulate much wisdom during this time.
Of the two, the trolls are considered the wiser, and although not as quick in wit and thinking, their understanding is much more profound.
The witchpeople is a race of great grace and cunning. They are quick to anger but equally quick to forget. In physical appearance the witch people look much like humans, although tend to be slightly shorter. They all have distinctly pointed ears.
Male trolls are quite the opposite of the witch people, with crude features, and features like noses and ears growing increasingly bigger with age. Female trolls on the other hand look almost human, except for the slightly pointed ears with tufts (like that of the troll male) and their cow-like tails. Trolls are slow to anger, but once aroused will rarely fade until they had their vengeance.

The dwarves are a hardy people who long was confined to the mountains by the men who destroyed their kingdoms. They are all gifted with an ability to infuse any item they make with some of their essence, which makes every item they make intimately associated with their being, as well as magical on its own. Dwarven items are therefore both highly valued as well as only reluctantly given away and even more rarely sold.

Male dwarves are of stocky built with strong hair growth and crude features. Female dwarves on the other hand, share their male counterparts diminuitive size but not necessarily their crude features, making them look rather human, although of course much shorter.

The goblins most exploited talent has been that of language. The goblins have a natural ability to learn any language in almost no time. Because of that they were held as slaves by the humans and not simply exterminated.

The goblins are of similar height as that of the dwarves, but have very little hair growth, (this is especially true for male goblins). Humans tend to find goblins rather revolting in appearance and hygiene :) Goblins tend to be very greedy, but that doesn't mean they are egotistical. They are able to found very deep friendships with others, even with people of other races. In fact, goblins might be one of the most social of all races, although their culture is sufficiently different from that of humans that few humans understand that.

The hobgoblins are similar to the goblins in some ways, and vastly different in others. Unlike goblins, which are generally quite weak, the hobgoblins are very strong for their stature. A little taller than dwarves with dispropornately long arms and usually a hunchbacked appearance, they are surprisingly strong. Hobgoblins have even less of a human-like face than goblins. Their facial features are very weak features and often "decorated" by many scars sustained in fights and combat.

Hobgoblins are mainly viewed as "monsters" by most humans, but they are not as mindless as they are commonly thought to be. Hobgoblins are flesh-eaters and as such hunt for food. Sometimes they even eat hobgoblins of other tribes, but such occassions are few. Hobgoblin culture is one favouring strength and power. Because of that, hobgoblins often go on raids on other tribes or in human lands, both for aquisition of food and treasures, as well as "proving their worthiness".
Luckily for the humans, their built, although powerful, makes them very slow and because of that they rely on fighting which puts emphasis on strength rather than mobility.
For that reason, men were able to keep them at bay with tactics like employing distance weapons, spears and other weapons designed to keep foes at bay. Once in close hand-to-hand combat though, they can easily tear a man's limb off.

Finally the ogres. These provide the most varied race in the Realms. Althought they have very shifting appearance, they are generally agreed to be of one race. Some look like witch people, others more troll like, and some even more inhuman than that. They all tend to be of large stature, taller than humans, and possess strength according their size. Beyond that they might possess shifting magical abilities. In general, they are carnivores with a special liking for human flesh. Many settle alone in remote areas where they enslave people to do their bidding and to help them indulging in their desires. Many ogres possess magical weapons, but these are not made by dwarves or by demons unlike those possessed by men.

(To be continued)

What I set out to do is to create a brand of fantasy which, despite being different from Tolkien & AD&D still feels like an option for those who want to play fairly standard fantasy. I want to put in as much new stuff as possible while still making it "acceptable" as fantasy without sliding into a subgenre such as Dark Fantasy or other sub-genres (for example, making the undead power of "the Dark" the dominating force would probably forced the setting into the Dark Fantasy genre)

Am I on track so far?

Just from your stated goals, here's what I'd recommend:

- I'd use d20 or a d20-like system for the majority of the game. It sounds like you want swords flashing and mysterious magic all over the place, and these systems give you a pretty good feel of that. I would create a magic system where spells are not codified, though, unlike D&D. A freeform magic system would be good, although I'm thinking, for simplicity's sake, that you could create a magic system with certain codified 'effects' with difficulties. For example, you could have the effect 'Damage' and (in d20) have the difficulty be DC 12 + (3 per d6 of damage). Then the player would narrate the actual look and feel of the spell - one player might describe arcing shafts of purple light from his fingertips while another might describe an enemy bursting into flame from the inside.

- I would make the system an "open-ended" die roll system - that is, when you roll the maximum number on a die, you re-roll and add, producing some splendid effects. I might recommend a smaller die size than d20 in order to increase the chances of this - a d10 might work well.

- For magical peoples, I would have a 'coincidential magic' rule - when they roll maximum on any task, the effect is magical, not mundane. Alternatively, they might be able to activate their magic on any task and get a bonus on the roll.

- Lastly, you need a 'heroic surge' set of rules. Let's imagine the characters have a 'Power' statistic. This would let them add, for example, a d6 to any roll a number of times per day equal to their Power stat. If you have levels, this could increase to a d8, d10, d12, and d20 as they go up levels. Alternatively, they could automatically roll maximum on a roll (and get to re-roll) whenever they use a heroic surge. I think this will allow for the heroic action you seem to want. Perhaps each race could have a bit of a different take on this - humans have a mundane heroic surge, while witchpeople have a 'coincidential magic' thing like above.

If what you're looking for is an alternative to the Forgetable Realms, then yes. Your sketch above seems quite reasonable.

If what you're asking is if there is anything you've described that would make me want to play in Ygg as opposed to the more easily accessable Forgetable Realms...not really.

My advice to you, is think small. Its easy to create sweeping history...thats why there are dozens of "fantasy alternative worlds" out there. Do a web search...dozens?...more like hundreds.

Its much harder to create a small corner of the world in such detail that it actually feels real. Unless you intend to start players out as some sort of princes or legendary heros, their characters aren't going to be interacting with your great sweeping history anyway.

I suggest detailing one piece of one kingdom in great detail. 1 castle where the local lord resides. Who is on his staff, who are his retainers, what personal web of relationships are there. Who are the people of the local village. Who is the respected elders of the community. Who is a slacker troublemaker. What is the name of the wandering tinker who comes through town twice a year and what is he like. Who might be a local rival. Another lord who might covet these lands. Who is the local lord's liege and what kind of network does he have. When was the last time the liege visited and what was that like. What about the nearby forest, the fringe of the forest where the peasants get their timber and firewood. The deeper forest where the nobles hunt and the occassional bandit hides out from the law. The really deep forest where no one goes.

Don't tell me there are Trolls and they are large mishapen creatures with great wisdom. Show me. Put one of these Trolls in the deep woods. Give him a name. Describe his relationship to the people of the village (is he the local Boogey Man, do the villagers leave him offerings of food and such to placate him, are people facing trouble advised to go into the deep woods and seek out Shaggolath the Old One and ask for his wisdom, what).

That is how you make a compelling world. That is how you create something wondrous and real. That is how you get the players to care when the dark threatens to over run this village. The rest of it is great to have in your own mind to help flesh out the legends and stories the local villagers would know, but I wouldn't make it the core of your setting.

Otherwise you just have Yet Another Fantasy Setting.

Which, again, if thats what you want, Great. Go for it. But I can't say I'd have any interest in it, I'm afraid. I've seen to many of those to really care about another one.

Does this help at all, or am I just making things more difficult for you?

Hi PF,

One of the difficulties I'm having with all of your threads is the disconnect between (1) your stated ideas and (2) your material itself. I'm not seeing how #2 is the implementation of #1 at all.

In this thread, you wrote,
"I'm thinking of just produce a setting, maybe detail a small small kingdom where the adventurers can start their careers. More kingdoms, villages and places can easily be added by the GM without risking that they
be overruled by later world supplements because the world is so big and the "known areas" are so few. It would be a world where the GM has the chance to build his own campaign and come up with a new kingdom just because it would be convenient for his/her next adventure.
"That, however would be in sharp contrast to many games out there which produces more and more detail, practically forcing the GM to only play within the pieces of the world described by the appropriate supplements or risk running into all too many contradictions.
"I think even a "Map of the World" is a really a thing one might want to avoid."

Now, having pioneered this approach to setting in my supplement to Sorcerer, Sorcerer &Sword, and having praised John Wick's Orkworld due to its unusual presentation of map with setting on the same basis, I completely agree with you on all counts above, as I stated in that thread.

But I'm looking at your Yggdrasil setting thread, and now I'm looking at this one, and I need to know the answer to this question:
Is the Yggdrasil setting supposed to be an implementation of the "build the setting through play" concept, as you describe above, or is it supposed to be a more traditional, laid-out-in-detail setting?

Until I understand this, I'm going to have a really hard time addressing your goals in posting this material here.

Best,
Ron

Clinton R Nixon wrote: - I'd use d20 or a d20-like system for the majority of the game.

I would create a magic system where spells are not codified, though, unlike D&D. A freeform magic system would be good, although I'm thinking, for simplicity's sake, that you could create a magic system with certain codified 'effects' with difficulties. For example, you could have the effect 'Damage' and (in d20) have the difficulty be DC 12 + (3 per d6 of damage). Then the player would narrate the actual look and feel of the spell - one player might describe arcing shafts of purple light from his fingertips while another might describe an enemy bursting into flame from the inside.

- I would make the system an "open-ended" die roll system - that is, when you roll the maximum number on a die, you re-roll and add, producing some splendid effects. I might recommend a smaller die size than d20 in order to increase the chances of this - a d10 might work well.

- For magical peoples, I would have a 'coincidential magic' rule - when they roll maximum on any task, the effect is magical, not mundane. Alternatively, they might be able to activate their magic on any task and get a bonus on the roll.

- Lastly, you need a 'heroic surge' set of rules. Let's imagine the characters have a 'Power' statistic.

Ron Edwards wrote:
One of the difficulties I'm having with all of your threads is the disconnect between (1) your stated ideas and (2) your material itself. I'm not seeing how #2 is the implementation of #1 at all.

But I'm looking at your Yggdrasil setting thread, and now I'm looking at this one, and I need to know the answer to this question:
Is the Yggdrasil setting supposed to be an implementation of the "build the setting through play" concept, as you describe above, or is it supposed to be a more traditional, laid-out-in-detail setting?

Until I understand this, I'm going to have a really hard time addressing your goals in posting this material here.

Pale Fire wrote: Unlike AD&D, spells would only have a rough casting time rating and maybe some technical description of the spell's primary use. Beyond that, each spell would have a range of other potential uses. The uses might be hinted at in the spell descriptions, but no additional rules would be provided, leaving it up to GM and players to work out secondary effects.

Pale Fire wrote:

- For magical peoples, I would have a 'coincidential magic' rule - when they roll maximum on any task, the effect is magical, not mundane. Alternatively, they might be able to activate their magic on any task and get a bonus on the roll.

I don't quite understand. Could you give me an example?

Pale Fire wrote:

- Lastly, you need a 'heroic surge' set of rules. Let's imagine the characters have a 'Power' statistic.

I don't know if this is exactly what I want. But maybe I simply need to see an example. In any case I'm gonna have (AHQ style) fatepoints.

D&D has one of the most detailed filled in settings of any fantasy game out there. Maybe not back to the white book days, but by the time of the basic and expert box sets, The Grand Duchy of Karmeikos, Princedoms of Glantri and a few dozen other "kingdoms" were well established and detailed.

But aside from that I understand the point you're attempting to make. My question is left at "why".

What you want is to provide a skeleton of a fantasy world and then let the GM invent everything else...

So what.

Seriously. Like I said above, this has been done a hundred times already. What are you offering that would make me want to play in your skeleton setting over someone elses? Theres a dozen fantasy worlds already published and several times that many sitting out on websites.

You really need to start thinking outside the box, and by this I mean the box that you've created for yourself. I get the sense that you think you need to do this in order to meet some "market expectation" of the way things are supposed to be. Doesn't exist. There is no such thing.

Valamir wrote: If what you're looking for is an alternative to the Forgetable Realms, then yes. Your sketch above seems quite reasonable.

I suggest detailing one piece of one kingdom in great detail. 1 castle where the local lord resides. Who is on his staff, who are his retainers, what personal web of relationships are there. Who are the people of the local village. Who is the respected elders of the community. Who is a slacker troublemaker. What is the name of the wandering tinker who comes through town twice a year and what is he like. Who might be a local rival.

deep woods and seek out Shaggolath the Old One and ask for his wisdom, what

Does this help at all, or am I just making things more difficult for you?

Clinton R Nixon wrote: I think - and you would know best, but this is my opinion - that you're going to trip up here. In my experience, rule-sets that codify effects, but leave descriptions up to the player work a lot better than systems that codify description, and leave effects up to the player. In other words, I think having an effect like 'open doors' and letting the player describe whether this is magical manipulation of the lock, the door 'phasing out', or a blasting spell that knocks the door off its hinges, will work better than having a 'blasting spell' and letting the player decide whether that is damage to NPCs or used to open doors or whatever. I think you'll get a lot more fantastic magic the first way.

* Imbue item with demonic power: By drawing arcane symbols on an item, the magician may infuse it with demon energies. The actual effect varies, but the approximate magical request conforms to the casters wish. Magical items created this way may or may not be possessed by demonic spirits. In that case the spirits will try to take control over anyone handling the object except for its maker. The item will always carry some sign of its demonic taint

* Banish demon: Many types of banishings exist, one is performed with the mage opening his palm towards the ground where the demon stands. Demonlight seals will form into a magic circle surrounding the demon and seconds later it will seemingly burst from inside in a shower of magical light, while immediately afterwards implode into a dark sphere which shrinks out of existence. As the sphere disappears, the seals slowly fade and disappear.

* Deathlight: A magical seal in the form of an eye appears in the palm of the mage. From this seal a fascinating light radiates which draws attention. Any person looking at it will stand hypnotised. If not pushed away they will remain standing there looking into the light until their mind is permanently destroyed.

Sure - let's say you have three witchpeople, one planting a crop, one mending a wound, and one forging a sword. All three roll maximum, and have 'coincidential magic'. The one planting a crop might have the crop spring from the ground fully grown the next day, or maybe the plants have a magical effect, or perhaps they grow at a normal rate, but grow to five times normal size. The one mending a wound not only stablizes the wounded person, but causes the wound to heal quicker and leave no scar. The one forging a sword may create a sword that can never be dulled, or never be broken, or always seeks the heart of its foes.

Again, this is a personal opinion - but fate points blow goats in Tijuana back-alleys. They convert a complete fuck-up into a marginal "whew-just-got-away" success. That's not the stuff of heroes. You want an "anti-fate-point," a way for the player to know that this time, I'm going to lay the smack down. You want a way to kick-ass and chew bubblegum at the same time.

Yeah, I know you wrote about this in another thread which is why Ron and I are both having trouble fitting the concepts you espoused there with what you're saying about Ygg.

And no, "Empire" isn't really a problem. Its been done a zillion times, but I don't think it really matters much.

What I would do (and this is just me mind you) is take everything you've written about Ygg and write it up in a nice set of bullet points. Refer to those bullet points as you write the game, but never ever publish them. In other words no sweeping "history of Ygg" chapter which reads like an old social studies text book. Reading history is cool, I love it. I have a sizeable liabrary of nonfiction history at home...but there is no wonder to it.

What you want to include (again IMO), is just a small piece of Ygg, as I mentioned before. Refer to things from your history, but do so subtly and without alot of detail. For example: in the nearby market town of Tryre there is an Old Quarter...say something like "The walls of Tryre were laid down in your grandfathers time by Baron Sergio the Bald as defense against Hobgoblin raiders. But the walls of the Old Quarter are much older. It is said they date from the time of the Empire, from before the sundering."

Ok, now this isn't the best written thing ever but what it accomplishes is this: It establishes Baron Sergio as part of the local pantheon of old heroes important to that area. It focuses on a town that is impressive to the locals (the biggest town the vast majority will ever see) but doesn't involve some "far away elven capital" or other such stuff. It mentions Hobgoblin raiders in the context of their impact on the locals. Sure this is probably part of some massive Hobgoblin wars, but you don't need to give a history of the whole war. Just what the locals know about it. They may know that the main Hobgoblin army was defeated at Bork's Cleft by Vangern the Mighty, but most of them probably don't know where Bork's Cleft is, or where Vangern the Mighty was from. But they can probably tell you the exact spot on the wall their grandfather stood swinging his rusty woodsmans axe. They can probably list off the names of Baron Sergio's knights who fell in the battle like a litany.

Thats what I'd like to see anyway. Make that little corner of the world really sing. Plant a few seeds of places the locals have heard about but don't detail those. Leave those to the GM and players to fill in.

When the characters wind up joining up with a warband heading off to fight with the king's army, all the places they march through and fight at will be all new. It will be new to the players just as its new to the characters. Its really hard to get a sense of the wonder of your character who's just seen the capital metropolis for the first time when you as the player have read all about the city in the latest sourcebook and even know the name of the secret king of the underworld.

Your mileage my vary, of course. But that's what I'd want out of Ygg.

Valamir wrote: D&D has one of the most detailed filled in settings of any fantasy game out there.

What you want is to provide a skeleton of a fantasy world and then let the GM invent everything else...

So what.

Valamir wrote: When the characters wind up joining up with a warband heading off to fight with the king's army, all the places they march through and fight at will be all new. It will be new to the players just as its new to the characters. Its really hard to get a sense of the wonder of your character who's just seen the capital metropolis for the first time when you as the player have read all about the city in the latest sourcebook and even know the name of the secret king of the underworld.

Your mileage my vary, of course. But that's what I'd want out of Ygg.

Pale Fire wrote: That is, sincerely, what I want out of Ygg too. :)

Valamir wrote: I don't know how to say this without sounding all condescending or fatherly or something, but I think you need to spend alot of time thinking about what YOU want, and less time (i.e. zero time) worrying about "conventional wisdom".

Every piece of "combat mechanics" or magic or what have you should be put to this test:

"would I be heartbroken if this <thing> never came up in the game?" If the answer is no, then scrap it.

I suggest you go over to RPG net and check out th Riddle Of Steal thread. Thats your current competition - do you think Ygg can hack it?

Second thing: put your mechanics away, and concentrate on writing the setting until you, personally, have enough stuff to run a campaign in Ygg. Then, try to write mechanics directly suitable for that setting - no influence from anywhere else. Then compare this batch with your original batch.

PF,

I am going to try to re-state a previous point of mine, which I think did not get communicated well last time.

It does not matter what details a "new race" carries with it, original or not. At this late date in fantasy-game design, providing a range of "races to play, or creatures/races to see" at all is itself a same-old, same-old feature of a game. You have cat-type centaurs? Even if this were a totally original idea (which it's not), even if no one on this earth, ever, had conceived of such a race, much less published it, providing it is simply old hat.

To turn to a more limited element of game design, character creation, look at the most recent fantasy games (that are not open D&D imitators), and you will see a distinct absence of the typical "choose your race" step. In Hero Wars, for instance, playing (say) a troll is going to change a great deal about the whole premise of the game - one of the preparatory steps of play is deciding whether a nonhuman player-character is allowed at all, and the default answer is "No." In Orkworld, you play an ork, period. In Elfs and Trollbabe (upcoming), you play the title type of character, period. In The Riddle of Steel, nonhuman characters are possible, but highly under-represented. Going back a few years to Everway, you play a human or human-type person, period.

Again: I don't care if your nifty races are blue, furry, four-armed, or how many arms they have. Providing nifty races and creatures to "marvel at" is same-old, same-old setting design. Focusing instead on what a race or creature is about, in terms of the situation characters would face in dealing with them, is where your attention should be directed.

Best,
Ron

I mean everything PF. Setting, races, mechanics everything. DON'T take anything anyone on this forum says as "the way to do it", and DON'T take your experience with whatever games you've already played as "the way to do it".

Instead, figure out what would make YOU happy. Don't worry about whether or not it meets some mythical "standard".

Roy started an interesting thread that addresses the very thing I was trying to convey, here

I think this is exactly the sort of exercise you need to do. It will help narrow down what aspects of your game are truely important (to you) and will encourage you to think at the small adventure level scale rather than the sweeping history scale.

Advice about what to design first should be taken with a grain of salt. Freitag's Paradoxical Law of Design is: "It's impossible to design any component of a system until all other components of the system have been designed." (System, here, doesn't mean specifically game system, it means any set of interdependent parts.)

This can be justification for: (a) total paralysis, (b) a breadth-first approach where you lay out broad strokes of each component and then fill in detail throughout the system in stages, (c) a depth-first approach where you design one component by itself, then another, then revise the first, then design a third, then revise the first two, etc. (d) mulling it all over in your mind until you have a complete mental model of the entire thing before writing anything down, (e) just about any other approach you can think of.

The important implication of this Law is that if the whole design isn't completed yet, then you shouldn't regard any part of it as completed. Whether you write down your setting first or your game system first doesn't matter nearly as much as that when you go to write the other one, you're not so committed to the first that you're unwilling to make changes to accomodate the second.

Ideally, in the end you shouldn't be able to tell which one was created "for" the other because neither was (or both were). For example, in my own homebrew fantasy game I have a transitional magic system in which player-characters start out with spells from spell lists, but those spells become less powerful over time, encouraging the spellcasters to invent new spells and eventually to switch to improvised magic based on fortune-in-the-middle resolution. The in-setting explanation is that over time, the universe becomes "immune" to spells that repeatedly break its physical laws. Much like a "formula" for television writing, the more a spell is used, the less potent it becomes, forcing the most effective mages to learn the difficult art of improvising spells. This also explains why the by-rote mages are so reluctant to disseminate their spells, even in exchange for others; the more people learn a spell, the less useful it becomes. The immunity slowly diminishes with time as a spell goes unused, though, so rediscovered lost ancient rote spells are still quite valuable.

Now, the point is: did I invent the mechanism in order to encourage player creativity, and then invent how it works in the setting to justify the mechanism? Or did I decide that I wanted mages in my setting to be secretive and have good reasons to poke around in ancient ruins and do lots of research, then invent the mechanism to fit the setting? I'm not telling. Because I honestly don't know. I'm not even sure the question is meaningful.

- Walt

contracycle wrote: I suggest you go over to RPG net and check out th Riddle Of Steal thread. Thats your current competition - do you think Ygg can hack it?

Second thing: put your mechanics away, and concentrate on writing the setting until you, personally, have enough stuff to run a campaign in Ygg.

Have you considered modifing the D&D rules to suit your needs?
Sometimes it is better to use an existing rule set rather than create a new one.

One way that might do what you want is to

A:Use the Grim N Gritty HP rules at http://www.sleepingimperium.rpghost.com/downloads/GrimNGrittyHitPointRules.pdf

These turns the heroic D&D combat system into a very dangerous almost realistic combat system


B: Use Sovereign Stone magic. This sytem based on 4 elements plus an "evil" void element. The system is subtle, effective and ritual like.

C: Use action points from AEG's D20 game Spycraft for your fate point system, or if you like Force Points from D20 Starwars

After that all you need to do is create the races and you can concentrate on world building.

Also if you are not fond of Class/Level systems both D20 Cuthulu and Godike have varient systems that are essentially D20 but different.

As a nice bonus a great deal of this material is Open Content and available for your use.