frogspawner

Now that is good. I can see it now, with gigantic icicles hanging off the edges... Then go for it! Quite. Let's make room for everyone's creations. I've found 'post-justification' can be very creative! I like the odd bit of wacky geography, but I'm worried it might put some potential authors off. Do people think it would be too silly, or can they live with these sort of ideas?

A balanced approach with some of each, is probably best I guess. But should there be any off-the-wall features? Like, er... hollow, cuboidal, floating sky-nations, flat (though not necessarily held up by elephants), a bridge to the moon(s), stars are nearby holes into heaven, oceans of heavy gas, rivers of mercury, upside-down mountains, ice-'cap' around the equator (or even north-south), magic dead zones, crystalline/d12-shaped, banana-shaped...? I like the style of the old map of Iceland, but it's probably not suitable.

...but occasionally they need to come out (at night, to minimize thaw) seeking transfusions (because blood isn't perfectly preserved)...? Wow. SciFi and CoC crossover already. Spot on!

We really should use more emoticons. Could get into trouble, otherwise. Allow me to deploy a belated Seriously though, the 'size' of History may need debating too, but another time, another thread. Meanwhile, are we any closer to a Geography? The ideas are coming, and need a home...

Hi, y'all! Over here in cute lil' En-ger-land (well Yorkshire actually), I don't object to having (geographical, physical) islands. I'm just worried that if people are "given" an island to develop (or in fact, any other specifed area) they may slip into insular thinking. Shared islands would be fine. There are plenty of factions over here: the UK isn't as United as outsiders may think (it's only been a 'Union' for a few hundred years - a historical lunch-break - and may only be a temporary 'blip'...). (That's a thought - how long should history be, American cousins?) For SharedWorld it'd be better, initially, to get a number of ideas (like Rurik's Asherayne/Portal), whack them on some sort of map, and then together we can work out how they'd interact (and their histories).

Nice one! I think it's great, and Portal/Asherayne well deserves a place on SharedWorld. The western ruins are a perfect adventuring site, as are the tombs of the Akershule, for those who don't mind a longer trek. The city might be a melting-pot of semi-civilized barbarians, inheritors of ill-understood alien wonders, riven by loyalties to outer tribes/odd cults - very good scope for interesting local characters. And if any characters did 'seep through' from other worlds, anything could happen to them - and probably straight away! Hailed as gods, feared as sorcerors, robbed for their alien wonders, attacked as demons... Marvellous. I can hardly wait!

You must've dozed off before the end...

I don't understand license stuff, but does it accommodate this concept...? Authors control their own 'World', including anything contributed to that world, but other people are free to copy and extend/modify it (within the project) without the original Author's permission, so long as they mark it as "a version of XXX's World". (I think I've seen software licensed like that (GNU?))

I believe we have decided to do both a Shared World and a Gated Worlds 'network' (though of course ShareWorld can be just one of the GateWorlds). For the GateWorlds, democracy is irrelevant because each world's author is GOD for their own world/universe. (A benefit of GateWorlds is that Authors can just get on and publish whatever they develop, or have developed already, without this sort of admin overhead). For ShareWorld, the SciFi/Fantasy/Mixed question is relevant - but since SciFi settings usually need more than one planet, it seems like we're already heading towards the Fantasy option... I'm sure there will be other questions, though! But I reckon they are best tackled when we meet them - we could debate them endlessly and never get started, if we try to decide them all now. A standard write-up format would be a nice-to-have, but can be decided later (when we've seen what formats people use, we can choose the best and conform to that standard).

Yes, islands are not ideal at all. If contributors are allocated particular islands (or whatever areas) then their ideas will be cut off from each others. They may well get into the mind-set of "this is mine - you can't touch it!" (and others may not like to, for fear of 'trespassing'). Integration/interaction won't be as good as it needs to be. What we should do is put everyone's ideas together and mix 'em up good an' proper! I reckon, everyone should give a list of a few geographical features they want on the world (including wacky ones, hopefully), then get a rough map (perhaps randomly generated, if someone has some software) - and bung the listed features on it, semi-randomly. Then we can discuss modifying/rationalizing it as necessary. Rinse and repeat for cultures, religions, races, technologies...

Yes, first and foremost. If "every man's an island" then SingleWorld would suffer from lack of integration (pehaps even more so than the GateWorlds).

Use all three. Use every idea you can get - never discard an idea. Use software to generate a random template (#1), take existing islands/countries people want to 'donate' (#3) and slap them onto the map somewhere, anywhere. I'd also suggest everyone who's interested should contribute 2 or 3 ideas (at least one of which should be wacky) about geography/nations they'd like to see on it - and slap them on it too. Then re-draw it a bit (#2) to fit together as well as you can. No matter how hard you try, I expect there will be quite a few absurdities about it. Good - then the creative bit of explaining how it came to be that way can begin...

Sure. Don't bother bringing back any Runes, though...

Hang on, Magic v Sci-Fi wars might be fun! Which leads me to the thought... If BRP is going to have Magic, Modern/Future Tech, Mutations and Supers, shouldn't we try to accommodate all of them?

No, I do too (or rather, I don't because I still use a variation of it). But I think the RQ2 version was badly flawed: it starts getting silly at about 30% and competent opponents can't hit you; and the higher the skill, the higher the chance of an increase - so it accelerates away badly.

Yes - madness, meaning and the point of a campaign are supplied by the GM. GMs control use of the gates - so they could say 'never!' (and probably should say 'almost never'). The important part of the 'gates' idea is Authors collaboration on each others settings. If we publish some settings, hopefully one or a few will be interesting enough for other people to add contributions to them - and they will grow, faster than a lone author could make them.

I agree. Though I guess it could it have SF elements, like Blackmoor, Tekumel (and others of equal pedigree, I expect). Er, I don't agree. "Alburziel, I release thee to destroy that belligerent behemoth/star!" "Yess, Masster..." What happens when a demon teleports in to the bridge, or amongst the ammo? It could go either way (and I'd probably put my money on the magic).

My view is people could publish their already-developed worlds/universes*, and others can contribute to them if inspired to do so. It would be up to the Author of that world/universe to accept any particular contribution or not. I'm hoping that some settings will get popular and they won't have to be developed just by the one individual author - although he/she would retain editorial control. * Yes, this might lead to some settings having to be in separate universes (for example, if their Authors have defined all galaxies or said their world is Earth, or said it's a cube floating in an infinite sea of chaos...). But 'gates' (of whatever form, and I think it should be up to individual Authors to decide) cross that barrier just as easily! Although my own setting is just continent-sized and fairly bog-standard fantasy, it probably wouldn't fit too well with anything else in the same universe: Future-Earth, following a mystical coalescence of many alternate Earths; All histories are true; Many pantheons of gods from the astral plane and native star-sized planet-consuming Cthulhoids fight it out - via mortal pawns, of course. History will be chosen by the victors. For added drama, I might like to define it as the last living planet remaining (although I haven't, yet). Would the proposed framework accommodate that?

I voted for publishing my own world (although it is rather 'cookie-cutter fantasy') but will have to re-do loads of derivative stuff first. In addition, I hope to be inspired to do bits for the Shared World - as well as submitting stuff to other world-authors for them to add to their own creations, if they wish...

Well I think it's a great idea! Only whatever the two Authors (or the GM using their worlds) says there is to stop them. Possibly nothing. Whatever the Author of the world it's in says (or the GM, if he wants to change what the Author wrote). For my world I'd say magical/difficult/small (probably spells as well as some physical objects, usually not fixed geographically). Well, they're purely a device to allow Authors authority* over their entire world/universe - but still allow GMs to have characters move between settings. (*No-one disputes they should have that, I trust? ) That's nice to hear. Most people seemed quite down on the gates idea. Flooded? That's nasty. Absolutely. Every time the players used one, it'd be an act of faith in their GM. That could make their use pretty rare!

I'd rather call it an opt-out - out of all the rules/restrictions/difficulties you mention. Anyway, is there any reason we can't do both and see which is best?

I look upon it as 'riding the blow' to a certain degree. Most blows only have damage as a property, so what else? Altering the attackers skill would bring it back into the realms of opposed rolling (and I was mentioning it as an example of not using them).

Yes, for a while now I've been using a similar system for Dodge: Success: -10 damage Special: -20 damage Critical: No damage But I can see that would break down if people typically got into the range of gross damages that have been mentioned hereabouts sometimes, so this very day I thought: "Hmmm, maybe success should halve damage...". Uncanny!

Ah, but we haven't published our own projects, and given other people permission to develop parts if they feel inspired (or have we?). I believe we would be inspired to add to other people's worlds, and I hope authors would be generally willing to accept such contributions. Then - Bingo! Co-operative worlds. Great list, Rurik. (Surely Dick Dastardly and Muttley would require a license, though? ) Seriously, I might add characters - like Rurik himself. They'd be under GM control of course. No need to make 'em fixed gates: maybe spells or similar (like Corum?). OK. My take on this, to avoid the problem of having to have an exact current worshipper-count, is that souls who have become attuned to gods through worshipping them go to their version of heaven/hell when they die - where they act as a power-source for that god (until exhausted/reincarnated/whatever). Like Drohem's avatar! (An interesting side-effect of this might be, if a pogrom were carried out against a god's worshippers that god would actually become more powerful for a while - and so have more divine wrath available to exact retribution... Uh, oh - trouble already... Uh, oh - lots of rules already... Who'd administer? Who'd arbitrate? Take it from someone who knows... That's why I say 'Gated Worlds': Authors do as they please, having final authority over any contributions; and GMs can easily avoid worlds they don't want to use. We'd avoid a lot of unnecessary work, and could get on with the real job... world creation. I agree. Someone on another thread was just saying how the wacky names in Tekumel made it unplayable for them! How to make 'em different, though? I liked the Harn idea of insectoid Orcs spawned by a huge larva-like queen; Elves - should be soulless, dangerous child-stealers (but why? and how to role-play them?); Dwarves - selfish, sociopathic, more like trolls really; Trolls - like Norse giants (or Greek titans/legendary monsters, or Grendel?). And no Ducks.

Well, this is all irrelevant to the real point of your thread, but since you ask... Although I (and others, it seems) find the number-comparison part of the usual opposed roll mechanisms the really objectionable bit, I think it is the inter-dependence between attack and parry rolls that makes them 'opposed' (and I don't like that part, either!). Exactly. Independent rolls, no linkage - nice and clean. Good system design.