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Hey folks,
There was a little chat over on the new Empire of the Petal Throne audio about how good Tekumel is as a setting and I thought it might be nice to get some chat going regarding good settings and see what you lot preferred 🙂
I personally lean towards Shadow World as a good settings, Tekumel is certainly in there along with Glorantha, Dark Sun and Planescape 🙂
What about you?
Hal :hal:
The old Cybersmürf RPG had a cool and gritty setting: Cyborg-Smurfs, jacked directly into the SmurfNet and upsmurfing their consciousness into the digital SmurfSpace, leaving their half-mechanized bodies smurfed limply in a LazySmurf bean bag chair, back in their dank and smurfy apartment; NeoNazi-Smurfs, goose-smurfing down the rain-soaked streets, smurfing their arms up in the traditional “Sieg Smurf” salutes and getting into fistismurfs with gangs of radicalized young Black Smurfs; Drag-Smurfs dressed in cheap Smurfette costumes, smurfing tail-jobs to random smurfs so they could smurf a few bucks to pay for their Sarsaparilla addiction; and then there’s the ominous BlauHaus, and the vile General Blaukopf – what more could you want? 🙂
Good point – Cyberpunk is a pretty decent setting. Though for sci fi dystopian stuff I quite like SLA Industries…
Hal :hal:
Unsurprisingly, Tékumel is one of my firm favourites and probably the one with the most actual background information in place.
In general I like a fair bit of “white space” on my setting maps, just enough detail to get me started and provide a solid foundation but not so much that creativity is stifled. One of the best features of the old Forgotten Realms setting for AD&D was that several areas were put aside to be left undeveloped by TSR and available for players to fill in on their own… and then TSR went and filled in the blanks anyway 🙁
A great example of that sketchy, limited detail was found in GDW’s Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, an RPG using a variant of their Twilight: 2000 rules and based on the Xenozoic Tales comics by Mark Schultz. Frankly, it works better for most people with a different system, but the key thing is the wonderful post-apocalypse pulp adventure mix of classic cars, lost civilisations, treasures of the ancients, and dinosaurs! Oh yes, and possibly some of the best art ever seen in an RPG. Here’s the “world map” provided with the game: it only covers a fraction of the US coast and even that has barely been explored.
One last one: Fringeworthy, which is superbly suited to gaming because its science fiction format allows travel to all manner of alternate worlds, with the support and backing of a well-resourced organisation and a reason to go exploring… but all the support in the world won’t help much when you’re far beyond that Fringe Portal and nobody back home knows what you have just stumbled into. Again, the original rules won’t suit everyone, but the setting concept is practically infinite.
My absolute favorite setting is Glorantha. With the upcoming Guide to Glorantha and Argan Argar Atlas, it’s finally going to get some widespread recognition.
I’ve enjoyed all the Tekumel novels, and love reading the original Guide to Tekumel, but it really needs a more modern game system. I wonder whether Savage Worlds (or Pathfinder, I suppose) could handle the complexity of the setting?
Might be interesting to see… Tekumel port to Pathfinder… Pathfindermel? Tekinder? 🙂
As mentioned I love Shadow World mostly for all the backstory that links it to Space Master but also because – as BJB stated – there are loads of blank spaces. Yes – we have two full detailed continents in Emer and Jaiman but they are just a tiny portion of much bigger planet.
Do I recall correctly that Gloratha is actually a cube? 🙂
Hal :hal:
My absolute favorite setting is Glorantha. With the upcoming Guide to Glorantha and Argan Argar Atlas, it’s finally going to get some widespread recognition.
I’ve enjoyed all the Tekumel novels, and love reading the original Guide to Tekumel, but it really needs a more modern game system. I wonder whether Savage Worlds (or Pathfinder, I suppose) could handle the complexity of the setting?
The Guide looks magnificent, but alas not only way beyond my budget but also far too detailed for someone who has barely scratched the surface of other worlds such as Tékumel.
Speaking of which, there is a fan-created Savage Tékumel online. In the past there have been conversions for GURPS, RuneQuest and several others, but Professor Barker pretty much rolled a couple of d10s and made it up on the spot… Personally, I suspect that the best fit might well be the game created for Glorantha: HeroQuest.
HeroQuest in Tekumel might be a pretty good fit, although there are some Glorantha-isms built into the game system (masteries using the Mastery rune — just mild cognitive dissonance). Thanks for the Savage link, I’ll be reading that later.
There are some absolutely beautiful maps in the Guide showing the progression of the Earth portion of Glorantha devolving from the perfect cube to its current state.
I have the older Glorantha: Introduction to the Hero Wars book and a few other supplements, plenty for me to be going on with while I glare enviously at those who have the guide 😀
Good point – Cyberpunk is a pretty decent setting. Though for sci fi dystopian stuff I quite like SLA Industries…
Hal :hal:
My favorite sci fi dystopian setting is probably Mutant Chronicles – There is a broad background of information on the setting giving plenty of different types of adventures. Additionally although the setting is hundreds of years in the future, technology has retarded to that of the late 1970’s, and there is ‘dangerous to know magic’ and lots of cosmic evil.
My favorite sci fi dystopian setting is […]
But yeah, Mutant Chronicles is very cool, too. Grew up playing the card game and board game versions, which were highly enjoyable.
Ah yes – I like Mutant Chronicles and Gamma World is interesting too.
But for shear background depth I like some of the older settings.
I think we have missed the ICE MERP setting which is amazingly detailed and awesomely well done.
Hal :hal:
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