currently-unnamed worldbuilding project

[oligopsony]

discoursedrome mentions that Pathfinder is problematic. Setting aside many other ways in which it could be problematic, like many open-source projects, Pathfinder is pointlessly complex, but also has a lot of fun bits once you realize what fun is to be had in delving through them. There's a certain kind of fun that, I think, can come from the combination of (1) "limitng" yourself to the extremely large palette of races, classes, magic systems, &c. that the edition has and (2) running with the assumption that rules are an approximation of in-game logic, rather than anything as plebian as an aid to play games.

So anyway, here are some goals going forward:



1) In line with what was outlined above, only existing material allowed as a mechanical "palette" - 3rd party is fine, but it has to be SRD/OGL-friendly, defined as far as I'm concerned as available on d20pfsrd or SOPW.

2) Accessible enough that lazy GMs (like me) can easily adapt existing adventures, random tables, &c.; that lazy players can get by with a handout (even if less lazy players can delve into more); and that everybody can import the dungeon fantasy assumptions (taverns, tombs full of treasure, and so on) that we're all in the genre for. (You don't need elves or levels beyond 6 or maybe even dragons, but "taverns" and "dungeons" and "nobles" all feel essential; I won't justify this distinction.) Original enough that there's value added.

3) No designated bad guys - or good guys, for that matter. This doesn't mean that everyone has to be equally sympathetic - just that everyone is potentially sympathetic, in the way that everyone is potentially sympathetic in real life, and that if they're unsympathetic it's not for the sake of being villainous.

4) Perhaps in parallel with (2), a target-rich environment enough to serve as a place for adventuring (hexcrawls, adapted adventure paths, urban intrigue, megadungeons, whatever), but lived-in enough that it feels like a place that acts according to its own logic, rather than just a production set for adventures to take place in.

Most of the worldbuilding-related reading is just general historical social science and/or geography, so related to realism considerations, but lately I have been reading Kent David Kelley's thing on worldbuiling-for-play, which is introducing different considerations alongside the more traditional ones. Partially in consultation with that, I've made the following map to work, and tease you, with:



(I don't know much about this place yet, other than that I don't want elves and dwarves, and do want taddols and time knights.)

Many of these goals are vague, most of them align with the setting contest that was won by Eberron. I'm fine with both of these.

siderea suggests posting about your own shit every other week, so maybe that's a good schedule to post about this?