Terrible Setting Ideas

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sun May 19, 2013 9:28 pm

World of Darkness: High School. One thousand teenagers. Sixty faculty and staff (counting janitors). There are dozens of cliques and after-school clubs, all struggling for supremacy and survival beneath the Masquerade. Are you cool enough to smoke in the boys room with the Lasombra bitches? Dare you challenge the Technocracy for control of the AV Club? How will the Seelie Court maintain the Glee Club, when all the glamour fades from this world? Can the Garou take the football team to victory against archrival Weaver High? Will the Kid Inquisitors from the Catholic Highschool crash the prom?

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sun May 19, 2013 9:31 pm

I have character sheets on standby for that scenario.

Guyr Adamantine · Post by **Guyr Adamantine** » Sun May 19, 2013 9:35 pm

http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Sigil_Prep_(3. ... n_Setting)

Anybody else remembers Sigil Prep?

EDIT: Seriously fuck this forum's bullshit coding.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sun May 19, 2013 10:27 pm

"You are in a dungeon high atop Death Peak, you open a door into the skeleton king's throne room and suddenly you realize it's all an illusion. You're really at the bottom of the ocean and this whole time you've been traveling through Death Peak Dungeon it's actually been the Morkoth's Maze. And the bold fighter that has been accompanying you and encouraging you the whole way is actually a figment your subconscious created to cope with the sterile modern world we inhabit as corporate slaves waiting for our time to run out. Your time has just run out! The Morkoth attacks!"

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun May 19, 2013 10:34 pm

So there's been this sort of fantasy apocalypse that we won't fill in but it probably involves undead and magical nukes n'shit. Society has been reduced to a few civilization hubs no more than a few ten thousand people at most scattered about the planet. In between all of the hubs is an endless cavalcade of monsters, ruins, and monster ruins. Making contact with another hub is seriously a game-altering event, but the best part is that what hubs are near you will change from table-to-table, because we haven't specified it ahead of time. Indeed, we'll keep the setting details as sparse as possible to save page space and to 'empower' the DM.

Now our setting needs a name! How about... 'Obsidian Plains'! No no, that's lame. How about: 'Valley of the Beyond'? ... 'Voidemarch'? Damn, we're going to be spending a lot more time coming up with the name than the actual setting.

CCarter · Post by **CCarter** » Mon May 20, 2013 1:52 am

1.

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2. HOL

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon May 20, 2013 2:17 am

Ancient History wrote:World of Darkness: High School. One thousand teenagers. Sixty faculty and staff (counting janitors). There are dozens of cliques and after-school clubs, all struggling for supremacy and survival beneath the Masquerade. Are you cool enough to smoke in the boys room with the Lasombra bitches? Dare you challenge the Technocracy for control of the AV Club? How will the Seelie Court maintain the Glee Club, when all the glamour fades from this world? Can the Garou take the football team to victory against archrival Weaver High? Will the Kid Inquisitors from the Catholic Highschool crash the prom?

I tried to run literary this exact idea. It didn't work well...

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon May 20, 2013 2:43 am

Honestly, I was never quite clear why we didn't just grab the AS rules and import a lot of the WOD fluff.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon May 20, 2013 2:58 am

I have no clue. I should have, and if I were to do it again, I probably would, but I don't think I'm going to try to run it again. I might do College WoD, but that's about it.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Mon May 20, 2013 3:43 am

Guyr Adamantine wrote:Anybody else remembers Sigil Prep?

I do.

CCarter wrote:

1.

Hello Kitty 40,000 was an amazing idea.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon May 20, 2013 6:53 am

Prak_Anima wrote:I have no clue. I should have, and if I were to do it again, I probably would, but I don't think I'm going to try to run it again. I might do College WoD, but that's about it.

College would actually make a decent-ish recruiting ground for various WoD factions. Given the amount of social experimentation happening on some campuses, they could justify coming a lot closer to the Masquerade Line in the pursuit of new blood.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Mon May 20, 2013 9:09 am

Any setting that has thinly veiled analogues for contemporary states in Fantasy-Land.

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Mon May 20, 2013 9:32 am

I don't know about you guys, but Sigil Prep sounds awesome with the right MC to run it.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon May 20, 2013 9:37 am

WoD would definitely be better in university/college than in high school. After all, uni has as much casual sex and drug experimentation as WoD dictates you're supposed to have.

And I played in one of the first Sigil Prep games, my character got added to the "canon" cast as the only cheerleader who wasn't a complete bitch.

Desdan_Mervolam · Post by **Desdan_Mervolam** » Mon May 20, 2013 12:23 pm

Korgan0 wrote:Any setting that has thinly veiled analogues for contemporary states in Fantasy-Land.

Do you mean things like Seventh Sea, which had fantasy counterparts to Renaissance-era Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia (And everything else mashed into one particularly clumsy "Everywhere Else")? Or are you talking about a game trying to use fantasy gaming to make a statement about modern international politics? Because while I have not personally seen the latter, I'm not very exploratory with regards to gaming these days and would totally believe such a thing exists.

Atmo · Post by **Atmo** » Mon May 20, 2013 5:28 pm

For d20, it is, because no Touhou character can be measured by its Stage on those games; a very good number of them would be level 16+.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon May 20, 2013 6:00 pm

Old World of Darkness is basically about going to college and joining a fraternity. You get in on the ground floor of a big conspiracy that will ultimately give you a lot of power. You can get laid based on your strongly held opinions about what the best Pixies album is. People will listen attentively to your deep insights into Ayn Rand or Jean-Paul Sartre. There are wild parties where you listen to dark music and get to see boobies. You need to revolt against The Man in order to throw down the Old and bring in your New Ideas. And of course: you are forced to do a lot of busy work and are subjected to degrading trials and punishments by the upper classmen in your fraternity.

New World of Darkness is basically more like High School. The stakes are really low, no one ever seems to leave town, and the cliques fight for no perceivable reason because no one actually owns or controls anything.

If I was going to do an Eerie Cuties scenario, I think New World of Darkness would be a better fit. Old World of Darkness really would fit better in an institution of higher learning.

-Username17

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon May 20, 2013 6:15 pm

Efreet Sun:

Ages Ago a young wizard with more scrolls of planar binding than sense constructed the Efreet Sun, a burning self-perpetuating wish-engine consisting of trillions of Efreet constantly being summoned banished. In a fit of blind altruism, he engineered this monstrosity to grant any and every wish made anywhere in the solar system by anyone.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon May 20, 2013 6:52 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Old World of Darkness is basically about going to college and joining a fraternity. You get in on the ground floor of a big conspiracy that will ultimately give you a lot of power. You can get laid based on your strongly held opinions about what the best Pixies album is. People will listen attentively to your deep insights into Ayn Rand or Jean-Paul Sartre. There are wild parties where you listen to dark music and get to see boobies. You need to revolt against The Man in order to throw down the Old and bring in your New Ideas. And of course: you are forced to do a lot of busy work and are subjected to degrading trials and punishments by the upper classmen in your fraternity.

New World of Darkness is basically more like High School. The stakes are really low, no one ever seems to leave town, and the cliques fight for no perceivable reason because no one actually owns or controls anything.

If I was going to do an Eerie Cuties scenario, I think New World of Darkness would be a better fit. Old World of Darkness really would fit better in an institution of higher learning.

-Username17

Clearly I am at the wrong college.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Mon May 20, 2013 6:59 pm

Holy crap, that's the single best description of both OWoD and NWoD that I've ever seen.

Almaz · Post by **Almaz** » Mon May 20, 2013 7:05 pm

To be honest, that description of college reminds me more of a BDSM community, but is otherwise fairly accurate to oWoD. And I guess that really says more about BDSM communities. The nWoD = high school description is spot on, replete with "and sometimes people randomly vanish just when they get experienced enough to really matter." ( read: they hit Power Stat 6 and have to pike off. )

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue May 21, 2013 12:10 am

Spelljammer: I don't know which of the other settings I want to be, so I will just be all of them at the same time! Oh, and Star Wars too!

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Tue May 21, 2013 1:02 am

Desdan_Mervolam wrote:
Korgan0 wrote:Any setting that has thinly veiled analogues for contemporary states in Fantasy-Land.
Do you mean things like Seventh Sea, which had fantasy counterparts to Renaissance-era Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia (And everything else mashed into one particularly clumsy "Everywhere Else")? Or are you talking about a game trying to use fantasy gaming to make a statement about modern international politics? Because while I have not personally seen the latter, I'm not very exploratory with regards to gaming these days and would totally believe such a thing exists.

The latter. I've seen versions of this in a couple of homebrew settings and it basically descends into SOVIET UNION WITH DRAGONS LOL

Almaz · Post by **Almaz** » Tue May 21, 2013 1:10 am

Korgan0 wrote:The latter. I've seen versions of this in a couple of homebrew settings and it basically descends into SOVIET UNION WITH DRAGONS LOL

Well, it's a shame that has not been handled well, because I'd totally enjoy the story of Soviet Dragons.

"To Moscow I came seeking hoards... but they're making me work 'til I'm dead... the riders have it so easy... the tsar is putting gold on his bread..."

The general problem I've seen with those settings, more seriously, is that they are poorly researched rather than outright bad. Usually.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue May 21, 2013 1:12 am

I dunno, my "UkraineDuchy of Ukra is stealing oilfirewood from Russiathe Urskan Empire, en route to Europethe Nation-State of Freyr, time for diplomacy and sanctionsgo stab them in the face!" one was pretty good. And the players only realised when I told them.

Now, that the players decided to make it a Game of Touhous did mean it didn't play out as seriously as I was anticipating, but still. It's probably easier to make it work if you pick a specific incident, not just "These are some big countries that exist". Because a specific incident means you're not just basing it on what you think Russians or Chinese must be like, but are just using the plot.

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