Setting: Temples, Sites, Ruins, and Empires

[JonSetanta]

1204317304[/unixtime]]Time could adjust itself at mana points faster than other places and than for other things. So when the magic volcano moves it has always been there,

-Username17

Too much Count Duckula, kthxbai.

Let's leave out any mention of 'warping time'.

[name_here]

I think that if the sun emperor can crush the fire lord and seize the fire carverns, he could take control of them and use them to create fire giants, but not transform them to make emperor's guard. also, i think that minor sites should be formed by temples and suchlike, but if you want to summon forth the dunswitch horror, you will have to take dunswitch. if you want to summon the salmander legions, you'll have to take fire mountain. it should be possible to restrain a site to the level of threat of a site in use without having to actually use the site that can't be changed.

if a site stops working, stuff you summoned from it should stick around, but be ireplaceable.

Summoned stuff in or very close to aligned sites should get bonuses, summoned stuff in the site they got summoned in should get bigger bonuses, and summoned stuff in proximity to the summoner while under his direct control should get bonuses. monsters in the site they appeared in should also get bonuses, so storming the well of despair and killing the resident necromantic intelligence should be harder than killing shadows that wandered outside. in this way, it's easy for the empire with the most powerful sites to mostly crush an empire, but if you think rooting the fire lord out of the fire caverns will be that easy you have another thing coming

[Draco_Argentum]

Thats probably a good idea as far as getting some stability going. I'd rather see lots of small empires than 2-3 super powers.

[NoDot]

The thing I question is the ability to have the power "funnel" to you from far away. I can see someone putting a pipe of some sort there to pipe the power up for use in the "magic power station" which powers the city, but something about being able to pump it elsewhere seems off or unfair.

What I'm imagining is great castles, temples, and libraries built around wellsprings of power where the great people live and train. Items left there become the items of legend.

I also imagine people acting as similar but weaker versions of there points, giving the mere presence of great individuals the ability to create other great individuals.

Am I making sense?

[Draco_Argentum]

I also imagine people acting as similar but weaker versions of there points, giving the mere presence of great individuals the ability to create other great individuals.

For the purpose of making 'trained by some badass dude' meaningful?

[Username17]

The thing I question is the ability to have the power "funnel" to you from far away.

I think it has to be in there to make people actually care about conquering stuff. My thought is that you put up a structure at the new site, and then some of the power gets mailed home. The result is that powerful empires have a bunch of power sites that are poorly defended compared to what they'd be if they were solitary kingdoms of Lava Men.

So if you take the Salamander Volcano, you can build an outpost there. And then you can get some generic Pretalokan power back home that you do something appropriate to your idiom with, and you still have some Salamander power right there that you have to use for something locally appropriate. So the Sun Empire gets more Warriors of Light and some Alae Salamandaris. And if you want to hurt the Sun Empire you can do so disproportionately by attacking their outpost at the Salamander Volcano, because it's less defended now that some of the power is being shipped back home to make Light Warriors.

-Username17

[name_here]

No, i think that if you take the salamander volcano, you have to shut it down or use it as is. you could use it to give your light warriors fire bonuses, though.

EDIT: here's another idea i have. there will be a "spirit of the site" which is an intelligent monster who obeys the command of whoever controls the site. it will tend to be of the same type as the site, and will not be damaged by the site's enviroment. if no one holds the site, random monsters will not attack the spirit. the spirit will control the summoned monsters while the master is away, but will not change the orders it gives the monsters without the master directly telling it otherwise. this will insure the sun empire doesn't run out of troops while the emperor is on vacation. the monster will have some form of special feature setup to distinguish it from other monsters of it's type.

[K]

I've been thinking about it and a few things came to me:

1. No mailing power. You can control a site by virtue of either surrendering to its power or taking class features to "model" its power, but there is no computer-game style empires.

Basically, this solves the mega-empire problem and keeps every adventure to be about the heroes from constantly trying to disrupt or regain or find sites.

More later.

[Username17]

1. No mailing power. You can control a site by virtue of either surrendering to its power or taking class features to "model" its power, but there is no computer-game style empires.

Basically, this solves the mega-empire problem and keeps every adventure to be about the heroes from constantly trying to disrupt or regain or find sites.

I don't see that as solving anything. It looks like it hurts the game across the board. Consider the following scenarios:

• Kids, it's time to move!
  Imagine for the moment that you can only attach yourself to one magic site. Suddenly you have a very real incentive to move. Like your entire castle, it wants to be at the most powerful site you've subdued. So if you set of shop in the Valley of Diamonds and suddenly you find yourself standing on a dragon corpse in the Doom Cloud, you will want to move your fucking house. You will stop being the guy who has a castle at the Valley of Diamonds, you'll just up and leave - and then there will be a ghost town behind you. That's unfortunate, because it means that characters lack continuity of bat caves.
• And You get to be Aquaman...
  If empires can't voltron power sites together to make something cool happen mystically, they are going to do it feudal style where magic dudes will appoint other people as the Duke of Frost Mountain and such.
  And that means that when a party of adventurers wants to catch them all, one player character is going to end up with a castle on the Cliffs of the Stargazers, and someone else is going to have a cottage next to the Well of Yesterday's Waters. And when one person ends up with The Library of Time and someone else gets the Lantern Fens... that's just priming the pump for inter-party resentment.
• Mt. Doom is Rising, let's wait until it goes away.
  Evil empires rising and falling is good. When the Evil Empire is strong it gives you something to quest against in distinct stages (sack the Void Gate, burn the Tapestry of Flayed Skin, capture the Bronze Pillars, etc.). When the Evil Empire is growing you have distinct events to worry about and/or stop (they are erecting a tower to their gods in the Murkwood, they've seized the Bloodsplatter Pattern, etc.). If Mt. Doom is contained in and of itself and can't seize anything more, you lose all that. The armies of Mordor will get big only because the DM announces that Mt. Doom itself is waxing strong for no reason, and then you can't really do anything about it except become the master of Mount Doom yourself.

Having adventures focused around disrupting or enhancing sites gives the game structure. And prevents the game from becoming disjointed and incoherent.

-Username17

[K]

• Kids, it's time to move!
  Imagine for the moment that you can only attach yourself to one magic site. Suddenly you have a very real incentive to move. Like your entire castle, it wants to be at the most powerful site you've subdued. So if you set of shop in the Valley of Diamonds and suddenly you find yourself standing on a dragon corpse in the Doom Cloud, you will want to move your fucking house. You will stop being the guy who has a castle at the Valley of Diamonds, you'll just up and leave - and then there will be a ghost town behind you. That's unfortunate, because it means that characters lack continuity of bat caves.

I honestly don't care about the continuity of bat caves. Stories change characters, and sometimes the evil vampire lord becomes an avenger of the innocents after a gypsy curse cursed him with a soul. Stuff happens.

In general, only some characters even want a society budding up around them. Some people will just throw a few carpets into the Citadel of Pythageroes and a new locked door on the vault and call it good.

I don't even think people should be plugging into sites. It just means you have to hang around defending your home, and while that can be a fun adventure, its not a fun campaign.

[*] And You get to be Aquaman...
If empires can't voltron power sites together to make something cool happen mystically, they are going to do it feudal style where magic dudes will appoint other people as the Duke of Frost Mountain and such.
And that means that when a party of adventurers wants to catch them all, one player character is going to end up with a castle on the Cliffs of the Stargazers, and someone else is going to have a cottage next to the Well of Yesterday's Waters. And when one person ends up with The Library of Time and someone else gets the Lantern Fens... that's just priming the pump for inter-party resentment.

I don't think heroes should be plugging into sites in general. Villains plug into sites and their power comes from the sites, and thats why heroes are heroes. Heroes have power that comes from themselves so they can move around and deal with site-related issues. Sometimes you might learn an ability from a site after defeating the guardians of a site, but Pokemon style of collecting sites just limits the number of different stories you can tell.

[*] Mt. Doom is Rising, let's wait until it goes away.
Evil empires rising and falling is good. When the Evil Empire is strong it gives you something to quest against in distinct stages (sack the Void Gate, burn the Tapestry of Flayed Skin, capture the Bronze Pillars, etc.). When the Evil Empire is growing you have distinct events to worry about and/or stop (they are erecting a tower to their gods in the Murkwood, they've seized the Bloodsplatter Pattern, etc.). If Mt. Doom is contained in and of itself and can't seize anything more, you lose all that. The armies of Mordor will get big only because the DM announces that Mt. Doom itself is waxing strong for no reason, and then you can't really do anything about it except become the master of Mount Doom yourself.[/list]

I think that sites should become stronger as the villain who controls it becomes stronger. Sauron has a few adventures around Mount Doom, gains levels by moving his agents through the world and accomplishing goals, gathers some armies, and then a simple fire magic site suddenly becomes the pivotal site of a powerful empire rather that a site that used to make fire elementals and grant a magic item forging bonus.

Sites shouldn't be fixed in power. They should have a minimum level, but if the Fire Lord suddenly starts gathering armies and having awesome adventures, he should be a match for the Sun King and be able to go burn his stuff down.

Heroes will want to kill Sauron to drop the site down to its old power level. At that point, they can just leave it there. Maybe some shmuck will come along and attune himself to it, but then he'll get Mount Doom's base power of making him a 3rd level Fire mage, but he'll have to do his own legwork to become an empire-threatening Dark Lord.

(Note that killing Sauron causes his castle to fall down. This is sign that the power of the site suddenly dropped.)

Having adventures focused around disrupting or enhancing sites gives the game structure. And prevents the game from becoming disjointed and incoherent.

It sounds boring.

Different players want different things, and some people really want a city adventure and others want to wander the howling wilderness and still others want to play in the planes, and most people really want to alternate between those things.

Some people will want spend their lower levels playing adventurer detective, and then want to spend their middle levels being overlord of an empire, and then spend their higher levels jumping through Gates and meddling with gods. The potential stories for fantasy are infinite, and artificially limiting the setting by making it all about sites is just bad design.

----------------

On making sites:

I really think sites should be made, as well as being natural. If a bunch of dream mages get together and build a Labyrinth of Dreams, then head of the order becomes the Dreamer Supreme.

I think the basis of magic should just be "looks awesome = magic". If you cobbled together a temple from field stones and mud then its just a place of worship, but if you build a city of geometric streets and arching spires made from volcanic glass with death runes of power on every wall, then that should have enough magic power to be a site.

The same goes for magic items. Scale mail made from shadow asp scales might be a dumb idea mechanically, but since it looks so awesome it should be so magical that it protects like plate mail. Mages might inscribe glowing runes into things or know the secret shapes that make weapons magical so that a barbed sword with weird backbarbs that looks awesome but would a terrible real-life weapon become a powerful magical weapon (think Klingon daggers).

Magic items made from sites are just normal things changed into awesome things, so a steel sword enchanted in the Cavern of Fire Crystals might become slightly crystalline and transparent with red highlights, and so it bursts into flame upon command.

This means that some sites are destroyable. Mount Doom is a volcano, so thats never coming down completely, but a Temple of Orcus actually can be taken apart brick by brick and destroyed.

Places with an awesome story should be magical too. If the last battle between the demon-led Carthians and the angel-led Legion of White Light took place on a plateau and resulted in the destruction of both armies and multiple gates opened and outsiders called and dead heroes on both sides pulled into rifts and cracks in the ground, then it should be a place of power.

If the cult of Orcus spent a thousand years making sacrifices at a simple stone temple, you can pull down the stones and spread them around and that place will still stink of dark power.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

I don't even think people should be plugging into sites. It just means you have to hang around defending your home, and while that can be a fun adventure, its not a fun campaign.
...
I don't think heroes should be plugging into sites in general. Villains plug into sites and their power comes from the sites, and that's why heroes are heroes. Heroes have power that comes from themselves so they can move around and deal with site-related issues. Sometimes you might learn an ability from a site after defeating the guardians of a site, but Pokemon style of collecting sites just limits the number of different stories you can tell.

How about this: Once you have attuned yourself to a power site, you have to choose how it affects you. You have the following options:
1.) You sit in/on your power site and you gain levels/power slowly over time. Additionally, while you sit on it, your defenses against sieges and the like are magically improved. This is chosen traditionally by the 'Villains.'
2.) You eschew sitting on a site to gain power to go out into the world and adventure. Possibly you want to accomplish some goal away from your site, possibly you are a short lived race and can't wait for the power site to enhance you personally, or possibly power sites can't attune to some people as illustrated in option 1. In any case, if you choose to attune yourself to the power site and go out and adventure, the following occurs:

-You gain no personal magical powers as if you were sitting on it as in option 1.
-You attune yourself to the power site, and as a result it magically defends itself as if you were there (includes mundane defenses, traps, monsters, guards, etc.)
--You can leave someone or something back home that gains power from the power site, but at a reduced power cap. For example, if you found a power site at the Cave of Secrets (level 2), you could choose option 1 and sit on it to gain power (whatever level 2 would give you). Or you could choose option 2, and it would defend itself and power up someone or something while you were out adventuring (to level 1). Possibly you leave the Horn of the Corrupted Gargoyle there to become magically imbued while you are adventuring. Possibly you leave your favorite old servant from your childhood there, and he becomes a badass advisor at no risk to himself.

I think that sites should become stronger as the villain who controls it becomes stronger. Sauron has a few adventures around Mount Doom, gains levels by moving his agents through the world and accomplishing goals, gathers some armies, and then a simple fire magic site suddenly becomes the pivotal site of a powerful empire rather that a site that used to make fire elementals and grant a magic item forging bonus.

My scenario explains Sauron. He initially was an adventurer who found a power site and attuned himself to it by the second option. Then he adventured and gained levels and power. Then he sat on his power site (option 1) for a long time and became even more powerful, and created the One Ring, as well as the other magical rings. Then Sauron decided to go outside to adventure again. This however, weakened him. So in battle he was struck down.

Notice when he resurrected himself (partially) he stayed in his evil power site/fortress. Since he stayed inside the fortress he was much more powerful and indestructible there. The heroes didn't even consider making an assault on him while he was sitting on his site (option 1).

It sounds boring.

Different players want different things, and some people really want a city adventure and others want to wander the howling wilderness and still others want to play in the planes, and most people really want to alternate between those things.

Some people will want spend their lower levels playing adventurer detective, and then want to spend their middle levels being overlord of an empire, and then spend their higher levels jumping through Gates and meddling with gods. The potential stories for fantasy are infinite, and artificially limiting the setting by making it all about sites is just bad design.

Couldn't that just be a question of the emphasis/explanation of how the gameworld functions? Couldn't players do all those things you listed with power sites in the gameworld?

On making sites:

I really think sites should be made, as well as being natural. If a bunch of dream mages get together and build a Labyrinth of Dreams, then head of the order becomes the Dreamer Supreme.

I think the basis of magic should just be "looks awesome = magic". If you cobbled together a temple from field stones and mud then its just a place of worship, but if you build a city of geometric streets and arching spires made from volcanic glass with death runes of power on every wall, then that should have enough magic power to be a site.

Has it been decided whether power sites are eternal or whether they become dormant or die? If power sites became dormant, the Dream Mages could discover an old forgotten site and reawaken it (hah).

Places with an awesome story should be magical too. If the last battle between the demon-led Carthians and the angel-led Legion of White Light took place on a plateau and resulted in the destruction of both armies and multiple gates opened and outsiders called and dead heroes on both sides pulled into rifts and cracks in the ground, then it should be a place of power.

I see a couple reasons why that could happen. You could just say that ancient dormant power sites existed in that place, and the battle reawakened it. This may be too arbitrary though. Or maybe such a magical explosion ripped a nearby dormant site from its place and moved it to the battlefield. If this is the case, then it should occur randomly (decided by plot). Though I guess you could have some Throne of Bhal action going on too.

[K]

Allowing PCs to attune to sites is just bad all around because of these essential problems:

1. You have PC tensions whenever a good site comes up and people want to attune to it. This could be solved by letting parties attune to a site, but you still have problems with sites not fitting into a person's shtick. A paladin of life and justice that rides a unicorn is not going to want to attune to the Vale of Infinite Horror, no matter what powers it has.

2. Big empires. Empires are a default of any fantasy setting, and there is not reason why some organization wouldn't just make sure that all sites are attuned. Even if you posit "dormant" or "hidden" sites, we have agreed that sites do one thing when active, which is spawn monsters. This means that people will know whenever a sites becomes active and there no reason why they wouldn't send an army and their own heroes to take it.

3. Someone takes your site when you are not home. If we allow people to attune the site by beating its defenses or something, then we must assume that if you ever leave your site to go adventuring, someone will take it from you. Playing musical chairs with sites make may a good adventure, but as a campaign it would bore the hell out of most players (like me).

4. All the good sites are taken. Even if we assume that sites are hidden and sites go dormant, there are still things in the default fantasy universe that are thousands of years old and powerful, and it costs them nothing to place a few watchers on dead sites in the event they go active again. Think about Liches. They are immortal, powerful, and all about accumulating power. What would it cost them to post a few undead on a spot or even just do a monthly Scry with a crystal ball to check if there is any activity on dead sites.


Ok, now we need a site system that works. Here goes:

A. Sites spawn monsters at their level when unattuned, and sometimes enchant items or cast spells (like weather control, or monster repelling, illusions, or other "atmospheric" effects).

B. Attuning sites means being a very specific kind of person. This can be villains or important NPCs. For example, the Grotto of Black Roses might require a person who has lost a loved one to death, but couldn't accept it and has studied the magic of life and death and in the hopes of forcing them back because their soul doesn't want to return.

Being attuned to a site means you can't leave it for long. Unless you are more powerful than the site, your power wanes the longer you stay away from the site.

C. If can you attune a site, it raises your power to its level. You can then raise your level and the site becomes more powerful. If you raise your level past it, you can create better versions of the same general monsters. The Cavern of Fire Crystal might be a 6th level site that just make fire giants and flame drakes, but when the Fire Lord reaches 10th level he can build red dragons and huge fire elementals too.

If the attuned person is killed, the site returns to its old level. So, an empire built on the Smouldercone might die out because after the last person of fire devil and human blood who had the will and intellect to beat a devil in a pact has died and the empire couldn't find another, and then a neighboring empire decided to wipe them out before they could or the site started to make devils who began killing the populace. Now the site makes devils and imps and fire elementals and is a no man's land of old ruins and lost treasures.

D. Defeating a site's guardians means you can place an item in it to be enchanted, learn a power, or make it cast a spell.

E. Attuned creatures build armies, and those armies can be taken out of the site by the attuned creature. The site stays attuned as long as the creature lives, in some form. So Mount Doom stayed attuned because Sauron was a lich who left his soul in a phylactery (the One Ring) who could only act through communication devices left in his castle.

F. Sites occur naturally, but they also can be made by making awesome architecture. This means no one can ever lock down the site network because they can pop up in hidden places. Since most natural sites are far away from good resources like water, arable and/or flat land, iron, etc and require specific kinds of people, they tend to not be attuned.

Made sites can be destroyed, unless they have been around for a very long time and then they become natural sites.

[spasheridan]

I think we can look at the "piping" problem a little differently - instead of having each new node in the empire hooking into the master node under the capitol we can think of them as new towns in the empire. A town, of course, produces stuff - food, people, clothes, whatever - that is consumed in the town. It also produces exportable goods and a tax revenue.

SO - the new node that was just conquered produces mana locally that supports the local node, say funny lights in the sky and some power for the local lord to use to protect his turf. It also produces some exportable good - magic swords, healing amulets, love potions, zombies.. and those goods are shipped off to the empire's economy to be used however the emperor wants.

This has the same effect as magic pipes without the magic pipes, each new node adds to the power of the empire but it also presents adventure opportunities -

THe local lord is getting greedy and keeping his magic swords, maybe he's planning to revolt.

Bandits are stealing the shipments of love potions and opening up a billiards establishment in the red light district.

An enemy has captured the node and there are no new zombies to flesh out the Necromaster's army.

I think this is a nice mix of no magic pipes with most of what Frank wanted magic pipes to do.

[spasheridan]

I think the idea of mana sites that spawn magic items naturally, and the ability to harness and refine this power - is a nice method of creating the magic item economy. It also lets us out of the idea of a wish economy - sure, Djini's can wish item's from their 15k max mana site, but the Order of Magic Swordsmiths have a Max 50k sword site and 2 Hammers of SwordCrafting that enable *1.5 swords, and the master of the site is level 12 and he can make the occasional *3 sword from the site - with one of the hammer he's making 200k swords. And he needs 200k for that sword because he needs to pay for all his crafters and guardsmen, stonemasons, coal shipments, miners, road maintenance, town watch... while still supplying magic swords to the king each month.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

Allowing PCs to attune to sites is just bad all around because of these essential problems:

Since the game is still in the design phase, these problems only need to be essential if we want them to be. I'll list some possible solutions to the problems you listed. In any case, once the Pcs have found and cleared a site, they will do something with it. Whether they give it to their empire, an ally, or keep it for themselves, there must be rules for it. And many players will want to have a little magic fortress.

...but you still have problems with sites not fitting into a person's shtick. A paladin of life and justice that rides a unicorn is not going to want to attune to the Vale of Infinite Horror, no matter what powers it has.

So the party does a Ritual of Destruction on the site. How is this more difficult than if parties couldn't attune to sites?

2. Big empires. Empires are a default of any fantasy setting, and there is not reason why some organization wouldn't just make sure that all sites are attuned. Even if you posit "dormant" or "hidden" sites, we have agreed that sites do one thing when active, which is spawn monsters. This means that people will know whenever a sites becomes active and there no reason why they wouldn't send an army and their own heroes to take it.

There are possibly a number of solutions to this, but first I want to address the issue of empires. Are we assuming that all power sites are ruled by powerful empires? If so, then you are right. I was under the impression that some sites were ruled by kingdoms, some by lone individuals, and everything in-between those extremes.

If sites are ruled by people other than empires, then the following could be solutions:
-Since dormant sites are in the far corners of the world, it is a possibility that it would take a long amount of time for people to find out about it.
-If there are site "tremors" of monster spawnings which occur when the site doesn't actually become active, then rulers would wait until it was known whether the site was truly active or not.

-If there is more than one empire, then that means that there is a state of warfare, or at least competition between the states. If two empires each have a dozen or so satellite sites, then that means they are guarding those sites. Each empire would be disinclined to send too large a force to take the new-found power site for fear that the second empire would send a force to take a newly-vulnerable established site from the first empire.
--As a result, some newly found sites could result in a "land rush" of picked heroes from every kingdom. I think it could be fun campaign design if a fraction (whatever fraction you like) of site explorations by the party had the backdrop of half a dozen expeditionary parties from nearby kingdoms. There could even be treaties on the site-grab which the kingdoms had agreed to beforehand.
In this way the party could take a site for their own, or failing that, come to an alliance or liege-system with a neighboring kingdom.

3. Someone takes your site when you are not home. If we allow people to attune the site by beating its defenses or something, then we must assume that if you ever leave your site to go adventuring, someone will take it from you. Playing musical chairs with sites make may a good adventure, but as a campaign it would bore the hell out of most players (like me).

It wouldn't have to be like 'musical chairs.' As I stated previously, the site would defend itself. If the Pc's obtained the site in the first place, then that means that for the most part they are powerful enough to defend it. As an additional rule, if you are attuned to a site, you can teleport back to the site when it is under siege.

There. So now we have a new element of gameplay for the system, defending your home from invasions. If the game was entirely this way it would be unfun, but it can be nice change of pace. Additionally, it allows players to make and describe the defenses of their home/site. Some players enjoy this type of thing.

4. All the good sites are taken. Even if we assume that sites are hidden and sites go dormant, there are still things in the default fantasy universe that are thousands of years old and powerful, and it costs them nothing to place a few watchers on dead sites in the event they go active again. Think about Liches. They are immortal, powerful, and all about accumulating power. What would it cost them to post a few undead on a spot or even just do a monthly Scry with a crystal ball to check if there is any activity on dead sites.

True. But site 'tremors' eat their minions. And Sites are immune to scrying. Problems solved.

Also, it can be a good thing if old obscure creatures have ways of finding out if forgotten sites go active again. They can employ the Pc's. Or the Pc's could find out that The Lich of the Fetid Swamp is on the move after three hundred years. Why is he out? Sounds like an adventure. Especially since the local kingdoms have forgotten about the site and the Lich hasn't.

With regard to your points A through F, for the most part I don't have problems with them. Except as follows:

C. If can you attune a site, it raises your power to its level. You can then raise your level and the site becomes more powerful. If you raise your level past it, you can create better versions of the same general monsters. The Cavern of Fire Crystal might be a 6th level site that just make fire giants and flame drakes, but when the Fire Lord reaches 10th level he can build red dragons and huge fire elementals too.

If the attuned person is killed, the site returns to its old level. So, an empire built on the Smouldercone might die out because after the last person of fire devil and human blood who had the will and intellect to beat a devil in a pact has died and the empire couldn't find another, and then a neighboring empire decided to wipe them out before they could or the site started to make devils who began killing the populace. Now the site makes devils and imps and fire elementals and is a no man's land of old ruins and lost treasures.

This has problems. Effectively this means that any power site of any level becomes a mantle that makes an adventuring villain significantly more powerful. Villains no longer care how powerful a power site is. This means that people will have the same amount of desire in attaining a site that is guarded by an empire, as a site guarded by a lone mid-level wizard. This makes sites extremely 'musical chairs' like. Consider the following scenario: Level 14 villain takes a level one power site and then increases his level and makes an army that rivals the other empires.

That one example in itself isn't bad, but when you consider every little site does the same thing, you are back to 3e's rise and fall of nations on a stupidly increased scale. It is even more drastic than the farmer who goes to market to find the nation overthrown multiple times like in yours and Frank's Tome. In your above example the farmer who goes to market could find half a dozen new empires, all with armies, that have sprung up.

No. A better way would be to make army building sites rare, so that people and villains must fight over them. Or they could find a long dormant site and raise an army on their own. This lets you have your above example and still preserves world stability.

[K]

Allowing PCs to attune to sites is just bad all around because of these essential problems:

Since the game is still in the design phase, these problems only need to be essential if we want them to be. I'll list some possible solutions to the problems you listed. In any case, once the Pcs have found and cleared a site, they will do something with it. Whether they give it to their empire, an ally, or keep it for themselves, there must be rules for it. And many players will want to have a little magic fortress.

But you aren't addressing my points. How do you solve player infighting? Or player themes clashing with the sites you find? Or Pokemon "gotta catch 'em all" sites.

The only efficient solution is to just have villains and important NPCs plug into sites.

...but you still have problems with sites not fitting into a person's shtick. A paladin of life and justice that rides a unicorn is not going to want to attune to the Vale of Infinite Horror, no matter what powers it has.

So the party does a Ritual of Destruction on the site. How is this more difficult than if parties couldn't attune to sites?

Thats a non-starter.

The point of having a setting is that when the DM puts work into designing something, its still around next adventure or next campaign, or even melted together into a shared world with a bunch of designers like Forgotten Realms.

The setting is special because of sites. Letting people destroy sites is just like letting them make your setting less fun. Its just bad design.

Artificial sites are the exception because they won't have unique flavor. A small temple of Bhaal in the ground might be less powerful than the one in the Center of the City of the Damned, but they are producing the same general monsters.

2. Big empires. Empires are a default of any fantasy setting, and there is not reason why some organization wouldn't just make sure that all sites are attuned. Even if you posit "dormant" or "hidden" sites, we have agreed that sites do one thing when active, which is spawn monsters. This means that people will know whenever a sites becomes active and there no reason why they wouldn't send an army and their own heroes to take it.

There are possibly a number of solutions to this, but first I want to address the issue of empires. Are we assuming that all power sites are ruled by powerful empires? If so, then you are right. I was under the impression that some sites were ruled by kingdoms, some by lone individuals, and everything in-between those extremes.

If sites are ruled by people other than empires, then the following could be solutions:
-Since dormant sites are in the far corners of the world, it is a possibility that it would take a long amount of time for people to find out about it.
-If there are site "tremors" of monster spawnings which occur when the site doesn't actually become active, then rulers would wait until it was known whether the site was truly active or not.

-If there is more than one empire, then that means that there is a state of warfare, or at least competition between the states. If two empires each have a dozen or so satellite sites, then that means they are guarding those sites. Each empire would be disinclined to send too large a force to take the new-found power site for fear that the second empire would send a force to take a newly-vulnerable established site from the first empire.
--As a result, some newly found sites could result in a "land rush" of picked heroes from every kingdom. I think it could be fun campaign design if a fraction (whatever fraction you like) of site explorations by the party had the backdrop of half a dozen expeditionary parties from nearby kingdoms. There could even be treaties on the site-grab which the kingdoms had agreed to beforehand.
In this way the party could take a site for their own, or failing that, come to an alliance or liege-system with a neighboring kingdom.

I think you didn't read Part B.

The idea here is that rather than sites being used by anyone, they should be keyed to villains and NPCs. A character might search his entire life and not find a site he could attune because he doesn't meet the very specific criteria.

Some lone individuals will and some empires will train their youth for years just to have a few individuals who might be able to do it.

Empires have the resources to make sites, as will religions, but these sites can be destroyed.

3. Someone takes your site when you are not home. If we allow people to attune the site by beating its defenses or something, then we must assume that if you ever leave your site to go adventuring, someone will take it from you. Playing musical chairs with sites make may a good adventure, but as a campaign it would bore the hell out of most players (like me).

It wouldn't have to be like 'musical chairs.' As I stated previously, the site would defend itself. If the Pc's obtained the site in the first place, then that means that for the most part they are powerful enough to defend it. As an additional rule, if you are attuned to a site, you can teleport back to the site when it is under siege.

There. So now we have a new element of gameplay for the system, defending your home from invasions. If the game was entirely this way it would be unfun, but it can be nice change of pace. Additionally, it allows players to make and describe the defenses of their home/site. Some players enjoy this type of thing.

You are making more rules and complications to shore up a fundamentally bad idea.

Even if we allow PCs to teleport back to their sites, you still have tied them to the site in a not fun way. They have to defend it because in your system anyone can take it from them with enough power, and that means musical chairs unless there is some way for sites to be keyed to important individuals.

Do you really want adventurers to stop the fight against the Lich King because he's got an army parked outside your Cavern of Passing Time?

Lame.

And this doesn't even mean that people can't have fortresses and the like. You still can, even if you don't want the idea of making artificial sites.

4. All the good sites are taken. Even if we assume that sites are hidden and sites go dormant, there are still things in the default fantasy universe that are thousands of years old and powerful, and it costs them nothing to place a few watchers on dead sites in the event they go active again. Think about Liches. They are immortal, powerful, and all about accumulating power. What would it cost them to post a few undead on a spot or even just do a monthly Scry with a crystal ball to check if there is any activity on dead sites.

True. But site 'tremors' eat their minions. And Sites are immune to scrying. Problems solved.

Also, it can be a good thing if old obscure creatures have ways of finding out if forgotten sites go active again. They can employ the Pc's. Or the Pc's could find out that The Lich of the Fetid Swamp is on the move after three hundred years. Why is he out? Sounds like an adventure. Especially since the local kingdoms have forgotten about the site and the Lich hasn't.

Again, your trying to railroad your idea, and its just not working.

Sure, we can not have a logical and consistent game world and just come up with reasons why people can't lock down all the available sites, but thats going to lead to frustrated players.

With your solution, they'll say "and why can't I just fly past the formally dead site and see the monsters and know its active again" or "I why can't I just send new minions when the old ones die" or some other perfectly logical question.

The key here is to not over-complicate the rules. People will figure out a way to check dormant sites and active sites regardless of rules you try to create, so unless there is a way to add sites to the system then every site will get locked down by someone. Internal consistency demands a simpler system.

With regard to your points A through F, for the most part I don't have problems with them. Except as follows:

C. If can you attune a site, it raises your power to its level. You can then raise your level and the site becomes more powerful. If you raise your level past it, you can create better versions of the same general monsters. The Cavern of Fire Crystal might be a 6th level site that just make fire giants and flame drakes, but when the Fire Lord reaches 10th level he can build red dragons and huge fire elementals too.

If the attuned person is killed, the site returns to its old level. So, an empire built on the Smouldercone might die out because after the last person of fire devil and human blood who had the will and intellect to beat a devil in a pact has died and the empire couldn't find another, and then a neighboring empire decided to wipe them out before they could or the site started to make devils who began killing the populace. Now the site makes devils and imps and fire elementals and is a no man's land of old ruins and lost treasures.

This has problems. Effectively this means that any power site of any level becomes a mantle that makes an adventuring villain significantly more powerful. Villains no longer care how powerful a power site is. This means that people will have the same amount of desire in attaining a site that is guarded by an empire, as a site guarded by a lone mid-level wizard. This makes sites extremely 'musical chairs' like. Consider the following scenario: Level 14 villain takes a level one power site and then increases his level and makes an army that rivals the other empires.

That one example in itself isn't bad, but when you consider every little site does the same thing, you are back to 3e's rise and fall of nations on a stupidly increased scale. It is even more drastic than the farmer who goes to market to find the nation overthrown multiple times like in yours and Frank's Tome. In your above example the farmer who goes to market could find half a dozen new empires, all with armies, that have sprung up.

No. A better way would be to make army building sites rare, so that people and villains must fight over them. Or they could find a long dormant site and raise an army on their own. This lets you have your above example and still preserves world stability.

The idea is that the only way to build an army is to build or attune a site. See Part B again.

Part B means that only very special people get to be powered up by a site. This means that sometimes an army will rise out of the forest because someone has attuned the the Moonvine Circle, but most of the time the forest is full of vine monsters because no one special ever comes around (or they get crushed by a vine monster).

Making sites is based on your class. A powerful warrior builds a stone fortress and trains the peasants to become monster killers with their pikes and crossbows, while a Sorcerer picks a mountain retreat where stone statues animate to his will, and a cleric builds a temple and anoints holy warriors with holy energy until they take on celestial aspects. Artificial sites won't as well as natural sites simply because they won't power-up anyone. If a bandit king find a hidden elven forest fortress, he can still only recruit an army based on his level. He likes this, because he can't recruit anyone without a fortress.

Artificial sites also won't be easy to make. It will take a few months to make a 3rd level outpost, but a 15th level city to rule an empire from will take decades, if not hundreds of years. Killing the emperor and taking his city with your forces is an easier way to get your empire than to build it.

Made sites can get destroyed, and natural sites remain uncontrolled for long periods and spawn monsters. This gives heroes a reason to run around and have a wide variety of adventures without playing "what site are we going to today?".

The goal here is to keep the focus on the heroes. Sites are just a reason to keep monsters pushing into your setting and giving adventurers a reason to have work. Building a site-based economy just reduces the contributions of heroes to nil.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

But you aren't addressing my points. How do you solve player infighting? Or player themes clashing with the sites you find? Or Pokemon "gotta catch 'em all" sites.

Since you stated the following...

1. You have PC tensions whenever a good site comes up and people want to attune to it. This could be solved by letting parties attune to a site,...

...I thought the point didn't need to be addressed.

Thats a non-starter.

The point of having a setting is that when the DM puts work into designing something, its still around next adventure or next campaign, or even melted together into a shared world with a bunch of designers like Forgotten Realms.

The setting is special because of sites. Letting people destroy sites is just like letting them make your setting less fun. Its just bad design.

Perhaps I should have been more clear. Since you often stated that you don't want people to sit on sites and 'cock block,' I thought you didn't want parties to sit on evil sites and guard against them becoming attuned again. So instead, the party could force the site to become dormant again through a Ritual of Destruction.

I think you didn't read Part B.

I didn't know that all those statements were set in stone yet.

You are making more rules and complications to shore up a fundamentally bad idea.

Even if we allow PCs to teleport back to their sites, you still have tied them to the site in a not fun way. They have to defend it because in your system anyone can take it from them with enough power, and that means musical chairs unless there is some way for sites to be keyed to important individuals.

More like explanations of how a proposed world might function. Why can't the Pc's be the important individuals? I was under the assumption that at high levels the Pc's would rule kingdoms and have power sites of their own. If this isn't the case, then I won't continue down this line of thought.

Sure, we can not have a logical and consistent game world and just come up with reasons why people can't lock down all the available sites, but thats going to lead to frustrated players.

With your solution, they'll say "and why can't I just fly past the formally dead site and see the monsters and know its active again" or "I why can't I just send new minions when the old ones die" or some other perfectly logical question.

The key here is to not over-complicate the rules. People will figure out a way to check dormant sites and active sites regardless of rules you try to create, so unless there is a way to add sites to the system then every site will get locked down by someone. Internal consistency demands a simpler system.

My system is both internally consistent and logical. To answer your two specific player questions:
1. Sure you can fly by. But sites can become dormant for centuries or millenia at a time. That is why other empires don't guard dormant sites. So it might take you a few hundred thousand flyovers to catch it active again. Good luck.
2. You can send new minions. They might have to sit there for decades on end until they get eaten by monsters during a tremor. But you can do it.

The idea is that the only way to build an army is to build or attune a site. See Part B again.

Part B means that only very special people get to be powered up by a site. This means that sometimes an army will rise out of the forest because someone has attuned the the Moonvine Circle, but most of the time the forest is full of vine monsters because no one special ever comes around (or they get crushed by a vine monster).

Under this system, empires will be even more inclined to guard unattuned natural sites than they would be in mine. A natural unattuned site can be made into a fortress with an army in a short period of time, and the site is active constantly so it could occur at any moment.

gives heroes a reason to run around and have a wide variety of adventures without playing "what site are we going to today?".

Since monsters spawn from sites, isn't that the entire point?

[NoDot]

A think a good way to solve this is to have "plugging in" to Power Sites basically be constructing some structure to properly channel the power there and also send some, but not all, of the power to somewhere else.

Lone Site Lords just build a structure there and sit on the site, powering up. If the individual has multiple Sites, then he/she needs to venture out when the Sites get knocked offline by something, get the Site back online, and return to go kill whatever popped out of his/her home while out. Empires just station guards there to deal with whatever pops out...until a Boss pops out of a hiccup.

Power hiccups can occur at any time, whether the site is active or not. If the site is active, then the structure which is sending power elsewhere is disrupted. (They're fragile, so a strong wind might...) Odds are a Boss of some type shows up and kills any watchers around.

Sites cannot be created (That just reeks of "exploit!"), but you need a structure to fully channel a Site's power.

Did I explain myself soundly?

[Crissa]

1. You have PC tensions whenever a good site comes up and people want to attune to it. This could be solved by letting parties attune to a site, but you still have problems with sites not fitting into a person's shtick. A paladin of life and justice that rides a unicorn is not going to want to attune to the Vale of Infinite Horror, no matter what powers it has.

Solution: Either leave sites to NPCs or allow attuning to tilt to the tuner's concept. Damage types shouldn't be clung to alignments, for instance, and places should be able to be retitled. Powers should be selectable, not pre-set.

And the powers really shouldn't be transportable anyhow. So a Paladin seals the vale. He can stay there and fight the horrors and take their power or he can stay there, fight the horrors, and become one. If the player doesn't want to do either... Well, that's how the game is played.

2. Big empires. Empires are a default of any fantasy setting, and there is not reason why some organization wouldn't just make sure that all sites are attuned. Even if you posit "dormant" or "hidden" sites, we have agreed that sites do one thing when active, which is spawn monsters. This means that people will know whenever a sites becomes active and there no reason why they wouldn't send an army and their own heroes to take it.

They have guards there. To fight the monsters. Or some priest, to tap the powers. They hope the point doesn't rebel, but it might. It it might die, and all the power it gave them is naught. Or it might just blow up, the priest dies, or the guards fail to fight off one of the generations. Sleeping with monsters, and all. Basically, it's a huge alliance, that might shift at any moment.

Also, when nodes fall, it might be years or decades (especially longer-lived races) before someone can get back to it. You might show up, and wonder why the node hasn't gone wild, because everyone is gone (ala Final Fantasy demonspawn) and the creepy music is playing. Or maybe, al Moria, it fell long ago and no one noticed they missed a check in or twenty.

3. Someone takes your site when you are not home. If we allow people to attune the site by beating its defenses or something, then we must assume that if you ever leave your site to go adventuring, someone will take it from you. Playing musical chairs with sites make may a good adventure, but as a campaign it would bore the hell out of most players (like me).

Who suggested this?

4. All the good sites are taken. Even if we assume that sites are hidden and sites go dormant, there are still things in the default fantasy universe that are thousands of years old and powerful, and it costs them nothing to place a few watchers on dead sites in the event they go active again. Think about Liches. They are immortal, powerful, and all about accumulating power. What would it cost them to post a few undead on a spot or even just do a monthly Scry with a crystal ball to check if there is any activity on dead sites.

Didn't we talk about sites blocking teleport/scry/being physically inaccessible?

-Crissa

[CatharzGodfoot]

3. Someone takes your site when you are not home. If we allow people to attune the site by beating its defenses or something, then we must assume that if you ever leave your site to go adventuring, someone will take it from you. Playing musical chairs with sites make may a good adventure, but as a campaign it would bore the hell out of most players (like me).

Who suggested this?

That's a good point. Although it should be straightforward to knock a satellite site offline, taking a fully attuned site should require the attuned individual's presence. That makes for a better story anyway.

[spasheridan]

What about sites that can only be attuned at certain times - a guardian for the Comet Mountain can only be set during the passing of a comet that's visible between the 2 peaks. Or the Yucca Desert can only be attuned while the 3 great cactus's on it are all blooming at once.

There's also the underdark - the great goblin tribes roam the underdark like ravenous dogs, guarding all the tunnels that riddle the earth. Hidden deep underground are just as many Sites as there are on the surface. Powerful deep dwellers take over these sites - tons of adventuring opportunites here, and no PC would want to stake a claim on a site 3 miles underground.

[Orion]

I actually side with K here-- everything about his proposal makes sense except that I think defending one's home *is* a cool adventure, maybe even more than once, enough to be, while not a campaign, a solid subtheme of one.

And finding out that your *own* home is under attack on the morn you besiege the Black Tower isn't just a good adventure -- it's a classic tension-building climax-enabler in countless movies inside and outside the fantasy genre.

[NoDot]

I can't help but notice that my post was ignored. Did I really miss the mark that badly?

[Crissa]

No, I think we already talked about that, and Frank said that was sorta how he was leaning.

Each site needs someone to maintain it, else the sharks attracted to the volts will chew the cables, and the magic items/monsters will wander away or possibly destroy everything nearby. So you have to have some sort of tower or garrison to hold it, a structure of some sort.

So yeah, the BBEG has to be defeated at the site, and the site can't be repurposed without the lord of the site - but it can be interrupted.

But also the BBEG doesn't get to carry all the power with them, hence the inclination to stay in their tower and send minions out.

-Crissa

[name_here]

wait, i don't get why taking a site would require the attuned guy's presence. doesn't that mean that if the owner runs off to another plane of existance, you'd have to follow him and hope he isn't safer there than you are? what if a gold dragon runs off to the elemental plane of fire while a site is attuned to him? would you have to chase down and capture him to swap control of the site? i think it should be really hard to attune a site, and take a while, but not require somthing like that.