Somewhere in the middle of yesterday's
discussion—and work day--I got a chance to sneak in two hours of
cross-continental anarchy and laughter in Harald Wagener's Sylvan
Realms online game.
While the game was straight-up,
by-the-book Labyrinth Lord, it doesn't have a single standard
player class. Instead we had a short-list array of thematically-linked classes: Forest Gnome, Witch, Warden, Enchantress
and War Bear (do you have to even ask what I ended up playing). Each
class had unique quirks and abilities. Marcy the witch (which subbed
in for our first War Bear casualty) had her potions, Gnorman the
gnome his weasel animal friend (which for a round my slain War Bear's
spirit managed to possess).
Our opening information was pretty bare
bones, a list of terse bullet points. But it like it instantly had a
good deal of off-vanilla flavor a lot of nagging little mysteries:
no human settlements, no real civilization other than the lost elves.
Just a 30 mile by 50 mile section of wooded mythical wilderness,
geographically isolated from whatever the hell the larger world is.
In other words, despite lacking an
elaborate setting elaboration, it was most definitely a special
snowflake setting. It was unique, interesting and in its hardwiring
instantly signaled a particular flavor: dark fairy tale.
For see you don't have to have—and
indeed it probably works better to not have at the get go—tome-like
setting description, long sweeping historical accounts,
continent-wide maps, etc. It can grow up bottom up from a simple, but personalized base through play and work outward to whatever it wants
to be.
You don't need it to be achingly weird
or be another one-up in the Gonzo arms race that FLAILSNAILS at times
seemed to be in the Google Plus scene. You can even take rather staid
and familiar elements like that of enchanted woods and fairy tale
creatures—and then toss in a 30-foot blind essence-dreaming
freakzoid from the Chtonic Codex and hit all my sweet spots
(while scaring the piss out of me).
Tomorrow I defend the comfort food joys
of Vanilla D&D fantasy for balance.
Sounds like a fun game. Harald seems to be going for some of the same aesthetic I'm going for with the Land of Azurth.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the nice write up!
ReplyDeleteThis is excellent! Take a standard trope and add a little bit of weird. It's comfortable and new at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the proposition that great settings don't need to be super-rich. Sometimes the setting that is implied by the game rules- and discovering that implied setting- is better than reading all the sourcebooks in the world.
Speaking of unique settings, after Slumbering Ursine Dunes, what is next for the Hydra Collective?
ReplyDeleteNext up is a greatly expanded version of this piece of awesome: http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=1975
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