I'm in the midst of designing a setting for Zweihander. I don't want to emulate WFRP to any extent. I am starting with one region and building out a "framework" to run a sandbox - event driven campaign hybrid.
I'm somewhat apprehensive of just putting together a typical medieval setting. I feel like there's plenty of that out there already. But I'm also stumped.
What are some ideas of stuff that is not common / typical but would still be compatible for creating a "grim and perilous" world?
Am I being overly creative? :-D Maybe "originality" is not as important as offering some new ideas but keeping things familiar enough to be desirable / playable?
Quote from: trechriron;1056541I'm in the midst of designing a setting for Zweihander. I don't want to emulate WFRP to any extent. I am starting with one region and building out a "framework" to run a sandbox - event driven campaign hybrid.
I'm somewhat apprehensive of just putting together a typical medieval setting. I feel like there's plenty of that out there already. But I'm also stumped.
What are some ideas of stuff that is not common / typical but would still be compatible for creating a "grim and perilous" world?
Am I being overly creative? :-D Maybe "originality" is not as important as offering some new ideas but keeping things familiar enough to be desirable / playable?
It like a soap opera, whenever a new one starts up it pretty much read like a thousand other but what makes it unique are the characters. The same with a setting, any given local, region, realms sized region can read initially like it has been done a thousand times. But when the PCs start interacting with the NPCs and inhabitant can feel completely new and fresh.
As far as the supernatural and fantastic goes, try mining the myths and legends of less commonly known countries of Europe like Poland, Hungary, Portugal, etc. One reason the original warhammer felt unique was it drew a lot from medieval Germany.
I don't speak for anyone else, but personally, I've seen so many generic medieval fantasy settings (especially Tolkienesque) that I'm not really interested in more. In general, I think execution counts for more than originality. But particularly for medieval fantasy tabletop RPGs, I think the field is so well trod that I do look for something outside the field.
Looking a little wider in inspirations - like Arrows of Indra, for example - is one way. Even within medieval Europe inspired fantasy, there are plenty of vastly different approaches one can take. Inspirations like witch hunters, fairy tales (plenty of grim and perilous material there), Nordic sagas, or lots of other fiction.
Quote from: trechriron;1056541I'm in the midst of designing a setting for Zweihander.
The fact you are using Zwei at all sets you inexorably in the road to failure.
Turn back before it is too late!!!!! :eek:
I'm working on a setting too and struggling a bit too. So following thread....
I am going to try something though, I think I want to base all my major NPCs on minis that I paint, I have an 8 x 4 table that I am building a model city on and that will become the main city for the initial part of the campaign.
I just got very burned out looking for inspiration in literature and you can get into "its all been done before mode"
Example: I want undead to be truly scary so I am getting rid of the old stand by skeletons. I think just encountering undead will require the 5E sanity rules.
Reaper miniatures had some old skeleton models in the Dark Heaven line that had a ton of character. The miniatures were also taller than the standard human figures even though they were skeleton models.
So I decided to write some backstory for the campaign where these were a goliath breed of humans that are all dead or undead now. They lead humanity out of bondage to the elves. I have not yet decided if they will play for good or evil in the contemporary world. I like the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer model of vampires, that they were bodies possessed by demons as they died. I wanted that to be the explanation of undead in my world but haven't figured out how to square that with the Tall Kings miniatures I discussed. Perhaps there is a power struggle of souls going on within those creatures.
Anyhow that is my coping with the same problem and where I am finding inspiration.
If I were to use Zwei or WFRP for an original setting, I would take a real world nation and fantasy-ize its history and make its myths real. My choice for "grim and perilous" would be somewhere like Bulgaria or Latvia. A small nation with a rich history that gives me plenty to work with, but not so much that I'm overwhelmed. AKA, 10 wikipedia pages would be all I need and I'd rock and roll from there. Heck, the real world events could be the big campaign "on the horizon" events for the PCs to deal with.
For my new OD&D setting, I'm doing a mishmash of inspirations (pulp stories, old movies, video games, comics, etc) and then playing with each element to make sure it fits into the setting as its own thing so 90% of players would never figure out its not my "original" creation.
Quote from: trechriron;1056541I'm in the midst of designing a setting for Zweihander. I don't want to emulate WFRP to any extent. I am starting with one region and building out a "framework" to run a sandbox - event driven campaign hybrid.
I'm somewhat apprehensive of just putting together a typical medieval setting. I feel like there's plenty of that out there already. But I'm also stumped.
What are some ideas of stuff that is not common / typical but would still be compatible for creating a "grim and perilous" world?
Am I being overly creative? :-D Maybe "originality" is not as important as offering some new ideas but keeping things familiar enough to be desirable / playable?
Living in Sweden, i'm well aware of different forms of mystical folklore creatures.
It's not merely that "Our elves are different" and "Our trolls are different", we have a plethora of others that is somewhat local in some aspects.
Our variant of Selkies can often shapeshift into handsome nude men("Neck") that can fiddle like the devil and lure people to drown in that way ... or they might put on clothes and take a harvesting job, and harvest at at least double the speed of most others, only requiring the scythe they used as payment "to use as a weapon against another Neck from a different river" (they live in rivers, not seas, those ones).
For instance.
Thing is, after playing a lesser known game called "Daymare Town" i noticed that polish folklore also has creatures that looks different, so that is yet another difference in aesthetics, if not in habits.
In addition to that, i have seen fantasy mixed with varying amounts of Steampunk as well, mainly Final Fantasy, but also a webcomic named "Girl Genius".
That angle could bring variation, too.