Show Posts - alcar

Huh. Never made a published adventure for anything myself. (Way back in 2e D&D I considered it with a mystery-style adventure I had run 3 times, but 3e destroyed the plot device that let it work.) Would definitely alter how I went about building an adventure. For the campaign I'm doing now, I went with the Steadfast because I liked the background of the Gaian/Steadfast war as a backdrop to events. No kingdom of the Steadfast really stood out to me -- I'd have prefered far less crazy rulers, for one thing -- but I went with Thaemor due to poor status and proximity to the Beyond for PCs coming from that area. It fit the mayor's fanatical ambitions that the kingdom is poor and hemorrhaging 'troops' to support the war effort from towns that can't spare them. Hence PCs being hired as a catch-all 'do anything I ask. Please?' category for the mayor. While it is working out just fine, I have zero desire to expand the game further into the Steadfast and am really hoping the world guide does give more ideas on other places and potential stories set in them myself. (Long term: the goal for my first campaign is for it to be a intro to the system/setting for everyone; my second one will be set some years later, with the previous PCs as legends/warnings/etc. and probably deal more with the war with the Gaians directly. Not sure yet; will depend on what players want to do.)Definitely liking the podcasts: it's always interesting to see how other GMs approach making a series of adventures/settings for a game. Also seconding the idea of even a small pdf booklet of 'weird town/places/etc/' to find for GMs to use, via anthropology.

Lessee .. started with D&D 1st ed back in highschool (1990s); our group did house-games, scatterings of WOD, Earthdawn and a few others. Moved to a small university and did most of my gaming online (via IRC) after that period as RL groups I found either didn't fit my tastes or ran games I wasn't too interested in. I ran a lot of D&D until 3rd ed. and then burned out on D&D, moving onto Unknown Armies, Risus, BESM and a smattering of others games we found and made use of over the years. I own far more RPGs than I will ever run and even bought some I liked in the knowledge I'd probably never run them but they were pretty awesome anyway. I spend a lot more time GMing than playing and have run a lot of modern games lately, being burned out on fantasy settings in the past a long time ago; came across Numenera via Bundle of Holding and found out one player had found it interesting, so snagged a copy and went: 'Oh, hello, this is awesome', pretty much    After 15+ years of GMing it's fun to have a game that says: 'Hey, you don't roll dice! And this game isn't about fighting at all!' to shake up both GM and players.

My game has the Truth being easy to learn as a major plot point, which it literally infecting other human cultures who come across it so they can speak it. The implications being that it's a virus as much as a language, and the Order of Truth is perhaps using it to make people see the world the way they do, in terms of numenera as not-magic and the like. Shall see how it all goes.

One of the fun challenges to me is to make the game about exploration and discovery, of things under the ground as much as above it, and NOT have those feel like dungeon crawl-style adventures.  I never actually ran a real dungeon crawl in my D&D days and have no desire to start, but I can see how players might feel 'explore underground for Stuff' is like that, so it'll make for interesting times. Which is always good. As for plot vs sandbox, I tend to have a basic plot -- mostly an outline in my head of what happens in the world and to the region the PCs are in if the PCs do NOT get involved. So there's a baseline plot of what will happen, and then the PCs get to come along and wreak merry havoc on it. I try to plot ahead a couple of sessions, based on what PCs are looking to find and discover, but beyond that let the game flow as it does. The introductory plot pretty much exists to get the PCs into the game and helping a town out but they're under no obligation) to remain in the area or even continue offering their services if they decide the pay rate isn't worth the potential dangers. Shall see where it all goes.

Interesting; it's always fun to see how other GMs make campaigns in the same setting. (I've never checked into this for any other game I've run, so doing this for Numenera is new for me...) In addition to what I posted on the google+ page (as Josh MacLeod there), I actually think the aliens arriving back on Earth WOULD be fun. Not as an invasion, per se, but a holiday to check out the famous centre of the Trans Galactic Hub and finding out everyone is living as barbarians would be great culture shock, and perhaps highlight to PCs a hint of how much as been lost -- or was taken away -- from humanity.