Ok so this is a new idea I've come up with.
I recently received an extremely cold shoulder on a thread I posted in /lit/ talking about short stories (Nobody replied). After the same thing happened again, I wasn't real sure what to do. I've got this huge collection of short stories I've written over the years, some of which I've made into tabletop games, and some of which I've just kept expanding into. I've browsed /tg/ in the past, and I do remember there being a homebrew general, but to my memory that was more about systems and games than settings and narratives.
So this is a thread where you post your universes, kingdoms, alternate histories or whatever other background you've cooked up for your games. Describe your stuff and any issues you're having, critique others stuff and help them if they need it. If you've done any art to accompany your stories, that'll lighten the thread up a bit! I'm not massively social so I don't really get a lot of chances to /tg/ with friends, so I usually just end up creating settings and over time they get more and more complex. I would love for others to read my stories, and I welcome any comments and criticisms, as I'm sure others in my position will too.
If this thread is currently already being done, or there's a better place I can post this stuff, please let me know and I'll seek other shores.
If not however, I'm going to go ahead and post a basic idea I thought of a few weeks ago.
>>43969033
Here's my setting:
No red phone was established following the Cuban missile crisis, so eventually in the late 70s the USSR and USA entered into a cold war. Pretty standard stuff, right. Well I've freshened things up a bit. The idea is the nuclear war didn't actually end up destroying the world, more like just destroying the US and Russia. Both are in pretty bad shape, ecologically and economically, but the rest of the world is ticking along fine. Without the two superpowers meddling in other nations affairs and trying to establish dictators or opposition parties, the world is progressing much more peacefully. The EU and Arab League are both massive economic powers, and on friendly terms. South America is a glorious drug free haven of nature. The far east, without American incentives, never industrialised, and instead is a bastion of oriental culture and sustainable development. Africa, while still suffering the terrible plight of SIDA, grows in leaps and bounds in close collaboration with its ex-imperial oppressors.
Essentially everything is nice and rosy apart from the USA and USSR, which are being managed by a newly created UN body that's trying to restore order, and try and lesson the ecological damage to the regions. I had an idea for the party to be UN operators or diplomatics, in either the USA or USSR, trying to restore order and lift the two crippled giants into the new world of plenty.
mostly what I need for this setting are maps, place-names, country names, and a few thematic details.
oh, and to finish converting it to fit the nWoD system from pure fluff into something usable, but that's not what this thread is for. BEAR WITNESS TO MY MIGHTY SHIT-HEAP AND TREMBLE AT IT'S STUPIDITY!!
>>43969137
>the not-so-cold war
yes, this is for the most part pretty cool
except...
>peace in the Arab league
unpossible...people have been fighting over that region for centuries, for more reasons than just oil.
>>43969137
Oh, and technology is pretty different too. Computers were never quite minimized to the extend that they are today, but they've been made incredibly cheap so not only does everyone own one, even the poorest slum child in Uganda, but they're all connected over a rudimentary internet. So communication is pretty similar. Another note on culture, the American "Hollywood" effect never occurred, so global cultures are still all pretty independent.
>>43969294
I think the same could be said for Europe. I mean not only 30 years after the French and Germans finished their biggest war, in a long bloody history of them, they had formed one of the tightest alliances in the modern age under the EU. I agree a middle war total peace is far fetched, but I don't think impossible.
I'll have a read of your PDF now, and report back what I think.
>>43969294
>>43969359
oh, the specialty mechanics in that one are out of date...the fluffy bits aren't though
>pic is an example of the hunter-sign
>>43969479
>>43969294
I'm not expert on mechanics of gameplay, but the fluff seemed sound. I like the mega-story, the idea of the ancients settup up a massive show of entertainment in the form of the [NATION]s history. It could lead for some interesting ideas I think. The setting was also pretty funky, it was nice to see a non massively steam-punk Victorian setting, with a bit of fun magic. I would like to hear more about government I think, and if any, Royalty? Other than that it seemed fun, I'm get down in that world.
>rejection from /lit/
I know this feel. Tried to spice up my English coursework by making a campaign set in the universe of The Handmaids Tale and had a conversation about it on /lit/. Not the nicest of folks.
>>43969033
Here's my attempt at writing. I was thinking it could be part of a brief I give my players to read into the universe or whatever. But partly I just enjoy writing. I only did it last weekend, so it's pretty poor. But it's something nonetheless.
>>43969695
>I would like to hear more about government I think,
....fuck....
I've put literally no thought into governments...like, at all.
I was just gonna roll on % probability to see if "war were declared" during one of the party excursions...politics just wouldn't suit the players I had in mind.
a great deal of plot material was in fact stolen from FROM SOFTWARE games. the Nation Behind the Wall is reminiscent of the Fog in Demons Souls, the plot(pre-anarchists) was stolen from Bloodborne to a greater or lesser extent.
>the idea of the ancients settup up a massive show of entertainment in the form of the [NATION]s history.
well, just those five of them anyway. thought I'd give a spin to the fact that gods in this setting essentially mean Mega-Anarchist-Terrorists...you know, for a laugh. oh, and I did steal their names from the video game Bastion(is good, but only if you play it with the narrator ON and a very good Bass Booster on your audio)
>a non massively steam-punk Victorian setting
because I set out almost totally devoted to NOT building a steampunk game
NPC ideas might also be good...I eventually plan to have one for each "god" to confer a bonus to one character or another(I've got 2.5 of 5 done)
>>43969839
boards like that are the reason people say that they don't need boards other than /tg/, it's because other boards reject modes of thought that are more readily accepted here
>>43969033
I should also have said...welcome to /tg/ we collect stories...
http://i.4cdn.org/tg/1449180702317.png
and sometimes we simply cause them
>>43969920
If you're that bothered about goverment, I can recommend reading some 1850s British government stuff. Also, this video could provide a good reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ-1DMLP0CE
The UK is a special place indeed.
>I should also have said...welcome to /tg/ we collect stories, and sometimes we simply cause them.
I like that. A lot.
>>43970025
>I like that. A lot.
well then it's time for a few I think...
>>43970061
HFY are all smashing. I remember a fantastic one about a human chef opening up the mind of a species that doesn't eat. All quality stuff.
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/7552975/
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/32620360/
>a personal favorite
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/18458666/
Spoilertastic version:
In the beginning, the great overdeity created the multiverse and then created all of the gods, his many children, to watch over it while he rested. In that time, gods rose, fell, spawned demigods, and generally did whatever they wanted. The generally split themselves along two binary axes. Law and Chaos. Good and Evil. And thus the overdeity slumbered while his children squabbled over his work. That is, until one day, Dragos, an ambitious dragon ascended to divinity, not through accumulation of worship as other's had, but by consuming other deities and claiming their power. In one fell swoop, he had consumed the entire Egyptian pantheon. The other gods worried over this and pooled together their power, sacrificing a bit of themselves in the process, to imprison him in the void between the planes, trapping him outside of time and space.
Fast-forward so far that even the thought of him was forgotten.For eons beyond measure the delicate balancing act of the pantheons went back to it's semi-stability. All was not as it seemed, for Dragos had not been idle in his banishment. He had assembled the shambles of his power, such as they were, and started probing the limits of his prison. Eventually he found several weak points from which he could exert small influences to events on the material plane. In one such viewing he saw a young sorcerer lose his family and descend into grief. He started whispering things to the young man. Terrible things. He promised power, secrets of the universe, and even bringing back his family if he would do but one small task. Free him!
>>43970369
The sorcerer, mad with grief and his mind heavily twisted by Dragos, did as he was bid. His entire soul bent on freeing his master and reuniting with his family. After years of research, he finally managed to create and successfully complete a dark ritual to shatter the cage his master was in. Of course, all his mortal power could do was create a large crack in a cage powered by bits of the gods. His master was not mad with him however, and explained that he could yet succeed, but first he would have to weaken space-time at several strategic places around the world. Like adding small cracks around a bigger crack to weaken the piece as a whole. The cracks broke off Shards of Time, which scattered about the area, destabilizing the hold that time and space had on the world. In the north, a college of necromancy sprang up as the discovered that the dead weren't quite as difficult to wrest from their sleep as they were before. To the east a tropical island became filled with dinosaurs and other creatures thought long since dead. To the west, a plague which had once consumed all life in the world appeared once again, an experiment by some of the gods coming back to haunt the world a second time. To the north, an ancient gateway to a realm best forgotten opens, the library of a mad god open to those who know how to get there. To the south, the desert stirs as remnants of a pantheon long since thought gone lash out at all nearby. Beneath the surface the Drow grow restless and start raiding more boldly. Above, far beyond mortal and even godly comprehension, the overdeity stirs in his sleep, disturbed by the goings on in his creation.
