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Balance between "core" and "form"

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PacalII Since: Jan, 2013
#1: May 18th 2012 at 2:50:14 PM

So I’ve been thinking that when I was working on rpgs I always concentrated more on the “form” than on the “core” of the setting. This means I worked more on how the world looks like than on what the world is about. So I thought that I might try to do it the other way, and started creating a rpg which central concept would be freedom. But no the hippie - do what you want – type of freedom, but more the personal freedom, kind of like in classical liberalism or some would say “libertarianism”. So I started creating a low culture, high tech world long after an apocalypse in which most of the population would live in stateless societies. The several cities and clans would set their own laws and freely regulate the differences between themselves. Of course it wouldn’t be an ideal world, there would be always those who sought power, kings and leaders of cults who sought power at the expense of others freedom. Tyrants who would often seek weapons from before the great war to spread their power. So then I started to think about how the world looks like and based it on many on many sources, books by China Mieville, Nausicaa of the valley of the wind, Morrowind and the art of Hieronymus Bosch. I created a multitude of freaky creatures and races, four-legged and four-handed arachnids, bee-like nomads, inhabiting the land and water octopus-lizards or a race of giants which has been mechanically transformed to serve as weapons by the tyrants in the great war. I also thought the planet itself might be organic, and the further you go underground the more the laws of reality are bent. Which some say is because you slowly enter the planets sub-consciousness and some say is because of psychedelic properties of something underground. So my question is if I should aim at such weirdness? If I do, will it not overshadow the central motive? How do I keep a balance or should I give up some of my ideas?

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