We continue to drive down deeper into our real-time worldbuilding experiment armed with the comments of our listeners.
In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave begin to ask the most basic question when building a town: why is the town there? In our D&D Tombstone idea, we realize the short answer is money. And what drives that money? Magic. Make sure to join the conversation as we build a Wonderful World with our 3WD community!
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2:25 The “Elevator Pitch” for our new campaign setting.
4:05 Review our discussion of magic.
9:06 Our Sci-Fi, D&D Tombstone.
10:50 Why do towns exist? The short answer: money.
14:55 Economy, commerce, and the Gold Piece Problem.
17:40 Power, Influence, Money, and your Standard of Living
23:50 Magic is a memory. The adventure is in rediscovering it.
29:35 Leveling magic differently to play to the setting?
40:15 Final Thoughts.
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Okay, here’s another one. 🙂 I’ve never liked the idea of “Weird West” RPGs. The American West just does not lend itself to being a fantasy setting (IMO). The West was about as down-to-earth, and ‘normal’ a place as you are ever going to find. Unlike many other regions of Earth, there aren’t any legends of magic or vampires or demons associated with the Old West. So I’d suggest you take the world you are building and give it a different setting. Maybe something oriental. Like the players are Mongols or Japanese, out to loot the ruins of a Chinese empire. I think that would be different and very cool.
Hey Scott!
Thankfully, our audience has decided that this is not our original “Dying Earth” idea, but a completely new world… so we don’t have to feel constrained by the American West. I like to think of our “D&D Tombstone” the way some of the Star Wars franchise is very western in its approach (thinking The Mandalorian). We’ll have to wait and see what comes up with our continued build… and then you’ll probably be one of the ones to playtest the setting!
-Dave
Your discussion in this episode reminds me of a SF RPG me and another guy invented back in the late 70s at Penn State. Like your proposed game it was set in a post apocalyptic setting (the ruins of a collapsed galactic civilization) where the players were scavengers trying to find valuable technology, weapons, and equipment in the wastelands. Older weapons, like firearms were fairly common, but more advanced stuff like blasters were very rare. The problem was that the ammunition for the firearms was quite expensive so the players were constantly faced with the decision: “Is using our best weapons (guns) going to be cost-effective?” Using up 100 credits worth of ammo to take out some savages who probably only have 15 credits between did not make sense economically. But using swords and such greatly increased the chances of the characters getting wounded or killed. It was actually a very fun game. 🙂
Hey Scott!
That’s a excellent idea! Another listener also brought up the concept of proprietors selling recovered tech that may may not be authentic, which also lends itself to the same idea. Thank you for offering your thoughts, please keep them coming!
-Dave