Rob
Okay, version 2 of Narbohring posted to the gmail account.
Version 2 is 17 more pages (93 total), containing:
A description of why each Guild might hire PCs.
A few new regions and sub-areas here and there: a road, a swamp, etc. Fairly harmless.
A standard format for each location: towns, landmarks, regions, listing who’s there. Includes the main leader(s) for each damn city.
This is the big one- if you guys are looking at it, see if it makes sense. There are likely to be mistakes from the tons of cut-n-pasting I was doing. Any problems with the population sizes, makeup, resources, or governing bodies? Lots of bureaucratic-sounding institutions; does it work or fail?
Next up is:
A one-page description of the world
Extraction of monsters and items to appendices in the back
Describing where roads lead to and from
More advice for the GM about different places and people.
…
Justin- nice to hear from you, welcome back and glad to know you’ve still been checking this site. You make a great point. At the top of the to-do list for the world guide is a one-page players guide to the world, a summary of what Narbohring is like, along with the major nations and religions. I’ll email you the gmail account information, so you can get the system book and the world guide whenever you want.
As of now, not yet- but that’ll be the first thing in the third version. Fortunately, Narbohring’s not like Planescape. While cool, there was so much jargon that it wasn’t for part-timers. The world of Planescape was just alien front to back, so it wasn’t even clear some times what morality and physics were like, or if you walk into a bar and can get a beer. Narbohring’s basically your average fantasy world, with all the crazy and sick shit I can think of thrown into it. Thenzor Deep is especially out there, which is why there were so many ideas hung off it. Most of the other places have one or two quirks, but a lot of it is minor in comparison: a dude’s in love with Missy the gremlin. 20 bugbears live over there. Etc.
Still, there’s lots of religious stuff and secret demon worshipping going around, maybe par for the course, but a bit of GM help could also be useful. Mark’s also been encouraging me to add GM notes throughout; version 3 will have more of that hopefully.
A glossary is also a capital idea. That and an index are going to be fucking awful to make, honestly, but I think it would help immensely. I can never remember shit, so I’m always looking stuff up in the index and glossary even of the 3rd Ed books.
Also, the initial conception of this was a 20-page, flavor only guide. It’s not that, anymore. So I can take out all the game-mechanical descriptions of items, creatures, and maybe even the organizations and dump them in the end. I’m envisioning the final layout will have sidebars for longer descriptions of, e.g., the Guild of Optics and the various stories, that can be extracted from the main text but still there on the next page if you care to read.
Mark makes an interesting point: that you can’t make a system without making a world. Not just by adding spells like Bigby’s Giant Finger etc, but by delineating weapon tech levels, races, etc. I think we’re basically at the point where Mark’s game intro as to what an RPG is, is sort of redundant, the culture’s pretty well-saturated.
Which makes designing a world a bit of a problem. Almost everything’s already been done. All of my ideas are at least partially derivative, and many of them are completely derivative and cliché.
(A lot of this is inspired by the greatest D&D world ever made: the Wilderlands of High Fantasy by the Judges Guild. Just re-released, it’s great, great stuff. If you ever get to see a copy, you’ll see just how derivative my stuff is.)
…
Mark- the demons and devils I think should be overhauled. Along with maybe the angels, deva, and archons. I like angels, deva, archons, and demons, but the devil/demon distinction seems totally AD&D based, and I think that demons and devils should be combined. Also, the lesser/greater/common distinction doesn’t quite work for me. I’m making a list of stuff to discuss when I’m there on Friday, and this is on it.
Just so we’re clear, I like the archons you’ve got. Those are different than what I’m calling Archons in the Narbohring Guide. I’m going to say that the archons in your handbook were a servitor race of the Ethereal Archons, that took their masters name when the latter disappeared.
What do you guys think about firearms as an optional rule? Every time I’ve had them in a game, and every time I’ve played in a world with them, they were well-liked. In Narbohring, they wouldn’t be common, about as rare as magical weapons, and it would be a new technology developed by the Alchemists Guild.
Two minor things:
On page 280: “This common devil appears…” should probably be “Common devils appear…”. Otherwise it sounds like you’re talking about a specific common devil.
On page 293: how about making gnoles wolf- or hyena-headed? A bit better than jackal. Or, add variety. Say that gnoles appear as wolf-, jackal-, or hyena-headed depending on region.
…
If anyone is serious about wanting to help, here’s the three big things in order of importance: editing, playtesting, and design. They’re also contingent: can’t really design if you don’t know the system, and to know the system you have to read the book.
1. Editing: Look over the text and table layouts with a critical eye. Spelling mistakes, grammar, awkward or embarrassing phrases. The layout itself is not final- we’ll get to that probably, I dunno, by the end of the year if I had to guess, so don’t worry if there’s a page break in the middle.
2. Playtesting: Make some dudes, roll some dice. Anything broken? Anything too weak? Anything lacking? Anything too complex?
3. Design: While a guidebook, and a world, will form the core, there can always be more. Ideas are cheap so send em in if you got em. I’m a control freak, so I can’t promise that stuff will make it into the Narbohring guide, but a stand-alone dungeon or island or even another world would be fine and help increase the salience of Wayfarers once it’s out.
Just to make my position on this clear, I view this as a vanity project, but one that’s 100% awesome. I expect to pay whatever it takes out of pocket to get the art and book format that looks good and professional. Like all of us, I’m a pretty busy guy, but I’ve committed to this for the long haul… a year or more of work isn’t unreasonable, assuming I can get all the big stuff out of the way now while I’ve got a tad of free time, and then tweaking the editing over the next few months.
Also, please, please do not hesitate to flag something as lame. That’s the best thing any of you could do for my end of things. Some of the shit in Narbohring is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but not utterly slapstick and retarded. I’m also trying to go beyond my comfort zone and have things like, you know, balanced encounters, happy endings, treasure. There’s even a few damn love stories in there.
Version 2 is 17 more pages (93 total), containing:
A description of why each Guild might hire PCs.
A few new regions and sub-areas here and there: a road, a swamp, etc. Fairly harmless.
A standard format for each location: towns, landmarks, regions, listing who’s there. Includes the main leader(s) for each damn city.
This is the big one- if you guys are looking at it, see if it makes sense. There are likely to be mistakes from the tons of cut-n-pasting I was doing. Any problems with the population sizes, makeup, resources, or governing bodies? Lots of bureaucratic-sounding institutions; does it work or fail?
Next up is:
A one-page description of the world
Extraction of monsters and items to appendices in the back
Describing where roads lead to and from
More advice for the GM about different places and people.
…
Justin- nice to hear from you, welcome back and glad to know you’ve still been checking this site. You make a great point. At the top of the to-do list for the world guide is a one-page players guide to the world, a summary of what Narbohring is like, along with the major nations and religions. I’ll email you the gmail account information, so you can get the system book and the world guide whenever you want.
As of now, not yet- but that’ll be the first thing in the third version. Fortunately, Narbohring’s not like Planescape. While cool, there was so much jargon that it wasn’t for part-timers. The world of Planescape was just alien front to back, so it wasn’t even clear some times what morality and physics were like, or if you walk into a bar and can get a beer. Narbohring’s basically your average fantasy world, with all the crazy and sick shit I can think of thrown into it. Thenzor Deep is especially out there, which is why there were so many ideas hung off it. Most of the other places have one or two quirks, but a lot of it is minor in comparison: a dude’s in love with Missy the gremlin. 20 bugbears live over there. Etc.
Still, there’s lots of religious stuff and secret demon worshipping going around, maybe par for the course, but a bit of GM help could also be useful. Mark’s also been encouraging me to add GM notes throughout; version 3 will have more of that hopefully.
A glossary is also a capital idea. That and an index are going to be fucking awful to make, honestly, but I think it would help immensely. I can never remember shit, so I’m always looking stuff up in the index and glossary even of the 3rd Ed books.
Also, the initial conception of this was a 20-page, flavor only guide. It’s not that, anymore. So I can take out all the game-mechanical descriptions of items, creatures, and maybe even the organizations and dump them in the end. I’m envisioning the final layout will have sidebars for longer descriptions of, e.g., the Guild of Optics and the various stories, that can be extracted from the main text but still there on the next page if you care to read.
Mark makes an interesting point: that you can’t make a system without making a world. Not just by adding spells like Bigby’s Giant Finger etc, but by delineating weapon tech levels, races, etc. I think we’re basically at the point where Mark’s game intro as to what an RPG is, is sort of redundant, the culture’s pretty well-saturated.
Which makes designing a world a bit of a problem. Almost everything’s already been done. All of my ideas are at least partially derivative, and many of them are completely derivative and cliché.
(A lot of this is inspired by the greatest D&D world ever made: the Wilderlands of High Fantasy by the Judges Guild. Just re-released, it’s great, great stuff. If you ever get to see a copy, you’ll see just how derivative my stuff is.)
…
Mark- the demons and devils I think should be overhauled. Along with maybe the angels, deva, and archons. I like angels, deva, archons, and demons, but the devil/demon distinction seems totally AD&D based, and I think that demons and devils should be combined. Also, the lesser/greater/common distinction doesn’t quite work for me. I’m making a list of stuff to discuss when I’m there on Friday, and this is on it.
Just so we’re clear, I like the archons you’ve got. Those are different than what I’m calling Archons in the Narbohring Guide. I’m going to say that the archons in your handbook were a servitor race of the Ethereal Archons, that took their masters name when the latter disappeared.
What do you guys think about firearms as an optional rule? Every time I’ve had them in a game, and every time I’ve played in a world with them, they were well-liked. In Narbohring, they wouldn’t be common, about as rare as magical weapons, and it would be a new technology developed by the Alchemists Guild.
Two minor things:
On page 280: “This common devil appears…” should probably be “Common devils appear…”. Otherwise it sounds like you’re talking about a specific common devil.
On page 293: how about making gnoles wolf- or hyena-headed? A bit better than jackal. Or, add variety. Say that gnoles appear as wolf-, jackal-, or hyena-headed depending on region.
…
If anyone is serious about wanting to help, here’s the three big things in order of importance: editing, playtesting, and design. They’re also contingent: can’t really design if you don’t know the system, and to know the system you have to read the book.
1. Editing: Look over the text and table layouts with a critical eye. Spelling mistakes, grammar, awkward or embarrassing phrases. The layout itself is not final- we’ll get to that probably, I dunno, by the end of the year if I had to guess, so don’t worry if there’s a page break in the middle.
2. Playtesting: Make some dudes, roll some dice. Anything broken? Anything too weak? Anything lacking? Anything too complex?
3. Design: While a guidebook, and a world, will form the core, there can always be more. Ideas are cheap so send em in if you got em. I’m a control freak, so I can’t promise that stuff will make it into the Narbohring guide, but a stand-alone dungeon or island or even another world would be fine and help increase the salience of Wayfarers once it’s out.
Just to make my position on this clear, I view this as a vanity project, but one that’s 100% awesome. I expect to pay whatever it takes out of pocket to get the art and book format that looks good and professional. Like all of us, I’m a pretty busy guy, but I’ve committed to this for the long haul… a year or more of work isn’t unreasonable, assuming I can get all the big stuff out of the way now while I’ve got a tad of free time, and then tweaking the editing over the next few months.
Also, please, please do not hesitate to flag something as lame. That’s the best thing any of you could do for my end of things. Some of the shit in Narbohring is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but not utterly slapstick and retarded. I’m also trying to go beyond my comfort zone and have things like, you know, balanced encounters, happy endings, treasure. There’s even a few damn love stories in there.
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posted by Rob @ 4:54 PM
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