Worldbuilding Wednesday
Entry #001 1/26/2015 (Drinking Diet Cherry 7-UP.)BiFrost: An Intro.....hold on....
Before I get going on talking about this new setting, I want to reiterate for myself what the point of this is. This is a project to get me to a) record my thought process and work b) get me writing more often and c) share those results with the world, because, hey, someone might like it and that would make me a little happy.Alright, let's try this again
BiFrost: An Introduction
BiFrost is a modern fantasy campaign setting. It pulls from several influences (Dresden Files, Margaret Atwood’s Year of the Flood series, Shadowrun, .Hack, etc.) and came from two ideas.
One: In college, a few years into my RPG obsession, I found the HERO system and downloaded the starter guide. I loved how sandboxy the rules were when it came to creating your own powers and I quickly started creating characters for me and my friends. Our characters all lived in a future where America was ravaged by a plague, Texas split off to be its own state, and other fun/terrible ideas. The general idea of this setting was that some weird fog got released that left 1/3 of the population alive, gave those living a weird kind of magic, and shut down radio signals. In my pseudoscience theory, this would cut us off from cell phones and long distance communication. It was a super fun idea, and one I might get back to, but it also provided a lot of fodder for BiFrost, so might be tough to differentiate. We will see.
Two: Ever since I was introduced to the concept of a Class as it exists in RPG terms, I have picked classes for myself and for my family and friends. I spent hours drilling them about themselves, putting them in hypothetical scenarios, taking quizzes, making quizzes, making them take quizzes all to answer one big question: What would I be in a fantasy world? This line of thought and discussion brought me to one realization; the question is actually three questions.
1) What would you be in a fantasy world based on your personality?
That is, do you see yourself as a combative fighter? An angry barbarian? A nature loving druid? A pious cleric? A nerdy Wizard? This question mainly focuses on who you are as a person and is similar to the old D&D tv show, or to Digimon a little bit. This is the fun one to play with your friends, to help categorize your personality and individualize yourself.
2) What would you be in a fantasy world if you got to choose?
This one is similar to the old favorite, what kind of superpowers you would like to have. It’s a little more fun than the superpower question because it’s more limited. In essence, this is just what do you wish you could do, or what would be fun to kill monsters with. This question specifically presumes you would be fighting and adventuring.
3) What fantasy class would you be in the real world?
The answer to this one is usually something with magic because we don’t have magic in the real world, which is unfortunate. The question poses, in your daily life, with your job, your friends, your car, etc. What would be helpful to be able to do? For most people, the martial classes fade away. Fighting? Most people don’t do that on a day to day basis. I sometimes wonder about those who seem more into shooting, violence, and drug dealing I bet a few of them would pick fighter or rogue over a magical class. But I’m not sure.
Asking these questions, considering these questions, and annoying my friends by constantly asking these questions led me to create my own quizzes and my own systems for deciding class. At some point, this coalesced into a thought: what if people in real life had a class? I started with Pathfinder classes, cause the SRD was easy to get to and I did some planning. Then NaNoWriMo came around and I wrote a terrible draft of a novel set in this world. This draft taught me many things, but the main one being this fantasy setting could work. There were stories to tell here. I switched to 5e now because honestly it’s less fiddly, but the system I chose is definitely something to consider as I develop the setting.
Next week I’ll go into the themes I’ll be working with and the ultimate purpose of the setting.
Happy Humpday!
This blog brought to you by Diet Cherry 7-UP.
Diet Cherry 7-UP: You’re on a diet, fatty.
1) What would you be in a fantasy world based on your personality?
That is, do you see yourself as a combative fighter? An angry barbarian? A nature loving druid? A pious cleric? A nerdy Wizard? This question mainly focuses on who you are as a person and is similar to the old D&D tv show, or to Digimon a little bit. This is the fun one to play with your friends, to help categorize your personality and individualize yourself.
2) What would you be in a fantasy world if you got to choose?
This one is similar to the old favorite, what kind of superpowers you would like to have. It’s a little more fun than the superpower question because it’s more limited. In essence, this is just what do you wish you could do, or what would be fun to kill monsters with. This question specifically presumes you would be fighting and adventuring.
3) What fantasy class would you be in the real world?
The answer to this one is usually something with magic because we don’t have magic in the real world, which is unfortunate. The question poses, in your daily life, with your job, your friends, your car, etc. What would be helpful to be able to do? For most people, the martial classes fade away. Fighting? Most people don’t do that on a day to day basis. I sometimes wonder about those who seem more into shooting, violence, and drug dealing I bet a few of them would pick fighter or rogue over a magical class. But I’m not sure.
Asking these questions, considering these questions, and annoying my friends by constantly asking these questions led me to create my own quizzes and my own systems for deciding class. At some point, this coalesced into a thought: what if people in real life had a class? I started with Pathfinder classes, cause the SRD was easy to get to and I did some planning. Then NaNoWriMo came around and I wrote a terrible draft of a novel set in this world. This draft taught me many things, but the main one being this fantasy setting could work. There were stories to tell here. I switched to 5e now because honestly it’s less fiddly, but the system I chose is definitely something to consider as I develop the setting.
Next week I’ll go into the themes I’ll be working with and the ultimate purpose of the setting.
Happy Humpday!
This blog brought to you by Diet Cherry 7-UP.
Diet Cherry 7-UP: You’re on a diet, fatty.
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