The Tainted City
So, I've basically got a very basic system in mind. 6 stats, split up so that they cover six traditional "specialties". A decent-sized skill-list. Actions are stat + skill in d6s, probably taking the highest value rolled and any matching dice.
But what about the setting? Planescape was a huge city with a mishmash of every D&D critter as inhabitants. Nexus stole from even a larger conglomeration of settings, supporting high tech and superheroes, too. On the other hand, Everway limited stuff strictly to fantasy, which seems like a good idea to me... if I have tech, I'll want it to be limited and restricted. I generally prefer running magic-based settings.
- A bunch of attached realms, many of which are thoroughly hostile to outsiders.
- Several are actively at war with the others.
- Menagerie itself is "neutral territory", probably for several reasons such as Protected by a Godlike Being, the portals send you to random locations if you try to send too many people through at once (can't launch a big invasion without a stable portal), and a government that is good at balancing between the various factions.
- There are a few Mysteries, such as sealed towers, weird spectral phenomena, etc., that aren't explained but are interesting.
- Many of the factions are dark and nasty, but you have to deal with them anyway.
- I don't want the power-levels to be as disparate as they are in D&D, so uber-powerful critters will be rare.
- The local political and religious movements can't afford to offend the far more powerful (if distant) factions that rule the various Spheres.
Coming up with an overall theme could be difficult. It might be easiest to model it after the D&D multiverse, but I'd prefer not to just write up a different system for running Planescape in.
Posted by Kiz at October 31, 2004 12:09 AM