Carta Galaxia Weekly Update – Week 1
Yes indeed. Now that FBH is out the door, I’m re-committing myself to doing weekly updates about the next book (series of books).
That said, a year away from Carta has given me step back and re-examine the idea of an Uncharted Worlds campaign setting.
So I pose a question to the community, especially those who regularly use settings/campaign materials: What do you look for in this kind of material?
– World Building (Factions, planets, cities, resources, opportunities, history)?
– Storyline (Missions, characters, branching resolutions, plot twists, events)?
– A mix of the two?
I have my own preferences and ideas, but I’ll admit that this is a bit of shaky ground for me, since I’ve always been more free form (gee, could you tell with the way UW is written 😛 ) and obviously I want to give the community what they would find the most interesting.
I like toolbox more than full setting. Maps, factions, encounters, fleets, weapons, bartenders and other pre-made stuff to add to my game in case of need.
A few ‘complete’ examples built with those would be nice too.
Also more things like ‘Planet-bound Savage’ would be very nice. I enjoyed 21 Jump Points a lot. But something more than a starter would be nice. Extended jump points or super-extended jump points. I know planning does not match PbtA, but some kind of jump-points-campaign, connecting one with possible others would be nice. You could plug and unplug them as the story goes if they share a common theme.
A mix of storyline and world building would be great. I have a fondness for lists/tables of things for idea building also.
I’m strongly in the world builder’s camp. Build it and they will come (and rob it or blow it up or both.)
Tables and charts. I loves me the tables and charts.
I agree with what Alpo _ says above.
What I look for are cool ideas, especially adventure seeds. Ones that I wouldn’t have come up with myself.
For a PbtA, I want modularity. Some idea that include a description and maybe a custom move or a custom equipment or a neat mechanic. That and some “dungeon starter” type stuff. Situations I can pitch my players into. Also, loaded/primed questions to ask about all of these things to my players.
Normally I am in the world builder’s side of things, after seeing Blades in the Dark I wouldn’t mind a fully fleshed out setting with a lot of tables and charts related to different aspects of that setting, along with ways of managing Threats, Clocks, and Factions that are in that setting.
If the book has a setting (as indicated above), I would like to see is all the modules, world building, and tables first in their generic form and then a specific setting and how it was created using the toolkit.
I love the way the Tianxia books for Fate have done setting: broad overview of the landscape of a region, and very specific, narrow locations or NPCs that are saturated with story hooks — occasionally with sidebars offering multiple interpretations of the same details. The broad overview gives a feel for the region, and the specifics are so very specific that they feel easily slipped in or out of a campaign.
And of course, extra rules stuff that enforces a specific feel is absolutely welcome and I’d say necessary… custom moves to jump straight to the good parts of mass fleet battles, or for being deconstructed and rebuilt on the molecular level, or for having false memories implanted in your mind, etc. Really high concept stuff tied inextricably to the feel of the setting, for players to use or riff on as necessary.
I prefer a lot of small modular plots with no truths or solutions built in. Planescape material was a dump of locations and NPCs and a bunch of interconnectedness
Look at what Stars Without Number did with their setting creation and then with faction turns. If you could make a system like that that works with UW, and leverages the mechanics and dynamic play of a PBtA game you’d be into a winner.
Sean, I tried to message you privately but I guess it didn’t go through. I wanted to ask you if my group can use UW in our podcast
Sean Gomes – take a look at Mike Evan’s Starrunner Kit. I consider that perfect for a setting book.
Chad Jacobs I don’t think you need permission
Aaron Griffin nonsense! I control every aspect of this game, all must appease me before they enjoy it, for I am a fickle lord of the Uncharted Worlds.
Pffft hahahaha. Yeah Aaron’s right. I’m flattered, but you guys do what you will, just have fun with it. Oh and give the DTRPG link a plug if you feel like it.
+Chalice in Chains … What’s the Starrunner Kit?
Sean Gomes … I knew you were a Overlord bent on universal control of all things Uncharted Worlds. 😉
Mwahaahahaha… haaaaaaa…
Heck, thanks to 21 Jump Points I haven’t even written 100% of Uncharted Worlds published material, let alone controlling 100% of Uncharted Worlds games.
(By the way you folks should totally check out 21 Jump Points. It’s rad. And not just because of/despite the 21 Jump Street reference)
A campaign setting is not always a good thing. Considering each gaming group usually tackle their games differently (specially in AWE games), I think a better approach would be a bunch of generators.
Like Perilous Wilds, for DW. With that I can create my own flavor of old school hexcrawling settings without being pushed toward a particular flavor of it.
So, considering that, I’d prefer to see guidelines and generators all over the place. Of course I have doing that already (when not, aham, researching… Yes! Researching is the word! When not researching Elite: Dangerous on my PS4).
Marcelo Paschoalin While I intend to have a certain amount of system-generated story content, the bottom line is that Carta Galaxia was sold on the promise that there would be pre-made campaign settings that groups could use as a launchpad.
Kinda like saying “I want to play in the Firefly universe” or “lets run a Warhammer 40k one-shot”: the pre-defined setting allows everyone at the table to quickly establish the tone, themes, archetypes, tropes, factions and boundaries of the game world without having to define those aspects.
And while I certainly don’t expect to produce worlds of that depth and complexity, I do intend to at least provide a lot of interesting opportunities for stories. To do so, I first need to establish the baseline setting, or the stories will need to be super generic to be able to fit everywhere.
Sean Gomes, the universe is big and that can be accomplished if you keep it generic enough, but with “sectors with distinct personalities”. Let’s say Sector 031 is like Firefly, and Sector 281 is like Warhammer 40k. In the end, there’s some link between both (and “crossover” opportunities), but they are apart and doesn’t interfere with each other.
Or am I thinking Traveller too much in trying to separate things into sectors? Carta Galaxia could be a general overview and then you would have ample writing room to write each Sector as a pre-made universe (and even have a few co-writers to expand that).
Marcelo Paschoalin feels far too Traveller to me.
From a writing perspective, the idea of just dumping every universe, history and setting into an Ur-Universe is… sloppy. And rife with potential inconsistencies. Too many clashing themes and tones.
I’d rather have something well-defined and consistent than something all-encompassing and generic.
I, personally, don’t have an interest in generic material. I can make my own generic material. I want focused, honed material that is laser-guided to accomplish its particular objective.
Stacie Winters http://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/165000
Oooh, nice. I’m currently looking into Stars Without Number (some interesting stuff in there, certainly giving me ideas). I’ll check out the Sprawl settings book too. Thanks for the heads up!
I can see a Firefly or WH40K template (as examples) without having to craft a universe for it. Not trying to be a stick in the mud as much as I would rather see tools for the GM to tweak origins, occupations, factions, and the like to make these and more.
For my part, I like a mix of things and especially maps. I’m pretty comfortable filling in the edges, so if it takes more time and effort for me to learn the setting material than to make something up, I end up not using it even if I like it more than the stuff I make up. 😛
The more tweakable it is the better. Characters and factions are easier to squeeze into new galaxies than, well, well laid out galaxies are and maps are the easiest of all to reuse with different themes and settings and the hardest thing for me to dream up on my own of a reasonable quality.
For a mix I like things to be modular, those some overarching setting structure would help. What I find most useful are plot hooks and advice on how to bring elements from the book into my game.
All too often I find books that describe cool locations, factions, or NPCs, but they don’t give suggestions on how I can put them to use in my current campaign.
e.g. For a planet I would like reasons that would bring my players there and possible adventure seeds for while they are there.
For a mission/scenario: ways to get the players involved and possible things to follow up once they have completed it (aftermath).
The environment is one of the most important characters- so perhaps a toolbox for environmental moves or features to help make places feel more unique than “Jungle Planet X” and “Jungle Planet Y: Everything is Red Here”? Obviously we accomplish this in many ways, but more resources for tweaking places. Since we’re dealin’ sci-fi, some discussions on social ramifications of technology/progress, and tips for taking contemporary issues and putting them under the lense of speculative fiction could also be fun/useful.
I am excited!
I’m always a huge fan of when developers show and tell, like if you showed us these super interesting places, species or planets then show us the world builder mechanics behind how these things work.
Maybe some conversion ideas for stats for other systems.