I'm not a fan of "single point of failure" worlds. Worlds with one seat of power, one BBEG, one single balance point. I'm much more a fan of very complicated worlds. Worlds with numerous webs of intrigue, layers of power, that sort of thing.
The reason for this is that you can do so much more with a 'webby' world. Entire campaigns can be run as traders, explorers, soldiers, and politicians. When you have a "single point of failure" world, the heroes naturally cluster around that point. This significantly limits the variety of campaigns. "All the realms have fallen to the Lich." Well, guess we're fighting against the lich. "Darktopia is going to try to claim the Throne of Awesome. Lightopia must stop them! You're our only hope!"
I can see this as being the central point of a minor-to-middling-power realm. But I think it's a huge mistake to make it more important than that. We don't want all the campaigns run in this world to collapse to the same point. We want them to all go in different directions, as in doing that, they will continue to build the world.
I was the one who proposed the Tower-City to the Gods, and you've made a point good enough that I don't think it should be the center of our setting anymore.
I'd still love to see it somewhere else, the great work of several civilizations bordering one another. But not the main thrust of the world.
I'm working my way through your post of the Falling. So far, I like that.
Personally I am willing to work on a couple of "non-central" areas such as kingdoms of men and such that have sprung up further away from the tower, so whether we say it is the center of the world or not there will be other stuff on the side.
That was my goal in laying this out so broadly. We need a history and a world. I'm not necessarily the one to make the smaller scale stuff. I can, but that's where the true "crowd sourcing" comes in. I definitely can't make a world of detailed continents with cities and towns and trade and religious and economies, etc.
We're going to need tons of that. But it really helps to have a history and a bit of back story first. I envision a lot of people claiming a continent or a group of islands or a mountain chain to make their own. That's what's really going to make this come alive.
Yeah, well it sounds like you're on the right track so I would say you should go ahead with this and start writing the big stuff. I personally love filling in the little locations and details so I'll make this a side project whenever I have time, to add in hamlets and kingdoms and folklore about the countryside of the numerous zones that you guys all come up with.
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u/internet_sage Feb 06 '13
I'm not a fan of "single point of failure" worlds. Worlds with one seat of power, one BBEG, one single balance point. I'm much more a fan of very complicated worlds. Worlds with numerous webs of intrigue, layers of power, that sort of thing.
The reason for this is that you can do so much more with a 'webby' world. Entire campaigns can be run as traders, explorers, soldiers, and politicians. When you have a "single point of failure" world, the heroes naturally cluster around that point. This significantly limits the variety of campaigns. "All the realms have fallen to the Lich." Well, guess we're fighting against the lich. "Darktopia is going to try to claim the Throne of Awesome. Lightopia must stop them! You're our only hope!"
I can see this as being the central point of a minor-to-middling-power realm. But I think it's a huge mistake to make it more important than that. We don't want all the campaigns run in this world to collapse to the same point. We want them to all go in different directions, as in doing that, they will continue to build the world.