Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Araes 01-22-08, 07:57 PM	A while back, the folks who made the Dawn of Worlds cooperative world building system came on the boards and asked us to look at their creation. After doing so, and then also trying it out with my current group of gamers, I thought I’d try and modify the system so that it could be used in a play by post manner. I claim no authorship over the material, I just thought it was a fun way to make worlds and wanted to find a new venue for it. For reference, the standard version of Dawn of Worlds in PDF form may be found here (PDF) (www.clanwebsite.org/games/rpg/Dawn_of_Worlds_game_1_0Final.pdf). In general, for a list of actions and their costs, I recommend that anyone who wants to join this, download it and read through it. Although I will be listing the point costs for actions in this post, the PDF provides a much more comprehensive overview for each type of action than I can in a post. Changes From Standard Dawn of Worlds (for those already familiar with DoW) Base 8 points are gained per turn rather than 2d6 ”Turns” occur every three days for each player IE: I Shape Land and Shape Climate on Saturday. At any time on Monday or later, I may claim my points and do my next actions. Each player may have a maximum of one (1) avatar at a time. If the avatar dies you may of course revive it or make a new one. Only up to half the points you currently possess may be spent on benefits for races you made. IE: I have saved 30 points. I may spend up to 15 of them benefiting races X or Y, which I created. However, I may spend 0-30 points affecting race Z that someone else made (whether for good or ill) or doing non-racial actions. Normal restrictions on affecting other people’s races, cities, and orders still apply. This is mainly to stop people from cultivating “pet” races to the exclusion of all else. Armies do not have infinite range Armies may move one square in any direction per turn. They may attack any city/army in their own square or any neighboring square. They may move diagonally. Combats are resolved in the normal manner. If two players want to handle combat on the side, they can do so and just list the results. Otherwise, I’ll roll the combats randomly as I see them. Create Race and Create Subrace both give you an initial starting city. This is mostly to keep us from being confused. Section 1 - Overview The basic idea of the system is that everyone takes the roles of Gods creating a world. While progressing through three ages of development for the world (Land, Races, Relations), they create the terrain, the races, and the history of the world organically. In the normal game, points to affect the world are gained randomly in groups of 2d6 per turn. For this game, however, each player will instead gain a base 8 points per turn. In addition, in each turn where a player ends with less than 5 points (1-4), they will be given a bonus point to spend on the next round. In addition, for each additional turn where they end with less than 5, the bonus on the next round will increase by 1. This continues up to a maximum bonus of +3. 1st turn. Gain 8 points. Total of 8 points. Spend 6 points. Leaving 2. 2nd turn. Gain 8(+1) points. Total of 11 points. Spend 7 points. Leaving 4. 3rd turn. Gain 8(+2) points. Total of 14 points. Spend 13 points. Leaving 1. 4th turn. Gain 8(+3) points. Total of 12 points. Spend 9 points. Leaving 3. 5th turn. Gain 8(+3) points. Total of 14 points. Spend 7 points. Leaving 7. 6th turn. Gain 8 points. Total of 15 points. Ect… “Turns” will be relatively amorphous, but each player will be able to gain more points every (3) days. Points may be saved up to a maximum of 30. In addition, to gain points, players must post saying they are claiming and saving (or spending) their additional points. IE, every three days at least say “Claiming my points and saving them. Current total is X points.” Section 2 – Spending Points Each action that a player can take has a varying point cost based upon the current phase of the game. Example: In the Land phase, creating terrain in the world is very cheap (3 points to Shape Land), but creating and performing actions with races is quite expensive (8 to Command Race). However, in the Relations phase, creating terrain becomes quite expensive (8 points to Shape Land), while racial actions have become cheap instead (3 points to Command Race). A general rundown of costs is as follows: TABLE OF POWERS Power 1st Age - Land 2nd Age - Races 3rd Age - Relations Shape Land, 1 Square 3 5 8 Shape Climate, 1 Square 2 4 6 Create Race 22 6 15 Create Subrace 12 4 10 Command Race 8 4 3 Command City 6 4 2 Advance Civilization 10 5 6 Advance City 8 4 5 Purify Civ. +1 Align 5 3 4 Corrupt Civ. -1 Align 4 3 3 Purify City, +1 Align 4 3 3 Corrupt City, -1 Align 3 2 2 Event 10 7 9 Create Order 8 6 4 Command Order 4 3 2 Create Avatar 10 7 8 Command Avatar 2 1 1 Catastrophe, 1 Square 10 10 10 Action Descriptions: This is verbatim from the main PDF. (Again, I claim no authorship) Shape Land – This power directs the creation, modification, or erosion of mountains, hills, lakes, streams, rivers, forests, jungles, deserts, grasslands, tundra, steppes, and other land forms. On the game map, this power allows the creation of land forms within a 1 inch diameter area. Roughly. Using this power repeatedly can create whole ranges of mountains, inland seas, or vast wastelands. Use your imagination, and don't forget a few waterfalls. You don't need to take up the whole area if you have a fun idea. Shape Climate – This power directs weather patterns that are frequent in a rough 1" area, like fog, rain, snow, sun, heat, cold, sleet. You may wish to create snowy steppes, or hot jungle upon your forests. Create Race – This power effects the creation of one of the traditional races for player characters in your game system, or other classic fantasy races. Races and civilizations are often interchangeable. You may, for example, have more than one race of dwarves, each with its own unique civilization and government. Consider not only humans, elves, dwarves, orcs and trolls, but also dragons, halflings, or even leprechauns. At the discretion of the game master or would-be author, non-traditional races may cost double. players may pool points to create any race. Each race must be given a starting point in the world where they begin to build their civilization, (or lack thereof.) Races start either neutral, or aligned 1 good or -1 evil. See Purify and Corrupt. NOTE: Race types are unimportant. Go crazy. To make things easy, you get a free city with Create Race or Create Subrace. Create Subrace – This power is used for the creation of splinter groups from an existing race. These must arise in territory roughly adjacent to their ancestors, and may or may not start out getting along with their neighbors. Dark elves, deep dwarves, human pirates and the like are the subject of this power. Command Race – By this power, the priests of the gods influence a race to action. Cities are founded with this power, but it can be used for just about anything. An immortal must first establish his presence by creating sects within the race before influencing them via create order. The creator(s) of the race gets this sect automatically. This power may be used for starting wars, founding cities, making alliances, settling territory, etc. Of course, you'll need an army to go to war... Command City – Here, the god directs one single city to create something. This can be a wonder, wall, school, tower, or the like. Armies too are created with this power, though any given city may only produce one army in a given turn. Advance City / Civilization – This power causes the City or Civilization to gain expert knowledge of a given science or magic. These might include war magic, healing, warfare, steel, weapon smithing, sailboats, writing, literacy, engineering, architecture, farming, or the like. So long as that city or civilization persists, it will always be the greatest in this field. Purify / Corrupt – Here, gods go about changing general alignment of a civilization, city, or a one inch region of landscape by one step per turn. Unless the game master or author directs otherwise, there is no limit to how far this can go. Event – Through this power come the changing of fortunes for an Avatar, Order, City, or Civilization. A gold mine may be found, a storm at sea may strike a fleet, an Avatar may escape death, plague, famine, drought may strike, or technologies may be lost. These are the great, unplanned winds of fortune that blow through the history of the world. Create Order – By this power, the god creates an order of people within a civilization or race. These may include thieves' guilds, religious sects (see command race,) orders of knights, bands of brigands, pirate ships, etc. These orders may last indefinitely or be created for a particular purpose, such as the extermination a sect or opposing race. It is vital to keep track of who created a given order, as the cost to command them can vary. Command Order – Through this power, the god makes an order do something. For religious orders or sects, add +10 points if a non-creating player commands them. For other orders, add +5 points to the cost if a noncreating player commands them. Create Avatar – Through this power, the god creates a major figure within the history of the world. These may be high priests, dragons, warriors, dynasties, or the like. If slain or wiped out, they may be resurrected or reestablished by the creating player for 5 points. Command Avatar - An avatar can perform ONE of the following immortal or Many Mortal actions (such as leading an army) in a turn when commanded. Immortal actions which an avatar can perform include: Command City, Create Order, Command Order, Create City, Corrupt/Purify City, Create Race (ONCE), gather an army. Through the use of an avatar, players may for example raise two armies in a turn from the same city, or execute two commands upon a race. Catastrophe – By this power, the gods express their wrath. From fiery mountains to the destruction of avatars, the loss of great advancements to the destruction of city walls, this power brings ruin upon them all by whatever clever mechanism the player can imagine. (How will you feel when your avatar drowns in a lake of acid?) Clarifications Avatars may perform many of the other actions themselves, and they often do so for a lesser cost. Ex: In the Land phase, Command Race costs 8 points, but with an avatar, you may Command Race once per turn for only 2 points. Everywhere that the normal rules say “1 inch” you may instead substitute “1 square”. In addition, for all Shape X actions, you may do as much shaping as you want within that “1 square” area. Raise mountains, create rivers, and delve chasms – all for 3, 5, or 8 points depending on the phase. Don’t feel limited to “normal” stuff either. Go crazy and make flying islands or great forests of crystal spires if you want. If Shape Climate has not been used in an area, then Earth-like norms are assumed. Warm in the middle of the map, cold at the top and bottom. Like Shape Land, feel free to create extraordinary or magical climates if you want. Someone else can always go and change it again if they find it really annoying. To really destroy anything with Catastrophe (or any other action like combat), you must pay both the cost for the normal action, plus the creation cost of whatever you are destroying. Example: I drop flaming mountains on the cities of Zakar and Ramada (which are in the same square) in the Relations phase and want to destroy them. I must pay both the 10 points for Catastrophe, and the 6 points (3 points x2) that city creation (part of Command Race) would cost. Map will go up shortly
Araes 01-22-08, 07:59 PM	Section 3 – The World To facilitate the process of world creation, I have created a basic shape for the world’s landmasses and then carved it up into a number of sections. Each of the sections may be downloaded separately as their own file and worked on. To submit a change to the map, simply post a finished picture of what you want to do. Submissions may also be mailed to me at: CollabWorld@gmail.com If you want to work on a section, but don’t have time right now, post that you are checking it out. Check outs will be held for a day. Other than that, its first post, first serve on sections. I have a PHP script that compiles the map to a finished form every time I run it, so I’ll try to do this as often as possible. However, for the most up-to-date modifications, people should refer to recent posts in the thread. Notes on Changes Artistic ability is Totally irrelevant. Scribble things in paint if you have to. We just want participation, not masterpieces. If you can, please try to retain the PNG format of the files. They look much better under compression. Even MS Paint can export PNGs these days. The Big Map - Click to go to a large (1280x960) version of the map where individual regions can be selected. http://collaborativeworld.googlepages.com/CollabWorld_Main_Out_Thumb.png (http://araesmojo.phpnet.us/CollabWorld.html) Fin
Araes 01-22-08, 09:53 PM	To get us started off, figure I'll do a bit of land shaping up in the frozen north. I'm going to shape land twice (3) x 2 points and save the last few. http://collaborativeworld.googlepages.com/CollabWorld_0301.png http://collaborativeworld.googlepages.com/CollabWorld_0401.png Seeing that the world was crisp and new, Araes looked to the north of the world and thought upon a place that might reflect his face upon the world, and therein created a great spire to look south, out over the shape of creation. From this vantage, he then moved and molded the world to the south and east, creating a great ridge of mountains which ran outward to the sea. In their embrace, he cast out a cold northern desert of little respite. Surrounding their outer edges however, he instead caused life to spring forth, bountiful despite the bitter cold, and all manner of plants began to thrive where he cast his eye. Farther to the East, upon the surface of the oceans, Araes found that their pristine nature disturbed him, and in his ire, a great chain of islands pushed upward from the surf, carved like the lightning of his thoughts.
Space_Dragon 01-22-08, 11:51 PM	There's already a game in progress on this board. Good luck anyway.
Araes 01-24-08, 08:04 PM	I realize. Lords of Creation has been around for a while. In one form or another since February of last year. And before it there were other similar ideas. However, there's no particular issue with that for a couple of reasons. One is that people can contribute to multiple things if they so choose. Two, and the big one, is that the focus of this vs. Lords of Creation is rather different. LoC is largely about RPing gods, and quite honestly, the actual creation of the world takes a distant back seat. This, on the other hand is mostly about creating a world and only tertially includes the RP of godhood if people really want to do it. I'd honestly much rather see people come up with cool reasons why this or that race does something (once they appear) that have nothing to do with "Their god commands it and they obey". The god theme is basically just a tool to an end. As the PDF says, "collaborative world building" and an interesting way to create a history for the races of a world rather than the gods above it. Really, if nobody wants to join, I'll just continue taking turns and maybe play multiple sides. NOTE: I'm considering a slight rule change that would limit the time creators would have preferential control over their own created races. Perhaps 10 turns where the normal rules would apply to get them up, running, and to establish themes. After that, they would shift to a "free" race with no penalty for others to perform actions on / with. Basically, I just want to hamper "wargaming" and the "win the game" mentality. Back tomorrow for another turn.
Delfedd 01-24-08, 09:17 PM	I would be interested in playing. I wanted to try to get LoC and DoW closer. I would be happy to And a turn is a day?
Araes 01-24-08, 10:54 PM	I had been thinking turns could be every three, but that was basically to give people time to respond, role play actions, ect... We could do 1 or 2 days for turns instead. I'd probably say 2 days just so that we could still have a bit of leeway and so that points don't pile up super fast.
Sakon22 01-24-08, 11:39 PM	I was thinking of maybe doing this for a potential D&D group I'm trying to set up. I may as well test it out here. IC: Sakon was a reclusive god. He wished to make on this world a fortress from which he could remain undisturbed. He found such place a bit south (on square,) on a strait that connected the two continents. However, it was not yet perfectly ideal. Thus, he surrounded his haven with mountains and rivers. He made a swamp to the north and a forbiding desert to the southwest. He made a couple rain forests too. Not so much because they were defensible, but because he liked their appearance. http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/3917/collabworld0403sk5.png (Shape earth 8 - 3 = 5 remaining points this turn)
Araes 01-25-08, 12:20 AM	Interesting addition, and reloaded the map. Guess if we're going to do two day turns, then I'll claim my next turn, as its been two days. Prior 2 + 8 + 1 for being under 5 last turn Currently 11, and think I'll sleep on what to do with them.
Delfedd 01-25-08, 09:43 AM	Sorry, i've still got to think of a god. Well, i've got a 5 hour car ride, I will think of him (or her) then.
Araes 01-26-08, 02:54 PM	Alright, this is going to be a little harried, because I unfortunately have to work on the weekend, but taking my actions. I'll come back and do some description to pretty these up. 3 points for Shape Land, creating circular island chains in SW of map along with a non-catestrophic meteor strike that forms them and plunges deep into the ocean. (where it may still reside) With a great tail like a dying comet, a massive object streaked through the sky of the newly forming world and plunged into the surf of the shallow ocean of the south. Instantly vaporizing vast swaths of water for hundreds of miles around, it spewed forth a torrent of steam and dust into the sky of the fledgling land. Liquified by its impact, globs of earth and stone were also carried skyward in its wake. Like droplets of molten metal, they arced outward from the blast, shining golden orange in the sky and fell with thunderous hisses to the sea once more. Rapidly cooling, they formed strange angular lands with razor like lines of stone in some areas, and smooth, almost polished shores in others. Over time, as the fury of the object's strike calmed, and the seas once again rushed in to fill its resting place, the droplets which had rained around came to be covered in life. Tiny island oasis' surrounding the center of destruction. http://collaborativeworld.googlepages.com/CollabWorld_0208.png Reupped the map as well
Delfedd 01-26-08, 03:48 PM	Maybe I missed it Araes, but what is your god?
Space_Dragon 01-26-08, 04:05 PM	I guess I'll play. Is there a waiting list?
Sakon22 01-26-08, 11:34 PM	Doesn't seem like it...
Araes 01-27-08, 11:37 AM	Delfedd: I was using self named ( IE, Araes ), and as far as description goes, I was going to see how the first few turns played out and how I felt like writing before committing to a description. In general, I seem to be heading down an old testament Yahweh path though. Creative, quick to anger, and maybe a bit distant from his actual creations. Space Dragon: Nope, no list. The format of the game is open enough that people can wander in and out and there really isn't that much impact on the game itself, so no need. And another turn rolls around for me too. Only got rid of 3 last time. 8+8 -> 16 Also, I'd been thinking on how to handle conflict when we're not all in the same room as one another. I think the best way might be to announce things like armies attacking other armies or cities at the beginning of a turn, and then resolve those actions at the beginning of that player's next one. If people want to send reinforcements to help in a fight, that would give them enough time to do so. To limit that, armies would only be able to reinforce from as far away as the distance the attack was coming from. Ex: If a race were to attack a city one square to the side of them, then other cities, or races could send reinforcements from up to one square in any direction of the assaulted city. However, if that same race attacked a city in their own square, then only other cities / races / armies could help. Seem fair?
Araes 01-28-08, 11:39 PM	Big creation turn this time for spending my points. 4 x Shape Land (3) for 12 of 16. Leaving 4. As the object which had crashed into the great sea settled from the force of its impact, and the cooling isles which had come into being by arrival attracted life, slow changes began to take place across the ocean floor of the south. Like long tendrils, great cracks slowly worked their way outward from the center of the impact, forming deep rifts in the seabed floor. Hundreds of miles long, and thousands of feet deep, they delved deep into the surface of the world, bringing warmth and all manner of minerals up from below. As they expanded, another strange event began to take place. All along their length, exotic forms of life seemed to spring up around them, as if flowing outward from the impact itself. Kelps and corals and all manner of alien sealife seemed to flourish in their wake. Within a short period ( to the vision of the gods ) there existed an entire ecosystem of new underwater creatures in the vicinity of the strike. http://collaborativeworld.googlepages.com/CollabWorld_0207.png http://collaborativeworld.googlepages.com/CollabWorld_0108.png http://collaborativeworld.googlepages.com/CollabWorld_0208.png http://collaborativeworld.googlepages.com/CollabWorld_0308.png Reupped the main image
Araes 02-01-08, 08:47 PM	Completely missed my last turn due to emdless work. Anyhow, think I'm going to save this next set, as I've been doing a ton of land building lately, and perhaps its time to have some firstborn people's take shape on the world. Course, could also change my mind, since I'm going to have to wait at least a few more days to make 22. 4+1+8 = 13
Araes 02-06-08, 12:35 AM	Unfortunately, a bit more lacklusterness as the horrors of work continue. Claiming further points in the effort to save enough for a "dawn of time" race. 13 + 8 = 21
Delfedd 02-06-08, 08:22 AM	If you could simplify the rules a bit, It would be a lot easier for me as well as other people to drop in and contribute.