Captain Anorak's
Guide to Gaming
Fantasy Gameworlds:
Different Assumptions
A lot of fantasy gameworlds have similar basic assumptions.
Here I look at these assumptions and discuss the possibilities
of backgrounds that work differently.
Humanoids rule. In most
fantasy RPGs I can think of, the world in which player characters
move consists of areas controlled by humans or, more rarely,
other humanoid player-character races like elves or dwarves.
There may be much more powerful races around, like dragons or
giants, but they just sit around in the background doing nothing
much. In most fantasy RPGs I can think of, dragons seem to spend
their whole lives sleeping in caves on top of piles of treasure
for which they have no use, waiting for bands of adventurers to
come and slay them.
Picture instead a gameworld in which humanoid races are
insignificant. There are great powers in the world, perhaps
living gods or giants or dragons, and they live their lives
and rule vast empires have their wars at a level far above the
humanoids. I shall call these 'Big Races'. Humanoids are just
like insects running around in the cracks of the Big Races'
world. To the Big Races, humanoids are either too insignificant
to notice, or are mildly annoying pests which should be wiped
out if they get too irritating. The Big Races might produce vast
amounts of food to support themselves, and humanoids might live
on it as mice thrive in human farms across our world.
A whole campaign could be set in a single building or
installation of the Big Races. Imagine the equivalent of a farmhouse.
Different human tribes might live in different parts of it, fighting
to control the areas where the food resources are most abundant,
all ignored by the Big Races. Of course, the Big Races might notice
that the humans were breeding to too large numbers, and exterminate
them as vermin with poison or some kind of human-hunting beasts.
The world is a big spherical planet. Most game backgrounds
have a world which
is like our own planet. The size of its land surface is so vast
that one could wander for lifetimes long and come to know only a
fraction of all the places on earth. This means that there are
always places beyond that which the player characters know.
But many of the old systems of mythic belief that I've read
about seem to have the world being a much smaller place, and
with a different shape. A game-world could equally be a single flat
continent a hundred miles across. It has edges, beyond which lies
limitless void. Anyone who falls off the edge isn't going to be
seen again. This means that a single person in a normal lifetime
could get to know the whole of the world. It's only a few days'
journey from one side to the other. There might only be a few
thousand people in the whole of the world. This makes it possible
for one king to become ruler of the whole world: it's much less of
a task than conquering and ruling a world the size of our planet.
Most game backgrounds are full of the familiar things which
we see in our own world, at present or in history: rain, soil,
mountains, rivers, forests, farmers groing wheat, a sun and moon
in the sky. But how different it could be. The sources of light
might be very different: in the Embellyon of Vance's Dying Earth
series, the sky is lit by ever-changing rippling bands of light.
Food might not need to be grown, but might come from some other
source instead.
The world is old. In most game backgrounds, the gameworld
is heavy with centuries. Hundreds of times different kingdoms and
empires have sprung up and dwindled away again to nothing. Now this
is often a rich source of background material. One can imagine for
instance a scenario in which the player characters stumble on the
ruins of a fort that was once built by a now long-forgotten empire,
and search its ruins which might have all sorts of interesting things
in them.
But think how it would be if it were different. A game-world
might only be a two hundred years old, and humanoids might only have
been created by the gods a hundred and fifty years ago. This would
mean that almost every person would know the identity of all his
ancestors all the way back to the days of creation.