[RQ-Rules] Re: Alternate Earth

[Nick.Middleton at invensys.com]

>So far, the alternatives mentioned bar Atlantis all seem to be Historical
Earths.  While the Aztecs would be a good >idea (Along with the Mixtecs,
Mayans and Yaqui as well), are we really talking about alternates or just
historical >Earths?

Well, "Fantasy earth" as presented in RQIII felt like an honest take on the
Graeco-Roman world view, and Vikings certainly seemed to be trying the same
thing: what Ars Magica originally claimed to be the world as the people of
a particular time believed it to be, NOT the historical reality. Now, when
one adds that the Graeco-Roman base was expanded by Vikings (circa 950CE)
and Fantasy Japan (books at home, but ~1400CE was the main focus?) then I
think we are looking at stitching together interesting _cultures_
irrespective of whether  they coexisted historically, and with the emphasis
on their respective myths and folk tales being true. So Central and South
America probably has Aztecs and Mayans, North America has Amerinds _with_
horses, Asia has both Mongols and Imperial China, Easter Island is probably
at the height of it's culture etc etc. In many ways, what we are looking at
is interesting cultures that people can pick and choose from to build their
own settings.

>  I'd love to see more alternate Earths- GURPS Time Travel did a few of
these brilliantly, but BRP is just
>as suited to doing it as well.

Urm, isn't that Stormbringer? Seriously, most Eternal champion games I ever
played (and all those I ran :D ) ended up trotting off across the
multiverse and whilst EC alternate planes have a particular feel (hats off
to Keith Herber for Rogue Mistress for example), BRP does this sort of
thing remarkably well (especially with Worlds of Wonder... hats off to Mr
Perrin!) but I, personally, was thinking more in terms of solid culture and
myth/folk tale notes (a la Vikings, LoN), rather than weird and wonderful
parallel universes. The later can be built up from the former, but just
going for the later makes the material less useful as those who want it
straight will have to disentangle the "straight" cultural stuff from the
alternate universe stuff.

>I'd like to see a world where the Neanderthals wiped out humanity- you
could do what you liked more or less, or a >world of dinosaurids who have
had a continuous culture for nearly 200 million years, and so on.
>What would also be interesting is to have the worlds interlinked in some
way. I did this in one of my campaigns: >the PCs wandered into a gigantic
city built by a pair of dinosaur races in a parallel world.
>Many historical settings have been covered by GURPS, Bushido, Victorian
Roleplaying (Cthulhu as well in this >field); perhaps we should be thinking
more of the Luther Arkwright game (Which I haven't seen), based on the
comic >(which I've read!).

Indeed, one of the things we should look at is covering the historical
cultures that DON'T have GURPS books (or at least easily available GURPS
Books): why duplicate effort? I really can't get on with the rule system,
but if I want to do a campaign in a setting for which there is a GURPS
book, it is always my first port of call, they are usually so well
researched and edited. As for the world linking and such, have you watched
Sliders? That had real possibilities (a bunch of people thrown together by
chance, with a reason to stick together and keep moving, visiting a new
world every week...). As for Luther Arkwright, there is a license just
begging to be picked up (especially with  Hearts of Empire out as well) by
Chaosium or someone they are prepared to let use the BRP system. I really
didn't rate the original game but the setting and comic was fabulous.

>So: what are we doing here?

Errm wasting lunchtime and waiting for my Yahoo-groups membership to catch
up/be approved! And noodling away at my Eric Van Lustbader's Sunset Warrior
inspired BRP setting...


Cheers,

Nick Middleton.