[RQ-Rules] Re: Alternate Earth

[Simon Phipp]

Roger Benham:

> 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?  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.

Strictly speaking, the Alternate Earth setting is mythical history, based on
historical earth but with extreme liberties taken with timeline, events,
cults etc. So, you get nomads with sunspears, dragons eating maidens and so
on. It is more like the Earth of legends and stories than the actual earth of
history.

However, I can't see a problem with settings for future alternate earths, or
alternate earths based on Alexander's empire 1000 years on and so on. It all
depends on where people want to take it.

Time travelling/jumping to alternates is best handeld with the Eternal
Champion rules, in my opinion, but I can't see any reason why a RuneQuest
variant can't be posted.

> 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.  

A bit too alternate for me, but write it up, post it and have a discussion. 

> 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!).

But very few have had the standard RQ conversion - cults, occupations,
creatures, scenarios, timelines. I haven't yet seen a Cthulhu writeup that
works particularly well with RQ, for instance.

> So: what are we doing here?

Join and ask the question there. If it's not what you want then change it to
what you want.

Bjorn Stolen:

> Is it time for wishes? I want someone to make a setting in The land of
> Aztecs or Mayas (Pre europan incursion -america; 800 - 1500)
> 
>  
> Or a setting in India...

Join, ask, discuss, write, post and discuss again. That gives you a setting.

Nick Middleton:

> 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.

That sounds about right to me. Personally, I think that things went badly
downhill after the Iron Age, so I prefer stone/bronze/iron age settings. But
RQ works pretty well in all settings, apart from non-religious settings where
the cults are left behind.

> 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.

GURPS may well have a lot of background, but how compatible is it to RQ? A RQ
interpretation of some of these could be useful.

> 
> >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...

It only took an hour! I've got work to do as well, you know :-)

Ken:
> Well My game is set in the America around 1200 AD thought I am using LDS,
> mythology a long with Viking and china lore that they may have visited the
> Americas at that time too.
> More of a legendary Americas as opposed to the actual Americas

That's something I've thought of doing as well. After all, the history is
there, it can be linked to pre-columbian cultures and is an interesting
slant.

Simon



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