Collective Setting System: Results Speak

A few weeks ago, my roommate brought me to a game of munchkin with some of his friends. While there, I saw that they had the A Song of Fire and Ice roleplaying game. I flipped through it, half interested, until I came to the part labeled “House & Lands.” While it’s a system intended to help players find a nobility and home to be aligned with, it had a lot of what I needed for the collective setting project I was thinking of earlier.

We also played Munchkin, and that was fine too (but Pandemic would have been better.).

Using that as a basis, I made up some cards that players could use to define states/cities/planets[1] in a setting and played a few rounds with myself, patching up the rules as issues arose. The rules aren’t important. This isn’t a win/lose game; it’s a collaborative setting creation process, so refereeing isn’t as important as making things fit intuitively together and reigning in complications.

I’ll share the results of a brief ‘solitaire’ session and explain the mechanics throughout the rest of the week.

Alphia is a respectable place with a noble history. They are known as brave fighters and helped win The Great War. They equitably manage their client state, Deltania. Alphia is larger than most states and has a potent military, but its greatest strength is in the respect and influence it has on its peers. However, courage often borders on foolishness, and their ill-acumen with finances has led them to numerous financial problems.

(Power: 1; Size: 1; Wealth: -1; External: 2; Internal: 0)

Betaia is an ambitious, but otherwise unremarkable nation. The eruption of Mount Foxtranimous near the time of their formation, and the resulting attacks by neighbors made them a canny, internally-focused people. While most see their current leader as an unremitting bastard, he helped lead them to victory in The Great War, which has done much to reverse their economic woes. The internal community of Betaia and their newfound wealth are by far their greatest assets, far more than their self-proclaimed virtue of ambition.

(Power: 0; Size: 0; Wealth: 1; External: -1; Internal: 1; Ambitious Attitude)

Chiieta is an orderly civilization, and almost insular. They lost a skirmish several years ago with Betaia and now suffer the indignity of Betaian occupation of the Echonian Valley. Their only refuge was gaining aid from Alphia, to whom they now owe a great debt (and which Alphia will often remind them of). Their decline over the years has caused G’fin, their once-prized city to become a reeking center of corruption and vice, turning the regions’ largest urban hub into a fetid cesspool. Most of Chiieta culture and government has shifted to the West, where their Hotellia Islands serve as a physically distinct place from the nation’s land-based woes, as well as being an economic hub. Despite their poor army and negligible influence in the region, Chiieta is larger than either of its neighbors.

(Power: -1; Size: 1; Wealth: 0; External: -1; Internal: 0; Orderly Attitude)

If none of this is clear, don't worry; I'm spending all week explaining this system.

There will be pictures.