Priam
11-17-2004, 05:42 AM
First off, I'm fairly certain the vast majority of the old MERP sourcebooks I've bought are set in either 1400 TA or 1650 TA (the first period being around the war against Angmar that destroyed the northern kingdoms, and the second... I forget, never playing in that period).
Anyway.
Stepping back in time is one of the best solutions. In MERP, you can start right before the Angmar war, and you'll have 1600 years to go before Sauron's return (and what campaign ever ran for 1600 IG years?).
I've just bought the new d20 Star Wars RPG, and I'm definitely setting my games a few thousand years before the movies (you have 20,000 years of history to pick from... totally free hands!).
Of course, here you run to the problem of canon history (rather than canon events). What if the PCs defeat the Witch King in personal combat, then crush the leaders of the armies? Sure, you can just have things happen the same for different reasons, have different people perform the important actions... but what's the point? You'll just be negating the players' actions.
Then again, with 1600 of history to go, the particular events might not matter one whit (especially in the case of worlds like Middle Earth, where fate or some grand plan controls all things...). With literally thousands of years of history, like in the Star Wars universe, nothing ultimately makes a big impact on future events - the Jedi Order's been "nearly decimated" countless times, the Sith have returned countless times, etc., and there's no way all such incidents could have been already listed, recorded, or stated in canon sources.
What do you think?
In my current Elric! campaign (a marvelous example of a world utterly dominated by the events of the novels; even the sourcebooks are set no more than 10-12 years before the End of the World!), I'm starting a few years before Elric's short reign as Emperor begins, and intending to let things progress at their own pace, with Elric's story running somewhere in the background. Then I'll throw the PCs into the thick of it, let them muck up the canon events as they will, and utterly disregarding the invasion of Chaos and the End of the World in favour of my own (slightly less grand and megalomanic) adventures. Maybe I'll even have them kill Elric for Law / Chaos / Balance?
I do agree about the fan alienation - I'm not convinced I could pull "my Elric! campaign" off with a bunch of die-hard Moorcock fans for players. But letting the players have a decided impact on the big story certainly ought to make them feel involved.
(must run off, may ramble more later)
Anyway.
Stepping back in time is one of the best solutions. In MERP, you can start right before the Angmar war, and you'll have 1600 years to go before Sauron's return (and what campaign ever ran for 1600 IG years?).
I've just bought the new d20 Star Wars RPG, and I'm definitely setting my games a few thousand years before the movies (you have 20,000 years of history to pick from... totally free hands!).
Of course, here you run to the problem of canon history (rather than canon events). What if the PCs defeat the Witch King in personal combat, then crush the leaders of the armies? Sure, you can just have things happen the same for different reasons, have different people perform the important actions... but what's the point? You'll just be negating the players' actions.
Then again, with 1600 of history to go, the particular events might not matter one whit (especially in the case of worlds like Middle Earth, where fate or some grand plan controls all things...). With literally thousands of years of history, like in the Star Wars universe, nothing ultimately makes a big impact on future events - the Jedi Order's been "nearly decimated" countless times, the Sith have returned countless times, etc., and there's no way all such incidents could have been already listed, recorded, or stated in canon sources.
What do you think?
In my current Elric! campaign (a marvelous example of a world utterly dominated by the events of the novels; even the sourcebooks are set no more than 10-12 years before the End of the World!), I'm starting a few years before Elric's short reign as Emperor begins, and intending to let things progress at their own pace, with Elric's story running somewhere in the background. Then I'll throw the PCs into the thick of it, let them muck up the canon events as they will, and utterly disregarding the invasion of Chaos and the End of the World in favour of my own (slightly less grand and megalomanic) adventures. Maybe I'll even have them kill Elric for Law / Chaos / Balance?
I do agree about the fan alienation - I'm not convinced I could pull "my Elric! campaign" off with a bunch of die-hard Moorcock fans for players. But letting the players have a decided impact on the big story certainly ought to make them feel involved.
(must run off, may ramble more later)