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*Last edited by BJ on Sun Jul 19, 2009 2:47 pm; edited 1 time in total*

Note. This is a disussion that will be using the de Bono Thinking Hats system. Please review the Language Game so that you may participate in a fruitful manner.

I will act as the moderator of the discussion; as such, I will be using the blue hat. Before we start, however, I would like to raise a few White Hats (denoted by the colorless font).

*The gods are dead, but there still are exarchs that hold power. They have no capacity to grant divine power themselves.
*Without the stewardship of the gods, the world is dying.
*We do not have a definitive World Map yet.
*Godstones exist; divine power can be extracted from them if your soul is attuned to a particular godstone. Some groups regard this attunement as worship (ex. Sinagthari), while some see it as just another tool for their own ends (ex. Ilawith)
*Bonethrall is a playable Campaign World.
*The Bonethrall Gazeteer is in Limbo

The discussion is open as to what we should do with all that we currently have. How do we make the concept grow and expand?

For now, I will only open green hats and red hats. Other hats will be made open at certain parts of the discussion.

Note that red hats explicitly require that you do not justify them; it should purely be an emotional statement. You can red hat in response to a red or green hat, and you can formulate green hat ideas based on red hats. You cannot green hat a green hat if its not your own.

If you have questions as to how to use the hats, word the question as a blue hat.

I think the godstones are too prevalent. It should be rare enough to justify people slitting throats for it.

What if we close the Divine Power Source to incoming Player characters? Players can then receive "reward cards" that they can use to either make a divine character, or get a divine MC feat for an existing character.

The world is too barren! There's nothing to work with regarding my origins

But with that, players (and DMs) can create their 'own' starting places, with the approval of the fluff team.

But we need established places! Some of us don't really want to make something out of nothing. There are established places already. But apparently not everyone know them.

BJ Edit: I joined the last statement with the statement before that, and combined them as a red hat.

Very Old Dragon Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 693

The world is not barren. Information is just not getting out much. This is the same problem we have with organizations.

I think we should put information (areas and organizations) on the BT forum instead of letting it stagnate in here.

We need more people playing Bonethrall. The more players (and DMs), the faster we can define information for the world.

Can we run one shots in the OGM or other places and get in contact with other gaming groups interested in trying the setting out? It also ties in with the idea to restrict Divine Classes. BJ Edit:It'd be silly to restrict it if we're only playing among ourselves.

You don't have to post green hats and red hats in pairs, guys. Although I'm not saying that you should stop doing it, either.

I do not like to use my OGM time DMing Bonethrall games, but I don't see a problem with somebody else trying it out.

Very Old Dragon Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 693

I don't want to use all my ogm time dming either.

That said, I do want to get in contact with organizers of the ogm to see if we can have one ogm where we get a part of their announcement of featured games telling people that we'll be providing information on our campaign setting and how to join in or DM games with us or their own gaming group and maybe run a one shot introductory if enough people want in.

Hell, we could probably even just tell them about it and forget about dming on the ogm at least until someone asks for it or runs one on their own.

The BT setting needs an 'it', a something that would define it with a few words! Other the 'a world with dead gods', we need another defining factor.

I think we need to make a thread about established places/organizations/cities/towns in BT, that anyone could read and have access to them, excluding the ones that players shouldn't readily know (like secret orgs/factions/etc). It doesn't have to be very detailed like the ones in campaign guides, but rather a brief yet definitive description, about a paragraph or so, in such locations/organizations.

I await the input of other COPALs. Wink

Very Old Dragon Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 693

Anyone can make locations although we're limiting civilization to city-state level.

I'm thinking of giving Redwall ties to your Kobolds, Xtian. We haven't really found a place for them to menace yet after all.

Agree with AAS. Too much information stays in the COPAL boards. We need to migrate it into the player resource section already. Even if unfinished, even if conceptual. User-generated material evolves best when exposed to the community for pruning, development, and tweaking.

Additionally, we need to encourage more flexible player development of their own backgrounds. If they want to define a starting region, sure, propose it, have it looked at quickly for tech/fluff approval, rather than waiting for fluff to propose new stuff like manna from heaven.

@xtian: Yes, by all means, create your own fluff, propose it, and if people like it enough, work it in permanently.

Also, I propose changing the role of the COPALs from creative think tank to editorial group. There are a few hard facts and principles down already(broken world, dead gods, Redeemers, Reconcilers, Liberators), enough for people to imagine their own inputs. Instead of the COPALS thinking up of the rest of the world, we can open up the creative process to the rest of the player/DM community. They propose :consored:, perhaps even run games in these environments, and if they like them enough, RFA them to the COPAL who decide "canon" or not.

Godstones need to be overhauled as well. The idea of Godshards may be tossed out in favor of simply true godstones. Otherwise, shards end up too much like Eberron's dragonshards.

Okay, here are the green hats we have, which I have condensed.

1) Close the Divine Power source to incoming player characters.
2) Put information on areas and organizations on the BT forum. A specific thread for places/organizations, places, towns, etc.
3) Run one-shots, or Bonethrall game, during the OGM.
4) Change the role of COPALs from Creative think tank to editorial team.
5) Change "the world is dying" to "the world is surviving."
6) Do away with godstone shards, and reintegrate holy symbols into the game.

Green hats and white hats are closed; for the following week, we will focus on red hats. What are your gut reactions to these proposals? Remember! DO NOT use reasoning for your reactions.

1)
*My idea; I like it.

2)
*I dislike the idea of having to write down things twice, in two formats, for two outlets; the "in limbo" gazeteer and the proposed thread.

3)
*There aren't that many RPG'ers in the OGM.

4)
*I like this.

5)
*Ilawith is predicated on the assumption that the world around it is dying.

6)
*I like this, too.

1. What? Why? I thought divine power was everywhere?
2. Like it. We should make a sub-forum for ideas/discussions, separate from the character forums
3. Like it as well. Hope someone does.
4. Cool.
5. that makes a lot more sense
6. What do we do about those people who used those?

Discussing 1 and 5.

1-I like. The gods are dead. :consored: them. Unless you have direct access to a godstone, no divine powers, no clerics, avengers, invokers or paladins. Don't like it? Then find a godstone and make it important! There are now enough classes out there that we can do without clerics, paladins, avengers, or invokers. Make a warlord. Or a warden. Or a druid. Or a bard. The gods are dead. Live with it. If you don't like it, then find a godstone and bring a god back. End of arc.

5-No, the world is dying. Don't like it? Change it in game, not out of game. That's what I want to do with Kyris. She wants to change the world somehow such that it's not dying. Don't take my character quest away from me. :p

Anyone else?

@erwin: I removed your last two paragraphs, because it was a green hat. Only red hats for now.

After the GenCon announcement, a part of me wants to scrap Bonethrall and adopt Dark Sun as HGC's official setting.

Hell, that's a thought. Just tweak the backstories a bit and then port everything over en masse. :p

Red hats are closed.

Recall:

I want to formally propose that we port over the Bonethrall characters to the Dark Sun CS, once it is released in 2010. The two settings have many similarities, and I believe it will be easy to integrate concepts like the Sinagthari, Ilawith etc. to Dark Sun.

They may have general similarities but we do not know if they are similar enough for BT to be ported over.

Maybe the BT sun and DS sun are the same sun?

Tupe's DS campaign - canon or not? can we port the characters from there?

(On almost related note, did we port some characters/flavors from Pharagos to BT?)

I do not know whether BT and Dark Sun are very similar to each other to be ported over, as I have not read/am not acquainted with the Dark Sun campaign. But I'm pretty cool with the idea of porting our campaigns, provided already established ideas we had can (possibly easily) be ported over, with little or no lost of context/flavor.

Reposting my post before:

I've skimmed the Dark Sun campiagn setting (thru wiki) and the way I see it, the hardest things to port over are the characters. Possibly some of them may have to change they're flavor greatly/entirely, as some elements do not exist in Dark Sun.

I'll continue reading the Dark Sun setting, hopefully we could see alternatives.

On adopting Dark Sun:

I think I need to clarify my proposal. We shall use the Dark Sun World, and we will add certain elements (such as the Sinaghari, Ilawith or the like). In general, we'll use Athas as a backdrop, and then add or remove things as we see fit. Certainly, some things would have to be re-thought, but let's tackle those things only if the proposal is approved.

Advantages:
*Lessens the work that we currently need to do.
*We don't have to force non-desert envronments, because the vast majority already is established as a desert/barren wasteland.
*We don't have to scramble to add stuff. Unless COPAL specificallychanged something, the Athasian canon will take precedence.

Disadvantages:
*The vast majority of player characters would have to be re-thought. Metallic Warforged need to be reconceptualized, so will Ereth's shining white=metallic armor.
*A significant reworking of some history bits. I see the godfall war either being vastly reworked, or removed entirely.
*Possibly removing godstones, which is our core concept.

How about using BT world and cherry pick what we want from DS world?

This method involves less changes on BT part and we can just not include what we do not see fit from DS world. If there is a DS canon we do not want we can just choose not to adapt it, rather than making it default canon then declare that it is not part of it. It adds to confusion.

This also eliminates many disadvantages on your list and still enjoy your list of advantages.

This approach is more flexible, imo.

The main problem in cherry picking Dark Sun is (i think) probably whether it would be open for GSL, and the rules pertaining it.

If that's the case though, the main thing will be borrowing from DS is their geography, which I believe BT is lacking now.