The one thing that Athanor is missing so far is Earth men. After all, my big influence here is from the thread of fiction known either as sword and planet or planetary romance. Earth men are big in the genre, whether it be John Carter, Esau Cairn or Tarl Cabot (bonus points if you know all three references.) But while the importance of Earth men as point of view characters is essential to the sort of travelogue style narratives of much of the genre, I'm not so in love with those elements in the context of a role-playing game.
Part of the issue is that Earth men almost always outshine everyone. John Carter is superhuman in almost every way; Flash Gordon unites a planet when no one else can; Adam Strange is a better scientist with his archaeology training than any Rannian science academy graduate; Esau Cairn is the tougher than anyone on Almuric... the pattern is pretty clear. Even if we include Earth men, this seems hard to include in the game. We also need to deal with the fact that Earth men become alien and as such attention hogs in the game. It's hard for Earth men not to become the center of plots, reactions, and activity. And despite the current logic that lack of game balance at the table disrupts fun, I find that the thing that really disrupts tabletop fun is not game balance issues, it's screen time balance issues. A game where a subset of PCs get all the good attention is riding the rails to disaster.
I also don't want Earth men because then I will probably need to firmly declare where Athanor is in human history: past or present. And I will need to deal with questions of brining in other humans, dealing with reinformcements, interactions and travel between Earth and Athanor, connections between Athanorans and humans, and deciding whether all these Earth analogs in language and culture are really there or just abstractions to make the language and tropes make sense. I like doing a lot of hand waiving right now. Earth makes me have to make some decisions and stick with them.
Finally, I don't want the plot of the game to be about the motion of the Earth humans among alien cultures and creatures. That narrative, while interesting, is (in my totally arrogant opinion) the player's journey in interacting with the culture. I think Barker understood this in Empire of the Petal Throne. While he suggested that characters begin as barbarians to facilitate the idea that players were going to be learning about the complex cultures of Tekumel in the process of play, he didn't suggest they be from lost Earth. That would muck with too much in the setting, and (in my mind), muck with immersion. The Earthling heroes of planetary romances are already too much like Mary Sue characters to begin with. Using this trope with RPG planetary romance would be, it seems to me, a bit too much.
Now all I have to do is figure out how to address the common trope of the Beautiful Space Princess in Danger. On the one hand, I feel like I really need my own Dejah Thoris for at least one of my Athanoran adventurers, but I also think I need to make my version an interesting and competent character in her own right....
I have Earth Men as a character option in my weird planet, and I haven't run into the above problems, although the game is set in a "1950's sci-fi heinlein-esque furture"
ReplyDeleteMechanically, there is no difference between Earth men and the Natives, (although I may introduce separate bonus starting item tables for the two types), Earth Men are constantly amazed by what they see and some Algol Men don't like Earth Men, but they're no great novelty. Some enclaves have higher technologies than Earth Men, and the planet is littered with technological artifacts, so an Earth Man with his revolver or scientific know-how isn't a big deal.
Algol is 94 light years away from Earth and there's no faster than light travel, so expedition rockets arrive every couple of decades and a bunch of the crew get stranded or "go native". Although there are some Earth Men characters that are pulp adventure style characters from the past who have ended up here due to preternatural means.
The player's characters are a mixed bag or earthlings and natives, and the story isn't so much about "Earth Men exploring a strange world" as it is "a bunch of weirdos try to get rich and have crazy misadventures".
Another advantage that has emerged in play that in this game set on a crazy, bizarre alien world, playing as an earthling can give a player who's challenge by the setting a handle or archetype they can use to facilitate play.
Plus, there will always be the friend that want's to play D&D but absolutely must give his characters names like Mike or Frank (some sort of mental block?). In my game there's an easy way to handle it without breaking the illusion.
By the way, I thing what you've been doing with Athanor is great and has been an influence on my own game, Planet Algol.
Here's an article on my campaign blog with a section about Earth Men, and how I've integrated them in the campaign. You may notice that I have kept many things purposefully vague, it doesn't matter what year it is and it helps with the fantasy keeping such matters offscreen. Although I have to follow up with provisions for "I sailed into the bermuda triangle" or "abducted by flying saucer" characters from earth's past...
http://planetalgol.blogspot.com/2009/08/planet-algol-history-and-races.html
Thanks for the kind words! Your Algol campaign seems like a freewheeling riot!
ReplyDeleteThe idea of having earth men as an option to give an option for people who want a more familiar and less alien race is a good idea. An even better idea is the vague ways of getting to the planet without clear connections to space and time. I suppose I can handwave my language/culture borrowing along the way, too.
But Earth men need to be normal as any other human-- maybe with some appropriate equipment at first-- but no John Carter-esque nigh-immortal, super-leaping, super-strong, outfighting everyone on Barsoom nonsense. They'd have to be less John Carter and more John Crichton.
Thanks you. Yeah, I play Earth Men as being mechanically identical to Algol Men. They have be at an advantage at figuring out how to use Earth Man technology, but Algol Men know more about their world.
ReplyDeleteI'd just leave the language/culture borrowing undefined, I find such things stimulate the imagination.
I was wondering if I could include to a gate to Athanor when I start detailing hexes? I'm trying to have tie-ins to all the other weird planet hexcrawl settings.
Absolutely fine to incorporate Athanor -- and a very old-school touch. I wouldn't post about the world if I didn't want people to play around with it themselves. =)
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