Quote from: warp9;423561...The problem is that (at least from my current understanding) I don't see Cosmothea as a single setting, not really. All the games may take place in the same Cosmothea Universe, but I wouldn't call that a setting---I see a game's setting as more specific than the whole universe, it is more often a world, or even a specific city.

So what I'm suggesting is that Cosmothea is really multiple settings, which puts it more in the same category of GURPS or HERO. A Cosmothea game, might or might not include magic. The game might or might not include high-technology. In function it is more like GURPS, only the intent is not to be generic...

Forgotten Realms is a setting and you can travel all over it. Cosmothea is a setting and you can travel all over it. While urban play can be fun, we're always moving all around at least a region, if not crossing into other kingdoms in a fantasy game, and do on occasion go to other planets and even other genres. I just tried to make the game such that people don't have to go off planet if that sort of thing is distasteful to them. I built in ways to not cross-genre in many areas, but that's not the norm.

The norm is - go where you want, unless the GM puts a wall up. Especially in the scifi setting - you can simply jump into a ship, and if you know where to go (i.e. the GM allows that information to be learned, or puts the players on a world where it's right there), then they can go to the other genres - IMO, that's definitely single setting that we're talking about.

But that goes a little beyond the scope of this thread and I'm not sure it's as important as determining the organizational benefits or disadvantages. They are interrelated, but I think we can even pretend this is any big rpg with multiple genres. I say "big" because I was glancing at Savage Worlds core rulebook last night and everything is so simplified and short that they can fit more into their core rulebook than a bigger game can. (that's not a complaint, just a page count thing).

I posted this on another website but I thought it might be helpful in understanding a bit more of what Cosmothea, if that would help answer the topic questions. Thanks again in advance for your input!

The default setting has several worlds, some that are more pure fantasy, others that are more pure science fiction or science fiction with superheroes, but they are blended on most worlds. By blended I mean (depending upon which planet the characters are on - for this I'll use the most common), we'll see fantasy characters on worlds where there are hidden areas of technology that they might stumble upon (and sometimes run into an A.I., hovercraft, etc. but they won't know what it is in most cases.

On scifi worlds, there are some career paths that still exist or are thriving in the future - spellcasters on some worlds though magic is still misunderstood, magical monk-like nexus disciples right along side the slightly borg-like sygma and space marines. In fact, on some worlds, you could see dwarves who are still around and are in power armor with a gauss rifle and all the fantasy races there - and their fantasy career paths. There are many worlds in Cosmothea that I've run adventures in over the last 30 years, so we'll be exploring a number of options to please gamers. They can take what they like and just ignore/replace, etc. areas they don't. We'll produce the canon version our way, but it's their game!

It's really up to the GM. They can downplay the blend that does exist, hide it or embrace it. In every day life, you wouldn't have a Gandalf at a tea party with C3PO type character and a Flash no, but you could - if a GM wanted it. Certainly you could and would have a superhero that meets a robot (common place), and they could go through a stargate and find a wizard and try to communicate, make friends, etc. We've already done that, actually, but it's not an every day thing, no.

In my Cosmothea campaign, nearly every fantasy genre party tends to start the game with a piece of Fallentech - ancient technology from an advance era that they've come across one way or another. The average joe has heard legends that one of the races used to be very high tech, but it's hard for them to grasp even when they see it. Such technology is called Fallentech usually). As time goes on, they will likely come across more fallentech or even an A.I. guarding it or using it. If they went to the right location, they'd actually find an advanced civilization. We've had fantasy characters stumble upon working subway systems, elevators, robots, etc. and it all has worked together very smoothly and exciting. Of course I don't describe the tech with the proper names because the fantasy characters wouldn't know them.

Our first fantasy genre book spotlights the world of Adara, and gives an overview of several other worlds. While most of the world is fantasy, it does have a hidden empire of high tech beings who do sometimes affect things going on in the world and fantasy characters may interact with them if they run into them. But they aren't likely to do so on a regular basis unless they are in the right region. They are likely to run across fallentech though, likely a few times during their lives, more if they try to. And if they went through the right portal, they could wind up on a scifi world or even a superhero world. That's very possible, but not an every day thing, and it can be easily controlled by a GM who deems it is a good thing (the players have shown interest in such crossovers, etc.) There's always a blend - it's just a matter of how thick it is.

Our first scifi genre book spotlights the world of Anarchus, which has a super advanced adult amusement park, lots of high technology, but also people that you will run into every week that do know what magic is and use it. Others may not believe in magic and not understand why it works, but it's very much there. Other worlds will be featured and most of those are blended, but some will be pure scifi.

Although I posted this, please bear in mind this particular thread is for the purpose of determining the best way to organize the material so that players feel that they are getting what they want, which is the goal of this thread, not whether they want a blended game, how blended it is, etc. though I know that has some merit in determining the best way. Please see the advantages and disadvantages listed in the first post also. Thanks!

Hm ... I see that I will really need to finish revamping the intro page as I mentioned before - sooner rather than later, to help clarify what Cosmothea is more clearly. Hopefully there's enough to go on here to help determine how you would like to see the game books. To try and summarize for those just coming on board and not wanting to read through the whole thread ...

Option A: Big core rulebook with complete character creation for every genre present in the game as well as non genre-specific GMing tools, fluff, etc..

Genre books would provide kingdom details and advanced equipment/magic/starships, whatever's appropriate for helping you play in a particular genre on a particular world, with overviews for other worlds in the genre (Cosmothea is not one world, but many).

Option B: Small core rulebook with no character generation, just universal core rules such as skills, combat, movement, health, abilities, universal setting fluff, GM options and GM section. etc.

Genre books would provide the races and career paths available in the genre, as well as everything mentioned in the Option A Genre book description above (so they'd be much larger genre books than Option A)

Quote from: warp9;423540I've only played first edition White Wolf, but I thought they were talking about doing something like that, with a core set of basic rules published in some small separate book (or am I misremembering here? I'm sure somebody who is up on WW can tell me.)

I was at the bookstore today and I did indeed see the White Wolf "World of Darkness" book.


The WoD book looks to be pretty close to an example of what we are talking about with option B. If I understand what it is about (I only skimmed through it) It appears to be a basic core book around which the other more specific books (like Vampire) revolve.

I haven't seen the WOD book in awhile. So are you saying that the core rulebook doesn't have Character Creation in it? That you use one of the other books to make your character?

Quote from: QTGames;423864I haven't seen the WOD book in awhile. So are you saying that the core rulebook doesn't have Character Creation in it? That you use one of the other books to make your character?

Someone else will have to answer that, I just skimmed it yesterday (and I haven't played any WoD games in a long time, since their first editions). However, I was sort of under the impression that, if you wanted to build a vampire, or a mage, you'd still need the specific Vampire or Mage book (I got the impression that this was just a collection of the basic core rules, and that the specific char-gen rules for each type of game were found in the other books)

This is was Amazon said in the review. . . .

http://www.amazon.com/World-Darkness-White-Wolf-Studio/dp/1588464849

Quotethis book, the WORLD OF DARKNESS Storytelling System Rulebook, collects all of the mechanics for playing World of Darkness games so that none of the other gamebooks are cluttered with repetitions of the rules.

Anyone else have a comment on how you would prefer to see a multigenre, large (multi-book) rpg put together?

1 big book for Character creation in any genre, plus the core rules to play, with separate books for creatures and for individual genres with genre specific rules and gear, etc. in the genre books or ...

1 smaller book for all core rules and then really big genre books with character creation duplicated in each along with genre-specific races and career paths in each or something else?

Let me know. Thanks! For more info, please see posts above, ask here, at QT Games Forums where we're discussing it HERE, or contact me!

Hi all,

Thanks again for those of you who chimed in. We've sorted out the organization of the books and are moving on to other aspects of the revamp. As I mentioned somewhere before, we're editing the intro on the site ... it's slowed down for Christmas a bit, but by the start of the New Year we'll hopefully have the new intro page up, which should have some questions and answers on it to help shed some more light on the game and maybe another painting. Things are looking really good so far, but there's still a lot of work to do.

I'm closing down this thread, unless you feel like posting again, but we'll be tackling many other issues, mainly over at the QT Games site (see sig), so if you want more information, that's the place to go (or you can contact me at info (@) qt-games.com for more details. Thanks!

We'll be starting another PbP game before too long for anyone looking to do some playtesting, and we've got a friendly group of gamers there so feel free to stop by and say hi, join a game or hang out! I'll be around here as well, though not as much since I'm quite busy with QT Games and developing the product line. Have a blast over the holidays!!!

Bob
QT Games