"Everything has crumbled or is crumbling" is actually one of the things I am most tired of in fantasy and that I strongly (personally) dislike in science fiction.

You know what I want to see more of? Give me young fantasy worlds, the kind with only a handful of centuries behind them (not like most fantasy settings make good use of their purported thousands of years of history anyway). Expanding empires everywhere! Let the players invent some of the cool essential tech and concepts. Have the big villain be the first serious threat this place has ever known.

Also, bypass the sort of problems that this comic makes fun of: http://www.nuklearpower.com/2006/04/04/episode-681-of-civilizations/

Quote from: RPGPundit;708183Mystara's Thyatis is pretty well an expansionist Empire.  So was Alphatia, for that matter.

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Don't forget the Heldanners, they were making some headway as far as the Voyages of the Princess Ark were concerned.

Quote from: The Traveller;708239Don't forget the Heldanners, they were making some headway as far as the Voyages of the Princess Ark were concerned.

Quite, plus they were overt Nazis.

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Quote from: Shipyard Locked;708196"Everything has crumbled or is crumbling" is actually one of the things I am most tired of in fantasy and that I strongly (personally) dislike in science fiction.

You know what I want to see more of? Give me young fantasy worlds, the kind with only a handful of centuries behind them (not like most fantasy settings make good use of their purported thousands of years of history anyway). Expanding empires everywhere! Let the players invent some of the cool essential tech and concepts. Have the big villain be the first serious threat this place has ever known.

Also, bypass the sort of problems that this comic makes fun of: http://www.nuklearpower.com/2006/04/04/episode-681-of-civilizations/

I like doing both.

I like the vitality of some young growth, as well as the secrets of the past still lurking.

Isn't the Wolven Empire in Palladium Fantasy a newer expanding empire? Been forever since I've looked at the books.

Quote from: Ronin;709128Isn't the Wolven Empire in Palladium Fantasy a newer expanding empire? Been forever since I've looked at the books.

If I recall correctly, yes, they are.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;708196You know what I want to see more of? Give me young fantasy worlds, the kind with only a handful of centuries behind them (not like most fantasy settings make good use of their purported thousands of years of history anyway). Expanding empires everywhere! Let the players invent some of the cool essential tech and concepts. Have the big villain be the first serious threat this place has ever known.

Well I could see two ways of doing that, right at the moment:

1) The "Narnia way", in wich the setting really is very young and fairly recently created. The PC races etc are just about getting to explore and colonize the world. The Big Bad, if there is one, is the original Big Bad (like Narnia's White Witch). Of course this could just as easily be called the "Silmarillion Way" since that's much the same - the world itself is young (the Sun's only been around for a couple centuries!!!), and the setting's civilizations are the very first ones. The heroes are the original ones, and their story will likely in some way have a big impact on the whole setting's further story (well if you're into that sorta thing, but, really, in this particular setting, does "random spearman who got killed by a balrog at the siege of Gondolin" really sound that enticing??? Well unless that particular "random spearman" was actually a fighter dude you'd been playing for months and the balrog that got him good was actually the 4th in line to try...). In short, this take on this setting would be MYTHIC - the Time of Myth, with, quite possibly, heroes being the equivalent of demigods of one kind or another (actual Greek style demigods, Celtic super-warriors who might as well be, Hebrew patriarch types who live for centuries (or until taken bodily to Heaven...), "saint" equivalents, Chinese Sages, dudes like Gilgamesh (demigod? Try 2/3god, haha), the list goes on and on and...), even if not literally. Even if the PCs start out as 1st level as anyone else (or as 100 point GURPS dudes, whatevs) their story really should have an impact, as this is the first group of heroes, EVER, in this setting! And that should most definitely count for something!

2) The "Kane way". Mankind (and any other PC race types, like dwarfs and elfs, if available) is young, and on its first cycle of civilizations. The setting, as such, is as old as any other. This means there's still ruins and old nastyness about, but that stuff is basically unrelated to the PC races. No such thing** as a human ruined city. Or an elven one if relevant, for that matter. If there's a ruined city nearby it was likely built by aboleths or mindflayers or something like that, way long ago before said peoples degenerated into obscurity. This is a point, btw, in this kinda setting - sure there's the Elder Races (usually named such, with capital letters), but these dudes' days are past, allthough there could be a few around still, in dungeons and such, their civilizations as such are gone. A benefit about this kind of setting is that mankind's less nice in it, wich means, yes, up and coming empires, that will use any and all methods available for conquest, most certainly including messing around with ancient stuff that shouldn't be messed around with, even if this could have really obvious negative conseequences...them's the genre rules I suppose. This would be a rather different setting from 1) in that it's less mythic. The PCs are, well, "just another party of PCs", allthough, well, depending on POV...it might really be much the same! Does it really matter how a PC becomes super powerful? A PC in this kinda setting is more likely to become powerful by pilfering alien (or demonic, or divine...) artifacts, messing around with weird "alchemy" aka forgotten pre-human sciences not properly understood, etc...some superpowered dude with spells and magic gear is, well, still a superpowered dude with spells and magic gear. Whether the PC got that way because he's a Noldo warrior-prince who developed said spells & crafted said gear himself ('cause he's the first warrior-smith-mage ever!), or the first ever champion of Marduk-Lugh-Aslan who got it to fight Tiamat-Balor-Morgoth, or some rogue who stole it off some ruin is, in the end, irrelevant. BTW a couple other takes on the "Kane way" would be the "Kull way", wich really is much the same except humanity's not just stolen its civilization from elder alien races, its living in said civilizations, with said alien monsters still its hidden masters (well that's a distinct possibility, anyways).

3) The "Tanith Lee way" wich is like a middle point between these. I suppose. And of course the two could easily be mixed. Since precursor civs of some kind is kinda essential in the "Kane" case, well, make said precursors actual divine/demonic entities, or something (wich again is kinda Lee-ish). You know ruins left from the time of the Elder Gods or the divine wars against same.

I hope this way too long essay-ish rant thing is of some use to someone.

I suppose Shipyard Locked's post just got me thinking...

Quote from: The Ent;709365I hope this way too long essay-ish rant thing is of some use to someone.

At the very least it reminded me of some books I'd like to read.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;709370At the very least it reminded me of some books I'd like to read.

Hey that's cool!

I'll certainly recommend Karl Edward Wagner's Kane stories and Tanith Lee's early stuff (as well as REH's Kull, and so on)!

Quote from: Ronin;709128Isn't the Wolven Empire in Palladium Fantasy a newer expanding empire? Been forever since I've looked at the books.

Last I saw it. Which was right before they "borrowed" a whole entry from one of my books, Yes. The Wolven empire was expanding in a vaugly Roman-esque way if I recall correctly. Mostly absorbing other kingdoms through diplomacy when force was not needed. Been a looooooong time though so could be wrong.

I guess the reason this is usual is that most people think that working for the latest New Imperialist is not as exciting an ambition as being the latest New Imperialist.

In a campaign in the grand old style, some players would in fact be doing just that, so -- as with a lot of other modern "setting" issues -- there wouldn't be such a need for the GM to be going on about it with NPCs.

Quote from: RPGPundit;708183Mystara's Thyatis is pretty well an expansionist Empire.  So was Alphatia, for that matter.

How about the Golden Khan? And of course the Master in the far West, events that (when the Known World was turned into Mystara) were pushed into the future of the default chronology.

The original Empire of the Petal Throne presented an initial situation in which Baron Ald of Yan Kor was marching on Tsolyanu with a mysterious Weapon Without Answer.

RuneQuest presented the Lunar Empire extending the Red Moon's reach.

Marc Miller's T4 line included at least one book treating an early, expansionist period of the Third Imperium. Traveller: The New Era was a period of expansion on many fronts (not only by the Space Vikings) after that Imperium's collapse.

FTL: 2448 had the Hagu on a roll of conquests.

GURPS Humanx had, per the books, the Aan Empire and the Human-Thranx Commonwealth clashing.

Any published game based on R.E. Howard's Conan is bound to include his rise to the rulership of Aquilonia, and the implications of further ambitions.

Pretty much every espionage RPG of the 1980s depicted the Soviet Union as expansionistic (and hardly anyone expected its sudden fall at the decade's end).

In Space: 1889, the European powers are colonizing Mars and Venus as well as Africa and Asia.

Quote from: The Ent;709365Even if the PCs start out as 1st level as anyone else (or as 100 point GURPS dudes, whatevs) their story really should have an impact, as this is the first group of heroes, EVER, in this setting! And that should most definitely count for something!

Huh.  I wonder if I have the balls to flip my setting on its tale and do this, someday.  The "First Heroes" ever.  Hrm.

Expansionistic empire was the whole crux of Albedo 1st & 2nd ed.

The ILR was not only expanding into the EDF systems but also putting the subjugated non-Lapine specied into concentration camps, slave labour, or at best, second class citizens with about zero rights.

This on top of fighting a very dirty war by holing up in civilian areas and making sure the EDF liberation was very costly in civilian lives, making it a war of PR too. Which also put alot of pressure on non-ILR rabbits in the EDF due to spies, sabotours, and non-lapine traitors.

Quote from: Phillip;709537In Space: 1889, the European powers are colonizing Mars and Venus as well as Africa and Asia.

Well, that one is kind of a giveaway, since Space:1889 is basically the "Imperialism is Cool" RPG.

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