Rul-Skaath

Part of what drove me to begin this blog is as a tool to organize my thoughts. I like to fiddle with RPG mechanics and I'd like to try my hand at an amateur RPG of my own, but so often I just let the ideas sit in the back of my mind until they're forgotten again. I've found that having to explain my reasoning and ideas to people helps me work. And here I do have an audience of sorts.

So, my game...

It will be called Rul-Skaath, possibly with a sub-title made of actual words. The name comes from a location I made for an RPG I ran years ago, which will be the central hub and starting location of this game.

The inspiration for this game comes from a number of sources.

Blood of Heroes (RPG) -- Ideally, I want this system to have that sense of scale, where the rules function both for meaningless goblin minions all the way up to planet-crushing gods. This game shouldn't simply assume a character is human-sized, with human-average traits.

Exalted: The Fair Folk (RPG) -- The premise of this game is similar to a wyld-only Fair Folk game, in that the characters should wield some direct control over their reality and surroundings, potentially building entire worlds and nations for themselves out of the ether.

Second Life (MMOG) -- For similar reasons to the above; I want to incorporate some of the 'sandbox' feel of Second Life into my game. If a player wants his character to have a house, it should be possible for him to actually mystically construct one, possibly constructing the surrounding fairy-tale forest as well if he has the inclination and sufficient power and skill.

Various MU*s (PC games) -- Again, this is for the sandbox 'you can build anything' feel, especially present in Social MUSHes. I'm also thinking the game world itself should be structured similarly, with stuff divided into rooms (places you can be), exits (ways to get between places you can be), and objects (things that can be in places). Exalted's wyld functions similarly with its waypoints and journeys, so I'll have to put some thought into how to differentiate my game so I'm not simply playing follow the leader, but this method works so much better than trying to apply euclidean geometry to such a malleable, free-form setting.

dot Hack (various media) -- In my mind, the visual style of this game is similar to the .hack series: all the terrain should have a sort of bigness to it. Vast, sweeping plains; thick and ancient forests; blasted nightmare-lands of ash and tar; all dotted with inexplicable dungeons and strange terrain features, and with an air of loneliness and dream around it all.