Railroading is among the least flattering ways of describing a plot line in RPG. Still there is a whole lot of scenarios for sale that do just that. I have been thinking about this for a while, and evaluating my own way of preparing a scenario. I have concluded that my style is more trainstaion system.
Where in the players are given choices, and based up on them there is a certain flavor of railroad tracks that has to be conquered before they arrive at the next station. I plan this out in various details, often hoping the players will make the "right" choice. Right in this context is for me the choice that will give the most entertaining story. However, I try to keep an open mind about the choiches to give the players freedom to choose. I often write my notes as a diagram of such choices.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Dragonlands
This post never got completed, but I decided to post it anyway...maybe someone can use the idea.
Introduction
This is a small setting that I created to test dnd4 in. I might expand on it later. Do not confuse it with Dragonlance.
History
The Dragonborn had united it to one mighty empire that spanned most of the known world. The kings of old tried to become as their ancestors, dragons. They discovered that by consuming the hart of a dragon they could gain some of it's imense power. The kings would muster a huge army on the rumor of a dragons lair. After a century of intense hunting, the dragons were all but extinct.
The empire was rules by a council of five Kings, one of which was elected a symbolic leader. The emperor had litle real power in the empires infancy, but as time went the post gradualy came to carry more and more authority. Towards the end the emperor commanded the army, the treasury and had veto for any law proposed. In 398 AF (After Founding) the position became heredatary.
The last emperor, Uldadith Blue-tail, dies of old age in 478 AF. Her children were all to young to acend the trone. The four remaining king seized the oppertunity to end the monopoly of the blue-dragonborn. However, the four could not agree on how to elect a new emperor and the empire decended in to civil war.
The (civil) war ended, with the realization that the empire was to bee no more. There are five autonymous states at current, each of them governed by a king.
True blooded dragonborn can trace their line of ancestors back to chromatic dragons of only one color. Variations upon the same color is accepted, but any other colors are taken as a manifestation of the dragonborns tainted (read: mixed) blood. Among the pestants it is not uncommon to find traced of several different colors, but not so in the nobility.
Introduction
This is a small setting that I created to test dnd4 in. I might expand on it later. Do not confuse it with Dragonlance.
History
The Dragonborn had united it to one mighty empire that spanned most of the known world. The kings of old tried to become as their ancestors, dragons. They discovered that by consuming the hart of a dragon they could gain some of it's imense power. The kings would muster a huge army on the rumor of a dragons lair. After a century of intense hunting, the dragons were all but extinct.
The empire was rules by a council of five Kings, one of which was elected a symbolic leader. The emperor had litle real power in the empires infancy, but as time went the post gradualy came to carry more and more authority. Towards the end the emperor commanded the army, the treasury and had veto for any law proposed. In 398 AF (After Founding) the position became heredatary.
The last emperor, Uldadith Blue-tail, dies of old age in 478 AF. Her children were all to young to acend the trone. The four remaining king seized the oppertunity to end the monopoly of the blue-dragonborn. However, the four could not agree on how to elect a new emperor and the empire decended in to civil war.
The (civil) war ended, with the realization that the empire was to bee no more. There are five autonymous states at current, each of them governed by a king.
- Green: The king is elected by combat, a tournament is held every 15th year or at the death of a king.
- Red: The king is elected by combat. Anyone can challenge the king to a duel for the right to be king.
- Blue: Hereditary kingdom.
- White: Republic, with a elected king.
- Black: Hereditary kingdom
True blooded dragonborn can trace their line of ancestors back to chromatic dragons of only one color. Variations upon the same color is accepted, but any other colors are taken as a manifestation of the dragonborns tainted (read: mixed) blood. Among the pestants it is not uncommon to find traced of several different colors, but not so in the nobility.
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