Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Author Topic: Realms of Kar'Kaish: A WIP MMO Forum RP - Advice and Insight Wanted  (Read 9314 times)

Chaoswizkid

  • Bay Watcher
  • Bring on the Chaos
    • View Profile
    • Realms of Kar'Kaish New Site

For the past three years, I have been working with a group of my online friends on a creative roleplaying world. We have accomplished some great things, though very little seems done compared to the time it has taken us to get this far. The project started strong enough but went through development hell once everyone starting going to higher education and went inactive for lengthy periods of time to entertain themselves with other things. Since May, I have brought the group back together and a number of crucial changes and additions have been made, but Uni looms ever closer as Fall approaches.

The purpose of this thread is to give some details of what the project, Realms of Kar'Kaish (RoKK), is about and what our future ambitions for it are, and gain some advice and insight from the community. The project is split between two sites, and there's very little on either site (The old one has most of the content locked up in an Admin section no one else can see), especially for anyone to really do anything, so links will be few.

The project itself started with members meeting and roleplaying in a generic RP on a site dedicated to a Warcraft 3 community. After the site went through some troubles and the owner expressed his distaste and uncaring for the RP section, the members and I left to a site of our making to continue our roleplaying. From there, we decided to make an original world of our own.

Spoiler: Creation History (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: History of Ara'niel (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: The History of Man (click to show/hide)

RP versus RPG: A Stance on Numbers
Very early on we have taken a stance against using numbers to define actions or systems that we create for RoKK. There is no HP, no MP, no EXP, no stats, no numerical levels of proficiency. Everything is qualitative or relative. Any numbers that are written in exist only as a skeletal frame, a reference to put a concept into a quantitative perspective for the mind to render qualitatively. Thus, there is never a 'game' aspect, there is only story.

The Prominence of Man
What likely sets RoKK apart from other fantasy settings is that only humans and magically derived (See: experimented upon) abhumans exist. There are no elves, no dwarves, no goblins or orcs, and though a menagerie of species exist, there are no dragons or other such beasts.

Divinity
Divinity in RoKK is all about belief. Except for Kar'Kaish and the Life and Death Gods, divine beings are brought about when mortals want or need something so badly that they wish a being were to exist to grant them such things. Such created gods are only as powerful as the amount of belief they gain and are bound to the aspect they were born to represent. They are able to expend the belief vested in them to influence events or individuals, whether by curse or blessing, to give their followers what they ask, which in turn cause more to believe. Created gods who no longer have followers are forgotten and roam as wanderers to try and use the last remnants of their power to gain followers once more.

Magic
Magic in RoKK is purely the manipulation of mana, as an energy, to cause an effect. There are no spells such as "fireball" or "magic missile" or "feather fall". Mages form mana into a base, then form effects from mana that they apply to the base, and then let loose from their control. For elemental magic, they must also derive elemental power from their natural surroundings or from objects that have somehow absorbed elemental power. However, magic is far from fun and games: in addition to the hostile political world that mages live in, mana itself detests being controlled and seeks to feedback whatever attempts to force it into control. Luckily, mages are able to channel such feedback into other objects, negating certain death or disfigurement.

Character Possibility
Anyone can be anything they want within RoKK, as long as its possible and they do it well. A player character can start as a lowly peasant to later find themselves commanding an army or a nation. However, such advancement must be gained, whether it be naturally through epic tales, or allowed as a benefit of great skill in storytelling and loyalty in activity. Still, not everyone is cut out to be a general of armies, and players (or their characters) who are not serious or cannot deal with such things will logically never possess such a title.

Originality
We strive for originality in RoKK. It's apparent that there's not a whole lot that can be completely original in this day and age, but either we come up with concepts that we believe are original and are ignorant to their presence elsewhere, or we take concepts and change them until they resemble barely anything of their former selves. Logic is applied to everything we do, and both the how and why are explained. We also possess our own original world map thanks to one of our artistic members.

Current Status
Right now there's only a small group developing the project who are also the only players. I'm currently afraid of letting more people in only to lose them later because there's so little right now. Freeform RP and RP battles within the world are allowed, and a number of campaigns are being planned. The world's history is fleshed out though there are large gaps, and the political map is nearly bare. However, there's a lot more fluff than what's posted here: This is a condensed, summarized, paraphrased form of what we have developed.

Future Plans
We plan to develop RoKK into what is essentially a Massively Multiplayer Online Forum Roleplaying website that takes place in a persistent world, the mechanics of which will be applied with java or flash applications that allow interactive browsing of the world map and local maps that lead to forums for roleplaying. Everything will be managed by a staff of GMs that make sure players don't try to hijack the story.

I post all of this in the confidence that it is our documented intellectual property and will not be ripped in this format.

Again, I post this to gauge interest and gather advice and comments on our endeavors. Questions are beyond welcome.

Links:
New site: rokk.forumotion.com
Old site (Serves as repository for our older works): rokk.darkbb.com
Chatroom (Available on the main forum index on either site): rokk.chatango.com
« Last Edit: August 09, 2010, 08:32:14 pm by Chaoswizkid »
Logged
Administrator of the Realms of Kar'Kaish Project.

Chaoswizkid

  • Bay Watcher
  • Bring on the Chaos
    • View Profile
    • Realms of Kar'Kaish New Site
Re: Realms of Kar'Kaish: A WIP MMO Forum RP - Advice and Insight Wanted
« Reply #1 on: July 26, 2010, 07:01:25 am »

This post reserved in case the original post exceeds character limit.
Logged
Administrator of the Realms of Kar'Kaish Project.

MaximumZero

  • Bay Watcher
  • Stare into the abyss.
    • View Profile
Re: Realms of Kar'Kaish: A WIP MMO Forum RP - Advice and Insight Wanted
« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2010, 12:10:14 pm »

This looks very interesting. Keeping an eye on how things are going.
Logged
  
Holy crap, why did I not start watching One Punch Man earlier? This is the best thing.
probably figured an autobiography wouldn't be interesting

Chaoswizkid

  • Bay Watcher
  • Bring on the Chaos
    • View Profile
    • Realms of Kar'Kaish New Site
Re: Realms of Kar'Kaish: A WIP MMO Forum RP - Advice and Insight Wanted
« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2010, 05:28:38 pm »

We've actually had quite a bit more articles published and developed, such as certain creatures being wholly tainted by the corruptive energies leaking out from the Death Gods and forming monstrosities, although such beings are quite rare and are beyond the Spine, a large mountain chain that serves as a natural barrier for human colonization.

Also put forth some ideas on illness, injury, and fatigue, which will be something we definitely need to define as we don't have quantitative means to tell the players what they can or can't do.

Also got a couple new members that are making characters for the new campaign that we put forward, and some old members are also making characters.

The political world map is going to be revised some time in the coming months to account for changes made in MS Paint that must be redone in Photoshop.

Also, naming conventions of the Life and Death gods are likely going to change, considering they are named as such for our perceptions of what they do, Death only being named Death because they are antithetical to the gods that spawned the creatures that now cover the world and cause them to eventually perish. Death Gods are quite capable of making their own creatures, which shouldn't make sense, so a name change for both is likely.

If there's ever enough interest on this thread I'll post a link.
Logged
Administrator of the Realms of Kar'Kaish Project.

Normandy

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Realms of Kar'Kaish: A WIP MMO Forum RP - Advice and Insight Wanted
« Reply #4 on: July 30, 2010, 05:44:32 pm »

I think an injury system like Dwarf Fortress's might actually suit your game well. Though technically there are numbers behind it, the overall goal seems to be to create a qualitative injury system. Simply define custom body parts or illnesses just they might in a DF raw file - then attach injuries or syndromes to players as needed. No numbers need to be involved.
Logged

Chaoswizkid

  • Bay Watcher
  • Bring on the Chaos
    • View Profile
    • Realms of Kar'Kaish New Site
Re: Realms of Kar'Kaish: A WIP MMO Forum RP - Advice and Insight Wanted
« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2010, 05:58:01 pm »

This is something I already thought about and will likely implement.

It's not so much defining how we're going to say each character is injured or ill or whatnot, but rather exactly what such injuries mean. We have to put it into terms that the players can look at and understand exactly how their character's broken arm should affect them on a whole. Even more important is defining how we're going to handle healthcare: Will the priests of all the various religions dispense remedies? Will merchants do so, selling their possibly fake tonics and wares? Is society advanced far enough for local professional doctors, or will state-sponsored apothecaries have prevalence? It's likely going to be a large mix of this, considering the different cultures and viewpoints that all the various regions have, but it's still something we really need to look into.

Thank you for your input.
Logged
Administrator of the Realms of Kar'Kaish Project.

Shlazaor

  • Escaped Lunatic
    • View Profile
Re: Realms of Kar'Kaish: A WIP MMO Forum RP - Advice and Insight Wanted
« Reply #6 on: August 08, 2010, 11:37:07 am »

Link please?
Logged

Chaoswizkid

  • Bay Watcher
  • Bring on the Chaos
    • View Profile
    • Realms of Kar'Kaish New Site
Re: Realms of Kar'Kaish: A WIP MMO Forum RP - Advice and Insight Wanted
« Reply #7 on: August 09, 2010, 08:36:46 pm »

Edited the main thread with the links.

Recent news: We have a couple new kingdoms/nations that we're developing, as well as another race of subhumans that's been proposed. We're also divvying up responsibilities for focusing on developing specific eras of history.

Healthcare's been generally ruled as "localized" and injury mechanics put off for the most part until we somehow agree on suitable timetables.

Which will be a horrible, horrible pain because we have to also consider troop/army movement included in any sort of timetables we have.
Logged
Administrator of the Realms of Kar'Kaish Project.

Chaoswizkid

  • Bay Watcher
  • Bring on the Chaos
    • View Profile
    • Realms of Kar'Kaish New Site
Re: Realms of Kar'Kaish: A WIP MMO Forum RP - Advice and Insight Wanted
« Reply #8 on: August 11, 2010, 03:16:05 am »

Update:

Got some more nations hammered out and detailed, our cartographer will be looking in to updating the map since his replacement has gone mysteriously (and seemingly permanently) missing. I'll have to hunt him down it seems.

Initial work into a military system is under way, and the first attempts at developing a timetable have been made. Our military system, it seems, will have to rely quite a bit on numbers in order to compact tons of information at once that would be exceedingly difficult to just roleplay or qualitatively represent them easily. The very fact that numbers are somehow involved has a couple people worried (myself not included), and one of them is in the process of proposing a solution that can be done qualitatively and logically/easily through roleplay as he's seen it done before on another roleplaying forum (A forum about Star Wars, I might add, which makes me think it'd be far harder to implement considering we're not working with post-space age technology).

We're also hammering out details about the Great War, which involves a lot of people's preconceptions being questioned as we all try to figure out what exactly we want with it. We may also retcon the "1000 years" tidbit, though probably not.

Groundwork for a politically neutral organization known as The Archivists, who seek out the true history of the world and try to save and discover what the world has lost since The Fall, has been done.
Logged
Administrator of the Realms of Kar'Kaish Project.