The Firedrake - A feudal roleplaying-game [Discussion]
The FiredrakePreface
A Medieval Role-Play
Le Duché de Normandie. 1027 A.D.
Le Monde Était À Vos Pieds.
Set in an alternated Normandie in 1027 AD, where Rollo's lineage has died out and the Norman nobles must choose a new Duke, either through mass feuds or peaceful election,
The Firedrake is a TWC Community Role-playing Game, closer to traditional Dungeons & Dragons rules in nature than to previous medieval(ish) settings, such as Das Heilige Römische Reich, God Save the King, and Game of Thrones, yet still retaining the freedom of relaxation and an open world governed by player interactions.
As an experimental idea I have been toying with for some time, "The Firedrake" is a guinea pig for a potentially much-more immersive and fulfilling style of roleplay.
Inspired by rules found in Green Ronin's A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying: A Game of Thrones Edition, early 11th century Normandie was realized as great setting for an experiment such as this due to it's small size and notably dense population of nobles and ambitious knights, causing adventure and aggressive foreign policy.
The game will zoom in on Normandie, with the Duke as the highest possible player character at start.
While the game can and may spread out to different corners of Europe as time passes, this focus on a smaller scale of land is designed to bring more aspects of the medieval, feudal world into play.
Citing experience in the TWC RPG Game of Thrones, the vast focus of role-playing games set in places such as the Holy Roman Empire, England, or the fictional Westeros cause those worlds to feel somewhat detached: Lords only visiting courts of other lords in their role-playing, landscape between these castles being rarely explored in person.
Other issues include a hierarchy of activity, making both landed and landless knights somewhat hard to role-play.
With a more focused scale, characters from those lower echelons of society have more bearing in the world, while the higher ranks of characters still have their power-level in scale.
Having expressed discomfort at these annoying problems to a few fellow TWC users, I have now decided to try and bring revolution to the RPG section's medieval genre, and the best way to do this is through a new roleplay designed to advertise this 'zoomed-in' style.
Why the name 'Firedrake'?
The Firedrake is two things:
- A fire-breathing dragon, a guardian of hoards, and a abductor of maids.
- The rendition of Halley's Comet seen in 1066 A.D., presaging the great wars fought over Europe in that year.
While I have set my preferred start date and position as without William the Conqueror's ancestor dynasty (as if that had died out) or the famous Duke himself, the fiery comet seen in 1066, to me and possibly most modern audiences, signifies the archetypal Norman and his aggressive adventures across Europe, and more importantly, the entire era of the 11th century.
Beyond this, a Firedrake is a fanciful term for a fire-breathing dragon, and could be taken to mean that a Norman is as a dragon, slaying lords and kings, stealing maidens, and gathering mass wealth.
Explain the Rules
While I don't have it written down into hard or digital copy just yet, I can still try to explain the vision I see.
While looking through Green Ronin's A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying: A Game of Thrones Edition, I became enamored with the ways skills, character creation, and fiefdoms were incorporated into the D&D style of things.
To add-on, the style of organization and traditional RPG combat attracted my attention.
As for concerns that this more traditional style may bog down an online RPG through it's massive amount of math, as online D&D campaigns can very well do, I myself have no desire to sit for hours calculating this and that for even just one character.
It will all be simplified as much as possible without ruining the functionality, and hopefully the RPG will work the way I hope.
You can expect these rules to appear in a WIP and adapted form to appear here in the near future.
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Originally Posted by Ancient Aliens
