Melyria

Work in progress.

Work in progress.

Work in progress.

Creating for the Player's Perspective

When you start to make a world, there are certain things to keep on mind when building things to work, especially in setting for roleplaying. Here I list some rules for myself how I create and modify Melyria to fit my roleplay sessions. If you are interested in loaning bits and pieces from Melyria on your games or want to know how this works, here are some of my thoughts about building this game setting.

For me, it is important, that player experience is easy to understand, fun, entertaining, as stress-free as possible and occasionally properly terrifying, so my rules of creation are:

1. Convinience

It's a funny thing to start with, but yes, there is a lot of things about Melyria done with a thought of convenience in mind. My players are not particularly battle or metagame oriented, so in my group, extra details that don't add to the story can stifle play. That's why, for example, Melyria has so far just one calendar which very much works like our own. No tricks, nada, just straight simplified conversion. Currencies are mostly not discussed if it isn't a story element. Sometimes magic and magic items are surprisingly easy to get if it works with the plot.

This simplification is also prevalent on any topic discussed. Oh, there is in-depth lore alright, but things are build so that one isn't required to know more than a surface (if not even that) to move on, but if someone wants to geek out about something, there are rewards to be found. Which brings to next point, that is:

2. Curiosity is (almost) always rewarded

Asking questions in the form of exploring surroundings, chatting with NPCs, or otherwise interacting with the world is deeply encouraged and rewarded. Best loot, information, and juiciest secrets are never just dropped to player's feet, and every time there is a question, it will be rewarded somehow unless the player has already (either directly or by association) warned that asking or digging particular thing might be dangerous without precautions. Stupid questions are not a thing in Melyria, and if something odd happens and you are not wondering why you are most likely going to get yourself in trouble (humorously or seriously) in the next couple of play sessions.

Players are NOT punished by not being interested in things that don't concern them directly or do not tie on their arc. A player should never need to consume content they are not invested in. But they are rewarded for being curious and taking part in the madness around them. But when dealing with the world and NPCs, it is good to remember that:

3. If that is a stupid idea in the real world, it's probably stupid in Melyria
(Unless it's particularly funny, then go for it!)

So... You want to jump from the roof, your acrobatics is zero, and you don't have feather fall spell? Are you really going to go and start shit with that assassin looking fellow? Do you want to hug that ferocious beast?

Are you sure about that?

As a GM, I do my best to let my players do all the crazy things they want, but failing something that would be an obviously bad idea in real life, is probably going to be an obviously bad idea in Melyria. The evil dictator won't kneel just because you told them a sob story. But trying things that out of the box can make things so much better, so if you put some effort into it, it might turn out awesome! In one game, my players scared a big crowd of pirates with a Deck of illusions, and it was the best thing ever. So the world and play are made to encourage trying things outside of the box because:

4. Creativity is the key

Yeah, stupid things are stupid, but the sincere effort, getting deep into things and using your wits and ideas is another rewardable thing. Melyria isn't built as a clear linear story, but floating plot points were there are multiple solutions, all of them viable.

There is no wrong way to do things, as long as there is little effort put into it. There are many times I ask my players to throw dice; not to tell if they succeeded, but how spectacularly they succeeded, because their idea was simply so great that I couldn't decide how much and what kind of cool I would add to it. For this reason, there is a lot of story point and hints in Melyria's articles which don't necessarily take anywhere... yet, but are meant to cause, when revealed that "I want to know what that is!" reaction in my players, and they choose the adventure, which brings us to the next point:

5. Characters are on the main stage

Me and my players come from the background of freeform forum games, and those games don't have dices, but it's all about writing a story together, often revolving around relationships. As there already is that kind of bent in my group, Melyria is made support that kind of play. You can go to typical DnD tasks and adventures, of course, but there are extra things to be found for those who play relationships in the game.

Melyria's games so far all have come from a question to a player; "who is your character and what do they want?" and all stories will base on that. That is always the main story, and the setting simply morphs to support that goal. Melyria gives a backdrop, means, and obstacles to a character who tries to find whatever they were looking for, was it an epic quest or more slice of life kind of scenario in a fantastical environment. As long as you are moving and doing, you are doing it right.

This emphasis is also why there is an extra effort put to NPCs, not that all that information would be ever needed. Instead, this is used to give one confidence that if they want to invest in an NPC more, there is more than meets the eye, which brings us to the last point:

6. Helpful Stereotypes

Melyria relies a lot on stereotypes when building characters, nations, and identities, but there is a catch here. This simplified first look is meant to make people who converse the world a mental shorthand to group things in a way they are easier to learn and remember - this is a strange world after all. But more often than that, the reality is much more complicated.

Races and nations are more often than not used to display different ways people think of life, rarely truly presenting any real-life races as much as individual attitudes. Architecture, cultural features, and ideas of real-life cultures can be presented, but they usually have their own different spin. When displaying what some would read as racist behaviour in real-life, it usually is more about certain attitudes certain groups of all races and cultures hold.

As an example, elves like many people who are highly educated, born in great families or simply have lived long and experienced much sometimes belittle people around them, not always even maliciously but because it doesn't occur to them that the "lesser" people would have something they still need to learn. This doesn't mean that they wouldn't have a lot to offer, and their wisdom and success should be respected.

Humans many times show many ways where you can have a successful person, but who feel inadequate with so many "better" people around them, and we end up doing foolish things out of fear of time running out or that someone else will squash us. But they also display the value of pushing forward and trying to figure things out. Gnomes show how passion can turn in to a headache, but how it also can be the mother of all inventions. It's this kind of complexity I want to bring to my stories.

But at the same time, each character is seen and written as an individual, and their beauty comes from how they fit the big picture. Stereotypes are merely there as a starting point, which the actual complexity will be contrasted to.