Since this is for Tornad's new world, I'm going to put him on his honor, and have him close this thread.  Discussion will commence below.

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Tornad requested a surrealist world, with low combat.  Now, I sorta have a world like that, although low combat might be stretching it--Heartwar, but then I have plenty of players there already.

Problem is, I'm having a hard time coming up with ideas for a surrealistic world.

Surrealist is supposed to take images from the subconscious and juxtapose them in suprising ways.  AKA melting clocks and men in business suits with wolf's heads.

I'd thought of a few ideas, but I'd like to see what other ideas people have.

Here's a few of mine.  Feel free to improve, rearrange, or just ignore them, and post your own.

1)The Crystal Palace by the Golden Sea: The palace is literally crystal, and the sea is molten gold, and cows fly across the red sky.  This is a SF setting where super-science resolves difficulties like how cow's fly.  The residents of the castle are thousands of years old, and have psi powers, and like to play mental games on each other in a long drawn-out parade of 'i'm cooler than you' which leads to one of them being named the next King or Queen, and then determining what the residents do for the next thousand years.

As soon as the clock unmelts, and time 'begins' again, the next ruler of the Avant will be chosen.

So the verser could become King, and then make these self-obsessed twits help ou the universe instead of trying to be artier than thou.

2)Fairy Science: All physical processes occur because faeries make them occur. There is no Tech.  You couldn't start a fire with a match or a cigarette lighter.  Fact is, a normal person can't walk without faerie help--I'm not sure if that applies to the verser.

Need some sort of conflict in the story...could be as simple as learning to use the right spells to get the fairies to turn your hand to turn the doorknob...kinda like rehabilitation.

I'm thinking a Victorian world.

It would  be an interesting trick if I could make this a tea cozy type murder setting, and one with Asimovian  robot laws or some such thing for the fairies, and then the verser is rehabbing--which may be his first clue somehow--and he becomes a detective in a quaint little English village.  Not quite sure how to manage all that.

3)A long time ago, the High Painter unfurled a ban on all magics, but Pointillism Painting.  Since, he was such.  This repressive spell has blocked many magisters, but a few are able to avoid it because...well, they're sort of nuts.  The painters of Surrealism are one such group.  They paint, enter their paintings to draw out forces, and send them away to the Rebel Army Camp.

Painter magi are too valuable as war factories for them to be sent into combat, and instead, they are heavily protected by bodyguards.  Of course, sometimes assasin teams from the High (upper class snots) side get through anyways, and a Painter is smeared.

Whatever time period both Pointillism and Surrealism were in, but foreign affairs are quiet and peaceful, and ignored.

PT

Off the top of my head:

(*) Continuation of Lily's world, very shortly after Misty's departure.  As Lily slowly pulls back from the brink of death with the nanobot's help, her delirium warps the world she created in very strange ways indeed

(*) Alice in Wonderland (or some variant thereof)

(*) That weird whatever-space from Brin's 2nd Uplift Trilogy, where ideas actually take the form of creatures (too long since I've read it, but if you have, hopefully you'll know what I'm talking about)

(*) Some type of VR world, either surreal by design, and/or because it is still being debugged, and/or because the machine running it is under attack by a virus and/or hackers

(*) Some type of surreal pseudoworld, created by the idle thoughts of those who have hooked themselves into a planet-wide psi gestalt...

*Wackyland.

LOL!  Yeah, something Toon-based!  Good one!

If not Wackyland, how about Elmer Fudd's nightmare?  "The wabbits are coming, hurray, hurray!..."  :)

Toonington City by the Ink River, m'kay.

Thanks Oak, I have considered trying to make an Alice in Wonderland type setting.  Course, its hard for me to get out of my groove...I mean I try hard to be sane, and to resist my occasional bits of insanity.

Have read the earlier Uplift stuff, but not the second really.  He started to annoy me.

The Lilith's world idea, I'll have to pass along to Kyler who was th eworld designer.  Its an obvious consequence of the situation, and I don't think he's considered it.

But, just because I think we have an idea doesn't mean its time to stop...feel free to toss in more if you like.  Or if you want to toss in ideas for Toonington-By-the-Ink (hmmh, sounds like Stratford-on-Avon..a nice English village--I think we have the City divided into districts.  One is Metropolis, and another is English Village, and ....)

PT

I'm glad we got people here who like the surreal non violent worlds. I can do surreal or non violent, but not both :)

They say Multiverser is about breaking the boundries of the verser and throwing him into situations he wouldn't normally be comfortable in. I like to go by the rule of three. The GM throws you into 3 worlds and on the forth asks you what world you would like to go to.

On GO, I started on the Tropical Island, then got asked fantasy or sci-fi, so I got Starship Destiny (great world btw), when I versed out there, I got Sherwood Forrest (which I am sure was due to my lack of firearms, and my only real skill was in the Bow), after that it was Orc Rising (not my first choice, but it turned into a interesting world, where I got to be a Gawd without all the megelomaniac side effects). After that I got to choose a world (very rare), and I chose Why Spy, it held enough action/adventure, with enough toys, and training to make me *WANT* to stay there. There are worlds you play along with then you get versed out, but your not sad to go. Then there are worlds you go out kicking/screaming/tooth and claw to stay in. If you get the player to that level than you know you've done good with choices for him/her. The world on my list that I haven't been to yet would be Dark Empire Alpha, which some here have already been to.

Back to my point, I think why create a world specifically for him and put him in a world that he would enjoy. It might not be a perfect fit, but few of them actually are. Just my two cents.

PT: If you want to for Toonington City, you could have some type of Toon-Animator dynamic -- the Animator starts behaving strangely (delirium, drugs, or etc.), which starts affecting Toonington City in strange ways.  So of course, a verser is the only hope for saving Toonington City...

Jhiaxus: How does that work, playing in worlds both in RPOL and in Gaming Outpost?  Are there two different versions of Jhiaxus running around, with completely independent versing histories?  Or are you able to somehow keep them in sync, such that RPOL's Jhiaxus has also already been to Why Spy, etc.?

How about a direct link between one verse and another....this is common in many toon based worlds....so you have the 'real' world where, rarely, toons come out and play and then the animated world, where anything that is drawn in the 'real' world becomes alive.

Toonington's animator just got slipped a glass of LSD.

There are two different Jhiaxus's, one of which died Ubercon 4 Oct 15th 2004, This Jhiaxus died at Ubercon 6 Oct 16th 2005. The Jhiaxus, Alexis knows is the other, the one Kate found the writing on the wall on could be either. Yes that is right, there are 2 Jhiaxus's running around, which one is the evil twin, are they both the evil twin, only time will tell :D

I had a nice long write, until my two-year-old 'esc'ed it into vapor. Grrrr.

Jhiaxus, I vary. Sometimes I ask, sometimes I don't.

Remember when you said MV needed more Psi worlds. I agreed, and looked into creating some.  I'm not sure, but Heartwar might have been created in part because you said that.

My idea is that MV needs a ton more worlds.  I think this is biggest problem of all extra-dimensional gaming.  You go to a GURPs ex-d book, and get what 3-4 worlds?  MV is better in their First BoW's with 'seven worlds, nine settings', but even so far, they've only printed '14 worlds, 18 settings'.

Thats not nearly enough.  You don't need just one good psi world, but a dozen.  Northgate City is a good superhero setting, but we need way more than that.

And so when someone requests something weird, I tend to think about it.  Since for every person that wants something, there's a hundred out there who want the same thing but didn't say anything.

And then Day says 'Toons', and I remember that I've already had a bunch of people say they were interested in toons....

But anyways, J. I hope we get a new player so I can toss him at you, and see what you make of your experience, and more of your style.  I'll even let you choose the world.

PT

The first world is A day in the Life of Jhiaxus, where you play the real life part of me. Watch the fun as you get to reboard a deck that is falling apart, with anchient tools, after doing 8 hours at a unfulfilling job. I think I can work with that :D

Are we insane enough yet?

*peers out of the realm of Ridi Bobo at Playtester*

Should I describe a number of very strange, surrealistic worlds I've read about to jog ideas?

Um... are you supposed to be peering around here???  :)

Howl else to close the thread?

*the tiny werewolf (okay, so I'm a were-welsh corgi) peers up at Oak, tail wagging*

Hmmmm...  first a bunny rabbit verser, now a were-welsh corgi verser?

OK PT, looks like its time to start designing an "Animorphs" world (with enough modifications to be copyright free, of course... :)

Can I have first dibs on the blue cube?  And would such shapeshifting be controlled by "tech" bias, or by "body" bias?  :D

Animorphs inspired world sounds cool, although I've never more than looked inside their books.

Tornad, yes, I need to get your world started.

Let me ask one or if need be two, and see what I can see.

PT

If you ever get a chance I highly recommend one of those, "1000 ideas in a minute" seminars at some of the larger conventions.

Right, I will if I can, Day.

Oak: Blue Cube?

Day: I think the answer to your question about rpgnow was that the board of directors was worried about pirates in the early days, and they have revisited the issue, but still worried about it.

PT

The link has more details.  But the bottom line is that the alien technology which grants the power to shapeshift is in the form of a blue cube.

After the blue cube zaps you, you have the power to shapeshift.  To change to a specific form, you must first acquire its DNA by touching the creature.  When you change, you get the creatures instincts as well (good since you already know how to fly etc., but bad when the instincts take over and you have to battle to reassert your own will over them).  And you have to change back to your own form within two hours... or you are stuck in the shapeshifted form forever.

So my question: if you are zapped with alien technology which gives you shapeshifting power, then in other worlds is this regulated by tech bias, body bias, both, or other?  :)

For a superworld, I like the idea that the normals are humans, but the Supers are all furry.  Imagine a teddy bear like creature swinging out of the darkness from a line, wearing a cowl, cape, and utility belt, calling himself WombatMan.

I think we can all agree for those of us who remember the Tick Animated Series, the only real superhero is Deflater Mouse.

No chance.  My favorite was American Maid.

Anyone else have favorite "The Tick" characters?

Shopping War World

Civillians are on the sidelines, supporting their own monopolies of fast food chains and department stores.  All throughout America and the world, these businesses have been gaining forces from gangs to actual armies now, fighting to destroy the other businesses, literally.

Shopping War World?? That sounds like a cross between the American Scream and Jennifer Government, at least on the surface.

How about a world where it really is a stage... and you have actors, stunt doubles, stanins...

and world wars and genocides and racism...

I know of a world more evil than that...   Wal-Mart World.

That has some interesting possibilities...  :)

I had already been thinking that FurryWorld would be fun (with Real Furries ^TM, rather than the Fairly Furry Fantasmagoria partially human types) -- kind of like Disney's Robin Hood, perhaps.

But a Furry-Super crossover sounds even more fun.

Should the super powers coincide with the animal type?  Super strength for a bear, super speed for a rabbit, etc.?

Nah, you gotta give some random racoon like super lazer eyes or something, just to make it even weirder.

I've done a Mary Piper Dirigible world.  The merchant dirigible Mary Piper, floating between the chunks of the shattered Earth, personned by Furries.  The chief of security was a panda bear samurai.

I do think Multiverser needs a published Furry world.  And "Wombatman" sounds really cool, no thats not the right word, let's say whacked, but in a neat way.

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In Heartwar, the Borg are the representatives of Wal-Mart among other people.

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I like the Tick himself.

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As to evil worlds, "Post-Sympathetic Man" in I think the Second Book of Worlds is very evil, indeed.

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PT

Oak,

The operation of the device would be probably tech, but if it grants an inborn ability after that, it could be body.

Note, I could be wrong.  It depends on how the blue thing works since you can shapeshift with tech, or psi, or body, or even magic.

I guess I'd have to dig at it for a bit to figure out precisely the right answer.

PT