Setting talk:HR Giger's Dark World

Hey does anyone seem intrested in helping develop this homebrew with me? Savagereaper (talk) 16:47, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

This page needs some pretty pretty piktures fill er up! Savagereaper (talk) 05:46, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

oh wait! im trying to bring more hands on deck for this project and future projects do you know anyone who can help us? Savagereaper (talk) 05:47, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Look at the home page of this site and check out the Formatting Guidelines and Codes of Conduct on this Wiki. I'm happy you have a settings page but I am not interested in working on this as I am not a fan of H.R. Giger's work specifically and have no experience with the Dark Seed franchise. Best of luck. --Konrad13 (talk) 11:09, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

hey! you are doing lots of very cool writing! keep it up!

ok cool. Savagereaper (talk) 15:06, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Crazy brainstorming about the mechanics of the world

Ok so I had two ideas about how to build a sense of terror about the characters that you build for a Dark World RPG. Im still learning more about the setting, so for now all of these ideas are based on my love of HR Geiger's artwork, and what you have typed up so far. --Wammnebu (talk) 20:59, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

The Dark World Self

The Player shouldn't actually know what the dark world self is like. Perhaps the Mirror self of the character should be drafted up semi-randomly by the GM. So that he knows the stats and characteristics of this dark world character. But the player only knows about him overtime. I think it could be an interesting universe of self discovery.

Stories over stats

so instead of a player picking stats as numbers, they build the character similar to how Mount and Blade does it. You choose certain events in the character's life (or pick it randomly). These events lead to different stats being added to the character's sheet.

So for instance lets say the person "Studied hard in college" he is going to get bonuses to intelligence in certain fields, but he also gets a penalty to stress, as well as maybe arrogance (making it hard to acclimate to the weirder parts of the dark world). Once the player (or dice) determine your character, the GM will then use that along with some Dice to craft the dark world version of your character.

The Dark World and its Creation

From what I saw from the original game the Dark world is roughly similar to the original world, correct? This seems like an interesting opportunity for the world because it will offer some unique opportunities for the player to take advantage of that. So for instance if we were to set up certain ground rules about the correlation between light world and dark world (for instance, lets say a road is a road, wherever you go). Players can be encouraged to explore their "light world" for the sake of preparing themselves for the dark world. This could add some interesting complications for the players because when you travel around the overworld, it can have consequences for your regular life.

For example if you are scouting around a particular block, looking for clues based on the overworld what is in the underworld, your girlfriend/wife could be concerned why you keep disappearing to the part of town where all the strip clubs are. Or if you become too obsessed with what you are doing, neighbors or co-workers could start to be unnerved by your behavior.

Additionally it could be a sort of creative aid to GMs in the same way fallout is. They could take a city or town they know well and the darkworld could be a demented parody of one.

Level Backwards and ways to avoid it

As you travel through this strange world you will have to pay a heavy price. This wont be a "Sanity Mechanic" because i think insanity works best when you think you are being sane. So in this case as you become more "experienced" in the Dark World, it doesnt actually mean you necessarily get better, in fact this world is taking its toll on your mind, body and soul. When a player levels up, while in the dark world they will have to expend some of their strengths/boons/etc. In order to proceed. The world you knew before no longer exists, best to leave its ways behind. Perhaps the dark world self and light world self exist in zero sum with each other, so in order to pick new skills to survive the dark world you abandon the light.

Now there is a way to avoid this, you can slowly become one with your dark world character. The problem is, you dont know what his personality is like. So you can avoid losing something, but you gain something you have little control over. Certain actions will now no longer be done by you, and their is a chance your dark self will act on your stead. And this will pass over into the light world as well. After all he's let you into his life, you let him into yours now. Is your family, your wife, and your old ways safe from him?

Core problem with making Darkseed an rpg

I think if there was a key obstacle to making an RPG about an HR Geiger universe unlike say Lovecraft, is that HR Geiger is not a writer, he is a visual artist. Which means we have to translate his visual language into something that works in a primarily auditory and conversational format like a tabletop RPG. Its not going to be enough to have HR Geiger art in the splat books, we are going to have to find ways to make the characters feel uncomfortable and lost in Geiger's world without having to put unnecessary burden on the gm to have to describe everything unneccessarily.

I would love to bounce ideas back and forth on this, because i suspect one of the key issues we are going to run into is that we need some effort in the mechanics, objects, rules and society of the dark world. Objects cant just look weird they have to behave weird as well. your character has to react weirdly, and acclimatizing to the world should come at a cost.

Hey couid you add this to the main page? this stuff is awesome and i totally approve! Savagereaper (talk) 22:36, 3 June 2020 (UTC)