For a long time now I've wanted to run a sword & sorcery campaign, but a number of things have held me back, and all of them were crap. First, I couldn't decide on a systems to use. The Hero System? GURPS? Fate Core? Savage Worlds? The truth is that the system doesn't matter much, so it turns out that decision was just a stall tactic. The next obstacle was that I needed a world to run my campaign in. I didn't want to use an existing world such as Howard's Hyborian Age, or Leiber's Nehwon, because I wanted something different. Well, maybe "different" is the wrong word. What I wanted was a combination of a lot of things. Some Conan, with some Elric, with some Heavy Metal, a bit of Nehwon, a dash of the Roman Empire, a sprinkling of Warhammer Fantasy, at little Thundarr the Barbarian, and maybe even a little He-Man, plus some Yor Hunter from the Future. Essentially, I wanted a derivative soup made from the stuff that I loved as a kid and still love today, but I didn't want it to be derivative, because being derivative is lame.
Or is it?
Let's face facts. I'm not here to do some totally original game world that I plan to publish. I'm not trying to be a game developer. I want to run a game for my friends in a world that is fun. If people call it derivative, then so be it. I want barbarians, and ancient ruins. I want ancient technology, and dark sorcery. I want evil chaos gods and gladiator fights. I want pirates and witches. I want dudes flying on insects, and dudes riding on snakes.
So I took all of those things that I liked, stuck them in a bowl and mixed. What I wound up with was my setting for Savage Sorcerers of Sungor, and it will be good enough for me, I think. I came to this point by finally embracing my love for the derivative and just going with it, and I feel a whole lot better now. I was holding myself back by trying to be original and missing out on the fun.
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