Witch World 5 - Gaming

Apocryphal

On the surface, Witch World seems very game-like. The setting is lightly drawn, but somehow avoids being totally generic. There are not a lot of main characters, and they mostly have only one name (except the viewpoint character). The villain is ambiguous, though he has lots of minions. The main villain seems to remain offstage. We know he's from another world, but we don't know which one. He (or could it be a she?) brings tech from that world, and its not earthly tech. The main characters are warriors or witches, or variations on that theme (like Loyse, a lady-cum-warrior, or Simon, a soldier with possibly latent magical powers). Everyone else is a henchman or villain, or has only a bit part. So it's definitely heroic quest-type fiction a magical setting. It also pits magic vs tech, perhaps a quite early use of this now common trope.

So what would you crib, if anything? Would you play the setting? Any reason you couldn't just dump some characters here and run the novel as if it was a published adventure?

This 1978 Tandem Publishing cover by Rodney Matthews has a bit of that 'Roger Dean Yes Album Cover' thing going on

clash_bowley

I think the only thing I might ever crib from this is the only virgins can use magic thing, but I wouldn't make it also sex linked...

RichardAbbott

Like that cover! My version has yet another cover, by Matt Forsyth, which I'll try to find a way to upload.

The only virgins rule (again spoiler alert not strictly true as the series goes on, but widely believed) is an interesting twist on the "only virgins can speak with unicorns" trope, and Andre Norton cleverly (to my mind) highlights how socially it's a self defeating strategy - where is your next generation going to come from? Which is presumably why in most cases women grow into witchcraft with increasing maturity - here we have an inversion of that which then threatens the culture.

NeilNjae

The main issue for my use of the setting is that we've only seen the military side of things during a war. That's OK, but isn't my taste in gaming any more. I think the setting would need some more fleshing out to make it suitable for gaming (and I surmise that's happened in the form of more books).

Apocryphal

Yes, I think I agree on the matter of setting - I like my settings somewhat deep, at least for campaign play. But for a one-shot, one doesn’t want too deep a setting. I think the setting is just about as deep as any we find in the Who-verse. Take Peladon, for example, which was the location of two classic episodes. It’s basically an old keep/palace on a hill, quite self contained. Culture-wise, we learn very little. The stories are mainly carried by the characters and their intrigue, with the ‘dark horse’ being the Monster of Peladon, which is more or less the only setting element of note. So yeah, not much there, but certainly serviceable for two episodes of Who.

I think Witch World is rather similar to a Who story. The main character arrives from elsewhere. He meets some locals (only a few) and learns about local problems. Because he’s stuck there (one way ticket in Simon’s case, missing decatronic circuit in the Doctor’s) he decides to get stuck in with the local friendlies to solve their problem - a problem which is more often than not caused by some other meddling alien.

So that’s the basic set up. All you need are some decent characters, some mysterious plot points to solve (“wait, what? These warriors have been kind-wiped? But who? How?”), and some clever ideas for how to defeat the alien once revealed. No military needed! If Doctor Who can do this for 25 years, so can we, right?

RichardAbbott

It seemed to me, albeit with far less experience than any of you folk, that the background / setting is one that gives enough detail to allow a potential player to choose one of several character types. So instead of choosing wizard / warrior / elf / ranger / whatever you get to choose someone who is a witch from Estcarp, or an exile from Gorm, or a Falconer, or a Sulcarkeep trader. Each has their own particular strengths, weaknesses and unique capabilities. You've then got a world to move around in with some predefined cultural friendships and rivalries, and it's up to players and the GM to choose if the effort is primarily combat, quest or politics

@NeilNjae said:
I think the setting would need some more fleshing out to make it suitable for gaming (and I surmise that's happened in the form of more books).

Yes it is, very extensively. Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_World ) describes it as a "speculative fiction project" into which Norton deliberately recruited other cowriters - according to that page there are some 27 novels written between the original Witch World in 1963 and the most recent in 2005, plus some 14 short stories (plus a whole lot of collections of the above). So I guess it's become something of a very big world and I suspect you can find all kinds of settings and plots in it. I've only read a few of the novels (maybe three or four) and none of the short stories, and despite my enthusiasm for Andre Norton I was unaware that there were so many books in the collection.

RichardAbbott

BTW here's the cover for the Kindle version that I have been reading, attributed to Matt Forsyth

Apocryphal

@RichardAbbott said:
It seemed to me, albeit with far less experience than any of you folk, that the background / setting is one that gives enough detail to allow a potential player to choose one of several character types. So instead of choosing wizard / warrior / elf / ranger / whatever you get to choose someone who is a witch from Estcarp, or an exile from Gorm, or a Falconer, or a Sulcarkeep trader. Each has their own particular strengths, weaknesses and unique capabilities. You've then got a world to move around in with some predefined cultural friendships and rivalries, and it's up to players and the GM to choose if the effort is primarily combat, quest or politics

Yes, this is true.