Discussion: Wheel of Time RPG Table Top - Perspective Game Play

As I mentioned in the previous post, one of the projects I am currently working on is an updated version of The Wheel of Time RPG for personal and private use.


In terms of process it is slow going. I've been at it a number of months now and the degree of content created and developed is small. This is mainly due to the issue of reality perspective. While I have both the series and Teresa Patterson & Robert Jordan's The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, as well as the previous source book published by Wizards of the Coast, these sources are predominantly perspective based. This meaning that they have the context of perspective from characters and event.


The reason this has caused a bit of an upset in the process is because as a role-player you want your experience to be either as unique or as open as possible. Using perspective based game play it would be impossible to be an Asha'man during the Seanchan invasion of Falme. Now from the outside this may seem to have a simple fix, 'Don't present it as perspective game play', however under the circumstances it is difficult to do anything other than exactly that. The Wheel of Time being a series has an obvious order to it. The creation of anything outside of that order while still maintaining the similar content would be Fan Fiction and not simple the world in which your playing.


e.g. You play as Rand Al'thor and spend nine months wandering the Blight with your companions to exit the blight to find the Seanchan have conquered the whole of the Westlands.


What I'm aiming for is you can do that, but not as Rand Al'thor. Once again as I said this causes hiccoughs in the process. I want players to be able to play in a campaign where the Seanchan are pushing against the Stone of Tear prior to it being conquered by the Dragon Reborn. The best solution to this it seems will be removing mention of specific characters who have a role in the series. This way Game Masters can have the world and mold it as they wish. Simply presenting all the features of the world untouched by the characters which do so in the series.      


Also a little bit on The Wheel of Time: Reign of the Ten Nations and The Wheel of Time: The War of a Hundred Years for anyone who noticed their inclusion in the proposed source list. These two sources will be an attempt to expand the world prequel to the series. Providing options for players in a campaign set either a thousand or two-thousand years prior. The way I plan on writing these sources will allow players and Game Masters a like to either play a solid time restricted campaign or a more flexible mixed campaign where Manetheren is warring against Arad Doman.