I just thought of a world. Atheists vs Christians. High magic. You have the weapons of man on one side, and the weapons of God on the other. Of course, as soon as you flipped the coin to see which side you were on, the game would be over. It was just a thought, that's all.
Or how about humans vs Odin, or Zeus? Mythology is replete with stories of humans trying to battle gods. Just an idea. This is why I do not dismiss every other religion of the world. Mythology is very often embellished versions of the truth. Who knows? I file that one under the "What If" category.
Please... come up with more imaginative world seeds than us vs. them, John.
There is far more to a world than what conflict drives it.
Well, Music Wars is kind of an "Us vs Them" world, and Tad really liked it a lot. These are just easy to think of, that's all.
There's an inherent problem with atheists versus Christians as a high mag world: atheists do not believe in magic, pretty much by definition. If they believed it might be possible to tap into energies from a supernatural realm, that would be a religious belief--and although it would not make them Christian, it would mean they recognized a spirit world, so they might be animists, deists, polytheists, or any of several other believers in the supernatural, but not atheists.
This would be further complicated by the fact that the non-atheist faction would be and would have been using the readily-available magic of a high mag world for centuries, and it would be difficult to deny its reality in the face of the evidence.
There are ways around this, such as making a world that is both high-mag and high-psi, and having the Christians tap the one and the atheists the other. This might even polarize the groups, if the Christians view the psionics as impossible and therefore a manifestation of anti-god magic, and the atheists view the magic as impossible and therefore a use of psionics coupled with the effort to deceive people into believing that it comes from a higher power. However, if you have high magic in a world with atheists, you must have a way for the atheists to explain what the magicians are doing.
--M. J. Young
There is indeed a lot more to a world than conflict, but without some form of conflict, you don't have much of a story.
And this is a fairly bold form of conflict not overly dealt with. Michael Moorcock has his Law vs. Chaos, Zelazny had the Pattern vs. the Logres, Lucas had the Sith vs. the Jedi....
Granted, it needs more development, but as a basic idea its quite sound. The notion that you can have a story without some form of conflict is what strikes me as unsound. And if you actually meant to say that, I'd be bonking you on the hand with my Elements of Style book.
It leaves me to think that you don't like this particular conflict (which is an individual taste), or that you think its been overdone (it hasn't--Law vs. Chaos gets used a LOT more than Christian vs. Materialist--eh, accept for all those SF books about materialists dealing with backward idiots that is). Besides, its really impossible or next to, to over do a basic conflict.
A while back someone suggested, perhaps me, an SCA group goes versing idea. Others liked it, and one guy thought it banal, and trashed it pretty thoroughly. Since then, S.M. Stirling came out with Dies the Fire trilogy, proving that the one guy was wrong with DtF doing very, very well.
Now, of course, we can change the basic setting, and keep the conflict. Maybe that is what you meant....
So...Materialists go to the stars in cryonic starships with longevity technology. They build a vast and mighty trade network of sublight contact, and they live for centuries. In pride at their accomplishment, and in a spirit of kindness they come back to Earth to invite the Earth which had bid them good riddance to join them.
In the two thousand years they were gone, Earth had a rennaissance of magic.
The Humans on Earth are not very impressed by these cold, conceited Starfolk who seem to have lots of useless stuff, and no fun.
And both sides talk past each other for a bit...
Each side assumes that they are obviously right...
And the Starfolk announce their intention to drain off a little of the Sun for their engines. They can prove it won't hurt anyone, but they do need the fuel. The Humans are shocked, but agree if only the Starfolk get the permission of the angel of the sun first...
The Starfolk go 'up in smoke' at this blatant superstition, and try to explain to the local yokels that its all well and good to believe these things if you don't let it get in the way of serious life....
At which point the Humans on Earth are utterly horrified as they think the Starfolk are confessing inadvertently to being totally without a moral anchor.....
"Good riddance, and good bye."
The Starfolk are hurt again by the rejection of the Earth, and angered that their gifts are scorned (they feel like a proud son who comes to his backward mother only to find the mother isn't impressed with his MBA and fancy car), and they really do need reaction mass for their ships.
So they set out to take some stealthily...which doesn't work as well as they hoped for some reason....
Oh, John, Music Wars is very good, but you have a lot more going on than just a conflict. MW is in essence, if it can be fleshed out, a lot better than a number of the worlds already published. It offers among other things the chance for sharp social commentary as different music genres and the lifestyles that are attached to them conflict.
I still don't have the book. MJ is trying to track down what the delay is. When I get it, I'll most certainly try to flesh out beta.
Ya know Eric, I just had a thought. If you had a verser who was a good moderator, someone that liked trying to resolve conflicts, what you described would be awesome. The Faith driven folks and the Science driven folks would need to work together to fix the problem with the sun. The Faith folks aren't terribly worried, because they believe they will join (Insert Deity Here) in the afterlife, and the science folks think they can make it to another inhabitable planet before they run out of fuel. The verser has to convince them that they need to cooperate, because of (Unknown Reason X) that only the verser and a handful of others is privy to. How's that?
Unknown Reason X could have something to do with Scriff. The Science folks punched a hole in the "Scriff Barrier" or whatever it was when they were trying to refuel. If this isn't fixed, the whole universe will implode upon itself. That will destroy (Insert Deity Here) as well as all other inhabitable planets. They need to work together, because only psionics and magic together could fix the hole in the Scriff barrier. What do you think Eric?
How about this? To fix the problem, they have to go back in time. MJ says there is only one time-travel world in existence. That would be cool. They have to go back in time 2,000 years, and because the biases are being destabilized by the "Scriff Leak" so they have to use psionics and magic at the same time to do it.
If they used it at the same time, is that two rolls or one? I was thinking figure out what their chances were together, maybe take an average, then roll against it. I mean would that be an acceptable way to do it?
That's not quite what I said. There are of course an immeasurable number of time travel worlds in existence. There is only one published by Valdron at the current time.MJ says there is only one time-travel world in existence.
I think you're not being specific enough; if you were specific, you would probably see that the answer is obvious....they have to use psionics and magic at the same time to do it.
If they used it at the same time, is that two rolls or one?
Why do they have to use psionics and magic at the same time? It must be either because they have to do two different things (which means they have to roll to see whether each of them works), or the same thing two different ways (which means they have to roll to see if each of them works).
--M. J. Young
Worldbook: Science-Fiction has two time-travel stories.
1. Possibility Wars which has a thirteen-sided time war.
2. The other--Time War: Invasion--has a totalitarian genetic caste society trying to weaken by time travel a decent neighbouring reality to set it up for full-scale invasion.
Worldbook: Fantasy is not yet published, but it will have Plantations, Past, Present, Perilous which has a magical time travel story with a voodoo curse that needs to be undone. Its been praised here.
Also, John Oakmaster, my IT department at 'Worldwalker', asked about the possibility of a time travel story which is not violent. I suppose one could make a story about sneaking around in the past to do research to find out a valuable piece of info--and at the same time you can't upset the applecart by killing anyone...
John, the idea of a moderator verser having to get two groups that hate each other to get along because of some danger only he knows about is quite good. MJ used it in his Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon world. I'm pretty sure that such a world would be very cool for John Oakmaster as he dislikes violence, and he likes playtesting difficult worlds ....so maybe I will do your suggestion.
As I type this, my mom is bringing the Referee's Rules over to me. I will have it in my hot little hands momentarily. I'll take a look at that and see if I can do anything more with Music Wars Beta. I most certainly want to create a higher bias version of that world, which is kind of the way I envisioned it in the first place.