Haven't you always wondered? (LOOM style)

[cuchulainn]

And more questions:

How do they give the cloaks to the weavers? do they look the face of their babies when they're born or they're safe from killing the others with their very eyes?

I assume that the "death behind the hood" is more a propierty of their hoods than of the weavers. After all, it does make sense: they just have to spin a Unmake draft on the back of the hood and now they have an awesome protective device.

¿what religion do the clerics guild preach, being that every other guild seems to follow their own's? ¿what do they do in that guild for a living? preach themselves to death?

¿Do you think there are other magical creatures in that world? ¿Besides the dragon? What kind of mystical beings you would associate more with loom's world?

I'm trying to build an amateur Loom tabletop rpg (just for me and for everybody who is interested, nothing ambitious), but due to the lack of people in the world knowing about this masterpiece, is a little hard to come up with opinions.

[selmiak]

And more questions:

How do they give the cloaks to the weavers? do they look the face of their babies when they're born or they're safe from killing the others with their very eyes?

And more importantly, how do they make the babies in the first place? And don't tell me about the old bag over the head trick! I always thought that the weavers themselves can see another weaver without the hood without any problems.


I there some more info available somewhere about the tabletop rpg you are (planning on?) making?

[cuchulainn]

Well, im using the barebones of an already existing system called Dungeon World. The idea is that each guild is the equivalent of a traditional "character class"; and has 3-5 different special moves regarding that guild. As the original game has very little information on the setting, i'm inventing a lot of things while trying to keep the mood that the game set on me.

If you want, i can post something here when i have a first presentable draft. By now, i'm still trying to represent mechanically "why weavers are better casters than shepards, when weavers need their distaffs and shepards can cast them by normal singing". Any suggestion?

[selmiak]

Now this sounds intresting. Please keep us posted.

But what do you mean with mechanical representation of that sentence?

[cuchulainn]

Oh, i meant that for example, both a weaver and a shepard players should be able to cast patterns. But for the spirit of the game to be faithful, the weaver should cast them better than the shepard; which is strange because shepards are shown to be able to cast patterns verbally, while weavers must use their distaffs and are rendered useless when they lose it.

In this case, i've fixed this by making everybody able to cast patterns providing they learnt them; but weavers are granted a small bonus and can choose to learn any 3 patterns before the game starts.

I expect to have a rough beta in a month or so, and be sure i'll post it here. I'll be glad to hear criticism! As now, i can tell about it that due to the lack of information about a big part of the Loom setting, i've taken inspirations from other sources such as the finnish and germanic myths, Adventure Time (that series are pure gold) and my own imagination.

By now, the list of guilds i have covered are: Weavers, Glassmakers, Shepards, Miners, Blacksmiths, Reapers, Thieves, Performers, Merchants, Assassins and Druids.

I have rough ideas concerning Bookbinders, Seismologists, Masons, Lumberjacks, Whalefishers and Doctors. I'd like to make Mages too, if i found a way to make them more "magical" than weavers XD

[kitipong005]

How do they give the cloaks to the weavers?

[abisso]

As a game-designer who has also worked as a tabletop rpg game-designer I'm very intrigued by your idea. And I wish I could help you and maybe cooperate, but I have to be realistic and save my time for the video-game.

I could answer most of your questions (with my vision) but actually I don't want to spoil things that will be revealed in Forge and Fold by doing so.

What I can say is:

- I think cloaks used to be weaved manually but lately they've begun to use drafts for that
- I think the effect of gazing into a weaver's hood is related to the weaver and not to the cloak. It doesn't affect all living beings. I also believe other weavers are not necessarily the only ones unaffected.
- there are other "magical creatures"
- I'd rather spare my opinions about the Clerics for spoiler reasons.
- I'd rather spare my opinions about Shephers vs. Weavers, as this is a part of an already existing draft of Fold's plot.
- If you want my advice, don't make Drafts accessible to any "class". My vision of Loom's world, which is already quite clear if you play Forge Ch.1, is that guilds (potentially all of them, maybe?) have different ways to interact with the Pattern, which btw achieve similar results. Blacksmiths use Gauntlets, Weavers use distaffs, Shepherds use their voice.
- Reapers, Thieves, Performers, Merchants and Druids are not present in the Loom canon. Just saying, it's not necessarily a bad thing.
- Some of the Guilds you mentioned will be featured in Forge or Fold (I already know which ones for both, actually), and all of them have a background story thanks to the former project manager Duke and to me. I wish I could share to help you with inspiration, but sadly I can't!
- Beware that Woodcutters are NOT necessarily Lumberjacks. Check what "woodcutting" is, it might give you some inspiration.

So, any news regarding this project? Despite my lack of reply, which was in accordance to my general absence from the Forums, I'm really interested in this. At the very least I'd be glad to play it when it's done.

I think it's a great idea, so keep up the good work!

[cuchulainn]

Welcome back abisso! You made my day knowing that the game is still on progress. I'm really intrigued with those spoilers; Will the clerics make a comeback?

Regarding my own tabletop game; I finally took a drastic decission: as I could not find enough clues to build a coherent setting, i removed all "lore" section about it. Then I made a very light-ruled game which, even though it can cover a Loom tabletop campaign, can also be used on other settings; and relies on the open mind of the players to create a setting.

I finished the last draft this very week! I'll be glad to hear your opinion on it:
http://www.mediafire.com/view/ngw8yjl8lzd8f3l/wanderlust.pdf

[abisso]

Read it.

I'm always fascinated by simplicity and that's a quality your system has. One thing I would discourage you from doing is slightly mixing a ruleset with a setting. I'd say you either do one or the other: a generic ruleset or a deeply setting-specific one.

I definitely see Ursula Le Guin and Loom's influence in this, even if you kept it subtler.

I'm still interested and I think you should develop this more. I found the way you presented the concepts quite charming and almost eerie. An uncommon style, which I applaud.

I'll probably go through a 2nd read and give you extra feedback in the next days.

[cuchulainn]

Thank you for your views and opinions!. The setting section was a lot longer initially, but it seemed a little forced; so i decided to re-work it ito something small, evocative and just give the players "hints" on how to develop their very setting; which, in the end, GMs end up doing in every game anyways.