I love the history of the New World, both before and after the Spanish Conquest. I’m slowly working on a pre-conquest setting called the Place of Reeds. This section is about using Fate RPG 3.0 in a Mesoamerican setting; I’ve called this Fate RPG variant Tonulli. There are a lot of Fate 3.0 variants but Tonulli is primarily based on Free Fate with bits from Spirit of the Century.
RPG
I played Role Playing Games (RPG) solidly for about 15 years from my early teens. My favourite rules were The Fantasy Trip and its descendent Gurps. Simple and flexible. That said my taste in RPG mechanics has got simpler and simpler. I’m currently intrigued by Fudge RPG and its descendent Fate RPG. Both are available on-line for free. Both emphasise story telling over game mechanics. Place of Reeds is a setting for a role playing campaign in Mesoamerica. The main city is called, not surprisingly, the Place of Reeds, and is nominally the historical city of Teotihuacan.
Open Game License Version 1.0a
OPEN GAME LICENSE Version 1.0a
Geography of the Place of Reeds
The Place of Reeds is based on this historical city called Teotihuacan. The site of Teotihuacan is 40 km north-east of present day Mexico City.
Converting Strands of Fate Back to Fate RPG
In my opinion Strands of Fate by VoidStar is one of the more extreme versions of Fate RPG 3.0. However there are some interesting scenarios available on-line for Strands of Fate from VoidStar. I’d like to use the scenarios with Free Fate (from Yahoo Group: Fate RPG in the Files section) as this is more likely to reflect the published Fate RPG 3.0 when it comes out. These are my thoughts on how to convert scenarios from Strands of Fate to Free Fate.
Comparison of Fate RPG and Fudge RPG
Fate RPG is a spin off from Fudge RPG. There are distinct similarities but Fate does add some interesting twists. Actually there are several versions of Fate and this comparison will concentrate on Free Fudge as this seems to embody the majority view on Fate 3.0. I’ll mention other variants if it seems relevant to the comparison.
Sources for the Place of Reeds
If you want to investigate Place of Reeds setting further then have a look at some of these:
Timeline of the Place of Reeds
The Place of Reeds is based on this historical city called Teotihuacan so I’ve included the timeline for the latter.
RPG Plots for Mesoamerica
Here’s some rough plot lines set in Mesoamerica and hence for the Place of Reeds. it started as a list I typed up in 2006 then got expanded a lot by borrowing ideas from The Big List of RPG Plots.
Religion in the Place of Reeds
The Place of Reeds is based on this historical city called Teotihuacan. The religion of Teotihuacan preceded that of the Aztecs but bore a strong similarity to their religion and others of central Mexico.
People of the Place of Reeds
The Place of Reeds is based on this historical city called Teotihuacan. Who the main inhabitants of Teotihuacan were is unknown, but the contenders are Nahua speakers (like the Aztecs), Totonacs or Otomis (Miller & Taube, 1993). Vogel (1995) adds Nahua-Chichimecs and Olmec-Chochopopolocas to the list of possibilities. Vogel says the most accepted theory is that the inhabitants were proto-Nahua.
Flora and Fauna of the Place of Reeds
The Place of Reeds, being based on this historical city of Teotihuacan, has typical flora and fauna for central Mexico.
Calendars of the Place of Reeds
The Place of Reeds uses the three calendar systems of Mesoamerica: 260 day ritual calendar, 365 day vague calendar and the 52 year bundle.