Revision as of 15:15, 9 July 2023

Welcome to MazeWorld! If you're wondering what this is all about, you've come to the right place! The purpose of this page is to quickly introduce what the game is about, so that you may decide whether this game is for you.

About tabletop RPGs

This page is assuming that you are familiar with Tabletop Role-Playing Games (shortened to TTRPG or TRPG). The most famous and most influential is Dungeons & Dragons. There are myriad other tabletop RPGs out there, such as Shadowrun, d20 Modern, GURPS, Traveller, Pathfinder, and far more.

If you are familiar with what TTRPGs are already, then great! All you will need to become adjusted to is MazeWorld's dice and play system, as it was custom-designed for this game rather than adapted from an existing format.

If you're new, worry not! Throughout the many years this game was run and being written, countless players with no prior experience jumped in. It is entirely possible to learn and become good at playing MazeWorld without ever having played another TTRPG before - all that may be required is to have a little more patience!

Whether or not you're new to TTRPGs, you're very much still in good company. This wiki is here to help and guide you - new players and seasoned players alike! Specifically, this Getting Started 4-page guide, has been written with the express purpose of teaching you about the basics of the game and how to create a new character for it. The rest of the wiki is here to teach you about everything else in-depth; but don't worry about any of that for now. The best way to be introduced to MzW is to jump right in! In the spirit of that, keep reading, and by the end of these four pages, you should have a character sheet ready to play, or at least, know exactly how to make one.

Who is this game for?

This game is a one-person passion project, featuring many themes and inspired by many games, movies, other RPGs, and subjects that personally appeal to the author. Whether it will appeal to you depends entirely on you, but this section should give you pointers.

Above all, this game is combat-oriented, with a loving focus on weapons and weapon usage, and in particular, firearms. Guns take center stage, and it isn't a secret that it was made, at least in part, as a love letter to guns and gunplay.

Generally speaking, this game is for you if:

• You like tabletop RPGs (obviously)
• You like firearms, military equipment, weapons in general, and are interested in playing a RPG that does guns and weapons proper justice
• You enjoy your RPGs on the crunchier, combat- and item-oriented side of things
• You do not mind seeing a mix of realistic and fantastic elements

These are completely optional, but you might have a better appreciation for this game if:

• You are familiar with Touhou Project (the concept of youkai and youkai species, in particular)
• You have played other tabletop RPGs before
• You have played roguelike video games before

Content advisory: This game contains, or approaches the following themes:

• Violence
• Adult themes
• Drug and substance use
• Fantasy racism/Speciesism

If none of this has scared you away yet, then keep on reading!

About MazeWorld

MazeWorld is a survival-fantasy game set in the realm of the Mazes, a strange and complex dystopian world made up of inter-connected rooms, doors, and corridors, where the concepts of inside and outside are reversed. In this world, "inside" is common, and "outside" is rare. Within this realm are many creatures; tens of thousands of sapients, and countless non-sapients. All are vying for survival, with the sapient inhabitants living in, and competing for control of a number of townships.

The creatures in the Mazes are very diverse and varied; you will find humans, halflings (humans with animal genetic traits, granting them ears, tails, claws, and inherited behavior patterns), youkai (creatures similar to the youkai of Japanese folklore), angelic and demonic creatures, as well as a smattering of animals, monsters, constructs, and other, less-sapient, but no less dangerous beasts.

This is a world where technology and magic both coexist; however both are, to a certain extent, limited. While it seems that the Mazes have not progressed past the mid-1990s in terms of computing, and have rudimentary networking skills, power and electricity are largely sourced from Serpentium, a valuable mineral ore that can be processed and converted into clean electrical power. Magic exists; certain creatures and certain things have clearly fantastic capabilities; mushrooms healing wounds, creatures throwing fireballs or protecting defensive shields, blessed objects granting greater strength or resistance to pain... However, these forms of magic are limited in scope and usefulness, largely confined to innate talents from the few species blessed with them.

The world of the Mazes can be separated into two kinds of places:

• The townships, cities, communities, referred to as the Civilized Areas or simply the Towns, which are organized, may or may not be controlled by one of the major factions of the world...
• ...and what is referred to as the Uncivilized Area (or simply the UA), where the roads and routes between each town can be found.

The Towns are what you expect of them, with houses, shops, facilities, inhabitants, and a relative sense of safety.

The UA, however, is a little more dangerous. You see, in the UA, the only thing that is certain is whether the route connecting one town to the next will lead you where you need to. The Uncivilized Area is composed of random, constantly shifting and changing rooms which are generally filled with hostile creatures, as well as the occasional outcast, marauder, and other violent criminals.

Survival is a constant concern; in order for a town to not be overrun and turn into a ghost town that will fade into the UA, it is generally the duty of each town to defend their own existence from the occasional creature invasion, lest that town falls into ruin and disappears. Everyone has their idea on what constitutes effective survival - it is not sufficient to simply be an autonomous community living in autarky; trade, mutual help, and agreements are necessary for each community's survival. However, because leaving a town necessarily means entering the UA and facing its dangers and uncertainty, it means that all but the most reclusive of the people in this world are expected to know how to fight.

For this reason, most people in the Mazes are armed. Very, very well-armed. Weapon usage and martial arts are not just common, it is almost culturally expected to know how to fight and handle yourself. Therefore, it is a world full of firearms, melee weapons, explosives, and other tools of defense and destruction.

That is where the major factions of the world come into play. Each faction has its own stated goals and at least some vision on how to make the world of the Mazes safer. There are six major factions, and they can be grouped into pairs of opposed factions, due to long-standing ongoing conflicts.

• The Maze Military, an organized and uniformed force composed of humans and halflings. Their official mission is to patrol the UA and defend the inhabitants of the Mazes against creature and monster threats, but corruption and discriminatory movements, as well as a long-standing rivalry with youkai, have made the Military seem more interested in waging war against youkai than anything else.
• The Youkai Nation are a political and paramilitary contingent of youkai interested in attaining self-determination and autonomy from a world where humans are the majority population. To some, they are merely fighting for their own freedom. To others, they are anti-human terrorists bent on destruction and chaos.

• The Maze Police was established to be the 'interior threat' counterpart to the Military; they created a standard set of laws and rules, unimaginatively known as Standard Law. All towns have the possibility to request coverage and protection from the Maze Police; to get the Police's protection, security, and processing of wrongdoers and lawbreakers, all they have to do is agree to implement Standard Law into their communities. Not all communities have agreed to do so (they are referred to as independent towns), and certain openly wage war on these rules...
• ...particularly the Yatela Crime Syndicate, the biggest organized crime group in the Mazes. So powerful and influential, that they are synonymous with all but the pettiest of crimes, and why when one thinks of an Outlaw, they think of a Yatela crime family member. Sharply - if stereotypically - dressed, and in control of several communities where only their authority and iron fist matter, they are not only opposed to Standard Law, but to anything that may be a threat to their activities, legal or less legal; prostitution, pornography, racketeering, extortion, theft, and black markets, murder, contract killing...

• On the matters of faith and religion, the Angelics (and the entity under which they are organized: Heaven, Ltd.) and the Demonics (Hell, Inc.) are fiercely opposed, each having their own ideas and sets of values with which to influence the people of the Mazes (as well as their own collection of creatures and reasons to wage war to one another.) The Angelics preach values such as loyalty, moderation, chastity, order, and general virtues, whereas the Demonics insist that natural urges, sexual freedom, greed, and competition are not only normal, but the only valid way to live one's life.

Factions competing, people trying to survive and eke out a living, creatures lurking... and lots, and lots, of shooting, stabbing, and exploding - such is the daily life in the Mazes.

What do I need to play?

MazeWorld is a type of TTRPG that was designed exclusively for play via instant messaging over the internet. The current iteration is designed to be played on Discord, and makes extensive use of two types of bots; a regular dice bot for rolling virtual dice, and a random item bot for rolling random objects, creatures, etc. in a convenient manner. We have developed two bots for this game: SnakeEyes, a dice roller, and Tsuchinoko, a random item generator. You can find details about both of them on this page.

Those two bots, a Discord server to invite them on, a GM with knowledge of the game (which is provided to you in this very wiki), and at least one player: Those are the minimum requirements for playing MazeWorld.

It is not necessary to join our server in order to play, though you're still encouraged to do so; we always welcome new people, we will answer your questions about the game, and we're a cool bunch to chill out with, so why not come in?