Why don't you make it a mystery to the player also.

How about the characters find an old place underground with all this technology never seen by the world. So the people adapt to some of these machines and suddenly weird things start happening in the world, so the person has to go out and save the world.

That idea is really broad, it is up to you to figure out what to do with it.

You could even throw in some talking apes. [grin]

Ya you could have it so that it is after the destruction of a great society and many things were left behind. This would be a great idea because not only could you have castles villages,etc but also ruined cities and things like that. The planet does not have to be earth it could be a place where elfs, dwarfs, etc were always there but they destroyed themselfs and must start partially over. You could also make one group of people more technologically advanced then others so that their technology was traded for things such as food or whatever. Also if you need a writer for your game i would be happy to work for free. If you do need a writer please email me at coolhandluc727@hotmail.com

What could have happened would be an alien/mutant/whatever species came and took over the earth (think "war of the worlds") and the humans were divided into 3 catagories, "slaves", "hiding in the ruined cities, caves, mountains, and underground sewage system" (OPPORTUNITY FOR SUB CLASSES!!!), and "food"...to make a long story short...the "food" class would be stupid but have brute force due to their being breeded to have more "meat" and less "fat"...the "slaves" would have been given crude magics to help their jobs (heal, pick up) as well as higher magics to entertain the species that took them as slaves (for duels, etc. typical fighting magics)...the "hiding" people would have regressed to the point of an almost clannish system for each of their areas. they would be using anything they found and, eventually, trying to re-make them (pitchforks, ancient swords, ancient armor, etc.)...anyway...in a few thousand of years after the great "equalizer" you could call it where the new species took over, the virii that had been plaguing the humans had evolved and began to spread to the new species. after that it was a matter of time before the slaves decided that, instead of casing healing magic when given the opportunity of close contact, they would cast something from their arsonal...the new species, having long become sluggish, had only their high tech weapons to controle the slaves...even these didn't save them...

so you would have 3 classes:
former slave
former food
former hiding human

each would have better stats in:
(slave) magic/high technologies
(food) brute-force fighting
(hiding human) weapon fighting/low technologies

and that is Ajain's idea...i didn't read everyone's post up there and i'm sure this seams like the exact same idea as many other peoples but...o well...

-Ajain

you could simply make it a place that is high tech but enjoys a
natural anmosphere,

it would solve all your problems without
having to build in more storyline just so you could have
vehicles

you could simply make it a place that is high tech but enjoys a
natural anmosphere,

it would solve all your problems without
having to build in more storyline just so you could have
vehicles

You might want to check out a book called "Janissaries" by Jerry Pournelle. It describes a world similar to what you are looking for. It might be a little difficult to integrate magic in there though...

Regards,
jflanglois