The Great Houses of Morrowind

Here, we shall discuss the Great Houses and how they can be integrated into the campaign setting in all time periods. They're pretty cool, I have to say.

This actually brings up a larger fluff-related question: to what extent are we staying with the videogames? Are we having just 3 Great Houses? All 5? Do we get to expand Balmora/Suran/Ald'Ruhn/etc at all? Or am I getting ahead of myself even asking?

The game we're creating won't really delve into the fluff overmuch. I want to leave that particular aspect to the DM: where in Tamriel, when in Tamriel, and all that stuff. The purpose of this project is to create a ruleset that approximates the video-games while still being fun to play. Ideally, you can do anything and go anywhere in Tamriel, otherwise why bother playing the tabletop instead of the video-game? You want to be a Dres slave-trader leading raids against Black Marsh and carting captives back to Tear? Go for it. You want to be a Redguard sword-saint exploring the remains of lost Yokuda? Be my guest.

Alright, cool.

I think that we should work out some faction rules, but we can't do that until we work out the social rules, and we can't do that here because this is for fan wankery, not rules wankery.

But we should definatly make sure to incorporate rules for the extra two houses, even though this system will be mainly based on morrowind. That's how I see it anyways. Sure, it will extend to other parts of Tamriel and Nirn as the Gm and we see fit to expand, but for the timebeing, morrowind is what is in mind when creating rules and stats and item functions and such.

I think that's the nice thing about doing it collaborative and online - if you have a bug up your butt and like Tamriel and worldbuilding, you can design "supplements." Personally, I'd like to flesh out the cities more, and maybe once we get the core rules set, that becomes my hobby.

But, yes, I posted a topic on factions in the rules forum, because I'd like to be able to play a Dres slave-lord or Indoril warrior myself.

Abstract the rules enough and you could apply the same stuff to a Bretonian micro-kingdom or imperial dukedom. Nothing's saying you can't have nobles houses outside Morrowind.