So I’ve been thinking that when I was working on rpgs I always concentrated more on the “form” than on the “core” of the setting. This means I worked more on how the world looks like than on what the world is about. So I thought that I might try to do it the other way, and started creating a rpg which central concept would be freedom. But no the hippie - do what you want – type of freedom, but more the personal freedom, kind of like in classical liberalism or some would say “libertarianism”. So I started creating a low culture, high tech world long after an apocalypse in which most of the population would live in stateless societies. The several cities and clans would set their own laws and freely regulate the differences between themselves. Of course it wouldn’t be an ideal world, there would be always those who sought power, kings and leaders of cults who sought power at the expense of others freedom. Tyrants who would often seek weapons from before the great war to spread their power. So then I started to think about how the world looks like and based it on many on many sources, books by China Mieville, Nausicaa of the valley of the wind, Morrowind and the art of Hieronymus Bosch. I created a multitude of freaky creatures and races, four-legged and four-handed arachnids, bee-like nomads, inhabiting the land and water octopus-lizards or a race of giants which has been mechanically transformed to serve as weapons by the tyrants in the great war. I also thought the planet itself might be organic, and the further you go underground the more the laws of reality are bent. Which some say is because you slowly enter the planets sub-consciousness and some say is because of psychedelic properties of something underground. So my question is if I should aim at such weirdness? If I do, will it not overshadow the central motive? How do I keep a balance or should I give up some of my ideas?

It sounds like you've got an abundance of creative energy, but are unsure of where to focus it. Personally, I always start with a theme, or concept, when I design a fantasy world. I draw on inspiration from events in the modern world, and elaborate on them. How would things change if this happened? Would would be the outcome of that? What's the real purpose and motive behind this fantasy world? What are the struggles and goals of the characters I want to create? It... all just kind of shakes out from there.

Well, I'd like to focus on the concept of freedom, what defines it and what is a threat to it. That's why we have a stateless world with laws set by communities composed of many different races. A large part of the population are individuals living mainly in solitude and trying to satisfy their basic needs, who are called self-named. They are called like this because they are thought too completely shape their own and only their own fate, thus naming themselves. Kings and priests are on the other hand seen as "those who want to name others". The main groups that are in some way opposed to freedom is the T'hnari republic which the free ones don't except because they don't see it as the rule of the majority, but as the oppression of the minority, the republic considers itself actually pacifistic although it is very expansionist. The other one is the voice of Q'vuotch, who worship the planet and strive to make all others listen to its "voice", it's a combination of a sect and of ecological group. An important part of the world are the Ziaab, who were once a race of giants, but the tyrants started enslaving them and created machinery to control them and to use them as weapons against the other kings. This lead to the apocalypse, although some of the Ziaab survived Every group with its philosophy has a different attitude to the giants, the T'hnari would want to use them (properly in their mind), The Voice would like to destroy them (it's a representation of the destruction technology brings) and the self-made would like to free them, even though they often fail at this dead and eventually die trying. Of course the stateless societies are not ideal, the cities and clans or almost like a wild west, and solitude drives many of the self-named to depression or even madness.

Sounds interesting... I like the detail, but I'm not sure the overall framework is quite the right place for it. I'd focus more on creating the world, groups and, most importantly, individual characters. Who is the protagonist? What faction do they associate with? What are his/her motivations? Love? Revenge? Pride? What's important to them? What drives them? A good RPG requires a good story, and a good story requires memorable characters. Everything else is semantics.

I think I thought of an idea on how to connect the underground thing to the concept of freedom. I have to also add that I also wanted to show that most people don't really want to be free, and choose security, power, faith and so on. So my idea is that entering the underground would be something of a test for the self-named. When they feel truly free they go underground (kind of like the vision journeys indians would set out to do), and face the subconsciousness. The thing is that if they truly embrace freedom the mind will free them, yet if they are not free the underground will enslave them? Do you think this is too much?

And the motivation? I can do it two ways really, either I pre-state that all players are the self-named in which case their motivation is freedom, or I leave it to their choice in which case they choose their own motivations to.