Interesting article about why you should make a setting

[Rob Lang]

Chainsaw Aardvark and I have been banging on for YEARS about games that have no setting. Every game should have a setting and here's a Live Journal blog from a designer who seems to have his head screwed on. He includes examples too.

http://princeofcairo.livejournal.com/152308.html

[WittyDroog]

Once I read "Nobilis" I stopped reading. I'm sure he's wise and knows what he's talking about. I just can't stand that game.

[koipond]

I think the key thing that is mentioned is that there are several different methods by which you can create a setting. I mean that looking at Mortal Coil where a lot of the creation lies in the player's hands. It's something that I'm working on with Geasa, where there is no real GM and the setting comes out in the character creation.

I guess where I think I'm going with this comment is that it's particularly hard to come up with a setting in an RPG according to the definitions set up. I mean HERO is probably the only one, but it's had such a long association with Champions that it's the first thing I think about when I hear the HERO system.

[Peril Planet]

I found this livejournal post quite interesting, putting into words something that was at the periphery of my understanding, but never quite obvious enough for me to see. I totally agree with Hite on the fact that random gen tables are just as good at defigning setting as a 400 page "world book". Look at John Harper's "Ghost / Echo" game - the only setting details are random tables, but they illustrate clearly what the world is like. I must admit, I am the kind of guy that enjoys describing settings but hates reading about them - I have created many homebrew campaign settings but prefer to play in "established" settings that I can grasp quickly. (It wasn't always the way, but I think I have gotten lazy over the years...). Established, detailed settings can (in my experience) create problems when not everyone is invested in them. For instance, i am familiar with the iron kingdoms because I play Warmachine, but played in a disasterous campaign because only half the players played the wargame and / or read the source material. The GM nowing more or less than the players can also be a problem in such instances. At this stage, though I am just rambling.

Long and short - I like the fact that there are many games with many different ways of "sharing" the setting with the reader. I like the idea of using "short hand" to get across info. Random tables are one way. in a setting of my own I had side-bars where I compared the things I was discussion to mainstream or easy to grasp concepts (these guys are kind of like Jedi knights' this place has a geography like...).

If you have not read any of Hite's work, I suggest you do. I LOVE his Day After Ragnarok setting.

- Nathan

[madunkieg]

For the last four years I've been a member of the Story Games forums and I've expressed this sentiment many times in relation to some of the games developed there. I understand the counter-argument, but still I prefer games with settings. You could say that my Cyberpunk Revival Project entry will be a rebuttal to the Shock: Social Science Fiction rpg by Joshua Newman, a demonstration and expansion upon the point I will now try to make.

If I bought your game, it's because I want your ideas, not just in rules, but your setting, too. If I wanted to make my own, I would do that. I wouldn't buy, seek out, or download your game. If I have 6 players including myself and our ideas from which to create a game, we have 6 people worth of ideas. If we sit down with your game, we have 7 people worth of ideas, because the game adds your ideas to the mix.

Good ideas inspire more ideas, ergo good setting ideas inspire more setting ideas.

The process of creativity is not one of creating something from nothing, but reshaping and recombining old ideas into forms never seen before. The process of technological development is a good example of this, but if you want a more immediate example, watch a few of the youtube videos from the TED conferences and tell me you aren't inspired at some point. If you don't include a setting in your rpg, you're forcing the players to look outside the game for inspiration. If you include a setting, they can still look outside the game, but they can look to the game, too.

Not only that, but your ideas do it better. My gaming groups, we're mostly friends. We've shared a lot of ideas over the years, and have similar sources of inspiration. You're outside the circle. You're bringing new perspectives, new sources of inspiration, new ideas, new fuel to get our creative engines running. Unless you don't bother to include them in the game.

I do think that it is possible to design settings so they are more likely to inspire, and also possible to design settings in ways that they discourage people from coming with their own ideas, but that might be a different thread if people want to explore it further.

[kumakami]

I a huge fan of "Setting in the rule" games. the best example I can give is the old DEADLANDS game. from character creating, to running the game, the rules them selves where part of the setting. You knew with out a doubt that this was a western game. I fine that one mistake made with "rules lite" game is that the rules feel slapped on. The setting is key to any game, but if I can't really run it....then is only a setting not a game

[espynwislyn]

This article was fascinating! Particularly the parts about "Weapons of the Gods" have inspired me to take an entirely different tack in my entry for the Cyberpunk Revival Project.

I'll admit, it's an issue that I have always struggled with. There was a time when I was diehard that setting details are always info-dumping, meaningless self-satisfaction, and that the setting only works when it's enjoyed and accepted by the players. I was right about that last bit; what I didn't understand then was that there are plenty of ways to get people interested in a setting, as demonstrated by this essay.

I'd like to see more games reward learning about the setting, not in a "mastery" sense, but rather where the act of learning about the game is a desirable end in its own right. Sadly, "Weapons of the Gods" is the only game that comes to mind that does that right now.

[madunkieg]

[SheikhJahbooty]

Hot War rewards the characters being involved in the setting, which is something that I think is much more important than learning about the setting.

In Hot War, each PC has a number of relationships (official, personal, fellow PC, etc.) and whenever that person is in a scene, the PC gets extra dice to perform tasks that are in accord to that relationship. Players feel good when they get to save the PCs little sister from zombies, because savior is part of their relationship with their little sister, so the PC is more effective, and a more fun star of the story when they get to do that.

Contrast that with Hero System, where a dependent NPC or a rival or a villain is just an excuse for more points and occasional reluctant story hook.

FATE allows this kind of interaction to players if the player is clever about setting his aspects. (Fate doesn't force you to set any of your aspects to setting elements or NPCs, which is good or bad depending on how you play.) If one of your aspects is, "I can't let Uncle Willard know I'm a globe trotting teenage adventurer." then you will naturally give the GM openings to compel or tag that aspect, so you can earn the fate points. You won't just cut to the scene where you arrive in Machu Pichu. You'll describe what your character does to get ready for the trip, just in case the GM wants to bring up Uncle Willard and give you a fate point.

Of course, the king of them all is a little game that I'm not sure how to get anymore (other than emailing me) called, Destiny System. In that game your character has an "hour glass" and the more you interact with the setting and the more you add to the setting through your character, the more sand you get in this hour glass. Stuff like, "My character's seen this place before, in a prophetic dream in which he bla bla bla..." or "I'll try to decipher the script. I studied ancient hieroglyphs at Cairo University with Professor Manqala." Those would each get you like 2d6 sand. What happens is that your character thrives and accomplishes stuff, as long as he's vital and interesting. If you've kind of told all you wanted to of his story or you can't seem to get into him anymore, or if he never interacts with or never interacted with any interesting part of the setting, then his story is naturally over, and he is naturally defeated by the next challenge or conflict and you retire him or kill him off.

These are just three examples, but I'm sure there are other games that say, "The setting includes this. Play with this and get a cookie."

[Chris Johnstone]

So I finally finally signed up for a 1KM1KT account... I've been meaning to for some years.

Interesting article. In particular, because I haven't paid a lot of attention to new RPGs over the last few years, I was unfamiliar with the Lore Sheets approach in WoTG. It sort of spun my head around a little. I'm tinkering with games that I may never have the time to finished, but I'm now thinking hard about whether including something like a Lore Sheets component in at least one of them.

Fascinating idea.

Chris