The Forge Archives

What components make up Setting?

In the Gamism essay, Ron notes that many people think "Oh, Gamism, I know what that is!" and never give it a second glance. I think Setting suffers a similar fate. (If I've overlooked a thread or three, please let me know.)

To disclose my biases, I've done it myself. You see, I've always hated Setting. I've always felt that Setting hamstrings Situation, dictates play decisions, takes up far too many pages and too much effort on the part of designers that could be better spent elsewhere. Settings bore me and I've dismissed them as wasteful of time and paper, without looking at what they are or why they're important. Even when I was designing Discernment, folks were telling me it needed a Setting and I argued "No!" I finally caved in and the Setting, minimal as it is, helped me to finish the game.

I want to look at what makes up Setting in an effort to understand how it works and why it is vital for RPGs.

Across the broad range of RPGs, we have a vast number of components of Character: attributes, skills, combat abilities, saving throws, personality mechanics, relationships (this bridges to Setting), equipment (this bridges to Setting), and the like. They make up the bulk of RPG rules. But what makes up Setting?

Well, in general story terms "setting" means "the time and place where a story takes place." So there are two components to start with: Time and Place.

Time is the component generally chronicled in those chapters about "and then there were the third goblin wars..." and other "useless history bunk," as Shreyas Sampat calls it in this thread (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=11192). But why is time important? Situation can can only develop from what has gone on before. Even Cell Gamma's set-up of "you wake up with no memory" drives Situation, because we all instintivly know that something must have gone on before. It's at the root of the game. So Time is a component of Setting that gives context to Situation and to Character.

The need for Place has generated hundreds of maps of worlds with funny names. I've been guilty of this myself in my younger days. Part of Place's importance stems from setting up the expectations of the environment. This extends from "water runs downhill, so rivers flow from the mountains to the sea" to "orcs from the Red Woods hate elves particularly visciously and will often target them to the exclusion of other foes." The game's participants (i.e., players & GMs collectively) draw on these expectations to create and continually recreate Situation. Sometimes these expectations are used to create obstacles: "You're downriver when the dam breaks. Make a Seamanship roll to keep the boat from capsizing." -- to contextualize Character and Situation: "Yes, Legolas, the only person who can guide you in these twisted lands is a Red Woods orc." -- and to create expectations of Situations to come: "The lost Sword of Salvation is buried deep inside a mountain halfway around the world." "Sounds like an epic quest through every terrain type in the book, huh?"

But Place is not just physical location, not just described by mountain passes and mile-high towers. Place also can refer to social Place: your role in society. So Society is another component of Setting. (I've never really liked man vs. nature conflicts, so this component has always seemed very important to me.) The Society component of Setting bridges into Situation: "You're a soldier. You'll be fighting orcs" and System: "You'll need a high Swordsmanship skill if you want to kill a lot of orcs" and Color: "Dwarves are dour and laconic." In certain setting-heavy games (World of Darkness springs to mind) Society virtually dictates Character. The shape of Society also tells us what sort of NonPlayer Character and supporting cast to expect "The men of Ironton are excellent smiths but shrewd bargainers." Because Societies exist within certain locales, several examples in the previous paragraph also touch on Society.

But Societies also do things and build things. How many hundreds of pages of equipment lists sit on your shelves? And how many more hundreds of pages of kewl powerz and dissertations on how magic/magick/magyk actually works? I'll group equipment and special abilities under the name Props. From this abstract vantage point, in-born psionic powers seem to do the same thing in a setting as magic swords and flaming oil: It's something for the Characters to pick up and use. Setting tells us which Props are acceptable and which ones aren't. You don't blow away orcs with your submachine gun (unless you're playing Shadowrun) and wizards don't cast healing spells (unless your Setting says they can).

So it seems to me that Setting is made up of Time, Place, Society, and Props. As with all the elements of role-playing, how they enter play is important.

It seems that many games (those that led me to dismiss Setting in the first place) unfold the Setting in great detail over dozens of pages of the rulebook, with the unwritten assumption that *someone* will bring it into play. The initial investment of time needed to learn the Setting is high, and the relevance to actual play is variable. Perhaps because of the high initial investment of time, there seems a strong urge not to deviate from the established settings in such games (e.g., World of Darkness tends to attract more "setting lawyers" than "rules lawyers")

Games that have a low barrier-to-entry can convey the components of Setting very quickly to the participants. The simple statement: "You're all orcs out to kill as many namby-pamby elves as you can sink your fangs into. Go!" implies all the elements of Setting: Time (a time of war between elves and orcs), Place (wilderness, perhaps an elven city here or there), Society (orcs are bloodthirsty, elves aren't), and Props (fangs, claws, perhaps a rough-hewn sword). However, games like these often depend heavily on reaching a specific subculture (fantasy gamers, in this example). When stepping outside that subculture, the telegramatic quality of such Settings can become an obstacle to understanding. See Luke Crane's playing Burning Wheel with the Parents (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=13513) for an example.

(Oddly, games based on licenced properties should fall into this second group, but they seem to have as much, if not more than, book-delineated Setting as games with original settings. Perhaps to market to nongamer collectors?)

A third group of games makes creation of the Setting part of play. This decreases pregame time investment and (hopefully) increases participants' emotional investment. What is often sacrificed is detail, as groups may paint with broad strokes. Some games, like Universalis, allow the level of detail to be specified by the group. I'm personally partial towards games like this.

Those are my thoughts on the components of Setting. Comments?

The following is only my opinion.:)

I would add that the setting is the reason to care. Whether it's a one-page summary or 250 pages. Size is not the issue as long as it pulls you in.

Setting is the hook, the cover of the book, the genre in which the store will take place. It catches your eye, takes you far away to somewhere you've not been, or feels comfortable like an old friend.

System can be a hook, especially for those immersed in game design or those looking for a way to screen out all the product in the marketplace. It can be comfortable too. Or a thing that supports a sepecific play style. But it is not as strong alone as it is when coupled with setting.

The more one roleplays, the more a person is comfortable with making up their own setting, or stripping a system out of one game, taking parts and pieces of another, and merging it all together in a whole. Setting starts to be less important than the system. The designers designing for other designers thing. But looking back to when you first started playing, what was it about the product that first got you into roleplaying... before you knew all what you know now?

Thoughts?

Gary

Likee ^_^

One point, your third group actually has a bonus, though I get the vibe you see it as a detriment.
Finely detailed setting can really bug too many players, especially when you launch into a game with a few hundred years of backstory. You never know where you're going to go as your character when you start a game, so pre-defining everything around you can bite, almost like railroading yourself. Thus, creating a setting with broad, initial strokes, allows them to add finer detail as they play, making it even more personal.
So, I don't see it so much as skipping the little stuff as it is saving it for later ^_^

Heya,

One thing I'd like to point out is in response to what you said when some people look at the history of a setting as "useless information."  This history of the people and places of a setting can provide their motivation.  It is what made them the way they are.  It's kinda like a justification or validation of their existance.  It makes the world dynamic.

So, in addition to what has been so far, a setting is IMHO justification for existance of anything encountered in game.

That's all I have for now.  I'll have to chew on this some more.

Peace,

-Troy

In regards to the initial question of "What makes up Setting," my answer would be: Potential.

The potential of a setting differs depending on your Creative Agenda.  Most people who start with PnP roleplaying -- and this was certainly true in the case of me and my friends -- start with a Gamist attitude. That's mainly the case because that's all we're used to, from playing other games such as board games and computer games. When we saw a Setting, we saw potential for certain equipment, conflicts, cool (as in powerful) characters and similar things. Some Settings delivered this sort of potential wonderfully, others did not.

After 14 years of RPing, I have become more interested in character development and the creation of stories. Some settings are really not that well suited for this type of play, while others are from the get-go ripe with possibilities. Do you know that feeling of picking up a book, looking at the Setting and getting this great feeling of "Wow, I can see so many great scenes in this?"

The first time I ever picked up an RPG ("Das Schwarze Auge," since I am German), I had that feeling so strongly that it gave me chills, because I suddenly had a glimpse of the potential of RPing as a whole. Nowadays, I look for Settings that can replicate a fraction of that first intense feeling through the Potential of the Setting (or, tied in with this, the structure of the System).

I think your components are probably accurate with regards to the different parts of Setting, and obviously, Props used to be much more important to me than Society, though now that's reversed. I would just add Potential as a qualifier to the quantitative categories of Place, Time, Society and Props. When the question of "What are characters going to do in this Setting" reveals a large Potential with regards to the intended CA, you have a great Setting in hand.

In Keith Johntsone's book Impro, he writes that one of the essential things that make a narrative feel like a story instead of a random collection of incidents is something he calls "reincorporation". That is, when you have a conflict, it gets resolved by an element that was introduced earlier in the story, rather than something new. This is what creates the sense of closure, because the end ties into the beginning and you have a sense of arc and integrity.

That's what setting is for, IMO. Having a setting that all the players are on-board with makes reincorporation much easier to do, which makes it easier to create stories. So, suppose you have problem like "We have called up the militia to face the orcish invasion, but we have a shortage of swords and armor". Now, if you and the other players already knew that "the men of Ironton are excellent smiths but shrewd bargainers", then when someone suggests buying weapons from Ironton they'll get an "ah-ha" from the other players, because it solves the problem in a way that re-incorporates a known fact.

I guess another way of saying it is that the story has a better shape this way than if someone just now improvised Ironton and its smiths into existence, because it doesn't seem like a deus ex machina.

I write a lot of setting for Multiverser, and I've come to understand that in that sense, setting is rules. It is a piece of the rules of the game to which we give this special name, and it functions exactly like rules in play.

Your "setting lawyers" are garden variety "rules lawyers" with a specialty practice.

Like rules, "setting", in this sense, is not part of play. It is an authority to which players refer when making statements to form the content of the shared imagined space. That is, the referee says, "The men of Ironton are excellent smiths but shrewd bargainers" because it is in the book. It is not part of the shared imagined space unless and until he or someone else says it, and thus it's not really part of play if it is never said. If someone were to say that the men of Ironton were by and large religious pacifists who spent their time in meditation and prayer and held to a socialist economy, that would be the way Ironton was in that world--unless someone said, "no they're not, the book says this," at which point system kicks in to weigh credibility. Does the statement backed up by the information in the book override the statement made by the referee who has laid out some sort of adventure for the game? Probably it does, because we give a lot of authority to our written setting elements; but it might not, if the referee has the credibility to rewrite the setting as he desires.

Obviously, "setting" also exists within the shared imagined space. It is the elements of time and place that are created by the players through the use of system. That's really the "setting" that is one of the elements of exploration. That stuff in the book, that's not the setting we explore--that's the authority to which we refer when we wish support for statements made about that setting. If the book says that elves of Lorindorian live on flets built in huge towering trees, we have the book's authority to support that statement. If we say that the king and queen of the elves of Lorindorian live in the largest tree in the forest, in a palatial collection of forty-seven flets totalling nine thousand square feet and reaching to a quarter mile in the sky, that's as much part of the setting in the shared imagined space as the other--even though there's not a word about elven royalty or palatial flets or quarter mile high trees in the book.

The setting material in the book serves as the foundation for the creation of the real setting in the shared imagined space. How little or how much of that you need depends on what you expect your playgroups to do with your world. If you expect that they are going to explore the world for its own interest, you need to provide enough material that it's going to be interesting to explore. If you expect that they're going to do other things in the world, you may need only the barest backbone of what the world is like so that they, individually or corporately, can turn that into the setting that meets their goals.

I hope this helps.

--M. J. Young

Hi Michael,

Try thinking of Setting(or Color, or any of the explorative elements) as a set of Legos or building blocks, that the group can put together and use in a fashion to help focus play and answer the question, "What is play about?"  All the points you make in terms of what Setting answers for players helps focus them to what play is about.  

For some cases, players, and groups, "Orks killing elves" is sufficient, just like buying a single Lego set.  For other folks, they might want to build A LOT of different things, so that they need more blocks to work with.  The benefit is now people can use these elements to produce many different situations and foci of play, the danger is that people might lose focus and not know what to do at all.

The personal investment of how much Setting(how many sets) is a question based on each group and game.  I think just as we're seeing games finally free themselves of a lot of System assumptions, at some point down the line we'll also see more games freeing themselves from Setting assumptions(ranging from the Uber-gazeteer of D&D to the 200 page Setting intro of Whitewolf).

A great deal of current Setting Fetish comes from what two co-current trends- the empty role vs. roll playing argument("More Setting=More Meaningful=We're smarter and better than you") and the hope that diving deeper into Sim will someday produce Nar play("If we keep mixing more Setting together, somehow that will change the CA...").  Once people step back and take Setting off its pedestal, and realize it is nothing more than a tool to achieve Creative Agenda, a lot of the problems evaporate.

Chris

I think this is a grteat topic and that setting does need to be more examined.

The first thought I have is about Time and Place.  I can think of very few settings that are not both, that are not properly Moments.  In many, the specific date of default play start can be dated to a year or three.  Regardless, I can't think of a game that has made use of more than one Now-point.  Just formulating a price list requires that a time be selected.

Thanks for so many thoughtful responses!

Gary: I think Setting is the hook for a lot of gamers. A whole lot. I think that's why it's under-analyzed. By the time an average gamer knows a game well enough to look at what works and what doesn't, he's already swallowed the hook so deep that he can't look at it anymore.

Personally, it's rarely been the hook for me.

Troy: You're absolutely right that motivation is how history should be used. My problem has been that it so often isn't. And largely isn't presented in such a way that makes it easy to do so (e.g., the character creation chapter is up front, with the history section not coming for 150+pages or so).

Christian: Thanks for your thoughts on Potential. They seem to me to align rather nicely with M.J.'s thoughts on Setting-in-the-book versus Setting-in-the-SIS. Would you agree with that?

Neel: Thanks for bringing up Impro. It's been ages since I read it. I think we have to keep in mind M.J.'s point that Setting-in-the-SIS being used can serve to establish Johnstone's reincorporation, while Setting-in-the-book which has not yet made it into the SIS would feel more like deus ex machina. Does that seem right to you?

M.J.: Thanks so much for that insight. Differentiating "setting in the book" from "setting in the SIS" helps everything fall into place. My personal preferences had me throwing out the baby (Setting in the SIS) with the bathwater (setting in the book).

Now I can see *why* games like My Life with Master, Sorcerer and Universalis handle Setting-in-the-SIS so well, even though they have little to no setting-in-the-book. They have a set process by which Setting can enter the SIS!

I think that's why I've always gotten so frustrated by setting-in-the-book in so many, many games. It's there for pages and pages and pages, so it must be important, but the game never comes right out and tells you "here's how you use it." Is everyone playing supposed to read the whole thing? This seems like it would certainly help this setting detail come into play, but players are rarely so dedicated, and the setting detail is often in the "GM's section" of the book. Is only the GM supposed to read the whole thing? If so, then how is he supposed to introduce this information to the players in a meaningful fashion. If he says, "Your town is low on weapons" and then says, "Ironton is known for its skilled smiths" that's just a half step better than deus ex machina. GM monopoly on setting-in-the-book seems another tool for the use of Force.

Chris: I can see your point about Setting components being like Legos, except that so very many games don't give you Legos. They give you a motley collection of Legos and lincoln logs and erector set pieces and Duplo blocks and a hot glue gun and assorted bricabrac with velcro stuck to the bottom of it, and dump it all onto the table, without much of a word about what you're supposed to do with it.

Games like MLwM, Sorcerer & Uni, like I mentioned above, seem to say, "We all bring our own stock of Legos & stuff to the table, gathered from our life experience. Follow this process for everyone to put some of their pieces in the middle of the table, so that everyone can then play with them."

contracycle(Gareth, IIRC): You're correct that few games make both Time and Place variable. The GURPS history books usually keep Place constant, while allowing Time to be up to the playgroup. I'm not familiar with Glorantha, but isn't the timeline all spelled out, so that Time is up to the playgroup?

I would quibble with Gary that Setting is the hook.  Rather I'd claim that Situation is the hook.  Situation is what happens when characters interact with the Setting...the "potential" Christian mentions.

The problem that arises with traditional setting heavy games is that the game designers aren't willing to commit to a Situation.  They want to "leave it open" to the group to come up with the Situation.   Groups are expected to 1) select a character from nearly unlimited options and 2) select a setting from nearly unlimited options to determine the situation that kicks off the campaign.  Because of this Chinese menu approach to situation game designs must have very open "be anything" character design (to select from Column A) and a huge encyclopedia of setting (to populate the choices from Column B).

The more a game designer is willing to committ to a specific (or at least a narrow range) of situations, the more the character options and setting options can be confined to providing the needed potential for just those Situations (rather than any conceivable situation).


Shadows of Yesterday is particularly adept at this IMO.  The racial and cultural Keys directly tie the character into the setting and hense create immediate Situation.  As a result the setting information in the book can be very high level and broad brushed.

Quote from: ValamirI would quibble with Gary that Setting is the hook.  Rather I'd claim that Situation is the hook.  Situation is what happens when characters interact with the Setting...the "potential" Christian mentions.

Valamir, you (and 8 others) convinced me.
I had an interesting discussion with some gamers the other night on this and have revised my thinking somewhat.

For them setting wasn't the hook, first was the genera. i.e. Fantasy or Science Fiction or Pulp and the ability to experience something in that genera. When we were all pulled into roleplaying in the late 70's, there was only that Dnd Fantasy genera and Traveller Sci-fi genera to pull us in. We each brought our own idea of what fantasy or sci-fi was to the table, and that's what hooked us, and the potential of what kind of story we could experience.

So I agree, potential is very key. I'm bookmarking this thread!

Gary

Michael,

I had a whole long post typed out, but it really comes down to the fact that I agree with MJ's last paragraph (that some people like to explore the world in its own right), so I'll save the space.

I do think that people like coherent settings, however, and those among us with less time or creative talent are always glad to find a setting that provides lots of potential in a manner that makes sense, just as we are glad to find systems that work well without modifications of our own. Also, many players like to have the immersion factor provided by a setting that evolves even without the characters (a semi-autonomous world, if you like), and a well done setting can provide this without too much work by the GM.

And I do agree with Valamir that the possible situations in a setting, i.e. the potential of it, are the real hook. The real point of a setting is to give characters things to do. Make it too narrow or too open, and you leave the game without much substantive potential. It shouldn't be up to the GM to fix this, though oftentimes, it is.

Quote
Neel: Thanks for bringing up Impro. It's been ages since I read it. I think we have to keep in mind M.J.'s point that Setting-in-the-SIS being used can serve to establish Johnstone's reincorporation, while Setting-in-the-book which has not yet made it into the SIS would feel more like deus ex machina. Does that seem right to you?

I don't know, honestly. I tend to be able to commit setting to memory very easily, and I usually read the rulebook prior to play, so that the game's setting is generally "at my fingertips". This means that when another player brings up setting, I find myself nodding without trouble -- it rarely feels like a deus ex machina to me.

From the Exalted game I play in, there are a couple of social things I've noticed. First, there's absolutely zero expectation that admonitions about "GM's sections" will be respected -- anyone who suggested it would be stared at as if they had three heads. Second, when a player brings setting from the gamebooks into play, that's good. There isn't any social opprobrium attached to that, unlike with rules-lawyering. Third, it's considered even better when the player takes a couple of disparate details and weaves them together as part of his or her narration, because it shows the player taking ownership and adding his or her own creative contribution to the game. Finally, it's generally not cool to spend a lot of time digging through the books during play, because that's slow and dull.

Quote from: M. J. YoungObviously, "setting" also exists within the shared imagined space. It is the elements of time and place that are created by the players through the use of system. That's really the "setting" that is one of the elements of exploration. That stuff in the book, that's not the setting we explore--that's the authority to which we refer when we wish support for statements made about that setting.

This is viewed differently by different groups, I think.  Personally, I don't keep track of this distinction very well.  i.e. In my head, I will have a mix of setting details verbally stated during play, details worked out offline (such as over email or out-of-game discussion), and details given in a published game book or other source material.  I don't distinguish these particularly during play.  There might be disagreement in any of the three cases, and it's handled pretty much the same.  i.e. Someone might forget or misremember something that happened during a session, and someone might forget or misremember a written setting detail.  I generally treat those the same.  I think this is similar to what Neel describes his group as doing.  

In a few cases, we may change written setting details -- but then, in a few cases we may retcon (i.e. retroactively change) what happened in prior sessions.  In this sense, past in-play statements are just another authority which we can refer to.  No single authority is king.  If anything, in case of a clash I will tend to favor written authorities which I can reference so that we won't misremember it again.

I'm a setting junkie , so this thread has gotten me out of lurk-mode.  Thanks Michael :)

I would prefer reducing the 4 categories originally discussed (place, society, time, props) down to 2: Space & Artifact.  I'm using different terms just because it will be easier for me to follow.  A setting puts different things into a specific order.  If I was more awake, I could probably come up with a more elaborate statement, but that is basically it.  A setting therefore has two analytic subdivisions: the 'things' (or artifacts), and the 'ordering' (or space).  Props are artifacts, time & place are the ordering, and society is divided among the two, depending on what about society we're talking about.

Artifacts are specific things within a setting: institutions (like a faction or 'splat), items, abilities, etc.  NPCs, I would argue, are also artifacts.  There is literally a limitless set of possibilities out there on what this stuff is, and this is where space comes in: artifacts exist at specific locations in space.  

This space could be geographical (people from a certain country have certain abilities), temporal (guns exist in the game world after a certain year), or social (nobles have certain rights).  The point is, artifacts are placed in a certain order in relation to each other.  Most games have space manifest in more than one way (often, all three of the ones I mentioned above), but space always serves the same purpose: give order to what is possible, expected, and appropriate.  Likewise, space orders what is impossible, unexpected, and inappropriate.

As this is an analytical separation, an actual piece of setting information could be both.  A faction in a setting, for example, both is a thing that exists in the game world & has influences, while at the same time ordering  things (abilities, characteristic, etc.) within that game world.

As far as the evaluative element to all of this...

A 'good' setting, meaning good setting information provided by the published game (instead of the players or somewhere else), means that the ordering of things somehow helps connect the other four realms of exploration (character, system, color, situation).  Setting is not the only possible keystone for connecting these together; any of the 5 could conceivably do the job.  However, an RPG that attempts to explore setting wants to use exploration of setting in the first instance to help inform and justify exploration of the others.

Now, a designer may start with the comment, "I want to make a game with a 'horror' color." A game is setting-driven to the extent that (s)he justifies that horrific feel by describing the setting.  One could just as easily justify it starting in character, or itself being the initial statement out of which everything else flows.  Depending on how the game is designed, one could define it as based in setting, color, or character.

I also have a concern about privileging situation in discussing setting.  It is only one 'bridge' (setting-situation) out of four.  Clearly, it is important, but the other connections between setting and other paths of exploration must be analytically separate and given their due as well.   I suspect the other two bridges we think the most about are to color & character, but system is also key: if dueling is important in the setting, it may be a problem if combat is of minimal importance in the rules.

A badly done setting is when it fails at its task of integrating the other four explorations.  The 'metaplot critique' of the old World of Darkness, for example, is a complaint that its setting deprotagonized player characters, IMO.  Alternatively, a setting could be bad because it drowns 'useful' setting information in superfluous information (like the Third Goblin War).  What is and is not useful information depends on the game & the setting.

Note that I'm not saying all explorations are equal, that setting must deal equally with character, color, situation, & system.  However, I do believe a good setting 'knows' how it wants to deal with these other roleplaying issues.

I apologize for killing this thread.  Hardly my intention, but it would appear I did so.  My bad.

Hi Nick,

You didn't kill it. Sometimes it takes a while for a thread to be ingested by others and comment on it. Other times it will naturally play itself out. Rarely (if ever) can someone kill a thread by posting their views. Wait a few days and one or the other will happen. But though I only started posting recently myself, I've lurked long enough to know that the minds around here will think hard on an issue before posting. For myself, I stopped posting because I had a deadline come up.:)

Gary

Neel: I think it's cool that your group has such a Setting-supportive Social Contract. Personally, I've never encountered such a group attitude, unless they had created the Setting themselves.

John: It looks like you and your group do a lot of work to bring Setting into the SIS from a variety of sources. It seems I was overgeneralizing by just saying that there's Setting-in-the-book OR Setting-in-the-SIS. What I conclude from you and MJ and Christian is that there is Potential Setting (what I had called Setting-in-the-book) and Played Setting (Setting-in-the-SIS).

The Potential Setting seems to be all the setting material that is considered eligible to enter into the SIS and become Played Setting. In many games, this takes up the majority of the text. Some games suggest movies, novels, comics, or other media that might serve as Potential Setting. A historical Setting would usually accept legitimate history texts as Potential Setting.

Played Setting, then, is Setting components that have actually entered the SIS, by people talking about them (or writing about them, or drawing a picture of them, or declaring that their character interacts with them, etc.).

To restate my problem with Setting in these new terms: Many RPGs provide a great deal of Potential Setting with no guidelines of how to turn it into Played Setting. As Neel and John have pointed out, many individual groups have created their own ways of doing this well. I know from experience that many groups have not.

In Ken Hite's latest Out of the Box, he describes the Forge as the site that asks "How else?" So, How else can we design games to enhance Played Setting?

If anyone feels moved to answer that question in a post, please do it in a new thread linked to this one. If you want to debate the Potential Setting vs. Played Setting idea I put forth, that can stay in this thread, I think.

Nick: Thanks for your insights. (You didn't kill the thread, my long hours at work just delayed my response) I'm a bit leery of just using Artifact and Space as the components of Setting. I can see your analytic point, but Character is also made up of Things and an Order-of-Things. So are the other four elements. So how do we tell one from the other? Maybe I'm misreading you.

In your second post, I'd agree that a good Setting is one that supports and enhances the other four. But again, all five elements should be supporting and enhancing one another for a high-quality instance of role-playing. I'm not seeing much that's particular about Setting. But my eyelids are drooping, so perhaps I'll see it tomorrow.

Quote from: Michael S. MillerThe Potential Setting seems to be all the setting material that is considered eligible to enter into the SIS and become Played Setting. In many games, this takes up the majority of the text. Some games suggest movies, novels, comics, or other media that might serve as Potential Setting. A historical Setting would usually accept legitimate history texts as Potential Setting.

Played Setting, then, is Setting components that have actually entered the SIS, by people talking about them (or writing about them, or drawing a picture of them, or declaring that their character interacts with them, etc.).

To restate my problem with Setting in these new terms: Many RPGs provide a great deal of Potential Setting with no guidelines of how to turn it into Played Setting. As Neel and John have pointed out, many individual groups have created their own ways of doing this well. I know from experience that many groups have not.

Hmm.  I suspect this is more a matter of temperament rather than techniques.  If I'm interested about a setting and play in it with others, we'll talk about it.  For example, I play HarnMaster.  I like Harn and am interested in it.  So when I play, we talk about it and thus things enter the  shared space.  For example, I created my character for an upcoming campaign (Jim's City of Red Domes), I talked with the GM Jim about the Jarin, their culture, the religion, and so forth.  

But some people don't like that.  For example, Gordon Landis and Tor Erickson played in my Shadows in the Fog playtest, and in retrospect I think they were a bit bored by our tendency to talk about Victorian culture, society, and so forth.  Now, mind you, it is difficult to create adventures and I feel there should be better guidelines -- but I feel this is true for nearly all RPGs, whether they have detailed settings or not.  

The technique Jim has used in Harn is just to, well, set the game there.  On the other hand, in his Cuthren Village campaign, very little of Harn was transformed from Potential to Actual.  It wasn't a world-spanning game -- it mostly took place in a small village in southern Rethem, with one journey two weeks south.  So there were acres of potential material we never used.  But I don't see how stuff that wasn't used detracted from the game.  I would judge it by what was there.  

Now, you imply that Jim or I have some secret, unwritten techniques which, if explained, would make Harn play interesting for you and/or everyone.  I'm not sure that's true.  There are lots of skills and tricks we've developed over years of roleplaying, but there are still lots of people who simply won't be interested in HarnMaster -- even if it is interesting to us.  

Now, I'd be glad to talk about guidelines for how to run and play in HM.  It would probably be useful stuff I could feed to Jim, among other things. But is that where you're looking to go with this?

Quote from: John KimNow, you imply that Jim or I have some secret, unwritten techniques which, if explained, would make Harn play interesting for you and/or everyone.  I'm not sure that's true.  There are lots of skills and tricks we've developed over years of roleplaying, but there are still lots of people who simply won't be interested in HarnMaster -- even if it is interesting to us.

I certainly don't think there's a magic bullet of "Add a chapter detailing John's secret procedure X and everyone will love your setting." However, I *do* think that spelling out a procedure for Potential Setting to become Played Setting, and writing Setting material with that procedure in mind, will make it easier for more people to become interested in Harn or any other Setting.

Just as many Forge-inspired games strip down System to the most relevant and accessible core (i.e., "a game doesn't need heaps of rules that allow you to do anything, it just needs rules that allow you to do these few things really well, because that's what the game's about)--it seems to me that Setting could be stripped down (or at least restructured) to its most relevant and accessible core (i.e., "a game doesn't need heaps of setting material that tell you a little about everywhere, it just needs setting material that tells you about these few Places/Times/Societies/Props really well, because that's what the game's about).

Speaking for myself, and my own Narrativist biases, when I looked over Harn, I thought "Tectonic plates? Weather patterns? When am I *ever* going to use this stuff?" And the game itself didn't help. (not that I'm picking on Harn--most games don't help)

QuoteNow, I'd be glad to talk about guidelines for how to run and play in HM.  It would probably be useful stuff I could feed to Jim, among other things. But is that where you're looking to go with this?

Yes! Who first mentions/establishes the Setting--player or GM? When is the other side (GM or player) allowed to comment on the Setting? Are they allowed to only ask questions for clarification, or can they change things? At what points in the preparation for play does this occur--pregame musing, concept stage of character gen, rules/details stage of character gen, pre-scenario briefing? What sorts of setting material is touched on at these times? Who has/controls accesses to the books, etc. containing setting material? How is setting referenced during play itself? By whom? What if one of the participants is not as conversant in the setting details as another? Are handouts used? If so, what's on them? Are they referenced in play or just for character gen? Do the characters make "Setting Knowledge" rolls to get the GM to prompt them with appropriate setting info? Is linking the character's individual past to the setting emphasized? If so, is this just a character creation thing, or can it be revealed/created in play? Who gets final say over that?

Is that enough question marks, John? ;)

Don't feel the need to answer each point, but this is the kind of thing I'm looking for. When I have time, I could answer them for my own unfulfilling play experiences, so we can observe the contrast.

Thanks.

QuoteJust as many Forge-inspired games strip down System to the most relevant and accessible core (i.e., "a game doesn't need heaps of rules that allow you to do anything, it just needs rules that allow you to do these few things really well, because that's what the game's about)--it seems to me that Setting could be stripped down (or at least restructured) to its most relevant and accessible core (i.e., "a game doesn't need heaps of setting material that tell you a little about everywhere, it just needs setting material that tells you about these few Places/Times/Societies/Props really well, because that's what the game's about).

Speaking for myself, and my own Narrativist biases, when I looked over Harn, I thought "Tectonic plates? Weather patterns? When am I *ever* going to use this stuff?" And the game itself didn't help. (not that I'm picking on Harn--most games don't help)

Yes.  This is what I was getting at with my post above about not committing to a Situation.  Theoretically there could be a gamable situation in which knowing Tectonic Plates and Weather Patterns would be important (or at least useful).  Using the base "open ended, do anthing, be anything" logic that is standard for most traditional game design since it is potentially useful to some situation it should be included so its there if someone wants that situation.

However, without any guidance it leads to information overload for people not already comfortable with the idea of wading through volumes of information that then needs to be custom applied.

By being willing to committ to a situation the designer can then easily not include such tangental information or can not only include it but demonstrate how its relevant to given situation.

An interesting topic for a thread would be to explore how and why game designers have traditionally avoided committing to a situation in their game design and whether that choice is more than simply an artifact of history.

QuoteMany RPGs provide a great deal of Potential Setting with no guidelines of how to turn it into Played Setting.

That's very true, and definitely one of the main important points to keep in mind when creating a Setting. As people are fond of saying around here. the main question about an RPG is really, "What are the characters going to do?"

Now, while the difference between written Setting and played Setting, which you describe, is an important distinction, my point on potential was really a little different. I meant to point out that some written Settings provide a lot of potential for certain characters, situations etc. that are appealing. Other written settings, even if they describe just as much stuff, just don't offer the same potential for application.

So the bridge here is that a good Setting provides for appealing ways in which it can be turned into Played Setting (with involved Characters and Situations), and describes well how to do that.

Quote from: Michael S. MillerJust as many Forge-inspired games strip down System to the most relevant and accessible core (i.e., "a game doesn't need heaps of rules that allow you to do anything, it just needs rules that allow you to do these few things really well, because that's what the game's about)--it seems to me that Setting could be stripped down (or at least restructured) to its most relevant and accessible core (i.e., "a game doesn't need heaps of setting material that tell you a little about everywhere, it just needs setting material that tells you about these few Places/Times/Societies/Props really well, because that's what the game's about).

Speaking for myself, and my own Narrativist biases, when I looked over Harn, I thought "Tectonic plates? Weather patterns? When am I *ever* going to use this stuff?" And the game itself didn't help. (not that I'm picking on Harn--most games don't help)

I think what you are looking for is a campaign module or adventure module (as they are typically called) in an otherwise low-detail setting.  I'm not that widely read, but Daredevils or early HERO games are like this -- i.e. the core book specifies a genre but very little setting, while modules provide specific, usable background.  An excellent example of the breed is Aaron Allston's "Lands of Mystery", which is a campaign sourcebook for lost worlds romance.  

As for Harn, it sounds like it just isn't to your tastes, period.  i.e. You don't like ultra-detailed settings.  Harn is actually pretty well structured to allow selectively ignoring detail.  It is not laid out as long text, but rather as short, focused articles and encyclopedia entries.  If you're not interested in weather patterns, then don't read that section.  It's easy to flip past.  But if you just don't want it to be there, then don't play Harn.  

Conversely, I like that about Harn.  I like the sense that the game-world doesn't just consist of the PCs and the people they directly interact with.  It gives context and relation to what goes on in the game.  i.e. Knowing, say, the origin of the Halean religion in the Southern archipelagoes and how that relates to the Jarind and Ilviran background gives a depth to attitude.  

Quote from: Michael S. Miller

Quote from: John KimNow, I'd be glad to talk about guidelines for how to run and play in HM.  It would probably be useful stuff I could feed to Jim, among other things. But is that where you're looking to go with this?

Yes! Who first mentions/establishes the Setting--player or GM? When is the other side (GM or player) allowed to comment on the Setting? Are they allowed to only ask questions for clarification, or can they change things? At what points in the preparation for play does this occur--pregame musing, concept stage of character gen, rules/details stage of character gen, pre-scenario briefing? What sorts of setting material is touched on at these times? Who has/controls accesses to the books, etc. containing setting material? How is setting referenced during play itself? By whom? What if one of the participants is not as conversant in the setting details as another? Are handouts used? If so, what's on them? Are they referenced in play or just for character gen? Do the characters make "Setting Knowledge" rolls to get the GM to prompt them with appropriate setting info? Is linking the character's individual past to the setting emphasized? If so, is this just a character creation thing, or can it be revealed/created in play? Who gets final say over that?

Well, let's start with the background on players.  Both Jim and David are long-time Harn players who have most of the books.  I've got the basic books (HarnWorld + HM) and maybe a half-dozen books.  Dennis has played more than me, but he may have only the basic books.  So everyone has open access to all of the published setting material, but not all of it will be read in practice.  

For the last campaign, there wasn't much in the way of handouts as far as setting goes.  Instead, everyone just took notes.  I put some up on my web pages, and Jim has some on his.  Jim also is one of the Harn Religion Team -- so that's a bunch of additional material.  For the upcoming campaign, Jim's put a lot up onto the website .  

I joined the last campaign (Cuthren Village) well after it had started, so I'm not sure how that it was started.  For the upcoming campaign (City of Red Domes), Jim proposed running HarnMaster and suggested I think three options for campaigns.  The others gave feedback and eventually he settled on one.  So he ran his first campaign, then David ran his Lord of the Rings RPG game, then I ran my James Bond 007 game.  There was idle talk about what we would like during my James Bond 007 game, then when I expressed a desire to end it, we moved forward with character creation.  

So we rolled up characters and then there followed a fair amount of back-and-forth discussion about them and how they would fit with each other, as well as what they were like.  This is pretty much freeform discussion.  Dennis and I are the less expert Harn-ers, so we'll generally take cues from Jim and David -- but are still capable of contributing.  

The character creation process itself specifies a bunch about the character's relation to the setting.  It doesn't have a lifepath method, but there is a lot of detail on birth and raising.  The later character history is freeform.  We have worked that out to a fair degree in discussion amongst the players and with the GM.  The character's history will be agreed in broad terms prior to the game, but details are within the purview of the player.  

No one *changes* setting, but we will extrapolate and invent beyond the published material.  For example, since my character was involved with the Order of Cuchlain Wheelwright, Jim sent me sections of the Gedan module which describes them.  I gave my interpretation of it, and Jim concurred.  There are never "Setting Knowledge" rolls.  Usually if a player has a question, he'll ask it and if someone knows they'll generally answer regardless of whether the PC knows or not.  Jim may mention after answering that it isn't something the PC would know, but it's generally left to the player's judgement.

Sorry it took so long to respond. Demands of RL abound.

Ralph & Christian: Those are good points. It seems that Potential Setting must transform into Character or Situation to become Played Setting. And while the quantity of Potential Setting is one variable, quality of Potential Setting is another. I'd specifiy "quantity" as how many pages (or other sources) of details, and how many different Times/Places/Societies/Props are covered therein. I'd specifiy "quality" in this sense, as the ease with which Potential Setting is able to transition through Character/Situation/System/Color in order to become Played Setting. Does that seem right to you?

John: On the first point, I already know that Harn, specifically, is not for me, specifically. I'm looking for more general points about Setting, generally. I understand that the structure of the Harn write-ups allows for selective ignoring, but I think more could be done. The weather charts are there. Somebody thought they were important enough to research them and write them. I don't naturally see how they're important, but I want someone to tell me how & why they're important. I think this should apply across Setting.

On the second point: Thanks for taking the time to type up your group's Setting prep for play. Wow. The forthrightness of your group's Social Contract impresses me greatly. I loved the "Expectations" section of the City of Red Domes website. It clearly spells out what the GM and the Players are committing to doing. Guidelines and suggestions for doing stuff like that should be in game texts, IMO.

As for drawing generalities out of your specifics, I can see that this group prioritizes Setting by:

A) choosing a Setting that all players are reasonably familiar with (Harn, in this case)

B) discussing it before preparation for play even begins (as you said: "Jim proposed running HarnMaster and suggested I think three options for campaigns. The others gave feedback and eventually he settled on one. ")

C) group character creation. Always a big, big plus in my book. In your group's case, it allows Setting to be reinforced through both the System (i.e., the detailed births) and the Social Contract (as you said: "Dennis and I are the less expert Harn-ers, so we'll generally take cues from Jim and David -- but are still capable of contributing.")

D) Encouraging player contributions, but also requriing some level of Setting knowledge (you talk about the GM sending you part of a module [i.e., requiring that you read it])

E) making Setting information freely available to the Players (the free flow of information on the website and during chracter creation, as well as the ways the GM answers Player questions, but may specify that the character doesn't know certain details)

All in all, very cool. When I get some time, I'll give you a snapshot of what a dysfunctional relationship to Setting looks like.

QuoteRalph & Christian: Those are good points. It seems that Potential Setting must transform into Character or Situation to become Played Setting. And while the quantity of Potential Setting is one variable, quality of Potential Setting is another. I'd specifiy "quantity" as how many pages (or other sources) of details, and how many different Times/Places/Societies/Props are covered therein. I'd specifiy "quality" in this sense, as the ease with which Potential Setting is able to transition through Character/Situation/System/Color in order to become Played Setting. Does that seem right to you?

Sure.  All of the elements of exploration are entertwined like that. One could just as easily talk about the ease in which potential character transitions to played character and interacts with setting et.al. on the way.

And, of course, this transition from potential to played and what of what exists as potential is worthwhile transitioning to actual will be heavily guided by Creative Agenda.

Quote from: Michael S. MillerI understand that the structure of the Harn write-ups allows for selective ignoring, but I think more could be done. The weather charts are there. Somebody thought they were important enough to research them and write them. I don't naturally see how they're important, but I want someone to tell me how & why they're important.

I suspect that this is one of those questions that, if you have to ask, you wouldn't agree with the answer.

(not that I'm generally dying to know about weather patterns in my games, but if given a detailed fantasy reality to play in, I can understand why knowing the weather could be as important or useful as knowing anything else)

I think this is pretty much true across the heavy-setting/light-setting spectrum of desires: I think it's a matter of taste and perspective.

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding how you mean "tell me how and why they're important."

-Marco

Quote from: Michael S. Miller
I understand that the structure of the Harn write-ups allows for selective ignoring, but I think more could be done. The weather charts are there. Somebody thought they were important enough to research them and write them. I don't naturally see how they're important, but I want someone to tell me how & why they're important. I think this should apply across Setting.

Hi Michael,

Here's an example from the Exalted game I play in. I wrote up an article about the sanitation system of the city the PC's now rule (http://exalted.mapache.org/Library/SanitationSystemOfNoontimeGlory). It got a positive response from the group, and it wasn't really very important from the perspective of the story. It helped me fill in the characterization of my PC a little, but that's about it. I think that the reason it made people happy was twofold. First, on the interpersonal level, it helped show that I thought the game, and in particular everyones' contributions to it, were worth taking seriously. Second, it played with the setting in interesting ways. Exalted has a basically Iron-Age technical base and an animistic cosmology, and mixing up an account of Roman engineering and using cold hard cash to get the divine spirits of the universe to do sewage treatment was a new addition with a very Exalted vibe to it.

It's just lots of fun to do things like that -- it's play, like with Legos or Tinkertoys.

Quote from: neelkSecond, it played with the setting in interesting ways. . . .

It's just lots of fun to do things like that -- it's play, like with Legos or Tinkertoys.

Some players think that's fun; others don't.  Given that "tinkering with the setting" is an end-in-itself for some players, I think that it is either a CA, or a subset of the Sim CA.

Quote from: Lee ShortSome players think that's fun; others don't.  Given that "tinkering with the setting" is an end-in-itself for some players, I think that it is either a CA, or a subset of the Sim CA.

Well, tying this into GNS is a can of worms unto itself.  In my experience, people will vary not only in whether they enjoy this sort of detail -- but also which details are important to them.  For example, some people may not blink twice at extended description of things like a character's hair, clothing, and other cosmetic features -- even though it's not "important" information.  The same person might react badly to, say, description of the architecture of a building or weather patterns as "useless".  

Personally, I've never more than glanced at the weather maps for Harn, but I've spent a while looking over the language map and language relation chart.  The latter was important to me because it showed cultural relations in the larger world, such as the clash between Pharic and Jarinese traditions.

Quote from: Michael S. MillerThe weather charts are there. Somebody thought they were important enough to research them and write them. I don't naturally see how they're important, but I want someone to tell me how & why they're important. I think this should apply across Setting.

Decades back I was playing a Yazirian male in a Star Frontiers game. He was a cadet in the space force training academy, and there was a yazirian female that the refere (my wife) played with particular attention to making her attractive to me. I responded favorably. Then I wrote up an analysis of how I thought yazirian courtship/mating rituals might work, given that they are viviparous mammalian arboreal and probably nocturnal and certainly highly developed (probably indicating longer gestation period and more highly developed infants, likely in single births). I presented this to the referee to get clarification on whether my understanding fit with hers. After all, the cultural and biological realities of what a yazirian is will impact how I should play him. A dralasite (amorphous protoplasmic blob capable of shifting genders over the course of a life cycle and reproducing by budding in response to spores picked up in the air) isn't going to have any sort of mating or courtship ritual at all, and males and females will have no particular interest in each other that distinguishes them.

Weather patterns are going to impact people, practices, attitudes, cultural norms, and more. In a country where it rains almost every day, picnics are not going to be a popular pasttime, and suntans will be the proof of foreign citizenship. Having lived in northern Massachusetts and in southern New Jersey, I'm very much aware that the amount of snow one gets on a regular basis impacts the way one regards snow. My father came from Mississippi, where everything will shut down for a quantity of snow which in Massachusetts wouldn't be noticed.

I don't know a thing about Harn, but I know that when I introduced weather to my D&D games the players became interested in planning their efforts in relation to the forecast.

--M. J. Young

Weather for Harn does appear superfluous.  It's true that weather, of course, makes a difference to what sort of lives people live, but is an actual weather TABLE necessary or helpful seems to me the the question, not just whether weather informs play and SIS.

I think the interesting part about Harn in this regard is its relentless physical realism, which I find rather at odds with FRPG myself.  I would hazard that the reason such tables exist is that the designers intended this weather to be externalised from the local game and into the world so that it carried an air (nyuk nyuk) of objectivity and imposed externality.

But how would we use it?  I had this problem with the AD&D Wilderness Survival Guide.  It's all very fine knowing what the current wind chill factor is but in many ways its not framed to be useful in play.  Yes I could determine the weather of every day in a week long journey from town A to town B but would that actually be a worthwhile use of our play time?

I fully agree with ever less likely points like tectonic plates.  Just about the only reasoj I can imagine for this is to help map drawing (put volcanoes along this line type thing) but this simultaneously undermines a magical origin for such geography, which is a pity for a fantasy game.

It does seem to me that this is detail for its own sake, detail according to a standard of otaku-like comprehensiveness that seems irrelevant to the likely action of play.

QuoteI'd specifiy "quality" in this sense, as the ease with which Potential Setting is able to transition through Character/Situation/System/Color in order to become Played Setting. Does that seem right to you?

I'd agree with that.  This is what bugs me about the tectonic plates - I simply cannot imagine, ever, that one player will remark to another "aha, I see now that two tectonic plates are colliding in this region, now it all makes sense!".  Is there any conceivable way that the tectonic plates can enter play in a useful manner?  IMO this is data that would have been better ommitted in favour of something that would have been more directly usefull.

Some thoughts:

If you want an air of realism, knowing where the tectonic plates are would allow you to place an earthquake or new volcanic activity "realistically". Is this useful? I admit I've never used such a detail before, but to me it feels like useful detail about the world. World creators also use such detail, and once you've created it, there is a certain urge to share it. So perhaps the most important reason to include the tectonic plate information is to increase the believability of your geography ("See, the volcanoes are all along the tectonic plate boundary so my geography is realistic."), basically proof that you did your background research.

I have used weather charts occaisionally. They are a decent way to document how the weather changes in an area by season, so even if you choose not to roll on the chart, it can help inform your decision about weather (hmm, summer is the dry period, so I can't just have a thundershower, oh, but wait, there actually is a 1% chance of one, so I can, but we will all know that it is an unusual occurrence [you would actually need more resolution than d100 to get a rare occurence since a 1% chance on average will give you about 1 such event a year]). Of course a few paragraphs might serve the same, but a really well thought out random chart (that has a way to represent probabilities as low as 1 in 1,000 or 1 in 10,000) might be a more compact way of communicating the types of weather possible.

Frank

Quote from: contracycleIt's all very fine knowing what the current wind chill factor is but in many ways its not framed to be useful in play.  Yes I could determine the weather of every day in a week long journey from town A to town B but would that actually be a worthwhile use of our play time?

I absolutely agree, and I speak from experience.

Before the WSG appeared, I devised a complicated weather system which tracked temperature change through the day, amounts and types of precipitation, wind speed and direction, flood conditions, and snow accumulation--all factors I thought would be worthwhile for overland adventures. I could tell you not merely whether it would rain, but what time it would rain, what time it would stop, how much rain would fall in that time, and whether that was enough to cause local flooding.

The problem was that I spent a lot of time out of game rolling dice and recording the results, so that my system would work. I tried converting it to a BASIC computer program, but working with a C-64 I quickly overflowed the memory even with the expansion.

By the time I had a computer that might have been able to handle such a program, I had long realized it was a lot of unnecessary detail for what I wanted to accomplish. In Multiverser, because players aren't merely traveling long distances, they're moving between worlds, such complex weather systems were far too much bother. If I need to know the weather in Multiverser, I roll a General Effects Roll to see whether it's favorable or unfavorable for the player's wishes, and to what degree, and create the current conditions from that. If the weather matters, it will be specified in the situation description.

But I clearly understand the desire to have an objective weather system which provides that kind of detail, and if I'd been able to program it back then I'd have used it a lot longer than I did. It's a bad use of my time if I'm doing it by hand, but a useful tool if I can shift the work elsewhere.

--M. J. Young