Urban Mythos: A question of style.

[richks]

I'm still hammering away at this and I'm trying to get some of the background written up so that people can actually READ something related to this project.  The thing is, I've been trying to keep the setting (especially recent history) deliberately vague, and I'm finding that writing it up is rather hard.

Ideally I want the setting to exist "as is" rather than have a well defined timeline that leads to the setting as it's conclusion.  This approach is fairly easy in fiction (especially short stories), but laying out a setting for an RPG without things like timelines and detailed histories is quite hard work.  I deliberately don't even have proper names for most of the places and nations involved.  

Here are some of the reasons why I've taken this approach:

1. It's not robust.

I know that this setting needs quite a bit of "suspension of disbelief" to work, more-so than most others.  If you present a history for the more anally retentive readers to pick appart, they will do so VERY easily and the whole thing falls appart.

It's like asking how those guys in Friends manage to afford the rent on such a massive appartment in the middle of manhattan: they just do and that makes the show work.  Suspend disbelief, insert jokes and you have an enjoyable show*

So I've had to adopt a writing style that's kinda vague, without being just plain obscure.  I'm trying to explain how thing are without explaining too much about how they came to be that way.  I'm finding it really hard: I'm used to writing doco for software and training guides, which requires a really up front approach, turning every stone and showing the reader what's underneath.  Now I'm trying to hide the fact that there are so many stones, much less reveal anything about wat might be under them.

2. It makes for a shorter book.

How many times have you waded through 100 pages of history in a core rulebook, only to then never actually need any of that?  Too many.

3. It gives the GM more room to mess about.

Every GM ought to mess with the setting of a game until it suits them, and they can do that whether I make it vague or lock everything down.  But I like the idea of a setting that encourages dabbling.

Ok, I understand that a lot of people will be turned off by this as a style: some people want a setting that's more concrete with a timeline that charts the exact order of events etc, but I'm quite happy with the idea.

The question is, can I make it work?

Here's an except from the introduction, dealing with the Legion, and their place in the society of The City.  I'm a bit worried that it's heavy going.  A couple of the players liked it, but they already know the setting fairly well.  What I want to know is, what understanding do you guys get from this?  Does it work, or am I just talking arse?



Legion: What and how

Some say that it was Mordred who opened the way and made a deal with Bael to help rule The Kingdom, and that it was Arthur's might and Merlin's wisdom that drove them from these lands.  Others will tell you that Bael and it's followers were cast from their realm by it's masters; the most violent criminals and dissidents their society had to offer, ejected into our world the same way we used to ship our undesirables to The Colonies.  Yet more tales place Bael as a the Legion's chosen, sent here to make our realm suitable for it's masters and to remove all opposition.

The truth is this; there are many legends and few facts about the Legion coming to our world.  There is probably at least a grain of truth in all of these accounts, but nobody really knows for sure what happened.

The facts we do have, like all histories, are put together from whatever documents are still available.  And a war like the one The Baelites' arrival sparked destroys a lot of evidence.  We know that a large group of Legion soldiers appeared somewhere in the south of the Kingdom about 1500 years ago.  We know that they were led by Bael, and followed it's will fanatically.  We know that they were defeated and driven from The Kingdom, but that it was a long and hard fought war.  It's well documented that the surviving Baelites scattered, the majority of them fleeing to the Unholy Lands after being pursued across The Continent.  There is evidence that some of the Legion were left in The Kingdom, and either hid or were hunted for many years to come.  Other Legion were able to pass as human and gradually filtered into the society of the time.  These "near humans" began to interbreed with The Kingdom's indigenous population, creating those we call Tainted.  There is little or no evidence that these Legion and their offspring were anything other than stranded refugees trying to survive; they do not appear to have been spies or infiltrators.  The Legion society which still survives in the Unholy Lands is evidence enough that Legion are not inherently evil.

Today

Obviously as time has passed, the Legion who remained in The Kingdom have become somewhat "diluted", and as a result The City is now home to a large number of Tainted and a much smaller number of true Legion.  Despite the interbreeding, Tainted still form a minority of The Cities population, albeit a large minority.

Today's permissive society in The City treats Legion, Tainted and humans as equals, or at least claims to.  While government agencies and political activists do their best for equality between The City's races, at the end of the day it's the attitudes of individuals which make up the consensus.  Since despite hundreds of years of interbreeding and co-existence the majority of those are "pure" humans, their natural prejudice against those who are different still exists.  Many Legion find themselves passed over for promotion, served last in pubs and generally discriminated against.


* actually I can't stand it, but you get what I'm driving at?

[Sylus Thane]

Actually I kinda like it. At the moment it leaves me with the ability to set it within any city I wish and in practically any time I wish. The only hard fact I found was that about 1500 years had passed since the war and the legions appearance. I could do quite a lot with this setting. I understand how you may feel frustrated I'm having similar troubles as of late too. Don't worry, you've got a great start, just keep going and you'll get there.

Sylus :)

[Spooky Fanboy]

Just a thought:

Why not write the history in the context of someone interviewing a "man on the street" for his (her?) understanding of how it all went down? Not only do you get a believable vagueness to history, you also get a sense of how the average person in The City feels about certain things.

Maybe get 'slices of life' interviews from different people, and turn it into a whole tapestry of life in The City.

[MoonHunter]

I found the listing to be a nice flavor text, but I would hope for more details later on.  That is just me.  

I have found it easier, when writing up a longer story, or novella, or  project, to write out the entire history, with timeline, and all the details.  These do not have to be in a "neat" format, as they are used for your own purposes.  It is the equivalent of Mercede Lackey's "wall of Valdemar" or Clancey's 3x5 cards.  You might think you know your history. However, until you formally review it and put elements down in a concrete format, you never really know it.  The act or process of codifying it, makes the world more stable in your mind.

Once you have these notes finished, then you can write the short history simply and easily, because you have a solid lock on the the flow of time and what has occured. You know what needs to be included, what needs to be alluded to, and what needs to be ignored when looking at the big picture.  You can limit yourself by page count.  In doing a game, you can do the game, and see how much space you have left, then fill in with the history/ source material.

Also, you might find the details you generated from the history will point out what mechanics and character elements you must have in the game.  You probably know them now, but you could miss something inadvertently. The background work will solidify the project for you.  

If you are doing  a PDF or electronic publication, page count is less important. It comes down to how big do you want the file (or if you are benevolent, how many pages will people playing your game have to print out).  If you are publishing hardcopy (or hardcopy and PDF) page count becomes important.  

One more thing.  All that material could be used for future supplements.  A complete history of the world for example.  The history section could inspire other supplimental products as well.

[richks]

Thatks for taking the time guy's, really apprciate it!

Some notes...

Sylus:

Had thought about giving the GM total control over where The City is, I also drw a Map (which is on the website at urbanmythos.com) which rather makes it clear EXACTLY which City we're talking about.  OTOH, ignoring it makes life a bit easier and vaguer.  Glad it's not just awkward to read too!

Spooky:

It's funny you should mention that, the "Setting" part of the book originally started with a history GCSE essay, which I've re-written into this text that reads more like a junior Sociology paper.  The finished version was supposed to have hand written corrections (ideally in red ink) to put forward different points of view and reinforce the idea that nobody really knows for sure what went on back then.  But I'd always planned to present a lot of this as a collection of "in character" documents from different sources.  And yes, some of them will be contradictory.  Things like shopping lists, interviews, diary entries etc.  Also some of the characters in this section will be easily recognisable as parodies of other fictional characters.  Another thing I have is that there's some artwork which can have captions added.  A bit like the style used in Transmetropolitan.  For instance, there's a picture of a load of gaunt people with fangs surrounded by what are not quite nazi troops with machine guns.  The caption is something like "Continental vampires being rounded up from the ghetto during the 2nd world war".  This suggests things, without being too explicit.  Obviously people will make the jump of logic: This world had a 2nd world war and vampires were persecuted.  They can assume that the war was 60 years ago like it was in the real world, but it's up to them how they want to interpret that.

Moon:

I have a fairly solid idea (and a lot of "back of envelope" notes) of how the history works, at leastin the version of the game I'm running for the playtest.  But other people might want it a bit different.  I probably ought to formalise that version though as you recommend.

[Mike Holmes]

On Suspension of Disbelief. Don't just expect people to buy into certain fallacies. The huge apartment on Friends is avaliable because it's rent controlled, and Monica is living there illegally when it's supposed to be her grandmother's (there was a whole episode on this, and, yes, I am ashamed that I know this).

Anyhow, the point is, have a BS explanation, or, even better, make it an opportunity for development in play.

I think that this might work if done right in general terms. If the setting is vague in certain areas in order to give the GM wiggle room. Let the GM know where that room is. And that what he needs to do to be ready to play.

For example, if the Holy Land is to be a part of play at all, perhaps the GM should know what it is and where it is. If that's not in the text, then it could be on a list of things that the GM has to determine before starting play. Kinda like the Sorcerer list of things like What are demons?, What is Sorcery?, etc.

The GM can even leave these undefined at the start as long as he has some idea for a session that will produce the answers for the questions. Thus, maybe the location of the Holy Land is unknown, and the players will "discover" it one session. Making the lack of data the point of play.

Does that make sense?

Mike

[richks]

Mike:

Some interesting points.  Yes, there's more to it.  If you look at the map:



I think that makes the locations a bit more fathomable.  With that in mind (and the fact that the majority of the surviving Legion who were still loyal to Bael fled "to the Unholy Lands after being pursued across The Continent") you can probably figure out where you can get away with putting the Unholy Lands.

But I think that I need to apply that kind of logic to the rest of the setting as well.