setting creation: avoiding pressures to historical accuracy

[Paul Czege]

Hey everyone,

So...I've been giving a little thought to a setting for http://www.123.net/~czege/WFD.html">The World, the Flesh, and the Devil, and I keep hitting into the same snag. I'm tempted to go with a historical setting, an ancient city like Constantinople, Alexandria, Sodom or Gomorrah. But I absolutely want to avoid any perceived or implied pressure on GM's and players to pursue historical accuracy. I know from my personal experience that historical settings can drift from narrativist into the nitty gritty of cultural details, and I can't figure out how to empower a play group to avoid that muddy slope, while at the same time presenting some detail about cultural conflicts and significant personages associated with the setting. Ron has some good stuff in Sorcerer & Sword about not getting bogged down in things like what equipment a character is carrying, by rolling against the character's Past when necessary, but I think he actually achieves an avoidance of pressure on GM's and players to maintain setting accuracy by concentrating on the S&S genre and its themes, and by focusing on creating setting through play. I'm not sure I'd have the same option with a historical setting.

And perhaps the problem is that I've never personally been able to avoid caving to pressure to research and maintain historical accuracy in my attempts to run games.

Any thoughts?

Paul

[ This Message was edited by: Paul Czege on 2001-12-23 21:12 ]

[hardcoremoose]

Sheesh...that's a tough one.

I'm thinking that there is some reason you're attracted to those locales.  I know you somewhat, and you seldom do things without knowing (or at least wanting to know) why you're doing them.  You're definitely a narrativist, so I doubt it's the setting details themselves that interest you, but rather some dramatic situation that they reveal.  So what it is?  What stories do these places tell?  What about them compels you?

Figure that out, and focus your setting on those things that illustrate and elaborate upon those motiffs.  It's just like designing a game mechanic - keep the stuff that illuminates your premise, dispense with the rest.

Easier said than done, I know.

- Scott    

[James V. West]

I ran into a similar quandary when working on The Questing Beast. There's a wealth of information about Britain in the dark age time of King Arthur. I wanted to keep as much accuracy as possible, but still make it a maleable fantasy.

In the end, I opted for a "genre" approach to the whole setting, leaving the details squarely in the hands of the players.

I'm not sure if that would work for what you're doing.

When I read you post, this is the first thought that came to mind:

The more recent you make the setting, the more historically entangled it becomes. Setting it in Paris during the time of Napoleon, for example, will naturally lend itself to a high degree of historical need.

But the farthur back into the past you go, the less history is known with any real accuracy. Setting the game in the city of Ur would help bring down some of the pre-concieved notions you mentioned. The research would be somewhat simpler and you could draw a bit more freely from myth and legend.

Another approach might be to set it in a city or place that may not have even existed, like Atlantis. Much is written about it, some of it in the form of "history", yet interpretation is diverse.

To get that feel of genuine history, I'd stick to a real place like you mentioned. But I might consider stepping as far back in time as possible without losing that realistic edge altogether.

James V. West

[Balbinus]

Would making it an alternate history help?

It doesn't have to be a big alternity.  The alernate part needn't even be on stage.  But once players know its not "our" history a lot of the pressure comes off.

In my Elizebethan Cthulhu game I have stated that as far as I am concerned it is an alternate history, similar to ours but not precisely the same.  That way we avoid getting overly bogged down, if it varies a little, well its not quite our history.  If it varies a lot that would damage the story anyway as the setting would be compromised.

If your game is in first century Rome, a mention that Christ wasn't crucified will firmly establish that players should not attempt to strictly overdefine historical accuracy.  It would also make very little actual difference to life at that time (life a thousand years later would be wildly different, but not life then), however, as there weren't that many Christians then anyway.

[A.Neill]

What about identifying several salient themes and facts (with the players) that give the feel for the period you want to represent.

Once this has been signed off, these themes and facts will endure but everything else is up for grabs.

Alan.

[Bankuei]

I agree, decide what themes, and what aspects of the given time period you wish to incorporate.  I think very few fantasy games incorporate natural diseases, plagues, and stuff like Paris being beset by wolves in the winter...and neither should you worry about absolute details in reality.  I'd say pick 3 strong elements that interested you in a given area/era and give the themes of those elements as a focus for players to work with.  

Bankuei

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Paul,

First thing is to echo the advice given already by everyone else - it all makes sense and seems very appropriate to your stated tastes in role-playing.

Second is to add my query: "Why?" Or even better, "Why are you doing this to yourself?" You see, your initial post reads a lot like this, to me: "I am sticking my hand in this fire. Ouch! It hurts, it hurts. Can you guys help me?" And all the advice, sensibly, is saying things like "wear asbestos glove," "alternate with ice pack," or any number of other things that deal with your situation in a very immediate way.

My approach is a little different. I see that you want to use a historical setting. I see that you don't want to deal with the potential pitfall of a historical setting. But you want to use a historical setting. And I see that you don't want to deal with the potential pitfall of a historical setting. But you want to use a ...

Take your hand out of the fire.

Best,
Ron

[Mithras]

What *I* would do is settle on a mythic alternative to your chosen setting. Sodom & Gomorrah are great on their own, BTW. You can interpolate as much semi-historical data there as you like and leave the rest as malleable stuff for your imagination to work over. No-one has found S+G (yet) no-one is sure of its cultural influences, a fw king names are known. A good setting for a game :smile:

But the mythic alternative ... many cultures have mythic realms that are in many ways similar to the original culture, yet distant, strange, magical. Set your game in that magical alternative. From Greek culture go to Atlantis or Hyperborea, from Celtic culture go to Tir Na Nog or Avalon, from Egypt go to Punt, etc.

This way you get all the benefits of cultural detailm, but your own NPCs, an excuse for magic and the supernatural and no conflict with real history.

[Mike Holmes]

I agree with Ron. A good fictitious city is as moving, IMHO, as a real one. How many people really have a good referent on Constantinople, anyhow. Make it from scratch (which is fun) or model it from, say Constatninople, which is easy and gives you lots of source material.

If you must go somewhat historical, then I agree with Mr. Elliot.

Primeval is all about an alternate version of the ancient past that is in some ways totally new, and yet all still instantly familiar in other ways.

Call it Constantine's City. Very similar, except in this world Constatine didn't have his vision and all the city appointments remain secular. Just enough different to say, the game does not have to adhere to history.

The essential problem is that, once you have said that you are using something historical, players will want to use their actual (and potential) knowledge to the game. Then you and up trying to define where the game is like history and where it diverges. Which can be an endless task.

Mike

[Paul Czege]

Thank you all for the suggestions. Settings have never been my strong point, so I very much appreciate advice of people who've had such success with them. Ron's "fire deity" concept is interesting too.

Paul

[James V. West]

But Ron...Life IS pain! Artists suffer to be called artists!

Seriously, I'm with Mithras. I LOVE taking mythical cities and cultures and doing stuff with them. Its fun and has enough "reality" mixed in that you feel like you're tapping into something bigger than yourself.

While a game with a detailed real-world historical setting would be fun to read and flip through for ideas, I would be loathe to try and play it.

Hell, Hero Wars isn't even historical but it has so much detail I'm afraid to play it!

[contracycle]

Hmm.  I think this is touching on a thought I had will reading Sorcerer & Sword and some recent conversations about the nature of art.  It was pointed out to me, in an argument against the idea of RPG as art (or more accurately, potential art), that even in the contract between veiwer and artist which recogmnises the space of display and then work as, say, something to be observed, there is still a confrontational aspect to nature of the relationship between artist and viewer.  The artist is not, for example, necessarily bound by implicit contract to produce something that is pretty, indeed even aesthetically pleasing.

Therein lies the crux of the narrativist matter;
I DO want to retain that division between "producer" and "viewer", however muddied by the RPG structure.  This is as both player and GM; I wish to experience the thrill of discovery and whatnot, to comprehend the mystery rather than to author its solution.

Perhaps this is no more than a recap of my GS preference, but I think that in this line of strong Exploratory play, to which historical settings would of course be very suited.  The question is not "why do it"; the question is "how to do it".

[Osric]

Mike Holmes wrote:
I agree with Ron. A good fictitious city is as moving, IMHO, as a real one. How many people really have a good referent on Constantinople, anyhow. Make it from scratch (which is fun) or model it from, say Constatninople, which is easy and gives you lots of source material.

Ask yourself what is in the fire that you so want.

Do you want to impress your players with the sense that they're in Constantinople, or do you want the inspiration from researching a real world source that you wouldn't get straight out of your own head?

If the former, there's no real resolution.  But if it's mostly the latter, use a historical setting without telling anyone else that it's historical.  Change the names to protect an innocent setting from the abuses of pedantry.

Once you're running it, if further research digs up something that clashes with what you've said, the need for consistency within your game should easily overrule the urge to be consistent with the historical setting at every turn.  

(This was my own experience with using ICE material as canonical for Middle-earth.  I got all the credibility of having taken a firm line, but when I bought further supplements that conflicted with what I'd said in my game, I had no hesitation in deciding not to use those bits.  My players rmain none the wiser and my reputation still towers unassailable. :wink: )

-- Nev.

[John Wick]

Films that were cool and/or fun, but not historically accurate:

Gladiator
Braveheart
Sparticus
The Thirteenth Warrior
Rob Roy
Titanic (trappings? yes; dialogue, attitute, characterization? no)
A Knight's Tale

and, of course,
JFK

Historical accuracy doesn't make plot, atmosphere, character or drama. Find those _first_, then worry about historical accuracy.

[joe_llama]

At first I followed Ron's path - you can't eat the cake and leave it whole. But now, it doesn't seem to be too critical an issue.

Take the Forgotten Realms setting, for example. Many regions in the world of Toril are simply rewrites of our world's lands and societies (Moonshae has a Celtic atmosphere while Kozakura is obviously Japan). It is very easy to run a game in FR that will have the exact feel of its historical equivalent.

I have to admit it is much easier to run a game in Toril without the fear of 'historical accuracy'. Then again, there's nothing like a good game of Arthurian legends to inspire the soul and uplift the spirit :smile: