Setting...insight....

[Autocrat]

OK, OK.......people have tossed this one back and forth, too and fro since the dawn of RPG's........

right then, as far as I have been reading it... there are those that strongly hold the view that you cannot generate a decent RPG' game with the rules backing up the setting... and state more often than not that you must design the mechanics with the setting in mind.
Then you have those like myself, who view both independantly.... thinking that you can vcreate the mechanics, then generate the setting.

Now, there are several questions I would like answered so I, personally, can gain an insight into this.... because I feel like I may be missing a point, (infact, I feel rather pointless in this regard!).

So... here we go.....

1) Do you have to....
a - Make the mechanics fit a setting,
b - Make the setting fit the mechanic,
c - A mix of both.

2) Do you need to think of....
a - The setting whilst making the mechanic,
b - The mechanics whilst making the setting,
c - A mix of both.

3) Does there have to be something special....
a - In the mechanic, that sets it apart from other games,
b - In the setting, that sets it apart from other games,
c - In them both, that sets it apart from other games.

4) Does the....
a - Mechanics make the game,
b - Setting make the ,
c - Both make the game.

5) Is it possible...
a - To make the mechanics, then think of a decent setting,
b - To make the setting, then think of a decent mechanic,
c - To make them both at the same time.


You see.... I'm not actually sure what most people think... it just seems that the majority think it is very important to have something special in the mechanics that represent the special feature of their setting....... which I don't get.... if you setting material is strong enough... why do you need the extras... surely if part A is good enough, you don't need part B to prop it up... part B is there to play it out!

[fruitbatinshades]

Your going to loads of answers to this.  We did the mechanics first, trying to make them as generic as possible but we did have out initial world in mind when we were doing so (High Fantasy).

IMHO, I think a mix of both is the best approach.  You can sketch your basic mechanics, covering those areas you want the game to use.

Do you want physics to be roll based/precise or not go that deep?
Do you want magic?  If so, where is the magic sourced? How is it used?
Do you want rules governing how players play?
What type of play is the system aimed at?
Is it dice based or drama based?[/list:u]All these decisions will affect the system and the world.  If it's a combat based world you probably won't design a diceless system.
You'll find that as you create your world there are areas that the system doesn't cover and you'll have to back and edit it.  If you just want to create a world setting, have you considered just writing the world for an existing system?
Have a read of these pearls of wisdom.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/system_does_matter.html
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/9/

[Matt Machell]

....... which I don't get.... if your setting material is strong enough... why do you need the extras... surely if part A is good enough, you don't need part B to prop it up... part B is there to play it out!

The rules inform how people play. So does setting. But if the two don't match, things go wrong and play isn't as much fun (and fun is what it's about, right?).

Say I have a game where the setting is about courtly intrigues. I tag onto it a system where the most effective means of solving a situation is hitting it.  See the problem? Setting says one thing, system another. Which do the players believe? Which does the GM pay defference to? What if the players think one is the way to go, and the GM the other? Play won't be as much fun as if the two worked in harmony.

-Matt

[Ben O'Neal]

For me?

1: a
2: a
3: c
4: c
5: d (all of the above are possible)

See here for a practical example that answers all of those questions as I have.

Regarding specifically question 4 (which I think you are most concerned about, given your ending paragraph), c is just my personal opinion. I think that it's perfectly possible to have a unique setting that sells a game with bland mechanics *cough*d20*cough*. I think the reverse is also true, in taking a standard setting, and selling it with the mechanics. I can't think of any pure examples of this, but in my mind, TRoS comes close here. But I think that in order to be a truly great game, it needs to be special in both areas (NB: "special" does not mean "innovative"; also NB: TRoS is apparently a great game despite its relative lack of "something special" in the setting).

Them's my 2 cents for what they're worth... which given the current exchange rate, works out around 1.3 cents.

-Ben

[M. J. Young]

I'm going to weigh in here again; I think we've discussed this before, because I remember pointing this out, but unless someone can pull up threads I'm going to assume we're moving forward into new territory with these questions.

I think my contribution is significant because I'm co-author and promoter of a game that appears to be system without setting. Indeed, if you buy the Multiverser Referee's Rules, you get only vague references to setting, the encouragement to read the worlds in The First Book of Worlds, and some support for how to design your own worlds.

Yet I am strongly in the camp that says you need to make setting and system work together.

I'm there because I learned from my game design that setting actually is a piece of the system. If you change the setting, you have inherently changed the system. Now what you need to ensure is that in doing so you have not made the game incoherent, due to the new system elements (which you're calling setting) conflicting with the established ones.

Of course, in Multiverser we've got that bias mechanic (or those bias mechanics, as it is a comprehensive system that integrates with characters, skills, worlds, and pretty much holds everything together). When you change the setting, the rules adjust accordingly--every setting we have published includes the biases for that world, and in explaining world design how to set biases is addressed. Yet even without that, it is clear that the nature of the world defines much of the system in play. I've noticed that games with high levels of challenge bring out gamist play, those with clear moral and ethical issues move play toward narrativism, and those with rich development in some are encourage simulationism. These aren't hard and fast rules, certainly, but they do demonstrate that a change in setting actually changes the way the game works, effectively modifying the system because the setting is part of the system.

I was going to address your questions individually, but I think I've probably said most of it already.

As far as the relationship between the two, I wrote a Game Ideas Unlimited article a while back entitled Songs. Everyone always asks the composer whether he writes the music first or the words. The answer I have always given as a composer is "no". That's the answer I have to give you. Sometimes you do the setting, sometimes the system, sometimes both together. Sometimes you've started with one and moved to the other, and then come back to the one. You do what needs to be done next to make it all work. Creating a game is like writing a song in that regard. You must create the part that needs to be created, whichever part that is.

I hope that helps.

--M. J. Young

[hanschristianandersen]

You see.... I'm not actually sure what most people think... it just seems that the majority think it is very important to have something special in the mechanics that represent the special feature of their setting....... which I don't get.... if you setting material is strong enough... why do you need the extras... surely if part A is good enough, you don't need part B to prop it up... part B is there to play it out!

Consider a hypothetical setting "A", and system "B":

I personally think that A is a great setting.  I also personally think that B is a great system.  I could make either of the following sales pitches to my players:  "Let's play a game set in A!" - or - "Let's play a B game!"

The trouble begins when I think about doing both together - "Let's play a B game set in A!".  Uh oh.  Problem.  As much as I like the both B and A, I don't believe that they work well together.  In fact, I believe that they not only fail to "prop each other up", but in fact they actively undermine each other.

(An example: A=Middle Earth, B=D&D3.5.  I love 'em both, but I believe D&D's mechanics frustrate attempts to leverage the glory of ME's depth and history, and that ME's thematic material discourages you from leveraging the dungeon-bashing glory of D&D.  So, I'm better off using some other system for the ME game, and some other setting for the D&D game.)

Now, if you have a good setting, then yes you can have a great game without using a custom-tailored system, so long as whatever system you do choose doesn't actively undercut the setting.  Ditto with a great system and a setting chosen after-the-fact.

However, designing system and setting hand-in-hand is a way of ensuring that, at the very least, system and setting don't undermine or contradict each other... and better yet, it can ensure that they don't merely prop each other up, but in fact they reinforce each other, making actual play that much stronger.

[wicked_knight]

if you setting material is strong enough... why do you need the extras... surely if part A is good enough, you don't need part B to prop it up... part B is there to play it out!

The two inevitably go hand in hand.

I view each as a seperate ingrediant. When combined correctly, you get a game that is greater then the seperate parts.
Combine a mechanics with a setting that doesn't do it justice and you dilute the result.

Yes you can have a mechanics that is universal, but at a certain level the game will always taste the same. If you are happy with that result and thats what you are aiming for then fine. If what you are looking for in game is to accent  a specific type of feeling , or a particular type of experience, then it would probably be better to design the rules to compliment what you are trying to achieve.

So.. In response to your questions I would choose

D) Yes, depending on what you are trying to achieve.

--Jason

[Zak Arntson]

1. The setting and mechanics need to be tied together. This doesn't mean the same mechanics can't be applied to a different setting, and vice versa. Note that setting isn't an explicit, "Here's the gazetteer for the world." Rather, mechanics imply (or explicity declare) the setting. For example, with Donjon, the mechanics handle extensive customization, but they always push for a setting with magic (spells, magic items, etc), fighting monsters (extensive rules for this) and a series of challenges leading to a "big bad" fight (explicit adventure creation rules).

2. Yes, you need to think of both setting and mechanics when designing a game. Like my first answer, though, you can leave your setting vague, such as Sorcerer's, "a world where sorcerers gamble their humanity in order to gain power through demons."

3. There doesn't need to be anything special, but it helps. Just as long as the "something special" is an integral part of the game, and not tacked on for "that's cool" reasons. And yes, a handbook of guns is integral if the game has a lot of shooting.

4. Any roleplaying game requires both setting and mechanics. For example, GURPS is not a roleplaying game by itself. Before you can sit down and create a character, you need to know what parts of the system you are allowed to use, dictated by the setting. Going the other direction, you couldn't grab a guidebook to modern England and play a English rpg. You'll need some rules to support it.

Say your mechanic is to flip a coin, heads the PC succeeds, tails she fails. This is, in effect, saying something about the fickle nature of the setting.

If you take a setting and add a generic system, one with a big list of skills, suddenly you're pointing out that in this setting, skills are important.

5. Yes, it's possible to start with one and move to the other. In fact, I often start with a setting and work out how the mechanics support that setting.

---

Matt's example of court intrigue is spot on and nicely concise. See also how Young's Multiverser's mechanics accomodate the change of setting.

As another example, if you look at D&D, it has a definite implied setting. One where fantasy adventurers (list of classes) possess inherent abilities (feats) and common skills (skills) to fight monsters (monster manual as a core book) with weapons and magic (combat and spell chapters). Could you play a combat-free D&D game? Sure, but you'd be ignoring a huge section of the mechanics, and arguably not playing D&D as intended.

... surely if part A is good enough, you don't need part B to prop it up... part B is there to play it out!

I'm not sure what you're getting at. What are part A and part B?

[clehrich]

In my somewhat limited experience, I have always moved from setting to system.  The groups I have played with have always worked in this way: you come up with a cool setting, and possibly a situation or plot in it, and then you think about what system would work for it.  Back in those days, what we used to do was to pick a published system that seemed reasonably appropriate to the desired effect, and then tinker with it to fit the setting better.  I can't recall, after high school, ever once playing a game exactly as written, setting and all.

When I started designing Shadows in the Fog, all I had was setting and a general notion of "feel".  So I tried sticking in CoC rules, without SAN.  Then I added Tarot cards as something like Whimsy cards.  As the first long campaign ran on, Tarot became more and more important, and the CoC system didn't seem to be doing a lot -- without SAN, it was pretty much vanilla, and we never actually rolled many dice.  So then I started redesigning, this time with Tarot at the center.

Similarly, in Jere Genest's Age of Paranoia game, based on my Shadows in the Fog rules, he had a very clear idea of what he wanted: John Le Carre et al.  So then he went scoping for systems that might produce what he wanted.  Then, having decided that my system might work, he started restructuring for his purposes.  As things stand now, the system isn't really all that much like what I imagined Shadows in the Fog to be, but it's certainly producing what we want for this espionage game.

And then the next stage, for me, once Age of Paranoia has been running smoothly for a while, is to revise Shadows in the Fog again in keeping with what I've learned from Jere's game, tinkering and twisting in order to make it work as well as possible for my desired setting and feel.

I'm having some trouble imagining how you would start from the other end, actually.

The end goal, for me, is a system that fully supports exactly what I want in terms of setting and situation, and does absolutely nothing else.

Does that help?

[lumpley]

I've got a theory.

There's Setting, System, Character, Situation and Color, right?  I think that you can start a game as soon as you've nailed down three of the five.  That means that a game text must provide at least three of the five to be a whole game.  But I really don't think it matters which three.  

You can write a game that provides Character, Situation and Color but leaves Setting and System to be set up by the group, if you want.  In fact kill puppies for satan is like that.

Or you could write a game like Sorcerer, providing System, Character and Situation and leaving Setting and Color to the group.

Ars Magica provides Setting, Character and Color, with maybe some Situation too, but not much System at all.  (Call me on that, I dare you.)  All the WoD games are probably about the same, there.

Obviously, the thicker your game the more you can provide.  (Heh.  Ars Magica provides pages and pages of not much System at all.)

Which means that everybody's right!  Games do need to have tightly-knit Setting+System (+ one other), or else they don't need to have tightly-knit Setting+System - if they've got tightly-knit something else instead.  That's what I think.

-Vincent

[Autocrat]

right then... so far, what I'm gettting, 9which may not be what people are saying! LOL),... is as follows....

a large number of people beleive that setting and mechanics are interelated.... that mechanics/system provides an emphasis on the style of play and the intention of the setting, and that the setting highlights specific parts of the mechanics and extenuates the intention of the mechanics.
Thus, if you try to mix settings and mechanics... there is a chance that it won't work to well unless the mechanics and setting are those that still point in the right (original) direction.
e.g.  
Original Setting (A0)is for high fantasy, combat, magic and adventure.
Original Mechanic (B0) provide combat, magic and encounters.
if you go for the following alternates.....
Setting A1... low fantasy, combat, magic and adventure
Setting A2... real history, combat and adventure
Setting A3... Sci-fi, combat, space travel and espionage
Mechanics B1... advanced detailed combat,  basic magic, encounters
Mechancis B2... general combat, detailed magic, encounters
Mechanics B3... Advanced technology creation, 3d movement, time travel etc.

Then intermixing those may or may not work....
A0 + B0 = Works Well
A0 + B1 = Should be OK
A0 + B2 = Should be OK
A0 + B3 = Not likely
A1 + B1 = Yep, suits well enough
A1 + B2 = Not to well
A3 + B3 = Yep, great
A3 + B0 = not a chance.


Right, that I can understand..... even makes sense... so you can't swap mechanics and settings for everything without the likely chance of loosing something, (at the least, at worst, it just wont work!).

Right then... there is also a set amount of people saying it's ok do to one, then the other, so long as they still fit....

SO, the general impression I'm getting is that so long as things work, everything that should be in the setting has mechanics to back it up, and everything in the mechanics has a relation to the setting, then things are OK?

So, if the the mechanics provides alternates  and stuff for a variety of potential settings... yet the setting materials have everything they need, and the correct mechanics to work... then things are OK?

Also, the point about setting, system, character, colour etc. was pretty good... do others agree with that?

[timfire]

Autocrat, correct me if I'm misunderstanding you, but how are you using the terms "setting" and "mechanics?" I ask because it appears that you are using the terms a bit more broadly than they are used in the Big Model. According to the upcoming Gloassay...

Mechanics
Individual and specific features of System; Mechanics in text form are "rules."

Setting
Elements described about a fictitious game world including period, locations, cultures, historical events, and characters, usually at a large scale relative to the presence of the player-characters. A Component of Exploration.

Also relevent...

Situation
Dynamic interaction between specific characters and small-scale setting elements; Situations are divided into scenes. A component of Exploration, considered to be the "central node" linking Character and Setting, and which changes according to System. See also Kicker, Bang, and Challenge.

System
The means by which imaginary events are established during play, including character creation, resolution of imaginary events, reward procedures, and more. It may be considered to introduce fictional time into the Shared Imagined Space. See also the Lumpley Principle.

Techniques
Specific procedures of play which, when employed together, are sufficient to introduce fictional characters, places, or events into the Shared Imagined Space. Many different Techniques may be used, in different games, to establish the same sorts of events. A given Technique is composed of a group of Ephemera which are employed together. Taken in their entirety for a given instance of role-playing, Techniques comprise System.

Also note, the Big Model divides Exploration into 5 elements: Situation, Setting, Character, Color, and System.

OK, it seems the way you are using "setting" seems to imply both setting and situation. I also get the impression that Color and Character are mixed in their too, but I may just be reading too much into your statements. [For example, you describe a setting as "low fantasy (setting + color), combat (situation), magic (color) and adventure (situation).]

I also asked about "mechanics" because you seem to want to discuss "system." I do believe "system" should support a specific game concept, but system is comprised of more than just "mechanics," it also includes techniques. (For example, immersion is a technique, but not a mechanic.)

[M. J. Young]

Autocrat, I'm mostly with you; but there's one more point.

Settings have a feel. The feel is usually hidden somewhere in the setting; you don't see it, really, in the text, but it's there. As an example, you can encounter Cthulu monsters in Call of Cthulu, and you can encounter them in original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and they might be statistically and descriptively the same thing, but they're very different. In OAD&D, you're going to regroup and attack, and be excited about the victory that is potentially within your grasp; in CoC, you should be very afraid.

The thing is, systems also have a feel. It is not enough that both OAD&D and CoC support the use of medieval weapons, magic, and monsters. One supports fantasy heroes, and encourages play in that direction; the other supports horrified despair and insanity, and should get you playing very defensively, if it's working right.

So you need to know whether the feel of your system matches the feel of your setting. If they're in conflict, you're going to wind up with a lot of flavor text that really doesn't happen in the game, because the system overrides the setting, or vice versa.

I've commented already that setting is part of system; this is part of why. I've got an example, though, that might help. In Multiverser, player characters move from universe to universe, and the rules change to some degree as they do so. I'm currently fine-tuning a horror world, and I realized as I approached playtest that there were a couple things I had to tweak. The big one was this: in this world, any use of skill that directly impacts the character's survival is penalized, and any skill that directly opposes the central evil in this world is also penalized, and the penalties are cumulative. This makes failure the more likely when the player needs success, and so increases the level of despair within the game. Is that penalty part of system, or part of setting? It is part of the setting, certainly, because it is something that only happens in this universe; it is part of the system, obviously, because it is a mechanic that impacts skill use in specific situations. It is there so that system and setting will both point to the same feel in play, that of hopelessness against an overwhelming evil.

So it's not enough that both support the same things; but must support the same feel.

--M. J. Young

[Autocrat]

... timfire & M.J.Young...

Ok... what you say makes sense, and I wasn't aware that people had gone to the effort of attempting a concise terminology... which is great!.

Right, to correct things, or atleast offer understanding of the terms I have been using....
Mechanics...are the methods of achievement taken on by the players to show Character actions, such as rolling for attack, checking for a drive test etc.  
System... is the overal result of the rules, mechanics etc., it is the product without the setting material.
Setting... the text, material and props that generate the world, the feel and style of play for the game.

Your example of the cthulu monster in ad&D wouldn't work... simply because the AD&D ruyles are designed for a different style of play.  It's not that the setting is wrong, but it would be like trying to play a 4th level fighter in the MArvel universe... theres little correlation.

It is in this sort of regard that I can understand people saying that setting and mechanic (or setting and system?), need to be considered together!


So saying, the system I am making is hopefully going to have enough covered that players should be able t oFEEL the differences in varioussettings... mainly due to the points limitations in character creation, the availability of skills, equipment and resources etc.  To me, this alters the style of play and the feel given, without so much as a hint of descriptive text.  When you apply setting material, you generate the parts the mechanics adn system just can't reach!

Does that make sense?

[Henri]

Ars Magica provides Setting, Character and Color, with maybe some Situation too, but not much System at all.  (Call me on that, I dare you.)  All the WoD games are probably about the same, there.

I have to bite!  Unfortunately I don't know Ars Magica, but everyone knows WoD.  How do they not provide System?  I understand that you may think that the system has some serious problems, but they clearly do have a system.  Unless your meaning of "system" is different from mine.  Anyway, I'd love to know what you meant by that.