How to make a playable fantasy world - or a world in general

[contracycle]

Yes, for some reason I expect things to MAKE SENSE. I find it hard to understand how to visualize the world and understand it's mindset otherwise.

Cool.  It is possible, then, that your style of play and that of the GM, and arguably the game, were strongly in conflict.  It may not be that there is anything wrong with the game; it may merely be not to your taste.

No, but it's supposed to be fantasy, isn't it? Then I expect to either:
a) be told how the world works in general
or
b) be told of the specifics where the world differs in from standard fantasy

What is this standard fantasy of which you speak.  Conan?  Elric?

You seem to say it's quite ok to present a setting without actually bothering to explain 75% of it. I don't know if I think it's fun to need to retcon half a campaign just to be able to use the new sourcebook.

I am afraid that any game which could present more than a tiny percentage of a tiny percentage of a tiny percentage of its nominal world would be implausibly immense.  Is it that the the data was MISSING or that it was later CONTRADICTED?

If you have a more specific complaint, by all means lets hear the detail.  I have not encountered anyone else suggesting that 75% of required information was missing from ED - it would seem remarkable they had any sales at all.

I'd define standard fantasy as defined losely by a medival (or earlier) european setting (culture, technology, and so on) where magic exists in some form or the other.

I see.  And in what capacity do you feel that ED fails to meet these criteria?  Superficially, it appears to meet all of them to me.  Would that description include CJ Cherryh's Rusalka, for example, which contains no orcs, elves, fireballs or magic wands?

[Mike Holmes]

PF,

the idea of Standard Fantasy was brought about by D&D, including much of the fantasy literature (a point which Ron has already made). They stole from Tolkien, and since then, the "Standard" in fantasy has been Elves, Dwarves, Wizards, little people, and Orcs. Consider for a moment that the idea of orcs as a separate race comes from a misreading of Tolkien. Orcs and goblins in Middle Earth are the same thing. Goblin is the human term, orc is an elvish term. For the same thing. Tolkien invented the elvish language and the word orc. Then D&D gets a hold of it, and suddenly they are two different things.

So, oddly, now, you have all sorts of games with orcs in them (some, like Earthdawn without any goblins). So why should we ascribe to this "standard fantasy" that was produced by D&D? Because people will recognize it? OK, but then you'll get as much milage from that in introducing a premise to your game as D&D does. Very little.

I agree with you that the Premise of Earthdawn may be imperfect, or not well related. But since your setting seems identical to me in terms of premise, that's damning your own game. This is exactly the problem that we've been talking about. You are right, it's all in the execution of the premise. I didn't figure that I had to mention that the premise should be good, but, now that you mention it, why yes, I agree.  And most around here agree that premise is at least as well introduced through elements other than setting (if not better). System, most notably.

So, OK, you have a Standard Fantasy world, fine. Obviously that doesn't help your premise. What are you going to do to make your premise a good one?

Mike

[Lance D. Allen]

I can see what Pale Fire is getting at. It's the whole idea of genre, in the meaning that Ron likes to avoid. "Standard Fantasy" is a genre. Fantasy has evolved far from Standard Fantasy, but unless there is detail to let us know how a particular setting differs, it's going to clash with our preconceived notions of Fantasy.
 I don't know whether or not Earth Dawn does this. I've never read the books, having figured that the 6th World (Shadowrun) was good enough for me. (For those who don't know, ED is the same world as Shadowrun, just prehistorically. Harlequin, Aina and the Immortal Elves which rule Tir na Nog were all alive during the time of ED. It's an interesting premise, though obviously designed to promote sales of ED to Shadowrun loyalists.)
 Fact is though, Standard Fantasy has certain elements. They don't have to have elves, dwarves, orcs and leprechauns (Oh my!), but all "Standard Fantasy" has quasi-medieval technology levels, weapons, and culture. Kings, knights and feudalism are very common, from Tolkien to Jordan. All Standard Fantasy has magic, or at least some sort of mysticism inherent to the setting as well. CJ Cherryh (whom I believe I once read a book by, but I'm not certain) almost certainly falls into either Standard Fantasy, or an evolution thereof. Standard Fantasy did NOT start with LotR, but rather with Morte d'Arthur, or possibly before (forgive me, my medieval lit is somewhat rusty). ED is, by the little I do know of it, a major departure from Standard Fantasy. My guess is that Pale Fire's gripe is that it departs, yet does not fully explain to the readers and players in what ways it departs. If something differs from the norm[1], it needs it's own explanations, because the perceptions of the norm do not apply to it.



[1]First person who challenges the existence of a "norm" gets a Private Message assassination.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Now I'm totally confused. This thread completely began with Pale Fire's discussion of building a fantasy world through play, as opposed to starting with a fully-mapped and fully-detailed world. As anyone familiar with my work knows, I heartily endorse this whole idea.

Then all manner of confusion ensued. Part of it was the Mage Blade thing, which is Lance's deal, not Pale Fire's. Part of it was some kind of odd tangent about Earthdawn, which I can't dope out at all. And now it seems as if Pale Fire is somehow defending (a) starting with a detailed world and (b) having it be heavily D&D-like ... and then we have this other thread by Pale Fire which reveals that a D&D-like world is exactly what he is designing anyway, and whether that thread is parallel or supportive of this one, I don't know ...

Anyway, as I said, I'm confused. Please help the old, easy-baffled person and - Pale Fire specifically - explain what you are saying and/or asking. Please do not attempt to parse or untangle the posts ("He said, then I said") at all, just start over.

Best,
Ron

[contracycle]

major departure from Standard Fantasy. My guess is that Pale Fire's gripe is that it departs, yet does not fully explain to the readers and players in what ways it departs. If something differs from the norm[1], it needs it's own explanations, because the perceptions of the norm do not apply to it.
[/norm]

Fair enough.  But I think it is an artificial, arbitratry and irksome norm.

Firstly, although people may kick my ass over this, I sincerely doubt that there is any relationship between the Arthurian myth and the D&D default.  Arthurian Knights do not go out slaughtering hapless orcs, goblins and kobolds en mass.  Wizards do not accompany most "adventuring parties" and clerical and thief characters are conspicuous by their absence.  Indeed, given the strong emphasis placed on romance and chivalry as themes, D&D is about as diametrically opposed to the Arthurian cycle as I can imagine.  IMO.

Secondly, Cherryhs work in some cases is a bit derivative, but Rusalka makes a nice counterpoint, being derived from Ukrainian mythology.  It is thus distinctly European and exhibits NONE of the Tolkienist tropes (I lie - it has an ent, but these are independant local myths, or more likely, Tolk. got them from the same folklore source).  It's probably set a bit after the mediaeval proper, but close enough.

This norm only exists among RPGers - and only because of AD&D.  Most people would not think of sub-Tolkien D&D as being a norm of fantasy - think of how many fantasy novel readers there are out there, and authors.  Only those who have been exposed to the gaming subculture have any conception of or appreciation for a fantasy world "norm".  And the truly ironic bit is that MOST fantasy cannot be done in D&D.

And so, in trying to create a fantasy game, we can EITHER restrict ourselves to a self-imposed and largely illusionary "norm", or we can do something creative.  We cannot do both.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Much as I agree with Gareth (and boy howdy do I agree!), I repeat my above request for some focus on this thread.

Best,
Ron

[Christoffer Lernö]

Hello,
Much as I agree with Gareth (and boy howdy do I agree!), I repeat my above request for some focus on this thread.

Ok, sorry about that if I'm to blame. :)

To tie back to the original thread as well as the Earthdawn stuff:

What I find to be a problem with Earthdawn is that while the premise starts out nice (lots of things to be discovered, lots of conflicts to get tangled up with) I feel there is a problem with the execution (which is just as important).

More specifically, I feel while the Earthdawn rulebook only gives a rough sketch of the world it doesn't give enough help to the GM on how to extend the world.

I have the same gripe with Shadowrun which despite being named after illegal operations performed by freelancing operatives, never really describes how to GM a typical "shadowrun".

The second problem with both Earthdawn and Shadowrun is that sourcebooks then come along and fill out the spaces which seemingly were left for the GM to explore.

I feel that the best way to provide help for the GM would have been to fill sourcebooks with help on how to bring the setting to life rather than to detail the meta politics (and similar things) of the world which only constricts a GM trying to conform with the sourcebook material.

However I know some people enjoy reading up on the politics on certain regions and important persons and I don't question that reading sourcebooks might provide inspiration for further adventures.

So the problem I have with ED is the execution of the premise, specifically the manner they add information to their world.


The alternative, which I think is preferable, is to set out the rules firmly in the rulebook and then offer supplements which are highly customizable for a GM. They shouldn't contain any suprises like "oh, so THAT's the way Questors work! We did it wrong all along (because we didn't have sourcebook x)". But that's just my personal opinion.

Now what I want or do not want for my game, that's a quite different question and I shouldn't have mixed it into the discussion (if I did, I don't remember).

[Ron Edwards]

Hi PF,

OK, that helps me a lot. In anything that matters, I agree with you on this issue. I also think the lack of focus is no fault of your own, but an outcome of having Mage Blade and your other world-creation post blazing along at the same time, so people are having a hard time figuring out what you're saying in this one.

So my next question is, what are you asking? I think the fundamental question is a no-brainer: some people will prefer the build-your-setting with good guidelines approach, and others (perhaps the majority, due to what they're used to) will prefer the sourcebooks-till-you-choke approach. It strikes me as a strict preference issue, although granted, I think the former is more conducive to actual successful role-playing, as opposed merely to owning and reading endless colorful books of dubious literary merit.

Is there a further question beyond the preference-based one? As mentioned above, several RPGs have already taken the approach you've suggested, and at least one of them (mine) is uncompromising and explicit about it. So "let's do it" as a suggestion has already been met.

Best,
Ron

[Walt Freitag]

Rebooting the original topic... (I wrote this before the previous two posts appeared, but I'm posting it anyway with a few revisions because it's relevant to Ron's question.)

So anyway, now I'm thinking of just produce a setting, maybe detail a small small kingdom where the adventurers can start their careers.

More kingdoms, villages and places can easily be added by the GM without risking that they be overruled by later world supplements because the world is so big and the "known areas" are so few. It would be a world where the GM has the chance to build his own campaign and come up with a new kingdom just because it would be convenient for his/her next adventure.

That, however would be in sharp contrast to many games out there which produces more and more detail, practically forcing the GM to only play within the pieces of the world described by the appropriate supplements or risk running into all too many contradictions.

I think even a "Map of the World" is a really a thing one might want to avoid.

Yes, yes, yes! I agree. I tried to explain my own difficulties with pre-detailed settings at the start of the Intuitive Continuity thread. But since then I've seen that the concept of world building through play is not specific to IC or any other particular technique. People whose play styles are very different from mine also embrace the idea of building the world through play. (And as Pale went on to say, it's not just the geography of the world but also the politics, history, etc. that can be created this way.)

When my map of the world is filled in, the campaign is over (although it's never actually happened to me that I had to end a campaign for that reason; worlds can be pretty big places).

If I make a game which is has a lot of background on races, gods, magic, stuff like that, but only a brief sketch of a kingdom, would that work? The GM should be able to pattern his towns and villages from those already described fairly easily I hope.

And then further supplements would only be adventures, but the adventures would provide a lot of setting (the feeling should be: "oh this adventure is set in the town of xxx, if I don't like the adventure I can always use the town for my own adventures because it's fairly detailed. It can also be moved around a little so it fits with the geography my players already have discovered")

Do you think this works?

<snip>

Or to put it a little differently: Does the GM need to rip up the world to put in his/her own adventures, or is the GM encouraged to add to the world?

Pale Fire has described some of the ways in which GMs force some flexibility into supplements. Given an adventure in a town, you could possibly leave the adventure intact but relocate it into a location or situation that better fits your world. Or you could change just the details of the adventure. Or you could keep the details of the adventure and change everything else. Or you could, as you actually suggested, change the larger context and the smaller situational details but keep the middle setting (the town itself).

Many GMs including me regard the content of a typical sourcebook to be more like the output of play than what should be the input. Forgive me for quoting myself:

Overall, [my typical game] begins with a small bit of setting (what the player-characters know at the outset... a bit of Shire and a few legends and ballads will do). The end product is a story, and as a by-product... a setting is generated. Thus, I view the past few decades of RPG evolution with less enthusiasm than most, since one of the most consistent trends has been increasingly detailed and elaborate built-in settings and scenarios and metaplots. To me this is already-used-up material, GM output rather than GM input.

In other words, to put it crudely (though not as crudely as I'm tempted to): publishers are selling us waste product and telling us it's fuel.

Others, while perhaps not seeing things in such radical terms, still report that they rip up or take apart or rearrange or pick and choose details from source materials to make them useful. Reprocessing the spent fuel, as it were.

But... there's no obvious answer to what can or should be done about this. The opposite extreme form of supplement, consisting entirely of lists of disconnected elements (all those books of buildings, monsters, characters, traps, royal families, magic spells, etc.) don't work very well either. Their problem is they provide little or no help in assembling the bits and pieces they contain into a coherent world. Some GMs don't need this help, but for others, disassembling a setting source book at least provides them with a useful example of one way the setting elements could be effectively combined. (That's where having a known setting arechetype, such as "standard fantasy," can become useful. It can boost the participants' confidence in improvising and recombining smaller elements into a setting tailored to their tastes... even though adhering to the archetype limits their flexibility at the same time. One of many "freedom through constraints" paradoxes I've encountered in interactive storytelling.)

And do-it-yourself guidelines are an excellent solution for some, but again, is that enough help for most GMs? Aren' t there some (and perhaps Pale Fire is one of them) who want an easier to use tool than do it yourself guidelines, but don't want sourcebooks that (as he put it) fill in the GM's exploration space? Is this just a question of preference for one extreme or the other, or is there a product niche in the middle that's completely unfilled?

I'm working on the design of a "fractal sourcebook" that takes advantage of the hierarchical nature of world building. Any conceptual chunk of a setting on any scale can be seen as a combination of context, framework, and details. Details are links to smaller chunks and context is links to larger chunks. In the context's framework, the chunk is a detail; in a detail's framework, the chunk is context. The fractal sourcebook would contain frameworks stripped of context and details. Instead of context, each framework would have a minimal set of context requirements. And instead of details, each framework would have context settings to be applied against the context requirements of the frameworks selected to fill them in. This is something I've been working on for years. I expect it to take years more, if it works at all, and even then it may only be a transitional step toward something else.

But I'm hopeful that there are other solutions, perhaps better (or at least more accessible) ones, out there to be discovered.

- Walt

[Mike Holmes]

As far as "mapless" games go, one should refer to Alyria. One of it's major design elements is in having a lot of setting details, but refusing to locate anything on a map so as to allow for play creation of these details.

And at the risk of sounding like a plug, game design discussion of this concept is exactly what got Ralph and myself working on Universalis. Eventually, we decided that not just the map, but everything could be created by the players. So I guess you could put us in the "wholehearted support" category for that concept.

Mike

[Buddha Nature]

Two things here:

1) Probably the best fantasy campaign I was involved with was an AD&D3E (God how I hate that system - I am way too narrativist) campaign.  The thing that made it best was that the GM created "buy-in" to the world.  He basically let us create our characters and their backgrounds, including world building information.  He also started with a very basic and understandable world setup:

We were playing on an Earth based world wherin we would use a map of earth and each country and/or continent tended to be populated by on fantasy race.  Beyond this there was a Pantheon of Gods - The Greek Pantheon (which was centuries later threatened by the Egyptian).

My character was a priest of Hermes, but what did that mean?  I came up with the majority of the motivations and machinations of the Priesthood (they were based on justice, but were also covered thievery so descended into becoming a holy Mafia).  I loved that I had that much control over the world's history, and that I wasn't worried that I might not be "getting" everything because I didn't read tons of suppliments.

Although I haven't yet read Sorcerer and Sword (still saving my pennies - probably will just throw down and get it, Sorcerer, and Soul at the same time) it seems (if I am reading you right Ron) that I agree with the idea that exploratory character-driven world building is best.

I am currently training to be a school teacher some of the biggest things they teach are to allow choice for students and to create "buy-in" -> for example, let them come up with rubrics for grading papers, have input into class rules, etc.  When they are invested in the creation of these things they are _SO_ much more interested in playing by the rules.

I am planning on starting a game soon (either The Pool, WFD, or Dust Devils), an explanation of which you can see here.  Although I have taken much of the idea from a novel series I am not going to take it whole cloth, basically (in The Questing Beast terms) a few Hallows and Accords and from there let the characters/players fill it all in via play and outside work (based on a kind of interesting mechanic mentioned in said posting).

I am just hoping my players will go along with it.

2) If people are looking for interesting Fantasy settings I would say take a look at The Coldfire Trilogy (Black Sun Rising is the first book) by C. S. Friedman.  The stories are fairly predictable, but the world is facinating:

Hundreds of years ago a colony vessel from Earth crash landed on this planet, killing all but a few of the colonists.  They found themselves on a planet where after dark all of their greatest fears came out of the dark to destroy them.  Finally one of the colonists started killing off a few of the others in archaic blood sacrifice rituals - finding that he would gain magical power from it.  He had made the connection - on this planet you got what you paid for - sacrifice something emotionally meaningful and you got power.  So he destroyed the colony ship and every piece of technology they had - The Great Sacrifice.  From then on the humans always had magic - it became commonplace.

They also later found that the planet was highly volatile in the realm of earthquakes, and that the magic energy would spike during them.

Finally when the books start you have people living in towns all of which are warded up the wazoo against the nightmares that come at night.

I am sure I am mangaling this, but I think it is one of the most interesting settings because of its linking of technology and ancient ritual.

-Shane

[Blake Hutchins]

Well, I'm starting to take the first tentative steps toward running a game in White Wolf's Exalted setting.  I prefer to create a setting during play, but my players are really into the Exalted environment.  I like it too, truth to tell, so I'm fine with the decision.  I don't like the Storyteller system, but that's a subject we've gnawed to death in other threads.  At any rate, the immediate setting, a city on the far frontier of the Realm, is something we're going to create during play with much input from players.  Hence, the macro setting is pre-created, but the micro setting will evolve per my preference.  I can live with that, creatively and narratively speaking.

I see world-building as one part verisimilitude, one part color, and one part conflict.  Craft elements that fit together, mix in a handful of vivid, exotic details to establish mood, and put the setting in motion -- a civil war, an invasion, an uneasy truce, a harsh environment, a plague, etc.  Actual play may or may not explore the larger conflict, but the setting absolutely should impart some of that meta-tension to the story.  I should note from a genre standpoint that "standard" fantasy almost always makes use of the invasion trope, so you may want to avoid it from the get-go if you want to create something "different."

Best,

Blake

[contracycle]

For the record, the appropriate dosage of dried frog pills has been administered.

[Lance D. Allen]

For the record, I'd like to apologize for my part in muddling and entropizing this topic. I have a tendency to go on about *my* stuff, even where it doesn't belong, in an attempt to make a point. In the future, feel free to tell me to pipe down if I'm out of line.

[Christoffer Lernö]

This thread was originally an attempt to see if people agreed that a conflict filled setting where the GM has free reigns to map out the world is a good one.

And from what I've read so far you agree on that.

Then I got into my anti Earthdawn rant and things went downhill from there. BUT there is something important in the Earthdawn discussion too.

Ron Edwards says this about it:

some people will prefer the build-your-setting with good guidelines approach, and others (perhaps the majority, due to what they're used to) will prefer the sourcebooks-till-you-choke approach. It strikes me as a strict preference issue, although granted, I think the former is more conducive to actual successful role-playing, as opposed merely to owning and reading endless colorful books of dubious literary merit.

It might be interesting to analyze the different approaches. Sourcebooks (and similar material) is usually (my impression anyway) intented to extend and enhance already existing material. They usually does this by introducing new and/or more refined details.

Now my use of the world "details" is problematic because it actually covers two quite different types of material.

One is the "meta"-details: laying out borders, detailing exact political situation, documenting most important NPCs and so on.

The other is, well, plain details :) Here we have stuff like: "what food do they eat in region xxx?" "what types of animals are domnesticated?" "what are the most popular professions?" "are people rich or poor in general?" "what about the attitude towards other races?" and so on.

Source books also contain other things. I'll try to make a list and you can add to it if you want.

* "meta details" as described above
* details about culture and similar (as described above)
* additional rules (including new character professions and player races)
* extended setting (presenting new parts of the world that hadn't been mentioned up until then)
* variant rules (maybe should go under the heading of additional rules)
* clarifications and errata

Of these, only the first "meta details" really screws up the already presented setting. Details about culture can be ignored without problem if need be. Additional and variant rules are never required to be used, so that's not a problem either.

Extensions of the setting shouldn't be a problem either because they by definition should only present things both players and characters need not be aware of to begin with. By definition they shouldn't interefere with the GM's world either as long as the GM is making his world within the originally presented setting.

Let's look at the "meta details" (please come up with a better name!), and why I say they screw up the game.

The "meta details" is very like the material the GM is likely to create him/herself while developing the campaign. Just because of that the GM must either play at a really tiny scale so that he/she doesn't touch on the sourcebook-fixed stuff OR attempt the much more difficult task of fusing the two worlds together (the GM's and the sourcebooks').

I think you all agree with me that it's harder to work the more external sources (=sourcebooks) you have to take into account when you construct your adventures. It's also a matter of possibly having everything to break when a new sourcebook is introduced even if you managed to fuse the earlier products together with your campaign.

Like Walt says, what we're getting is essentially a completed campaigns disguised as a sourcebooks.

(Or even more to the point: "publishers are selling us waste product and telling us it's fuel." )

Even if we have the "sourcebooks-till-you-choke" crowd to please, isn't it possible to please them with EXTENSIONS to the setting, cultural details and maybe small relocatable local settings (a village, maybe a city or so) to use as templates? Instead of providing meaningless and counter-productive "meta detail"? Is it really that hard to please everyone?