1st Transatlantic Setting Design Challenge starting NOW

[Steven Stewart]

I'd like to try this if it is OK to still go for it? I am assuming that having a low word count is not neccessarly a bad thing? Is there any formatting rules for this?

I'm going to submit "Lands beyond the water...A setting of Knights, Freewill, Magic, Pollution, and Obligation using the Fate 2.0 System. Given recent commiments and getting in late, I will probably only have a 50% chance of completing. But its worth a shot.

[Eero Tuovinen]

The deadline is at the end of the month, Steven, so there's still plenty of time to participate. For length, I suggest that shorter is better. For format, I'd say that your best bet is either straight text or a simple PDF - some of us are probably going to turn in a more or less illustrated, nicely laid out text, but that's just our geekery towards book design showing through. No reason to jump on that bandwagon if you don't feel like it.

Speaking of finishing: apparently I'm going to get my freakin' Atlas finished. Will clock in at 10 000 words, it seems, as less wouldn't give enough backgrounds to be playable. Very annoying to write, as over half of it has to be in this faux-Randian rant mode. Good discipline for writing if nothing else. I'll probably post the thing very, very close to the deadline.

[Steven Stewart]

Well my setting, the Land beyond the water looks to be probably going over the 10,000 word limit, so it will probably be not eligible, while most of the "setting" is under 10,000 word, its things like the skill list, sample knight orders and such, sample ideas for adventures,  codifying the magic and pollution fallout into FATE that drives it over the limit. I probably spent too many words talking about things like the importance of salt, and oaths of the table (taken from various cultures) over time. But hey, I dig it, its got a lot of the stuff I have been thinking about like first world countries v. third world countries and how the developed world doesn't realize what has to happen to get their gas. Drew a lot upon a lot of the issues regarding oil and other products that come out of africa,  Religion and the Republic, and the ideas of Occupation, and my own reflections from living in the US, Middle East, Europe, and Japan.

I also tried to leverage off some of the stuff in recent threads that have come up regarding setting and what makes good setting.

Where do we post it by the way, is there a place set up, I know there was talk of ten thousand monkeys and such, is that offical, or just post a link to it (I can host my own on blamdesign) in this thread?

Cheers,

Steve

[Frank T]

Hi Steven,

I will start a "submission thread" someday soon now. Unfortunately, the guys at 1km1kt seem busy with other stuff and did not answer to my email, so everybody will have to take care of the hosting themselves. I'm sure there will be helpful people around who can host other people in case of need. In the meantime, feel free to link your stuff here for the interested.

As for the 10,000 words, well, maybe you can submit one version where you cut the word count to meet the requirements, and post the full version just in case someone would like to have a look at it?

Frank

[Eero Tuovinen]

I can host on a limited basis, and there's actually no need to keep them available for years, so that should suffice.

[Steven Stewart]

Frank,

Thanks, I will try to cut back, but editing isn't my strong suit ;) - I can host a bit as well, probably not oodles of them, but certaintly a few.

Cheers,

Steve

[Seth M. Drebitko]

I got back from a business trip last Friday and saw this thread today. I wish I had more time to prepare but hell its worth a shot any way. My entry (if I make the deadline) will be The World, The Flesh, and The Devil unaffiliated with a prior design by Paul Czege. It will be a multidimensional cross between dark fantasy, and end of the world doom and gloom with humanity once again on the brink of extinction. If I do make the deadline I can promise the outcome probably wont be a visual masterpiece.
Regards, Seth

[oliof]

People who need hosting, please contact me by PM - I'll be able to help out.

Regards,
    Harald

[Sven Flottmann]

As Some might have noticed: I was not able to finish my work on the Setting design challenge.
Sorry. My Job was about to eat me up, wich i could not forsee this way (still new to this company)
(Working in a internetShop that sells PC's is a hard time in Christmas-Month... worked from 8AM till 11PM or longer
But a Job is a Important thing, so i decided to relax in my sparetime... sorry so much...).

Greetings, Sven.

[Mikael]

Now that I have actually submitted something, I feel emboldened enough to say that I will be particularly disappointed if none of the TSOY/Solaris-based settings make it.

But the other side of the Atlantic has 8 to  10 hours more time than my locale, and I am still optimistic.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Ah yes, of course. Mikael Honkala, from Espoo. You know, Mike, we're going to take not only a complete European landslide victory, but also a triple-strength Finnish one. The Eurovision Song Contest was nothing to this.

The Engine: very nice, I could play that. Very animey in the limp-wristedly poetic manner favored by Exalted fans.

And yeah, I'd like to see other people's Solar System -based settings. I wouldn't do that after making so much stuff for it during the last year, but I could surely judge them if they came in.

[Sam!]

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present you Lords & Ladies.

-Sami

[Eero Tuovinen]

Ah hah, that's the last of the Finnish contingent, I think. Posted with fifteen minutes to spare. Now to see if there's any others from later time-zones...

Overall it seems that we have what could be termed a small and intimate competition. All the better for feedback, I'd imagine.

[Mikael]

Quite impressive fireworks to celebrate the end of the submission period. Hard to miss the deadline, really.

Yes, Eero, I have been following your career as the MrIndie of Finland with interest. We could start a separate thread on your views of the Finnish RPG market and how susceptible you think it is to the indie ideas. I would think that Finns would be quite resistant to all sorts of ranting and evangelising, which would make "show, don't tell" the way to go.

Getting back to the thread topic: I can easily see the anime vibe from The Engine, now that you mention it. I would like the setting to be open for other interpretations as well, which poses a problem in terms of images I could use. I would not like to lock it down to "gritty realism" or "big-eyed anime" just through the choice of images. One solution could be to include evocative images of the physical locations, without people, in a style that could apply to anime as well as other takes. Unfortunately producing such images is beyond my capabilities, in terms of artistic talent and financials.

There was some discussion about creating a Polaris setting anthology. Any thoughts on making that a reality?

Cheers,
+ Mikael

[Eero Tuovinen]

OK, now I'm wondering if I've really not met Mikael in some juncture. Surely you've bought something from us? Anyway, you're on for that thread. Although I'd be more interested in hearing your opinions about the Finnish indie scene.

But, topic: I just submitted my judgement for the four games I had to judge. I'd also have some words about them and setting design in general, which I'll proceed to unroll at length when we get separate threads for separate games. Overall my position will be that most of us clearly failed in the primary goal of stretching Setting design in the manner suggested by Frank earlier. (In my own case I kinda blame the twist of using an existing system, I take systems too seriously to do serious setting design around something already fixed in stone; but that's sour grapes talking, definitely my own problem if I don't choose a suitably loose system.) On the other hand, we certainly created some nice prose and interesting options for the games, even if they aren't that ambitious in terms of inventive setting design techniques. I'll be formulating more exact opinions for the final voting, but at this point I'll pinpoint The Engine and Lords & Ladies as the only titles that actually present some effort at structuring play via setting design, and even then both have their failings. The rest either let play default to something with only cosmetic differences from the original (a clear problem for anybody who chose an overly formalistic system, like Ben), or fail to provide concrete Setting factuals that would affect the situation beyond Color. One could argue that this is what most setting design in the roleplaying field amounts to, so it is not suprising that that's what we end up with. Arguably we'd need to go through the exercise several times with rigorous judgement to get out of writing prose as replacement for setting design.

Polaris anthology: sure, why not. All it would require would be Ben's permission and somebody to edit it together. The latter being the hitch, as all such competition anthologies have historically failed to materialize due to insufficient editor motivation. I could do it, but as that would also mean including the infamous Werewolf: BUTF***, I think you'd rather want somebody else to have the reins...