What makes an RPG work for you?

[Kester Pelagius]

Greetings,

Hope you all had a good holiday season.

That said, there was another thread here in which I was hoping to get some feedback about what other gamers thought about certain underlying game mechanics.  Alas, as if often wont with good discussions, the topic sort of wandered a bit into more philosophical context than pure rule mechanics discussion.  Quite interestingly so at times, too.

But there are a few fine points, if I may, I'd like to try and get your feedback on.  So, to preface, in summation, and to use other gignormous words that I don't otherwise get a chance to...

What makes a game world playable?

Note I don't mean the game system itself, but the game world.

There is a distinction, IMO.

For instance from a purely rules stand point one might ask: Are Priests and Clerics merely "magic users" who must obey strict rules other spell wielding characters don't have to?

Of course if you are playing a different sort of game world, perhaps one whose setting doesn't allow for such character types, that may be a moot question.

Also some systems use their own internal methods to simulate certain affects.  For instance the D&D family of games uses alignment.  Yet, at times, one has to wonder if it is really necessary at all.  After all what the D&D system mechanic of alignment was for, it seems, was to provide an method to allow the DM to properly reign in character types like the Priest/Cleric.  Characters that have some archetypal need for codes of conduct and morality.  This despite the fact most DMs probably didn't need to pay alignment much attention for any other PC type.

Of course some systems abandon such arbitrary mechanics for Piety, thus making the character's action directly linked to a personal skill.  Of course such systems may also provide other mechanics such as Renown, for hero types, and Manna (ie: Magic/Spell Points) for other classes of spell caster.

But do such considerations really have any bearing on other characters, indeed on any other non-fantasy based RPG system?

When setting up a world what do you, as game author or game master, think about?

For that matter do you think game authors/game masters SHOULD bother thinking about what will effect the meta-game mechanic that defines the Game World?

I don't mean simulations of religion, or even religious organizations, political groups, or what not.  But rather I am wondering what sorts of considerations are necessary for a good world mechanic to provide a fun setting?

For instance:  Gamma World.  It had mutants and super powers, yet it wasn't about super heroes.  Yet it did have the "cleric" archetype, sort of, depending upon which edition of the game you had.

So what made it so much fun to play?

Was it the well developed world mechanic, the core rule system, or the fact it didn't have classes and alignment?

That's the sort of think I'd like you to consider.  In short: What is it that you think makes your favorite RPGs work for you?




Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

[Jared A. Sorensen]

I think that one of the cardinal rules of game design is (more or less) as follows: Set forth a limited number of choices but allow for as much variation as possible in the application of those choices.

For RPG worlds, the best way (I think) to do this is to tell the player, "Okay...in this game you do this." Then allow them tons of choices in how to do that. With Sorcerer, this is answering the "Big Question" that the Premise asks of the players. In D&D, this is "Kill monsters, take their stuff and level up." In Magic, this is "Use a library of spells to reduce your opponent to 0 lives." What makes the game interesting are the various choices that the player makes along the way...either before the game even begins (building a deck, creating a character, choosing a "path") or during actual play.

So the question is, "What makes an RPG world work?"

Tell the players want you (the game designer) expect from them.

Give them the tools with which to fufill that goal.

Allow them the freedom to create their own tools or use existing tools in exciting new ways.

Don't pull a bait and switch ("This is what you do...No! Now THIS is what you do!").

Don't confine them to a single path (especially with an open-ended goal...then it turns into the dreaded, "You can do anything in this game...provided you do this thing, this way.").

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I'm afraid that this topic only brings up the purely philisophical question of "What is a game world really? What do we mean or refer to when we say 'game world?'"

Sorry. That's all I've got.

[M. J. Young]

O.K., I agree that there's a difference between what matters in a system and what matters in a game world. Obviously I create a lot of game worlds.

The starting point for me, I think, is what makes this game world interesting?. That is, why am I even bothering to make this? Once I know that, I know what it is that needs to be the focus of the materials.

For example, over on the Multiverser site we've got the free world http://www.multiverser.com/world.html">Orc Rising. The central ideas here were something on this order: we're in a post fantasy world, in which magic is fading and probably won't play a part. Dwarfs are moving into mining and industry; humans are focused mostly on livestock and ranching and related fields such as leather; elves are expanding into communal agriculture. In the midst, in what these peoples would call the untamed wilds, live the orcs, tribal groups who war with each other. Of course, the "free peoples" are expanding their territories by "taming" the wild, cutting back the jungles for their use. In the process they encounter the orcs, people who have little or no concept of property rights beyond whether they are allowed to hunt and forage somewhere. The orcs are captured and "given the benefits of civilization" by enslaving them. This leads to growing conflict between orcs and the other peoples.

The interesting aspects here are that the "free peoples" don't see anything wrong with what they're doing; they have good reasons for everything they do. The orcs are indeed "primitive". But players will immediately see the injustice of the situation. At the same time, the orcs are primitive, and warlike; and the situation is pushing them toward war and evil. Many now believe that all humans, elves, and dwarfs must be killed to assure the survival of the orc race. Thus, it is the complexity of what people think and believe, and what they are doing because of it that made this world work; and that's where the focus of the material falls.

By contrast, we use to have a world posted called The New Ice Age. The interesting aspect of it was survival against the elements. It thus spent a great deal of time detailing what resources existed in the glaciated Northern Hemisphere, and how player characters could access these. There were people in that world--Innuits, primarily (it was set in North America)--but we didn't give much thought to the culture and religion of these people beyond how it related to their survival in the cold.

What makes a world interesting is whatever it is that interests you about it, usually. Sure, I've created worlds which I though would be interesting for one reason and the players were not interested in that and so sought some other focus for play; that just means that what interested me did not interest them, and I had to roll with what they wanted to do there. But ultimately, if you find a world interesting enough that you want to create it, there must be something about that world that interests you. If you can get to whatever that is and bring it forward, it will probably interest someone else.

--M. J. Young

[Uncle Dark]

Hey, all.

To expand a bit on something M.J. said, I think it all comes down to focus.  That is, most game (or other ficitonal) worlds can be assumed to be (to the eyes of the characters in them) as complex as our world is to us.  To the players, however, the world is relatively abstract, and only what is dramtically important to the game/story is detailed.

So, if I want to run a world where the focus is on the mythic clash between cultures (like Glorantha/Hero Wars), I'm going to want a lot of detail on how the characters interact with the mythic otherworld, and other details (like the specific details of crushing vs. chopping weapons against various armor types) can be glossed over.

On the other hand, if I want to play a game centered on political intrigue, a system that facilitates social interaction and various contacts would be better (actually, Hero Wars does that pretty well, too).

So I guess that the world mechanic I would look for would be one that:
--Allows me to zoom in on one aspect of the world without increasing the complexity across the board
--Allows in-focus aspects to work smoothly with out-of-focus areas (i.e., the game must change gears smoothly)

For example: In Hero Wars, the three resolution mechanics (Ability Check, Simple Contest, and Extended Contest) allow the GM and Players to put maximum play-time into the areas they're interested in and minimum time into what they're not.  A group could have a social contract rule that important social interactions are always Extended Contests, and combats almost never are, if they want to emphasize intrigueing and minimize fighting.

You can't do that in D&D.  The rules themselves place a very heavy emphasis on combat, glossing over a lot of other potential areas of action.  Also, the magic system has certain fundamental assumptions that may not work within all settings.

Lon

[clehrich]

Hi.

In terms of making a given RPG world interesting, and also giving a clear sense of "what you do is this," what do you all think about deliberately genre-breaking games, i.e. games where the point is to take a given genre and show its least savory sides?

One game I was briefly involved in, but discussed a lot with the GM afterwards, was set in the Tolkien universe, but the concept was that (1) the War of the Ring never happened, although Sauron disappeared anyway on his own, and (2) the Silmarillion was essentially Elvish propaganda.  The rules were very straight AD&D, with alignments irregularly applied.

The orcs, for example, had a vaguely Nietzschean concept that Sauron and Melkor/Morgoth had put them into a hell-universe in order to make them tough, and now that both were gone it was up to particular orcs to become super-beings (not killers, but superior entities).  The Elves were dangerous freaks, who considered themselves racially superior.

So there was a lot of play on race, obviously.  Various Elvish types (and sympathizers) would go around exterminating orcs and other "lesser beings" and claiming that this was all inherently right because orcs were Chaotic Evil.  The idea was to get the players to react with disgust, challenge the whole D&D alignment framework, and recognize that the most perfect paladins constructed (a bunch of Dunedain Elf-sympathizers) were essentially Gestapo death-squads.

I don't love this game, I want to say right now.  But the idea was to make the genre interesting again by breaking it ethically, rather than mechanically.

What do you people think of this sort of thing, as an approach to world design?

[Jeremy Cole]

Well, a game world needs conflict of some description (yes, I know, duh).  For my mind, the best conflicts challenge what a character finds important, his loyalties and ethics, challenging so helps define the character as a developed individual, and also as a dramatic movement (I've found doing this often cuts away the excess stuff to leave a character as "crooked as an old man's cane" or whatever).  Anyhow, providing these challenges gives the questions that help a player define his character however.

To this end, the best game world is one where the players have very well defined loyalties and values, and one where these are constantly threatened.  To get this working as I wanted for my game Prespiate, I've found the best thing is a very small world, with a number of often opposing factions.

Small world, lots of valued people nearby, complex relationships due to the static nature of the players (can't just go to another town), the game world I'm after.

Oh, and guns make game worlds fun too :)

[Thierry Michel]

The starting point for me, I think, is what makes this game world interesting?.

I'm not sure I understand the question. Do you mean, as opposed to a "book world", or do you mean, more generally, what makes a fantasy setting interesting ?

[M. J. Young]

The starting point for me, I think, is what makes this game world interesting?.

I'm not sure I understand the question. Do you mean, as opposed to a "book world", or do you mean, more generally, what makes a fantasy setting interesting ?

Well, I gave some examples, but I'll give some more.

I'm working on a spy scenario. What is interesting in spy scenarios, from James Bond to If Looks Could Kill, is usually the action combined with gadgets. You need to focus on creating good villains, good enemy defenses, good evil plots, and good equipment for the player character to use. You don't have to spend near as much time on a lot of other things that are interesting in other worlds.

In our evaluation demo version we've got a world called Race Wars. It in essence creates a continent about the size of Australia populated to one side by Neanderthals and to the other by Cro Magnons, and starts at a time when the island is no longer big enough to support both. What's interesting here is the variety of potential solutions to the problem--from exploration to determine whether there is other land out there somewhere, to intermarriage between what may be compatible races forming one society, to warfare giving one side dominance over the other. There doesn't have to be much focus on the primitive technology here beyond an understanding of the limits of weapons and watercraft. There are no real villains and no evil plots.

NagaWorld, the primary setting in Multiverser: The First Book of Worlds, is what it is because it is so alien to Earth. The focus there is about making something so completely different from Earth that visitors will want to explore it, and in the process will discover that there are more differences than they had imagined.

In Multiverser: The Second Book of Worlds, the key point of interest for its main world, Bah Ke'gehn, is that this place looks like all the legends of hell and is completely unlike it in every way that matters. The lives and culture and relationships of these creatures, the way their world really works, is what is interesting. The fact that they all do magic as typically as we turn on lights and watch television is interesting, but not the focus, and doesn't need as much attention beyond what it takes for the referee to cover the gaps.

In The Dancing Princess, also in The First Book of Worlds, there's an entire medieval kingdom that doesn't matter at all. We didn't name villages or create maps or anything of the sort. The module is designed to lure the player character into rescuing the princesses, which means following them through the portal into the realm of the demons. That is where the heart of the adventure lies, and that is where the description falls. Similarly, that book contains Sherwood Forest, in which what really matters are the political relationships of the world, why King Richard is missing, what it takes to get him back, who the Sherriff of Nottingham is (note that he doesn't even have a name), what Prince John is trying to do, who is on whose side. Thus the detail provided makes it possible to travel across Europe in a rescue effort, or to work out what happens if the characters successfully assassinate Prince John.

The point is, when you start to look at a world, there is something about it that makes it sound interesting to you. If you're starting a world merely because "well, I'd like to do something that's like Tolkien, only different", or "My players like science fiction, so I need robots and space ships", you don't really have anything that will make this world interesting. You're just pasting together ideas from other people's worlds. What makes Bladerunner interesting? It's got to be the androids, and their relationship to society. What makes Lord of the Rings interesting? It's really this powerful conflict between good and evil that is focused on that ring. These are features of the worlds that make the worlds interesting. If you know what makes the world interesting, that's where you focus your attention.

If there's nothing about the world that is particularly interesting, nothing that grabs you and makes you say, this world is about this, then why are you wasting your time trying to create such a world? Use any generic world of the sort, and you'll save yourself a lot of work probably with better results. If you know what is interesting about the world you're creating, then pay attention to those details and don't waste a lot of effort on the ones that don't matter.

It's certainly different if you're working on an epic novel like Lord of the Rings. In that case, you really need a lot of background and detail, because your characters are going to explore them. On the other hand, it may not be so different. As a novelist, I find that I start a world with some core ideas of what is important in them, and then figure out the details as I go. For example, I'm on the third novel in a series, one of the protagonists continuing adventures that began in the first novel. I knew when I was writing the first novel that in the second novel this character would be back to this world in the past, fighting the same enemies she's facing now; and that there would be a third novel in which she returns in the future and faces these enemies again. In the first novel I let her kill two very powerful members of the enemy; in the second novel she was defeated by them, but also discovered that there was someone more powerful behind them. All I really knew about the third novel's take on this was that she was going to be back some time around 2300 AD, and that she was going to have a climactic battle with the villain she had failed to defeat in the past. Now that I'm there, I'm creating the details of a futuristic world pretty much as I go--because they aren't important to my story, really, beyond that they give the reader the impression that we are pretty far in the future. I didn't have to spend a lot of time thinking about these, because they aren't important. I did have to spend a lot of time thinking about the major conflict that is coming, because that's the focus of the story.

Does that make any of it clearer?

--M. J. Young

[Kester Pelagius]

Greetings All,

Another semi-long one, hope you have munchies and soda at hand.

In reading over the posts I've been wondering where, how, what, and mainly if I had something meaningful to contribute.  Well, I'm going to toss my marbles into the pool, and hope I don't loose them all beneath the ripples.

I think that one of the cardinal rules of game design is (more or less) as follows: Set forth a limited number of choices but allow for as much variation as possible in the application of those choices.

For RPG worlds, the best way (I think) to do this is to tell the player, "Okay...in this game you do this." Then allow them tons of choices in how to do that. With Sorcerer, this is answering the "Big Question" that the Premise asks of the players. In D&D, this is "Kill monsters, take their stuff and level up." In Magic, this is "Use a library of spells to reduce your opponent to 0 lives." What makes the game interesting are the various choices that the player makes along the way...either before the game even begins (building a deck, creating a character, choosing a "path") or during actual play.

Well, yes and no, no and yes.  There is premise of a system and premise of the game, as I see it.  Most RPGs are open ended, within strict genre labels, though as you point out they are shaped by the rules of play.

As M.J. said:

If there's nothing about the world that is particularly interesting, nothing that grabs you and makes you say, this world is about this, then why are you wasting your time trying to create such a world? Use any generic world of the sort, and you'll save yourself a lot of work probably with better results. If you know what is interesting about the world you're creating, then pay attention to those details and don't waste a lot of effort on the ones that don't matter.

It's certainly different if you're working on an epic novel like Lord of the Rings. In that case, you really need a lot of background and detail, because your characters are going to explore them.

One of the things that I have noticed, and wonder if anyone else has, is that a lot of the discussion currently filling up the other threads in this forum are based upon premises that rely upon preconception of how thins are, or rather should be, and thus what is reality is put through the sieve of assumption.

Some assume that myths are quite literal.  I would not say that myths are literal, nor would I say they are not.  Of course we assume a lot about myths, namely that they are, as presented, a representation of the thought processes of distant antiquity.  A assumption that, sadly, is no more true than are the representations of royalty in the plays of Shakespeare.  Yet most hold up those works as being virtually sacrosanct and, for most of us, those plays (whether seen in the theatre or the numerous movies made of the) have subtly shaped our views, and preconceptions, of what life was like.  Way back when.

But how close to reality are these plays?  More to the point how do we, people divorced from that reality by the distance of time, judge those who dare attempt to answer?

Which makes the following something to think about:

To expand a bit on something M.J. said, I think it all comes down to focus. That is, most game (or other ficitonal) worlds can be assumed to be (to the eyes of the characters in them) as complex as our world is to us. To the players, however, the world is relatively abstract, and only what is dramtically important to the game/story is detailed.

Having pointed out that much of our own real life perceptions of what is real, in regards to both past and present, is based primarily upon what we read, heard, and see I think it is very important for a game author to establish what is and isn't possible in a game 1) by presenting clear and concise rules that are consistent with the milieu, and; 2) understanding that the rules of play are a separate entity from the world (and thus background setting) mechanic in which a RPG is to be staged.

Well, a game world needs conflict of some description (yes, I know, duh). For my mind, the best conflicts challenge what a character finds important, his loyalties and ethics, challenging so helps define the character as a developed individual, and also as a dramatic movement (I've found doing this often cuts away the excess stuff to leave a character as "crooked as an old man's cane" or whatever). Anyhow, providing these challenges gives the questions that help a player define his character however

Yes, but how much description should an author include?

I've look at a lot of games available for "free" online.  Most start off by dumping pages of what are essentially short stories in your lap.  (Can you say "eyes glazing over in disinterest"?  I knew you could.)  Short stories are fine, I have nothing against them, but IMO they have no place in a rule book.  What's more some of these "games" seem to be more concerned in presenting someone's fiction that they are in presenting a game.  I find this humorous, if understandable.  After all I, too, have more short story MSS sitting around (the market is tight and there are hundreds of minnows in the waters) but would you want to suffer through them in a book that is suppose to be a game's core rules manual?

To this end, the best game world is one where the players have very well defined loyalties and values, and one where these are constantly threatened. To get this working as I wanted for my game Prespiate, I've found the best thing is a very small world, with a number of often opposing factions.

Intrigue.  Gotta love that, right?

Sure, eventually.  But up front what you need is a thumbnail outline of what the game is, how it is played, and a page or two condensing character creation.

Then jump heedlessly into the explanations of why those sinister pepperoni stealing Shadow Grimlings live in giant five story mud brick pyramids they build in dank caverns two miles beneath the Oxford Fen, which just so happens to be beneath the very people they are at war with, the surface dwelling tribe Von Daniken who...

Ok, now that I've rambled on, misplaced my point, time for something a little less cheeky.

Allow them the freedom to create their own tools or use existing tools in exciting new ways.

Tools?

What, precisely, do you mean by that Obi Wan?


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

[simon_hibbs]

By world mechanics, I prsume we're talking about game mechanics that are partricular to a particular world, such as Alignment in D&D, Sanity in Call of Cthulhu, Personality Traits in Pendragon. All these games have game mechanics for combat and interpersonal skills, but these partricular mechanics are novel to those games. (I think many of these mechanics are realy more to do with specific genre or sub-genre conventions than 'world' as such, but it's all the same thing from a game design point of view).

In general I find such mechanics usefull at first, but limiting in the long run. When I started playing Call of Cthulhu I thought SAn was a great idea and it helped focus the player and GM's attention on the mental state of the characters. If forces you to think about this factor. As such I think it's a usefull aid at first, but soon the limitations of such a mechanic can begin to grate. The SAN mechanic is a blunt instrument that many groups have modified heavily to suit themselves.

I think world mechanics have a place because they highlight areas of concern to the game designer, but ultimately I believe they should be kept flexible and limited in their effects.


Simon Hibbs

[Jeremy Cole]

Greetings All,

Yes, but how much description should an author include?

I've look at a lot of games available for "free" online.  Most start off by dumping pages of what are essentially short stories in your lap.  (Can you say "eyes glazing over in disinterest"?  I knew you could.)  Short stories are fine, I have nothing against them, but IMO they have no place in a rule book.  What's more some of these "games" seem to be more concerned in presenting someone's fiction that they are in presenting a game.  I find this humorous, if understandable.  After all I, too, have more short story MSS sitting around (the market is tight and there are hundreds of minnows in the waters) but would you want to suffer through them in a book that is suppose to be a game's core rules manual?

How much detail? Enough to establish the 'feel' for the world.  Which I don't think ever needs to be much, at least before the campaign starts, certainly no more than 10 odd facts, which must have some sort of logical flow to be appealling.

How much does a player need to get through a game of The Dying Earth with sufficient knowledge?  Fantasy world, as the sun is soon to go out, people are becoming hedonistic, and like many yours will be the life of a rogue, but a well-spoken rogue, there is great value placed on wordsmanship, and you'll be expected to speak as such.  I think that would be enough for me, it'll get you through a low level game, though you'd want to pick up more as you went along.

How much more detail as you go along?  Whatever aids the story.  If the characters have a central location, such as a place of business of their employer, I might give the place considerable detail before the game starts, description of the level of wealth, size, colour scheme, fellow employees.  All this would be used to the extent they are dramatically relevant, such as small, impoverished, dull grey and with a single girl friday (frequently paid late and rather vocal about it).  I would hit the players with that at the beginning, and then to the extent that it is relevant, I would detail anything else if it came up (impoverished due to the squeeze put on by him having to save to pay the characters for whatever).

On the other hand, I use a character in most of campaigns called little hat man.  That is the some total description (though it references to in group knowledge), and it works fine at telling everyone this person role in the situation.  Petty administrator, in love with his tiny little empire, I never add anything else because nothing else is relevant, though its possible his life in greater detail may come up, it never has the dozen odd times he's featured.

Intrigue.  Gotta love that, right?

Sure, eventually.  But up front what you need is a thumbnail outline of what the game is, how it is played, and a page or two condensing character creation.

Then jump heedlessly into the explanations of why those sinister pepperoni stealing Shadow Grimlings live in giant five story mud brick pyramids they build in dank caverns two miles beneath the Oxford Fen, which just so happens to be beneath the very people they are at war with, the surface dwelling tribe Von Daniken who...

I don't know if I ever really use intrigue, if you focus players on solving it all becomes a little plot based for my liking.

I agree with the second point though, condensed world information, but I would say certainly a lot less than 2 pages.  At 2 pages, most information will be forgotten, if you can get out the important stuff in 2 paragraphs, players can ask questions about the rest.

[Blake Hutchins]

After issuing a hearty second to Jared's view, I'd like to return to the idea of focus for a moment.

Thematic or premise-based focus in a setting entails some kind of inherent conflict as an engine to drive play, ideally something that drives the players into making conflict-relevant choices at the point of character creation.  Working settings should produce, in my view, compelling characters, as characters reflect their environment.  Characters with problems make for story.  Setting should, at a minimum, suggest lots of lively problems and challenges for characters to adopt and nurture.  In Sorcerer, the Kicker takes this a step further, putting the character into motion from the get-go, but whether detailed or sketchy, I propose settings should advance some kind of conflict to embroil characters.  Further, good conflict should pose difficult choices that lead to meaningful consequences down the line.

Best,

Blake

[Kester Pelagius]

Greetings Simon,

To properly answer your question I am going to have to go back and do a bit of quick on-the-fly editing from a old post, as I covered this answer in depth there.  For those interested click here for the original thread.  Shouldn't have to, but in case you would like to see the original context there it is.

So, to recap...

By world mechanics, I prsume we're talking about game mechanics that are partricular to a particular world, such as Alignment in D&D, Sanity in Call of Cthulhu, Personality Traits in Pendragon. All these games have game mechanics for combat and interpersonal skills, but these partricular mechanics are novel to those games. (I think many of these mechanics are realy more to do with specific genre or sub-genre conventions than 'world' as such, but it's all the same thing from a game design point of view).

The core mechanics are the base system mechanics.

A system's "core mechanics" covers character generation, races, maybe touches upon skills, et al, but really covers little else.

The "World Mechanics" are what delineate, define, establish, and precisely lay down the rules of play for the game environment.

Viz. whether the world is flat, floating in mists, a oblong toroidal Dyson sphere, a giant donut with a sun that pops up through its center, a curved bowl floating in a sea of wine, what have you.

There is a difference between a system's "core mechanics" and "world mechanics".  It is subtle, sometimes hard to seperate, but it is there.

One lets you generate a character. The other presents the stage upon which the character is to be played.

A game's underlying rules mechanics (what constitutes the fusion of the Core and World mechanics) should derive directly from its basic premise; namely the World Mechanics.  In fact when done properly the two come together so seamlessly you almost can't tell there is a difference.

A good excample are novels.  All novels that make it to print generally do so because they have a strong world mechanic, meaning they allow the reader reasonable room for suspension of disbelief. Thus they seem realistic within their own environment, even if they bear no resemblance to our perceived reality.  However some games systems, like Chaosium's in-house BRPS, were aimed at having a core rules mechanic which could be reworked for use with  seperate and distinctive world mechanics; yet these were more than mere campaign settings as they adapted the core mechanics.

In general I find such mechanics usefull at first, but limiting in the long run. When I started playing Call of Cthulhu I thought SAn was a great idea and it helped focus the player and GM's attention on the mental state of the characters. If forces you to think about this factor. As such I think it's a usefull aid at first, but soon the limitations of such a mechanic can begin to grate. The SAN mechanic is a blunt instrument that many groups have modified heavily to suit themselves.

I think world mechanics have a place because they highlight areas of concern to the game designer, but ultimately I believe they should be kept flexible and limited in their effects.

Problem is familiarity breeds contempt.

We, all of us, loved our first RPGs.  Alas, the more we play them, the more they grate on us.  Until, with blisters and boils from dice rolling, we come to hate this aspect or that.

But, in truth, it's that we've had too much of a good thing.  Usually.

Then there are games whose designers don't seem to grasp the fundamentals of rules of play in relation to world mechanics needed to actually be reflective of the world to be played in *koff* MERP magic *koff* and the tone established in some settings.

Then again MERP could work, so long as you aren't trying to simulate the novels.  Problem is most who buy such properties don't want to play in some imagined timeframe but want to play their favorite characters, in true novel fashion.

It's like SCIFI channels' Dune.  I have a simple philosophy, it's called READ THE BOOK STUPID!  So long as you keep that in mind, and reference it often, you wont have any problems establishing a good world.  At least where established ones are concerned.


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

[Kester Pelagius]

Greetings Blake,

Sorry, no good Blake's 7 joke comes to mind.  Yeah, I know, you're just crushed.  ;)

Thematic or premise-based focus in a setting entails some kind of inherent conflict as an engine to drive play, ideally something that drives the players into making conflict-relevant choices at the point of character creation.  Working settings should produce, in my view, compelling characters, as characters reflect their environment.  Characters with problems make for story.  Setting should, at a minimum, suggest lots of lively problems and challenges for characters to adopt and nurture.

Nope, just nope.

That is NOT the domain of the rules.  The rules of play are to establish the how's, why's, and whatfor's and set the stage for play.  Unless you are talking about a mini one-shot game?

Otherwise this sort of thing is best left for the "module" or "campaign" reference book(s), IMO.

Of course there are games that have a meta-story.  Problem is once that story has reached completion through all its arcs, so has the game.  Which is why I say establishing conflict belongs in the demense of modules.

Establish the stage, then worry about what play your characters are going to act out.


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

edits in red because spellchecks are no replacement for proof-reading.