What system(s) might best facilitate these desires?

[Eric J-D]

Although I have been an enthusiastic reader of many of the fora here and a longstanding admirer of Ron Edwards' contributions to game theory and design, this is my first post to The Forge, so please bear with me if what I have said has already been covered in an earlier thread.

I am looking for some advice on which systems might best facilitate the following set of goals/desires.  First, let me say that I have always had a soft spot for "setting rich" games (some might call them "setting heavy" after seeing the list that follows) such as Glorantha, Tekumel and Jorune.  The evocative character of these three settings has always drawn me, although less for purposes of unbridled simulationism than because a certain constellation of elements within them seemed to provide interesting possibilities for narrative to happen.  I know this is probably a bit vague, so let me make try to make it a little more clear.  In Tekumel, for example, the byzantine complexity of the clan structure, religious allegiances, factions within those religions, social protocols and so forth always seemed to me to potentially provide players with a readily available set of conflicts, pull and push factors, concerns, and the like.

The downside of all of these settings in actual play, however, was that players would often experience setting overload, leading some to claim that these games could only really be played by their creators, a claim some of you have no doubt heard before.  Initially, I thought that this was ridiculous, and I still think that it greatly overstates things, but I have become increasingly sympathetic to this concern of players.  Hence my question and my dilemma.

I still desire a game that has a rich setting, but my primary concern is that the setting be an aid in the achievement of narrative and the addressing of premise.  I also do not want the setting to be completely in the hands of the GM. Basically, what I want is a set of tools that will provide the players with both encouragement and actual power to shape the setting.  For example, suppose the genre we are aiming for is sword and sorcery.  After sketching out some initial setting details, I would like to be able to have the player not only determine the initial conflict that his or her character is embroiled in (a la a Kicker) but also contribute setting elements vis a vis the Kicker, and then have a role in shaping and refining those elements as a way of adding both color for its own sake and color that could later be used to generate further narrative.  Does this make sense?  Here is a concrete example.  Suppose the player decides that she wants to make a character whose initial conflict is that her son has been murdered.  Here is what she comes up with:

"And on the 13th day of the god Tez Hamun's dismemberment a solitary figure stumbled towards the gates of the ancient city of Setiroth, bearing in her arms the bundle of bloody rags and bones that had been her son and in her heart a burning hatred."

Now, everything aside from the statement of the character's current situation (the death of the son) is normally pure color added by the GM, but why can't it just as easily be supplied by the player.  And if we let the player add the color, then we have already decided to relinquish some measure of control over the thing that formerly was the exclusive purview of the GM, namely setting detail and consistency.  So, despite the fact that previously there was no "city of Setiroth" or god "Tez Hamun" in my setting (if I'm the GM), now there is.  Now, why should I get to have exclusive say over what Setiroth is like, or the fine points of Tez Hamun worship?  Of course, the anal retentive control freak in me does not want to cede complete control of this to the player either, and this is probably where the real rub sets in.  How do you resolve potential conflicts about who gets to contribute what to the setting?

So, are there any systems that you all know of that have a mechanic for adjudicating between player and GM contribution to setting?  Is this simply something that needs to be explicitly addressed through social contract or are there systems with mechanics that specifically address this in-game?


If any of this fails to make sense, please don't hesitate to ask and I will try to do better next time.  Thanks.

zhlubb

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

And welcome, and I'm glad you've started posting. I think I understand exactly what you are saying about the role of a rich setting.

The solution, in my experience, comes in a few steps. Some of them precede play, and some of them are kind of a rinse-repeat process as sessions proceed.

1. A birds'-eye-view of the setting, usually with a map (which is always available in these games). The point here is that no one needs to know any serious details, and for everyone to understand that the characters aren't going to have this kind of view. It's just you guys hanging out.

In playing Glorantha, I show them a map of Genertela (the whole northern continent), and show them where the Lunar Empire is, and how their access to the sea is blocked by Dragon Pass. "Oh," says someone, "and I bet there are a bunch of feisty hill peoples who think the Red Goddess is a silly abomination." You got it.

Now we pull out the Dragon Pass map, show'em the mountains, and talk about stuff like "The Lunars have been invading this part even before they were Lunars." Again, not many details - focus on engaging the imagination, not telling a history lesson.

2. Then focus down into a locale - here's where the details hit, because here's where character-knowledge and options for character creation become relevant. The Hero Wars rules are perfect for this (in a way that the RuneQuest, Tekumel, and Jorune rules are not), because they just work off three keywords: Culture, Occupation, and Magic.

It can really help if you prepare a couple of pages of options distilled from the book which are specific to this area, especially for gods/magic. The important thing to understand, for everyone, is that minimal, local understanding is enough - if they're playing in Heortland, they are not expected to know a thing about the Hreshtol Knights or Dart Wars or anything else like that.

Oh, and don't forget that visitors to this area are perfectly OK as well. Make sure that they're in your options too - that way someone won't say, "Well, I'm a roving samurai who wandered into the area" or some shit like that.

3. During play, provide a lot of information just based on description. "One of the priests is a woman. She's wearing a false beard, so you know she's a ranking priest of Lhankor Mhy. Stupid, I know, and so does she, but it's religion, what can you do?"

The key to this tactic is breadth, not depth. Do it lots, do it colorfully, do it with joy of your own about the setting, and don't expect it to be memorized. Just keep it flowing.

3'. With any luck the above tactic will become more mutual over time. As long as your scenarios are tailored toward your players' understanding of the setting, as well as adding a bit to it each time in digestible chunks, then they will often ask questions as you go. "Do I know what those markings mean?" "Is that troll the same as those other trolls?" Answer all of them totally up-front if the character should know, or rolls appropriately. Who's to say that the character is ignorant? Roll and see if his or her granny or a wandering scholar tipped'em that particular detail some years ago.

Part of this tactic is to provide the books to all the players. Don't consider any setting-element to be secrets, ever. Heavy-setting games are perfect for the very pleasurable experience of playing a character's ignorance in full player-knowledge of something.

I hope some of this was helpful - let me know if I'm on-track with the ideas. Most especially, the principle is, "Whatever you know is just fine, as long as it's something, and as long as we're all enjoying expanding our shared enjoyment of the setting's richness as we play."

Best,
Ron

[Eric J-D]

Thanks for the welcome as well as for the sound advice.  All of what you said makes great sense for an already existing and fairly elaborate rich setting like Glorantha, and no doubt makes sense for lots of other situations as well.  I agree completely with your sense that the crucial factor in such a situation is breadth rather than depth.  I  also admit I have been tempted to revisit Glorantha using the Hero Wars narrativist engine and putting in practice many of your ideas.

But I guess I was really aiming at something different in my intial message, something that I probably wasn't sufficiently clear about.  At this stage in life (pushing forty, with a family and lots of other interests in addition to roleplaying), I'm not sure I can afford the high investment in time it would take to get reacquainted with Glorantha's rich setting.  So what do I want?  To cheat of course!

I still want the illusion of a deep world that the players' characters inhabit, but these days the narrative dimension is far more important to me than any sim type exploration of setting.  In fact, what has always attracted me to these rich settings is the way that the some set of elements in the environment presented certain posibilities for the realization of narrative.

In addition, I really want the setting to be something that the players themselves shape.  So back to my original example.  Everything aside from the description of the character's situation (the dead son) and the implicit conflict that this suggests (who murdered the child? why?) is pure color at first.  It's there simply to sound cool.  When the player writes this all down, however, some new things happen.  First, a god (Tez Hamun) that I never anticipated in my bare sketch of the setting comes into being, as does a city (Setiroth).  Now, neither I nor the player know anything about these as yet, but there are interesting possibilities evoked by the names and by the description (a god was dismembered at one point for some unknown reason. Why? Is the god's dismemberment a recent event or is it part of a repeated ritualized cycle? What are the god's worshippers like? How ancient is the city? Where is it located? Who rules it?  What are its inhabitants like? What are its relations like with neighboring cities? Etc.).  But like I said, at this point everything is still only color.  And yet a certain illusion of reality is created through the player's description, but this isn't what most interests me.

What mainly interests me is the possibility for narrativism that this approach might make possible.  Take my example again.  Say the player decides at some point either prior to play or in play that her character's husband has in all likelihood murdered their son and that the player's decision to have the character pursue said husband is a way to explore some basic premise like how to resolve the problem of divided loyalty (she loves her husband and is for some reason not entirely sure he has done this loathsome thing, but she also feels a powerful desire to revenge her child's wrong and some strong indicators point toward hubby).  Fairly simple, I know, but say this is what we are working with at the moment.  As GM, I go with this and throw up some interesting complications that require resolution, but eventually the time comes when the player's character confronts the husband.  They argue and fight, she draws a sword and has at him in full cinematic glory, while he desperately defends himself.  And say further that just before she runs him through the belly, he blurts out "But I didn't..."  I never let the poor sod finish the sentence.  Now, ordinarily this denial is simply a self-serving bit of utter mendacity, and the player and character know it.  But what if at this point the player decides to complicate things herself.  Looking back at the Kicker she suddenly sees a correspondence between the brutal murder of her son (he's a bundle of rags and bones) and the color text that she began with (i.e. the dismemberment of the god Tez Hamun).  Now, she starts to think that maybe there was more to the child's murder than she previously thought, and suddenly this previously insignificant piece of color becomes something that she can refine in such a way as to support further narrative momentum.

Now, the difference between this and Glorantha is readily apparent.  The player at first introduced a bit of colorful text that snuck in some aspects of setting when she wrote her Kicker.  At that point it was all still color for color's sake, but suddenly it has become a vehicle for further narrative drive.  To my knowledge, this just isn't possible in either Runequest Glorantha or Hero Wars Glorantha, where the number and types of gods, their myths, rituals, and so forth are relatively fixed.  Something like it is possible in the Hero Wars rules that I have read dealing with character concept (the rules give the example of Kallai's possession of the "Sack of Black Winds" and knowledge of the secret of "Six Cuts Silk"), where the player is encouraged to invent possessions or areas of expertise whose precise power, scope, and relevance the player does not yet understand, but the line is generally drawn at the level of the character's "stuff."  I guess I am interested in seeing if the principle can be taken a bit further to include aspects of the character's world.  The advantage that I see is that previously irrelevant bits of color can become sources of protagonist play.

Clearly not everything that the player invents need be used in this way (some of it can stay color), and certainly there should be some agreed upon limits to it for it be a game and not simply an exercise in personal or shared storytelling.  What I am looking for is some advice on what systems out there currently support such a thing (in whole or in part) and who else in the Forge community is presently interested in the possibility of such a thing.  Ultimately, I guess I am looking for some ideas for a set of mechanics that will both facilitate it as well as help adjudicate how it gets worked out between player and GM.

I don't know if this is any clearer than what I wrote previously.  Perhaps this is some foolish quixotic quest of my own and, if so, I hope someone will do me a favor and derail it before it becomes an obsession.

I apologize, Ron and all other readers, for the length of this message as well as for any misuse of Forge terminology I might have committed and I appreciate any help you can give me.

zhlubb

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi zhlubb,

Welcome to The Forge.

I think you'll find that what you're asking about can be found exactly in Hero Wars / Hero Quest.  Yes, there are parameters of a pre-generated world.  But within those parameters, the player creates a character through the use of 100 or so word description, creating color that becomes narrative reality, exactly as you describe.

Hero Wars (and the upcoming Hero Quest) are completely different beasts than what you remember from the old days of the game.

Here's a link to lots of stuff about the game. You'll find the first three chapters of the Hero Wars rule book, which include character creation.  I think you'll see that someone dreamed your desires and published them.

http://www.glorantha.com/hw/index.html

Whether or not investing into three or four game books at this time is appropriate for you is another matter.  But I think you'll find the rules are exactly what you're looking for.

You'll find a whole chat board on Hero Wars on the Indie Game board below.

****

Also, if you really don't want to go the Glorantha route, you might want to check out Universalis.

In terms of world creation, character creation and what not, it too lines up with your desires.  The trick is, there's not one character per player.  In fact, there's no GM.  The whole group builds a tale by creating detail and negotiating what's important.  I played for the first time last week and it was amazing.  You might want to check it out.

You'll find more info on Universalis on the Indie board below as well.

Take care,
Christopher

[Green]

I still desire a game that has a rich setting, but my primary concern is that the setting be an aid in the achievement of narrative and the addressing of premise.  I also do not want the setting to be completely in the hands of the GM. Basically, what I want is a set of tools that will provide the players with both encouragement and actual power to shape the setting.  For example, suppose the genre we are aiming for is sword and sorcery.  After sketching out some initial setting details, I would like to be able to have the player not only determine the initial conflict that his or her character is embroiled in (a la a Kicker) but also contribute setting elements vis a vis the Kicker, and then have a role in shaping and refining those elements as a way of adding both color for its own sake and color that could later be used to generate further narrative.  Does this make sense?

I think I know where you are going with this, and from the looks of things, you seem like the ideal person to playtest the game I've created called Kathanaksaya.  You can get it here.  The rules and flavor text are there.  Right now I'm in the process of revision.  It'd be great to see if it works without me running it.

[Bruce Baugh]

In recent years I've turned on what was a gaming truism back when I started. The conventional wisdom about rich settings was that you should start with outsiders who will learn about the setting as they go. I find that I get better results when I tell my players that they should make characters who already know a bunch about a rich setting - they can draw on what they've read in books, online discussions, and the like, and if necessary I can demur about particular details. I don't have problems with my players slipping in inappropriate character knowledge, so this works just fine.

Might be worth considering.

[Thomas Tamblyn]

The evocative character of these three settings has always drawn me, although less for purposes of unbridled simulationism than because a certain constellation of elements within them seemed to provide interesting possibilities for narrative to happen. I know this is probably a bit vague, so let me make try to make it a little more clear. In Tekumel, for example, the byzantine complexity of the clan structure, religious allegiances, factions within those religions, social protocols and so forth always seemed to me to potentially provide players with a readily available set of conflicts, pull and push factors, concerns, and the like.

This part really drew my attention, since I think I know what you're talking about (tell me if I'm wrong of course).

I think you're looking for settings that have a very definite feel to them and - regardless of actual predefined detail, are full of hooks to get the characters doing stuff.

An example:  A problem that many games based on books/films have is that al the issues of the setting that  make it so compelling are resolved within the book/film.  The setting is rich, evocative and detailed but there's no really interesting hooks left.

As for the players not wanting to learna textbook before play, there are settings that don't require a lot of pre-reading but don't make further reading pointless (I agree with Bruce Baugh's point by the way).  Exalted springs to mind.  Apart from the setting's unique details, the world is basically made up of cliches.  In fact the wonderful thing about that setting (imho) is that it is designed solely to accept all the fantasy cliches.  (not to mention its large enough that you only have to deal with one bit at a time).

Finally - systems that accomplish what you want: The pool, Donjon (good for serious play as well as comedy), Sorcerer and Sword, OctaNe (though that isn't fantasy).

[John Kim]

In recent years I've turned on what was a gaming truism back when I started. The conventional wisdom about rich settings was that you should start with outsiders who will learn about the setting as they go. I find that I get better results when I tell my players that they should make characters who already know a bunch about a rich setting - they can draw on what they've read in books, online discussions, and the like, and if necessary I can demur about particular details.

Hmm.  Is the former such a truism?  Harn and Jorune both suggest starting with native characters.  I'm not sure about early Glorantha and Tekumel (I only have 3rd edition RuneQuest).  Still, it at least seems pretty divided.  I'm curious as to what you see as the contrast (natives vs outsiders).  I've done both: Water Uphill where the PCs were outsiders, and Vinland and others where the PCs were natives.  Offhand, I would tend to say that the more alien a world is, the better the "outsiders" approach works.  

Now, personally, I am tending to go with more familiar worlds -- I think mostly because they are less work.  Indeed, I feel that one of the nice things about my current Vinland game is that it uses familiar elements: vikings, Northeastern Indians like the Massachusetts and the Mohicans, and well-known places like Manhattan.  But it comes together with unfamiliar results.  

However, if one is willing to put in a lot of work, I do see an interest in alien worlds. But there are problems playing natives in such settings.  For example, I played in several campaigns set in T'ang dynasty China as natives, and it frequently felt awkward.  I don't think there is any simple fix which would make playing natives work.  It wasn't so much that I wasn't allowed to make up details -- but rather that I didn't feel comfortable making up details.  One of the interesting features about the campaigns was actual learning about the setting.

[Eric J-D]

Thanks to everyone for all the interesting suggestions about where to turn for systems that might support what I am looking for.

To Green:  I tried earlier today to connect to the link that you provided so I could check out your game, but the site seemed to be either down temporarily or there is a problem in the url.  I'll try again though.

To Christopher: I am pretty familiar with the ways that Hero Wars is a very different beast these days, and I have been very tempted to try it out and see what's under the hood.  Its only real limitation that I can see is that players are free at the character creation stage to introduce new and unusual things that the character might own, know, or do (e.g. Kallai's "Sack of Black Winds" and knowledge of "Six Cuts Silk," but introducing changes to the setting (such as new gods, etc.) seem a bit beyond its scope given Glorantha's already well detailed setting.  Still, it is definitely an option and as I said before, I like Glorantha.  Universalis sounds mighty appealing, although I imagine I might have a hard time selling the players on a system that moves them beyond their traditional identification with a single character.  I'll definitely check it out.  Thanks.

To Thomas: I am glad you mention Sorcerer and Sword.  I have been very tempted to pick up all three of Ron's books.  I know that in Sorcerer players are responsible for establishing conflict vis a vis the Kicker; does Sorcerer and Sword address the possibility of players contributing to the setting content?

I guess what it all comes down to is the fact that I love the whole concept of Kickers, of giving players that power and responsibility, and I would like to find a way to also give them the power to contribute to setting (either through Kickers or through some other means).

Thanks again everyone.

zhlubb

[Ron Edwards]

Hi zhlubb,

You wrote,

does Sorcerer and Sword address the possibility of players contributing to the setting content?

My conscience wrestled with my money-grubbing heart and lost, badly.

The answer is emphatically Yes - the whole supplement is based very explicitly on the idea that, since the pulp fantasy writers made up their settings piece by piece as they wrote their stories, so should pulp fantasy role-players.

The book provides a schematic or toolbox approach to integrating pre-play discussion, character creation, setting creation, and actual play in a way that I think is not paralleled by any other published RPG material.

Best,
Ron

[Eric J-D]

Hi Ron,

you wrote:

My conscience wrestled with my money-grubbing heart and lost, badly.


As well it should!  From everything that I have read and heard, your plug for (and deserved pride in) Sorcerer and Sword is one of the clearest cases of the absence of conflict that can exist between conscience and self-promotion.  

I am really gald to hear this.  It makes my decision to go forth and buy it, Sorcerer and Sorcerer's Soul all more obvious.  Browsing the Universalis site makes it pretty clear I will need to get that game too.
 
Thanks for all your help.

Cheers,

zhlubb

[Valamir]

As GM, I go with this and throw up some interesting complications that require resolution,

Hey Zhlubb, having just reread your post preceeding Christopher's above, I'd have to say that what you describe is not only possible in Universalis.  Its in fact, the best way to play it.  Simply substitute "another player" for "GM" in the above and you just described a typical play session.

[clehrich]

To make a plug of my own -- but not a very serious one -- my game Shadows in the Fog uses various tricks to create the effect I think you're looking for.

From my point of view, as the GM of those infamous T'ang China campaigns John is talking about, the problem is as he stated it: the players don't feel comfortable making things up.  So there are two dynamics at work, not one:

1. The GM is indicating that the world really hangs together, that it's got lots of detail and the GM will police them.  This must stop.
2. The players are indicating that they are not willing to risk looking/feeling stupid if they make things up.  This must stop.

So here's the solution, IMO: reward them for making it up.  Whatever resource is available in the game (dice, xp, lemon drops, etc.), hand it out when somebody Fakes It.  That is, when somebody just goes for broke and Walks the Walk and Talks the Talk, give him something.  Pretty soon somebody else will want some too, and will start Faking It as well.  Reward that person.

The hope is that soon, the bar will rise, because the group as a whole will do the policing in a positive way: that was awesome, that was pretty good, that was okay, etc.  So you just reward awesome with more than pretty good.  You also start pushing people to read up on the genre or whatever, so they have assistance for Faking It.

Check out Barry Hughart's The Bridge of Birds and its sequels.  Master Li is the ultimate master of Faking It.  What you want is for your players to make that stuff up off the cuff.

Now bear in mind, you'll need to be able to revise your setting at the drop of a hat.  You must not correct people when they Fake It well.  You have to live with it.  So when somebody suddenly comes out with

"And on the 13th day of the god Tez Hamun's dismemberment a solitary figure stumbled towards the gates of the ancient city of Setiroth, bearing in her arms the bundle of bloody rags and bones that had been her son and in her heart a burning hatred."

you must immdiately add the god Tez Hamun to the local pantheon or whatever, and scribble a note to self about dismemberment.  If you "correct" the player, you're back to policing, and Faking It will stop pretty much dead.

[Eric J-D]

Hi clehrich,

Now bear in mind, you'll need to be able to revise your setting at the drop of a hat. You must not correct people when they Fake It well. You have to live with it. So when somebody suddenly comes out with

Quote:
"And on the 13th day of the god Tez Hamun's dismemberment a solitary figure stumbled towards the gates of the ancient city of Setiroth, bearing in her arms the bundle of bloody rags and bones that had been her son and in her heart a burning hatred."
you must immdiately add the god Tez Hamun to the local pantheon or whatever, and scribble a note to self about dismemberment. If you "correct" the player, you're back to policing, and Faking It will stop pretty much dead.

You've hit the nail right on the head.  This is exactly what I am looking to do. Ron tells me that Sorcerer and Sword provides a great platform for exactly this type of thing and Universalis appears to work eclusively off of such imaginative contribution.  I'll check out your Shadows in the Fog too.  Thanks.

zhlubb

[Valamir]

Now bear in mind, you'll need to be able to revise your setting at the drop of a hat. You must not correct people when they Fake It well. You have to live with it. So when somebody suddenly comes out with

Is that perhaps stateing it too strongly?  Going with Walt's Stance and Power thread, are you really saying that the players have both the Stance and the Power to make it stick?  Even Universalis relies on the mutual consent of all player (assumed by default if noone challenges) before such a statement becomes carved in stone and the must live with it.

Or is that actually the intention behind SitF?