Setting vs Mechanics

[ZeOtter]

I have been reading post here on the Forge for a little while now. I noticed that 99% of the posts in this area of the forums talk about mechanics.

This got me thinking what are your views on this, is there even an argument? Which is more important for a game, the setting or the mechanics?

I would like to hear everyone's opinion on this and how you judge what is a good mechanic and/or setting.

[ZeOtter]

I didn't want to color the question posted in this thread with my feelings on the matter so I posted a reply to my post... ummmm yeah.

Anyway I think that setting is the more important of the two ingredients for a games success.  I really hate to admit this but... I hate reading mechanics sections in rule books.  I sneak off where no one can see me and read the world information first.  Then if the setting really interests me I give the mechanics a read.  

Please don't think that I feel mechanics are not important, they are.  I just happen to think that they are there for the soul purpose of helping you immerse you self farther in the setting.  An example would be the original version of Pinnacle's Deadlands, a game set in an alternate old West setting where players use a deck of cards and poker chips to resolve their game tasks.  I thought this was great, it really help everyone feel like they were in the old West and made things that much more interesting for the players.

On the other hand generic rules systems don't really support any one setting and make the mechanics "stick out" in my opinion.  I always feel like I am playing two different games when I play games like Steve Jackson's GURPS.  The game world you are exploring seems to fade when you are asked to roll dice and suddenly mechanics take over until the rolling is done.

There is my two cents on the matter, I still will never refuse a good RPG no matter what the system.  But I will always play favorites.

[Ben Morgan]

It's always a good thing when the mechanics complement the setting. Dust Devils takes the idea of using cards and kicks it up a couple of notches.

Personally, I've lately become more enamored of systems that focus on situation rather than setting. Sorcerer and Paladin are great examples of this. Take the core concepts of the game (either one), and build a setting around it.

Orbit is shaping up to be one of the first sci-fi "we're out in space" kind of games I'd actually want to get into. I'm a great fan of sci-fi in general, but sci-fi games always felt a bit cold to me.

It still amazes me when I read Orkworld. If I had one complaint about the game (other than the printing being screwed up, which has nothing to do with design quality), it's that the system still falls prey to some of those old assumptions that people make about RPGs. If I were to rewite it, I'd make the mechanics even simpler, and try to incorporate some kind of single-roll conflict resolution rather than roll initiative/roll attack/roll damage. But I'd leave all the setting material as is.

One of the things that I appreciate in a game is when there is room to maneuver in the setting material. It can even be something as simple as leaving the names off the map, so you can plug in countries and empires as you see fit.

I know a lot of people love love love Glorantha, but just the thought of that sheer wall of paper that is everything that's been written about the setting is a little daunting. I'll get into it someday, when I have the time.

-- Ben

[contracycle]

I think that setting and mechanisms should be very strongly mutually reinforcing.  I think that congruence between mechanics and setting goes a long way to establishing a coherent imaginative construct among all participants.

[Windthin]

I do not see you can have one without the other.  I have for a good five years or better played in a game where the system regularly changes; charactrers I have from five years ago are hardly recognizable as being from the system, and even ones from a year ago would not fit.  Likewise, we have played this game in many settings, through sundry campaigns.  And ultimately, each time we gather to play, it is a combination of the setting of the moment and the mechanics of the moment that make the game.  Mechanics tell a lot about what you want a game to do, but the setting is the living, breathing evidence of this, and allows the mechanics to due their duty.  They are not indistinguishable elements, but they are locked in a symbiotic relationship, each bouying up and supporting the other.

[Mike Holmes]

What Gareth said. It's how the system puts us into the setting that's important.

Let's say you read up on this cool cyberpunk world in which they described all sorts of hacking, and life in the cyber-universe, but the system had no rules for it. Instead all the rules were about vehicular combat. Would you still be as interested in the game as if there were good rules about hacking etc?

System Does Matter means that, given a "setting" concept about what play is going to entail, one system may be better than another at making that happen effectively.

If the answer above is that the "rules don't matter as long as the setting is cool," then I suggest you take a stab at freeform. Just drop the rules, and play the setting. But in that case, all you're saying is that the way you want to play, "no rules" is the best system.

It's not that one is more important than the other, it's how they work together that make for a good game.

Mike

[quozl]

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I like system.  To me, setting is only useful as an example of how to use the system.

[M. J. Young]

I find myself disagreeing with so many things in the original post; but some of that is because of what I have seen from so-called designers over the years.

I do a lot of design, and a great deal of that is setting; I put a lot into creating settings that are different, breaking the rules, pushing the envelope in one way or another. But I think setting is secondary.

I have seen so many people who have some setting idea that they're designing that goes on and on and either makes no sense to me or is so completely derivative that I'm not sure where it's different; then they think they're going to make a few tweaks to the mechanics of some ten to twenty year old game they know and have something original.

I don't really think that system is more important than setting. What I think is that setting is, pound for pound, easier than system--and although good setting is extremely difficult, good system is still harder.

I think if you can't do good system, one way or another, you probably shouldn't call yourself a game designer. Go write fiction; or write setting material for existing games. Both parts have to be well done; but too many people think that what they think is a great setting is all they need to write, and the system will just fall together without any effort, and the result is usually me wasting time trying not to hurt someone's feelings about his game.

That sounds a bit harsh, maybe, but I think system matters a lot more than many budding game designers imagine as they get all caught up in their marvelous settings.

--M. J. Young

[Jack Spencer Jr]

This got me thinking what are your views on this, is there even an argument? Which is more important for a game, the setting or the mechanics?

This is an awful lot like asking which is more important in a PBJ, the peanut butter or the jelly, isn't it?

Some people use high quality, fresh made peanut butter with the little jelly packets you can get from a restarant. Others use homemade high-quality jelly with cheap store brand peanut butter. Still others combine peanut butter and jelly which, regardless of their individual quality, blend together perfectly and make a unique taste that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Now if only we can get the right kind of bread.....

[Marco]

The bread is the artwork, the in-book fiction, and the marketing blurb on the back!
(I agree with Jack)

-Marco (breakin' the code)

[xechnao]

Setting is more important for the potential of creating products in the market. But each product is a game. And both setting and mechanics are important for a specific game. Star Wars, Star Trek, Middle Earth are settings whith many different products. Each product has its own mechanics that have to combine together with its setting to make the product the game it is.

To create and to judge a flawless setting for an individual at first glance is only a matter of personal taste. But to really judge a setting if it is flawless or not you have to study it in depth and the bigger it is the more you will have to do. The rest of it will allways be a matter of personal taste. So it is not so easy to be productive on public discussions about setting's flawlessness and pointless when it comes to taste. Pay attention that when the setting is too small the flaws will be seen at first glance so people won't bother a lot about it. Mechanics is just common language formulas. People discuss about the formulas if they can suppose that the setting is flawless to find out if the formulas have flaws or not. This happens because these formulas usually are enough complicated but also small enough to make a discussion easily attainable in a forum like this. This is why 99% of the posts around here deal with mechanics.

[ZeOtter]

I have read all the posts on this thread and am pleased with the responses.  Xechnao really hit the nail on the head with what I was trying to get at, here are the Forge a vast majority of the posts are about mechanics.  I also notice a lot of the posts are for generic game systems.

M. J. Young and Mike Holmes posts had some really good points about why mechanics are important and reminded me that a game is the sum of it's parts.

I think that writing good setting is both the "peanut butter and the jelly" of the game, while the mechanics are the "bread". To put it succinctly mechanics exist to resolve a conflict, the setting of a game creates the conflict in the first place.  Even generic game systems need to have a setting plugged into them or they mean nothing.  I think M.J's was to dismissive when he said:

I think if you can't do good system, one way or another, you probably shouldn't call yourself a game designer. Go write fiction; or write setting material for existing games.

I agree that a bad set of game mechanics can ruin a game, but only a good game designer can create a setting with the kind of conflict a game needs to make it a great game. I also agree that creating mechanics are extremely difficult, but I don't think that is a qualification that makes them more important than setting.  A car engine is harder to build then a set of tires but you still aren't going anywhere without the tires.

I am not trying to belittle the work done on mechanics, they are important and a good game cannot exists without well designed mechanics.  In my own humble opinion I think that mechanics support and enhance setting.  Of course I have to admit that there are exceptions, namely The Riddle of Steel leaps to mind, but again in my opinion games like these are exceptions not the norm.

I also agree with what Xechnao said about the fact that in this forum talking about mechanics are easier than setting, but does it have to be that way?  Any gamer I have ever met can recognize the formula for a good setting, is there enough conflict and / or intrigue to involve the players over long campaigns.  Is there enough variety of different types of players occupations to revisit the setting again, and again.  How many layers of the game world do the players have to delve into.  Do your mechanics support the setting, will they cover the unique conflicts that your setting can create?

I really think that creating game settings is vastly different than writing fiction, simply because a game designer has to create a world where characters will make there own decisions independent of the author.  In fiction the author has complete control of not only the setting but the characters themselves and I don't think most authors would be equipped to handle characters running amok in their settings.

There is of course no definitive answers to this question but there are plenty of opinions and I am still very interested in hearing them.

[Valamir]

There is of course no definitive answers to this question but there are plenty of opinions and I am still very interested in hearing them.

Well, I'll give you mine.

I hate setting.  Or to be more specific, I hate setting that is just that...setting, and nothing more.  Most settings are basically an encyclopedia of world info and about as interesting to read.  Rarely do I ever manage to completely read the "setting section" without falling a sleep.  Call me crazy but most writers of setting aren't nearly as creative, original, or interesting as they seem to think they are.

What does interest me is situation.  Situation is the confluence of setting plus characters plus catalyst.  That is interesting and exciting to me.  That can get me pumped to play.

What this means is that 90% of all setting info is horrifically unnecessary.  Situation, by definition, is personal.  Its about the characters, who they interact with, and what's going on...right then.  If the situation is a prince who's clandestinely in love with a scullery maid whose brother has been accused of murder...I don't need 20 pages on the history of the world, or a climate breakdown of the entire continent.  I need details.  Details of the castle and the people who live in it...the kind of details that are almost always absent (or so high level to be less than useful) in most setting chapters.

You get 14 pages on the great war between these guys and those guys that occured 1000 years ago, but no information on the social structure of my character's village.  Which is ultimately most useful to actual play and which is largely a giant masturbatory exercise?

World of Darkness ALMOST did it for me.  I fanatically collected every 1st ed Vampire book that came out.  WoD was chock freaking full of situation.  Unfortuneatly, ultimately it was all someone elses situation, leaving the PCs with the least interesting bits.

[Ben Lehman]

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I like system.  To me, setting is only useful as an example of how to use the system.

BL>  Let me just highlight this and say that I agree.  I never, ever, run canned settings except as parody or one-offs.  Ever.  I can design a campaign setting in my sleep.  In fact, I have.

So all I'm looking for in an RPG is appropriate mechanics, and ideas (and, in some VERY good books, reference.)  Mostly mechanics.

(That said, I also tend to screw about with mechanics, but that's more adjustment than wholesale invention.)

yrs--
--Ben

[damion]

As many people mentioned, both setting and mechanics are necessary for a good game.  I think the relative difficulty of each depends on the personality of the designer.  I.e. some people are better at making mechanics and some people are better at making settings. (Why I've never designed a game. Can't make a worthwhile setting, even when it sounds good on paper).   People have been writing stories for a long time, so there is plenty of inspiration, while people have only been
making RPG mechanics for a few decades. Of course that makes creating a setting that 'pushes the envelope' harder.