detailed settings? nah.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

from Atkins-Friendly RPGs (Shooting Cows Part II)

It is an interesting setting, not a detailed one, that is a plus. Detail does not correlate with interesting, either.

If I read you right, Shreyas, you're saying that detail and interest are not necessarily connected.  This I'd agree with.  But I do think that a tremendously detailed and complex setting can be a plus.  

This gives me pause. What is meant here? Do we mean detailed? No. We mean exotic. Something different from the world we already live in.

Is this off base?

[clehrich]

Jack,

I'm confused.  I meant detailed.  The discussion, as I read it, was about whether settings with enormous detail were in general positive or negative, based on Jonathan's point that length (which often arises from very detailed settings) might not be a great idea in all cases.  

The point I was trying to make is that sometimes exceedingly fine detail supports interest, which hadn't been generally agreed, and the example I proposed was from our world (albeit some couple of centuries back).  My example was intended to point out that huge amounts of detail can, in some cases, create a very interesting setting.  Whether the setting is "exotic" or not seems to me a totally different question.  For example, I could write up a completely modern setting that also has lots and lots of detail, but where the detail wouldn't be pointless but rather relevant to the game.

Can you clarify why you think this is about "exotic" rather than "detailed"?

Chris Lehrich

[Mike Holmes]

I think we're talking about the amount of information that comprises the setting as presented. I don't really see a problem with too much setting in most cases - you can always ignore some of it (no, I am not contradicting my HQ post on Glorantha here, that was personal).

OTOH, I think that, perhaps, there's a lot of room for games to better incorporate all the information that's contained in them. Rather than having the GM having to read it all, and be the font of all knowledge for a game, I think that possibly there are better ways to get setting detail to emerge in a game. Ways that take less effort, and are more interesting to play.

Mike

[neelk]

from Atkins-Friendly RPGs (Shooting Cows Part II)

It is an interesting setting, not a detailed one, that is a plus. Detail does not correlate with interesting, either.

If I read you right, Shreyas, you're saying that detail and interest are not necessarily connected.  This I'd agree with.  But I do think that a tremendously detailed and complex setting can be a plus.  

This gives me pause. What is meant here? Do we mean detailed? No. We mean exotic. Something different from the world we already live in.

Is this off base?

I think you're definitely off base; useful detail is not necessarily exotic! For example, I set a lot of the games I run in the nominal modern day -- this gives players a lot of accessible detail without requiring them to learn a whole lot about the game world. So if someone's PC says "all your base are belong to us", then the other players will know that the character is making a reference to a catchphrase current in a particular subculture, and can easily react in some fashion appropriate to their characters. If a character in a fantasy game with an "undetailed setting" makes a comment about the Queen's black cats, then the players won't usually be able to tell if it's an inside joke, a reference to common knowledge they don't have but their characters do, or a subcultural reference within the setting (which their PCs might or might not know).

That's why telephone-book settings can be fun -- once the players have learned the details of the setting (ie, made it accessible in the group), they have a common language of detail that's not directly connected to the real world, which permits the players to strengthen the game world's artistic integrity.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

For example, I set a lot of the games I run in the nominal modern day -- this gives players a lot of accessible detail without requiring them to learn a whole lot about the game world.

Actually, this illustrates pretty well what I was getting at. I don't know how much setting detail is included in d20 Modern, but I'll wager not much. So settings that are detailed in the book are exotic. Exotic meaning not where we already live.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I suggest that people who are interested in the more general issue of setting should check out Role of setting, and that this thread remain focused on Jack's specific point.

Best,
Ron

[Dav]

I feel that exotic is primarily defined as "something the average reader would not have thought about or discovered on their own".  I also agree that the more detail a setting has, the less interesting it tends to be (there are exceptions, but few).  For instance, a game such as Star Wars is largely pointless to me, as it already has everything "figured-out"... I'm not needed as either player or GM.

Games with a good hook, and a general setting concept are very interesting, however, as they allow me to peruse the material and then say "bingo! THIS is what the game is about".  Largely, setting is just that: setting.  It is the reason for the game that intrigues me.  Unless the system supports the setting, the setting largely becomes a mutable object to me.

Dav

[neelk]

For example, I set a lot of the games I run in the nominal modern day -- this gives players a lot of accessible detail without requiring them to learn a whole lot about the game world.

Actually, this illustrates pretty well what I was getting at. I don't know how much setting detail is included in d20 Modern, but I'll wager not much. So settings that are detailed in the book are exotic. Exotic meaning not where we already live.

I guess I don't understand what you mean by exotic then. Games like Nobilis, the WoD, and Kult have extremely intricate and complex settings, but since they all contain the modern day -- where we already live -- you would not count them as exotic, right? Personally, I think of them all as exotic settings that have particularly simple ways for a player to run a character at the same time they are learning the ins and outs of the setting, without the inevitable missteps marring the aesthetic integrity of the setting. By way of contrast, settings like Harn, Middle-Earth, or Tekumel have detailed settings too, but it's harder to come up with viable characters who permit the players to easily rationalize mistakes the player made, since most PCs begin with the assumption that they are all fully enculturated. I imagine that's one of the reasons that "modern-day humans sucked into a fantasy dimension" scenarios are popular -- the players can learn the setting at the same rate the characters do. (And in fact, hidden-world fantasies like Nobilis can be seem as a different way of pulling the same trick.)

[Dav]

Neelk:

The WoD is, to my mind, a piss-poor example of exotic.  On the other hand, the Metropolis aspect of Kult is an excellent example of an exotic setting... and sparse enough with critical detail to allow characters to fit where they may (at least in 1st edition... the later editions I largely refuse to acknowledge, so they may or may not apply).

WoD, however, has only the most superficial of exotic settings... the Hall of Mirrors, and much of the alternate worlds of Mage, some of Wraith's netherworld (or whatever they called it, too long ago).  But Vampire, Werewolf (even the Umbra is rather ho-hum), these areas of the WoD are rather mundane.  

Dav

[clehrich]

Actually, this illustrates pretty well what I was getting at. I don't know how much setting detail is included in d20 Modern, but I'll wager not much. So settings that are detailed in the book are exotic. Exotic meaning not where we already live.

But Jack, the "traditional" modern-setting game includes lots of gun information, combat stats, and whatnot.  In that sense, it's pretty exotic -- I don't do these things in real life.  And which cars are faster, and why?  Some people know these things, but I don't.  I mean, how exotic does it have to be to be exotic?  Let's suppose, hypothetically, that you wanted a game set in John le Carre's universe, back in the days of the Circus (the Smiley books).  The detail of this universe is extreme, and very very important.  Simply saying, "Oh, well, it's modern-day" doesn't cut it.  So I'm still confused on why you want to shift terms to exotic; seems to me that detail and its quantity is still the issue.

Chris Lehrich

[M. J. Young]

I feel that exotic is primarily defined as "something the average reader would not have thought about or discovered on their own".

This struck a chord with me, because we wrote something very like this as our justification for our World books: we are dedicated to trying to create settings the referee can use, and particularly which he might not be able to devise on his own. We try to include things that are "out there" somewhere, putting ideas together that have not been together elsewhere, as well as doing the legwork on other ideas that are popular but require a lot of prep work.

An example of the first would be something like NagaWorld, which is so completely alien that nothing looks ordinary, and even when you think you know what things are, you're probably wrong.

For the second, our Sherwood Forest scenario manages to pack a fairly complete political view of Europe along with the necessary detail to deal with the local conflict into a few pages; it gives the referee information that might otherwise take hours of research and reading, at his fingertips.

I also agree that the more detail a setting has, the less interesting it tends to be (there are exceptions, but few).  For instance, a game such as Star Wars is largely pointless to me, as it already has everything "figured-out"... I'm not needed as either player or GM.

Dav, I think you're confusing the amount of detail with the degree to which the world is "resolved" and "known". I would love to explore places like Talislanta or Glorantha as a player character, discovering what's there; but if it's necessary for me to read about it all in advance in order to be a player in the game, my interest drops precipitously.

With Star Wars, the problem isn't that there's a lot of detail, but that there isn't much that matters outside the plot of the movies.

The problem isn't how much detail there is, but whether there is a reason to explore within that detail.

--M. J. Young

[clehrich]

With Star Wars, the problem isn't that there's a lot of detail, but that there isn't much that matters outside the plot of the movies.

Exactly.  If you set a Star Wars game (forgetting the horror of the recent films) a few years before A New Hope, there's lots of cool stuff you can do.  Nothing is really decided, because all you really know is that eventually there's going to be this big rebellion and whatnot.  And yes, maybe that plot is on the horizon, but how important is it really?

I played in a very brief Star Wars campaign in which we were all supposed to be Imperial military personnel who were secretly traitors and loyal to the rebellion.  Things got stupid fast, because the printed adventure from which the GM was running sucked on toast, and then I proposed that we should actually switch sides back and go with the Empire.  I mean, they didn't seem half bad, and besides they were at least vaguely competent.  Suddenly the whole game took a drastic shift, and things got cool.

The first Jedi Knight video game actually did this rather well, I thought, in that they used all the cool stuff from the films but skipped over the whole plot entirely, until Kyle Katarn or whatever became a really, really powerful Jedi hero in his own right.

Detail is good if you don't feel simultaneously wedded to a set plot.  This is why I hate WoD: the plot and the "sides" are all set and you can't break them.  But a very detailed setting without such things would be fun to explore.

Chris Lehrich

[Dav]

M.J.:

"Dav, I think you're confusing the amount of detail with the degree to which the world is "resolved" and "known". "

You make an excellent point.  I did and will endeavor not to from this point forward.

Dav