I recently had an insight in regards to making good worlds, and not just fantasy world. What I'm gonna talk about might be obvious to some of you, but considering a lot of commercial games has this wrong I can't be the only one who hasn't been thinking enough about this.

What I decided to make a world for my game I sat down, drew a map, thought of some neat countries, wrote up some basic history...

I had the basic premise of the game thought out of course. What kind of geography, what kind of tech-level, monsters, magic, all that stuff I had already decided on.

It was just the task of creating a world which incorporated all those neat ideas. And so I tried, and then I scrapped that idea, and then I tried again and found it still wasn't good enough, it still wasn't reflecting my premise.

A friend of mine kept asking what kind of adventures I would run and stuff like that, and I waved some general concepts at him. Despite reading up on the world he said he didn't know what adventures one would make.

I simply thought that was because I hadn't conveyed the basic premise of the game enough, and the world was not very detailed.

Later I made a short adventure to GM. It wasn't a typical adventure in my world, instead the players were children who had to flee when an evil army attacked their village.

The fact that I had to set up a major plot involving wars between countries (affecting the world I had constructed so far) didn't strike me as odd at the time.

Only a few days ago I had an insight though. Call me slow-witted but at least I figured it out.

I had made a world which wasn't really for adventuring. Sure, I had wilderness with lost temples and stuff, but those were hard to find. To set up any adventure the GM would have to create a complex plot to motivate the anyone employing them for such a mission (if the GM wanted to stick with the created world).

In such a world, why would there be adventurers at all? It didn't make sense.

I realized that, and also figured out the way out. To let the kingdoms of the world to be locked in a war that already lasted a hundred years (following a brief period of time when the "whole world" was united under a single ruler.
That would give me a lot of abandoned towns, little infrastructure and so on. Monsters could prowl the lands because armies were busy waging wars rather than protecting people.
It would be a world where people who stood up for what they believed in could be heroes. Adventures suddenly became obvious. I could think up standard adventures each which could have a hundred variations.

For example the basic: "You come to a town oppressed by x, the villagers plead with you to destroy x for a small monetary compensation (but there is a promise of maybe finding x's treasure as well)".

You could run that scenario in any game of course, but how many times can you do it until it becomes unreasonable.

So anyway, now I'm thinking of just produce a setting, maybe detail a small small kingdom where the adventurers can start their careers.
More kingdoms, villages and places can easily be added by the GM without risking that they be overruled by later world supplements because the world is so big and the "known areas" are so few. It would be a world where the GM has the chance to build his own campaign and come up with a new kingdom just because it would be convenient for his/her next adventure.

That, however would be in sharp contrast to many games out there which produces more and more detail, practically forcing the GM to only play within the pieces of the world described by the appropriate supplements or risk running into all too many contradictions.

I think even a "Map of the World" is a really a thing one might want to avoid.

If I make a game which is has a lot of background on races, gods, magic, stuff like that, but only a brief sketch of a kingdom, would that work? The GM should be able to pattern his towns and villages from those already described fairly easily I hope.
And then further supplements would only be adventures, but the adventures would provide a lot of setting (the feeling should be: "oh this adventure is set in the town of xxx, if I don't like the adventure I can always use the town for my own adventures because it's fairly detailed. It can also be moved around a little so it fits with the geography my players already have discovered")

Do you think this works?

Cause I've been struck by how difficult it can be to figure out adventures in Shadowrun (to take an easy example) no matter how many sourcebooks you have. You got more detail, but all that detail does is really restricting you.

This is not really limited to world building. If you think about the same thing in a "political intrigue"-setting, there are again two options: Describing all important political figures, leaving the details (and the unimportant players) to be worked out by the GM, or only give a pretty solid look at a part of the the scene (including less important NPC) and provide a lot of room for the GM to work out his/her own important NPCs without having to worry how such additions break the complex weave of intrigue the sourcebook (or whatever) describes.

Or to put it a little differently: Does the GM need to rip up the world to put in his/her own adventures, or is the GM encouraged to add to the world?

I think your major issue in setting up the premise of your game is setting conflict. You can come up with a world full of detail, but there isn't a reason really to go do anything. Conflict is what draws people in, makes them care, makes them want to play. Whitewolf has become a marketing master at doing this with Clans, Tribes, Traditions, etc.

Do you always need a cliquish political squabble to create conflict? No, look at Star Wars, there's two sides, and one ain't good. Sorcerer focuses the conflict into an internal one "How far will you go?" Conflict doesn't always have to have a choice, just look at how far the setting of Warhammer 40 K has taken it. You just need to have 2 or more forces, ideals, concepts, groups, or somethings in conflict, and the players have to take a side.

So you have political conflict in your game world, why should we care for one side or another? You need to seed the setting with conflict, regardless of the size of the setting. Over the Edge is focused on a tiny banana republic island country, and really just about one city. In movies, Dark City is a tiny city in space, and the Neverending story is about the destruction of an entire dimension. In conflict, truly, size doesn't matter, its what you do with it.

Chris

What you refer to and what Chris elucidates is exactlly what we call premise around here. Not, what are the characters? But, what do the characters do? More games actually have it than don't, actually.

In MageBlade, you've been looking at "What's it like to be a Mage?". Well the reason people have been telling you to focus is that is too much like the first question (who are you) and not enough like the second (what do you do). (We could call this the Sorensen dichotomy)

This is yet another reason why I said that your setting was generic. Your solution was to have a war torn fantasy land so that there can be monsters about, and political conflict. Have you ever looked at EarthDawn? Lesse, it's a game world where everyone has magic, and the peoples have just emerged from hiding from demonic terrors which ravaged the land for a long time. So there are lots of new burgeoning political conflicts about the power vacuums, and lots of ruins to explore, and people to help be rid of the demons that still haunt the land in places.

Sound familiar?

Orkworld is about the conflict of men and orks, taken from the Orkish perspective. Fading Suns is about political conflict in the shadow of cosmological failure. The first edition of Traveler had the problem you described, so they made a second edition that included a titanic political rebellion. And then other conflicts in later editions. Glorantha (Runequest, Hero Wars) is a fantasy world defined by conflicting politics and parallel myth. Talislanta is a fantastic world defined by the clash of a zillion cultures and races. Pendragon is about complications of the lives of Arthurian Knights brought about by their own internal virtues. I could go on all day.

Even in many games without an obvious conflict for the players there is still a good layout for what they are supposed to do. InSpectres is layed out so carefully, that you'd have to be playing another game entirely to not know what to do. Same with Whispering Vault, in a more serious vein. These games provide the "what to do" through game structure. Even primitive Call of Cthulhu makes it pretty obvious what the players will be doing by the sample adventures and text (if not always giving them a good reason why the characters are involved).

Other than structure and conflict, there are probably other methods as well of defining what the characters will be doing in a particular game. Even D&D through it's reward mechanics makes sure that we understand that the premise of the game is all about killing and power climbing.

So, you are right, essentially. You've hit on one of the main tools that we use to design games around here, and one that is used in most games, IMO.

Mike

Congrats, Pale, on stumbling across several techniques that are generally considered "advanced" in the world of rpgs.

Making a sketch of a map without much detail, and just working out the arena the PCs start in, is exactly how it's done in Sorcerer & Sword. I personally am taking that a step further in an online game that's in the pre-run stages right now, where the players are also detailing the world right along with me. This way, I know they'll find at least some of the cultures, kingdoms, species, and so forth interesting, since they designed them. (They're experienced players, so it's easier, though I don't know why it wouldn't work for any players that happen to also enjoy world-building.)

I wouldn't get discouraged too much that your setting resembles others, at least not if it's meant mainly for you to play in, and not for publication. Even so, as Mike has pointed out, a lot of published settings are quite similar, for the exact reason you mentioned--people need something to do. Not only do they need to be able to act, they should be compelled to act--not railroaded into doing some particular thing, but the situation should be one that doesn't really allow the characters to just sit around.

I've been reading Lajos Egri's The Art of Dramatic Writing lately. While it's a bit old-fashioned, I find a lot of its advice worthwhile. He focuses on the other side, characters, and claims that they are the primary force--without characters who are up to handling and driving the conflicts that make a story, nothing can happen. I think this goes for designing factions in a fantasy game too--they should have driving goals, things they are willing to struggle for that are more important to them than anything else. So, the Drajkar Empire isn't motivated just by typical greed--they must crush the Varg tribal lands because their Gods have charged them with a holy mission to spread benevolent civilization and give peace to the world at last. And the Vargs aren't merely resisting--they're carrying on their fight to regain their ancient territories where their ancestors are buried. Etc.

So, you do end up with a very common situation: everything is about to change. Every faction is deeply invested in their goals, and none of these goals is compatible (at least not fully) with the other factions' goals. They will not allow the PCs, once the PCs have any power anyway, to remain neutral. This is meaty stuff, and that is why it's so common, not just in RPGs but literature generally.

All that said, "the world is about to change forever, countries are at war, and the Gods walk the Earth again!--what will you do" is getting a little tired, maybe. There are many, many other kinds of conflict, and I don't just mean the genteel court conspiracies that are the other fantasy RPG stereotype. Check out fantasy literature from before AD&D made it all so factory standard• , and check out those few books that have avoided the taint. I really enjoyed Tanith Lee's Night's Master (from Sorcerer & Sword's bibliography, thanks Ron!). It has some vague countries, but the main conflicts are personal ones involving demons and the king of demons himself. Larry Niven wrote a book called The Magic Goes Away where, well, the magic is, ah, going away. It's running out and the world is scrabbling like mad trying to figure out how to hoard it, cope with its lack, try to get it to come back, etc. Gene Wolfe's Torturer series is simply amazing for fantasy of gigantically epic scope with very strange cultures and a sense of history that is truly vast.

I hope this all is somewhat helpful to you and that you have a good game, however you decide you want to design the setting.

--JB

• That's not really fair, actually. I should say, "AD&D and major publishers' 'thinking' around genre."

Pale Fire brings up a very good point with this thread. I have been basing my world building efforts off of various patterns.. If you've ever read the Rivan Codex, David Eddings details the steps and processes he went through to create the world of the Belgariad and Malloreon. The world is believable and consistent.. You can imagine what a Cherek warrior or a Drasnian Sp- err, Merchant would be like, or a Mallorean Legionaire, or even a Nyissan trader. So I was using his guidelines in part... Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Admittedly the plot of his stories are formulaic, but he doesn't deny this, and plainly states the formula he used, and how he adapted it.
Another influence for my world is Lyran Tal, the setting where I roleplay on AOL. The setting is very rich, but it wasn't always that way. Once upon a time it was a much more skeletal setting, with only concepts waiting to be developed.. Then the players and writers came, and Lyran Tal has 4 years of reality built up.
Yet another influence, (if you can call it that) is a template someone had for describing a land in detail. Some might say ridiculous detail, but it was what I was using to describe each and every of the 11 regions of Tuathinsul.
This thread and the comments made thus far have made me realize a few things.. There is potential for conflict, but at present, the conflict is mostly small-time. I need to make sure that conflicts of all shapes and sizes are richly available in the setting, without making the setting just a powderkeg. In the still-developmental stages that I'm in, I am in a keen position to do just that. If I keep what I have, and add a bit more potential without changing everything, I hopefully will achieve the desired effect.
Another realization I had is that sometimes, too much detail is a bad thing. While some might like to know that exactly three days north of the Capitol, they'll be within the lands of Baron Whosthatguy, many will prefer a much more flexible setting. The template I am using will be pared down to reflect this.

Finally... I used elves, dwarves and orcs (and a race which I later found out was similar to Draconians, called Drakken) because I *like* the fantasy races, and so do many others. Could the setting be ported to D&D? Probably, though conversion of the Magic Schools and the spells associated with them would take considerable time. The point is though is that the system reflects exactly the magic rich environment present in Tuathinsul, with the elemental connections, the different types of Magi (one of the rulers is a Null) etc.
If someone wants to use the typical fantasy races, *I* say that's perfectly fine. Just make sure the setting fits the system well enough to make it worthwhile. Though, as a caveat, one shouldn't use the typical races because you just want other races, or because "everyone else does".

In order to be successful beyond personal use, Mage Blade and any other new fantasy system is going to have to break the envelope and offer something that d20 can't. I don't mean just a new way to serve eggs aka a different way to cast spells or manipulate points on a character sheet. Its going to need to be unique at the core, not just the surface and the best way to start that is to offer a novel Premise. But even that isn't going to be enough, because if you look at the list Ron offered a couple posts up, even really well crafted fantasy games with novel and inspiring Premises have had a tough time competing in the market.

I almost think that the best way to create a stellar, well-received fantasy RPG is hook everyone on the world not just by doing a kickass job world-building, but by publishing novels that acquire their own following, and then offer that same audience the RPG. Talk about massive work for minimal reward though- and its as hard or harder to get fantasy novels published as RPGs, particularly novels that are going to acquire the critical mass to support an RPG. Wheel of Time d20 is going to be supported (well or poorly) by Wheel of Time novel fans. If it was released just as a new fantasy world without a prior fanbase, I don't think it would have much hope of catching on. Not because its not a highly developed, well-thought out, well assembled fantasy world, but because people who love high fantasy RPGing are pretty comfortable either playing with worlds they know or worlds they've self-created or are in the process of creating. What can you sell the buyers who already have everything they want?

When creating a Fantasy RPG that's meant for distribution to other folks you need to give them something they don't have. Right now everyone has high-magic worlds, for example. One of the reasons d20 is doing so well is that you can play a non-magic god if you want. More than that, though, the world isn't enough. L5R and 7th sea did well largely because they were different. I bought L5R because I wanted to play a samurai, and none of the systems I had at the time catered to that as far as system and mechanics went. Sure, I could do a GURPS samurai thing, but it would lack the system-based atomosphere. It's like Deadlands...best damn system-supported atomosphere I ever saw. You felt like you were in the old west, with poker cards and chips and those dang cool character sheets.

But then there were the problems. L5R wasn't Akira Kurosawa, it was John Wick, and there were mages and a land-based (not island-based) empire, and the shadowlands, and all kinds of really cool stuff that wasn't what made me buy the game. All the clans drove me nuts. I just wanted to play a normal frikkin' samurai in normal frikkin' Japan. When I GMed I played the magic down as much as I could, but there's always that one guy that "wants to play a mage." Deadlands was the same thing. It was the wild west meets X-files meets the twilight zone, and as cool as it was, I struggled to re-inact the Good the Bad and The Ugly.

So when I put together Weyrth and The Riddle of Steel I thought hard about why I even played FRPGs to begin with, and what would make mine different. So I built a pretty normal, believable world and worked on having the best-researched, fastest-moving, highest-detail combat and magic out there. I wanted to play Mad Martigan and Merlin...not Caramon and Raistlin! If you create the game to serve what you, as a player, love to play, then that passion will be evident in your game, your world, and your system/mechanics.

Worlds are a dime-a-dozen. I'll admit it, and as much as I love my game world, I know that most GMs love theirs. I thought the comments on Shadowrun's seattle and over-detailing of game worlds were excellent (I, too think the best way to start a campain is little, and draw the map as the characters move through it...like a dungeon crawl in the days of graph-paper). Unless your world is really something new (which is very hard to accomplish nowadays) then no one will notice. And if they do notice, then a detailed "special" world will only appeal to those that "always wanted to mix the old west with x-files..." an (unfortunately?) limited audience. Otherwise, without a system or other innovative idea that allows players to re-enact their favorite book/movie/comic/bedtime story your product won't stick out, and all its quality will get left behind.

Wow...I just ranted there, didn't I?

Jake Norwood
Driftwood Publishing
www.theriddleofsteel.com

But it was a great rant, Jake, and I agree with every word. I highly recommend putting it in big letters on the Riddle of Steel website - not kidding

Recommendation #1: Sorcerer & Sword, my first supplement for Sorcerer - the book that brought "build your world through play" explicitly back into fantasy role-playing. (Yes, this is ego, but Sword is the one RPG thing I've written that has my guts on the page.)

Recommendation #2: Dust Devils, by Matt Snyder, which I'm playing right now. It's linked through the Resource Library, or if not, via a link or two at Indie Design. Costs less than Sword (ie it's free).

Regarding your final comments, I'll take it a step further - the goal, for me anyway, is not a matter of re-enacting so much as providing tools for creation that might - even - surpass the inspirational material.

Best,
Ron

Mike Holmes wrote: This is yet another reason why I said that your setting was generic. Your solution was to have a war torn fantasy land so that there can be monsters about, and political conflict. Have you ever looked at EarthDawn? Lesse, it's a game world where everyone has magic, and the peoples have just emerged from hiding from demonic terrors which ravaged the land for a long time. So there are lots of new burgeoning political conflicts about the power vacuums, and lots of ruins to explore, and people to help be rid of the demons that still haunt the land in places.

J B Bell wrote: Check out fantasy literature from before AD&D made it all so factory standard• , and check out those few books that have avoided the taint.

Pale Fire wrote:
Our GM had us start (as most of us weren't very familiar with the game) as nobodies living in a small village in the outskirts of anything.

Sounds like a good idea, right? I had had the ED rulebook for a few years and I knew most of that material.

He did all he could, writing short stories to introduce us to stuff in the world and getting other stuff for us to read to get into the feeling of ED.

Depite all that, and despite him being a usually excellent GM (and he's GMed ED before many times, just not with us), we didn't catch on to anything about the world.

I agree with palefire on this one. I've been reading the Wheel of Time for about a year now, on and off, and I never finished the last one...RJ is another topic, I suppose, but after going back and re-reading LOTR I just decided that too much of it was the same...I've been reading a lot of Polish Fantasy lately (Andrzej Sapkowski...I'm hoping to get the US rights to his stuff so I can make a Riddle of Steel book for it, 'cause DAMN its cool). The Poles have enough rich legends and history to really be somthing great.

Go back and read the stuff that started it...Tolkien (duh), Howard, Moorcock, the Brothers Grimm, Malory, yada yada yada...that stuff has lasted a long time for a reason. Campbell's book "the Hero with a thousand faces" (often cited as a major Star Wars inspiration) is a good one, too.

Dragonlance was (and is) fun, but another Krynn isn't going to capture anyone when they can have the original. It's like all those imitation animated movies that always follow behind disney movies, or the Hercules and Xena wanna-be shows...they just didn't work.

Jake Norwood
Driftwood Publishing
www.theriddleofsteel.com

contracycle wrote:
What exactly was the problem you ran in to? I mean, you read the book, the GM put in work, but you still were not happy - what was missing from your perspective?

And why did it take you 10 games to come to the conclusion that something was wrong - was this not visible earlier?

I think the problem is probabaly sometyhing totally different, like style clash. I doubt a a world rewrite would solve the problem.

Pale Fire wrote:
Earthdawn is not your conventional world. There are a lot of odd things,

Reading the rulebook I often get a feeling that they came up with a whole bunch of new and interesting ideas to put in a fantasy game but never really bothered to figure out how it would REALLY affect the society. Like

Why would ANYTHING be similar to europe in medival times?

Everything could be different and the only way of knowing for sure is to read every sourcebook there is.

contracycle wrote:

Pale Fire wrote:
Reading the rulebook I often get a feeling that they came up with a whole bunch of new and interesting ideas to put in a fantasy game but never really bothered to figure out how it would REALLY affect the society. Like

I think that is quite visibly, even ostentatiously, the case.
Was there some reason that you were expecting the world to be in some way realistic?

I don' know - why were you expecting it to be like mediaeval times? I do not recall ED ever billing itself as a historical sim.

Everything could be different and the only way of knowing for sure is to read every sourcebook there is.

Different to WHAT? You mean, different to AD&D, don' you?

Pale Fire wrote:
Yes, for some reason I expect things to MAKE SENSE. I find it hard to understand how to visualize the world and understand it's mindset otherwise.

No, but it's supposed to be fantasy, isn't it? Then I expect to either:
a) be told how the world works in general
or
b) be told of the specifics where the world differs in from standard fantasy

You seem to say it's quite ok to present a setting without actually bothering to explain 75% of it. I don't know if I think it's fun to need to retcon half a campaign just to be able to use the new sourcebook.

I'd define standard fantasy as defined losely by a medival (or earlier) european setting (culture, technology, and so on) where magic exists in some form or the other.

PF,

the idea of Standard Fantasy was brought about by D&D, including much of the fantasy literature (a point which Ron has already made). They stole from Tolkien, and since then, the "Standard" in fantasy has been Elves, Dwarves, Wizards, little people, and Orcs. Consider for a moment that the idea of orcs as a separate race comes from a misreading of Tolkien. Orcs and goblins in Middle Earth are the same thing. Goblin is the human term, orc is an elvish term. For the same thing. Tolkien invented the elvish language and the word orc. Then D&D gets a hold of it, and suddenly they are two different things.

So, oddly, now, you have all sorts of games with orcs in them (some, like Earthdawn without any goblins). So why should we ascribe to this "standard fantasy" that was produced by D&D? Because people will recognize it? OK, but then you'll get as much milage from that in introducing a premise to your game as D&D does. Very little.

I agree with you that the Premise of Earthdawn may be imperfect, or not well related. But since your setting seems identical to me in terms of premise, that's damning your own game. This is exactly the problem that we've been talking about. You are right, it's all in the execution of the premise. I didn't figure that I had to mention that the premise should be good, but, now that you mention it, why yes, I agree. And most around here agree that premise is at least as well introduced through elements other than setting (if not better). System, most notably.

So, OK, you have a Standard Fantasy world, fine. Obviously that doesn't help your premise. What are you going to do to make your premise a good one?

Mike

I can see what Pale Fire is getting at. It's the whole idea of genre, in the meaning that Ron likes to avoid. "Standard Fantasy" is a genre. Fantasy has evolved far from Standard Fantasy, but unless there is detail to let us know how a particular setting differs, it's going to clash with our preconceived notions of Fantasy.
I don't know whether or not Earth Dawn does this. I've never read the books, having figured that the 6th World (Shadowrun) was good enough for me. (For those who don't know, ED is the same world as Shadowrun, just prehistorically. Harlequin, Aina and the Immortal Elves which rule Tir na Nog were all alive during the time of ED. It's an interesting premise, though obviously designed to promote sales of ED to Shadowrun loyalists.)
Fact is though, Standard Fantasy has certain elements. They don't have to have elves, dwarves, orcs and leprechauns (Oh my!), but all "Standard Fantasy" has quasi-medieval technology levels, weapons, and culture. Kings, knights and feudalism are very common, from Tolkien to Jordan. All Standard Fantasy has magic, or at least some sort of mysticism inherent to the setting as well. CJ Cherryh (whom I believe I once read a book by, but I'm not certain) almost certainly falls into either Standard Fantasy, or an evolution thereof. Standard Fantasy did NOT start with LotR, but rather with Morte d'Arthur, or possibly before (forgive me, my medieval lit is somewhat rusty). ED is, by the little I do know of it, a major departure from Standard Fantasy. My guess is that Pale Fire's gripe is that it departs, yet does not fully explain to the readers and players in what ways it departs. If something differs from the norm[1], it needs it's own explanations, because the perceptions of the norm do not apply to it.



[1]First person who challenges the existence of a "norm" gets a Private Message assassination.

Hi there,

Now I'm totally confused. This thread completely began with Pale Fire's discussion of building a fantasy world through play, as opposed to starting with a fully-mapped and fully-detailed world. As anyone familiar with my work knows, I heartily endorse this whole idea.

Then all manner of confusion ensued. Part of it was the Mage Blade thing, which is Lance's deal, not Pale Fire's. Part of it was some kind of odd tangent about Earthdawn, which I can't dope out at all. And now it seems as if Pale Fire is somehow defending (a) starting with a detailed world and (b) having it be heavily D&D-like ... and then we have this other thread by Pale Fire which reveals that a D&D-like world is exactly what he is designing anyway, and whether that thread is parallel or supportive of this one, I don't know ...

Anyway, as I said, I'm confused. Please help the old, easy-baffled person and - Pale Fire specifically - explain what you are saying and/or asking. Please do not attempt to parse or untangle the posts ("He said, then I said") at all, just start over.

Best,
Ron

Wolfen wrote: major departure from Standard Fantasy. My guess is that Pale Fire's gripe is that it departs, yet does not fully explain to the readers and players in what ways it departs. If something differs from the norm[1], it needs it's own explanations, because the perceptions of the norm do not apply to it.
[/norm]

Fair enough. But I think it is an artificial, arbitratry and irksome norm.

Firstly, although people may kick my ass over this, I sincerely doubt that there is any relationship between the Arthurian myth and the D&D default. Arthurian Knights do not go out slaughtering hapless orcs, goblins and kobolds en mass. Wizards do not accompany most "adventuring parties" and clerical and thief characters are conspicuous by their absence. Indeed, given the strong emphasis placed on romance and chivalry as themes, D&D is about as diametrically opposed to the Arthurian cycle as I can imagine. IMO.

Secondly, Cherryhs work in some cases is a bit derivative, but Rusalka makes a nice counterpoint, being derived from Ukrainian mythology. It is thus distinctly European and exhibits NONE of the Tolkienist tropes (I lie - it has an ent, but these are independant local myths, or more likely, Tolk. got them from the same folklore source). It's probably set a bit after the mediaeval proper, but close enough.

This norm only exists among RPGers - and only because of AD&D. Most people would not think of sub-Tolkien D&D as being a norm of fantasy - think of how many fantasy novel readers there are out there, and authors. Only those who have been exposed to the gaming subculture have any conception of or appreciation for a fantasy world "norm". And the truly ironic bit is that MOST fantasy cannot be done in D&D.

And so, in trying to create a fantasy game, we can EITHER restrict ourselves to a self-imposed and largely illusionary "norm", or we can do something creative. We cannot do both.

Hello,

Much as I agree with Gareth (and boy howdy do I agree!), I repeat my above request for some focus on this thread.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hello,
Much as I agree with Gareth (and boy howdy do I agree!), I repeat my above request for some focus on this thread.

Hi PF,

OK, that helps me a lot. In anything that matters, I agree with you on this issue. I also think the lack of focus is no fault of your own, but an outcome of having Mage Blade and your other world-creation post blazing along at the same time, so people are having a hard time figuring out what you're saying in this one.

So my next question is, what are you asking? I think the fundamental question is a no-brainer: some people will prefer the build-your-setting with good guidelines approach, and others (perhaps the majority, due to what they're used to) will prefer the sourcebooks-till-you-choke approach. It strikes me as a strict preference issue, although granted, I think the former is more conducive to actual successful role-playing, as opposed merely to owning and reading endless colorful books of dubious literary merit.

Is there a further question beyond the preference-based one? As mentioned above, several RPGs have already taken the approach you've suggested, and at least one of them (mine) is uncompromising and explicit about it. So "let's do it" as a suggestion has already been met.

Best,
Ron

Rebooting the original topic... (I wrote this before the previous two posts appeared, but I'm posting it anyway with a few revisions because it's relevant to Ron's question.)

Pale Fire wrote: So anyway, now I'm thinking of just produce a setting, maybe detail a small small kingdom where the adventurers can start their careers.

More kingdoms, villages and places can easily be added by the GM without risking that they be overruled by later world supplements because the world is so big and the "known areas" are so few. It would be a world where the GM has the chance to build his own campaign and come up with a new kingdom just because it would be convenient for his/her next adventure.

That, however would be in sharp contrast to many games out there which produces more and more detail, practically forcing the GM to only play within the pieces of the world described by the appropriate supplements or risk running into all too many contradictions.

I think even a "Map of the World" is a really a thing one might want to avoid.

If I make a game which is has a lot of background on races, gods, magic, stuff like that, but only a brief sketch of a kingdom, would that work? The GM should be able to pattern his towns and villages from those already described fairly easily I hope.

And then further supplements would only be adventures, but the adventures would provide a lot of setting (the feeling should be: "oh this adventure is set in the town of xxx, if I don't like the adventure I can always use the town for my own adventures because it's fairly detailed. It can also be moved around a little so it fits with the geography my players already have discovered")

Do you think this works?

<snip>

Or to put it a little differently: Does the GM need to rip up the world to put in his/her own adventures, or is the GM encouraged to add to the world?

Walt wrote: Overall, [my typical game] begins with a small bit of setting (what the player-characters know at the outset... a bit of Shire and a few legends and ballads will do). The end product is a story, and as a by-product... a setting is generated. Thus, I view the past few decades of RPG evolution with less enthusiasm than most, since one of the most consistent trends has been increasingly detailed and elaborate built-in settings and scenarios and metaplots. To me this is already-used-up material, GM output rather than GM input.

As far as "mapless" games go, one should refer to Alyria. One of it's major design elements is in having a lot of setting details, but refusing to locate anything on a map so as to allow for play creation of these details.

And at the risk of sounding like a plug, game design discussion of this concept is exactly what got Ralph and myself working on Universalis. Eventually, we decided that not just the map, but everything could be created by the players. So I guess you could put us in the "wholehearted support" category for that concept.

Mike

Two things here:

1) Probably the best fantasy campaign I was involved with was an AD&D3E (God how I hate that system - I am way too narrativist) campaign. The thing that made it best was that the GM created "buy-in" to the world. He basically let us create our characters and their backgrounds, including world building information. He also started with a very basic and understandable world setup:

We were playing on an Earth based world wherin we would use a map of earth and each country and/or continent tended to be populated by on fantasy race. Beyond this there was a Pantheon of Gods - The Greek Pantheon (which was centuries later threatened by the Egyptian).

My character was a priest of Hermes, but what did that mean? I came up with the majority of the motivations and machinations of the Priesthood (they were based on justice, but were also covered thievery so descended into becoming a holy Mafia). I loved that I had that much control over the world's history, and that I wasn't worried that I might not be "getting" everything because I didn't read tons of suppliments.

Although I haven't yet read Sorcerer and Sword (still saving my pennies - probably will just throw down and get it, Sorcerer, and Soul at the same time) it seems (if I am reading you right Ron) that I agree with the idea that exploratory character-driven world building is best.

I am currently training to be a school teacher some of the biggest things they teach are to allow choice for students and to create "buy-in" -> for example, let them come up with rubrics for grading papers, have input into class rules, etc. When they are invested in the creation of these things they are _SO_ much more interested in playing by the rules.

I am planning on starting a game soon (either The Pool, WFD, or Dust Devils), an explanation of which you can see here. Although I have taken much of the idea from a novel series I am not going to take it whole cloth, basically (in The Questing Beast terms) a few Hallows and Accords and from there let the characters/players fill it all in via play and outside work (based on a kind of interesting mechanic mentioned in said posting).

I am just hoping my players will go along with it.

2) If people are looking for interesting Fantasy settings I would say take a look at The Coldfire Trilogy (Black Sun Rising is the first book) by C. S. Friedman. The stories are fairly predictable, but the world is facinating:

Hundreds of years ago a colony vessel from Earth crash landed on this planet, killing all but a few of the colonists. They found themselves on a planet where after dark all of their greatest fears came out of the dark to destroy them. Finally one of the colonists started killing off a few of the others in archaic blood sacrifice rituals - finding that he would gain magical power from it. He had made the connection - on this planet you got what you paid for - sacrifice something emotionally meaningful and you got power. So he destroyed the colony ship and every piece of technology they had - The Great Sacrifice. From then on the humans always had magic - it became commonplace.

They also later found that the planet was highly volatile in the realm of earthquakes, and that the magic energy would spike during them.

Finally when the books start you have people living in towns all of which are warded up the wazoo against the nightmares that come at night.

I am sure I am mangaling this, but I think it is one of the most interesting settings because of its linking of technology and ancient ritual.

-Shane

Well, I'm starting to take the first tentative steps toward running a game in White Wolf's Exalted setting. I prefer to create a setting during play, but my players are really into the Exalted environment. I like it too, truth to tell, so I'm fine with the decision. I don't like the Storyteller system, but that's a subject we've gnawed to death in other threads. At any rate, the immediate setting, a city on the far frontier of the Realm, is something we're going to create during play with much input from players. Hence, the macro setting is pre-created, but the micro setting will evolve per my preference. I can live with that, creatively and narratively speaking.

I see world-building as one part verisimilitude, one part color, and one part conflict. Craft elements that fit together, mix in a handful of vivid, exotic details to establish mood, and put the setting in motion -- a civil war, an invasion, an uneasy truce, a harsh environment, a plague, etc. Actual play may or may not explore the larger conflict, but the setting absolutely should impart some of that meta-tension to the story. I should note from a genre standpoint that "standard" fantasy almost always makes use of the invasion trope, so you may want to avoid it from the get-go if you want to create something "different."

Best,

Blake

For the record, the appropriate dosage of dried frog pills has been administered.

For the record, I'd like to apologize for my part in muddling and entropizing this topic. I have a tendency to go on about *my* stuff, even where it doesn't belong, in an attempt to make a point. In the future, feel free to tell me to pipe down if I'm out of line.

This thread was originally an attempt to see if people agreed that a conflict filled setting where the GM has free reigns to map out the world is a good one.

And from what I've read so far you agree on that.

Then I got into my anti Earthdawn rant and things went downhill from there. BUT there is something important in the Earthdawn discussion too.

Ron Edwards says this about it:

some people will prefer the build-your-setting with good guidelines approach, and others (perhaps the majority, due to what they're used to) will prefer the sourcebooks-till-you-choke approach. It strikes me as a strict preference issue, although granted, I think the former is more conducive to actual successful role-playing, as opposed merely to owning and reading endless colorful books of dubious literary merit.

Hi Pale Fire,

Boy, do those frog pills taste like crap. *bleaugh*

For what it's worth, I plan to distill the significant points of the Exalted setting to a one-page handout, focusing on color, possible character options, and basic cultural rules. Then I'll dispense with the most of the rest of the material and let the bulk of the setting evolve during play. I like playing off of my group's input, but I'm more Dionysian than Apollonian in my approach, so rather than produce a detailed template, I'm more comfortable with putting rough conceptual stakes around the creative turf I'm aiming at, then let the group go wild. I agree with Ron that a pre-play discussion about consistency should help keep group input focused, provided the participants are mature about it. If I tell the group it's a dark, Renaissance-evocative urban setting with a gritty noir-ish flavor and common use of necromancy, humans only, I think we'll stay on target. The final result may have things I wouldn't have thought of, but that's the point, right?

As far as supplements go -- let's take the Exalted: Dragon-Blooded book as an example, as it's mostly setting and I'm currently working with it -- I dislike the necessity of learning a ton of setting information because (a) it slows down getting into the game, (b) it's logistically hard to keep track of the mass of detail, (c) awkward for players to absorb the infodump, (d) someone who does make the effort to suck it all up could get defensive if we veer off canon (and I do veer, my friends), and (e) I just don't wanna worry about metaplot expectations, continuity with future supplements, whither the signature characters, splatbook micro-detail, blah-infinite-blah. Hence the one-sheet and judicious reference to specific aspects of the setting.

Best,

Blake

You know, Pale Fire, you're onto something, methinks.

Meta-details are good, if taken in moderation, in the original book. If you're playing in a pre-made setting, you ought to know where the borders are, which country is friendly to which country, and who the people of influence and fame are. However, knowing where every township is, the names of the magistrates in those towns, exactly where all the roads run (and any landmarks along the way) is taking meta-details to gross extents.

But setting details, such as culture and regional flavor are excellent things. They help the GM set the feel of a story without getting in the way. This should first be set in the original setting book, but can be extended with sourcebooks.

The ability to add to the mostly blank canvas of meta-details is bread and butter to most GMs. For those who aren't quite so intent on creating the setting, there should be, as part of the setting details, an example town with all sorts of meta-details.. but without stating that the town exists within the setting, but is only there as an example. I think that would be the major difference between meta-details and just plain details. Meta-details are solid, unchangeable (and woe betide you if you do, you bad gamer you) without scrapping the existing setting. Details (by your usage) are flexible guidelines to the setting.

Am I hitting this nail on the head, or just smashing my thumb?

Wolfen wrote: Meta-details are good, if taken in moderation, in the original book. If you're playing in a pre-made setting, you ought to know where the borders are, which country is friendly to which country, and who the people of influence and fame are.