There's been a few concerns in general that I have with Sanctum: The Fallout.  Some of them I'm dreading the answer to while it's just too soon to say for the others.

Ready to Play
As is, Sanctum: The Fallout, is NOT a ready-to-play product.  To make it a ready-to-play Product is stepping into a brand new world and inviting so much work and cardboard cut-out that I'm pretty worried in general.  I'm going to have to decide what is more important.  The sheer adaptability, or a ready-to-play product?

Will I be creating 'versions' of Sanctum by creating some "Ready-to-Play" Versions?  In a way, this is really what I was trying to avoid when I re-created my world from thirteen years ago.  The very first version of Sanctum, was really alot like D&D, but set in a different world and with different characters and concepts for magic, fighting, herorics and villians.  On one hand, this creates tons of books and endless genre if done right; but that's not what I was going for this time.

Adaptability, Undefined Elements that are left to the Story-Teller's Imagination with no 'rule' to tell you that you couldn't have certain elements within a game.  I was creating the world, the core-rules for that world's existance in order to still be Sanctum, but I wasn't actually creating the THINGS within the world.  I thought it was great...A "Make it your own way" World to do whatever you wanted with and then run with it...

But is this a bad thing?

Everyone really seems to just expect that Sanctum is "Ready-to-Play" and honestly, that isn't going to be true; unless I create little versions of Sanctum for people to pick from.

Does this mean my idea in general is flawed?

Speaking purely from a personal perspective, the name "Sanctum: The Fallout" (so reminiscent of the now-cliche White Wolf naming system) brings to mind, mostly by association with games like 'Vampire: the Requiem', a game with an extremely well-developed background setting that is ready to play without too mush GM work and invention. It also makes me wonder if the game is going to follow other tried-and-tested White Wolf tropes, such as the Clan system, dice pool mechanics, Disciplines and so on and so forth. This isn't helped by the fact that WW released a sourcebook called Sanctum themselves.  Finally, it might even give some people the impression that your game is a parody of WW, since so many people set out to parody those games by providing them with titles like "Noun: the Verbing". If you're planning on making this a generic or semi-generic system, I'd suggest changing the game's name.

Ash

Hi

After reading your play-test report I can not understand your concern. It seems like all the players really liked to take part in the setting creation.

I know that there are some people that want to have a fully fleshed out setting when they buy a game. But there are certainly also people (myself included) that only want a framework for the setting, so they can fill out the details themselves. If there just are some good tools and guidelines it should really not be any problem to get the plays to participate in the setting creation, and the good thing with this is that the players will feel much more ownership over the setting, and is therefore much more concerned with what happens in the setting.

So what you should do is really just focus on what you want with the game. It seems like you already have some pretty good tools in place for creating new setting elements. So I do not think that your idea is flawed - I actually think that your game looks rather cool.

- Anders

Name-Change Issue.

The problem I have with re-naming it is that I first wrote it almost thirteen years ago now.  I've 'always' known it as Sanctum, (Although I didn't add the Fallout until last year when I started re-working my game and figured out just how many other games had that name.  It was meant as the implication of the aftermath of 'waking up' in this world and dealing with everything.

I have been considering it, but it's just sort of the "in a rut" feeling for it.  (or the stubborn, "but I had it first" syndrome.)
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Anders, It's a relief to hear that.  I was starting to feel that because there was more work required, that my game was fundamentally flawed and that it was 'wrong' to not have a pre-defined world and setting.  It's not that I couldn't yank out several 'ready to play' versions, but most of my excitement with the system was the 'undefined until created" thing.

So, your post gives me a bit of hope that there is a market, even if a smaller one for what I was making.    -thanks-

Anders --

Could you give an example of some games you like which provide frameworks instead of fully fleshed-out settings? Maybe Sara could look into some of those to compare techniques.

Adam

Well, I will mention some indie-game, because, for what I can see, it is mostly them that take this "setting light" approach. Here are some examples.

Games that gives guidelines to the GM for making the specifics of the setting:
* Dogs in the Vineyard: Describe the setting very general, and then have a guide for how the GM create a town (the actual piece of setting the character will engage in).

The group makes the setting before the game:
* Burning Empire: Have a good long guide for what elements that should be in the setting, but leave a lot of room for the players to be creative.
* Sorcerer & Sword (Sorcerer supplement): Define the general idea, and then have a few (but good) guidelines for how the group can create the details.
* Prime time Adventure: (I have not read this one, but for what I know, it start with the group decide on what type of tv-series they want to play in)

Games that are general genre games (and therefore depend on the players previous knowledge about the genre), where the details of the setting are worked out during character creation.
* Burning Wheel: Is a general fantasy setting. The details is implicit worked out during character creation when players choose life path and character beliefs.
* With great power...: Do much the same with the super hero genre.

Games that have a slightly more fleshed out setting, but expect that much of the details are created during the game:
* Polaris.
* Nine worlds.

There are properly many more games that do things like this, but these came to mind first.

(I do not know if this can help, but I recently wrote some ideas about this in my blog: http://threeeyedpike.blogspot.com/2007/01/elements-of-setting.html. It is a topic I am very interested in right now.)

- Anders

I just realized something that I don't think I acknowledged before, or figured out.

Many of those games listed do offer an open-ended setting, but they also have pre-established standards for what exists in those settings.

For example, Dogs is open-ended, but the play-group I play it in, we're playing it alot like a Morman setting of Utah.
For PTA, you tend to use the setting of whatever Television show you are emulating, or Genre you are using.
In Burning Wheel, the world is already established through fictional genre and those who are familiar with the genre are familiar with the game.

The games listed are assuming that you already have an idea of what kind of world you will be playing in and that you'll naturally just pick a familiar setting to simulate that or resemble it for easy referencing.

While it is true my game doesn't cling to any set genre, world or pre-established setting; it DOES assume that someone who's playing it, already has in mind what they want to DO with it.  The only difference is that you could call upon several different 'settings' all at once or at various points in time and as long as those core principals of Sanctum are followed, It's not broken.

What my game does appear to be missing; although this was intentional, was the 'Intention"  What is the plot?  What is the goal?  Some of the games ask you that already, such as Dogs.  But if you look at PTA, you can't really decide what sort of plot you want until you figure out what sort of setting you are going to have and what kind of characters will exist within it.

And that's what Sanctum Does.            It's not that Sanctum is broken, or that this play-test is flawed, It's just demonstrating that the way I have it designed right now, it isn't ready to play until those who are playing the game finish adding the "Who" and the Storytellers/StageHands add a little bit of the What.

Once again, I feel alot more secure in my own design having gotten this in my head!

The problem is with simple is everyone's already taken it...
Until I find something that does suit the game better, Sanctum, it remains.

Things I tried to subsitute?

"The City"
"The Sanctum"

...I don't know, there just only seems so many ways to describe it.

Sara

Could you tell a little about what the idea of the game is? Then it may be possible to come with some suggestions for a name.

- Anders

IndigoDreamer wrote: The problem I have with re-naming it is that I first wrote it almost thirteen years ago now.   I've 'always' known it as Sanctum, (Although I didn't add the Fallout until last year when I started re-working my game and figured out just how many other games had that name.  It was meant as the implication of the aftermath of 'waking up' in this world and dealing with everything.

Er, you could try "Fallout Sanctum?"

Fallout the Sanctum just doesn't sound right to me.

I'd like to go back to just Sanctum, but the problem with that is all the other books calling themselves Sanctum. 
About Sanctum.
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I might be "smarter" to not reveal the core of Sanctum so easily, but I will.  Other games preserve thier sellability by requiring hundreds to thousands of details to be memorized or looked up; I am going to have to rely on people just wanting to own the game, and wanting some examples of the best ways to adapt the world, as well as some tips on possible plot-lines or possibilities.

So, here is Sanctum in a nut-shell.

• The world consists of cities.  The number, type and size of these cities are not determined until you determine them.  The game’s focus usually begins with focus on a single city, and this is the city that your player characters exist in.  There is nothing that says you must create more than one city, and there is nothing to say that you cannot create several hundred; do what is best for your own game.

• Each City has a theme.  Decide what that theme is, and then create the characters.  It could be a theme as simple as “Everyone is from New York but from different periods of time.”, From the elaborate “Everyone is an ordinary human from random places on earth, are from different points in time and all were in the process of dying in a catastrophic event”  It’s your world…choose it, or better yet, let the players decide what kind of world they want to experience.

• The cities of Sanctum are defined by the people who occupy them; this is important.  The city is what you get when you take elements from everyone and everything that occupy your character’s familiarity and mix them all together.  If you took two purebred dogs and bred them together, you’d get a mutt…this is exactly what you are doing with the city.  The city is the result of all of those elements trying to merge together, or co-exist.  Nothing says that you have to include all of those elements, but nothing says you can’t try!

• Each city is Unique.  It does not matter what theme is devised, or how many cities you have, but each city is absolutely Unique.  If one city is ordinary humans from the planet earth, there must be a fundamental difference in the next city.  It can be as small as that everyone in a particular city is a child, or as large as every person who exists is actually a fictional storybook character who is not only real, but lived out their lives just the same as anyone else.  (can you imagine the shock THEY must have had the morning after they woke?)

• Each city stands alone.  Regardless of how long it takes to get to another city, the method of getting there, or how easy or difficult it is to get to another place, each city is essentially alone, or holds the appearance of being that way.  Perhaps there is a glass mirror or wall that is an illusion and that a hallway to another city exists through that mirror, or there could be a portal that opens every sunrise to allow people passageway, but each city should act almost as if it were it’s own world.  Whatever reasons you create for explaining it, abusing it or using it are up to you, as long as it exists.

• The city started on the same day.  It doesn’t matter if someone doesn’t remember it, overslept that day or simply didn’t realize anything had changed because they were too busy hiding in their closet; Sanctum began at the same time for everyone in that city.  This does not mean the game has to start on the same day as Sanctum’s creation; you can start before, or even well after, but as far as the storyline goes, there was a single day that it all ‘happened’. 

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If those rules are followed, it is Sanctum.  No matter what you do with the world, as long as those rules are followed...it's Sanctum.

It seems like you try to find a short title like "The sanctum" or "The city", and I admit that titles like that can have more "punch". But since it is a game with a lot of mystery (if I have understood correctly), then you could maybe go for a more mysterious title. Here are some ideas, that may not fit to the game, but they may give some inspiration:

"City of Thousand Dreams"
"The City at the Centre of Time"
"City of Lost Lives"
"City of Lost Time"
"Sanctum of Lost Souls"
"The last Sanctum"
"Days in the Dreaming City"
"City of Shadows"

By the way, personally I do not think there is any problem with "Sanctum: The Fallout".

- Anders

I want to avoid the world city for several reasons, but two main ones are that a 'city' doesn't actually have to be a city.  It could be an underwater world, or forest/jungle/desert without anything 'city-ish' at all.  City is simply a generic word that I'm using to describe each 'place' as it's own little world, on the same world.

I also want to avoid verbing the noun, less Adam decides to strangle me in my sleep.  *grin*
Having said that, I've brainstormed alot of ideas, but it all comes back to trying to sum up the essense of Sanctum in a few words.  I like short and punchy too!  It bugs me a bit that it sounds 'white wolf-ish" but, ...blargh.

How else to convey the sensation of the world?

sanc•tum [sangk-tuhm] :  an inviolably private place or retreat.
fall•out [fawl-out]          :  an unexpected or incidental effect, outcome, or product.
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I suppose Alagamite is equally fitting but somehow, that just sounds as uninviting as a physics textbook.

Sara