A setting with no canon

[Nonlethal Force]

I wish you luck! It sounds like an interesting proposition.

However, as a player I think I would either need to have trusted the DM for a long time or I would be extremely suspicious all the time. Knowing as a player that all the character knows about the world may or may not be completely accurate would bother me in a deep way.

besides, if all the knowledge is "subject to potential accuracy issues," I think that it would open itself up greatly to DM abuse. Not that an occasional "DM surprise" is all bad, of course. It's the abuse part that would have me concerned.

I think the fundamental premise is cool - I do especially like the attempt to make the accounted knowledge of the setting from characters within the setting. But my mind is thinking that another step in the process would go far into setting my mind at ease. Could each tidbit of knowledge be given a potential accuracy rating? For example, Xarthon the Great's account on the life of a gladiator is 90% reliable because he spent his earlier years as a soldier lording over the slaves who were used to fight the animals. However, Xarthon the Great's account of the Hezrah the Blue Wizard's library is only 30% reliable because, after all, Xarthon freely admits that "Xarthon don't know much about how smokey crystal balls can make pretty pictures inside them."

I suppose, I am talking about a loose confidence interval type addition. That would give me the player a feeling of something my character might inherently know: How reliable the source is. And that is very important to me in terms of my enjoyment of the game.

 

[Ry]

I wish you luck! It sounds like an interesting proposition.

However, as a player I think I would either need to have trusted the DM for a long time or I would be extremely suspicious all the time. Knowing as a player that all the character knows about the world may or may not be completely accurate would bother me in a deep way.

besides, if all the knowledge is "subject to potential accuracy issues," I think that it would open itself up greatly to DM abuse. Not that an occasional "DM surprise" is all bad, of course. It's the abuse part that would have me concerned.

I think the fundamental premise is cool - I do especially like the attempt to make the accounted knowledge of the setting from characters within the setting. But my mind is thinking that another step in the process would go far into setting my mind at ease. Could each tidbit of knowledge be given a potential accuracy rating? For example, Xarthon the Great's account on the life of a gladiator is 90% reliable because he spent his earlier years as a soldier lording over the slaves who were used to fight the animals. However, Xarthon the Great's account of the Hezrah the Blue Wizard's library is only 30% reliable because, after all, Xarthon freely admits that "Xarthon don't know much about how smokey crystal balls can make pretty pictures inside them."

I suppose, I am talking about a loose confidence interval type addition. That would give me the player a feeling of something my character might inherently know: How reliable the source is. And that is very important to me in terms of my enjoyment of the game.

The intention is that this book goes to GMs, and then GMs can make their game. So in a way it's just like any other game - the GM presents the world to the players. Now, the GMs also have some ready-made handouts, "Hezrah's letter to Xarthon" and they're encouraged to make the setting their own.

So while there's no objective truth in the text, there is objective truth in a given GM's campaign based on the great hundred.

 

[ejja_1]

Right - contrasts with games like Forgotton Realms where sometimes the players have read books or supplements set in the Realms and expect those books to be followed. This can be even more dangerous when you're playing with other DMs.

Thats why im not a big fan of Forgotten realms as far as a setting for my games, Most of the time my players know more about it than I do. I prefer to home brew less conflicts that way.

 

[Ry]

Thats why im not a big fan of Forgotten realms as far as a setting for my games, Most of the time my players know more about it than I do. I prefer to home brew less conflicts that way.

That's exactly why the Great Hundred is the way it is. It can be taken piece by piece to help fill in a homebrew, taken as a whole, whatever - and it's not something where a player can say "Hey, you can't do that, Abross (/Elminster) is a good guy! You can't make him evil!"

 

[Ranger REG]

Right - contrasts with games like Forgotton Realms where sometimes the players have read books or supplements set in the Realms and expect those books to be followed. This can be even more dangerous when you're playing with other DMs.

Meh.

If you can't make any published campaign setting your own campaign, then don't spend money on published campaign setting. My players know that my FR is mine, not Greenwood's nor TSR's nor WotC's.

Perhaps it is a good thing Greyhawk for 3e have not been heavily covered. You can make Greyhawk whatever you want it to be ... unless you're an RPGA member ( ).

 

[Ry]

If you can't make any published campaign setting your own campaign, then don't spend money on published campaign setting. My players know that my FR is mine, not Greenwood's nor TSR's nor WotC's.

Perhaps it is a good thing Greyhawk for 3e have not been heavily covered. You can make Greyhawk whatever you want it to be ... unless you're an RPGA member ( ).

Right, but you can't publish your campaign w/o permission (or an adventure, or a novel based on your game, whatever). After it's released, with the Great Hundred you could.

Just saying that the no canon thing isn't the only cool thing about the Great Hundred.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

To avoid a real canon, you might need to put contradictionary statements in the book.

To counter a sage writing "The Astral Plane is coterminous with the Material Plane", you need a sage that explains that things are different.
"The Astral Plane doesn't exist. While teleportation spells appear to use such a thing as the astral plane for its shortcut, this is just a useful abstraction."

"Some mages claim that the astral plane does not exist and teleportation spells are in fact materialisation/dematerialisation of matter. But this doesn't explain why people where able to block teleportation with magical wall spells that were slightly altered to work in the so-called "abstraction" of the astral space!"

"Divination spells are blocked by the same spells and even materials as teleportation spells, and the whole astral plane can't explain why we can't use divination spells to look directly into the astral plane!"

Present several opinions, which share a few common truths, but don't explain anything to the end. Canon only tells "there exists a concept of an astral plane, but nobody knows for sure that it really exists and that it works in a specific way".

 

[phindar]

I just thought that was cool. Has anybody else done this?

Shadowrun. Almost all the supplements for the system are written as in-game texts (at least in previous editions, I'm not up on SR4). This was particularly true of the main supplements like Shadowtech, Street Samurai's Guide, Rigger Black Book, Paranormal Animals of North America (and Europe). Paranormal Animals is a good example, since it was the creature book. Each entry was written by an "expert" in the field of awakened biology, which was then commented on by various posters who claimed to have actual experience with the animals in question, who would then contradict each other. Gear books tended to be hacked catalogues from security companies. Metaplot was subtly weaved in here, but the style makes it easy to take what you need and leave the rest. (Immortal Elves might run the world, or they might be the SR conspiracy theorists version of MIB. Only your hairdresser knows for sure.)

I find that non-canon sources (in the matter you describe) actually improve the versimilitude of a given setting, because there are no easy answers. Maybes are more fun than yeses and nos.

 

[Ry]

To avoid a real canon, you might need to put contradictionary statements in the book.

To counter a sage writing "The Astral Plane is coterminous with the Material Plane", you need a sage that explains that things are different.
"The Astral Plane doesn't exist. While teleportation spells appear to use such a thing as the astral plane for its shortcut, this is just a useful abstraction."

"Some mages claim that the astral plane does not exist and teleportation spells are in fact materialisation/dematerialisation of matter. But this doesn't explain why people where able to block teleportation with magical wall spells that were slightly altered to work in the so-called "abstraction" of the astral space!"

"Divination spells are blocked by the same spells and even materials as teleportation spells, and the whole astral plane can't explain why we can't use divination spells to look directly into the astral plane!"

Present several opinions, which share a few common truths, but don't explain anything to the end. Canon only tells "there exists a concept of an astral plane, but nobody knows for sure that it really exists and that it works in a specific way".

Wow, that's... hard-core. I think that might take it further than would be useful to a GM. Certainly it would make the Great Hundred go over length.

 

[Fifth Element]

Heh, I misread the title of this thread as "A Setting with no Conan"

I was going to say the same thing. I read it that way every time.