RPGing needs "stuff" - fiction. The things we are all imagining together when we play.
Some of this stuff is characters. Some of it is setting - where the characters are, the history of that place, etc. Some of it is situation - ie what is happening right here and now that will prompt the players to declare actions for their characters.
A lot of discussion of RPGing - especially when framed through ideas like "the dungeon" or "the adventure" - makes some assumptions about this stuff that aren't always brought to the surface.
It's often assumed that setting is primary - the place that the characters will be exploring and acting in. (In D&D and kindred systems this leads to very precise rule about searching for hidden things, opening doors, etc.) With setting taken as primary, it is then often assumed that situation will flow from setting - eg the players will have their PCs go somewhere, or open a door, or confront a NPC, and that will trigger/enliven the situation.
These assumptions then feed a further one: that setting needs to be prepared by the GM, so that (i) players have a relatively "concrete" thing to explore via their PCs, and so that (ii) the situations that are latent in it arise "fairly" for the players (ie based on how they go about exploring the setting) rather than in an arbitrary fashion, at the GM's whim.
These assumptions about setting prep as a GM responsibility, how setting prep feed into situation, and how this relates to "fairness" in play, and also how it relates to play being interesting or boring, then feed into standard discussions about sandboxes, railroading, etc.
For those RPGers who are interested in player-driven RPGing - @innerdude starts threads about this from time to time, and @Yora had a recent thread on it - one approach is to drop these assumptions about prep.
Instead of the setting as the source of situation, look to the character as the source of situation. So responsibility for prep shifts from the GM (with their setting) to the player (with their character). The player needs to set up a character that has hooks - backstory, goals and commitments, relationships, etc - from which situation naturally flows. This player prep (which need not be particularly onerous) provides the content and context that the GM draws on to frame situations and consequences. On this approach, setting - rather than being primary - becomes a secondary or tertiary concern: it is a byproduct of the creation of characters and the framing of them into situations.
Play becomes unequivocally about these characters, rather than about this setting.
(I'm also tagging @hawkeyefan because of some things he posted recently about playing in The Temple of Elemental Evil.)
Some of this stuff is characters. Some of it is setting - where the characters are, the history of that place, etc. Some of it is situation - ie what is happening right here and now that will prompt the players to declare actions for their characters.
A lot of discussion of RPGing - especially when framed through ideas like "the dungeon" or "the adventure" - makes some assumptions about this stuff that aren't always brought to the surface.
It's often assumed that setting is primary - the place that the characters will be exploring and acting in. (In D&D and kindred systems this leads to very precise rule about searching for hidden things, opening doors, etc.) With setting taken as primary, it is then often assumed that situation will flow from setting - eg the players will have their PCs go somewhere, or open a door, or confront a NPC, and that will trigger/enliven the situation.
These assumptions then feed a further one: that setting needs to be prepared by the GM, so that (i) players have a relatively "concrete" thing to explore via their PCs, and so that (ii) the situations that are latent in it arise "fairly" for the players (ie based on how they go about exploring the setting) rather than in an arbitrary fashion, at the GM's whim.
These assumptions about setting prep as a GM responsibility, how setting prep feed into situation, and how this relates to "fairness" in play, and also how it relates to play being interesting or boring, then feed into standard discussions about sandboxes, railroading, etc.
For those RPGers who are interested in player-driven RPGing - @innerdude starts threads about this from time to time, and @Yora had a recent thread on it - one approach is to drop these assumptions about prep.
Instead of the setting as the source of situation, look to the character as the source of situation. So responsibility for prep shifts from the GM (with their setting) to the player (with their character). The player needs to set up a character that has hooks - backstory, goals and commitments, relationships, etc - from which situation naturally flows. This player prep (which need not be particularly onerous) provides the content and context that the GM draws on to frame situations and consequences. On this approach, setting - rather than being primary - becomes a secondary or tertiary concern: it is a byproduct of the creation of characters and the framing of them into situations.
Play becomes unequivocally about these characters, rather than about this setting.
(I'm also tagging @hawkeyefan because of some things he posted recently about playing in The Temple of Elemental Evil.)
