Campaign Setting - Pet Peeves

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

I want to ask a question of those who are saying they want technological or societal progress in their settings:
Is this just a pet peeve, or do you really think this is important?

 

[Lord Mhoram]

5. Not being rated R enough. Come on, we're all adults here, except for the kids who play, and kids who need monitoring should get that from their parents (also, that's one thing the starter kit could do). There was an interesting thread over at rpg.net called "We need more sex in our RPGs."

I'm on the opposite side of this - I want published stuff PG, PG-13 at most. That is where I run my games... and it is much easier to add R stuff than it is to take it out. A published setting that is too R for me, and I won't buy.

Pet Peeves- No room for DM creativity

Pet Peeve- The sense one requires to but ALL the books related to the campaign world (I'm looking at you FR)

Pet Peeve- No room for new races or creatures... even psionics

I agree with this completely. I got spoiled by earlier editions of Champions - there were a setting book or or three (World, US, a city or two), and the rest of the stuff were books of villains and/or organizations. It was assumed in presentation that GMs would just use what they wanted, so there was lots of room for DM creativity, no need for all books, and lots of room for stuff.

One of the reasons I really really like the way WotC is handling settings now. A GM guide with info, but not incredibly detailed, a rulebook and an adventure... lots and lots of room for the GM to make the world his own.

 

[jdrakeh]

I want to ask a question of those who are saying they want technological or societal progress in their settings:
Is this just a pet peeve, or do you really think this is important?

For me, both. I cannot abide settings that do not have any form of technological progress or societal change whatsoever when the impetus for such change (magic, in most fantasy RPG settings) is nigh-ominipresent.

Now, if there was no obvious or widespread impetus for change, or if our own world hadn't changed remarkably over the course of ten thousand years, a fantasy world without any societal change or technological progress over a similar period of time would be less problematic for me.

As it stands, though, the idea that cultural change or technological progress doesn't exist at all in most fantasy settings is a huge issue for me.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

………if there was no obvious or widespread impetus for change………

I tend to regard "being a stubborn-a** human (or any creature that thinks like a human)" to be enough of a reason : humans have been historically resistant to change. There certainly does seem to be this idea that most humans expect (and expected in the past) the world to carry on from their time as it was right then. Fantasy taps into that, as well as an ignorance of the past being different from the present.

It's very educated view to understand that things have changed in the past and will change in the future. We can see how things have changed, but if you were some dirt-poor peasant who didn't know anything about the past except what you heard in stories you'd probably think all sorts of wrong things about it. I think that's what most fantasy tries to capture: the past as this great big unknown filled with wonders.

 

[jdrakeh]

humans have been historically resistant to change.

While this is true, it's also true that resistence to change has rarely stopped change from occurring.

 

[WhatGravitas]

While this is true, it's also true that resistence to change has rarely stopped change from occurring.

Especially considering how changing the frequent fantasy cataclysms are, yet they sort of revert to the standard medieval pattern after a while.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Some of the following are repeats from my first post:

1) There are threats all around you and one wrong move will set off a lot of bad things happening…………. i.e. Pointing out danger.
I hate it when published settings give me pre-made ways to imperil the setting, pre-made BBEGs, pre-made conflicts, etc. because I get confused. And it's for the same reason I won't touch obviously dangerous settings as a player: I can't get my head around being a person who lives in such a world. My fear response goes to MAX. I need presented the point of view of safe living and then layer on the danger. So as a DM I like settings where I design all the peril myself, and as a player I like settings where I don't know the danger until it comes up in game.

2) Give up now. i.e. Grim and/or dark settings.
If I wanted a world with a whole lot of terrible problems that I can't solve I'd read the newspaper.

3) You are the bug to the world's windshield. i.e. Low-powered and/or gritty settings.
My low-powered setting is called "real life". I'm not interested in another one.

4) It's like the real world. What fun. i.e. Low fantastic quotient.
Ditto to #3. Plus a made-up world just doesn't feel right unless its got a lot of weird in it.

5) The only good demon is a dead demon. i.e. Assigning alignments/personalities.
All the really good arguments about this one have already been made. Repeatedly.

6) The darkness is hungry and will drain your soul. i.e. Associating darkness, death, cold, chaos. etc. with evil.
Just because people are afraid of these things does not mean they always have to be cast in the villain role. Give me some undead that don't hate the living, give me some creatures of darkness that are protective of others, give me some chaos that does good for the world.

7) This setting must correspond exactly to specification standard EX-993-7. i.e. Taking things seriously.
I don't care about versimilitude. I don't care about logic. I want a setting because it feels cool, feels like it's an old myth where the people had to make up the world, not because it would make a great college anthropology paper.

 

[FriarRosing]

Would it make it less of an issue if you considered that not all of the other races have the same speed of growth and reproduction? As in, it takes longer for an elf generation for example to give birth to a new generation before dying off, possibly slowing the rate of what we would consider development.

But of course, humans still exist, and they still have the same growth rate/ death rate, so I guess that wouldn't matter.

 

[jdrakeh]

Would it make it less of an issue if you considered that not all of the other races have the same speed of growth and reproduction?

Well, for starters, reproduction =/= technological development. If it did, the incestual and short-lived goblinoid tribes of nearly every D&D setting would be vastly superior to other cultures. No, it is more correct to say that the accumulation and application of knowledge leads to technological advancements. Lifespan does factor into this, but in almost the exact opposite way of that which you propose.

If anything, the fact that demi-humans live for centuries on end and in most D&D settings are already given to exploring superior technology with regard to forging weapons and metals, would lead me to believe that the typical D&D demi-human culture should be significantly more advanced than humanity. Elves, for example, can learn and implement something in one lifetime that will take humanity six or seven generations to learn.

 

[Knightfall]

Well, for starters, reproduction =/= techniological development. If it did, the incestual and short-lived goblinoid tribes of nearly every D&D setting would be vastly superior to other cultures. No, it is more correct to say that the accumulation and application of knowledge leads to technological advancements. Lifespan does factor into this, but in almost the exact opposite way of that which you propose.

If anything, the fact that demi-humans live for centuries on end and in most D&D settings are already given to exploring superior technology with regard to forging weapons and metals, would lead me to believe that the typical D&D demi-human culture should be significantly more advanced than humanity. Elves, for example, can learn and implement something in one lifetime that will take humanity six or seven generations to learn.

That's very true if a particular GM takes the stance that elves, dwarves, and other long lived races in his/her campaign will "choose" to make those advancements in technology.

Some forms of technology might be considered too dangerous to develop by standard demihuman cultures. Dwarves and gnomes would be more likely to "tinker with any technological idea" than elves and other tree-hugger races. Still, if your elves are different (and yours are, I believe) then they might not be concerned with such cultural limits.

And if a demihuman culture does discover some form of new technology they consider too dangerous, what do they do when humanity starts to develop the same concepts centuries later? Do they intervene? Do they even go so far as to sabotage humanity's culture?

Just some thoughts...