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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6216602" data-attributes="member: 42582">Have you seen <a href="http://adept-press.com/wordpress/wp-content/media/setting_dissection.pdf" target="_blank">this</a>?This on p 2 seems especially apposite:There’s a big book about the setting. The GM reads the book. Then, the players enjoy the setting, or rather enjoy the GM’s enjoyment of the setting, by using play as a proxy. . .

This kind of play is often called setting-heavy, but as I see it, when playing in this fashion, the goal of having the players enjoy the setting as such is actually at considerable risk. It’s hard to parse the relationship between (1) the story, first as created, then as played; and (2) the setting both as a source for conflicts (“adventures”) and something which might be changed by them. The two things may be positioned orthogonally: in a way, setting is “everything” for such play in the GM’s mind, but “nothing” for play in the players’. Perhaps this is what leads to those monstrous textual setting histories in the books, with the only people who read them (or care) being their authors and the GMs.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6216602, member: 42582"] Have you seen [url=http://adept-press.com/wordpress/wp-content/media/setting_dissection.pdf]this[/url]? This on p 2 seems especially apposite: [indent]There’s a big book about the setting. The GM reads the book. Then, the players enjoy the setting, or rather enjoy the GM’s enjoyment of the setting, by using play as a proxy. . . This kind of play is often called setting-heavy, but as I see it, when playing in this fashion, the goal of having the players enjoy the setting as such is actually at considerable risk. It’s hard to parse the relationship between (1) the story, first as created, then as played; and (2) the setting both as a source for conflicts (“adventures”) and something which might be changed by them. The two things may be positioned orthogonally: in a way, setting is “everything” for such play in the GM’s mind, but “nothing” for play in the players’. Perhaps this is what leads to those monstrous textual setting histories in the books, with the only people who read them (or care) being their authors and the GMs.[/indent] [/QUOTE]

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