Do you prefer campaign settings that are detail-heavy or detail-light?

[Ralif Redhammer]

I want details that MATTER for gaming. For example I do not care at all about details of the flora, if the game doesnt have a game system for collecting herbs and plants to make different potions/poisons etc.

If the flora is interesting, I'm all for those details as a GM. If a particular region has flowers that release a glowing pollen in the presence of magic, that gives me a detail that makes it feel like the PCs are in that specific region, not just anywhere in Generic Fantasy Land.

But there still needs to be stuff for the PCs to do there.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I am not sure, guess detailed setting, like a good history wrapped into the setting and thought put into it. WFRP was the first game I saw it in that grab me, the river and cannel system and seeing how they used Europe for the structure and locations, plus it was supported in Fantasy Battle and White Dwarf. Now I will look at "World" books for games and use them, like the Witcher video Game compendium.

 

[Retros_x]

If a particular region has flowers that release a glowing pollen in the presence of magic, that gives me a detail that makes it feel like the PCs are in that specific region, not just anywhere in Generic Fantasy Land.

yes but I dont need a botanic lexicon or tons of detail for that - and I know TTRPGs / setting books that do exactly this, overboard me with details and often quite uninteresting details. Your example would be one specific interesting detail that makes the region a bit more interesting and unique (even better would it be if these pollen are somehow gameable - maybe they have special power and are of value, or they have a religios meaning and plucking them is considered a crime in this region. Anything that might generate gameplay or adventure). That is good. But I don't need a list of 20 different herbs that grow in that region to make an extreme example. There are books that do that, completely overload with uninteresting unnecessary detail - that most DMs will forget about anyway. They have already enough info juggling in their mind.

 

[Hand of Evil]

yes but I dont need a botanic lexicon or tons of detail for that - and I know TTRPGs / setting books that do exactly this, overboard me with details and often quite uninteresting details. Your example would be one specific interesting detail that makes the region a bit more interesting and unique (even better would it be if these pollen are somehow gameable - maybe they have special power and are of value, or they have a religios meaning and plucking them is considered a crime in this region. Anything that might generate gameplay or adventure). That is good. But I don't need a list of 20 different herbs that grow in that region to make an extreme example. There are books that do that, completely overload with uninteresting unnecessary detail - that most DMs will forget about anyway. They have already enough info juggling in their mind.

Agree with this. got to the point that general information is great, but too much is just too much, the GM should have just enough to get some plot hooks from the setting locations. The old Bluffside even listed out plot hooks to help, just a single line or two after the description (if I remember right).

 

[Whisper-Kitten]

I think it's more a case of detail dependent. Some details are useful and I can always use more of them. A lot of campaign settings don't have useful details, it's just world-building wankery, for lack of a better term. It can be interesting to read (sometimes) but if it doesn't actually help me run a game, or give me some ideas that are interesting to use in game, then honestly I could probably do without.

I say as a guy who primarily likes settings to read them and bowdlerize them rather than use them as is. I still find a lot of stuff, like detailed timelines going back tens of thousands of years, and all kinds of social structure that the author got a little too involved in to be more obnoxious than anything else when it comes right down to it. Locations full of playable hooks, mysteries and interesting stuff, on the other hand, give me hundreds of pages of that stuff. Details about how exactly to worship the hippy goddess of finding yourself—do not want; do not need.

Detail heavy for sure. I want a lot of story and lore to work with.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

yes but I dont need a botanic lexicon or tons of detail for that - and I know TTRPGs / setting books that do exactly this, overboard me with details and often quite uninteresting details. Your example would be one specific interesting detail that makes the region a bit more interesting and unique (even better would it be if these pollen are somehow gameable - maybe they have special power and are of value, or they have a religios meaning and plucking them is considered a crime in this region. Anything that might generate gameplay or adventure). That is good. But I don't need a list of 20 different herbs that grow in that region to make an extreme example. There are books that do that, completely overload with uninteresting unnecessary detail - that most DMs will forget about anyway. They have already enough info juggling in their mind.

Oh yeah, just a handful of evocative details goes way farther than a giant list sometimes.

 

[Fenris-77]

Oh yeah, just a handful of evocative details goes way farther than a giant list sometimes.

Even better, lists full of evocative details.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Even better, lists full of evocative details.

If you can have both, heck yeah! The Wormwood Dolmenwood zines had plenty of examples of that. All killer, no filler.

 

[Thierry-Advent]

Most settings are not super original. I often fall asleep reading them. The more encyclopedic the faster I slumber. I homebrew around the PCs. Most of my inspiration comes from books, tv shows or movies, not RPG settings.