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<blockquote data-quote="Mapache" data-source="post: 5655690" data-attributes="member: 64751">This.&nbsp; I don't give a crap about NPC antics and centuries of painfully detailed history.&nbsp; Settings are a tool for telling good stories, which are about characters.&nbsp; If you're writing a novel or making a TV series, the setting is there to serve the needs of the specific story you're telling.&nbsp; If you're writing an RPG, the setting is there to act as a toolkit for telling many different stories about characters you, the author, don't know about yet.&nbsp; Trying to cram in too many pre-existing stories to an RPG setting just stifles the people who will actually use it.&nbsp; Filling a setting with book after book of excess detail that amounts to bad fiction also produces a bad setting.&nbsp; This is why licensed settings often make bad games.&nbsp; The problem is that the settings had a story in them, and it already has been told.&nbsp; In order to do something interesting, you need to go off and play in the distant, unexplored corners of the setting that might as well be an entirely different setting.Dragonlance in particular has this problem.&nbsp; It's not really a setting.&nbsp; It's a story, and not a bad one, but it's done.&nbsp; It's an adventure path that consumes its setting.&nbsp; When it's done, it's done.&nbsp; Move on.As far as all the metaplot crammed into Forgotten Realms and Greyhawke, I don't care, at least as far as settings are concerned.&nbsp; There may be some good novels in there, or there may not, but the settings just look like two slightly different Ye Olde Generick Fantasy Settynge with a bunch of overwrought junk I'm going to ignore or forget.&nbsp; The sorts of stories I can tell in either can fit perfectly well into the other with just a change of place-names and people.&nbsp; I don't need both, and frankly don't really need either, as the vague outlines of the default 4E world in the PHB alone are enough for me to riff off of years.&nbsp; Dark Sun offers Ye Olde Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy Setting and Eberron offers Ye Olde Industrial Revolution Fantasy Setting, so they justify themselves by providing tools to tell new sorts of stories that wouldn't fit into the first three.&nbsp; If WotC wants to sell me another new setting, it has to provide a setup for new kinds of stories that don't fit into their existing settings.&nbsp; I don't want a new version of old tropes, because I don't care about the versions themselves—I care about what they let me do.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mapache, post: 5655690, member: 64751"] This. I don't give a crap about NPC antics and centuries of painfully detailed history. Settings are a tool for telling good stories, which are about characters. If you're writing a novel or making a TV series, the setting is there to serve the needs of the specific story you're telling. If you're writing an RPG, the setting is there to act as a toolkit for telling many different stories about characters you, the author, don't know about yet. Trying to cram in too many pre-existing stories to an RPG setting just stifles the people who will actually use it. Filling a setting with book after book of excess detail that amounts to bad fiction also produces a bad setting. This is why licensed settings often make bad games. The problem is that the settings had a story in them, and it already has been told. In order to do something interesting, you need to go off and play in the distant, unexplored corners of the setting that might as well be an entirely different setting. Dragonlance in particular has this problem. It's not really a setting. It's a story, and not a bad one, but it's done. It's an adventure path that consumes its setting. When it's done, it's done. Move on. As far as all the metaplot crammed into Forgotten Realms and Greyhawke, I don't care, at least as far as settings are concerned. There may be some good novels in there, or there may not, but the settings just look like two slightly different Ye Olde Generick Fantasy Settynge with a bunch of overwrought junk I'm going to ignore or forget. The sorts of stories I can tell in either can fit perfectly well into the other with just a change of place-names and people. I don't need both, and frankly don't really need either, as the vague outlines of the default 4E world in the PHB alone are enough for me to riff off of years. Dark Sun offers Ye Olde Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy Setting and Eberron offers Ye Olde Industrial Revolution Fantasy Setting, so they justify themselves by providing tools to tell new sorts of stories that wouldn't fit into the first three. If WotC wants to sell me another new setting, it has to provide a setup for new kinds of stories that don't fit into their existing settings. I don't want a new version of old tropes, because I don't care about the versions themselves—I care about what they let me do. [/QUOTE]

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