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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Brazeku" data-source="post: 3582413" data-attributes="member: 48916">Good discussion folks!Ah, the GNS.  Actually I think the one which describes me best, personally, is an immersionist who craves new experiences.I can't argue against this, because it is 100% true.  The thing is, when you are trying to simulate source material directly, you aren't really building a campaign setting, you're transcribing one.  Additions and deviations from that material will frequently feel inauthentic, so it's best to adapt the tropes completely.  In this case, setting design isn't really setting design, you're developing mechanics to work within a setting already created.Really heavy gamists generally don't care about tropes save for their mechanical impact.  The gamist will spend his time learning relevant mechanics, the game world explanation for those mechanics is secondary.The setting could be completely novel, but as long as the newer additions have mechanical impact, a gamist will enjoy it, and the mechanical advantages will provide an impetus for learning the world.  For example, say you want to develop a society which is highly militaristic but also very diplomatic.  From this, you derive a warrior class which is highly skilled in diplomacy and has new and novel uses for the skill in combat.  This would appeal to a gamist, and also reflect a non-trope addition to the world which would promote a type of incidental background info absorption that you'll see in gamist players.This is actually why I was talking about using the real world as a base.  We are all humans, and have at least a basic understanding of human nature.  Elves and so on are really little more than humans with a narrower focus.  The fact is, that as long as you don't go right outside of human experience, you can invent any new race or creature and an immersionist can riff off of it.  Not only this, but as an immersionist, I find that experiencing the way a character interacts with a novel setting to be highly rewarding - character actions are defined as much by nature as by environment and the interaction between the two.  It may interest you that I actually only allow humanoid races in any of my campaigns because everything else is very difficult to design setting for, and even if you are successful it's interesting only as a brief novelty as opposed to serial play.It's not boring if you make it AWESOME!  This is more of a quality thing, I find.  You can probably reduce any setting description down to two or three words to provoke interest.My argument isn't really narrativist.  My argument is more that if we want the standard tropes, those products exist.  I have played them and GMed them many times.  But if you want to design something new, make a new setting, build a world - then you should start at the beginning.In a little while I'm going to respond to Mallus too.  I just need to get some foods in me.</blockquote>

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