How immersive do want a campaign setting to be?

[Glyfair]

I was recently reading one of Moon Design's Runequest reprints. One of the extras is a letter from Greg Stafford (creator of Glorantha/Runequest) that was in response to Professor M.A.R. Barker (creator of Tékumel/Empire of the Petal Throne). From Greg's comment you can gather that Prof. Barker suggested that Greg should have created a language so that Glorantha's naming conventions would be consistent, and non-earth like.

Also, in another thread there has evolved a discussion about Planescape's "cant." In my case, it's has been one of the handful of things that creates a distaste for Planescape. I find that having to learn a slang specifically to play a game to be too much immersion.

There have been comments made on these forums before from people who dislike word puzzles in RPGs. They feel their characters must be speaking in another language, and thus the puzzle wouldn't apply (without even getting into interaction with multiple fantasy languages).

While all these deal with language issues, the principle applies elsewhere. I've seen comments from people critiquing campaign settings where they complain about unrealistic elements (population, terrain, etc) that it seems they expect any campaign setting designer to be a Ph.D. in all sorts of areas (geology, anthropolgy, etc).

What level of detail do you want in a campaign setting? How much effort do you want the designer to put in?

Let's take some extremes. Would you have any interest in a campaign setting that had created a language of the setting (ala Klingon) and expected everyone to be familiar with it? How about a campaign setting that goes the other direction and makes it explicit that the "common tongue" is English (or whatever language is native in your area)?

 

[Rothe]

The amount of detail, for me, depends on how much they are going to charge for it.

I don't expect them to create a whole new language. Chances are they would do it poorly and the names generated would sound even sillier than they often do. I do see the professor's point about using a language to base names and words off of, made up words often sound that way and ring false for several reasons. Yet, to really invent a sufficent language requires one to be a linguistics professor.

What I do expect/like is the designer just brib names from actual languages and many decent name generators. REH did a wonderful job of making up evocative names that were based on actual languages. A good world design would be to coose different real world languages for different game cultures and consistently use those. With the internet there is little excuse not to have inuit based names for people A, norse based names for people B, abd bushman based names for people C, etc.

On geography, population density, etc. I don't expect multiple PhDs but they are making a world and it should be internally consistent and the logical consequences of their monkeying with physics and throwing in magic thought out. One safe way to be internally consistent is to stick to real world examples as much as possible.

 

[William drake]

I was recently reading one of Moon Design's Runequest reprints. One of the extras is a letter from Greg Stafford (creator of Glorantha/Runequest) that was in response to Professor M.A.R. Barker (creator of Tékumel/Empire of the Petal Throne). From Greg's comment you can gather that Prof. Barker suggested that Greg should have created a language so that Glorantha's naming conventions would be consistent, and non-earth like.

Also, in another thread there has evolved a discussion about Planescape's "cant." In my case, it's has been one of the handful of things that creates a distaste for Planescape. I find that having to learn a slang specifically to play a game to be too much immersion.

There have been comments made on these forums before from people who dislike word puzzles in RPGs. They feel their characters must be speaking in another language, and thus the puzzle wouldn't apply (without even getting into interaction with multiple fantasy languages).

While all these deal with language issues, the principle applies elsewhere. I've seen comments from people critiquing campaign settings where they complain about unrealistic elements (population, terrain, etc) that it seems they expect any campaign setting designer to be a Ph.D. in all sorts of areas (geology, anthropolgy, etc).

What level of detail do you want in a campaign setting? How much effort do you want the designer to put in?

Let's take some extremes. Would you have any interest in a campaign setting that had created a language of the setting (ala Klingon) and expected everyone to be familiar with it? How about a campaign setting that goes the other direction and makes it explicit that the "common tongue" is English (or whatever language is native in your area)?

No, I don't have the time to learn some madeup language to play a game...I assume that my character knows it, if its related to him, and that should be the end of that. When I play LORT, I dont speak ELVISH........

Detail was, as for who make the game: yes, they should know what they're doing. Ie: how civlizations are made, populations...ect. That is there job, they have the resources. As for DM's, well, do your best..make it fun, interactive...but I don't need a paragraph about some wall print that relates to why the people wear a certain color....flavor is fine, but some times to much can spoil a meal...get me.

Game On

 

[Mouseferatu]

There have been comments made on these forums before from people who dislike word puzzles in RPGs. They feel their characters must be speaking in another language, and thus the puzzle wouldn't apply (without even getting into interaction with multiple fantasy languages).

That argument has never held even the slightest bit of water for me. If you're going to assume that your characters are speaking Gloopish (or whatever the Common of your world happens to be), and that you as the players are simply speaking an English "translation" of what the characters would be saying in Gloopish, then why can't you assume that the word puzzle in English is simply a representation of a similar one in Gloopish?

But all that said, I agree that it's possible to go overboard on detail. I'm all about a rich setting and history, and I love plots and puzzles and mysteries that tie into that setting, but asking me to memorize an entire geneology of the royal family, or to learn a new language--or even a new slang, like Sigil's cant--is going too far.

 

[Glyfair]

But all that said, I agree that it's possible to go overboard on detail.

Indeed. What I was really hoping to explore are the limits. Everything I mentioned above (except the extreme of creating and using a new language) I've heard someone suggest.

Take what I consider a classic example for me; Empire of the Petal Throne. Since I first heard of the setting (actually, I saw it in the store the first time I found D&D in the store) I've heard raves about the setting. I believe the raves. However, I never found the setting approachable for me.

Essentially there are two reasons I found it unapproachable. The first is how alien the setting is to my experiences. The second is that the setting has too high a learning curve (which probably wouldn't be there if it wasn't so alien).

Prof. Barker set high standards for his world. From my understanding it is internally consistant, and he's gone so far as to create languages for the setting (going so far as to have a grammar book, dictionary and pronunciation tapes for one of the languages). However, I don't want to have to study a fictional world to play in a camaign setting. I don't want to have to learn the pronunciation of the language so I can name my character and pronounce his name.

Yet, there are those who love the setting and that level of detail. There are those who love the Planescape cant and look down on those unwilling to "make the effort" (at least to to level of being unwilling to game with them). There are those who expect a campaign world to have correct plate tectonics and get upset that the creators of the world "didn't do the research." (My longest running group had a large number of physicists in the game, the GM had a magical catastrophe to change the world from an infinite plane to an infinite sphere just to give a headache to the players who over analyzed the world).

 

[Mouseferatu]

(My longest running group had a large number of physicists in the game, the GM had a magical catastrophe to change the world from and infinite plane to an infinite sphere just to give a headache to the players who over analyzed the world).

Heh. My first long-running homebrew world was egg-shaped, not spherical, but had a spherical atmosphere, so the two ends of the "egg" were outside of it. Also, it both revolved and rotated north-south, rather than east-west.

I still get razzed about that from time to time, by my long-time gamers, but I stand by my assessment that such things are not only possible, but potentially even tame, in a D&D setting.

 

[S'mon]

Within a gameworld culture I like naming conventions to look vaguely consistent, but if they're the PCs home cultures they should also seem familiar & accessible, so Norse, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Italian etc type names are fine. Barker's approach takes a lot of effort plus either you end up with familiar-sounding names anyway (Tolkien) or creates a weird exotic feel (Barker) that can be offputting to players. As a player I don't want anything that will make my head hurt! I struggle a bit in the 3e game I play in because it's an Arabic setting with Arabic names. I play a Frankish-type crusader called Rolan...

Population is something that bugs me, and I like it to look vaguely plausible. Tolkien created a world with massive effort in the languages and a totally implausible "1 per square mile" type population distribution, and many others have followed in his footsteps. This is not rocket science - if you create a feudal kingdom, just count up the rough area and note a population figure somewhere between 30 and 120 per square mile. For scattered barbarian hunter-gatherers, say 1-10 per square mile. Make sure cities have a decent amount of nearby farmland or another good source of food (fishing, tribute states, etc). Just make it look vaguely plausible.

Geology - in a dungeon-based game, a little bit of geology does add a lot to the game. My wife has a geology degree & I sometimes check stuff with her, like show her a map, she says "Would have to be limestone caves" and I go with that. Now you can't really have a D&D style Underdark at all with fully realistic geology, but a bit of realism goes a long way.

 

[S'mon]

I disliked Planescape's cant, which was just a wholesale porting of 18th century London thieves' cant. For one thing it doesn't look all that different from cockney slang of today, but where it does it creates a barrier. I didn't find it plausible for a setting like Sigil, or interesting.

 

[sckeener]

All those extras are there only to get the player into the game and are unnecessary if the story teller is good at getting people into the right frame of mind in other ways.

I prefer immersing in campaigns, but I also do not want it to affect my life in a negative way. I guess that is where I draw the line. I'm open for anything until it affects me in a negative way...which for me would be taking time away from my family or affecting my work performance.

I don't want to play a game where I have to ignore my family and lower my standard of living just to play.

 

[el-remmen]

Just recently, we stopped the session to argue the word "cool" - One player kept using it in-character and the rest of us balked.

"So give me appropriate Aquerran equivalent. . ." the player said.

So after the session I gave it some thought and made one up. . Do I expect all the characters to use it? Or even for many of my NPCs to use it? Probably not, but at least the next time the player opens his mouth to say "cool" in character, we'll know what to remind him to say instead. . . And I think that lots of detail and immersion is good for stuff like that - i.e. an alternative for anachronistic things that might take the rest of us out of game - not something that needs to be religiously followed.