Is your game ever "done"?

[barsoomcore]

My sense of "done" is more like fusangite's than yours, rycanada. Barsoom's story is wrapping up now as my campaign enters its final season and the world is heading for almost certain destruction.

There's certainly a great deal of the world left unexplored: in 103 game sessions you can only cover so much. But I don't know if I'll run another campaign in Barsoom ever. So that's kind of "done". I don't think I've ever felt your kind of "done", though -- my campaigns never last long enough that I feel like I've thoroughly covered the world.

 

[barsoomcore]

And I'm not sure I'd WANT to feel like I had everything covered. For me, the discovery is a big part of the fun. I like to have areas as yet undefined, where I can make up new stuff and new characters and surprise not only my players but myself.

I run the campaign so I can find out what the story is. Same thing for the setting.

 

[J_D]

I tend to write a world to tell one particular story. Once the story is told, time to move on to another world. The general structure of my campaigns is such that figuring out the nature of the world is part of the quest/metaplot; once the true nature of the world is revealed, it's just never as exciting again. Besides, I like the sort of Tolkienesque idea that world=story.

I prefer the opposite.

To me a world needs to be bigger than any one story. The world not about "a" story. It's about the people and places in it, and the lives of those people in those places, and the flavor that arises from the sum of that. There should be innumerable stories in a world, some small, and some large. Even with epic stories involving nations and large numbers of people, the end of the story can signal the end of one era and the beginning of another, but the world goes on. People still live and have stories. Even if the story the game characters are involved in ends and the campaign ends, there must be the sense that the world itself goes on and it could be returned to later for still more exiting stories.

What happens when the story of the "one-story world" is over? It's the end of history? There are no more stories to tell? Everyone dies? The world ends, disappears into a primordial nothingness? If that's what you enjoy, that's fine, but I personally would regard that as shallow and lame. If I were a player, I'd be asking "That's it? What was the point?" If there is any one single story that once finished makes the world less exciting, then the world had no depth to start with.

A movie or novel is about one story, but even when the story is done there is still a sense of continuation — the crisis is resolved, but the people go on living and the world still goes on. Even Middle Earth isn't about one story. The world didn't end with the War of the Ring - the war just signals the end of one age and the beginning of another. There's a new king, even a new kingdom that is greater than just Gondor. The War of the Ring was not waged to end the world — it was waged to save the world so that the people could go on with their lives and that new stories could unfold. Not only that, but Middle Earth also has a back story, epic stories of the past as told in the Silmarillion and other works published posthumously. So I adamantly disagree that "world=story" is a Tolkienesque idea; Tolkien's Middle Earth is specifically not that!

Even if the campaign setting is "done" in rycanada's sense of having the entire world fleshed out to at least some detail, the world itself in the sense of its history and the stories that could still be told should never be done.

And I'm sure there's still more detail you could go down to, even if the world and it's peoples and nations are moderately detailed. Is every city mapped out? Is every building in every city identified, every street named? Every trade route established? In the worldbuilding sense (which is a big part of what I like about RPG's anyway), no world can ever be truly done!

 

[barsoomcore]

J_D: I disagree on your treatment of Middle-Earth. Tolkien's world is very specifically about the passing of the Third Age. Once that's done, there really aren't any more interesting stories -- which we know because Tolkien didn't write any stories set AFTER that date. He created a vast amount of history to support the story of the end of the Third Age, but note that the Professor himself didn't publish ANY of that material. It's all been published after his death, without his approval.

So it seems much more likely to me that he did a lot of world-creation (like any DM would) in order to produce a world that could support his one primary story -- the story of the destruction of the Ring and the end of the Third Age. The passing of the Elves and the rise of Men. That is the story for which Middle-Earth was created.

The fact that after his death people went through his notes and published them does not support your contention.

Now of course we can't ask him and get his point of view on things, but the evidence more strongly supports the one world = one story position than your post indicates.

I also disagree on your suggestion that worlds created to support a single story are necessarily shallow. That the worldbuilding process stops at some point doesn't imply that it's been shortchanged or done in a cursory fashion. All worldbuilding processes stop at some point. The fact that the creator no longer feels the urge to tell more stories set in that world doesn't signify anything beyond that simple fact itself.

A shallow, poorly conceived world is just as capable of supporting a large number of stories as a rich and well-conceived one.

 

[Insight]

The game world used in my group's campaign sounds a bit different from what you guys describe. I mapped out the continent where the game takes place, and aside from the names of kingdoms, cities, and geographic features, it is still a very 'empty' place, detail-wise.

But this is working as designed. My idea was that the players AND the DM would work to create/flesh-out this game world, so as to create a partnership between the two. What's good for the DM will be good for the players, especially since we rotate DMs on a fairly regular basis in the same game world.

I don't know if our game world is ever going to be 'done', though it will probably get to the point, after years of gaming, where the world will feel complete.

 

[J_D]

J_D: I disagree on your treatment of Middle-Earth. Tolkien's world is very specifically about the passing of the Third Age.

No, the Lord of the Rings trilogy (and it wasn't really a trilogy in his conception, just how it ended up being published) is about the passing of the Third Age. The world itself is bigger than that.

Once that's done, there really aren't any more interesting stories -- which we know because Tolkien didn't write any stories set AFTER that date.

Patent nonsense. The former does not at all follow from the latter. That Tolkien didn't write any stories set after the Lord of the Rings means only that — that he didn't write them. It does not at all mean that he couldn't have written them if he had wanted, or that there aren't other stories to write. History didn't end with the passing of the Third Age. Humans, hobbits, and dwarves still live, and even the elves still live although they left to go west. So long as people live, there will be stories to be told. The only way for there to be no more stories to be told (note that my phrasing is precise and means something different than choosing to not tell another story) to is to kill everyone off. Tolkien didn't do this.

He created a vast amount of history to support the story of the end of the Third Age, but note that the Professor himself didn't publish ANY of that material. It's all been published after his death, without his approval.

That the Professor himself didn't publish it is irrelevant. That it was created in the first place is what's relevant, and the mere fact that such a vast amount of history exists and in such detail means that many more stories can be spun out of it.

So it seems much more likely to me that he did a lot of world-creation (like any DM would) in order to produce a world that could support his one primary story -- the story of the destruction of the Ring and the end of the Third Age. The passing of the Elves and the rise of Men. That is the story for which Middle-Earth was created.

That is the reason for which Tolkien created the world, true, but that does not mean that there are no other stories to be told of Middle Earth. I don't believe it is even possible to create a backstory that complex and detailed without also creating the potential for many different stories of all scales.

The fact that after his death people went through his notes and published them does not support your contention.

Yes, it does. Who published them is irrelevant; the fact that they exist and were published is sufficient to support my contention.

Now of course we can't ask him and get his point of view on things, but the evidence more strongly supports the one world = one story position than your post indicates.

I disagree. Tolkien's motivation for creating the world is not a limitation on the possibilities that world presents.

I also disagree on your suggestion that worlds created to support a single story are necessarily shallow. That the worldbuilding process stops at some point doesn't imply that it's been shortchanged or done in a cursory fashion. All worldbuilding processes stop at some point.

If the created world is created to a sufficient level of depth and complexity then it cannot be limited to only one possible story regardless of the motive of the creator for creating the world in the first place. That all worldbuilding processes stop at some point is primarily due to the limitations on the time and level of interest of the author, not due to any limits of the world itself. In the worldbuilding sense, there truly is no such thing as a "fully complete" world because the world has characters in who have lives and things change; all that's needed is for an author to create and record those lives and the events they live through.

The fact that the creator no longer feels the urge to tell more stories set in that world doesn't signify anything beyond that simple fact itself.

Exactly. That doesn't mean that there are no more stories to tell, which is the point I'm trying to get across. It only means that the creator chose not to tell more stories.

A shallow, poorly conceived world is just as capable of supporting a large number of stories as a rich and well-conceived one.

A point that I never argued or disputed. I'm trying to argue that a rich and deep world easily can support more than one story, and in fact cannot be limited to only one possible to story to tell. The fact that the creator chooses to only tell one story does not at all mean that there is only one story to tell. The fact that the creator stops at one story does not mean that the world is over or done; it does not mean that there are no more stories to tell in that world; it does not mean that the world ceases to be exiting after the one story is told. A world in which there is only one possible story to tell and the excitement is over once it is told is a shallow and lame world! That is my point, and that point cannot be equated to what your last sentence says.

 

[jester47]

Frankensetting!

Well as things are progressing, my frankensetting will soon be complete!

<evil laughter> </evil laughter>

Start with the forgotten realms as detailed in 3.x. Ask the following questions:

1)What is to the east of the map given?
2)What is to the west over the sea?

Then look at the Map of the World of Greyhawk (that is the Flanaess). Ask the following questions:

3)What is to the west of the map given?
4)What is over the sea to the east?

Then see the Wilderlands and Blackmoor.

5)What could be to the east of the sea?

The answers are as follows:

1)The hoardelands, and then deserts the size of seas.
2)A strange land that the Amnians have gained a foothold in.
3)The sea of dust and then more seas of dust.
4)Some say another continent. Who knows?
5)The land of the Amnians of course! The Sword Coast and Waterdeep!

Basicly I plan on stitching together the FR, GH, WL, BM, and NG settings to create one really big very detailed world. All the links are there for it to work out quite well. I plan on scrapping Kara Tur for sure. however I might keep AlQuadim, as it fits with my concept of severe deserts separating Faerun and the Flanaess. The Wilderlands and Blackmoor get to be the eastern side of the other continent that you can reach going east from Greyhawk or west from the Forgotten Realms. Indeed Greyhawk has some lore of a continent to the East, so it all works out quite well. Necromancer Games fan David M. Williams has a map that includes the maps from many NG modules and I figure that would work well as the eastern coast south of Blackmoor.

With C&C 3e no longer is the best common denominator for conversions, and so C&C acts as the perfect keystone to pull this off!

Soon.... very soon....

Aaron.

 

[fusangite]

I have to chime in in support of Barsoomcore here. For those who don't see what he means about Middle Earth, I think the best analogy is to a chemical reaction. You have a test tube. You pour in various substances that react with eachother. Eventually, the various chemicals finish reacting with eachother after presenting you with a dazzling display of froth, pungent odors and a dramatic change in colour.

This is essentially the theory of the Tolkienesque world. In order to produce another beautiful, dramatic reaction, you have to add new ingredients. The chemicals you started with are done.

Now, if you want to view the test tube as the world, then yes -- there are an infinite number of chemical reactions you can have in there. But we're viewing the starting combination of chemicals as of the beginning of the reaction as the world.

At the end of LOTR, the elves are gone; the rings are gone; magic is gone; the last of the Maiar all leave Middle Earth. Now, if you see Middle Earth as that map that folds out of the book, then Middle Earth isn't over. But barsoomcore and I see the elves, magic, the rings, etc. as part of what makes Middle Earth Middle Earth.

 

[barsoomcore]

J_D, I think there's a basic misunderstanding at work here.

It seems like you're arguing that it's possible to create more exciting stories in Middle-Earth (to continue with the example in question) than the one told in The Lord of the Rings. I don't contest that notion.

The notion I'm contesting (and for all I know you agree with this, we seem to be at cross-purposes here) is that Tolkien created Middle-Earth with the intention of using it to tell more stories than the one told in the only works he published in that setting. There's no evidence that he did so. My point is that it doesn't matter.

My point is that whether you develop your setting with the intent to only ever tell ONE story, or whether you do this work with the hope of telling a wide array of stories has no bearing on the richness and depth of the setting itself.

 

[Ry]

(Tolkien argument aside) Again, my world isn't done in any kind of sense like the Forgotten Realms might be "done." Thus, laments about not being able to "surprise myself" don't quite hit the mark. Of course my campaign setting has room for new ideas if I decide to add them. As I said, it fits on 20 pages.

For all my previous settings, I'd be endlessly scribbling at things that really never came across to the players - details of political players in each city and country, or treatises on magic, that sort of thing. Or there would be big gaps; the players would be heading for a confrontation, and I'd be missing a few steps of the way or what would happen afterwards. At the very least, I never felt "done." - the campaign always needed a little more work, and I could never be quite as prepared as I wanted to be.

That kind of campaign prep is now perennially "done." I don't anticipate ever really struggling if I want to run a game here; nor having problems with "running it out." The world will grow with the players' involvement, new villains will come and go, new secrets will be uncovered, new dungeons explored, new places discovered. But the challenge of campaign prep has been laid to rest.

This time, I found an approach that made sure the essentials were there for a long running campaign setting that feels complete.