"Oddities" in fantasy settings - the case against "consistency"

[Alzrius]

When conventions of the game world can be worked out during and as part of the process of creating charcters, things are different. It's not an antithesis to engaging, dynamic play—it's another way of getting engaging, dynamic play.

I don't think that conventions are the antithesis of engaging, dynamic play either; I was referencing that idea being brought up earlier in the thread:

I think the notion of consistency is overrated, and is the enemy of interesting, engaging, dynamic imaginary worlds.

Needless to say, I disagree heartily.

There's nothing wrong with making up characters by sticking to established conventions. But by the very same exact token, there's nothing wrong with making up character as part of the dialogue of creating those conventions.

I don't disagree; having such ideas be brought up before play begins is, and resolving the issue, is very much the ideal recourse. I'm just trying to point out why I believe there's (reasonable) reluctance on the part of some people to accommodate a character whose is designed specifically to run counter to the setting idea(s) that have been put forward. Even if we assume that there's no contrarianism or self-aggrandizement in play, it changes the nature of the proposed dynamic in ways that other players (and the GM) might not like, and that's okay.

 

[pemerton]

I agree with the idea that a character's backstory should be their first three levels.

The question of whether or not the character is a "generic fighting man" strikes me as being less important than what this character does over the course of the campaign.

The last "fighting man" that I played in a FPRG was Thurgon.

Like any Burning Wheel PC, Thurgon was built using the lifepath system in the Character Burner. So he has a backstory as a result of that. I also spent build resource on establishing various reputations and affiliations, either directly or as a result of various traits.

The upshot was that Thurgon starts the game aged 29, with B3 Circles (not a bad starting rating), and the following Relationships, Affiliations and Reputations:

Xanthippe (Mother, on family estate)
Aramina (sorceress companion)

+1D aff von Pfizer family
+1D aff Order of the Iron Tower
+1D aff nobility

+1D rep last Knight of the Iron Tower​

Because he is Sworn to the Order (a trait), Thurgon also has a fourth Belief (ie in addition to the standard three) that is related to or dictated by his membership of the Order of the Iron Tower.

This is fairly standard stuff for a BW PC. It is what informs the events of play: everything that Thurgon does, over the course of the campaign, is grounded in these elements of the character. The game would not be improved by stripping all this away and having Thurgon be a "generic" fighting man whose backstory is established in the first three levels of play (ignoring the fact that BW is not a level-based game).

 

[Alzrius]

The last "fighting man" that I played in a FPRG was Thurgon.

Like any Burning Wheel PC, Thurgon was built using the lifepath system in the Character Burner. So he has a backstory as a result of that. I also spent build resource on establishing various reputations and affiliations, either directly or as a result of various traits.

The upshot was that Thurgon starts the game aged 29, with B3 Circles (not a bad starting rating), and the following Relationships, Affiliations and Reputations:

Xanthippe (Mother, on family estate)​

Aramina (sorceress companion)​

​

+1D aff von Pfizer family​

+1D aff Order of the Iron Tower​

+1D aff nobility​

​

+1D rep last Knight of the Iron Tower​

​

​

Because he is Sworn to the Order (a trait), Thurgon also has a fourth Belief (ie in addition to the standard three) that is related to or dictated by his membership of the Order of the Iron Tower.​

​

This is fairly standard stuff for a BW PC. It is what informs the events of play: everything that Thurgon does, over the course of the campaign, is grounded in these elements of the character. The game would not be improved by stripping all this away and having Thurgon be a "generic" fighting man whose backstory is established in the first three levels of play (ignoring the fact that BW is not a level-based game).​

And what consistencies of the setting did he overturn, since otherwise playing Thurgon would be abetting the enemy of interesting and dynamic imagined worlds?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't think anyone is hostile to the idea of character concepts created by players. I think they have a problem with (or at least a suspicion toward) players specifically designing characters whose concepts break the conventions of the setting they (the players) know that they'll be playing in. And it's one that I share, since as I noted before, someone who designs a character whose central conceit is "the rules don't apply to me (even where other PCs are concerned)" tends to raise big red flags.

Yeah, I think it is more about character concepts that disrupt the group. Also how much leeway players have concept wise, in terms of customization, obviously varies from system to system. But the issues that can emerge here are 1) something that damages the integrity of the campaign setting or busts the premise, 2) a character concept that gives the player special advantage: possibly being the last wizard could do this, but other ideas are concepts where your the son of a powerful king or you are the chosen one-------in the right group, in the right setting. all of these can work, but it is easy to see how some concepts can produce balance and spotlight issues. That said, I am usually pretty open to exceptional character concepts so long as they are within the bounds of the setting and I feel I can make it work, and the other players don't have any objection.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Characters who are established before the game even begins to be "special" in a way that no one else is seem to overlook the idea of exceptionalism as being – not an initial state that they begin playing with – but as a status that they earn over the course of the game.

Who says that the other characters aren’t similarly special? The initial suggestion was that the idea of the last mage then sparked similar ideas for other characters.

And in my own experience, the last mage player is telling me he doesn't want to engage in the campaign that the GM or the other players want to enage in. The message he's sending is, "The hell with what everyone else wants. We're going to to this my way."

And isn’t that what the GM is doing by making all the decisions of what’s allowed ahead of time?

The GM does the lion's share of the work in running a campaign. Not all privilege is unearned.

But this need not be the case. Or at the very least, need not be as severe as many expect.

I would assume it's to limit what's available, both to the PCs and to the GM.

To what purpose?

"Must have been" implies the past, "one or more of the PCs" implies the present; and there's a big difference between the two in how the concept is likely to play out. There's a big difference between "magic is dead" and "magic is dying";

Is there?

the player here is trying to take the former and turn it into the latter, forcing the GM to sort out all the ramifications of magic otherwise not quite being dead.

So what?

Isn’t this only a problem if the GM has already decided what play will be about?

Again, what is the purpose of this setting?

For me, the purpose of any setting is to offer up dynamic play. That’s the primary function… anything else is secondary at best.

So I want any ideas I come up with to be invitations to the players to take them and make them their own. I think this is the main thrust of the OP, and I think the vast majority of fantasy fiction supports this idea.

It seems to be premise as endpoint rather than premise as starting point.

Well, as we no longer have JRRT around to ask directly, all we have is conjecture. That said, given his approach I'm quite willing to accept that everything he put in those books had a reason for being there, and that it all sat on a very solid and consistent chassis.

Well, again, there are plenty of oddities and plenty of flat out absurdities in Middle Earth. If you accept Tolkien’s world as being on a consistent chassis it’s because he very much used the kind of post-hoc rationalization that’s been mentioned. You cited several of them yourself.

Other than that, I think comparing author as world builder to GM as world builder has some real problems in these sorts of discussions.

The GM obviously has some sort of agenda or idea or conecpt in mind, otherwise the no-magic restriction wouldn't be there. Maybe she doesn't want to bother with magic in the campaign because of all the extra rulings and work it entails. Maybe she just wants to see how a no-magic game plays out and-or functions.

I mean, if the reason the GM designed the setting that way was because they didn’t want to deal with magic, then why not just say that? Why leave any room for ambiguity by hiding the motive behind a setting element?

I’d be much more sympathetic to someone saying “I really just don’t want to have to manage spells and magic for once” than I would someone offering up a concept that makes my wheels turn and then they shoot down the concept that I came up with.

Maybe she's got a loose plot in mind where the PCs are the ones to return magic to the world. Who knows?

Sounds like the GM already does! Which seems to be the problem with that uppity player coming along with ideas!

By this I take it you're not cool with characters moving from one campaign/world to another?

It’s a total non-factor in my decision making. I don’t really care.

But I definitey lean more towards wanting to play Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, not Luke Skywalker in Flash Gordon. Luke’s only interesting in his own story.

I don’t really want characters and setting to be so unrelated in that way.

 

[Alzrius]

Who says that the other characters aren’t similarly special? The initial suggestion was that the idea of the last mage then sparked similar ideas for other characters.

In all honesty, having other characters be "similarly" special (and I use the quotation marks purely to underline that it can be rather awkward to try and measure what constitutes "similarly") is probably one of the better ways to compromise on that particular issue...at least insofar as not having one character overshadow all of the others goes. That said, there's still pitfalls with regard to how you implement that, hence the quotation marks. You can be special in various ways without overturning the conventions of the setting; similarly, you can define your character as being special for what they've accomplished in the campaign, rather than right out of the gate.

 

[pemerton]

Said mage can have all the will to live he likes but bad luck is bad luck...assuming characters can die due to bad luck in BW.

The will to live is a technical notion in Burning Wheel and also in Torchbearer.

In BW, if your PC suffers a Mortal Wound, you can declare that you have the will to live and then - provided you have a persona point available, and spend it - your PC is guaranteed not to die, although the recovery may be quite arduous (with the significant risk of loss to stats and acquiring undesirable traits).

 

[pemerton]

There's many oddities in the real world but the whole thing is still fairly consistent.

Is it really? Do people carry heavy loads in their arms, or on their heads? What sorts of houses (if any) do people live in? People are social beings, yet the real world (historically at least) is full of weirdo hermits, some of whom end up being revered. Great empires sometimes collapse with no one really expecting them to when they do so. It's almost February in Melbourne and I think we've had about two days over 30 degrees this summer.

Etc, etc. I think the world has far more variation and unpredictability than the typical FRPG setting build around principles of "consistency".

Looking at the OP, I am a bit confused how a creature like gollum contradicts consistency of the setting

Gollum is a Hobbit who is absurdly long-lived, can live without any sunlight on raw fish and Goblins, can strangle the latter to death with his bare hands, etc, etc.

He departs from all the norms of what Hobbits are established as being.

a setting where Golum is simply an NPC isn't a violation of setting consistency. NPCs and Monsters don't have to follow the same rules as making player characters (i.e. the GM can introduce a unique monster who is the product of a divine curse and was once human, it is only inconsistent with the setting if Divine Curses make no sense in it).

It seems to me that if the GM can introduce unique entities - perhaps in part by establishing additional fictional elements to make them fit in (like Gollum is far too weird and long-lived to be a Hobbit, but this is the result of him having had the One Ring all that time) - then in principle the players can too.

There might be technical rules that put limits on this - eg at least in some approaches to D&D, game balance or "fairness" relies on the players building their PCs from the specified lists of classes and races - but I don't see that there are reasons to do with the consistency or integrity of the fiction that put limits on this, in any way that is different from the GM.

 

[hawkeyefan]

In all honesty, having other characters be "similarly" special (and I use the quotation marks purely to underline that it can be rather awkward to try and measure what constitutes "similarly") is probably one of the better ways to compromise on that particular issue...at least insofar as not having one character overshadow all of the others goes. That said, there's still pitfalls with regard to how you implement that, hence the quotation marks. You can be special in various ways without overturning the conventions of the setting; similarly, you can define your character as being special for what they've accomplished in the campaign, rather than right out of the gate.

I mean, all it takes is giving the characters meaningful elements to engage with. I find holding any setting ideas I have as GM loosely rather than tightly helps promote this. When a player has an idea, I’m more able to adapt or incorporate ideas into the setting.

As for backstories, not all are about accomplishment… the kind we’d typically ascribe to level advancement. No one is saying that the last mage needs to be some kind of 18th level archmage.

Often, it’s more about their place in the world. The people they know and love, the people they hate, the things they’ve seen.

And a lot of times… depending on the game and how all this kind of stuff is determined… all that stuff which we can assume is important to the player will amount to jack because the GM simply ignores it, or doesn’t know what to do with it, or can’t conceive how to reconcile it with other game elements.

This is why I personally prefer that all this stuff… setting creation and character creation… be done as a group effort.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Gollum is a Hobbit who is absurdly long-lived, can live without any sunlight on raw fish and Goblins, can strangle the latter to death with his bare hands, etc, etc.

He departs from all the norms of what Hobbits are established as being.

But he is a twisted creature corrupted by the ring. I feel like it doesn't violate setting consistency, he just isn't a normal hobbit.

It seems to me that if the GM can introduce unique entities - perhaps in part by establishing additional fictional elements to make them fit in (like Gollum is far too weird and long-lived to be a Hobbit, but this is the result of him having had the One Ring all that time) - then in principle the players can too.

This depends on the game system and the group. I think in something like D&D, it is definitely not the norm for the players do this (it isn't even the norm frankly for the GM in 3E). But sure, if you want the the players do to so, it works with the system, and it fits your group style there isn't an issue. That said I don't think it follows that the GM and players ought to permit this. It needs to be something decided upon buy the group and when they pick a system.

There might be technical rules that put limits on this - eg at least in some approaches to D&D, game balance or "fairness" relies on the players building their PCs from the specified lists of classes and races - but I don't see that there are reasons to do with the consistency or integrity of the fiction that put limits on this, in any way that is different from the GM.

I think the main concern here is one of balance. It can get into world consistency issues but that is more case by case (for example if a player introduces something that is wildly out of character for the setting or violates setting consistency). But the main reason a GM can usually create a character like Gollum, while players can't is I think issues surrounding balance, spotlight, etc more often than setting consistency.