Setting creation and player buy-in

[Ainamacar]

Next week my group is starting a 2nd game, a FATE 3e campaign in a setting that is inspired by Stargate. Three of us are very familiar with the show, and one of us is not. However, to help us break away from the tropes and background of the show, the GM has had us play the Microscope RPG for a few weeks beforehand so we can flesh out the basic details of our setting.

For those of you who haven't heard of Microscope, it is a diceless GM-less round-robin story-telling RPG where everyone takes turns specifying events, periods, or scenes. (The latter are roleplayed). Each round of the game has certain thematic and timeline restrictions, and is quite structured in terms of who has narrative control at any given time, but still offers a lot of flexibility and often progresses non-linearly. To keep players on task, scenes are directed (they must address a particular question such as "How did we find the stargate?") and events are suggestively labeled either light or dark, though in what way and for whom is undetermined at first.

These are the very broadest strokes of what we have determined, for those who are curious.
[sblock]
The stargate was found in the 1970s on Native American lands in the midwest, then rediscovered in the mid 1990s when it fell into the hands of the US Government. Much of wormhole physics from the show has been rewritten (gates connect to a single world unless you provide enough energy in which case they go to mysterious galactic hubs, gate travel is two-way) and the politics of the gate suggests an uneasy French-US alliance such that the gate ends up near CERN. Some broad book-ends are the sudden disappearance of the gate, its reappearance years later (a dark event), followed by the arrival of an alien ship (a light event) and the leak of the gate's existence to the rest of the world. The pertinent details of these events have not been defined, but even though they are probably far into the future of the FATE game there is a lot of value in knowing just these few things, but no idea of the context.

The FATE game will start with the first offworld team to get to a hub but are promptly stranded. After some investigation they learn enough to get to use another gate leading to an alien world and hopefully food. The last moment in Microscope was them stepping through the gate, emerging into a world with an alien cityscape dominating the horizon.[/sblock]

Now, I've been reflecting on how this style of collaborative setting creation would actually be very useful for gaining setting buy-in from the players in almost any RPG, particularly unfamiliar settings. By giving the players narrative control (within some scope specified by the GM) before play even begins, they can determine character/party backgrounds, meet and roleplay major NPCs, and invent some of the flavor that will grab them. I'd also expect some emergent plot hooks that would otherwise never appear. Heck, let them roleplay the villain (or a henchman) in a fashion not immediately applicable to the party at all. In short, let them explore and control the world before they do so with their PCs.

I've tried things that aim toward the same goal, such as running a oneshot to set the scene for the main campaign or distributing the classic "setting handbook" but in both cases I feel there is less sense of ownership, and the details are a lot easier to forget. Other formal methods I've heard about are generally focused on each character's background, which doesn't necessarily have such a large scope.

The major downside, as I see it, is that strong narrative control by players, even over relatively minor aspects of a pre-existing setting, could give some DMs a fit. Perhaps the Microscope rules would need a few more constraints than normal. Still, my intuition is that the surest way to gain player buy-in is to give them ownership of a little bit of the setting from the start. And although some players and groups generate elaborate backstories and well-motivated team interactions anyway, for other players I can see this process as extremely valuable. The hack-n-slash loving friend in an otherwise strongly narrative-minded group, for example.

How do you all try to create player buy-in for new or unfamiliar settings? Would this idea work for a wide range of groups, or is it not be worth the trouble? For setting creation from scratch it has been rather wonderful for my group, but I wonder how it would work in, for example, a Dark Sun campaign with new players and a DM immersed in DS lore.

 

[Nagol]

A lot of games suggest or explicitly offer rules for collaborative pre-game setting creation.

Ars Magica (via the Covenants supplement) and Conspiracy-X has the play group construct their stronghold.

The Dresden Files goes a step further and has the play group define aspects of the local setting, powerful NPCs, and special places prior to beginning play. Since it is a FATE product, you may want to take a look if its take would be helpful to you.

 

[alms66]

Yeah, the general idea that players should be able to have some influence over the setting they will be playing in seems like a no-brainer to me. I know I wouldn't play with a GM that didn't take my opinions and ideas into consideration, even if he/she rejects them in the end.

I've been developing two fantasy worlds for my entire gaming "career" - one is a dark and gritty low-fantasy world and the other is a very high fantasy world where pretty much everyone has at least some measure of magical power. Most of my players have learned much of these worlds over the years of gaming in them and have fallen in love with these two settings. I've been lucky in that regard. They have even helped shape the worlds with their ideas in the pre-campaign disscusions we have and/or with the background stories they sometimes come up with for their characters. Of course, past campaigns and past PC actions have shaped the worlds over time as well...

However, every now and then we stray from these two settings and run something completely different. When I decide to do that or they ask me to do that for the next campaign, I generally just come up with something and pitch it to them. Sometimes they throw out some ideas that get used, sometimes they throw out some ideas that don't get used, but again I'm lucky in that my group and I have been together so long that there's enough trust amongst us that at worst I'll get "I don't know about this, but I'm willing to give it a try for you." from one or even all of the players.

My group also knows that after 3 sessions we hold a vote and if the majority are not liking it that I am more than willing to junk it all and come up with something else. Campaign and setting ideas are a dime-a-dozen. Having good, trusting gaming buddies or even just good, trusting friends period, is something that's a lot harder to come by, and I'd rather lose a campaign idea/setting than a friend.

 

[chaochou]

Next week my group is starting a 2nd game, a FATE 3e campaign in a setting that is inspired by Stargate.

... lots of good stuff....

That's an interesting use for the Microscope rules (which I don't own nor have played but read about). Might have to think about buying that.

If you're playing a FATE-based space game did you look at Diaspora? Much like Dresden Files, Diaspora starts with everyone as equals (ie the 'GM' has no more or less say than anyone else during this step) creating a star system.

Still I agree with your general idea that involving soon-to-be players in setting creation has many benefits in play and there are very few games (stuff like Call of Cthulhu and Paranoia) where this wouldn't be my first step.


Edited to look at this bit...

I wonder how it would work in, for example, a Dark Sun campaign with new players and a DM immersed in DS lore.

I've had this problem - that is to say, I've run Gloranatha-based stuff since 1983 and found newer players could feel inhibited by not feeling they 'knew enough' or were 'doing it right'. And, in my view, the more I explained the less pro-active they got. It's like explaining simply re-inforces the feeling of not knowing enough.

A communal setting creation didn't entirely get rid of the problem, but I found it helped get players feeling a greater sense of ownership and a willingness to be pro-active. In response, I found it necessary to be flexible and back the players ahead of the 'lore'.

I always felt games set in Middle Earth suffered terrible problems in this regard. Very hard to make that setting 'your own' ime.

 

[howandwhy99]

Players typically add to the setting by writing background of what they believe their character knows. Suggesting setting and module material can be included in this. However, when the game is the exploration of that material it is understood the referee will be altering the material to convert it to his or her system behind the screen.

Think of it like this: many players play games to test their memory and pattern recognition skills. They explore the world not only to enjoy it, but to discern the underlying pattern within. They then take calculated moves based upon their current understanding of how it all operates. By having them choose the maze beforehand, they then already know the material. They can have memorized the maze already and simply head straight to the end. Avoiding this is why modules are kept secret from the prying eyes of the players.

As in computer games, some players do prefer to download a walkthrough rather than explore the world in its own right. But an RPG is understood as a game because it is just such a mental test of ability. It challenges us to not only envision in our imagination all of what is going on, but to be as clear and accurate as possible when doing so, not to mention remembering the entirety of all that has occurred so far. All of this is so players are better enabled to reach their own ends.

 

[Ainamacar]

The Dresden Files goes a step further and has the play group define aspects of the local setting, powerful NPCs, and special places prior to beginning play. Since it is a FATE product, you may want to take a look if its take would be helpful to you.

If you're playing a FATE-based space game did you look at Diaspora? Much like Dresden Files, Diaspora starts with everyone as equals (ie the 'GM' has no more or less say than anyone else during this step) creating a star system.

I'm pretty confident the GM is using the Dresden Files rules as the basic source for FATE in our game, so it wouldn't surprise me if he took that idea but chose to go in a slightly different direction. I should ask him. I've read some parts of the Diaspora SRD before (I found the ship combat rules very interesting) but I hadn't read about the collaborative setting creation. (I do vaguely recall reading about phases in character creation in FATE 2e a long time ago, but that strikes me as pretty traditional.)

I think Diaspora tends toward hard sci-fi a little bit more than what we want for this particular campaign, but we should definitely keep it in mind for mining ideas. I know I'd love to run a Diaspora/Eclipse Phase blend sometime.

Still I agree with your general idea that involving soon-to-be players in setting creation has many benefits in play and there are very few games (stuff like Call of Cthulhu and Paranoia) where this wouldn't be my first step.

I probably wouldn't do it in Paranoia either. It's best as a one-shot game IMHO and I think a player pretty much gets that game within 2 clone deaths, or does not. However, for Call of Cthulu I'd absolutely try it out, perhaps with the caveat that no one can explain mysterious events. Plus, in a horror game letting the players experience the normal flow of the setting and some of its characters might help make the events requiring investigation later more impactful. I played a somewhat brief CoC campaign set in 1920s New York, pretty standard CoC setting, but frequently had difficulty because that milieu is not one I have much experience with in fiction, in spite of a reasonably detailed character background, while the DM was extremely well read on that era even beyond the Cthulu mythos. I think something collaborative early on might have really helped.

I've had this problem - that is to say, I've run Gloranatha-based stuff since 1983 and found newer players could feel inhibited by not feeling they 'knew enough' or were 'doing it right'. And, in my view, the more I explained the less pro-active they got. It's like explaining simply re-inforces the feeling of not knowing enough.

A communal setting creation didn't entirely get rid of the problem, but I found it helped get players feeling a greater sense of ownership and a willingness to be pro-active. In response, I found it necessary to be flexible and back the players ahead of the 'lore'.

I think we're on the same wavelength here. Particularly where providing more information about the setting actually makes the player less willing to engage with the setting. At first glance it might seem like a paradoxical effect, but the psychology of "I don't know enough and never will" is a sufficient explanation.

Yeah, the general idea that players should be able to have some influence over the setting they will be playing in seems like a no-brainer to me. I know I wouldn't play with a GM that didn't take my opinions and ideas into consideration, even if he/she rejects them in the end.

Players typically add to the setting by writing background of what they believe their character knows. Suggesting setting and module material can be included in this. However, when the game is the exploration of that material it is understood the referee will be altering the material to convert it to his or her system behind the screen.

Aside from some one shots I've never played or run a game where there wasn't some interaction with the setting prior to play. Writing backgrounds and iterating with the DM at the very least. The scope of this creation is, in my experience, much more limited than what we did using Microscope. (Huh, irony.) And as you say, in what I think of as "traditional" pre-campaign negotiations what the player suggests may inspire the DM, but it isn't necessarily adopted. (Ideas are cheap, after all.) This is quite a bit different from what using Microscope was like, where the basic assumption is that ideas aren't suggestions, they are (incomplete) descriptions of reality. If something needs to be finessed, that is also something done collaboratively rather than behind the scenes.

Thank you all for your comments.

 

[chaochou]

I've read some parts of the Diaspora SRD before (I found the ship combat rules very interesting) but I hadn't read about the collaborative setting creation.

I think Diaspora tends toward hard sci-fi a little bit more than what we want for this particular campaign, but we should definitely keep it in mind for mining ideas. I know I'd love to run a Diaspora/Eclipse Phase blend sometime.

I don't know quite how you're defining 'hard sci-fi' but, yes, I'd say Diaspora is. The writers acknowledge straight out of the blocks that it's heavily, heavily based on Traveller.

Setting creation is Chapter Two. Everyone gets a planet or two to roll up and then the group starts to figure out what the stats mean and give aspects to the planets. Then they all get linked together (where the sort of jump routes are).

Definitely worth a look and, as you say, it could sort space combat for you if you don't have mechanics for it.

I don't know Eclipse Phase... must check that out. Cheers.