Setting Design vs Adventure Prep

[Ry]

BTW, I don't use all the problems, threats, resources, and rewards that I draw; I just pull some out and see if I have an idea that I can do in a way the players would be really into.

 

[rounser]

The adventure happens when the PCs learn that the Poachers guild (part of the setting) of Lake Mauran (setting) will pay handsomely for owlbear pelts (setting), but one must contend with the Druid of Wayward Wood (setting) in way or another.

Hammer this out at encounter level and send it into Dungeon magazine and (if it got accepted, unlikely because the hook/plot is weak) and it'd be considered an adventure. But we're still splitting hairs, and turning definitions to our advantage.

Your own setting thread shows what most people refer to when they talk about designing a setting, though. You've gone top-down, macro-level, world map-focused, history and culture-heavy, which is a common approach. Worrying about owlbear pelts, detailing a tiny area well, is a bottom-up approach, and much more practical in terms of running a D&D game IMO, and the approach we see with adventure paths and campaign modules, outside of campaign setting books, because unlike a campaign setting those modules actually have to walk the walk in terms of supporting a game. Detailing encounter areas at this level is something I suspect we won't be seeing on your thread any time soon - so I think you're twisting and turning rather frantically there.

 

[Reynard]

Stat this out and send it into Dungeon magazine and (if it got accepted, unlikely because the hook/plot is weak) it'd be considered an adventure.

No, it's considered an adventure when the PCs go do it, no matter how much or how little it is detailed prior to that.

Your own thread shows what most people refer to when they talk about designing a setting, though. You've gone top-down, macro-level, world map-focused, history and culture-heavy, which is a common approach. Worrying about owlbear pelts, detailing a tiny area well, is a bottom-up approach, and much more practical in terms of running a D&D game IMO. Detailing encounter areas at this level is something I suspect we won't be seeing on your thread any time soon - so I think you're twisting and turning rather frantically there.

Absolutely. We sort of veered into an area of discussing the definition of adventure and how setting detail can help you if you need (or prefer) to wing it. But the fact that i have macro-level detail in my campaign setting doesn't harm my game. that's my point, and why i started this thread in the first place. it helps my game, because if I want to do a dungeon crawl with orcs, I know where the dungeons are likely to be located and what the orcs are like. If I want to do an adventure centering around high level politics, i have an idea of who the high level political powers are.

If I want to do an adventure about lizard men stealing virgins from villages for vile rites, guess what? I have to make it all up, because there isn't word one of lizard men in my campaign bible yet. But you can be sure that after I prep my adventure, i will also have a good bit of macro-level setting information on lizard men, which i didn't have before. yay me and my setting.

I don't see how it isn't a win-win.

 

[Ry]

Hey, strip the setting elements and you can use it anywhere:

Problem: Local poachers (allied as a guild with any other criminal elements) will pay handsomely for pelts of owlbears (or another magical beast), but nearby druids will be angered as the creature dwells within an area they consider sacred.

 

[Reynard]

Hey, strip the setting elements and you can use it anywhere:

Problem: Local poachers (allied as a guild with any other criminal elements) will pay handsomely for pelts of owlbears (or another magical beast), but nearby druids will be angered as the creature dwells within an area they consider sacred.

Hoorah?

I mean, sure, but what's the point of doing so if adventures that evoke a setting are what you're after?

 

[rounser]

But the fact that i have macro-level detail in my campaign setting doesn't harm my game. that's my point, and why i started this thread in the first place. it helps my game, because if I want to do a dungeon crawl with orcs, I know where the dungeons are likely to be located and what the orcs are like. If I want to do an adventure centering around high level politics, i have an idea of who the high level political powers are.

And you have an idea of what adventures cannot be run, because the setting forbids that kind of adventure because you've already decided that the setting is X, Y and Z, and not the A, B and C required by the adventure. So the adventure is compromised, when it should be the other way around IMO, because the adventure is effectively what the players spend their time "doing".

Again, this is like writing the script for a play based on what stage props are available, and where they have already been put on the stage (because you've already decided that the chair goes there, ahead of time, or you might spend ages painting a prop that turns out to never get used in the actual play). Why not create the props that the script requires after it's written, and put them where they're needed? Much more sensible IMO.

 

[Ry]

If I want to do an adventure about lizard men stealing virgins from villages for vile rites, guess what? I have to make it all up, because there isn't word one of lizard men in my campaign bible yet. But you can be sure that after I prep my adventure, i will also have a good bit of macro-level setting information on lizard men, which i didn't have before. yay me and my setting.

Fair enough. I'm trying to say that you should work on your next adventure, and let the macrolevel stuff work its way out in hindsight (as in, if the players show interest in it directly) rather than in advance.

 

[Ry]

I mean, sure, but what's the point of doing so if adventures that evoke a setting are what you're after?

I don't see how the name-dropping evokes a setting. And if you mean working thematically, designing around your theme is a very valid way to go about it. I mean, if a good portion of my problems were starving communities, my threats were undead lords, my resources were magic items that carried some kind of cost to use or devils that were handily about ready to make a deal, and the rewards were generally confined to enhanced weaponry, the occasional holy symbol, and safe places to rest, I'm working thematically but not building a setting. I'm ready to rock, desperate good-vs-evil style.

 

[Brazeku]

Generally it's not considered such, as a glance at any published campaign setting "bible" will show.

For purposes of this discussion, it's convenient to pretend that encounter level stuff is setting prep, but in the published D&D world this usually isn't the case. Magic of Faerun has, for example, an encounter-level bard's college. The FRCS has almost nothing at this level of development, and it's typically the FRCS model people have in mind when they refer to setting prep. Encounter level descriptions of towns, such as Hommlet, are generally included as part of an adventure. Those few supplements that aren't (such as the Shadowdale book in the 2E FRCS box) really stand out as something non-typical.

You can argue that your home efforts aren't like this, but it's typically what's meant by detailing a setting. But this discussion has descended into the splitting of hairs - an ogre's den is technically "part of the setting", but most won't be working on anywhere near that level when they "design a world" if they've chosen a top-down approach, as most do and this thread implies.

Macro-level setting development is a suboptimal use of time resources <- there's my argument in a nutshell. You believe it isn't, that the time is well spent, and that setting should dictate adventure form and function <- this is the traditional view. I think we'll agree to disagree on this one.

I'll level with you, and say that I haven't bought any setting stuff since I was quite young, and then I mostly disliked it. I don't consider most of it 'useful' setting.

Your argument makes sense- since players deal with specifics, spend your time constructing the specifics, and extend outward as necessary. I agree with that completely. In fact, that is exactly what I did with the lamp example- here is something the players see. Here is why it is there. Here is a hook based upon it. It provides enough detail to build an intro encounter on.

Completely off the top of my head- encounter- a storm breaks while the party is resting up for the night, knocking several of the lamps out. There is a great clamour as tendrils of mist spread across the common room of the inn- sending some people into a choking frenzy. The party hears a ruckus outside, the door smashes in from a gust of wind, and a strange, ghostly figure drifts into the room, speaking in an odd language. It disregards attack and eventually drifts away, out the door and toward the sea. If the language is translated, it is speaking of its service during the Tattered Flag campaign.

Party now has a few options. Seek further info (people at the inn are talking about the condition of the lamps, and how they have to be restored), ignore it completely and leave, try and follow the ghost towards the ocean.

that took 5 minutes. Here are several options for the players, derived from the setting example which I came up with in 2.

My efforts are not harmed at all if the players choose not to engage this- I have invested next to nothing. While they are deciding, I am working out spot hazards to drop into battlefields for the locations they could travel to. Jotting down mechanics, etc.

 

[Mark CMG]

Okay, then look (. . .)

We've both expressed our opinions. Best to leave it at that, I think.