Setting Design vs Adventure Prep

[ShinHakkaider]

Depends on how you want to play the game. If your players just want hack and slash dungeon dwelving and don't seek to explore the setting, then you really don't need any setting background or anything besides the adventure at hand. If your players are there to explore a world, role play with NPCs, get involved in intrigue, or become involved in setting dealing on a larger scale, then you need a setting for them to play in as well as the prep to answer their questions or be able to wing it when they ask. Your adventure may deal with court intrigue, or not involve the city they're in at all except as a spot to spend the night, but you never know when soembody will try and hunt down the theives guild, try and make allies, or otherwise act on their own desires.

So wait, when I design an adventure around role playing and intrigue I actually NEED to design a setting for that? I'm sorry but I have to disagree with what you said here. You've basically just said that you NEED a setting in order to role-play, in order to do something other than a dungeon crawl and seriously, I don't know how you run YOUR games but in mine that's simply not true. The adventures and the settings are two completely separate entities. They CAN be intertwined but they dont have to be regardless of the playstyle.

 

[Desdichado]

I've with rycanada, buzz, etc. I like setting development; don't get me wrong. As a GM, it's tons of fun. However I'm finding more and more that it contributes less and less to my game overall. I spend some time developing the "hook" of my setting; the basic themes and tones etc., develop enough local setting to get the players off the ground immediately, and often let most of the rest of my setting languish unexplored, or only vaguely hinted at until needed. Tons of stuff tends to grow organically from playing and running the game, and I doubt that my players can tell what's previously developed and what's off the cuff made up on the spot, however.

Which is--again--an argument against extensive setting design being a necessary precursor to play.

 

[Ry]

Having a breadth of knowledge regarding the setting helps a great deal when an adventuring party takes a left turn during any adventure. Most people that claim to run things on the fly, aren't really. They just did their prep a lot earlier and much more generally.

I understand what you're getting at, but this isn't true of my case at all, and I think there really are people like me who honestly don't do this prep and can handle this on the fly. I know from your other posts you don't usually make general comments about how how other people do and don't run their games, so I won't hold that against you.

I don't prep setting. I prep 4 things: Problems, threats, resources, rewards. That "stuff" gets sent into the campaign as needed, but that's not the same as saying I'm prepping setting. Setting is much more an effect of what players are interested in and my whims at the table.

 

[Ry]

[trying to keep the thread from dissolving, there's good stuff to discuss here]

painandgreed, I think there are definitely GMs that are running things that aren't hack and slash but still don't prep a setting. I'm sure you don't think you know how everybody else runs their game, or all the techniques they use to pull it off... so we'll take that with a grain of salt.

Shin, I agree with you, but I think we should cool off on this one rather than argue about what's true and false about how other people play. [/trying to keep the thread from dissolving, there's good stuff to discuss here]

 

[painandgreed]

So wait, when I design an adventure around role playing and intrigue I actually NEED to design a setting for that? I'm sorry but I have to disagree with what you said here. You've basically just said that you NEED a setting in order to role-play, in order to do something other than a dungeon crawl and seriously, I don't know how you run YOUR games but in mine that's simply not true. The adventures and the settings are two completely separate entities. They CAN be intertwined but they dont have to be regardless of the playstyle.

Let me rephrase it as less 'stream-of-concisouness-train-of-thought-as-I-think" it way. (Which may or may not actualy resemble what I said earlier, but is close to what I intended.)

If your adventure is your setting, then, yes, you need the setting.

 

[amethal]

I love designing settings. Lots of times when I should be taking the chance to stat out the encounters for the session instead I add some fluff to a setting. If I'm lucky, its the setting my campaign is set in; more often than not its a different one ...

The fact that my homebrew is very detailed allows me to have a good idea of NPC motivations. If the PCs actually talk to someone, I am able to convincingly portray an individual with aims and aspirations which often have nothing to do with those of the PCs, making them feel more "real", for want of a better word.

It also means that on those occasions where the PCs are "looking for a good place to find X", I can come up with some useful suggestions.

These are very much side effects, however. My adventures would be much better if all the setting time was spent on adventure preparation instead.

My next campaign is going to be War of the Burning Sky. There's very little in the way of setting detail, but it looks like a damn fine series of adventures and I'm sure everyone is going to have fun.

But I'm still going to carry on tinkering with settings. I enjoy it.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

If your adventure is your setting, then, yes, you need the setting.

Yes, in this we are in agreement.

 

[Mark CMG]

I understand what you're getting at, but this isn't true of my case at all, and I think there really are people like me who honestly don't do this prep and can handle this on the fly. I know from your other posts you don't usually make general comments about how how other people do and don't run their games, so I won't hold that against you.

Well, I did stipulate "most" in my post.

I don't prep setting. I prep 4 things: Problems, threats, resources, rewards. That "stuff" gets sent into the campaign as needed, but that's not the same as saying I'm prepping setting. Setting is much more an effect of what players are interested in and my whims at the table.

Some might argue that what you do is create the core of the setting and allow the whims of the players to dress it up to suit their own concepts of fantasy.

Spoiler

Well, I did stipulate "some" in my post.

 

[Wraith Form]

Some might argue that what you do is create the core of the setting and allow the whims of the players to dress it up to suit their own concepts of fantasy.

"Whims of the players"?!? Bah. I railroad the snot outta them.

CHOO-CHOO!!






(kidding)

 

[howandwhy99]

I agree with the setting as adventure concept. It gets overlooked in the core books where only singular, episodic, and plotweaving styles are suggested. Most currently published adventures don't follow the module or adventure-setting model either. Now they plot out the course for players instead of allowing players to plot out their own. I've found that players (almost always a larger group of people than the DM) are very good at creating their own plots. A secondary benefit is, as a DM, I don't have to try and read their minds for what they desire. They already know what they and their characters desire.

IMO, the better the players become at creating their own fun, instead of relying on the DM to deliver it for them, the more enjoyable the game becomes for all.