Setting philosophies

[Mercule]

I'm not sure there's a lot of value in trying to synthesize a setting down to a single word. A small paragraph or two, maybe even just a sentence or two, I can see, but a single word? What does that do for you?

Brevity.

 

[NiTessine]

However, given that according to a Dragon Magazine article some years back Troy Denning proposed the setting as kind of an "ecological cautionary tale", it seemed that the wasted potential was the originating theme here, as recent developments (Prism Pentad and others) showed a return of some life to the world, and some other unusual developments of slightly more hope.

Edited because I misremembered the author.

Yeah, well, there is a largish number of Dark Sun players who have never forgiven Denning for the Prism Pentad. I am one of those. The series utterly changed the tone of the setting. A nice compromise would be to say 'survival' is the first version, and 'waste' is the second one... *Shrug*

 

[Mercule]

No, not a dual post....

I'm not sure there's a lot of value in trying to synthesize a setting down to a single word. A small paragraph or two, maybe even just a sentence or two, I can see, but a single word? What does that do for you?

In seriousness, I think it gives focus to things. A paragraph is longer than some players' attention spans. There's a summary, and then there's a tag-line. I think a tag-line is going to be more useful in most cases.

I'm not sure a single word has more utility, but it is an interesting mental exercise to help us focus our thoughts.

 

[jonesy]

I'm not sure there's a lot of value in trying to synthesize a setting down to a single word. A small paragraph or two, maybe even just a sentence or two, I can see, but a single word? What does that do for you?

An itchy feeling. No wait, that was the answer to something else. I'm not trying to synthesize a setting to a single word, that would be impossible, just the basic desing principle. When you go back to scratch, what was the concept it all began from.

Brevity.