What if your players had an innate knowledge of your setting?

[Ed_Laprade]

I always give each of my players, when I GM, a map of the continent/world. Cuts down on a lot of the problems. "Say, how far is Appleton from here?" Everyone hauls out their maps... (And if Appleton isn't on the map, I'll point out about where it is, or tell them something like "Its ten miles from Plumb City.")

 

[Piratecat]

I'd cheer. And if they'd read it, I'd encourage them to read area setting books and memorize them.

The more your players know about your setting, the more committed they are. They buy into the game world, and it seems more real to them. This is a joy; I'll take one of these people for any three players who don't read campaign background and who don't bother to remember place names.

The caveat is that I'd tell these players that I might change anything at any time. The world isn't necessarily as they read it to be. People change, people move around, places change, and someone who the books say is a hero may be a villain or a non-entity. I'd also ask them to keep really meta-knowledge ("the innkeeper has a secret passage in the basement!") out of the game, or find out the hard way that it isn't true.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I'd cheer. And if they'd read it, I'd encourage them to read area setting books and memorize them.

The more your players know about your setting, the more committed they are. They buy into the game world, and it seems more real to them. This is a joy; I'll take one of these people for any three players who don't read campaign background and who don't bother to remember place names.

The caveat is that I'd tell these players that I might change anything at any time. The world isn't necessarily as they read it to be. People change, people move around, places change, and someone who the books say is a hero may be a villain or a non-entity. I'd also ask them to keep really meta-knowledge ("the innkeeper has a secret passage in the basement!") out of the game, or find out the hard way that it isn't true.

Phoo! Beaten to it by the one eyed cat.

Is it unreasonable to expect a character to be completely unfamiliar with his own world? I don't think so, and put a good deal of work into player handouts as a result.

The Auld Grump, who's homebrew is based on 17th century Earth.

 

[Terwox]

I really wouldn't like this -- kills my suspension of disbelief. I'm not fond of fantasy games in real-world settings... as you say, too much baggage.

Well, Changeling is fun. But it's a little different.

 

[el-remmen]

I don't understand the problem in the example.

So, they got the name wrong for 30 seconds, looked at the notes and corrected it. . . what's the big deal?

Also, providing your players with a map helps these kinds of problems. . .

 

[gizmo33]

The potential problem I see with this is twofold.

Just two?

Are the NPCs in the campaign named after actual famous people? What if it's the name of a hotdog vendor? Would that be an actual person's name? Or could the vendor use a famous person's name like Cher, and then what about the real Cher? Is there one of them too?

And what if things changed? What if the king of the US gets in his spaceship and goes back to his home planet? I guess that couldn't happen because then I couldn't then learn about the campaign setting by watching TV. I guess the game's events would be restricted to real-world changes.

And finally, wouldn't keeping track of the events that happened during the game be frought with the same perils that you point out in the OP? Having to keep track that the bard Cher sent me to Chicago to retrieve the Potion of Zantac might be confusing. I might instead wind up thinking that Mr. T sent me to Honduras to slay the giant Brawny.

If I couldn't read the latest issue of Cosmo to sort it out, then what? Either I'd have to take notes, or insist that the plot lines start following the same general outline as my daily activities, just so I could keep everything straight.

And with multiple players in the party the adventure plot can only cover one person's day - so what if one player went shopping and the other one saw a movie? I guess you'd have to split the party. Worse than that, what if that day's activity was playing DnD?! Then you'd have to say that the character was playing DnD where his character was playing DnD, and so on.

I wouldn't choose either "good idea" or "too much baggage" for this idea. It all seems to lead back to the same problem where people would have to keep track of names and places and events.

 

[Rel]

Two Words: Warhammer Fantasy RolePlay

 

[Asmor]

Two Words: Warhammer Fantasy RolePlay

Uhh... That's three words.

My players weren't fond of it when we tried it last time.

 

[painandgreed]

So what do you think? Good idea, or too much baggage?

You pretty much described my homebrew. Map of Europe with modern political boundries and natural landmarks. I mine history for names. Keep some of the national flavor but otherwise the history, nations, and people may be modeled somewhat off the real world but are my own creations. There may be quivilents of the Trojan war, and the Roman empire, but they are not fantasy versions of same and although it has modern political boundries, it is closer to the 1200's as far as history would go.

For the most part, most of the adventuring begins in and around what would be Austria and the Balkins which most people are familiar with enough to get confused especially since I make sure to keep the game world separate and quite different from the real world except as a resource for maps, names and raw ideas. I really don't want people to think that I believe that Czechs are modeled best by elves, Swiss by dwarves, Serbians by hobgoblins, and Russians by orcs and goblins.

 

[Xaositech]

You pretty much described my homebrew. Map of Europe with modern political boundries and natural landmarks. I mine history for names. Keep some of the national flavor but otherwise the history, nations, and people may be modeled somewhat off the real world but are my own creations. There may be quivilents of the Trojan war, and the Roman empire, but they are not fantasy versions of same and although it has modern political boundries, it is closer to the 1200's as far as history would go.

For the most part, most of the adventuring begins in and around what would be Austria and the Balkins which most people are familiar with enough to get confused especially since I make sure to keep the game world separate and quite different from the real world except as a resource for maps, names and raw ideas. I really don't want people to think that I believe that Czechs are modeled best by elves, Swiss by dwarves, Serbians by hobgoblins, and Russians by orcs and goblins.

Yours caught my attention because I'm attempting to run mine in the same geographical area, but I'm trying to keep the timeline prior to 1250 so I can avoid the advent of gunpowder and cannons and keep more of the aspect of a fantasy campaign.

It sounds to me like you're using modern political maps as-is instead of creating your own political boundaries? I'm still struggling with finding the appropriate map landscape where I can mold the political landscape to my choosing. After doing the normal RPG resource routes, I've been trying my searches through National Geographic, the Smithonian, etc. What have you been using?