WotC Setting Search News

[tarchon]

Well, clearly, whatever they said at the outset, there was at least one particular "high concept" they were looking for, and it just happens to be the high concept behind Exalted. I would guess from the three I've seen so far that most of the submissions that succeeded are the ones in which the authors either randomly guessed the right theme or themes (certainly not unlikely, given that there were 11,000 of them) or had rubbed enough elbows in the industry to have figured it out.

Now personally, I think the "Golden Age" angle is not very substantial, like I haven't discerned a clear effect on the setting, but it does make a nice slogan. It seems to be saying "high fantasy that doesn't have too much emphasis on the past history" but I don't really see how a lack of history is adding much. I mean, it's not like players in settings with epic histories are unable to write new history with their characters. In most settings, as used, the actual influence of the official history tends to vary a lot anyway based on how much the DM uses. We play in Greyhawk, but the ancient Suel-Bakluni conflict doesn't directly impact the game very often. Half the players don't even know what it was.

The constrast was clearer with Exalted, since White Wolf's bread-n-butter is the emphatically eschatological World of Darkness, like beginning vs. end, but in the context of the main high-fantasy RPG settings which are largely neutral on the matter, it doesn't have quite the same impact. When White Wolf says "Golden Age," they mean "doom isn't right around the corner anymore." In Golden Age D&D...?

The things I liked in your (RSKennan's) setting proposal were the other bits, the ones that would have a more tangible impact on the game.

 

[2WS-Steve]

I'm pretty sure that White Wolf didn't invent the Golden Age of Magic genre...

One thing that WotC might be trying to do is find a setting that dovetails more readily with Magic: the Gathering (or their next version of MtG). The presence of all the clockwork artifacts doesn't fit with Forgotten Realms and MtG is a high magic game to begin with. Thus, they'd want a world even more high magic than the Forgotten Realms and Golden Age of Magic fits the bill perfectly.

 

[Numion]

At least I know that my submission(s) failed not because of lack of quality, but because I didn't use the phrase "golden age."

Or both

 

[Rhialto]

Yes, I'm detecting a definite "sour grapes" aspect in the latest batch of posts myself...

 

[tarchon]

Yes, I'm detecting a definite "sour grapes" aspect in the latest batch of posts myself...

Oh, I expected to be accused of that. That's the danger with expressing an opinion about this. Do I like my setting? Does it appeal to me more than what I've read? Of course. I know what appeals to me better than anyone else, and I don't waste my time writing stuff I don't like. Duh.
On the other hand, I think a lot of them (and certainly the round of 11 qualifiers) are, according to some set of valid criteria, as good as or better than mine; it all depends on what your criteria for goodness are. And what I'm really looking at is what those criteria are.
If you don't like the fact that I have opinions about them, Rhialto, tough. You're going to have to learn to cope.

(detypoed)

 

[tarchon]

I'm pretty sure that White Wolf didn't invent the Golden Age of Magic genre...

Well, before we decide who invented the Golden Age, we need to figure out what it is in this context, if anything other than a good catch phrase, which it undoubtedly is. You seem to interpret it as indicating high magic, and that's certainly a plausible interpretation. That's definitely not the basic concept behind Exalted though, so I agree they didn't invent it in that sense . Exalted was clearly going for what might also be termed a "dawn age." From the Exalted web page:
"The fate of this new world is in your hands. The Second Age of Man. The Age of the Exalted." (Though note that it is only the dawn of a Second age, not a First). As I explained, this is clearly an important contrast from WW's point of view. The comments of the authors of the submissions using the phrase seem to indicate that they see it largely in the more generic "dawn age" sense, but you are right that the high magic sense seems to be coupled to that.

The phrase "Golden Age" itself is of Classical origin, clearly not invented by White Wolf, and it was part of a conceptual system describing the stages of degeneration, particularly moral degeneration, of the world through history, the Golden, Silver, Bronze, and (supposedly then current) Iron Ages. It's a very prevalent idea in world literature/mythology, and the world has evidentally been going to hell in a handbasket like this for at least the last 3000 years. The concept appears in Hindu mythology with nearly the same paradigm of ages, even.

In current idiom, only the Golden and Silver Ages really show up much, aside from technical use of Bronze and Iron Age in archaeology, with Golden Age usually tending to denote a period of highest achievement, the Golden Age of comic books or the Golden Age of cinema, for example. However, it does also tend to imply such a period to have ended in the past, essentially the time during which the impulse of initial efflorescence of the art had reached its climax.

"Morning Star: Now is the Golden Age: The great empires have not yet fallen. Humans have just come into their own..."

"The Sunset Kingdoms: [...] A vibrant, eclectic mix of cultures that are near the height of their ‘golden age’"

and it's pretty obvious that DAWNFORGE is on the same lines, as Plane Sailing pointed out.

These settings are all going for this sense of the initial efflorescence, not just of magic but of the world in general. The problem with using this as a basic concept for a setting is that you have to have something to relate it to. Golden Age relative to what? I think they clearly in most cases mean "relative to the conventional high fantasy setting of D&D," but in fact we have no reason to think that the conventional D&D fantasy settings are more or less efflorescent than these settings.
Is Greyhawk in a Golden Age or not? Well, we can't really tell until we know how the rest of its history unfolds. Maybe stuff keeps getting better, maybe it doesn't. Maybe some stuff gets better, some stuff gets worse. Sure, it had great ancient empires that have fallen, but it's got great current empires too. Maybe succeeding empires will be even greater? Who knows? (OK, maybe Col. Playdoh does.)

I just have yet to see a clear expression of what it is about the Golden Age concept itself that applies generally to the setting, and I think that's because the main D&D fantasy millieux/s just don't provide a meaningful context for the idea. WW's World of Darkness does. That's why it strikes me as perhaps reactive when I see great interest in this idea of using the ill-defined Golden Age concept to revitalize the RPG line at WotC while WW is cranking out their big new line based on what is for them a well-defined Golden Age concept. I don't think it's a big secret that WW is shooting for more of the quasi-medieval fantasy market with new things like Exalted, Sorcerers Crusade, and the new rev of Vampire: Dark Ages. WotC couldn't be blamed for reacting to this. Thrust, parry? Makes sense.

It's kind of like when you see two asteroid movies, two Robin Hood movies, or two volcano movies come out at about the same time, or when both Pepsi and Coke roll out some new transparent cola or such at the same time. OK, maybe it is coincidence, but hmm...

Let me reiterate that I strongly doubt any of the authors were explicitly thinking along these lines; it would be quite easy for dozens of people out of 11000 to hit on this particular expression just by chance.

Of course, maybe people at WotC came to the same conclusion I did about it sounding better than it works, and that could be why the Golden Agers didn't make the final cut. We the public won't know for a while.

 

[RSKennan]

You raise some valid concerns, Tarchon. Let me try to lay them to rest at least where Morning Star is concerned. While it's true that the term Golden Age is worthless outside of historical context, let me assure you that Morning Star has one. Let me speak in defense of Gary Pratt as well when I tell you that both of us had two submissions, and both had progressed versions of our "Golden Age" settings, that had "fallen from grace". Obviously it was the Golden Age aspect that got us in. Gary has also stated in his thread and to me that he was actually more excited about his progressed version. The opposite is true for me. But I digress.

Regarding the topic at hand, the one page submission was ill-suited for anything other than a fast-and-loose synopsis of "product identity". Most likely, I believed that when talking about my setting in passing one might say something like "Oh, Morning Star? That's that Golden Age setting...". I didn't really have the space, considering everything I had to fit in, to even hint at specific history. When I said "Now is the Golden Age" it wasn't so much an indication of a misunderstanding of the term as an acknowledgement of a common misinterpretation or reinterpretation of it.

My interpretation of the "Golden Age" was held relative to the standard medieval paradigm. In my setting however, civilization has risen to it's peak, and it has been sustained for so long that the denizens of Thraxis themselves think of the time in which they live as something akin to a Golden Age. Decay gnaws at the edges of their way of life and it has become obvious that this way of life is in severe jeopardy. Scholars remember history, and know that a return to the way humanity had lived before would be a step down.

I guess one could argue that a D&D setting can be no more "Golden Age" than it is "Medieval". That term is worthless out of context as well.

I don't know if this is a satisfactory response to your concerns but it's the only one I have at the moment. I'm sure the other semifinalists have given this similar thought (I know Gary has).

 

[Fast Learner]

The sour grapes I keep reading:

"The trick was to put Golden Age in your proposal; if I'd only done that then I'd have been a finalist. WOTC sucks to not have told me that you needed to set it in a Golden Age. Mine should have won."

All of which is inane, of course, if for no other reason than the Golden Age ones we've seen weren't selected. Just as the Golden Age theme could mean that's what WOTC decided is best, it could just as easily mean that they decided that Golden Age isn't the way to go.

Note that Keith Baker already posted here that his setting -- one that made it to the final 3 -- isn't set in a Golden Age.

 

[yragthecareful]

golden age...hmmm

You raise some valid concerns, Tarchon. Let me try to lay them to rest at least where Morning Star is concerned. While it's true that the term Golden Age is worthless outside of historical context, let me assure you that Morning Star has one. Let me speak in defense of Gary Pratt as well when I tell you that both of us had two submissions, and both had progressed versions of our "Golden Age" settings, that had "fallen from grace". Obviously it was the Golden Age aspect that got us in. Gary has also stated in his thread and to me that he was actually more excited about his progressed version. The opposite is true for me. But I digress.
---
Gary Pratt here, as my other enworld persona Yragthecareful (from my other computer.)
My other name is Wizardoftheplains.
But to RSKennan's point and to this discussion. My golden age WAS the golden age of my world. (And it has many similarities to RSKennan's world. Roman-influenced, a strange, colorful moon with a secret, even the Canticle, which in my world is a long ballad that has a the fate of the world encoded within it. (I must say that I like RSKennan's version much better than my own.)

My other setting is a few thousand years in the future. Its the one I'm most fond of, since it is very different from standard fare, and it has the an my golden age setting as its pre-history. This pre-history, the Sunset Kingdoms, is actually woven through much of the future world and comes out in legends, societal motivations, and religious beliefs. I've toyed with putting them both together in the same book, and then letting players play in either.

Regarding the search. A one-pager was definently not enough to really set the proper tone of an entire world. I think there are many submissions that would blow us all away that just didn't initially attract the reviewer's eye.

I have no idea if they were looking for golden age settings specifically. (though its a good bet, especially since things have gone so Epic in the third edition. Wizards may want a world that allows high level characters play around in...but that just speculation.)

gary pratt

 

[Maraxle]

Note that Keith Baker already posted here that his setting -- one that made it to the final 3 -- isn't set in a Golden Age.

That's not what he said. He said that he didn't "mention the words 'Golden Age'." That does not exclude it from having a golden age type theme.