Your views on settings -- the good, the bad, and the useful

[Andre]

Yeah, there just are not enough feats, spells, and prestige classes. It should be a 90-10 split in favor of those three main staples of DnD.

Now, now - I never said anything about feats, spells, PrCl's, etc.

My point is that too much fluff in campaign settings has no effect on players. A few months ago someone posted in a thread on campaign design that too many GM's focus on designing a world, not on designing a backdrop for the players and their characters. Adventures are the life of a campaign - no adventures, no campaign. Your typical player doesn't really care about the GM's "wonderful, immersive, detailed, brilliant, etc." world. He/she cares about the pieces of it that touch them.

There's a thread right now where a GM is concerned that his players aren't picking up all the clues and plot threads he's scattered about. One of his comments was that he had to put together a 30 page document to explain the setting to them. Players don't want to read 30 pages of setting info - they want to play.

There's nothing wrong with including fluff for the GM only. Much of this material can serve as inspiration for the GM, whether in running that setting, or in pillaging for a homebrew. But setting designers should realize that the focus has to be the players. If 50% of a setting book is about the world, but has no real impact on players...that's just so much wasted space, IMO.

 

[Psion]

I'm not interested in a generic fantasy setting, except perhaps to steal from it. That being the case, I don't want to see lots of new rules, or things being too tied in to the setting as a whole.

Here's the deal for me, though: I think it is easy to make the pronouncement something is "tied to the setting" when it's really not so tied. Because of this, some people shy away from setting specific monster and magic books when I think some of these are the best sources to be had for these sorts of book. When I am shopping around for resouces, I am not in it for just the mechanics, but the ideas. I find that sometimes, in an attempt to be setting neutral, some authors go overboard and water their material down in an attempt to make it setting-neutral. But the setting "specific" stuff can often be easily mined out, and give you richer returns.

For example, above I mention the Tempus Twins, a creature from scarred lands. The mechanics are cool, but not that special. Its a creature that can replicate itself, but still draws from the same HP pool. But in Scarred Lands, they are children of a now imprisoned titan of time. How much effort does that take to translate to a slain deity of time? None. And that little bit of setting material helps me define what they are like.

 

[Andre]

So, in other words, you want campaign settings to be a big collection of adventures?

Nope. I want a campaign setting that makes the adventures better.

...what I need are conflicts around which I can tell stories, and hooks to interest the players. I also emphatically don't want to encounter a metaplot (particularly in novel form) that comes to a resolution and changes or negates some key part of the setting concept. (emphasis mine)

Exactly. The setting should provide material to help a GM involve the players and their characters. It most definitely should not be someone's novel that the player's are expected to cameo in.

I use the old Judges Guild Wilderlands and CSIO and now I'm buying the Necromancer/JG versions.

Why I like them is there is enough detail to pretty much run the game from with them, but plenty of scope for the GMs imagination.

Agree 100%.

 

[delericho]

For example, above I mention the Tempus Twins, a creature from scarred lands. The mechanics are cool, but not that special. Its a creature that can replicate itself, but still draws from the same HP pool. But in Scarred Lands, they are children of a now imprisoned titan of time. How much effort does that take to translate to a slain deity of time? None. And that little bit of setting material helps me define what they are like.

Oh, absolutely. However, I was thinking more of a setting which was essentially generic fantasy, but changed some aspect of the rules of the game as they apply in that setting.

For instance, perhaps a setting ditches the hit point mechanic in favour of some sort of damage save mechanism. And the bestiary for the setting therefore only includes the damage save values for the monsters, with no indication of how to convert these back to the hit point mechanism.

Thus, if I want to use any of the material from that bestiary, I need to go to the effort of doing the conversion by hand. Yes, I am capable of doing that work, but I really don't want to have to.

 

[delericho]

Setting impacts game play in two distinct ways: 1) backdrop for adventure and 2) impetus for interactions.

As the backdrop for adventure, the setting acts as a filter for adventures; some fit and get used while others don't fit and are ignored.

A product that I think would be very useful is a book of backdrops. Essentially, the book would contain somewhere between a dozen and a score of descriptions of interesting mini-settings in whict to run a game (similar to the backdrop articles in Dungeon). These could then be pulled out by the DM whose players go off the map, could be used as the base of a mini-campaign, or to flesh out the empty areas in a campaign world.

I think "Beyond Countless Doorways" does a similar thing with planar locations, but I haven't looked at that product so can't be sure. Of course, it's entirely possible that someone has already done this.

 

[Mystery Man]

Now, now - I never said anything about feats, spells, PrCl's, etc.

Just a tad tongue in cheek there, with perhaps a smidge going overboard. On purpose though.

My point is that too much fluff in campaign settings has no effect on players. A few months ago someone posted in a thread on campaign design that too many GM's focus on designing a world, not on designing a backdrop for the players and their characters. Adventures are the life of a campaign - no adventures, no campaign. Your typical player doesn't really care about the GM's "wonderful, immersive, detailed, brilliant, etc." world. He/she cares about the pieces of it that touch them.

But isn't focusing on designing a game world in fact creating a backdrop for players and their characters? I would think you couldn't help but create a backdrop for the players when designing a world. A good piece of fluffyness should give a DM at least a dozen ideas for an encounter.

There's a thread right now where a GM is concerned that his players aren't picking up all the clues and plot threads he's scattered about. One of his comments was that he had to put together a 30 page document to explain the setting to them. Players don't want to read 30 pages of setting info - they want to play.

I have much in common with this DM. :\ I stopped caring what the players knew about the setting a long time ago. They just want to adventure and that is what they're getting. Frankly I could move my campaign somewhere else and I doubt they'd notice for months.

There's nothing wrong with including fluff for the GM only. Much of this material can serve as inspiration for the GM, whether in running that setting, or in pillaging for a homebrew. But setting designers should realize that the focus has to be the players. If 50% of a setting book is about the world, but has no real impact on players...that's just so much wasted space, IMO.

Which is why I'm starting to turn to these giant hard cover adventure books you're seeing pop up now. Lost City of Barakus, Trouble at Durbenford etc. The work is done for me already and I've got what my players want. Even in City State of the Invincible Overlord (gosh I'm pimping that book a lot lately) there is plenty of adventure built in around the fluff which isn't too self indulgent.

 

[Desdichado]

Nope. I want a campaign setting that makes the adventures better.

Well, doesn't everyone? Clearly, a lot of people think that having detail about cultures and whatnot helps make their adventures better. I do.

 

[William Ronald]

I'm sorry, William, are you asking us specifically to spell out what we found good, bad and useful for each campaign setting? Or more generically how we use campaign settings?

Before I type up a lengthy reply, I want to make sure that's what you're looking for.

I am actually asking for both or either, depending on your preference. I think that we have had a lot of discussions about each setting, but I think it is also important to explore how each setting is used.

Originally Posted by Andre
Nope. I want a campaign setting that makes the adventures better.

Well, doesn't everyone? Clearly, a lot of people think that having detail about cultures and whatnot helps make their adventures better. I do.

I think that having details about cultures helps a setting, as it gives an idea of how people respond to each other and their neighbors, as welll as their motivations. For example, the Rashemen of the Forgotten Realms are passionate and fiercely independent, and ruled in part by matriarchial spellcasters--- who like the rest of their people oppose the Red Wizards of Thay. The Baklunish of the World of Greyhawk have several nations, a rich magical tradition that includes summoning of geniekind, a ruined empire and a culture that emphasizes politeness and subtle social interactions.

How does that help me as a DM? In the FR case, I have an idea of how to roleplay people from Rashemen, their goals, some conflicts and people for PCs to interact with. So, an adventure hook might be helping some of the people of Rashemen oppose the Red Wizards of Thay. The NPCs might be very independent of the party, which may have to prove themselves. In the Greyhawk example, I might be inspired to create an adventure where the PCs will have to engage some Baklunish spellcasters and convince them that the party is the right people to go to some ancient ruins guarded by the efreet. Possibly the party is competing with another band of adventurers, who really are working for Iuz. So, depending on the roleplaying, the PCs might end up getting the job or might be intrigued enough to follow the other adventurers.

I think a DM and the players have to give life to a world, so that players can feel that their characters are adventuring somewhere -- as opposed to the problem Mystery Man faces. I think a published setting or a homebrew setting should help make the game more fun for everyone involved -- including GMs.

 

[Andre]

Well, doesn't everyone? Clearly, a lot of people think that having detail about cultures and whatnot helps make their adventures better. I do.

Let me try to explain it this way, "First Rule of Dungeoncraft: Never force yourself to create more than you must."

If I'm creating my own setting, I will spend some time on material that I know my players will never see. History, cosmology, secrets, and so on. This is part of the fun of creating a homebrew. But as Winninger so clearly points out, too much time on non-essential material can cause a campaign to never get off the ground.

I tend to react to published settings in much the same way. If I have to read a hundred pages of material that I will never use just to get to the parts I will, that material is a waste of my time. And almost always, the material I don't use concerns "world building", the stuff that we all love to create, but which the players never see.

As I said above, such material isn't useless, but most of the setting material should impact the players. I admit this can be a tricky balancing act in published settings, since the authors have to guess what the prospective buyer will use. How much detail is too much? How much background is too little? My rule of thumb: if it won't affect the players, it can probably be left out.

One example: an author has written 15 pages explaining the day-to-day rituals of various religious orders. He's also written 15 pages of material detailing several small shrines and churches, complete with npc's, maps, and a few hooks for the players. If you only have room in the book for one or the other, which should it be? Which will get more use? Which will affect the players?

 

[Storyteller01]

Piping with the usual.

I like FR, but to paraphrase a certain Ilithid god in a FR book about another certain god... "they have a god for everything. I'm surprised they don't have a god of Tupperware and crockery...". And to be honest, any Chosen is effectively in the Solar class of beings: they're not gods because they choose not to be.

Right now my preferred campaign setting is Dragon Star (not a WotC product, I know). Lots of playablility/RP opportunities, and the tech level ensures that everyone can compete with magic, damage wise anyway. It's nice change of pace: mages actually fear ranged attacks now. Then again, I'm rather burnt out on high fantasy/magic is all plots at the moment.