You're doing what? Surprising the DM

[pemerton]

"We need to get into the city, and that requires getting through the desert" is not as different from "We need to get into the city, and that requires getting through the seige" to al of us as it is to you and Hussar.

But that's fine. In your game you're indifferent between the two options. Hussar and I are not. All that means is that either you don't GM for (or play under) me or Hussar; or, if you do end up doing that, you change your style, to have more regard to situation (a piece of the fiction where there are dramatic stakes in which the players are invested independently of the fact that, in game, the situation is an obstacle to the PCs) and less regard to the simple ingame aspect of something being an obstacle or not.

I interpret "crazy wizard did this" as "some lunatic set this up for no discrenable motive", not as "this location has a rich backstory which explains where it came from and why it is here".

OK. That's not what I had in mind when I used the phrase, though. And of course there is backstory - it's just that the backstory is introduced in support of metagame goals. The GM needs an NPC to do XYZ, or underpin ABC; so introduces one; and then gives it the appopriate backstory.

Do we create advesaries? Absolutely. Do I look to the PC's actions and activities and assess what they might lead those now established NPC's to do? Again, absolutely.

The second bit is the bit where we apply different techniques. For instance, the PCs in my game killed a lich a few sessions ago. Now it's going to come back to have a second go, having reconstituted itself around its phylactery. At the time they killed it, I didn't know where it's phylactery was. I've now decided how I want to handle that (although my players haven't learned that particular bit of backstory is). In making that decision I also added a bit more backstory to the lich, which I anticipate will come out in the pending encounter. But given that all of this stuff is pre-play, it is all subject to real-time variation and elaboration in the course of play, including adding in different backstory if I think of something at the time that will be more interesting and put more pressure on the players.

As an example, you introduced Kas to your own game because he was linked to Vecna, and there was an existing link to the characters. Did his personality change radically to suit your PC's? Did you create a character from whole cloth to introduce as an "enemy of my enemy" character? Or did you take a pre-existing character whose personality and backstory dovetailed nicely with the PC's activities and backstories, assess the action he would reasonably take based on his established character (and, I stress, only established in backstory, not in play, as he had yet to meet the PC's) and play out the results of his actions? It seems like the last

I have no idea if Kas would negotiate or not. There's nothing in his backstory that I know of that points either way. (Other than the fact that he is known as a traitor, so may not stick to the upshots of negotiation.) I made decisions about his personality and motivations - including his attitude to the PCs, and to the niece - during play as seemed appropriate to keep the game moving and give the players something interesting to engage with in the situation.

 

[Celebrim]

Really?

I can set Romeo and Juliet in pretty much any setting and it's still the same plot.

Well, as long as all you do is scrub off the proper nouns, yeah, that's true.

Heck, you can take the plot of Lord of the Rings, remove any reference to Middle Earth and get exactly the same plot - Terry Brooks built a career out of doing exactly that.

Speaking of.

 

[JamesonCourage]

It's similar, yes. I didn't mention it as an example because (at least as I remember it - I haven't read it lately!) I think it's a little incoherent as a design - you have standard D&D-style equipment lists, for instance, which really only make sense if you track money in detail, but then you also have this rules which says "start your tracking again each session".

Right. It has a "this costs that much, so mark it off" style during play, but it resets in between play. Which I think is a little odd, but I don't mind, really. It makes me wonder if you can just dump all of your money at the end of play into stuff, though. Like, "at the end of the adventure, I want to invest this money in X." Of course, that's probably not what the designers thought the point of the game was, so that's probably why it's not really considered.

I think the game would be more coherent if it had a different way of handling the gaining of equipment (eg Conan doesn't buy his stuff from shops, he is kitted out as a mercenary or takes it from his enemies), which fitted better with it's "wealth as colour, not mechanics" approach.

I'm sure that there's still a "kill a loot" mentality in most Conan games. I've never read the book (only casually flipped through it), so I'm not sure what the rules are for your equipment between sessions (if you got a magic spear, would that disappear at the end of the adventure?). I was just bringing it up as an example close to what you're talking about, though. There are probably several ways that it could be smoothed out. As always, play what you like

 

[Hussar]

Well, as long as all you do is scrub off the proper nouns, yeah, that's true.



Speaking of.

But, you're the one claiming that plot in indelibly linked to setting. I would say that there are some pretty significant setting differences between 14th century Italy and 20th century New York. Or Denmark and Kenya. Yet, you can retell these stories with the plot virtually unchanged, despite the setting being very different.

 

[LostSoul]

I like Ron Edward's idea: Setting + Characters = Situation.

The way I like to think of it is that the Character's goals in this Setting create the conflict that drives the game. The setting gives meaning to the character's choices. I think a decent example of this sort of thing can be found in the Burning Empires game that we played and I wrote about in my .sig.

 

[billd91]

But, you're the one claiming that plot in indelibly linked to setting. I would say that there are some pretty significant setting differences between 14th century Italy and 20th century New York. Or Denmark and Kenya. Yet, you can retell these stories with the plot virtually unchanged, despite the setting being very different.

That may have more to do with the spread of a common cultural literacy thanks to Shakespeare being taught so heavily in the schools. It's easy to translate feuding clans into street gangs and present a version of Romeo and Juliet in New York rather than Verona. It's apparently harder to do Hamlet in Nigeria.

http://stuy.enschool.org/ourpages/auto/2012/10/29/67457272/IRC_Shakespeare_in_the_Bush1.pdf

 

[pemerton]

I can set Romeo and Juliet in pretty much any setting and it's still the same plot.

<snip>

Set Romeo and Juliet in Verona, New York or in space and it's still easily recognizable as Romeo and Juliet.

I like Romeo and Juliet, and I like West Side Story. What's the space version?

The way I like to think of it is that the Character's goals in this Setting create the conflict that drives the game. The setting gives meaning to the character's choices.

In my opinion if this is going to work, the setting has to have certain elements. For instance, it must contain elements that connect to the character dramatically and not simply operationally/procedurally.

 

[LostSoul]

In my opinion if this is going to work, the setting has to have certain elements. For instance, it must contain elements that connect to the character dramatically and not simply operationally/procedurally.

I think that Ron Edwards wrote an essay that talked about Setting-heavy situation. Heroquest (or Herowars?) was like this. Umm, but that was only for story now play. Yeah... I have more to say about other forms of play but that will have to wait.

 

[pemerton]

I think that Ron Edwards wrote an essay that talked about Setting-heavy situation. Heroquest (or Herowars?) was like this.

I've not read that essay - unless you mean his discussion of it in the Story Now essay.

I've never really got the hang of setting-driven Story Now. Eg I don't quite get how a HeroWars Glorantha game would go. But you're right that Edwards clearly thinks it's viable, and I think he thinks that sharing backstory/metaplot has something to do with it too.

 

[Hussar]

Well, as another example, look at Paizo's Adventure paths for 3e. I can't talk about Pathfinder, I've never read them, but, Shackled City, Age of Worms and Savage Tide are all set in Greyhawk. But, with a fairly short conversion document, you can set them in Forgotten Realms or in Eberron. While changing from Greyhawk to FR probably isn't a huge jump, Eberron is a significantly different setting.

Yet, the basic plot remains exactly the same in all three settings.

As far as Romeo and Juliet in space, I wasn't thinking of anything specific, but, I'm pretty sure that the story has been done in an SF setting by someone.

My point is, by and large, you can exchange the settings in a lot of fiction and the plot remains largely unchanged. There's a reason that you can film movies set in New York in Toronto.