Campaign Settings - Details or GM-Freedom? [Archive]

Yora

2012-02-21, 04:51 PM

In another thread, we came to the subject of the Forgotten Realms setting being "better" in its first version because it had less details than the later ones.

Now, this is an interesting thought, though a completely unintuitive one.

When I hear people talking about the settings they love, I very often get to hear "it's so incredibly highly detailed", and I myself love to read more and more about the settings that interest me. Which thanks to the aboundance of fan-wikis is now easier than ever.
But the thought that less information is more quality seems to have its merrits. The main reason I lost interest in the FR was because it seemed to me that about everything in the setting that might pose a mystery to the PC was already completely and throughly explained to players in some book or another. Other have voiced their displeasure with canon-NPCs and let's not even begin to talk about the metaplot of World of Darkness.

So, what is your thought on this? Does it enhance the quality of a setting to keep descriptions brief and not go into detail?

Toofey

2012-02-21, 04:58 PM

It can for some DMs the thing is these DMs (myself included) have the option of ignoring details they don't like for their game, so it doesn't hurt them at all having more detail available.

Raum

2012-02-21, 06:00 PM

So, what is your thought on this? Does it enhance the quality of a setting to keep descriptions brief and not go into detail?To a point, yes. I want room to change things, to put my own imprint on the setting, and to allow the players to create their own legends without running into 'cannon' all the time. That said, I do want a framework and ideas from a setting...just don't want a full setup with details in every grid on the map.

kaomera

2012-02-21, 06:04 PM

Now, this is an interesting thought, though a completely unintuitive one.
Why do you feel that this is unintuitive? Or, more to the point: are you focusing on the campaign aspect, or the setting aspect?

If campaign, then I'd suggest that an adventure path would do the job much better - in which case you may limit the scope of the information you provide, but anything really significant you want to pretty much nail down. If you're focusing on the work as a setting for other DMs to run their campaigns in then you have to leave enough gaps and unanswered questions that they can actually make it their own, otherwise why would they bother?

Grinner

2012-02-21, 06:06 PM

Depends on the DM, really. Some might prefer having a little more creative freedom but having a setting canon can discourage that. Yes, a good DM could just ignore details, but not every DM is a good one.

Plus, if a player wants a certain setting-specific character option, it's a lot harder to say no.

Yora

2012-02-21, 06:14 PM

I have made mostly bad experiences with people at the table having different ideas what is canonicaly established fact about the setting or not. It personally doesn't bother me when a GM introduces things that conflict with the canon and just accept that that's the way it is in this campaign, but other people often start to whine and make a fuss about if something is possible in the setting.

Just having something not being canonicaly established for a setting is a much better situation than ignoring and contradicting any sources.

Frozen_Feet

2012-02-21, 06:18 PM

It depends on how contained the campaign is expected to be. The larger area there is to explore, the more I need breadth and less depth. I can conjure random details from the top of my head rather easily, but I need to know roughly where everything is to be prepared for the whims of my players.

I tend to use my own settings that I make out of whole-cloth, often during play, so I might not be the best person to ask from, though. :smallbiggrin:

Gnoman

2012-02-21, 06:21 PM

In my case, I only use published settings because I'm not feeling up to making my own. Thus I want any published setting to have extensive-enough details that I can use it without any real worldbuilding work. Otherwise I just crib the elements I like to use in my own setting.

bloodtide

2012-02-21, 06:24 PM

So, what is your thought on this? Does it enhance the quality of a setting to keep descriptions brief and not go into detail?

One of the reasons I like the Forgotten Realms is the massive amounts of detail. It does a good half of the story work for a DM.

Waterdeep maybe the most detailed RPG city every, with several huge books and several detailed maps. Yet, even with all that detail, they have still only covered like 1% of the city. And even if they could put out a detailed book every single week, they could never detail everything.

I do understand the problem others DM's have though, not that it makes much sense to me though. Another DM opens a book and sees ''Lord Doom rules the city of Darc'' and he acts like a RPG mob thug shows up and physically forces the DM to use that detail. The DM comes up with a plot where Princess Relo is the ruler of the city Darc, but oh no says the DM, I have to have Lord Doom the ruler of that city as it's RPG law. So the whole game is ruined for the DM.

And things like the book says ''there are no cities in the Wildwood'' so the Dm just sits back with a sad face as they can't put their catfolk city in the Wildwood: "sorry guys no adventure tonight...".

I'm not even sure why 'cannon' matters to people. Do people think there is a WotC goon squad? ''I'm sorry mister you changed the ruler of the city of Haven and that is in violation of RPG cannon law 345, you are hereby forbidden from playing any RPG game for seven years.''.

Gnoman

2012-02-21, 06:37 PM

First off "cannon" means "metal tube open at one end that is stuffed with gunpowder to fire a projectile." The word you are trying to use is "canon."

Second, the big virtue of a published setting is that players know how it works, can easily read up on the major powers involved, know what gods are in play, and things of that nature. Players are going to complain, a lot, if those details get messed with too much,

navar100

2012-02-21, 06:42 PM

I prefer playing in the DM's own world than published worlds. It is easier for the DM to adapt the world to whatever shenanigans the players do. The party gains influence in world affairs, not necessarily literally as in the entire 'world' but they become People Of Importance at least.

With a published world, things happen by author diktat. If my character becomes one of the secret Lords of Waterdeep, he will never be such in any published adventure. It's a minor thing for the DM to adapt the adventure that my character is a Lord, but discrepancies like this add up and some could be more involved.

What if my group plays Forgotten Realms but we decide not to switch to 4E? As far as we're concerned, Mystra and Tyr are both alive and hunky dory. We killed Asmodeus in our previous campaign Epic Finale. Published works become harder to incorporate.

With a DM's own world, we can do whatever we want.

Rakmakallan

2012-02-21, 06:44 PM

In my setting, I have kept the history and details so far only to a small, yet very important part of the world, which i consider less than 5% of the available surface.
Large enough to provide for numerous campaigns, small enough so anyone can pick it up and add more continents.

Raum

2012-02-21, 06:47 PM

First off "cannon" means "metal tube open at one end that is stuffed with gunpowder to fire a projectile." The word you are trying to use is "canon."My use of "cannon" was intentional. :smallwink: All too often, running into a canon NPC or effect feels like running into the business end of a cannon. :smalleek:

Yora

2012-02-21, 07:11 PM

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/avatar_shipping_war.jpg

Starting this thread wasn't entirely out of academic curiosity. I've currently entering the detailed description phase of my homebrew setting which I intend to publish (for free) at the end of the year, and trying to learn more about what things did and didn't work out for other writers in the past.
There is no sense in compiling a 300 page pdf when it turns out people would much rather have just 80 pages of essentials and lose interest because they are burried in details.

Grinner

2012-02-21, 07:30 PM

hiryuu

2012-02-21, 09:23 PM

One of the reasons I like the Forgotten Realms is the massive amounts of detail. It does a good half of the story work for a DM.

Waterdeep maybe the most detailed RPG city every, with several huge books and several detailed maps. Yet, even with all that detail, they have still only covered like 1% of the city. And even if they could put out a detailed book every single week, they could never detail everything.

The city's only like, what, eight square miles, if you're being generous? You can cover that pretty well, actually.

I do understand the problem others DM's have though, not that it makes much sense to me though. Another DM opens a book and sees ''Lord Doom rules the city of Darc'' and he acts like a RPG mob thug shows up and physically forces the DM to use that detail. The DM comes up with a plot where Princess Relo is the ruler of the city Darc, but oh no says the DM, I have to have Lord Doom the ruler of that city as it's RPG law. So the whole game is ruined for the DM.

And things like the book says ''there are no cities in the Wildwood'' so the Dm just sits back with a sad face as they can't put their catfolk city in the Wildwood: "sorry guys no adventure tonight...".

I'm not even sure why 'cannon' matters to people. Do people think there is a WotC goon squad? ''I'm sorry mister you changed the ruler of the city of Haven and that is in violation of RPG cannon law 345, you are hereby forbidden from playing any RPG game for seven years.''.

It's not so much what the book says, or what the hypothetical goon squad says, it's the fit THATGUY will throw when the setting isn't what he expects it to be. You ever played with THATGUY? I've tried to run an L5R game with THATGUY, and it was the most tedious experience gaming that I've ever had and it almost made me quit running games ever.

I am a fan of more open settings, myself; some detail is good, but canon details can get to the point where they feel like they're constantly trying to intrude on your gaming experience. I don't want to find out what caused the Mourning because I will change it every campaign. I don't care to know what's on block six-B of Waterdeep because I will rotate that out, too. I also don't really care to know what Elminster is up to because it doesn't matter in my campaign. I prefer it if the campaign setting has mysteries in it because what's in the book is what many players will always assume they know, especially if they have knowledge skills, and the GM can't be everywhere in the canon at once. I've had situations come up before where I changed an aspect of canon that really shouldn't have mattered in the overarching plot, and when a player actually encountered it (by going way out of the way), they were confused, or changed an aspect of canon and let players know about it, and then they never encountered it. Games will also grind to a total halt when encountered canon is different from established canon, much more quickly and easily than when there's no expectations in place.

Deadlands did a thing where they separated books into two sections: a player section and a GM sections, and that worked out really well (my favorite was the drugs in the back of the Brain Burners book, one of them, in the GM section, had the entry "Side Effects: None. No addiction, no anything. Roll some dice every time a player uses it, make a face, say 'I wonder how I'm going to rule that,' shuffle some books, and tell the player they have a mild headache." Love that so much.).

So, I think in summary, large details are okay, such as "the Mourning happened," but defining it precisely (such as who and/or what caused the Mourning and how), can lead to confusion and slow down the action at the table when it's changed and then encountered.

NichG

2012-02-21, 09:56 PM

One thing that works I think is when the books detail things but leave a lot of things unexplained. Planescape did this well - lots of stuff saying things like 'This person is in charge right now, despite being relatively new and apparently weak. Her predecessor disappeared mysteriously.', but not actually explaining the why behind it. Is it because she's a shapechanger, or the favorite of some powerful being, or just lucky? Etc.

Raum

2012-02-21, 10:06 PM

Yes, lots of hooks are a good thing in a setting. Lots of answers aren't. ;)

Velaryon

2012-02-22, 02:49 AM

Personally, I would rather have more detail about the setting and not need it, than need more detail on the setting and not have it. An overabundance of details and canon for a setting is not a problem for me, although I think I can see why some people might feel that way.

The first campaign I ever ran was in Ravenloft, a setting that works best when the players don't know all the ins and outs of the world. When you know which darklords are undead, which ones can't be killed at all, which ones are not who they appear to be and so on, it removes a lot of the tension even if you take pains to separate your in-character and OOC knowledge.

Personally, I find it best if you just don't have the players know all these things to begin with. They don't have to make an effort to separate their OOC and in-character knowledge if they don't know out of character either. For that reason, I've never encouraged my players to read official sourcebooks on the settings I run in, and I make an effort to tell them everything they need to know myself, either in-game or via a forum I have set up for my players and me to handle campaign-related stuff.

Also, I tend to run games with the same group of players, with very little player turnover from one game to the next. As such, I'm not really running into people who have different ideas of the setting, or have read all the novels and know the characters better than I do, or what have you. For the most part, the players I deal with pretty much know only what I tell them about the campaign world, even though we're currently playing in the Forgotten Realms.

For these reasons, none of the potential problems that can be caused by having "too much detail" are an issue for me. If I find details I don't like or need, I simply don't use them, and my players are none the wiser for it unless I tell them otherwise.

A few examples from my current campaign, for no other reason than so I can talk about my game and sort of be on-topic:

The game is set in Tethyr, a couple years after most of the 3rd edition canon events have happened, but way before all of that Spellplague nonsense introduced in 4e, which never happened as far as I'm concerned. Also, I bought the 2nd edition Lands of Intrigue box set on ebay because I wanted to have all those little details that 2e supplements were good for.

A significant part of the game took place in the coastal city of Myratma. Looking in there, I read about a couple of interesting locations - the Gambling Ghost inn and a high-end festhall called the Efreeteum. The Gambling Ghost and its eponymous inhabitant are unique little details that I would never have thought of on my own.

I had a couple of players gamble against the ghost, mostly ignorant of what they were doing but egged on by the crowd who had assembled to see the nightly spectacle. One won, the other lost, and they went on about their lives. A couple weeks later, one of the players is being haunted by a Night Hag, and has no way he can deal with her. So he comes up with an ingenious plan - he returns to the Gambling Ghost, challenges the ghost to a special round of cards, asking a special favor from the ghost if he wins, which he does. He asks the ghost to help with his Night Hag problem, so when the hag comes around to invade his nightmares, the ghost gets the hag's heartstone away from her, rendering her corporeal and thus vulnerable to the party's ambush, ending the night hag problem forever.

I also found some details in the book that I didn't like. According to the book, Myratma is controlled by a lich of the Twisted Rune group, and the criminal underworld is dominated by the Shadow Thieves (which is probably the lamest name for a thieves' guild I or anyone else has ever heard). None of that was interesting to me, so I scrapped the Twisted Rune entirely, and had the Shadow Thieves embroiled in a war with four other rival thieves' guilds, who shattered them and drove them from the city before turning on each other. I developed those four thieves' guilds, giving each some unique traits to make them memorable and interesting to me, and simply tossed the canon guild because they didn't fit in my plans. My players would never have known I did this had I not complained to them about what a terrible name Shadow Thieves is for an organization.

So I guess my point is, I have no problem discarding details that I don't like from the established canon, but I would rather have those details there in case I want to use them. However, if my gaming experience were a little different - if I primarily ran games at my FLGS with a shifting group of players, for example, and some of them were heavily into Realms canon, then I might prefer not to have such details because they could cause a conflict if the player is one of those canon-at-all-costs people or takes issue with how I change the world.

It seems to me that considerations like these probably shape whether we like to have all that detail in a campaign setting or not.

Yora

2012-02-22, 07:03 AM

I've come to think, that it really isn't about the amount of information, buta lot more about how it affects peoples game. The problem isn't in the breadth of information, but in the depth.

What most certainly is a really bad idea is to add a major mystery to a setting and then just give the answers a few years later. Then the whole thing just deflates instead of being revelead with a bang. If something vanished mysteriously and exploring the few remains it left was a major thing of the setting, then you don't explain what happened, and you most certainly don't have it come back.

So maybe let's rephrase the question. What kinds of details and description do you like, and at what point do you think it goes to far? You may cite specific examples where you think that less information would have been a better thing. Maybe we can find some patterns there.

I'll be honest with you. Few people will likely play it, so I would recommend making it for yourself first. After all, if you're not profiting and not having fun, what's the point?
Sure, for my own campaign I do have answers for pretty much everything, but as everyone in this thread said,there's a big difference between an official setting and the games of individual GMs.
This isn't actually the first time I'm doing something like that. Back in the day I was one of the admins and DMs of a huge network of Neverwinter Nights Multiplayer servers, which admitedly were based on the Forgotten Realms, but we added huge amounts of our own material to bring the game world to life. I later was the setting designer for a NWN2 world, which we had to cancel because the software was crap. But it's really not that difficult to draw quite considerable crowds that get imensely invested in the world. Even if you get just 30 to 50 people interested, it is hugely rewarding when they share their experiences. This isn't for money, so I don't need to reach a set amount of customers, only those people on enjoy the kind of setting I like as well.

some guy

2012-02-22, 07:16 AM

Hm, I don't really like details in campaign settings. They might be interesting and fun to read. But when it comes to GM'ing I'd rather be the one who creates details. When I read some detail, I never remember it during the game and need to look it up. When I create it myself, I remember it.

What I would like to see in a campaign setting are tools to create setting-specific details in a quick way. That way, a campaign setting can keep it's atmosphere, while I remember all the details (because I created them) and don't need to read 300+ pages.

hamlet

2012-02-22, 08:00 AM

It's not so much what the book says, or what the hypothetical goon squad says, it's the fit THATGUY will throw when the setting isn't what he expects it to be. You ever played with THATGUY? I've tried to run an L5R game with THATGUY, and it was the most tedious experience gaming that I've ever had and it almost made me quit running games ever.

That, for me in regards to Forgotten Realms, is it, really. I've watched it happen where a player will literally pitch a fit because the DM ignored, forgot, changed, or otherwise did not live up to the expectations of "THATGUY's" gaming preference. And it's immeasurably worse in FR because there simply so much stuff and it's so popular that everybody's read so much of it that 90% of us here have some comprehension of what to expect at whatever corner.

Eventually, it feels like you're less running a game and more reading a novel out loud. Story hour so to speak.

And in a region where gamers are tough to come by and you can't afford to kick out "thatguy," this really does become a problem.

So in my experience, in FR, it's easier and more fulfilling to pick up the Grey Box, whichever FR series books I feel I want to add, and list specifically up front what is and is not included in the world to the players rather than having to start with everything and slowly winnow it down and hope I didn't miss something that THATGUY picked up on and banks the worth of his gaming experience on.

All that said, there's nothing too wrong with more detail, just the realization that at some point, it stops being about writing a campaign world and more an exercise in fan wankery.

And, largely, it's a matter of preference. I, personally, prefer to start with a skeleton and slowly add meat to it rather than operating the other way round. The Grey Box is the skeleton to which I can add.

Terraoblivion

2012-02-22, 08:25 AM

It's not just a matter for GMs, it matters just as much for players what the setting is like. However, for what it's worth I think that details are a good thing, provided they're the right details. They need to add something new and different compared to all the other details that have been established before in the setting and provides options, atmosphere or ideas that isn't already there. At the same time, the details should be integrated with each other to form as seamless a whole as possible.

That is one of the areas where I think less details might make Forgotten Realms better. A lot of the details are just there to have stuff there and doesn't add anything new, while many of the other seem arbitrary and clash with those around them. That means that at once things are filled out, removing the freedom to add whatever you feel like, while at the same time it is often hard to really, seriously engage with the setting on a narrative level.

As for the point about details in settings removing the ability to add what you need, all I can think about is why you'd use a published setting if not to use the shared knowledge of the setting and the specific stories it presents? If you're just using it as a backdrop for generic adventuring without giving setting consistency or engaging with the themes and feel of the setting priority, why bother and not use a simple, homemade setting that gets developed as you need it? It seems like it would be far less work and much less of a headache. As far as I'm concerned at least, published settings should be used specifically to get involved with that setting and not just because it's how it's done.

Kol Korran

2012-02-22, 09:16 AM

i am a bit biased, but i quite like the way Eberron handled things. they gave out a bunch of mysteries/ questions/ odd problems. next they gave each of these various possible explanations, which addressed some matters of the mystery better, and some worse, but they left the ultimate explenation to the DM.

they add core details and allow a lot of room for expansion. this is done with magical theories in MoE, religious theories in FoE and mysteries of the war and the Mournland in Forge of war. not to mention their take on the different continents, locations and even the arch villains and organizations.

this spurs imagination greatly, but doesn't stomp it in it's tracks with a given solution. of course, one can add more detail or less, so that is left for debate but all in all i find that it's enticing enough, and draws you in to explore more, which is one of the greatest things about roleplay i think.

i think that the question of "would you like much detail or would you like vagueness" would be answered "to a degree" by most people. but what degree? now that differs. i like the "clues and hints" info level of Eberron.

Yora

2012-02-22, 09:32 AM

What I liked when I played Dragon Age and the Witcher, was that there was a huge amount of information about people, places, and creatures, but it was all written as if the text were written by people who live inside these worlds. People who have limited knowledge of the facts and come up with their own conclusions. As a player, you are free to accept these conclusions or doubt them. Also, the people who compiled these information had their own agendas, which would also color the way they see things.

In contrast, most D&D settings I've read, with the exception of the incredible Planescape, which is also written from the perspective of NPCs, are written as definite information as decided by the creators of the setting. Cyric killed Bhaal and stole his divinity. Were there any witnesses? Is there proof it actually happened that way and do followers of Bhaal accept this story? Doesn't matter. The writers say it happened that way and they are all knowing and give that knowledge to the players and GMs. As a result, there are no actual disagreements within the setting as well. All followers of Bhaal know their god is dead, not comming back, and Cyric has the job now.
On the other hand, in Dragon Age, the Maker does not reveal himself to his worshippers. Why doesn't he do that? Did he actually every did it in the past or is that just legend? And does he even exist? People in the world have very different oppinions about these things and they are all viable, because the player doesn't know either.
I've read somewhere that the realms are a setting that is about good heroes fighting the darkness of evil, with no ambiguity and doubt about what is the right thing to do. Okay, but lots of other settings, if not most, have the same policy when it comes to informing the audience about the facts of the world.

I think offering players and GMs several views and oppinions held by people that inhabit the setting is probably the best way to present a world. That still could get you in truble with Those Guys when a GM decides to answer any of these ambigous questions, but I think in many cases it is actually possible to have character interact with these subjects, discover and reveal the nature of the current issue they are dealing with, but still not answering the big question. It requires some work and attention from the GM, but I think that's the nature of the GMs job.

Coidzor

2012-02-22, 09:58 AM

Details are good. They can help with immersion and verisimilitude.

However, too many details, or too many linchpin details about other things and you start to run into problems similar to running a non-criminal game in Star Wars during the original trilogy. Or Dragonlance during the time period where the books have covered it.

Oracle_Hunter

2012-02-22, 10:11 AM

There is a delicate balance in providing details for a published setting.

On one hand, more details make the world interesting to play in. This is why people say "I love this setting -- it is so detailed;" they are reading the setting as if it were a story and enjoy the feeling of immersion that a bunch of details provide.

On the other hand, too many details frustrate DMs and casual Players because so much of the world has been set in stone which behooves everyone to learn it. This adds a burden on the casual Players in the same way that continuity heavy TV shows place on viewers who start watching several seasons in. Worse, for DMs it constrains his freedom to make the world his own -- in FR the big mysteries have already been solved and the big adventures have already been run by canon NPCs, so what's the point.

Eberron nicely splits the difference, IMHO. Lots and lots of details about the Big Picture (e.g. history, cosmology) but comparatively little for the things which Players interact with (e.g. culture, cities, organizations). If you're looking to publish, try to come up with something that follows the structure of the Eberron Player Guide.

N.B. Homebrew settings for private consumption, naturally, can be heavier on the detail side. While you have to be mindful of the sensitivities of your Players ("what do you mean you didn't read my short story about the capitol?") you, as the DM, have no worries about leaving enough room for adventure -- so to speak.

Yora

2012-02-22, 10:28 AM

My experience with players is, that there are two types: One group that reads everything and onw group that reads nothing. The first group wants lots of information they can build their characters on, while the second group needs the setting to be easily accesible even if they know pretty much nothing about it.
The amount of reading that is required to make a character for the setting should be minimal and possibly ultra condensed. While Races of Faerûn is an amazing book, you shouldn't have to read it to decide your characters race.

Eberron nicely splits the difference, IMHO. Lots and lots of details about the Big Picture (e.g. history, cosmology) but comparatively little for the things which Players interact with (e.g. culture, cities, organizations). If you're looking to publish, try to come up with something that follows the structure of the Eberron Player Guide.
Wasn't that that encyclopeda-like one that had about two pages worth of text on each subject? I actually liked that a lot. If you wanted to learn about the Drow or Khyber, you got the basic info that you could read in 5 minutes. Still would be a huge pain to get some people to actually read it. :smallbiggrin:
But I am kind of going in that direction with the Barbaripedia (http://barbaripedia.eu) I've set up.

From another thread I started earlier:

2 has significant upsides: it's easier to use instantly, and the greater background information may provide a DM with adventure hooks. But it's also inherently limiting: if the PCs are too low or too high to make the stat-blocks relevant, if the reason the Fire Knives hate Azoun isn't relevant to the PCs, if you don't find the background or class choice or whatever of the listed leaders interesting.

What the Grey Box did well (in my opinion) is provide the seeds of many possible games instead of providing one particular vision of a game.
Maybe it's best to explain to people how things in the world work, instead how things are. After all, lots of characters are some youngsters from a village who did not have formal education in geography and history, so those things are not something the players actually need to create and play their characters. But I think that it does matter a lot more to know how people live and how society works. What the station of the PCs is and how other people will react to them. Personally what amazes me about playing in a setting is living in the world, much more than visiting famous locations. Definately something to think about.

valadil

2012-02-22, 10:50 AM

I believe constraints lead to creativity. If I'm given a blank slate and no direction I get writer's block. If I'm given an Iron Chef style list of ingredients to work with, I can riff off of those. So I very much like having details.

But the presence of details needs to be obvious. I want an index of exactly what details are present. In my last game I used FR and wasn't really sure what was defined for me. This led to spending my prep time scouring wikia. The same thing happened in my Game of Thrones campaign, although I was more familiar with canon for that setting.

Basically what I want is to be able to look at a definitive source's index to find out whether or not information exists. If my party heads to Mulmaster, I want to read the page, chapter, or paragraph in my FR book and be done with research. I'll read a whole book on the city if it's going to be in my game. But I want the book to tell me that when I'm done reading it, that's all the detail I'm getting and I have to make up the rest. If it leaves me hanging, I'm going to google for details and I won't ever do any actual game writing.

Lapak

2012-02-22, 11:38 AM

Maybe it's best to explain to people how things in the world work, instead how things are. After all, lots of characters are some youngsters from a village who did not have formal education in geography and history, so those things are not something the players actually need to create and play their characters. But I think that it does matter a lot more to know how people live and how society works. What the station of the PCs is and how other people will react to them. Personally what amazes me about playing in a setting is living in the world, much more than visiting famous locations. Definately something to think about.That's an interesting point, and a good one. It partly depends on how much off the course of "standard pseudo-medieval D&D fantasy world" you're dealing with. But it can't be separated from the where and the who completely, either. It's tough to talk about how the players live in a mage-ruled totalitarian 1984 analog without mentioning the magelords, their secret police, and the country across the mountains that is the official Enemy of the State.

hamlet

2012-02-22, 12:39 PM

valadil

2012-02-22, 01:28 PM

Yeah, but there's a difference between constructive restraints (i.e., what I'd call the bare bones of a setting) and recipes (i.e., they not only put down the ingredients, but directions on what you're going to do with them and how.

By the time you reach a recipe, I think you're playing a published adventure instead of a campaign setting.

But I see what you're getting at and I don't disagree. Maybe it's a matter of where you fill in the blanks? With a less defined world, everything is up to you unless defined elsewhere. With FR, most of it is defined, except where the game tells you to fill in the blanks.

Yora

2012-02-22, 02:00 PM

That's an interesting point, and a good one. It partly depends on how much off the course of "standard pseudo-medieval D&D fantasy world" you're dealing with. But it can't be separated from the where and the who completely, either. It's tough to talk about how the players live in a mage-ruled totalitarian 1984 analog without mentioning the magelords, their secret police, and the country across the mountains that is the official Enemy of the State.

Though I think in that case, it is enough to mention that the mage lords exist and maybe present one or two of them as examples. There's no need to make full stat blocks and backstories for all 12 members of the high council. If a GM wants to have a mage lord appear in his game, he can use on of the official ones, or make up on of his own, as there are still lots of seats that have not yet been filled. It's up to each GM to decide what to do with the mage lords and it even can be assumed that the people on the council change occasionally. So even if you play multiple campaigns in which mage lords appear, they don't contradict each other.

I have to say, this thread is extremely enlightening. I feel like we are making some really big discoveries here that I think most designers have never given a thought. :smallsmile:

bloodtide

2012-02-22, 10:39 PM

Toofey

2012-02-22, 10:47 PM

Plus, if a player wants a certain setting-specific character option, it's a lot harder to say no.

This is one that I ran up against as a player a lot back in the day, we played Forgotten Realms, and there are **** tons of totally abusive spells out there because Ed Greenwood never learned how to edit himself properly (if you ever want proof of this go check out the 6th level spell Mantle in secrets of the magister. Now as a DM I run up against it less because I'm very permissive, but i have had to nix certain things.

This is not that hard because I have a coherent reasonable group, but it sucks as a player when the setting has things that your DM takes out even if the reasoning is good.

Velaryon

2012-02-22, 11:06 PM

In contrast, most D&D settings I've read, with the exception of the incredible Planescape, which is also written from the perspective of NPCs, are written as definite information as decided by the creators of the setting. Cyric killed Bhaal and stole his divinity. Were there any witnesses? Is there proof it actually happened that way and do followers of Bhaal accept this story? Doesn't matter. The writers say it happened that way and they are all knowing and give that knowledge to the players and GMs. As a result, there are no actual disagreements within the setting as well. All followers of Bhaal know their god is dead, not comming back, and Cyric has the job now.
On the other hand, in Dragon Age, the Maker does not reveal himself to his worshippers. Why doesn't he do that? Did he actually every did it in the past or is that just legend? And does he even exist? People in the world have very different oppinions about these things and they are all viable, because the player doesn't know either.
I've read somewhere that the realms are a setting that is about good heroes fighting the darkness of evil, with no ambiguity and doubt about what is the right thing to do. Okay, but lots of other settings, if not most, have the same policy when it comes to informing the audience about the facts of the world.

You might enjoy the 3rd edition Ravenloft Gazetteer series. The majority of the books (minus a DM appendix in the back with NPC writeups, monster stat blocks, new spells, items, and so on) are written from the perspective of a traveling scholar who was hired by a mysterious benefactor to travel the lands of the Core and write reports about the land, the people, the fauna and flora, and so on.

It ends up reading much like a narrative, with the scholar (known only as S in the books) describing what she sees, where she stays on her travels, and describing everything through the filter of her own experiences and prejudices. There are occasional comments written in the margins by the mysterious benefactor, musing on the information presented, hinting at a greater purpose to this work, and slowly advancing a meta-plot that sadly never saw completion because the series was cancelled after only five books.

So rather than the objective, "this is what happened" style typical of gazetteer-style sourcebooks, it's written in a first-person travelogue style, with the occasional sidebar describing a Dread Possibility when something S encountered might not be what it appears, which the DM is free to use or not as they choose.

NichG

2012-02-23, 02:16 AM

So in essence, I think there's tension between two factors that each contribute positively to game, and that determines the level of detail that's needed.

The first tension is, the GM needs to have the freedom to have things be unknown, to have mysteries, etc. If the GM is using a published setting, the more mysteries resolved by the source books, the fewer the GM can actually use for fear that players would already know the answers.

The second tension is, the average character in a setting should know a lot about it, and the accessibility of that information to players helps them comfortably play their character. E.g., if I was playing a scientist character in a d20 Modern game set on Earth I'd be comfortable using my own knowledge of science to drive the RP, giving explanations for things without having to ask the DM every sentence if what I'm saying is correct. On the other hand, if the GM suddenly decided that in d20 Modern Earth of 2010, subatomic particles didn't exist, quantum mechanics didn't work, and steam was the go-to for modern computers, I'd be really thrown and I wouldn't know what to say.

So what one wants is a setting where the commonly known things are well-described and familiar for those who want to study up, or even better for those who have played in the setting before. This is one reason I've heard for why games set on Earth can be a pretty good premise - most players will know far more everyday stuff about Earth, even about a different era and location than they're used to, than, for example, Oerth or Faerun or whatever, and that helps players form goals (I'd really like to take over India!) and RP knowledgeable characters seamlessly. On the other hand, when using Earth, players don't really know 'secret' information unless you're doing a campaign about a well-known historical event.

Balain

2012-02-23, 02:28 AM

Current D&D campaign I'm running I am just using the world as is with just a few minor changes. It is working okay. When I started I didn't have the time I would have liked to work on campaign settings so just went with forgotten realms.

In the past for campaigns I used a basic published setting, with a lot of my own twists. I had much more free time and set up websites for the campaign. Scanned the maps, the players could click on a nation on the map and read up on each nation (something like 40) Some were the same as the setting, others were totally different.

Yora

2012-02-23, 07:26 AM

Someone at enworld suggested that a good setting should be presented like a coloring book. You have all the outlines, but fill them with life yourself. Which I think sounds like a good balance.

bloodtide

2012-02-23, 02:56 PM

The first tension is, the GM needs to have the freedom to have things be unknown, to have mysteries, etc. If the GM is using a published setting, the more mysteries resolved by the source books, the fewer the GM can actually use for fear that players would already know the answers.

I guess some people have the problem with: ''on page 27 it says Oblar is not a human but he is a drow in disguise''. So any player that reads that book knows that secret. Then in the game they can just ''oh, we go over to Oblar and ask where the nearest drow city is'' or whatever.

I don't quite get this, myself. Even if a book said something like that, and even if some sneaky players tried to take advantage of it.....it would not get them that far. To continue the example Oblar would turn out to be an exiled mindwhiped drow with no contacts or such.

And even when they tried the ''oh we know the god Zolk is really the god Aolk and tell everyone'', that would simply not work as no one would believe it.

The second tension is, the average character in a setting should know a lot about it, and the accessibility of that information to players helps them comfortably play their character.

This is one of the pluses of published settings. The players can know a bunch about the world.

Someone at enworld suggested that a good setting should be presented like a coloring book. You have all the outlines, but fill them with life yourself. Which I think sounds like a good balance.

This is what a published setting is to me. Just an outline.

As I said, Waterdeep, the most detailed city in RPG history, still tells you very little about the city. There are still huge areas and things that have not been detailed or filled in. And no other city, say Sharn or Pantlias even comes close to the Waterdeep level of detail. But even with all the detail, Waterdeep is still just a big 'coloring book' that can be filled with anything.

hiryuu

2012-02-23, 05:07 PM

Sure, I've met THATGUY too many times to count. Though mostly I just ignore him.

If you're in a room with four or five people, and one of them wants to stop or disrupt everything because there's a detail they're not happy with, it's real hard to ignore them if they want their voice heard. Mostly because they're not happy, and it's rude to, in a game where the goal is to have fun, ignore that person. "Ignore them" solves no problems.

________________

I prefer content that I can fill in. The coloring book analogy is awesome. FR, as it stands, is paint by numbers with a good 2/3 already done. This has nothing to do with Waterdeep having buildings that don't have a canon occupied zone. This has everything to do with what nobles are who, the cause of every mysterious event, or the founder of every magical school. Effectively, all the mysteries in the setting are gone and you have to make up entirely new ones to have anything to really explore, unless you want to go shopping for combs instead. I will mention the Mournlands example again. I think that has a lot to do with its age, the milieu construction philosophy of the mid to late-80s time period, and that niggling artifact of the leveling mechanics which causes exponential character growth in areas that characters aren't supposed to be specialized in combined with the fact that narrative powers in novels are often used as benchmarks with which to judge how to mechanically construct an NPC.

MukkTB

2012-02-23, 11:31 PM

As GM details are fine. However I don't know that I would like players reading through the canon and holding me to it. Fortunately we have a gentlemen's agreement not to do that kind of thing.

As a designer I feel that the level of detail should be in keeping with the overall theme of the production. Choosing how much detail you put in changes the way your work feels. you pick the kinds of detail that add the right feeling.

As player I like information that is set in stone. Its more fun to explore if you don't feel the DM is just making up random garbage. Its more fun to compare how you got through the Temple of Horror with someone else if the DMs ran the same module without alterations.

Fatebreaker

2012-02-24, 03:28 AM

I can't remember a time where I liked a setting enough to want to play a game in it, but wanted less detail. At worst, I find details that just don't fit my game, and I ignore those.

If you're a DM, the best thing you can do with a published setting is to be up-front with your players (especially during character creation!) that while the setting will broadly adhere to the facts presented in canonical material, some details may change. Some may be for reasons of personal taste, some may be to help emphasize the themes emphasized in the campaign, and some may be because there's a subplot there.

If Book #37 says Duke Enpaese is an old man, but when your players get there, the Duke is a little girl, maybe that's because...

...you felt an older noble would be stubborn and sure of his power, overshadowing the PCs, while a child would be more naive and open to player suggestion or ideas.

...your overarching plot has a theme of people thrust into positions of authority and responsibility without warning or preparation, and the old Duke died suddenly, leaving his unprepared daughter to manage as best she can in the snake-pit of court intrigue.

...you wanted to introduce a subplot where there's tension in the duchy because old duke died, leaving the title to his daughter, while some barons are claiming that an illegitimate son deserves the throne, and it's up to the PCs to sort it out (or ignore it).

So long as you're clear with your players and give them an opportunity to check that the things that matter to them are consistent, you'll be fine.

And as far as THATGUY? Well, being up front with them about how some changes have in-game explanations may help get them on your side.

"Yes, there used to be a temple there. There's no temple there now, and none of the townsfolk claim to remember any temple. Isn't that interesting? Maybe you should find out why."

An opportunity where they get to "set things right" may help them accept changes to canon in your game and see the story potential in them. And sometimes, all THATGUY needs is an opportunity to learn how not to be THATGUY. We can always hope, right?

--

Sidenote: I really want to add my voice to quality of the coloring book analogy. That's a really good vibe, and well worth bearing in mind if you're ever creating a setting for others to use.

NichG

2012-02-24, 01:54 PM

I guess some people have the problem with: ''on page 27 it says Oblar is not a human but he is a drow in disguise''. So any player that reads that book knows that secret. Then in the game they can just ''oh, we go over to Oblar and ask where the nearest drow city is'' or whatever.

I don't quite get this, myself. Even if a book said something like that, and even if some sneaky players tried to take advantage of it.....it would not get them that far. To continue the example Oblar would turn out to be an exiled mindwhiped drow with no contacts or such.

And even when they tried the ''oh we know the god Zolk is really the god Aolk and tell everyone'', that would simply not work as no one would believe it.

So this is a very flagrant example. But a more subtle example is, say as a player I want to use information I've obtained and my own intuition to figure things out. If we're playing, an Oblar has a few odd habits, or certain things about Oblar's position don't make sense (perhaps even built in to the setting, so the DM didn't have to do anything), I want to be able to, as a player, try to figure out the mystery.

If the information about Oblar was somewhere easily viewed and I came across it by accident, thats no longer an option for me. Furthermore, if others in the party know about Oblar's secret OOC they could spoil it.

Worse yet, lets say the DM has decided to switch up Oblar, and now he's a new mystery. If I was aware of the old Oblar story, that is going to bias my thinking even if I'm trying to be completely fair about not using my OOC knowledge.

Also, anything I'm saying about 'my OOC knowledge' can also apply if any of the other players knows it and is the type to blab about it, which has happened to me before. For example, I'm in a _very_ heavily modified World of Darkness campaign right now (as in, pretty much throw out most of the lore). Previous to the campaign, I had no WoD experience whatsoever, but most of the other PCs did. I often had situations where I'd be trying to figure something out and came to a conclusion about the world, where another PC basically kept saying 'No, it isn't that, it's actually X' (which wasn't always right).

On the other hand, look at something like Planescape or heck, even Suikoden. Fans of Suikoden have spent a lot of time theorizing about Jeane, Viki, Yuber, Pesmerga, etc, beause there's lots of information in the game saying 'these people are mysteries!' and not a lot of definite information resolving the mysteries. Every little bit of info you get is a bit of a chunk of the puzzle, but its vague enough that there are multiple solutions to the puzzle and furthermore, people recognize that. So if a DM were running a Suikoden game, they could internally resolve that mystery as they liked, and drop their own hints suggesting for that interpretation, and the players wouldn't have to hold back, despite having all the external info the DM has.

valadil

2012-02-24, 02:23 PM

As GM details are fine. However I don't know that I would like players reading through the canon and holding me to it. Fortunately we have a gentlemen's agreement not to do that kind of thing.

Word. Here's the thing about canon lawyers. I don't like 'em. Not because they really do know the name of every inn and tavern, and will call me out if I make something up instead, but because they're unpleasant to play with even if you curb that behavior.

That was a little more hostile sounding than intended. What I'm trying to get at is that if a player corrects me about a trivial bit of FR lore, my beef isn't with FR for having too much lore, but with the player who doesn't understand boundaries. Switching to a less defined setting will hide this problem, but I'd expect the player to still raise issues in other ways.

bloodtide

2012-02-24, 02:52 PM

If you're in a room with four or five people, and one of them wants to stop or disrupt everything because there's a detail they're not happy with, it's real hard to ignore them if they want their voice heard. Mostly because they're not happy, and it's rude to, in a game where the goal is to have fun, ignore that person. "Ignore them" solves no problems.

It's not that hard. This is a good example of old school vs new school gaming though. So players 1-4, plus the DM want to go on the adventure 'the lost city', but player 5 wants to 'go kill dragon Roz as he is in a magic sleep as per page 44 of the book'. The new school DM would stop the game and hear the player out and have a good heartfelt talk and such. Old school, well you'd just ignore him, after the third or so time say something like 'the group is going on the lost city adventure' and after the fifth time, just let him leave the table in a huff.
________________

I prefer content that I can fill in. The coloring book analogy is awesome. FR, as it stands, is paint by numbers with a good 2/3 already done.

Although FR is the most detailed D&D world, even if you were to count all the other worlds combined, it's still more like 1/8 of the work is done for you, not anything like 2/3.

This has nothing to do with Waterdeep having buildings that don't have a canon occupied zone. This has everything to do with what nobles are who, the cause of every mysterious event, or the founder of every magical school. Effectively, all the mysteries in the setting are gone and you have to make up entirely new ones to have anything to really explore, unless you want to go shopping for combs instead.

Well, the sourcebooks do have a couple nobles behind some events, but that's a far cry to say they are behind everything. I'm not sure how you attach mysteries to information. For every piece of information a book tells you, it does not tell you 1,000 other things. So one book has a mystery that involves three characters, a chicken and an axe. Well, ok, that's great. But you can still have 1 billion other mysteries too.

So this is a very flagrant example. But a more subtle example is, say as a player I want to use information I've obtained and my own intuition to figure things out. If we're playing, an Oblar has a few odd habits, or certain things about Oblar's position don't make sense (perhaps even built in to the setting, so the DM didn't have to do anything), I want to be able to, as a player, try to figure out the mystery.

Well, this has nothing to do with if the player read page 22 or not. In any normal game you would try to figure things out as part of playing the game. The published setting problem is that players can just read the secrets and know them. And then, knowing the secrets they can 'pretend to not know them'. So they would say something lame like ''we randomly follow Oblar around'' because they know he has a secret. But if you tried to call them out on that ''really, guys why do you follow Oblar?'' you get the ''oh no reason...snicker, snicker, laugh''.

Worse yet, lets say the DM has decided to switch up Oblar, and now he's a new mystery. If I was aware of the old Oblar story, that is going to bias my thinking even if I'm trying to be completely fair about not using my OOC knowledge.

So your saying the DM must not alter the setting at all? Back to the goon squad that will show up and say ''Thou can't change the character Oblar from his official published ways.''

valadil

2012-02-24, 03:26 PM

Effectively, all the mysteries in the setting are gone and you have to make up entirely new ones to have anything to really explore, unless you want to go shopping for combs instead.

This isn't true if you take the canon as folklore. Change something in the book, but make it clear that nearly everyone in the world believes what the book says. Nobody in the game world should have perfection knowledge of that game world.

Anyway, once you start tweaking things like that you end up with additional mysteries that need investigating. Let the PCs figure out what really happened instead of what the world thinks happened. In my 4e game, Mystra wasn't actually killed. Her death was the world's interpretation of what happened when her magic went away. This trickled down to the PCs in a number of ways, the most obvious being through Elminster.

I'm particularly fond of this take on things because even the PCs don't know what's really going on. They have the perspective of someone who has lived in the world and believes all the folklore. When you change that, it actually affects them.

Dsurion

2012-02-24, 04:30 PM

The new school DM would stop the game and hear the player out and have a good heartfelt talk and such.And that's bad because? :smallconfused:

Old school, well you'd just ignore him, after the third or so time say something like 'the group is going on the lost city adventure' and after the fifth time, just let him leave the table in a huff.Ah, I see. What an infinitely better solution. /sarcasm

bloodtide

2012-02-24, 07:41 PM

This isn't true if you take the canon as folklore. Change something in the book, but make it clear that nearly everyone in the world believes what the book says. Nobody in the game world should have perfection knowledge of that game world.

This is a good point. A single line in a book will just say 'Rog is part dragon' or 'Vor might be undead', and that leads it open to the DM filling in whatever they want. And even when the book says the character is a vampire, that still leads it wide open as to what type of variant vampire the character is...

And even when the book says ''Rog is part of the Black Circle'', but what kind of member is he; a die hard true believer, a bored noble, a joiner for love or tons of other types.

And that's bad because? :smallconfused:
Ah, I see. What an infinitely better solution. /sarcasm

Well, you get five busy people together for a game. People that want to sit down and have fun. But then one of them wants to start a problem, he wants to complain about a game detail in a book. He wants to do nothing but ruin the whole night for everyone.

So some people would say: stop the game. Take the player over to another room, make some tea, and have a good heart to heart talk. Take an hour, maybe two and make everything right.

The first problem is that it wastes a huge amount of time. When you only have six hours for a game, taking a whole hour to baby one person is a lot of time. The second problem is that you must assume that the person is a saint and will act like one. And very few people are saints. So if no matter what you say or do, the person will still be a jerk and still try to ruin the game, why waste your time?

Brauron

2012-02-24, 08:30 PM

Here's how I'm handling setting details in the campaign world I'm currently building:

I've got the map. The map shows the various kingdoms and principalities and baronies and city-states and suchlike that exist in the world.

Each kingdom gets a brief write-up on my blog; a one-or-two line blurb to "sell" the kingdom to the players, a brief conspectus covering the overall tone of the kingdom and the sorts of things Adventurers are likely to encounter or experience there, and then sensory data: a taste, a song, and an image (usually a classical painting, sometimes a movie) that gives the player a feel for the kingdom.

For example, here's the Kingdom of Feymarque (http://the-crown-and-the-ring.blogspot.com/2012/02/what-feymarque-is-like.html).

The players read this (and we'll have it available for reference at the gaming table) and learn that Feymarque is a kingdom of human peasants ruled over by Fey lords, the hierarchy enforced by gangs of brutal leprechaun enforcers, where people drink a lot and sometimes mummies come out of bogs and if you loiter around some of these cold mountain lakes, you might encounter a Lake Serpent.

Towns and cities will come later, filled in as the players encounter them.

NichG

2012-02-25, 04:40 AM

So your saying the DM must not alter the setting at all? Back to the goon squad that will show up and say ''Thou can't change the character Oblar from his official published ways.''

Not at all. I'm saying I'd prefer not to know anything about Oblar's secret in the first place, so that if the DM doesn't change it I'm still surprised, and if the DM does change it I don't have pre-existing knowledge that is interfering with my ability to think about what I've actually experienced directly rather than stuff I've read/heard talked about/etc.

Its not always 'player looks in the DM section of the books'. Sometimes its things like, the information is not really separate, or the player is themselves running a game in the same setting (could happen a lot for D&D campaigns that include 'the planes', for example), or even things like 'everyone knows the secret and talks about it freely on message boards'.

Rather than have the issue where the DM either keeps it the same or changes it, and in either case my knowing it is harmful, I'd rather have the secret not have a 'canon' answer at all, so there's nothing for me to know, true or false.

Yora

2012-02-25, 06:32 PM

That's something I never understood with the WotC books. Why have information that is not known to PCs mixed up with info that PCs should know?
Yes, you have to make boxes instead of hardcover books, or seperate players and DMs guide. But in 4th Edition they had players guides for each setting, but players would still need to read the campaign guide to learn about the world they are playing in.
The AD&D boxes really had the best solution to this.

valadil

2012-02-25, 08:14 PM

That's something I never understood with the WotC books. Why have information that is not known to PCs mixed up with info that PCs should know?

The cynical answer is that WotC wants to sell each book to everyone at the table, not just to the GM. I wish they'd at least designate a GM only section of books though.

hamlet

2012-02-27, 08:47 AM

The cynical answer is that WotC wants to sell each book to everyone at the table, not just to the GM. I wish they'd at least designate a GM only section of books though.

And the answer would be "Fine, we'll buy the books, just separate the book into two halves, one for Players and one for DM's. The original Unearthed Arcana did that.

Yora

2012-02-29, 04:27 PM

Here's a new subject I'd like to talk about. Which is iconic NPCs.

I have to admit, in all the time I ran published settings, I never used a single NPC from the official books outside from the three or four adventures I ran. But that may be partially because most of the well known characters are big players and I usually run low-level wilderness games. However, I can't really imagine having a setting without any well known people. They don't need to be Elminster or Driz'zt, with dozens of novels to back them up, no point in arguing about that. But then you have other reasonably beloved characters like King Boranel, Iggwilv, Count Stradh, or Manshoon, who do provide additional depth to the world. I think iconic NPCs are important as a way to provide insight into the culture of the world and how the balance of power is made up.

But for myself, I'm quite out of clues how to create named characters for a world that matter without being intrusive.

hiryuu

2012-02-29, 06:37 PM

This isn't true if you take the canon as folklore. Change something in the book, but make it clear that nearly everyone in the world believes what the book says. Nobody in the game world should have perfection knowledge of that game world.

Anyway, once you start tweaking things like that you end up with additional mysteries that need investigating. Let the PCs figure out what really happened instead of what the world thinks happened. In my 4e game, Mystra wasn't actually killed. Her death was the world's interpretation of what happened when her magic went away. This trickled down to the PCs in a number of ways, the most obvious being through Elminster.

I'm particularly fond of this take on things because even the PCs don't know what's really going on. They have the perspective of someone who has lived in the world and believes all the folklore. When you change that, it actually affects them.

I usually do. That's not the point. The point is that I shouldn't have to. I pick up a setting that's been pre-published so that I don't have to.

Also, I'm referring to things like the Prophecies of Uikku, which have some nice vague prophetic meanings to them, and seem to be just waiting like leaves on the vine for a GM to pick up and run with them, and then you turn the page and it's like "you're too late, level 20 guy so and so already took care of that." And then it happens EVERY TIME YOU TURN THE PAGE. It gets really tiresome after a while and you just have to give up and go make your own everything, in which case, why pick up the setting at all? I can pound a setting out over a week if I really push, but I just spent thirty-forty bucks so I, ostensibly, don't have to do that, and there should very well be dangling plot threads all over the place, rather than a pile of neatly tied up ojo de dios that I have to manually cut open.

TheThan

2012-02-29, 06:40 PM

I believe that a dnd world should be detailed, but it shouldn’t be ridged. The players should be capable of influencing the world, and the dm should be able to change what he thinks is necessary to make his campaign work out better.

I feel this way because I’ve learned that a Dm has to be able to roll with the punches. He has to be able to adjust to what the players are doing, to keep the session going when they derail your plot, go left when you expected them to go right, show no interest in your current plotline etc.

bloodtide

2012-02-29, 07:26 PM

Here's a new subject I'd like to talk about. Which is iconic NPCs. But for myself, I'm quite out of clues how to create named characters for a world that matter without being intrusive.

My world is full of iconic NPCs, and as my world is the Forgotten Realms, that's saying a lot. My world is so full of NPCs that 'That Guy' will say 'oh it's pointless to play the game as the NPCs will do everything' and they will sit back, cross their arms and refuse to play.

First, players general hear about iconic NPCs all the time. And once a player gets public enough, they will often run into them as well. In general, the players will cross paths with them...but rarely sat on the same path for long. It's easy enough to keep the paths separate.

Second, often the players are off doing their own things. So they don't have to worry much about iconic NPCs as they won't be around. It's just the simple matter of having a large world.

Third, the iconic NPCs are often 'intrusive' in odd ways. They for example might get in the way, or do the wrong thing or mess things up. Quite often the players will know more about things or even be more in the middle of things then the iconic NPCs. A classic is something like the king requests the iconic NPC spend the night telling stories, while the players can sneak away and do the real adventuring.

Oracle_Hunter

2012-03-01, 01:03 PM

But for myself, I'm quite out of clues how to create named characters for a world that matter without being intrusive.
The key is make sure these Named Characters have other things to do.

FR Example
The main problem with Eliminister is that he's the most powerful Wizard in the world with literally nothing to do but solve problems. Due to the power of pre-4e magic it was always worth asking "If the world is in danger, why doesn't Eliminister just Teleport over and magic it until it is fixed? Why are we doing this?" Now, The Simbul (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Simbul) was another all-powerful Wizard but she had a nation to look after. If a Player asked "why isn't the Simbul handling this problem" then you could always respond "she's busy with Aglarond" and even if the problem was world-threatening your Players would usually be OK with that. Sure, they'd expect her to help them out somehow but you (as the DM) wouldn't have to undergo contortions as to why she wasn't handling it herself.
In general, this means making sure each Big Name is involved in some Big Thing which is not adventuring related. Have them rule kingdoms, watch seals, or even fund treasure hunters -- these are all important things in your world that are uninteresting to PCs which means the Big Names are unlikely to outshine the PCs.

Also, it's not a bad idea to generally cap the power of the Big Names somewhere below Epic. Epic-level entities are as powerful as Gods which means that Players could reasonably expect them to nip out to take care of anything in under 5 minutes unless you put some major constraints on them. Each Epic-tier Big Name you have has to be as fettered as whatever Gods you have in your campaign.