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View Full Version : What's in a setting?



Shinizak
2018-12-03, 04:45 PM
So I'm going to be taking a HUGE endeavor to write a kitchen sink setting. and I MEAN a kitchen sink setting. It's all going to be a personal attempt at rescaling the power scales of most tv shows, anime, video games, ancient legends, comics, etc. so that they can all effectively co-exist and cross over at any time. I'm doing this because my group LOVES setting cross overs, but I personally hate restructuring an existing setting and re-scaling on the fly, so this exists more as a "find the lowest common multiple" across settings. Breaking things down to their lowest common literary element and shoving it in.

However this is going to be a huge endeavor. Is there any easy, tried and true method for writing settings? Anything Y'all got would be amazing.

Yora
2018-12-04, 02:43 PM
The only advice I can give is "keep it small" and "focus on doing just one thing well". Which both really don't help here.

BWR
2018-12-04, 04:01 PM
When writing a setting, unless you want it to grow organically and, as Yora suggested, start small and let it grow, you need to figure out what it is supposed to be, what it is supposed to do, and how it does what it is supposed to be and do.
To take a specific example, Rokugan for L5R. What it is can be summed up as "samurai setting where honor is stronger than steel, with magic". What it does is give PCs an opportunity to play warriors, politicians, priests (and more) in an intricate, detailed setting of strict norms and rules. How it does this is set up the political factions, their relationship with eachother, setting history, many and detailed NPCs to let their characters fit in with and interact in the setting.

In your case I would probably take a leaf out of the book of SW, RIFTS or Planescape or something and have many different worlds people can come from and visit. Having high-powered kitchen sink settings can make things a bit cramped if confined to a single planet. Since you are focused on power levels, I would start with that. Figure out how you want the power levels to work, how common you want them to be, how permanent the changes they can make are, etc., and then build up around that.

noob
2018-12-04, 04:07 PM
A setting contains stuff that can be burned such as water, adamentine, plot, fire elementals, the concept of loyalty, stars, black holes, gods and maybe a forcewall or the irresistible increase in entropy.
If all that did not caught fire or burn after or during interaction with adventurers then you should suspect your players to be water elementals who traveled to this world and are pretending to be humans.

2D8HP
2018-12-04, 04:37 PM
Myself, I've GM'd A/D&D with a generic "Fantasyland" setting (basically a Conan.and Sword of Sorcery comic books, and the Hobbit cartoon of the 1970's mash-up

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_DSs2bX13hVc/S76VaPmTHxI/AAAAAAAAB90/jp_QEn8jKSg/s320/conanelric1.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_DSs2bX13hVc/S76i4WQ-17I/AAAAAAAAB-E/xdEuV-lr0as/s320/conanelric2-1.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5YsHcdKj67c/TPYPhFvhMnI/AAAAAAAAD6E/Xgq1TIn7Vp4/s400/Sword_of_Sorcery_5_00.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4d_XH8ANPFg/VQhw34ThOpI/AAAAAAAAT8k/qSmRZCOCE3w/s280/13dwarves_hobbit1977.jpeg
and I never bothered with a setting "history" for the players to study.

Call of C'thullu was just the 1920's with hidden monsters, so no studying either.

Traveller I did as "planet of the week" so exploring the setting in play was part of the fun, so no homework either.

A typical start would be:

"A shadow passes over you, as you look up you see a Dragon passing overhead",

"What do you do?

That's about it usually

No lengthy setting history essays.

No big lists of nationalities and social classes

Unless I tell you otherwise PC's are ignorant/isolated farm kids ala Luke Skywalker/Percival newly arrived from the land of Generica (part of the Nondescriptian Empire), in an unfamiluar land were they somehow understand the language (except when they don't!), and have them learn about the world through NPC's.

If there's backstory, unless it's a map, journal etc.that a PC finds I try to not give a handout!

Oracles, street prophets, and witches will give voice to the backstory in character (hopefully).


1)Make up or steal find a scene that looks like it will be fun/exciting.
2) Listen to what the players say.
3) Have them roll some dice for suspense.
4) Tell the players what changed in the scene.
5) Repeat
"Your at the entrance of the Tomb of Blaarg what do you do?" If they're real contrary "Your inside the Tomb of Blaarg, what do you do?, or "your trapped deep inside the Tomb of Blaarg" etc. Just quickly narrate to the part where the actual adventure begins. They can role-play how they turned tail and ran back to the tavern.



For a crash course inbad DM/player interaction see DM of the Rings (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?cat=14)
While much of the fun of DM'ing is in making a world (the other part is witnessing the PC's shenanigans), I try to keep world building bare bones. It's usually more fun to read, then to play. When the players start to get jaded, then maybe introduce "exotic", "innovative", and "weird" elements, but usually at first freaky "Alice in Wonderland on LSD" "adventures" are not fun for me!

One of the most successful (i.e. my players liked it) "campaigns" that I DM'd/Keeper'd (I reused the same setup for both Call of Cthullu and Dungeons & Dragons) was a mashup of the plot set-ups of "Conan the Destroyer" and "Young Sherlock Holmes" (cultist, Elder gods, yadda, yadda, yadda), I didn't map anything out on paper before hand at all! I just imagined "scenes", described them to my players, and had them roll dice to see if they did whatever they were trying to do, then on to the next scene!
As a player I prefer Swords and Sorcery settings, but I can remember some particularly fun sessions of Shadowrun that had no fantasy elements at all. The trick was that a very good gamemaster amped up the roll-playing aspects, and downplayed the role-playing aspects, with lots of action and suspense, resolved by many dice rolls (a chase were you roll at each corner or notable landmark lends itself well with this approach).

Other times that I've had a lot of fun involved lots of described magical elements and dialog, and almost no dice rolls at all. More boring RPG sessions seem to involve an intermediate amount of dialog (role-playing), and action resolved with dice rolls (roll-playing). So I would advise GM's to stay away from a "middle-of-the-road" approch, and to stick with what's working at the time. If the action is flowing keep the dice rolling, if the players are "playing" (doing the thespian thing), only stop them to roll dice for the suspense of it, otherwise keep 'em talking.

As a player, sure some guidance on what sorts of PC's will fit the game would be nice, but when I ask they usually start on "10,000 years ago a great meeting was held on the continent of...." and I'm zzzzzz.

You know how it oft said that most Americans can't find most nations on a map, or even other states?

Don't give "macro" details.

Instead tell of the village where the PC came from, the name of the fishmonger that the PC's fisherman family sold their catch to, not the name of the freaking ocean they got the fish from!

Small details help build characters, big grand "5,000 years ago the armies of Argle-Bargle invaded the lands of Generica" don't help much

That said, I still get carried away with worldbuilding, and wind up doing:
Far to the West the land descends gently into swirling mists, several rivers run to it, and the closer one gets to the mists the louder the sound of rushing water becomes.

The mists are known in many tongues both as "Worlds Edge" and "Will to Live" as for centuries there are records of the despondent, and the bold vowing to either walk down into the mists or explore what's in the distance down the hills, but all of them are recorded to have turned back.

It is also noted how relatively prosperous, healthy amd happy are those in the lands that border the mists are, and it is also noted that until recently few lived near the mists, with most families being only a few generations old despite fertile farmland being near the mists. Both those families that have newly arrived, and those that have been longer have had more births in the last 20 years than those families have had before, with each year there being more births.

Within a days journey of the mists the differences between those who live near Worlds Edge/Will to Live and those who don"t, is apparent, and then first gradually, then quite abruptly, those differences dissipate the further from the mists one goes.

Strangely, the population is less dense the more days journey from the mists one travels until about four days out, it becomes quite crowded and gradually less so the further east from the mists one travels. While being less crowded with people, it is clear that the further east from the mists one travels, the older buildings appear to be, and most families, and even nations have histories of travelling west, few of migrating east.

Quite alarmingly, more and more around the world have just this year have decided that they either "Have nothing more to live for", or "Want to be the first to solve the mystery of the mists" and are journeying west to either end their lives inside the mists, or explore what's is past the point one may see, but so far no one has yet done so, just as they have not for centuries.

Some Sages have proposed a reason for these anomalies:

When one goes into the mists, one ends not just your existence in the present, but that you ever existed at all.

There is no proof for this whatsoever.

But if I can do it via an My theories aren't crazy at all!
Just because those blind fools at the Mages Guild roll their eyes, and won't admit the truth!
I'll show them! All show them all!

First, the half-elves, and half-orcs among us show that elves, humans, and orcs are in fact the same species! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?481829-Why-the-Sentient-Species-Don-t-Make-Mutts)
Humans are actually descendents of long ago Elves and Orcs.
Don't walk away! In your hart you know it's true!

Also the reason Elves have low light vision like Dwarves and Gnomes, is because they too originally lived underground. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?475794-Drow-the-original-Elves) Clearly these rumors of "Dark Elves", sometimes called "Drow", point towards the inescapable conclusion that "surface" Elves are in fact descended from Elves who were exiled from the Underdark because they were insufficiently badass! And in fact the day star bleached them! That is why Wood Elves who lived under the shade of their forest homes are darker hued. Either that or the reliance on magic among the so called "high elves", makes them both lazy and pasty!

In fact this overuse of Magic by some may doom us all!
The ruins of the Ancients all around, in the wastelands and underground shows the truth!
Long ago the Elves
used up all the magic causing the fall of their civilization! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?487606-Magic-Lost-and-Reborn)

Overuse of Magic in one place leeches the Mana from the Earh, leaving desolate wastelands in it's absence!
The ancestors of the Elves having squandered all the magic fled underground, with a few remnants learning to survive in a world without magic. Yes humans and orcs! The Orcs who infest the ruins are the savage descendents of the Elves too stupid to leave. We humans are the descendents of those who didn't hide underground, or stupidly stay amongst the ruins, but instead pioneered new lands and made new tools.
Why else would it be humans who invented the crossbow, the plow, sailing ships, and windmills? Only in times without Magic would anyone bother to build such things! That's why so many of us still toil on the land and in our smithies, instead of just learning Wizardry, were not too stupid to learn Spellcraft! Nay, deep in our souls we feel the warning that it can't last!

That is why these tomb robbing Adventurer's have lately been finding magic items littering the ruins. For centuries there was insufficient environmental Mana for those items to be worth picking up!
That is why there are Sorcerers now born among us when previous generations had none!
The return of Magic to the wastelands is why suddenly all these magicsl monsters now infect our lands! Do you think our ancestors could have survived long if they'd always existed?

We have forgotten and grown soft!
We must conserve what Magic is left and learn from the Gnomes ways to make wonders without the Arcane arts. Too much reliance on and use of Wizardry will doom us!

We must learn to grow our on food and distill water, without relying on Create Food and Water Spells, and if these Magic-User's continue to waste the Magic away in trivial goals, we must learn to fight off without spells, the bears, wolves and other beasts that threaten us, else we fall to claws and fangs!

Take these pamphlets and spread the word before it's too late!

The truth is out there.

Heed the warnings!

But my usual campaign ideas are rather more prosaic and unoriginal,
Your PC's are adolescents and very young adults in an isolated village where two summers ago all the fighting age men, and many of the women left on a "trading" mission, and have not returned, so the elders of the village at a moot in the godshall have some of the you accompany "old Ragnar", a one armed former Viking (who will die of natural causes soon after they set sail) as their guide.

What they find is that nearby they are de-populated and sometimes burned towns with no bodies and little evidence of what happened.

Upon returning home (assuming they do), they find their village simillarly emptied, with cooking fires still smoldering, and in the distance a low thumping sound, like a muffled hammering.

If they seek out the source of the sounds, they find what look to be new wells outside the village, but they see no water at the bottom, and ha hand and foot holds along the sides, and descending and exploring leads them to discover albino "Goblins" leading the enchanted people of their village deeper into the earth, and then....
....well basically the Goblins are the Morlocks in the 1895 Time Machine novella, and the 1960 film, led by albino Drow/Elves not unlike the character played by Jeremy Irons in the 2002 film.

Further exploration by the PC's leads them to find tunnels made by digging machines (like in At The Earth's Core), and locales like in Journey to the Center of the Earth (ruins and dinosaurs!), and a civilization a bit like the Selenites in First Men in the Moon.


http://i.pinimg.com/originals/be/cd/be/becdbe61eaa6aecd066a697cbef57715.jpg

https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/2x/z2tm2qgh2h31.jpg

http://ingeld.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/stave-church11.jpg?w=218&h=300

http://68.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9wv1dc6LR1r9gwhe.bmp

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w1U7VldXczM/VtcnnDjKVdI/AAAAAAAALGk/dVZdltN5_vM/s280/Eoli%2Bunderground.jpg

http://68.media.tumblr.com/0e9aca8fe922c2ef369ba370d70a66be/tumblr_o2afjzv7Ek1syptjoo7_500.png

http://68.media.tumblr.com/e247703f22fbaa609cf56741365b1706/tumblr_o2afjzv7Ek1syptjoo1_500.png


http://pre00.deviantart.net/6570/th/pre/i/2004/09/e/b/morlock_emerging_from_a_hole_.jpg

http://pre00.deviantart.net/0caf/th/pre/i/2012/057/2/2/here_be_morlocks_by_mattpocalypse-d4r2eg6.jpg


http://68.media.tumblr.com/2022bb37f8ba55fe62daadcbc61a1df2/tumblr_o2afjzv7Ek1syptjoo4_500.png


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_s8l-yu7AZLM/SVppXmlmMYI/AAAAAAAAFdM/_uaE0SOEVds/s280/tm13.jpg

http://pages.erau.edu/~andrewsa/sci_fi_projects_fall_2015/Project_1/Charalab_Constantine/Updated_Project_HU338/Morlocks.jpg

http://cdn3.bigcommerce.com/s-x8dfmo/products/11724/images/34773/Jeremy-Irons-in-The-Time-Machine-2002-Premium-Photograph-and-Poster-1023101__47680.1432433158.386.513.jpg?c=2

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_TRju1TnYfxU/TN5ipt5ZoqI/AAAAAAAAAjY/GCUVQIL_CO0/s280/Mushroom+forest.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_TRju1TnYfxU/TN5iQWoLrxI/AAAAAAAAAi4/mXGlR6nEiyU/s280/cave+5+-+Alantis.jpg

http://www.pellucidar.org/moleh3.jpg

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I0sb159J4O0

So yeah, I just don't make the setting so exotic that much intro is needed.

A "mixed" setting with real-world analogues ("England, France, The Empire) plus Faerie and...
http://i.pinimg.com/originals/ba/f4/01/baf4013ef29ca1a24280977478d240d9.jpg

Scorch

A desolate wasteland inhabited by mutants, ruled by a Wizard King that lusts for conquest...

"What do you do?