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How much detail does a setting need ?


rust

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If your setting covers only a few years (1920-1930), would it not be easier to simply write down what dates the important festivals occur on in each year, rather than try to explain how those dates are arrived at?

"Tell me what you found, not what you lost" Mesopotamian proverb

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If your setting covers only a few years (1920-1930), would it not be easier to simply write down what dates the important festivals occur on in each year, rather than try to explain how those dates are arrived at?

Ah, but ... I mean ... - ... I am an idiot ! :eek:

Yep, that is obviously the best way to handle it, and with the conversion

tool mentioned earlier all I have to do is copy & paste the dates for a num-

ber of years.

And while it is nice for me, as the referee, to know how the dates are arri-

ved at, the players really do not need that knowledge, and other referees

who use the setting will have to do their own research anyway, because I

can not add an entire essay on "calendrics" to the setting (and could not

write a good one in the first place).

Thank you very much, sometimes I have the learning curve of a zombie and

need an entire thread before the lights go on in my head ... :rolleyes:

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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Thank you very much, sometimes I have the learning curve of a zombie and

need an entire thread before the lights go on in my head ... :rolleyes:

Hey, we're all learning things today. Besides, having your head filled with publishing legalities is bound to have side effects. ;)

"Tell me what you found, not what you lost" Mesopotamian proverb

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  • 3 weeks later...

Like one of the gods syphoning it off for his own needs, and a once-in-a-milennium eclipse is coming when he passes between the earth and the sun, blotting out all energy and dropping the earth into an abyss of chaos from which it can only emerge if our heroes finish a complex ritual before the hour-long-eclipse is finished? And they only find out about it a day before the cataclysm is about to happen?

That kind of something?

Or someone forgot to play the electric bill?

Why do I get the feeling that Atgxtg is going to end up as a Great Old One?

He that sleeps upon a cot

measured only in megawatts

-The Arkham Electrician

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I prefer a setting with extremely rich detail. I'm an old-school gamer, and I recall with relish buying and reading the House Books of Battletech/Mechwarrior and loving the amount of gritty historical detail involved. To think of the amount of time and energy I have devoted to the subtle metaphysical mechanics of magic in Shadowrun, the cults and races of Glorantha, the intrigues of Vampire Houses and the rich tapestry of herodom in Champions... good times, good times.

Alas, the current gaming public is not in step with this. From discussion with the folks working inside the industry and personal observance of fellow gamers, I have noted that the new generation of gamers do not read anything longer than a page or so, and some cannot even manage that. I'm not sure if it is cultural level attention-disorder, the drive-thru/I-want-it-now society or the 24-hour news cycle or what (sunspots maybe?); but a lengthy history or richly detailed background seems out of the question today for a product to have economic viablity. I Pity that really.

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What I really find "unfair" are the players who expect the referee to know

the most unimportant detail of a setting whenever their character asks for

it, but who themselves are too lazy to learn and remember much more than

their character's name and gender.

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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What I really find "unfair" are the players who expect the referee to know

the most unimportant detail of a setting whenever their character asks for

it, but who themselves are too lazy to learn and remember much more than

their character's name and gender.

I agree. I think that is a lot of what I am seeing at the gaming table and conventions.

I also agree personally with Rob about the more detail the better, but I'm running into problems with this dichotomy (I want more, the readers of today's gaming tables want less) in my own setting work.

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I agree. I think that is a lot of what I am seeing at the gaming table and conventions.

I also agree personally with Rob about the more detail the better, but I'm running into problems with this dichotomy (I want more, the readers of today's gaming tables want less) in my own setting work.

Give the the detail and the GM can use what he want's and cut out the rest.

I think the trend among gamers is to move towards computer RPGS, where they don't need to reach much of anything nor need very detailed stories. But then, I think the trend towardsa less reading is the same as the trend towards less math.

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An author once remarked that about 90 % of the details he came up with for

the background of a story never makes it into the actual published novel, and

in my experience the percentage of the details of a roleplaying setting that

actually make it to the table is not much different.

For example, when I tell the players in a science fiction campaign that a cer-

tain planet has only mild seasonal variations and a year of 439 days, they ra-

rely realize that I had to determine the planet's axial tilt and the star's mass

and the planet's orbital radius and make some calculations to know this with-

out "winging" it.

However, I like to design settings, and so I do not care too much whether all

my material is actually used, I am quite satisfied that it is there, that is has

comparatively few "bugs", and that it could be used if someone wanted to do

so. If it is really used, that is the cream on the coffee.

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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Guest Vile Traveller

One of the difficulties is in knowing beforehand how much of the detail you create will make it into the finished product. In my experience it's better to be safe than sorry, because having to make up or research things in the midst of the actual write-up (or, even worse, in play, although I don't get much of that these days) is a real flow-breaker for me.

Also, you never know what your researches will uncover. I've found lots of inspiration when researching backgrounds for plot twists and adventure hooks which I would not have thought of by myself.

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