So I'm back. It took me a little longer, than what I hoped for, but I had some work to do for a January convention and then had to go for a weekend to another convention. (Yeah, I was glad to be at convention, but still, I virtually had no choice.)
Today, I'd like to share some insights on settings, dropping some sidenotes about systems as well. First thing I should mark before starting about this topic is, that I'm definitely not unbiased and my opinion is definitely not the one and only. Read it, if you like, agree if you think alike, disagree if you have different opinion, but pretty please don't flame me, how ignorant am I, when I don't totally love your setting of choice. We all have favourites.
Now, what's my prime taste talking about settings in general? For a long time, I define my taste to go all the way from fantasy to horror, including genres like high fantasy, epic fantasy, heroic fantasy (for more fantasy-sh side), dark fantasy, post-apocalyptic fantasy, urban fantasy (for the middle realms) up to fairytale horror, urban horror, middle ages horror, mystery horror, victorian horror (for the more horror parts), something alongside these themes. My genres of preference are mostly dark fantasy, middle ages/victorian horror, urban fantasy/horror and most recently steampunk, which once more met my eye a few months ago. (I have a long history with steampunk as one of my favourites, but I haven't done any steampunk RPGs up to now, just read the books, etc. this should change very soon.) Where does it fit in my scale? Well, I see both fantasy and horror side of steampunk, so it fits quite well in my eyes. And about the tech...you've seen Eberron before?
So how to tell great setting from something...well...not so interesting? It has to have some pretty good ideas. It has to be inventive, original. It also has to be tightly put together, one thing clicking another, not feeling like put together only because someone liked it so. (Yeah, it always is that way, someone liked it so, but it has to make sense.) And then, there are the details, which don't really make the setting good, if it's not, but they may make bad setting acceptable, or at least interesting, acceptable setting usable, usable setting good and most importantly good setting great. Details may be sidenotes to main text, short stories, good examples of gameplay, great illustrations, working with the text included, overall design, recalling the setting just from the feeling of the book, some literature and/or music recommendations, and also incorporated system and carefully made character sheet.
I believe most of these are quite clear, so I'd like to skip to the rules/sheet part. Why is it so important to have your own system? Well, it gives the game a pace, a specific way to be played. From my point of view, the system does't really have to be any good (while still, it is very preferable for such a system to be at least usable...), but it gives the reader (and future gamemaster of the thing) an idea about how the game should be run. Should it be all about combat, focused on magic and rituals, or about something completely different? Should the PCs be powerful about as human, as fantasy hero, as supernatural creature? And the NPCs? Should the experience/levelling/power curve be more like linear, exponential or logarithmic? Is there any final stage, characters can/should achieve? Or is there infinity waiting for them? Etc., etc., there are tons of questions, you might of course answer directly, but some fine tuned system often makes better. And about the sheet? It should be both nice and streamlined. Anyone knowing the system should be able to use it on first sight without any problems...
OK, I got a bit elsewhere, than where I originally wanted to go, but never mind. I didn't want to talk about settings namely today anyway. Hmm, it seems more like a bunch of thoughts then a really consistent topic today. Well, I'll try to keep it more lined next times, at least I was able to put down some of basic premises, I'll work with later, so I won't have to think about incorporating them later.
Next time, I'd most probably like to write about Atmosphere in RPG, both in and out of game, which was one of my lectures on that convention in October, so I'll also start to process these slides and notes in the same time... (Thankfully, I had no lectures on this December convention.) I'd like to ask you to send me your tips on how to make better atmosphere and most importantly to recommend me some pretty good atmospheric music to play while gaming. I of course have quite a lot of stuff of my own, I'd like to write about, but there's never enough tips on this topic.
For the thought of the day: I quite often prefer some petty unknown RPG to a huge everyone-must-know-this piece, because of it's relative anonymity. More people know the stuff, more people talk about it, more people modify it for their own campaigns and less you're sure, what was really in the book and what was someone's "great" idea. It's much easier to read through, study, understand and explain/judge something not hugely exposed, where you don't have any previous "knowledge" (more often disinformation). As always, give yourself a moment or two to think about it...
Tags: Rpg Roleplaying Setting System Fantasy Horror Steampunk
