Thank you! That’s a neat post, and it looks like you’ve got some good content — thanks for pointing it out to me (and welcome to TT!).

In terms of actual use in Setting, White Wolf typically does a good job of this, at least in terms of the back covers of their books and the basic theme break down that usually is inside (somewhere after the 20 odd pages of fiction).

On the flip side- a lot of fantasy heartbreakers fail in this regard, and it also hits the issue of failing to provide/produce a Core Story for folks to grab onto.

Chris

Good idea! That kind of reminder can never hurt.

In terms of actual use in Setting, White Wolf typically does a good job of this, at least in terms of the back covers of their books and the basic theme break down that usually is inside (somewhere after the 20 odd pages of fiction).

I’ve also seen this done well in a non-setting area: the “how to use this book” sections that some gaming books put right up front. Same goes for chapter summaries, when those are provided.

Games like Everway, Trollbabe, The Shadow of Yesterday, My Life with Master, and Dogs in the Vineyard are all great at providing a clear snapshot of the setting, without endless, pointless details to be learned and followed in play.

For me, a good setting text inspires the players to create more setting and make it their own.

Talislanta is actually a very good example of this philosophy, too, strangely. It does have 400-odd pages of setting material, but any given entry is 1-2 paragraphs long. Entire cultures are described in two sentences. The book is full of hundreds of springboards, inviting you to fill in the blanks yourself.

I think Mike is spot-on with Stross’s Law.

I completely agree with you on setting as springboards, and canon as inspiration and not a straitjacket — but Talislanta’s approach sounds too loose.

Particularly the bit about entire cultures being described in two sentences — what if I, as a GM, would love to use that culture in my game, but don’t have a whole lot of spare time to develop it? Unless there’s more info available, I’d be out of luck.

That sounds more workable. As a matter of personal preference, I think even 6 paragraphs could be frustrating for larger concepts (like whole cultures), but that’s just me.

The right amount of setting detail may depend heavily on how familiar the reader is with the inspirations of the setting. If I’m a student of Japanese medieval history, then a samurai setting needs almost no detail, but if I haven’t the foggiest idea, then you need a good sized book just to introduce me to the setting if I’m going to be able to do a good job.

Of course that’s a big problem for RPGs. Probably 90% of the players out there really are pretty ignorant about any culture other than the one they grew up in (and possibly some of the historical culture). Watching a few samurai movies certainly doesn’t make you a Japanese cultural expert (since the movies likely have it all wrong – though it may give you a good grounding in a particular fictional setting).

Frank

I suppose one option would be to lay the foundation for the shorter individual descriptions with one longer “about the world” piece at the beginning. An example would be d20 Call of Cthulhu’s excellent chapter about the Cthulhu Mythos — which sets the framework for all of the creature descriptions, etc.

I’m all in favour of this strategy. Even in my own settings, I write a few simple paragraphs about an idea that’s been hanging around my head and I wish to incorporate into my campaign.
I don’t like to overtax myself with work (creating a setting and expanding it is quite cumbersome to begin with) but I really like to have my players immersed in what I create.

I accomplish my creation by always reminding myself what was going on inside my head, when I thought of the idea and write that down. This way, I can always adlib with the idea in mind.

As an example, I’ll give you the example of my main city in my current campaign.

Taverhall, a big port city that started as a small outpost that a retired pirate decided to open up a tavern. In time, a pirate colleague found that relaxing and decided to do the same and opened up a tavern across the road down to the port.

As time passed, more and more people found this out and the success of the post expanded it into a small town with the main street running down to the docks and full of Inns and tavern on both sides.

Now that place is a bustling city of trade & commerce (it’s quite safe, since most of the pirates actually dread the revenge that can follow if they ever raided there).

That’s about it. The rest, if the players wants to find out more about the place, what organizations are active, who’s in charge, latest occurances and etc… I just think about those three small paragraphs and come up with an immidiate answer.

If I wanted to create a special Inn, like “The Sally”, an Inn & Tavern on a big ship that’s actaully docked at the far end of the pier, I just write that down on my campaign notebook and make a name for the ex-captain.

If I wanted to make an on-site small adventure, I can have a local thief sneak up “The Sally” and have him cut or loose up the anchor and make the ship suddenly sail into the ocean… having the players caught up in the mess of taking it back to shore and capturing the culprit…

…to be continued

DM T.