Worldbuilding 101: Setting Matters
At this past Saturday’s Ides of Gaming I was talking to Don Dehm of Pulp Gamer about why the SAGA shared fantasy world project wasn’t taking off as hoped. A lot of discussion over the past few months went into settling on which system to use, the pros and cons of each, before settling on 4th Edition D&D. While I think the decision to use 4e was a sound one, because it is the current edition of the world’s most popular RPG and a good jumping-on point for that edition, there’s obviously more to be done. I don’t think enough is being done to sell the setting. It’s a fantasy version of Arizona — the same map, the same terrain, cities and towns in the same locations, all kinds of history and characters and local tropes to file the serial numbers off of and turn tweak into a fantasy setting. That’s a selling point. That’s THE selling point. Being a shared D&D world is a good idea, but the cool bits about the setting is what’s going to reel them in.
While we were having this conversation, as if to illustrate my point, there were 10 people gathered around ThomasD’s CSI: Gotham game, using Primetime Adventures. None of those people had never played Primetime Adventures. One person had never even roleplayed before. Both ThomasD and Jason Corley have run PTA games at these game days before, but not for a crowd like that. They weren’t there for the system. They were there for the setting, and the setting alone. the game could have been run using any system, and the setting would have drawn them to that table. that fact the PTA is wicked awesome and utterly appropriate to running a TV show as a game kept them at the table and will probably be a large factor in bringing them back for a second “episode”, I admit that. But setting… setting is the sizzle that sold the steak.
My next revelation on the power of a good setting came the next day, at the regular weekly World of Darkness game I play in. Jason Corley is the best gamemaster in Tucson, and he will tell you that it’s a scientific fact if you ask him. His wife suggested that he should get paid to run WoD demos, and he responded that he could never do it to White Wolf’s satisfaction. What he runs is an excellent game, but in no way representative of a “typical” WoD game. He cherry-picks what he likes from the setting, adds his own stuff, and runs with it. The setting, like the system, is merely a tool to be used as needed and kept in the toolbox if you don’t. The World of Darkness is built like that, throwing all kinds of stuff against a wall and letting you decide what sticks, giving you all sorts of options for characters and stories, but I see his point that some mud sticking the wall is more canonical than other mud, and he likes to play with some of the stuff that didn’t stick and hit the floor. Setting matters, in all sorts of ways here.
I don’t have a big summary or wrap up here, no final profound word of wisdom. What I do think is that setting gets overlooked in many conversations and debates about game design and roleplaying philosophy, playing redheaded stepchild to rules and styles of play.
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