The Campaign Builder's Guild

The topic for today's discussion: what makes a world successful, and why does it work?

Define success however you like. I'm not really talking about financial success, but you can go in that direction if you choose. I'm interested in diagnosing what makes a thing work, so that hopefully we may use the knowledge to our advantage.

(Note that I am talking about what makes a world work, not a story. Background, not plot.)

A few things stand out to me...

1) Applicable culture. In other words, the quirks and mannerisms of the realm's inhabitants are made potentially relevent to adventurers.

2) Consistency.

3) Tone. Something I've still not done too well with in my settings, the best worlds (Urbis comes to mind) have a unique flavor and feel to them even if the components vary immensely.

I think Queenfange's #2 hits the nail on the head for me.  Anyone can come up with a hook or a gimmick, and plenty of people have come up with good tones and themes, but the worlds that really stand out to me are extremely consistent in terms of history and themes.  Consistency is basically just a form of truth, and anyone that can make their world ring true has done a good job in my opinion.

I would agree with the above as criteria for making a world "good" or "enjoyable."

"Successful" though? I'd have to attribute that to quantity of pop media in said world and the number of years it has been active.

I think the players need something they can identify with. Too often there is a strong temptation to "reinvent the wheel" - create totally new and unique races, cultures, and so forth. But then the players need to read tons of setting material and understand it - or worse, many of the aspects of the setting are only in the brain of the GM, which will leave the players frustrated.

It is possible pull off truly original worlds - Tekumel is one of the most noteworthy examples. But this is very, very hard to pull off, and thus starting out with something a bit stereotypical can be useful. You can always bring up the strange stuff later on...

I totally agree with Jürgen's point of identifying with the world! If the setting is too alien, the players often try to come up with real-world analogies (days of week are still called Monday and Tuesday instead of something else, a race of blue winged elves is called "blue winged elves" instead of the nice name with lots of apostrophes the DM came up with, etc). A totally strange world works in fantasy novels where the author can keep every detail under control, but seems often to require too much from the players for them to really enjoy it.

So, why bother? The players become frustrated because there is nothing familiar and the DM becomes frustrated because the players don't get it. I see a win-win situation as something that instantly looks familiar - usually the real world, but this of course depends on the players - but has some twist that makes it slightly different (not too much). The Cthulhu mythos is a good example of a twist, it dovetails nicely to the real world but present more than enough strangeness when one digs deep enough.

That actually is a good point: the strange stuff should be below the surface, the immediate surroundings of the setting should be familiar to the players.

MAK
admc.pbwiki.com

I agree with all of Queen's points. Like Ishy, I'd say #2 is most important in the long run.

Here, on the CBG, a setting with unusual themes is most likely to garner support and views, just because we've all read so many settings that something fresh is more likely to catch our interest. But for a setting to last and support play (if that's what you mean by successful), it has to have more than just some new ideas.

Here's another suggestion: Follow the procedure for the WotC Setting Search. Try to answer these questions:

Quote1. Core Ethos Sentence. [A sentence that describes the core ethos of the world. For example, Forgotten Realms is a world of sword-and-sorcery adventure, where heroes battle monsters with magic.]

2. Who are the heroes? [Brief description of heroes central to the setting. This need not be a comprehensive list.]

3. What do they do? [What are the main objectives of the heroes, and what steps do they take to achieve those objectives?]

4. Threats, Conflicts, Villains [What is the main danger to the world, and from whom does it come?]

5. Nature of magic [What is the source of magic? How abundant/scarce is it?]

6. What's new? What's different? [What makes this setting unique?]

Try to answer these questions, and - and this is important - answer them on only a single page. If you can convey what your setting is all about - its major themes and strengths - and can get your readers exited about it, then you might have a winner.

Many who submitted something to the Setting Search simply didn't get that - they claimed that the "brilliance" and "detail" of their setting simply cannot be contained in a single page, and thus submitted two or more - and promptly flunked out. And deservedly so.

Agreed. I think that's a really good rule of thumb that I may bring up as a base questionnaire to hand to new settings.

QuoteI think the players need something they can identify with. Too often there is a strong temptation to "reinvent the wheel" - create totally new and unique races, cultures, and so forth.

But... but... :(


;)

SUCCESFUL.
That is the crux.  Defining success?  Probably, for the GM, this constitutes a game that:
1) Players take to right away.
2) Players stay with, and maybe even brag about.  Stay with means years, and time is one measure of success.
3) The GM stays interested (nothing kills a game faster than when the GM loses any steam).
I can comfortably speak to these points.

So I think 'hook' is what gets them to like the game right away, but it is plot and versimilitude that makes them stay.
I know it is in LC's first post that plot is not what he is asking for, but I think it is worth noting that some games and settings internal background's are more suitable for long-term plots.  I don't think the two can be totally seperate.  Why?
Because a good game is like a good book.  Look at any 'successful' game, and you will see a game that could (with the proper author, etc) make a great book.  

[blockquote=Ishy]but the worlds that really stand out to me are extremely consistent in terms of history and themes.[/blockquote]
This is a very nice encapsulation of what makes a good story, and therefore a good game.  I encourage all GM's to at least look at their games with this perspective.  Our players are, almost universally, fellow readers.  This is a genre they enjoy, and they are the protagonists of a story, more than anything.  

Players are trying to write their story across a canvas that you have created, and when they go back to a town, they want to see the same faces, deal with the same inkeep, know that the drinks are the same, though the daily special may have changed.  The Bargirl may have run off with some scoundrel, but her sister is now working their (and she's cuter, though not as fast...).
Most players also have a sense of the grandiose, and so the legends and histories need to pop up as well.  And as in a good narrative, they must show up naturally and as part of the background.  If you have to tell the players out of the blue about a bunch of legends and history at the beginning of an adventure in a game they have been running, it doesn't get them into the game.  If they pass old columns when they come into the town, from the time of the Empire, and when the players turn off a dirt road onto an ancient paved highway made by Lord Q, when they meet a knight of the Banished Black order...don't just have a history, use it.  And have the large scale, and the mid scale, and the local.  History has layers.  My players finding ancient Igboniat coinage in a Venolvian Tomb (which is like finding Ancient Mycenaean coinage in Michelangelo's tomb)is not just a good story, it integrates them into the history of the world.  

Another thing that helps the players integrate into the world is if the crunch is tailored to the setting.  Too often, GM's let rules supercede the game and the story, which is a huge mistake.  The best stories don't just have the best histories, they have consistent internal mechanics that have helped create the backstory.  Having classes or races or organizatrions or magic that works a certain way becasue the 'rules say so' instead of because it makes sense for the setting makes the game and the story feel less authentic.

(LC, sorry if I dragged this in a different direction than you wanted to go...)

Quote from: LordVreeg edited for clarity... Too often, GM's let rules supersede the game and the story, which is a huge mistake.  The best stories don't just have the best histories, they have consistent internal mechanics that have helped create the backstory.  Having classes, races, organizations or magic systems work a certain way because the 'rules say so' instead of because it makes sense for the setting makes the game and the story feel less authentic.

I agree with you that a world should have specific rules to help it, but I disagree with the portion I underlined. In my mind, crunch should have little to no influence on the creation of the world and should be treated as a tool to tailor the world to a sub-medium.

This is no doubt off-topic, though, so if you'd like to debate it - we'll need a new thread (or just PMs).

No PMs!  All debates must be public! :)

too late.

Bring it to the public, start a new thread!  Conversation is a good thing here! :)

Naw. We agree. Not much to be said. Vreeg just meant "I hate it when rules aren't consistent with a setting's history/facts."

EDIT: Vreeg is also going out of town "for a few," so he can't post. :P