The Campaign Builder's Guild

This is in reply to something I read in the Tavern:

Quote from: http://eruvian.com/locale.asp?localeID=74Urbis[/url], and it is observable in many of its components. Let me take a recent entry as an example - the elven city of Tyaril:

QuoteA city located in the easternmost outlier of The Siebenbund Alps, Tyaril serves as the breadbasket of Avareen. Thanks to the powers of The Autumn Court, it is eternally Autumn in the local valley'"and thus, the crops and fruit trees of these valley are eternally ripe and ready to havest. Once they are harvested, they quickly grow anew to be harvested again. Thus, this single valley supports most of Avareen with its food, although most other elves avoid talking about the city at all because of the presence of the Fair Folk court.

There is a price for the fertility of the city, and it is this: The first night of the true season of Autumn belongs to The Autumn Court, and the inhabitants of the valley do not remember anything that happens during this night, although they often are bruised in strange places on the next morning.

Sometimes, some inhabitants disappear entirely during this night, and it is forbidden to mourn them openly. Sometimes, children are born nine months later who forever have a strange sense of longing for something unknown in their souls.

Now, I could have written down precisely just what the members of the Autumn Court do to the inhabitants of this city on this night - but what purpose would that have served, other than unecessarily restricting GM creativity? I'm sure that any GM with an active imagination - and what gamer doesn't have one? - come up with any number of really disturbing explanations for the true events behind that night - and thus, the stories that can be told of this place will become much stronger.


So when it comes to world-building, I'm leaning more towards Lovecraft than Tolkien - to me, there's no need to detail everything, or be 100% consistent with everything. Often it is better just to hint at the truth than to spell it out.


What are your thoughts on this?

Hoho, my comments spawn threads! Bow before me!

Anyway, direct inconsistencies, imo, are detrimental to the presentation of a world, just as they are with a story. If in one paragraph you say that the world is flat, only then to say that it is round, the audience will become jaded and confused. I see what you're bringing up to be factual inconsistency through fallible sources. This means you contradict yourself in myth, legend, rumor and mystery. I agree that these provide interesting questions which engage the audience, while laying down very little omniscient fact.

Note that my critique of Cthulhu was based on "soul" and not consistency, as I agree that with mysterious settings it is far superior to only hint. That's part of what I hated about the Call of Cthulhu RPG, once you stat out the old ones you're screwed.

I see the comparison with Poe, though I probably liked Lovecraft better. It seems to me that comparing Tolkien and Poe/Lovecraft is apples and oranges.

That is to say, wonderful, golden mythical apples, and alien thirteen-eyed orange things from beyond.

Even comparing Poe and Lovecraft isn't a perfect apples to apples connection. They both did somber, gothic horror, but Poe's works are much more about the human condition and emotion whereas Lovecraft goes on and on about the pursuit of knowledge and the nature of the unknown.

Honestly, I really don't like Lovecraft's ideas and I find his writing to be mediocre, but I respect him for forging what could be considered a new genre.

Lovecraft chills me to the bone, which is why I like it. I love his work more than I do Tolkien (though The Hobbit was actually the book that opened the door to fantasy for me). I haven't read that much of Poe (yet), but I have this big anthology of stories and poems that I'm eventually going to go all the way through... I let both Lovecraft and Poe have strong influences on my settings, and I think it shows.

I agree with the use of inconsistencies as an effective method for world-building, especially for monster myths. With the new "Mythical Creatures of Haveneast" post I've added (and am still updating), I spend a lot more time saying "trolls are said to be" or "tales of dragons have said" instead of "fairies are this way" and "sea monsters tend to do this," though I do switch back and forth. It works for giving the DM enough options to have everything work just the way they want it to, and keeps players from being able to go hunt down a random mythical creature and use every so-called weakness against it fearlessly (though it's certainly likely that players' characters will adhere to many beliefs).

Ooo... Lovecraft... one of my favorite subjects. Jürgen has a good point in allowing inconsistency, since when you look at real world history it is full of such - and as much as I like consistent background, many made-up worlds end up being too consistent and too organized. While this may be good from the gaming and rules perspective it does make the setting look less organic and remind that is is not "real".

Another thing about the Cthulhu Mythos that I like to use in world-building even more than inconsistency is the idea that there is something strange and sinister hidden just out of sight in a seemingly normal world. When the players find out that there is a monster mastermind behind the secret society that is controlling the king behind the scenes, it makes for a more satisfying revelation than just throwing in an evil neighboring nation of the same monsters.

We also shouldn't forget that accounts about different places and histories in the real world can be quite contradictory. Ask a German, a Russian, and a Chinese what the USA are like, and you are likely to get quite different answers (especially if none of the three has actually visited the USA). The same can be used in setting descriptions to great effect. The creator might decide on an "ultimate truth" behind a certain aspect of the setting, but unless he is also the sole GM it might be better not to write it down. It is far better in my opinion to leave a certain description open to ambiguity and interpretation, thus allowing the GM maximum freedom.

Quote from: Jürgen HubertThe creator might decide on an "ultimate truth" behind a certain aspect of the setting, but unless he is also the sole GM it might be better not to write it down. It is far better in my opinion to leave a certain description open to ambiguity and interpretation, thus allowing the GM maximum freedom.

While this is one school of thought for worldbuilding, I'm not particularly inclined to agree with it. In my experience, a GM is typically looking for material to use in world descriptions, not ambiguity and options; the world shouldn't be restricting by its own nature (unless that's the concept behind it, but I'll avoid rambling about that here), but it should provide as much inspiration as possible. In that regard, while it may provide more verisimilitude to supply perceptions from an in-world view of something only, it can hamper both the out-of-game understanding of the concept and the congruity of the setting to leave things as ambiguous as they are in, say, the real world.

Just my thoughts as well.

I tend to agree with ElDo. If I want to create stuff myself, I'd make my own setting. And if I really otherwise liked a setting otherwise, I wouldn't mind changing something to meet my needs.