The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: Stargate525

Quote from: Bill VolkMy new least favorite RPG setting trope is Medieval Stasis.

I wish he would give analysis in his examples. I disagree vehemently about Tamriel being included. The Entire history, I think, spans a scant three hundred or so years.

Well hey, that's why TV Tropes is a wiki. Please, edit the page and make it better!

Quote from: Bill VolkMy new least favorite RPG setting trope is Medieval Stasis.

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Here's another bullet point for you: Medieval Europe did not last all that long. That doesn't mean that every culture in the world has to always be on the march forward to better and better technology, because that often isn't the case, but practically everything will change. If the history of a setting spans tens of thousands of years of people speaking the same languages and hitting each other with the same +1 swords, my Bad Fantasy Alarm goes off.

Even worse, when post-medieval technology does turn up in a fantasy setting, it's often because of gnomes or other borderline-comedic characters, and the new technology never catches on or progress beyond a certain point. These surprisingly uncreative "inventors" will always invent the same kinds of things, again and again, for thousands of years, with no effect on the setting. It's like these silly little men never tire of tickling the fourth wall.

Heh. In Urbis, people got out of the Middle Ages about 400 years ahead of schedule. And you certainly get the impression that the cycle of innovation isn't over yet (at least, I hope so...)

Quote from: SilvercatMoonpaw

Quote from: Kindling* Basing a setting (or part of one) on a real-world culture is one thing, cloning said culture is another. There's nothing wrong with adapting a historical period for role-playing purposes, or even adding some fantasy elements reflecting the myths of the times, but at least admit that's what you're doing. If your setting is inspired by ancient Greece, then it should be similar to it, not the same but with the names changed.

I'm confused on how much of this is too much:
Is it ever okay to file the serial numbers (i.e. name) off a real-world idea but keep the rest of it intact?
Is it worse to use something whole-cloth without any in-setting context?

I'm not sure I entirely understand your questions. Are you asking whether I think it's worse to keep a real-world historical culture the same but change the names or to just use it, admitting to what it really is? If so, then a) I think my post states my views on that quite clearly and b) what, then, do you mean by in-setting context?

Also, I think there is a third approach, which is to take inspiration from an actual historical culture but then add elements from your own imagination, until it is a fantastical society which bears some noticeable degree of similarity to the original.

I guess what I really have a problem with is people putting out stuff like "Tamasheda: A Fantasy Setting Inspired by Feudal Japan" when it's really just feudal Japan, with different names, not a "fantasy setting" based on it.

If that isn't what you mean, then what DO you mean?

Nevermind.  I decided this post wasn't important.

*common - tho this is an aspect of cultural diversity.
how did a language come into being that is spoken by every creature with more than INT 5, that has no variations (except *drumroll* UNDERcommon), a vocabulary large enough to enable speakers to talk about trade, religion, philosophy and that is first language in every culture.
this is one of the things that really annoyed me in RAW dnd. after all, i have trouble understanding people who live 10 kilometers from my home. That's why i always reduce common to a trading pidgin that is basically "you buy sword, sword shiny." and "no kill me, i friend."

I'm not sure what new things I have to bring here, but I will second a couple of the points I saw, and elaborate. I'll put these in context with what I've been working on for my setting, and the pitfalls I realized I fell into and had to dig myself out of.

*Changing things just to change them. This was my biggest problem for the longest time. I made my basic structure and set out to make it. Then to be different, I started making changes. I tried to cover races like dwarves, elves, goblins, and orcs in so much new paint, but after running a few sessions with this I noticed that players kept calling them by their classic names. So I asked myself why I was changing them; I was doing it just to be different. I realized that if it is short like a dwarf, and lives in the ground like a dwarf, it's probably a dwarf.

*Taking realism too far. This is a recent pitfall I've discovered. Most of it had to do with game mechanics for me, but it can also bleed into story and flavor. Believability is what I'm striving for now; I'm placing some psudo-scientific explanations for things (my air-inspired race of Valkyries are winged humanoids that can fly because they have hollow bones and air magic in their veins, even though their wings aren't reasonably large enough to let a 5 foot tall humanoid fly). Using realism to iron out wrinkles and search for holes is good (if flight or teleportation magic are common enough, castles won't really exist unless they can defend against such magic as well, for instance).

*"My setting is (insert real world culture here) with Magic and Monsters". This is dangerous, as it will create inconsistencies. I'm glad to see that settings like Eberron incorporate the fantastic into the world's mundane, but it's easy to forget to make the world cohesive.

Thanks for starting this Ish, good discussion.

This is all pretty good. I'll keep it in mind when working on my setting today. I've already started work on different cultures within races, including the languages (part of this is already on my setting's thread).

Now I'm off to continue work on my setting.

Racial languages! If this hasn't been said already. Look at the amount of languages we have JUST in Europe, the smallest continent - about twenty different language groups, language isolates, etc - and that's just with humans. I may seem to be somewhat hypocritical here, I'll admit, but there ARE reasons in my setting (there're the Sharuss languages of the Duer, completely independent of the pure-draconic-descended languages that make up the Hariiji block, and with reasons for their differences etc etc). Also, please give at least some languages names - I now cry every time I see 'elven' or 'dwarfish'.

Mistakes that I made and hopefully learned from.

Faiing in love with my plots and getting frustrated with the PC's lack of progress.  I used to push things along a lot faster and steer the game a lot more, and it showed in my world-building. Too many illogical clues, makeing stuff so easy to find that it never would have stayed hidden.  I've had to create stuff and let go, sometimes for years, while PC's maunder around the world, often coming back to the problem years later.

Scaling the world too much.  In creating a world, there are enough challenges if it is well designed, and there is no need to have the NPC's that the PC's meet  get more powerful as the players do.  PC's enjoy consistent, logical placement and having this logic shot in the head just because the PC's have gotten more powerful is a mistake I hope I've gotten over.

Quote from: WensleydaleRacial languages! If this hasn't been said already. Look at the amount of languages we have JUST in Europe, the smallest continent - about twenty different language groups, language isolates, etc - and that's just with humans. I may seem to be somewhat hypocritical here, I'll admit, but there ARE reasons in my setting (there're the Sharuss languages of the Duer, completely independent of the pure-draconic-descended languages that make up the Hariiji block, and with reasons for their differences etc etc). Also, please give at least some languages names - I now cry every time I see 'elven' or 'dwarfish'.

Your point is good, but I think racial languages can have their place, especially in a small (population-wise), homogeneous race. There's no reason a race needs to be globe-spanning. A race of sentient baboons that inhabits only a single valley in the entire world could be interesting. But they probably have only one language.

I would take the opposite view on naming languages. Don't make up some BS word unless there's a point to it. It's just one more thing for your audience to forget or choke on.

"Elven" is probably what every non-elf calls the elven language. Now whether elves should call their language this or not will depend on your setting. In order to have/need a name for a language, they had to be exposed to another language at early stages in the languages development. Even then, the language would likely be called by the name of the speakers (i.e. as I know, people in England call their language English). If elves call their language Qilipopfluff is that only a translation of "elven language" in their native tongue? If not, what the hell does it mean and why do they call it that. If it is, why refuse to translate this one word like you do with everything else.

Now, on the other hand, if in the earliest elven history there were already several heterogeneous groups of elves speaking different languages, then they would differentiate these languages based on those groups. If you start making some of those groups drow and eladrin, however, you're suddenly back to basically racial languages such as drow. This would only work if these separate groups basically become cultures of tribes/nations of the same species, then you still only name the languages after those tribes/nations (i.e. German, Dutch, French).

Any kind of grand mythic history that creates a unified (at first) race almost precludes the kind of differentiation we see on Earth.

In the end, the question becomes, with all the time you invested to create all this for all these races, does anyone care? Has it made the experience more fun for your players or readers. If it has, you're probably better at making these things interesting than 99% of DMs and a fair majority of authors. If it hasn't, then you're the only one that benefited (assuming you enjoyed making up words to name all these languages).

I am, of course, in no way saying that language is never important. Just that it's rarely all that interesting to anyone except the person creating it. Or that's been my experience.

Quote from: Phoenix

Quote from: WensleydaleRacial languages! If this hasn't been said already. Look at the amount of languages we have JUST in Europe, the smallest continent - about twenty different language groups, language isolates, etc - and that's just with humans. I may seem to be somewhat hypocritical here, I'll admit, but there ARE reasons in my setting (there're the Sharuss languages of the Duer, completely independent of the pure-draconic-descended languages that make up the Hariiji block, and with reasons for their differences etc etc). Also, please give at least some languages names - I now cry every time I see 'elven' or 'dwarfish'.

Your point is good, but I think racial languages can have their place, especially in a small (population-wise), homogeneous race. There's no reason a race needs to be globe-spanning. A race of sentient baboons that inhabits only a single valley in the entire world could be interesting. But they probably have only one language.

Now, on the other hand, if in the earliest elven history there were already several heterogeneous groups of elves speaking different languages, then they would differentiate these languages based on those groups. If you start making some of those groups drow and eladrin, however, you're suddenly back to basically racial languages such as drow. This would only work if these separate groups basically become cultures of tribes/nations of the same species, then you still only name the languages after those tribes/nations (i.e. German, Dutch, French).

That's what I mean. It makes sense if there is a homogenous group, but NOT, NOT NOT NOT if there're multiple, completely different cultures.

Phoenix brings up a good point. Most of us here are designing settings to play an RPG in. Thus, most everything should be designed from an angle of "will the players interact with it" and "will the players enjoy it" and "will the players remember it". Sure, not everything has to be made for the players, but you're sometimes waisting your time if its an issue they'll never come across.

Like languages. Forgotten Realms has several different kinds of languages. One player in my group actually got really frustrated, because he was given a list of languages but neither the list nor DM was able to tell him which languages were spoken where. His character had a very high intelligence, and just ended up picking up non-human and planar languages since the human languages were so complicated.

What I want to do with languages is create language groups. You'll suffer a -5 penalty to social skill checks if you're talking with someone in the same language group but with a different language; this is an over simplification (I speak English, but I can't understand German speakers at all even though our languages have the same root), but I think it will add believability without making it overly complex.

As for Trade (Common), it will have been the language of the big world-spanning empire that used to exist in my world. Intelligent people (Int 10 or higher) will know Trade, otherwise they'll only know their own language.

Quote from: Kap'n Xeviat...most everything should be designed from an angle of "will the players interact with it" and "will the players enjoy it" and "will the players remember it". Sure, not everything has to be made for the players, but you're sometimes waisting your time if its an issue they'll never come across.

At this very moment I am working on my 4th Edition Campaign Setting. And I have to say that this is some of the best advice anyone could be given. What matters most is how the players react to what is in your world, not your world itself. Some DMs (including myself) get too rapped up in the little details of their world that the players will never come to appreciate. A good example is how many first time DMs will try to take on too much at once. When I built my first world, I tried to develop everything I could. Turned out that the PCs could have cared less who the cousin of the neighboring kingdom is and how goes around claiming to have taken on 13 red dragons on his own. To me this was an interesting NPC; however, my players couldn't could recall his name by the end of the session.

Any, on with the thread...

*Allow players to make use of their abilities, not confine them. If your PC druid preps neutralize poison (or whatever the spell name is), let her use it. Have them run into a couple snakes so that the player feels like she is doing something useful. Additionally, look at your PC's skills and try to incorporate them into the campaign in some way, however insignificant it may be.

Quote from: Tombowings

Quote from: Kap'n Xeviat...most everything should be designed from an angle of "will the players interact with it" and "will the players enjoy it" and "will the players remember it". Sure, not everything has to be made for the players, but you're sometimes waisting your time if its an issue they'll never come across.

At this very moment I am working on my 4th Edition Campaign Setting. And I have to say that this is some of the best advice anyone could be given. What matters most is how the players react to what is in your world, not your world itself. Some DMs (including myself) get too rapped up in the little details of their world that the players will never come to appreciate. A good example is how many first time DMs will try to take on too much at once. When I built my first world, I tried to develop everything I could. Turned out that the PCs could have cared less who the cousin of the neighboring kingdom is and how goes around claiming to have taken on 13 red dragons on his own. To me this was an interesting NPC; however, my players couldn't could recall his name by the end of the session.

You're correct, in the most part - of course, there're some players who're fascinated by these details, but few and far between are they. I'm writing my campaign more for fiction purposes at the moment, though... so I suppose I'm not so bothered.

Quote from: WensleydaleYou're correct, in the most part - of course, there're some players who're fascinated by these details, but few and far between are they. I'm writing my campaign more for fiction purposes at the moment, though... so I suppose I'm not so bothered.

What I wrote was completely from my own experiences as a first time DM.

*One more thing, don't give your players too many handouts, they tend to loose them. If you are going to make handouts, try to turn that "handouts" into "handout." Clear and concise writing will better hold your player's attention.