The Campaign Builder's Guild

Hi. I actually missed that post.

That being said, I think I will keep what I have... Why?
Good v. Evil=Adventure
Factions=Bureaucracy
Pulp=Discovery
Odd=Wonder
Apocalyptic--- is new.

For your genres:
Sci Fi=I prefer to lump them all in one batch, considering how few there are.
Fantasy=Might Fantasy
High Fantasy=Magic Fantasy
Grim=Dystopian
Alt History=May be worth adding...but I think it is covered by the others

The one change I have been entertaining to my chart is to remove Dystopian from the axis and give everything either a color or a letter to indicate if the setting is TONE: (1) Utopian, (2) Good/Evil, (3) Neutral, (4) Dystopian

But thank you, regardless.

i can see your points, although i'm not sure you can call pulp discovery as such. I do think you should add apocalyptic as a style, as there is no way to differentiate between sci-fi and fantasy apocalypses. Also, having both wonder and weird seems like overkill. I think weird should be removed (although we would have to find an alternative of course which makes it a somewhat moot suggestion for now). And why do you say pulp = discovery if you have pulp under the setting headings in the left column?
And maybe you should add the definitions for my corresponding types/styles so it is clarified what each style means since we have agreed they are pretty much the same.  
The tone idea is pretty brilliant though :D A very clever way to get three axes.

Quote from: Cataclysmic CrowAbout fantasy strength: does it describe how important it is to the setting as a whole or to the setting from the settingmakers viewpoint? Where would you put World of Darkness where magic is not necessarily common, but seems common because it is the focus of the setting?

It's not about focus, just importance to the setting/universe.

Quote from: Light DragonI will edit the results into my second post if you post a filled out table up here with a few examples, Ghostman.

I think it would be worthwhile for it to catalogue about 15 systems- 7 famous systems and 8 from the forums here to give people a starting idea on how to quantify their settings on the wiki or in posts on the board here.

I don't know all that many settings well enough to fill them out. But I'll see what I can do.

Quote from: Light DragonGood v. Evil=Adventure

I see the word adventure more as referring to the activities that characters do. Why would you need any concepts of 'good' or 'evil' to have an adventure?

Quote from: Ghostman

Quote from: Light DragonGood v. Evil=Adventure

I see the word adventure more as referring to the activities that characters do. Why would you need any concepts of 'good' or 'evil' to have an adventure?

Totally agree. High Fantasy is more for Good v Evil, adventure is for actual adventuring.

Ok, here's an example table for you. I don't feel comfortable filling out anyone's homebrew setting here, so I only included published titles (Many of which I'm admittedly not as familiar with as I perhaps should be. For example, I've only read the early portions of Wheel of Time, so I'm just assuming that the series didn't turn wildly different in later books...)

[spoiler]
[th]Setting Name[/th]
[th]Style[/th]
[th]Genre[/th]
[th]Tone[/th]
[th]Fantasticity[/th]
[th]Technology[/th]
[th]Morality[/th]
[th]Focus[/th]
[th]Divinity[/th][/tr]

[tr][td]Cthulhu Mythos[/td]
[td]Discovery/Exploration[/td]
[td]Horror, Weird[/td]
[td]Grim[/td]
[td]Rare | Weak-Strong[/td]
[td]Modern[/td]
[td]Ambiguous[/td]
[td]Horror[/td]
[td]Fake/Active Divinity[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]Conan/Hyborian Age[/td]
[td]Adventure[/td]
[td]Low Fantasy (Might-Focus)[/td]
[td]Grim-Medium[/td]
[td]Rare | Medium[/td]
[td]Ancient-Medieval[/td]
[td]Ambiguous, Cynical[/td]
[td]Action, Horror[/td]
[td]Fake/Active Divinity[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]Star Wars[/td]
[td]Bureaucracy[/td]
[td]Space[/td]
[td]Medium[/td]
[td]Rare/Common | Medium[/td]
[td]Futuristic[/td]
[td]Simplistic[/td]
[td]Action, Drama[/td]
[td]Passive Divinity (The Force)[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]A Game of Thrones / ASoIaF[/td]
[td]Bureaucracy[/td]
[td]Low Fantasy (Might-Focus)[/td]
[td]Grim[/td]
[td]Rare | Weak-Medium[/td]
[td]Medieval[/td]
[td]Ambiguous, Cynical[/td]
[td]Politics/Intrigue[/td]
[td]Obscure Divinity[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]Indiana Jones[/td]
[td]Adventure, Discovery/Exploration[/td]
[td]Modern / Superheroes[/td]
[td]Medium[/td]
[td]Rare | Medium-Strong[/td]
[td]Modern[/td]
[td]Simplistic[/td]
[td]Action, Mystery, Humor[/td]
[td]Passive? Divinity[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]L5R / Rokugan[/td]
[td]Bureaucracy[/td]
[td]Low Fantasy (Might-Focus)[/td]
[td]Medium-Grim[/td]
[td]Rare | Medium[/td]
[td]Medieval[/td]
[td]Ambiguous[/td]
[td]Politics/Intrigue, Action, Drama[/td]
[td]Passive/Active Divinity[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]Wheel of Time[/td]
[td]Adventure[/td]
[td]High Fantasy (Magic-Focus)[/td]
[td]Medium[/td]
[td]Rare-Medium | Strong[/td]
[td]Medieval[/td]
[td]Simplistic[/td]
[td]Politics/Intrigue, Action[/td]
[td]Passive/Active Divinity[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]Forgotten Realms[/td]
[td]Bureaucracy[/td]
[td]High Fantasy (Magic-Focus)[/td]
[td]Medium[/td]
[td]Common | Strong[/td]
[td]Medieval[/td]
[td]Simplistic[/td]
[td]Action[/td]
[td]Active Divinity[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]Stargate[/td]
[td]Discovery/Exploration[/td]
[td]Space, Modern / Superheroes[/td]
[td]Medium[/td]
[td]Absent?[/td]
[td]Modern, Futuristic[/td]
[td]Ambiguous[/td]
[td]Action[/td]
[td]Fake/Obscure? Divinity[/td][/tr]

[/table]
[/spoiler]

I rather like it, but having only two choices for "tone" makes the category seem like a waste.  Maybe:

Positive (or Progressive): The tone of the setting reflects a general belief that things are getting better, and that the best days of civilization/the world are yet to come.  We are better/more advanced than our ancestors were, and our children will have a brighter future as a result. (examples: a Jules Verne industrial-age fantasy where new and amazing technology promises a whole new world of wonder; a post-apocalyptic scenario in which civilization is beginning to recover and prosper again)

Neutral: The tone of the setting reflects a general view that things are remaining pretty much as they always have, or that views are mixed as to whether things are getting better or worse. (examples: a political/intrigue medieval setting in which "progress" is not really considered and people are more concerned with their welfare in the present; a near-future setting in which the positive and negative effects of new technologies are hotly debated)

Negative (or Regressive):  The tone of the setting reflects a general view that things are getting worse.  The golden age is behind us, and the glory of the past will likely never come again. (examples: an ancient setting taking place in a "dark age" after the collapse of a great empire; a fantasy world in which the enlightened elder races have departed, leaving the more worldly and younger races to fend for themselves and dream about ages of wonder before them)

Grim (or Hopeless, or Doomed, etc.):  The tone of the setting reflects the general belief that things are not only getting worse, they are utterly hopeless or nearly so.  The world is doomed, and goodness and progress are at best flickering candles in a great darkness.  The end times are upon us!  (examples: a modern setting in which humanity is a hapless pawn of unthinkable powers that will eventually destroy us; a fantasy setting in which the Dark Lord/other great evil has triumphed and goodness and beauty tremble in the hidden places of the world)


I could have put a "utopia" counterpart to Grim, but I've yet to see any setting that's more positive than Positive.  Such a world implies that there is very little conflict at all, which isn't conducive to adventuring and heroic struggles.

Quote from: Polycarp!Neutral: The tone of the setting reflects a general view that things are remaining pretty much as they always have, or that views are mixed as to whether things are getting better or worse. (examples: a political/intrigue medieval setting in which "progress" is not really considered and people are more concerned with their welfare in the present; a near-future setting in which the positive and negative effects of new technologies are hotly debated)

Wouldn't this also have a spin toward positive and negative?  I could see a setting where the attitude is that things are always kind of bad, have always been that way, but don't really get any worse.  I could also see the opposite happening.

Quote from: Polycarp!I could have put a "utopia" counterpart to Grim, but I've yet to see any setting that's more positive than Positive.  Such a world implies that there is very little conflict at all, which isn't conducive to adventuring and heroic struggles.

Possibly the categorization of "Neutral" needs to be worded better, because it would seem to me that both "Grim" and "Utopia" could be seen as settings where "things are remaining pretty much as they always have".

There seems to be two factors at work here: (1) how nice/terrible a place the world is, and (2) whether it seems to be changing for better/worse/same.

Quote from: GhostmanThere seems to be two factors at work here: (1) how nice/terrible a place the world is, and (2) whether it seems to be changing for better/worse/same.

It may seem like that, but it's essentially a non-issue for a few reasons.

1. For humans, at least, happiness is based on where we are going, not our absolute position at present.  A college student who lives in squalor and eats ramen every day may not have a very high absolute standard of living, but if they are confident that they are going on to better things as a result, I promise you they will be happier than a businessman who is convinced that everything is going down the tubes - even if once they do, his absolute situation will still be better than that of the college student.  Thus, if a "bad world" is defined as one in which "people are unhappy," I guarantee you that "bad world" and "hopeless/regressive world" are going to be synonymous.

2. For adventurers in a campaign world, what is most important is the results of their actions.  If you give your life to thwart an evil scheme, does that actually have the potential to make things better, or is it ultimately a meaningless act in a doomed world?  It's this kind of optimism vs. fatalism that defines the tone of a world, not whether the world was "bad" or "good" to begin with.

3.  For that matter, what is a "good world" and a "bad world?"  It doesn't make sense to talk about it in terms of standard of living, or else all our medieval worlds would be bad and all our modern worlds good.  Is there some kind of "evil magnitude" we are measuring here?  Is a world in which the Dark Lord controls 60% of the world a worse one than a world in which the same Dark Lord controls 30% of it?  I would assert that the tone of the world is going to be based on where evil is going, not how much it controls - that is, the world in which the Dark Lord controls 30% of the world and is growing more powerful every day is going to be far grimmer than the one in which the Dark Lord controls 60% but his hold is constantly slipping, even though in absolute terms one could say that the 60% world is "worse."

Ultimately, I believe there is only one factor at work - hope, or the lack of it.  The states I posted could well be changed to Hopeful/Neutral/Doubtful/Hopeless, and that might assuage some of the uncertainty.

My only suggestion is to change the Fantasticity category to Fantasticity|Strength to more clearly explain which is which.

Bump for Steerpike to check out.

@ Ghostman: I'd say Stargate's divinity is fake (Asgard, Gould) but also Passive (Ancients). I'd probably put the Ori under passive as well but we never really saw how (truly) active they were...

Hmm.  Well, I haven't read through the entierty of the thread yet, but I've had a pretty good look at the matrix.  Insofar as my own worlds are classed I definitely wouldn't dispute the Setting (Down) descriptors; the Style (Across) descriptors I might contest.  I think it would be possible, for example, to run a CE campaign in almost any of the four styles, and I don't think I'd classify Xell as a purely Adventure setting - I don't want it to be a good vs. evil, hack and slash setting.  I think my problem with the styles is that, based on your descriptions of them, they seem to infer about setting as well as style ("well developed world with a clear power-base," etc).  I think that "style" is almost a more fitting term for a specific campaign than a whole world; some worlds will be better suited to running certain styles of campaigns than others, but it seems hard to argue that a world itself possesses a style; a style only enters or colours the world once you've formed a narrative in it.  Tone/tech level seems to work well for a world; for a campaign, I almost think style/power level (i.e. adventure/high-powered, wonder/low-powered or whatever) might work well.

I had an argument about optimism/pessemism but reading Polycarp!'s post sort of deflated it.

But for all I know these things have already been discussed...

I started reading through this recently and I find this very interesting.  I've always found classifying settings to be neigh impossible due to their diversity.  Your matrices seem are definitely doing the best I've ever seen!

I wanted to make some quick comments, though.

I don't care for the use of steampunk as an overarching genre. Steampunk's come to encompass too many settings, and while I love steampunk (Tephra would probably fit into the genre), it doesn't always fit.  I heard the best definition for steampunk the other day: steampunk is a setting in which the information age occurred before the creation of the combustion engine, and the combustion engine was never created.

Yet there are settings that definitely don't include this exact definition.  Weird West, Clockpunk, and Gaslamp Romances, and Cyberpunk wouldn't really fit under steampunk.

So, why don't we use the term Retro-Futurism?  It seems to fit better and can include steampunk and every other category of weird technology in a historical fantasy.  I still like steampunk being a technological level.  Most definitely.

Thanks!

I don't havea huge problem with Steampunk as it re-interprets the Victorian Era-1920's tech with steam technology and typically has more of a dystopian feel to it. At its base, Steam Punk works fine however, how far does a show/setting have to go before it becomes something that isn't truly steampunk? Jetpacks are OK, but are flying cars? What about flying dreadnoughts? The more magical/far flung you go, the farther the setting differs from the core of the Steampunk genre. What then do we classify these outliers as? Far-Steampunk?

Retro-Future might be a better call but even it fails to really encompass the far outliers of steam punk, like the anime last Exile, or even some of the fantastical elements in Final Fantasy. Further, Retro-Future is more akin to the old Batman cartoon, the Superman cartoon and Jonny Quest, where the world, as a whole, is more optimistic and the base civilization is more advanced, typically 30's/40's/50's, rather than Steampunk's late 19th century/early 20th.