Setting presentation

[Thanuir]

I skimmed many settings found in the archive. Most were presented as follows (order of stuff varies): Cosmology, races, cultures, geography, history,..., rules bits

For contrast, the setting bits of one Finnish RPG (Myrskyn aika) were presented roughly as follows: General information (everyone should read), culture-specific material (players of the relevant cultures should read), GM-only information (only the GM should read).

I'm sure there are other formats, and would like to hear of them.


Anyway, the point. Setting presentation tells a lot about the purpose of the setting.

To explain; the settings here are presented as facts, so that they explain a fictional world. This is useful to other world builders and testing the internal consistency of the setting, and probably for other stuff, too.
The setting in Myrskyn aika is presented so that players can easily find the material they should read. It is player-friendly, for the lack of a better phrase.


How would be/is a GM-friendly setting presented?

[Hibou]

In my opinion it would first present the conflict and with that a large amount of material designed to appropriate the GM to the setting's atmosphere. If it's a post-apocalyptic setting where undead rule and most humans are slaves part of a small band of rebels, the GM has to be able to get that vibe quickly from the setting, and the material given should also give them ideas to build on such things almost right from the get-go. GMs need to know what the antagonists are in the game and in what situation the players will be in.

A mischevious GM, or one with intent to make a very mysterious kind of game does well to know about all sorts of misconceptions and secrets that are present in the setting. For example, it would pay for a GM running a game based on The 13th Warrior to know the true natures of the enemies the PCs will face. A GM who wants the king to be secretly usurped by a doppleganger and wants the PCs to find this out and eventually take down the imposter should know exactly how the previous king got into power, what details the king would know, and how a doppleganger could possibly make his way into the castle and take the king's place through any number of means. The GM's reasoning and the methods of the creatures and world he controls must be at least believable, if not downright flawless.

And perhaps more than the players, GMs need to have a direct and clear understanding of the altered/new rules used in a setting early on so they can adapt to the changes and use them easily and efficiently, as well as be able to clarify confusions of the PCs when they arise.

A lot of this stuff is fairly obvious though. In short these are the things I would present first if the setting is designed specifically for a GM to take it and use it as a place for his players to adventure. GM-geared settings need to worry a little more about the conflict and its participants, as well as how the players participate and adventure and the nature of the setting itself rather than the history or geography in the case of a setting presented just to other world-builders. These are the things I'd present first. :)

This kind of approach is really fairly similar to the Finnish RPG you're talking about, at least in the way it presents things as you said. The only real difference is if you're not tailoring it for players to read then you can and should put all of the major, basic elements of the setting up front so the GM gets them down-packed.

[Thanuir]

I very much agree with the conflict(s) being very important. Some material, probably advice, about getting PCs involved in those cool conflicts seems like a logical follow-up.
Perhaps even some "detonators" (the conflicts, or some of them, may be in static situation. Like cold war. Detonators would be events/actions that are very likely to make those conflicts very active very quickly. Ideally PCs should be able to trigger/disarm these detonators. But now I'm rambling.)


Another idea: Scale. If PCs are supposed to be nobles, politics should get a fair amount of space. For a band of mercenaries that would not be quite as important. For a high-fantasy high-level world-saving adventurers, fantastic locations of all sorts should be discussed in detail and large quantity.
Make sense?

[Hibou]

Indeed.

Although... just because a band of mercenaries doesn't start in the world of politics as part of their first few adventures, there's no saying they couldn't become involved. That's something that a setting should have lots of, both for the players to find and the GM to gradually expose: options. Options for the players to use are something that are very important and should be interlaced with all of the more major parts of the setting. A band of said mercenaries, after amassing a fair amount of wealth and reputation, may just decide to say "Let's walk that way until we come to water, then follow the coast north until we can't anymore," or may decide they want to obtain a seat in the regional parliament or king's court. Though he might not want to necessarily, a would-be hero may decide to just abandon the quest for good and disappear into distant lands, though there would be consequences for such actions.

[Xeviat]

I'm trying to present my setting in the classic manner that other settings have been presented (1st chapter being races, second being classes ...), which generally leaves the introduction to get the DM riled up about things. If this discussion pans out, I might change my projected direction.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

By and large I prefer the web design to allow the viewer to explore where they choose.  That said, I do offer a guide to say where to start.

In my case, after the intro, that's the Cosmology (as in the laws of reality, more than planes and stuff).  I do this because that is where I present some of the features that distinguish Kishar from other settings.

I wouldn't normally have a section devoted to conflicts (though admittedly I'm not really writing for potential DMs anyway).  I think readers would find conflicts largely in sections about each country, talking about whatever political/military issues are going on at the moment there.

[Ghost]

I think the presentation of a setting, and consequently how it is read, absorbed, utilized and appreciated by viewers, can be greatly affected by the medium which is used. A messageboard like this seems to lend itself to a more encyclopedia-esque style, with entries by detailed category. It also doesn't allow for long peices of fiction (at least, not as easily as other mediums).

A book, on the other hand, allows greater room for writing fiction. However, a book usually (though not always) takes longer to read and fully absorb (though it still can be in a encyclopedic style).

Though, i'm digressing a bit. When i've got more of my setting, Ifpherion, developed, i'm going to start putting together a website (and maybe a cd-rom, if I have the opportunity to do so). I'm also writing some fiction at the moment, which will hopefully tie together elements that may seem disparate in the link in my sig.

[Thanuir]

Here's the common trend I see: A desire not to limit player/GM options, allowing them to explore all aspects of the setting.
For me, this comes from the desire to use that one setting/world for pretty much any game I'd want to ever GM (or even to play in).

That can't really be argued with, but if there are other reasons, knowing them would be useful.


Imagine a random GM looking for a campaign setting. He (or she) probably has some preferences, but is not looking for anything specific (likes, say, dark settings and lots of magic, but doesn't care for undead; or pseudohistorical settings with a hint of Cthulhu mythos).
The GM happens upon a setting, or summary of one. Say that it fits suits the GM's preferences at least passably well.

The GM may be looking the setting for

*A one-shot scenario
*Episodic game (a series of related one-shots)
*An extended campaign
*LARP
*Inspiration/ideas

For all of these motivations, encyclopedic material is useful, to some extent.

Someone planning on using the setting for a one-shot only needs material on specific situation (this single dungeon, the king's court, etc.) and enough background for motivations of characters and for justifying technology/magic/psionics/nonhuman races/floating islands.

Someone with aspirations towards episodic play will want multiple situations of mostly one kind, like, say, multiple sea encounters for a shipful of pirates. Again, some background for justifying whatever appears, and perhaps offering some choices between games (the Gulf of Doom or the Fever Shores, where shall the ship sail next?).

An extended campaign pretty much requires diverse material. Committing to such a game is not a minor deal and players will probably want a large selection of possible characters, so they can pick something interesting right from the start. Further, the game might evolve into myriad directions and preparing for all of them is practically impossible.
Some campaigns may start small (so the setting may be developed while gaming, or between sessions), some large. The latter possibility gets much use out of encyclopedic material, I think.

LARPs tend to work like one-shots or episodic games, but generally geography plays quite a small role (as opposed to religion, politics and such).

For inspiration, all material may be useful. Or not.


All GMs would, IMO, benefit from knowing the emphasised/exotic conflicts in the setting. These would be, for example, areas where war is going on or brewing, some interesting political struggles, any locations whereunfamiliar cultures are first meeting, all portals to different worlds and all very powerful beings that are active.
At least.

They provide good hooks for adventures, or cores to build adventures around. They present an easy way of selling the campaign to players ("There is this sleeping dragon that elves want to slay because it is awakening and will burn and pillage their forests, but dwarves want it to stay alive because the mere presence of it brings warmth to their chilly caverns. You can support either side or play mercenaries.")

A large campaign setting is bound to have more than enough interesting conflicts, so there are many choices. Stuff that is not tied to any can be briefly described or explained in length as a sort of additional information.

Some people prefer to start with low-powered characters in, say, a humble village, who will rise to greatness. This sort of start does not demand large-scale initial conflict (but they can work). Instead, a detail-rich environment with stuff to do and a sketchy picture of the larger whole (nation, continent, whatever) are all that is needed.
I think that developing a single village with a thing or threatening it and having interesting NPCs is a good start. Some religion and other culture, in addition to local geography, are probably necessary. Everything else will become relevant later. A summary of the rest of the setting may be useful.
More detail will be needed later. It can be presented in chunks, depending on where the play is heading (politics, lands beyond the great sea, the nature of magic, city life, etc.).


There, a lot of rambling. Maybe it is useful to someone.

[Piphtrip]

I go with this formant:

1.Deities
2.Planes
3.Lands, Culture, Kingdoms, etc.
4.History
5.NPC stats, new spells, magic items, PRC classes, affiliations, etc

There is  overlap sometimes, but I like to keep it this way because it doesnt have too many parts that only make sense given data in a later section.

[Tybalt]

One of the things I often find lacking in a campaign setting is a readily available means to do a genuine variety of campaign types. For instance I tend to prefer intrigue/military/courtly based games to run, since most of my players tend to be older and looking for something different from the wandering mercenary/rogue type adventures they've played to death.

Excellent examples of modern campaign settings being put together might include: The D20 system for Conan and also Dungeon's recent series for the Savage Tide. Both are very thorough and while different (one is more of a broad setting covering a wide timeline while the other is really a well fleshed out adventure thread) they provide you with a good glimpse of a world to have character adventures in. Ultimately that's the real point--I think if you cannot almost immediately after glancing through the material think "ahah, if I wanted to I could run a game in this world/setting" then it's a waste of time for a GM.

[Jharviss]

I want to bring up a point on this subject that I've considered a lot recently, and it rather bothers me.

When a DM goes over a setting, he is looking for an interesting location, spelled out, with plot hooks and interesting twists and stories.  When he finds such a setting, he asks the players to make characters for such a setting.  But for the players to do that, they have to go look up information on the setting as well, and they come across all of the interesting locations and story twists as well.  

Though this would be fairly work intensive, I have long been considering splitting my website into two sections. The first will be for the players, which will have all of the normal information, such as descriptions of nations, their leaders, races, deities, etc, but all from a single character's point of view.  The second section would be for DMs, which will include juicy details about a world with many sidenotes on the site talking about plothooks or possible events.  The second one would have everything the player's section has, but it would include the details that no normal character would know, such as secret relations between the gods, the origins of the world, the reasons that demons can't travel freely to the material plane, and the motivations behind why the world's most powerful emperor still is not going to war with everyone.

This could eventually translate into a Players' Handbook and a DM's Guide for a world.

That's a thought.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

I haven't gotten in on this yet, but I'll put down my short response.

I think the most important aspect(s) of a campaign setting (at least, one that you intend on playing in, and not just writing about) are the conflicts.  To both the GM, and the player, this is the meat and potatoes of what makes a campaign fun.  Without conflict in some form or another (even if it's philosophical conflict, such as "light versus dark"), the players have nothing to play for, and the GMs have nothing to present.  That's why, on my page, conflicts are listed right on the front page.  After that, I feel that the importance of presentation is dependent on what the GM wants to accomplish with his campaign.  If he wants a world that feels and acts just like our real world, then he needs to focus on things like history, cosmology, mythology, and geology.  If the GM is first interested in getting some sessions going, and then detailing as he goes, then he needs to focus on local history/geology/geography, and game mechanics.  If you look at my page, you'll see what kind of GM I am.  I have the menu items in order of what I feel are the most important, down to the least important.  If I ever actually play a campaign in my setting, that menu order may change, and I will probably shift focus.  But until then, I just like creating a world, and that's how I present it.