What turns you off/on

[SA]

Turn-off:

Magic based on perception.  This is a funny one, because my principle setting has that, and it's apparently part of its appeal.  But pseudoExistentialist solipsism-magic has been done to death as far as my tastes go, so it really doesn't interest me any more.

[Hibou]

Check out his Menagerie of the Grotesque, that may supply you with answers.

Sorry, I still need it explained.  :shy:

Creatures who are mockeries of what we consider normal to the point that they offend the senses. A creature that disguises itself as a muffin and turns your stomach to mush when you eat it, a being that is abnormally beautiful so as to lull you into a false sense of security (whereupon it devours you at your most vulnerable point). Basically the very thing that makes monsters monstrous.

Ah, how I miss the New Scary Events Thread on WotC...

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

It means what it says, and that's about the end of it.

Words like "values" and "moral rightness" don't mean anything until defined for the individual.  Or at least they have to be for me.

Magic based on perception.'¦'¦'¦'¦pseudoExistentialist solispism-magic has been done to death as far as my tastes go, so it really doesn't interest me any more.

I'd completely agree, except I'm not sure what "pseudoExistentialist solispism" means (and know you don't want anyone to explain it).  I do agree that I hate any "magic is based upon reality being an illusion created by the mind and thus can be manipulated by it" or other such ideas.

[Hibou]

It means what it says, and that's about the end of it.

Words like "values" and "moral rightness" don't mean anything until defined for the individual.  Or at least they have to be for me.

Magic based on perception.'¦'¦'¦'¦pseudoExistentialist solispism-magic has been done to death as far as my tastes go, so it really doesn't interest me any more.

I'd completely agree, except I'm not sure what "pseudoExistentialist solispism" means (and know you don't want anyone to explain it).  I do agree that I hate any "magic is based upon reality being an illusion created by the mind and thus can be manipulated by it" or other such ideas.

What if the mind was an illusion created by magic?

[Nomadic]

It means what it says, and that's about the end of it.

Words like "values" and "moral rightness" don't mean anything until defined for the individual.  Or at least they have to be for me.

Magic based on perception.'¦'¦'¦'¦pseudoExistentialist solispism-magic has been done to death as far as my tastes go, so it really doesn't interest me any more.

I'd completely agree, except I'm not sure what "pseudoExistentialist solispism" means (and know you don't want anyone to explain it).  I do agree that I hate any "magic is based upon reality being an illusion created by the mind and thus can be manipulated by it" or other such ideas.

What if the mind was an illusion created by magic?

What if illusion was a mind created by magic... wait... nevermind

[khyron1144]

On: Cheerleader outfits and nurse's uniforms.
Off: Silicone

Sorry, coudln't resist the oppurtunity to make the cheap joke.


Realy as far as campaign settings here the main thing that turns me off is something bigger than a half-hour's worth of reading.  Anything bigger than that is too developed to need me commenting on it anyway.

One thing I like is frequent paragraph breaks that include a double space between paragraphs.  Not entirely unlike my own posting style.

[Xeviat]

Lately I've been finding the short fiction some people have been putting up (name escapes me right now for a particular). I also have been enjoying and been more willing to review settings that catch me emotionally or seem like they could have interesting stories within them.

[Nomadic]

Lately I've been finding the short fiction some people have been putting up (name escapes me right now for a particular). I also have been enjoying and been more willing to review settings that catch me emotionally or seem like they could have interesting stories within them.

Just called short stories. I call them self-excerpts/excerpts since they are ideas taken from the "book" which is our setting.

[Xeviat]

Oh no, I meant who's short stories I have been enjoying lately.

[Pair o' Dice Lost]

As for mine, let's see...

I like lots of detail--not the "wall o' text" variety, but detail about things the players might not encounter immediately and that are often glossed over (like how magic works or what the economy's like) so I can get a better feel for the setting.  (This probably stems from my tendency to write pages and pages and pages and pages and pages about my settings, but still....)

I dislike medieval stasis the most and try to incorporate some more modern ideas into my settings, even if it's something as innocuous as city planning, fiat money, modernized education systems, or the like (suitably fantasy-ized, of course).

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Complicated question, because each situation is unique and how much a setting appeals may in part relate to things the poster can't control (like what kind of day I've had up to that point). But to generalize...

Turn ons (especially in terms of whether I will read it, not how much I'll like it):

A setting that deviates from norms (without losing touch with reality/humanity, see turn offs). I'm not just talking about thinking about elves in a new way, but something to feels legitimately fresh (it's what everybody wants in all writing, but there's no easy road to it).

Settings with tight focuses and themes. Certainly an Ethocentric setting will get my attention more.

On a related note, human-only settings, or settings that otherwise have not suffered a great bloat of races/magical traditions/whatever appeal to me. I tend to get bored with broader divset stuff.

Settings that have not gotten many reviews I tend to look at a little more.

Mythological interpretation often appeals to me. But sometimes not.

Pictures, maps, and other visual aids that bring a setting to life.


Turn offs:
Long paragraphs. Failure to space between paragraphs. Any other form of formatting that makes reading online more difficult. People's attention span is short enough to begin with, and more so online. Any passage that doesn't break its text into neat little ideas probably gets passed on without a fair chance.

Exceptionally long settings not broken off into a website/wiki. I find forums good for brainstorming, not slogging through vast piles of unconnected (or sometimes worse, haphazardly connected with forum links) text.

Poor organization in general. I don't want to spend my "leisure" time working to understand what the author intended or how to get to relevant information.

Settings that are just rehashing of D&D (or other games) norms, even with a fresh coat of paint will probably only get cursory looks, unless a direct question is posed right away.

Settings that lose touch with their audience. A setting so alien it forgets its supposed to express something humanity might be an intellectual achievement, and it might appeal to some people. But not to me. ("Books are humanity in print." -Barbara Tuchman.)

[Drizztrocks]

Normally I am drawn to campaign threads that simply start with the name of the setting. I am always being drawn to the Celtricia, Clockwork Jungle and Faded threads, simply because it has an intriuging name. And I love it when its split up into simple sections: Religion, georgaphy, races, classes, etc. It just makes it simpler to read. You can simply scroll down until you see something your interested in, and then comment about it.

[Steerpike]

Turn ons:

First and foremost, the fantastic or horrific, especially when it transcends well-worn tropes and cliches.  "Originality," is one way of putting this, though I'm not always sure it's the right term - complete originality is almost impossible, and in reality a world, setting, character etc almost always becomes richer when it borrows, alludes, or draws from some intertextual source.  Taking an idea and changing it or twisting it or using it rather than just pilfering it whole - this is my conception of what it means to be "original."

I like good names, and bad names annoy me.  Good names don't need to be based on real words, though they can be.  Lazy naming gets on my nerves.

I like evocative imagery.  The unusual, the bizarre, the unsettling, the alienating, the disturbing, and the nightmarish are all compelling. Exoticism is always cool.  Voluminous Hadron's Dystopia (and the more recent Panglossia) with its Ironheads, its Cephalopods, its colourful cosmology, its towering cities, and its strange races has always held immense appeal.  Polycarp!'s freaking awesome Clockwork Jungle provides another example, meshing the natural and artificial - plus the Saffron Moss is just plain brilliant.  I also find Luminous Crayon's Jade Stage and Joker's Nightmare and Wyldestorm Frontier intriguing for these qualities.

I love cities, and urban settings with attention to detail - Lord Vreeg's Igbar comes to mind, or the still fledgling but very, very promising Knife's Edge by Kindling - are amongst my favorites.  When I GM I always spend most of my time writing up cities and towns, and I find it frustrating as a player when the party enters a city and aren't given much in the way of description.  What kind of architecture does the place have?  What are its sections?  Its politics?  When I buy I sword or a potion in a city, I hate it when GMs just say "sure, whatever, you go to the marketplace and buy it.  25 gp."  Ideally I want to know what the marketplace looks and smells like, and even what the blacksmith's shop looks like, and maybe have some sort of minor encounter on my way.  Yeah sure too much detail can bog a campaign down, but in my opinion too much is far better than too little.  I also like cities that do things a bit differently, rather than thatched medieval grids with the King's palace at the center and big magic shops on every corner.

Turn offs:

Domesticated or boring magic and monsters.  90% of orcs, elves, dwarves, halflings, etc.  Though I like it when settings take ideas and give them a new spin, there are some particular elements that increasingly deter me - they've been done too many times, and they weren't all that great to begin with. Dragons hit this too, though very occasionally I can accept them if they're treated properly (Iron Kingdoms, A Song of Ice and Fire, Celtrica... frankly Tolkien treated them properly too).  The old, done-to-death tropes have to be pretty shaken up to incite my interest, and after, say, your halflings have become like punk rocker diabolist midgets who ride giant bats and spit acid or whatever, I'm always a bit confused as to why it's necessary to keep the name and the physiology as well - since they've already been changed practically beyond recognition, why not go whole hog and transform them completely?  Also any time I see a "[Random Adjective] Elf" I roll my eyes.

While I hesitate to say medieval settings turn me off, they don't turn me on so much as other timeframes do.

The word epic has started to vaguely annoy me.  I think it's overused, and sometimes misused.  I generally prefer small details and intricate, personal drama to big panoramic stuff in general.

[Llum]

Turn Ons: Someone making a good non-human race, now I'm personally extremely fussy in how I handle this, not liking to do it all, (Don't think I could do it properly) but when someone does do it, I really enjoy it.

Dark stuff, the sorta proto-horror (I say proto-horror, because I don't think you can be truly horrified without living something, no matter how good an author its still too abstract for me) feeling, things not being that nice, I'm a huge cynic and occasional misanthropist, so I guess the stuff is comfy to me.

Random stuff, sometimes something will just catch my eye, its nice

And finally the most important thing, in my opinion, Characters, people, NPCs in a RPG way I guess, done well they fascinate me.

Turns Off: Seems to be fairly common, but cliches bug me in certain circumstances, but only when their over the top. I tend to use cliches so I'm somewhat hypocritical but what can you do.

Names, the reason I wrote this post is because Steerpike brought it up, but some names just turn me off, I prefer short names, anything longer then 4 syllables usually bugs me.