Form and Function

[Xathan]

A question I have been asking myself lately is, when designing a world, in which order should it be designed? In other words, should one build a setting and then go back and rework the rules until they fit the setting, or is it better to take the rules and mold your setting around the framework of the rules? How do you design your settings?

Iâ,¬,,¢ll post my thoughts later, I want to hear what yâ,¬,,¢all think.

[Captain Obvious]

It all depends. I do both ways, but most often i will begin with a bit of fluff, thern think of a bit of crunch i want and they keep going back and forth until the setting is done or i get bored. Sometimes i start with an idea for new crunch and build fluff around it.

[beejazz]

Both at once! Mwahaha! Mwahaha! Mwahahahahaha!
Huh?
And if a piece of rules or fluff gets cast aside I have the foundations of my next project.

[SA]

I've been working on Dystopia since before I joined the CBG (over seven months ago), and I have not yet written a single word of crunch.  I don't even know what system to use (GURPS would probably do best, although it's fairly rules-heavy, and Luminous' Tri-Stat looks positively boner-inspiring -  I'll be damned if I'm gonna use d20), and I don't rightly care.

Oh, I'm sure we can all agree at least grudgingly that it's "all a matter of personal taste", and in that case I find it personally abhorrant to approach a setting on the foundations of crunch.  Crunch, in my mind, facillitates "fluff" (oh Lord how I loathe that word, and its connotations of superfluousness).  If you have to "mold your setting around the rules", you are using the wrong rules.  Molding the rules around your setting is another matter, but I always favour the path of least resistance.

Again, you can always say "it's a matter of personal preference", but after all the debates we've had on these boards, that claim is now a useless tautology.

[beejazz]

I'd argue with a specifically fluff-first approach. If I want to design a game, how that game is going to be played is crucial to how the setting develops.

Now, if I were designing this setting for a book or what have you, that's totally different (though even there, I'd prefer to develop plot and setting in tandem).

So I guess the question is whether I am designing a world for a game or a game for a world.

[Lmns Crn]

In writing the Jade Stage, I have tried a little from Column A, and a little from Column B.

However, in every instance I can think of where I matched setting flavor to existing mechanics, I grew gradually more dissatisfied with the result until I finally had to go back and change it. Take that as you will.

So I guess the question is whether I am designing a world for a game or a game for a world.

set of guideliines for the facilitation of cooperative storytelling[/b] more than anything else. The term "game" here really is sort of an abuse of language, serving only to muddy the issue.

I definitely agree that mechanics and setting flavor must not be at odds with one another, or you'll run into problems. But mechanics, no matter how cleverly designed and dazzlingly implemented, are still only a means to an end-- bending anything to fit them seems like putting the cart before the horse.

My two cents.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

In my case it's better to write fluff than crunch for two reasons:
1) Having found systems where all aspects of the characters can be built from the same pool, I no longer have to worry about things such as racial/class/magic features that are important to my setting concept but are unweildy in D&D (such as playing a cat).
2) (which actually comes from 1) I'm not very good at crunch design.

Still there may be a reason to design the setting crunch-first: if you have crunch you really want to include.  This is still mostly a problem with D&D, since it's rules aren't too flexible compared to other systems.

[Thanuir]

I think there are three possible things to design around: setting, system and playstyle.

I usually prefer to focus on a given style of play and create a setting and system to support it.
Sometimes I do a setting and see which styles of play seem to work, and then design systems around those.

I never start with a system.

[Kindling]

Fluff comes first. Always.
Bend and rip and rend and recombine the rules until they work for you, and then if they end up being so far from what you started with as to be almost unrelated, just resort to GURPS.

In fact, GURPS owns anyway, so you may as well just start with GURPS and then not have to worry about crunch at all.

EDIT: Angel, I'm sure I once saw some d20 format racial stat blocks for Dystopia somewhere...

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

In fact, GURPS owns anyway, so you may as well just start with GURPS and then not have to worry about crunch at all.

I woudn't be so sure: I just took a look at GURPS lite, and things like derived ability scores and lots of different skills to choose from are going to have a different effect than a game where you can buy everything right off and there are few skills to choose from.  I'm not telling you not to use it, I'm just saying that it's going to require a different look at how characters are created from some other system, and that does affect flavor creation.

[Lmns Crn]

I'm just saying that [GURPS is] going to require a different look at how characters are created from some other system, and that does affect flavor creation.

anyone[/i]) think it is possible to have a system that leaves no stamp whatsoever on flavor creation? I know we can and often do work to minimize the "footprint" left on the game by the game mechanics, but is it possible to achieve a system of game mechanics that leaves no "footprint" at all?

[Matt Larkin (author)]

No, I don't think it is LC.  No matter what system you're looking it, the system has some kind of theme in it, and that's going to color our perspective when using it to some degree.  I think some systems just have bigger shoes than others.

[Raelifin]

Fluff first when building a world/setting. I think this is the general consensus.

@ LC: I think it is only possible to leave no footprint if you build a good rules system around the setting.

[beejazz]

@Thaunir: I think this is what I was getting at.
@LC: What? Not a game? I might bend on the "also a hobby" thing, but last time I checked, it was still a game. And in answer to your question, no. Mechanics impact ALOT. From how weapons interact with armor to what skills are divided how to how many rounds a fight lasts to the handling of xp, ALL of this will influence how you play.

[Lmns Crn]

@LC: What? Not a game? I might bend on the "also a hobby" thing, but last time I checked, it was still a game.

in the traditional sense.[/i] It has certain game-like features (clearly-defined rules, the use of dice, et cetera), but some pretty serious fundamental differences as well.

Consider: The last time you played Monopoly (or Clue, or Risk, or Checkers, or Football, or Poker), who won the game, and why, and how could you tell? Now ask yourself, the last time you played DnD, who won the game, and why, and how could you tell? If your gaming experience is anything like mine at all, your answers for both questions vary dramatically, if you can even answer the second question at all. (I can't.)

To me, it makes much more sense to compare DnD and its cousins not to "normal" games, but to improvisatory acting games (such as just about anything on Whose Line Is It, Anyway?) Or the "take turns adding a couple sentences at a time" methods of group storytelling. They don't use dice and RPG stats, but they have a very important fundamental similarity with DnD: they involve guided group storytelling rather than victory or defeat.