How many settings?

[Xathan]

A simple enough question but one I'm curious what everyone things. I've lately had a number (5, to be exact) of settings bouncing around in my head, all of which have major ideas that are mutually exclusive to each other. I'm planning on working on all of them simultaneously because I'm slightly insane and want to get any idea I have out before I lose the inspiration, (plus multiple settings make it easier for me to update because I don't feel locked in) but it makes me wonder how other people feel - is it best for you to focus on a single setting and not do anything else until that setting is fairly well developed, have one "primary" setting and a couple others you dabble in, or divide your focus among multiple projects without any clear "This is my one setting"?

Also, how do you feel about other people posting in groups - does it bother you to see someone working on half a dozen settings and make you not want to review any of them, do you get bored reading about the same, singular setting from one person, (or find it too massive to want to review), do you just pick a few settings to review and focus on them, or something else?

[SA]

I've been tempted to ask the same question. It's probable that I have the highest turnover of scantily-detailed settings on this site.

The fact is, most of the time I take the little that I've already posted on thecbg and show it to my players, then detail the rest in collaboration with them so that I don't end up with pages and pages of stuff that they'll end up hating. At that point it seems a waste of time to come back and transcribe all that stuff onto the site.

Any setting I design usually hosts a single campaign (never more than ten sessions, with an average of four), so I don't bother with elements that won't involve my specific gaming group. Again, this leads to a high turnover.

I'm comfortable posting sparse (and seemingly "incomplete") settings on thecbg because I don't actually expect feedback. It's only sensible that, after a person posts six, seven, eight different setting synopses and then never touches on them again, other board members might become hesitant investing prolonged interest in that person's future projects.

For the most part I still post here because I've received immense inspiration from the likes of Luminous Crayon, Steerpike and Soup Nazi, and likewise believe I can provide stimulating and alternative perspectives on world-building to this community. :)

(I maintain, at least in the depths of by ego-besotted mind, that I was instrumental in the popularisation of "ic" tags for in-setting fiction. I know. I'm kind of a big deal)

[Xathan]

[note]God I miss Soup Nazi. (among others) Just felt the need to point that out since you mentioned him.[/note] I wonder if I can challenge you on that "most abandoned projects" front - seems we both have the same issue in that regard. :P My only problem is, while I don't "expect" reviews, I do want them - I don't get to game nearly as often as I like and my players want campaigns that last for a very long time as opposed to shorter ones. At the same time, my ideas are so varied that if I tried to combine them all, the result would be a hot mess of a setting that would make Forgotten Realms look Ethocentric. Ironically lack of response to a setting/sudden drop in my own inspiration (half and half, really) makes me not want to post updates to it anymore, which means the setting "dies", which means I start a new one, which means people don't want to post because my settings die...so I'm stuck in a vicious cycle of my own creation, which is part of why I occasionally vanish for months even though I'm still lurking and reading. :P

However, I do agree with you on posting here in big part for inspiration - tons of amazing designers here and I love reading their stuff, even if at times I'm too intimidated to comment.

[Hibou]

At this point in time I have seven settings of interest: Wyldestorm, Fractal Galaxy, Haveneast, and Dark Ages: Jedi as settings on the site, and I've got three more in my head that have never seen the light of day - one is a post-apocalypse thing and the others are fairly near future hard sci-fi.

I've tried merging my settings before but it just won't work for me, so I need the extra outlets. If I were going to give the "primary" status to any of my projects it'd be Fractal Galaxy, not because I necessarily have a favorite setting but because I receive the most inspiration for it and it occurs most frequently.

I honestly used to be a little frustrated whenever I saw someone pass the 6-8 setting mark, but that was a long time ago when things seemed a little different, and now it doesn't concern me. When it comes down to it, as long as it's good content I'd be cool with someone posting in twenty or thirty different threads.

[SA]

With regards to reviewing, I often look at a setting and immediately start sparking off all these ideas of my own based on what I just read. On the other hand I have little to say by way of constructive feedback. Perhaps I should just start posting the quasi stream of conscious imbroglio in lieu of some forced and somewhat disingenuous "feedback". They could quite possibly take a lot from it.

Maybe what we really need is to break down conventional notions of "setting commentary". We need a reviewer's renaissance!

[Xathan]

...I hadn't read this post yet, Angel, when I posted my other thread. It looks like great minds think alike - perhaps we can use that thread or this or even a new thread to discuss what it means to "comment on settings".

And both of you, of those do you have anything in particular you'd like me to look at? I'm trying to be better at reviewing other people's stuff just because that's what a community is all about to me.

[Elemental_Elf]

In general I think supporting multiple settings simultaneously is fine but you will run into people who dislike seeing your name time after time on the front page. If I were to support all of my settings at once I would probably try and have a posting schedule that staggered my settings by a few days (thus ensuring you would not reply to all of your settings at once and flood the front page).

If I had more than 3 settings, I might even consider having a "reply box" style thread so that all responses to any (and all) of my settings could be sent to. Perhaps that might get a bit confusing? You'd probably need to establish rules, like prefacing posts with the setting name or color-coding each setting (so replies to setting X are red, while setting Y are blue, etc.).

[Xathan]

The reply box is actually a really interesting idea, though we'd need to figure out how it best works...and I'm probably going to take your advice on staggering settings (at least a day apart) to keep from flooding anymore than I already do.

[SDragon]

Total number of settings I've worked on? Let's see, Xiluh gets top billing, but there's also Fiendspawn, the Cyberpunk thing I did, Bestiary of New India, Arena Legends, Mafia: The Family... I think that's about it. So, six, with Xiluh being my prime work.

I suppose there's also Sondirra, but I'm currently trying to move that more toward a collection of plot generators than a full setting. Sondirra does have more actual game usage than any of the rest, though.

[SA]

Xathan, I think other people would better profit from your focus.

It would be great to start a discussion on reviewing methods. Not to establish a standard, but perhaps to knock some standards down so that we can become more open to unusual feedback. If the other thread still has no replies, you might as well repurpose it...

[Steerpike]

I have a slew of settings, but generally only 1-3 are 'active' at any one time.  The Cadaverous Earth is definitely my central setting, and I've returned to Tempter a couple of times, mostly to run no-stats games in.  The rest have been experiments and fragments, more like exercises than fully developed settings.  Mytholith and Bizarrerie probably have the most potential, though I'm going to run an Age of Madness game at some point (hardly counts as a proper setting, though).

[Kindling]

Mostly due to my incredibly low output of actual setting material, I've really only ever had one properly "active" setting at a time. However, if you can do it, I see absolutely no problem whatsoever with working on multiple settings at once - it's just not something I myself do.

[LordVreeg]

A simple enough question but one I'm curious what everyone things. *SNIP* is it best for you to focus on a single setting and not do anything else until that setting is fairly well developed, have one "primary" setting and a couple others you dabble in, or divide your focus among multiple projects without any clear "This is my one setting"?

*SNIP* do you get bored reading about the same, singular setting from one person, (or find it too massive to want to review), *SNIP*

I have 2 now, though I have created about 2 dozen, and of those I think 11 were played for at least a few sessions.  I have found that well-developed depth is an aid to immersion, so I try to channell my efforts to make a better single setting.  But that's just my take on it.

I have changed my setting reviewing myself.  I do admit a strong preference to reviewing stuff from members who have reviewed some of mine, especially those that play in SIG.  Ah, sweet nepotism...
I also try to hit the settings from new folk, and from old folk especially.  
I make a great effort to notice new posting in older, larger threads.  I am very aware of the 'massive thread' effect, and the frustrating catch-22, the more work and updating you put into a setting thread(s), the less the responses.  

[Superfluous Crow]

I have the aforementioned problem that when I get an idea for a new setting it tends to clog up my creative flow until I write it down. So I have a few "concept settings" scattered across the forum. Blind Wake is my most recent, although I have worked a little on the cityscape world Ecumenopolis and the over-the-top sci-fi action game show setting Death Planet.

But mostly I work on Broken Verge. I want it to become a full-fledged setting, but progress is slow. This is partly due to the fact that Broken Verge has actually seen many incarnations as I remake the world due to a new idea or a sudden change in taste. So in a way Broken Verge has been many settings.

[sparkletwist]

Just one for me! I had others, but for whatever reason, I always this tendency to try to distill everything, so Asura is where everything goes. If I have multiple settings that I'm working on, and I get an idea for a cool new thing I want to see, I always agonize over where to put it. What usually ends up happening is that each setting gets a little bit, and they all end up looking kind of thin. I like just having one settting, because then there's no such problems. The level of detail is a lot higher. In addition, cool idea #1 can interact with cool idea #2, without having to have clones of each cool idea in each setting.

I formerly had my old setting, Crystalstar, as well as a couple of other unnamed projects from before. When I started making Asura, I originally kept it separate, but I noticed that the main planet in Asura was looking more and more like a kind of watered-down version of the lands of Crystalstar. So, I just combined them together, and I think Asura is better off for it. All that Crystalstar material is too, in its own way, because all that stuff isn't languishing any more.