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What are your setting elements?

Started by SilvercatMoonpaw, November 30, 2007, 07:46:45 PM

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SilvercatMoonpaw

We have a thread asking why we design, but now I'd like to ask a related but different question: What do you like?  That is, what elements of setting flavor cause you to want to read a thread?

For me the answer is the opposite of grim and gritty: hopeful and smooth.
Hopeful does not mean just a glimmer of hope, a small amount, but it means that the majority of the setting is worth saving, and it's worth it because it's a relatively nice place with relatively nice people who are at least trying to live without stabbing each other in the back.
Smooth is a little harder to define.  In one sense it means clean (interpreting "gritty" to mean a sort of dirty coating), where streets are often paved and buildings and people are washed.  The color is bright and things are nice to look at.  The other sense is in terms of how it flows: a smooth world doesn't get hung up on the deadliness of combat or the various consequences of court intrigue.
I'm a muck-levelist, I like to see things from the bottom.

"No matter where you go, you will find stupid people."

Lmns Crn

Quote from: http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?40033this thread[/url] is an interesting read. I'm not really sure whether or not it's addressing the same question you're asking here.

I would be interested to hear more description of the specific elements you are talking about for your own preferences. I find myself a little unsure about what you mean, possibly because much of your description seems to involve what your ideal world is not, rather than what it is. Could you elaborate a little more, perhaps?
I move quick: I'm gonna try my trick one last time--
you know it's possible to vaguely define my outline
when dust move in the sunshine

SilvercatMoonpaw

Quote from: Luminous CrayonYou may find that this thread is an interesting read. I'm not really sure whether or not it's addressing the same question you're asking here.
It looks like it's more about formatting, while I'm trying to ask about what flavor things one likes.
Quote from: Luminous CrayonI would be interested to hear more description of the specific elements you are talking about for your own preferences. I find myself a little unsure about what you mean, possibly because much of your description seems to involve what your ideal world is not, rather than what it is. Could you elaborate a little more, perhaps?
Half the problem with me expressing myself right now is that I'm in a depressed state, able to tell more easily what I don't like rather than what I like.  I'll give it a try, though.
To put it simply I treat a setting like an object: If it's pretty and sparkly I like it.  If it's ugly and dull I don't want it.  For a setting to be pretty it has to have more nice, tolerant, reasonably smart people than not.  For it to be sparkly it has to have the potential to include fantastic ideas without to much whining about consistency.

I can try to think more about it and get back to you if you want.
I'm a muck-levelist, I like to see things from the bottom.

"No matter where you go, you will find stupid people."

Epic Meepo

So, what's an example of a "pretty and sparkly" setting?
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Tybalt

I think interesting conflict is the main thing for me. When I look at someone else's design or at published material my first thought is 'what kinds of adventures could happen here?" I also like simplicity--even when I'm running a game based on D&D I tend to limit the number of available intelligent races. I also like things to be epic or mythical--I don't like magic to be ordinary.

When it comes to gritty I think that I prefer it to clean and shiny. Not quite sure why except to say that I find when it comes to fantasy that I prefer the works of David Gemmell, George r.r. Martin and Robert E. Howard to...well, others.
le coeur a ses raisons que le raison ne connait point

Note: Link to my current adenture path log http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3657733#post3657733

SilvercatMoonpaw

Quote from: Epic MeepoSo, what's an example of a "pretty and sparkly" setting?
I'm not sure I can think of one that covers both elements equally well.  I've never found a published setting even close to this.  Comedy animé like "Slayers" and "Those Who Hunt Elves" have pretty done well, but not quite sparkly enough.  Animé and animé-inspired things often have the right sparkly, but generally are just too hung up on people falling over their own knives to be pretty.
I'm a muck-levelist, I like to see things from the bottom.

"No matter where you go, you will find stupid people."

psychoticbarber

I personally look for something new, as well as something old.

What I mean is, I want elements of exploration into new ideas for campaigns, but I don't want it to be so new I don't have a basic reference point.

As for specifics about what kind of "new" things I like...it really depends. I usually figure out pretty early on if I like it or not, but I have to start reading to know.
*Evil Grin* "Snip Snip"

Current Campaign Setting: Kayru, City of Ancients

"D&D at its heart is about breaking into other peoples' homes, stabbing them in the face, and taking all their money. That's very hard to rationalize as a Good thing to do, and the authors of D&D have historically not tried terribly hard." -- Tome of Fiends

Hibou

Taking from Tybalt's remark about what kind of adventures can happen, what I really look for in a setting is something that is engaging, but doesn't allow for loads of room to play over and over. I like the idea of a world that is more restricted in that you can have a party start from killing the occasional orc on the highway to visiting the depths of darkness and coming back unscathed, but I don't want the setting to feel like the game didn't really matter for it. You should be able to run a story or two in the world and then that be it. Not like FR when there seems to always be another maniacal wizard-plot going down, only in another region or with another legendary artifact uncovered and/or stolen from Hell. The player's actions should have a lasting effect, and then you should be able to move on and say "that was great guys, what setting would be nice to try next?"
[spoiler=GitHub]https://github.com/threexc[/spoiler]

Tybalt

That's a good point SovietTroll. I think that settings like Forgotten Realms for instance had an almost daunting feel for me because it seemed like as player or DM there was little lasting effect that any player group under 30th level could have.
le coeur a ses raisons que le raison ne connait point

Note: Link to my current adenture path log http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3657733#post3657733

SA

Magic

For me, the essence of magic is in its inability to be encapsulated and defined.  I prefer it when there is a significant rift between the way things are and the way things seem, and the truth is ambiguous even from a metagame perspective.  So if I read the setting material and the laws of magic and the nature of the Gods is fairly explicitly described, that tends to be off-putting (truth be told, I only came to that conclusion when I saw the very same phenomenon in my own setting, Dystopia, and realised that it totally defied my intended tone).  I see magic, faith and superstition as intertwined; I love it when you can't tell which myths are just myths and which fabled lands really are fables, when the line between fate and coincidence becomes blurred and you most often question not what is real, but what is truly false.

Violence

I'm making a big distinction between this and combat, here.  With violence I'm talking about the intended infliction of harm on another creature, and the in-world repercussions for these actions.  My only real requirement here is that the consequences are realistic; that a one-sided, merciless bloodbath is treated as just that, and that those responsible are "compensated" as can be logically expected.  I abhor games with mindless killing - or an obsessive focus on the human propensity for evil - that consider themselves "mature games" (though I do enjoy blatantly gruesome and irreverent games like I Kill Bunnies for Satan), but contextual violence is fine and I enjoy a good fight scene if it makes sense.

Familiarity

I like settings that take familiar and distort it, associate it with things I haven't seen before or just generally go against type.  I'm quite jaded by most fantasy settings (the ol' Tolkien-Morecock shtick), and find it hard to be inspired by much fantasy because its familiarity makes it that much less fantastic.  There's no hard and fast rule about this - the combination of qualities can vary, so long as I'm surprised.

Negativity

This is the whole "dark" or "grim-n-gritty" deal.  Not long ago (less than a year) I was pretty far in the "dark" direction of the nasty/nice spectrum, but things have changed since then.  I actually really like it when things are pretty calm, harmonious and certain, but punctuated by varying degrees of unfamiliarity, abhorrence or confusion.  This can be a sudden murder, a shift in the social climate, the rise of a new metaphysical power, or really anything in between.  Violence, despair and deceit seem all the more contemptible when they are far from the norm, and unlike before I no longer think that a triumph of good is optimised when it arises in a time of great darkness.  Often, it takes but a little cruelty, treachery or selfishness to spoil a time of goodness, and a comparable act of good can be just as compelling or rewarding in these times as in a time of great peril.

Replayability

Perhaps not quite contradicting SovietTroll's remarks, but seemingly contrasting them; I like it when a world is malleable enough that its essence can be retained while allowing characters to make changes across many levels of power and influence.  This is hard to do, but that really depends on the setting's ethos: more concrete worlds with clearly detailed figures of power are more damaged by PC meddling than ones with more abstractly defined relationships between places, people and ideas.

Richness

I like a setting to be filled with little details.  Not comprehensive (just like with magic, this actually detracts from the experience for me), but a fecund source of inspiration and an expression of the depth of the setting.

-
It should therefore come as no surprise at all that the setting I'll be posting in the next few days is pretty much precisely all the things I just described.

Gilladian

Hmmm... excellent questions. I would have said "realism" five years ago. But I think I was wrong even then. What I most want is coherency. Not even complete logic, but consistency. If a world is flat, I want that to effect the views and function of the world's residents.

On a more personal level, I quit reading when I run into anime, mecha, science in my fiction, psionics and anything relating to DROW.

I love the idea of underdark worlds, but dislike just about every single dark race I've ever seen! I'm tired of dark=evil, depressing and threatening.

I like mysterious magic, fey elves, and a certain hint of the medieval, but not a strict adherence to "it was like this in the 13th century".
Librarian, Dungeonmaster, and Cat-person

SilvercatMoonpaw

Trying to define my own terms a bit more, now that I've seen some things other people have said:

Magic
Magic should be two things: flashy and common.
"Flashy": When I play a mage I want to feel like reality handed me the keys to the sports car and said "You drive."  Part of this is that I'm not terribly good at thinking my actions out or being very subtle, so any magic rules that don't allow me to do something crazy are just going to fall apart on me.
"Common": This doesn't necessarily mean everyone can cast spells.  It means that the chance for weird and cool things to happen is greater than in a setting where a "realistic" consistency is adhered to, and that "magic" is integral to how the world works.  Magical creatures are common, and even the average peasant or soldier has a chance to pull something mind-boggling out of their hat.
Also I have no problem knowing how magic works.  In fact, I often find things interesting the more I know about how they work.

Familiarity
Give me something new.  I crave an idea I haven't thought of before.  This doesn't necessarily have to be a big difference from a cliché, just something thought-provoking.  Dwarves can live underground and be great miners and metalsmiths so long as it makes sense in a new way.  The greatest example of something like this is the dwarves from Discworld: Terry Pratchett takes the cliché and emphasizes it and builds on it until you don't notice it because it has all the little weird details that make you easily accept it as if it were a real human culture.

Negativity
I don't like deep negativity.  I can't help but dwell on it and then anything associated with it is no fun.  A bit of it is expected and okay, like a distrust of a certain ethnic group or a dismissal of the capabilities of a gender or age.  But too much of it and a world turns into a message.  If I've heard the message once I've heard it enough to get it.

Richness
This is good, but I can't handle too much at once.  A setting doesn't needed to be loaded down with this stuff.

Coherency
I can't say for certain how much I need this.  I think I like coherency, but if I had to choose between this and a setting being just plain cool I'd go for the latter.
I'm a muck-levelist, I like to see things from the bottom.

"No matter where you go, you will find stupid people."

Lmns Crn

This is a really fascinating thread to read. I am thinking hard about how I would answer these questions for myself. It's a beneficial mental exercise!

P.S. - Not to blow my own horn or anything. But. Gilladian, you have pretty much described the Jade Stage with considerable precision. I'm curious about whether you've looked at it at all, and if you have, whether you enjoyed it.
I move quick: I'm gonna try my trick one last time--
you know it's possible to vaguely define my outline
when dust move in the sunshine

SilvercatMoonpaw

I agree with the whole "Dark is overused to mean evil".  Dark is not evil.  Darkness is not evil.  Darkness simply the absence of the kind of light humans need to see by.  People need to stop being generically afraid of it and treat it with the respect it deserves.  Darkness actually has beneficial qualities: it provides a hiding place, both to hide from predators and sneak up on prey, and it provides the cheapest place to get cool in a sunny area.

There are lots of other elements that are similarly mistreated: cold, chaos, death.  None of them are inherently evil, and I like to see them as accepted elements in a setting.
I'm a muck-levelist, I like to see things from the bottom.

"No matter where you go, you will find stupid people."

psychoticbarber

I understand the human fear of the dark, though. It's easy for prey to sneak up on us. It's hard to see what's going on around us. Many dangerous things happen at night simply because we can't see as far as we can during the day. It's been with us since we developed the ability to tell the difference between light and dark.

That said, yes, Dark as evil is overdone. But I understand the fear.
*Evil Grin* "Snip Snip"

Current Campaign Setting: Kayru, City of Ancients

"D&D at its heart is about breaking into other peoples' homes, stabbing them in the face, and taking all their money. That's very hard to rationalize as a Good thing to do, and the authors of D&D have historically not tried terribly hard." -- Tome of Fiends