Players before or after the setting.

[LordVreeg]

Does the collaborative approach actually work?  From my point of view it sounds like the entire thing should get bogged down in the varying tastes and wants of the players vs. the GM.

You said a mouthful.

Collaboration takes many forms.  In Celtricia, the first poll (and I recomend poll formats) dealt with size, world-in motion-vs-overarching plotline, population, and a few questions of what were then the amoeba-like squirmings of the Guildschool system.

The main map was drawn with a few other players, as well.  The original spreadsheet (done in Lotus 1-2-3, I believe) was also partially done by the Players.

However, after that, the plots and politics needed to be the GM's.  [note=players on crunch] I will promise you now, most of the arguments a GM has with players are over crunch, not fluff.  It;s just the way it is.  We've all heard of 'rules lawyers', and no one has ever talked about a 'fluff lawyer', at least in gaming terms.  Player input on rules, weather in homebrew rules systems or the house-rules, is CRITICAL for player-GM harmony.{/note]The Players have helped flesh stuff out (especially the guilds they belong to and the churches) and in terms of crunch.  Characters and NPC's can come and go, but the underlying physics of the world they are playing in is something they have to like, or they will go elsewhere.  I was quite the rules snob and autocrat at one point; now I take pride in the contributions of my brilliant players.

The first hard, cold, ice-water-in-the-face moment when the PC's contest something (normally crunch, but sometimes fluff) does suck.  But I bring up the exact example as it has worked in keeping this thing rolling on for decades...and my only player resentment comes from the fact we don't play more often, or that the online sessions only last a few hours.

[snakefing]

No fluff lawyers? You've never had an argument like, "That just wouldn't work like that!" or "That just doesn't make any sense!"

A lot of these type arguments either get shut down with Rule 0, or devolve into a long and detailed argument about some real world historical analog. But in my experience, they can be just as corrosive as any rules-lawyering argument.

FYI, my setting is almost surely of type 1. I don't expect to ever have time to actually run it anyway.

[Knight of Ravens]

Very true, Vreeg. To amend what I wrote above slightly, even if I've created the world largely without input I will guage reactions and poll the players during character creation and in the fluff intro part of the first adventure to find out what grabs their interest. Do they want to stay in the starting city/town/tavern for a while, or do they want to explore an ancient ruin I mentioned only as a bit of afterthought flavor? Does Player A want to become a knight or noble as his goal, even if I've already stated only characters of Player B's type ever rise to prominence?

I'm the sort that likes a decent background from players on their characters for that reason. No matter how much time I've spent on a setting, however much detail I've craned out, player input ultimately determines a lot about what adventures I run and how the campaign world develops. I actually enjoy making changes due to player input, especially clever ones that neatly fold into the gray areas but exist outside of what I may have thought of. So I guess ultimately #3 applies to my settings as well.

I've yet to be disappointed by the results.

[LordVreeg]

This is somewhat topical.
http://www.gnomestew.com/gming-advice/nonlinear-sandbox-games#comment-2969

[snakefing]

I like sparkletwist's observation too. I think a lot of good campaigns start out kind of haphazard, which provides room to explore what types of characters and stories will work best for that specific group. As the group begins to evolve their own style, more depth, consistency, and background will grow in the setting. But by this time the nature of the setting has conformed to the players, rather than the reverse.

If you take a setting like mine, designed primarily for my own fun - well, it contains a lot of assumptions about the kind of game I like to play, and the kind of stories I would be interested in. Good luck to me in finding enough players that share my vision.

[Llum]

2)GM-only created settings made expressly to intrigue players...Most of these also fail, but some do take off.

4)Literary Rip-offs.
[/quote]
5)The Probability-Lich setting, where no one really knows what is going on or how it was made.  Said setting is far too common.
[/quote]

I don't really understand exactly what you mean here, but Probability-Lich is one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

[LordVreeg]

[blockquote=Llum]

5)The Probability-Lich setting, where no one really knows what is going on or how it was made.  Said setting is far too common.

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=836
Comes from here somewhere.  I agree, the term makes you think of some chaos lich...but it comes from that comic (which, as I said, has many of the jokes that will illustrate a poorly designed game built in).  I do have to point out that for anyone who has not read these, I laughed out loud a multitude of times.

I'm actually cracking up as we speak seeing a few of these older ones...  
You must read this one...
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1231

[snakefing]

I said collaborative, not 'Completely Player Shared'. Look at an earlier post on this thread and you'll see what I mean...It is critical to maintain a sense of wonder and amazement and exploration, but letting the PC's fill in some of the details about the guild they are in or the religion or other non-plot-central elements engages their pride and invests them in the campaign.

Kind of a chicken and egg problem here. How do you get the players invested enough in the game that they want to spend the time to get themselves invested in the game?

Not that I have any answers. How one campaign takes off and another doesn't is probably very dependent on the GM's story-telling prowess more as anything else, but there is a whole host of factors having to do with the relationships between players, time commitments, and who knows what else.problem here. How

I like creating my setting, and I certainly admit that I am doing it for my own enjoyment more than anything else. This certainly works against the setting ever being successfully played. If there was one thing I'd like to do to improve the odds, it would be to start playing one-on-one with a player who had a real interest.

[Hibou]

From my own experience, running a campaign has actually been fairly player-interactive when it comes to setting it up, both in picking a world and theme. As a few of you may be aware I run games on the Otherworlders IRC network (the same one that our chat is hosted on) and when I get the need to DM I usually pick a few ideas of stuff I want to run and drag that network's waters for some bodies... And the most popular idea usually goes.

It works pretty well. It's just on the opposite end from what I envisioned the "collaboration" to be when I first posted.

The other method I use is always to throw a disclaimer onto my pre-game character-building ceremonies, which kind of lets the players know what they're in for and kind of comes up the same as having a themed game - my players will know before the game starts that my horror knob is turned on OVERDRIVE OF ULTIMATE DOOM and that I like using a lot of creepy creatures like undead and demons. Ironically I have yet to have a single game where the party is a group of demon-hunting, vampire-staking badasses.

[Knight of Ravens]

(snakefing) Well, in my example above, I mention asking for character background. While it can be a little intimidating for some new players, the fact is that if they're willing to provide such, they've already taken the biggest step in the direction of taking initiative and being involved. Holding their interest is less burdensome then (IMO).

Of course, I may just be lucky.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Another, less-biased accounting will came from this little site right here. Let's count up settings that have been created and setting ideas...and then see how many have been really played. If all of these settings had been played, the CBG would have a sister site, the POPG (Pissed off Players Guild).

While the point is good, let us not forget that many CBGers use the site for brainstorming and thus the ideas they are posting are not nearly at the point where they are intended to be played. In some cases it is never intended to get beyond that stage--which I think might have been part of your point?

The thing is, most good works come from taking that first step first. We brainstorm out various ideas, then mine those ideas for something better, then create something even more enticing with what we've learned. However, I think in the case of something like Celtricia, the experience is different but it can change and grow continuously, but not massively re-invent itself at a stroke (at least I assume not if you're running continuous games in it).

I guess the point of all that rambling, is that a generalization of the creative process (like most generalizations, even this one ;)) has to be so broad as to be meaningless, or else be narrow enough that it can be limiting (and exclude some cases that should not be).

Also, we cannot judge a setting as successful only if it is designed for continuous non-linear campaigning or repeating campaigning (is that what's meant by sandbox gaming?). A setting might very well be designed for a single short campaign, even a single session, and be massively fun for that short time.

[LordVreeg]

Phoenix-I think you are on the right track.  
I do understand that many setting threads are just brainstorming.  It;s a damn good idea, and the people seem to make some sense, and are pretty entertaining, to boot.
I was actually being funny and off the cuff when I classified the types of settings.   Valid or not, there will be exceptions to them.

I think a succesful setting is frankly one that the PC's and the GM all agree was/is fun, and is memorable later down the road.  All gamers know that they had a good time when they remember a specific gaming moment and all involved chuckle or laugh or get mad...

[sparkletwist]

Ironically I have yet to have a single game where the party is a group of demon-hunting, vampire-staking badasses.

Too bad for them!

Well, I'm biased... I like being a demon-hunting, vampire-staking badass. :D

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Ironically I have yet to have a single game where the party is a group of demon-hunting, vampire-staking badasses.

Too bad for them!

Well, I'm biased... I like being a demon-hunting, vampire-staking badass. :D

Suddenly the girl in your avatar looks like Buffy to me.

@LV, yeah. If any criteria for evaluating a successful game setting exist, fun and memorable would be at the top.

As I've said before, a DivSet setting is often very fun to play, even if I find reading about it much less interesting than an Ethocentric one.

[Nomadic]

Ironically I have yet to have a single game where the party is a group of demon-hunting, vampire-staking badasses.

Too bad for them!

Well, I'm biased... I like being a demon-hunting, vampire-staking badass. :D

What about gazebo hunting badasses? Those gazebos are far more deadly than any puny demon.