DF: Does the world matter?

[Greg 1]

The genre of Dungeon Fantasy, as the name suggests, is heavily focused on dungeon-crawling, with maybe a generic town nearby containing a generic tavern and supply shops.

Having said that, plenty of games in the Dungeon Fantasy genre have offered optional (and sometimes mandatory) worlds to go along with their rules. Likewise, plenty of game-masters have designed their own world for their DF games to occur in.

My question is: When you play GURPS DF, does the world matter to you? Is civilization just a place to buy arrows or is it something interesting in itself?

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Greg 1

My question is: When you play GURPS DF, does the world matter to you? Is civilization just a place to buy arrows or is it something interesting in itself?

When I run, the game world itself is basically a big, ubiquitous NPC lurking in the background. It isn't in the foreground, and it's also a place to buy arrows.

In general, I try to keep world-building focused on what PCs do, which is go to exotic places, find pesky foes, kill them, and take their stuff. Civilization needs to be interesting inasmuch that it facilitates the desired game play. That means there need to be NPCs with ties to lairs in remote hexes or otherwise give the players a reason to go out and do PC things. There also needs to be enough of something for the deeds of the PCs to impact.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Greg 1

My question is: When you play GURPS DF, does the world matter to you? Is civilization just a place to buy arrows or is it something interesting in itself?

I wouldn't play DF unless there was a world and the "Dungeon Crawling" portion of it were a more minor aspect.

I'd happily play a DF Sandbox Hex-Crawl. Or a DF Mega-Dungeon Under a City Sandbox.



In fact I'm in a Mega Dungeon Under a City Sandbox right now and enjoying it.

[Nymdok]

This has come up a few times recently and there really is quite a divide on what 'World' means. I caution that people choose their words carefully for this topic especially World, Setting, Location etc.

Does a map matter? Is that part of the world and intrinsic to the game or is it really something fluid a GM can put down with minimal effort? Should we all point to the same map at the same place and say 'Mirror Of the Fire Demon happens here!.

A pantheon? Is that part of the WORLD? Sure clerics need gods, but do those even really need a name?

Is a Bestiary part of a world? Do you actually have a world WITHOUT somehting to kill already in it?

Economy? Do you need a well defined global enconmy complete with trade routes and exchange rates to play DF? Standardized coin/currency?

History? Do we really all need to have spells named after a few great wizards of old, or kingdoms which still bear the name of NPCs that lived and died before the game ever started and will never have any bearing on the game?

Or is a world just a collection of adventures? Is it just a set of locations where events happen (or possible a set of events at largely arbitrary locations).

Is the world something that needs to be defined top down (Framework, Architecture etc) or bottom up (one adventure and gaming session at a time).

Its a question with no easy answer and Im most inclined to say 'It doesnt matter until it affects/interacts with play'.

Although the adventures come to mind as being the most immediate affector on play, keep in mind that without a pantheon, I might not be able to make an informed decision on whether or not I WANT to be a cleric. LIkewise.. Are there guilds? What are they like? They charge how much? Can I be a right-to-work thief? No? Well Mystic Knight it is then.

If you were looking for a more simple answer then bin my answer to boolean false.

Nymdok

[Harald387]

I mostly try - with varying levels of success - to have players fill in world & setting details on their own. You're a cleric? Great, who's your god and what are the religious tenets you want to follow? You've got Social Stigma: Minority Group? Cool, where are you from and why do people think they're weird? Etc, etc.

Some players take to this better than others, but when it works, it takes a lot of the effort off the GM and gives the player a stronger sense of agency.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Greg 1

The genre of Dungeon Fantasy, as the name suggests, is heavily focused on dungeon-crawling, with maybe a generic town nearby containing a generic tavern and supply shops.

Having said that, plenty of games in the Dungeon Fantasy genre have offered optional (and sometimes mandatory) worlds to go along with their rules. Likewise, plenty of game-masters have designed their own world for their DF games to occur in.

My question is: When you play GURPS DF, does the world matter to you? Is civilization just a place to buy arrows or is it something interesting in itself?

Strictly speaking I have never played GURPS DF itself. I have never used those particular supplements in a real honest-to-murgatroyd game. That being said, the most absolutely awesome DF supplement is the magical styles supplement and that's inherently a world building element. So is 'giving your gods names". It's far from necessary to map the whole damn world or even know anything about any place you don't want the players to go or opponents to be from. But even in DF I'm going to want to put more in than the dungeon and the shop unless it's a oneshot.

[Ulairi]

I'm a big believer in the world being created bottom up when it comes to gaming. I have had too many experiences when the world is created top down that players can get in the way of what the DM wants out of the world (if they created it) or if it is a well established world, not leaving enough room for the players to make their mark (I'm look at you Forgotten Realms).

I have been running a DF campaign since last fall and we didn't even have a world when we started. We have a city, that we didn't name (and I named Bywater just on a lark during life play) and we as a group are filling in the world as we go. It's actually a pretty cool world and it is growing from my players going from town to town, region to region, and I'm just aping how earth works as we build.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Ulairi

I'm a big believer in the world being created bottom up when it comes to gaming. I have had too many experiences when the world is created top down that players can get in the way of what the DM wants out of the world (if they created it)

You need something of a chassis, for a little structure when things start running into each other. The real issue is that the GM wants to show off his world, when it's just a place for play. It's like a player giving his PC a long backstory: it might be fun to write, but in the end, play happens at the table. The fun is what happens in-game, not what you wrote about what happened before the game.

[Ulairi]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

You need something of a chassis, for a little structure when things start running into each other. The real issue is that the GM wants to show off his world, when it's just a place for play. It's like a player giving his PC a long backstory: it might be fun to write, but in the end, play happens at the table. The fun is what happens in-game, not what you wrote about what happened before the game.

Yup. And I'm a big believer in verisimilitude so I want it to make sense. But, starting out with a new group, in a new game, and you're in a city and there are some ruins outside of town that have treasure is good enough for us.

[Phantasm]

Most of my worlds are a combination of my overall vision and the players providing a lot of the minutia. A region whose name I say translates into "where the horses run free" had one player saying "I want to build this up", me saying "okay, have at it", and the end result being something pleasantly very different from what I expected.

Worldbuilding collaboration is often better and provides more fun for all because the players get a vested interest in the world if they can help shape it, even if it's providing extremely tiny details. (Like one guy saying the love goddess's one hymn goes "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.")


YMMV, of course.