A GMs Question to Players: What really matters?

[Brandy]

So, after a long hiatus from GMing (mostly depression related, now getting treatment) I'm ready to start working on a game again and doing some worldbuilding. A thought occurs to me that what I find interesting to work on for a gameworld might not be what my players want or need to immerse themselves as characters in the world, so I ask this open-ended question:

"As a player, what aspects of a (fantasy) game-world are you most appreciative that the GM has thought about?"

I know that in the past I've spent a great deal of time thinking about politics, history, language, culture, coinage, gods, mythology, geography, trade, royalty, village life, city life, and on and on for my game worlds. But I wonder: how much of any of that stuff would matter to you, if you were my player? And perhaps more importantly, as I decide what to think about first, what would matter to you most?

Thanks in advance for any input.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by Bookman;1882258[B

"As a player, what aspects of a (fantasy) game-world are you most appreciative that the GM has thought about?"[/B]

I know that in the past I've spent a great deal of time thinking about politics, history, language, culture, coinage, gods, mythology, geography, trade, royalty, village life, city life, and on and on for my game worlds. But I wonder: how much of any of that stuff would matter to you, if you were my player? And perhaps more importantly, as I decide what to think about first, what would matter to you most?

I love character building, so I'm always interested in what abilities will be especially useful or not. Also, clear parameters on how I'm to equip my character. I'd be disappointed to find that my character is not not useful or that the niche I thought I was filling is also being filled by another character in the group—rendering my character less useful. Finally, every character should have proper motivations for the campaign, be it greed, vendetta, duty, what-have-you.

As to your list, I'll sort it from what I'd be most interested in to least: politics, history, gods, geography, mythology, culture, village/city life, trade, royalty, language, coinage

[the_matrix_walker]

I'm pleased to hear you're doing something positive that works for you! I have my own personal struggle in that department.

I'd probably set the order of what you've presented...

mythology, history, culture, gods, trade, village life/city life, geography, politics / royalty, language, Coinage.

I also delight in character construction. It's half the game for me, really... As a result, I am always appreciative when a GM is specific about the game's parameters. It's very frustrating to write a character, only to find out later that some optional switches are in place and others are not, or that you have to go back to the drawing board (Or play a character that doesn't perform the way you thought) because of an undisclosed switch or house rule.

[Phantasm]

Having all the information possible for chargenning up front is a definite plus.

For me as a player, my list tends to go: culture, mythology, geography, village/city life, history, politics, trade, royalty, gods/religious cults, language, coinage. Politics, royalty, and trade lend themselves to plot hooks, but to truly immerse myself and make sure I'm staying "period", I want to see more of the culture and mythology than I do the byzantine backroom workings of the trade guilds, royalty, and religious cults. I'd rather be invested in the local world and its people than with its kings, queens, and uprisings.

[Rocket Man]

For me? NPCs, through and through. I can take almost any premise and almost any setting so long as the people inside it are interesting to interact with. Quests are cool and fights are fun, but I'm a storyteller at heart. Give me people I can love, hate, be annoyed with, laugh with, laugh at.

My "almost" has one exception ... when the angst reaches a certain level, I politely bow out. It's why Vampire, despite having a gorgeously realized world, never really drew me as either a player or a GM.

Anything on the list you mentioned would entertain me if done well. And I'll add one more vote for sharing as much about the setting up front as possible, to help intelligent character design -- and maybe to show where additional detail could be suggested!

I'm glad you're back in the swing of things, Bookman. I have friends and family members who have had to deal with depression, so I cheer every triumph that crosses my path.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Bookman

"As a player, what aspects of a (fantasy) game-world are you most appreciative that the GM has thought about?"

The presence of NPCs born gifted, analogous to how it is in the real world, and also thereby setting a precedent for PCs being able to be likewise.

[Dustin]

For me, it's a sense of time. The passing of seasons, different agricultural activities, and rain, snow, or trade winds affecting how easy it is to get around at different times of the year really helps my immersion as a player into the game world.

Similarly, news of current events and a sense that the world is an active, living place where things are happening, regardless of whether or not they may affect the PCs, helps make the world come alive for me.

[Wavefunction]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

The presence of NPCs born gifted, analogous to how it is in the real world, and also thereby setting a precedent for PCs being able to be likewise.

Thumbs up to this.

This is more from a GM's perspective, so feel free to ignore, but competent NPCs is one of the most important things for me. I like to have a reasonable number who are as competent, or more competent than the PCs, though the more competent ones tend to have issues to offset their ability.

And that's an important note, NPCs shouldn't be sufficiently competent to just do the PCs work for them, or if they are, then they should have a good reason not to, or alternatively if they do the PCs should get an opportunity to demonstrate their ability pretty much immediately. And never let an NPC solve something quickly that the team has been struggling with for ages, unless the team specifically went to the NPC for help.

I had this happen to me once, I was playing a genius-style character, and we encountered a strange town that caused anyone entering it to lost their memory. This was my bread and butter, so I set about trying to solve the problem of what it was. After about a session of this, I think the GM got bored and simply walked his brick character into the middle of the town, punched the ground, and revealed an underground superscience computer. I don't think I've ever found anything quite so disheartening, it absolutely made me want to quit the campaign.

[Jinumon]

As much of a cop-out answer as it may sound, realism, detail, and singularity are the biggest ones for me.

First and foremost, a world has to be realistic. It can have all manner of additional universal rules (magic, gods, etc.), but all of those elements need to be internally consistent and logical. Some examples that immediately spring to mind are the Bonds-Magi from Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards series and the Rules of Sympathy from Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicle, and I highly recommend both series as sources of inspiration.

Second is the level of detail. I don't know if I'm the odd-man-out on this one, but I love levels of detail that allow for total immersion. Pre-existing histories you can incorporate into a character's backstory, world-specific customs, currencies, holidays, and even idioms or manners of speech are wonderful. In short, I want to feel transported. If there isn't enough substance to make it feel three-dimensional, I lose interest pretty quickly.

Last but not least is singularity. As much as people stumble over themselves trying to reinvent the wheel, there is an enormous amount to be said for the uniqueness of a world. There's nothing I hate more than seeing generic England, France, Spain, or China dressed up in Fantasy-colors and given a different name. If you're playing alternate-history, that's one thing. But true Fantasy should stand on its own. Again, Rothfuss and Lynch have built solid worlds, and I can also recommend the works of C.S. Friedman in this particular category.

The last one is particularly tricky. For every decent Fantasy World that you'll find, there's a dozen generic genre rehashes or unique worlds that simply fall flat because they aren't interesting enough.

My two cents, anyway.

Jinumon

EDIT: Another thought. As much as we like to shape a cool society around a concept, it's important to take geographical features into account when creating them. A society that develops over the course of 2000 in a desert is going to have different customs, priorities, mythology, religion, and economy than one from a mountain range. I usually actually use a map as my starting point, then work through history and the development of people, tribes, government, etc.

[weby]

This is kind of a really hard question to answer, as the first instinct is to say "everything"... :)

But overall what I want to see in a world I play in is consistency of the background/races/places/powers/magic. All the areas should have at least basic information and it should be though out in that there should be no need to suddenly change the given information, only fill it as needed.

Basically I should be able to place my character in the world. More detailed information is really only needed on things that the players interact with, but a basic world information even if on broad strokes should be available on wide variety of things.