Dungeon Fantasy needs a bare-bones setting

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by b-dog

What people want (I think) is to be captivated with an interesting world. Rules are a small part of RPGs, the most important part of RPGs is to have an inspiring game world.

Rules are all of an RPG. By the definition of "game," that's what an RPG is! Settings are their own thing, theoretically useful for any RPG . . . and also for non-RPG applications like TV shows, video games, fanfics, and rock videos. Some designers bundle RPGs with settings, but it's unwise to conflate the two. Storyteller (the RPG) and the World of Darkness (the setting) weren't synonymous, for instance, and neither were D&D and Greyhawk.

[simply Nathan]

What I want from an RPG are maps of holes to go into, animals to kill, things to take from the things I kill in the holes, and details about the means at my disposal to do these things. DF does a good job, all told.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Rules are all of an RPG. By the definition of "game," that's what an RPG is!

This is true iff, of all the many definitions of game, you choose to use one particular one that isn't the principle one, either in general use (where the most common definition is essentially any activity engaged in recreationally), or in the RPG hobby and industry (where a game usually includes both rules -- often discussed separately from the "game" as a whole as the system, and other non-rule elements, often including setting.) And its problematic in that case, because the only definitions of "game" that I've encountered that limits "game" to rules-and-only-rules also are restricted to very particular contexts (either the payoff matrices in game theory, or strictly competitive games in more general use) which don't fit RPGs well in any case.

Storyteller (the RPG) and the World of Darkness (the setting) weren't synonymous

There isn't an RPG called Storyteller (at least not one related to anything called the World of Darkness.) Storyteller is the name of a system used by White Wolf in a number of games, many (but not all, consider, e.g., Exalted) of which are set in a setting called the World of Darkness.

[Kromm]

You can lump in settings with systems and call them "games" if you like. I'm just pointing out that for those who design them, "game = game engine" or "game = system" is the way it works. Once you add a setting, you often continue to call it a "game," but it's really "game + setting" at that point.

[Gizensha]

Originally Posted by Fish

If you're designing characters with an adversarial relationship toward the GM, frankly, I wouldn't want you in my campaign. I'm not out to get you, I'm out to tell a story.

When I'm the GM, I'm not out to tell a story, I'm out to facilitate the stories of the protagonists. If I were out to tell a story, I'd be writing prose. (Conversely, when I'm playing a PC, I'm out to discover the story of my character and find out the stories of the other characters) - Obviously, how much character focused each protagonist's story is will be dependent on the genre, and DF is one of the less character focused genres, but the challenges, which implies some aspects of the plot, should still be somewhat tuned to the characters in it.

But I think I'm just nitpicking there :p

(As for the minor debate on the definition of 'game' - I prefer one that incorporates the play experience rather than that is exclusively defined by the rules, since the concept that time a rules change passes in a Nomic you're now playing a different game gives me a headache, which is the logical conclusion of applying such a definition of a game to the genre of games where players create the rules as they play...)

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by Kromm

You can lump in settings with systems and call them "games" if you like. I'm just pointing out that for those who design them, "game = game engine" or "game = system" is the way it works. Once you add a setting, you often continue to call it a "game," but it's really "game + setting" at that point.

Even in conception, though, don't some games imply setting features by their very rules? I mean, if the game is called Vampire: The Masquerade and is chockfull of rules for how a very specific type of vampire works, down to choosing one of various Clans during character creation, that means, ipso facto, that your setting has that type of vampire and those Clans in it. If your rules are all about creating and playing elves, dwarves, halflings, humans with pseudo-medieval equipment and certain types of magic going into underground lairs to kill monsters and steal treasure, you've got an implicit setting that includes those races, monsters, magic, dungeons, and a pseudo-medieval level of technology.

Lots and lots of games seem to have been written with one specific type of setting in mind, to the point where game system and genre, if not specific setting complete with maps and place names and major NPCs, are inseparable.

[Xplo]

Originally Posted by vitruvian

Even in conception, though, don't some games imply setting features by their very rules? I mean, if the game is called Vampire: The Masquerade and is chockfull of rules for how a very specific type of vampire works, down to choosing one of various Clans during character creation, that means, ipso facto, that your setting has that type of vampire and those Clans in it.

By that logic, then, Dungeon Fantasy already has a setting and people oughta stop whining about it. ;)

. . .

So, about Mystara. Years and years ago, when I bought the D&D red box, the player's book had a very simple adventure as a teaching tool: you were a fighter, looking for a renegade wizard in some goblin-inhabited caves. The book never really said where the caves were, exactly, except that they were near some town that had no name and served no function except to provide the fighter with shops and healing. In the DM's book, there was a larger dungeon, consisting of some crumbling ruins and its various basements. Only the top level was fleshed out; the rest was left as an exercise for the DM. Here, too, we knew nothing of the setting except that the dungeon was within easy walking distance of a nameless town that served no function except to provide shops and healing.

The next set of books, the "Expert Set", started fleshing out the setting, and it introduced rules for wilderness travel. (AFAIK, no one was calling the world Mystara yet; I suspect it didn't have any official name back then.) It included a map of the Duchy of Karameikos, the region in which PCs would presumably be adventuring. Later sets expanded the map size to a continent and then an entire globe (although the globe was merely a line drawing, with no fleshing out at all).

The more the books gave me a setting, though, the more I didn't want to use someone else's setting - partly because getting all the official adventures and supplements would cost more than I could or would spend on them, and partly because I was perfectly capable of making my own hexmap full of mountains and forests, giving them some cryptic names, and plunking down a "home town" somewhere near some imagined frontier with dungeons in it.

So if it were up to me, would I say that DF needs a setting? No, absolutely not. What it needs is a town so you can shop and heal, and a dungeon located somewhere conveniently near town, and it has those things (at least by implication). The rest is fluff.

At the same time, it wouldn't hurt if DF occasionally implied a setting. I never got into AD&D much as a GM, being more comfortable with my familiar non-advanced D&D (and again, not being willing or able to buy the books - and compared to basic D&D, AD&D had a LOT of books) but I found a lot of the AD&D material evocative or inspiring. D&D just suggested that there were some pocket planes floating in the Astral. AD&D had a whole book devoted to describing the major outer planes - and it did so in a way that left plenty of room for interpretation, so I didn't feel like I had to make up my own material. AD&D had spells named after (presumably) powerful wizards and artifacts named after (presumably) even more powerful wizards. Who was Vecna? I had no idea (knowing almost nothing about Greyhawk at the time) but I thought it was awesome that there was a lich so terrible that even his severed body parts were that most elite of magic items, artifacts. Even if I never had players meet any of these people or even discover their spells and/or valuable body parts, just the fact that they existed gave the game a certain richness and mystery.

For another example, take Magic: the Gathering. For those who don't know, the premise of the game is (or used to be) that each player is some kind of plane-hopping wizard, collecting spells and allies on his journeys. Occasionally these planeswalkers encounter each other and engage in duels, with the winner claiming a bit of the loser's power.

The cards were loaded with flavor text: references to old battles or dead artificers, quotes from warriors and wizards and other folk (and sometimes the same person would get multiple quotes, making them appear to be some kind of historian or expert). The dragon wasn't just a dragon, it wasn't a big red dragon, it was a Shivan Dragon. What does that even mean? Are there other kinds of dragons, and if so, what are they called? Who named them all? I don't know. Some cards were characters that obviously had some kind of relationship to other characters; some were members of tribes or armies. But the game never had an explicit setting (that is, there may have been books or spinoff games that tried to establish one, but the card game itself didn't). There was never any kind of map, or a guide to the different planes that wizards might travel to, or a cohesive history, or anything that you would expect in a fleshed-out RPG setting. All you had was the implication of a setting, but that was wonderfully evocative, and I think it was part of the game's appeal.

To be honest, I haven't read the DF books (and yet I'm posting in this thread, go figure.. well, I am familiar with the genre, at least). I don't know whether they have anything like this in them. If not, perhaps they ought to.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Xplo

To be honest, I haven't read the DF books (and yet I'm posting in this thread, go figure

If people didn't talk about subjects they had sketchy knowledge of, we wouldn't have an internet.

Originally Posted by Xplo

I don't know whether they have anything like this in them.

Not really. There are vague descriptions of some kinds of places, organizations, and other things the game world might have (Elder Things come from some sort of bad "beyond" place; ninja belong to clans), but it never touches on specific names (Elder Things have an interstellar empire governed from an ice planet named Zorg; ninja belong to the Maki, Nigiri, Oshi, and Chirashi clans).

And I'm happy to see it stay that way, at least in the "core" DF books. Adventures, locations, and other books whose job it is to get specific can and should do so, but that sort of thing should always be optional and completely segregated from rules options available to players and GMs.

[CousinX]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

And I'm happy to see it stay that way, at least in the "core" DF books. Adventures, locations, and other books whose job it is to get specific can and should do so, but that sort of thing should always be optional and completely segregated from rules options available to players and GMs.

Totally. I throw in my lot with those who think that one or more optional DF campaign-framework books might be cool, with the basics of a setting, special character creation rules (languages and skill specialties available to PCs, deviations from default DF rules or templates, etc), sample villains and monsters, and possibly a short introductory adventure. Popular settings could be supported by additional titles, expanding and detailing certain features, setting-specific adventures (with notes on adapting them to other settings, of course), etc.

Also, individual titles in the Encounters, Foes, Locations, Supporting Cast, and other e23 lines, which could be dropped into any DF setting. Something like "DF Locations: The Town of Generica," "DF Foes: Vampire Coven," "DF Encounters: Ghoulish Graveyard Ambush," "DF Locations: Haunted Castle on the Moors," and "DF Supporting Cast: Knights of the Golden Chalice" could form the backbone of an entire adventure or short campaign.

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

If people didn't talk about subjects they had sketchy knowledge of, we wouldn't have an internet.

Yeah, as long as I have access to Google and Wiki, I can become convinced that I'm an expert on anything, in minutes.

[nondescript handle]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

[...] And I'm happy to see it stay that way, at least in the "core" DF books. Adventures, locations, and other books whose job it is to get specific can and should do so, but that sort of thing should always be optional and completely segregated from rules options available to players and GMs.

That is quite reasonable, but I personally would prefer if the setting elements in these books would at least represent at one contradiction-free and interconnected "implied setting." I.e. if the Elder Things in "Mirror of the Fire Demon" hail from the ice planet Zorg, they're also from Zorg in the hypothetical location book "Tentacled Fortress of the Elder Things."

A lot of the old school settings started that way too, but needed annoying ret-conning because nobody thought about that in the beginning.