GMs -- Don't we all want to roll our own?

[balzacq]

This comes from a thread in the GURPS forum, about the supposed lack of fantasy settings for GURPS:

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

I think the complaint is that there's no fantasy setting except Yrth, and if you don't like Yrth then you must write or adapt your own.

See, I still just don't get this sentiment. To me, it sounds like saying "I'm creative enough to make up characters, dialog, situations, and trivial world details, but I must slavishly follow someone else's creative vision when it comes to the big picture."

In the last 30 years that I've been gaming, I've come up with (conservatively) ten different non-Earth campaign universes (fantasy and space), most of which I created in the first ten years (jr. high through college). Only a couple of the worlds never got used. I've taken over a couple of friends' campaigns, but even then I altered them to fit my taste. If I'd continued gaming at the same pace, I'm sure I'd have created ten or more additional settings.

I've never found a published campaign that I liked enough to run more than an occasional adventure in*. Greyhawk is too wedded to the idiocies of AD&D. The very map for the Forgotten Realms annoys me. Hârn is too low-magic even for me. Yrth is another case of bad geography. Shadowrun's future history is completely implausible on so many levels. Middle Earth is bogged down by everyone's preconceived notions. Etc.

A setting has to be mine for it to fully hang together for me. Every aspect and decision needs to fulfill my tastes and creative vision for it to be satisfying. And even if it's not fully rounded out for the game's scale, at least I know where the loose ends are.

Yes, to "write or adapt [my] own" is an effort, but it's the fun kind of effort that doesn't feel like "work". And the process of world creation is a ticket to learning -- I can't tell you how many topics I've studied because I wanted to make my world better**. A lot of the impetus to get my B.A. in History I can attribute to wanting to make my fantasy worlds more believable (but then I'm the guy who thought the appendices were the best part of Lord of the Rings). I guess I hold to the auteur theory of GMing.

Is it really the case that most GMs prefer not to create their own settings? Are most GMs merely consumers of world product who then "resell" to their players?






* with the exception of Traveller's 3d Imperium, which I used before it accumulated so much canon as to be completely self-contradictory.

** Just off the top of my head: history (military & otherwise), geology, geomorphology, demography, physics, map projections, political science, economics, ship building. There are lots more.

[moldymaltquaffer]

Is it really the case that most GMs prefer not to create their own settings? Are most GMs merely consumers of world product who then "resell" to their players?

Not in my experiance. <shrug> Pre-made worlds great when you're starting out, but if we didn't think we could do better, we probably wouldn't be making our own cooperative stories to begin with.

[Cyratos]

Well, if you ask me, I myself created 3 completely imaginary worlds on my own. Those were Artellon (high fantasy setting, unique races etc), Farkhendall (steam punk world) and the newest, Septanta (dark/high fantasy, completely new planet system, astronomy etc).

I tend to create the worlds a lot. It took me about 3 months to create Farkhendall, and I still do possess all the fact sheets, bestiaries, maps, gadget sheets etc...

I kinda enjoy it. Sure, it saves you a lot of time if you copy the already made setting and, as you say, modify it so it suits you, but... I dunno, I always kinda prefered the first option. The create a little, cute, yet mysterious and dangerous world on my own.

I must only admit that, while creating Artellon, I did read 3e GURPS: fantasy a lot, just to make sure I got everything covered. But with Farkhendall and Septanta, it was just me, pencil, notebook and random books that helped me in geography, history etc...

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by balzacq

Is it really the case that most GMs prefer not to create their own settings? Are most GMs merely consumers of world product who then "resell" to their players?

Rhetorical Q: If you could write your own Sci Fi or Fantasy fiction, would you do most of it in your own setting(s), or would you write fan fiction that tried to act as mortar between the bricks of someone elses milieau?


Barring one exception, I have developed all of my own settings. I just find it easy to work with an uncluttered canvas.

[balzacq]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Rhetorical Q: If you could write your own Sci Fi or Fantasy fiction, would you do most of it in your own setting(s), or would you write fan fiction that tried to act as mortar between the bricks of someone elses milieau?

Obviously, I would choose the first.

But in thread after thread on these forums, I hear over and over GURPS has no ready-made worlds I'd buy GURPS if there was a supported setting Making my own world is too much work blah blah blah waaahmbulance. WTF?

I mean, obviously people bought Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms in droves (and then shelled out major bucks for all that hack fiction set therein). Is this a symptom of GMs just wanting to be super-players instead of world creators? And what proportion of GMs does that cover?

[Galifestus]

On the one hand, sure, of course we want to make our own universes. On the other hand, is there time to do it among all the other commitments. A well made setting to buy is a lot less work, often, than the home made one, though I can hardly say that about my fantasy setting. All I do know is that I have time to work on very little (unless like today my load isn't ready till tomorow) so a made setting is a very handy thing.

If I put mind to it, I'm sure I could put together something grand, but at the end of a twelve hour work day? Not so much brain left over to untie my shoes.

I must admit, however, that early on I was very much in the rut of orthodoxy. Every game had to be played as it was intended by the author, and so forth. I read the AD&D DMG when I was 12 or 13 and thought it was difinitive and the highest authority. Other than related products, I didn't play anything other than TSR products till I was 16, and by then I was pretty set in my little ways. I was happily shaken out of my rut do some degree at that age and have been broader in horizon since.

Even so, only recently has it occured to me that I, even I, could probably put together a setting that folks might enjoy enough to drop a few cents on a PDF for. Having had that shocking notion, I have yet to actually begin work, but the possibility is nice.

[capnq]

Originally Posted by balzacq

This comes from a thread in the GURPS forum, about the supposed lack of fantasy settings for GURPS:
See, I still just don't get this sentiment. To me, it sounds like saying "I'm creative enough to make up characters, dialog, situations, and trivial world details, but I must slavishly follow someone else's creative vision when it comes to the big picture."

[...]

Yes, to "write or adapt [my] own" is an effort, but it's the fun kind of effort that doesn't feel like "work".

[...]

Is it really the case that most GMs prefer not to create their own settings? Are most GMs merely consumers of world product who then "resell" to their players?

You're not considering one element of the equation: available time. Some GMs would love to create their own worlds, but would have to give up actually playing the game to squeeze it into their schedules.

I have very little face-to-face contact with my friends, mainly because they are too busy with their careers, spouses, and families.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by balzacq

Is this a symptom of GMs just wanting to be super-players instead of world creators?

Some of them. Others are painfully aware of their own strengths and weakness as a GM and are willing to pay for someone else to come up with things where they're weak (frex, grand overarching themes into which they can fit individual scenes, hordes of fully-statted NPCs, names that don't sound utterly silly, pretty maps, etc.), and some are just busy adults who, with full-time jobs and families and other competing hobbies, don't have the time and energy for prep they once did. None of these describe my own situation (though that last one comes close), but I am nevertheless sympathetic to those who have needs which do not resemble my own.

[balzacq]

Originally Posted by capnq

You're not considering one element of the equation: available time. Some GMs would love to create their own worlds, but would have to give up actually playing the game to squeeze it into their schedules.

Hm. Perhaps that's because at this point for me, "world creation" is something that's mostly going on continuously in the back of my head*. What I guess most would consider world creation -- making maps, detailing nations, etc. -- either gets done bit by bit during downtimes or takes the form of improvised elaborated versions of cocktail-napkin notes (presently kept in a wiki on my webhost), so it's not very time-consuming. Actual game prep is usually an hour or two at most of making notes for the upcoming session, done the afternoon or night before the game.


* Recent example: the History Channel show "How the Earth Was Made" had a bit on the geology of the Matterhorn. In a capsule description of the capital city of the planet Mackay in my space game, I noted there was a horn-like peak at the head of the valley which is considered semi-sacred. The show got me to thinking about what could have formed it, which got me thinking about the general geology of Mackay, and so on and so forth.

[Parody]

Originally Posted by capnq

You're not considering one element of the equation: available time. Some GMs would love to create their own worlds, but would have to give up actually playing the game to squeeze it into their schedules.

Definitely. Back in the day I made up worlds for campaigns in my much more ample spare time. In recent years I wouldn't have GMed or even played anything without prefab settings and/or adventures. Time is a huge factor.

Also, I don't think I was ever into it as much as the OP seems to be. :)