Cool Backstory Syndrome

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Brett

The whole setting is what it is because of the way it got to be, and it would be much harder to describe it the other way around.

I don't think that's a necessary position. Consider running a campaign set in the United States, now. You could run it without writing 50K words on American history. In fact, most Americans don't know a lot of their own history. Certainly they don't look at current institutions and think, "This dates to year X when historic event A happened." Current institutions are just the way things are. They may know a few spectacular "things used to be different" data like slavery or the Old West; but those are stage sets for historical dramas that don't relate to the present.

Have you ever seen the Web sites that list "what has always been true" for 18-year-olds now entering college? Things like the South always having been Republican, or people always having carried cell phones, or rap always have been a major strand of popular music? You could do a page or two like that for your setting. Imagine a campaign set in 2050 where same-sex couples have always been able to marry, or the Yukon has always had a thriving agricultural sector.

And if people want to know or debate the historical origins, the answer is, "Does your character have History skill? Okay, your default is IQ-6. Do you make the roll?" or maybe "Why is your character curious about that?" It isn't as if, when you or I got onto an elevator, we say, "You know, this technology was invented by Elisha Otis" [or "Archimedes"]. Many people would be more like the Heinlein character who, confronted with an early spacecraft named the Kilroy Was Here, explained that Kilroy was an admiral in the Second Global War. . . .

Bill Stoddard