Cool Backstory Syndrome

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Brett

To me it seems simplest to describe how it developed, because then all the consequences make sense, and therefore are easy to remember.

That makes sense to you, and a fair amount to me, because we both have analytical minds; we are in the habit of looking for the forces that create the societies we inhabit, and we will ask such questions about fictional societies. Or perhaps I should say that we have didactic minds. Early science fiction was written in that style. But the twentieth century saw the invention of indirect exposition by Rudyard Kipling and its adoption by John Campbell as the obligatory literary style for Astounding Science Fiction; sf readers have become accustomed to reading about a society and picking up the hints as to how it came to be.

Of course, for a game book, didacticism is in order. But what players need to have explained is the visible surface of the society, not the how-it-came-to-be.

Bill Stoddard