Cool Backstory Syndrome

[MKMcArtor]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

Hum. That's what we did for GT:Sword Worlds. On the principle of beginning with the beginning, we put the history chapter first and ended with the adventures. I haven't heard of any complaints on that score from anyone who has read it.

I am absolutely willing to admit that the no-history-early concept is a personal pet peeve that most people don't share or even think about.

And note that I never once said that history shouldn't be included in a setting or that it isn't important. History is absolutely important for those who want to understand the current world around them. I was a history major in college, for example, and I enjoy reading Wikipedia about the origins of various institutions in the real world, but none of that knowledge helps me in my day-to-day life at all. Now, a professional historian obviously needs to know that sort of thing and it does affect his daily life, but there aren't very many professional historians in the world. For most people, it doesn't matter how such-a-such institution was formed, only that it does exist today in this way.

Originally Posted by Brett

My usual fantasy setting doesn't have a history at all. But my SF setting is history first, and I can't think of another way to do it other than technology first. There's no way I could put the history after describing the colonies and the Empire because they hardly make sense without their history.

Bill already discusses a way to do this and says it better than I could, so I won't belabor my point here. :)

And please note that I don't claim that my way is the right way to present information. There is no "right" way, there are only different ways. It's not something that people always think about, so even if you don't change the way you're doing things (and you shouldn't change just because of my opinion!) you are now at least aware that other ways of presenting information exist. :)

Originally Posted by whswhs

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. . . .

Yeah, this is largely my point (well, everything you said in that post, which I didn't want to use up screen space to quote all of): if your characters don't need the information to operate within the society in which they live, the information doesn't need to be in a prominent place.

Originally Posted by Brett

Perhaps it is better done with a quarter-page each on Fifty Famous Colonies than with 12–13 pages of history. I'll have to think about it.

If you're writing for others, it is always best to break up information into bite-sized chunks when you can. Certainly, the GURPS community here on the forums seems to have a higher-than-average attention span, but if you want to appeal to as many people as possible (and if you want to sell something, you do) you should make it as easy to read (and as easy to look up later) as possible.

Originally Posted by whswhs

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.

Yup. All the how-it-came-to-be probably needs to be in the book, but I (obviously) feel it should come after the here-it-is-today.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Or one book if that's publishing reality, but divided into sections so that you can keep the spoiler stuff out of the players' section.

But that's not ideal. That's as close as we can get today with the reality of the dying TRPG industry. The ideal is two books. The present-day best-case-scenario is to divide one book into a player section and a GM section. But note that most players will read the GM section anyway, because humans are curious creatures. ;)

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Also, the players need flavor as well as the GM, not just crunch.

I didn't say they didn't. I said they don't need as much. A player doesn't need a 10-page chapter on the setting's history, but the GM probably does. If a player needs to read the history section because his character is a historian, it's not hard for the GM to hand him the GM book and let him read just that chapter. Ostensibly, in that situation the history chapter would be written in such a way as to not include spoilers.