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...

[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.

[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?

[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.

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by balzacq

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?

Umm, should we consider pre-gen settings a resource for GMing-with-training-wheels?

On a personal note, we are just about to achieve five GM's out of five players in my gaming group. We ALL consider the solo creative aspect of setting part of the enjoyment. THEN we get to enjoy watching our friends trash it, take it apart, kill the carefully crafted NPC etc.

A metaphor could be buying a chainstore junk food meal, as opposed to cooking for yourself and friends. I'm being judgemental, aren't I...

[Gedrin]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

A metaphor could be buying a chainstore junk food meal, as opposed to cooking for yourself and friends. I'm being judgemental, aren't I...

A better metaphor would be eating out as opposed to cooking for your friends. There's no garauntee of quality either way.


Personally, I prefer home grown, but mostly due to the idea of creative control. I ran Forgotten Realms for a long time, but got really tired of seeing things get world bombed frequently. The only really advantages to running a pre made setting are time and common frame of reference. When you begin to diverge from the published setting you begin ot loose the common frame of reference. That really just leave time as the advantage, but I found that a lot of time is spent on confirming facts or trying to find out if something is defined in the world source.

[balzacq]

Originally Posted by Gedrin

I ran Forgotten Realms for a long time, but got really tired of seeing things get world bombed frequently.

What do you mean by "world bombed"?

Originally Posted by Gedrin

The only really advantages to running a pre made setting are time and common frame of reference. When you begin to diverge from the published setting you begin ot loose the common frame of reference. That really just leave time as the advantage, but I found that a lot of time is spent on confirming facts or trying to find out if something is defined in the world source.

Isn't the common frame of reference a detriment in the long run? Personally, I would absolutely hate having a player say "but wait, in [canon source] it says [fact] -- how can you say [fact-prime]? What are you talking about? This isn't [campaign]!"

That's why I won't run Star Trek, Star Wars, Middle Earth, or the 3d Imperium. A "common frame of reference" means I can't freely make my own creative decisions -- and besides, I'm perfectly capable of building up a common frame of reference in the minds of my players that pertains to my worlds*.


* Example: toward the end of the first League of Tarregon campaign, I had some mountain tribesmen show up outside Startown with a herd of sheep. The players immediately commented that that seemed fishy, because the tribes only drove their sheep down during the rainy season, which it wasn't. (The tribesmen were in fact a war band there to raid the city.) I felt so proud. :)