Cool Backstory Syndrome

[darksaba]

Originally Posted by Langy

Seems to work just fine for Transhuman Space. Then again, it's probably a lot easier to describe 'what happened to the world' about a future-history scenario than 'what the world is', and it's probably a lot more useful. It also doesn't suffer much from 'Cool Backstory Syndrome', at least in my opinion.

But the transhuman space back story doesn't suffer from Cool Backstory Syndrome(i) because there's not much actual story. There's a list of dates and events but considering it covers 100 years of history its pretty sparse. Its also pretty vague (IMHO). Because there's little detail its easy to fill in the stuff that fits arround it and bend the setting to your will.

On the otherhand THS does suffer a bit from Cool Backstory Syndrome(ii). It can require a lot of reading to get a player up to speed.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by darksaba

Now I much prefere details to be left vague. I think it makes things flow better, details are corners, stories often get snagged on them.

That is utterly the opposite of my experience. I find that minute particulars inspire me to think of clever story elements that I would never had thought of had things been left vague.

Bill Stoddard

[darksaba]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That is utterly the opposite of my experience. I find that minute particulars inspire me to think of clever story elements that I would never had thought of had things been left vague.

Bill Stoddard

Hmmm... Intresting, I'll try your way sometime. But mostly I think its a case of different ships different captains. But I suppose that building big events from little deatails could be as fun as cutting big events down into their component bits.

[panton41]

I will admit, I so rarely get a game going that half the fun of RPGs for me is this back story and setting material. To me RPGs are like a weird mix of fiction and non-fiction and just make an enjoyable read. There are some games that are unplayable for any number of reasons (bad rules, setting hard to get into, etc.) but they're fun to read about.

Honestly, it's about the only thing that would make me buy a Rifts book, those things have amazing world building, just don't trip over the Munchkins running around. The others like that are Kult (too dark, it's like if Friedrich Nietzsche had taken the brown acid then sat through a fire and brimstone sermon), Deleria (wonderful poetically written color text, too bad the rules were equally poetically written) and Underground (bizarre setting, worst rules ever and was like a steroid-pumped muscle man's masturbatory fantasy.)

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by darksaba

All that extra detail is just wasted.

Does anyone ever find this stuff usefull in their games?

Sometimes. As GM I need to understand what is fundamentally going on in the setting so that I can extrapolate and interpolate details. I need to understand the spine of the setting or scenario. And sometimes a backstory is the most efficient way to convey it.

Oh and theres is a second type of Cool Backstory Syndrome (CBS[ii]). The one that is know to the players but requires them to read an entire telephone book of information to be able to understand what their charcaters should be doing.

Yeah. As a setting designer you can be in a bit of a trap. Your players, playtesters, and reviewers ask questions, argue with the answers, and tell you that the rebuttals to their arguments ought to have been in the original setting material. For example, action in my interstellar SF setting mostly takes place between 532 and 606 (but sometimes 630) years after the destruction of Earth in 2385. That is, it is set on other planets in the 30th Century. But I've had one playtester insist to me that the whole setting is completely implausible unless I list at least three terrorist attacks that occurred in the 21st Century and killed at least 10,000 people each. Another has told me that the setting is completely implausible unless I explain how the characteristics of the just-as-fast-as-light drive used in the Age of Emigration 2095–2385 led people to travel to stars up to 150 light-years distant when there was still space to settle on planets orbiting stars only 20 light-years distant. And both of them demand an explanation of what pirates were doing in the Age of Piracy that was so dreadful, and why the governments of the advanced colonies didn't stop it.

I've tried to resist this bloat as much as I can. But I'm still left with a history 11 thousand words long though I would much prefer something much shorter, perhaps just a timeline.

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by MKMcArtor

If a published campaign setting places its history chapter in the first half of the book I put it down and don't look at it again.

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.


Hans

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by Brett

For example, action in my interstellar SF setting mostly takes place between 532 and 606 (but sometimes 630) years after the destruction of Earth in 2385. That is, it is set on other planets in the 30th Century. But I've had one playtester insist to me that the whole setting is completely implausible unless I list at least three terrorist attacks that occurred in the 21st Century and killed at least 10,000 people each. Another has told me that the setting is completely implausible unless I explain how the characteristics of the just-as-fast-as-light drive used in the Age of Emigration 2095–2385 led people to travel to stars up to 150 light-years distant when there was still space to settle on planets orbiting stars only 20 light-years distant. And both of them demand an explanation of what pirates were doing in the Age of Piracy that was so dreadful, and why the governments of the advanced colonies didn't stop it.

What I try to do is write one-page fact sheets where the information is boiled down to about 700 words. I then write more detailed fact sheets of the interesting bits. Of course, my time being a limited resource, I sometimes have to tell the player that the big overview is all he gets.


Hans

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by MKMcArtor

If a published campaign setting places its history chapter in the first half of the book I put it down and don't look at it again.*

Ow!

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. Colonies are what they are and where they are because of the history of emigration. The Empire is what it is because of the destruction of Earth, the destruction of Mayflower, the destruction of New Aachen, and the Formation Wars. 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 guess that's one sale I'm not making.

[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

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I don't think that's a necessary position.

Maybe not. I'm going to have to think about describing FLAT BLACK in terms that the core planets just are populous, advanced, and more-or-less cosmopolitan, and the colonies in the Sectors just are sparse, underdeveloped, and weird; that the Empire just is a bunch of creepy fanatics with the whip hand in space; and so forth. To me it seems simplest to describe how it developed, because then all the consequences make sense, and therefore are easy to remember. But I could easily be wrong.

And if people want to know or debate the historical origins, the answer is, "Does your character have History skill?

Quite, but I was thinking in terms of describing to players (especially other GMs than myself) what the setting is like rather than providing material for characterisation.

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.