thread: 2005-07-05 : Setting and Source Material
On 2005-07-06, Matthijs wrote:
"What is it that we actually need, how much of what, in order to have a playable setting?"If setting is "anything that the characters can have some kind of a relationship with", the minimum of setting we can get away with is the elements the characters actually interact with. They need to be present at the time the characters interact with them. So just-in-time reactive setting design is the least you can get away with, in terms of preparation. I've played impro games like that; however, even PTA, Universalis etc require more pre-game setting design than this.
For some games, the illusion of a coherent, independent setting is important. "Can have some kind of relationship" is the key here; even if the relationship never comes into play, players and GMs want to know that it's there, ready when needed. In my fairy-tale historical Draug campaign, for instance, I have to be able to answer questions on the Napoleonic wars, 18th century farming tools, relationships between nisser and mermaids, etc. Sometimes these elements interact with characters, sometimes not - but they could, potentially, depending on our decisions.
In Draug, I don't want the starting point of the creative process. I don't want a toolkit that helps me make history and mythology for an imaginary country. I want to resurrect a time we could never experience, and give the fairy creatures the life they could never have in the real world. Someone else made that history and those fairy-tales, and I'm passing them on and channeling them, which makes me feel as a part of something greater than myself. In order to do that, I need everything I can possibly find, every little detail about every little thing, because I want to have the whole world inside me when I play.
