"High Concept", a term that arose to describe movie ideas, means that it has a simple idea that can be communicated in a sentence. Snakes on a plane. Hobo with a shotgun. Vampires vs werewolves. Killing things and taking their stuff.

A similar idea is that you need a grabby elevator pitch for your campaign - and the examples from somewhere like TBP are generally tedious pulp mashups: "apes fighting Nazis in zeppelins", "post apoc that is like the old west with giant lizards instead of horses" or whatever.

Now I'm not saying that high concept games or campaigns NECESSARILY suck. But they often do, because the imagination of players and GM can flag when all they have to go on are simple ideas, rather than feeling free to explore whatever is bubbling around in their subconscious. I've seen this happen very literally, like not wanting to do a certain type of subplot because it supposedly doesn't fit the genre of the campaign. But really, who cares if we play a comedy/farce for one night in the midst of our grimdark campaign? It's a game. Be inconsistent, discursive, and fuck shit up.

My favourite games, settings and campaigns are not high concept. Their magic arises from the agglomeration of details, influences, and the input of the players expressing their own ideas. They are sometimes incoherent or have odd juxtapositions of tone. But they are rich and organic. If they could be boiled down to a sentence, it would not communicate what makes it special. The devil and the magic is in the details, not the bird's eye view.

Quote from: Killfuck Soulshitter;589162My favourite games, settings and campaigns are not high concept. Their magic arises from the agglomeration of details, influences, and the input of the players expressing their own ideas. They are sometimes incoherent or have odd juxtapositions of tone. But they are rich and organic. If they could be boiled down to a sentence, it would not communicate what makes it special. The devil and the magic is in the details, not the bird's eye view.

Just to say I could not agree with you more.

-clash

They sound fun, like a skit. But like an SNL skit, in practice they have a very short shelf life. Gotta remember: short and sweet, short and sweet.

Yeah, a "high concept" is like a zinger or a one-liner. I think there is value in being able to formulate a core concept in a sentence or two (to resume your setting to a core idea or set of ideas people can grasp quickly when introduced to it and branch out in actual practice from there), but that shouldn't be taken for the be-all, end-all of setting design (an example of that would be Ravenloft, where you have a core idea of Gothic Realms of Terror taken away from the Prime Material Planes to be brought together in a demi-plane floating in the Ether, but there's a lot more to the particulars once you get into it). If the whole actual play experience is entirely contained by a zinger, then something went wrong when coming up with the setting, or it's just a fakey setting for the Lulz.

Quote from: Benoist;589223Yeah, a "high concept" is like a zinger or a one-liner. I think there is value in being able to formulate a core concept in a sentence or two (to resume your setting to a core idea or set of ideas people can grasp quickly when introduced to it and branch out in actual practice from there), but that shouldn't be taken for the be-all, end-all of setting design (an example of that would be Ravenloft, where you have a core idea of Gothic Realms of Terror taken away from the Prime Material Planes to be brought together in a demi-plane floating in the Ether, but there's a lot more to the particulars once you get into it). If the whole actual play experience is entirely contained by a zinger, then something went wrong when coming up with the setting, or it's just a fakey setting for the Lulz.

Ad great agreement was had by everyone.

Agreed that high concept all by itself does not a setting make, except maybe for one-shot games or mini-campaigns.

Still, if you can formulate a high concept (e.g. "Victorian zombie apocalypse" or "Nazis unleash the Ragnarok on Earth") and follow its consequent impact on the setting to logical conclusions, you can build in a consistent and compelling setting (e.g. Unhallowed Metropolis, Day After Ragnarok).

Well, lessee, here're the two 'elevator pitches' I use for my FB campaign.

"Swashbuckling adventures in the age of The Three Musketeers and Captain Alatriste" - tagline on my campaign wiki.

"France. 1625. Swashbucklers. Go!" - my pitch.

Not really seeing the suck there, to be honest.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;589249Well, lessee, here're the two 'elevator pitches' I use for my FB campaign.

"Swashbuckling adventures in the age of The Three Musketeers and Captain Alatriste" - tagline on my campaign wiki.

"France. 1625. Swashbucklers. Go!" - my pitch.

Not really seeing the suck there, to be honest.

Agreeing here with Black Vulmea, but then I also think some of you might be interchangeably mixing together single concept with able to be conceptualized in 25 words or less. Something can be conceptualized simply and still "explode" with unlimited ways to play (like Benoist's example of Ravenloft).

Quote from: Black Vulmea;589249Well, lessee, here're the two 'elevator pitches' I use for my FB campaign.

"Swashbuckling adventures in the age of The Three Musketeers and Captain Alatriste" - tagline on my campaign wiki.

"France. 1625. Swashbucklers. Go!" - my pitch.

Not really seeing the suck there, to be honest.

I agree, but your examples aren't really analogous to the OP's. "Swashbuckling adventures" describes a genre, with its own character archetypes, plot devices, et cetera. The genre has enough of these things, a big enough toolbox as it were, to create a satisfyingly complex game.
"Hobo with a Shotgun" or "Apes v. Nazis" aren't genres, they're conceits. On their own, they don't bring enough to the table, nor should they be expected to.

Yeah, those are more genre as it brings more to the table and is flexible. If it was "Swashbuckling wuxia in technicolor, now with skirts!" then... well first it'd be the latest Three Musketeers movie, and then it'd probably have a short shelf life. I'll say, Black Vulmea, that your pitches are already cool and broad enough to not need catchy zingers, like mash-ups, for people to "get it."

Black Vulmea's examples as written show he knows how to pluck out the bits of his game that are a quick sell anyone can get in an instant. He has an intrinsic understanding of what it is about his game that is 'high concept'.

The OP is, I think, making a very valid point that flinging a few striking phrases together might look like a high concept but actually the statement is all there is. It isn't selling anything of substance, it's just a statement. 'Nazi Dinosaurs from Space' is a concept summed up in three words, but is just an inane mash-up of words and non-ideas. If it is high concept, it's also just shit.

High Concept is only a useful notion if you have an idea or concept with real depth and value that can also be summed up in a few words. both those things together are a class act.

I find it difficult to give a High Concept gloss to my own (published) setting, and one of the reasons is that there are many things it can be because it is full of variety and it has depth, even if I say so myself. If I gave it a high concept gloss, it would seriously limit what it is - so I would only do so to 'sell' a specific aspect of it.

I think a lot of the high concept stuff that gets thrown around on internet forums isn't really intended to be played.  Apes fighting Nazi's on a Zeppelin isn't a genuine idea for a campaign, it's just there to provoke the "squee" reaction.

Quote from: Killfuck Soulshitter;589162My favourite games, settings and campaigns are not high concept. Their magic arises from the agglomeration of details, influences, and the input of the players expressing their own ideas. They are sometimes incoherent or have odd juxtapositions of tone. But they are rich and organic. If they could be boiled down to a sentence, it would not communicate what makes it special. The devil and the magic is in the details, not the bird's eye view.

My games are high concept before they start, and are no longer high concept afterwards. First session: "Dungeon crawl." Later session: "So we were attacking the soup kitchen when..."

Because I like when things start simply, I don't mind a "high concept" setting.

I think you have to differentiate between a "high concept" that leaves you thinking all kinds of thoughts about how it would play out (ie. "Dark Fantasy version of the War of the Roses"), and one that has nothing to play out, that is just exactly what it is (ie. "snakes on a plane"; there are snakes, on a plane).

These are two very different things. The latter is often a mashup, as the OP said, and where the whole excitement of it is based on the idea that two things which don't usually go together are now together, and that's it. There's no room to grow, no blanks to fill in; the whole point of the entire thing is given up in the title itself. And that's what sucks.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;589532I think you have to differentiate between a "high concept" that leaves you thinking all kinds of thoughts about how it would play out (ie. "Dark Fantasy version of the War of the Roses"), and one that has nothing to play out, that is just exactly what it is (ie. "snakes on a plane"; there are snakes, on a plane).

These are two very different things. The latter is often a mashup, as the OP said, and where the whole excitement of it is based on the idea that two things which don't usually go together are now together, and that's it. There's no room to grow, no blanks to fill in; the whole point of the entire thing is given up in the title itself. And that's what sucks.

RPGPundit

Granted it isn't Rutger Hauer's best by any stretch, but Hobo with a Shotgun has far more going on than just the mismatch.  It has a whole post-apocalyptic society that, in a roleplaying sense, should be about as interesting as any other post-apocalyptic campaign.