"No invented setting is as interesting as the real world." Agree?

Yes. But I don't want a setting as interesting as the real world, we'll get caught up in all sorts of trivial details. It's the difference between a movie and a documentary. They're both good things, but they're different things.

I shall defer to JRR Tolkein on this topic (from in his Epic Rap Battle against George RR Martin).

We all know the world is full of chance and anarchy
so yes it's true to life for characters to die randomly
but new's flash, the genre's called fantasy
it's meant to be unrealistic, you myopic manatee!

Quote from: Spinachcat;904522so yes it's true to life for characters to die randomly

GoT is basically the War of the Roses with the serial numbers filed off.  And there's the rub: the War of the Roses is the same way.  If you read up on the history of it, there's tons of people who look like they're about to become the breakaway protagonist and then BAM murdered, poisoned or just dead of syphilis. You lose track of them all after a while.

The problem with the real world is I can't just make shit up and then make up more shit to cover up any inconsistencies and contradictions. That can cause problems at times like when I wrote up a dungeon located in the catacombs of Venice. *doh*

But still better the real world than serial numbers filed off knock-offs of the real world, those tend to be so bland with all of the interesting bits of history sanded down.

Quote from: Daztur;904557The problem with the real world is I can't just make shit up and then make up more shit to cover up any inconsistencies and contradictions. That can cause problems at times like when I wrote up a dungeon located in the catacombs of Venice. *doh*

What, the catacombs aren't kept dry by an ancient, complex system of pressurized aqueducts, prone to failure and flooding at critical moments such as the climactic fight with the villain?

Come on, man, you're not even trying.

Quote from: daniel_ream;904567What, the catacombs aren't kept dry by an ancient, complex system of pressurized aqueducts, prone to failure and flooding at critical moments such as the climactic fight with the villain?

Come on, man, you're not even trying.

Certainly. Just easier to do stuff like that if it's my world.

Setting isn't ever interesting by itself.  It's what you do with it that matters.  There's a thousand 'fantasy setting' games that are generic, and probably a good chunk of 'real world setting' that are just as bad.

His statement sounds like he's relying on references to reality to carry a game.  If Kragar the Liberator was made interesting, it'd be just as good.

But maybe I'm one of those guys that wants to just part from reality more often.

It is certainly a valid point. I voted No because the best RPG fantasy settings transport you (imaginatively). Designing a different world from separate principles can be really engaging. For me, the stand out original RPG settings are Glorantha -  a world made of myth, Earthdawn, a world of post apocalyptic heroic horror and Trollworld, where monsters are people too.

These have some of the fantasy staples (elves, dwarves), but are different enough from the standard Tolkien assumptions (and our world) to require creation from a new cloth.

That is not to say that Earth derived settings cannot be great. My personal preference is for the 'dark conspiracy' type genre for Earth set adventures, so Call of Cthulhu, Dark Conspiracy, World of Darkness and so on. Limitations can breed creativity, but being off the wall can also be very exciting.

I voted no, because I ran across the sentiment in Ars Magica back in the mid 90's. I ran several games set in the real world, and found that my players had more trouble figuring out where things were, how actual medieval culture worked, and how to act and what to expect. But when I pulled out an undefined fantasy setting, they could jump in feet first. Keeping in mind this was a diverse group, with ages ranging from late teens to early 50s. The real world comes with a lot of weight, detail and disappointments. This is why most fantasy settings mix elements of the real (animals we know, trees, European feudalism, armour and swords, etc.) with the fantastic. But outside of the "fantasy" genre, and as one comes closer to the modern day, the fantasy can take backseat to the real world because the players have more familiarity with yesteryear. Setting games in the 1920s isn't as hard because we have tons of cultural knowledge about life in the `20s (even if much of that knowledge is not accurate). The same goes for westerns, thanks to Hollywood cinema.

Quote from: Bren;904359Tekumel has humans, while Star Wars (a well known campaign setting) doesn't have earth animals.

Sure it does. Rats, king snakes, boa constrictors and monitor lizards are shown on screen, while dogs, ducks and falcons are mentioned.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;904521"No invented setting is as interesting as the real world." Agree?

Yes. But I don't want a setting as interesting as the real world, we'll get caught up in all sorts of trivial details. It's the difference between a movie and a documentary. They're both good things, but they're different things.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;904202Mildly disagree. Real world stuff is more important, since it really happened. But I find fictional settings far more entertaining and engaging, because I'm not tied down to real world details.

And I'm not a fan of wargaming or RPing in historical settings. The more a setting is historical, the less interested I am. I'm not quite sure, but I suspect part of it is that it's making light of real world events. I've never been able to explain my reaction in a definite way though. It's more a feeling than an intellectual argument.

So playing in Vietnam as a soldier is high on my "No thanks" list, playing in the Vietnam with zombies and robots is a bit better, and playing in the Vietnam analogy in space is even better.

BTW

I'm not sure if I'm picking on a bad example, but that shit is just dumb. I'd laugh at the GM and go play a video game instead.

George Lucas made a similar point. Creating your own setting, your own characters and your own story allows the storyteller to avoid getting into tedious arguments about real life people, places and things.

QuoteIn addition to the experimental films that you say you want to make now, you've expressed an interest in making historical films.

 Yes, but I don't want to get into situations where people say, "That's not historically correct." History is fiction, but people seem to think otherwise. The thing I like about fantasy and science fiction is that you can take issues, pull them out of their cultural straitjackets, and talk about them without bringing in folk artifacts that make people get closed minded.

Give me an example of what you mean by a folk artifact.

Fahrenheit 9/11. People went nuts. The folk aspects of that film were George Bush or Iraq or 9/11 or — intense emotional issues that made people put up their blinders and say, "I have an opinion about this, and I'm not going to accept anything else." If you could look at these issues more open-mindedly — at what's going on with the human mind behind all this, on all sides — you could have a more interesting conversation, without people screaming, plugging their ears, and walking out of the room like kids do.

And you do that by — By making the film "about" something other than what it's really about.

Which is what mythology is, and what storytelling has always been about. Art is about communicating with people emotionally without the intellectual artifacts of the current situation, and dealing with very emotional issues.

Life and death.

Life and death, or "I really want to kill my father and have sex with my mother." It's hard to talk about that kind of thing in a family situation without somebody getting upset. But in art, you can deal with those issues. You begin to realize that other people have had the same experience or go down those same paths deep in their minds. Most stories are really told for adolescents, which is why Star Wars was aimed at adolescents. Societies have a whole series of stories to bring adolescents into adulthood by saying, "Don't worry, everybody thinks that way. You're just part of the community. We don't quite talk about it, but if you act on some of your notions, here's what will happen: Zeus will reach down and smash you flat like a bug or the entire Greek army will come and crush your city and burn everybody inside of it, including your heroes." These lessons are continually handed down from generation to generation. I love history, so I create an environment — in the past, present, or future — that allows me to tell the story, but in a way that's not incendiary.

Quote from: daniel_ream;904553GoT is basically the War of the Roses with the serial numbers filed off.  And there's the rub: the War of the Roses is the same way.  If you read up on the history of it, there's tons of people who look like they're about to become the breakaway protagonist and then BAM murdered, poisoned or just dead of syphilis. You lose track of them all after a while.

It doesn't help that everyone is named Edward, Henry, Richard, Anne or Elizabeth.

Quote from: Elfdart;906730Sure it does. Rats, king snakes, boa constrictors and monitor lizards are shown on screen, while dogs, ducks and falcons are mentioned.

:confused:







George Lucas made a similar point. Creating your own setting, your own characters and your own story allows the storyteller to avoid getting into tedious arguments about real life people, places and things.[/QUOTE]

As a start, most definitely, just from sheer level of detail.

From there, you get into preconceptions and alt history debates that can all but drown out the campaign outright.

In the abstract he is right, by sheer volume and unexpected results. As a playable start it's great. After that... :confused: buyer beware. Know thine audience.

Quote from: Haffrung;904484If you look at popular movies, books, TV shows, and games, I don't know how anyone can honestly say that we live in a society where the real world is regarded as more interesting than fantasy worlds. Does anyone really think a movie studio today would pony up $200 million to produce a film about Cortez conquest of Mexico - surely one of the most spectacular and dramatic events in history? When they could instead put that money towards another Star Wars sequel, a new Marvel franchise (Doctor Strange!), or a remake of the Princess Bride?

You're going to have to amend that to Hollywood movie studios. I've already seen movies (and some even soap operas!) about the Conquest of the Aztecs and the Conquest of the Incas on Spanish language TV. Given how India, Korea, Japan, China, Vietnam, and Latin America already use their film studios, I'm just going to have to disagree with you and defer to the reality.

(Unless you're niggling on the very specific dollar amount there in an attempt to ignore scale of market magnitude, insisting everyone be on Hollywood scale standards. And then I'd be disappointed in your poorly defined argumentation.)

Bren, watch the cave scene in TESB and observe the snakes and lizards inside. They are earth creatures.