I love implied settings.  

I like them, because they give you just enough of an idea seed to get the imagination going when it's otherwise blank, but without necessarily being too straightjacketed by overt detail and gazeteer nonsense.

This is D&D's greatest strength, enough predefined concepts to stoke the mind, but it still leaves the implementation up to the imagination of the players.  The original Classic Traveller is much the same way.

I do enjoy generic systems, particularly GURPS 3e, but to make effective use of them you really need to have a specific idea of what you want already in mind, which makes them not so good if you just want to sit down and play a pick up game with some friends.

Games like D&D and CT give me enough of a common basis to start with, while still leaving us all kinds of possible directions to go with it.  Just look at the wide variety of settings published for AD&D in it's hey day.  

And I do think this has a lot to do with their success.  D&D is still the biggest RPG there is, and in it's heyday, CT was right there next to it.  

I don't really see it done very often though.  More often the axis is between the generic and the specific, ignoring what is a rather fertile middle ground to me.

Don't most games that aren't "universal" feature implied settings to some extent?

Quote from: J ArcaneI love implied settings.  

I like them, because they give you just enough of an idea seed to get the imagination going when it's otherwise blank, but without necessarily being too straightjacketed by overt detail and gazeteer nonsense.

This is D&D's greatest strength, enough predefined concepts to stoke the mind, but it still leaves the implementation up to the imagination of the players.  The original Classic Traveller is much the same way.

I do enjoy generic systems, particularly GURPS 3e, but to make effective use of them you really need to have a specific idea of what you want already in mind, which makes them not so good if you just want to sit down and play a pick up game with some friends.

Games like D&D and CT give me enough of a common basis to start with, while still leaving us all kinds of possible directions to go with it.  Just look at the wide variety of settings published for AD&D in it's hey day.  

And I do think this has a lot to do with their success.  D&D is still the biggest RPG there is, and in it's heyday, CT was right there next to it.  

I don't really see it done very often though.  More often the axis is between the generic and the specific, ignoring what is a rather fertile middle ground to me.

I have often said that the setting book for D&D is called "The Monster Manual". I don't even mean that in a definitive way. Because there are almost guaranteed to be bits of possible/potential setting throughout every one of the books, including the ones you don't ever bother buying.

Quote from: Caesar SlaadDon't most games that aren't "universal" feature implied settings to some extent?

I think "extent" is the heart of the matter, if you go too far it's no longer an implied setting (such as you have in CT) but a fully realized setting, such as in Earthdawn or  Marvel Superheroes or Star Trek.
I also prefer implied settings, although, I think it is difficult to pull off well; for instance, I am less than satisfied with the implied setting of HEX.

J Arcane, me too. That's why the prospect of CT Starship Troopers doesn't get me excited.

Quote from: Caesar SlaadDon't most games that aren't "universal" feature implied settings to some extent?

It's a huge issue...

Intuitively, I'd say that sometime in the 90s the order of implication got inverted. I'm just throwing this out.

Genre "emulation" (usually meaning: movie "emulation") = inverse of D&D/CT.

7th Sea: first they ask themselves what swashbuckling looks like in the movies, then they produce rules for PCs doing things in movies-like fashion.

There IS no movie that D&D would be "emulating." Instead there's the D&D movie. Which sucks.

CT is more complicated, needless to say.

But JA's point seems to be: rules that gestate setting, as opposed to: rules that service setting.

Quote from: Abyssal MawI have often said that the setting book for D&D is called "The Monster Manual".

That and the character class section of the player's handbook. Yup.

I used to hate this about D&D, but that's only because I wasn't keen on that particular implied setting. (Look, I'm really swinish about the use of fantasy races.) Or rather, the fact that the "actual" setting in play would implicitly include EVERYTHING from the implied setting.

Now, I agree that this is a huge strength. The trick in terms of actually selling a game would be to state upfront that the game is tied to a specific world, but that the overall structure/history of the world is not and will not ever be presented canonically. E.g., you could have a module on a detailed city or an ancient ruin, but not say exactly where it is in "the world". Everything is allusive, nothing is definitive.

Quote from: Abyssal MawI have often said that the setting book for D&D is called "The Monster Manual".

Almost. To me, AD&D 1st edition is its encounter charts. Those alone tell you more about the adventures you are supposed to run and the worlds you are supposed to make than all the pages wasted on aerial combat and whatnot.

Forward...to Adventure! is pretty strong on the implied setting. It has no "setting" section, but the monsters, magic items, encounter tables, magic system, and races (obviously) all create a strongly implied setting; and the Alignment system definitely creates the implied metaphysics of that setting (Law vs. Chaos in the good old Elric sense, complete with Champions of each alignment gaining power through pacts with a god).

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I'm with Melan.  I get more setting inspiration out of one page of well designed random charts than in any 10 pages of encyclopedic description or game prose.

Melan & Jrients, I agree with that, too.

The treasure tables and artifacts are also very evocative, though in the latter case they tease you with stuff that'll ruin the game at lower levels.

Quote from: Abyssal MawI have often said that the setting book for D&D is called "The Monster Manual".

Too true.  Back in the days when my friends and I were playing 1st edition AD&D, the world was all homebrewed, but vast spaces would be filled by a theme inspired by a particular monster from the Monster Manual (or, on occasion, the Fiend Folio).

!i!

The implied setting of Iron Heroes has been a favourite of mine for a while now. Not so much the Swordlands, but the natural extrapolation of attitudes and beliefs in a world where magic is rare and dangerous, monsters are often hideously Lovecraftian and heroes are supremely powerful individuals capable of epic feats of determination. It's Swords & Sorcery dialed up to 11.

I also love implied settings.

For the reasons J Arcane states, and one more: if you want to make your own, it's very easy to add and subtract. Take the paladins and clerics out of D&D if you want to de-emphasize religion; add lizard men if you want a jungle feel; add gypsies and repo men/skip tracers to the traveller lifepaths if you want a gritty, dark-underbelly-of-space feel, and so on. Add the rat-folk to Burning Wheel if you want to push the world out a little in another direction. And so on.

So what relatively modern games have come out besides D&D - which I used to to use all kinds of charts from different books and magazines to create setting elements on the fly, which I tailored to fit the implied setting in my head - have good implied settings? I have to say that I can't think of many tabletop games, but video games often have great implied settings. I'm thinking Thief, Half Life, Deus Ex, F.E.A.R. Of course, those implied settings work very well because there are multimedia elements that go along with them, helping your mind flesh out the rest.

Quote from: Abyssal MawI have often said that the setting book for D&D is called "The Monster Manual".

That is quite cool.

One thing I want to work on (for my own play) is a list of bounties for a cyberpunk game. Very little explicit setting, except what's gleaned from the bounty descriptions & their criminal profiles. You don't know who TheoSec is, but you do know that this week's target destroyed their PsychoFlange in the war, and that he's worth a $122M alive or frozen (but not dead).