Elements which I like are kept, but they can and WILL change due to player interaction.

Elements which I dislike are used as toilet paper.

Quote from: Tod13;923060I don't use settings--I use modules. I've just never played in a group or ran a group where setting mattered.

Early on, this is what our group did.  

Some settings need to be changed to become bearable.  Like Forgotten Realms.  Or you can just ignore everything outside of the 1st edition gray campaign box.

Quote from: rgrove0172;923071Wow, that's just...incredible. No offense to you of course, only that your approach is so totally alien to me and the people Ive gamed with. The setting IS THE GAME to us. I cant imagine playing a game without a fairly thorough understanding and familiarity with the background, and I mean pretty extensive. I have seen some other groups at conventions and such just start off in a generic tavern or whatever, go beat the bad guy, take his stuff and finished off having a ball but like I said, totally weird to me.

No problem and no offense.

How much setting do you need really need? Real question there, since demonstrably, I feel like I need but a minimal setting. (You're in a science-fiction version of a medieval kingdom--don't insult the king or poach his alien deer. You are in a anarcho-capitalist space station--don't forget your oxygen payments.) I find it an interesting question since I knew a lot of people liked setting books. But I never imagined needing one. I'm writing an RPG for my group and I have a minimal setting mostly used to determine background careers and experiences (living the mountains or working fishing ships or growing up in a space station type of stuff).

How much of your character's personality is based on setting and why would it change (setting deities aside) for a different setting?

None of us have wanted to worry about or play at politics or empire building, which is where I see setting being important.  And NPCs can still have personalities and react to the character's actions and fame over time without needing a specific setting outside of the current adventure. We lay down a basic "these are sapient and these are not" about monsters and will agree before character generation what sort of social prejudice or any caste system there is, so if someone plays a half-orc or a thief or a specific caste, they understand what is going on. But that is about it.

Quote from: Tod13;923117How much of your character's personality is based on setting and why would it change (setting deities aside) for a different setting?

By contrast, the Mythras boys are pretty invested in the notion that this stuff absolutely does matter.

Quote from: daniel_ream;923004A lot of published settings tend to start with a good idea, and then junk it up with D&Disms or random stuff that jars with the tone. I stay faithful to the core vision and ignore the rest.  For instance, I stay faithful to Allston's Byzantine-Empire-colonizes-Transylvania premise for Karameikos and leave out the sword & sorcery bits and the gonzo 70's heavy metal album cover stuff (like the Hutaaka).

Part of the problem I've seen and had confirmed by some TSR staff was an urge by later designers to cater to incessant bitching from players that the published settings were "too underpopulated" and so someone diligently sets out to "fix" that. Which ignores the fact that some of these settings were deliberately left clear so DMs could embellish them with their own stuff. Or that some of these settings are essentially on the verges of new frontiers or the aftermath of cataclysmic disasters. Also the complaints often totally miss the point that a-lot of those empty spaces are overflowing with MONSTER populations, some of theme with their own cultures and cities.

Quote from: rgrove0172;923071Wow, that's just...incredible. No offense to you of course, only that your approach is so totally alien to me and the people Ive gamed with. The setting IS THE GAME to us. I cant imagine playing a game without a fairly thorough understanding and familiarity with the background, and I mean pretty extensive. I have seen some other groups at conventions and such just start off in a generic tavern or whatever, go beat the bad guy, take his stuff and finished off having a ball but like I said, totally weird to me.

My players pretty much demand a setting to game in. The difference is they only want to know the basics of their start location and anything thats common knowledge. The rest they want to learn as they travel and adventure. Which pretty much mirrors my own ideals. With the group I game with as a player though its totally laid back know nothing till it happens start in a tavern style. Especially Kefra who looooves that sort of startup. But because she comes from a culture with a strong oral tradition she is really into picking up the lore of the setting as she goes.

Hence for some players its more fun to not know the setting much.

Since I have several settings I love, I at least try to "get them right" at least in spirit, if not detail. But I find detail important if the world is important to me, and I seldom run a setting I dont have affection for. So it becomes circular.

I am very much a "Setting-GM". When I feel an urge to play something, I generally think of a specific setting. Be it our own world through Lovecraft, Middle-Earth ,Hyborian Age, Mutant Chronicles etc. I am very much in the camp of "rules should support the setting", but at the same time dont care much at all for world-simulation. I generally favor genre-simulation. As a player I love delving into the lore of a setting when I am fortunate to be the player and not GM. Though D&D ,as many have said before, has a large portion of its owns setting baked into its presumptions. In the Mentzer D&D game I am fortunate to  be a player in at the moment I am totally fine with the DM say "It's the Known World, but without the Gazetteers" I know what to expect and not expect and I am totally fine with that. A setting does not have to be very much detailed for me to enoy it, but I have to have something I can relate to in some way, be it only by genre.

I seldom ever create and run my own settings. I have done so successfully at least once but there is so much I want to do and see in already published settings I dont feel I have time for it. But when feeling creative I take a very sparse world and flesh it out to give it my own spinn on it.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;923054The one setting I tend to run frequently would be Ravenloft. I use all the material for that from the boxed sets up to about the death of Van Richten (the quality seemed to drop around some of the later modules and the metaphor with Death taking over Darkon is where I stopped using any official changes). The 3E setting material I almost completely ignore.

   Any particular reason for ignoring the 3E stuff? I'm not criticizing, I'm just curious about your reasoning. I can see several possible reasons, ranging from changes they made, changes forced on them, or the schizophrenia of the 3E Ravenloft line.

I have a group who completely do not care about setting. I honestly think setting matters less to them than video game skins. All they want to do is punch stuff in the face and collect treasure. Sometimes they don't even care about the treasure.

It kills me to run games for them because I love good world building.

Quote from: rgrove0172;923071I have seen some other groups at conventions and such just start off in a generic tavern or whatever, go beat the bad guy, take his stuff and finished off having a ball but like I said, totally weird to me.

And pretty common to much of the gaming world, where a lot of groups view "setting" as nothing more than a save point between dungeon crawls.  I hate that approach myself, but it's not "weird," really.  It's just the game they prefer to play.

Quote from: Omega;923119Part of the problem I've seen and had confirmed by some TSR staff was an urge by later designers to cater to incessant bitching from players that the published settings were "too underpopulated" and so someone diligently sets out to "fix" that. Which ignores the fact that some of these settings were deliberately left clear so DMs could embellish them with their own stuff.

You see a bug, I see a feature.  If you think about it, there's nothing the gaming companies peddle us (aside from equipment) that we can't make ourselves: adventures, dungeons, cities, settings, expansion material, rule systems.  You can infer "What's wrong with those lazy sods so that they can't be assed to fill out the setting?"  But we could readily respond with "What's wrong with those lazy sods that they needed to pay TSR for a setting in the first place?"

As in damn near every walk of life where we pay people to produce things for us because we're either unwilling or incapable to do it ourselves, or because more talented people are just better at it than we are, gamers do as well.  There are gamers who want to play the game, not build worlds, and if TSR didn't sell them what they wanted, some other company would have.

Right. But it also drove off those who liked the original open settings.

Quote from: Omega;923120My players pretty much demand a setting to game in. The difference is they only want to know the basics of their start location and anything thats common knowledge. The rest they want to learn as they travel and adventure. Which pretty much mirrors my own ideals. With the group I game with as a player though its totally laid back know nothing till it happens start in a tavern style. Especially Kefra who looooves that sort of startup. But because she comes from a culture with a strong oral tradition she is really into picking up the lore of the setting as she goes.

Hence for some players its more fun to not know the setting much.

Add to this "at the start", and I'd agree with you:). But without it - well, you said it yourself: they demand a setting, they just don't want to know it at the start.

Quote from: Tod13;923117How much setting do you need really need? Real question there, since demonstrably, I feel like I need but a minimal setting. (You're in a science-fiction version of a medieval kingdom--don't insult the king or poach his alien deer. You are in a anarcho-capitalist space station--don't forget your oxygen payments.) I find it an interesting question since I knew a lot of people liked setting books. But I never imagined needing one.

If you use the setting, you demonstrably don't need a book - there are homebrew settings.
But the info in the Referee's head will amount to at least a setting book. Possibly with supplements.

QuoteI'm writing an RPG for my group and I have a minimal setting mostly used to determine background careers and experiences (living the mountains or working fishing ships or growing up in a space station type of stuff).

Nothing wrong with that.
But what kind of mountains are that? Is it a place split between multiple clans that's not rich enough to have any export but mercenaries? Or is it a place which is fully self-sustainable, albeit suffering under an occupation?
The two will produce quite different experiences;).

QuoteHow much of your character's personality is based on setting and why would it change (setting deities aside) for a different setting?

Let's compare two characters from well-off families living in the plains, both of whom went to join the respective navy.

One of them is a well-off in a country that reinforces individualism, rule of law is prevalent and in his plains at least, military career or successful business ventures are thought of as a supreme accomplishment. In this setting, being LGBT is something to be hidden.

The other is a well-off family in a country where the society enforces collectivism to the point that your clan name comes before your own, criminal punishment always impact the whole clan, connections are more important than law, and the supreme career is being in the clergy or part of the administration, while money gained from business (as opposed to land ownership) lowering your standing.

Do you really think "Social 9 out of 12, melee 3, shooting 2" covers adequately the differences that the two are likely to have in their outlook on life:D?

QuoteNone of us have wanted to worry about or play at politics or empire building, which is where I see setting being important. And NPCs can still have personalities and react to the character's actions and fame over time without needing a specific setting outside of the current adventure.

...well, see above. What are the values of those NPCs? Do they think of their clan first (because being clanless is worse than death), or their own good name? What is the criminal system? Will the local law enforcement take a bribe to look the other way? Whether you're playing the game of politics - what will the NPCs think of you, based on your allegiances or lack thereof?
All questions for a setting book;).

QuoteWe lay down a basic "these are sapient and these are not" about monsters and will agree before character generation what sort of social prejudice or any caste system there is, so if someone plays a half-orc or a thief or a specific caste, they understand what is going on. But that is about it.

So, there is a setting, after all;). That's a big part of what you have to make clear in any setting book.

Quote from: Omega;923185Right. But it also drove off those who liked the original open settings.

True, but then, why didn't you just ignore it?
Serious question - I wasn't even born at the time, much less able to play RPGs, so I don't have first-hand memories of how it happened. Mostly, that's just idle curiosity. I know we'd do that, today. What I wonder is why you would be pushed away rather than doing the same thing.

Quote from: RunningLaser;923116Early on, this is what our group did.  

Some settings need to be changed to become bearable.  Like Forgotten Realms.  Or you can just ignore everything outside of the 1st edition gray campaign box.

FR1 - to FR5 (Savage North) are pretty much in the spirit of the Grey box in my opinion.

Quote from: Omega;923120Especially Kefra who looooves that sort of startup. But because she comes from a culture with a strong oral tradition she is really into picking up the lore of the setting as she goes.

Which culture would that be?

Quote from: AsenRG;923194Nothing wrong with that.
But what kind of mountains are that? Is it a place split between multiple clans that's not rich enough to have any export but mercenaries? Or is it a place which is fully self-sustainable, albeit suffering under an occupation?
The two will produce quite different experiences;).

That's up to the player to decide if they wish when they pick a specific career or based on their character concept. If you want to do things randomly, this is more of "you grew up in" or "worked for a while" in the mountains, so you should know the critters, weather, and maybe mountain climbing.

Quote from: AsenRG;923194So, there is a setting, after all;). That's a big part of what you have to make clear in any setting book.

LOL. Minimal.