Quote from: Phillip;688955They have little acquaintance with the sword & sorcery genre apart from D&D, so references to Dunsany, Howard, Le Guin, Leiber, Norton, C. A. Smith, Vance, etc. -- indeed, to Tolkien's work as opposed to movie adaptations -- are likely to bewilder them.

Good grief, and I thought my young Swedish players were literacy-challenged... although it might explain why they were so shell-shocked from playtesting my Monster Island campaign.

Seriously though, younger generations coming to the hobby are not reading the classic fantasy authors, instead being drawn into what's available on book store shelves - the more modern door-step soap-opera style fantasy - if they read at all. So many of the original tropes of the genre are lost to them. Hence an incomprehensible disconnect with some, or an overwhelming sense of wonder with others, to whom this stuff is mind-blowingly new.

Quote from: Pete Nash;689174an overwhelming sense of wonder with others, to whom this stuff is mind-blowingly new.

That... is exactly what we should be going for.

Quote from: Pete Nash;689174Seriously though, younger generations coming to the hobby are not reading the classic fantasy authors, instead being drawn into what's available on book store shelves - the more modern door-step soap-opera style fantasy - if they read at all. So many of the original tropes of the genre are lost to them. Hence an incomprehensible disconnect with some, or an overwhelming sense of wonder with others, to whom this stuff is mind-blowingly new.

Well, I'll play devil's advocate here: you mean the "original tropes of the genre" as we understood them to be.  I expect the greybeards of thirty and forty years ago, raising an eyebrow at all us youngsters blathering on about Moorcock and Vance and Leiber, would have sneered at us for lacking much familiarity with the works of Lord Dunsany, H. Rider Haggard and George MacDonald.

Quote from: Ravenswing;689199Well, I'll play devil's advocate here: you mean the "original tropes of the genre" as we understood them to be.  I expect the greybeards of thirty and forty years ago, raising an eyebrow at all us youngsters blathering on about Moorcock and Vance and Leiber, would have sneered at us for lacking much familiarity with the works of Lord Dunsany, H. Rider Haggard and George MacDonald.

I also read Dunsany and Haggard whilst growing up. Part of going to English schools where the library was still full of older books I suppose.  However I admit I didn't get into MacDonald until relatively recently, when his works were finally made available on the net.

But yes, you are correct. Our interpretation of the genre is heavily moulded by available contemporary fiction. Back in the 70's when I bought my first book (The Wizard of Earthsea) via the Puffin book club and was bitten by the fantasy bug, there really wasn't so many S&S books available so you naturally gravitated to Victorian/Edwardian adventure stories (Burroughs, Haggard, Kipling, etc) whilst the more 'adult' Howard, Leiber and Moorcock books had to wait until getting to upper school.

I suppose we had an advantage back then in that the era of the personal computer was yet to start, TV wasn't 24/7 and there were only three channels (if your parents even let you watch). So reading was a primary pastime... at least it was until I discovered role-playing games!

Quote from: Piestrio;688873Plain settings are where it's at for me.

I like to focus on the actual game happening. What the are characters doing, what's happening, etc...

This ever so much.  I care far more about what's actually happening in the game than the setting.  In a lot of ways, a game that focuses too much on setting is just asking me to coo over how brilliant the designer/GM is, much like railroad plots.

Absolutely.

If I'm rolling up a cleric, I want you to tell me whether I'm praying to Thor, Ares or Ra.  I don't want to listen to a ten minute lecture about all the dark, weird deities and cults you've invented or their preferred method of human sacrifice.
 
If I'm rolling a human, I want you to tell me whether I'm a Northman, an Amazon or a Pict.  I don't want to listen to a ten minute lecture about the available nationalities, their matrilineal social structures and their open-minded attitude to slave-ownership.

When I'm deciding where to go, I want you to tell me about the rumours of gnolls in the ruins to the east and the toad-worshipping kobold tribe in the western forest.  I don't expect to have to endure an orientation briefing before I can make a meaningful decision.

Give me vanilla or gtfo.

Quote from: P&P;689211Absolutely.

If I'm rolling up a cleric, I want you to tell me whether I'm praying to Thor, Ares or Ra.  I don't want to listen to a ten minute lecture about all the dark, weird deities and cults you've invented or their preferred method of human sacrifice.
 
If I'm rolling a human, I want you to tell me whether I'm a Northman, an Amazon or a Pict.  I don't want to listen to a ten minute lecture about the available nationalities, their matrilineal social structures and their open-minded attitude to slave-ownership.

When I'm deciding where to go, I want you to tell me about the rumours of gnolls in the ruins to the east and the toad-worshipping kobold tribe in the western forest.  I don't expect to have to endure an orientation briefing before I can make a meaningful decision.

Give me vanilla or gtfo.

Bye. Don't let the door hit you on your way out.

Quote from: P&P;689211Absolutely.

If I'm rolling up a cleric, I want you to tell me whether I'm praying to Thor, Ares or Ra.  I don't want to listen to a ten minute lecture about all the dark, weird deities and cults you've invented or their preferred method of human sacrifice.
 
If I'm rolling a human, I want you to tell me whether I'm a Northman, an Amazon or a Pict.  I don't want to listen to a ten minute lecture about the available nationalities, their matrilineal social structures and their open-minded attitude to slave-ownership.

When I'm deciding where to go, I want you to tell me about the rumours of gnolls in the ruins to the east and the toad-worshipping kobold tribe in the western forest.  I don't expect to have to endure an orientation briefing before I can make a meaningful decision.

Give me vanilla or gtfo.

Well, to each their own.  

I can see the uses of some level of familiarity....but I applaud gms who put in the work.

Quote from: Rincewind1;689212Bye. Don't let the door hit you on your way out.

Well, agreed: someone who has no intention of making even the slightest nod towards being invested in my setting is no one I want around.

On the other hand, look, YMMV.  Everyone's going to have a different notion of what tweaks his or her sensibilities.  It's not right, it's not wrong, it is what it is.  I expect P&P would hate the hell out of our campaigns.

Yeah, I would expect so.  I'm not the kind of person who invests in settings.  And I've found a complex game world is a red flag for a GM who expects you to invest in your character and Take Things Seriously, we wouldn't get on.

Quote from: P&P;689266Yeah, I would expect so.  I'm not the kind of person who invests in settings.  And I've found a complex game world is a red flag for a GM who expects you to invest in your character and Take Things Seriously, we wouldn't get on.

I woudl expect my setting to be about 2 paragraphs long and I will adlib he rest of it as it plays out. You pitch what you want to play I will tell if anf how it fits into the setting.

A setting needs to be simple and a little cliched and a instantly grokable....

Quote from: P&P;689266Yeah, I would expect so.  I'm not the kind of person who invests in settings.  And I've found a complex game world is a red flag for a GM who expects you to invest in your character and Take Things Seriously, we wouldn't get on.

While I have a detailed background for those who want to plumb it. I deliberately wove in stereotypical cultures (viking, western medieval, rome, etc) so that players who are not into that can get along just fine in the campaign.

The only thing I require is that you act as your character was really there even if it just roleplaying a version of yourself. Basically describe what you are doing in first person rather than third person. Anything beyond that is up to the player.

Where my details go in how the NPCs act which puts the burden on me not the players. Learning the details could help the players understand and more importantly manipulate the NPCs. But since I carefully makes sure that NPCs act like people, players can just deal it with it with their everyday knowledge. Most time it is enough to

Finally I never punish a players for lack of in-game knowledge about culture and religion. Like the d20 roll for a sword swing assumes that the character is a skilled fighter, I assume a character "knows" the world in which he was born. So for novices to my campaign I will point out stuff that they would obviously know.  Most times it not my particular details but things relating to the stereotype itself. Like others pointed out, the stereotypes that today youth know are not quite the same as the one we grew up with.

Quote from: P&P;689266Yeah, I would expect so.  I'm not the kind of person who invests in settings.

Like most investments it does bring rewards in terms of immersion and pleasure though. Of course there are good and bad investments, a 200 page screed of tired tropes where the GM is waiting to spring a gotcha the first time you forget the name of some baron isn't going to be fun. But familiarising yourself with the new and fantastic leads to opportunities for your character and hence more enjoyment, in my experience. The more you immerse in a world you find interesting the greater the rewards can be.

I mean think about it - you've already heavily invested in learning a setting, it just happens to be historical real world civilisations.

Quote from: P&P;689266Yeah, I would expect so.  I'm not the kind of person who invests in settings.  And I've found a complex game world is a red flag for a GM who expects you to invest in your character and Take Things Seriously, we wouldn't get on.

It's also based on the kind of game you want to play, gang.  Short and sweet and Beer & Pretzels and one-shots and limited arc games, knock yourself out, extra prep and detail is a waste.

My shit is built for the long haul and the long game.  Like Estar, I built a few settings to get my chops, and then I built my main setting, back in 83.  And have played it and worked it and added to it ever since. It has come up before, but both of my main live campaign groups are over a decade (the older one since 95), and my last online foray lasted 160 sessions.  I play a game that attracts the player that wants to invest in the setting, and I keep those games going.  

Not a better way to play, not the Right Way, but it works here.  No one gets 'punished' for knowing or not knowing, but the PCs who learn and RP their characters deeply in the world gain an advantage, I think.

Quote from: LordVreeg;689286My shit is built for the long haul and the long game.  Like Estar, I built a few settings to get my chops, and then I built my main setting, back in 83.  And have played it and worked it and added to it ever since. It has come up before, but both of my main live campaign groups are over a decade (the older one since 95), and my last online foray lasted 160 sessions.  I play a game that attracts the player that wants to invest in the setting, and I keep those games going.  

This is awesome, IMO, and I really wish that I was in a position -- in terms of time, location, and player continuity -- to do something similar.  (I do have an older setting that I've used for a couple of different campaigns with different groups, but I've left it 'on the shelf', so to speak, over the past few years.)

I have some questions for guys like you and Estar: do you ever get tired of your main setting?  After almost two decades of running a campaign, do you ever decide to try something entirely different?  Or do you find your setting to be rich and varied enough to keep you interested?

Thanks