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...instead of taking an existing game world, with or without heavy modifications?

My Answer: because unless you do a shitload of hard work and planning, and have the skills to think it through both in terms of world creation, and creating a setting that will be interesting for its Roleplay possibilities, your home brew will suck.

RPGPundit

Of course the same applies to published gameworlds.  If they're not designed with skill and planning, then they suck just as much.  And aren't free...

Yours maybe, but IME the group during play makes the setting a success.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: RPGPundit...instead of taking an existing game world, with or without heavy modifications?

My Answer: because unless you do a shitload of hard work and planning, and have the skills to think it through both in terms of world creation, and creating a setting that will be interesting for its Roleplay possibilities, your home brew will suck.

RPGPundit

For the same reason that when I'm creating software, I find an existing piece of software that provides a basic framework, and modify it.

Never write what you can copy.

Creating a setting for RPGs could be taught better and mitigate some of the problems with homebrews. It is not the same as worldbuilding. Nor it is theory more like teaching a practical art.

The biggest problem is the creative ego. People can't believe that the whole of their whiz bang idea isn't perfect. I ran into this problem with module writers and event director in NERO live-action.

Plus products to support the GM in maintain his or her world. Goodman Game's Dungeon Crawl Classics are particularly good for this. Expeditious Retreat makes some good modules that are good for just dropping into a setting.

It's not that hard to create a fantasy world as good as most of the published ones. And it's not clear that creating a Middle Earth, Tekumel, or Young Kingdoms is actually all that important for fun at the table anyway.

There were about a dozen DMs at my high school with their own fantasy worlds, and it used to be a lot of fun talking about how we did things, what happened, questing in other people's worlds to find out about their secrets, etc. More interesting than trying to figure out what someone I don't know had in mind through expensive supplements, anyway.

I find a lot of published settings put in too much info, history, NPCs, etc.

It becomes more work than a homebrew campaign, because you need to study all this stuff (especially if the players have access to the info as well, like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk) before you can play with it.  

With a homebrew you don't really need to detail the entire world, as long as you have enough material prepared so that the players choices in that world are meaningful.  At the beginning of a game the "world" can be the town and the dungeon. :)

If the goal of a published setting is to reduce prep-time, I find the amount of setting material included with most modules sufficient.

Quote from: RPGPundit...instead of taking an existing game world, with or without heavy modifications?

Indeed, why not? The vast majority of game settings are not any better than something a competent and imaginative DM could come up with, they only provide more information. But do you need that information? I find that a large share of material in world guides is just factual clutter - it isn't something you couldn't improvise on the spot. "Game-designery" is an overblown concept; for every Barker and S. M. Sechi, you have a dozen average authors whose worlds aren't all that special (although, for general purposes, you don't really need to have something special...). What counts is play-relevant info, something which directly comes up during running the campaign. Most world guides aren't written that way; they offer surprisingly little help at the table.

The best argument for using pre-made worlds is that your work is already done for you (but the same could be said for adventures). However, it isn't that much work to create a functional world; you need a basic concept, a few general rules and stuff like a pantheon, a map, and ideas about some locales the players will visit. The rest is easy to grow organically as the players explore and interact with the millieu. A normal campaign spontaneously generates much of the material you'd get from a guidebook, and do so when such facts become neccessary/come into focus. The world will be as complicated or as simple, as original or as clichéd, and as large or as small as the game group needs. It may not be unique, but it will be custom-tailored and will not engage in superfluous world-building. Unlike many official settings, most of its history will be "for the players, by the players".

This is not an argument against using official settings. It is an argument for "create-as-you-play" worlds. It is only advanced mathematics in the sense of "multiplication and division".

Quote from: StuartIt becomes more work than a homebrew campaign, because you need to study all this stuff (especially if the players have access to the info as well, like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk) before you can play with it.  

Yeah. Reading, internalising and managing the information of a world guide is as much work as creating the same yourself. There are significant hidden costs: time and effort. Usually boredom, too (I find most game fluff unbearably dry).

The key to a successful and interesting game world is where the player's choices have meaning.

To give player's choices there needs to be a minimum level of detail, along enough NPCs and groups to be fleshed for players to interact with. Beyond that do whatever your interest takes you.

I do recommend for long term settings, that at some point you have your players make character that are part of some major group in your setting. All players play members of the Wizard Guild, or members of the thief, or  part of a temple, or the City Guard. The wealth of detail that the players will add themselves will enrich your game a lot.

My simple answer is because I have more disposable income than disposable time.

That said, I really am a died in the wool homebrewer, so I tend to prefer piecemeal setting supplements with cities/regions that I can cannibalize and stitch together into my own setting.

Quote from: StuartWith a homebrew you don't really need to detail the entire world, as long as you have enough material prepared so that the players choices in that world are meaningful.  At the beginning of a game the "world" can be the town and the dungeon. :)

For me, that is unsatisfying. That might be all the PCs need, but I find that having some background details to draw from helps me to create the adventures in the first place.

Quote from: StuartWith a homebrew you don't really need to detail the entire world, as long as you have enough material prepared so that the players choices in that world are meaningful.  At the beginning of a game the "world" can be the town and the dungeon. :)

QFT.

There's a difference between imagining and documenting an entire world, with its history, economics, politics, ecology, mythology, etc., and writing up enough setting material to get started in a game of  D&D.

Quote from: MelanWhat counts is play-relevant info, something which directly comes up during running the campaign. Most world guides aren't written that way; they offer surprisingly little help at the table.

This was my recent experience with the Earthdawn Nations of Barsaive book.

You mean I have 256 pages of detailed history, politics, and NPC characterizations for a region of the world, but if I start a campaign in that region I'd still have to make up 90 per cent of the actual adventure content myself? What the fuck!?

Quote from: HaffrungYou mean I have 256 pages of detailed history, politics, and NPC characterizations for a region of the world, but if I start a campaign in that region I'd still have to make up 90 per cent of the actual adventure content myself? What the fuck!?

My own version is the howling empty wilderness of Greyhawk's 30 mile hexes. One reason why I used Wilderlands as my starting point. And why I so glad to help bring it back nearly 20 years later.

All commercial settings were somebody's homebrew once upon a time.

-clash

Time. I can either create an interesting world or interesting encounters and people for the PCs to interact with.

1. Time or no time I always homebrew. I have used published liscensed settings twice. My players universally prefer my homebrews- and so do I.
2. I do have actual academic training that touches on this stuff, but I've been doing since long before I had even the foggiest idea what a continental plate or a pastoralist was.
3. in regards to the first post, why is it that so many people (I can think of several on this forum alone) that use published settings have hostility issues towards those that don't? I've heard the same type of negative generalizations pretty much any time the subject comes up. I have no issue with anyone who uses published settings- although I'm sure some people suck at it, and suck hard; I am not compelled to dismiss the efforts and results of thousands of players with a blanket statement like,  "because all published setting suck, and if you use one, you are a sucky halfassed GM" that would be lame and stupid.

Quote from: estarMy own version is the howling empty wilderness of Greyhawk's 30 mile hexes.

That too.

So to reach the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, you have to cross 140 miles of Keoland. Overland adventure time!

Let's take a look at the gazeteer. Okay... Keoland... 600 heavy cavalry... light infantry... trade cloth...

Uh, you come across a cloth caravan guarded by, uh, heavy cavalry.

Quote from: estarOne reason why I used Wilderlands as my starting point. And why I so glad to help bring it back nearly 20 years later.

We didn't use the Wilderlands when we were kids. But we should have.

Quote from: StuartWith a homebrew you don't really need to detail the entire world, as long as you have enough material prepared so that the players choices in that world are meaningful.  At the beginning of a game the "world" can be the town and the dungeon.

Most times we play (particularly D&D), I create a new world from scratch and do just this. Create a bit of stuff here and there, then fill in as needed.

Seanchai

I like to think I'm bottom-up. But honestly? I'm top-down.

I decided that for my next campaign I'd rather choose my own sucky world than someone else's good world because even with a sucky homebrew campaign the pride of accomplishment is worth the effort.

Strawman, Pundit!

The REAL and ONLY reason to play published settings is:

Network Externalities.

This thread can be closed now.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityI like to think I'm bottom-up. But honestly? I'm top-down.

Is this where we gratuitously insert "between the sheets"?

-clash

Well I never. A little more gravitas here, Clash.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityWell I never. A little more gravitas here, Clash.

I'm an anti-gravitas generator, chock full of levitation.

-clash

Quote from: RPGPunditMy Answer: because unless you do a shitload of hard work and planning, and have the skills to think it through both in terms of world creation, and creating a setting that will be interesting for its Roleplay possibilities, your home brew will suck.

There are plenty of excellent resources out there for world building that condense the basics down, both on the web and in books, for anyone who cares to do it right.  And a lot of GMs get decent results simply by having a good intuitive sense of what to steal from others.

For my money, the good thing about pre-made world is reusability.

When I make homebrewed worlds, they're always very campaign-specific. The process I've managed to refine is this:

- I work out what sort of thing I want to do with the campaign, and recruit interested players. I present them with a bare-bones summary of the setting, in which I've done my best to slip in the sort of thing that I'm particularly interested in tackling in this campaign; I also make sure the interested players know what I want the campaign to be about. So, for example, if I want to run a gritty fantasy campaign in which the PCs play the kingpins of a struggling, threadbare thieves' guild which is trying to stay afloat in the middle of a strange, occult war, I make sure the players know that, I give them some details about the guild's home city, current events, major factions, perhaps a handful of important NPCs, stuff like that.

- The players go away and come up with character concepts, and decide what they would like to get out of the campaign - for example, player A might want to play a struggling hedge wizard who spends a lot of her time searching for occult secrets, player B wants to play a con artist and master of disguise who occasionally gets tangled up in aristocratic intrigue, player C wants to play a tough guy with a big mouth and a gambling habit, and player D wants to play a sneak thief who's out to avenge the death of her father.

- I flesh out the world further, making sure to include the sort of elements which will work well with the character concepts (so that's some occult mysteries and magical treasures for A to uncover, some juicy aristocratic cliques for B to infiltrate, a few gambling dens for C to frequent and some NPCs for him to mortally offend, and a father-murderer for player D to avenge herself on). I also add an additional sprinkling of extra elements which I'd enjoying springing on the PCs and players in question ("Hmmm, I reckon this NPC would get a laugh out of player A... and what would happen if player D broke into someone's house and found this?"), plus some last-minute things that I just think are cool, and the setting's good to go.

The upshot of this process is that my homebrew settings tend to be well-tailored for the campaigns I run them in (if I do say so myself), but only for those campaigns: they're meant to be run with the particular concept I decided to run with, for the particular group of players that took part, with the player characters that those players devised. Using the setting for a different campaign wouldn't quite work, unless the concept and characters were very similar.

For me, the biggest disadvantage of using a published setting is also its biggest advantage: that is to say, I enjoy published campaign settings less because they aren't fine-tuned to the campaign concept and PCs I'm dealing with, but at the same time I appreciate being able to use them with multiple campaign concepts and PCs.

Quote from: Old GeezerFor the same reason that when I'm creating software, I find an existing piece of software that provides a basic framework, and modify it.

Never write what you can copy.

Yes! Precisely right.

RPGPundit

Quote from: CallousOf course the same applies to published gameworlds.  If they're not designed with skill and planning, then they suck just as much.  And aren't free...

Touche. You make a good point, sir.

There are lots of published gameworlds that clearly weren't very well thought out. But gameworlds like most of D&D's are; excepting maybe Eberron and Dragonlance for two very different reasons.  Even these two can be ripped off of, though, and still make it easier for you than trying to make your own world from scratch.

RPGPundit

i'm with the slaad on this.  i'd prefer to homebrew, but time demands don't allow it.  so i just tweak existing settings, like the Third Imperium.  start with their base and go from there.  and it gives us an easy "pick up" game, with everyone knowing the basic foundations of the setting.

Quote from: Old GeezerFor the same reason that when I'm creating software, I find an existing piece of software that provides a basic framework, and modify it.

Quote from: RPGPunditYes! Precisely right.

That works, however if there isn't a piece of software that does what you want to do. Then you have to write your own or make a compromise or do without. Some what software doesn't do can be very minimal for a person and is enough to propel them to make their own. Making Settings is the same way.

Software programming can be taught to a broad range of people. But like anything else people differ in their abilities even after they have been taught. And some people would be happier if they use software (or a setting) that is well made even if involves some compromises.

Also like Software building a setting benefits from reuse. Just as I use different libraries and add-ons as building blocks with my own code. You can use elements from various RPGs products to make a better homebrew.

For me the release of GURPS: Vampire the Masquerade made for some memorable plots in my campaign world. Suddenly Vampires became interesting antagonists.

I enjoy worldbuilding. My players enjoy gaming in the worlds I've written.

That's reason enough.

Personally, I write the books for a living and I am still mystified as to why people buy RPGs at all. I was writing my own shortly after playing Palladium and Basic DND. I assume it is the same motivation as to reading a novel vs daydreaming. You want to see what someone else dreamt up.

Bill

Quote from: HinterWeltPersonally, I write the books for a living and I am still mystified as to why people buy RPGs at all. I was writing my own shortly after playing Palladium and Basic DND. I assume it is the same motivation as to reading a novel vs daydreaming. You want to see what someone else dreamt up.

Bill

Well, it is for me! I like seeing what other designers have come up with. It's interesting and inspiring. Especially when the designer is really good at his job, like certain squirrel fanciers. :D

-clash

One of my future goals is to publish my setting. I was talking to my friends about how to make it as a quality product that will sell. I mentioned a couple of ideas none of which involved a "setting book" when one of them pipes up.

 "But Rob you need a setting book."

To which I answered

"a) it is what everyone else does
 b) unless I writing really good, it is a mass of exposition that people will need to read"

To wit he answered

"Yeah but if written well, I like to read that stuff."

Afterwards he pointed out all the RPG books that he enough just as a book reading about the worlds they described. Then rattled off why each was good and why others sucked.

So I guess there are people who enjoy reading a setting book for its own sake.

Rob

P.S. Most of my ideas revolved on how to present a setting where each part is usable as a drop into some GM's fantasy game but when combined makes for a entire consistent setting.

Because you can get exactly what you want with a homebrew setting, exercise your creativity and combine exactly what has inspired you.  Also if you need to do "heavy modifications" it's not much different than doing it yourself without the creative reward, but I guess you use the map.

It may be that a commercial setting has 90% of what you want and you can modify easily, for me not.  Or more precisely, I'd been DMing for many years before any commercial setting was available, and then it wasn't much by today's standards (although cool) so I "grew-up" with having to do it yourself.  

I think the original question also makes some assumptions about what is required for a "good setting."  I think it is easy to get one with plenty of opportunities for adventure and that makes sense.  

Commercial settings have a description maybe for every nation because they don't know what will interest a buyer, but in a home game do you really need that?  A good homebrew setting doesn't need a 300 page source book with every religion, people and nation detailed by pages of text.  Your players will never read it and as long as you are consistent, not having such an opus works fine.  

What it really comes down to for me, do you feel that professional setting designers are inherently more creative or insightful on putting together a setting with opportunities for adventure that makes sense?  In my experience they are not.  What they have are large volumes of well edited text (hopefully) and lots of formulaic entries that anyone given time can create.  I also haven't seen many settings that seem more than a hodge-podge of a bunch of "cool" stuff crammed together.  Few seem to provide a well imagined world that draws me in the way REH or other writers can.  Even when they are well imagined (e.g. Tukemel) it may not be my cup of tea.

Your homebrew, IMHO, just needs to have that "professional text" for a few regions around the prime locals(s) of adventure to be as good as a commercial product.   You as a GM having notes (one to two lines) on the nature, motives and relations on all the other nations, peoples, etc. is enough for me.  Add a spiffy world map and your set.  Even then, depending on your setting, only the GM may know what the world looks like so you may never in game be able to show them that lovely map.

When it comes to saving time, I'll borrow from history and authors I love, a little reading into geo-politics can go a long way to adding believability to your setting and you can learn a bit of history along the way.

Quote from: Melan"Game-designery" is an overblown concept

W3rd.

Personally, I think "campaign world" is an overblown concept.  ;-)

It may not be as bright and shiny as someone who can afford to visualize their text with art and other visuals like maps, etc.  Plus, there are printing costs if you are homebrewing on your PC and opportunity costs in terms of what you could have done with your time instead of writing up a homebrew.
I won't go into all the possible nuances since other people have already picked up on them.

I started my most recent homebrew on an isolated island that has had no real contact with the outside world for a couple hundred years. I drew the map up in  an hour, wrote the text that needed to be written and fired the thing up that night. We're on another island now, and things are going strong, but aside from these two islands I have only the vaugest idea of what the rest of the world is like.

Reason for homebrew - Only you know exactly what you want. (Maybe)

Reason for not homebrew - Don't you like to check out how others dealt with the problems of game creation?  I do.

I like both.  I think both are rather important.  They are to me.

I personally think that almost every game world I've ever seen sucks. I've only ever used Glorantha.

On the other hand, I'm not interested in the whole worldbuilding schtick. So I have three options:

1. Use Glorantha.
2. Use the real world, or a suitably changed version.
3. Collaborative creation.

Quote from: HaffrungSo to reach the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, you have to cross 140 miles of Keoland. Overland adventure time!

Let's take a look at the gazeteer. Okay... Keoland... 600 heavy cavalry... light infantry... trade cloth...

Uh, you come across a cloth caravan guarded by, uh, heavy cavalry.

Sums up EGG's Greyhawk accurately, Haffrung. :D Also, fictional trees!

QuoteWe didn't use the Wilderlands when we were kids. But we should have.

When we were kieds, we based our worlds on TITAN, the Fighting Fantasy setting. I maintain that you can't get much better than that. Well, except if we were using the Wilderlands, but fat chance for that in early 90s Hungary.

Quote from: HaffrungThat too.

So to reach the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, you have to cross 140 miles of Keoland. Overland adventure time!

Let's take a look at the gazeteer. Okay... Keoland... 600 heavy cavalry... light infantry... trade cloth...

Uh, you come across a cloth caravan guarded by, uh, heavy cavalry.
...

Hmmm.  When we ran Greyhawk campaigns in the early 1980s, we always rolled for wandering monsters when on long overland treks.  There were some cool tables in the box set for random encounters.  

(Indeed, some days, when we were feeling lazy, we'd wander around Greyhawk, rolling for random encounters, with no DM at all.  And then we'd declare that we 'found a dungeon' and would use the random dungeon generator in the DMG for more fun!  Ah, innocent days ...)

Normally, the DM rolled for encounters for every 30-mile hex (which we deemed to be one day's travel).  That seems a bit strange now (why weren't merchants being slaughtered on a regular basis?  how did nations trade at all?), but we loved it.

In retrospect, the Judges Guild Wilderlands would have been a far more appropriate setting for that kind of play.  But we were kids, and preferred the shiny TSR products over the paper JG stuff.

There was nothing wrong with Greyhawk that the awesome map couldn't fix.

JG stuff a) looked like shit; b) was shrinkwrapped. Two strikes!

What, no love for shield maidens (http://www.acaeum.com/jg/ModPhotos/ShieldMaidensSeaRune.html)? :haw:

Is that a Siembieda drawing?

Quote from: SettembriniIs that a Siembieda drawing?

I wouldn't be surprised.  He did a lot of art for JG before starting up Palladium.

Quote from: estarP.S. Most of my ideas revolved on how to present a setting where each part is usable as a drop into some GM's fantasy game but when combined makes for a entire consistent setting.

I think the mistake that a lot of setting books (and RPG supplements in general) make is that the deal with things that aren't relevant to the characters and ignore things that are.  An example I used in the past, when SJG was revising GURPS Space (the third edition), was that you'll get rules in science fiction games for how far a planet is from the primary in AUs but what most characters really need to know is what the whether is like on the planet when they step off of their spaceship.

Similarly, I've run into roughly two types of history books on the ancient worlds (sometimes elements are combined).  

The first is a "what happened" type book that describes major events that happened during that period of history.  So I might find lists of kings and queens, descriptions major battles and migrations, major plagues and famines, and relations with foreign powers.  Maybe there will be some information on mythology, often talking more about what the deities were in charge of and things they did rather than how they were worshiped.  

The second is a "life in" type book that describes how day-to-day life worked for the people during that period and in that place.  So I might find out how much an ox cost, what the penalty for adultery was, what kinds of professions were in the various social classes, and some details about not only what the deities covered but how they were worshipped.  

I think that a lot of role-playing supplement authors, apparently more familiar with the first sort of history book rather than the second, write up their setting history more like the first kind than the second kind, when what I think most players and GMs need is the second kind (with a quick summary of what happened along the lines of, "1492: Columbus find America.  1600s: English settle the eastern coast of North America.  1770s-1780s: A group of English colonies calling themselves The United States of America declares independence from England and win a short war with England.  1860s: United States has a long and bloody civil war over slavery, economic differences, and cultural differences between the Northern states and Southern States."  Etc.  The really big stuff that everyone would/should know.  If you must get into detail, it should be about events during the character's lifetime.  For example, a Western can and probably should give some detail about events from the 1850s or 1860s to the turn of the century but doesn't need to go into great detail about the 1700s nor include anything about Medieval European or pre-Columbian Native American history, unless it's going to be relevant to an adventure, such as finding the remains of Viking explorers in the New World.  

Better yet, I think it would be useful for setting writers to read travel guides rather than history books, because a travel guide is closer to what most players an GMs need to run a game in a setting than a history book.  After all, I think most people would by a travel guide to a foreign country they are about to visit than a history book about the place.  And travel guide writers are pretty good at covering the interesting things and making them interesting to read about without going into too much detail.

So my advice is for authors to model their setting guides on "life in" history books or, better yet, travel guides instead of "what happened" history books, though I suspect that at least some of the people who buy setting guides to read rather than to use during play are actually looking for "what happened" type of book.

Quote from: John MorrowBetter yet, I think it would be useful for setting writers to read travel guides rather than history books, because a travel guide is closer to what most players an GMs need to run a game in a setting than a history book.  After all, I think most people would by a travel guide to a foreign country they are about to visit than a history book about the place.  And travel guide writers are pretty good at covering the interesting things and making them interesting to read about without going into too much detail.

Sage advice. What do travel guides get right? They collect and give you things which are interesting. "You can buy roast cats in the bazaar!" is so much more useful than reading about noble families and their petty conflicts.

Quote from: MelanSage advice. What do travel guides get right? They collect and give you things which are interesting. "You can buy roast cats in the bazaar!" is so much more useful than reading about noble families and their petty conflicts.

imo-
Ethnographies, historical accounts, and actual travel for the win.

Quote from: AkrasiaHmmm.  When we ran Greyhawk campaigns in the early 1980s, we always rolled for wandering monsters when on long overland treks.  There were some cool tables in the box set for random encounters.

True enough (or true enough for the 2nd edition Greyhawk boxed set with the two books). However, those tables were pretty generic. They didn't make travelling across Keoland much different from travelling across Almor.
 

Quote from: AkrasiaIn retrospect, the Judges Guild Wilderlands would have been a far more appropriate setting for that kind of play.  But we were kids, and preferred the shiny TSR products over the paper JG stuff.

Yeah, we were the same. Those glossy poster maps for Greyhawk are one of my gaming - make that childhood - icons. Everyone had the maps pinned to their walls.

Though I have to say the massive City State of the World Emperor was one of the best birthday presents ever. Paper or not, that thing was impressive. And I did run a brief but well-received campaign on the Wilderlands Map 6.

Quote from: John MorrowBetter yet, I think it would be useful for setting writers to read travel guides rather than history books, because a travel guide is closer to what most players an GMs need to run a game in a setting than a history book.  After all, I think most people would by a travel guide to a foreign country they are about to visit than a history book about the place.  And travel guide writers are pretty good at covering the interesting things and making them interesting to read about without going into too much detail.

The Chronicles of Talislanta is written as a travel guide and it's an excellent introduction to the setting. It gives brief contemporary accounts by a traveller to some of the more notable and colourful locales in the setting, including a narrative of the adventures he has along the way, which serve as examples of the kind of adventures that the PCs can have.

Quote from: MelanSage advice. What do travel guides get right? They collect and give you things which are interesting. "You can buy roast cats in the bazaar!" is so much more useful than reading about noble families and their petty conflicts.

I highly recommend travel writer Jan Morris' book Last Letters from Hav, a book about a fictional city, as a model of what sorts of things are interesting to focus on.  In her review of the more recently expanded version in The Guardian (http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1788931,00.html), Ursula K Le Guin (who calls it "science fiction") writes:

   It is not an easy book to describe. Hav itself is not easy to describe, as the author frequently laments. As she takes us about with her in her travels of discovery, we grow familiar with the delightful if somewhat incoherent Hav of 1985. We climb up to its charming castle, from which the Armenian trumpeter plays at dawn the great lament of Katourian for the knights of the First Crusade, the "Chant de doleure pour li proz chevalers qui sunt morz". We visit the Venetian Fondaco, the Casino, the Caliph, the mysterious British Agency, the Kretevs who inhabit caves up on the great Escarpment through which the train, Hav's only land link to the rest of Europe, plunges daily down a zigzag tunnel. We see the Iron Dog, we watch the thrilling Roof Race. But the more we learn, the greater our need to learn more. A sense of things not understood, matters hidden under the surface, begins to loom; even, somehow, to menace. We have entered a maze, a labyrinth constructed through millennia, leading us back and back to the age of Achilles and the Spartans who built the canal and set up the Iron Dog at the harbour mouth, and before that to the measureless antiquity of the Kretevs, who are friends of the bear. And the maze stretches out and out, too, half around the world, for it seems that Havian poetry was deeply influenced by the Welsh; and just up the coast is the westernmost of all ancient Chinese settlements, which Marco Polo found uninteresting. "There is nothing to be said about Yuan Wen Kuo," he wrote. "Let us now move on to other places."

Quote from: John MorrowI highly recommend travel writer Jan Morris' book Last Letters from Hav, a book about a fictional city, as a model of what sorts of things are interesting to focus on.

Looks fascinating. Brings to mind Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino.

The original Dark Sun, with its Wanderer's Guidebook or whatever it was called, did the travelogue thing well. There was no "Ten million years ago halflings changed the colour of the sun" crap, it was "Tyr is run by a sorceror-king called Kalak who will eat your soul if you cast spells. Try the baked lizard!"

If I was going world I hadn't made up I would use one from a set of books.
Its quick easy accessible I don't have to buy anything new. The players have either read the books and know of the world or they are unlearned peasants or whatever.
We have done adventures in the worlds of David Eddings, David Gemmel, Jack Vance etc etc ...  After all what is D&D if you aren't playign in the worlds of Lankhmar, Middle Earth or whatever.
The advantages are everyone who has read the books has context. They know who the good and bad guys are and they have an idea about the languages and history.

It also depends on context  if you are doing low level games, guarding a caravan on the way to market, setting up a theives guild in a small town without one or whatever you don't need much detail on history or political aligences of teh nations. If you are playing a high level game with armies and politics you need more of that stuff.
If you play in cities, my favoured locale, you just need plot, NPCs and imagination. You don't need maps of every house. I have played with DMs like that and everything you go into a shop they have the owners stats and his wife and a background an a drawign of the shop.. .but it means that a lot of the events do not progress the story and you need to carry a lot of paper or in this particular case a6 Index cards.
If you play in a dungeon you need full detailed floor plans.

in any case you can make all this stuff up almost as fast as you can read and assimilate the stuff that has been written by someoen else.

This is link has an interesting essay on the subject

http://www.phreeow.net/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Canon+and+the+death+of+everything+we+hold+dear

The last line has some punch to it.

QuoteThe story, ultimately, has to be yours. When the publisher takes ownership of the story, he steals your game.

Enjoy
Rob Conley

P.S. Story in this case seems to refer to plot not as in story gaming.

Quote from: HaffrungLooks fascinating. Brings to mind Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino.

I briefly toyed with the idea of a campaign based on Calvino's Invisible Cities, but I wasn't sure my players would take so much surrealism, so nothing came out of it. As for Hav, it is now on my to-buy list; looks very interesting.

Quote from: estarThis is link has an interesting essay on the subject

http://www.phreeow.net/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Canon+and+the+death+of+everything+we+hold+dear

The last line has some punch to it.



Enjoy
Rob Conley

P.S. Story in this case seems to refer to plot not as in story gaming.

Unless, of course, you are the publisher.

-clash

Quote from: MelanI briefly toyed with the idea of a campaign based on Calvino's Invisible Cities, but I wasn't sure my players would take so much surrealism, so nothing came out of it.

Dude, if I ever move to Hungary I'll play in that campaign.

I started work on my first campaign setting for 4th yesterday (read Races and Classes and ENworld's page for ideas). I'm on tap to DM our first game of 4th ed once we switch over (which will be a while, obviously). I'm starting small, but I've already got a few neat ideas.