I make no bones about the fact that I have long been – and still am – a fan of Ed Greenwood's Forgotten Realms setting. Of course, I do place an important caveat on that statement. When I say "Ed Greenwood's Forgotten Realms setting," I mean that quite literally. I'm a fan of the setting as Ed Greenwood originally presented it in the pages of Dragon magazine rather than the version(s) of the setting presented in products published by TSR and Wizards of the Coast. I still enjoy some of that later published material, but, for me, the Forgotten Realms that I love is the one Greenwood wrote about in his many Dragon articles, especially during the early to mid-1980s. That's why you'll find quite a few of those articles featured in my Articles of Dragon series.
The reason for this is simple: those articles don't explain everything. Instead, they're filled with offhand references and allusions to people, places, and historical events without any clarification. Those references provide color and occasionally context, but their purpose isn't to give the reader a lengthy dissertation on the history of the Realms, let alone something more obscure. Strictly speaking, they could be stripped out of the description of that sword and it would still be perfectly usable in play. However, it wouldn't be as fun to read nor would it be as evocative. Those allusions create a sense of depth, making the world feel larger and more lived-in. They hint at a larger, interconnected setting filled with legends, conflicts, and figures whose stories remain untold. This approach also invites curiosity, encouraging the reader to imagine connections or even incorporate those elements into his own campaign. Without them, the text might be clearer but also flatter, lacking the richness that makes the setting feel like a place rather than just a backdrop.
Unfortunately, as Greenwood's setting was elaborated upon beyond those original articles, there wasn't a lot that remained forgotten about the Realms. With each new supplement, novel, or sourcebook, more of the implied history and mystery was brought into the light, codified, and explained in detail. While this expansion enriched the setting for dedicated fans, it also diminished some of its initial allure. The obscure references that once sparked my imagination were now meticulously documented, leaving less room for speculation. It was probably an inevitable outcome, given the demands of game publishing, but it's a little disappointing nonetheless.
While I've singled out the Forgotten Realms in this post, it's not the only imaginary setting that suffers from this problem. Even my beloved Tékumel, in which I've refereed the House of Worms campaign for just shy of ten years, has far too much background material than is necessary. In fact, in the case of Tékumel, the depth of background material can be as much a turn-off for newcomers as an enticement. The same could be said of other well-established settings, like Glorantha or the Third Imperium, both of which I love, by the way. I'm not approaching this simply from the perspective of ease of use but also one of enjoyment. I often feel as if less is more when it comes to many settings. Their allure is, to a great extent, their "empty spaces," which is to say, those parts that are, at best, alluded to rather than so fully fleshed out that every possible question already has an answer before play has begun.
I think about this a lot, as I soldier ahead with Secrets of sha-Arthan. Though sha-Arthan takes inspiration from RPG settings like Glorantha, Jorune, and, of course, Tékumel, I have been attempting to avoid their excesses when it comes to the presentation of the setting. That's why I've taken a few cues from those early Forgotten Realms articles, for example, and why I have no plans to produce an encyclopedia of sha-Arthan or anything even close to it. Instead, I want to present an exotic but accessible science fantasy setting with lots of mysteries I'll never solve and even more scope for referees and players to make it their own. In the coming weeks, I'll be sharing some examples of just how intend to do this.
Some of my favorites that are evocative but open to interpretation at individual tables include the Lemuria of Barbarians of Lemuria, the Earth of GURPS Technomancer (and most or even all of the other GURPS settings, really), the Solar Systems of Jovian Chronicles and Space 1889, the Latter Earth of Worlds Without Number, and even the World of Greyhawk if you just treat anything not in the Gold Box (or Folio) as non-canonical but open to incorporation (like, choosing to use the "Events of the Flanaess" series or the Village of Hommlet or the Slavers series or stuff from the Gord the Rogue novels, always at the DM's discretion).
ReplyDeleteIt might be a tacky answer, but, honestly? Spelljammer. Never mind the cruft that accrued over the years (or the ridiculous 5e adaptation), but just focus on the original 2e boxed set. You get an absolutely gonzo setting that incorporates all the wildest bits from the other "big three" settings (Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and Dragonlance), but divorces them entirely from their years of micro-exposition. It provides *just enough* explanation to get players flying around in spaceships, and leaves the consequences up to the individual referee.
ReplyDeleteAre there grizzled old hippopotamus navymen? Sure are! *Why* are there grizzled old hippopotamus navymen? Can't be bothered to explain. The whole setting's that way. Even the titular ship itself -- the Spelljammer -- may not actually exist. It's just a really big entry for your rumour tables. :-)
Warhammer. Decades of wargame materials have given plenty of details about that world, but it's all higher level, broad strokes, empire versus empire (literally) stuff. This has left plenty of space for role-playing adventures; the average rat-catcher isn't going to be concerned with rampaging hobgoblins on the eastern fringe of the Border Princes.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, given the very clear distinction between the wargame and role-playing lines over the years, it's very easy to ignore the wargame entirely and just go with the lightly sketched details from the rpg.
It's a solid pick, weighed down only by the fact that the setting now contains an officially-scripted end of the world. One can surely ignore that (or play zillions of years before it happens), but it does cast a bit of a pall over things that everybody already knows that, in the end, none of it really matters.
Delete40k can be a great setting if you're looking for space fantasy. There are umpteen thousand novels micto-detailing tons of stuff... but it's also explicitly noted that the galaxy is impossibly big and communications are extremely poor. There's room for whatever game you want yo play in there somewhere.
I think part of what makes Games Workshop's settings so flexible is their stated policy of "everything is canon, but not everything is true." Unreliable narration is thus baked into every word they write, making it super easy for referrees to do what they please.
Well, GW did offer up two distinct and different "endings" for the Old World setting, so I'd say that gives players leeway to ignore or adapt as they wish.
DeleteThat aside, the "none of it really matters" I think is baked into WFRP anyway, so I consider that a feature rather than a bug.
It's a fair point. It's a game that makes no bones about how Chaos will win out in the end, and, meanwhile, you can try to do cool things but most likely you'll suffer and die. Kind of a Mörk Borg before there was Mörk Borg. :-)
DeleteNoism's Yoon-Suin setting is an excellent example of an RPG setting where less is more and you can generate however much detail you want with the included random tables, from gods to type of tea. The Fighting Fantasy world of Titan, very much a kitchen-sink setting, was possibly intentionally vague, to allow for new gamebooks to be set wherever in the world without compromising what already existed; the same still applies to the current Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2E version of it, and the new Scholastic gamebooks set within it. Conversely I feel Mystara had the same problem as Forgotten Realms, initially interesting, in a BECMI sandbox way, and then Gazeteered to death, often very inconsistently in tone and detail between supplements.
ReplyDeleteJames, you've described one of the cruxes of a campaign setting that stirs the imagination. I remember it was the summer before 8th grade in 1988 I found the 1st edition Forgotten Realms campaign box. It is filled with short, succinct entries. Unbiddened, my mind began to fill in the gaps. I would read through those dreamy descriptions and my imagination took over. Greenwood had a knack for names, too.
ReplyDeleteI like the original MERP campaign setting, but it's challenge was getting past that epic quest... something about a ring...lol
greyhawk 1981 and birthright my faves for just enough detail and history; and then make your own future
ReplyDeleteWorld of Greyhawk IMO is the best example of this. Practically everything about the WoG that you need is in the 1980 folio or the 1983 boxed set (IMO, the boxed set is better). It gives just enough information to the DM to run a campaign. It's up to the DM to fill in any information they deem necessary. You want to leave just enough mystery in the game world for the player characters to discover.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Blackstone, Greyhawk, in my opinion, struck the perfect balance. I think even through the “not to my tastes” era of the Greyhawk Wars, the setting, although more fully fleshed-out, still didn’t cross that hazy line of “playability vs intellectual exercise in world building”. Although others might disagree.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Greyhawk has the right amount of detail.
DeleteI think the original gray box of the Forgotten Realms did this pretty well too. Even some of the original supplements left a lot of room but each one did start to shrink that initial feeling.
DeleteIn my youth, the problem I always had with the TSR era boxed sets was twofold. On the one hand I consumed them more like traditional literature, I prioritized the enjoyment of reading them and reveled in whatever world building minutiae or story was presented. So in that sense I always wanted more, it seemed inconceivable to me that there could be such a thing as too much detail or that setting information could be too dense. This fed into the other problem I struggled with, I believed that owning and reading these campaign settings would somehow impart a critical amount of knowledge and suddenly when I ran a campaign using these supplements it would be correct and official. As any reasonable person would expect no matter how many supplements were published, purchased, and read I never reached this level of campaign knowledge mastery. Thus, any attempt I made at running something set in a published campaign setting ended up with me feeling like a fraud, I was just running my normal campaign, stealing a few names and slapping the name Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, or on it.
ReplyDeleteNow that I’m a nearly 50-year-old man, I recognize the folly of my youthful assumptions. I know that the usefulness and usability of a game supplement doesn’t equate to whatever entertainment I derive from reading it. And short of creating the campaign world myself, I’ll never feel like I know enough about a setting, but that doesn’t matter. Use the right names, get the geography basically correct, and you are already providing more detail than 90% of players will care about, and as long as the game itself is fun then you only really need to worry about running for a bigger setting lore nerd than you are.
To get around to finally answering the question posed. I find that surprisingly hard to answer. I know that I don’t need more information than presented in something like the 1983 World of Greyhawk boxed set, but I’m still more comfortable using something like the 2000 Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. Harn is an interesting case. I love stealing details from Harn, and I especially love stealing maps from Harn. However, I don’t think I’d ever want to use the setting whole cloth, and aside from the maps I see it as a use while prepping or creating resource and not a use at the table resource.
Ultimately, I think the setting that hit the sweet spot for me was Shadowrun. Ignoring the advancing metaplot and regardless of the rules in use Shadowrun gave me the best mix of high-level details that I could use in multiple ways. Outside of gaming I could consume it for entertainment, in prep I could mine it for inspiration, in game I could drop bits and pieces of it as background information and setting details (mostly to make me happy as I recognize that few of my players cared as much as I did about it). It informed and flavored what I prepared, but didn’t really constrain or demand any particular course of action.
Thank u for your thoughts Cominius
DeleteHarn is remarkably well detailed. Its one major shortcoming is the system of naming. I preder to use the Harn rules and play using those rules in whatever setting the gang wants.
I suspect the names found in the various Harn books are an acquired taste. I, at least, have not yet acquired that taste. I know when I'm incorporating something from Harn into a campaign I'm running, it's almost guaranteed I'll be renaming whatever I'm using (be it NPC, settlement, or castle).
DeleteForgotten Realms feels like the kitchen sink approach. There was no discipline in what is there and what is not in the setting. Super powerful NPCs and Dragons masqaurading as shopkeepers? Makes the place feel a bit like the Tolkien knock-off version of the City-State of the Invincible Overlord.
ReplyDeleteIt would have (may yet be?) interesting to see an “Author’s Realms” where Ed could have described his own personal campaign regardless of the demands of the other authors and editors. The Dragon articles had that cozy one-person’s-campaign size so knowing what he actually used might get it in a more coherent and manageable form. I guess in the way N Robin Crossby started his own version of Harn.
DeleteI ran into Ed Greenwood at Origins last year and asked him if we would ever see his version of the Realms. He replied that no, WotC would never allow it.
DeleteA shame to hear! I think he may be overstating the case; imagine just a blog with his throwback perspective—something like what Greyhawk Grognard has done perhaps.
DeleteI thought Ed was going to release an entirely new world; one completely independent from HASBRO/WOTC and under his control.
DeleteIt'd be pretty crazy to see this with the purported hard R rating of his actual campaign vs the extremely PG feel of the official publications.
DeleteI think one of the issues, regardless of it being a premade campaign setting or homemade, is how much do the characters know about the world they live in.
ReplyDeleteIf we keep with a quasi-medieval setting, I would say most characters would have limited knowledge of the world beyond the environs they inhabit. Anything else would be limited to just place names and rumors/legends.
But we're not talking strictly medieval. We have magic within the world, which does alter communication and travel between people and places.
Think of all of the spells that allow for easier communication and travel. On top of that, magic items that do the same. Regardless of how rare magic and magic items are in a game world, those items do impact the knowledge transferred between people and places.
With that being said, the availability of magic and magic items that provide ease of communication and travel, have an impact on the campaign setting. It's up to the DM to decide to what degree, thus having an influence on character knowledge of the world.
As you alluded to, the problem with a great campaign setting is intrinsic to it being thought of as “great” - people will want more of it. And while I get your position on this, which is sort of the “JJ Abrams’ Mystery Box”-style of world building, most of the settings I can think of are explored to the inch simply because that’s what the players demand. I think specifically of Vampire: the Masquerade when I say this - I have an entire shelf dedicated to every book on the game and setting I could find. At least three of the books are just about Chicago. That setting is extrapolated to the hilt, but it never stopped me from saying “oh well that’s Chicago and we are in St. Louis” and just making up my own. But I wanted every book, just because they are filled with ideas, and none of it is gospel.
ReplyDeleteTo actually answer your question, I really like the setting of a game published a few years ago called “Brindlewood Bay”. It is a fictional retirement/vacation community in New England that hides a dark, eldritch history. The players are retired widows who love mystery novels and are amateur detectives, and they get to solve murders and slowly uncover secrets. The “setting” is pretty bare bones, and often there are prompts that the DM can give the players to let them describe facts about the setting, such as little quaint shops they love to visit, or people they go to quilting bees with. And then slowly, the DM can introduce more supernatural elements as the campaign dictates.
Hi James, I think for me it's the setting that was presented in the 1st Dark Set, including maybe the first few adventures. Everything about that was evocative. I also liked the setting of Vampire 2nd Edition, with the sabbat books. I liked Vampire 3rd edition as well, but the more details they gave the less sense the setting sometimes actually made. So in some respects increased detail actual makes things less realistic, even though the designers are presumably thinking the opposite.
ReplyDeleteA setting that I think is developing with a good level of detail and lots left open is Robert S. Conley's Majestic Fantasy Realms (of which Blackmarsh is a part of).
ReplyDeleteA solution I have to Glorantha's depth is that I hold RQ2 era Glorantha as the basis. I will leverage newer products, but I may contradict them or ignore them. The more detailed maps are welcome, as well as gazetteer information for those maps. Adventures are welcome. More detail on cults not detailed in the RQ2 era are welcome. But other detail, or the progression of the timeline are of little to no interest to me.
But I also acknowledge that stance is easier to take as a GM who has GMed Glorantha every decade since I picked up RQ in 1978 and that I still run using that original rule book as my primary guide. But a newcomer could make the same choice. Pick up RQ1 or RQ2, Cults of Prax, Lands of Runequest Dragon Pass (for the maps and gazetteer) and an RQ2 era module or two and have at it. Absorb additional material at a slow pace.
Less is often more. Mad Max Furry Road has amazing world building with almost no exposition.
ReplyDeleteIt's a master class in small details building a picture your imagination can fill in.
My imagination is filling in quite a lot for Furry Road. Max, for instance, is a badger 🤣
DeleteBut more seriously, yes, the Mad Max saga is an excellent example because it is very careful *not* to maintain continuity—the movies are like tales told about the same world, but by different tellers, maybe at different times, remixing details. The spooky kid from Beyond Thunderdome echoes the feral kid from Road Warrior and adumbrates the Warboys from Fury Road. Lots of examples of that kind of thing.
DeleteThere seems to be a rough consensus that several settings are "compelling without being constraining" in their initial presentations (the Greyhawk folio or gold box, the Forgotten Realms box, etc.) I'd hold up the Greyhawk folio as an example of the amount and kind of detail I'd like to see in a setting.
ReplyDeleteJames mentioned Jorune as one of the inspirations whose excesses he'd like to avoid, but I don't think it provides excessive details. It might be another good example, closer to the sort of setting that sha-Arthan is. Yoon-suin is good, too, but not so easily available (it should be soon, though).
Inclined to agree about Jorune. If anything, it's a little hard to grasp because it doesn't quite enough information about the setting, at least the "current day" part of it and what everyday life is like. Certainly not constrained, but it could use a few more handles for GMs and players to get a grip on IMO.
DeleteGamma World Second Edition Pitzburke and the surrounding Allegheny Almanac.
ReplyDeleteIf you need less setting, edit. Use only what is essential and scrap the rest. If you're using the multiverse concept this is super easy, barely an inconvenience - no, this isn't Greyhawk after the Wars boxed set. This is ALTERNATE Greyhawk, where the Githyanki Invasion happened. Orsybr it's the Forgotten Realms from the 2e folio style Realms materials only (skip the boxed sets.) Or it's Dragonlance but just from the Dragonlance Adventures hardback. Etc...etc...
ReplyDeleteAs cool as the 1980 Greyhawk folio is, I do not think it is as wondrous as the hints dropped in the artifacts and relics section of the Dungeon Masters Guide.
ReplyDeleteI think the AD&D core books did it right.
ReplyDeletePHB had the races, classes, magic, weaponry and armor that existed in the world. Monster Manual had the creatures of that world. Deities and Demigods had the pantheons of that world. And the DMG had the magic items and the encounters for the towns, cities, wildernesses and dungeons of that world.
It proved enough to spark our imagination. The rest of the world, we filled in.
I’m always baffled by the idea of there being ‘too much detail’ to a setting. If there’s too much detail, any GM worth his salt knows they can alter it, ignore it or redefine it! How is ANY amount of setting information ‘confining’ to the GM? Impossible!
ReplyDeleteTrue, nothing can force a GM to use material they'd rather reject, but too much widely known lore about a setting can lead to complaints from players that "you're doing it wrong." Annoying and childish as this may be, it's still a pain, and even the expectations of more moderate players can still be confining.
DeleteIn two main ways. First, some players may feel that their pre-existing knowledge of the setting's intricate details gives them privileges related to that knowledge. Most Referees should ignore that self-entitlement, but it can result in bad feeling. Second, some Referees may feel intimidated by the existing setting lore and feel that they can't do it justice. That's an issue that our gracious host has mentioned in regard to Glorantha, for example.
DeleteOne resolution to setting bloat, is a hard reset. The Forgotten Realms, Glorantha, the Third Imperium, etc. would all become welcoming gaming worlds if their publishers would wipe the slate clean with each new edition of the game. Republish a single setting book, and decanonize everything that occurred in the previous editions, including the novels, so GMs can start anew.
ReplyDeleteIt's worth noting that this also happens in MMORPGs. The game Everquest has developed a business model that revolves around re-releasing new servers every other year so new players can experience the game.
During the pandemic, I ran a GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars campaign for a year. The nice thing about the IW setting is that it is a prequel to the Third Imperium, so the referee does not need to worry about lore from the Third Imperium. A referee can read that single book and run the campaign.
GMs already have to read multiple tomes of rule books (a PHB and GM guide at a minimum, but most campaigns entail many more, Unearthed Arcana, etc.), so a setting book that entails more than a single splat book, requires too much reading. That time is better spent preparing encounters, creating investigations or designing dungeons.
It's understandable that fanboys, who have read everything published in their favorite settings from the beginning of the IP can run lore-rich settings effortlessly, but how many GMs does that describe?
I don't think reboots are an answer. Then instead of lots of gory details, you still have lots of gory details, but you need to keep track of whether they apply or not because some number of them were eliminated in the recent reboot.
DeleteI think Eberron is a good example of how you can have a setting that includes a lot of information, while still giving the DM more than enough freedom to make it their own.
ReplyDeleteMost of the information pertains to “soft” qualities of the setting. Each nation, culture, faction and NPC has its own personality, interests and resources, which are generally messy, inconsistent, and memorable. You get less information regarding what they have done, than you get respecting what they might have been interested in doing, and what they might be interested in doing now.
Most elements of the setting are not dependent on other elements for their existence; very few setting elements are “load bearing.” The details pertaining to historical events are usually pretty murky, not just to the players but to the inhabitants of the setting. Many elements of the setting are expressly not explained, and the official line is they will never be given a canon explanation. Others are provided with competing explanations, some or all or none of which may be true according to the DM’s preferences. It is made very clear that the DM is free to decide which things are true, which things are partly true, which things are true, but not in the way that people think they are true, and which have no truth at all.
As a result, you can alter or remove – or forget – almost anything about the setting without breaking anything. And you can probably make changes later without screwing anything up, because most campaign events are local, and because the setting has an organic messiness that allows even things that are true, not to be true all the time.
I agree with faoladh, Barbarians of Lemuria makes an excellent job
ReplyDeleteI think Mystara is a good setting. Known World is more detailed, but the other lands are only shadowed and there are plenty room for DMs to create.
ReplyDeleteThe Nentir Vale was a fantastic little outline setting in the otherwise controversial 4E books.
ReplyDeleteAgreed!
DeleteAgree with this also. I ran a campaign in that little corner of the "world" for about a year just using the information in the 4e DMG and the free online modules WotC was publishing with Dragon and Dungeon. Unfortunately the group broke up but I had a lot more planned for them! And the adventures were real modules in the old school sense that you could stitch together to form a campaign or run as one-offs (not like the railroad behemoths we've gotten for 5e).
DeleteI think that out of the TSR worlds, World of Greyhawk suits things best as a "just enough" setting. Even with it being the default setting (until FR replaced it), it really wasn't excessively developed. I agree with your assessment of FR. It was much better to read about in Dragon.
ReplyDeleteI think that settings work best when they describe the world in past tense, and if they're describing the present, everything is 'on the verge' of happening. The past history is best when it's long past. The present is there to set up potential plot points for the DM to exploit, and that the characters may influence. I'm not a fan of these advancements in the timeline, by a day, a year or a century - it automatically negates any effect the player characters may have had on the setting.
ReplyDelete