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This month’s GTM features a couple of titles that deal with another aspect of roleplaying games that are of interest to any gamemaster, and that’s the setting of a campaign. The last couple Tricks of the Game Trade columns have discussed using different genres and game rules to make those genres really pop out during play, but this time around it’s all about the setting and how it affects the game, characters, and adventures those characters engage in.
The two books that inspired this topic are from Paizo’s Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Planes of Power and Haunted Heroes Handbook. Admittedly, the jump from a book discussing the elemental planes (earth, air, fire, and water) and a book about ghosts, spirits, possession, faiths, and the like is a long one since those aren’t officially setting books, but they’re related to settings, which led me to thinking about them in a bit more detail. ~ The Importance of Setting ~ Apart from the rules you’re using, the most important thing about a game is its setting. Take a look at the books that sell best for any game system and they’re either (#1) rulebooks, or (#2) campaign setting information. Dungeons & Dragons has the Forgotten Realms, Pathfinder has Golarion, Deadlands has the Weird West, Call of Cthulhu has Arkham, and so on. Really, the setting more than anything else determines the tone for a game, sets the GM’s and players’ expectations, and defines the sorts of stories and adventures to take place there. In fact, remember the last couple of columns in which genres were discussed? Well, settings lay the initial groundwork for the sorts of genres that fit well in a game. If you’re playing in Arkham, Massachusetts, you’re most likely playing in an existential horror game—and definitely not playing in a high fantasy adventure tale. Some things fit with the Arkham setting and many don’t.
Unlike Arkham, some settings, like the Forgotten Realms or Golarion are very broad and are designed to be appropriate for nearly any sort of game. Pathfinder’s Golarion is particularly appropriate to this discussion because it’s a setting that includes regions with distinctive characteristics that make them different from any other region in that world: the country of Ustalav is like a miniature gothic horror realm, Taldor is filled with nobles and knights, Irrisen is the land of (effectively) Vikings, Numeria is a wasteland with evidence of magic from the stars (high technology), and so on. If you’re looking to run a game in a particular type of setting, Golarion is crafted to accommodate that as much as possible—assuming you want to play a fantasy game. This is especially true when you also consider the many Adventure Paths Paizo has produced, each of which delves further into a specific part of the setting in order to flesh it out and appeal to players who crave a certain gaming experience, such as the Iron Gods in which the heroes encounter cyborgs, artificial intelligences, and high technology. And lest you think this is one, lengthy promotion for Pathfinder, the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons has taken a similar approach for their adventures. So far Wizards of the Coast has rooted all of their adventures in the Forgotten Realms, but their individual adventures have either explored different genres or have introduced elements that radically alter the setting in some way. Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat form an extensive campaign that draws heavily on spy and political fiction; Princes of the Apocalypse is the most straight forward dungeon-crawl adventure released so far; Out of the Abyss changes the setting doubly, by sending the heroes deep into the Underdark, a region now threatened by demons; and Curse of Strahd traps the characters in the demi-plane of Barovia in a gothic horror adventure featuring a master vampire.
While each of these D&D adventures isn’t technically a new setting because they all take place in the Forgotten Realms, they effectively are settings because they alter the reality of the world for the players and their characters by creating different sorts of expectations. For instance, while the paladin is a perfectly viable class for player characters in any of the adventures listed above, it’s much more likely to be played in Ravenloft than any of the others. Why? Because the players know ahead of time they’ll be dealing with religion, superstitions, and facing off against a plethora of powerful undead that a paladin will be able to deal with very effectively! ~ What is a Setting? ~ Perhaps we should have defined this initially, but you likely have a pretty good idea of what a setting is. Put as simply as possible, it’s the time period and location in which a story takes place. But it’s a bit more than that, because it creates the backdrop and ambience for the story taking place in it — and it determines which plots, characters, themes, and styles are appropriate. Longtime players and GMs can relate far too many stories about creating a new campaign with all sorts of fabulous details, intricate histories. or political tensions, and a world filled with dark intensity, only to have it all ruined by a player who shows up and wants to play El Lobo, the hard-drinking, shoot-first-ask-questions-never fighter. El Lobo might be a perfectly fine and fun character in some games, but not in the world this GM has created because the setting demands a certain sort of character and a player who’s bought into that setting.
~ Why Can’t I Play the Character I Want? ~ Some people out there might be thinking, “But El Lobo sounds awesome! Why can’t I play any sort of character I want?” Well, that gets into a much larger issue, but for now, let’s leave it at this: When you and your friends agree to play a game together, you are forming a social contract with each other. You are all agreeing you want to actively participate in a game that is mutually engaging for everyone playing ... and, yes, that includes the GM. So, when you all decide on the sort of game you want to engage in, or the GM is encouraged to oversee (or however your group decides what you’re going to play), then you owe it to each other to create and play characters appropriate to that setting, otherwise it breaks the concept of the game and removes everyone from the story you’re all attempting to create together. ~ Creating Your Own Setting ~ Gamers are people who like stories and enjoy creating them. Every Gamemaster out there has a world they’d love to get out of their head and onto the tabletop. A roleplaying game is a perfect way to do that. When you decide to create your own setting, do it in baby steps. You don’t need to sit down and write down every minute detail about your world, instead, add elements to a pre-existing setting you think will work well. Then you can see, first, how well they integrate into the world, and second, what the players think of them and how they respond to the changes. When you field your player’s input, you can weed out the elements that don’t work and concentrate on those that do. This sort of “real world” testing results in a more engaging, interactive experience in the long run.
Over time, the things that are well received will tally up and you’ll have enough ideas to flesh-out larger chunks of the setting. Perhaps start with a town or small kingdom, then expand further and further by sending the characters to other parts of the world or to interact with other races or nations. That way, you can show off other aspects of the setting you think are interesting or unusual, keeping the things that work, revising those that show promise, and eliminating what don’t. Thankfully, there are many, many examples of settings out there for you to learn from. Whether you borrow ideas from movies, novels, comic books, computer games, or roleplaying games, you can study how the authors created their settings, why they made the choices they did, and then apply those lessons to your own creation. Working with a group of friends to refine your ideas can result in a setting you all love to play in and take a lot of pride in creating. ~ Game On! ~ Take a look at the games and supplements offered this month and see if there’s something that interests you or makes you think about what you’d have to do to run a game in that setting. You may find something new and fun for you and your friends to play!
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