If that is the case, then why is there such little escapist fiction that is truly set in the real world without adding fantastical elements? Why so few games?

And those that exist largely revolve around violence (wargames, those military action novels)

The real world is boring.

Quote from: JeremyR;904233If that is the case, then why is there such little escapist fiction that is truly set in the real world without adding fantastical elements? Why so few games?

And those that exist largely revolve around violence (wargames, those military action novels)

The real world is boring.

The real world is familiar to players is all. That's why there are so many human characters in games, and DMs compare their fantasy stuff to real stuff when describing it so players understand its use. If a Monty Python joke is heard at the table, apparently the fiction isn't working enough to escape from the real world.

Quote from: JeremyR;904233If that is the case, then why is there such little escapist fiction that is truly set in the real world without adding fantastical elements?

Are you forgetting romance novels? parlor room mysteries? espionage thrillers? IMO those are also 'escapist fiction'.

Quoteas I've said on half a hundred panels and plenty of times in print, saying "Kragar the Liberator was secretly in the pay of the drow" is just not compelling.

Maybe he's just playing it wrong or something. For me the whole point of  playing an rpg is that it is compelling!

Quote from: Simlasa;904236Are you forgetting romance novels? parlor room mysteries? espionage thrillers? IMO those are also 'escapist fiction'.

Yes, I'm quite curious what his definition of "escapist" fiction is, given the stonking great pile of Robert Ludlum, Clive Cussler, Lindsay Davis, Ellis Peters, Simon Scarrow, Jack Whyte and Janet Evanovich[1] novels currently bulking up my Pile of Shame.

I have noticed that most gamers don't really read anything other than games, and the particularly anemic subgenres of fantasy/SF that games have an incestuous relationship with.

To get back to the point: wholeheartedly agree, two thumbs up, with bells on.  I got into ancient & medieval history because I wanted more verisimilitude in my fantasy.  Then I realized by comparison just how anemic and shallow the vast majority of fantasy literature actually is.  And that goes double for fantasy game worlds.

[1] Just shut up

Quote from: Simlasa;904236Are you forgetting romance novels? parlor room mysteries? espionage thrillers? IMO those are also 'escapist fiction'.

A lot of Broadway musicals.

The world of Krod Mandoon resonates pretty strongly. Top that. I challenge you to prove me wrong.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;904217Once any game starts, no matter its setting, it creates its own world. The game setting is a frozen start date in time for a campaign's beginning to branch from.

A point I almost brought up earlier was that Ken Hite's problem is misdiagnosed. The problem with fantasy worlds like Tekumel, Harn, Yrth, Greyhawk, Eberon, and the Forgotten Realms is also the problem with Sumer, MesoAmerica, or 16th century France: you have to have a serious commitment to study the setting in detail to make it work. Hite thinks the solution is drawing on history or current events, but if your players don't have the same depth of knowledge on the real world elements you pick, they aren't going to want to read up on Sumerian history any more than they would want to read up on Tekumel.

The wall of text approach to setting only works for a small number of people, for that reason. Doesn't matter how real the setting is, you just have better odds of picking something the players may have heard of, vaguely. What works better is picking a couple really well-known people, places and events from history and legend, filing the serial numbers off, and letting the setting grow naturally through play. "This fantasy kingdom is basically Camelot, and there's a boy king who has just taken the throne." Even if you change all the names, once you tell players this much, that gives them a basic grasp of what is going on. In play, you can diverge wildly from the King Arthur story, but the players will have lived through it, absorbing the changes in small pieces, so it will mean more to them than either something totally made up OR something from history.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;904235The real world is familiar to players is all. That's why there are so many human characters in games, and DMs compare their fantasy stuff to real stuff when describing it so players understand its use. If a Monty Python joke is heard at the table, apparently the fiction isn't working enough to escape from the real world.

I don't know, I've met lots of players who know more about the Enterprise** than they do about NASA, and others who know more about Middle Earth than Ancient Rome. I think it is a question of familiarity.

Real world can be great. But breaking from it and having the freedom to invent anything you want in a fictional setting can be fun too. I think he raises and interesting topic of discussion though. It is certainly worth thinking about why you are taking either approach.

**Edit: in fact now that I am thinking about it, I believe the Starship Enterprise would have more resonance with players if it appeared in a Camapaign than the actual USS Enterprise. Granted Star Trek takes place in the real world in the future...but the ship and the culture are all fictional (the universe of Star Trek equally so).

Quote from: Old One Eye;904146Conversely, it is not always the most gameable, so fictional rpg settings definitely have their place.

The problem with real earth settings is that the books only go into so much detail. Or the details in not in the form useful for a tabletop campaign. Then we are back to making shit up inspired by history.

I think what Hite is missing here is that people rarely make up a fantasy setting out of nothing. Instead we take what we know from life and history and weave into different combinations and with different names. Hite should know better as that what he does with his dozens of Suppressed Transmissions. He is insanely good at taking different threads from real history and weaving them together into something new.

And what he forgets that those of us with original setting do just that but label it differently.

Finally, as people been pointing out, the use of real history is no guarantee that the players will comprehend it any better than something totally made up. The onus is still on the referee to clearly explain the background of the setting in chunks that players can easily remember while playing a leisure game.

Also there is the problem that for some the use of real history will break immersion. I am sure that many of the players in Hite's campaigns and sessions expect his brand of weirdness with real world history. But I have run into players that just couldn't get into a campaign because it wasn't the image of real history they had in their mind. The differences were too jarring for them to enjoy it.

Where in contrast, these players may accept a fantasy setting much better because they don't drag their expectation into it.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;904145Back in 2010 Kenneth Hite asserted this:



(Link for those who want to read the post this quote comes from: http://princeofcairo.livejournal.com/152308.html)

In 2012 he expanded on and firmed up this opinion with the first segment of this podcast:
http://www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com/index.php/episode-4-purely-medicinal/

Now, this is obviously a controversial statement for a tabletop designer, but is he wrong? How do you feel about it?

Just as a sidetone, has Hite put out any more thoughts on this subject since 2012? That is forever-ago in the world of social media.  It is very possible his thoughts on the topic have evolved and changed.

Quote from: talysman;904255A point I almost brought up earlier was that Ken Hite's problem is misdiagnosed. The problem with fantasy worlds like Tekumel, Harn, Yrth, Greyhawk, Eberon, and the Forgotten Realms is also the problem with Sumer, MesoAmerica, or 16th century France: you have to have a serious commitment to study the setting in detail to make it work. Hite thinks the solution is drawing on history or current events, but if your players don't have the same depth of knowledge on the real world elements you pick, they aren't going to want to read up on Sumerian history any more than they would want to read up on Tekumel.

I went and reread the LJ post (I'd read it and commented on it back in 2010.) And I should be fair and say that Hite does, in fact, mention the problem of players not wanting to read all that crap, which is why the first part of the article is gushing enthusiastically about the lore sheets in Weapons of the Gods and later the life-paths of Burning Wheel. He sees this as solving the wall of text problem by breaking setting down into much smaller chunks tied to the mechanics.

But, even though he also promotes Gygax-style random tables as the perfect solution to getting GMs to read setting material, he never gets away from expressing setting through text. Maybe it's because he's writing about and to designers, and a living setting that grows through play instead of being defined beforehand strikes him as anti-designer. But I think a designer can in fact design a setting that's meant to evolve idiosyncratically, becoming unique for each table.

Count me in among the skeptics. "Abraham Lincoln was secretly in the pay of the drow" sounds dumb in a way that "Kragar the Liberator was secretly in the pay of the drow" doesn't. It's dumb and cartoonish in the same way that Lincoln Zombie Hunter is dumb.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;904304Count me in among the skeptics. "Abraham Lincoln was secretly in the pay of the drow" sounds dumb in a way that "Kragar the Liberator was secretly in the pay of the drow" doesn't. It's dumb and cartoonish in the same way that Lincoln Zombie Hunter is dumb.

True, but  "Jefferson Davis was secretly in the pay of the dero" can be quite chilling.

I like historical settings. I use them almost all the time for Call of Cthulhu and I've been running 1620s Europe for Honor+Intrigue. BUT, I also like fictional settings.

Quote from: Baulderstone;904171There is also a flaw in his idea that fictional characters always have less weight than historical ones. President John Tyler was real. Darth Vader is not real. Which one is going to get a bigger rise out of the average player?

Counterpoint to Baulderstone.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;904202

QuoteBut saying "Abraham Lincoln was secretly in the pay of the drow" is compelling

I'm not sure if I'm picking on a bad example, but that shit is just dumb. I'd laugh at the GM and go play a video game instead.

Any sentence with the word drow in it is uncompelling.

Quote from: talysman;904206I had to vote "No", because "interesting" is one of those words that is meaningless outside a context. You have to define what you are interested in to determine if something is interesting. The context Ken Hite seems to be using here is "stuff players can develop a strong emotional response to quickly", and yeah, SOME real-world examples will have strong player buy-in, as will fictional examples based on those examples. But others won't. Just try running a Sumerian historical campaign for players who don't give a crap about Sumeria.

I've known a handful of gamers in 42 years of gaming who would give a crap about Sumeria. That said, I've run a number of settings (fictional and real) for people who didn't know or care about the setting ahead of time. I think Hite is simultaneously overvaluing the utility of real history for familiarity and engagement and underestimating the ability to provide setting to GMs and players in digestible amounts.

Quote from: talysman;904289But, even though he also promotes Gygax-style random tables as the perfect solution to getting GMs to read setting material, he never gets away from expressing setting through text.

It's odd that Hite discards the solution that actually works. A set of well created, location specific random encounter tables are a great way of making some of the nuts and bolts of the setting clear to everyone, GM and player alike.

QuoteBut I think a designer can in fact design a setting that's meant to evolve idiosyncratically, becoming unique for each table.

Indeed. Even if different GMs started with the same encounter tables, randomization and GM specific selective acceptance will lead to recognizable, but still noticeably different locales.