Shut up!
No one has beat me up in years!

Quote from: AosShut up!
No one has beat me up in years!

*THUMP*THUMP*WHAP*THUMP*KICK*

There ya go, yer all caught up.  

Quote from: WolvorineTrue, but WoD (at least last I knew, granted I pretty much stopped with 1E V:tM) is set in what amounts to the real world.  They could (and did) detail what vampire life in chicago is, but to try to detail chicago in general is a lot more work than it's really worth.  Info about Chicago isn't that hard to come by.
Now Sunnydale, or Amn, or Threshold (to pull a few out of thin air based on nothing, really) is a bit different.  These are't real places.  Granted those are cities, not countries or huge parts of the world (mostly because I went from one city - Chicago - to a few others, but partly because I couldn't think of any fantasy setting countries off the top of my head).  
But it still strikes me that to actually be playing in a world/setting, you have to have enough to be able to say that you Are playing In that setting, and not just playing in your homebrew world with some storebought trappings thrown at it.

And what if I wanna create my own Sunnydale, or Amn, or Threshhold?  Then what good is all that to me?  Or what if I want the details in Amn or Sunnydale or Threshold, like the NPCs, or the street layout, or whatever, to be different from what's there?  

By having all that plotted out for me, it takes away my flexibility as both aa GM and a player.  As a GM it means I have to deal with players going "But that's not the way it is!", and as a player, well, it's much harder to get away with a character who's the son of the local lord, if the local lord is a named Mary Sue with his own book series.  

I'd say, yes, there are examples where if you aren't taking the specifics into account, then you're not really playing the setting.  Forgotten Realms is a good one.  But I hate those settings.  They bore me.  

QuoteNot that I'm saying anything about any One True Way or any shit like that, but I seem to be the lone voice for the other side of the coin on this one, and when no one speaks for the other side, the other side usually gets beat up like the little kid with the glasses and the sqeaky braces.

Relax dude.  It's a message board, not a parliament.  Equal representation isn't really necessary here.

Quote from: J ArcaneAnd what if I wanna create my own Sunnydale, or Amn, or Threshhold?  Then what good is all that to me?  Or what if I want the details in Amn or Sunnydale or Threshold, like the NPCs, or the street layout, or whatever, to be different from what's there?  

Yeah, I wouldn't take away your divine right to create your own locations or anything, but...  if there's already a Sunnydale, or an Amn, or a Threshold...  I've usually found that making alterations is easier than throwing it all out and starting from sand.

Quote from: J ArcaneBy having all that plotted out for me, it takes away my flexibility as both aa GM and a player.  As a GM it means I have to deal with players going "But that's not the way it is!", and as a player, well, it's much harder to get away with a character who's the son of the local lord, if the local lord is a named Mary Sue with his own book series.  

Eh, seems like less work to insert a little history (The local lord given in the supplement died along with his immediate family of the Red Rot X years ago, and Lord X rules now).  Maybe you aren't looking for easier, I don't know.  It's been obvious for a while now that we're not debating exactly the same thing, but given the differences in our opinion on the matter, I think we're debating as close to the same thing as there is.  :T
And...  no, I won't go into the Mary Sue bit save to say that while such characters exist, I've found that the term is way too easy to use as a cop-out label to really be a very good one.

Quote from: J ArcaneI'd say, yes, there are examples where if you aren't taking the specifics into account, then you're not really playing the setting.  Forgotten Realms is a good one.  But I hate those settings.  They bore me.  

I don't know man, I still don't really see it.  If I say I'm setting a campaign in Chicago; I'm free to change the mayor, the chief of police, the popular DJ, the local TV news team, and sh'loads of other facets...  but if I decide this Chicago doesn't have The Loop, the Sears Tower is going to be replaced by a 3-story museum, and that I'm going to completely re-design the street plan, then everyone's going to agree that I can say it's Chicago till I turn teal but it just isn't.  The same is going to happen if I say the game's set in Chicago, but the only thing I have to support that is there's a port, and a really tall building.  For everyone to not call bullshit on me, I'm going to have to actually have enough information on the place to be able to make it work.
But it sounds like you're saying if I had a map of chicago, knew a fair bit about the city, included the interesting parts and places in the game, then it'd be boring to you because the city I'm portraying is actually Chicago, and not a place I made up and just called Chicago?  
(I know, I'm throwing Chicago around a lot.  It started with the WoD reference because one of the few supplements I bought back when I was interested in V:tM was Chicago by Night, and continues because I really liked the city the times I've visited)

Quote from: J ArcaneRelax dude.  It's a message board, not a parliament.  Equal representation isn't really necessary here.

Ahh, I'm a firm believer in the underdog getting a voice.  This isn't the first time I've stepped into a thread or conversation and given fair representation to what amounted to the silent whipee.  
And really, if I hadn't done so, this thread would have ended a page or two ago when everyone basically ran out of ways of saying "Yeah, those publisher guys want blood from we stones, with their publishing books and stuff.  And settings that have information in them blow dog, man!"   (To anyone who failed to note it -- Yes, that's a caricature for christsake)

Anyway, I'm having fun.

I can't quote Wolvorine, for some reason, but I am a publisher - I wouldn't say that!

-clash

Quote from: WolvorineNot that I'm saying anything about any One True Way or any shit like that, but I seem to be the lone voice for the other side of the coin on this one, and when no one speaks for the other side, the other side usually gets beat up like the little kid with the glasses and the sqeaky braces.

You're not alone. I too think that it's a lot easier to use a world if things are written for it. It's pretty easy to throw out anything you don't want, either by buying the book and picking what you like or by just not buying the book at all.

I've heard a few people here and elsewhere complain about players telling them "that's not how it is." Those folks need to man up and reply with something along the lines of "OOC knowledge usage is an XP penalty." Or, for those less inclined to use the stick method, "we're not running a straight canon campaign, so forget everything you read in sourcebook ___."

Quote from: RPGPunditWell, I am not extremely well-versed with Exalted, but I seem to recall some fairly interminable debates on RPG.net where some angry Exalted fans were claiming that there was a "Metaplot de facto".

Yeah, I've seen their agruements, and I can see where they're coming from.  While they don't advance forward, one could argue that there's a metaplot that moves backwards - that rather than talk about new events, each new book fills in more of the history of Creation.  I don't really think it's the same thing though - there's a difference between learning some figure's origin than having them come out and say "Oh, the Scarlett Empress is really here all along" while in my game my players found out that something different happened to her.  The here and now is left for the players to remake.

QuoteI don't know man, I still don't really see it. If I say I'm setting a campaign in Chicago; I'm free to change the mayor, the chief of police, the popular DJ, the local TV news team, and sh'loads of other facets... but if I decide this Chicago doesn't have The Loop, the Sears Tower is going to be replaced by a 3-story museum, and that I'm going to completely re-design the street plan, then everyone's going to agree that I can say it's Chicago till I turn teal but it just isn't. The same is going to happen if I say the game's set in Chicago, but the only thing I have to support that is there's a port, and a really tall building. For everyone to not call bullshit on me, I'm going to have to actually have enough information on the place to be able to make it work.
But it sounds like you're saying if I had a map of chicago, knew a fair bit about the city, included the interesting parts and places in the game, then it'd be boring to you because the city I'm portraying is actually Chicago, and not a place I made up and just called Chicago?
(I know, I'm throwing Chicago around a lot. It started with the WoD reference because one of the few supplements I bought back when I was interested in V:tM was Chicago by Night, and continues because I really liked the city the times I've visited)

Ahh, but here's the thing:  Vampire isn't about Chicago.  Vampire is about Vampires.  

Said Vampires will continue to be vampires no matter what backdrop you're in.  And Vampires are what the game is about.  Placenames and suchlike, are just flavor text, not really much different to me than "Water drips from the ceiling of the damp dungeon room."

What's important in my characters' story is the characters themselves, who they are, what they do, and the themes and conflicts they confront.  And those can exist no matter where they're located.  Now, a place can provide some amount of character motive, say if it's a bit of a slum, and hard to live in, it might drive the characters to be very hardbitten types, and suchlike.

But again, then you're talking more about the theme and concept of a place, than the specifics of a place itself.  

When I used to play Vampire, all the groups I played with would basically announce up front that, yes, this is Ourtown, but different.  A fictionalized version, and stuff may be different here.  It's the World of Darkness, not the real world, we have that flexibility.  Ourtown may be bigger, the streets and businesses may have changed, etc., whatever's necessary to further the story.  

A place is just a spot on the map.  "Love people, not places", as Paul Barman says.

Being tired as hell, all I can really think of to say about all that is...  that honestly doesn't make a lick of friggin' sense to me.  Sounds for all the world like your games are what amounts to comic book pages with all the characters floating in shapeless white space through every single panel.  Yay, you've got characters.

I dunno, maybe when my brain clears up and I can think more sharply I'll try to respond to this better.