Personally, I love fully detailed settings. I played in Harn a long time ago(before it was its own RPG) and loved it. When I start playing a game with a setting that is new to me, I sit down and read everything I can find on it.

Now, I understand that not everyone is like that but I've found some companies have a "Player's Book" or Guide. I've also played in game where the GM hands you a folder with a map or two and a couple of pages of info for what your Character knows of the world.

Really, it comes down to how good the GM is at presenting it, but it is easier if Players are already familiar with the setting...

Quote from: GameDaddy;523596Wow, nice links in the other thread!
 
And for those of you that have put off trying EPT, here's the one page How to Play Tekumel article posted up on the official Tekumel web home page:
 
How to play Tekumel
 
It's one page!!? Now who couldn't try this?

No thanks, my need for Paranoia style games is totaly satiated by playing Paranoia.

GameDaddy, your post would be relevant if it wasn't 36 years out of date.

To paraphrase an old blog post by Fred Hicks, a good RPG setting shouldn't be derivative but it should be usable for players who want to make derivative characters (which is a pretty big chunk of people).

I think that true, pretty much every popular RPG setting (implied or concrete) has been set up so that it has a lot of interesting and original things in it but allows for players to rip off a good slice of popular media and be ready to play almost immediately. In D&D with the core books you can be up and running with a part of Conan, Grey Mouser, Merlin and the priest from the Dead Alive movie in no time flat. In Tekumel, that's a lot harder to do...

That's a very good point.

Quote from: danbuter;523741GameDaddy, your post would be relevant if it wasn't 36 years out of date.

Heh... Like a good wine, a good game only gets better with some aging. Tekumel isn't a bunch of rehashed cliches. If I wanted Conan and Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser, and Elric, I'd use D&D. It's faster, more elegant, for that.

Tekumel, on the other hand, is resplendent. It's full of completely new races and critters... It's a place of secrets, and full of people who can keep them. Built in the days before "crunch" and "fluff" was popular with the mainstream, it's full of both crunch and fluff, details that allow the player and the gm alike to create hooks, and stories... stories that have not been previously told.  Did I mention there's a more or less complete Cthulu pantheon included? Then there's the Shadow Gods... and the ancient tech... and so much more!

If you ever thought of D&D as rubies, and GURPS as sapphires, and Traveller as emeralds, Runequest, and T&T, as corundums, then having (and playing ) Tekumel is like adding a diamond ...a big shiny well-cut multifaceted diamond to your RPG collection.

Quote from: GameDaddy;523582What's more interesting than visiting a new country, getting to know the people, and learning about the situations that they live in?

Oh yeah, ...right. Killing and looting the natives. Taking their stuff, intimidating them, and making them your own. I always thought that was the argument of Manifest Destiny and Imperial Colonialism.

In the Empire of the Petal Throne, such things are not so easily done.

I guess I support Leubensraum for Germans, because I prefer Warhammer?

The problem with difficult settings are simple: We are lazy creatures, and RPGs are a past - time. Most people want to kick back for it, rather then having to learn a whole new world, often in a compressed form.

Rampant fanboys only make things worse, but they aren't the main reason for "dislike" of certain settings, IMO.

I found a few earlier 'one page' pitches for stuff I've done.  Harder to be succinct and engaging while deciding what point to include.

Daztur's excellent point about our tendency to enjoy what we can attach familar notions to is also well thought out; often I think people try so hard to be original that they sometimes avoid what might tie a player into the game.

Quote from: Rincewind1;523805The problem with difficult settings are simple: We are lazy creatures, and RPGs are a past - time. Most people want to kick back for it, rather then having to learn a whole new world, often in a compressed form.

Yep, I'm the exact opposite. RPGs/Gaming is my major Hobby. Actually, my ONLY Hobby. Learning a new, detailed setting isn't a chore or a "waste of time", I read a new setting like I read a new scifi/fantasy series, obsessionally until I read all I can get my hands on...

Quote from: greylond;523821Learning a new, detailed setting isn't a chore or a "waste of time", I read a new setting like I read a new scifi/fantasy series, obsessionally until I read all I can get my hands on...

The only times and extent I ever felt this way about an IP, was when I use to watch Star Trek when I was a kid, and later the Stargate shows.

Though I never really got into the novels nor rpg games, for either Star Trek or Stargate.  (I thought it was pointless to play rpg games in the Stargate world, and the Stargate novels were kinda superfluous).

With that being said, I never got into any rpg settings in an obsessive manner.

Quote from: greylond;523821Yep, I'm the exact opposite. RPGs/Gaming is my major Hobby. Actually, my ONLY Hobby. Learning a new, detailed setting isn't a chore or a "waste of time", I read a new setting like I read a new scifi/fantasy series, obsessionally until I read all I can get my hands on...

Ok, so I've knocked some dust of them and reworked a few things.  Because I consider my setting in this somewhat difficult to learn category.   Still too dry?

Elevator, 1 page intro to setting.  Mainly to give a basic feel and especially for players.

Slightly more detailed later intro for those more involved in the setting.

I do have a steady stream of players, running 2 live groups and 1 online game (with another one coming), but I do get a lot of that 'this setting is really full, but it is very difficult to know where to begin'.  So hopefully I am making that part easier.

Quote from: ggroy;523840With that being said, I never got into any rpg settings in an obsessive manner.

I can understand that and I don't hold it against anyone. But I've also seen a Player come up with a use for a bit of obscure knowledge and turn it into an advantage...

...sometimes, I am that player...

Quote from: greylond;523844I can understand that and I don't hold it against anyone. But I've also seen a Player come up with a use for a bit of obscure knowledge and turn it into an advantage...

...sometimes, I am that player...

In regard to rpg settings, the only setting I did some further reading into was Pathfinder's Golarion.

I was using Golarion for my sandbox 4E D&D game back in late-2008 and 2009.  At the time, quite a few of the Golarion books were almost system-neutral, and the Pathfinder adventure paths I felt were a better source for adventures/encounters ideas than WotC's initial batch of crappy 4E modules.

Eventually I lost interest in Golarion, when my 4E games died and the Golarion books became more and more Pathfinder-specific, along with a build-up of more and more canon.

Quote from: GameDaddy;523596Wow, nice links in the other thread!

And for those of you that have put off trying EPT, here's the one page How to Play Tekumel article posted up on the official Tekumel web home page:

How to play Tekumel

It's one page!!? Now who couldn't try this?

I find that "one page intro" worse than useless.  It begins by saying that you'll basically need to read the entire gamebook, the novels, and anything else you can get your hands on.  Then it goes on to discuss a pageful of culture-wank.

Its the opposite of useful; its definitely not how  you're going to fix the un-approachability of Tekumel.  

Of course, the "fresh off the boat" option is useless too, for a number of reasons.  First and foremost, because that very option highlights how difficult it is to get into Tekumel.  Second, it directly removes the whole value of the setting, you're not part of the setting, you're a foreigner that's just doing stuff there.
Third, there isn't supposed to BE a boat, according to the setting.  There are no lands where a standard group of AD&D adventurers can show up as "foreigners" to Tekumel, wherever you come from that would make any sense inside the setting would be just as culturally complex if not moreso than the Tsolyani lands themselves.  So that option is anti-emulative.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;523857I find that "one page intro" worse than useless.  It begins by saying that you'll basically need to read the entire gamebook, the novels, and anything else you can get your hands on.  Then it goes on to discuss a pageful of culture-wank.

Its the opposite of useful; its definitely not how  you're going to fix the un-approachability of Tekumel.  

Pundit, you've really right on this one...I know next to nothing about Tekumel, and if that was all I had to go on I would never take a second look at the setting.