Quote from: soviet;584069If you look at the write-up of our fantasy game I don't think you can honestly say it's derivative and tedious.

I rarely if ever criticise any attempt at a creative endeavour.

For my part, I have no problem at all with the players NOT being familiar with a setting; on the contrary, I think that's fine because it means the players won't be trying to "read in" information about it, they'll be basing their actions and choices on what their PCs know about the setting.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;584130For my part, I have no problem at all with the players NOT being familiar with a setting; on the contrary, I think that's fine because it means the players won't be trying to "read in" information about it, they'll be basing their actions and choices on what their PCs know about the setting.

RPGPundit

Except the characters will know a lot more about the setting, because they've been living there for however long before the game starts. Collaborative world building brings in an element of that.

Quote from: Ladybird;584138Except the characters will know a lot more about the setting, because they've been living there for however long before the game starts. Collaborative world building brings in an element of that.

No, the characters will know what the players know, because when they need to know what the players would reasonably know about the setting, I will tell them.

For example, if they ask "What would I know about what's beyond the Misty Mountains"?
I could tell them "you've been told its a vast trackless wasteland that was once the home of a mighty empire, laid waste by the gods. There are rumours of terrible mutant races there".

If the players and GM end up making the world through collaborative consensus process or some other such bullshit, the players will end up knowing that the Scorpionmen live in the trackless wasteland, and that there are ruined cities, and the spaceship, or whatever; and so they won't be surprised by fucking anything.  And we'll have to trust that they'll roleplay their characters as being ignorant of all those details, which they should be. Its an utterly sub-optimal situation for good Immersion.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;584311No, the characters will know what the players know, because when they need to know what the players would reasonably know about the setting, I will tell them.

For example, if they ask "What would I know about what's beyond the Misty Mountains"?
I could tell them "you've been told its a vast trackless wasteland that was once the home of a mighty empire, laid waste by the gods. There are rumours of terrible mutant races there".

If the players and GM end up making the world through collaborative consensus process or some other such bullshit, the players will end up knowing that the Scorpionmen live in the trackless wasteland, and that there are ruined cities, and the spaceship, or whatever; and so they won't be surprised by fucking anything.  And we'll have to trust that they'll roleplay their characters as being ignorant of all those details, which they should be. Its an utterly sub-optimal situation for good Immersion.

RPGPundit

A) How is that any different from using a published setting?

B) Can't the surprises be what the scorpionmen want, or who they are in league with, or what dark powers they have developed? Or what's in the ruined cities and why they were ruined? Or who built the starship and who lives there now?

Even in the most heavily developed and mapped out published universe imaginable (Forgotten Realms, maybe?) a GM will always be able to make new shit up.

Quote from: soviet;584364A) How is that any different from using a published setting?

B) Can't the surprises be what the scorpionmen want, or who they are in league with, or what dark powers they have developed? Or what's in the ruined cities and why they were ruined? Or who built the starship and who lives there now?

Even in the most heavily developed and mapped out published universe imaginable (Forgotten Realms, maybe?) a GM will always be able to make new shit up.

Pretty much this. Just because a player had a hand in presenting an addition to the setting there really is no reason you can't take what they've given you and develop it. I require players to give me a background for each of their characters. I take that background and adjust it to fit into the setting and any spin I wanna put on it. Even if I don't actively change it there's nothing keeping me from expanding upon what they (the players) present to me.

Quote from: soviet;584364A) How is that any different from using a published setting?

B) Can't the surprises be what the scorpionmen want, or who they are in league with, or what dark powers they have developed? Or what's in the ruined cities and why they were ruined? Or who built the starship and who lives there now?

Even in the most heavily developed and mapped out published universe imaginable (Forgotten Realms, maybe?) a GM will always be able to make new shit up.

Quote from: MGuy;584413I require players to give me a background for each of their characters. I take that background and adjust it to fit into the setting and any spin I wanna put on it.

Its a very ambiguously titled thread to be honest, with at least three completely different concepts floating around so far. We have:

- Players and GM actively sitting down and working together to build a new world from scratch
- Unrelated people on internet forums kicking around ideas and producing multifaceted resources on themes or worlds
- A GM working with players to weave their character backgrounds into one another and the existing world

These are systemically dissimilar, and each produces a different effect on gameplay. I'm in favour of the latter two, but the first not so much. Players don't take ownership of the game world, their characters do. This is true for all such fiction, else every book would be prefaced by a world encyclopedia for the comfort of the reader.

Quote from: soviet;584364A) How is that any different from using a published setting?

I hope I understood the question right: are you asking how player knowledge of a setting the player collaboratively made with a group is different from player knowledge of a published setting?
The answer is that it isn't tremendously different except for one important thing: If a GM is running a published setting, there is an unspoken understanding that the GM can CHANGE whatever the fuck he wants. Just because you read somewhere in an FR book that Waterdeep has a shop that sells widgets doesn't mean in that GM's campaign it will have.  
On the other hand, if a Player has explicitly insisted that in the Collaborative Setting there be a widget shop, there damn well will be a widget shop or the whole premise of collaborative setting-creation falls apart. So the one BIG difference is that if a player collaborated to creating a setting he will DEMAND that the setting be the way it was laid out; whereas if he just knows about it as a published setting he can make no such demand.

QuoteB) Can't the surprises be what the scorpionmen want, or who they are in league with, or what dark powers they have developed? Or what's in the ruined cities and why they were ruined? Or who built the starship and who lives there now?

Sure, it CAN be but none of that takes away from the fact that the GM has been stripped of the authority to decide if the scorpionmen are there at all or not, or from the fact that the players will all know FOR SURE that the scorpionmen are there (or else!).

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;584807I hope I understood the question right: are you asking how player knowledge of a setting the player collaboratively made with a group is different from player knowledge of a published setting?
The answer is that it isn't tremendously different except for one important thing: If a GM is running a published setting, there is an unspoken understanding that the GM can CHANGE whatever the fuck he wants. Just because you read somewhere in an FR book that Waterdeep has a shop that sells widgets doesn't mean in that GM's campaign it will have.  
On the other hand, if a Player has explicitly insisted that in the Collaborative Setting there be a widget shop, there damn well will be a widget shop or the whole premise of collaborative setting-creation falls apart. So the one BIG difference is that if a player collaborated to creating a setting he will DEMAND that the setting be the way it was laid out; whereas if he just knows about it as a published setting he can make no such demand.

Sure, it CAN be but none of that takes away from the fact that the GM has been stripped of the authority to decide if the scorpionmen are there at all or not, or from the fact that the players will all know FOR SURE that the scorpionmen are there (or else!).

RPGPundit

Well, yes and no. I think you're right that a GM using a published setting has more leeway to change things than a GM using a group built setting. Although it's worth saying that the GM is part of the group that built that setting, so there shouldn't be anything in there that he finds totally objectionable in the first place. It's not as though the whole thing is just presented to him wholesale. He's been involved at every stage.

However I think that even in a published setting the GM doesn't necessarily have a totally free reign. This is a social contract issue. If the set up of the campaign is something like 'We're playing in Gary's campaign, whatever that turns out to be' then yeah, Gary can do what the fuck he wants, even if he is using a published setting as his starting point. But if the set up of the campaign is something more like 'We're playing in Middle-earth during the War of the Ring because we love the films', then for some groups, a GM adding a new Scorpion Men faction and a crashed starship in the middle of Mirkwood is taking a big liberty with the setting. He is breaking the unspoken agreement as to what the campaign will be about just as surely as the GM in a group-built setting would be if he unilaterally removed those self-same elements.

By the way, I'm not sure where the 'stripped of authority' and 'or else!' stuff comes from. Presumably if the GM is choosing to run a group worldbuilding game it's because he likes something about that approach. He's not being held hostage by his players, he wants to do it this way. So why would it be a source of conflict later on?

Quote from: soviet;584861Well, yes and no. I think you're right that a GM using a published setting has more leeway to change things than a GM using a group built setting. Although it's worth saying that the GM is part of the group that built that setting, so there shouldn't be anything in there that he finds totally objectionable in the first place. It's not as though the whole thing is just presented to him wholesale. He's been involved at every stage.

However I think that even in a published setting the GM doesn't necessarily have a totally free reign. This is a social contract issue. If the set up of the campaign is something like 'We're playing in Gary's campaign, whatever that turns out to be' then yeah, Gary can do what the fuck he wants, even if he is using a published setting as his starting point. But if the set up of the campaign is something more like 'We're playing in Middle-earth during the War of the Ring because we love the films', then for some groups, a GM adding a new Scorpion Men faction and a crashed starship in the middle of Mirkwood is taking a big liberty with the setting. He is breaking the unspoken agreement as to what the campaign will be about just as surely as the GM in a group-built setting would be if he unilaterally removed those self-same elements.

By the way, I'm not sure where the 'stripped of authority' and 'or else!' stuff comes from. Presumably if the GM is choosing to run a group worldbuilding game it's because he likes something about that approach. He's not being held hostage by his players, he wants to do it this way. So why would it be a source of conflict later on?

Copy paste this as my thoughts.

I'm not going to say anyone's "doing it wrong", as that's not my place. If folks like the way they do things, then rock on. However, I can say that I do not now nor have I ever had a desire to collaboratively design a setting with a group that I was then to go play in the setting with. As Pundit says, it would destroy my sense of discovery and exploration, which are the main things I enjoy about RPGing, especially fantasy and sci-fi RPGing. I would, however, love collaborating with some folks on a setting that I would then use to run other people (non-collaborators) through, and in fact I have shared plenty of feedback and input with several of the designers that frequent this forum. That I see no problem with that at all.

Quote from: Sigmund;585063I would, however, love collaborating with some folks on a setting that I would then use to run other people (non-collaborators) through

Yes, Setting Riffs, the reason the internet was invented.

Quote from: soviet;584861By the way, I'm not sure where the 'stripped of authority' and 'or else!' stuff comes from. Presumably if the GM is choosing to run a group worldbuilding game it's because he likes something about that approach. He's not being held hostage by his players, he wants to do it this way. So why would it be a source of conflict later on?

You have a point of course, that unless the GM is a doormat who let's himself be pushed into running this, it shouldn't be a source of conflict.

Of course, time was when the Forge wanted to try to fundamentally change the entire culture of gaming to try to FORCE everyone to play this way.  Some of them would still wish that; if you try to indoctrinate all RPG players with the idea that "I should get to have as much say in the campaign's setting details as the GM", it makes it harder for those who would like to actually play a more regular RPG with traditional GM/Player roles.

Luckily, the Forge lost that war.   We live in the OSR's world now.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;585525Of course, time was when the Forge wanted to try to fundamentally change the entire culture of gaming to try to FORCE everyone to play this way.  Some of them would still wish that; if you try to indoctrinate all RPG players with the idea that "I should get to have as much say in the campaign's setting details as the GM", it makes it harder for those who would like to actually play a more regular RPG with traditional GM/Player roles.

I agree there's a place for both types, absolutely. The game I GM'ed before this Other Worlds campaign was AD&D 2e, and I didn't use any group worldbuilding style techniques at all. I just made up a town and a dungeon and let the players loose on them.

Quote from: soviet;586062I agree there's a place for both types, absolutely. The game I GM'ed before this Other Worlds campaign was AD&D 2e, and I didn't use any group worldbuilding style techniques at all. I just made up a town and a dungeon and let the players loose on them.

Ugh. You would use 2e!