Quote from: Itachi;971235This is more or less what I tried to say, thanks.

After almost 30 years of gaming, I'm starting to see big ultra-detailed settings as a waste of time/energy/potential that could be better applied in the act of gaming (that is, immediately gameable resources, rules, ideas, whatever), or just slimmed down in the name of brevity or cohesion. What matters at a gaming table is the play. And a 300 pages setting enters in the way of actual play since at the least it will require players to spend time studying it and in worst case it will be a learning curve so high it may hinder actual play (since each player may come with his own interpretation/understanding of it). RQ/Glorantha encapsulate better what I'm trying to say, I think. The old booklets (say, Borderlands) were immediately playable, while these days we have so much chaff (say, Guide to Gloranta) that one must first dig into big (sometimes humongous) amounts of content before start playing.

Thus, I think both the OSR, and these new games that mix different influences in name of immediate play (like Beyond the Wall or Dungeon World), hit a soft spot for me that the
"setting-based" gaming of the 90s and early 2000s don't. I have family and kids and don't want to spend hours comprehending your setting ultra-detailed history meta-plot or whatever. Just give me easy of use materials and evocative/inspiring thems and ideas, and let us create our own details and meta-plots while playing.

Makes sense?

Sure, I have a problem getting into Glorantha and Tekumel myself.  Second Age/Third Age, God-Learners, Lunar Empire, Wyrmfriends, HeroQuests, Mythic Resonance, thousands of years of Myth, Legend and History.  It gets in the way.  Which is why sometimes the Old Ways are best.  
Tekumel - barbarian off the boat.
Glorantha - Pick One, Borderlands, Griffin Mountain, Pavis/Big Rubble, Snakepipe Hollow.  Keep it small and character focused, let the campaign breathe becoming slowly enriched by the detail, not strangled by it before you get started.

But, I've run a couple very successful MERP campaigns, and while you may have gotten more out of what was going on if you had read The Silmarillion and the History of Middle Earth, it certainly wasn't required, and since those two campaigns were The Fourth Age and Sauron Gets the Ring, the Lore had no direct determination on the campaign.

The actual level of detail doesn't matter,  it only matters when it becomes obstructive to the player's enjoyment of the game.  That has more to do with the preferences of the players and the skill of the GM then it necessarily does with the sheer amount of detail.

I ran both White Wolf and Shadowrun in the "Metaplot 90's" and the players never felt like they had to keep up with reading novels or that things were pre-ordained.  Were the players likely to even find out about, let alone stop, the plans of a Methuselah or a Great Dragon or Megacorporation? No, but there was always a chance.

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Quote from: Justin Alexander;971253And while there is some truth to this, the idea that the players can just say "I want to do X" and then the GM should be able to just run with that is largely illusionary. If a group says, for example, "I want to leave town and explore the wilderness!" the result you're going to get with a GM who is familiar with hexcrawl procedures and a GM who is not familiar with hexcrawl procedures is going to be very different. Not all such game structures require mechanical support, but mechanical support will tend to sprout up around the structures being used during actual play.

I would distinguish between
1. GM procedural content generation tools (eg random encounter tables) - always useful IMO and
2. Specific mechanical subsystems (such as a mass battle system or Cyberpunk computer hack 'run' system) - not always useful or necessary IMO. Individual combat system counts here too, but is nearly universal.

If players want to be able to do anything at any time, I need lots of #1, but having to learn a bunch of #2 can get in the way.  If I have a basic PC task resolution mechanic such as d20 roll stat+bonus vs target number, I can apply that in any situation. What I need are aids to create situations in the first place.

BTW I did actually use the Mentzer Expert ship rules for an expedition to the Isle of Dread, the results were very interesting especially when using the (separate) getting-lost rules... there is enough there to run a sea-crawl game. But fewer giant sea ticks please.

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Quote from: Justin Alexander;971332I'd add:

3. Scenario structures, which are often not mechanical in nature, although they can be (dungeon procedures in OD&D, for example).

When people talk about games that have amazing settings but they can't figure out what to do with them, for example, they're talking about a game that doesn't have an obvious scenario structures.

Yes - though this is most useful for pre-game prep work where the GM is the primary decider of what the 'adventure' will be; scenario structures are less vital if the players themselves are highly motivated instigator types who will have their PCs go out looking for stuff and mess with anything they come across. In that situation I mostly just need stuff (eg environments, NPCs, spaceships, monsters, conspiracies, organisations, rumours) for them to mess with, either pre-created or easy to create in play. And some kind of task-resolution mechanic, plus hopefully a reward structure like XP which encourages messing with stuff.

I agree about the defaulting to railroad structure. Hard railroad-by-scene seems less common these days, but the Paizo AP style approach where you progress from adventure site to adventure site with a mission to kill everything there seems very common. I guess it dates back at least to G1-G3.

Quote from: Itachi;971176Thoughts? Please forgive the words as I'm a non-native. Try to capture it's spirit instead of it's form, if possible.

I want a system that simulates the world and physical interactions in it -- and leaves the setting up to me and the other players.

GURPS and universal systems like that are pretty much all I play (exception: D&D). And while I find GURPS isn't great for super hero games, it's passable and there are other universal games that are better (e.g. Champions) for higher power levels.

With rare exceptions, I find systems that provide rules for theme or setting to be actively distracting from those things and degrading to the play experience, and while I'm not an extremest about it, I prefer system to stay away from those elements (same with social interaction).

Gameable Worlds
I haven't played Eclipse Phase (I believe I downloaded a free version at some point; not sure) but I know what you mean by poorly -gamable worlds: worlds where it's unclear what you do.

While it's something of a failure-of-imagination to not be able to come up with anything to do, I think there are clear examples of games where what-you-do is easily and instantly accessible to everyone and I think it's less about the setting and more about the extant motivations of the PCs:

1) Adventurer -- you seek treasure in high-risk areas, such as dungeons. This is classic and most-easily accessible. It provides immediate motivation, you need hardly any back-story (if you're the sort of person who goes on adventures, we don't need to know much about why), and leads to interesting in-game action. Game settings that easily and obviously support adventurer characters are the gold-standard in accessibility

2) Agent / Investigator -- you receive missions that require engagement and resolution. You might be a literal agent or spy, a soldier, a mercenary hacker, a private investigator, a super-hero or just someone people come to when Cuthulhu is eating their friends. In this case the GM gives you a mystery to solve, a crime to stop, or an objective to accomplish and you're off to the races. This is the model for a huge variety of successful games (all secret agent or military games, all super-hero games, Paranoia, etc.), only second because IME being an agent in a very weird world can be counter-intuitive. Also: there needs to be a good reason people keep coming to you. Being super-powered or a professional investigator is an obvious solution, but in games where the agent structure is less-formal, it can be hard to explain why Bob the Dilettante keeps getting asked to check out Cthulhu

3) Entrepreneur -- You run a business. Traveler is the main one here (although Traveler covers all three motivations), but other games have elements of this. Basically the game includes a "mini-game" that simulates running a business and the PCs engage with that, buying high, selling low, or otherwise aiming to make money through their business. My feeling is that the business simulation mechanics better be first-class if you're going to really make that the center-piece of play and otherwise it should be a supporting role.

4) Victim -- people keep showing up trying to kill you. Victim games provide obvious motivation, but it can get real old, real fast.

My experience is that games which are too civilized for adventurers but lack clear agent/investigator structures can be hard to game in. Maybe that's the problem with Eclipse phase?

Cheers,
-E.

All that setting detail is for Advanced Level of Setting Play. For some people it isn't their first time to the rodeo; they aren't interested in bleacher seats and corndogs. If well-fleshed material (let alone elaborate set-piece hooks, or pre-driven narrative,) seems like too much for you -- or a few of your table novices -- to jump right in, then don't start there. That level of setting material is for those who are restarting or continuing there, and want more!

It's like most things in life: it's hard to start big.

That's why all our education started small in pre-school and built up to greater complexity in college, etc. Kindergarten American History looks different from Collegiate American History. The GM is the Teacher who caters the Setting material into an understandable Session to the Table of students.

Interesting discussion, here. As a possible data point, I had a quartet of elementary school kids in my 'Lord Meren' game last weekend, and they took to the setting like ducks to water. From what I could tell, they already knew something about Ancient Egypt and the reign of Tutankhamun, so they dove right into the game session. They did very well, too! The Barsoom game had all very experienced players in it, who also knew a bit about the Red Planet, ERB, and the pulps; that one also went very well, I thought.

I should note, in the interests of full disclosure that I don't share the opinions of most of the people on this thread re 'setting vs. game'; I've always been much more interested in the world-setting over the game mechanics, but I think this is primarily due to both my origins in F/SF fandom and the early gaming I did which was very setting-heavy and rules-light. (Blame Phil and Dave, if you like.) For me, the game is a way to explore the setting, not the other way around; I've seen way too many game settings where the world has obviously been set up to enable the author's pet game mechanics to work. (Usually not very well, from what I've seen.) YMMV, of course.

I find E categorization of different PC motivations interesting as it captures 3 of the predominant RPG modes I've seen.

Quote from: -E.;9713562) Agent / Investigator --

Rather than focusing on who does  it, I focus on what is done so I call this Mission based. For me the name is more inclusive of games like Star Trek and Star Wars (which are often, probably mostly) mission based and also fits well with RPGs about soldiers and sailors and such. Admittedly Investigator fits Call of Cthulhu better than Mission, but I don't think CoC suffers from the "what do we do next?" gaming problem.

Focusing on who does it rather than what they do can be pretty unclear. Take for example, pirates. It seems like pirates are a lot like sailors, but while mission based is almost a requirement for playing active duty sailors pirates campaigns can easily fit into category 1). I'd argue they are actually better played mostly under category 1. After all, how many times can the GM give the players a map to buried treasure before that becomes utterly preposterous? But given some decent random tables for generating ships at sea and some detail on coastal towns the GM can allow the players to decide where they go, what ships they board, and what towns they try to plunder.

Quote4) Victim -- people keep showing up trying to kill you. Victim games provide obvious motivation, but it can get real old, real fast.

This one is unfamiliar to me. What would be a couple of examples of games or settings where this is the default character and play style?

I think we need to add another category for games that are essentially free wheeling politicking or focused on gaining office. Amber Diceless would seem to fit the former so would a lot of LARPs. Flashing Blades can fit the latter (though it can skip that and simply work a Mission style of game). I think HeroQuest (the one set in Glorantha) probably lends itself to this sort of play as you move up in cult rank and increase your status and political influence and power in your Cult, Clan, and Tribe. And maybe Vampire and WoD stuff would fit here? (I'm asking, not telling as I've never played any WoD and don't really 'get it.')

5) Politician -- you build influence and negotiate alliances to increase your status and power over the others around you. This may be mostly a game of one-ups-man-ship or it may be how you claw your way to higher and higher office or status in a hierarchy.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;971332I'd add:

3. Scenario structures, which are often not mechanical in nature, although they can be (dungeon procedures in OD&D, for example).

When people talk about games that have amazing settings but they can't figure out what to do with them, for example, they're talking about a game that doesn't have an obvious scenario structures.

I'd argue that the RPG industry in general suffers from a paucity of scenario structures. Most GMs these days only have one structure in their toolbag: Railroading.

Beyond that you've got a pretty good representation of location-based scenarios (e.g. dungeoncrawling), a little bit of mystery-by-clue, and a light patina of hexcrawling.

That's one of the major differences between Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun.  CP2020 had cops, rockers, solos, nomads, corpers, etc.  Shadowrun said "Yeah all that stuff exists, but YOU are a Shadowrunner."

I am a little surprised that Eclipse Phase is being pointed to as a game that leaves you hanging as far as default assumptions go I remember it being fairly focused.  I went and checked:

Quote from: Eclipse Phase pg. 22WHAT DO PLAYERS DO?
The players can take on a variety of roles in Eclipse Phase. Due to advances in digital mind-emulation technology, uploading, and downloading into new morphs (physical bodies, both biological and syn-thetic), it is possible to literally be a new person from session to session. With bodies taking on the role of gear, players can customize their forms for the task at hand.

THE DEFAULT CAMPAIGN
In the default story (also known as the “campaign setting”), every player character is a “sentinel,” an agent-on-call (or potential recruit) for a shadowy network known as “Firewall.” Firewall is dedicated to counteracting “existential risks”—threats to the existence of transhumanity. These risks include biowar plagues, nanotech swarm outbreaks, nuclear proliferation, terrorists with WMDs, net-breaking computer attacks, rogue AIs, alien encounters, and so on. Firewall isn’t content to simply counteract these threats as they arise, of course, so characters may also be sent on information-gathering missions or to put in place pre-emptive or failsafe measures. Characters may be tasked to investigate seemingly innocuous people and places (who turn out not to be), make deals with shady criminal networks (who turn out not to be trustworthy), or travel through a Pandora gate wormhole to analyze the relics of some alien ruin (and see if the threat that killed them is still real). Sentinels are recruited from every faction of transhumanity; those who aren’t ideologically loyal to the cause are hired as mercenaries. These campaigns tend to mix a bit of mystery and investigation with fierce bouts of action and combat, also stirring in a nice dose of awe and horror.

Granted, this is not as focused as Shadowrun, but still pretty clear.  I think maybe in EP's case the posthuman setting is so alien that it can be a little difficult to get a good frame of reference as a GM.  It's harder to internalize.

Quote from: -E.;971356. . . buying high, selling low . . .

Quote from: Black Vulmea;971383

... okay, that's why they kept repossessing my far trader...

-E.

1) I almost never use published settings.
2) My settings tend to be over-detailed, because I like detailing settings.
3) I am used to, and prefer, game systems that make some attempt to give you some useful systems for engaging things in ways that make sense, such as TFT and GURPS, or Aftermath. Though it is up to a GM where he/she/it wants to draw the lines between "out of scope", "GM discretion", and "yes, actually, we do have rules for atmospheric composition effects".

Quote from: Itachi;971176... Take Gurps for eg. It's so granular that on high level (supers?) the whole things breaks apart. And it's combat is so plastered that I could never see it doing a pulp/cinematic action right. ...

Well if what you want is Supers combat, or pulp/cinematic action, then most of the GURPS combat rules may not apply so well, because they have lots of good stuff for detailed mortal-level combat that makes sense, rather than over-the-top stuff that doesn't really make sense. Using a detailed logic-based system to model "is Superman more powerful than Zod - what if he throws a skyscraper at him?" or "well James Bond has to win in a stylish fashion" is a recipe for things like "what do we do when we want this cool thing to happen but the rules indicate it won't work" or "I guess we have to ignore how the game system just had him get beheaded". It seems to me that's at least as much about how comic books and pulp cinematic action flicks don't make sense, as it is about scaling in GURPS. GURPS has continued to develop systems for such things (e.g. the pulp action expansions) though it's not really my thing and you'll still have some of the general detailed approach of GURPS.

It also occurs to me that if you want a game about contests of narrative uberness, then yeah that seems like a conflict with detailed settings, too, unless the settings description are mainly about how cool things are rather than how and why they are the way they are for logical reasons.

Quote from: Bren;971376I find E categorization of different PC motivations interesting as it captures 3 of the predominant RPG modes I've seen.Rather than focusing on who does  it, I focus on what is done so I call this Mission based. For me the name is more inclusive of games like Star Trek and Star Wars (which are often, probably mostly) mission based and also fits well with RPGs about soldiers and sailors and such. Admittedly Investigator fits Call of Cthulhu better than Mission, but I don't think CoC suffers from the "what do we do next?" gaming problem.

Focusing on who does it rather than what they do can be pretty unclear. Take for example, pirates. It seems like pirates are a lot like sailors, but while mission based is almost a requirement for playing active duty sailors pirates campaigns can easily fit into category 1). I'd argue they are actually better played mostly under category 1. After all, how many times can the GM give the players a map to buried treasure before that becomes utterly preposterous? But given some decent random tables for generating ships at sea and some detail on coastal towns the GM can allow the players to decide where they go, what ships they board, and what towns they try to plunder.

This one is unfamiliar to me. What would be a couple of examples of games or settings where this is the default character and play style?

I think we need to add another category for games that are essentially free wheeling politicking or focused on gaining office. Amber Diceless would seem to fit the former so would a lot of LARPs. Flashing Blades can fit the latter (though it can skip that and simply work a Mission style of game). I think HeroQuest (the one set in Glorantha) probably lends itself to this sort of play as you move up in cult rank and increase your status and political influence and power in your Cult, Clan, and Tribe. And maybe Vampire and WoD stuff would fit here? (I'm asking, not telling as I've never played any WoD and don't really 'get it.')

5) Politician -- you build influence and negotiate alliances to increase your status and power over the others around you. This may be mostly a game of one-ups-man-ship or it may be how you claw your way to higher and higher office or status in a hierarchy.

Who does it v. What they do
I think either way is fine -- and really, they're completely inextricable: I like your pirates example.

If I'm the Pirate Captain, and the action revolves around stealing enough booty to keep my crew from mutiny (with some formal idea about how much is "enough" and where the danger zone starts... and also how I can find ships to plunder -- presumably by setting my own risk/reward dials... high risk & reward for attacking established shipping lanes... lower for going after ships off the beaten path), then it's an Entrepreneur game (Model #3).

If I'm a crewman and the (NPC) Captain is going to be taking us from one encounter to another or sending me off to do things, it's a missions game, where I'm given missions by my captain.

To be clear, games can definitely switch mode or have all three at once (as Traveler does).

If I'm running a pirates game, I need to figure out pretty quickly if I need to gin up a framework for  morale, mutiny, booty, and the like. If the players are crew-members then I need less of that (the NPC Captain will handle it and I'll just make judgement calls). If the PC's are the captain or are going to be heavily involved in running-the-ship / crew decisions, then I need to give them the levers to pull to make their decisions meaningful.

Victim Games
In my experience very few genres are all-victim all-the-time -- often they start out that way, but then evolve into something else... but I would count

* Horror games where the PC's are the prey (versus the more standard model where they're investigating)
* Super hero games where they[re playing hunted mutants in a future where all mutants are hunted (popular in the 80's and 90's)
* Conspiracy games where the first scenario is more-or-less regular people discovering the illuminati by accident and then the second one is running for their life as the conspiracy tries to kill them. Presumably some of these games turn into more of a mission-based game when they gain their footing and form a game plan for striking back
* JAGS Wonderland which (canonically) starts with the PC's "going crazy" and being victimized by insanity before they start to figure out what's going on.

I did not play a whole lot of Vampire, but my understanding was that, while it had some victimization elements (the PCs are being toyed with by powerful, malignant NPCs) it was mostly a mission-based game (Your Prince tells you to go do something). I could be wrong about that. The GURPS Vampire game I played was mostly mission-based.

Politician
I think this qualifies. It's a bit like Entrepreneur where you have this agenda to get powerful / make money, and you have things you can do to achieve it... but what you do and how you do it is up to you. Like Entrepreneur, it's very player-directed, and kind of sandbox in a way, in that there's very little of someone telling what you need to do, or kicking in doors and taking what's behind them.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: CRKrueger;971231Maybe I thought the GM should make that stuff on their own, since me doing it would be telling the GM how gangs work in his setting.  Maybe I thought the subject was better covered in a "Gang Book" and I didn't want the Core Rules to be 968 pages.

The point is, whether I did or didn't, it doesn't mean we have a clash between Setting and System.  The setting includes Shadowrunners, the game is named Shadowrun, not Earthdawn: The Sixth World or The SIMS: Cyberpunk Fantasy Seattle.

You may as well shovel the horseshit that because Cyberpunk 2020 doesn't have OOC metagame narrative story rules for running a Case and Molly romance it's betraying Gibson.

Nah, that's horseshit and you know it. But CRK, would you re-read the posts?
You're the one who assumed I'm talking about the rules of Shadowrun. I commented that the rules might be different, but never said that you needed more rules (though to be fair, I also commented that I wonder whether the rules supplements pre-date the similar ones for CP2020, and that I'd replace part of the book with different rules - but then I also said that systems don't explore settings, that's what PCs do:)).

Whatever. Let me clarify, the disconnect between system and setting in Shadowrun is, to me, two-fold.

First, that it's way too fucking heavy as a system! While my Wizard is effortlessly summoning fire, I'm getting a headache getting all the modifiers straight.
Hey, wasn't he the one changing reality with his mind? Why does it seem I'm doing the harder mental work? Something's not right here...
And don't get me started on my physical adept not knowing the result of his attack until we roll two more dicepools;).
And yes, that's from a guy that likes Exalted:p. Somehow, Shadowrun manages to be heavier and slower than that!

Second, the disconnect is that it has many, many pages of info on organisations and NPCs. But what does the system do with it?
Why, runs, runs and then, more runs. As you said yourself, there's fiction in the book about getting in a gang and working your way up.
But everything that the PCs do is breaking and entering. Last time I asked the question, I was told that "this is how the adventure I'm running is".
As JA puts it, "standard structure" of the adventure.
While I don't begrudge the focus on dungeons in a game named Dungeons and Dragons, or the focus on runs in a game named Shadowrun...if that's all that should happen in those games, then you don't need about 80% of the setting descriptions.
(And the reason why I like well-described settings is that I want to do more than that).

Quote from: S'mon;971330I would distinguish between
1. GM procedural content generation tools (eg random encounter tables) - always useful IMO and
2. Specific mechanical subsystems (such as a mass battle system or Cyberpunk computer hack 'run' system) - not always useful or necessary IMO. Individual combat system counts here too, but is nearly universal.

If players want to be able to do anything at any time, I need lots of #1, but having to learn a bunch of #2 can get in the way.  If I have a basic PC task resolution mechanic such as d20 roll stat+bonus vs target number, I can apply that in any situation. What I need are aids to create situations in the first place.

BTW I did actually use the Mentzer Expert ship rules for an expedition to the Isle of Dread, the results were very interesting especially when using the (separate) getting-lost rules... there is enough there to run a sea-crawl game. But fewer giant sea ticks please.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;971332I'd add:

3. Scenario structures, which are often not mechanical in nature, although they can be (dungeon procedures in OD&D, for example).

When people talk about games that have amazing settings but they can't figure out what to do with them, for example, they're talking about a game that doesn't have an obvious scenario structures.

I'd argue that the RPG industry in general suffers from a paucity of scenario structures. Most GMs these days only have one structure in their toolbag: Railroading.

Beyond that you've got a pretty good representation of location-based scenarios (e.g. dungeoncrawling), a little bit of mystery-by-clue, and a light patina of hexcrawling.

While I agree with the idea of separating typical scenario structures, I really hope you're wrong on the state of GMing these days;)!

Quote from: CRKrueger;971380Granted, this is not as focused as Shadowrun, but still pretty clear.  I think maybe in EP's case the posthuman setting is so alien that it can be a little difficult to get a good frame of reference as a GM.  It's harder to internalize.

I think that's true, but the "alien" part is not true. In my observation, the only people that have no idea what to do in EP are those that feel lost until they find a dungeon;).
Well, the OP might manage to provide me with a new example. Let's hope he does;)!