Since the world is in the middle of the Beer Pandemic, there
isn’t a whole heck of a lot to do other than sit around the house and talk
about stuff. Or watch copious amounts of Netflix. I don’t like Netflix, so I’m
going to talk about stuff that I do like. Such as role-playing games.
One of the things people like about role-playing games is
the abundance of pre-existing settings for virtually every game system out
there. Some games are obviously based on specific settings (Star Wars RPG, or
the superhero games based on Marvel and DC products, for example). But many of
them are original to various gaming campaigns. The first such settings, of
course, are Blackmoor and Greyhawk for Dungeons & Dragons, going all the
way back to the early 1970s.
However, the majority of RPGs don't require a specific
setting to run in, and that's what makes them fun. Instead of having to follow
an established canon, these games have free-form, open-ended settings. And the
best games, in my ever-so-humble-opinion, don't have any established setting at
all.
The three games I want to teach my son are: Dungeons &
Dragons (fantasy), Traveller (far-future science fiction), and Champions
(superheroes). These games all have 'official' settings, but at their core
don't require anything of the sort. The mechanics are not tied to a specific
setting or locale; Dungeons & Dragons can be set in Greyhawk or the
Forgotten Realms, sure, but a Dungeon Master can easily create his own setting
from scratch using the existing ruleset. Likewise, most people associate the
Traveller game with the Third Imperium setting, but it doesn't need to be a
part of the game.
So, by giving him a generic, open-ended system to work with,
he'll be able to let his imagination run wild and come up with a setting of his
own, one that will be more impactful because it will be his.
Of course, it will be necessary to teach him how to do that,
which is where my own efforts along those lines come in. Right now, there's a
fantasy novel online that is influenced by my gaming experiences, TheChronicles of Meterra: Arrival. I highly recommend reading it; it's really
good. Trust me, I know the author.
I hope that he'll get the opportunity to create worlds of
his own, because he's an imaginative boy, and developing that skill will serve
him well in his future endeavors.
So, what makes a setting?
Good question; I'm glad you asked.
Okay, I asked it. But still.
A setting has many components, whether it's a game setting,
a movie setting, a book setting, or a table setting. Although the components
for the last one are quite different from the others.
Settings need a few things to make them believable. A
physical location, obviously, is the first thing needed. After all, there has
to be a place for whatever adventure is about to take place to actually take
place. This place can be as small as a single room, or as wide as a galaxy. Of
course, the latter takes a lot more work to get ready.
Second, a setting needs inhabitants. After all, the hero has to interact with someone, right?
Whether it's characters in a book or NPCs in a game, a world missing its people
would be pretty boring. Of course, 'people' doesn't always mean 'human.' It
could be faerie races in a fantasy world, or aliens in a sci-fi world. For that
matter, it could be talking animals in a fairy tale world, or a combination of
all three for a really entertaining world. Regardless, characters matter,
whether they are allies to work with, ordinary people to pass on information or
buy from, or enemies to overcome. Character matters in any setting.
Then, there's time. And by that, I mean the passage of time,
as in a historicity to the setting, something that makes it feel less like
something that you just invented and more like something that has existed for a
while. It doesn't have to be intricately detailed; it can be something as
simple as, for example, an old newspaper clipping, or a long-lost ruin. It
depends on the setting, of course, but there should be a sense that something
happened before.
I'll go into more detail on these in future posts; as I
said, they apply to writing as well as gaming, so they're useful to various
people. I have more experience with gaming than with writing, of course, but
the principles will still apply.
In the meantime, if fantasy isn't your bag, try these
mystery novels instead; they're just as good as the fantasy novel. Again, trust
me; I know the author.
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