So in a little bit here I'm going to be kicking off a Sinnar Coast/Lost Lands campaign starting off around Endholme with the Lost City of Barakus product from Necromancer/Frog God Games. I was grateful though when my players gave me a couple more weeks to prep since as I looked through the books the setting didn't make sense to me at all.
Just in the immediate area of the starting city there's thousands of square miles of open plain. There's also some hills and forest. None of these lands appear to have any settlement beyond 30 miles from Endholme. Apparently though the city is a trade hub.
Monsters from the nearby hills replenish cleared areas in the dungeon, but none of these monsters seem to have lairs. Some monsters in the dungeon seem to have no means of ingress or egress between their areas and the outside world save plowing through other monster lairs and yet these trapped monsters have food, water and combat gear. Finally none of the monsters are described as being connected to any larger culture but yet they have gold and other wealth which would imply they're collecting said wealth for some reason; while it could just be a hoarding instinct I wouldn't assume that of EVERY monster.
So... should I care? Do any of you? Does your setting need to make sense or have at least SOME kind of realistic feel to it for you to enjoy it or do you just handwave such details?
I myself am trying to make some connections between some of the wilderness sites to create sub-stories in the area. I'm also modifying settlement of the area saying that the "empty plains" of the interior to the west are open steppe, moors, and grasslands as well as tiny forests so small as to not be recorded on the overland map. This area then is sparsely inhabited by settlements no larger than a Small Town under the protectorate of Endholme. Finally I'm alluding to larger groups of humanoids in the hills from which the ones in the dungeon spring and establishing that these monsters sometimes barter and purchase from one another or greater monsters - there is a sort of "monster economy" at work somehow.
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I prefer when things make sense. It's the laziest form of module making to just drop monsters in without thinking of the logistics at all. But it sounds like you are doing a good job filling in the huge gaps in logic the company left.
I think that when the world feels as real as it can then you get the best player involvement and by extension vastly improved fun.
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Since I don't feel that the real world makes sense, I'm at a loss as to how to answer the question. :-)
Depends on the game.
For a game like that, that just seems like a big dungeon? Probably not.
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A setting needs to be something the players can relate to, in some way. "Realism", verisimilitude and "making sense" are things we can easily relate to because that's our reality, but they are not the only things that can hook players to a setting.
Star Wars is one of my favourite fantasy/sci-fi settings, but it rapidly falls apart when you try to make sense out of it. That's because its aesthetics compensates for its lack logical coherence with what we know of astronomy.
So a fantasy world does not need to make sense, but suspension of disbelieve only goes so far and the setting needs something else to keep players (and DMs) interested.
I don't know the setting you're talking about, but if you're like me, the only way you can forgive its lack of "realistic feel" is to find the things that really set it apart from other settings and focus on that.
I hope this makes sense (pun intended)
'findel
For the most part, no. To an extent, hyper developed worlds like forgotten realms have cornered that market, and often suffer for it when someone new comes to the table/tries to have something happen in the game world. That said, rain can't fall up from the ground into the sky EVERY day, that's just silly. There needs to be a careful balance between things making sense to the point nothing can happen in the world large scale and utter nonsense.
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Hey Mark good to hear from ya. My games recently tend to be really focused on the story of whats happening. More political intrigue and mystery on a local level than global spanning plot arch or sandbox. Its easier I find to take published worlds and focus on smaller parts than global ones.
I will comment on baddies and them having loot. I know you have brought up why monsters would have bling before. Honestly, I'd prefer the 5E route of treasure not being so tied into system like it is with 3.5/PF, but here we are. I tend to just add up the gear the baddie was supposed to have and reduce it to a sack of gold unless their is a unique or cool magic item to include. Its just so much easier to keep the economy under the hood both for leveling up and world immersion IMO of course.
Hope you find some answers or good discussion from the good folks in the neighborhood. Take care.
P.S. we should game at FFG sometime soon.
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I'm happy as long as they're internally consistent.
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In regards to ecology or economics, not at all. In regards to sociology though, yes.
I don't need to know how it is that Goblins haven't been driven extinct despite relentless hunting for centuries. I don't care about whether the discovery of a rich silver mine will affect the market. I do want societies that behave in a somewhat believable way though.
It should go without saying that I don't require strict adherence to physics either. :P
Just my preference.
But it DOES need to make sense within its own particular set of aesthetics. Internal consistency, verisimilitude, that sort of thing. Those don't necessarily equal to 'reacts exactly the way the real world works' making sense, or verisimilitude is not the same as simulation.
I'm not sure if a world absolutely requires verisimilitude, but I agree that it should be at least internally consistent.
Well we can all at least agree on internal consistency then.
So to the point of figuring EVERYTHING out or having everything fit together... I'm with Freehold DM. I like the idea of having a cohesive backstory like "first there were some monsters. Then civilization came but some of the monsters still remained. Now those threats have replenished and returned..." but I like said backstory in small paragraphs, like the old 1e Greyhawk source books and gazetteer.
Other than that, I do like some realism. Most monsters need food, water and shelter; it says so in the PF rules for said monster types. If I need to explain that by magic, then I will, but I'd prefer not to.
If my players make connections on either of these points, like suggesting parts of the world's backstory in their own or making suggestions in game, I'll evolve the game world around them. Recently for example a player had a backstory element I'd forgotten involving a cult, a cave and some blood. On a random roll for wilderness dressing I just happened to roll a small cave with dried blood around the entrance. When the player heard this he asked if it was related to the cult. I just went with it and a whole new element of the world's backstory, namely what happened to the cult years ago, suddenly began to materialize.
There has to be some logic involved in my fantasy settings. Sure, I can buy dragons and undead thingies living (or unliving) on my world, but when it comes to dungeons and such if I can't think of a logical reason the creatures are there I can't play or run it. Granted, when I first began playing 30 years ago that was the standard and I just didn't think about it then, but as I got older and more into the behind the scenes aspect of DMing I couldn't make that sort of thing work in my head anymore.
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There has to be some logic involved in my fantasy settings. Sure, I can buy dragons and undead thingies living (or unliving) on my world, but when it comes to dungeons and such if I can't think of a logical reason the creatures are there I can't play or run it. Granted, when I first began playing 30 years ago that was the standard and I just didn't think about it then, but as I got older and more into the behind the scenes aspect of DMing I couldn't make that sort of thing work in my head anymore.
Logical dungeon design is something I appreciate. Unless something is a tomb which was never meant to be entered again, there should always be safe paths or switches to deactivate traps, and no creatures larger than the smallest passage leading to it (unless it was summoned or grown in its chamber or the creature can shapeshift).
Any dungeon that is home to creatures can't be a total deathtrap or the creatures couldn't live there. They don't spend their entire existence waiting on alert in a single room for the arrival of adventurers.
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It doesn't bother me, personally - if I think about it too hard, I find that the game is full of unrealistic assumptions for which I can reasonably easily suspend my disbelief.
I'm more pulled out of the game if there's no thematic consistency. I can even deal with a "monster hotel" a la Undermountain or Castle Greyhawk (just a series of rooms with implausibly placed monsters) provided that's what it is supposed to be and is mildly motivated by "mad wizard does stuff...." or whatever.
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Heh, monster hotel. I like that SG1. Its funny though; I can't quite shake the realism thing though.
Even when I was a kid playing 1e and didn't have an internet full of ideas I couldn't quite reconcile certain dungeon problems. Ever dungeon I've had since I was a senior in HS has had these little metal grates in the walls, right at floor level. the space just on the other side of said grates have varied from 6"x6" tubes to full 5'X5' spaces but in nearly every instance they've gone surface to underground water source. The idea was for sanitation and venting.
One guy in college took it a step further. He had the grates, in which lived little muppet-like creatures who would exit and return through the bars; their only job was to clean the floor. In the same dungeon another cleaning mechanism was ozone and static electricity. Every so often these gems on the walls would glow; you had a few seconds to get out of the hall or lightning would course through the hallway to scour out any grime.
Just by adding those grates in the walls though I could justify:
- food (rats, insects and mold around the grates, traveling down from the surface)
- some access to water
- fresh air
- air currents and moisture
- the movement of Diminutive, Tiny or Small creatures without being seen
Heh, monster hotel. I like that SG1. Its funny though; I can't quite shake the realism thing though.
I can't give you a citation, but it's definitely not original - like any good joke, I stole it from someone. :)
I used to stress over 'realism' but then found that no matter where I looked, the game is full of nonsensical outcomes that make playing better (my personal favorite thing to shake my head over is the rogue picking a lock - if he succeeds then the wizard can cast fireball tomorrow. That leads me to look at the weird system of "levels", the way skills are modelled, pretty much anything falls apart if you examine it closely...Consequently, I just try not to think about it).
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So in a little bit here I'm going to be kicking off a Sinnar Coast/Lost Lands campaign starting off around Endholme with the Lost City of Barakus product from Necromancer/Frog God Games. I was grateful though when my players gave me a couple more weeks to prep since as I looked through the books the setting didn't make sense to me at all.
Just in the immediate area of the starting city there's thousands of square miles of open plain. There's also some hills and forest. None of these lands appear to have any settlement beyond 30 miles from Endholme. Apparently though the city is a trade hub.
Monsters from the nearby hills replenish cleared areas in the dungeon, but none of these monsters seem to have lairs. Some monsters in the dungeon seem to have no means of ingress or egress between their areas and the outside world save plowing through other monster lairs and yet these trapped monsters have food, water and combat gear. Finally none of the monsters are described as being connected to any larger culture but yet they have gold and other wealth which would imply they're collecting said wealth for some reason; while it could just be a hoarding instinct I wouldn't assume that of EVERY monster.
So... should I care? Do any of you? Does your setting need to make sense or have at least SOME kind of realistic feel to it for you to enjoy it or do you just handwave such details?
There are a few issues with some of the encounters in Barakus (the first few are actually the most obvious). I swapped some of the locations around to make the whole seem a bit more plausible, because while LCoB is trying for an old-school feel (B2 - Keep on the Borderlands) my older, "must make sense" mindset is in conflict with that style of design. You are experiencing "retro shock". Your expectations and experiences don't line up because you feel that (for you) verisimilitude is part of a good gaming experience, whereas FGG style product focuses more on varied challenges and difficulty level for good gaming experiences - neither approach is wrong but they are at odds with each other.
The focus of their dungeons (NG and subsequently FGG) is primarily to present difficult challenges and puzzles and they don't dwell as much on the "how" of the specific encounters. That is IMO what people are buying when they seek FGG modules are modules that do not fall into fair, CR-neat little boxes.
With that being said, that style of product would need some re-working to make them "internally consistent" since that isn't the focus of their products. For me, adding in an explanation, detail or switching which encounter is in which cave is worth it, because I then get the best of both worlds. I get a dungeon with an internally consistent ecology/pecking order and I get a challenging and memorable gaming experience for my players (who love difficult adventures).
I myself am trying to make some connections between some of the wilderness sites to create sub-stories in the area. I'm also modifying settlement of the area saying that the "empty plains" of the interior to the west are open steppe, moors, and grasslands as well as tiny forests so small as to not be recorded on the overland map. This area then is sparsely inhabited by settlements no larger than a Small Town under the protectorate of Endholme. Finally I'm alluding to larger groups of humanoids in the hills from which the ones in the dungeon spring and establishing that these monsters sometimes barter and purchase from one another or greater monsters - there is a sort of "monster economy" at work somehow.
Hoover, I think your attitude towards the map (small features, thorps, family holds) is 100% spot on and would be in the spirit of FGG design. They are sort of the "anti-Forgotten Realms" - no major named NPC good guys, and plenty of empty hexes for the GM to develop (or leave blank) as they see fit for their game. (This isn't a Realms bash, personally I like FG, it's just an observation).
As to the earlier issue of monster location, resupplying and replenishing and need for coin I will go back to a much earlier module to show you what I did to "make it work for me" as a GM.
I will use B2 as an example since it's the definition of old-school encounter design.
The Keep on the Borderlands is very much a "wth" kind of dungeon with old-school monster layout. My approach was to look at the whole as sort of a criminal organization, with the different races taking up different slots within said organization. Some of the weaker denizens often get pushed around or even lose a member to a higher tiered group - but the reality (and I use that term loosely) is that a tribe of kobolds conducting profitable raids on their own would end in their destruction. Kobolds that live in the shadow of Goblins, Orcs, a minotaur and an evil cult will do much better. Even if they have to occasionally pay a tribute to live or a "tax" to pass through parts of their own lair. Often times each individual tribe has a different origin/home base and the Caves served as a sort of forward base to launch forays into human lands. Aspects of the 3/X class rules actually improves the old-school monster hotel layout with humanoids being able to now take class levels:
Imagine - a group of orcs conducting a raid on a settlement would be very - Orcish. Now imagine a raid of Orc fighters, Goblin rangers and Kobold rogues - backed up by Ogre barbarians and all held together by firm hand of evil priests who supplement those forces with undead?
The Caves of Chaos stops being an old-school mish-mash of monsters and becomes a viable (and terrifying) low level threat to a borderland civilization.
A few other things I did for B2:
1) I widened the scale of the caverns and caves (and connecting tunnels) so they wouldn't be right on top of each other. Even though they are creatures of chaos, attacking one cave within earshot of another could lead to a full scale alert = Party TPK.
2) Put an anti-scrying fog over the whole of the canyon, similar to the effect in the Minotaur cave. Why? It made the whole chaotic mess feel more like a base. It's general location known, but specifics hidden from magic - and the the fog also added a creepiness to the whole affair. Distortion of sound and distance, scary visibility ranges, strange noises: occasional small rocks falling down, screaming, etc - make it memorable.
As to your original question, yes - it has to make sense for me to run it. In my current Post Apocalyptic game I am designing, the encounters take a long time for me to write. Why? Because they have to make sense. It actually holds me up and makes the process take much longer than it should but internal consistency is important to me. That internal consistency, once I get the ball rolling - actually helps me create more content, since it feeds upon itself with more and more tangents. The ball needs to get rolling though, or you get trapped by your own standards and end up spending valuable time staring at a blank word document.
Also Hoover - if you are having any problems with ideas, questions, reworkings or fixes you having a standing invite to PM me with any questions.
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I once spent three months designing an underground environment for an adventure, a collapsed city buried by a torrential flood that swept mountains of mud over the ruins, and then over time, small intelligent races carved out the "passageways" in the mud between the cities walls, built spiral stairs up to the surface to bring in light and air, and redirected underground streams to carry fresh water to the "forbidden city"
I had so many details worked out I couldn't wait to answer the player's questions about "how it all worked."
No one ever asked
No ever cared
The just wanted to kill monsters and get magic items "dropped" as treasure.
This was a game where I asked a player to please stop asking me "what did the monster drop."
In another game I design a space station (we were playing Alternity) and a disease had broken out that was causing a "zombie" like plague on the space station. I left clues all over the corporate offices of the space station for the party to find that would lead them to the special research lab where they could figure out how to deal with the plague.
After exploring two rooms in the corporate offices and not finding any treasure or monsters to kill one player announced to me in a clear frustrated tone
"Can't you just tell us everything we need to know that we will find in this area so we can move on to the next encounter?"
So, in conclusion - I have always loved making my games feel interesting and have a sort of consistency. I have not always seen my efforts prove worth while.
Sounds like more of an issue with your players than your game design Terquem. If I was playing in your game I would ask questions and investigate - your examples sound like fun. I would still investigate even if the scenario was a fast paced run and gun adventure - because finding clues/information > brawn or firepower.
My current crop of players are a mixed bunch, but most of which come from an older crowd they know that information is as important if not more so than powering through encounters.
Then again, sometimes players like to turn off their brains and turn everything into bash=reward, that's OK sometimes - if it was that way all the time I would find new players or just quit gaming. It would just seem boring to me as a GM.
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@ Terqy Jerky: I hear you buddy. I have over-detailed plenty of settings and adventures only to have them be ignored and overrun by murder-hobos. That's why I'm shooting for that sweet spot.
The Aux-man alludes to it with his brilliant analysis on B2. As always Lord Maulous of the Aux, I bow to your wisdom. You don't need to define every aspect of your villains' lairs but to the other extreme just saying "Monster with pants lives near other monster with pants because reasons" and rolling the first initiative is a little TOO undefined in my opinion.
Other opinions may vary and I completely respect that.
So I'm looking to create something between the 2 extremes. I think I have the beginnings of it. I've added a couple paragraphs of fluff to the setting so as to paint some broad strokes which help define its place in a larger world.
Now if the players are like "screw your lost city; I'm just gonna wander into the west..." I have a basic concept of what they'll find before they get there and I'm not caught off guard. By the same token I've got no less than 6 different sources to mine for random encounters suitable to that western area and I feel confident in my ability to spontaneously develop from the combo of vaguely defined area + randomly generated detail or encounter.
Also I've begun looking at similarities. There's
As such I've crafted a secret society for good scattered across the land working against the evils of the above detail. I've found similarities or at least some connection points between some of the details specific to Barakus. From these I've created a historical element which is about to unleash evil anew.
As for the defined space of the caves in the adventure and the monsters themselves, just adding simple changes like venting, an occasional stream of seep or whatever are enough for me and hopefully my players. Why would an orc barbarian with a pair of dogs live an what amounts to an undefensible crossroads cave instead of right down the hall where there's a dead end ledge leading into an equally dead end pit below? For one he's not too bright and for another maybe the cave he's in has a steady stream of water tricking through the walls; fresh air, water and occasionally a bold underground creature like a rat or bat passes through for him or the dogs to seize upon.
As for crafting alliances and defining relationships within the dungeon society, I'm still tinkering with that...
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I've come to the point that I don't need my settings to necessarily makes sense. I want them to be interesting.
Especially with fantasy, I've grown bored of the standard D&D setup (elves/dwarves/orcs/goblins). If it looks like standard D&D, I'd rather do something else.
That said, it doesn't take a lot to shake that up. We just started a game and while thinking up the setting, someone mentioned Midgard campaign setting (the published one), it was okay sounding, but I wanted something stranger. Riffing off the connotations of the word itself, I suggested a massive world tree, one so large that cities could be built on limbs, roads switchbacking on it's trunk and old roots leaving enormous gaps into the underworld.
The GM ran with it and it seems like a cool setting so far. We haven't gotten to play much yet.
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What about when you're a player? I've been playing an AP, Reign of Winter which is set in Irissen in Golarion. I haven't had too many qualms with the monster placement but I have been kind of like "so... it's ALWAYS winter, but you're farming crops?"
@Truthiness: yeah, sometimes I get bored of the standard D&D setup too. I'm a big fan of D&D, PF and fantasy in general and I also like some good solid rules in the game so I don't deviate too much, but a few subtle changes is nice once in a while. Monster races that aren't the typical "barbarian tribes" or tropes common to previous editions.
I mentioned the dark fairy tale realm I made up; I thought that was a nice diversion. I've also revamped kobolds in my world. Rather than being stone-spear wielding tribes kobolds are more like the Skexis from the Dark Crystal in my game, except physically smaller and weaker.
Kobolds make these elaborate, ordered sanctums; they're as much scientists and engineers as they are sorcerers; they have defined culture and civilization, including an economy. Not only does all of this make sense to my brain but it's a lot more interesting to me than the standard CR 1/4 swarming meat sweater that the Beastiary presents.
I still use all the same RULES for a kobold so individually yes, they're weak and craven and easily slain. In numbers though they form hierarchies and groups that work well together. They also grudgingly form working relationships with other sentient beings, sometimes even mortalkind (PC races). A big change in my homebrew is: not every kobold is evil.
As for radical settings they're nice thought experiments but they never seem to get much play at my table. Games I've been part of with unique settings never seem to go too far. I don't think its a fault of the setting though as much as it is me and other players that don't vibe on the uniqueness enough.
How do you folks feel about a setting when you're a player?
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What about when you're a player? I've been playing an AP, Reign of Winter which is set in Irissen in Golarion. I haven't had too many qualms with the monster placement but I have been kind of like "so... it's ALWAYS winter, but you're farming crops?"
This just in, the ice grains crop is looking pretty good this year, along with the snow exports. This is your time to BUY, BUY, BUY!
I mentioned the dark fairy tale realm I made up; I thought that was a nice diversion. I've also revamped kobolds in my world. Rather than being stone-spear wielding tribes kobolds are more like the Skexis from the Dark Crystal in my game, except physically smaller and weaker.
Kobolds make these elaborate, ordered sanctums; they're as much scientists and engineers as they are sorcerers; they have defined culture and civilization, including an economy. Not only does all of this make sense to my brain but it's a lot more interesting to me than the standard CR 1/4 swarming meat sweater that the Beastiary presents.
I still use all the same RULES for a kobold so individually yes, they're weak and craven and easily slain. In numbers though they form hierarchies and groups that work well together. They also grudgingly form working relationships with other sentient beings, sometimes even mortalkind (PC races). A big change in my homebrew is: not every kobold is evil.
How do you folks feel about a setting when you're a player?
Have you played True Dragons of Absalom? Without spoilers, there are a couple of characters that fit this exact mold. It's part of what makes the module work, in my opinion.
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How do you folks feel about a setting when you're a player?
I still have a hard time turning off the logic part of my brain. Like I said earlier, when I first began playing in the 80s the whole "Monster A-Go Go" theme didn't phase me. I was just too excited by the game to care. But as time when on I wanted less of a monster dormitory and more of a monster lair; with just the one or two creatures that made total sense to be there. At least sense to me. I suppose it's totally subjective, but even as a player I no longer have fun with the monster in every room and trap around every corner style of play and neither does anyone in my group.
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What about when you're a player? I've been playing an AP, Reign of Winter which is set in Irissen in Golarion. I haven't had too many qualms with the monster placement but I have been kind of like "so... it's ALWAYS winter, but you're farming crops?"
I'm running Reign of Winter, and the book actually does go into detail on how Irrisen gets food.
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How do you folks feel about a setting when you're a player?
I want the setting to captivate me, I want to be pleased with its aesthetics and feel that I can get easily immersed in this universe.
Blatant lack of cohesion, coherence or common sense can snap me out of immersion and ruin the setting for me, but I can take a certain amount of realistically disbelieving "facts" in exchange for cool and immersive "facts". Whatever the basic premises, it needs enough internal cohesion for me to be able to extrapolate on the setting.
I other words, not everything needs to be explained (or be explainable) but it needs to make enough sense to keep me immersed. It's a fine balance between the unnecessarily realistic and the too-much-gonzo, but I find that with age, I became more tolerant to lack of realism.
'findel
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How do you folks feel about a setting when you're a player?
Well, I long ago made my peace with campaign settings not making sense, due to a common trope that has a fundamental problem - the Underdark.
Seriously, nothing large lives that deep underground, it's not possible. The basic fundamentals for life are sunlight and water. While things do live miles below the surface of the Earth in the real world, they're all small. Mostly it's bacteria. If there's enough bacteria sometimes a few things exist to feed on it, but it rarely goes more than 2-3 rungs up the ladder. The largest are usually 3 inches long at most.
There's just not enough food for anything large and fast moving to live in areas without sunlight.
The solution? Magic! (always exclaimed in an excited voice)
Possibly as a literal solution (areas of latent background magic cause mushrooms and fungi to grow) but it's also tongue-in-cheek. Once "Magic!" is invoked, no further questions can be asked, because "Magic!" will be the answer.
The only times I worry about solving inconsistencies (as a player or GM) is if answering them will provide interesting material for use during play.
For example, no one cares about where a farmer gets his fertilizer... unless the answer is dragons (or something similarly strange and interesting). Answering how and why on that question are similarly interesting, since they could lead to adventures (maybe the dragon disappears or demands new payment, or finds out and gets angry). If the answer doesn't lead to adventure, meh, I don't really care.
I used to want wholly conceived worlds, with every blacksmith named and assigned a house. I've learned such detail is often trivial and irrelevant. Once I learned some details were irrelevant, I started questioning the necessity of other details. I probably cut more details than some people like, but if you keep the story moving and full of action, they rarely complain.
One of my favorite systems is Apocalypse World, though my preferred game is Dungeon World. Logical consistency is not a strong suit of the game, not because of the setting (there isn't one) but because the mechanics keep tossing you curve balls, so something is bound to butt heads eventually, or get a little zany. The best solution is just to roll with it and enjoy the zaniness, because trying to stifle that means killing the joy inherent to the system. It'd be like outlawing selecting feats and requiring people to roll completely randomly in Pathfinder.
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You just told me I'm wrong in one paragraph, and then basically used a different wording to explain the exact same thing that I explained.
Just saying.
"Magic!" is a "genre expectation". So explaining to me genre expectations is kinda.... well, you come up with a word for it.
Edit: honestly, I hate "verisimilitude". It's a crappy word and ideal because what qualifies is entirely subjective and attempting to dissect things as to whether they do or don't qualify is a fruitless objective.
The majority of problems that people have with various settings are entirely a product of their own expectations and not with the setting.
Remember the argument about the ball droid in the new Star Wars movie and how it was "too unbelievable"? Then it turns out they actually built it for the movie, not just relying on CGI. But people said it was still "too unbelievable" that a much more technologically advanced civilization than ours could build such a thing. The problem wasn't with the thing, but people's expectations.
What I've realized is that MY expectations were the cause of most of my problems with settings in games. Instead of demanding that every group I play with change every setting, wailing and gnashing my teeth until they did so, I changed my expectations. I'm now much happier.
I mean "magic!" as a thing that no longer deserves further examination, because the thing that is fits within the genre and/or improves the availability of adventure within the game. Therefore, stop asking questions and just enjoy it.
Now, that doesn't mean "never question", but rather decide if it's really worth asking in the first place. And don't just answer in a way that "makes sense", but rather with something that's interesting and useful to the story you're telling. If it isn't, then either the question or answer were wrong.
Ah. That's part of the confusion then. I thought the magic you were talking about was somehow linked to it being fantasy and there being actual magic in the setting.I mean "magic!" as a thing that no longer deserves further examination, because the thing that is fits within the genre and/or improves the availability of adventure within the game. Therefore, stop asking questions and just enjoy it.
Now, that doesn't mean "never question", but rather decide if it's really worth asking in the first place. And don't just answer in a way that "makes sense", but rather with something that's interesting and useful to the story you're telling. If it isn't, then either the question or answer were wrong.
It is, but only loosely.
In a sci-fi game I'd exclaim "Science!" with no intent on actually seeking out scientific answers to the question.
At our table, such phrases are typically, though not always, customized to the genre and used when someone is asking questions, that while technically relevant, really aren't relevant at all and are actually detracting from the game.
A more common way of phrasing it that you may have already heard is "It's magic, I don't have to explain it".
A more common way of phrasing it that you may have already heard is "It's magic, I don't have to explain it".
a bit too common IMO. I'm getting tired of "it's magic" (and of its little brother "because dragons!") as an overly simplistic handwave of perceived issues.
I'm ok when magic is the actual explanation, but it's too often used to handwave everything.
I'd rather hear "because that's how we want it to be in this setting"
A more common way of phrasing it that you may have already heard is "It's magic, I don't have to explain it".a bit too common IMO. I'm getting tired of "it's magic" (and of its little brother "because dragons!") as an overly simplistic handwave of perceived issues.
I'm ok when magic is the actual explanation, but it's too often used to handwave everything.
The handwaving is what Irontruth is complaining about.
I'm explaining the use of the phrase "Magic!" as equivalent to "It's magic, I don't have to explain it" for Jeff, as he might have heard of the latter as he's apparently not familiar with the former used in this context.
A more common way of phrasing it that you may have already heard is "It's magic, I don't have to explain it".a bit too common IMO. I'm getting tired of "it's magic" (and of its little brother "because dragons!") as an overly simplistic handwave of perceived issues.
I'm ok when magic is the actual explanation, but it's too often used to handwave everything.
The handwaving is what Irontruth is complaining about.
I'm explaining the use of the phrase "Magic!" as equivalent to "It's magic, I don't have to explain it" for Jeff, as he might have heard of the latter as he's apparently not familiar with the former used in this context.
got it
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A more common way of phrasing it that you may have already heard is "It's magic, I don't have to explain it".a bit too common IMO. I'm getting tired of "it's magic" (and of its little brother "because dragons!") as an overly simplistic handwave of perceived issues.
I'm ok when magic is the actual explanation, but it's too often used to handwave everything.
The handwaving is what Irontruth is complaining about.
I'm explaining the use of the phrase "Magic!" as equivalent to "It's magic, I don't have to explain it" for Jeff, as he might have heard of the latter as he's apparently not familiar with the former used in this context.
That would be the opposite of what I'm saying.
More generally (this part is not a reply to Orthos) we can stop talking about the language I use as part of hand waving. It's really irrelevant.
The more important takeaway is that I recommend more handwaving and learning to stop focusing on details that are irrelevant. We often think they're relevant, but they really aren't.
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We often think they're relevant, but they really aren't.
That looks like an awfully broad brush your using there!
For me, and not only those that I currently game with, but for those that I have gamed with in the past as well - those details ARE very important...
Obviously, your mileage has varied from mine. ;-)
The more important takeaway is that I recommend more handwaving and learning to stop focusing on details that are irrelevant. We often think they're relevant, but they really aren't.
I've had similar experiences, although in my case I think it's focusing on the wrong details that's the real issue.
Obsessive detailing can work great (depending on the players) but it's easy to obsessively detail something that never matters and which you could probably have guessed was never going to matter.
We often think they're relevant, but they really aren't.That looks like an awfully broad brush your using there!
For me, and not only those that I currently game with, but for those that I have gamed with in the past as well - those details ARE very important...
Obviously, your mileage has varied from mine. ;-)
Here's the thing Digitalelf, if you're happy with your game and attempts to enforce "verisimilitude" never interrupt or detract from the game, nothing I've said applies to you.
Analogy, I'm telling you how to get shoes that better fit, but you only wear flip-flops and/or are perfectly happy with all of your shoes. You can pretty much just ignore the post and move on.
There's nothing to argue over.