Premise vs. Setting

RAVEN:
Indeed! I can think of only two other systems off-hand that allow as much play...the grand-daddy (the basic core rules of AD&D (the premise: you are adventurers in a fantasy universe, everything else is taken from there)(just forget for a moment about all the supplemental boxed sets and whatnot, I'm talking "core"); and the SAGA system, which is more-or-less an easily modified system...which isn't the same, and is similar to many other products like the Window, Fuzion, FUDGE and a couple others.

Oh yes, there are "The Primal Order" and "Aria"...premises: "You are a God" (basically system and setting free!) and "You are a civilization" (complex system, any setting).

RON EDWARDS:
Raven wrote,

>Indeed! I can think of only two other systems off-hand that allow as much play... basic core rules of AD&D ... the SAGA system, which is more-or-less an easily modified system...

I'd like to suggest a vocabulary for talking about these things (comments and mods welcome, to nail it down):

SYSTEM: the resolution mechanic -- Drama, Karma, Fortune, or some combination -- as well as the *currency* of character design and advancement, and the "announcement-event sequence," and similar things

PREMISE: what might be thought of as the narrative motor of game-character events - these two nations are at war; the populace is oppressed by the Darhk Lohrd; there's a Time Corps that feuds with the Time Criminals across the eons; the Night Things must maintain their masquerade in the modern world; etc.

SITUATION: exactly the pickle or challenge facing player-characters; when personalized, the "hooks." E.g. you've just been Embraced, go; you've just bought your first armor and sword, go; you've just awoken from the Hive Mind, go; etc.

SETTING: where, when it all takes place and what it's like

COLOR: anything that adds detail and atmosphere to any of the above without really driving anything

I think all of these are crucial to a good role-playing experience. My main point is that a lot of games really overdo one or two of these and end up ignoring others. Most commonly, Setting and Color are way detailed, to the exclusion of Premise; and System is kind of cobbled-together rather than designed.

Sorcerer, in my opinion, is very big on System, Premise, and Situation; in fact, I spent a lot of effort in playtesting getting them to support one another. Setting is expressly put in the GM's lap, and Color even more so (although the tone of the prose goes a little way for that).

And here's some more opinion: PREMISE is probably the most important. Given a premise, picking a setting really isn't so hard. Adding Situation and Color are very easy once you've done that. But take L5R, for instance, which is a fine example of a game just chock-full of Setting and Color, with a tiny nod toward Situation in character creation, and ... and that's it! There's really no immediate reason or point to Your Guy having any kind of adventure or interesting experience at all, as opposed to an NPC very much like you.

Comments?

GARETH:
>And here's some more opinion: PREMISE is probably the most important. Given a premise, picking a setting really isn't so hard. Adding Situation and Color are very easy once you've done that. But take L5R, for instance, which is a fine example of a game just chock-full of Setting and Color, with a tiny nod toward Situation in character creation, and ... and that's it! There's really no immediate reason or point to Your Guy having any kind of adventure or interesting experience at all, as opposed to an NPC very much like you.

Um...well, that could be true on any game where the pcs aren't freaks. In the vast majority of rpgs, characters are fundamentally different from everyone else in society. In l5r (or Cthulhu), they're not. There's nothing to distinguish your character from another samurai (or accountant or professor).

Apart from the fact that you're a player character, and therefore stuff is going to happen to you as opposed to the npc down the street.

Also, l5r has the whole feudal thing, where your character has someone above him (your daimyo) who can hand you plot hooks.

RON EDWARDS:
Gareth wrote,

>Um...well, that could be true on any game where the pcs aren't freaks. In the vast majority of rpgs, characters are fundamentally different from everyone else in society. In l5r (or Cthulhu), they're not. There's nothing to distinguish your character from another samurai (or accountant or professor).

There are a couple questions here ... 1) is this a failing on the part of these games? I'd argue, yes, to some extent, it is. Call of Cthulhu has always suffered from the idea that your "investigators" are more or less a generic bunch of, well, investigators. A look at that game's adventures (which I freqently pirate for cultural info and cool maps) reveals that PCs aren't really expected to do, feel, or think anything except follow the clues essentially as planned by the GM/scenario designer.

2) Let me clarify that I'm not claiming such a fault will destroy ALL of an RPG's value. It does limit the personal, dramatic, unique quality of a player's role. Roleplaying in these games IS limited. A character's "character" is largely a matter of perfecting an accent or mannerism. "Conflict" is totally defined by Situation, the precise details of a daimyo's assignment or a despairing note from a distant acquaintance living in rural New England.

Now wait! Did I just claim YOUR OWN game of either of these is cruddy, or boring, or limited? No, perhaps you've transcended what the game-book offers and provided a premise ... which would be good. But my question is, why should the game-book even have that problem?

For me, when I played Call of Cthulhu last year, the whole group sat down and talked a bit about Lovecraft stories. We decided that the Premise involved the incredible optimism, materialism, and energy of the 1920s coming square up against raw mid-20th century hard-core nihilism. So no matter what country we were going to set it in, or what immediate situation got our heroes into action, that whole Premise informed the players a bit about how to make their PCs, and informed the GM a bit about how to set up many aspects of the adventures. A game-book that ONLY deals with setting and situations tends to lose that small-but-crucial influence on both parties.

3) Can you have that personal sense of dramatic commitment (arising from Premise) in a game where characters aren't freaks? Sure you can. Movies, short stories, novels, etc, do it all the time. But let's take a look at (say) Die Hard -- would that movie work if just ANY cop were in John McLane's position? No. It wouldn't. That guy has specific features and one particular personal problem that are highly "him," and the key events of the movie depend on them. He's not just a rundown of "cop skills" from the GURPS-20th-century-action-movie sourcebook. The premise of that movie (solve relationship conflict by coping with crooks conflict) demands otherwise.

My claim is that an RPG should hype premises really hard -- thus players make characters that matter, no matter what the situation or setting.

RAN HARDIN:
> I'd like to suggest a vocabulary for talking about these things (comments and mods welcome, to nail it down):

> SYSTEM ... PREMISE ... SITUATION ... SETTING... COLOR

What interests me is where these elements overlap. As an example, WW games seem to have a lot of premise/setting overlap, because they make their house milieu (the World of Darkness) an intricate part of the rules... for example, a Mage isn't just struggling for Ascension (premise); he's also struggling against the barriers that the Technocracy, the Nephendi, the Marauders, even one's own Tradition elders are throwing in his way (setting). I've found Mage to be much more enjoyable set somewhere else, doing away with all the WoD stuff. Some Mage players, I've found, don't separate the two ("How do you play a Mage if there aren't any Traditions?")