[Sorcerer and more] A whole lot about setting
C Luke Mula:
Ron, just for clarification...
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Those connotations concern setting as skin, i.e., a completely trivial aspect of scribbling perhaps-elaborate but ultimately inconsequential Color onto a totally-consistent System which has its own features that really drive exactly what play is like no matter what setting is concerned. Whereas for Sorcerer, the Color is supposed to integrate with Setting in such a way that the Character-centric concepts are highlighted even further.
Would you consider Dogs in the Vineyard to be like Sorcerer in its setting ambiguity? I want to say yes, since it seems that no matter what Color is involved, it still is a game about authority and faith.
- Luke
Ron Edwards:
Hi Luke,
Depends on what's being compared.
1. Sorcerer as starting text compared with Dogs as starting text: they aren't the same. The textual Sorcerer content is about setting up for something for which Dogs might be an example.
2. A group using Sorcerer, once past the two key phrases and a certain amount of character creation, compared to Dogs as starting text: quite similar.
That's pretty much my answer, but now you have me thinking ...
Dogs is a lot more than merely a Sorcerer application, and it has certain philosophical roots which are very different in kind, not just degree. For instance, the concept of "demons" regardless of special effects. But along with its unique features, it does share common features with Sorcerer in action. In particular that the setting starts pretty sketchy (and even, arguably naively since it's through the lens of the naive characters), and it should gain weight and content at a needed, rather than pre-set or even pre-understood desirable rate, depending solely on the dramatic tension implicit in the characters.
Now that I'm thinking about it, Dogs in action is probably best compared with Sorcerer + The Sorcerer's Soul, not with the core book alone. That's worth a thread one day.
Best, Ron
C Luke Mula:
Hey Ron,
I was actually asking whether or not you considered Dogs to be more like Sorcerer instead of GURPS in how it treats its setting. In other words, though DitV says you can adapt the faith and world to anything you'd like, can you really use any setting (read: skin)? Or do they always need to be focused in a particular direction?
Now that I'm thinking about it, this is more of an issue of situation than it is setting. In Sorcerer or Dogs, any setting really can be used, as long as that setting has specific types of elements that stand in particular relationships with the character(s). So yes, any setting, as long as it's the same general situation. I see that from your statement I quoted in my previous post.
GURPS, on the other hand, is any situation (or, more accurately, no situation).
Your answers bring up something I hadn't considered, though: the amount of setting exploration by both GM and players. In DitV, the town is generated by the GM, even though the overall situation moves without pre-planning. In core Sorcerer, however, the actual setting is fully explored by everyone at the table at the same time, with situations flowing completely out of character creation, specifically the diagrams for each character. Fascinating.
I see this potentially developing into another thread as well, but I'd definitely be interested in seeing a comparison of Dogs with Sorcerer's Soul one day.
- Luke
wholeridge:
I'm glad to see this discussion of setting, as I've found myself thinking that setting matters very much. "System matters," of course, but over the past dozen or so years a huge amount of progress has been made in systems. If similar progress has been made in settings, I don't think I've seen it.
It seems to me that setting (in one sense of that word) is the main determinant of what the characters do. In a dungeon crawl characters kill monsters for treasure; in a war setting characters battle the enemy; in a law enforcement setting characters investigate and confront wrong-doers, etc. These encounters can't be more than black and white unless there is moral ambiguity built into the setting. Perhaps more importantly, stronger and more urgent setting goals (eg, "kill the enemy") make other goals (relationships, etc.) weaker and less urgent by comparison.
In another sense of "setting," episodic play does less to encourage relationships than campaign (or "story arc") play. Being on a different planet every week seriously reduces the need to live with the results of one's actions.
Thirdly, setting greatly influences the expectations of the players. A good setting should encourage players to expect interesting relationships and conflicts for their characters, which means taking into account commonly-held stereotypes about the kind of stories that happen in a particular setting.
In my own case, all this is greatly complicated by my desire to have character development occur during play, rather than before play begins. I want characters to begin as near as possible to a tabula rasa, and then to be shaped by their in-game decisions. This means that the equivalent of Kickers have to be built into the setting, since starting characters have no individual backgrounds.
Dan (Wholeridge)
Ron Edwards:
Hi Dan,
I think a lot of progress has been made on setting as a productive feature of play in the past decade. But to talk about that, I think we should work on clarifying the term.
Looking over your points, it seems to me as if you are using "setting" for too many things. It's useful to break out the concept of Situation, which is to say, these characters in some particular part of the setting, right at that time when something specific happens. As I see it, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" is a setting, or rather, the Federation and its starships are, as conceived for that show. Situation is this particular crew in this particular ship at this particular planet right when the thing that's happened to the people there is close to critical mass, or what's going to happen to it is about to happen to it.
I agree with you regarding the moral ambiguity, but I think the term applies to situations by definition, and to say that setting is morally ambiguous is only short-hand for describing frequent situations in it. One can have a setting which isn't especially morally ambiguous, overall, but here and now, the situation is. Or vice versa.
Your distinction between episodic vs. campaign play strikes me much more of a situation issue too, in terms of situations' closure. Episodic means they close out and are done, "campaign" that they continue to evolve through play-driven changes.
But all of this is quibbling, really, because unless I'm very mistaken, you're working from the idea of a setting which does in fact, without qualm, raise intense conflicts for pretty much anyone in it. So I'll carry on with that as the assumption.
And in that light, your final point, about tabula rasa characters in conflict-rich settings, is a damned good one and a perfectly reasonable design strategy. One of many, yes, but a very good one. One of the best games to work with this concept is HeroQuest, in which one of the character creation options is to start with a blank character sheet, with the exception of a name and a home culture. But even if you use the more standard character creation option, starting player-characters in that game tend to be pretty ordinary (if interesting) members of their home cultures, who develop into highly distinct individuals with heroic-level consequences through their contact with the setting's famously charged conflicts found in any location.
Now, in relation to Sorcerer, it's all backwards: Sorcerer is a game in which situational conflict is deeply, deeply character-centric, with setting being present almost exclusively to frame that conflict and (occasionally, as I mentioned about the outlaws riding into town) to supercharge it. So it's quite the opposite of what you're talking about. In Sorcerer, you don't really have a setting until after you've played.
Best, Ron
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