[Sorcerer and more] A whole lot about setting
Ron Edwards:
Hi Jesse,
I was trying to understand your reply without success until I read my post again. It was unclear about one thing: I wasn't trying to guess at your influences. I was comparing my own reading of the 1980s fantasy with my own prior experience, but I can see how it looked like a me-and-you statement. So my apologies for that.
To switch to your other point, I totally understand why so many people grapple with (1) we're going to play at this one spot on the map which is very cool, plus (2) why am I looking at a disconnected mob of characters who all come from somewhere else, have mercenary jobs, and don't give a shit? The character creation rules simply don't have anything to do with the single most important step of prep, which is to specify location. You can pick from "any" race, "any" profession, et cetera.
I have been wanting to play Reign for quite some time, and I find its setting very intriguing. Weird, yes, but that is up my alley, not off-putting at all. But the book's procedure knocks me between the eyes each time I try - how in the world do you reconcile the character creation process, especially the one-roll kind which everyone likes to do, with the constraints and potential found in choosing a location? The characters always wind up being a bunch of generic adventurers. It's exactly like the old days with a cool adventure module using some interesting implied setting, and the AD&D Player Manual. I kept squinting at one and the other, wondering what the hell to do.
Hey, another topic switch ... speaking of Story Before especially, I was combing the archives for threads to cite elsewhere, and I ran into Going Against The Party Mentality from 2001, which fits nicely in here. The decade-old phrase from one of your posts which most bowls me over today is, "I've always thought of Londo and G'kar not as PCs but Major NPCs. They are plot movers but their interactions are too complex and important to be actual PCs." Holy cow ...
Best, Ron
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