Setting Design Flowchart

[Orion]

So I love the Game Design Flowchart -- so much so that I'd love to see it added to the Sticky "List of TNE threads," but it assumes you already have source material to imitate. All the examples of using it have been either adaptations of existing properties (Warp Cult) or based on real-world phenomena (Dead Man's Hand) -- either way, you can just do RESEARCH on your setting.

But say what you want to write is a fantasy RPG set in a non-earth-based universe. I've tried applying the Game Design Flowchart to things like Bad Juju, or an aWoD-inspired game with a Renaissance setting and monks, witches, and angels. But I've gotten stumped on things that come "before" that flowsheet, like geography, politics, and magic archetypes.

This particularly vexes me because a lot of my RPG ideas are inspired by fiction I've written, but the demands of a fictional setting are *different* from those of an RPG setting. A single story may well be about the conflict between two or three factions, with one "protagonist" and one "antagonist" fashion, which is way less stuff than a typical RPG setting.

So what steps go into designing a good fantasy RPG setting?

--how many nations/cultures does it need?
--is it okay if the PCs are assumed to be from one specific subculture?
--Economics and History. We know we need to have them, but what do they need to DO. I mean, I get that they're there for plot hooks and motivation, but is there a way to test an economy for the right kind of interactivity?

Stuff like that.

[Orion]

As an example:

I wrote some stories about a group of "angels" --basically Jedi, highly-trained humanoid swordmaster/magic-users who live in a flying city and scour the countryside for witches and demons to kill.

Would this be the basis for a good RPG? Assume the PCs are a strike team form the angel city and have them explore areas dominated by witches and use stealth/leadership/ass-kicking to take them down? I worry that it might not pass the "6 archetypes" threshold. Every Angel has a different psychic talent, so you have your TKer, your Telepath, and so on, but they still feel broadly similar.

Or would I be better off setting this is a different time period of the same setting, say with a rift between two factions of angels, less centralized political authority, and the option to play mixed groups of monks, witches, and angels?

[CatharzGodfoot]

Even if you're coming up with a non-earth setting, so long as it has humans you can probably find inspiration on earth. I ran a Freeport game and used Google earth to find an interesting set of islands near Indonesia to place it in.

The number of factions and their interactions should, to some extent, be informed by the geography you choose. Economics is a combination of that and the use of available technology.

[Orion]

Really, I'm hoping we could come up with a checklist of sins fo setting design to avoid. For example,

Forgotten Realms Rule: Don't fill the setting with impossibly high-level NPCs, it makes it *really hard* to tell good low-level stories.

Exalted Corollary: REALLY, REALLY don't make it the specific mission of those high-level NPCs to find and kill low-level avdenturers.

That's the kind of thing that should be explained somewhere, especially for those trying to adapt and RPG setting from things in other media. There's an *awful lot* of fantasy fiction in which access to magic/powers is tightly controlled by one or two organizations, with life made very difficult for anyone outside of those groups. That's very different from most RPgG settings, which have adventurer-level critters and cultures frolicking all over the place.

[Draco_Argentum]

Even if you're coming up with a non-earth setting, so long as it has humans you can probably find inspiration on earth.

I'd go further, if its intended to be played by humans you can find inspiration on earth. RPGs are about playing a character in a fictional world, there has to be some stuff you can relate to in there or its just going to be a mish mash of random impulses.

[Orion]

True. My point was more that unless your setting concept is "earth+X factor" or "fantasy version of X culture" you need to add a step where you figure out what earth cultures and time periods are most appropriate.

[K]

Forgotten Realms Rule: Don't fill the setting with impossibly high-level NPCs, it makes it *really hard* to tell good low-level stories.

Exalted Corollary: REALLY, REALLY don't make it the specific mission of those high-level NPCs to find and kill low-level adventurers.

I don't think either of those are rules.

The most important thing to remember when making a setting is why the things in your setting interact and DON'T interact with other parts of your setting. Each NPC needs a specific write-up of things they do in your setting, and things they don't do.

So lets say we are doing Greyhawk, and we want Mordenkainen the 30th level badass to live in our world.

We then decide we want a planar invasion of githyanki to be our adventure of this week. Our setting says that Mordenkainen is in this world and you'd think he care about a planetary invasion.

So you need to know why he isn't involved in this. Maybe he's jaded and just doesn't care. Maybe he has a pact with the gith that prevents him from interfering. Maybe he's in the middle of a cat and mouse game with a demon lord that involves the death of a dozen worlds and nothing that happens in Greyhawk really matters when it comes down to it. Heck, maybe he's offworld and just doesn't know about this particular mess.

We now can have our invasion adventure and have the players feel important. They saved the world because there was no one else to do it.

I mean, you can even do the Exalted thing and have powerful NPCs hunting low level NPCs. You just need to do it like The Matrix where everyone knows you can't fight Agents but escaping them is not too hard.

---------------

Which leads to my next point: your rules create your setting.

How does that work?

Well, let's take something simple like DnD teleportation. We know that a small group of people can do it. We know that if any of those guys really cares to make money off of arbitrage by buying goods cheap in location A and selling dear in Location B can do that.

So we need to assume that mages tend to be wealthy, that trade goods on caravans tend to be bulk crap with bad profit margins, and that prices for small and precious things tends to be pretty much the same across the world.

This being DnD-style teleportation, we know that any teleporter who can see a spot can get there. This means we have to assume that people who care about teleport ambushes change location's appearances, strictly control who sees key spots in a fortification, and anyone in a position of real power keeps anti-teleport defenses on their fortresses (and that those defenses exist, which in core DnD is not true and is a flaw in the setting). We also have to assume that any place that has ever been important probably still has leftover defenses as a default.

And I could keep going on just teleport, but the point is that each element you put into your rules will affect the setting. DnD 4e went conservative and just editted out every part of the game that isn't a damaging combat power, but any truly interesting and diverse setting needs explanations that say:

1. With this X, what do players do with it.

2. With this X, what do NPCs do with it, and how does it affect the setting?

3. With this X, what do NPCs without X do about it?

This basic framework works for every part of your ruleset. Let's use it on "DnD retreat mechanic, which is that you basically can't do it".

1. Since players can't retreat, you can't have them ever face enemies who have a real chance of TPKing them.

2. Since no one in the setting can retreat, suicide actions are more viable so that even goblins warriors carry alchemic fire canisters that are on dead man switches and explode when they die.

3. NPCs who don't need to resort to this terrible retreat mechanic(teleporters, planeshifters, flyers) use hit and run tactics because they know that battle is super deadly when they do, so they probably drop timed bombs off and retreat.

[mean_liar]

I think K's guidelines are good but they're not necessary. Using them implies that your players are savvy enough to realize a lot of these things and to possibly exploit them if they haven't been dealt with in your setting already.

For example, in Shadowrun there's a gentleman's agreement for the deckers and mages to not just retire and earn consistently good corporate money. In DnD, there can be a similar agreement that the wizards aren't going to use Shrink Item and Teleport to amass hordes of wealth.

You want to maintain verisimilitude within the setting and so maybe that stuff is important: if the players are seasoned and see those relationships and their enjoyment of the setting would be increased by knowing that not only do you see them as well, but you care about them. However, if the players are going to be adhering to certain genre expectations or don't care to exploit DnD-as-medieval-Europe or whatever, then you're just creating more work for yourself by trying to follow those guidelines.

[IGTN]

There's an agreement where decker and mage PCs don't switch sides because corps pay better, but there's no reason why NPCs wouldn't. I mean, the corp's magical/network defenses have to come from somewhere.

[Username17]

I would echo K's assessment that rules inform your setting, but I would add the rider that oftentimes you are coming in from the standpoint of writing the rules as well. And then you've basically got just a few things you want to keep in mind:

• Make sure that the actions of the PCs will matter.
• Make sure that your rules are encouraging the kinds of actions you think that they are.
• Make sure that the setting you have in mind can actually stand up in the face of the abilities you are writing.

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

I think K's guidelines are good but they're not necessary. Using them implies that your players are savvy enough to realize a lot of these things and to possibly exploit them if they haven't been dealt with in your setting already.

Well, a lot of players might not be savvy, but if the DM sets up the world right, the PCs will soon learn of all these exploits by watching savvy NPCs do them, and in turn, the players will learn the tricks.

For example: given the Teleport market K set up, a lot of items might have lower prices than what is listed in the books. The players might take note of this, and if they ask around, they can find out why.

Sure, the DM shouldn't have to drop a 50-page backstory book of his world on their laps, but a quick run through at character creation followed by well set up plots should get them up to speed quickly.

[mean_liar]

Honestly it's a load of work that I'd rather not worry about if I don't have to, the same way I don't have to worry about comparative strengths of economies or armies for groups that want to dungeoncrash. It helps with verisimilitude but I'd put it on the list after mythologies, basic history, regional awareness and a few city's "feels" mapped out.

There are a lot of things you should do for your setting, but even assuming that the players give a crap about economics and elasticity of goods and why the setting has no castles and everything important is underground and and and... is a mess of work that doesn't matter for a lot of groups.

Would I personally appreciate it? I would. If it weren't part of the intrinsic design of the setting, would I care or would I exploit it? No. As a player I care more about the relationships between my character and the world-at-large than I ever do about why expensive goods should be easier or cheaper to get ahold of. If a GM has enough time to work out the economies and how architecture completely changes because of craziness in the rules, then hooray for them, but without the local power brokers worked out and deities of the setting and their churches and why those ruins are there and full of neat stuff - the kinds of things that most players are most interested in - then the economics doesn't really matter.

It's more about playing to your audience than it is a generic rule on setting design, and basically could fit into a more generic directive to "Design a few intricate fiddly bits catering to your audience".

[CatharzGodfoot]

Honestly it's a load of work that I'd rather not worry about if I don't have to, the same way I don't have to worry about comparative strengths of economies or armies for groups that want to dungeoncrash. It helps with verisimilitude but I'd put it on the list after mythologies, basic history, regional awareness and a few city's "feels" mapped out.

In a dungeoncrashing campaign, the dungeon is the world. The important thing is to make sure that it works as advertised, and can't be completely bypassed with a teleport. In a city campaign, you have to make sure that the city works and can't be brought to heel by charm person.

[Crissa]

Hmm, K, I never thought about it before, but Hogwart's is a good example of teleportation defense in D&D - the configuration of the castle changes regularly, as do the draperies and locations of the major decorations (like the ceiling in the great hall or the statues on the various wings)

-Crissa

[violence in the media]

Hmm, K, I never thought about it before, but Hogwart's is a good example of teleportation defense in D&D - the configuration of the castle changes regularly, as do the draperies and locations of the major decorations (like the ceiling in the great hall or the statues on the various wings)

-Crissa

Is it just because of that, or is there a separate enchantment that prevents teleportation to or within Hogwarts? Other than for the headmaster and vanishing cabinets, obviously.

[Roy]

Hmm, K, I never thought about it before, but Hogwart's is a good example of teleportation defense in D&D - the configuration of the castle changes regularly, as do the draperies and locations of the major decorations (like the ceiling in the great hall or the statues on the various wings)

-Crissa

Is it just because of that, or is there a separate enchantment that prevents teleportation to or within Hogwarts? Other than for the headmaster and vanishing cabinets, obviously.

I think it's a separate one. If they can make normal people who see it forget about it, why not cockblock other Wizards from landing outside the door to their room?

On another note, defenses against teleportation do exist in D&D. It's just that they are too impractical and small scale to cover up much, and don't come online until after the thing they are meant to block. If they were available sooner, more easily, and could protect much more ground it would be less of a problem.

[violence in the media]

On another note, defenses against teleportation do exist in D&D. It's just that they are too impractical and small scale to cover up much, and don't come online until after the thing they are meant to block. If they were available sooner, more easily, and could protect much more ground it would be less of a problem.

Agreed. Even if the magic was something like a ceremony you conducted once a year to prevent people from teleporting into the temple of Set or a formal bestowment of title to grant you the ability to teleport into the king's bedchambers would go a long way to solving things. It'd even work to make magic tangibly more intwined with the setting.

[Lokathor]

Dimensional Anchor and Dimensional Lock could probably just have their spell levels swapped, and then a ritualized "block teleporting" effect added that's available at level 7 wouldn't seem so out of place. It would change around how the setting works to some extent, but not much more than the Wish Economy or "no scrying through 40ft of stuff" rule does.

Dimensional Anchor is pretty much stronger anyways, since it lets you keep teleporting around them even when they're stuck walking/flying.

[K]

Wizards basically get temporary blocking spells for teleport, and not actual defenses.

Oddly, clerics get Forbiddence, which is permanent and almost qualifies as a real defense. The problems are that it can be dispelled (and probably will in any battle where area Dispels are being tossed around) and at 1500 gp per room it is unlikely to be as pervasive in your setting as it should be. The fact that only one group of people in the world can create defenses is also a problem.

Of course, dumpster divers may know of a demon or other outsider with Forbiddence as a spell-like, but that still won't solve the problem of your teleport defenses going down here and there every time your fortress faces an attack by forces with spellcasters, or the fact that you need to walk a cleric through your secret base to keep teleporters out.
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[Jilocasin]

There's Halaster's Teleport Cage from the Forgotten Realms Waterdeep splatbook. Of course it's a level 9 spell, so essentially useless against actual teleports. But it's permanent, wizards get to use it, and if people wanted they could scale it down pretty easily.

[K]

There's Halaster's Teleport Cage from the Forgotten Realms Waterdeep splatbook. Of course it's a level 9 spell, so essentially useless against actual teleports. But it's permanent, wizards get to use it, and if people wanted they could scale it down pretty easily.

Well, if we are going to do stupid things like make new spells based on little-known setting spatbook spells to solve the problem, we might as well just go completely bumfvck crazy and assume wizards are going to chain-bind efreet for Wishes that emulate high caster level Forbiddance spells.

I mean, these are the natural consequences of not thinking out your setting elements: fixing one crazy thing with another.

[Username17]

I mean, these are the natural consequences of not thinking out your setting elements: fixing one crazy thing with another.

Damn right it is! There is basically a feedback loop:

• Your setting concept...
• ...informs what your rules are going to be...
• ...because the rules will generate events and normal tactics...
• ...that will become your setting.

So if you just add something to the setting or the rules with out considering how the new setting element will be affected by the rules and thus change the setting (or how the new rule will change the setting), you're going to end up with your game going to some very strange places.

So partway through your setting design, you're going to have to make a game, and make sure that the relationships between the objects in your setting are going to be supported as being similar to the way you wrote them in the setting when you let them interact according to the rules. D&D rules do not support cold wars, they support assassinations and blitzkriegs. So it's really weird to have powerful wizards who hate each other at the heads of different countries.

But basically, the high points of setting design would be something like this:

Explain Your Setting in 30 Seconds

Seriously. Time yourself. You have one commercial to pitch your setting. If you can't do it, you need to focus your setting more or draw more heavily upon real world events or established genre fiction. Remember you can say "Like Ancient Rome" in a second without even going fast. On the other hand, even a sketchy wikipedia description of the Roman Republic would take more like three minutes. Time yourself:

The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic. According to the Greek historian Polybius, our principal source on the Constitution of the Roman Republic, the Roman Senate was the predominant branch of government. Polybius noted that it was the consuls (the highest-ranking of the regular Roman magistrates) who lead the armies and the civil government in Rome, and it was the Roman assemblies which had the ultimate authority over elections, legislation, and criminal trials. However, since the Senate controlled money, administration, and the details of foreign policy, it had the most control over day-to-day life. The power and authority of the Senate derived from precedent, the high caliber and prestige of the senators, and the Senate's unbroken lineage, which dated back to the founding of the Republic in 509 BC.
Originally the chief-magistrates, the consuls, appointed all new senators. They also had the power to remove individuals from the Senate. Around the year 318 BC, the "Ovinian Plebiscite" (plebiscitum Ovinium) gave this power to another Roman Magistrate, the Roman Censor, who retained this power until the end of the Roman Republic. This law also required the censors to appoint any newly elected Magistrate to the Senate. Thus, after this point in time, election to magisterial office resulted in automatic Senate membership. The appointment was for life, although the Censor could impeach any senator.
The Senate directed the magistrates, especially the consuls, in their prosecution of military conflicts. The Senate also had an enormous degree of power over the civil government in Rome. This was especially the case with regards to its management of state finances, as only it could authorize the disbursal of public monies from the treasury. In addition, the Senate passed decrees called senatus consultum, which was officially "advice" from the Senate to a magistrate. While technically these decrees did not have to be obeyed, in practice, they usually were. During an emergency, the Senate (and only the Senate) could authorize the appointment of a Roman dictator. The last ordinary dictator, however, was appointed in 202 BC. After 202 BC, the Senate responded to emergencies by passing the senatus consultum ultimum ("Ultimate Decree of the Senate"), which suspended civil government declared something analogous to martial law.

If you can't get the setting sketched out in 30 seconds, you're not going to be able to explain the setting to people before they stop giving a damn.

Talk about your setting for 22 minutes straight

The next step is to talk about your setting for twenty minutes. It's supposed to be the template for a role playing game, so people are seriously going to do that. If you don't have 22 minutes of material, you need to write more. 22 minutes is a half hour TV show, and your setting should be able to cover that and still leave things to talk about for another day.

Justify the Setting in the Rules

All that shit you say happens, make sure it actually does. People aren't going to be selling iron pots for less than one pot worth of scrap iron.

But beyond that, your rules are going to inform what kind of behavior is rational in every situation. Why do the people in power in your setting have the power that they do? What's valuable, and why is it valuable? What do people do on the quests/missions/whatever, and why do they go on them at all? And so on.

Perhaps the biggest thing you're going to have to come up with is a justification for why the player characters are going to be adventuring together, instead of going off and getting jobs as accountants or police officers or something.

-Username17

[Jilocasin]

I'm just saying any 3.x solutions that were ever officially made (as far as I know) weren't really solutions. So you may as well just make up some spells that do something to foil the teleports of equal level. Dungeons with their 40' of material is fine and shifting geometry or architecture can be cool and all. But as long as no real defense against teleports is accepted as a problem, I don't see what's so wrong with giving PCs some spell to ward their favorite bar with.

[Archmage]

I've tried to search TGD with a couple different query phrasings, and I'm not having any luck locating this "game design flowchart."

Can someone point me in the right direction? I'm very interested in taking a look at it.

[violence in the media]

I'm just saying any 3.x solutions that were ever officially made (as far as I know) weren't really solutions. So you may as well just make up some spells that do something to foil the teleports of equal level. Dungeons with their 40' of material is fine and shifting geometry or architecture can be cool and all. But as long as no real defense against teleports is accepted as a problem, I don't see what's so wrong with giving PCs some spell to ward their favorite bar with.

Well, do you want no teleporting zones to be mobile and swift to create, so the characters are constantly protected? Or do you want the effects to be stationary and take time to set up, so that the characters have to go to a specific place to be protected?

Personally, I'd lean towards having them be stationary and not something that you could just whip up in 10 minutes, if only to give a little more purpose to architecture and ceremonies. Drawing parallels to the real world, what if the reason that the Greeks built temples as they did was because it was necessary for the permanent Forbiddance effect? What if vespers were necessary to ward a church with Magic Circle versus evil until morning? A Coronation (or similar lesser ceremony) is necessary to allow the new lord to be able to teleport into and out of his castle?