Duets
The Setting Test
Before I put too much effort into either adapting or designing a setting for a duet saga I conduct a little test. I sit down and try to quickly brainstorm ten different adventures that I can run in this setting. All you need is to be able to write out a sentence or two about the adventure idea and then move on. Generally, I’m looking to see how easy it is for me to come up with adventure ideas, the diversity of the ideas, and whether the adventures sound fun. The adventures have to sound fun for both the narrator and player, but you might not want to directly ask the player their opinion on these brainstorming ideas since you might actually use them. So in that case you just have to try to look at the ideas through the eyes of your player. This is entirely a subjective test but it can really help you determine if a setting is going to work for you. I should note that sometimes a setting as published or initially conceived may fail this test but could pass it with flying colors with a little work. The following sections discuss elements of setting and how those elements can effect the setting’s compatibility with what you want to accomplish.The Concept
All settings begin with a concept. Really any sort of concept works, whether it’s a discworld atop a flying turtle to a gritty and realistic portrayal of modern warfare. Well, let me rephrase that - any concept that appeals to both narrator and player and is properly developed will work. Most setting concepts run along a spectrum from rather broad and generic to very specific and tight. I’m a fan of aiming more for the broad and generic side of things, but you see a lot of published and private setting concepts that try to push the envelope in the other direction. This goes back to the Setting Test. You may have a concept that is awesome but really only supports a few adventures; this isn’t a problem unless your goal is to run a longer campaign. The more clever, cutesy, and bold the core concept of your setting, the more it boxes you in. Yes, it might be really interesting if your setting is an animal research lab and the PC is roleplaying some animal who has to survive various experiments…but come on, this isn’t the foundation for a campaign. This brings us to a big point, if your setting is all about one reveal or story arc then you are heading for a train wreck (unless your goal is only to run a few, very targeted adventures).Remember, setting isn’t just about the campaign - it’s about the reality where the campaign takes place. The more parallels the setting has to reality, the more you can auto-pilot the background. When a setting is very exotic or extreme then it’s harder to communicate scope as you lack the various shorthand tricks you can use in a more solid setting.
Let me give an example. You have created a more or less typical fantasy world for your setting. You have a NPC mention a distant war between two kingdoms. The player can understand this war, his imagination can fill in the gaps, and you’ve expanded your setting with minimal effort. Now if your setting is a human body with the PC running a nanite fighting off an virus and another nanite mentions a war down at the knee…it’s too alien to fill in; you have to discuss and describe it more. The more exotic, the more babbling by the narrator is necessary to explain things. Babbling slows things down and, unless brilliant (which it rarely is) can bore the player.
So what’s a good concept? All you need is a few sentences. For example, a interstellar empire in decline due to attacks by neighboring powers, unrest within, and an ineffective government. There’s no magic but advanced technology that can, for those trained to use their minds, function a lot like magic. A great war is brewing that could change everything. Is this very original? No, but originality is overrated. It’s a solid and evocative enough setting to be interesting and it’s a concept most players can grasp right away.
The Style of the Setting
Settings differ by a host of factors from technology to geography to politics to inhabitants but the most definitive difference is the style of the campaign. The style of a setting generally runs along a few continuums. There is the reality continuum. A very realistic setting is one grounded in real world considerations and limitations. These are actually pretty rare mainly as most of us are after escapism with roleplaying. Thus most settings aren’t that realistic, but have magic, psychics, starships, and so forth. Beyond realism, there is also a natural continuum that reflects how natural a setting feels. Yes, it may have dragons, magic, and atomic weapons, but do they all make sense together? This is where the real art of designing a setting comes into play: taking all the disparate elements and blending them together to make it all seem natural. We’ve all experienced published or private settings that have gotten this to work and others where it hasn’t. However, a lot of times you might have concepts that just don’t mesh nicely together but you’re willing to sacrifice making it natural to retain those elements. This isn’t necessarily a bad choice. Some settings, like Rifts, fail on the natural continuum but work regardless; in fact, with Rifts, if you tried to make it more natural, it would diminish the setting. Another continuum is the static nature of the setting, is this a vibrant setting subject to radical change or is it a fairly solid foundation? Generally, if you want a setting to be used in various duet campaigns, then you want to make sure the foundation is solid. Yes, the PC can change the world but its essence stays the same. Juggling these three continuums is the essence of designing a setting or adapting one for your purposes.
Adapting Settings
Okay this will be quick - when you run a published setting you probably picked it for a reason: you like it. So when you adapt it for your purposes try to realize what you like about it and keep that, but don’t hesitate to make it your own. If you ever feel confined or trapped by a published setting then start changing things. Your duet saga is yours. I can’t say this enough: the only canon in your campaigns is what you decide is canon. So keep the parts you like and if necessary, or if you just want to shake things up, make changes.
Conflicts
Conflict drives campaigns and story arcs; you need conflicts to have a successful setting. Interestingly, the published settings I’ve never really gotten a handle on are the ones that are nearly devoid of conflicts (i.e. Blue Rose) or are amusingly excessive in their use of conflicts to drive roleplaying and story (i.e. Exalted, World of Darkness). Now there are certainly players who thrive in low-conflict or high-conflict settings, but most are looking for something in between the two extremes. You definitely need conflicts to drive story arcs and adventures but you also need variety in the intensity of your conflicts and some areas where there’s an absence of serious conflicts.Let me give you an example of good conflict dynamic: Star Wars during the Rebellion. You have a tyrannical government that controls most of the galaxy and is unmistakably evil. This is an easy-to-understand enemy that can provide all the conflict you need, yet the government isn’t all-powerful. There is the Rebel Alliance, which is a positive and progressive organization that, while significantly outnumbered, is a very unified group. You can definitely have minor conflicts in the Alliance between the PC and rivals, but it’s a low conflict area which encourages a different sort of roleplaying and provides the PC with a cause she can champion without too much angst.
Conflict are unquestionably important and you need to give some serious thought to them. Generally speaking, there are conflict between people and conflicts between people and nature. So a fantasy kingdom ravaged by disease is people versus nature but it is also a great catalyst for a host of people versus people conflict. Crises fuels conflicts. Wars, shifting societies, cultural conflicts, economic woes, and anything that feeds fear and doubt will give rise to plenty of conflicts. Some conflicts are immutable like the conflict between good and evil in some RPGs while others are very mutable on an individual level; thus while two religions may be in conflict in a setting, that doesn’t necessarily equate to all of the followers of those religions being in conflict. Some conflicts are also born of false assumptions about the deceptions of others, though in general most conflicts are driven by mistaken assumptions. Now while conflicts drive the action at times, don’t force your PC to embrace these conflicts. Communicate conflicts with scenes and characters rather than descriptive text. This is more of an execution point, but when you’re developing the conflicts for your setting make sure you’re thinking about how you’re going to communicate them to the player. You don’t need to discuss the conflict with orcs and the frontier town when you can describe a NPC who was maimed by the orcs in a previous battle and who can’t help but speak ill of the savage brutes and their threat. Okay here are some common conflicts:
1) Government versus Citizens. This is pretty common whether it’s Star Wars or a fantasy campaign ruled by an evil queen; it’s all about the tyrannical regime. The goal is usually to topple the government and maybe set up a new, more progressive, replacement. A twist could be that the government is good and its citizens are the force of evil, imagine a ‘liberated’ evil city and a occupation government from a just land.
2) Government versus Government. This is almost standard for most campaign where two nations or lands are in conflict.
3) Government versus Organization. Maybe the government is in a political conflict with the official religion or maybe there’s a conflict between the space station’s government and the black market.
4) Organization versus Organization. Churches, trade guilds, companies, criminal syndicates, and so forth are often in conflict and this can create a lot of story possibilities.
5) People versus People. This can be individuals or groups, but religion, politics, race, and ambition are the fuels for these sorts of conflicts. This is often what drives the heart of most duet campaigns.
6) People versus Nature. This might be diseases, weather, rampaging walking trees, or anything where there isn’t really a personality that can be interacted with driving the conflict.
7) People versus Themselves. This is a very tricky conflict and even when it’s a major part of the setting it shouldn’t be forced on the PC unless the player proactively wishes their character to be possessed, mad, addicted, or just a psychological mess.
Good Detail vs. Bad Detail
When designing a setting, there is a difference between good details and bad details. Good details help develop the setting, are easily communicated in some in-character fashion, and help the player immerse themselves into the campaign. Bad details confuse the setting, are difficult to communicate, and hinder the immersion of the player. A classic example is language. If a setting has some distinct words or phrases this is often a very good detail as roleplaying is all about language and this helps pull the player in; on the other hand, if language is unnatural, excessive, or just silly, it can have the exact opposite effect. The best way to determine if a detail is good or bad is a simple two-step test. First, can you easily communicate this detail in-character through the words of a NPC or a brief description? Second, does this detail help immerse the player into the campaign? Immersion is accomplished by either capturing the imagination or involving the PC and player in making a decision. This is important. If you are making fashion an important part of your setting, then you have to make the fashion choices of the PC important. If she rejects the fashions of the campaign, there will have to be a consequence, good or bad. A good detail presents a choice so keep that in mind. If you answer yes to both of the questions, then you have a good detail.
Time Management
A lot of things to think about here, but back to time management. You do not need a sourcebook or massive handout to develop your setting. In fact, if you’re aiming for broad and generic, you don’t need much at all. Generally, you need a rough idea of geography, some key elements of the societies, familiarity with a little of the setting history and current events (such as who rules the land in which you begin), and a few things you want to include in your first adventure. Setting design can chew up a lot of time, but it’s key to remember that the focus with setting is to create the stage and background for a campaign. Thus, you only need enough to jumpstart things and to sprinkle around as needed. I do have a few tricks to consider:1) Start small: begin with a tight location for the first adventure so you don’t have to design a lot to get started.
2) When drawing maps, place lots of numbers on the map that you can explain later. When I draw maps for my campaigns (typically using CC3), I have some locations named but sprinkle numbers everywhere. I have no idea what the numbers represent when I first draw the map but as the campaign progresses I can put towns, temples, sites, and so forth at the number as needed.
3) Recycle. I reuse concepts, deities, organizations, and anything from previous campaigns I’ve run. Just change them a little and you’re good to go. Also feel free to borrow from other RPGs, the Internet, and so forth. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
4) Don’t be afraid to rework a setting; down the road you may get a better idea for something and should change things up. It may be a trick to explain why the king has suddenly been replaced by a parliament, but this can be explained through an adventure or just off stage with a little imaginative thinkings.
5) MOST IMPORTANTLY, get the player involved. Have the player come up with ideas, detail a mercenary unit, draw maps, whatever. Share the work and involve them in the process. This helps them commit to the campaign and lessens your workload. Now be prepared that they may come up with very different ideas than you but that’s okay, just run with it.
Okay that’s probably enough on settings. I have started a thread in this column’s forums to solicit your tricks and ideas that you use with your duet campaigns. Please share them for everyone to benefit, including me. A lot of my advice is from not only my experience but from talking with others who run duets.
