Do players buy-in more to learning a setting nowadays?

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Ralph Dula

Fighter of Fungi, Mortal Foe of 5E, Possibly a Cat
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Last night I got to page through an RPG that my only interest in came from knowing one of the artists and having heard an amusing behind-the-scenes tale regarding it. As I expected, it isn’t my kind of game, but looking at the XP system it raised a question I have to ask.

The game has players set up goals for their characters, with XP earned based on achieving goals and the difficulty of them. My issue stems from the fact that the game has a setting very far removed from the real world, with example goals given that are complete nonsense to the reader unless they are intimately familiar with the made-up factions, religions and creatures of the game.



That got me to thinking, and I realized that over the last year or so I’ve seen a number of games that have such goal-based XP coupled with campaign settings so throughly alien to modern culture that it would require players to read the entire rulebook to have an understanding of the game world to understand those goals. I haven’t seen anything like this since 1996.

Over the decades almost every player I’ve had in a game had little to no knowledge of the setting we were playing in, expecting me to keep it very basic and spoon feed any lore to them as necessary, and again as basic as possible. Seeing games in recent years expecting such buy-in from players has me wondering if there has been a shift in recent years that I’ve missed, or if this is another example that I live in the mirror universe from other gamers, like when I found out in 3.X games casters don’t usually get curbstomped and the melee classes have to carry battles almost every time.



So, have players switched to becoming more engrossed in setting and I’ve missed that?
 
I've seen both extremes with the same players in two games this past year. They have no background knowledge of either setting John Carter of Mars and Part-Time Gods.

John Carter: It was a physician, soldier of fortune, big game hunter, and natural science professor. They did not care as Earthmen they had powers on Mars, they did not care there was an ancient civilization in another reality locked in a civil War, and they did not care that the culture of Barsoom was vastly different than the 19th century. Explore? Heck no, they only cared about one thing, getting back home.

Part-Time Gods: They were all about their players' goals. How can the God of Hysteria increase sells his tabloid newspaper? I need to talk to the spirits of my neighborhood before they think I'm avoiding them. I have to protect my bookstore from this unseasonal rain, there could be flooding! I have an art show coming up in less than 3 weeks, I need to sculpt fog and transform it into stone for a short cut. . . .Meanwhile, frost giants were secretly invading the city and stealing all the relics.
 
I haven't noticed any shift in players. I have some players who study the setting and others that don't. Same as always.

I wouldn't have any issue using the kind of system you describe with either type of player. When it comes to the more casual type of player, it's easy enough to meet them halfway during character generation. I have them tell me what kind of a character they want to run and want they want to accomplish, then I can make suggestions from the setting that fit what they want.

As for settings being alien, that's all relative. As you haven't identified any of the games you are talking about, it's hard to give my opinion. It's possible that some of these setting resonate instantly with younger gamers, drawing on fictional settings they grew up with that we didn't. It's like how Star Wars and Marvel are both settings I instantly get but are bizarre nonsense to my parents. What looks like some crazy obscure setting to me might be based on some anime beloved by Millennials with the serial numbers removed.
 
I can't say I have noticed any change in the 20+ years I have been playing.

I know some guys that love Traveller and can talk for hours about the setting. I am not quite so interested in it so my willingness to read up on it would be limited. I never played the old World of Darkness games in part because the only people I knew who played it were massive setting nerds and it felt like I would need to do some kind of exam on it before they would let me play. But they clearly had a lot of fun and played WoD for years.

There is the whole "return on investment" thing. Are we going to play this game longer then just one starter adventure? Am I going to spend more time reading this rulebook then actually playing the game? Its whats holding my current group back from trying new systems at the moment. So they tend to snap back to games they already know. I did get them to try Star Trek but its a setting we all kind of know already.

One other factor... a lot of roleplayers I know are not really "readers". They tend to consume media via video, comics, computer games, podcasts, etc. Not sure why as most of them don't seem to have problems with reading and writing. They just don't read books or if they do its only a handful a year. It seems to be a pretty touchie subject with some people as well.
 
I suspect that the change is some games have clearly realized they aren’t going to be the second D&D, and thus stopped trying to be. Thus they were able to focus on what they do best.
In some cases this is a setting. So they focus on it for the players that want a game with a deep setting, knowing they won't get the others.
But a successful KS can make such a game viable these days.


Also, Ralph Dula Ralph Dula I'd like to know which game you were talking about, and which are those "campaign settings so throughly alien to modern culture", because that seems up my alley:grin:!
 
No. If anything I think the opposite.

Although this is hard to tell because so much of gaming is now just D&D. But there seems to be a big online hostility to GM crafted settings that have any real deviation from standard D&D and certainly when I was running a store game of D&D a few years ago there seemed to have been a cultural change in which it didn't even occur to new players to ask if x race or y class from some supplement actually existed the campaign setting or that they couldn't just make up whatever background that fit.

I think some aspects of things have become easier. For example, I've just started running Coriolis and one of the players shared a short youtube clip that gave the basic details of the setting that made it a lot easier to introduce the setting.

But still games still need to do more to bring players into new settings. It's always a bit difficult for a GM who has found a new setting and become enthusiastic about it to convey that setting to the players so they become enthusiastic at the same time. Something like Star Wars is always a comparatively easy sell (although not to me anymore). Games need to do more to put the kind of characters that players can play front and centre to drive enthusiasm and I increasingly think that needs to be done through channels other than just a core hardback book. (Eg an online character generator is better, especially if you can use it to convey core setting concepts through a life-path system with wiki links or something like that.)
 
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From the GM's point of view I believe players play better when they are able to relate to the motivations of their characters, so regardless of how far removed a game setting is from our own, as long as the players can convince themselves that given the circumstances and assumptions inherent in the world, what is expected of their characters is reasonable, they will be able to have a satisfying game.

What I want to avoid is assumption clashes, and arguments over whether "this is what my character would do".

My personal solution to this is to stick to well-defined genres, and using the same few settings for my campaigns - sometimes starting new campaigns with new characters in the same world, same timeline, sometimes same characters, same world, a different time, etc. We may use different sets of rules, but I find that knowledge about the game worlds retained from their previous campaigns all help to reduce assumption clashes and lore dumps during the game.

I use pre-made settings, and while I encourage those players who want to engage with the fluff to read the sourcebooks, I always let them know that I may not follow the canon strictly. Again, it is important to lay this out early so there is no assumption clash during the game.
 
I would say that its same as it ever was, but older players have less energy and time to learn a new setting. So they can get well into settings they are familiar with, but go by the numbers/basics with others.
 
John Carter: It was a physician, soldier of fortune, big game hunter, and natural science professor. They did not care as Earthmen they had powers on Mars, they did not care there was an ancient civilization in another reality locked in a civil War, and they did not care that the culture of Barsoom was vastly different than the 19th century. Explore? Heck no, they only cared about one thing, getting back home.
Ouch! That must have been no fun to run.
 
I've seen both extremes with the same players in two games this past year. They have no background knowledge of either setting John Carter of Mars and Part-Time Gods.

John Carter: It was a physician, soldier of fortune, big game hunter, and natural science professor. They did not care as Earthmen they had powers on Mars, they did not care there was an ancient civilization in another reality locked in a civil War, and they did not care that the culture of Barsoom was vastly different than the 19th century. Explore? Heck no, they only cared about one thing, getting back home.

Part-Time Gods: They were all about their players' goals. How can the God of Hysteria increase sells his tabloid newspaper? I need to talk to the spirits of my neighborhood before they think I'm avoiding them. I have to protect my bookstore from this unseasonal rain, there could be flooding! I have an art show coming up in less than 3 weeks, I need to sculpt fog and transform it into stone for a short cut. . . .Meanwhile, frost giants were secretly invading the city and stealing all the relics.
A soldier of fortune wanted no part of a civil war in which he has superpowers? Not much of a soldier of fortune.
A big game hunter on a whole new world of things to hunt? Not interested?
A natural science professor who doesn’t want to spend the next 10 years learning everything about Mars?

What the actual fuck?

Did you show them Dejah Thoris...
 
A soldier of fortune wanted no part of a civil war in which he has superpowers? Not much of a soldier of fortune.
A big game hunter on a whole new world of things to hunt? Not interested?
A natural science professor who doesn’t want to spend the next 10 years learning everything about Mars?

What the actual fuck?

Did you show them Dejah Thoris...
Once they found an agricultural outpost near the river Iss, they felt a bit like prisoners since the family was keeping them hidden. But they began learning the Martian language/culture from a Dejah ripoff with 2 daughters! Come on guys, you're from Victorian England, you've never seen this much skin in your whole life!! "It's a bit unsettling if you ask me. Naked ladies with swords."

The professor did the best in picking up the language and culture, I'll give him that.

The soldier of fortune player left the game and so the character became an NPC and once I was controlling him he ended up joining a war party of rogue Tharks. But that was all me.

The big game hunter said it was too unstructured for his taste of gaming and skipped every other game, but just stuck with it because he's my brother. LOL At the river Iss, he did kill an eight-legged beaver toad with a rock.
Ouch! That must have been no fun to run.

It was not. LOL

I would re-do the entire game and not change anything, but instead recruit players fans of John Carter or that genre.
 
A soldier of fortune wanted no part of a civil war in which he has superpowers? Not much of a soldier of fortune.
A big game hunter on a whole new world of things to hunt? Not interested?
A natural science professor who doesn’t want to spend the next 10 years learning everything about Mars?

What the actual fuck?

Did you show them Dejah Thoris...

And now I'm wondering if the physician was a gynecologist.
 
And now I'm wondering if the physician was a gynecologist.
He was not. But he was trying to find his missing father who was actually their benefactor on Barsoom. But since his father didn't age on Barsoom, the physician didn't recognize him since he was younger and wanted to keep looking for him.
 
The only time my players have ever demonstrated any detailed working knowledge of a setting is Dragon Age. They have all played the Dragon Age console game, so initially they knew more about the setting than I did as GM. But, yeah, that's a one off.
 
Picaroon Jack Picaroon Jack , you have me now thinking about the extremes I’ve seen in the same folks. The players I had who’ll focus on every aspect of one fame will pay so little attention to a setting to know they weren’t on Earth.





Baulderstone Baulderstone Off the top of my head I can’t name the other games, and I’m away taking care of a relative right now, so I can’t hop on my laptop to go through everything I bought last year. Frankly, after nearly 40 years of gaming I’ve been losing my passion for RPGs, and I went on a PDF buying spree last year trying to find something to reignite my spark. I read through a number of games, and the “Goals tied to unique aspects of a setting for XP” seemed everywhere and burned into my game, much like Advantage and Disadvantage started popping up after 5E.



As for the game I looked at that sparked this thread, I’m kind of afraid to name it, since my friend worked on it and might do illustrations for it later.



You make an excellent point that it might be referencing things that younger gamers might recognize from other things. In the last year I’ve finally had those “I have no idea what you’re saying, young person” moments old people have.





S StonesThree . you make an interesting point about how long the game might be played. The first half of my gaming life was all about long-term games, and as if a switch was thrown suddenly everyone I gamed with wanted short games among many systems. The fact that I was running almost every time, and the entitlement of some players that I should be good with buying and running games for them, is part of the reason gaming has lost its shine for me. The players who were all about short games were the ones who leaned toward not learning a setting.



AsenRG AsenRG I’ll try to remember to go through my laptop whenever I get off family care duty and get the names of the games I bought last year for you.
 
Personally I love the Dragon Age setting. Yeah, it's derivative, nearly everything comes from something else. It's how everything was blended - it just clicks with me.
I only ever played the first game, Origins, but I really liked the setting, and I'd have no problem digging into that for an RPG. Derivative, yes, but very well executed. One of the best developed fantasy churches I've seen.
 
AsenRG AsenRG I’ll try to remember to go through my laptop whenever I get off family care duty and get the names of the games I bought last year for you.
Thank you:thumbsup:!

Also, I'm pretty sure there's no harm naming a game if you're asked about it, at least on the Pub. Just mention that "[your] friend worked on it and might do illustrations for it later" so people might account for possible biases, and you should be fine.
I mean, we have people regularly talking about the games they created, nobody seems to mind, actually we like authors popping in relevant threads...:tongue:

Just to be on the safe side - TristramEvans TristramEvans is there a policy that I'm unaware of?
 
Thank you:thumbsup:!

Also, I'm pretty sure there's no harm naming a game if you're asked about it, at least on the Pub. Just mention that "[your] friend worked on it and might do illustrations for it later" so people might account for possible biases, and you should be fine.
I mean, we have people regularly talking about the games they created, nobody seems to mind, actually we like authors popping in relevant threads...:tongue:

Just to be on the safe side - TristramEvans TristramEvans is there a policy that I'm unaware of?


Policy? No. I got the impression the OP didn't want to name it because they didn't want to be seen as slagging of a game a friend of their's worked on.
 
I suspect there's less buy in, rather than more. I mean in terms of reading a big effing book about the setting prior to play as some sort of homework. Player buy-in to the setting in terms of engagement is probably just fine, and perhaps better than years ago given how easily younger people get right into setting for video games. There's no homework for that though, it just happens while you play.
 
One of the players in my second gaming group often holds up the core book (currently Earthdawn) and jokes something along the lines of "is this the thing I was supposed to read?" It become a bit of a running joke between the player and GM.
 
Once they found an agricultural outpost near the river Iss, they felt a bit like prisoners since the family was keeping them hidden. But they began learning the Martian language/culture from a Dejah ripoff with 2 daughters! Come on guys, you're from Victorian England, you've never seen this much skin in your whole life!! "It's a bit unsettling if you ask me. Naked ladies with swords."

The professor did the best in picking up the language and culture, I'll give him that.

The soldier of fortune player left the game and so the character became an NPC and once I was controlling him he ended up joining a war party of rogue Tharks. But that was all me.

The big game hunter said it was too unstructured for his taste of gaming and skipped every other game, but just stuck with it because he's my brother. LOL At the river Iss, he did kill an eight-legged beaver toad with a rock.


It was not. LOL

I would re-do the entire game and not change anything, but instead recruit players fans of John Carter or that genre.

OMG this! So much of what you describe just resonates with me. I have seen this behaviour at a lot of tables. It's like there is an invisible barrier between them and the Fun. They just don't engage with what the GM is trying to do. And I find it just baffling. The guy is running the game ffs, the polite thing to do is just meet him halfway. Or just tell him you don't want to play this. Don't insult him by turning up and then just doing the absolute minimum. All you are doing is turning the game into torture and he might not want to ever run a game for you ever again!
 
OMG this! So much of what you describe just resonates with me. I have seen this behaviour at a lot of tables. It's like there is an invisible barrier between them and the Fun. They just don't engage with what the GM is trying to do. And I find it just baffling. The guy is running the game ffs, the polite thing to do is just meet him halfway. Or just tell him you don't want to play this. Don't insult him by turning up and then just doing the absolute minimum. All you are doing is turning the game into torture and he might not want to ever run a game for you ever again!
Right, it would have been better all around if they had said, "We're really not interested in this, can we go back to the games we like?" We have a ton of common interests so it's not like there aren't games we can all agree on. That was last year and we moved on to a much more successful game of Symbaroum (which they got into the setting). Now we're playing Free League's Alien and they are all familiar with the movies so that helps.
 
Hard for me to say. I've always had players that were at least middlin' willing to learn a setting if they wanted to play at all, and then if it seemed interesting, would read more. The kind of player who's resistant to doing "homework" isn't one that's ever been too likely to do well in my games for many reasons, so I've tended to counterselect for them fairly strongly, and the people I'm playing with now are people I've gamed with for at least a decade, and in a couple cases, four decades so its hard for me to assess the modern player.
 
Personally I love the Dragon Age setting. Yeah, it's derivative, nearly everything comes from something else. It's how everything was blended - it just clicks with me.
It's one of the few settings that I set my campaigns in, and one I hope to return to one day.

I never did play any of games after Origins though, and so I don't know the lore beyond that, but the setting as presented in Origins is already rife with potential conflicts - not just Darkspawn against men, but men against men, dwarves against dwarves, elves against men...
 
I really don't think this is new. One of the first games to come out after the original D&D was Empire of the Petal Throne. Another early RPG is RuneQuest. Both of those had very complex game worlds that weren't familiar to people from film, television, comics, books or myth.
 
Setting buy-in?
Time to yet again repost the Kenneth Hite video that haunts me the most. I don't think it's a coincidence that my players are having a much easier time remembering stuff in my Ravenloft campaign than in my Eberron campaign - Ravenloft is basically all "Pseudo France here, pseudo Italy there, pseudo madame Tussauds plotting with pseudo Dracula, etc."

 
In my experience, it varies a lot from player to player. Overall, though, most of the folks I have played with over the years have had a limit on how much detail about a setting they are willing to read, particularly if it isn't tied in to a commercial property from another medium that they already enjoy (certain movies, fiction books, etc.). I have known a fair number of people who get into the specifics of certain D&D settings, whether they consume tie-in media or not, but they never really made up the majority of players, in my experience.

I don't do pre-published settings with any system, but I also make sure to minimize the amount of setting lore buy-in necessary to play the game.
 
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