Agemegos
Over-educated dilettante
- Joined
- May 15, 2021
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While I was thinking about another thread (Setting-specific terms: how much is too much) it occurred to me that many, perhaps most, role-players have a lot more tolerance for reading and learning game systems than for doing the same with setting material.
In D&D we expect players to develop a working knowledge a good-sized chunk of the Players' Handbook, to become familiar with dozens of common monsters, and scores of commonly-encountered abilities and spells. By no means does everyone master the entire PHB, particularly not before starting to play. But on the other hand neither are many potential players send scurrying when they see three large volumes of the D&D basic set, which must be closing in on a million words of text. That might be an extreme of bulk, but then it is also the extreme of popular success.
But I find that when I produce a players' introduction for one of my SF or fantasy settings I start to see some aversion if it is more than one page of text, that I start to lose a significant proportion of potential players between 8,000 and 10,000 words, and that a setting bible of 18,000 words will repel even keen players with abilities in reading and study that got them through graduate school.
Few of my friends are deterred in the slightest by a 200,000-word RPG rules set. Most get mulish at the corners of the mouth when they see 20,000 words of setting bible. Is your experience similar? Do commercial products produce a similar difference in reactions, or do players happily accept big setting books for e.g. Glorantha, Rokugan, and the Forgotten Realms? If there is a difference, what might account for it?
In D&D we expect players to develop a working knowledge a good-sized chunk of the Players' Handbook, to become familiar with dozens of common monsters, and scores of commonly-encountered abilities and spells. By no means does everyone master the entire PHB, particularly not before starting to play. But on the other hand neither are many potential players send scurrying when they see three large volumes of the D&D basic set, which must be closing in on a million words of text. That might be an extreme of bulk, but then it is also the extreme of popular success.
But I find that when I produce a players' introduction for one of my SF or fantasy settings I start to see some aversion if it is more than one page of text, that I start to lose a significant proportion of potential players between 8,000 and 10,000 words, and that a setting bible of 18,000 words will repel even keen players with abilities in reading and study that got them through graduate school.
Few of my friends are deterred in the slightest by a 200,000-word RPG rules set. Most get mulish at the corners of the mouth when they see 20,000 words of setting bible. Is your experience similar? Do commercial products produce a similar difference in reactions, or do players happily accept big setting books for e.g. Glorantha, Rokugan, and the Forgotten Realms? If there is a difference, what might account for it?