squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
Over at Monsters and Manuals, David McGrogan brings up an interesting notion with regards to what he calls "Glimpsed-at Worldbuilding". In particular, he is reading a Vance novel and notes the author's tendency to name-drop references to exotic personas and/or locales that are never further developed, nor play a central role in the plot. McGrogran then extrapolates this literary technique to movies by mentioning Mose Eisley in the original Star Wars film, and how its bizarre inhabitants establishing a feeling of depth to the imagined setting. I think this is an interesting topic to dissect with regards to Adventure Design, this forums stated raisin duh-eater (or raison d'etre, if you prefer the french original) other than book-talk.
I going to digress here a bit for a moment to regurgitate one of my favorite bits of trivia (without source or reference) about the Star Wars movie. To anyone born after 1979, and not used to the pulp science-fiction movies of the 40's-70's (Flash Gordon, Buck Rodgers, Forbidden Planet, Twilight Zone, etc.), there was a pathological tendency for the characters in older films (usual the "scientist" or tech-savy protagonist) to explain in pseudo-scientific gibberish everything odd or bizarre that was going on and make it relate-able. There was an implict assumption that, like the audience, all the characters had 20th century American sensibilities, and would need everything reduced to a more common-place context. What Lucas reportedly (again, I can't find a reference) did was borrow an Akira Kurosawa film-making technique (for films about ancient Japan) and apply it to SciFi---a meta-realism (I may have mis-quoted the term here). The basic premise is an obvious one now, 40-years after Star Wars, but says in a nutshell that the characters in that universe have a different social content and take many things for granted that we would not and use unfamiliar phrases.
Subsequently, the cinematic explanations disappeared.
Hence the notion of "proper name dropping" or "glimpses of a larger world".
I will point out that Tolkien was a master of this too---but perhaps for a different reason---he had built the world (and language), written about its first two ages in unpublished works before finally letting us peek at it through the LoRT set in the Third Age. A McGrogan points out, this is not what Vance does. Tolkien was a good boy and did his homework---Vance was off-the-cuff "winging it".
As DMs, we'd like to be Tolkien (I think), but only have time to be (at best) Vance.
Maybe.
In the context of Adventure Design, I think this is where products tend to fall apart (a bit)---or at least are unsatisfying. I think Rob Kuntz once wrote something about how TSR was slow to realize the utility of modules. They threw a few together for tournament play (e.g. G1-G3), but he mentioned that there was a group-think of "why would anyone want to buy other peoples content when they could just as easily make their own?". That's a pithy way of putting it, but I am beginning to suspect there's a bit more behind it. Bear with me as I try to dig down some here.
Bryce frequently states in his reviews that "what I'm interested in paying for" is the creativity and details that are difficult to come up with on-the-fly (i.e. Vance-style? random-generators, etc.). But in a well organized and play-able format that is easy to use "at the table"---i.e. no walls-of-text or failed-novelists syndrome.
I, for one, completely agree with him.
So the "art" of adventure design, that is to say "good craftsmanship" versus "amateur hackery", is to balance these seemingly conflicting qualities: we want to feel a locale has depth....BUT, we don't want you to drone on about it. That's the really hard part then. Do you attempt a Vance-ian flair and fake it? Or do you build up the whole world in your head/notes a la Tolkien and just allude to it (but never explain it, except possibly a tiny bit in an Appendix)?
I'm not sure there is a right answer---the two authors I'm citing both have pulled it off masterfully as evidenced by the fact that we still remember their work.
OK, now back to Kutz and modules. I am starting to think that playing in extended campaigns, set in an established framework, or world (such as Ben L's Dreamlands/Wishery, Blackmoor, Tekumel, ASE, etc.) in which the DM has/is imagining something vaster than the immediate surrounding is what I'll call Greater D&D. Playing a few sessions of a purchased adventure---even several strung together---and staying "close to the book" in terms of the common vanilla-fantasy environment, I'll dub Lesser D&D. Kutz et al. in the early days played the former and had trouble imagining anyone would want to play the latter. It's like developing a taste for expensive cuisine---hard to go back to McDonald's. (When we speak of straight-up D&D---are we just playing in Gygax's imagined world of Greyhawk?)
Trying to tie this back to the thread topic, I'll say this: I think it's far easier to have Glimpsed-at depth when there is more of a world sketched out (if only in the author's mind), than it is with the pejoratively-name Lesser D&D variant. It is possible that the "Adventure Product" that can be instantly digested and seamlessly dropped into any existing settings is to some extended doomed-by-design, as it must choose between either feeling too shallow or else too alien for general use. It can be good, but never great.
That may sound a bit pessimistic, since products like ASE were successful. But I think that it and its ilk are red-herrings, as you have to choose to "go ASE" or not as your setting. Perhaps the need for an adventure to live in a larger content is why folks like Patrick Stewart are now making self-contained games like Silent Titans. Again, this trend may be that is where things are heading---i.e. sandbox products. I'll also note Anthony Huso's products tend to happen on other planes---which produces an easy excuse for a big context-switch. Perhaps 5e products will always feel shallow as long as they stay close to canon. Mega-dungeons are themselves quasi-self-contained worlds so perhaps that's why they became associated with the OSR and the Greater D&D. This is also why the Swords & Wizardry ruleset is so potent (more on that later).
See what I did with that last sentence? That's what I'm talking about.
Attempting to wrap this up, I'll further assert that the lesson to be learned for the Aspiring Adventure Designer is to steal from the past masters---that is name-drop and allude to a bigger world because it adds depth, ambiance, and mystery---but do it sparsely, like Ben L. does it in Through Ultan's Door with a simple inscription of “Hail Lord Murusha Eater of Winds!”. Use the lightest of touches. PC's are at heart explorers. They want you to ignite their dreams with exotica. What they don't want is a History Lesson.
The reward is a richer-feeling experience for the PC. The punishment is that sooner or later you may have to deliver some answers to all those questions you've raised (but that's where the fun lies!).
Cheers.
I going to digress here a bit for a moment to regurgitate one of my favorite bits of trivia (without source or reference) about the Star Wars movie. To anyone born after 1979, and not used to the pulp science-fiction movies of the 40's-70's (Flash Gordon, Buck Rodgers, Forbidden Planet, Twilight Zone, etc.), there was a pathological tendency for the characters in older films (usual the "scientist" or tech-savy protagonist) to explain in pseudo-scientific gibberish everything odd or bizarre that was going on and make it relate-able. There was an implict assumption that, like the audience, all the characters had 20th century American sensibilities, and would need everything reduced to a more common-place context. What Lucas reportedly (again, I can't find a reference) did was borrow an Akira Kurosawa film-making technique (for films about ancient Japan) and apply it to SciFi---a meta-realism (I may have mis-quoted the term here). The basic premise is an obvious one now, 40-years after Star Wars, but says in a nutshell that the characters in that universe have a different social content and take many things for granted that we would not and use unfamiliar phrases.
Subsequently, the cinematic explanations disappeared.
Hence the notion of "proper name dropping" or "glimpses of a larger world".
I will point out that Tolkien was a master of this too---but perhaps for a different reason---he had built the world (and language), written about its first two ages in unpublished works before finally letting us peek at it through the LoRT set in the Third Age. A McGrogan points out, this is not what Vance does. Tolkien was a good boy and did his homework---Vance was off-the-cuff "winging it".
As DMs, we'd like to be Tolkien (I think), but only have time to be (at best) Vance.
Maybe.
In the context of Adventure Design, I think this is where products tend to fall apart (a bit)---or at least are unsatisfying. I think Rob Kuntz once wrote something about how TSR was slow to realize the utility of modules. They threw a few together for tournament play (e.g. G1-G3), but he mentioned that there was a group-think of "why would anyone want to buy other peoples content when they could just as easily make their own?". That's a pithy way of putting it, but I am beginning to suspect there's a bit more behind it. Bear with me as I try to dig down some here.
Bryce frequently states in his reviews that "what I'm interested in paying for" is the creativity and details that are difficult to come up with on-the-fly (i.e. Vance-style? random-generators, etc.). But in a well organized and play-able format that is easy to use "at the table"---i.e. no walls-of-text or failed-novelists syndrome.
I, for one, completely agree with him.
So the "art" of adventure design, that is to say "good craftsmanship" versus "amateur hackery", is to balance these seemingly conflicting qualities: we want to feel a locale has depth....BUT, we don't want you to drone on about it. That's the really hard part then. Do you attempt a Vance-ian flair and fake it? Or do you build up the whole world in your head/notes a la Tolkien and just allude to it (but never explain it, except possibly a tiny bit in an Appendix)?
I'm not sure there is a right answer---the two authors I'm citing both have pulled it off masterfully as evidenced by the fact that we still remember their work.
OK, now back to Kutz and modules. I am starting to think that playing in extended campaigns, set in an established framework, or world (such as Ben L's Dreamlands/Wishery, Blackmoor, Tekumel, ASE, etc.) in which the DM has/is imagining something vaster than the immediate surrounding is what I'll call Greater D&D. Playing a few sessions of a purchased adventure---even several strung together---and staying "close to the book" in terms of the common vanilla-fantasy environment, I'll dub Lesser D&D. Kutz et al. in the early days played the former and had trouble imagining anyone would want to play the latter. It's like developing a taste for expensive cuisine---hard to go back to McDonald's. (When we speak of straight-up D&D---are we just playing in Gygax's imagined world of Greyhawk?)
Trying to tie this back to the thread topic, I'll say this: I think it's far easier to have Glimpsed-at depth when there is more of a world sketched out (if only in the author's mind), than it is with the pejoratively-name Lesser D&D variant. It is possible that the "Adventure Product" that can be instantly digested and seamlessly dropped into any existing settings is to some extended doomed-by-design, as it must choose between either feeling too shallow or else too alien for general use. It can be good, but never great.
That may sound a bit pessimistic, since products like ASE were successful. But I think that it and its ilk are red-herrings, as you have to choose to "go ASE" or not as your setting. Perhaps the need for an adventure to live in a larger content is why folks like Patrick Stewart are now making self-contained games like Silent Titans. Again, this trend may be that is where things are heading---i.e. sandbox products. I'll also note Anthony Huso's products tend to happen on other planes---which produces an easy excuse for a big context-switch. Perhaps 5e products will always feel shallow as long as they stay close to canon. Mega-dungeons are themselves quasi-self-contained worlds so perhaps that's why they became associated with the OSR and the Greater D&D. This is also why the Swords & Wizardry ruleset is so potent (more on that later).
See what I did with that last sentence? That's what I'm talking about.
Attempting to wrap this up, I'll further assert that the lesson to be learned for the Aspiring Adventure Designer is to steal from the past masters---that is name-drop and allude to a bigger world because it adds depth, ambiance, and mystery---but do it sparsely, like Ben L. does it in Through Ultan's Door with a simple inscription of “Hail Lord Murusha Eater of Winds!”. Use the lightest of touches. PC's are at heart explorers. They want you to ignite their dreams with exotica. What they don't want is a History Lesson.
The reward is a richer-feeling experience for the PC. The punishment is that sooner or later you may have to deliver some answers to all those questions you've raised (but that's where the fun lies!).
Cheers.
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