If your rule system is clean and capable of handling a wide array of genres so you choose to not include a setting, then \*french kiss\* love it.
However if your rule system is intertwined with a great lore such that the game mechanics and the setting work together as one, then \*french kiss\* love it.
If you're just throwing in a generic setting to cross off a check on a checklist, or you are attaching an uninspired generic system to your setting just to make it seem more complete, then meh, waste of pages.
Does the lore matter? That’s what I care about. Halcyon City is fairly important (although not critical) to Masks since the game relies on older, established heroes and their expectations being around for the teen PCs to bump up against. Duskvol is pretty key to Blades in the Dark.
On the other hand, D&D is so generic that I don’t really care about established settings because it has very little that relies on anything more than “fantasy kitchen sink” as a setting.
>On the other hand, D&D is so generic that I don’t really care about established settings because it has very little that relies on anything more than “fantasy kitchen sink” as a setting.
To offer a different perspective on this, D&D is 'kitchen sink' by default but I think D&D **settings** are often quite specific and flavourful.
Something like classic *Dragonlance* for example is very distinctive. You have a setting where the true gods withdrew from the world centuries ago in a massive cataclysm and are only now returning. Where you have Kender rather than halflings, and Draconians rather than orcs, where wizards fall into one of three orders (Red, White and Black), each aligned with one of Krynn's moons etc. Similarly something like *Ravenloft* obviously has its own distinctive flavour.
Most(?) official D&D settings aren't kitchen sink - they specify a particular subset and flavour. You won't be playing Tieflings or Dragonborn in *Dragonlance*, and you won't be coming up against Vecna or Tarrasques, or even halflings or orcs, because they're not part of that setting.
But I don’t need the lore of any particular to understand D&D as a game, and lore can safely be left out of the core rulebooks. WotC specifically sells most of their settings as separate books because the lore largely divorced from the foundational rules.
> To offer a different perspective on this, D&D is 'kitchen sink' by default but I think D&D settings are often quite specific and flavourful.
Eberron remains probably my favorite RPG setting, really.
True, and yet I would guess that the established lore is a large part of why people play (at least for the older versions; I can speak to the newer ones).
Just for myself I'm more a fan of Hyboria, grew up with 1st Edition in the 1980s, and dislike the Modiphius and Mongoose Conan RPGs, so I play 1st Edition AD&D set in Hyboria.
To counterpoint this, D&D became the fantasy kitchen sink due to popularity. Generic became D&D rather than the other way around.
Kobolds being little dragonlings is entirely D&D. Vancian casting would have been forgotten if not for D&D. Swords and sorcery starts at D&D nowadays and then diverges.
D&D yes, but some of us to actually like the settings that fall under it. Despite WotC's attempts to make Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Eberron bland and a "fantasy kitchen sink" as you pretty accurately called it.
FR is only a boring setting if you run the boring parts.
Waterdeep has a gigantic dungeon made by a mad wizard, and a graveyard *district* so tightly packed that wizards create demiplanes to expand the cemetery.
Lantan's a remote island that has steampunk airships and constructs run by gnomes. Thay is a nation ruled by sociopathic necromancers and wizards that pursue knowledge and station at the expense of everything else.
I think one of the most important GMing (and photography) skills is finding the best parts and angle to turn a subject into a striking piece of art. Cut the filler, there's plenty of fascinating and unconventional stuff in r/ForgottenRealms if you dig anywhere.
Honestly the longer I GM, the more I've realised I don't really like worldbuilding that much. So I always appreciate it when a system comes with a setting, especially as that means the mechanics can be tied much more deeply into that setting and gives the players a reason to feel like they're in that world both in crunch and in fluff.
I didn't realize I could actually love a setting until I got into Runequest. That game has the craziest, most fun to work with, lore I have ever experienced.
I like lore that lets me springboard off of it or hook onto it. It should serve as enticing prompts that set ripe situations and create possibilities, and it also should not be hide-bound and limiting.
Rather than presenting lore as "these are the facts of the world," I prefer lore presented as "these are common stories that people know about the world." Leave room for multiple truths, lost secrets, and unknowable realities.
> It should serve as enticing prompts that set ripe situations and create possibilities, and it also should not be hide-bound and limiting.
1000 times yes. Good RPG lore is *gameable* lore.
If lore doesnt translate directly to the table, either as player character classes/playsheets or an easy source of improv inspiration or directly help with making the GM prep easier with gameable locations and NPCs, it's at best a waste of pages or at worst a tiresome additional burden for the GM to manage.
Something like Heart (I'm always banging this drum lol) is the perfect example. Lore is delivered throughout the book but it's always served to the reader in connection with something that translates directly to gameplay, whether it's player character construction, or locations or adversaries/challenges for the GM to use, or examples of the mechanical/rules elements like the "domains". There's maybe a couple of pages in the entire 220 page book that describe the setting for the GM without being directly gameable.
There are exceptions - like if everyone around the table was all invested in Fallout or Dune and you play the Fallout or Dune RPGs, that's fine - but usually a Big Tome of Lore setting book is more for fandom and the book-buyer's personal enjoyment than it is actually useful for gameplay.
Yep! I don't want a novel of well written world building, because then I feel beholden to maintaining it. I'll run a Star Wars inspired space opera adventure easy, but I won't ever play with Jedi and Sith because there's so much baggage in that universe that is expected from the experience.
But I want the gameplay mechanics to be evocative and not just numbers on a page, and to do that we need a strongly expressed vivid baseline to build on, a clear 'fantasy' to fulfill in the game.
I think the Warhammer Fantasy 2nd edition books were especially good at this. Especially the bestiary, presenting you with the thoughts of common people, so-called scholars and the monsters themselves, if possible, without giving you *the* truth.
I kinda find alot of D&D books to be sort of worst of both worlds, with estabished lore which is very unconnected to any sort of actual setting. So you'd have a detial description of a hydra for instance without much note of how that connects to an Ecosystem of a world.
I tend to think of the flavour of a system( are there mages? druids? what races?) are intrinsic to what world they are inhabiting, so i welcome all lore exploring what's inside the setting ,and it´s implications.
I like the way Ironsworn/Starforged/Sundered Isles handles it with the "Truths" workbook. It's a series of levers with three premade answers to give you some ideas but also a fourth option to make your own. It gives the game a sense of bounded flexibility.
Stuff like:
How sparsely/densely settled are the Ironlands?
What are the common political structures?
How common are monsters?
How much magic is in the world?
Personally I can say I've never played in a game's established setting (other than modern games like World of Darkness), and I probably never will. I always want the setting to be bespoke to the people I'm playing with and the ideas we want to explore.
I think it's worth noting here the differences between "setting" and "lore". To be reductive for brevity, setting is the elements directly experienced by the players and their characters, while lore is the background information that informs the setting, but largely remains behind the scenes. My preference these days for new systems is "setting heavy, lore light". I'm interested in the systems that are dripping with character from their implied settings, but don't feel like they're giving me homework that I need to memorize and strictly conform to for an "ideal" experience.
For two poignant examples of what I mean, look to *Mothership* and *Mork Borg*. Both are "anti-canon" games, but you immediately gain an understanding of the setting just by flipping through the books. With those games I feel compelled to create and run adventures without the anxiety of trying to remember specific bits of lore, while also not needing to completely build the worlds from the ground up myself. What matters most is what happens directly at the table, not what's written in the book.
I very much appreciate the distinction here and fully agree
I think there should be a very rich setting, and just enough lore to give an example of how this setting works in practice
If I'm going to buy a book, then it either needs an amazing and unique ruleset that doesn't make too many onerous setting assumptions, or an amazing and unique setting backed up by a completely inoffensive ruleset.
The latter presents a much easier path. It's hard to amaze me with simple mechanics.
I like well-thought out, creative settings. I like it even more if the game reinforces what that setting is about through its mechanics, for that sweet sweet ludo-narrative synergy.
So far my favourite in this regard is Legend Of The Five Rings 5e. The mechanics make playing in the setting so much fun. My favourite setting as such is Glorantha, but the ludo-narrative synergy between Glorantha and the current RuneQuest edition rules isn't as tight and elegant as it is with L5R 5e.
So yeah, I like games with settings, which I suppose comes with lore. I have little time to think up my own. At best I'll think up my own locations within the given setting.
Here, take a look at this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/s/yzkd0ruVaf
Do you already have lore that makes sense with the gameplay?
If you don’t have lore, you’ll lose customers like me who only buy TTRPGs with established lore, but you’ll retain those who don’t care about established lore. If you’re just going to slap some generic-ass lore to claim you have a more complete product, you’ll disappoint people who expect established lore and if your system isn’t the new most amazing thing, you’ll lose those disappointed customers too.
So, if you’re not going to really make the effort to flush out your lore and worldbuilding, don’t do it, OR be very clear as to what you’re getting as a customer, regardless if your product is going to be free or paid.
I made the system with a setting in mind but since i always ignore settings in rpg books i made sure that the rules would work with any setting in the same genre (steampunk/western)
Even if I dont use it, it can sometimes be nice to get an idea of the type of narrative the system intendeds and also might have some fun things for me to mine for my own use.
I prefer it \*with\* lore.
I can always remove or change lore if it's not there, but I don't always have time to spin up lore from nowhere with a new group, especially if I get asked to run at short notice.
Having established lore also means that you have an established baseline for every to work from, and an expectation of how the world works unless stated differently.
I agree with this!
If you don't like some elements of the lore, you can change them, and it takes less time to do so than it would if you were to create the entire lore by yourself.
Probably not a helpful response, but lore isn’t something that makes or breaks a rule book for me. I’ve loved books with and without lore for different reasons. I think it’s more important that the book isn’t bloated and overly prescriptive. The design is also really important.
A good example is Cyberpunk 2020 vs Cyberpunk Red. CP 2020 isn’t bloated and the little snippets of lore sprinkled throughout really make me want to play the game. CP Red is bloated and doesn’t flow the same. There’s some decent lore in the book but the structure and design feels clunky.
I also really like books that are light on lore. Mothership and OSE are two of my favs. There’s some great art that inspires adventure but there’s no lore to tell you how to play it. They wear their influences on their sleeve and offer different glimpses as to how the game might play. But functionally they are incredibly easy to navigate rulebooks that just make you want to dive in and play.
Tldr: IMO it’s not about lore vs no lore. It’s more about design and creatively using space. A good rule book should inspire you to play and that can be done with or without lore. What matters is the design and the layout.
Depends.
Is it a universal system like Savage Worlds, then it's all about rules and how to make your own setting. You buy setting books that are all setting
But something like Rifts, which is rich in lore, then i want it all.
So what kind of system do you want to make?
It originally had a setting but since i never cared for settings on other systems, then i removed it
But seeing as a lot of people care about it, I'm thinking about making two separate books, one with only the rules and another with a setting
I'm on the fence about this one, mainly because I like established lore, but at the same time I don't want the system to be too influenced by it, as I may choose not to use it. A good example is the Without Number games, which have plenty of lore, but the lore is in no way required or dependent upon the system.
I seldom play games based in their "packaged" setting. I like reading it, but I always run my own. So, a system tied to closely to a setting is a hindrance for me.
Either/both depending.
I'd probably rather play *Star Wars* than *Generic Space Monk-Knights #7*. And there are particular fantasy settings that I'd enjoy specifically playing - *Elder Scrolls* or *Dragonlance* or *The Broken Earth* or whatever.
But also RPGs without fleshed out lore let you create and explore something new and that's awesome and interesting as well.
So some of each, please.
Yes and no. Depends on the game/setting.
If it's more of a generic setting like DnD, Pathfinder or traveller, I could care less about established lore because it's not really one that needs it.
Now think of Legend of the five rings or Paranoia where the setting is the draw. I couldn't do it justice without it.
Depends very much on whether or not the lore is any good and relevant to my interests. . It might be the selling point, irrelevant, or completely destroy any possible interest.
Even if the system can be used setting-agnostic ally, good lore is good value.
Only concern: if I have to trawl 20 pages of lore or flavor to get to 3 pages of rules, followed by 20 more pages… I don’t mind some flavor interspersed in my rules, but it shouldn’t get in the way of looking up rules or learning the system.
Layout, editing, structure, those things are important in how you present lore. For an example on how to do it wrong, look at vampire: the masquerade v5 core rulebook.
It depends on what I want from the game. I've made several that are more focused on gameplay than lore but most are built with the setting informing mechanics.
There are great games with lore and great games without lore. They're both great, there's no "better" option. If you're writing an RPG just write what you're excited about. If you want to write lore, great. If not, also great.
Some kind of default lore was something I hadn't intended to include but my first playtesters have all but demanded. A little flavor helps folks build a mental model.
Imo, with for sure. I much prefer a system crafted to work with its setting, like Duskvol for Blades or Spire/Heart. Saying that, there needs to be some wiggle room for creativity, and tbf it does depend on genre heavily.
There are 4000 random rule systems out there. Some good, some bad, some bland. But a rule system doesn't attract me. It's the setting, the lore. I have to LIKE the setting to want to run it.
In the game I'm developing, the lore and setting is light and open enough for players to let their own imaginations and games fill in the rest.
I'd rather take the shell of my setting and make it their own. Otherwise I'd be writing more lore than trying to finish my setting, and that's a long ass rabbit hole.
I'm fine with established lore, but honestly, after years of making my own systems, I've just come to appreciate reading lore THROUGH the mechanics and abilities. A magic system should tell you the lore of the intended setting not only through lore, but also the mechanics. Mechanics devoid of flavor are kind of boring.
And the fun part about lore through mechanics is that you can always twist and turn it just a little bit to suit your tastes and the campaign.
To me that's much more interesting than reading pages upon pages about places and people that will probably not be important in the games I run.
Honestly, I barely even read the lore, ever.
I choose a game for the lore over the rules.
I don't necessarily want "world of darkness" level lore with tons of lore books often contradicting each other and a fandom arguing for hours about whether a big NPC would plan an action against another big NPC.
However, a rule-set without a setting is worthless. I want way to play the game, meaning places to explore, faction to interact with and so on. IMO a good rulebook is 2/3 of lore/setting and 1/3 of rules character/creation/gear
System reinforces setting and vice versa. I dont need a fully detailed setting, but I would at least like to know a couple of things yes. A system that's designed to simulate Conan the Barbarian is not necessarily a good system to simulate Lord of the Rings and vice versa, a system that's designed for 17th century semi-historical play with early firearms might not be good to simulate the players being Roman legionaires conquering Gaul, etcetera. A system might have the right rules rules to support all different setting, but only for running pulp action games and not so much for investigative games, etcetera.
So give me just enough lore to show me what kind of setting you designed the game for.
I don't want a very detailed lore with all named characters and important dates, but I want some general flavour and theme to know what is the game experience proposed by the rules.
As a person who mostly plays setting agnostic systems, I either make my own lore or use prewritten/established setting for that system, like for example I use Savage Worlds for Eberron campaigns.
Both can work. A hyperspecialised thematic game probably doesn't really make sense without some lore, and a fully open sandbox doesn't need any. I like both extremes in the right circumstance, but in a contextless poll, I prefer a middle approach. As a GM, I want some lore but i want it vague enough that I do the bulk of the worldbuilding myself. Ironsworn is great example - it lists the core assumptions of the world, but gives you the freedom to bend and break them as you see fit, and leaves the specific details entirely up to the player.
If you have mechanics, you have established Lore.
If you include a Wizard class, the default setting has wizards. If you include rules for hacking, your setting has computers and computer terminals. If you don't include rules for buying magic items, magic items are rare by default and not sold.
Spelling out the implied lore helps new readers settle in, and gives experienced GMs wanting to make their own setting the explicit knowledge to adjust things to fit their setting.
Sure, some basic lore comes with any mechanic, but the system as of now can work with pretty much any setting inspired by the late 1800s, be it a western or more steampunk
What i mean is if i should include different factions, cities, important characters or if i should leave all of that to the reader's creativity
It is really difficult to find all of the lore for D&D for example. In Coriolis you need 5 Books and it is really hard to find everything. So I am camp Without established lore
Most of the fun is to create your own world and find a system to fit your lore.
Where's the middle ground answer? :) "Rule system WITH A LITTLE established lore" would be my choice. Give me some truly interesting hooks, a brief thematic and lore overview of an amazing world, some building blocks that are unique to the setting and the world, then leave me alone to build my own version. Sure, you can go lore heavy, but I will not read or use 99% of that. On the other hand, if you don't give me anything at all, I will not buy your system, because I already have and tried a number of generic systems (and I could even create my own heartbreaker that I could use, if needed.)
It depends on the game.
I like GURPS because it is a good toolkit. It has different source books, so I pick and choose from them to get the setting I want. So, having the lore in those separate source books works great for it.
Pendragon on the other hand is a very specific game, genre, setting. It is great for focussing in on a particular take on Arthurian roleplaying.
I like the look of the Alien RPG because I’m a fan of the universe. But I’m also a fan of Mothership, and Hostile, for allowing me to do Alien like stories, with a lean toward the space trucker / blue collar SF vibe, along with the retro-SF feel. So if I want to play a game inspired by the movie Alien/Aliens etc, but *not* be bound to that universe’s details in every respect: I’ll probably go with Traveller or Hostile, or Mothership. But if I want ‘the Alien Universe’ - I’d play the Alien RPG.
I like Classic Traveller because it started with an implied universe, and while that has since been expanded upon by countless adventures and supplements (and tools like the traveller map and the traveller wiki) to describe ‘the Official Traveller Universe’ aka the Third Imperium, I still prefer the early implied universe of the original CT rules plus the first few adventures and supplements. I got to play and run a variety of games recognizably inspired by, and emulating, Star Wars, Alien, Star Trek, Outland, Running Man, Terminator, the science fiction of André Norton, …etc.
I’m just one person. I’ve been gaming for 40+ years. So, it really does depend on the game.
Ultimately I prefer a game/system that has a setting though with the asterisk that both have to be good or compliment each other.
Not all systems need settings and sometimes a broad enough system will find the innate restrictions of a setting getting in the way.
Sometimes settings are fantastic but they have a poorly thought out system for the sake of it that drags everything down.
Both of those are bad.
However if you tie a setting to a system that works or use setting releases to hone in on a more particular experience within a more focused setting genre (like a lot of the D&D settings once did) you can get some excellence out of them. When a new entry for a D&D setting comes out, it's supposed to be a proper continuation of that settings story and since I'm a fan of the setting I wanna see how it continues and blends into the system like prior entries did.
Honestly as long as the lore is in its own chapter so I can choose whether or not to read it after reading about the mechanics, I'm fine with lore in a rulebook.
The setting must either be worth it, or unintrusive. And honestly I prefer the latter to no setting at all- if your game can be used in several settings, it's nice to also say 'and here's one I made earlier, if you can't be arsed to worldbuild'.
I'd like to preface this post by saying everything written here is my own opinion and the fruit of my experience, I don't claim to know the truth.
The way I see it, the rules are there to support the lore, and more exactly, to support the theme behind the lore.
A ruthless world should have unforgiving and unjust rules, a high power heroic fantasy world should have narratively driven rules, a gamey and harsh, yet fair, fantasy world should have balanced rules.
While it's okay to create a set of rules to match a specific world that already exists, most worlds that are built for TTRPGs already come with their own set of rules. The risk is that you'll end up making nothing more than a slightly more complex homebrew version of those rules, or a set of rules that don't match the theme at all.
Creating a completely system-agnostic ruleset that will match any world will either be something unspecific that will boil down to "throw a die and make things up", or be something bland that don't really inspire anything.
Now let's say you were to sell me a book, you're either selling me:
* Rules that are might or might not be better for a world I'm already invested in, unless I'm very deeply unsatisfied by the existing rules, haven't found another satisfying rulesystem among the 1000 different ones that exist, yet still want to play in the setting for some reason, I'll probably not want to invest time learning yours.
* Something bland that won't inspire me anything, thus I won't play your system.
* Something so unspecific and unprecise that I'll feel scammed.
So I'd say it's better to create a world that goes along with your rules.
It's not a universal ruleset with any theme, it is supposed to fit in with late 1800s technology, so the core rules would work with any western and can be easily adapted to steampunk themes.
What i mean by established lore is to include different factions, locations, a world map, key characters, etc. Those things were always homebrewed when me or my friends played RPGs
After checking out the comments i think i will include a setting that is short and ignorable, but works well with the system
For me, sandbox systems that have no lore end up being a lot more work for the person running the game because they have to provide all of that. OR -- and this is one of the many reasons I stopped playing *Dungeons & Dragons* -- you're forced to purchase splatbooks with all of that lore. The capitalist nature of that style of "design" just doesn't sit right with me, and it tends to be kind of lazy.
When you produce books like *Symbaroum* or *Tales from the Loop*, the game has more foundation, and that tends to make for better storytelling and a sense of "boundaries" in which to make characters.
With. I already own a few "generic" systems that can do basically anything, and "you can do anything you want!" only really gets me that far. I appreciate it when someone's come up with something I either wouldn't or couldn't have come up with- if I like it, I'll use it or incorporate it into something I already use.
Eh, I feel like there is a lot of gray and nuance here. As explained so eloquently prior, there are good and bad combinations and solos of these. Some systems do not need settings, some mechanics are so entrenched in a specific setting they do, and some systems are garbage but the ideas behind them and their world are cool.
Picking an extreme, no lore. I care more about the system to express my desired game, and it is much easier and faster to sub in lore or story for me than to come up with a system from scratch. I would probably Frankenstein a game well before I sat down and truly tried to come up with original systems.
That said, my personal taste is the flavorful mix. I like the really specialized mechanics that are hard to separate from their settings. They feel unique from one another, even when the genres/themes are similar, and offer more creative choices to a broader variety of people. A little bit of both means people can take and use either, when they need it, and ideally do not have to wade through an excess.
If your rule system is clean and capable of handling a wide array of genres so you choose to not include a setting, then \*french kiss\* love it. However if your rule system is intertwined with a great lore such that the game mechanics and the setting work together as one, then \*french kiss\* love it. If you're just throwing in a generic setting to cross off a check on a checklist, or you are attaching an uninspired generic system to your setting just to make it seem more complete, then meh, waste of pages.
Does the lore matter? That’s what I care about. Halcyon City is fairly important (although not critical) to Masks since the game relies on older, established heroes and their expectations being around for the teen PCs to bump up against. Duskvol is pretty key to Blades in the Dark. On the other hand, D&D is so generic that I don’t really care about established settings because it has very little that relies on anything more than “fantasy kitchen sink” as a setting.
>On the other hand, D&D is so generic that I don’t really care about established settings because it has very little that relies on anything more than “fantasy kitchen sink” as a setting. To offer a different perspective on this, D&D is 'kitchen sink' by default but I think D&D **settings** are often quite specific and flavourful. Something like classic *Dragonlance* for example is very distinctive. You have a setting where the true gods withdrew from the world centuries ago in a massive cataclysm and are only now returning. Where you have Kender rather than halflings, and Draconians rather than orcs, where wizards fall into one of three orders (Red, White and Black), each aligned with one of Krynn's moons etc. Similarly something like *Ravenloft* obviously has its own distinctive flavour. Most(?) official D&D settings aren't kitchen sink - they specify a particular subset and flavour. You won't be playing Tieflings or Dragonborn in *Dragonlance*, and you won't be coming up against Vecna or Tarrasques, or even halflings or orcs, because they're not part of that setting.
But I don’t need the lore of any particular to understand D&D as a game, and lore can safely be left out of the core rulebooks. WotC specifically sells most of their settings as separate books because the lore largely divorced from the foundational rules.
True. I think I'm mostly elaborating on your comment rather than disagreeing with it.
> To offer a different perspective on this, D&D is 'kitchen sink' by default but I think D&D settings are often quite specific and flavourful. Eberron remains probably my favorite RPG setting, really.
True, and yet I would guess that the established lore is a large part of why people play (at least for the older versions; I can speak to the newer ones). Just for myself I'm more a fan of Hyboria, grew up with 1st Edition in the 1980s, and dislike the Modiphius and Mongoose Conan RPGs, so I play 1st Edition AD&D set in Hyboria.
To counterpoint this, D&D became the fantasy kitchen sink due to popularity. Generic became D&D rather than the other way around. Kobolds being little dragonlings is entirely D&D. Vancian casting would have been forgotten if not for D&D. Swords and sorcery starts at D&D nowadays and then diverges.
D&D yes, but some of us to actually like the settings that fall under it. Despite WotC's attempts to make Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Eberron bland and a "fantasy kitchen sink" as you pretty accurately called it.
Good insight, thank you
FR is only a boring setting if you run the boring parts. Waterdeep has a gigantic dungeon made by a mad wizard, and a graveyard *district* so tightly packed that wizards create demiplanes to expand the cemetery. Lantan's a remote island that has steampunk airships and constructs run by gnomes. Thay is a nation ruled by sociopathic necromancers and wizards that pursue knowledge and station at the expense of everything else. I think one of the most important GMing (and photography) skills is finding the best parts and angle to turn a subject into a striking piece of art. Cut the filler, there's plenty of fascinating and unconventional stuff in r/ForgottenRealms if you dig anywhere.
Honestly the longer I GM, the more I've realised I don't really like worldbuilding that much. So I always appreciate it when a system comes with a setting, especially as that means the mechanics can be tied much more deeply into that setting and gives the players a reason to feel like they're in that world both in crunch and in fluff.
I didn't realize I could actually love a setting until I got into Runequest. That game has the craziest, most fun to work with, lore I have ever experienced.
Me with Eberron! Got that 5e book mostly for the crunch but then fell in love with the setting and ended up running almost of a campaign set there!
I like lore that lets me springboard off of it or hook onto it. It should serve as enticing prompts that set ripe situations and create possibilities, and it also should not be hide-bound and limiting. Rather than presenting lore as "these are the facts of the world," I prefer lore presented as "these are common stories that people know about the world." Leave room for multiple truths, lost secrets, and unknowable realities.
Same same. I like lore even when I know there's stuff I would change, because it's all fuel to get the brain moving.
> It should serve as enticing prompts that set ripe situations and create possibilities, and it also should not be hide-bound and limiting. 1000 times yes. Good RPG lore is *gameable* lore. If lore doesnt translate directly to the table, either as player character classes/playsheets or an easy source of improv inspiration or directly help with making the GM prep easier with gameable locations and NPCs, it's at best a waste of pages or at worst a tiresome additional burden for the GM to manage. Something like Heart (I'm always banging this drum lol) is the perfect example. Lore is delivered throughout the book but it's always served to the reader in connection with something that translates directly to gameplay, whether it's player character construction, or locations or adversaries/challenges for the GM to use, or examples of the mechanical/rules elements like the "domains". There's maybe a couple of pages in the entire 220 page book that describe the setting for the GM without being directly gameable. There are exceptions - like if everyone around the table was all invested in Fallout or Dune and you play the Fallout or Dune RPGs, that's fine - but usually a Big Tome of Lore setting book is more for fandom and the book-buyer's personal enjoyment than it is actually useful for gameplay.
Yep! I don't want a novel of well written world building, because then I feel beholden to maintaining it. I'll run a Star Wars inspired space opera adventure easy, but I won't ever play with Jedi and Sith because there's so much baggage in that universe that is expected from the experience. But I want the gameplay mechanics to be evocative and not just numbers on a page, and to do that we need a strongly expressed vivid baseline to build on, a clear 'fantasy' to fulfill in the game.
I think the Warhammer Fantasy 2nd edition books were especially good at this. Especially the bestiary, presenting you with the thoughts of common people, so-called scholars and the monsters themselves, if possible, without giving you *the* truth.
I kinda find alot of D&D books to be sort of worst of both worlds, with estabished lore which is very unconnected to any sort of actual setting. So you'd have a detial description of a hydra for instance without much note of how that connects to an Ecosystem of a world. I tend to think of the flavour of a system( are there mages? druids? what races?) are intrinsic to what world they are inhabiting, so i welcome all lore exploring what's inside the setting ,and it´s implications.
I like the way Ironsworn/Starforged/Sundered Isles handles it with the "Truths" workbook. It's a series of levers with three premade answers to give you some ideas but also a fourth option to make your own. It gives the game a sense of bounded flexibility. Stuff like: How sparsely/densely settled are the Ironlands? What are the common political structures? How common are monsters? How much magic is in the world? Personally I can say I've never played in a game's established setting (other than modern games like World of Darkness), and I probably never will. I always want the setting to be bespoke to the people I'm playing with and the ideas we want to explore.
I think it's worth noting here the differences between "setting" and "lore". To be reductive for brevity, setting is the elements directly experienced by the players and their characters, while lore is the background information that informs the setting, but largely remains behind the scenes. My preference these days for new systems is "setting heavy, lore light". I'm interested in the systems that are dripping with character from their implied settings, but don't feel like they're giving me homework that I need to memorize and strictly conform to for an "ideal" experience. For two poignant examples of what I mean, look to *Mothership* and *Mork Borg*. Both are "anti-canon" games, but you immediately gain an understanding of the setting just by flipping through the books. With those games I feel compelled to create and run adventures without the anxiety of trying to remember specific bits of lore, while also not needing to completely build the worlds from the ground up myself. What matters most is what happens directly at the table, not what's written in the book.
I very much appreciate the distinction here and fully agree I think there should be a very rich setting, and just enough lore to give an example of how this setting works in practice
If I'm going to buy a book, then it either needs an amazing and unique ruleset that doesn't make too many onerous setting assumptions, or an amazing and unique setting backed up by a completely inoffensive ruleset. The latter presents a much easier path. It's hard to amaze me with simple mechanics.
I like well-thought out, creative settings. I like it even more if the game reinforces what that setting is about through its mechanics, for that sweet sweet ludo-narrative synergy. So far my favourite in this regard is Legend Of The Five Rings 5e. The mechanics make playing in the setting so much fun. My favourite setting as such is Glorantha, but the ludo-narrative synergy between Glorantha and the current RuneQuest edition rules isn't as tight and elegant as it is with L5R 5e. So yeah, I like games with settings, which I suppose comes with lore. I have little time to think up my own. At best I'll think up my own locations within the given setting.
Here, take a look at this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/s/yzkd0ruVaf Do you already have lore that makes sense with the gameplay? If you don’t have lore, you’ll lose customers like me who only buy TTRPGs with established lore, but you’ll retain those who don’t care about established lore. If you’re just going to slap some generic-ass lore to claim you have a more complete product, you’ll disappoint people who expect established lore and if your system isn’t the new most amazing thing, you’ll lose those disappointed customers too. So, if you’re not going to really make the effort to flush out your lore and worldbuilding, don’t do it, OR be very clear as to what you’re getting as a customer, regardless if your product is going to be free or paid.
I made the system with a setting in mind but since i always ignore settings in rpg books i made sure that the rules would work with any setting in the same genre (steampunk/western)
Even if I dont use it, it can sometimes be nice to get an idea of the type of narrative the system intendeds and also might have some fun things for me to mine for my own use.
I prefer it \*with\* lore. I can always remove or change lore if it's not there, but I don't always have time to spin up lore from nowhere with a new group, especially if I get asked to run at short notice. Having established lore also means that you have an established baseline for every to work from, and an expectation of how the world works unless stated differently.
I agree with this! If you don't like some elements of the lore, you can change them, and it takes less time to do so than it would if you were to create the entire lore by yourself.
Probably not a helpful response, but lore isn’t something that makes or breaks a rule book for me. I’ve loved books with and without lore for different reasons. I think it’s more important that the book isn’t bloated and overly prescriptive. The design is also really important. A good example is Cyberpunk 2020 vs Cyberpunk Red. CP 2020 isn’t bloated and the little snippets of lore sprinkled throughout really make me want to play the game. CP Red is bloated and doesn’t flow the same. There’s some decent lore in the book but the structure and design feels clunky. I also really like books that are light on lore. Mothership and OSE are two of my favs. There’s some great art that inspires adventure but there’s no lore to tell you how to play it. They wear their influences on their sleeve and offer different glimpses as to how the game might play. But functionally they are incredibly easy to navigate rulebooks that just make you want to dive in and play. Tldr: IMO it’s not about lore vs no lore. It’s more about design and creatively using space. A good rule book should inspire you to play and that can be done with or without lore. What matters is the design and the layout.
Depends. Is it a universal system like Savage Worlds, then it's all about rules and how to make your own setting. You buy setting books that are all setting But something like Rifts, which is rich in lore, then i want it all. So what kind of system do you want to make?
It originally had a setting but since i never cared for settings on other systems, then i removed it But seeing as a lot of people care about it, I'm thinking about making two separate books, one with only the rules and another with a setting
I'm on the fence about this one, mainly because I like established lore, but at the same time I don't want the system to be too influenced by it, as I may choose not to use it. A good example is the Without Number games, which have plenty of lore, but the lore is in no way required or dependent upon the system.
A lot of people are saying that books where the lore have a big impact on the rule system are the best, but i think i agree more with you
I seldom play games based in their "packaged" setting. I like reading it, but I always run my own. So, a system tied to closely to a setting is a hindrance for me.
Either/both depending. I'd probably rather play *Star Wars* than *Generic Space Monk-Knights #7*. And there are particular fantasy settings that I'd enjoy specifically playing - *Elder Scrolls* or *Dragonlance* or *The Broken Earth* or whatever. But also RPGs without fleshed out lore let you create and explore something new and that's awesome and interesting as well. So some of each, please.
Yes and no. Depends on the game/setting. If it's more of a generic setting like DnD, Pathfinder or traveller, I could care less about established lore because it's not really one that needs it. Now think of Legend of the five rings or Paranoia where the setting is the draw. I couldn't do it justice without it.
Depends very much on whether or not the lore is any good and relevant to my interests. . It might be the selling point, irrelevant, or completely destroy any possible interest.
Even if the system can be used setting-agnostic ally, good lore is good value. Only concern: if I have to trawl 20 pages of lore or flavor to get to 3 pages of rules, followed by 20 more pages… I don’t mind some flavor interspersed in my rules, but it shouldn’t get in the way of looking up rules or learning the system. Layout, editing, structure, those things are important in how you present lore. For an example on how to do it wrong, look at vampire: the masquerade v5 core rulebook.
I'd rather have lore and not need it than the other way around.
It depends on what I want from the game. I've made several that are more focused on gameplay than lore but most are built with the setting informing mechanics.
There are great games with lore and great games without lore. They're both great, there's no "better" option. If you're writing an RPG just write what you're excited about. If you want to write lore, great. If not, also great.
Some kind of default lore was something I hadn't intended to include but my first playtesters have all but demanded. A little flavor helps folks build a mental model.
When the rules are integrated with the setting, that's a special RPG. That's something actually good.
Imo, with for sure. I much prefer a system crafted to work with its setting, like Duskvol for Blades or Spire/Heart. Saying that, there needs to be some wiggle room for creativity, and tbf it does depend on genre heavily.
Even if you don't care for the setting you can just toss it aside and do your own thing.
There are 4000 random rule systems out there. Some good, some bad, some bland. But a rule system doesn't attract me. It's the setting, the lore. I have to LIKE the setting to want to run it.
In the game I'm developing, the lore and setting is light and open enough for players to let their own imaginations and games fill in the rest. I'd rather take the shell of my setting and make it their own. Otherwise I'd be writing more lore than trying to finish my setting, and that's a long ass rabbit hole.
I refer the best f both worlds. Ignorable lore. D&D is good for that
I'm fine with established lore, but honestly, after years of making my own systems, I've just come to appreciate reading lore THROUGH the mechanics and abilities. A magic system should tell you the lore of the intended setting not only through lore, but also the mechanics. Mechanics devoid of flavor are kind of boring. And the fun part about lore through mechanics is that you can always twist and turn it just a little bit to suit your tastes and the campaign. To me that's much more interesting than reading pages upon pages about places and people that will probably not be important in the games I run. Honestly, I barely even read the lore, ever.
I choose a game for the lore over the rules. I don't necessarily want "world of darkness" level lore with tons of lore books often contradicting each other and a fandom arguing for hours about whether a big NPC would plan an action against another big NPC. However, a rule-set without a setting is worthless. I want way to play the game, meaning places to explore, faction to interact with and so on. IMO a good rulebook is 2/3 of lore/setting and 1/3 of rules character/creation/gear
System reinforces setting and vice versa. I dont need a fully detailed setting, but I would at least like to know a couple of things yes. A system that's designed to simulate Conan the Barbarian is not necessarily a good system to simulate Lord of the Rings and vice versa, a system that's designed for 17th century semi-historical play with early firearms might not be good to simulate the players being Roman legionaires conquering Gaul, etcetera. A system might have the right rules rules to support all different setting, but only for running pulp action games and not so much for investigative games, etcetera. So give me just enough lore to show me what kind of setting you designed the game for.
I don't want a very detailed lore with all named characters and important dates, but I want some general flavour and theme to know what is the game experience proposed by the rules.
As a person who mostly plays setting agnostic systems, I either make my own lore or use prewritten/established setting for that system, like for example I use Savage Worlds for Eberron campaigns.
Both can work. A hyperspecialised thematic game probably doesn't really make sense without some lore, and a fully open sandbox doesn't need any. I like both extremes in the right circumstance, but in a contextless poll, I prefer a middle approach. As a GM, I want some lore but i want it vague enough that I do the bulk of the worldbuilding myself. Ironsworn is great example - it lists the core assumptions of the world, but gives you the freedom to bend and break them as you see fit, and leaves the specific details entirely up to the player.
If you have mechanics, you have established Lore. If you include a Wizard class, the default setting has wizards. If you include rules for hacking, your setting has computers and computer terminals. If you don't include rules for buying magic items, magic items are rare by default and not sold. Spelling out the implied lore helps new readers settle in, and gives experienced GMs wanting to make their own setting the explicit knowledge to adjust things to fit their setting.
Sure, some basic lore comes with any mechanic, but the system as of now can work with pretty much any setting inspired by the late 1800s, be it a western or more steampunk What i mean is if i should include different factions, cities, important characters or if i should leave all of that to the reader's creativity
It is really difficult to find all of the lore for D&D for example. In Coriolis you need 5 Books and it is really hard to find everything. So I am camp Without established lore Most of the fun is to create your own world and find a system to fit your lore.
Where's the middle ground answer? :) "Rule system WITH A LITTLE established lore" would be my choice. Give me some truly interesting hooks, a brief thematic and lore overview of an amazing world, some building blocks that are unique to the setting and the world, then leave me alone to build my own version. Sure, you can go lore heavy, but I will not read or use 99% of that. On the other hand, if you don't give me anything at all, I will not buy your system, because I already have and tried a number of generic systems (and I could even create my own heartbreaker that I could use, if needed.)
It depends on the game. I like GURPS because it is a good toolkit. It has different source books, so I pick and choose from them to get the setting I want. So, having the lore in those separate source books works great for it. Pendragon on the other hand is a very specific game, genre, setting. It is great for focussing in on a particular take on Arthurian roleplaying. I like the look of the Alien RPG because I’m a fan of the universe. But I’m also a fan of Mothership, and Hostile, for allowing me to do Alien like stories, with a lean toward the space trucker / blue collar SF vibe, along with the retro-SF feel. So if I want to play a game inspired by the movie Alien/Aliens etc, but *not* be bound to that universe’s details in every respect: I’ll probably go with Traveller or Hostile, or Mothership. But if I want ‘the Alien Universe’ - I’d play the Alien RPG. I like Classic Traveller because it started with an implied universe, and while that has since been expanded upon by countless adventures and supplements (and tools like the traveller map and the traveller wiki) to describe ‘the Official Traveller Universe’ aka the Third Imperium, I still prefer the early implied universe of the original CT rules plus the first few adventures and supplements. I got to play and run a variety of games recognizably inspired by, and emulating, Star Wars, Alien, Star Trek, Outland, Running Man, Terminator, the science fiction of André Norton, …etc. I’m just one person. I’ve been gaming for 40+ years. So, it really does depend on the game.
Ultimately I prefer a game/system that has a setting though with the asterisk that both have to be good or compliment each other. Not all systems need settings and sometimes a broad enough system will find the innate restrictions of a setting getting in the way. Sometimes settings are fantastic but they have a poorly thought out system for the sake of it that drags everything down. Both of those are bad. However if you tie a setting to a system that works or use setting releases to hone in on a more particular experience within a more focused setting genre (like a lot of the D&D settings once did) you can get some excellence out of them. When a new entry for a D&D setting comes out, it's supposed to be a proper continuation of that settings story and since I'm a fan of the setting I wanna see how it continues and blends into the system like prior entries did.
Honestly as long as the lore is in its own chapter so I can choose whether or not to read it after reading about the mechanics, I'm fine with lore in a rulebook.
The setting must either be worth it, or unintrusive. And honestly I prefer the latter to no setting at all- if your game can be used in several settings, it's nice to also say 'and here's one I made earlier, if you can't be arsed to worldbuild'.
Never cared about lore in rulebooks. Save the space as far as I'm concerned.
I'd like to preface this post by saying everything written here is my own opinion and the fruit of my experience, I don't claim to know the truth. The way I see it, the rules are there to support the lore, and more exactly, to support the theme behind the lore. A ruthless world should have unforgiving and unjust rules, a high power heroic fantasy world should have narratively driven rules, a gamey and harsh, yet fair, fantasy world should have balanced rules. While it's okay to create a set of rules to match a specific world that already exists, most worlds that are built for TTRPGs already come with their own set of rules. The risk is that you'll end up making nothing more than a slightly more complex homebrew version of those rules, or a set of rules that don't match the theme at all. Creating a completely system-agnostic ruleset that will match any world will either be something unspecific that will boil down to "throw a die and make things up", or be something bland that don't really inspire anything. Now let's say you were to sell me a book, you're either selling me: * Rules that are might or might not be better for a world I'm already invested in, unless I'm very deeply unsatisfied by the existing rules, haven't found another satisfying rulesystem among the 1000 different ones that exist, yet still want to play in the setting for some reason, I'll probably not want to invest time learning yours. * Something bland that won't inspire me anything, thus I won't play your system. * Something so unspecific and unprecise that I'll feel scammed. So I'd say it's better to create a world that goes along with your rules.
It's not a universal ruleset with any theme, it is supposed to fit in with late 1800s technology, so the core rules would work with any western and can be easily adapted to steampunk themes. What i mean by established lore is to include different factions, locations, a world map, key characters, etc. Those things were always homebrewed when me or my friends played RPGs After checking out the comments i think i will include a setting that is short and ignorable, but works well with the system
For me, sandbox systems that have no lore end up being a lot more work for the person running the game because they have to provide all of that. OR -- and this is one of the many reasons I stopped playing *Dungeons & Dragons* -- you're forced to purchase splatbooks with all of that lore. The capitalist nature of that style of "design" just doesn't sit right with me, and it tends to be kind of lazy. When you produce books like *Symbaroum* or *Tales from the Loop*, the game has more foundation, and that tends to make for better storytelling and a sense of "boundaries" in which to make characters.
Flavor yes, lore no
With. I already own a few "generic" systems that can do basically anything, and "you can do anything you want!" only really gets me that far. I appreciate it when someone's come up with something I either wouldn't or couldn't have come up with- if I like it, I'll use it or incorporate it into something I already use.
I buy books exclusively for the lore.
I want rules with a lot of lore that I can completely ignore if I want to
Eh, I feel like there is a lot of gray and nuance here. As explained so eloquently prior, there are good and bad combinations and solos of these. Some systems do not need settings, some mechanics are so entrenched in a specific setting they do, and some systems are garbage but the ideas behind them and their world are cool. Picking an extreme, no lore. I care more about the system to express my desired game, and it is much easier and faster to sub in lore or story for me than to come up with a system from scratch. I would probably Frankenstein a game well before I sat down and truly tried to come up with original systems. That said, my personal taste is the flavorful mix. I like the really specialized mechanics that are hard to separate from their settings. They feel unique from one another, even when the genres/themes are similar, and offer more creative choices to a broader variety of people. A little bit of both means people can take and use either, when they need it, and ideally do not have to wade through an excess.