Stone Soup Setting Creation

#1

Last night my local crew decided, on short notice, that we were going to play Moldvay D&D for a while. Tossing the idea around, we agreed we’d level up after every session and share GM duties (so I guess we aren’t exactly playing Moldvay D&D after all). I proposed a vague outline for the world and everybody signed onto the premise - it’s science fantasy, and everyone lives underground because there’s some sort of techno-magical terror that kills you if you are on the surface when the sun is out. We popcorned a bunch of ideas this suggested: Our communities are in caverns and caves and we eat mushrooms and use magical, portable suns to grow underground crops and stuff. Halflings are irradiated freaks. The purpose of dungeon crawling is, essentially, homesteading. Monsters are leftover killbots from the final war and mutated beasts. Lead takes the place of gold.

To solidify the setting we did something I hadn’t tried before and it worked well. Everyone got four index cards, and we chose an inspirational language for consistency, and wrote down a word, name or phrase on each card. Then we shuffled them up and passed them back out and made a map. They had stuff like MANGU and THE CRUSH and GURLEAN and KHAIDU OLZVOI and THE SILVERED CHAMBERS and RIVER OF ROCK. We took turns filling in details of places and people. Sixteen elements were enough to really breathe life into the world - we have three communities, tenuously connected, all with colorful leaders, and a bandit king who apparently has found a way to survive on the surface. It feels a little lived-in and is just the right amount of detail to start exploring.

It was dirt simple, fast, and really fun.

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#2

That sounds really cool, Jason.

My very first time putting together a regular gaming group (I think I was 9) was a D&D group, and we also agreed to take turns running the game, so it doesn’t sound so untraditional to me!

What I find interesting about your write up is that you just gloss over this bit:

It seems to me that this is a pretty key part of the setting creation method. Can you tell us more about what you did there, as a group, what worked well, and what didn’t?

For instance, are you writing on the cards? Positioning them on the table? Asking each other leading questions?

#3

We laid out a big blank sheet of paper (like a meter square) and just took turns drawing on it. Each person would put down a card and say something like “I think our village is called The Long Tall” and add it, and then everyone would embellish and paint the scene a little. “Yeah, and it is centered on some kind of enormous underground pillar.” “And I have a card with a name that is the leader of the community” “Oh cool, somebody picked that same first name on one of my cards, what if that is a title and my card is the leader of a different community?” “Yes, and they are connected by the River of Rock…”

So really it was an improvisational jam session where we all laid on details and developed a web of locations and characters in relationship to one another.

The speed, ease and effectiveness of this method feels predicated on our trust of each other and our enthusiasm for each other’s ideas.

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#4

@Jmstar

we chose an inspirational language for consistency

Jason, would you explain this detail a bit more, please.

This is a cool idea on its own, most definitely.

I’d be interested if it could be used to enhance a game like A thousand years under the sun, or A Quiet Year, etc.

#5

I threw down a copy of the Story Games Names Project book and asked someone to pick a language, so all our names would sound like they belonged, more or less, in the same place. Greg picked Mongolian so everyone has Mongolian-sounding names. As you might guess I’m a firm believer in the value of consistent naming as a tool for creating buy-in and a sense of coherence and consistency. This works for any game, any setting, any genre. It is a pattern that is easy to provide and offers meaning if someone chooses to break it.

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