Over in his LiveJournal, Mike Mearls recently set out what he calls Stross’s Law of RPG Design (after Charles Stross, inventor of the githyanki and other iconic D&D creatures):
A setting element should never require more than two paragraphs to explain it in full.
Assuming that “explain it in full” means “sum it up,” and not that those two paragraphs are the whole description, I like this concept. With that in mind, I’d like to propose a framework for applying Stross’s Law to setting elements in your game.
The way I see it, Stross’s Law (and Mike is influential enough in the RPG community that I’m going to go ahead and assume others will accept, and begin using, this term) isn’t just about efficient brevity, it’s also about staying on track. If it takes you more than two paragraphs to summarize a setting element, it’s likely to be too hard for your players to get a handle on right off the bat, and also to keep track of in play.
As a GM, you can spend hours and hours building elements of your game — by which point you know them backwards and forwards — but your players don’t have that luxury. Something that you know intimately is likely to be fresh to them, and also to be mixed in with a bunch of other equally new things. In other words, keep it simple and describe only the parts that matter most.
So if you want to put Stross’s Law into practice for the setting elements in your own game, what should you put into those two paragraphs?
I’m going to borrow a page from “The Seven-Sentence NPC,” an excellent article from Dragon #184 (which I wrote a bit about here on TT, in “Vibrant NPCs“), and suggest that your description cover these 8 areas — in one, or at most, two sentences each, and in this order:
- The most important thing about it (the core idea).
- What it looks like.
- How it fits into the setting.
- Why it matters in the setting.
- Something memorable or unique about it.
- Why player characters should care about it.
- Connections to other setting elements.
- Ways to use it in the game.
Will this work equally well for every possible kind of setting element — a massive city, a new race, an ancient artifact and a war between two kingdoms, let’s say? Probably not, as “setting element” is such a broad concept. But if you start out with this framework in mind, and think about each of these 8 areas, you should have a very good basis for writing a concise, useful explanation of any setting element in your game.
Edit: Charles Stross has now responded to Mike’s post, and Mike has written a longer explanation of his reasoning behind Stross’s Law. In it, Mike talks about reaching a “tipping point” where providing more details just serves to create additional work for the GM. He also makes an exception for things like the city of Waterdeep, in the Forgotten Realms (population: about 1,000,000), and for games where GMs aren’t encouraged to homebrew setting material.
My personal tipping point for detail in game information is probably higher than Mike’s — I’d rather have a bit too much detail, since throwing out or altering what I don’t like is less work than creating material from scratch (and more info = more ideas = more chances I’ll stumble across something marvelous). Since it sounds like Mike is saying that a setting element’s entire description should be two paragraphs long, I disagree with his approach to Stross’s Law (even though he wrote it!) — I prefer it as a guideline to creating concise, flavorful summaries.
What do you think?
Generally, I’ve found when we’re talking setting, rules, or any form of writing, scrawling the 3 most important ideas in big letters at the top of the page helps (or a post-it to your monitor).
In terms of actual use in Setting, White Wolf typically does a good job of this, at least in terms of the back covers of their books and the basic theme break down that usually is inside (somewhere after the 20 odd pages of fiction).
On the flip side- a lot of fantasy heartbreakers fail in this regard, and it also hits the issue of failing to provide/produce a Core Story for folks to grab onto.
Chris
(Chris) Generally, I’ve found when we’re talking setting, rules, or any form of writing, scrawling the 3 most important ideas in big letters at the top of the page helps (or a post-it to your monitor).
Good idea! That kind of reminder can never hurt.
In terms of actual use in Setting, White Wolf typically does a good job of this, at least in terms of the back covers of their books and the basic theme break down that usually is inside (somewhere after the 20 odd pages of fiction).
I’ve also seen this done well in a non-setting area: the “how to use this book” sections that some gaming books put right up front. Same goes for chapter summaries, when those are provided.
I’m a big believer in setting elements as creative springboards, not as “canon” to be followed.
Games like Everway, Trollbabe, The Shadow of Yesterday, My Life with Master, and Dogs in the Vineyard are all great at providing a clear snapshot of the setting, without endless, pointless details to be learned and followed in play.
For me, a good setting text inspires the players to create more setting and make it their own.
Talislanta is actually a very good example of this philosophy, too, strangely. It does have 400-odd pages of setting material, but any given entry is 1-2 paragraphs long. Entire cultures are described in two sentences. The book is full of hundreds of springboards, inviting you to fill in the blanks yourself.
I think Mike is spot-on with Stross’s Law.
(John) Talislanta is actually a very good example of this philosophy, too, strangely. It does have 400-odd pages of setting material, but any given entry is 1-2 paragraphs long. Entire cultures are described in two sentences. The book is full of hundreds of springboards, inviting you to fill in the blanks yourself.
I completely agree with you on setting as springboards, and canon as inspiration and not a straitjacket — but Talislanta’s approach sounds too loose.
Particularly the bit about entire cultures being described in two sentences — what if I, as a GM, would love to use that culture in my game, but don’t have a whole lot of spare time to develop it? Unless there’s more info available, I’d be out of luck.
Well, I overstated things for effect a bit. Only one culture is described in two sentences. Looking at the book I see that most get 6 paragraphs or so.
(John) Only one culture is described in two sentences. Looking at the book I see that most get 6 paragraphs or so.
That sounds more workable. 😉 As a matter of personal preference, I think even 6 paragraphs could be frustrating for larger concepts (like whole cultures), but that’s just me.
Interesting idea. On Talislanta, one problem I actually had with the brevity of the information is that it seemed to create caracatures of culture. Not absolutely sure the brevity was to blame though (certainly the limited number of character templates for each culture was a big factor).
The right amount of setting detail may depend heavily on how familiar the reader is with the inspirations of the setting. If I’m a student of Japanese medieval history, then a samurai setting needs almost no detail, but if I haven’t the foggiest idea, then you need a good sized book just to introduce me to the setting if I’m going to be able to do a good job.
Of course that’s a big problem for RPGs. Probably 90% of the players out there really are pretty ignorant about any culture other than the one they grew up in (and possibly some of the historical culture). Watching a few samurai movies certainly doesn’t make you a Japanese cultural expert (since the movies likely have it all wrong – though it may give you a good grounding in a particular fictional setting).
Frank
(Frank) The right amount of setting detail may depend heavily on how familiar the reader is with the inspirations of the setting.
I suppose one option would be to lay the foundation for the shorter individual descriptions with one longer “about the world” piece at the beginning. An example would be d20 Call of Cthulhu’s excellent chapter about the Cthulhu Mythos — which sets the framework for all of the creature descriptions, etc.
(John)I’m a big believer in setting elements as creative springboards, not as “canon” to be followed.
I’m all in favour of this strategy. Even in my own settings, I write a few simple paragraphs about an idea that’s been hanging around my head and I wish to incorporate into my campaign.
I don’t like to overtax myself with work (creating a setting and expanding it is quite cumbersome to begin with) but I really like to have my players immersed in what I create.
I accomplish my creation by always reminding myself what was going on inside my head, when I thought of the idea and write that down. This way, I can always adlib with the idea in mind.
As an example, I’ll give you the example of my main city in my current campaign.
Taverhall, a big port city that started as a small outpost that a retired pirate decided to open up a tavern. In time, a pirate colleague found that relaxing and decided to do the same and opened up a tavern across the road down to the port.
As time passed, more and more people found this out and the success of the post expanded it into a small town with the main street running down to the docks and full of Inns and tavern on both sides.
Now that place is a bustling city of trade & commerce (it’s quite safe, since most of the pirates actually dread the revenge that can follow if they ever raided there).
That’s about it. The rest, if the players wants to find out more about the place, what organizations are active, who’s in charge, latest occurances and etc… I just think about those three small paragraphs and come up with an immidiate answer.
If I wanted to create a special Inn, like “The Sally”, an Inn & Tavern on a big ship that’s actaully docked at the far end of the pier, I just write that down on my campaign notebook and make a name for the ex-captain.
If I wanted to make an on-site small adventure, I can have a local thief sneak up “The Sally” and have him cut or loose up the anchor and make the ship suddenly sail into the ocean… having the players caught up in the mess of taking it back to shore and capturing the culprit…
…to be continued 😛
DM T.
(DM T.) That’s about it. The rest, if the players wants to find out more about the place, what organizations are active, who’s in charge, latest occurances and etc… I just think about those three small paragraphs and come up with an immidiate answer.
It sounds like part of the reason that this approach works well for you is because you enjoy — and are probably quite good at — improvisation. Not just improvisation in the sense of thinking on your feet, but of spinning out detailed ideas on the fly.
Not everyone is good at that, which is why I think — at least for published material — that more than two paragraphs is generally desirable for important setting elements.
(Martin)Not everyone is good at that, which is why I think — at least for published material — that more than two paragraphs is generally desirable for important setting elements.
I agree, published material are aiming for the broadest crowd there is. Not all DMs like to “wing it”, some doesn’t even like to adapt material into their own campaign, they just use the details as is.
Everytime I see a gamer write about how they don’t like to make stuff up on the fly, I have to smile. Isn’t that what our hobby is? I know a lot of gamers who feel that way, but man… it seems very weird to me.
(John) Everytime I see a gamer write about how they don’t like to make stuff up on the fly, I have to smile. Isn’t that what our hobby is? I know a lot of gamers who feel that way, but man… it seems very weird to me.
I love to improv when I’m GMing, but I also know that it’s one of my strengths. Even so, I sometimes find that the more I have to improv in a long-running game, the harder it is to keep track of things that I made up “whole cloth” on the fly. In those cases, taking notes as I go, or the next time I get a break, is a lifesaver.
Excellent Thoughts. I mentioned this post in my latest blog entry.
(Cayzle) Excellent Thoughts. I mentioned this post in my latest blog entry.
Thank you! That’s a neat post, and it looks like you’ve got some good content — thanks for pointing it out to me (and welcome to TT!).