Creating New Settings

I've been toying around with the idea of running an Exemplar game of some sort, and I have several ideas that I might want to create my own setting for. I'm curious, how much time and effort does it take to create a new setting for the system? Obviously it depends on what you want to do, but I'd like to know what the process generally is. (Mike, I think I've asked you this before, but I don't remember your answer in detail, also I wouldn't mind hearing opinions from others who have done it).

I mean, say I wanted to create a simple fantasy universe like that of D&D, and then convince my players that they want to convert their characters over to it. I would probably start by basically taking the Godforged race/class templates and removing everything about shards. Then I would scan the virtues and aptitudes and make sure all the bases are covered. So far so good. Seems to me that the real work would be in adapting the assets and flaws and in adding a bunch of templates, maybe taking some out. Gear might be a bit of work for this setting, I'm not sure if I looked much at gear in Godforged and how many things I would have to add. Horses are probably just a type of gear. Anyway, if there's nothing really out there in the setting, I would have to guess that the most work is Assets/Flaws, right? And of course if you actually cared, playtesting playtesting playtesting in order to make sure everything is balanced. But if I was willing to tweak the rules as we went (and my players were OK with it too), I could probably have a playable game in a few days of dedicated effort?

Also, because it's a related question, am I OK to run a game so long as I don't give out the rules? Is it OK to let people look over the rules at a character-creation session at my house? It almost seems like it wouldn't be, but that's what you do - is that only because you already know each of us? Or should I only run an Exemplar game with people from FRAG? And/or with you in the group? What are the rules that I should know about that?

It occurs to me that some of my comments might seem like a lack of respect for the hard work put into the settings that have already been made. Perhaps I am unaware of how much work it really takes. Please don't take this as an insult or anything, but take this opportunity to disillusion me. Oh, and FYI I'm not considering the time it takes to flesh out a setting - as a writer, I have a good idea about that already. I'm asking only about how much time it takes to transfer a setting from your imagination (or the movies, or something else) to Exemplar. If I'm underestimating the effort involved, please take that more of a sign of my esteem of the system than anything else.

First of all, let me say that no offense will be taken when you say you're interested in your own settings. Exemplar is a game for those who have setting ideas, and a game that adapts to setting ideas (within limits; it's not designed to do everything, it's a game of dramatic action).

Short answer: I can build an Exemplar setting out from "core Exemplar" bones to playable in about a week of work. Call it 20 hours. That's system-work time, not setting brainstorming.

Long answer: As far as converting a setting to Exemplar goes, you're on the right track. You'll find that Assets and Flaws are easier than they seem - most Exemplar settings share about 75% of their Assets, and 90% of their Flaws. Archetypes and item lists (which is just another form of archetype, really) are the big slog-work parts.

Most of the work on a setting is customizing the system so that it's 'right' for the setting. Virtues, Aptitudes and Passions are specifically meant to be swapped out to give the right feel to the setting. If you're converting a particular Exemplar game to a new setting within the same genre, that's more likely to trip you up than the Asset list (overall). Though, of course, the Asset list lends a lot of shape to the setting as well.

The question that you're always asking when applying Exemplar to a setting (and go at it that way. Don't adapt a setting for Exemplar, mutate the system to fit the setting) is "What does this say about the world?" Virtues in Exemplar aren't chosen primarily because "they cover all the bases". They're chosen because they reflect the character traits given respect and distinction in the context of the genre and setting. They should then, in the process, be practical for play in the genre. Similarly, Aptitudes are about "what distinct areas of skill are represented in this genre/setting?" Passion are "What motivates the characters we expect to be played?" Word-choice is important, as is knowledge of the subject. Derived stats can have very different derivation sources from setting to setting, depending on what the genre/setting emphasizes as important. The same thing is key with Assets. Don't just think about the practicalities. Think about the feel and tone. Exemplar isn't about being realistic, it's about simulating dramatic fiction, and views of what's important can vary wildly between settings.

To take your example, this is how I'd go about the process. I'd set aside the archetypes for now. They may be useful later, but we want to start from the base up. Check the Virtues, Aptitudes and Passions versus your conception of the world you want. They're probably all fine. They have a fantastic, archaic feel to them. I might want to add a "world knowledge" Aptitude (including languages) in, since most fantasy worlds have a little bit more of a fuzzy horizon than the Forge, and it the knowledge of a traveller is distinct from the Lore of a bookish wizard. For Passions, I might want to add something like Icons' Cause, to reflect the "I dedicate myself to a higher purpose"-type heroic adventurers. GF tends to encourage the more amoral and ambitious sword-and-sorcery types.

Moving on to Assets. The standard Assets are pretty good, since they're designed to encompass the whole wide world of fantasy adventurers. Treasure may be a problem, or not, depending on how important "take their stuff" is for what you're doing. Warband and Warlord could be removed if you're not interested in the big mass battle stuff. Technique Assets are also fairly solid. Battle-mastery goes if Warband does, Bard may or may not fit your ideas, and Battle-fury might shift to a one-shot Berserker Asset. Magic Assets are where you really start to work. Assuming you want to keep the standard Strain-based magic system, you still need to look at the Assets themselves. Sorcery and Enchantment are deliberately hamstrung when it comes to sophistication and scope, to reflect a world where magic has been reduced to its most crude elements. Mysticism is notably expensive to use, since the main "internal/clerical" magic of the setting is the Shards. Devotee is fairly close to standard clerical magic, however, and Sorcery/Enchantment are good templates for various "schools of magic". Shard Assets disappear entirely, along with the whole Shard power system. The spells themselves can stay, though you may want to tweak Strains a bit to reflect what magic is good and bad at.

Now, on to archetypes. Start with items. 90% of the gear list can stay. The only place you're going to do any major revision is in the Magic section, which needs to be tailored to fit the new magic system.

Finally, character archetypes. The non-magical Vocations map to a D&D approach fairly well, so tweak to taste and let 'em stand. Magic Vocations get the same treatment that the rest of magic did. Racial archetypes are a whole different story. GF needs, as part of its setting, a zillion different races. You probably don't. So instead, you build each race an archetype, reflecting their fundamental nature. Don't worry about using the racial archetypes for GF - they aren't meant for this. Just stat out each race from scratch, using the racial Attributes.

Voila, we're done.

As far as running a game goes, I would prefer you didn't run one spontaneously. The information I've made available to most people is incomplete, and most of what's missing is the more detailed system elements for the Director.

That said, I encourage you to run a game, either with one of the established settings or one of your own. If you're interested in doing so, I will provide you with everything I have for the Director of that setting. All I ask is that you give me regular reports on how your game is going, and how the rules are working out.

And yes, you can let other people use your copies of the rules to create characters, and to play them, without them needing to sign an NDA. The NDA is only needed if a person wants access to a written copy of the rules, and/or wants to run the game hself.

I feel that it might be advantageous to others if I post my experiences here. I haven't been counting, but I have probably spent about 25 to 30 hours on this so far, and feel that I am less than 5 hours from being ready to play, if not entirely finished. Most of the reason I have spent much longer than anticipated is that I wasn't really ready when I started. I had somewhat of the wrong mindset, hadn't completely decided on several aspects of the setting, and ended up re-doing some work.

The biggest example of this is that I spent a fair bit of time making all the races equal - forgetting that Exemplar is a point-buy system, and that if one race is better than another, it simply costs more. I also hadn't really decided how I wanted Clerics to work, and got hung up on technique assets for them and for melee fighting. The thing I learned here is that technique asset lists don't have to be mutually exclusive. In fact, it's better if they're not. I can easily have two types of combat assets which *mostly* overlap but have some non-overlapping abilities, if I want to encourage the difference between the two, without making them either one entity or two entirely separate entities.

The thing that took the longest - and should have taken the longest - was spells, since as Mike said, Godforged intentionally gimps magic. Paul had the idea, which I liked, that spells should be as flexible as gear. You should be able to build your own from a feature list. So I started there, adding several features, throwing away the necessity to link features, setting up a system in which you can use either of two different virtues to cast, deciding how spells get attached to items, deciding what determines how often you can cast, and starting a spell archetype list. I am happy with what I ended up with - but it hasn't been tested with any actual players yet, so my fingers are crossed.

I do feel that I could probably make my next setting within 20 hours, because I won't have to remake magic, and because of what I've learned about how to do this.

Just to toss in one small observation here, on the mindset behind Technique Assets.

A Technique Asset is meant to represent a particular approach to skill development. Someone who is a close-combat fighter isn't just working on particular tricks or techniques, he's developing his whole breadth of skill at fighting.

Depending on the genre/setting assumptions, a lot of time these kinds of things are mutually exclusive - a close warrior is not an archer is not a sneak. But on the other hand, "commando training" in the real world includes elements of all three of those, so it's not unreasonable to have a Commando Technique Asset which encompasses the appropriate elements. The question is, does the setting treat "Commando" as a particular skill-set, or as a combination of skill-sets? In classic superspy action, "commando" is a combination of skills, so you pick it up with multiple Technique Assets. In Farscape, "Peacekeeper Commando" is a specific skill-set which overlaps with several others, so it gets its own Technique Asset.

Hope this helps people.