Implied Settings In D&D and Other RPGs

This YouTube video makes an interesting (if somewhat belabored) point: every RPG system carries implicit assumptions which imply certain setting elements.

(Note: the following discussion will refer to the creator of a world variously as the Dungeon Master (DM), Game Master (GM), and Referee, to match the terminology of each game system.)

Assumptions of D&D

To summarize the video, the implied setting of most Dungeons & Dragons and D&D-like games includes the following elements:

• A past age created wonders (and terrors) impossible in the current age: vast wealth, wondrous magic items, powerful spells, etc.

• One or more catastrophes ended that past age.

• Some of the wonders of that past age survive, buried in tombs, underground complexes, ruined castles, and the like. Some of the horrors, too, remain as the de facto guardians of all that wealth.

• In the modern age, some “adventurers” brave the World Underground (i.e. dungeons) to rediscover those wonders and wrest them from their current captors (e.g. dragons).

The video raises some interesting implications of this hinted-at setting:

1. The greatest power lies in past, not the present. Great wizards and artificers are either wholly gone or hidden away.

2. Especially in old versions of D&D, a small group of adventurers can’t assault active fortresses, but can raid ancient ruins.

3. “Ye Olde Magic Shoppe” doesn’t wholly fit this setting framework. If anyone with enough gold can buy a magic item, why would anyone descend into the dangerous depths?

   A DM may choose to make certain exceptions, e.g. consumables like scrolls and potions or “weak” items like a +1 weapon or +1 armor.¹ But a Holy Avenger shouldn’t be available on the open market; either it lies undiscovered in a dungeon or it’s a specific temple’s sacred relic.

Anyone familiar with D&D, and especially anyone who’s read some of the better third-party world building supplements, has already discovered most of these ideas.

However, let’s examine a few other games without explicit settings and see what their rules imply about potential settings.

Assumptions of Nomad

To take Faster Than Light: Nomad by Stellagama Publishing as an example, a not especially close reading of the rule book unearths the following assumptions:

• Player characters can be somewhat larger than life, experts in many related fields, but are by no means invincible. Even a few lucky punches can give a character a life-threatening Wound once they exhaust their Stamina.

• Characters gain higher skills and extra Talents through completing (and surviving) adventures.

• Technology progresses in a series of seven Technological Ages: Primitive, Mechanical, Atomic, Space, Interstellar, Galactic, and Cosmic Each Technological Age has an “Early” period, where new science lead to new horizons and challenges, and a “Late” period, where implications of that science permeate technology, culture, and civilization. (Spacecraft Go! introduced an “Early Cosmic” and “Late Cosmic” period.²)

• The core rules single out technologies from the Galactic and Cosmic Ages as “miraculous” or rare. Technologies notably deferred to these ages include:

  • “True” Artificial Intelligence (Early Galactic)
  • Faster Than Light communications (limited even in the Cosmic Age)
  • “Force Fields”, including:
    • Ship-based “Force Fields” (Early Galactic, in the supplement Spacecraft Go!)
    • Personal “Energy Shields” (Late Galactic)
    • Portable “Force Shield Generators” (Cosmic)
  • Psionic technology (Early Galactic)
  • Ship propulsion not based on ejecting reaction mass (Late Cosmic, in the supplement Spacecraft Go!)
  • The “Universal Translator” (Early Galactic)

• All Faster Than Light travel works the same way: the pilot activates an FTL Engine, the ship disappears into “hyperspace”, and then eventually reappears in normal space up to its Maximum Range (in parsecs) after a fixed Transit Time. The FTL Engine then requires a Recharge Time equal to its Transit Time before it may be activated again. Each of these characteristics depend solely on the Engine’s Technological Age.

• Random star sector generation rules create planets rated initially by Trade Class: Agricultural, Industrial, Garden, Non-Agricultural, Non-Industrial, Poor, Resource, Rich. Other descriptors and characteristics flow from these classifications.

  Unlike other space games, the sector generation rules presume only one primary planet per star system. It has no rules for generating additional bodies in a star system, especially moons, gas giants, and dwarf planets. While a Referee can patch this easily, this does detract from an otherwise very quick and useful system.

These assumptions have certain implications for all settings, including:

1. Nearly all space games assume some sort of future “ladder of progress”. Nomad’s Technological Ages provide a great deal of latitude. However, they still assume each technology develops during a specific age. A civilization that develops AI but not the FTL Engine would be an anomaly.

2. The most useful technologies occur in the Interstellar Ages or earlier. Potentially disruptive or “magical” technologies occur in the Galactic Ages or later. Specific examples:

   • Artificial Intelligence raises some thorny issues regarding the ethics of robots that think like humans and the specter of “rogue AIs” using their superior mental abilities to dominate organics.

   • Force fields lack even a theoretical scientific basis, despite their prevalence in some science fiction.

   • While Nomad contains rules for Psionics, the lack of technology to enhance or restrain it implies psionic abilities remain the province of mysticism and magic, not science.

   • By default ship propulsion uses some form of reaction mass because that’s the only known way of moving through the vacuum of space. On the other hand, Nomad is vague about how thrusters work, to avoid inconveniencing the player or Referee; presumably some inconceivable advance in technology makes spacecraft practical. (Else there would be no game.)

   • The description of the “Universal Translator” implies it only works with known languages, and that a “scientist” must work with linguistic databases to puzzle out unknown languages.

   With obvious exceptions like FTL Engines, Nomad trends toward the science in science fiction.

3. Communication across the stars moves only as fast as an spacecraft with an FTL Engine. Even the Cosmic Age “FTL Communicator” mentioned above has only a limited range, albeit measured in parsecs. One would need to chain these devices together to produce the sort of galaxy-wide communications one sees in, for example, Star Trek, and even then relaying communications from one base station to the next imposes some lag.

4. The arc of space exploration tends toward the exploitation of new planets and new resources, as unexplored “Garden” and “Resource” worlds ideally become settled Agricultural, Industrial, or both (Rich). The remaining Trade Classes denote worlds with meager resources (Poor, Non-Agricultural) or specific resources extracted cheaply (Non-Industrial).

Granted, a Referee can reverse any of these assumptions they wish, assuming they work out both the new rules and the larger implications of these technologies. For example, a Referee (GM) may introduce an FTL Telegraph or even an interstellar Hypernet. If the Star Patrol or HQ is only an interstellar text message away, however, players may be tempted to call for help rather than solve problems themselves. Conversely HQ can micro-manage the player characters' actions.³

Not introducing FTL communication maintains a 17th century feel to space travel. Ships venturing beyond their home system may have no one to call for help. This lends an air of adventure, danger, and mystery to every new star system.

Likewise if the Referee wants to mimic the “warp drive” of Star Trek or the instantaneous “jump drive” of older science fiction stories, the Referee will have to rewrite the rules for FTL Travel. These changes in turn may affect space combat, the economics of space commerce, and/or the speed at which an interstellar or galactic civilization can respond to emergencies. Not doing this saves the Referee work, and keeps players from hopping between stars faster than a Referee can keep up.

Assumptions of OpenQuest

OpenQuest, written by Newt Newport with Paul Mitchener and published by D101 Games, has an example setting but no specific setting. Nevertheless, its modular rules inevitably make a few assumptions about prospective settings.

Experience

Characters in OpenQuest improve mainly by completing quests, satisfying player-defined Motives, and achieving other goals. These in-game actions result in Growth Points, which the player spends to increase characteristics, improve skills, and advance their magical abilities (if any).

Note, however, that each of these improvements have limits. Characteristics have a maximum (21 for humans), and percentile skills sensibly stop at 100%. Some forms of magic have intrinsic limits as well. Unlike D&D above, Hit Points are a function of characteristics; no human can take more than 21 points of actual damage before dying. Magic can help a character survive, but OpenQuest combat can be deadly even for a powerful priest or sorcerer, let alone a fighter with weak or no magic.

Magic Systems

OpenQuest’s Creative Commons SRD defines three independent systems of magic. Personal Magic offers mainly buffs, debuffs, and other tactical effects at the cost of Magic Points, of which characters have no more than 21 and usually considerably less. Divine Magic offers more dramatic effects, but a character may generally use each Divine Spell only once before returning to a temple to pray for its restoration.⁴ Sorcery allows the caster to augment the range, duration, and other characteristics of a spell, but doing so eats through Magic Points even faster than Personal Magic.

The three principal magic systems provide paths for the practitioner to transcend their mortality. Becoming an immortal under any magical discipline requires one or more skills at 100% and knowledge of at least ten spells in the discipline, among other things. Immortality is generally the capstone of a magical practitioner’s life; the full OpenQuest rules provide suggestions for immortal characters’ adventures, but a player may just as easily retire the character at that point.

SimpleQuest and the OpenQuest Companion present a fourth system called “One Magic” that combines the three systems under a simpler and possibly more powerful mechanic: instead of spending MP or “charges”, the player simply rolls their Magic Casting skill; if they Fumble the spell, they cannot use it for the rest of the adventure. (Dungeon Crawl Classics and Shadowdark have similar mechanics to avoid bookkeeping.) These rules contain no recipe for immortality.

Magic in a Setting

OpenQuest 3rd Edition has a chapter of “Referee Guidance” not present in its Creative Commons SRD. One section of this chapter, entitled “Level of Magic Within a Setting” (pp 228-229), delineates four levels of magic within a setting:

• “No Magic” implies the players and nearly all NPCs have no magical abilities whatsoever. The Referee may describe powers of the few magic-using PCs in broad terms without using any particular system.

• Low Magic implies only players and NPCs who dedicate themselves to magic have magical abilities using the three default systems (or any other the Referee devises).

• Medium Magic implies players and many NPCs have magical abilities, but the average peasant has little to no experience with magic.

• High Magic implies every peasant knows a few spells, probably of Personal Magic.

From the foregoing it’s clear that magic is not as integral to OpenQuest as, say, D&D⁶.

Implications

1. The OpenQuest “Growth Point” system does not reward killing things or looting treasure the way many D&D experience point systems do. Growth Points accrue from story-based goals, anything upon which the player and Referee can agree. OpenQuest characters can pursue power, of course, but power with a purpose fits the system better.

2. Unlike some versions of D&D and like Nomad, characters may become larger than life heroes but usually not superheroes. There are modes of play where the PCs are rulers of empires, heroes of their people, or outright immortals, but one would have to accumulate a lot of Growth Points.

3. Unlike all versions of D&D one can remove magic entirely or tailor the level and kinds of magic available to a campaign concept. At one end lies the gritty mundane player characters who encounter the occasional wizard or supernatural entity; on the other lies ubiquitous magic, including spells to create one-use charms, potions, and scrolls and maybe a more permanent MP battery.

4. A notable feature of all OpenQuest magic is that characters learn each spell from somewhere. Divine Magic comes from a specific religion that teaches it, and only to those who have proven their devotion. Sorcerers have apprenticeships and stages of magical development. Characters explicitly learn Personal Magic spells from another character (PC or NPC).

   This may sound trivial, but other games gloss over how characters learn spells. Maybe they find a spell book or copy a scroll. Maybe their god simply grants them whatever spell they wish. In contrast, OpenQuest encourages characters to identify with a culture, religion, or community, in this and other ways.

5. One small detail that surprised me is that Languages are considered percentile skills, and one needs a value of 80% to read and write a language. This implies a largely illiterate society, considering how many Growth Points one needs to achieve 80% or more. (A Referee can substitute alternative rules, naturally.)

Assumptions of Tunnels & Trolls

In 1975 Ken St. Andre wrote Flying Buffalo’s⁷ Tunnels & Trolls allegedly because he thought D&D was too complicated. It’s the oldest existing RPG after D&D, and popular with solo players due to its ultra-simple combat system.

Tunnels & Trolls has a loose default setting called “Trollworld”, Nevertheless, let’s examine the implied setting of T&T 8th Edition.

• T&T characters have 8 characteristics, including WIZ which governs the number of magic points a character possesses and their resistance to magic. There’s no upper limit to a characteristic’s value, and non-human characters can start with values well in excess of 18.

• T&T species, called Kindreds, include the standard elves, dwarves, and hobs (roughly equivalent to halflings) as well as fairies and leprechauns. Players may also choose among dozens of rarer “monster” Kindreds such as Centaurs, Giants, Goblins, Orcs, and Trolls.

• T&T has three primary “types” (classes): Rogues, Warriors, and Wizards.

  • “Rogue” is actually short for “Rogue Wizard”. Rogues can do a little fighting (but not as well as a Warrior) and cast a few spells (but neither as many nor as easily as a Wizard). They have to learn their spells either from Rogue’s Guilds or individuals (e.g. player characters).

  • Warriors can use no magic, but as compensation they learn to use armor and weapons more effectively.

  • Wizards start the game with all 1st level spells, and may learn others as their characteristics increase. However, the Wizard school curriculum doesn’t include combat training, so their damage is capped even if they pick up something other than a staff or dagger.

  Other types in 8th edition include the Paragon (a combination Warrior and Wizard), the Citizen (incompetent at both magic and fighting⁸), and the Specialist (created as another type with an extraordinary ability tied to one of their characteristics).

• In addition to Kindred, Type, characteristics, and spells, a T&T character possesses one or more Talents, which grant (minor) bonuses in specific situations.

• T&T characters gain Adventure Points through “slaying”, “spellcasting”, “saving throws”, and “special events” (GM awards). They spend them primarily to increase their characteristics, but also to add or improve Talents.

  The rules for tallying Adventure Points are a little fiddly. The players and/or GM must total the Monster Rating of all enemies defeated, track every magic point expended during an adventure, and record the level of saving throw multiplied by the value thrown on the dice.

• “Common” magic items include wizards’ staffs, potions, power batteries (for extra magic points), amulets, and talismans (which can somewhat unreliably cast spells). Other magic items are rare, and, to quote Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls p. 142:

  The only really reliable magical artifacts seem to have been made in ages past, using techniques lost to all (aside from one or two crazed wizards in isolated swamps, their sanity broken by their studies!). These reliable treasures are the genuinely “magical” items created by GMs as rewards or loot to be acquired in the course of their players’ adventures.

Even from these scant facts, we can glean a default setting.

1. Everyone in a T&T world, save the unfortunate Warriors, has some magical ability. Even a peasant can cast spells, if they learn them.

2. Trollworld, the default world of Tunnels & Trolls has a nearly universal Wizard’s Guild, to teach Wizards (and oppress Rogues). A T&T world must have a similar institution to play the same role.

3. Numerous Rogue’s Guilds must exist to teach Rogues their spells. By their nature they must have other criminal enterprises.

4. We might as well posit Warrior’s Guilds, to teach the unfortunates without even a Citizen’s magical ability the Warrior’s craft.

5. T&T has no “cleric” or “priest” class, yet the official “Trollworld” lore refers to gods. Reading further, it appears the gods of the official Trollworld are simply very powerful Wizards.

   A GM can do what they like with religion in Trollworld, but as there’s no mechanical support for religions, GM’s might as well make godhood indistinguishable from sufficiently advanced magic.

6. Talents notwithstanding, T&T characters advance mainly through casting spells, escaping danger, and/or killing things. A T&T world must therefore abound with monsters, traps, and reasons to cast spells for player characters to advance. This argues for “tunnels” full of monsters (e.g. “trolls”), traps, and loot to act as a lure.

7. T&T characters can become arbitrarily powerful by boosting one or more characteristics arbitrarily high. One can therefore expect some NPC to simply overpower a PC, on the principle “there’s always somebody stronger.”

8. Despite the ubiquity of magic spells, magic items remain rare, unreliable, and/or one use only (e.g. potions).

T&T is a very “loose” game, so one can reverse some assumptions easily. Maybe a specific T&T world has no magic, only Warriors (and Warrior Specialists). Maybe Rogues can learn their spells more easily in a particular campaign world. Maybe PCs advance through goals like in OpenQuest.

A GM can do anything. The question is, how much work does this make for the GM? And will the players have fun in the GM’s variant world?

Conclusions

Many modern RPGs like Numenéra have very explicit settings. Yet even RPGs with no explicit setting makes assumptions, and the GM must do some implicit or explicit game design to reverse those assumptions.

• Dungeons and Dragons (and similar games) assumes a setting wherein “adventurers” delve into ancient ruins and fight terrible monsters to bring back treasures, weapons, and wonders of a vanished age. The amount of magic present in the surface world varies with edition (or derivative game). Official D&D, especially in the past two decades, tends to introduce more magic items, more non-human sapient species, and a greater variety of magic-using classes.

  Character advancement has likewise changed over the years. Experience used to be measured in treasure won and enemies slain, but subsequent editions (and derivatives) award “experience points” for simple survival, completion of story-based goals, and in the latest editions “milestones” determined by the DM.

• Nomad assumes a star sector (or galaxy, or universe) wherein technology progresses through definite ages. Despite the presence of faster-than-light travel, faster-than-light communication in all but the highest technological era remains limited to the speed of an FTL ship. While on the micro-scale characters explore new worlds, keep the peace, or engage in commerce, on the macro-scale interstellar organizations race to exploit the resources of uninhabited worlds and develop the economies of inhabited worlds.

• OpenQuest assumes a medieval (or earlier) level of technology⁹ with low literacy rates. The amount of magic may vary from setting to setting, from none or nearly none to ubiquitous. Like RuneQuest, the game OpenQuest openly emulates, magic belongs not just to isolated wizards but to communities, religions, and cultures. Characters grow more powerful through completing their own goals and surviving a variety of adventures.

• Tunnels & Trolls, unsurprisingly, has a similar implicit setting to D&D. Its primary differences lie in the training of Wizards, which speaks to a uniform Wizards’ organization, the near ubiquity of magic, and the lack of limits to a character’s “level”. Characters grow more powerful through effort expended during adventures: spells thrown, damage done, hazards escaped.

Which activities a game rewards largely determines what players do within the game. Over time RPGs have evolved to accommodate more open-ended objectives, determined by the DM/GM/Referee and, increasingly, the players. OpenQuest and Nomad follow this trend, while T&T and some modern versions of D&D still reward killing things and/or taking their stuff. It remains to be seen whether RPGs will further evolve toward rewarding exploration and setting-specific goals, or whether the setting of an RPG will merely provide the backdrop for tomb-robbing and monster extermination.