One thing I've noticed is that game settings (Mythus: Ærth, GURPS Banestorm, or Monte Cook's Ptolus (tah-lus) to be be both broader in scope, and concerned with the sociology of a setting. Sometimes economics is handled, but more often in terms of the society than of economics per se.
Settings are concerned more with the people involved, than with individuals; unless said individuals can potentially play a role in the lives of the player characters. In this sense they serve as supporting class, antagonists, even extras. So characterization can be brusque, even not minimal. Though sometimes an NPC (non-player character0 can end up in a lead role of his own, and so become a GMC (game moderator character)
GURPS, as an example, is as much a game about settings as it is a game about characters, so it has numerous guidelines for fitting a PC into a world, and as numerous a set of setting rules. This making it a comprehensive set of rules indeed. Mythus on the other hand, assumes much about the world, and serves to illustrate by example than by guidelines. It helps if you have a working knowledge of 40s pulp fiction, for that is what author Gary Gygax grew up on in his boyhood in Chicago. His devouring of Amazing Stories had an impact as well.
All that said, a good world builder (Kate Elliot for example) can be a useful guide by example, showing how their worlds are built and demonstrating how such construction can be used.
BTW, for some of the best books on world building may I suggest the various GURPS sourcebooks? Whether you're talking GURPS Cabal or GURPS Cops or any of the dozens of books you're talking well researched tomes with copious guidelines for building a world.
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branchandroot
The Bakilites are Adamantly Anti-Magic
Date: 2011-09-03 06:38 am (UTC)Settings are concerned more with the people involved, than with individuals; unless said individuals can potentially play a role in the lives of the player characters. In this sense they serve as supporting class, antagonists, even extras. So characterization can be brusque, even not minimal. Though sometimes an NPC (non-player character0 can end up in a lead role of his own, and so become a GMC (game moderator character)
GURPS, as an example, is as much a game about settings as it is a game about characters, so it has numerous guidelines for fitting a PC into a world, and as numerous a set of setting rules. This making it a comprehensive set of rules indeed. Mythus on the other hand, assumes much about the world, and serves to illustrate by example than by guidelines. It helps if you have a working knowledge of 40s pulp fiction, for that is what author Gary Gygax grew up on in his boyhood in Chicago. His devouring of Amazing Stories had an impact as well.
All that said, a good world builder (Kate Elliot for example) can be a useful guide by example, showing how their worlds are built and demonstrating how such construction can be used.
BTW, for some of the best books on world building may I suggest the various GURPS sourcebooks? Whether you're talking GURPS Cabal or GURPS Cops or any of the dozens of books you're talking well researched tomes with copious guidelines for building a world.
Hope this was helpful.