How Complex Is Too Complex?

[babbysama]

My question is this: how complex is too complex for an original world? Is it foolish to expect people to learn all the terminology, history, culture, backstory, etc. etc., even if it is voluminous, of your world in order to maintain a consistent setting?
I'm asking this because I have an idea for an RP, and would like it to be set in a universe that I've been working on for about three years or so now. I deliberately tried to make this world out of the typical conventions that are encountered in high
fantasy; it is heavily based upon the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, India, and Mesoamerica, though I've crossed these with a million other things. There's a lot of weird terms, cultural and religious aspects, and stuff like that, that (not to toot my own horn or anything) I think are pretty complex. I was thinking about elaborating about these things very in depth with a series of articles, so that the RP'er can familiarize themselves, but is this asking too much? I want people to have fun too, not just be forced to abide by a strict code of my tryhardness. I have put a lot of work and thought into this though... Anyway, what are your thoughts on this?

Also, if you're interested, and for further context to my question, here is a very rough, truncated overview of the campaign that I'm thinking about doing. There are a lot of things that are left out and not factored in, so please remember that it's just a rough draft:



427 A.Y. 4th Year of the Opal
It has been four hundred and twenty seven years since the fall of the Yméu Empire.

At its height, it had pacified a continent, administering a blood-earned peace with a stern, but judicious hand. Beneath its auspices, an epoch of prosperity, scientific advancement, and, for the most part, peace, was forged. However, maintaining such an empire is like laying a foundation upon shifting sands. Eventually, nationalists, factional infighting, and religious unrest secured the Empire's ruin. The imperial capital, Léonneç, with its illustrious palaces and gilded temples, was sacked and relegated to the wolves. The Padishah and the Shahbanu were forced to flee to the lands of the Magister Artisans, while their retinues, the Shahajada, and the remainder of House Meijiheira were put to the sword. Throughout the continent, the old guard was swiftly, and mercilessly, replaced by the new.

Out of the ashes of the Empire, a multitude of states, principalities, suzerainties, fiefdoms, and republics have risen, each with their own ideologies and aspirations. However, the echo of the Empire is still heard. No major players have yet announced themselves to fill the Empire's void. The imperial tongue, Pédwa, remains widely spoken, though colloquial tongues, pidgins, and creoles prevail. The ancient hymns of L'Ha-Yam still ring in the high halls of Pali. And while there is much new wealth, the fall has left a definite blemish upon trade. The future, such as it is, is uncertain. Tensions flare and die a moment later; insults are given only to be eagerly propitiated. All are on edge, waiting for the one feint that will tip the status quo one way or another. And that feint may soon be delivered.

In the Riviera D'Éul-Da, the heartland of the old Empire, something is stirring. The fall of Yméu left an vacuum in the Riviera unseen anywhere else on the continent. Hundreds of city-states claim their sovereignty; local warlords, highwaymen, mendicants, and zealots prowl the countryside, either preaching or begging or preying upon merchant caravans along the Four Roads. Without manpower to support their levies, the city states (those that could afford it) have turned to mercenary companies to maintain some semblance of order; however, always eager for more coin, these mercenaries are more often than not apathetic to the pleas of the gentle folk. Thus, chaos reigns in the countryside, and, regrettably, within the cities themselves. The governments, callow as they are, are rife with corruption and inefficiency; ethnic, factional, and religious violence threaten to tear some cities apart; and despite the influx of commerce and foreign trade and bountiful harvests, coffers and granaries often come up empty. Peasant revolts and their subsequent pogroms have created an atmosphere of nigh endless violence, scarcity, and dismay.

Despite this, some players of the game of thrones have arisen. Eight city states have claimed primacy among the many, and these, consequently, are the largest, the most prosperous, and the most powerful. Of these eight, five are in league with the Gowa Confederacy, the Riviera's rising star, a trade union bound by a mutual defense pact. Depicted by its enemies as a coiling serpent, the Confederacy continues to recruit new members; and despite some cities' reluctance, there are legitimate benefits to entering into the union. Additionally, the Confederacy fields the largest army of any state in the Riviera, and enlists the powerful Baquo Company of mercenaries. Their true intentions, however, are as yet undisclosed; what is certain is that they have significantly affected the balance of power in D'Éul-Da.

Then there is Léonneç, the ancient imperial capital which has been reborn with the boom of its silk trade. Lying at the crossroads of the Four Roads and along the Yona River, the city has always been a vital commercial center; and despite the fall of the Empire which once gave it its pedigree and its sacking soon after, Léonneç has once again made a name for itself. Its silk (which Su-Jo hailed as "the grandest portent of the world") and, to a lesser degree, its cotton industry, is so vital that the Duchy of Lléybo has guaranteed its independence. Even so, the city is plagued by the conflicts of the region, and the Tribunal, the oligarchic council that serves as the city's ruling body, has proven time and again to be culpable to kick-backs, bribes, subterfuge, and discrimination. In addition, the city serves as the headquarters of the Hafza, the trans-continental league of assassins, another relic of the old Empire.

Qébat lies at the foot of the Oidamat Range, in the lush Yul Valley. With its broad sugar plantations, tea fields, and rice terraced hills, it has some of the most fertile soil (another of Su-Jo's famous apellations: "One has but to dip one's fingers in Yul dirt to write one's name."), one of the most clement climates, and some of the most abundant harvests in the Riviera. Consequently, the people of Qébat, in this era of scarcity, are the best-fed. A wise man once said, "An army marches on its stomach." Though the legions of Qébat are not vast in number, they are renown throughout the world as fearsome warriors. To lay siege to the city, it is said, is to lay siege to the hills themselves. The Qébati have mastered the art of guerilla warfare, with an unknowable variety of traps and subterfuges at their disposal; on the open field, their expertise in archery and throwing weapons becomes apparent, with great cedar bows so heavy that they must be fired with one end on the ground, and barbed javelins laced with mortal poisons. The city is ruled by a single minister, known as the Ritualist, who utilizes divination and ancestor-majicks to help guide them in timmes of crisis. The Congress arbitrates upon public and fiscal policy, with the close association of the Ritualist, and the Junta determines military and foreign policy. Located at the headwaters of the Yona River, Qébat also plays an important role in river commerce and shipping. To most, Qébat is a wild card. The current Ritualist, Luan Sur Heb, has had little to say of the escalating tensions in the region, and, though the city has many allies, it could not be said that it has many friends, except perhaps for a close relationship with Léonneç. The Gowa Confederacy views the city as one of its greatest threats, and has been reluctant to act for or against it.

Finally, there is Celocombo, the City of Jasmine, and your home. In the imperial era, Celocombo was second only to Léonneç in grandeur, wealth, and import. Situated at the tip of the Olmúz Peninsula, the southernmost point of the continent, the city is home to a broad, deep harbor, that has made it the default port of call for almost all foreign trade. The city was the Empire's lifeblood, perhaps its greatest commercial and cultural center; indeed, the Empire might not have fallen had it not been for the final insurrection of Celocombo. The cultivation of ozi rice, indigo, tea, cotton, sugar cane, and spices, as well as the iron and gem laden hills, have ensured the city its prosperity, but it is trade that has made it what it is. Celocombo lies at the end of the Topaz Road, the longest of the Four Roads, and is the traditional final stop for merchant caravans from around the continent; this, along with the bustling port, has transformed the city into perhaps the most cosmopolitan in the world entire. Peoples of a thousand nations, speaking a thousand tongues and dialects, hawk the arcades of the bazaars and markets, dealing in a diamonds and silks and sandalwood; sailors, here for day or a lifetime, crowd the wharves and whorehouses, downing jars of the city's famous palm toddy or rice wine and plates of fried sun peas and saltfish. Even the lingua franca of the city, Angẹ, reflects a deep seated multiculturalism, being some quadroon amalgam of Pédwa, Jyodi, Uruz, and Jwâr. Being a port city, Celocombo places much stock upon its navy. Though most of the flotilla is comprised of the trade fleet, the militant arm is certainly formidable, being the greatest naval power upon the Gulf of Abela and a significant obstacle to Confederate aims on the seas. However, the land armies of Celocombo are mostly comprised of mercenaries and a handful of levies; and despite the city's wealth, the mercenaries are gradually beginning to place a great strain upon the coffers, and are becoming more and more difficult to placate. The city is governed by the Grand Primarch, along with a legislative body known as the Diet. Tensions are quickly escalating between Celocombo and the Confederacy, especially after Ise, perhaps Celocombo's most enduring ally, was brought to the Confederate side. It is evident that the Confederacy has designs for Celocombo, and whether or not they will be willing to act upon those designs is a point of much contention; will Celocombo be the first to contend with Gowa on the battlefield? Much is uncertain; but what is clear is that the Riviera, and the continent itself, is on the cusp of movement. Whether it is Gowa's will to empire, or something entirely different, remains to be seen.

Thus opens 427 A.Y., the 4th Year of the Opal. You are mercenaries with the Tchanu, a conglomerate of sellswords that are known affectionately as "noble rogues". Though your love of coin is no less diminished, you acutely aware of your good reputation and are intent upon maintaining it. Thus, you have earned the trust and favor of the Celocomban government, and a number of privileges that put you a head above the rest. You are provided for and paid excellently. Your captain, Bara, holds a seat upon the war council, and is privy to much of the intelligence and espionage that passes in and out of the city. You have proved invaluable in maintaining the security of the city an incalculable number of times. Thus, it is no surprise when you are enlisted to escort an archaeological team to a site on the northern border. Their mission: to discover the Cache of Ulmoradjer, the tomb of the mythical dynast-lord of antiquity, within which are enshrined secrets and treasures which are thought to be immeasurable. What you find, or do not find, there might come to shape the future of your city, and, perhaps, that of Anumhtet-Kiron itself, and what might appear insignificant will come to have consequences that will bring nations to their knees and put armies to the sword. These are the times in which the cloth of history is woven, either with deft hands or clumsy needlework.

[Bosch]

You’re looking at two immediately obvious problems here.

First, although to you the world is very interesting to you because it is your baby most RPers don’t give a toss. For this reason it’s better to have pretty generic worlds and add complexity and your own stamp gradually.

The second problem is one of control. GMs tend to overestimate the amount of control they have in an RP. It’s collaborative writing and that means you’re depending on the other writers to flesh out your ideas. That’s the beauty of writing really as everyone’s imagination works differently and they’ll see things in different ways. It’s not like a movie or Video Game where there is less scope to use imagination. In RPs though it means the GM must be willing to give up some control of the world they built because everyone will imagine the world slightly differently from you. In a way this is awesome because it means the world is alive even to its creator and is something I love about RPing. Not everyone agrees with me though and folks like that would be better writing a novel than a RP.
As for the world you’ve created, I‘m like you in that I try to come up with original worlds for example you can check that out. What I would recommend is instead of the information Dump posted above I’d divide it up into sections. For example History, Groups, Climate and Geogrpahy, Races and whatever else you think is pertinent. This is better than having RPers scroll through reams of text when all they are looking for is the language spoken by their tribe.

It’s all about introducing information gradually and in a way that engages the RPer. For example I would make the last paragraph your first paragraph. First you need to let RPers know their link to the world then introduce them to the world. They need to know what they are doing first.

For example when I was trying to drum up support for my RP the Int Check topic was called Steampunk Assassin RP. Straight away the RPers would have a general idea of what is going on that I could later refine with additional information. Try to make it a steady drip of knowledge not just a sudden lump.

Anyway that’s just my advice. Ask a room of five RPers a question and odds are you’ll get five answers.

[babbysama]

Thanks a lot, Bosch. That really clarifies things for me, and made me look at some things in a different light than I was. This is my first time trying to run an RP, so I suppose I have a lot to learn ^_^ I did forget, as you said, one of the fundamentals of RP'ing: the collaborative writing part. So, I suppose I will either have to find a way to present this in a pill that is a little more easy to swallow, or just come up with something new, which I have no problem doing. I suppose it is a bit more difficult to transfer a tabletop campaign (which is what this originated as, three years ago), to a forum RP setting, since they are, at their core, fundamentally different.
Anyway, once again, I really appreciate your comments.

[The_13th_Doctor]

Also, don't overlook the power of language: One of the brilliant things that White Wolf did with their World of Darkness was add a page for a Lexicon, separating into formal and vulgar categories. Just knowing the words cultures choose to represent things is a huge leg up in understanding that culture's mentality.

I could give you a whole booklet of history, but chances are most characters aren't going to actually know the vast majority of that history (unless the character is a historian), on the other hand I could give you a small handful of sayings or terminology and that would give you the ability to talk in a character's voice from that culture, even if you don't know the history by rote.

For instance... if one culture calls those that use magic 'wizards', and another calls them 'summoners', automatically you can see some obvious cultural differences: Wizards tend to be learned academicians, indicating the culture sees magic as something to be learned, manipulated, experimented with. Summoners on the other hand would see magic as a force to contact, to cajole into service. If it is made clear on a meta-game level that the magic itself is the same, then the way a culture chooses to see it says something about that culture. Much more can be conveyed with a few well chosen words than can be with blocks and blocks of informational text.

That said, I've been designing tabletop settings for years and years, and I understand the drive to flesh out every detail. However, if my experiences with Sundered Skies and Deadlands have taught me anything, the point of a campaign setting isn't to see it run the way you'd run it, but to offer the opportunity for another person to make use of your ideas, or to twist and turn your ideas until they fit their own vision. I'd say the same is true of forum RPing... you need to mark this delicate balance between keeping your own vision true while at the same time letting those that are writing with you to express their own visions as well.

On a creative note, your setting looks fascinating, and I wonder if you've built it for use at the tabletop, and if so, which system did you write it for?

[babbysama]

13th Doctor, thanks a lot for your comments, they are much appreciated. I've definitely thought about making a lexicon like thing before, though I somehow never thought about putting in cultural terms, like the differences between a certain thing from one culture to another; it's a really good idea. I've only considered giving the players a list of sayings in their native tongue (things like "Good morning", and curses and things like that), and some things that exist solely in that culture or ethnic group. I feel dumb for never thinking of that! However, I have most definitely not underestimated the power of language: I have a primer for all of the most prevalent languages, detailing their grammar, syntax, alphabet, cultural use, and historical and geographical origins, so I think I could most definitely do something like you've suggested.
As for your question, my idea for this world began when me and some friends decided we wanted to learn how to play D&D. They knew that I liked to write stories and things like that, so they made me the DM. Then, I just started working, and pretty soon I had a lot of material, a full campaign plus pamphlets for them to read, and a series of articles and journals written from an in character perspective (like in the Elder Scrolls games) that I was going to distribute throughout the game world for them to read if they wanted to know some more about the world. But that first campaign fell through, since none of us really knew how to play. However, I continued to develop the world, in hopes that one day we could actually know what we were doing and play in it. Of course, three years of work hasn't made the world any simpler. I probably have a few books worth of crap written on basically everything in the world, from tribal creation myths to the cultural history and analysis of Bhudran cuisine and brewing, etc. etc., supplemented with maps on maps on maps. Recently, however, I have learned how to play D&D, and have on the side begun to gear a few aspects of the lore to be more accommodating to it, like taking D&D creatures and creating equivalents in my world. But I have no clue if it's the right system for the job, or if something else would be better suited, since I'm pretty new to the tabletop world. I do know that D&D might be a bit too combat based for what I want; a lot of the campaign, both for this forum RP and the tabletop campaign I'm working on, is geared more towards intrigue and political maneuvers than combat, which is why I thought that a forum RP might be more suitable, since it's a bit easier, at least I think, for organic conversations to take place. What do you think? Is there a system that might be more accommodating to things like that?
However, I will definitely draw from both your's and Bosch's criticisms and advice. You've made me consider things from a better perspective. I will try and pare down things so that people will be better able to interpret and create in the world, but will also have a large mythos, culture, and history to explore on their own accord.

[The_13th_Doctor]

I do know that D&D might be a bit too combat based for what I want; a lot of the campaign, both for this forum RP and the tabletop campaign I'm working on, is geared more towards intrigue and political maneuvers than combat, which is why I thought that a forum RP might be more suitable, since it's a bit easier, at least I think, for organic conversations to take place. What do you think? Is there a system that might be more accommodating to things like that?

I've played many different RPG's out there, and for your game idea, two systems spring to mind. The first being GURPS (Generic Universal Roleplaying Sysytem), which is a base system on which you can build nearly any kind of game world, though admittedly character creation is very (VERY) intensive, and some of the systems are a bit sluggish in play-time terms, no matter how elegant they may be in writing. The second (IMO, saving the better for last), is Savage Worlds, which is an extremely simple yet nuanced system, also a universal system that can be easily modified for your game world. Also, Savage Worlds has many optional rules for things like mass combats (like... army to army combat), social combat rules that allow a less than smooth player to play a very smooth character, and a combat system that's just as useable and fun whether you are free-form narrating the combat, or using a play grid.

Either of them are fun, but with Savage Worlds you could go to http://www.peginc.com/games/savage-worlds/ and download the Test Drive rules, which literally provides everything you'd need to begin making characters and running games, free. As a final word, I've been using Savage Worlds exclusively now for six years, have run many, many campaigns, if you find yourself in need of design help or what have you, feel free to PM me.

[babbysama]

Thanks a lot! This sounds really amazing, I will absolutely have to try this out. It's perfect for what I need!
Thanks for the info; I will def PM you if I run into any snags, which is probably inevitable : P