jay_rab
New member
I love fantasy themed roleplaying and am part of many groups were we run DnD, Pathfinder, GURPs in high fantasy, but for me I am mainly a GM for Vampires: the Masquerade which takes part in our modern nights, which has many things I was not prepared for when I first took the dive into the modern world, I want to use this post for me and others who play modern games to give insight into a couple of differences and what is expected from a GM who is playing a modern setting.
1. While you can have a fictional modern city, there is some expectation from players that to be more grounded in reality that these cities exist in some way with the real world. Meaning you will have alot more legwork ahead of you if you want to make it fictional, questions like "who is in charge of the public works department or other councils" would not normally come up in a fantasy world but many times my players are asking me questions about infrastructure, who is in charge, who is doing the work, and where those departments are located.. sure I can make them up on the fly but picking a real city and having a decent city website to reference saves you a ton of time and energy...oh and its real which makes the question "is this believable" obsolete.
2. Density in cities, this is a big one as while you could have a huge kingdom in a fantasy world your only dealing with three tropes (are they a peasant, a merchant, or a noble) which at the same time gives them a background, as their status also dictates their living and lifestyle, meaning that you could have 10 peasants walking around and the if the party is interested they talk to one and they have the whole story and they dont need to talk to others. In a modern setting this gets thrown out the window, if you have 10 people in an area that is 10 identities all with different backgrounds, all with a different story to tell about their jobs, family, hobbies, and every player is going to expect them to have a personality that would normally only be true for Key NPCs in fantasy worlds. One of the ways I address this is with this generator: http://chaoticshiny.com/modernchargen.php which gives me a good baseline to start with and allows me to not worry about creation as much as flushing the character out to fit the scene.
3. The lack of "bigger on the inside", in a fantasy world if your party comes across a castle, cave, or city, distance and size are storyteller tools to make things more grand, to streamline players to a given location, or just put more there then what would realistically be able to fit in that space, in a modern setting these no longer become tools and are restraints one has to work with, you dont have a neverending forest or park, players can exit and generally pretty quickly if they dont want to be there and you can only fit so much into one area, and a secret room in a house cant be an expansive alchemist lab behind a bookshelf in a 3 bedroom house, and will more then likely be a small room with a desk and chair and thats about it.
4. Resources, in a fantasy world if a player says "I want to buy a healing potion or create one" the storyteller is in complete control if someone exist in that given city or if there is the ingredients around to make it, to say "oh there is no one nearby that sells that" in a modern setting will only get you an odd look, specially if your dealing with a world were amazon and most of the larger cities import anything you want with you only having to travel a couple mins to get to it, transportation and online ordering has made it a thing that unless the government has a ban on it a player can get their hands on it quickly and generally in the same scene without having to wait.. which means fetch quests are not normally something that you can involve a player in unless they are on a grand scale (supernatural object, one of a kind, etc)
5. six degrees of separation, while this can hold true in a fantasy world, its much more relevant in a modern one just due to 2. and one of the major hooks I rely on in most of my stories, any time a character interacts with someone, that is going to effect a handful of other people both positively and negatively. Relationships are specially important in vampires: the masquerade as its all about who you know and who has favors from who, if a player slights someone, more then likely that is going to make some people happy, some people mad, and in the end that interaction will come back to the forefront down the line. This honestly is one of my favorite reasons for doing a modern setting as its very easy to create a rich interactive world were I can create family, friends, foes, allies, and contacts that are all in the same place and can quickly become a factor in the story, and I dont have to wait on word to reach someone, and then making a journey to come face the party, one day you killed a man and the next day his brother took a flight and is now looking for answers.
(suggested by ELF)6. Internet used for solving problems, whether its a riddle, a image puzzle, or looking for someones password, the internet can be one critical issue for GMs just like players look up guides for their favorite games, so too can the characters seek help from the web or even their friends with a cellphone, sure you can put it to a roll but that sometimes feels cheap when the info is ready and available in real life with a couple search words. How I address this is account for the web and calling, if they call a friend for help I make note of who now can request a favor from them, if they use the web my puzzles sometimes include free websites I made to direct them in the direction I want and on rare events I have even have had discord servers made with friends in them that would give them hints if they got there.
What about everyone else? does any of this play into your stories? what are some of the things that really stand out to you for the modern setting?
1. While you can have a fictional modern city, there is some expectation from players that to be more grounded in reality that these cities exist in some way with the real world. Meaning you will have alot more legwork ahead of you if you want to make it fictional, questions like "who is in charge of the public works department or other councils" would not normally come up in a fantasy world but many times my players are asking me questions about infrastructure, who is in charge, who is doing the work, and where those departments are located.. sure I can make them up on the fly but picking a real city and having a decent city website to reference saves you a ton of time and energy...oh and its real which makes the question "is this believable" obsolete.
2. Density in cities, this is a big one as while you could have a huge kingdom in a fantasy world your only dealing with three tropes (are they a peasant, a merchant, or a noble) which at the same time gives them a background, as their status also dictates their living and lifestyle, meaning that you could have 10 peasants walking around and the if the party is interested they talk to one and they have the whole story and they dont need to talk to others. In a modern setting this gets thrown out the window, if you have 10 people in an area that is 10 identities all with different backgrounds, all with a different story to tell about their jobs, family, hobbies, and every player is going to expect them to have a personality that would normally only be true for Key NPCs in fantasy worlds. One of the ways I address this is with this generator: http://chaoticshiny.com/modernchargen.php which gives me a good baseline to start with and allows me to not worry about creation as much as flushing the character out to fit the scene.
3. The lack of "bigger on the inside", in a fantasy world if your party comes across a castle, cave, or city, distance and size are storyteller tools to make things more grand, to streamline players to a given location, or just put more there then what would realistically be able to fit in that space, in a modern setting these no longer become tools and are restraints one has to work with, you dont have a neverending forest or park, players can exit and generally pretty quickly if they dont want to be there and you can only fit so much into one area, and a secret room in a house cant be an expansive alchemist lab behind a bookshelf in a 3 bedroom house, and will more then likely be a small room with a desk and chair and thats about it.
4. Resources, in a fantasy world if a player says "I want to buy a healing potion or create one" the storyteller is in complete control if someone exist in that given city or if there is the ingredients around to make it, to say "oh there is no one nearby that sells that" in a modern setting will only get you an odd look, specially if your dealing with a world were amazon and most of the larger cities import anything you want with you only having to travel a couple mins to get to it, transportation and online ordering has made it a thing that unless the government has a ban on it a player can get their hands on it quickly and generally in the same scene without having to wait.. which means fetch quests are not normally something that you can involve a player in unless they are on a grand scale (supernatural object, one of a kind, etc)
5. six degrees of separation, while this can hold true in a fantasy world, its much more relevant in a modern one just due to 2. and one of the major hooks I rely on in most of my stories, any time a character interacts with someone, that is going to effect a handful of other people both positively and negatively. Relationships are specially important in vampires: the masquerade as its all about who you know and who has favors from who, if a player slights someone, more then likely that is going to make some people happy, some people mad, and in the end that interaction will come back to the forefront down the line. This honestly is one of my favorite reasons for doing a modern setting as its very easy to create a rich interactive world were I can create family, friends, foes, allies, and contacts that are all in the same place and can quickly become a factor in the story, and I dont have to wait on word to reach someone, and then making a journey to come face the party, one day you killed a man and the next day his brother took a flight and is now looking for answers.
(suggested by ELF)6. Internet used for solving problems, whether its a riddle, a image puzzle, or looking for someones password, the internet can be one critical issue for GMs just like players look up guides for their favorite games, so too can the characters seek help from the web or even their friends with a cellphone, sure you can put it to a roll but that sometimes feels cheap when the info is ready and available in real life with a couple search words. How I address this is account for the web and calling, if they call a friend for help I make note of who now can request a favor from them, if they use the web my puzzles sometimes include free websites I made to direct them in the direction I want and on rare events I have even have had discord servers made with friends in them that would give them hints if they got there.
What about everyone else? does any of this play into your stories? what are some of the things that really stand out to you for the modern setting?
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