Make a Game Feel New

How do we catch that feeling when we first got started? That excitement when everything felt possible, every encounter exotic and new? How do we make a game feel like that first time?

Some of that, for me at least, comes down to exploring a new campaign setting. A new world to explore, fresh situations to deal with, something original, something to be surprised by.

Creating a Setting that Surprises the Creator?

In my normal games, I am the gamemaster. I map out every world, every NPC, and every tweak of the rules. Even if I run someone else's world (something I hate to do), by the time we begin play, I am far more familiar than any of the players. How can I get at that freshness?

For the game to seem new to me, I need to channel that aspect of the game I can't control: the players. Their characters provide me with new challenges, their backgrounds breathe life into the game, and their unique take on the rules and setting provides me a bounty of surprises.

I can leverage this further by providing them more say over the narrative: input on what is and isn't true about the setting. On one hand this costs me some of the focus of the game as I compromise my vision. I also potentially create a setting that lacks logical consistency. But by adding these other ideas, I can push back any complacency I have with the game and keep it fresh and exciting.

Previous Experience

I've found that the Apocalypse World powered games, with their collaborative world building, really helps here. In my first ever game, Into Darkness, the MC and players created many flavorful descriptions for the world. We had custom mechanics for being exposed to the Darkness, strange new gear and locations, and even personalized lingo (like 'bacon' for an attractive person).

In our space apocalypse game, which we co-GM'ed, a unique cosmology developed. We learned the secret origin of the Reavers, born of some unholy Event Horizon scenario, who destroyed our world. We also forged a common history, learned about the wolves of the maelstrom and their aversion to music.

In my recent game, The Climbers, I tried to push this farther. While I've delved into the PCs' pasts and run with their setting ideas, I'm not sure it worked out as well as I intended. Some ideas seemed too good not to follow-up on, causing things to snowball, solidifying and freezing the setting in place. This left some ideas lost in the shuffle and caused us to be caught up in larger events than I intended. I feel like we missed some possible of the cool little things because of that.

An example of one of those "cool little things" showed up recently in another of my games. In my Worlds in Peril game, we learned about the "Eater". As we were building a history for a minion just out of cryogenic storage, we needed a supervillain for him to have worked for. From the uninspiring name of the Eater came the living singularity that once plagued the city.

I think I have been most successful in building a flavorful world with my Hunter: the Vigil Chronicle, Corrupted Transmission. Here again the PCs made the difference. As their characters began to lose their sanity, they constructed unique displays of madness, rituals to deal with the horrors which with they were faced. One character took to using a digital camera to take pictures to verify if someone was who they said they were. Another character began to fly off the handle whenever faced with danger. For my part, I focused on staying out of their way and providing them threats that never perfectly fit the traditional Gothic monsters. Their 'vampires' fed on memories, they faced psychics not witches, and even their most horrific of foes had sympathetic faces.

Letting players control their gear is another good place to create a more colorful world. In The Price, my Changeling: the Lost chronicle, I let the PCs create several tokens for their own use. The results were surprisingly interesting from a wooden laptop that uploaded anything on a matching bookshelf to a pocket watch with three faces which told time in the mundane world, the Hedge and Arcadia.

Best Spots for PC involvement

So to bring this ramble to some sort of conclusion, how can we best use player involvement to improve the creation of a setting?

The key I think is to focus on things that their characters know and are experts in. For locations, ask them about where they grew up, where they live and work, and what their favorite hangouts are like. If they mention a favorite bar, a personal sanctum, or other bit of local color, dig deeper. Ask what it looks like, what posters or pictures are on the walls, what sounds are heard in the distance.

The same can be done for player created items. Whether is just part of their signature look or something special they built-in game, let them define how it looks. How does it feel in your hand? Does it have a distinctive smell?

Let players create NPCs as well, people they care about and have an interest in helping or pursuing. What is their shared past? How do they know the other PCs? What distinctive feature do they have? What do the PC and the NPC disagree about?

The place to be careful I think is what I call "cosmology questions". These are the big questions about the setting as a whole: its history, geography, and magical rules. The difficulty is keeping the mystery about the setting (both for yourself and the players) and not to paint yourself into a corner (by saying too much).

Again going for what the characters know is best. Questions about the recent past, questions directed at the occult/scientific/religion expert, and rumors and hearsay work best. What happens to people who encounter werewolves? How do people protect themselves against the mists? What do the holy texts say about the god of fire?

But keep your questions few. Too many answers and you risk either losing focus (opening up too many avenues at once) or closing too many doors. Move to specifics if you find yourself down that road. Details are where the color comes from.