After much explanation of what a setting design entails, and evidence to that effect that I've provided over the years, I continue to urge the reader to invest their own time and the energy projects that might seem impossible to accomplish in the foreseeable future. I understand the weariness that comes with an effort of this kind; and the reasons to quit. Many times in my youth, long before I began this blog, I would go months without working on D&D in any way ... not only because I was busy with a young family and other things, but because I could not bring myself to create one more table or write one more line about anything.
My goal here is not to convince, but to put a bug in the reader's ear. One day you too will be older, and have more free time than you have now. One day you too will have much more personal experience with the game, and will have come to see shortcomings in the traditional game that will motivate you towards providing improvements. I like to think that the reader won't have given up on the game altogether; that you'll yet retain some of the fascination with the game's parameters that inspired you in your youth, that can yet inspire you as the years wane. I prefer to believe that some of what I say can worm itself enough into your thoughts that you'll remember that old guy and what he said about caring enough about the setting to invest real time into it. These thoughts inspire me. They're why I take the time to describe what a setting entails, and that anyone's good enough to do it once they've had on-the-job training, as it were. There's no reason to surrender all the creative process to the "professionals," who are less concerned with how our worlds work and more with slapping something convenient together for not much pay.
The question arises, what do you, dear reader, get from all this effort. It's not an income, at least not in the beginning. And for quite a while, if you're critical at all of your own work, you'll feel compelled to hold what you do up to the light of other people's work — and that, without doubt, is a miserable way to reward the expenditure of your free time. Time and again, too often, more than you'd like to admit, you're going to work awfully hard on some beloved project just to have your own players, the swine, treat it with indifference or contempt.
I'd tell you to refrain from comparing yourself, or judging yourself, or putting too much stock in how others judge you, but I might just as well whip the sea for bringing in the tide. You will do these things; and you will be hamstrung for doing them, in ways that cripple your creative drive in ways that may make you quit daring to write your own material, or quit being a DM, or quit this game. Truth is, if you can't see what all the work is for, you won't see the sense in doing it. In fact, you'll argue successfully with yourself all the good reasons not to do it, as there are many: for example, the sun is shining; there are wonderful beaches to visit, and ski slopes, and places to sail. You could play baseball or video games. You could even concentrate your efforts on your family or your career, or rise to be a relevant member of your community, even some person that's celebrated for your accomplishments.
Which, in the moment, you're sure won't happen if you keep fighting with your game's setting.
Okay. Let's catch our breath. Whatever you decide to do with your life, you're going to devote time and effort. Because you read this blog, and other material about D&D, because you like the game (or whatever equivalent you prefer), it makes sense that you're expenditure of time would apply in some manner to this particular thing. You've watched others do it ... and that has brought you from time to time to a way of thinking that takes possession of what your game world.
Think of how we speak of such things. I casually refer to the setting in these posts as "MY setting. My world. Mine." Creativity, among other things, conveys a sense of ownership that no other circumstance permits. Intuitively, we all understand perfectly the difference between "My car that I bought" and "My car that I built from scratch." Many have, since the age of 12, dwelt on the fantasy of gathering the tools and obtaining the space that would permit the making of a car, one loving detail at a time, from scratch ... or, if you prefer, the transformation of a piece of junk into a very cool, smooth-running machine. Only, for most, it never seems to happen. The space doesn't permit, it costs too much ... and as we get past 30, the outlay of time seems impossible. Yet some still cling to the idea that maybe someday, when the kids are grown, and I'm retired, and I have enough money, I can clean out the garage and build my dream car. Even though, probably, by then we wouldn't know exactly how.
A D&D setting is like that. Beyond the work it requires, there's much to know. It's not only understanding how the various parts function, or how to recognise the right part for the right model, there's all the fine work of machining and filing each part lovingly until it contributes just so to the ensemble, until the engine purrs delightfully under the hood. It's not only making the car, it's having the car takes us places we want to go.
Understand, however, as difficult as all that is, upon starting we already have some joy in that this thing is something that's ours, that works as we want it to, and that for that reason it's unlike anything else that exists. And as each part comes together, this is something for which we are right to take pride. This is something we've done ... not someone else. Good or bad as yet, frustrating or beneficial as we'd like, we own it. It's uniquely ours. Having this, we don't need other people to like it. Even when the car is still a pile of junk in the garage, though it hasn't yet come together, we love the damn thing because we've put in all the work. Our partner or sibling might scoff and joke and roll their eyes about "our project" in the garage, but we know it's because they don't understand. If they could see our vision, and what we've done so far to bring this "hunk of junk" towards that vision, they'd be amazed.
This is because we remember every hard-fought-for-and-won moment of the process so far. We were there for the painstaking calibrations and that endless search for a matching cylinder head ... and that gawddamned piston we had to bore out ourself because not a one could be found. Those late nights spent working; that idea we had that went nowhere; those plans we made, and got half done, that are right now sitting on a shelf because we got stuck and stopped working on them. The frustrations themselves become a repository for our memories. Every time we see them, specific memories and moments of triumph pop up in our minds that — even if we can share the experience with no one else — make us feel like giants. Along the way we've met people, we've been to places, we've learned things, we've expanded our store of good times ... and this despite the fact that we yet don't have a working machine, yet, that we can get in and drive.
I want to stress how these things contribute to our sense of accomplishment even when we have what other people would call, "nothing to show for all the effort we've taken." Truth be told, working on something we love provides more than results or profit. It's the afternoons, at the end of the work day, when we've gotten excited to get home and start getting real work done. It's the bubbling feeling we've had when something fell into place, that makes us extraordinarily happen, even if no one else could possibly understand why. It's the hundreds of hours that sped by because we were engrossed in our thing. It's the way it keeps us thinking about the future. And the way it keeps us young, as we watch others sit around without a thing to do.
This, my dear readers, is how "personal growth" is accomplished. It's how we change. I know that for most of you reading this, you're already on this track. You're nodding your head, you understand what I'm saying, you're recalling exact episodes that fit into my words. But have you taken the time to consider how this process has made you into a different sort of person, as you've risen to each challenge? Have you considered how much happier you are when you find someone with which to share, who desire, like you, to improve something and make it better? Look at how all that "wasted" time drawing and designing and trying — and failing — has shifted your viewpoint away from other people who have never tried or failed anything. You're not like them. And not because your game world works, but because you HAVE one.
Don't let go of that. Stop concerning yourself with the destination and concentrate on the journey. Even now, you should realise that when the car's up and running, and you can drive it down to Maine or Puget Sound or Vancouver Island for the weekend, you'll be slowing down every time you see a junk in someone's yard ... wondering if that's your next project or not.
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