Dungeonmor's Implied Setting

When I decided to write a classic, OSR-feel RPG, I was also thinking about setting. My goal was to keep the project small and focused on creating a rule-set. At the time, I wanted to create more of a toolbox, similar to Mork Borg, Knave, Cairn, and 1-page RPGs. But setting kept creeping into things. After Kickstarter, I chose to create a zine format for Dungeonmor. This allowed me to put everything from the RPG-On-A-Screen project into it and to expand the material. Key to the original project was that the game be a "plug-n-play" engine for any theme or setting RPGers wanted to play. This allowed me to continue core game development without sinking energy and time into content. There's certainly enough material out there that gamers love, and focusing on a means of turning appealing, but rules heavy RPGs, into smoother, in-game centric experiences was an ongoing project goal. All this is to say that I was working toward removing setting from the core system. However, RPGs (and really any game) need a structural element giving a purpose for play. It's the difference between a pile of lumber and a table. One provides what you need, the other suggests purpose, like a place for family and friends to gather. The latter gently pushes you to the activity, allowing you to imagine enjoying time with others. I needed to figure out how to keep purpose in the project. Two big draws for RPGers are theme and setting. Theme was already expressed: classic RPG--premise was easily identifiable, because you had Fighters, Clerics, Thieves, and Wizards. But the classic RPG theme of "the four dungeon crawlers" is so proliferate that it's really become more like a tool. Use these to play an RPG; come on, you know how to use lumber to build a table. You can design, develop, write, and market the best RPG ever, and RPGeeks are REALLY into new and clever systems, but if it doesn't trigger people's imagination, it's just less likely to be played. This is why Nymbrilus was added to the original Kickstarter, and why the free release of Dungeonmor zine pdf includes this paragraph in its introduction-- Dark Passages Beneath the world bear treasures, wonders, and secrets from ancient ages. Their past knowledge now gone, delvers make their place in life by exploring these deep mysteries in hopes of fame and fortune. While some jealously horde such rewards, others hock their finds in far flung civilizations scattered among the known realms. This barest suggestion of implied setting was really more of a "statement of intent." As was the entire pdf free release, a foundation. With the expanded Dungeonmor forthcoming, implied setting will take a far more significant and prominent role. As with the project as a whole, the implied setting's goal is to provide RPGers with a means of easily bringing their own creations and ideas into game sessions. It will be the foundation on which a group's own campaign setting and milieu can be built. Throughout play tests and development, both implied setting and game elements for Dungeonmor are being interwoven, focusing on three purposes extracted from the zine introduction's first paragraph: -The world is a weird-tales landscape, filling it with terrible dangers and creating disparate and strange societies. -It is rife with dark, ancient passages and places beneath its surface, containing treasures, wonders, and secrets from past ages. -So desperate and coarse is the world that delving into dark, frightening places has become a profession. Further developing from these original three, another emergent purpose has been stalking my game sessions: -What lays beneath the world intrudes upon its surface. This may become significant enough that I devote an entire chapter to using Dungeonmor's implied setting, with special attention to group's developing their own specific setting from it. As an RPG enthusiast, I really like this idea. There will be a free update and expansion including all of this, so let me know what you think about it, and what else you would like to see included.