Mankement: An RPG-setting that reflects what it is.

In this post I will try to define what a TTRPG is to me and how I can show that in my setting. I will then give you an overview of my current setting Mankement by relating it to the system I am working on and its development. 

What is a TTRPG?

TTRPGs are weird things if you look at them. There are so many different kinds of systems, genres, mechanics and expected participants, that it will be hard to come to a definition that everyone can agree upon. Fortunately, for the purpose of today's article only I have to agree with the definition. 

• First of all, I am talking about what happens at the table, as much as I am talking about systems. I like the emphasis on games, as in something that is being played, i.e. something that is happening. A system by itself isn't a TTRPG. Which means that for me TTRPGs are, to some degree, something that emerges through play. Which implies that players, whomever they may be and however many there are, have input in what happens.
  
  
• Second, I think that all TTRPGs, even the most bare bones and rulings based ones, defer to some set of stable 'rules' or 'guidelines' or even just 'ruling precedent' based on which you can form expectations and make plans. Even improv theatre has this, with its 'yes and rule' and the prompt based on which you enter a scene. This is why, when two kids play make believe, they stop playing and start fighting the moment they can't agree on this stable base on which to play.
  
  
•  Finally, every TTRPG has a level of uncertainty. This is true for games in which nothing is hidden from the players, in games without dice and in games that are completely railroaded. Because all of those games still cannot account for what goes on in peoples heads and that includes the single person in solo-RPGS. Even in games like chess and go, there are things you can only guess at. This uncertainty implies that TTRPGs are inherently DIY. No rulebook, or set of principles will ever be able to encompass everything that might possibly emerge during play. 

Mankement

My favourite texts are those that perform their message in the form in which they are written. We see this for example in the poem featured in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland shown above. In philosophy, Jacques Derrida is one of the absolute masters of this style of writing and my favourite text of his, Tympan (a text about philosophical eardrums and the question of what lies outside the text, being invaded by an encyclopedia entry about earworms), we see another wonderful example:

This is what I want to do with Mankement, the fantasy setting for my home-game. So let's see if I can mirror what I believe  TTRPGs to be in my setting design.

• Mankement as a setting, is deliberately incomplete. It is made with the awareness that it needs to be finished at the table, meaning that I do not attempt to fill in details unless I have reason to believe they come up. Anything not filled out is created with random tables or decided in a spur of the moment. It also means that Mankement is bound to change depending on whatever game I run in it, and thus that 'there is no cannon', a mindset borrowed from Arnold K., Chris McDowall and Skerples.
  
  
• The world of Mankement is a mixture of Chaos and Order. Not as lame euphemisms of evil and good, which these terms are often reduced to, but functioning as uncertainty and reliability which TTRPGs are made off. And as such, I try to explain everything in Mankement in terms of Chaos in Order. Mountains? That is Chaotic ground, trying to move upwards instead of downwards (an explanation which makes the mundane more fantastical, while also giving me an in-world explanation for floating islands). Wind? Chaotic air (which means sailors are more chaotic, which tracks. Also, it allows me to roughly model dominant wind currents, not based on air moving from warm to cold or high pressure to low, but by moving from zones of chaos to zones of order). Monsters? Orderly if they can reproduce, Chaotic if they are unique and singular. 
  
  
• The world of Mankement is one in which the process of creation isn't finished. This is because I am not done making Mankement, and I doubt I ever will be. It also means that the world isn't a nice homogeneous mixture of Order and Chaos, but instead has regions of absolute Order and regions of absolute Chaos, both of which are uninhabitable (absolute Order precludes change, meaning that there are no seasons, there is no day or night, there is no rain) and fronts between these various regions where most people live. The world being so young also changes the tone of the game. There are very few heroes, in fact your party might be the first to make a name for themselves in any notable way. There are even fewer legends and myths, remote regions might only have stories about that time Dorian broke his ankle chasing a pig. The Gods are also new and still plentiful. Whether that is because particular faiths haven't managed to become dominant yet, or because they haven't managed to reduce their own numbers, I can't say. It also means people are still finding/inventing new Gods (again, who am I to say which of the two is happening?)
  
                      

Going forward, I'll try to flesh out magic in Mankement. I know it is Chaotic as it creates exceptions (which leads me to believe religion is Orderly), and thus that I want it to be dangerous and unstable and preferably accessible in some form by all players. Other than that I haven't committed myself to any particular in universe explanation or mechanical magic system yet.