The Gaming Den

When starting a campaign, there are usually a few sliders that you can set at the beginning that set the mood for the rest of the campaign. Off the top of my head, in order from most effect to least effect:

• Magic (Lantern Archon post, Continual Light lanterns, Wish economy, or dark nights and fighter sieges.)
  Technology (airships? gunpowder?)
  Level (the most powerful guy can cast Fireball?!)
  Good (do necromancers eat babies?)
  Organization (have they been formed and contain power, or there shattered remains still scattered)
  
  Civic level (tribes, cities, fiefdoms, kingdoms) [Credit to the below: rapa-nui]
  Monsters (none, all unique, some/most unique, lots)
  Water (none, some, earth, mostly, all)
  Deity Interference (none, no interference, minor, some, they walk around)
  
  Civilization age (lost world, developing, developed, crumbled) [Credit to the below: clikml]
  Desperation (brink of extinction, dangerous times, foresight, happy, perfect)
  Heroics (do-gooders, selfish, neutral, selfish villains, very evil)
  Planar Travel (none -> astral Fire plane projections)
  
  Economic status (advancement, trust, planning, competition, disparity) [Credit to Frank and Heath Robinson]

What are some of the others that I have missed?

Metagame

• Seriousness (impacts consequence alongside a large number of other things)
  Roll versus Role

Crazytown (Wish economy, broken casters, role separation regardless of theoretically optimal actions)

Square brackets denote what I perceive to be the default:

Civic Level
Tribes, City-States, [Fiefdoms and Kingdoms], Nation-States.

Monstrous Presence
None, all monsters are unique and legendary, some monsters unique and legendary, [lots of monsters everywhere].

Water
Only rivers, some large lakes, some small oceans, [earth-like], mostly islands, all water.

Deity Interference
Deities don't actually exist, no interference, minor interference in legend, some interferance, [gods active in world affairs], gods walk the world.



More as I think of them...

Adding to the top as posted.

Division of Wealth (ie how big the wealth disparity between land owner and tenant)
(Feudal, ???, Modern, ???, Egalitarian)

I think there need to be additional options surrounding Modern, so I marked the places with question marks in hopes of someone coming up with appropriate names for them.

Economics is a tough question, because it is actually multiple questions:

Advancement: more advanced economies are more specialized economies. As labor becomes more specialized, it becomes more productive but produces less different stuff. Therefore an individual in a more advanced economy will enjoy a higher standard of living and require the presence of more individuals than will an individual in a less advanced economy.

Trust: Economies require a medium of exchange. In the most extreme form, that medium of exchange is literally the thing you are trading for. At the other end, there isn't even anything getting exchanged - there's just a "personal bank account" that goes up every time you do something for or give something to someone else. The level of trust people have in their economy determines how much abstraction is possible - just as it also determines inflation.

Planning: Planning in an economy is essential, and has been since before the invention of agriculture. Simply, food doesn't come out of the ground three times a day, but instead becomes available just a few times a year - if that. Planning varies in length (anywhere from the "five day plan" to the "five year plan" - and the Mayans seriously drew up a five century plan - although obviously only one ever was completed). And of course it also varies in centrality. I mean, some systems have just a few major corporations making all major economic decisions, and other systems have large numbers of small decision-making cooperatives or even seriously just one dude with the vision (or at least the power) to put everyone onto the same page.

Competition: Efficiency is maximized instantaneously by limiting the number of producers. However, single producers also have a notorious tendency to stagnate. Multiple competing producers are subject to evolutionary pressure - which causes phenomenal waste but of course is templated for long term improvement that is as-yet unmatched by designed processes.

Disparity: Your economy generates a certain amount of goods and services. How many of those goods and services go to people on the top and bottom of the economy is tremendously variable.

-Username17

Gore:
Implied, [Minor], Lots, Buckets.

Fighting vs. Talking:
What percent of game time is spent resolving combat? A lot of games it's approx. 50%. In D&D 4e, it seems to have gone up.

Consequence:
You accidentally kill the innkeep. Will this action still be haunting you 20 levels later? In most games the default seems to be that as long as you don't kick the dog, eventually any crime can be atoned for without affecting your character too much.

Naming:
What kinds of names are characters allowed to have? Do you have to pick a regionally appropriate monicker, or can you chose a random fantasy name? In most games I've played there are no strict rules, but the GM can veto crap like Joe the Plumber-Archmage.

These last two are actually subsliders of "Game Seriousness", which goes from Beer and Pretzels to Roleplaying is Serious Business.

(bracketed DnD as I best can tell it)

New World vs. Old World:
(lost world, developing civilizations, [ancient but still active civilizations], built upon the remains of a greater society)

Desperation:
(on the brink of extinction, [danger is just around the corner], just trying to get by/not imperiled, living happily, utopia)

Heroes vs. Villains
([do-gooders], selfish adventurers, selfish villains, sadistic crazy evil)

Planar Travel
(earth only, alternate yet similar planes/planets, divine/esoteric planes, dream worlds)

Non-Planar Travel
(boats and mounts, mass transit/air transit/rapid transit, limited instantaneous transit, [unlimited instantaneous transit])

Rolling non-planar travel into Technology, and coupling Technology with Magic.

FrankTrollman wrote:Economics is a tough question, because it is actually multiple questions:

Aye, Economics is complex which is why it rarely features in RPGs. However, the wealth disparity may feature as a slider because some GMs will want to differ the rewards offered by peasant villages (and other institutions) based upon it.

In some games you'll get offers of X GP from the village elder, in others you get offers of first pick from the harvest and servants/wives as well as stories of your deeds being spread to the nearby villages.

In many ways this could be linked with a "Historical Accuracy" slider as well, but dividing it into multiple sliders is a sensible idea because suspension of disbelief is highly variable.