It’s one thing to change the game world from Dungeons & Dragons’ fantasy setting to Call of Cthulhu horror or Rifts sci-fi mash-ups. It’s another thing to get your players to treat the new world as different settings and play their characters like they belong there. How often has the new campaign just become murderhobos in space, murderhobos vs. Cthulhu, or murderhobos visit Scooby-Doo? (Jinkies! Those grenades burned the Haunted Fairground down, Scoob.)
Players tend to keep playing RPGs the way they know. D&D players are famous for coming into Call of Cthulhu and buying every gun in the book – like those will help when you fail a few SAN checks and spends the rest of combat cowering in the corner with your new phobia of beards.
When you bring players into a new setting, your first challenge as DM is teaching them how to play in that setting. This may be overt, flat telling them to play different, but the most effective way to teach players how to play your game is to immerse them in the differences.
We went into this a bit in our podcast 13 Tips for DMing Across the Multiverse. Here are 3 tips that can help bring your new setting to life and keep murderhobos from infesting every world in your multiverse.
1. Mechanics: How Do The PCs Get Things Done in This World?
Tony brought this up in the podcast, and it’s the most obvious yet overlooked difference in settings/genres: How do you get things done?
In D&D, for the most part, PCs solve problems by killing the bad guys. From goblins to dragons to Liches, the party shows up and kicks their ass until they’re thrice dead. Then, they take their stuff, go collect the reward, get some praise and level up.
It’s fun! I love that, don’t get me wrong. We love characters in books and movies who essentially embody the idea that violence gets shit done – it is that one thing Wolverine is really good at. But it’s impossible to run a horror, intrigue or mystery game when violence gets shit done. All of those settings rely on the fact that violence will not get the shit you’re trying to do done.
How things get done is the biggest way you communicate your setting shift to players. In Call of Cthulhu, that meant having the gun-bristling cop run into things that don’t die when he shoots them. In an intrigue game, that means introducing problems the players can’t solve by killing the evil count (because they’d be arrested by scores of guards who absolutely can take them down with numbers, and his scheme will just go on with the other plotters anyway).
So, if you’re bringing the players into a new setting and want them to feel the difference, think about how they now need to get things done. When the player who loves fireballs in D&D starts packing dynamite in Call of Cthulhu, let them see why that doesn’t work so they can play with the differences. Then point them to what does in this world (like solving mysteries or building relationships).
Here’s a quick rundown of how to get things done in a few RPG genres:
- Horror: They need to discover the secrets, solve the mystery or escape the doom
- Superhero: They need to save the day, usually without killing the bad guy (because that’s not what superheroes do)
- Sci-Fi: Fix/modify/steal the tech and kill bad guys along the way – or negotiate your way out of a jam with vastly superior technology
2. Equipment: What Wonderful Toys Do They Get to Play With?
Equipment is deemphasized in some modern RPGs, notably D&D 5E, but I like emphasizing equipment because the tools the characters use add tangibility to the world. When you’re shifting between genres, the different tools and how they work are a big part of setting the new scene and helping players understand that difference.
Driving a car, piloting a space ship and riding horses are all markedly different character experiences. So is going from swords to guns (D&D combat has some ranged component, but more modern and futuristic combats are usually all ranged). Is there armor, or shields, or no real effective method of body protection? What about non-combat tools that could have a big effect in more technological societies, like hacking rigs and biological weapons? Emphasize how these things work differently from anything you saw in the last world.
Now, you can play all of these using the same mechanics, especially if you de-emphasize them. But I think that’s a mistake because you’re passing up one of your best chances to make your different settings feel unique.
Emphasize the equipment and tech and how they’re used. Make sure they act differently from fantasy magic and weapons. Allow them to do things you couldn’t do through any means in the other worlds you play. That’s how you build verisimilitude into the setting, so the players feel the difference.
The last thing I want is for the players to come out of a D&D game, step into a sci-fi game and feel like everything is just reskinned. Reskinning isn’t cool, it’s just cosmetic. Emphasize the things that are actually mechanically different, don’t smooth them down.
3. The Description: How do You Bring the World to Life With Words?
The last trick is probably the one you thought of first. Powerful descriptions of the new world that set it apart from wherever else you’ve been playing are important, but they will not carry your setting alone. Only when you team good description and scene-setting with real mechanical and equipment changes will your setting feel alive.
Once you’ve made the new world mechanically different, then your description does become important. Every mechanical difference should be reinforced with unique descriptions.
In combat, describe the hits, misses and wounds from these weapons so players understand that a phaser rifle isn’t just Fire Bolt on a stick. Describe the streets or space ways they travel on, the colonial architecture or gleaming space station plasteel, how the computer logs you in or how the bank teller verifies your identity.
You don’t need to make these things difficult for the players, but you want to let them know how things work around them. In modern games, they’re carrying ID. In a sci-fi game, their food may be 3D-printed protein gruel. Those details matter.
If it’s a modern or recent historical setting, I highly recommend pulling in real photos of the areas they’re in, menu prices, sports scores, etc. These little bits of reality will do more to bring the world to life than anything you make up.
Stitching These DM Tricks Into a Show
At the end of the day, all of these tricks should flow organically from your understanding of the world. You don’t need to be a savant with the entire civilization help in your head, but you should have a sense of how this world works and why it works that way.
Why do the NPCs want to do what they want to do? Are they driven by a job that gives them a paycheck, looming starvation, a desire to go where no man has gone before? If they use currency, where do they get it and what does it buy?
If you understand your world at that level and let organic reactions drive the setting and the story, your players will buy in more and more every game.