Editing Potot Anon (section)

==About campaign writing...==
After reading all of that, you must be either fascinated, or you must be asking yourself "what's the point of making an article about this?", and rightfully so. The [[skub|skubby]] nature of this setting aside, Potot anon's introduced /tg/ to his creation in a very specific context; his players wanted an original universe for their next game, which he understood perfectly, and he ended up making a universe alien and so bizarre that his players were very much off-put by its strangeness. Well, in all due respect to Potot anon, he did say that they weren't paying a lot of attention, but with that aside...

Potot anon isn't the only one on /tg/ to experiment a little more than usual and create new and exciting universes for their players. A lot of them get really excited and end up doing extremely complex worlds with intricate politics and a rich history with dozens of races, and inevitably cause their players to sort of shrug and wonder how their characters will ever fit in this huge, gargantuesque setting. A lot of anons also just post world-building related questions on the board because they want to create an interesting setting for their fantasy novel. But in the context of writing a setting for a campaign, most of them get it wrong. The manner of which one introduces somebody to a fantasy universe depends on the medium, and in the context of a GURPS or DnD game, it is better to propose an alternative to the usual type of classic fantasy universe, but have its difference explained in just a few sentences or words.

Of course, don't just make a simple fantasy world with all the generic elements with slightly different creatures and races, but rather, give your players some sort of premise to start them off so that they can have a clear idea of what kind of world they'll be dealing with, and then slowly introduce them to the more original elements of your setting. There is no better way to really tell you how to get your players engaged in your universe, and if they don't feel like spending too much learning about it, then they'll be pleased by the adventures they'll have in it. The point of a DnD campaign is not to learn about a new, eccentric and fantastical world, it's live adventures in a wondrous universe. Your world will grow with the players, getting more and more lifeful as your send them on ventures each more exciting than the last, and with the little interactions that your players will have the NPCs and your setting, the mythology, societies and characters that you've created will get more substance.

So if you begin your game, or the now famous "Session 0" with a massive two hour lore dump on one specific character, or even trying to explain the very base of your entire setting using a extremely precise terminology that requires extended knowledge in a specific field of education to even understand what's going on, it's highly likely your players won't be interested in playing. They'll just overwhelmed with information to remember from the get-go and have a harder time adapting to this new environment. Especially if you're not familiar with the players themselves. Also remember to KNOW your players, be aware of the type of public you'll find yourself with, if they're not autistic enough to partake in such weird and alien journeys into eldritch and never-seen-before worlds, then they'll probably drop the game off.

Potot anon's problem could be summarized like this; his setting sounds great for a book series, but not a campaign. His world is complex, but explained in such a confused manner that it only complicates the comprehension of such a setting. He created an extremely detailed and intricate world with a lot of interesting ideas, but one's left to wonder how Potot anon's players could possibly interact with some of his setting's elements, as his world is extremely alien and unlike anything /tg/ discusses on a regular basis. Just take the wars that the Nitabah wages on rival cliques, they are as intricate as a medical surgery, highly ritualized and cautiously prepared, and oftentimes riddled in a multitude of religious practices that it differentiates to the idea one would make of what a battle should look like!

It should also be noted that Potot's anon setting is filled to the brim with [[fluff]] and not enough [[crunch]].

Potot anon's world isn't bad either, matter of fact, it is extremely original and could be even the subject of a great book! The only reason why some people are thrown off by it is mostly because of the lack of direction. They wonder what one could do with it and how a party can possibly play in such a setting if they have to learn everything about a Potot's inner workings to even possibly understand what's going on. But Potot anon managed to find its public and some people have recently praised his originality, perhaps a sign for the future of his bizarre and strange setting. Perhaps people will enjoy a campaign in his alien world. For the time being, Potot anon posts sporadically on world-building threads, not talking about game balance and gameplay elements of a potential campaign (although it might be easy to set up with a system like GURPS, but he's still there, popping on and off /tg/, talking about his fantasy world, and the only thing we can wish for him is to keep polishing the Potot world and tap into its great potential.