What is ancient?

When I hear the word ancient, what first comes to mind is worldbuilding. I love lore. I love learning new lore in various ways. First, I like reading up on the lore of a video game I am playing. The more I read, the more questions I have, which makes me read even more. I like learning about how something works, or how an event happened, or why a civilisation before a civilisation before the current civilisation is relevant to the ongoing story. It just makes my brain happy.

When it comes to tabletop RPGs, things are not as simple. You are not the only one participating. You are not just served content to consume. You are part of it and actively shaping it, either as a player or a GM. Shaping a world with your friends is fun. But you also must make sure that it’s not the main goal because everyone enjoys this at a different level. Some players may enjoy a good lore dump, but others may want to just hit things with a stick. Both are great, and you need to find a good balance for those.

Now, when it comes to creating something for others to use, it’s a bit trickier. Do you want everything set in stone? Should everything be catalogued and final? Even if a small voice in my head says yes because I want to know everything, it’s best to leave a few things unanswered. Take Eberron, for example. The Day of Mourning is one of the most crucial events in the setting. It also has no “official” explanation of what caused it. This is deliberate. It lets every group explore and discover something different. It’s much more fun to have the actions of your group define what took place that day than just read a paragraph explaining what happened.

And it’s not just Eberron that does this, and not just tabletop RPGs. Warhammer 40.000 has so much lore, you can spend years reading between books and wikis. Seriously. Just the Horus Heresy as an event took 16 years and 63 books to narrate. And even though it’s one of the most important events in the story, it’s still only one event. Just 9 years in a timeline of more than 10.000 years, full of events that are left vague on purpose. Because this leaves room for players to do their own thing. Players are welcome to create their own Space Marine chapters, because the exact list is left vague just for that.

To be honest, I had no idea what today’s post would be about, and I definitely wouldn’t have guessed it would be that. But, hey, that’s the purpose of the prompts. And while I will stop here, I have a feeling of emptiness, as in I have more to say regarding this word. Perhaps I will return to it at some point. But for now, let’s see what tomorrow’s prompt is. Motive. Another rich word. I wonder what I will make of it.

And until next time, have fun!

P.S.: You can find all of my posts for this year’s RPGaDay here. Thanks to AUTOCRATIK and Casting Shadows for hosting another year of the event.