RPGaDay2024 Day 13 - Evocative Environments

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Picking an evocative environment is hard, because I've already provided several examples in prior essays.

Honorable mentions

Numenera evokes a feeling of opportunity, in that it is a weird, approachable open-world environment with secrets and stories and such at every turn, and players tend to engage with it very quickly. They enjoy the stories, and usually want to know more, explore more, and they delight in situations where things are even weirder than they would have expected. As I mentioned, I think it would be a fantastic setting for a TV show. Some people who commented on my social media post that linked the article suggested that Scavenger's Reign, had a very Numenera feel. It's a highly-rated animated show available on HBO and Hulu, and now on my list to check out.

Paranoia is evokes a sense of joyful chaos in that players get used to collaboration, teamwork and meaningful victory after overcoming numerous obstacles. The world of Alpha Complex is very obviously not that on any level, and players love the opportunity to show bad behaviors, while pretending to show good behaviors: "My good, dear friend, Imata-R-GET-1. It's so good to be on this adventure with you. I really hope we can serve the computer well on this well organized mission.  Wait! Did you just throw that grenade? That damaged computer property! How could you? Maybe Imata-R-GET-2 will be more contentious."

And there are several other games that call to your imagination and evoke desire to tell stories: The dark and unforgiving world of Shadow of the Demon Lord, the oddly subtle and unsubtle world of Legend of the Five Rings, or the endlessly expanded and detailed sea world of 7th Sea, or the mystical inhabitant of White Wolf's World of Darkness universe, as vampires, werewolves, mages, fae, ghosts, or just people who try to keep the "normies" safe from them, just to list the main books.

Avatar the RPG

But I think I've got to go with the Avatar Legends: RPG.

For those who have seen the show, you'll know that it's generally regarded as a masterpiece of concept and character and story, managing to be silly and fun while also dealing with significant issues. 

Tangential non-positive rant warning: 

You'll also possibly be one of the people who vibrated gleefully when you found out that there was going to be an Avatar movie...which turned out to be Smurfahontas; then you found out that there really was going to be a Last Airbender movie, which ultimately delivered a product which created general approval of "tar and feathering" as a way of dealing with bad directors.

It it's 3 season run, A:TLA had great season-long stories, but also had numerous small adventures. This is the essence of what an RPG campaign is all about. And each small story invoked thoughts of what other stories might be going on behind the scenes. The same was true of A:Legend of Korra. I wasn't as much of a fan of that show, but it didn't disappoint in exploring a world that was full of interesting, varied and personal stories.

The Avatar RPG allows you to play in any of five different well-crafted environments: Kyoshi, Roku, The Hundred Year War, Aang and Korra. If you think Kyoshi is a wicked bad-ass and want to share stories with her world, the game gives you the opportunity to do it. Want to play a game where the "holdout" areas resist the fire nation, it will let you do that, too. Honestly, the ability to play any of those environments, not only evokes a desire to try it all, but also leaves it open to other Avatars in the future, if they wish to expand.

And someone playing the game is likely to be someone who really enjoyed the show, and wants to tell stories of their own in that world. And it lets their imagination run a bit more wild, than many RPGs as the "well known" setting offers up familiar but less-known environments to explore.

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