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I was leafing through my shelves of Battletech books the other day and upon reflection I realized that it might just be the most developed fictional gaming universe in existence. Star Trek has been around longer, the GW universes have alot of development (also alot of rehash) and Star Wars has more products of all kinds, but I think that BT might have the deepest and widest body of background of any of them.

Anywho, I'm not asking about your favorite (that would require a truely massive Poll), but rather, which fictional gaming universe do you feel is the most extensively developed. Sorry if you don't find yours on the list. I tried to limit it to gaming universes whose printed works numbered in the dozens. Feel free to name one not listed.

BattleTech.

The level of detail in that setting is obsessive.

I've never even heard of Battletech!

*googles*

From my own experiences though it'd be Dungeons & Dragons out in front with Warhammer, Star Wars and Star Trek coming a joint second. I guess I'm just not hardcore enough to truly appreciate the amount of depth and detail between each of the systems

Most people who know about BattleTech probably know it as MechWarrior.

Forgotten Realms, far and away. The detail in that setting surpasses even the impressive work done in the Battletech universe.

Traveller.

While it doesn't have the fictional support, and by that I mean books/films, of some of the others, the sheer volume of produced product does put some of the others into the shade.

The Travellers Journal was one of the most successful magazines that I have seen in terms of raw information, equipment and adventures available. It was unfortunate that with the advent of the virus they editors of the magazine were unable to reconcile with the new direction of the game and so ceased printing.

Cheers

Andrew

Sort of depends on what you define developed as.

Star Trek and Star wars both have a lot of information, history regarding the settings, major players, technologies... Of those two, Star Trek has more detail though. Lucas tended to be a broad brush kind of guy, while Roddenberry and the subsequent keepers of the flame were very tied up in the minutia developing several languages, customs and coutesies for different militaries and cultures.

For sheer detail, any of the long running D&D core settings...Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Mystara or Forgotten Realms (and the larger Toril). Due to the nature of the beast, you have detailed descriptions of thousands of characters, locations, items and even climatic data. When a character walks into a bar during an adventure, they want to know who is in it, what they look like and all sorts of other details so they can attempt to discern if it is just a bar or a front for the thieves guild. They also have piles of fiction written which has been woven into the cannon of the worlds. The Forgotten Realms setting alone has somewhere over 250 novels tied to it.

Most other RPG worlds will be in that same boat, from Traveler to Rifts to Call of Cthulhu.

Wargames, even detailed wargames like Battletech, tend to fall behind by a good bit. While there are a lot of tech manuals and strategic information regarding political foes and allies, they generally stay out of the weeds of dietary preferences and fashion. They do attempt to provide a fair level of detail about the things which matter to their players...just not much more than that.

It surprises me that people are actually saying 40K is well developed. When I think of settings that have answered the big questions, it is definately not one that comes to mind. Heck, they even skip on the little questions. Outside a few dozen characters, there are few details regarding much of anything and the whole of known facts could probably be condensed down into a single book smaller than something like the BRB.

Oh! Really?? BattleTech is Mechwarrior? Man I have a bunch of those clix miniatures in a box. I didn't realize they were worth anything/people still played that game. If anyone's interested, hit me up lol, I have no idea what I have.

Back to the thread, not knowing what BattleTech was, I voted for Star Wars because I have spent countless millenia surfing the wiki pages and reading as many books as I can afford. I say 40k definitely has more potential (more years for one, and more of a multiverse going on) but this is about "already developed" and I think Star Wars takes the cake on that one. Or maybe BattleTech, but like I said. I didn't know

The Horus Heresy alone...just the sheer volumes of events, character and history is mind boggling. Granted it is 30K, but I think most folks are making it inclusive to 40K as developed background material.

 Kaiserbudheim wrote:
The Horus Heresy alone...just the sheer volumes of events, character and history is mind boggling. Granted it is 30K, but I think most folks are making it inclusive to 40K as developed background material.

And even with the Horus Heresy, 40k doesn't compe anywhere close to some fictional settings, even amongst wargames (like the previously mentioned Battletech).

40k definitely has the biggest background of the mainstream wargames though.

People who think 40k has the most in depth universe is mostly due to ignorance of what else is out there.

Call of Cthulhu. The open source of horror writing since the 1920's.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Kaiserbudheim wrote:
The Horus Heresy alone...just the sheer volumes of events, character and history is mind boggling. Granted it is 30K, but I think most folks are making it inclusive to 40K as developed background material.

And even with the Horus Heresy, 40k doesn't compe anywhere close to some fictional settings, even amongst wargames (like the previously mentioned Battletech).

40k definitely has the biggest background of the mainstream wargames though.

People who think 40k has the most in depth universe is mostly due to ignorance of what else is out there.

HA, HAR!

Kaiserbudheim you fell for the obvious heffalump trap Eilif was setting and Loki was here to pants you!

The BT wargame play on a much more detailed level than 40k though, especially once 2nd edition 40k started to move in a more streamlined direction.

The BT 3020 technical manual I have has more detailed information on units and weapons than probably an editions worth of 40k weapon detailing in it. But with the 40k RPGs it's definitely catching up.

D&D's Forgotten Realms by far. Not even counting all the novels, just about every inch of the mainland has been mapped out and detailed over the years.

Personally, I think it more matters on perspective. If you accept everything related to the universe including unofficial, homebrew, and fan-made additions as a part of a gaming universe, any gaming universe can be infinite in development.

Can I just say, if you look for details lord of the rings/hobbit is probably the most detailed thing there is, timelines, history behind every character for generations. A complete map of the middle earth and more.


It's shocking just how much stuff you can dig up if you look for it, there are like tons of unpublished books that has literally everything in, it's a whole new universe.

Battletech. Want to know what it is to be a civilian in the Kerensky Cluster? You probably have a book on that.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
Sort of depends on what you define developed as.

Star Trek and Star wars both have a lot of information, history regarding the settings, major players, technologies... Of those two, Star Trek has more detail though. Lucas tended to be a broad brush kind of guy, while Roddenberry and the subsequent keepers of the flame were very tied up in the minutia developing several languages, customs and coutesies for different militaries and cultures.

I've always got the feeling it's the other way around!. IMO Roddenberry, at least in the beginning, wanted Trek to be simply a canvas for others to write sci-fi in. He set certain guidelines, but for the most part kept the setting deliberately vague. It only has become more detailed and consistent with the contributions of dozens (perhaps even hundreds) of writers over the years, not counting licensed materials (which sometimes influenced or were incorporated into the series - Tie-in fiction writer John M. Ford, for example, is credited with having introduced a detailed Klingon language, which prompted Nimoy to hire linguist Marc Okrand to create the canon version which has become a staple of modern Trek)

Star Wars, however, is limited to the three (six) movies. Lucas has (had) a tight grip over these, and has never been really interested in nuances like technology or alien cultures beyond its use as plot devices. Licensed stuff tends to be very thorough with detail, though, but all that work has little to no chance of influencing the movies. Also, licensing issues often prevent such works from even referencing each other, leading to frequent contradictions. If Star Trek has grown over the years, Star Wars has simply piled up. That leans a feeling of vagueness to the setting, despite the many efforts from tie-in autors and fans alike to keep it consistent.

I personally view Star Trek and Star Wars as fictional universes that have had a gaming element sort of added on. In contrast, DnD, WHFB, 40k and the like that started out as gaming systems and have had fictional universes added on later (or simultaneously)

So, by my view of this topic, I'd have to vote for either Warhammer, or DnD.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
D&D's Forgotten Realms by far. Not even counting all the novels, just about every inch of the mainland has been mapped out and detailed over the years.

I'm not as familiar with D&D universes, though it seems that some are really well developed. How many Forgotten Realms books and sourcebooks have been produced?

AndrewC wrote:Traveller.
While it doesn't have the fictional support, and by that I mean books/films, of some of the others, the sheer volume of produced product does put some of the others into the shade.

The Travellers Journal was one of the most successful magazines that I have seen in terms of raw information, equipment and adventures available. It was unfortunate that with the advent of the virus they editors of the magazine were unable to reconcile with the new direction of the game and so ceased printing.

I'm glad you mentioned traveller. As above, I've got a big blind spot when it comes to my knowledge of RPGs

Sean_OBrien wrote:Sort of depends on what you define developed as.
Wargames, even detailed wargames like Battletech, tend to fall behind by a good bit. While there are a lot of tech manuals and strategic information regarding political foes and allies, they generally stay out of the weeds of dietary preferences and fashion. They do attempt to provide a fair level of detail about the things which matter to their players...just not much more than that.

This is a good point. Battletech will take you to the cultural norms, traditions and deep history of many, many factions and cultures. but they don't go as deep into diet and that minutae. There is a fair number of pictures of fashion, etc, but they are mostly confined to the upper classes, government figures and military.

notprop wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

 Kaiserbudheim wrote:
The Horus Heresy alone...just the sheer volumes of events, character and history is mind boggling. Granted it is 30K, but I think most folks are making it inclusive to 40K as developed background material.

And even with the Horus Heresy, 40k doesn't come anywhere close to some fictional settings, even amongst wargames (like the previously mentioned Battletech).

40k definitely has the biggest background of the mainstream wargames though.

People who think 40k has the most in depth universe is mostly due to ignorance of what else is out there.

HA, HAR!

Kaiserbudheim you fell for the obvious heffalump trap Eilif was setting and Loki was here to pants you!
.

I wasn't trying to trap anyone, but I did include 40k more out of obligation than actually thinking it had a strong case to be the most extensive. There is alot written about 40k, but I don't think it's as deep or as wide as some of the other contenders.

SkavenLord wrote:Personally, I think it more matters on perspective. If you accept everything related to the universe including unofficial, homebrew, and fan-made additions as a part of a gaming universe, any gaming universe can be infinite in development.

I was not intending to consider unofficial documents, only published works.

 Eilif wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
D&D's Forgotten Realms by far. Not even counting all the novels, just about every inch of the mainland has been mapped out and detailed over the years.

I'm not as familiar with D&D universes, though it seems that some are really well developed. How many Forgotten Realms books and sourcebooks have been produced?

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Portal:Sourcebooks
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Portal:Novels

I assume that to be a complete list.

I'd say star wars with 40k second.

Bit depressing that people regard "developed" as being synonymous with a dispassionate list of facts. I think the thoughts and feelings of the charectors in those universes are more important than that personally.

In that respect the Lord of the Rings wins, obviously, but it's unfair to compare that to anything. Isn't the Star Wars expanded universe basically considered non-canon though? That'd make that universe pretty small in respect to fluff, since you only have the films really.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Eilif wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
D&D's Forgotten Realms by far. Not even counting all the novels, just about every inch of the mainland has been mapped out and detailed over the years.

I'm not as familiar with D&D universes, though it seems that some are really well developed. How many Forgotten Realms books and sourcebooks have been produced?

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Portal:Sourcebooks
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Portal:Novels

I assume that to be a complete list.

And that list doesn't include the long running series of articles in Dragon Magazine either - nor the various Dungeon magazine adventures set in the Realms. It also skips on the tie ins like Realm Space and aspects of Planescape which come back into the Forgotten Realms.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

xruslanx wrote:
Bit depressing that people regard "developed" as being synonymous with a dispassionate list of facts. I think the thoughts and feelings of the charectors in those universes are more important than that personally.

In that respect the Lord of the Rings wins, obviously, but it's unfair to compare that to anything. Isn't the Star Wars expanded universe basically considered non-canon though? That'd make that universe pretty small in respect to fluff, since you only have the films really.

Not so much. A lot of people point at Middle Earth as being highly developed - but generally speaking, it isn't much more developed than what you might find in another fictional setting - say something like the setting used for Game of Thrones. He just happened to organize things better.

When I look at my library shelves, Middle Earth really doesn't stand out as taking up more space than other settings. If I scrape off the various MERP supplements and the like - it would probably get lost among dozens of other settings.

Regarding why facts are more important than characters - well, it is a question of the universe...not the characters. For well developed characters, again, I would look elsewhere besides Middle Earth or 40K. For example Drizzt Do'Urden is the main character in 27 different novels (Forgotten Realms) - his section alone is bigger than the entire Middle Earth section of my library. Most other story lines and characters are well developed too - though I think he wins hands down for "thoughts and feelings".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

This is a good point. Battletech will take you to the cultural norms, traditions and deep history of many, many factions and cultures. but they don't go as deep into diet and that minutae. There is a fair number of pictures of fashion, etc, but they are mostly confined to the upper classes, government figures and military.

Along those lines, take a look at Shadowrun, Cyberpunk and related themed settings. The Chrome Catalogs for Cyberpunk and the various "dossiers" on the corporations get deep into the back story, and the Chrome catalogs go as far as to act like a Sears catalog of everything from cybernetics to shoes.

I'd say it's definitely D&D, but that's mostly because of the huge scope that D&D has.

Yes, battletech, etc. have tons of fluff, but so does Forgotten Realms... except then D&D also has another entire games worth of fluff, like Dragon Lance, and Ravenloft, and scores of smaller ones like Dark Sun, or Spelljammer, and all the way down to thousands of worlds that exist just at a single gaming group level.

Anything else has one game worth of fluff, no matter how big that game is. D&D is a confederation of many, many games. Other things just aren't going to seriously compete.

xruslanx wrote:
Isn't the Star Wars expanded universe basically considered non-canon though? That'd make that universe pretty small in respect to fluff, since you only have the films really.

There are different tiers of canonicity in Star Wars, and as long as material doesn't contradict something in a higher tier then it's considered canon. The only published works that aren't canon are the 'Infinities' series and similar, a lot of that explores alternative timelines or 'what if' scenarios (and some of them are just flat out comedy stories, like the lost tale of Luke's severed hand which became a Jedi in its own right). Or at least that was situation recently, I don't know if Disney are going to throw it all out/have thrown it out.

On the other hand, Star Trek's EU is definitely non-canonical.

Edit: Forgot to add my vote is for Star Wars. There's no limit to what has been explored, defined and labelled in that universe.

Most of these have piled up as they have had so much added on in different directions. Star trek/wars arnt really gaming universes so much as they have games set in them.

Some one should make a ' Guin Saga ' game then that would have one of the strongest continuos back drops.

Battletech / Mechwarrior range is pretty extensive, they have over a hundred novels written for the game and there's easily three times as many sourcebooks and materials for the game. The established game history covers over a 1,200 year time frame.


Novels:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BattleTech_novels


Game Materials:
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/List_of_BattleTech_products




40k has a very lengthy timetable but there's huge blocks of time it never addresses, battletech meanwhile fills in almost the entire stretch of their timetable which is pretty impressive. I can't comment all that much on D&D I know Forgotten Realms Greyhawk is pretty vast. However I wouldn't consider player run campaigns as "canon" additions to a setting, or consider althernate universes like Dark Sun of Dragon Lance to be part of the same universe. They are part of a very large collective but they are each their own distinct setting. All of the works for battletech are set within the same universe and it has no alternate universe settings.

You also have rules for managing everything from a single rpg style charcter, to mech forces and even rules for galaxy wide campaigns, so you can make use of the setting in greatly differing scales.



.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

Not so much. A lot of people point at Middle Earth as being highly developed - but generally speaking, it isn't much more developed than what you might find in another fictional setting - say something like the setting used for Game of Thrones. He just happened to organize things better.

When I look at my library shelves, Middle Earth really doesn't stand out as taking up more space than other settings. If I scrape off the various MERP supplements and the like - it would probably get lost among dozens of other settings.

Regarding why facts are more important than characters - well, it is a question of the universe...not the characters. For well developed characters, again, I would look elsewhere besides Middle Earth or 40K. For example Drizzt Do'Urden is the main character in 27 different novels (Forgotten Realms) - his section alone is bigger than the entire Middle Earth section of my library. Most other story lines and characters are well developed too - though I think he wins hands down for "thoughts and feelings".

There may be more Drizzt written than works set in Middle Earth, but damned if I could get through them. I can read dry books about economics for 8 hours a day but I just cannot get through those Drizzt books at all. They kill my mind. But that's personal

I think the main difference between Tolkein and other fantasy writers is that virtually everything in Middle-Earth was directly taken from the real-world. This gives the fictional world an air of authenticity and neatness to it, "background" in most fantasy works seems to be "ages ago like, all this stuff happened!". Tolkien enthuses the past in his characters' words, and within the social structures and habits of the inhabitants.

Just to examine a single part of it, the way he describes the inhabitants of the Shire's view of the Old Forest is clearly written by someone who understands the way that people think about the natural world, in how they live near the forest and in their reaction to being threatened by it. This is then expanded on once Tom Bombadil comes along and explains the "other side" of the forest, talking about it as if it were a herd of cattle or a mischievous child. I think you'd struggle to find that sort of "holistic" explanation in other fantasy works, though ymmv.

I have no experience what so ever with Battletech, so I must ask what exactly is it that makes it so developed?

Edit: Nevermind, I was ninja'd by paulson games' post

Battletech has a LOT of novels written for it. The game itself has many sourcebooks covering a span of several hundred years. All factions (major and minor) are detailed as are the major characters in both game material and novels. The technology is explained well and described in great detail in the rules and sourcebooks. And with all that, canon has always held fast versus GW where canon changes on a whim. Even as FASA advanced the story with the Clans, existing canon was not overturned to retcon the new stuff in. The books are generally better written than 40k stuff, too.

It has also supported many cross-over licenses in computer games and even a CCG.

The problem with 40k is that they keep recycling old material each time a new edition of the game is released instead of delivering new material. How many times has GW published a Space Marine codex? How many times have they published stuff dealing with the 3rd war for Armageddon? The most extensive "new" fluff comes out of Forge World with books like The Taros Campaign and Badab War. Granted 40k is finally becoming better developed over the last 10 years or so but it has a very long way to go before it approaches Star Trek, Battletech, or even Forgotten Realms in detail and scope.

For me it has to be the realm of World of Darkness! Or failing that my vote goes to the D&D series