Why Worldbuilding is Bad

MNblockhead · Apr 12, 2018

11 years and 2,000 posts.

The fact that I even tried to skim through this thread indicates a sickness.

I am a world builder because I enjoy it. It is a hobby onto itself that integrates many interests: history, anthropology, geology, fantasy literature, folklore, religious studies, sociology, and more.

I don't use a lot of what I build in my games and I make up a lot on the fly or a day or two before the adventure. I start building on the macro and reactively create adventures as-needed on the micro.

2000 posts that can be summed up as "you don't need to spend a lot of time world building to run a great campaign, but if you enjoy doing it, have at it!"

doctorbadwolf · Apr 12, 2018

Vanuslux said:
Sooooooo...by this logic Tolkien is a boring nerd?

Lots of folks say that exact thing.

IMO every single sentiment in the quotes text of the OP is completely wrong, but I’m tired of the debate.

gamerprinter · Apr 12, 2018

Okay, another one of those gigantic threads I won't read (too much to read), but only looked at the first post, so undoubtably someone else has already said this, but...

I'm a big fan of World Building, so cannot possibly see it as a bad thing. If you're running a purely sandbox game and your players are doing most of the story-telling, sure a complete world build is unnecessary to serve a pure sandbox. And the OP discusses from the point of view of a novel author, rather than a setting designer, so I'm sure that has merits in that limited framework to novels. But as a small 3PP for Pathfinder/Starfinder, building settings (world-building) is a major part of what I do and publish. So I find World Building intrinsic to building the worlds we run our game in.

No matter who much effort you put in including deep nuance into a setting, a GM/setting creator can never fully document everything there is. So there's plenty of room for individual GMs and even players to add to the world. So I don't see a detriment, in that way, to a world building exercise.

As a GM only, world building is half my fun in being a GM in the first place. Some may not care for world-building, and that's fine, but for me, it's something I have to do, and love doing it.

AbdulAlhazred · Apr 13, 2018

Imaculata said:
That is not a world building issue, its a railroading issue.

World building is about where the campaign takes place. Its history, its culture(s) and beliefs. Worldbuilding has nothing to do with what is going to happen during the course of the campaign, apart from giving motivation and backstory to the various characters that inhabit that world.

What I'm saying is, is it is fostered by world building. There's all this 'stuff' that the GM has imagined and planned on, and then the PCs go and invalidate 90% of it (which is EXACTLY what PCs, especially high level ones, will do every time). This is classic, almost expected even. So, you can say its a 'railroading problem', and that's technically correct, but its not really getting to the root of the thing.

AbdulAlhazred · Apr 13, 2018

Caliburn101 said:
Very well said.

Most of the criticism here is based eithet on the assumption that "my experience of a world-building GM was bad, so worldbuilding is bad" or the erroneous assumption that a GM running a game in a gameworld badly (either railroading or road blocking player agency) is doing it because worldbuilding leads to this...

... erm, NO.

Bad GMs lead to bad GM'ing and they can railroad you or block you even easier in a less defined campaign setting.

I don't really like to take this kind of position, because it feels to me like its saying effectively "you can't criticize this technique because there's this perfect version of it somewhere that avoids this problem." If its a problem, repeatedly, in real games in the real world, then IMHO its a problem with the technique! You may well avoid that problem by dint of expert play, but MANY campaigns have sunk upon that rock!

I mean, any absolutist pronouncements, like the initial premise of this thread, are always fraught. To say 'nobody should world build' is of course idiotic. I mean, I recommend against it and then I do it myself! I don't actually feel a need to be self-consistent or act in the 'best' way possible. I just do what I like to do, particularly when it comes to pastimes. So I wouldn't actually condone dismissing world building, but that isn't the same thing as saying its beyond criticism because people like it or it produces good results sometimes. IME No Myth play actually has fewer problems.

AbdulAlhazred · Apr 13, 2018

Riley37 said:
Darth Shoju wrote that about a decade ago. It was a strawman, but at least it provided a starting point, for others to counter with other ways that session could have gone. For better or worse, for richer or poorer, with the DM or the player to blame, because too much worldbuilding or not enough.

For this thread to successfully and usefully "WISE FWOM YOU GWAVE", maybe we would benefit from updated strawman examples. Or better yet, actual examples, from "My DM did this and I walked away", to "I did this, and one player walked away, but the rest of them loved the campaign."

In the meantime, D&D now has a 5E PHB, and the passage on humans lists nine human ethnicities from Forgotten Realms! So *already* we have divergence on the outcome which results when the DM says "Just what you see in the PHB, pal".

My $.02:

"ME: Ok...what are the human nations like?
DM: I don't know...what kind of nation do you want to be from?"

Good jorb, DM! You expressed interest in what your players want! Which is not the same thing as always answering YES. (No, you cannot haz a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range.) Was it really necessary to point out the difference between "showing interest" and "always saying yes, to anything"? You tell me.

ME: How does my nation get along with the other nations?
DM: That isn't important in the adventure.

Partial credit, strawman DM with neither worldbuilding nor improv skills. Alternative answers include...

DM 1: You are from so far away, that the topic will not arise, unless some other player wants their character to be from the equivalent of ancient Japan. If so, we'll take that as the baseline for how you get along.

DM 2: That's currently a blank page. Do you have an interest in establishing personal trust despite national enmity, or something like that?

DM 3: Everything changed, when your nation attacked.
(The ancient psuedo-Sino-nation is now the Fire Nation.)

ME: Is the town facing any problems that I could help with before we head to the dungeon?
DM: It doesn't say...so, no.

DM 1: They're worried about that relic. The sooner your party finds it, the better. If you don't, maybe it could fall into the wrong hands.
(DM 1, writing a note to self: BBEG is on the trail of the relic. He will arrive in two days. I'll stat him up later. If the PCs emerge from the dungeon on Day Two, then "Again, we see there is nothing you can possess which I cannot take away. And you thought I'd given up.")

DM 2: "That's also a blank page. Hey, other players, anyone wanna suggest a problem?
READY PLAYER TWO: "One of the villagers is sick."
DM 2: "Yeah, we'll go with that. Did you prepare Lesser Restoration, and if so, do you spend the spell slot?"

DM 3: "He says they have no problems. They have no problems of any kind. They have never had any problems of any kind. Everything is fine. Everything is JUST FINE. The local cleric then points out that it's time for you to go, so you can reach the dungeon before nightfall."
(DM 3 to self: Maybe I'll think of a problem later.)
READY PLAYER TWO: "Roll insight!"
DM 3: "You're not there. This is cleric-to-cleric professional courtesy. Wait your turn for the spotlight."

As you can see, DM 1 is "Get back on those rails, I got a dungeon for you to explore", while DM 2 is a heavyweight sand-boxer, and DM 3 is my version of the happy medium.

So... how could this be improved by worldbuilding?

Or is this the optimum D&D session, which has successfully averted all the problems which follow from worldbuilding?

Or something else?

I think my answer to Darth Shoju is that there's a piece missing. We're playing Story Now No Myth, right? So where are the character's backstories? At least assign them a goal, a belief, a relationship, or some sort of character trait like a strength, weakness, etc. Where is the genre and theme? I guess this is 'D&D' in a sort of notional way, but can we have a theme? I wouldn't even start play without those, it would be like playing without players, kinda pointless.

So when the players start asking questions, they should have answers to some of them in their backstory already (and being No Myth I see no reason why they shouldn't have pretty much carte blanc on their own backstories, just stick to the genre and maybe talk to each other to avoid any huge inconsistencies).

Beyond that I'm going to want to a) 'say yes' to allow some momentum to build. Let the players come up with some plans and make a few moves that start to commit them to a path in the fiction. b) lets frame up a scene that pushes them. The human priest from fantasy China sees some children treating an old man badly. He's highly offended as his belief system has a core concept of filial piety and respect for the old! He sees that the children are richly dressed, does he chastise them and risk offending someone powerful? Maybe the old man deserves what he's getting? Once I know something about the characters I have a RICH vein of things to mine from to rope them in, build up a story and a place around them which they can relate to.

Now, the question becomes, what does this adventure do for us? I'd have to figure out how to interest the PCs in it, if I was going to use it, by finding some scenes in the thing that can be profitably used as framing. However, I CAN do that because I have some sort of basis to go on, backstory at least.

AbdulAlhazred · Apr 13, 2018

pemerton said:
That's the sort of "meta-level" thing I mentioned in my post. It's not personally how I like to approach things - it seems to put too much of the action into pre-play negotiation, rather than letting it actual come out in the play of the game.

Other's mileage may (and I think does) vary.

So, instead, maybe you would just get to playing and when the character declined to venerate other gods than his own, or when he put forth his notion of complete dedication as a virtue to someone, then you would be framing a scene that tested the character's belief. Perhaps he would get into trouble, or maybe he would find that there were some other secret adherents to this concept, etc. The player chose, and now play is going to decide how things are.

I'd like to note that this is also partly an answer to the criticism that No Myth play makes exploration of the world impossible. I'd think that this sort of thing is exactly a type of exploration. The facts may be partly invented by the explorers, but its still a type of discovery, and with several participants you will still mostly be learning about what other people think.

AbdulAlhazred · Apr 13, 2018

pemerton said:
This is certainly not accurate in relation to my posts. I've spelled out in some detail (mostly in replies to @Imaculata) what I want in a RPG - for instance, that I want stuff like religous doctrine, dispositions of NPCs, details of what might be found where, etc to come out in the play of the game, rather than to be decided in advance of play by meta-level negotiation among the game participants.

That's a reason why worldbuilding is "bad" for me (other than the sort of "high level" stuff I've talked about, like giving names to places and setting out some basic history to hang the genre tropes on). And this reason has nothing to do with whether someone is a good or bad GM. I'm talking about techniques for RPGing, not GM skill or good faith.

I appreciate the GM advice of Dungeon World more and more on this front. It talks about having some general idea of things, of creating 'factions' (groups, causes, organizations) and 'fronts' (zones of real or potential conflict) and building very general maps. Not so much defining where everything is as providing some basic framework to hang choices on.

Ilbranteloth · Apr 13, 2018

Emirikol said:
DM's would do well to heed this advice. I've been in campaigns where DM's sit around and design places where PC's will never go and never interact with meanwhile ignoring the most important thing: THE ADVENTURE. It's like designing a dungeon with a bunch of rooms that arent' accessable not related to any plot or interesting exploration whatsoever. It's like starting a campaign at first level and starting your levelled dungeon design at the 30th level of the underdark. If it's not part of the plot, don't waste your time. Time is precious.

That said, a DM must consider that he needs to present enough information for players to feel that they are "somewhere else." Those things would include: MAP, list of countries, short bio on any countries that the PC's may know something about, and LOCAL rumors that the PC's might know something about.

I've seen it done in Living Greyhawk. Triads neglecting scenario quality for nonsense things like pointless metaorgs and "behind the scenes" plot design.

If the players are never going to see it. DON'T BOTHER.

Ever read a scenario where the background is 52 pages long, but the scenario is only 8 pages and it's all about NPC motivations for the otyough and green slime and their symbiotic relationship with each other (or other such useless nonsense)?

The DM needs to balance his time carefully.

jh
P.s. (all caps for emphasis..not shouting) I'VE WASTED HUNDREDS OF HOURS ON WORLD DESIGN AND TOTALLY AGREE THAT IT'S NOTHING COMPARED TO THE ADVENTURE..FOR WHICH WORLD DESIGN HAS LITTLE EFFECT UPON THE QUALITY OF THE ADVENTURE.
..

But this implies that the DM is driving the plot. I’d recommend the opposite, that the DM be responsible for the world (and potential plot hooks and background themes and schemes) and let the players focus on the plot through their characters’ goals, decisions and actions.

When the players drive the plot, the DM needs to be able to react and respond, and for me that prep is what allows me to do that consistently.

I do recommend short notes and ideas, weather than paragraphs and paragraphs of info, but sometimes that is fun as a hobby in itself. I use things I wrote 20 years ago that haven’t come into play until now. And those notes aren’t set in stone until they enter play. They are tools to aid my improv in response to the players.

Those behind the scenes plots need not be fully fleshed out, but they provide fodder for adventure hooks to let the PCs decide what’s important to them.

Beyond that, I find world building in a published setting even more useful for immersion. I don’t restrict my players reading. Having a shared reference helps the world come together in a way that is difficult to replicate entirely through play. For example, if I were to tell you my game is pitted against the empire, with help from wookies, droids, and various potential dangers include jawas and sand people, and the campaign starts in the cantina at Mos Eisley, there are lots of things that immediately come to mind for most people, and it allows us to spend less time creating the immersion or integrating the PCs in the world, and more time adventuring.

Hussar · Apr 13, 2018

MNblockhead said:
/snip

2000 posts that can be summed up as "you don't need to spend a lot of time world building to run a great campaign, but if you enjoy doing it, have at it!"

And that's fair enough.

But, unlike [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION], I think that whenever this sort of thing comes up, I see the exact opposite of what he does- the basic advice is always world building first. If you're a good DM, you're going to world build and anyone who doesn't spend the time doing it is, by implication anyway, a bad DM.

Like was said earlier, to me, it's a red flag. I've almost never enjoyed a game where the DM has this extensive setting, whether homebrew or published. It's too restrictive for me. I don't enjoy it. I'd much rather the players have far more input into the game world and I wish my players would be more pro-active about it. You want griffon cavalry in the game for whatever reason? Sure, let's talk about that. How can we bring that in? You want to play a war forged monk in my pirates campaign? Sure, let's talk about that. How can we bring that in?

Now, granted, there are times when I have put my foot down and said no. My current campaign was an experiment where none of the PC's could play any class that has cantrips. I wanted to run a low magic campaign. It worked very well, IMO, and I think it was a pretty strong success. But, outside of that restriction, I wasn't too fussed about whatever the players wanted to play.

In most of my campaigns though, it's, "Well, what do you want? Let's make a setting where that can happen."

World building, AFAIC, can go hang.

Why Worldbuilding is Bad

MNblockhead

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doctorbadwolf

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gamerprinter

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AbdulAlhazred

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