What is *worldbuilding* for?

Imaro said:

Wait so if the players agree that they want to explore/play through a particular module or a specific GM's world are they then exercising control/agency over the content of the fiction since playing said module or in said world is addressing their concerns and priorities for play?

If not, why not?

EDIT: To expound a little more... I feel like in the case of the examples of Story Now gaming, the play style and process is always presented as being in accordance with the concerns and priorities of the players but when looking at other playstyles it's not... but why is this assumed to be the case, why is it assumed that the playing of the module, it's themes, adversaries, etc are not in accordance with the concerns and priorities of the players? Why is it assumed that when players sit down to play in a GM's world they aren't aware enough that their concerns and priorites are aligned with the GM's world? I mean honestly I think this is where alot of the bad faith accusations are coming from.

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I don't think that 'classic' games NECESSARILY lack this characteristic. There are three points to consider:

1) In some degree this accordance may actually reflect use of informal narrativist techniques. To the degree that this is true one style of play can approach the other by becoming the other style!

2) Narrativist techniques and Story Now, which is really what [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has been focused on from post #1 IMHO, are not totally the same thing. Story Now is more specific, and the use of some narrative focus isn't automatically the same sort of focus.

3) The accordance in Story Now is guaranteed by the rules and process of play. Its not accidental or implicit or informal. It is the very essence of the nature of this form of play. It could be that you could produce EXACTLY the same level of focus informally, but I think the difference is still material when we talk about techniques of play.

So, personally, I would just rather play the game where this is an explicit process, but it is perfectly true that at some level games ultimately have to address player interests, or the game will wither. We still can have better games for it, and my feeling is that Story Now games have a more PARTICULAR focus on player agenda/interests, generally. That is, its always, in every scene, the player's agenda. A module may be "Yeah, we want to test ourselves against Tomb of Horror, lets play that!" and (particularly for such a tightly focused module) its going to be quite true that player interests are engaged. Still, it may not be ALWAYS true, even in that module. Maybe the players would have more interest in mummies or yuan ti, or something as their main antagonist and not a lich. The lich is what they got, not a tragedy.

Ovinomancer said:

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s posts yelling "railroad" at pemerton's play examples is NOT how this topic should be engaged.

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I only began that after [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s repeated and incorrect depictions of my playstyle as "railroad" and "choose your own adventure". He just kept on ignoring the corrections and explanations. Once I'm sure that a person is just willfully insulting the playstyle, I throw his actions back at him.

Many early posts in thie thread said that the purpose of worldbuilding is to underping exploration, which means - more-or-less - learning stuff from the GM about the setting s/he has established and is curating.

Now that's not my favourite style of play. But if I was going to explain why it can be appealing as a type of RPGing, I wouldn't begin by emphasising how much agency it gives the players over the content of the shared fiction, because it seems to me almost self-evident that there are other approaches to RPGing that give the players greater agency of that sort.

I would begin by explaining what the virtues are of having someone else tell you stuff about the setting they created. Presumably that has at least something in common with the virtues of storytelling, and the pleasures of being an audience member.

Likewise, I would want to explain how players have the capacity - by choosing, eg what moves they declare for their PCs which, in the fiction, will result in those PCs moving from place to place - to trigger GM narration is a good thing. How is learning about the duergar (to pick an example) by having the GM narrate a scene in which one's PC is present different from learning about the duergar by reading an imaginary encyclopedia entry? Presumably there's an answer to that question - but is it connected to the second-personality of the narration? The imaginative projection of oneself into the narrated scene (which is not normally part of reading an ecncyclopedia)?

It doesn't seem to me that there's nothing to say along these lines.

pemerton said:

Many early posts in thie thread said that the purpose of worldbuilding is to underping exploration, which means - more-or-less - learning stuff from the GM about the setting s/he has established and is curating.

Now that's not my favourite style of play. But if I was going to explain why it can be appealing as a type of RPGing, I wouldn't begin by emphasising how much agency it gives the players over the content of the shared fiction, because it seems to me almost self-evident that there are other approaches to RPGing that give the players greater agency of that sort.

I would begin by explaining what the virtues are of having someone else tell you stuff about the setting they created. Presumably that has at least something in common with the virtues of storytelling, and the pleasures of being an audience member.

Likewise, I would want to explain how players have the capacity - by choosing, eg what moves they declare for their PCs which, in the fiction, will result in those PCs moving from place to place - to trigger GM narration is a good thing. How is learning about the duergar (to pick an example) by having the GM narrate a scene in which one's PC is present different from learning about the duergar by reading an imaginary encyclopedia entry? Presumably there's an answer to that question - but is it connected to the second-personality of the narration? The imaginative projection of oneself into the narrated scene (which is not normally part of reading an ecncyclopedia)?

It doesn't seem to me that there's nothing to say along these lines.

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The problem is your language is so loaded, the judgments are already there before you finish a sentence. Stop forcing an idea like "Moves" onto a style that doesn't even use that as a concept and see if it change your evaluation of what is going on when they explore the world. I understand why some games have adopted the idea of 'moves'. But this is a concept that most people who play in the style you are trying to analyze, don't use and actively reject as a simplification. The same with agency. People are not talking about their ability to shape the content of shared fiction, they are talking about the agency to explore a place that feels like a a living world with exciting NPCs and people you can interact with however you want.

I guess the problem here is it is just hard not to read these kinds of assessments as a show of analysis, with the aim of just placing your style higher than another. I don't think it is unique to you, or your side of the fence. I encounter all the time in my own circles. But I always reject because it is so obvious that people are just trying to control the language to place their style at the top, as the real, or the more important style. Right now the idea of player freedom and agency is being used but it can just as easily be anything else.

AbdulAlhazred said:

And I find it entirely puzzling why anyone would imagine that anything I've said would count as that! I have nothing against 'your kind of agency', as I've said several times, and I know [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] said it too, probably others, 'your kind of agency' (lets call it character agency) is simply the core activity of playing an RPG, so OF COURSE I approve of it!

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No it isn't. We are not just talking about gaming as it is always done. This is part of the dispute. Most games I've played in, do not allow for a 100%, go anywhere, do anything you want approach. There are usually either conceits of where the game is intended to go (i.e. players are expected to look for the obvious adventure hooks and take them, or the players are expected to stay in this area of the world, or the PCs are expected to be particular kinds of characters, etc). Games where the players are free to explore, are more popular now than they've been in the recent past, but they are far from ubiquitous and far from the default mode of play. So when people like me talk about agency in that context, we are not just saying something meaningless. It is something we hear at the table, when players don't feel freedom to explore is being honored. I've heard and seen that word thrown around countless times, at tables where the focus is something like a sandbox or a situational adventure. And it isn't meant in the way Pemerton is using it.

Again, this is the infuriating part of the discussion. We are literally saying A, and you guys respond by saying "Okay so you mean B, well that doesn't mean anything anyways".

AbdulAlhazred said:

No, because, for one thing, the genre of, lets say, 'Epic High Fantasy' is MUCH MUCH larger than 'what can happen in DL1' (Dragon Lance being Epic High Fantasy, though I'm sure we could hair split about that, but lets not). You understand the difference? In Story Now there's no 'plot', there's no 'adventures you can go on', or even well-established world-facts that can't be contravened for the sake of story.

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I'm confused here... are you claiming that in a game based around worldbuilding there must necessarily be a "plot" (in quotations because perhaps I'm not understanding the definition being used here)? Because I can assure you from actual play that's not the case. I can only speak to my style of running a game but I have run traditional games that leaned heavily on worldbuilding and what they had wasn't plot but instead situations that the PC's were free to deal with, not deal with or do something else entirely. I don't think what can happen in DL1 is enough to describe either of our styles and thus why there's umbrage around the statement that a traditional game with worldbuilding is a "Choose your own adventure" game. It's like me claiming Story Now is just a "Let the dice make whatever up in the moment" game. It's a simplistic statement that's mildly insulting and fails to capture the nuances of the playstyle.

AbdulAlhazred said:

The very genesis of the story is also QUALITATIVELY different, and this gets back to what [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] said before, there's a qualitative dimension to this whole 'agency debate' thing. You cannot simply spit out numbers, or even relative measures, like [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] is doing. It simply doesn't work. He's also correct, IMHO, in his analysis of the very nature of 'agency' itself, which is that nobody who seriously has the sort of philosophical credentials to be serious about defining it is going to say that actual humans have '100% agency'. Many might say exactly the opposite!

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Yes and I (as well as a few other posters who have addressed this)am recognizing that qualitative component by addressing the fact that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s limiters on player agency are different. However when one starts from a position of wanting to understand something (I assume that was the point of the OP in this thread) but then turns it into a comparison/competition where not only do they use negatively skewed language to describe the other playstyle but also define the parameters of the comparison and the nature of the "win" conditions well it's apt to irritate those who probabnly feel like the entire thread was a bait and switch that has been pulled on them in bad faith. It feels less like I want to understand and more like I drew you in to this so I could tell you how much better my style is and force you to defend your own.

AbdulAlhazred said:

The point is, players in [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s game are not simply given choices of circumstances within which they must have their characters navigate. They have a higher level input, to help determine what those circumstances are, the very process of creation of them, from the very beginning. It may be that in [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s game you can burn down the building and change the scenario, or walk away and go elsewhere, but, unless you engage him outside the realm of the narrative, you can't actually engage in the creative process of picking the elements that will go into the story, ab initio.


This is a real difference, and its a dimension in which there is a quality which is existing in Story Now and not existing in Story Before or Story Later, or etc.

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I can't speak specifically to [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] 's games but he's free to comment on this if he wants... What I can say is that as far as I can tell [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] doesn't run a game where players can just create things on the fly. They create characters with certain themes, interests, etc. and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] runs adventures around those things. Again as I stated in a previous post... the same thing can be (and at least by me often is) done with a traditional style of play both implicitly and explicitly.

As an example... I have players who want to play in Planescape, they pick whether they are planar/prime... pick race...pick class...pick faction... background and so on... we discuss their characters before the game starts and I in turn set up situations within the Planescape campaign setting around these things. When session zero + inherent world themes (from worldbuilding) come together for character creation I find it hard to find a good faith scenario where the players interests and concerns don't naturally flow during the actual game sessions. How does [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s game give a higher level of input than this (and note this is all session zero stuff that I think alot of GM's with traditional playstyles use when their players want to be that invested).

AbdulAlhazred said:

The point is, players in [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s game are not simply given choices of circumstances within which they must have their characters navigate. They have a higher level input, to help determine what those circumstances are, the very process of creation of them, from the very beginning. It may be that in [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s game you can burn down the building and change the scenario, or walk away and go elsewhere, but, unless you engage him outside the realm of the narrative, you can't actually engage in the creative process of picking the elements that will go into the story, ab initio.

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That's not true and I demonstrated that with the barbarian example. The players dictate to me what is going on and I react. They chose the creative elements of going north, finding the barbarians, and setting one of them up as the barbarian king, not me. I just reacted to them.

AbdulAlhazred said:

I don't think that 'classic' games NECESSARILY lack this characteristic. There are three points to consider:

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I don't either and this is one of the problems with trying to define a "playstyle" as a singular monolithic thing... but we do love our us vs. them time, don't we?

AbdulAlhazred said:

1) In some degree this accordance may actually reflect use of informal narrativist techniques. To the degree that this is true one style of play can approach the other by becoming the other style!

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Could you explain what encompasses "narrativist techniques"? I'd like to make sure we are on the same page for further discussion.

AbdulAlhazred said:

2) Narrativist techniques and Story Now, which is really what [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has been focused on from post #1 IMHO, are not totally the same thing. Story Now is more specific, and the use of some narrative focus isn't automatically the same sort of focus.

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Again I agree but I'm not claiming these games are being run in a Story Now style (I actually feel they aren't at all) and, until you better define what narrativist techniques are I'll withhold commenting on that. But I'm not sure how this addresses my point as this doesn't necessarily counter what I claim.

AbdulAlhazred said:

3) The accordance in Story Now is guaranteed by the rules and process of play. Its not accidental or implicit or informal. It is the very essence of the nature of this form of play. It could be that you could produce EXACTLY the same level of focus informally, but I think the difference is still material when we talk about techniques of play.

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But why does that matter? If you claim a style cannot do something but it can why does whether it does it informally. accidentally or implicitly? You are claiming it lacks this thing if it can in fact produce said thing then the new conversation (and a much more interesting and civil one) would have been how are these things brough out and handled in a traditional vs. Story Now game...

AbdulAlhazred said:

So, personally, I would just rather play the game where this is an explicit process, but it is perfectly true that at some level games ultimately have to address player interests, or the game will wither. We still can have better games for it, and my feeling is that Story Now games have a more PARTICULAR focus on player agenda/interests, generally. That is, its always, in every scene, the player's agenda. A module may be "Yeah, we want to test ourselves against Tomb of Horror, lets play that!" and (particularly for such a tightly focused module) its going to be quite true that player interests are engaged. Still, it may not be ALWAYS true, even in that module. Maybe the players would have more interest in mummies or yuan ti, or something as their main antagonist and not a lich. The lich is what they got, not a tragedy.

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And I get you preference but that's not the same as claiming these games don't have that level of player agency or can't achieve it.

Emphasis Mine: No see in the same way we have to assume that a player in the Story Now style knows the genre, concerns and interests he wants to explore... We should also for the other style practice good faith and assume the same thing. If their interests and concerns lie in exploring the Tomb of Horror as opposed to the Tomb of Horror modified with mummies or Yuan-ti. Otherwise couldn't a player who isn't upfront about his interests and concerns create the same situation in a Story Now game?

Bedrockgames said:

The same with agency. People are not talking about their ability to shape the content of shared fiction, they are talking about the agency to explore a place that feels like a a living world with exciting NPCs and people you can interact with however you want.

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Even as an observer to this conversation, I tend to disagree with this assessment. Under that sort of definition, then yes it would be a definition of agency tantamount to "playing the game." And with my growing interest in games such as Fate and Dungeon World, the pre-bold seems like a more applicable and meaningful sense of player agency than the bold.

AbdulAlhazred said:

The very genesis of the story is also QUALITATIVELY different, and this gets back to what [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] said before, there's a qualitative dimension to this whole 'agency debate' thing. You cannot simply spit out numbers, or even relative measures, like [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] is doing. It simply doesn't work. He's also correct, IMHO, in his analysis of the very nature of 'agency' itself, which is that nobody who seriously has the sort of philosophical credentials to be serious about defining it is going to say that actual humans have '100% agency'. Many might say exactly the opposite!

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I think it was [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] who said that stuff, not me, but I'm generally in agreement. I think [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s "100% agency" argument is silly and seems designed to stifle analysis by positing a sameness for all systems/games with regard to agency, which he seems to define as whatever that particular game lets the player do. I mean, sure, in a game of chess I have "100% agency" to move my knight according to the rules of chess. That really doesn't tell us anything of value about chess relative to Monopoly, for example.

Aldarc said:

Even as an observer to this conversation, I tend to disagree with this assessment. Under that sort of definition, then yes it would be a definition of agency tantamount to "playing the game." And with my growing interest in games such as Fate and Dungeon World, the pre-bold seems like a more applicable and meaningful sense of player agency than the bold.

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I disagree... you take a look at many of the games/adventures/camapigns/etc. of the 90's and you can readily see this type of agency (which was curtailed, ignored and even overridden by many of the products of that time) does not equate to just "playing the game". People played games and lacked this type of agency... for a great example just look at the Dragonlance modules, some of the stuff that came out for White Wolf and even some of the stuff for AD&D.