What is *worldbuilding* for?

Maxperson said:

Players never think of everything. How do you know that they don't want to meet allies, as opposed to not thinking of something that they would have wanted to do had they thought of it?

While the example is cool and all, it appears that the player did not seek aid, but rather aid came as a result of his actions. Nor does it mean that the player will always remember aid as a possibility and mention it to you.

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I think this is another example of being stuck in one way of thinking. The players in my game are FULL PARTNERS in the process of the RPG experience. This probably also goes for your earlier 'passive' comment. You see the players as some sort of lesser participants, almost like an audience, although I understand that isn't quite the right term. Still, like they only do this one limited thing in the game.

In my games the players DO think of everything. Because THEY ARE IN CHARGE of how they want to engage, they do think in terms of what should happen next. They know that if they evince a desire for allies, then a story about allies, the dangers, costs, and rewards of alliance, etc. would doubtless present itself, and it would almost have to take the form of some event or location intervening between the dwarves and the giant cave. It is PERFECTLY FEASIBLE for that to happen, and quite natural for the players to initiate it.

See, you, in your stream of consciousness sort of thing where every thinking moment of every character's life has to be portrayed regardless of its significance, and the players are wholly stuck in nothing but this mode, then what you say might be true, skipping something would be like 'fast forward' past some part of their lives, oh no! This isn't like that. We're arranging, in linear order, the pieces of a story of the players, playing game rules in order to decide some of it, and maybe doing other things to decide other parts.

Everyone is doing it, not exactly the same way, but its participatory, and thus the players minds are ranging over the story their characters are in and they're thinking about things like "Wait, my character always likes to hedge his bets, I'm sure he'd keep a sharp eye out for signs of anyone he could convince, or even pay, to come along and lend a hand..." This might translate into telling the GM "hey, Ted, we're traveling quite a ways to this cave, right? I'm going to use my Dungeoneering skill to look for signs of any folks I can talk to, or things I can use against the giants."

AbdulAlhazred said:

The absurdity of this is becoming downright silly. First freedom of choice is 'railroading', and then active equal partners in forming the game are 'passive', and I'm forgetting a few other absurd things too I'm sure. Oh, the whole treating the game world as if it constitutes a form of reality, and thinking that how the game narrative is formed and by whom doesn't matter.

I feel like you're painting yourself further and further into some completely absurd corner in any attempt to create some kind of definition of things to serve some point which everyone forgot or lost interest in 500 posts ago.

There was a point at which I felt like there were clarifications that were happening in terms of how I describe the structure and activity in games, and what some of it means. Also what different ways you could come at the same things. That was interesting, but this is just over the Moon, its absurd.

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Yep. Those are indeed absurd. It's probably a good thing for me that those are misrepresentations of what I have said. Not once did I ever claim freedom of choice was railroading. As for "active equal partners", that wasn't any part of the Raven Queen tidbit [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] posted. He said he narrated everything and that there was no scene. Had they interacted with her, there would have been a scene. That's freaking passive as heck. The Raven Queen interrupts your teleport to give you items you need and they don't even so much as say thank you. They don't ask if she needs or wants the items back when they are done. They don't engage in any number of interactions with her. They just passively received the items and left.

AbdulAlhazred said:

I think this is another example of being stuck in one way of thinking. The players in my game are FULL PARTNERS in the process of the RPG experience. This probably also goes for your earlier 'passive' comment. You see the players as some sort of lesser participants, almost like an audience, although I understand that isn't quite the right term. Still, like they only do this one limited thing in the game.

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I'm confused on why you would think that very active participants in my game would be lesser participants or audience. My players are full partners as well. Being partners does not have to mean that you all do the same thing. You can divvy up the roles and still have a full partnership.

In my games the players DO think of everything. Because THEY ARE IN CHARGE of how they want to engage, they do think in terms of what should happen next. They know that if they evince a desire for allies, then a story about allies, the dangers, costs, and rewards of alliance, etc. would doubtless present itself, and it would almost have to take the form of some event or location intervening between the dwarves and the giant cave. It is PERFECTLY FEASIBLE for that to happen, and quite natural for the players to initiate it.

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With all due respect, no player can think of everything. They are going to forget that they wanted to do something and remember it later, or perhaps never remember it at all. It happens to everyone, even ones that are in charge.

See, you, in your stream of consciousness sort of thing where every thinking moment of every character's life has to be portrayed regardless of its significance, and the players are wholly stuck in nothing but this mode, then what you say might be true, skipping something would be like 'fast forward' past some part of their lives, oh no! This isn't like that. We're arranging, in linear order, the pieces of a story of the players, playing game rules in order to decide some of it, and maybe doing other things to decide other parts.

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This is another misrepresentation. I've never advocated that every thinking moment be portrayed. I assume the PCs take dumps and pee, but that has almost never been roleplayed in a game of mine. And that's just one example. Just because the PCs travel and encounter interesting things on the way to a goal, doesn't mean that every detail gets played out.

Everyone is doing it, not exactly the same way, but its participatory, and thus the players minds are ranging over the story their characters are in and they're thinking about things like "Wait, my character always likes to hedge his bets, I'm sure he'd keep a sharp eye out for signs of anyone he could convince, or even pay, to come along and lend a hand..." This might translate into telling the GM "hey, Ted, we're traveling quite a ways to this cave, right? I'm going to use my Dungeoneering skill to look for signs of any folks I can talk to, or things I can use against the giants."

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I'm sure they do. I'm equally sure that sometimes they forget something that would be of importance. Nobody thinks of everything all the time. Mistakes get made, and if you rush forward there's less time for the players to rectify the error.

Again, I'm not saying your way is bad, or that the players haven't agreed to and enjoy playing it that way. I'm just pointing out a weakness in the playstyle. All styles have strengths and weaknesses.

Maxperson said:

I guess I just didn't realize how passive your players are, and it floors me that not one of them would even try to talk to her. I would, as would all of my players. You still interrupted the spell that doesn't get interrupted, though, which prevented final resolution until AFTER you were done narrating what you did. There's no way around that. What the players tried to do was not final until after your narration.

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As I already posted, I sent them an email. I have no recollection, two and a half years later, whether anyone, at our next session, discussed any sort of conversation with her. Here is the entirety of my record of what happened:


I'm sure that in the fiction some of them had a nice chat with the Raven Queen as she was praising them and offering them items, but as best I can recall it didn't figure at the table. It was not really relevant. As the posts I linked to above (and relink here) make clear, the PCs had already found the secret way into Orcus's palace (by extracting the information from an Aspect of Vecna which they had earlier trapped inside wards, which itself had Vecna's recollection of information he had been able to extract from an Aspect of Orcus which the PCs had earlier trapped using power drawn from Vecna).

And I have no idea what point you are trying to make about finality. What I did respected finality - the PCs teleported into their secret entrance, just as the players declared. All I did was embellish that success: on your way through, the Raven Queen uses her divine power to divert you via Letherna and gives you some stuff. When I talk about finality I'm not talking about a rule for passing the speaking-conch. (We don't need permission to speak at my table.) I'm talking about whether resolution resolves the situation. In this case it did - the resolution resolved the question of whether the PCs travel to Orcus's palace.

I am generally wary of excessive GM embellishment of success, but I took a gamble that my players wouldn't object to this particular embellishment. And lo and behold, they didn't!

Maxperson said:

What it [the GM-narrated intersection] does do, is give real options. Even if the intersection is imaginary, the options the players take exist in the real world. They make the decision on which way to go here, and tell me what it is here.

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But why do those options matter? In the example I gave, the players had an option - do they want to go confront the giants? Or do something else. They chose the former. So why, now, is the GM putting forward a different option that doesn't actually help deliver upon the option they already chose? What's the point?

Maxperson said:

The trip to the giants through the Underdark will garner the players experiences that add to their enjoyment of the game, as well as add to their PCs ability to handle the giants once they arrive.

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And this answer just reinforces my point that the intersection is an impediment to player agency and instead makes GM-authored content the focus of play. The players were already enjoying the game. And they wanted to go and confront some giants. So why not do that?

As far as the idea that they have to do this stuff so they can power up, I will take my email of a loot drop from the Raven Queen over that any time. If the PCs need powering up, then change the numbers on the PC sheets and get on with the game! (Or adjust the framing so that the current numbers on the sheets are good enough.)

Maxperson said:

it appears that the player did not seek aid, but rather aid came as a result of his actions.

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To repost:


The PC is in desperate straits. The player declares a prayer for aid. It's always been a bit of an open question in our 4e game to what extent a PC's player can try and use a Religion check as a bit of a catch-all, but that issue didn't come up in this context - the PC was fighting to recover the fourth segment of the Rod of Seven Parts, as he had been directed by Erathis to do, and so it was clearly within the scope of permissible action declarations.

Maxperson said:

Players never think of everything. How do you know that they don't want to meet allies, as opposed to not thinking of something that they would have wanted to do had they thought of it?

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This is obviously silly, isn't it? And I think [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] already posted something about this.

I mean, the implication of what you say is that we can never cut to the action, because maybe there is something else the players would have wanted to do if only the GM had drawn it to their attention by narrating 30 extra minutes of travel through the Underdark. If the players may have wanted allies, but didn't think about it, well that's sometime how it happens. They can try and recruit some allies from among the giants. (That doesn't seem that hard. The PCs in my Cortex+ game recruited allies among the giants they met. The PCs in my main 4e game recruited allies among the duergar they met.)

More generally, this is another example of confusion between authorship and reality. In real life, the fact that two events are separated by miles of travel makes the prospects of something significant happening in between them more likely. But when writing, there is no reason why the event I write about today can't be followed straight away by writing about an event that (in the fiction) happens in ten years time. If the players indicate that the next event they are interested is their arrival at the giant's cave, then let's cut to that event (or frame a check, or skill challenge, or whatever, to see what happens on the way there).

RPGs have always recognised this in some fashion or other - eg no one adjudicates every moment of a PC's life as if it was a round of combat, requiring an initiative check, action declarations, etc. By applying it in this context the players aren't deprived of any chance to play the game. It's just that more of the time spent playing will speak to stuff that concerns dramatic need, thematic issues, etc. Which is the point of "story now" RPGing.

AbdulAlhazred said:

I think this is another example of being stuck in one way of thinking. The players in my game are FULL PARTNERS in the process of the RPG experience. This probably also goes for your earlier 'passive' comment. You see the players as some sort of lesser participants, almost like an audience...

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Well, yes, except for the "lesser" bit. Either as DM or player, I am there to entertain the others at the table; they are my audience. Equally, I am a part of theirs as they also entertain the gathering.

Lan-"perhaps the primary thing I require from any player in my games is that he or she be entertaining"-efan

Maxperson said:

Yep. Those are indeed absurd. It's probably a good thing for me that those are misrepresentations of what I have said. Not once did I ever claim freedom of choice was railroading. As for "active equal partners", that wasn't any part of the Raven Queen tidbit [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] posted. He said he narrated everything and that there was no scene. Had they interacted with her, there would have been a scene. That's freaking passive as heck. The Raven Queen interrupts your teleport to give you items you need and they don't even so much as say thank you. They don't ask if she needs or wants the items back when they are done. They don't engage in any number of interactions with her. They just passively received the items and left.

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In fairness, it's possible the players didn't have much choice here - it's almost the same as if the items simply appeared in the PCs' hands on arrival at the teleport destination along with knowledge of their source. [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] can clarify, if he hasn't already.

EDIT: and lo and behold, he has!

[MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION], I think your post was mostly tongue-in-cheek, but where I thought I had something worthwhile to say in response I've said it:

Tony Vargas said:

I think the issue is that the system implies qualities of the world, so if the system seems silly, the world will seem silly.

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Well, the systems that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] is talking about include Burning Wheel, Cortex+ Heroic, HeroWars/Quest, a certain approach to 4e, etc.

Which of those is supposed to imply a silly world?

Tony Vargas said:

It's a reward for showing up, then

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In default 4e, showing up doesn't as such earn XP. Playing the game (by engaging encounters, realising quests, and - per the rule in DMG2 - meaningfully engaging the non-encounter fiction) accures XP at a rate of (roughly) 4 level-equivalent monster's worth per hour. Or approximately 3-4 sessions per level.

I think one of the most remarkable things about 4e is how, on the surface, it retains so many D&D mecahnical tropes (hp, XP, attack rolls, magic items, and the like) but uses them to build a game which is a genuine alternative to Gygax-style wargaming.

In the case of XP, what was - in Gygax - a genuine reward system (ie by playing well, and having a bit of luck, you deeat monsters and find treasure and thus power up your playing piece) becomes instead a pacing device, that gradually propels the game through the "tiers of play" while allowing the actual focus of play to be on characgter goals, thematic story elements, etc.

As best I understand it, the closest 5e comes to this is to ditch XP altogether for "milestone" - but that makes for an extremely GM-driven game, whereas the 4e XP system is fully compatible with player-driven RPGing.

Tony Vargas said:

In 4e (which, I think was what this particular tangent was about), special equipment is more like a character-customization option, just like feats, powers &c, at least in so much as the DM honors the wish list.

<snip>

Most 4e magic items struck me more as price-of-admission (oh, you're going to be Epic, now, better up your gear to +5, or you won't get invited to parties), and could fade into the background unless they did something cool for the character concept.

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This is my point about them figuring as elements of the narrative, not as rewards for skilled play. Whether you get your +1 sword from looting a goblin cave or as a gift from your patron is a big deal in classic D&D, because the first is earned but the second not. But in 4e it doesn't matter as far as the actual mechanics and techniques of play are concerened - it only matters from the point of view of is this a story about goblin looters, or about noble warriors gifted swords by their patrons?

Tony Vargas said:

ike Pendragon, sure.

<snip>

HeroQuest!

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I think 4e can do Arthurian legend and the Iliad.

In the former case, cap at mid-paragon, and allow only martials, paladins, maybe certain STR cleric builds, and maybe some ritual-oriented bard builds (but like Dark Sun, the ritual list would need some culling). Maybe some druids and barbarians are also OK.

Obviously wizards, invokers and the like have to go.

As far as the Iliad is concerned, I'd say martial only, but it goes all the way to epic! Odysseus is a warlord archer, either INT or WIS dependingon taste. Achilles probably works well as a slayer fighter, or if you want non-Essentials only then make him a regular fighter.

Ritual casting is obviously a thing, but the list will need stuff like Teleport and Secret Chest trimmed off it. And there is probably a need for a divine intervention mechanic - maybe based on Religion checks (with +2 bonus for a familial connection to the god, or if the person you are opposing has personal or familial enmity from your god).

nugstradamus said:

I think a good example of world-building would be, like, if there is a war going on 50 miles from where your party actually is. They physically have nothing to do with it (yet, anyway), but the effects of the war are important to the campaign. Trade embargos, uptick in crime, etc. What side of the war does the town you're in support? Is their side winning the war? Maybe people are happier, dancing and drinking at a tavern. Are they losing? Maybe they're sad, downtrodden, more hot headed and on edge.

That war is going on in the background, far enough away from the party that they won't be hearing about specifics as they happen, but you still have to build those stories in such a way that all NPC's actions can be justified.

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This doesn't seem like it needs much worldbuilding at all.

In my main 4e game, the PCs visited the city of Threshold which was under attack from a hobgoblin army. With populations driven out of local villages, food supplies were under pressure. The leaders of the town are (obviously) concerned about this. Doom and death cults were flourishing. That was about all that was needed. When the PCs eventually assaulted the hobgoblin armies encamped on a plateau to the north of the city, I worked out some details at that point.

pemerton said:

But why do those options matter? In the example I gave, the players had an option - do they want to go confront the giants? Or do something else. They chose the former. So why, now, is the GM putting forward a different option that doesn't actually help deliver upon the option they already chose? What's the point?

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Just because my giant-hating Dwarf wants to go and bash some giants doesn't mean his attention won't be severely diverted for a few glorious hours if on the way to the giants he notices that he's passing a room full of undefended gold coins!

As far as the idea that they have to do this stuff so they can power up, I will take my email of a loot drop from the Raven Queen over that any time. If the PCs need powering up, then change the numbers on the PC sheets and get on with the game! (Or adjust the framing so that the current numbers on the sheets are good enough.)

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On the odd occasion I'll drop in some power-up stuff kind of like what you did here; on other occasions, particularly if it's levels they need, I'll lob a side-trek adventure in their way and see if they bite.

I mean, the implication of what you say is that we can never cut to the action, because maybe there is something else the players would have wanted to do if only the GM had drawn it to their attention...

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That's exactly right! Maybe there IS something else they'd rather do instead...but they won't ever have the chance to unless you...

...by narrating 30 extra minutes of travel through the Underdark.

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...do this, by making mention of anything interesting they pass during those 30 minutes.

Chances are they'll still go on to the giants, either right away or later, but if they find the slimy passage or the room with the knight's skeleton nailed to the wall more interesting on the way, let 'em at it!

If the players may have wanted allies, but didn't think about it, well that's sometime how it happens. They can try and recruit some allies from among the giants. (That doesn't seem that hard. The PCs in my Cortex+ game recruited allies among the giants they met. The PCs in my main 4e game recruited allies among the duergar they met.)

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Last time we dealt with giants our party also had giant allies...until we killed them, because the enemy of my enemy is still also my frickin' enemy.

More generally, this is another example of confusion between authorship and reality. In real life, the fact that two events are separated by miles of travel makes the prospects of something significant happening in between them more likely. But when writing, there is no reason why the event I write about today can't be followed straight away by writing about an event that (in the fiction) happens in ten years time. If the players indicate that the next event they are interested is their arrival at the giant's cave, then let's cut to that event (or frame a check, or skill challenge, or whatever, to see what happens on the way there).

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Just because the players say the next event they're interested in is the giant's cave doesn't mean the giant's cave will be the next event they encounter...or that the intervening encounter won't end up being even more interesting...or less; you don't know until you do it.

Lanefan