Why Worldbuilding is Bad

(in response to [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s post about Weber and the 'Disenchanted World').

Your question about how to go about world building in terms of a non-disenchanted world is a very interesting one. I didn't think to bring in Weber there, that's for sure! (but then I'm not really one to retain masses of philosophy, though I've read Weber and many others...).

I have at least begun this very attempt. First by constructing a game which assumes from its very inception that the very nature of the world is 'magical', that there are no general 'rules of physics' by which universal workings can be discerned. Instead all things work by the effect of will, something actively drives every process, beit a god, a demon, a spirit, whatever you want to call it, or perhaps human will in the case of magic being wielded by mortals. Not that I'm specifying a very specific concept here, but just that this seems to be how pre-modern people thought about the universe they lived in, it was either literally 'alive' or actuated by some kind of external mind.

How to present this is an interesting question. Its hard to get across to players, but I think the best way is to make it inherent in the mechanics themselves.

pemerton said:

Can dice be used in a different way, though? Instead of as a poor simulation of impersonal forces, can dice be used to generate the setting as an enchanted one (in something like Weber's sense)?

To make my thoughts a little bit more concrete, one example I'm thinking of is Arthurian legend, where the knights wander through forests, and stumble upon castles inhabited by strange individuals, with there being no thought of the economy, social structure etc of these castles. Could we use the AD&D Appendix C wilderness encounter tables to help with this - they provide a chance of encountering a castle with a powerful (hence, presumably, interesing) lord, plus retainers, men-at-arms etc. Treated as a world simulation those tables give us a bizarrely densely-castled and high-levelled world; but maybe they could be used to generate content for a non-rationalised enchanted world.

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They could! Of course there are some questions which are independent of the sort of world your dice produce, which are about why you would be doing this in the first place. I think its possible that it could produce an interesting result in some cases. Arthurian Legend might well be one of them. I ran a campaign like this several years ago, and one of the issues I found was that we had trouble making the world irrational enough to conform to the genre.

Cam Banks said:

There's a significant proportion of any fan base that desires everything to be laid out, explained, catalogued, referenced, indexed, and explored. From my experience writing Dragonlance game material and fiction, I've come face to face with this from some of the folks who I work with. Fans come from reading the books and want it all to be explained in some Holy Grail of a game sourcebook. They want all the stats, they want all the population figures, commerce, mundane information, motives, relationships, adventure hooks, charts, and so forth.

I wrote a short story for the most recent Dragonlance anthology, and I didn't name the town it took place in, or the names of three of the characters, because it was from the point of view of a half-ogre afflicted with feeblemind and it was all he could do just to focus on what was happening around him. No sooner had some of the regular message board folks read it, they wanted to know all of those details. I didn't have them, and I didn't really see a need to give them.

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Looking back through the first incarnation of this thread, I found the above post by Cam Banks. I think it's a good post.

Riley37 said:

A day or two ago, I quoted Darth's example of a dialogue between DM and player, in which a player has formed the rudiments of a PC, and something funny happens on the way to the dungeon (or doesn't).

I haven't yet seen a satisfying answer, explaining why that session went as it did, as an example of the general reason why worldbuilding is bad.

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I'm not 100% sure if you're asking for actual play examples, or rather analyses of Darth Shoju's imaginary example. I can provide the former if you like, but for the moment will go with the latter.

Here's the post in question:

Darth Shoju said:

Let's say the adventure is to go into a dungeon and recover a relic of some sort. The party starts in a nearby village and has to travel to the dungeon. The DM has done no worldbuilding beyond what is present in the adventure. He is also not gifted at improv. I as a player have some questions:

ME: Ok what nations are there? Where can my character be from?
DM: There are nations for all of the races in the PHB.
ME: Ok...what are the human nations like?
DM: I don't know...what kind of nation do you want to be from?
ME: Well, can I be from one that is kind of like ancient China?
DM: Sure.
ME: How does my nation get along with the other nations?
DM: That isn't important in the adventure.
ME: Ok.

So I make a human priest and do what I can to make him represent a culture based on ancient China. We start the session in the town. Again, I have some questions:

ME: Is there a branch of my church in this town?
DM: The adventure doesn't say...I'll say no. It's too far away.
ME: Ok, are there any churches in the town?
DM: Just one.
ME: Ok, I go there. I'm going to talk to the priest to get a feel for his religion.
DM: It just says his name, level, and that he is a priest of an agricultural deity.
ME: Ok, my religion venerates nature spirits so we should get along well.
DM: Sure.
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.

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My first take on this is that there is some sort of mismatch between GM and player expectations: the GM thinks that there is already an established framework for the session, which involves the dungeon and the hunt for the relic; whereas the player thinks that the framework for the session includes talking to NPC priests and seeing if the GM will provide an alternative framework for the session (ie problems that the PC could help with before they head to the dungeon).

I think resolving this mismatch in some fashion is probably more important than worldbuilding to help this player and GM get along (or alternatively, amicably part ways).

Hussar said:

So, I'm really rather confused by the notion that earlier peoples actually had more knowledge than modern people. How could they? Sure, they might be able to produce Damascus steel, fair enough. But, modern peoples can produce a hundred different things from titanium alloys to fidget spinners that they couldn't begin to conceptualize. And while we might not know exactly how they produced Damascus steel, we do know that it can be done and we know what it is. They wouldn't have the first clue what teflon is, nor how to produce it.

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I know what Teflon is but honestly I have absolutely no idea how to produce it. And if I did know the formula of how to make it, if I was bounced back a hundred or a thousand years could I find the ingredients that I would need to make it?

Scientists suggest that even something as "simple" as a pencil could be impossible to recreate.

AbdulAlhazred said:

Yes, our modern people have a lot of knowledge. I'm not convinced we know MORE than our ancestors in a personal sense. Our knowledge is much wider ranging, we have a broader perspective, and our society as a whole is capable of many more things. I would call all these things 'advancements' in humanity. OTOH I see no evidence that individuals are smarter or wiser than they were 1000's of years ago. It is at least an open question.

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In my mind there is no doubt that individuals are smarter now if only because of better nutrition, increased light availability and decreased superstition.

Riley37 said:

Here's another bid at getting specific concrete examples into the discourse, to add clarity to our discussion about angels on heads of pins. This time, I'm sinking even lower: a question, involving the nature of orcs and Gruumsh, *from an actual D&D table, with a DM out there, in April 2018, wondering how to handle it.*

That thread will give that individual DM helpful answers, or not. Does that example also help us isolate the causal factor, the reason why worldbuilding is bad?

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?631728-Cleric-of-Gruumsh-in-a-party-with-an-Elf

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I just had a look through that thread. I think some of the replies help identify what can be consequences of GM-centric worldbuilding, and "enforcement" of that in the course of actual play.

Whether those are good or bad consequences is probably a matter of taste.

Shasarak said:

I know what Teflon is but honestly I have absolutely no idea how to produce it. And if I did know the formula of how to make it, if I was bounced back a hundred or a thousand years could I find the ingredients that I would need to make it?

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There is a story in which a time-traveller has significant successes, at least for a while, "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" by Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens). Follow-up stories include "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen" by Piper. There is also a reversal of that story, "Dies the Fire" by Stirling, which starts on the day that gunpowder stops exploding, electronics stop working, gasoline and kerosene burn less quickly, and airplanes fall from the sky. Society as we know it collapses, and those who can most effectively mix old technologies which still work - such as bows - with *modern* methods which still work - such as washing hands in hot soapy water before surgery - tend to thrive and prevail.

There is also a story in which someone tries, and fails disastrously, "The Man Who Came Early" by Poul Anderson.

Common ground of those stories: on your own, no dice. If you can work with people around you, maybe, depending on what they bring to the project. In one such story, the hero manages to combine the ingredients for gunpowder, and produces a fast-burning paste, but not an actual explosive, and gives up. The local alchemist, however, observes the process, tries some variations, and discovers how to form gunpowder into kernels, and thus eventually into a useful propellant... because he didn't know the formula, nor does he know surface area ratios, but he DOES understand that texture can matter.

There is also an MMO in which you can mine teflon, if you unlock the quest. (The mine also produces vinyl ore and velcro ore; it is at the bottom of The Sea, but you cannot mine for fish.)

Riley37 said:

There is a story in which a time-traveller has significant successes, at least for a while, "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" by Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens).

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That is a good point: Could you even understand what the other people were saying even if you could speak "English"? I have heard some modern day people from England whose accents were such that I could barely understand what they were saying. How much worse would that be in King Arthurs time?

pemerton said:

I'm not 100% sure if you're asking for actual play examples, or rather analyses of Darth Shoju's imaginary example.

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Insofar as we participate in this thread with the Cuthbertian goal of more fun at our respective tables, then actual play examples are the richest source of useful material. Insofar as we participate in this thread with Tritherionist goals, the point was raised in post #1, answered conclusively in post #2, then refined in post #4. What are *you* doing here?

pemerton said:

My first take on this is that there is some sort of mismatch between GM and player expectations

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Yes, as with the mismatch in the sketch "Who's On First", or John Cleese at the cheese shop. The player thinks that the setting *outside the dungeon* might (or even should) have useful, interesting aspects. Perhaps even as many as the Starting Village of a typical JRPG, before the Initiating Event happens. On another hand, the DM thinks of the setting outside the dungeon as the blank-to-the-horizon non-scenery of Neo's initial return to the Matrix, except maybe there's a vending machine which contains only the items listed in the PHB, at the listed prices, in unlimited quantities. The DM looks at the PC, and sees a set of stats. Whether this LEVEL 1 CLERIC comes from pseudo-ancient-China, carries the same weight as whether the protagonist of ZORK comes from pseudo-ancient-China.

I provided three variations, with three alternate DMs, to explore some territory. But to get more Cuthbertian...

Last year, a DM decided to break out "White Plume Mountain" and run it in 5E. He asked each player to write two 5th-level characters. It was not useful for those characters to have any back story beyond their skill proficiencies, or any goals in life other than "see if we can find the three artifact weapons here, on the bizarre assumption that the person who said that they're here was actually telling the truth". The world outside the module was blank all the way to the horizon, without even a vending machine, and we understood that from square one. We arrived directly at the entrance to White Plume Mountain, do not pass GO, do not collect 200 random tavern rumors.

The same DM also runs other stories, in his homegrown setting, with lots of explorable elements, with named NPCs. He ran a session in which the PCs were the spearhead of an invasion of a city ruled by demons and demon-worshippers, and the port of that city was a major slave trade hub. My PC, a druid with the Outsider background, stayed in the city afterwards. What my character did, in the following year, to influence the city after the immediate power vacuum of the regime change, was then part of the background of the next adventure played out at the table. I had fun with it, and so did the DM. The druid's pet project, so to speak: Awaken a whale, and hire her as a tug. She would pull galleys into and out of the harbor, and the druid would provide healthcare for the whale and her calves. (I dunno the infant mortality rate for grey whales, but THIS whale got better odds.) Relevance to dungeoneering: zero. Just a fun side conversation between me and the DM, with perhaps a bonus if my character ever wanted a favor from the port authority or from merchant sailors who stopped at the port.

Is this example, of a DM who can run a story in either extreme of style, useful? To what goals?

Is it time for a spin-off thread, Why Discussion Of Worldbuilding Is Bad?

pemerton said:

...consequences of GM-centric worldbuilding, and "enforcement" of that in the course of actual play.

Whether those are good or bad consequences is probably a matter of taste.

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It's a matter of taste. Okay, you've resolved the OP, we're done here. What's next?