Why Worldbuilding is Bad

AbdulAlhazred · Apr 14, 2018

hawkeyefan said:
Tentatively or not, these things can be established in the game. A general “kobolds serve dragons” in the same way that we in the real world know that ticks latch onto dogs, or “the kobolds of Dragon Mountain serve the ancient red wyrm Infyrana” in the same sense that the tick I just flushed down my toilet had latched onto my dog Kirby.

General or specific, either can be established as fact. This was my point.

I would argue, as a general tenet of philosophy, that such things are only established by experience. Had I not experienced ticks and dogs, then I would not hold a belief about it. I could be convinced of its truth due to the fact that authority figures say it is so, which is 'good enough' for fairly conventional and non-controversial things. For extraordinary things, like dragons and kobolds, then such authority is insufficient, or must be MUCH stronger (IE the paladin that dragged back the head of the dragon? I believe him. The village elder? His 'knowledge' is no more than rumor). Of course a character could be credulous and accept rumor as truth, but its still rumor, it COULD be untrue! Ticks are unlikely to be untrue, unless they're giant ticks that live in the Forest Nobody Goes Into, then legendary.

So, no, I don't think that, just because there's a story about something, that it is automatically established as a general 'fact'. Its a story, a tale, a rumor, or maybe at most accepted only due to its lack of fantastic character. Thus the entries in the MM MIGHT be rumors, some few of them might be accepted (the militia fought orcs 20 years ago, they can give you a first-hand account), and then there's direct experience, which is canonical due to inclusion in the narrative. Some things might be a bit gray now and then, we hear orc drums in the hills and some elves claim to have news of a town that they pillaged on the other side of the mountains. Maybe its actually goblins or something else, but we can at least suspect orcs and its having an impact on the narrative.

Sunseeker · Apr 14, 2018

darkbard said:
Are you familiar, [MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION], with the philosopher Slavoi Zizek's take on the Rumsfeld statement you quoted? He points out that Rumsfeld omits the fourth, and natural, category from his list, unknown knowns: those beliefs we hold without being aware of how they act upon us which shape how we act in the world. In other words, ideology.

I'm pretty sure Zizek writes about this in the introduction to The Borrowed Kettle.

I am not, I will get back to that.

Here, I think, you have misstated the way you are thinking about knowledge. We know different things than ancient peoples, for sure, and we have access to a vastly greater amount of information on the whole, via literacy and information technology, but individuals do not have more knowledge than our ancestors!

I disagree strongly. The average individual possesses a great deal more knowledge than our ancestors. Some of that is different knowledge (depending on who you ask). But I'd probably wager that even most farmers and ranchers now possess a great deal more knowledge (on the individual level) than farmers in the distant past.

The fact that the majority of people are even literate to begin with demonstrates this. I would argue that if you took two people from relatively similar backgrounds (lets say farmers), 5000 years apart; the person from the modern times would be able to demonstrate an almost invariably larger volume of individual knowledge about farming.

That all said, "known knowns" in a setting development sense include both what an individual knows, and what an individual knows they are able to access readily. I may not have The Leviathan memorized, but I know I have a copy of the book and can readily re-read and re-learn it at my leisure.

darkbard · Apr 14, 2018

shidaku said:
I disagree strongly. The average individual possesses a great deal more knowledge than our ancestors.

And herein is another reason why I mentioned ideology earlier. You seem to buy in to, unexamined, the myth of progress that our global western society tells itself, seeing this not only as obviously true on a grand, sweeping scale but also at the granular level of the individual.

I could point you to a hundred works of cultural anthropology that demonstrate the falsehood of your claim. I could point you to Larding the Lean Earth, wherein Steven Stoll recounts the lost farming techniques (lost, I might add, to a nascent chemical agricultural indistry) of eigtheenth and nineteenth century America that are only now being rediscovered by organic farmers. I could point to Against the Grain, wherein James C. Scott discusses the processes of early state formation, including the reduced brain size and adrenal response of domesticated animals, and the parallel reduced fitness of newly sedentary human societies. I could point you to the work Calvin Luther Martin, and Loren Eisley, and so many others have done in the study of paleolithic peoples. I could even cite Socrates's fear (in the Phaedrus) that writing would lead to a decrease in human brain capacity. But first you would have to be open to recognizing the ideology that shapes our thoughts with which we are all programmed in our culture, and be willing to challenge that.

Those trained in cultural anthropology (it's not my field, though it connects, in some ways, with my own research interests) could probably direct you to even more precise sources that contradict your claims about the naive, unlettered "savage."

gamerprinter · Apr 14, 2018

darkbard said:
And herein is another reason why I mentioned ideology earlier. You seem to buy in to, unexamined, the myth of progress that our global western society tells itself, seeing this not only as obviously true on a grand, sweeping scale but also at the granular level of the individual.

I could point you to a hundred works of cultural anthropology that demonstrate the falsehood of your claim. I could point you to Larding the Lean Earth, wherein Steven Stoll recounts the lost farming techniques (lost, I might add, to a nascent chemical agricultural indistry) of eigtheenth and nineteenth century America that are only now being rediscovered by organic farmers. I could point to Against the Grain, wherein James C. Scott discusses the processes of early state formation, including the reduced brain size and adrenal response of domesticated animals, and the parallel reduced fitness of newly sedentary human societies. I could point you to the work Calvin Luther Martin, and Loren Eisley, and so many others have done in the study of paleolithic peoples. I could even cite Socrates's fear (in the Phaedrus) that writing would lead to a decrease in human brain capacity. But first you would have to be open to recognizing the ideology that shapes our thoughts with which we are all programmed in our culture, and be willing to challenge that.

Those trained in cultural anthropology (it's not my field, though it connects, in some ways, with my own research interests) could probably direct you to even more precise sources that contradict your claims about the naive, unlettered "savage."

Hell, look at the ancient Celts, they had no writing, but an immense skill in memorization - they had over a 1000 years of their own memorized and could call up at a moment's notice. There's plenty of knowledge and intellectual practices from long before our time, that far far exceeds anything our modernized, tech based intellect can even conceive of. I would never poo-poo the past as being somehow inconsequential compared to modern humans. We're hardly different, just lazier and stupider than many in the past. Heck look at language and writing skills from the 19th century and before - worlds better than we are today.

Sunseeker · Apr 14, 2018

darkbard said:
And herein is another reason why I mentioned ideology earlier. You seem to buy in to, unexamined, the myth of progress that our global western society tells itself, seeing this not only as obviously true on a grand, sweeping scale but also at the granular level of the individual.

I am fairly well versed in ideology and rhetoric. So for the sake of keeping this conversation brief: Pot, meet kettle.

Those trained in cultural anthropology (it's not my field, though it connects, in some ways, with my own research interests) could probably direct you to even more precise sources that contradict your claims about the naive, unlettered "savage."

Don't. Just, don't even go there.

Those were not the words I used, nor even the implication I gave about historical people. I suggested people now know more than people then in many areas. The weather, for example. Suggesting that people of the past were less well-learned on a multitude of subjects on which we are more learned of now is not to suggest that they were savages. HOW DARE YOU.

So again to keep this brief: do not respond to me again until you have done some self-reflection, before demanding that I need to do some myself.

If you feel compelled to ignore that advice, you get this one warning: Everyone and their pet flail snail on this forum knows I am on quite friendly terms with my Ignore button.

hawkeyefan · Apr 14, 2018

shidaku said:
Perhaps to cut more to the question [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] asked, I think one of the reasons we probably don't see threads on "Why no worldbuilding is bad." is because complaints about them usually fall under topics like "The DM was so unprepared!" or "It felt like he didn't have anything for us to do!" or as you suggest "It all felt so cobbled together!". The complains about a lack of world build are more ephemeral, the objections are vague and varied because there is so little to focus on. It's hard to form an objection when you don't even know what to object to!

But with objections to world building you can object to specific things. Because that's exactly the problem. Something that should have been left open to interpretation or exploration was instead carved in stone. Something that could have benefited from a little vaguness was instead overly specific. This led to...feeling like we weren't really participating, feeling like we were watching a movie, feeling like we had no control or effect on things. Notice how these common objections to over-building seem to follow a particular thread? That's because they have something specific to object to.

So to get back to Imaro, we don't have threads on why "no worldbuilding is bad" because it is difficult to focus ones thoughts on the subject. But if you've ever read a thread about how someone's DM didn't have their stuff together, you've read a thread objecting to no world building.

I believe that what you’re saying is likely part of it...and yet, I gave a couple of specific points about it.

hawkeyefan · Apr 14, 2018

AbdulAlhazred said:
I would argue, as a general tenet of philosophy, that such things are only established by experience. Had I not experienced ticks and dogs, then I would not hold a belief about it. I could be convinced of its truth due to the fact that authority figures say it is so, which is 'good enough' for fairly conventional and non-controversial things. For extraordinary things, like dragons and kobolds, then such authority is insufficient, or must be MUCH stronger (IE the paladin that dragged back the head of the dragon? I believe him. The village elder? His 'knowledge' is no more than rumor). Of course a character could be credulous and accept rumor as truth, but its still rumor, it COULD be untrue! Ticks are unlikely to be untrue, unless they're giant ticks that live in the Forest Nobody Goes Into, then legendary.

So, no, I don't think that, just because there's a story about something, that it is automatically established as a general 'fact'. Its a story, a tale, a rumor, or maybe at most accepted only due to its lack of fantastic character. Thus the entries in the MM MIGHT be rumors, some few of them might be accepted (the militia fought orcs 20 years ago, they can give you a first-hand account), and then there's direct experience, which is canonical due to inclusion in the narrative. Some things might be a bit gray now and then, we hear orc drums in the hills and some elves claim to have news of a town that they pillaged on the other side of the mountains. Maybe its actually goblins or something else, but we can at least suspect orcs and its having an impact on the narrative.

But I wasn’t talking about rumors. I was talking about a general fact or a specific fact. Exactly how they are introduced to the game can vary, and certainly they could be presented as rumor or as uncertain, but they can eually be presented as fact.

pemerton · Apr 15, 2018

[MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION], your post prompted a couple of thoughts in me.

shidaku said:
If for some reason I'm wrong and the article is suggesting that you should come to the game with nothing more than a blank piece of paper, I think that's silly

If the sheet of paper was literally blank, then there wouldn't be a RPG system to use! But if we mean "turning up to a session with the rules and that's it", well I've got no problem with that, and have done it from time to time.

shidaku said:
"detailing in" is a natural outcome of expanding the lore, which is why some older settings feel less approachable with how much information has already been detailed in.

This reminded me of Ron Edwards's comment about "karaoke RPGing":

This is a serious problem that arises from the need to sell thick books rather than to teach and develop powerful role-playing. Let's say you have a game that consists of some Premise-heavy characters and a few notes about Situation, and through play, the group generates a hellacious cool Setting as well as theme(s) regarding those characters. Then, publishing your great game, you present that very setting and theme in the text, in detail. . . .

The first time I played OTE, I had a few pages of notes on the background and nothing on the specifics. I made it all up on the spot. Not having anything written as a guide (or crutch), I let my imagination loose. You have the mixed blessing of having many pages of background prepared for you. If you use the information in this book as a springboard for your own wild dreams, then it is a blessing. If you limit yourself to what I've dreamed up, it's a curse. [quoted from Jonathan Tweet's Over the Edge]

All I see, I'm afraid, is the curse. The isolated phrases "mixed blessing" and "(or crutch)" don't hold a lot of water compared to the preceding 152 extraordinarily detailed pages of canonical setting. I'm not saying that improvisation is better . . . than non-improvisational play. I am saying, however, that if playing this particular game worked so wonderfully to free the participants into wildly successful brainstorming during play ... and since the players were a core source during this event, as evident in the game's Dedication and in various examples of play ... then why present the results of the play-experience as the material for another person's experience?

I think this phenomenon of "karaoke" is actually quite widespread. One example is the difference between spell descriptions in early D&D (preserved in Moldvay Basic) and AD&D - the latter have a whole lot of rules incorporated which seem to present the results of adjudication (eg what happens to a fireball in an enclosed space?) as inputs into subsequent play.

Unless one really wants to play out the fiction someone else has written, then I think it's hard to reconcile the ultra-detail of a setting like FR, or some of the sci-fi settings, with RPGing. The "detailing in" can make it hard for game participants to exercise their creativity.

Sunseeker · Apr 15, 2018

pemerton said:
@shidaku, your post prompted a couple of thoughts in me.

If the sheet of paper was literally blank, then there wouldn't be a RPG system to use! But if we mean "turning up to a session with the rules and that's it", well I've got no problem with that, and have done it from time to time.

No ideas at all for what you want to run/play? I mean I've come to a game pretty empty-handed but I still generally have some ideas for style and theme. Now I know you run substantially more player-authored games than I do and that may relieve some of the burden, but I still suspect the article was not arguing an extreme in response to what they viewed as another extreme (not that people don't do that), but that was my only point there, to come "open and flexible" rather than closed and firm.

This reminded me of Ron Edwards's comment about "karaoke RPGing":

This is a serious problem that arises from the need to sell thick books rather than to teach and develop powerful role-playing. Let's say you have a game that consists of some Premise-heavy characters and a few notes about Situation, and through play, the group generates a hellacious cool Setting as well as theme(s) regarding those characters. Then, publishing your great game, you present that very setting and theme in the text, in detail. . . .

The first time I played OTE, I had a few pages of notes on the background and nothing on the specifics. I made it all up on the spot. Not having anything written as a guide (or crutch), I let my imagination loose. You have the mixed blessing of having many pages of background prepared for you. If you use the information in this book as a springboard for your own wild dreams, then it is a blessing. If you limit yourself to what I've dreamed up, it's a curse. [quoted from Jonathan Tweet's Over the Edge]

All I see, I'm afraid, is the curse. The isolated phrases "mixed blessing" and "(or crutch)" don't hold a lot of water compared to the preceding 152 extraordinarily detailed pages of canonical setting. I'm not saying that improvisation is better . . . than non-improvisational play. I am saying, however, that if playing this particular game worked so wonderfully to free the participants into wildly successful brainstorming during play ... and since the players were a core source during this event, as evident in the game's Dedication and in various examples of play ... then why present the results of the play-experience as the material for another person's experience?

My response to this is simply that some people are better at worldbuilding than others. And by "better" I mean creating a world that is playable. Some people are better at writing stories than others, these people don't usually produce terribly playable worlds (but can make fun railroads). And some people simply want someone else to the work for them and don't care what they have to put up with to run a game.

Unless one really wants to play out the fiction someone else has written, then I think it's hard to reconcile the ultra-detail of a setting like FR, or some of the sci-fi settings, with RPGing. The "detailing in" can make it hard for game participants to exercise their creativity.

And you'll get no argument from me there. Even in heavy-detail settings like Star Wars or Star Trek I almost invariably take my players straight to some area of the galaxy where there is little information, so that I can make stuff up and nobody gets their panties in a wad over me stepping on the lore.

AbdulAlhazred · Apr 15, 2018

shidaku said:
I disagree strongly. The average individual possesses a great deal more knowledge than our ancestors. Some of that is different knowledge (depending on who you ask). But I'd probably wager that even most farmers and ranchers now possess a great deal more knowledge (on the individual level) than farmers in the distant past.

The fact that the majority of people are even literate to begin with demonstrates this. I would argue that if you took two people from relatively similar backgrounds (lets say farmers), 5000 years apart; the person from the modern times would be able to demonstrate an almost invariably larger volume of individual knowledge about farming.

This stinks of cognitive bias of one sort or another, to high heaven really!

Any 2 40 year old human beings have experienced an equal number of days of life, filled with experiences of various sorts. Your average Neolithic Farmer from 3000bc probably knows a HUGE amount about nature, his local environs, the minute details of the lives of the animals and plants he is so close to, etc. His range of experience may be geographically narrower, and his ability to control his surroundings and obtain the necessities of life may be far less if he's dropped into modern times, but tell me. If you took a modern farmer and dropped him on the Neolithic Farm, could he even grow a crop? Without a computer, a tractor, GPS, the Internet, hybrid seeds, modern herbicides, etc.? I strongly doubt it.

You seem to mistake one kind of knowledge for wisdom and discount another kind entirely. unknown known indeed!

Why Worldbuilding is Bad

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