What is *worldbuilding* for?

[Caliban]

Is it important that the GM do it for the players to have this sense?

What is the purpose of this question?

 

[pemerton]

What is the purpose of this question?

To learn your answer to it.

For instance, [MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION] upthread hast talked about the GM as artist and the players as audience. Is there a similar idea going on in your comments about how the players get a certain sense from the worldbuilding? Could they get the same sense by authoring their own backstory for their PCs, or not?

 

[Caliban]

To learn your answer to it.

I already answered it. Why are you asking it again?

 

[pemerton]

I already answered it. Why are you asking it again?

Because, in your post, you said that the players get a certain sense - I would describe it as a certain sort of character depth, though I don't think that's a word you actually used - you characterised it by contrast to a PC sheet as a set of numbers, which I take to be a certain sort of shallowness, and referred to connection and investment, which seem to me like elements of depth, or - if you prefer - richness.

You described this being achieved by the GM making certain decisions - eg "I picked an area of the continent that I didn't have any specific plans for, and that is now "Verdania, Land of the Forest People" with a history that goes back a thousand years."

I am asking if you think your players could achieve the same sense if they made the relevant decisions, rather than the GM - eg the player writes the thousand-year history of Verdania, Land of the Forest People. Your earlier post doesn't answer that question.

You do imply that you want to exercise a veto-power over player backstories for PC, with this example:

Another player gave me a background where his character befriended a goddess (despite being told the gods had been distant and remote for centuries) and became her favored follower, gained a unique mithral sword with stats better than the PHB version and defeated a dragon. All before his 3rd level character started play. I explained that his character was prone to hallucinations and had recently escaped from a local madhouse before joining the party.

But that doesn't seem to be an example of establishing the sense of PC depth that you go on to describe.

If you don't want to answer my question, of course that's your prerogative. But I think it is relevant to the thread topic. Eg if the answer is "No", then that clearly identifies one thing that GM worldbuilding is for, namely, a device to let players (your players at least, maybe others if your players aren't unique) get that sense of character depth.

 

[Caliban]

You know this is a game and not a creative writing assignment for the players, right?

You are making the assumption that a) the players WANT to write that much stuff about things that don't directly affect their character (i.e. a thousand year history for a country in my campaign world), and b) that the purpose of the game is for the players to create the world.

I can tell you for a fact that not every player wants to write an extensive background (or any background at all). And that's fine, if they don't enjoy it they shouldn't be forced to do it or made to feel lacking because of it. Some players really don't care about "depth" or "richness" - they want loot and combat. Others want to be part of a story and influence the world.

I stated why I do it the way I do in my original post and you ignored it. I do all this because I find it enjoyable. I enjoy world building. Otherwise I wouldn't do it. The game is not just about the players - the DM gets to have fun too. In this case - it's MY CAMPAIGN. I created the world and the players get to explore it. They may give me ideas for new areas to flesh out, but ultimately it is my creation and I have the final say on anything that affects the world. They control their characters, I control the world. They influence the world through the actions of their characters and through the parts of their backstories that I choose to incorporate into the game. Together we tell a story.

My enjoyment comes from creating the world and having them experience it. Their enjoyment comes from exploring it, watching their characters grow and become part of that world, and of course, killing monsters and taking their stuff. Because this is still a game, everything else is just a bonus.

 

[MarkB]

(Btw way, I don't know of any RPG that works by way of the players (via their PCs) "searching each room in turn until the DM's "is the map hidden here?" roll hits a high enough total" - do you have an example in mind?)

I was working from your example, of rolling the dice to determine whether the map is, in fact, in the location the PC is searching, rather than establishing that fact in advance. If you do that, then all they need to do in order to find the map is to keep visiting locations and declaring a search until your "is the map here?" check comes up with a success.

Well, in the OP and a few posts that followed it, I tried to make clear what I mean by worldbuilding - namely, establishing setting information in advance of play.

Telling the players "Imagine an 18th century salon" doesn't, on its face, sound like an instance of that. It sounds like it's happening in the course of actual play, and is inviting them to draw upon some commonly understood tropes and references. It's not that different fromm saying "The NPC is wearing a long-sleeved dress and carrying a cutlass."

Well, obviously you can mean by "worldbuilding" whatever you want (within the parameters of meaningful conversation in Enlgish), but in the OP and subsequent posts I tried to explain what I had in mind.

Establishing general setting information in advance of (or during) play is worldbuilding regardless of who does it. If you use an established setting, or a contemporary setting, or a real-world historical setting, then you are using a setting in which a great deal of the worldbuilding has already been done for you - but it's still worldbuilding.

If your question is "what is the purpose of the DM doing pre-game prep work?" that's fine, you can ask that question - but stop berating people for using the term worldbuilding in its actual meaning rather than what you think it means.

 

[pemerton]

I was working from your example, of rolling the dice to determine whether the map is, in fact, in the location the PC is searching, rather than establishing that fact in advance. If you do that, then all they need to do in order to find the map is to keep visiting locations and declaring a search until your "is the map here?" check comes up with a success.

I don't think so. It depends on other things, like (i) rules about retries (many systems don't permit retries - there are plenty of examples in AD&D, for instance), and (ii) how the failure is narrated (eg to give one possible example - "As you look into the cache and see the map in there, a sudden gust carries a spark from your torch, and the map ignites!").

Establishing general setting information in advance of (or during) play is worldbuilding regardless of who does it. If you use an established setting, or a contemporary setting, or a real-world historical setting, then you are using a setting in which a great deal of the worldbuilding has already been done for you - but it's still worldbuilding.

If your question is "what is the purpose of the DM doing pre-game prep work?" that's fine, you can ask that question - but stop berating people for using the term worldbuilding in its actual meaning rather than what you think it means.

I hadn't intended to berate. But I'm trying to ask about a technique - not simply "Why do we have setting in our RPGs?" but "What is a certain way of establishing that setting - ie where the GM authors significant elements of it in advance - for?"

I feel I was clear enough, between the original post and clarifications that followed it, that a number of posters have offered answers to that question. (And I offered an answer myself, in the context of classic Gygaxian D&D, but went on to express doubts that that particular function is so salient in contemporary D&D play. Some posters have offered doubts about those doubts - eg [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] - which seem to me to be highly relevant to the thread topic.)

 

[Mercurius]

I read the first page, skimmed the second and last, so forgive me if I am repeating some of what has already been said. I get the sense that some have touched upon what I want to say, but perhaps not in the way I want to say it.

I'm going to use the analogy of fantasy fiction. I know that RPGs are a different medium, but there are similarities and we can at least use one as analogy for the other.

I think one of the main reasons that Tolkien's Middle-earth remains the example par excellence of fantasy worlds and world building is the depth it provides - and not just awkward, amateurish or rushed depth, as if it was created with a "Fantasy World Generator." It is lovingly crafted but, most of all, gives the sense of aliveness, and that for everything the reader encounters, there is a story behind it. It seems, feels, as if Middle-earth exists independent of the books set in it.

Many fantasy worlds come across like the set of an old spaghetti Western; you may not see it, but you know the buildings are just one wall with supports - sort of like in Blazing Saddles. Everything seems paper-thin and, to some extent, contrived.

Perhaps the most important difference between fiction and RPGs, in this context at least, is that in RPGs the players are--to varying degrees--co-authors of the story. They have agency, even if they play in a non-pemertonian railroad campaign. It is just a matter of degree. So where there are just supports behind the wall, the players can fill that in with their own ideas. But I think it could be argued that it doesn't seem as real when I, as a player, am thinking it up - vs. when the DM is. In a similar fashion, as a player I much more enjoy discovering a magic item than buying one in a shop. Discovering it has an extra sense of magic to it, because I don't have all the control.

What @pemerton seems to be questioning is the probably more common approach of creating a setting--of some degree of depth--before hand, or using a setting like the Forgotten Realms, in which there is much less "primal flux." There is always some, always Terra Incognita, and even if there isn't much, it is intrinsic to the game that the DM can make the setting their own.

But @pemerton doesn't seem to like the idea that the DM has superior or overriding authorship over the players. I haven't posted much in the last year or two, but this is the same underlying agenda he's been pushing for years. Nothing wrong with that, but he (you) does seem to be advocating for it as the Right Way to Play D&D. But to me this comes down to campaign group preference, and a diversity of possible ways of playing.

Who knows, maybe 10 years from now the Pemerton Approach will be dominant way of playing D&D. We'll all be looking back at the Dark Ages of railroady adventure paths, pre-made settings, and DM hegemony. But I personally hope that the future will continue to open up new paths, and that a plethora of styles will be played and honored.

But to go back to the original question. I think the reason for world-building is primarily to provide depth and a sense of meaning, realness and context to game play.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't think so. It depends on other things, like (i) rules about retries (many systems don't permit retries - there are plenty of examples in AD&D, for instance),

Going the other way, in a game that has a take-20 mechanic all they need to do is search every room using take-20 and they'll find the map right where the DM put it.

As for retries, 1e doesn't like them but some other systems are fine with them.

and (ii) how the failure is narrated (eg to give one possible example - "As you look into the cache and see the map in there, a sudden gust carries a spark from your torch, and the map ignites!").

That's not a failure, in my view. It's a success (they were trying to find the map, they found the map, therefore success) with a DM-forced complication.

Failure narration in this example always has to somewhere include "you don't find the map". It's black and white: you either find the map (success), or you don't (failure).

Now it's of course possible to succeed in finding the map and still have further headaches to deal with e.g. "yes you've found it (success) - you can see where it is - but it's embedded in the wall behind 6" of glassteel. Now what do you do?"

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

They're not real, they're imaginary.

What's real is the text. But you're not inviting your players to take your text and edit it or rewrite it or write a sequel to it.

No, I'm providing it (the original point) for them to read...or not, as they choose.

When you talk about the history, culture etc as elements of play, you're clearly referring to the fiction that they express. That that is so is illustrated by the following from your post:

Let's put to one side that you're assuming, here (i) that the players have unlimited retries (even in AD&D there are all sorts of limits on retries - for many thief abilities, for trying to open magically locked doors, for bending bars, for listening at doors), and (ii) that the consequence of failure will permit a retry (as opposed to be, say, that they search and it's not there to be found).

The whole idea of "there being nothing there to find", of the GM "knowing" this in advance, and of it being "unrealistic" for it to be otherwise, is again metaphor at best, nonsense at worst. Consider, for instance, an author who stages a competition to determine some feature of the sequel - the readers get to vote on whether the first novel's protagonist will live or die. The idea that this is "unreaslistic", because either the hero dies or s/he doesn't, is obviously absurd - nothing is true about the hero until it is written.

I'm not quite sure what you're on about here, but if nothing is true about the hero until it is written then by extension nothing is true about my game world until it is written...but guess what? It's written. In more or less very broad strokes, to be sure, but it's still written.

The main difference is that everyone can, if they wish, read the whole novel and find out what becomes of the hero; where in an RPG the players have to - to use your phrase - play to find out what becomes of their own characters.

Another way to look at it: the game world's story has been going on for ages before the PCs show up in it. Then (in most games, I think) the PCs show up, make some major differences to some major things (this is the played campaign(s)), then drift away when the campaign ends and the world keeps on keeping on.

I've already mentioned the example of Great Expectations, where Dickens rewrote the ending on the advice of his editor/publisher - that's an instance of the same phenomenon.

Dickens didn't have several players breathing down his neck wanting him to keep his story consistent and still run his game on Saturday.