Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Caliburn101]

That is not a world building issue, its a railroading issue.

World building is about where the campaign takes place. Its history, its culture(s) and beliefs. Worldbuilding has nothing to do with what is going to happen during the course of the campaign, apart from giving motivation and backstory to the various characters that inhabit that world.

Very well said.

Most of the criticism here is based eithet on the assumption that "my experience of a world-building GM was bad, so worldbuilding is bad" or the erroneous assumption that a GM running a game in a gameworld badly (either railroading or road blocking player agency) is doing it because worldbuilding leads to this...

... erm, NO.

Bad GMs lead to bad GM'ing and they can railroad you or block you even easier in a less defined campaign setting.

 

[Riley37]

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.

Darth Shoju wrote that about a decade ago. It was a strawman, but at least it provided a starting point, for others to counter with other ways that session could have gone. For better or worse, for richer or poorer, with the DM or the player to blame, because too much worldbuilding or not enough.

For this thread to successfully and usefully "WISE FWOM YOU GWAVE", maybe we would benefit from updated strawman examples. Or better yet, actual examples, from "My DM did this and I walked away", to "I did this, and one player walked away, but the rest of them loved the campaign."

In the meantime, D&D now has a 5E PHB, and the passage on humans lists nine human ethnicities from Forgotten Realms! So *already* we have divergence on the outcome which results when the DM says "Just what you see in the PHB, pal".

My $.02:

"ME: Ok...what are the human nations like?
DM: I don't know...what kind of nation do you want to be from?"

Good jorb, DM! You expressed interest in what your players want! Which is not the same thing as always answering YES. (No, you cannot haz a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range.) Was it really necessary to point out the difference between "showing interest" and "always saying yes, to anything"? You tell me.

ME: How does my nation get along with the other nations?
DM: That isn't important in the adventure.

Partial credit, strawman DM with neither worldbuilding nor improv skills. Alternative answers include...

DM 1: You are from so far away, that the topic will not arise, unless some other player wants their character to be from the equivalent of ancient Japan. If so, we'll take that as the baseline for how you get along.

DM 2: That's currently a blank page. Do you have an interest in establishing personal trust despite national enmity, or something like that?

DM 3: Everything changed, when your nation attacked.
(The ancient psuedo-Sino-nation is now the Fire Nation.)

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.

DM 1: They're worried about that relic. The sooner your party finds it, the better. If you don't, maybe it could fall into the wrong hands.
(DM 1, writing a note to self: BBEG is on the trail of the relic. He will arrive in two days. I'll stat him up later. If the PCs emerge from the dungeon on Day Two, then "Again, we see there is nothing you can possess which I cannot take away. And you thought I'd given up.")

DM 2: "That's also a blank page. Hey, other players, anyone wanna suggest a problem?
READY PLAYER TWO: "One of the villagers is sick."
DM 2: "Yeah, we'll go with that. Did you prepare Lesser Restoration, and if so, do you spend the spell slot?"

DM 3: "He says they have no problems. They have no problems of any kind. They have never had any problems of any kind. Everything is fine. Everything is JUST FINE. The local cleric then points out that it's time for you to go, so you can reach the dungeon before nightfall."
(DM 3 to self: Maybe I'll think of a problem later.)
READY PLAYER TWO: "Roll insight!"
DM 3: "You're not there. This is cleric-to-cleric professional courtesy. Wait your turn for the spotlight."

As you can see, DM 1 is "Get back on those rails, I got a dungeon for you to explore", while DM 2 is a heavyweight sand-boxer, and DM 3 is my version of the happy medium.

So... how could this be improved by worldbuilding?

Or is this the optimum D&D session, which has successfully averted all the problems which follow from worldbuilding?

Or something else?

 

[Imaculata]

A later campaign with the same group did integrate metaphysical/theological questions (about the relationship between divine promises, karma, freedom and obligation) into play. But precisely because of that, it wouldn't have worked for me to just read out answers to the questions from something I wrote up unilaterally. The PCs in that game included a warrior monk; a martial arts monk of a rather intellectualist order; a fox in human form who had once been a ruler of an animal kingdom, but had broken certain laws and hence been sent down to earth as punishment; a middle-class warrior who was courting a noble dragon against the wishes of her sea lord and storm lord parents; and a younger cousin of a once-great house that had fallen on hard times but was trying to reestablish itself, who ended up outdoing his more prominent older cousin (also a PC) in marrying a wizard whom he rescued, and with her establishing a family line that (as was narrated in the "endgame" denouement of the campaign) ended up being the key to ensuring certain dangerous entities remained trapped in the voidal realm beyond time and space.

All those players had something to say about the metaphysical questions I mentioned, and views about how they should be resolved. This was the stuff - not the only stuff, but one important component of the stuff - of play.

I hope this example als helps illustrate of why I think that, if the GH theology I wrote up had crossed over in to worldbuilding (because that sort of stuff actually had come up in play), then it would probably have had an unhappy limiting effect.

But wouldn't you agree that just because you wrote a ton of stuff on the theologies of the various religions, that doesn't mean that you as a DM are forced to deny the players of having any input into how their character's faith is played out.

One does not exclude the other. You could write a TON of lore, and still be open to player input. And you could write no lore at all, and be very restrictive. I still don't see why one would necessarily lead to the other.

 

[pemerton]

Bad GMs lead to bad GM'ing and they can railroad you or block you even easier in a less defined campaign setting.

I don't think this is true at all. It depends on the system and techniques being used.

 

[pemerton]

But wouldn't you agree that just because you wrote a ton of stuff on the theologies of the various religions, that doesn't mean that you as a DM are forced to deny the players of having any input into how their character's faith is played out.

<snip>

You could write a TON of lore, and still be open to player input.

Can you say more about what you mean by "input"?

I can say that, in practical terms, when eventually I start to form some views about my PC's order's doctrine, I don't want the GM to hand me a page of notes but then solicit my input on what I do or don't like about it. I'll establish my own doctrine. (And the GM can either say "yes", or make me roll a skill check: if I fail the roll, the doctrine isn't going to be quite what I hoped it would be!)

In the description of one of my campaigns that I quoted, when I say that the theology and metaphysics were (part of) the stuff of play, I don't just mean that the players cared. I mean that the truth of this stuff was being worked out by playing the game. Can the laws of karma be circumvented? The players came up with a way of doing just that. It also involved acting contrary to a divine promise, although that promise wasn't one any of the PCs had made. But this saved the world, rather than ended it. It could have ended up the other way if some actions had turned out differently; and the method of circumventing the laws of karma was come up with only at the last minute - the warrior-monk was about to sacrifice himself to ensure karmic continuity.

In this context, player input just means players declaring actions for their PCs. Not negotiating at some meta-level about what's true in the fiction. And writing tons of lore doesn't really add much to the play in this context.

you could write no lore at all, and be very restrictive. I still don't see why one would necessarily lead to the other.

Well, a GM who just makes stuff up as they go along, sometimes saying "yes" and sometimes saying "no" and sometimes calling for checks, probably isn't going to run a great game. (But I think [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] once played under a GM who did something like this and did run a great game.)

But I'm not talking about edge cases. When I GM, or play, a RPG, I'm looking for a certain sort of experience. Part of that is that the truth about the fiction, the "stuff" of the setting, comes out via play rather than out-of-play discussion and negotiation.

There are some exceptions: starting a campaign needs some out-of-play discussion (which system? which setting? what are the PC backgrounds?). But mostly I want action declarations. To give another example: the PCs in my Classic Traveller game had learned that the inhabitants of a certain planet which (not entirely coincidentally) was likely to be their next stop had mixed alien/human origins. One of the PCs has as his goal to travel the Imperium trying to discover aliens and alien artefacts - so naturally he was intrigued by this.

When the PCs arrived in orbit about the world in question (Enlil) they first debated among themselves (at the table, the players had this debate) because it would cost the shipowner money to stay in orbit for a day rather than continue on (ships aren't free to buy and operate) and the owner had no real interest in the aliens. A compromise was reached whereby those going down onto the planet would pay the owner. Then the next question was "How do we find signs of alien origins?" The players (as their PCs, and also drawing on their own experiences as (non-interstellar) travellers) thought that their must be tourist markets, and so got relevant information about these from the starport and then flew their shuttle down to one such market, where they proceeded to check out local trinkets hoping to find signs of alien manufacture or other influence.

This is the players having input, but it's in the form of action declaration ("We get tourist information from the starport"), not meta-level negotiation about what is or isn't in the setting. If the action declaration was completely outrageous (eg utterly genre-breaking - like looking for a tourist bureau in a standard D&D game) then some meta-level negotiation might be unavoidable, to reach consensus on something less outrageous. But in my experience that doesn't happen very often.

If the existence of a tourist bureau seemed possible but unlikely, or if I (as GM) thought that it would make a good pressure point in the game, then I could call for a check (probably Admin, maybe Streetwise, depending on ingame context including eliciting more information from the players about what their PCs are doing). But in this particular case I just said "yes", because it didn't seem that it would add anything to play to have the PCs fail to find a tourist market and look for alien trinkets.

The action declaration needs a little bit of worldbuilding to give framing and context (in Traveller this is mostly handled via random world generation) but tons of notes, in this context, would be either pointless or even counterproductive. (I mean, never in a hundred years of GMing would I have thought about the PCs going to tourist markets to look for trinkets, until it actually came up in play.)

I hope it's clear I'm not saying that every RPGer should want to give this sort of priority to action declaration. It's just what I enjoy in RPGing.

 

[Aldarc]

Most of the criticism here is based eithet on the assumption that "my experience of a world-building GM was bad, so worldbuilding is bad" or the erroneous assumption that a GM running a game in a gameworld badly (either railroading or road blocking player agency) is doing it because worldbuilding leads to this...

... erm, NO.

Bad GMs lead to bad GM'ing and they can railroad you or block you even easier in a less defined campaign setting.

From the perspective of my own experiences, I would suggest that the quote is less a matter of "worldbuilding is bad," but, rather, it is a matter of "too much self-indulgent worldbuilding can be a red flag for other issues." So the entire enterprise of worldbuilding must be approached with some degree of cautionary self-awareness. In itself, worldbuilding does not lead to railroading. As you say, railroading can happen "in a less defined campaign setting," as the issue is "bad GM'ing." However, overindulgent worldbuilding enterprises can exhibit symptoms to those that are also found in some strains of railroading outbreaks. Because part of the underlying potential issues for both worldbuilding and railroading is the degree to which the GM will impose authorial control over the game, its world, and its players. It's a fear that the GM is not there to describe the game and its world for the players, but, rather to prescribe it for their own indulgence. Again, I don't think that "worldbuilding is bad." But it should be approached with caution such that it does not become a case of the GM fapping to their own creativity and then getting mad when the players don't care as deeply for it, are critical, or destroy "their" story.

 

[Imaro]

From the perspective of my own experiences, I would suggest that the quote is less a matter of "worldbuilding is bad," but, rather, it is a matter of "too much self-indulgent worldbuilding can be a red flag for other issues." So the entire enterprise of worldbuilding must be approached with some degree of cautionary self-awareness. In itself, worldbuilding does not lead to railroading. As you say, railroading can happen "in a less defined campaign setting," as the issue is "bad GM'ing." However, overindulgent worldbuilding enterprises can exhibit symptoms to those that are also found in some strains of railroading outbreaks. Because part of the underlying potential issues for both worldbuilding and railroading is the degree to which the GM will impose authorial control over the game, its world, and its players. It's a fear that the GM is not there to describe the game and its world for the players, but, rather to prescribe it for their own indulgence. Again, I don't think that "worldbuilding is bad." But it should be approached with caution such that it does not become a case of the GM fapping to their own creativity and then getting mad when the players don't care as deeply for it, are critical, or destroy "their" story.

Yeah but that's the problem with the thread. Worldbuilding (like everything else including no worldbuilding) is bad when taken to the extreme and used with bad gaming practices isn't really a revelation or even something to be discussed (since i don't think anyone is arguing against this specific statement. The problem is in these threads this extreme is presented as why worldbuilding is bad but when presented with extremes on the other side of the spectrum (no worldbuilding) we get posters who then proceed to argue that either it doesn't happen that way in their game or we are arguing against their style in bad faith. Well either we are talking about a good GM'd game in both styles or we are talking about the extremes and bad GM'ing in both styles but presenting one as default for a particular style but using the other for the style you happen to favor accomplishes nothing.

 

[Imaculata]

Can you say more about what you mean by "input"?

What I mean with input in this case, is the following:

Lets say the DM has done a ton of worldbuilding. He has created the entire pantheon of gods, and their respective religions. But he has also gone beyond that, and also written in depth about the various theologies of these religious groups, and what rites they perform.

Now lets say a player wants to play a priest of one of these faiths. But for his priest he wants to have some say (or 'input' if you will) regarding how his priest exercises his faith. The question of input is thus, can he do that?

If the DM has decided that the priests in his campaign worship all the commonly accepted gods, can an exception be made by the DM for a player who wants to dedicate his priest to one specific god?

If the answer is 'no', then I think we've reached an edge case where the world building gets in the way of a possible shared fiction. If the answer is 'yes', then I feel the player does have some 'input' in regards to the world building.

 

[pemerton]

If the answer is 'no', then I think we've reached an edge case where the world building gets in the way of a possible shared fiction. If the answer is 'yes', then I feel the player does have some 'input' in regards to the world building.

That's the sort of "meta-level" thing I mentioned in my post. It's not personally how I like to approach things - it seems to put too much of the action into pre-play negotiation, rather than letting it actual come out in the play of the game.

Other's mileage may (and I think does) vary.

 

[pemerton]

The problem is in these threads this extreme is presented as why worldbuilding is bad but when presented with extremes on the other side of the spectrum (no worldbuilding) we get posters who then proceed to argue that either it doesn't happen that way in their game or we are arguing against their style in bad faith.

This is certainly not accurate in relation to my posts. I've spelled out in some detail (mostly in replies to [MENTION=6801286]Imaculata[/MENTION]) what I want in a RPG - for instance, that I want stuff like religous doctrine, dispositions of NPCs, details of what might be found where, etc to come out in the play of the game, rather than to be decided in advance of play by meta-level negotiation among the game participants.

That's a reason why worldbuilding is "bad" for me (other than the sort of "high level" stuff I've talked about, like giving names to places and setting out some basic history to hang the genre tropes on). And this reason has nothing to do with whether someone is a good or bad GM. I'm talking about techniques for RPGing, not GM skill or good faith.