Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Sunseeker]

Some systems bring more "heft" with them than others.

Am I to understand this "heft" as "more pre-written world building"?
IE: the Deadland book vs. the D&D PHB?

So some of this is a function of experience and inclination - which is my paraphrase of what you said! - but I think some of it is also about system design and the sorts of expectations systems create. A system which brings no kickstart mechanism and doesn't give the players much capacity to inject their own stuff is probably going to be more reliant on the GM to do some heavy lifting around setting and the details of framing. As well as 3E D&D I would put RM into this category, and RQ unless you're letting Glorantha do your heavy lifting for you.

Yeah, okay I get what you're saying.

 

[Sunseeker]

Ideology doesn't simply mean any belief a person holds. Ideology means, in literary critic Terry Eagleton's definition, "The largely concealed structure of values which informs and underlies our factual statements[, ...] the ways in which what we say and believe connects with the power-structure and power-relations of the society we live in" (my emphasis).

You might want to stop and consider for a moment that you are using a very specific and in some ways ideologized definition of ideology. You're going to most specifically run into problems with the "largely concealed" portion, because you're essentially going to start accusing people of believing something that per your definition: they are unaware they believe in. This makes rational argumentation difficult because you essentially start off with what looks like an attack. As you did with me.

You'll run into problems with the whole second line of that, because again aside from being a very specific usage of ideology, it is intimately tying it not into power-structures, but perceived power-structures. Just as you assumed that I must be buying into the Western ideology of progress because I come from a western culture.

I'm not going to write you an essay on the subject, but my advice, and keep in mind this is coming from a political scientist, is that unless you have having a specific conversation, you should avoid using specific definitions. Because, for example, the Dictionary mentions nothing about ideology being "largely concealed" nor connected to "power-structures of the society we live in".

It helps avoid moments exactly like this one where you have to stop and explain to everyone "Hey guys, maybe the reason we're not understanding each other is because I'm using this obscure definition of a word which informs and underlies my factual statements."

I was raised in a western (now global) narrative that has a vested interest in maintaining a narrative of progress. I have questioned that narrative, critically, and done a lot of study that has led me to different conclusions.

Again, nothing I mentioned implied a narrative of progress. Progress has been factually made. To deny that we have made progress would be to deny that the sun revolves around the earth. Western society may not be morally or ethically more progressive than any given ancient society in question, but that's a subjective conversation about what morals and values a culture should have that I won't be having here. Western society may not have progressed as much as some would like to claim, and that's a fair argument for another day. Western society may have lost specific information that was known only to specific persons long ago, and that is also a fair argument to make.

But you cannot reasonably make the argument that progress is a myth.

Here is what Shidaku wrote:
These are the terms those living within a roughly centralized state structure ("civilization") use to denigrate those outside of one. Often accompanying such terms (less knowledgable, in general) are claims of naivete (in the sense of an infantalizing pureness or goodness), illiteracy (as an explanation for lack of knowledge), and "savagery" (as being beyond the refinements of "civilization"). If these do not characterize shidaku's perspectives, then I publicly apologize. But when one makes vague and blanket statements claiming one group is better than another, (the average person today knows more than even the smartest person from 5000 years ago, in this example), the person making such a statement is setting themselves up for misunderstanding.

Again, when you are operating with an ideological argument that implies deception or ignorance (again: "Largely concealed") the problem you are going to run into is that you are going to end up reading between the lines of what other people are writing. Instead of asking them for clarification, you are going to use your or system of values which informs and underlies your factual statements to determine what they must have been saying. The onus really isn't on me to clarify. The onus is on you not to assume I meant one thing or another.

I made vague blanket statements because we are not having a specific conversation about a specific people in comparison to another group of specific people. It may be an element of your ideology that Western Society is a specific people but that is again on you to explain and not assume that we are sharing in your ideology, or even assume that our ideology is the normal one, the common one or really, assume anything at all.

My reason for referencing Plato, perhaps unclear, is that such claims of more or less knowledgable are ludicrous. Literacy no more decreased individual human knowledge, in toto, than living in our modern world increases it over our forebears! It's a question of different kinds of knowledge, not quantity of knowledge. AbdulAlhazred addressed this already, above.

And my argument remains that modern people have larger volumes, even of different kids, of knowledge than historical people. You're also going to have to do better than Plato, a man who made a claim at a time when we had an incredibly low understanding of the human brain, to claim that literacy does not increase human knowledge, because it is literally the primary transmission vector for knowledge.

I have absolutely no desire for some kind of battle over this issue, derailing this thread further. As I say above, our knowledge today is different. I will absolutely agree if you want to say that much of our contemporary knowledge is more scientific, in the sense of repeatability and demonstrability, even that it is more *accurate* as a result, but that, again, is not a question of amount but kind.

To get this train wreck back on topic, this goes back to what I was saying about sci-fi vs. fantasy settings.

People in sci-fi settings have the general knowledge that is applicable to a multitude of situations, which is why a plethora of information is is not a negative to a sci-fi game. The characters are assumed to have the general knowledge and general skills to, after some exploring and adventuring, obtain this information. The characters in fantasy settings are not assumed to have this kind of knowledge, they're assumed to have specific knowledge which will be applicable in specific situations. Fantasy characters are assumed to have what we generally call "applied knowledge". It's not that sci-fi characters don't have and don't use this, but they're also assumed to have general knowledge.

IE: a Druid in D&D is assumed to have knowledge about nature and how to make specific medicines from it. A Doctor in Star Trek is assumed to have knowledge about medicines and how to make them when given the right ingredients. The former knows more applied knowledge: "Give me these 3 plants and I'll make you some medicine!" the latter has general knowledge: "I can make you a lot of things if you can get me ingredients." The approaches are, in short, reversed. If you were to ask a druid to make a specific medicine with plants to which they are unfamiliar, they likely could not. If you were to ask a doctor to make a new medicine, they probably could, but wouldn't know what ingredients they need.

 

[Hussar]

It's kinda funny. I have no idea how to knap flint. I don't. Never done it. A neolithic farmer certainly would have that knowledge. However, there's a bit that's being ignored. I DO know what knapping flint is, and, in a very broad way (you whack one rock with another) have some idea how it might be done.

Flip it around, and that neolithic farmer would have zero ability to conceptualize even the most basic elements of my life.

I could, through trial and error (and hopefully before I starved to death) figure out how to knap flint. That neolithic farmer will never be able to conceptualize writing his name. He simply has no way to get there.

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.

 

[Crusadius]

I think there's a difference between WotC selling a setting and a person in a basement creating their own setting for their own campaign.

WotC are selling a product to people who don't want to spend the time to create their own setting and so must have enough details to attract buyers. The setting created by the person in the basement will never be read by anyone other than themselves, and a lot of details will never be seen by the players of the campaign they are running.

 

[pemerton]

Am I to understand this "heft" as "more pre-written world building"?

Well, this goes back to something that was being discussed a few pages ago.

I think that a system can have "heft" - in the sense of delivering PCs with some sort of orientation or incipient dramatic arc; and situations for those PCs to get involved in - without having pre-written worldbuilding.

BW PCs have lifepaths, traits, relationships, beliefs. Traveller PCs have lifepaths, sometimes spaceships, and patrons generated on a random patron table. Classic D&D doesn't have a random patron table, but there is Appendix A for random dungeons, and there are random encounter and treasure tables.

3E or RM are very austere in comparison - neither on player nor GM side is there the same clarity of "OK, here's what you're meant to be doing now to make this game happen".

 

[pemerton]

I'm really rather confused by the notion that earlier peoples actually had more knowledge than modern people.

I don't think I saw anyone make that claim. I thought that [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION] and [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] suggested (between them) that (i) quantifying amounts of knowledge is fraught, and that (ii) earlier people were having experiences that triggered cognitive processes and belief formation at something like the same rate as contemporary people.

Longer life expectancies might be seen as a factor relevant to (ii), but that would then take as back to (i).

When it comes to discussion of changes in how knowledge is generated, accumulated, engaged with by individuals, etc, I'm a great admirer of Weber's discussion in Science as a Vocation, although I suspect darkbard (and maybe others) would want (at a minimum) to put some qualifications around Weber's own persepctive, which relies upon a ready-to-hand conception of "the savage":

Scientific progress is a fraction, the most important fraction, of the process of intellectualization which we have been undergoing for thousands of years and which nowadays is usually judged in such an extremely negative way. Let us first clarify what this intellectualist rationalization, created by science and by scientifically oriented technology, means practically.

Does it mean that we, today, for instance, everyone sitting in this hall, have a greater knowledge of the conditions of life under which we exist than has an American Indian or a Hottentot? Hardly. Unless he is a physicist, one who rides on the streetcar has no idea how the car happened to get into motion. And he does not need to know. He is satisfied that he may 'count' on the behavior of the streetcar, and he orients his conduct according to this expectation; but he knows nothing about what it takes to produce such a car so that it can move. The savage knows incomparably more about his tools. When we spend money today I bet that even if there are colleagues of political economy here in the hall, almost every one of them will hold a different answer in readiness to the question: How does it happen that one can buy something for money--sometimes more and sometimes less ? The savage knows what he does in order to get his daily food and which institutions serve him in this pursuit. The increasing intellectualization and rationalization do not, therefore, indicate an increased and general knowledge of the conditions under which one lives.

It means something else, namely, the knowledge or belief that if one but wished one could learn it at any time. Hence, it means that principally there are no mysterious incalculable forces that come into play, but rather that one can, in principle, master all things by calculation. This means that the world is disenchanted. One need no longer have recourse to magical means in order to master or implore the spirits, as did the savage, for whom such mysterious powers existed. Technical means and calculations perform the service. This above all is what intellectualization means.​

you're essentially going to start accusing people of believing something that per your definition: they are unaware they believe in.

Well, I think this aspect of [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION]'s claim - that people believe things they're not aware of believing - was evident as soon as reference was made to unknown knowns.

Relating Weber and ideology to worldbuilding in RPGs: I think many fantasy RPG settings are presented in a strangely rationalist fashion. There are accurate maps, accurate conceptions of history and politics, rather unified cultural and linguistic practices, etc. Even Glorantha - which makes a serious attempt at presenting a non-disenchanted world - suffers from this, in the sense of being presented to us in a series of more-or-less logically organised textbooks that document, in rational fashion, the non-rationalistic lives and beliefs of the Gloranthans.

How would "worldbuiding" for a fantasy RPG look if it was attempting not just to assert, but to produce an experience of, a non-disenchanted world? It couldn't start with maps and catalogues. It couldn't start with an assumption that the roll of the dice models impersonal causal forces. How would we do it?

 

[Riley37]

I was raised in a western (now global) narrative that has a vested interest in maintaining a narrative of progress. I have questioned that narrative, critically, and done a lot of study that has led me to different conclusions.

I encourage your questioning of that narrative. Especially the portions of that narrative, which people have used as a pretext to kill, enslave and otherwise mistreat others for their own advantage. Also the parts which universalize patriarchy. There's some major gaps in the consistency of those narratives.

But you have not yet answered this question: whether you have *also* questioned, critically, the counter-narratives which boil down (losing nuance and useful aspects in that reduction) to "Down with global western civilization!" If you are interested in questioning along those lines, then I have offered you some entry points. Take what you can use, let the rest go by.

Here is what Shidaku wrote:

Shidaku did not use the term "savages". YOU brought that term into the conversation. That's a historically significant term, because colonizers have often used that term to equate "member of a non-western culture" with "less trustworthy person, more impulsively violent person, person of lesser worth, person we may kill or enslave with moral impunity". Shidaku pointed out differences in knowledge-base between people 5K years ago, and participants in this conversation. Shidaku did NOT designate anyone as a fair target for "kill them and take their stuff, they deserve it because they're just savages anyways". Shidaku did not jump from "modern people tend to know more than pre-literate people" to "one group is better than another." That part is on you, buddy. Shidaku did not justify the Roman conquest of the German tribes, nor the German arguments, centuries later, for ethically parallel conquests in Africa. If you wanna pin either of those on Shidaku, then provide something more compelling than "well, other people used that pretext, so clearly you were using it too."

 

[Sunseeker]

Well, this goes back to something that was being discussed a few pages ago.

I think that a system can have "heft" - in the sense of delivering PCs with some sort of orientation or incipient dramatic arc; and situations for those PCs to get involved in - without having pre-written worldbuilding.

BW PCs have lifepaths, traits, relationships, beliefs. Traveller PCs have lifepaths, sometimes spaceships, and patrons generated on a random patron table. Classic D&D doesn't have a random patron table, but there is Appendix A for random dungeons, and there are random encounter and treasure tables.

3E or RM are very austere in comparison - neither on player nor GM side is there the same clarity of "OK, here's what you're meant to be doing now to make this game happen".

Okay, so "heft" is more about giving players direction in life, and thus, in whatever world they happen to be in.

 

[Riley37]

this aspect of [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION]'s claim - that people believe things they're not aware of believing - was evident as soon as reference was made to unknown knowns.

Can we stipulate, not just claim, that people believe things they're not aware of believing? Is there anyone here, who did not already know, from the OP onwards, that people believe things they're not aware of believing?

Cognitive science and linguistics have, AFAIK, settled that question with more confidence than the question of whether light is a wave or a particle. Anyone who has walked up a flight of stairs, reached the top, and stepped on one more stair than was actually present, has experienced the disjunction.

One application to TRPG: I played, at a convention game in Hero System, an entertainer PC, whose skills included acrobatics, knife throwing, and sleight of hand. The party reached a locked door, and someone turned to me, expecting my PC to pick the lock. That player believed, *without knowing it*, that anyone who can do acrobatics and sleight of hand, also has the skills of a professional burglar, such as picking locks. That belief came from their experience with the D&D class "package deals", and their application of those assumptions to a Fantasy Hero game.

That player had apparently taken the class descriptions in the PHB, as canonical elements of *every* fantasy world in which players have characters, not just as elements of Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms.

Even Glorantha - which makes a serious attempt at presenting a non-disenchanted world - suffers from this, in the sense of being presented to us in a series of more-or-less logically organised textbooks that document, in rational fashion, the non-rationalistic lives and beliefs of the Gloranthans.

I once played Runequest at the table of a GM who did his best to run a setting which was universally enchanted, in which there had been an era before Time, in which the Moon was, objectively, also a giant bat. It was a lot of fun. I tried to establish a spell or item for "Detect Magic", and he said that it would invariably return a reading of "IT'S ALL MAGIC!".

 

[Riley37]

How would "worldbuiding" for a fantasy RPG look if it was attempting not just to assert, but to produce an experience of, a non-disenchanted world? It couldn't start with maps and catalogues. It couldn't start with an assumption that the roll of the dice models impersonal causal forces. How would we do it?

AFAIK, Runequest was originally written for Homeric adventure, but there weren't enough players ready for that, to establish a playerbase, so they invented Glorantha, which compromises ur-fantasy with Tolkienesque settings.

Every map: HERE THERE BE DRAGONS
Every die roll: Looks like Ares won the argument over whether you may hit, but Athena won the argument over how much damage you could inflict.