D&D (2024) Greyhawk Confirmed. Tell Me Why.

[Paul Farquhar]

That's world building.

You are building the world to run the game.

No, that's running the game. It's something you do whilst the game is in progress, not yet another thing you need to do before you even start.

The point here is to strip it down to it's basics, to make it accessible to people without experience, unlimited time, and education (a common consequence of being 12 years old).

That means striping away all the layers of mystique people seem to want to build up about the activity.

 

[Staffan]

See, I'd much rather they took the Moldvay/Winneger approach to world building. Where do those characters come from? They come from the town that you're starting in. Continent? Drawing a map of a continent? That should be so far down the list of things to advise a new DM to do that it proably wouldn't even be in the same book. Who needs a whole continent? You barely need an area the size of a country.

I think there should be room for both. The DMG isn't just a beginner's guide to running a game, it should also open doors to further development. So I think it should say something like:

Building a world can be a big task, but it's fairly easy to start small, with a starting town and the nearby region. Here's how you do that, and some important things to keep in mind. Some common assumptions about a world like this would be X, Y, and Z. You also want to give some thought to gods and such, because of clerics. You can design your own pantheon, or you can use an established one (with either the GH-lite pantheon from 3e or the Dawn War pantheon from 4e as examples). When you feel it is time to expand the world beyond the starting area, or if you prefer to start with the big picture, here's how to do that.

 

[RedSquirrel]

No, that's running the game. It's something you do whilst the game is in progress, not yet another thing you need to do before you even start.

The point here is to strip it down to it's basics, to make it accessible to people without experience, unlimited time, and education (a common consequence of being 12 years old).

That means striping away all the layers of mystique people seem to want to build up about the activity.

Geez. It really seems you just want to say, "Nuh-uh. ... Nuh-uh ... nuh-uh".
Here let me help a little ...
"It's something you do whilst the game is in progress, not yet another thing you need to do before you even start."
Not us. You.

Repeatedly just insisting that your play style and your opinion about it is the absolute right one, doesn't make it so. That's what you do. There are plenty of people who enjoy doing things that have nothing to do with you.
They're entitled to play how they want.
And insisting that your way, and your point here and what it means is subjective, at best.
Logical error: insisting that your definition of world building or running the game is the right one.
Logical error: insisting that you know the point of the chapter when you haven't read any more of it that any of the rest of us.
Logical error: insisting that you know precisely what it means to accomplish the goal that you made up.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, that's running the game. It's something you do whilst the game is in progress, not yet another thing you need to do before you even start.

The point here is to strip it down to it's basics, to make it accessible to people without experience, unlimited time, and education (a common consequence of being 12 years old).

That means striping away all the layers of mystique people seem to want to build up about the activity.

Is that the point though? Has anyone at WotC actually stated the goal is to create a worldbuilding chapter with a little worldbuilding as possible, presumably so as to teach of new generation of dungeon masters not to bother with the practice?

 

[Faolyn]

I want to zoom in on this for a second. Now, I'm not an expert by any means, but actually... most of the people I know who do world-building actually wouldn't have a town of mostly humans and tolkienesque creatures. In fact, generally, the issue I've seen people run into is more "but there are not rules for symbiotic slime people and elves that are living trees" than it ever is more of the Tolkien-land.

I agree, and I wouldn't either unless there was a really good reason for it--generally small, isolated villages or larger places with isolationist preferences.

(Well, I might hesitate for the slime people, at least until I could come up with a decent image in my mind of how they would work. But that's where I would get the player who wanted to be one to help me out.)

Of course, there are still plenty of DMs who would prefer a mostly human setting, where most humans rarely see even so much as an elf, but there's so much fantasy these days where the mix of species is completely normalized that I think that's that's going to the norm for a while.

Honestly, I NEED to do top-down worldbuilding, because I need to know what people believe in. A world where people believe that all sentient life was created when the Sun cast the Moon into the Sea in an attempt to drown them is going to act, react, and talk differently than a world where they believe that Kings can gain power and ascend to be Gods if they control enough land and people.

Agreed. Religion is super-important in a setting. Even if it's a mostly typical D&D pantheon of gods, at least knowing who those gods are is important for the players and their characters.

 

[Faolyn]

It doesn’t matter if it’s historical, geographical, biological or theological, it’s still not interesting to the players.

Maybe not to your players. I know my table loves these things.

 

[TiQuinn]

Is that the point though? Has anyone at WotC actually stated the goal is to create a worldbuilding chapter with a little worldbuilding as possible, presumably so as to teach of new generation of dungeon masters not to bother with the practice?

It would be a good point though. Approach world building from the POV of players who care first about the first adventure and branch out from there. They did the top down world building approach in the 5e DMG.

 

[CleverNickName]

It's pretty weird to just assume that you know what the players will like. Even your own players. I mean, I know my spouse pretty well--but I wouldn't presume to know how much they are going to enjoy a movie that I loved as a kid.



(Seriously, how can you not like Blade Runner?!)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think there should be room for both. The DMG isn't just a beginner's guide to running a game, it should also open doors to further development. So I think it should say something like:

Building a world can be a big task, but it's fairly easy to start small, with a starting town and the nearby region. Here's how you do that, and some important things to keep in mind. Some common assumptions about a world like this would be X, Y, and Z. You also want to give some thought to gods and such, because of clerics. You can design your own pantheon, or you can use an established one (with either the GH-lite pantheon from 3e or the Dawn War pantheon from 4e as examples). When you feel it is time to expand the world beyond the starting area, or if you prefer to start with the big picture, here's how to do that.

There isn’t room to do both though. It’s one chapter, not 12.

Hover, there was a call for DDB articles only last week. That would seem a place where advanced world building could be tackled.

 

[Faolyn]

Ah, another advantage I forgot. Since there are going to be multiple editors going over the chapter, having a single, solid concept with clearly defined edges is much easier. I've tried world-building with a team, it gets messy fast.

I've found it to be the opposite, actually. It only gets messy if you have people who refuse to compromise.

This doesn't make sense to me. People who are going to compare their homebrew to official settings are going to do so anyways. I have never read a world-building chapter in the DMG focused on Greyhawk... but I compare my work to Eberron constantly. Or to settings from fantasy novels. Also, you think a new setting made by professional game designers and creatives won't STILL cause people to look at their own work and feel inadequate? It will, trust me.

Perhaps, but. When you have a ginormous existing setting, it doesn't feel like there's a beginning--especially when you compare to a setting like Eberron where the politics and religions cause the entire world to be connected in some way. (This would be less so in a setting like Greyhawk, which seems to have been made more piecemeal--although I admit I could be wrong about that; I don't know that much about Greyhawk's history.) If, as people have suggested, the goal is to start small--here is your Village of Hommlet, here's the surrounding lands, here's the point where the first adventure will take place, that's all you need--then using a tiny point on a preexisting map is going to feel very inadequate.

So let's say you take Greyhawk. Where exactly do you start? A specific location? The gods? The setting's theme and flavor?

Or the species? There's been some talk on this thread about how to get the newer species into Greyhawk, with some people saying it's really easy and others saying that it goes against the setting's flavor. You definitely don't have to worry about that if you're making a new setting, because you can add them all in at the start.

Now, this isn't to say that the chapter shouldn't include things like "every first draft sucks, it is okay" or "even the greatest settings started with a single page of notes, size comes with time, don't stress about it". Those are great things to include and I would relish their inclusion... but I don't understand why you think the chapter focusing on Greyhawk means it cannot do that, but if they made Bodal the new setting TM they can totally say those things. I think you are feeling more like this chapter is going to be "look at Greyhawk, the wonderful setting" and less "here is how to world-build using examples" and I don't get why you think that is the case.

I'm not saying that a chapter focusing on Greyhawk can't do that. I just think it would end up being better if they built a new world.

Plus, a lot of people have been clamoring for a new setting and this would be a good introduction to one. If it turns out that people like the setting that was produced in the book, then they put out a setting book for it. If people ended up being meh about it, then they don't.