Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Tony Vargas]

I gamed all through the 90s, with lots of different people, and my experience was most everyone in my game group who bought these books and settings were also running them (I played in Planescape campaigns, Darksun campaigns, WoD campaigns, etc). ....

Nod, that's kinda inevitable, really.
If you were buying the book to read, not run/play, you wouldn't be in a group playing in that setting. Heck, if you liked a setting but couldn't find a group, buying the books to read may have been what you settled for, at least, initially. As the trend of writing supplements to be read as entertainment advanced, that could change...

 

[pemerton]

Okay....don’t you feel you’ve edited out part of my comment that would go a long way toward addressing this?

Obviously not, or I wouldn't have snipped it out!

Would you say that when Gygax (let’s assume it was him for the purpose of discussion) introduced the Otyugh into a game with the intention of explaining where all the waste from the dungeon’s denizens went, that this was an instance of worldbuilding?

If Gygax put an otyugh into a dungeon for the reason you give, that would be worldbuilding (on a fairly modest scale).

But writing up a monster to serve a certain ecological role isn't worldbuilding. No world has been built. And buying a MM isn't worldbuilding, for the same reason.

The lore...or fluff or worldbuilding....is what goves context to things. This is why it’s so prevalent in game books, and why it’s not likely to go away.

I don't think "lore", "fluff" and "worldbuilding" are synonyms in this context.

That troglodytes live in caves and give of a stink that nauseates most other creatures is lore, or "fluff", but in itself isn't worldbulding.

How is creating a monster worldbuilding? What bit of the gameworld did I establish by buying a MM?

You built the existence of that monster into your world. There are two possibilities when you buy the MM. All monsters in it are in your game world, in which case you just worldbuilt all of them into it, or else not all monsters in it are in your game world, so you worldbuild them in individually when you use them.

So, buying a MM isn't worldbuilding. And nor is creating a monster. Neither of those involves using a monster in play. They may be preliminaries to such a thing.

 

[Hussar]

We understand that. The reality is, though, that what you don't consider world building is worldbuilding, and what you consider to be worldbuilding is just excessive worldbuilding.

THANK YOU!

Finally, after 1600+ posts in the thread, you folks finally have given me a term I can use without having to explain my point of view repeatedly, time after time, because you folks insist on trying to make it sound like I'm saying something I'm not.

Excessive World Building is the acceptable term? If I use Excessive World Building every time I post in this thread, does that mean I can stop having to re-explain myself over and over again?

Ok, so, is Excessive World Building bad? IMO, yes, yes it is. For all the reasons I've elucidated in this thread.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Ok, so, is Excessive World Building bad? IMO, yes, yes it is. For all the reasons I've elucidated in this thread.

IDK, what makes it 'excessive?' ;P

Seriously, though (not too seriously), I dropped the term 'Setting Tourism' somewhere up-thread, and that's kinda my personal line beyond which World Building becomes excessive, not when you've done too much world building, but when the need to show it off becomes overwhelming and you drag your poor PCs through it just for that purpose....

 

[Hussar]

IDK, what makes it 'excessive?' ;P

Seriously, though (not too seriously), I dropped the term 'Setting Tourism' somewhere up-thread, and that's kinda my personal line beyond which World Building becomes excessive, not when you've done too much world building, but when the need to show it off becomes overwhelming and you drag your poor PCs through it just for that purpose....

But, here's the point. I posted a quote from a Dungeon module above about how, thousands of years ago, the Olman people were more advanced than they are now. Ok, fair enough. We can agree (I think) that that's world building.

And it has zero to do with the actual adventure and virtually no way to actually come up at the table unless the DM specifically makes a point to do so.

So much of the hobby is chock a block with this sort of thing. Stuff to be read and not used. It becomes very intrusive as well. Planescape has completely dominated any planar material for D&D for several editions. Saying that kobolds are sometimes slaves to dragons changes both kobolds and dragons. Since when did dragons keep slaves? I'm drawing a blank on a single genre story that talks about our dragon slaying hero having to wade through hordes of slaves to get to the dragon.

Once that stuff starts getting established, it's virtually impossible to change. People internalize it, despite the fact that it probably never actually appeared in their games, to the point where any change to that excessive world building is viewed as bad, not because the idea is necessarily bad, but, because it changes lore that virtually no one ever used in the first place.

It's unnecessary, fills book after book after book with pointless trivia, and claims a place of much more importance than it really should.

 

[Maxperson]

THANK YOU!

Er, you're welcome, but I've said that like 3-4 times now, at least twice to you

Excessive World Building is the acceptable term? If I use Excessive World Building every time I post in this thread, does that mean I can stop having to re-explain myself over and over again?

Ok, so, is Excessive World Building bad? IMO, yes, yes it is. For all the reasons I've elucidated in this thread.

Sure, but excessive is in the eye of the beholder. What is excessive to you, isn't going to be excessive to me, and what you find fine, might be excessive to someone else. Since 1e, only 2e had times where I thought that it got excessive. Personally, I'd rather have the problem of excessive worldbuilding than too little worldbuilding. It's simple to chop out as much as I like, but making more is a lot tougher.

 

[Maxperson]

So, buying a MM isn't worldbuilding. And nor is creating a monster. Neither of those involves using a monster in play. They may be preliminaries to such a thing.

Buying a MM is not itself worldbuilding since we don't know if or what you will choose to place into your world. Building a monster usually will be worldbuilding, because most of the time people will be building it to place into their game. I suppose someone might just build monster for fun and not for use, but that seems a lot less likely.

 

[Lanefan]

If Gygax put an otyugh into a dungeon for the reason you give, that would be worldbuilding (on a fairly modest scale).

That'd be adventure-building, more likely; as part of that process is stocking the dungeon with inhabitants.

But writing up a monster to serve a certain ecological role isn't worldbuilding. No world has been built. And buying a MM isn't worldbuilding, for the same reason.

I don't think "lore", "fluff" and "worldbuilding" are synonyms in this context.

That troglodytes live in caves and give of a stink that nauseates most other creatures is lore, or "fluff", but in itself isn't worldbulding.

Agreed.

But as soon as you decide that some of those stinky trog caves are going to be on the west shore of Wycliff Lake and that said trogs have recently started becoming much more of a danger to fisherfolk on said lake...now you're into worldbuilding, in terms of either (likely) setting the scene for a potential adventure or (less likely) setting up a background story that may or may not become relevant later.

So, buying a MM isn't worldbuilding. And nor is creating a monster. Neither of those involves using a monster in play. They may be preliminaries to such a thing.

Even 'using a monster in play' isn't necessarily worldbuilding. It's the step between these pahses where worldbuilding may occur. So, it goes:

1. Buy a MM or invent a new monster or whatever, and maybe give it an 'ecology' and-or some setting-neutral lore (no worldbuilding here)
2. Place those monsters within your world, in terms of what regions in which they are most commonly found etc. (this is the worldbuilding bit)
3. Use the monsters in an adventure or dungeon (this is adventure design).

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

I suppose someone might just build monster for fun and not for use, but that seems a lot less likely.

I wrote up a sphinx in Burning Wheel to see what it might look like. I have no idea if I'll ever use it!

 

[pemerton]

Since when did dragons keep slaves? I'm drawing a blank on a single genre story that talks about our dragon slaying hero having to wade through hordes of slaves to get to the dragon.

I think this is more a function of D&D's various systems, including combat resolution and monster-building: historically it was hard to build an effective "solo" dragon, and to make the struggle to climb the slag-pile of the dragon's lair interesting and challenging in play, and so instead the dragon was given servitors instead.