Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Maxperson]

What are your motives then? But I'm not sure how obfuscating the meaning and sense of 'worldbuilding' serves any noble purpose.

It's not obfuscation, it's clarity. Worldbuilding encompasses anything you do to build the world/setting. There are subsections like adventure building, but to say that definitions have to be narrow to have meaning is absurd. It's broad. It has meaning.

 

[Maxperson]

We're talking about an aspect of writing (be it fiction or RPGs), if you broaden the definition to include the whole thing, well, it's become meaningless. It's a neat way of building a defense, you can't say 'world building' is bad if 'world building' is part of everything that makes an RPG, well, exist, because then you're just arguing that all RPGs are bad...

I've never said or implied that everything that makes an RPG is part of worldbuilding, though. That's a misrepresentation of others here.

 

[Hussar]

I've never said or implied that everything that makes an RPG is part of worldbuilding, though. That's a misrepresentation of others here.

What is excluded then? You've included character creation, setting creation, adventure creation and probably a few other bits and bobs. What else is there? You've have a character, you have an adventure, you have a setting. That's the sum total of the entire game. What, in your view, is part of an RPG that isn't included in your definition of world building? it would be very helpful if you could be a bit more specific. Because, from where I'm sitting, it looks like you've included every single act before, during and after play under the umbrella of world building.

It is worldbuilding. It builds the world, which is the very definition of worldbuilding. When you write a story about an assassin taking out the King, that has a profound impact on the shape of the world. If your story has a child kidnapped from a farmer, that has a minor impact on the world. Both of those acts are worldbuilding. There is nothing about a functional world required for worldbuilding, and back in the day, the town and dungeon was the functional world. It functioned as needed to set the games in. That's all worldbuilding is for an RPG. Creation of a setting to play the game in, and story is part of the setting.

Sorry, but, no. World building is NOT plot. You can have plot with zero world building - theater does it all the time. There is no world building in Waiting for Godot. Heck, Phantom of the Opera has no world building. Don't think so? What time period does Phantom occur in? What city? What is outside the opera house? After all, people come and go to and from the opera house, so, they have to have somewhere to go to. Yet, none of that is described in Phantom.

IOW, you can have a pretty elaborate plot and story with tons of characterization without a shred of world building.

 

[Lanefan]

Sorry, but, no. World building is NOT plot. You can have plot with zero world building - theater does it all the time. There is no world building in Waiting for Godot. Heck, Phantom of the Opera has no world building. Don't think so? What time period does Phantom occur in? What city? What is outside the opera house? After all, people come and go to and from the opera house, so, they have to have somewhere to go to. Yet, none of that is described in Phantom.

IOW, you can have a pretty elaborate plot and story with tons of characterization without a shred of world building.

Phantom of the Opera has a rather large advantage over the typical RPG campaign in that it is designed to be performed over but a few hours in one sitting, and has to get its story told within that time. At best it goes on for about the length of one (1) D&D session.

Were it expected to go on for several (or many) more "sessions", and assuming the performers were off-script but still in character i.e. similar to player role-playing their game characters, it is inevitable they would sooner or later want to move the story and-or plot beyond the confines of the theatre; meaning they need to somehow be informed what's out there so they can interact with it.

Lanefan

 

[Hussar]

Of course [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]. But, again, I've always said that you need setting. That's fine. What wouldn't be needed is the last five hundred years of history of the city they were in. Or the last five thousand. Which is where world building kicks in.

But, again, my point is that world building is distinct from plot and character. And, frankly, it's distinct from setting as well. It's when setting building becomes an end in its own.

 

[pemerton]

World building is NOT plot. You can have plot with zero world building - theater does it all the time. There is no world building in Waiting for Godot. Heck, Phantom of the Opera has no world building. Don't think so? What time period does Phantom occur in? What city? What is outside the opera house? After all, people come and go to and from the opera house, so, they have to have somewhere to go to. Yet, none of that is described in Phantom.

IOW, you can have a pretty elaborate plot and story with tons of characterization without a shred of world building.

A couple of additional points.

(1) Even if the action (of the play, of the RPG session) extends beyond the opera house, you can add on that stuff as needed. In serial fiction, new elements of the setting are established as needed. In RPGing the same thing is possible. The fact that some GMs and some RPG groups prefer that it all be done in advance doesn't show that it has to be. So someone who says "I find worldbuilding to be unhelpful/counterproductive" isn't necessarily confused about what RPGing involves. Nor are they necessarily saying that those who enjoy it are confused.

(2) This semantic debate seems exceptionally pointless. If someone says "Worldbuilding is bad" because eg it kills spontaneity or it bogs down narration in needless detail, it's pretty clear what they have in mind. Someone else may or may not agree with that; but it adds nothing to the conversation to bog it down with discussion of whether "worldbuilding" is the word that ought to have been used to express that preference.

 

[Aldarc]

It's not obfuscation, it's clarity. Worldbuilding encompasses anything you do to build the world/setting. There are subsections like adventure building, but to say that definitions have to be narrow to have meaning is absurd. It's broad. It has meaning.

Sure, but repeating that assertion that I disagree with isn't going to make me agree with it. I doubt, however, that further conversation on this point will bear ripe fruit.

I think we keep stumbling into this somehow. People use a word for what it generally means in the hobby, then it gets labeled so broad it encompasses all of roleplaying. I am not really sure how we can proceed here.

I would say that is also a stumbling block: a few people make an assertion for "what it generally means in the hobby" when it runs counter to the experience or understanding of others. Attempting to steamroll others by repeating your assertion that your definition is "conventional" or "generally means in the hobby" only exacerbates the frustration with definitions. You think people are narrowing the definition down, when in fact they are working with their own sense of the conventional definition, cognitive sense, or meaning. Again, I would say that a simple Google search about "worldbuilding tips" demonstrates that the word's general meaning often has a more restricted cognitive and connotative sense.

Personally I think arguments against world building as navel gazing, while they can definitely apply well to fiction, apply less well to gaming. Because in gaming that stuff under the surface that may or may not come up or be relevant, is incredibly important.

It strikes me as a vanity to think that this applies more to fiction than than gaming, because such excess worldbuilding IMHO often comes from GMs who are using their worldbuilding as an exercise of self-indulgence.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It strikes me as a vanity to think that this applies more to fiction than than gaming, because such excess worldbuilding IMHO often comes from GMs who are using their worldbuilding as an exercise of self-indulgence.

I think you are projecting here. All I can go on is what works when I run games, and what I've seen from other GMs. I just know from experience, the more world building effort I put in, the easier my games are to run and the more fun they tend to be. There is definitely a point of diminishing returns, and there is definitely a point at which you are just spending too much free time on world building that could be better spent on something else in your life, but world building (even if we go with a more narrow definition) is still crucial for me when I am running a game.

That said, I run more spontaneous games as well. I understand you don't have to world build everything under the sun. But there are definitely campaigns that benefit strongly from world building. Heck, I think most of those anti-world building advice articles for fiction are pretty stupid as well. I mean some of the best science fiction, fantasy and literature I've read took time to world build. I don't need every book of fiction I read to be focused on world building, because lots of stories don't need that. But something like Dune or City and the Stars, or Ringworld, or even The End of Eternity, requires world building to make sense and be interesting.

 

[Maxperson]

What is excluded then? You've included character creation, setting creation, adventure creation and probably a few other bits and bobs. What else is there? You've have a character, you have an adventure, you have a setting. That's the sum total of the entire game.

You just create a setting and then just sit there do you? My group, we actually play the game when the worldbuilding of the setting done. That doesn't mean that all worldbuilding ceases after play begins. If the DM hasn't created all of the adventures prior to the start of play, he will be engaged in worldbuilding as he builds more adventures. That's not game play, though.

Sorry, but, no. World building is NOT plot. You can have plot with zero world building - theater does it all the time. There is no world building in Waiting for Godot. Heck, Phantom of the Opera has no world building. Don't think so? What time period does Phantom occur in? What city? What is outside the opera house? After all, people come and go to and from the opera house, so, they have to have somewhere to go to. Yet, none of that is described in Phantom.

I don't know why you persist in showing me something that isn't an RPG as an example of an RPG. Showing me an apple when I'm talking about oranges accomplishes nothing.

 

[Maxperson]

Phantom of the Opera has a rather large advantage over the typical RPG campaign in that it is designed to be performed over but a few hours in one sitting, and has to get its story told within that time. At best it goes on for about the length of one (1) D&D session.

Were it expected to go on for several (or many) more "sessions", and assuming the performers were off-script but still in character i.e. similar to player role-playing their game characters, it is inevitable they would sooner or later want to move the story and-or plot beyond the confines of the theatre; meaning they need to somehow be informed what's out there so they can interact with it.

Lanefan

You would need that in the first few hours as well, if it were an RPG where the participants would be coming up with their own script and questions. Phantom is not an RPG and the way it is set up does not at all represent an RPG adventure. It's apples and oranges.