Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Hussar]

Oh, it does, it does.

Just making things explicit for the gallery.

Breathing is bad. Of course, when I say breathing, I mean breathing on people when you're sick, and spreading germs on them. If you say breathing means anything else, I accuse you of playing semantics. If you agree, on the basis of my definition, that breathing is bad, I then take it to mean that all breathing is bad using a much wider definition.

Discuss.

​

LOL.

OTOH, if there was another perfectly good word for breathing, then you might have a point.

See, there is a perfectly good word for talking about where the action occurs in a story - it's called setting. When you building the place where teh action occurs, you are building setting. But, apparently, that bit of simple English isn't highbrow enough. So, we need a totally new word. World building. Wow, that sounds just so much more impressive than setting building. We're not just crafting a well thought out setting, we're making A WHOLE WORLD.

See how the straw man you guys build falls apart when you actually have real English words to work with? If World Building=Setting Construction, then of course it's not a bad thing. I've said all the way along that you need setting.

Basically, you've just flipped my argument around. I say world building is indulgent because it is by definition. World building=extraneous creation that doesn't add to the plot. If it adds to the plot, then it's setting building. You're just saying that world building=setting creation, therefore it's a good thing. Me, I say that definition is meaningless since we already have a perfectly good word for where the action happens: setting.

Back a while Darth Shoju asked if I thought you didn't need any monster manuals. No, I think that you need a monster manual. It helps to keep the workload way down to have stock monsters already statted. Heck, I'll buy that you might even need two monster manuals. But, and here comes the indulgent part, do we really need:

• 4, soon to be 5, Monster Manuals
• 3 Creature Collections
• 2 Tome of Horrors
• Denizens of Avadnu
• Fiend Folio
• Probably half a dozen or more monster books

At what point can we say, hey, y'know what? That's a bit much. Twenty THOUSAND pages of setting material is slightly overkill. Five or six THOUSAND statted monsters is slightly on the high side. Several hundred races is probably just a tad more than necessary. A couple of thousand PrC's is just a smidgeon unnecessary.

I never, ever said that you don't need setting. You all are the ones saying that putting bunnies on a hill is world building. That placing trees in a forest is world building. That dropping propper nouns is world building. You're the one claiming all setting building is world building, not me. Me, I'll stick to buildilng settings thank you very much. I'll leave articles on the color of rooftops in Forgotten Realms to those who truly appreciate the value of world building.

On a side note, I finally understand completely why RC and I disagree so much on how much work needs to be done on the World's Largest Dungeon. Me, if I reran it, I would take about two or three hours to patch the problems that I spotted when I ran it. Mostly some consistency stuff in the maps (big monsters in small rooms, things like that) and some tweaks because I don't like the idea of nerfing broad ranges of spells for no reason (personally, I think the spell nerfs had a lot more to do with jim pinto than any playtest issues.). OTOH, RC claims that it would take him a very long time to create a complete setting in which to run the WLD. That the WLD, as is, needs massive rewriting in order to add "depth" and "history". I'm not saying he's wrong. He's right, for him. For me, that would be a complete waste of time and rather boring to boot. But, this thread does illustrate quite nicely the differences in approach.

IMNSHO, gamer culture has been bombarded with so many of these "world building" books that we take it for granted that IT MUST BE DONE. After all, Papa Tolkien did it, so we must have to too. We all want to be like the Professor, thus, we must do reams of world building in order to have "depth" and whatnot. If this thread has done one thing for me it's show me how ingrained that idea is. That people would simply brush off the idea of putting adventure first as shallow and immature gaming surprises the heck out of me. But, it also does show me why RPG publishers crank out setting books as fast as they can to feed the great clomping nerds in all of us.

 

[Hussar]

It's bugging me, so I'll add another thought.

Take the hill with bunnies and the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing encounter. Placing rabbits on a hill is not world building. It's just setting. It's creates an atmosphere of idyllic peace. Detailing the life cycles of those rabbits would be world building. Putting a hill there isn't world building. Again, it's simply setting - a place for the action to happen. Talking about how ancient halflings used the hill in their moon worshipping ceremonies centuries ago would be world building. Putting the monster there isn't world building, it's the antagonist. It's not even setting. Detailing the history of the creature when that history isn't going to affect play would be world building.

I hope that makes my point crystal clear.

I really get the sense that people object the idea that setting creation =/= world building because it hits them in the ego. They aren't simply making a setting, they are creating a WORLD It's almost as if setting creation just isn't a grand enough term for the amount of work they think needs to go into a setting before the setting has "depth". It almost seems that people need a grandiose title that sounds better than just plain old setting creation. Anyone can make a setting, only true artists can build a world (Cue fanfare).

 

[khyron1144]

I've been working on one world since middle school.


I've discarded pages upon pages of notes on NPCs, history and geography, but certain elements have remained consistent throughout.

I think that makes me a better DM not a worse DM.


At some point, if there are enough adventures there, a world gets built no matter what, consider Discworld as a literary example, especially the city of Ankh-Morpork.


What counts as world-building?
Making another character for your NPC folder?
Telling the PCs the name of the ruler of the land they are in?
Figuring out where the Dwarven Mountains are in relation to the Cities of the Coast?
Coming up with some detailed flavor text for a homebrew adventure once the map is done; something that gives the PCs a logical reason to go to the dungeon?

At some point all of these activities are necessary to some degree or another.

 

[LostSoul]

You know what? I think you are right. I have a suspicion you and I could play in the same campaign without any problem.

I have a feeling that most people involved in this thread could, after 20 minutes discussion, have a great game.

No idea where I got that from, though.

 

[Hussar]

Heh, Why Bodybuilding is Bad.

See, I look at it this way. People are stating that setting creation and world building are the same thing. Thus, the Bodybuilding joke looks like this:

When you body build, you build muscles. When you exercise, you build muscles, therefore all exercise is body building. No matter what kind of exercise you are doing, you are bodybuilding. Anyone who says that perhaps bodybuilding isn't the best activity is therefore stupid because, well, we all know that exercise is good for you, so, it follows that bodybuilding is good for you.

Dissenting voice - but, what about exercise that isn't about building muscle? There's a whole host of exercises out there that have little to do with body building. Like yoga for instance.

Irrelavent. Whenever you do exercise, you are building muscle. Therefore you are bodybuilding by definition since the definition of body building is building muscle.

Dissenting voice - but, hang on. What if you change your goals? What if, instead of building muscle, you want to work on cardiovascular capacity or endurance?

Irrelavent, even when you do do those things, you are still building muscle, so you are body building.

Change the words body building to world building and exercise to setting construction and you get my point. We can most certainly create setting without world buildilng. Waiting for Godot is my favourite example of this. World building is a subset, a specific set of activities, within setting creation. World building is going beyond what you need and into setting creation for its own sake. Sure, there's lots of grey in the middle, that's fine. But it's a mistake to conflate setting creation with world building. World building requires a number of actions to be taken. Simply dropping a proper noun isn't enough. You need to go beyond and detail the history, surroundings, whatnot of that proper noun.

Mine, and I think Rounser's point of view here is that most DM's engage in body building when they don't need to. They could instead take up swimming or yoga, get just as fit and not require thousands of dollars of expensive equipment. Or, to put it another way, you can create your campaigns without spending huge amounts of resources, either money or time, detailing out a setting and instead, focus on adventures and let the setting simply fade to the background.

 

[Raven Crowking]

It almost seems that people need a grandiose title that sounds better than just plain old setting creation. Anyone can make a setting, only true artists can build a world (Cue fanfare).

Where in tarnation are you getting this stuff?

If that was actually the position of anyone on this thread, then that person would be declaring from the top of his lungs that world building is not and could not be setting creation.

Much like your previous statement I asked a link for, you are pulling this out of the same place that someone who hasn't done prep gets his ideas at the table.

The "world" in a fictional story or rpg isn't necessarily a literal world. Sometimes, as in a sf game, it is more than a world. Sometimes it is less. Sometimes it includes lists of monsters that can be encountered, and their statistics. Sometimes it is a small town like Sunnydale and the larger "world" is merely implied.

"Worldbuilding" relates to "building the setting for a particular adventure" in the same way that "fish" relates to "trout"......And also the way that "fish" relates to "good eating".

All trout are fish. That doesn't mean that all fish are trout. The category "building the setting for a particular adventure" is a subset of the category "worldbuilding". Worldbuilding can encompase many different subsets, such as creating a web of NPCs designed to play foils to the stated goals of the PCs. When you are creating backdrop, you are building the "world" in which the action takes place. Note that this is an ongoing activity in almost every game, where the interaction between players and DM add to the world, and build upon what has gone before. Also, most DMs add to the world in terms of creating new adventure settings, while most players add to the world in terms of creating new character backgrounds.

Not all fish are good eating. Likewise, not all parts of worldbuilding necessarily lead to an enhancement of the experience of reading or playing in a role-playing game. Some are downright vile (although it is still quite likely that someone, somewhere, likes that particular type of "fish"). Some types of fish are poisonous, and need very careful preparation if they are to be consumed to good effect. Some people are allergic to, or just do not like, fish no matter how appetizing they are to the population at large.

I know that this is not how you use the term, but it is how the term is used in general whether you like it or not. That there are multiple words or phrases that can be used to refer to the same thing is not only common in English, but it is irrelevant.

So, you can either accept that (1) given your definition of worldbuilding, no one disagrees with you, but that we don't accept that the definition is valid for general use, or (2) you can stop playing Alice in Wonderland's Humpty Dumpty for whom words mean whatever he wishes them to mean when he uses them, regardless of general usage.

As to (1), myself and others have already agreed ad infinitum ad nauseum that if you define worldbuilding as "building setting that is worthless and bad" then the statement "worldbuilding is bad" is tautologically true.

As to (2), general definitions are widely available on the Internet. If there is any authority you accept other than your own, please let me know and I'll try to gain the applicable quote.

There is, of course, a third choice: Accept neither.

OTOH, if that is your choice, I can and will continue to be amused by your unwillingness or inability to accept either.

 

[rounser]

I hope that makes my point crystal clear.

*claps*

As to (1), myself and others have already agreed ad infinitum ad nauseum that if you define worldbuilding as "building setting that is worthless and bad" then the statement "worldbuilding is bad" is tautologically true.

You're playing a deliberate trick with words there. Your worldbuilding isn't "setting" by his definition if it doesn't manifest in some form as support for an adventure, so worldbuilding is not "building setting that is worthless and bad" because not all worldbuilding counts as setting, by his definition (which I thoroughly agree with).

As to (2), general definitions are widely available on the Internet. If there is any authority you accept other than your own, please let me know and I'll try to gain the applicable quote.

"Widely available on the internet" apparently means returning this thread as the top Google result, which is kind of ironic and happens to undermine that assertion totally. And it's not in a dictionary, because it's a turn of phrase, which literally means "building a world" in the english language. Setting, on the other hand, means something entirely different....and it's actually in the dictionary. Hmm...not looking good for that argument of yours, better try another.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I have a feeling that most people involved in this thread could, after 20 minutes discussion, have a great game.

No idea where I got that from, though.

Probably some hack.

 

[gizmo33]

I really get the sense that people object the idea that setting creation =/= world building because it hits them in the ego.

Wow, now who's "world building"? In the world I'm building, everyone who disagrees with me is doing so because they're Chaotic Evil (cue blood-curdling scream). In fact, the harder I think about it the more I have the sense that this is the case. Now all I have to do is have the will power to ignore 22 pages of explanation as to why they actually think what they do.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You're playing a deliberate trick with words there. Your worldbuilding isn't "setting" by his definition if it doesn't manifest in some form as support for an adventure, so worldbuilding is not "building setting that is worthless and bad" because not all worldbuilding counts as setting, by his definition (which I thoroughly agree with).

WTF?!?!?!

Can you rephrase that?

EDIT: Actually, on rereading, I think I see what you are trying to say. Let me see if I can rephrase:

Setting exists only as support for an adventure/story.

Worldbuilding is any creation of material that would otherwise be called setting that is not support for an adventure/story.​

The gist of this is that, in the parlance of everyone else, what you are calling "worldbuilding" is simply the construction of setting that isn't used. In that case, I can't even say that this makes sense in a tautological way. What happens when that setting material gets used? Suddenly it becomes "good setting" as opposed to "bad worldbuilding"? This is what Celebrim called "quantum worldbuilding" and it makes little (or no) rational sense.

Far from trying to play tricks with words, I was assuming that what you were saying made sense within its own framework. END EDIT

Also, are you certain that worldbuilding isn't in the Oxford Unabridged?