Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Imaro]

I'm fairly sceptical of conjecture about how a RPG will play made by players who have never even read its rules, or the rules for a similar game, let alone had experience of playing it or seeing how it plays.

Okay... I'm unaware of a specific game we are speaking about, I thought the discussion was around worldbuilding vs. nonworldbuilding in a general sense...

Also now that I've stated my experiences... is all of your skepticism around whether these issues can happen gone?

 

[Riley37]

So this is a terribly flawed example.

I mentioned, at the start, that it was a particular scenario which I constructed specifically for the purpose of getting the answers I want. On another hand, at least it was a flawed example, rather than a categorical assertion that no table could EVER have fun doing D&D this way or that way.

Obviously if you set your campaign in the real world, you're not doing much world building.

Oh, my sweet summer child, may your innocence never be broken.

Then again, it'll get broken sooner or later, so let's get it over with:

https://entertainment.theonion.com/novelist-has-whole-:):):):):):)-world-plotted-out-1819572899

 

[Riley37]

Your Elven heraldry story is fun. I've never run a game in which heraldry mattered except as the barest colour, and can't imagine that ever changing, so to me that seems about the lightest possible touch of worldbuilding. (The working out of the ideals of the noble houses, implicit in sketching the devices, is a bit less light touch.) I put it in the same category as giving names to towns, lands and peoples.

In a D&D story set in the Forgotten Realms, if the party encounters a mounted armored warrior at the crossroads, with a shield displaying heraldic insignia which includes the Lord's Alliance symbol, that's a factor in the "Identify: Friend or Foe" process. Which in turn could be a factor in whether there's a surprise round.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes but then it has to swing both ways. For example if I say... hey consistency can be a major issue when one is creating the world in play as opposed to having some of it pre-authored and your reply is... well my group doesn't have issues with consistency when we play this way it's the same thing. I think an issue arises in discussion when you then in turn cite these example of bad play from the style you don't prefer and the same answer isn't deemed sufficient to answer said criticisms... so again it's either that we are discussing potential issues with both or we are discussing the perfect version of both whats disingenuous is to assume the perfect version for the style you prefer while extolling the failures of the flawed version of the style you do not.

I think there is SOME difference between saying "I don't have this problem" and saying "My technique should not be criticized for X because only a Scottsman would have that problem." Now, do these two positions often seem to merge and people state one and mean the other? Yeah, probably, at least sometimes, but you shouldn't criticize my position because someone did that!

As far as the consistency thing itself goes...

I think the degree to which pre-authorship of material and backstory (world building) 'creates consistency' is often vastly overrated and overstated. I think most settings, whether homebrew or published, aren't all that internally consistent. They may be consistent in some surface areas (maybe) like having a consistent map, and maybe they have consistent descriptions of locations, NPCs, etc. (maybe). Beyond that I find they are mostly pretty inconsistent. There's little, if any, way to enforce consistency on NPCs in play for instance, so they often act in unpredictable and GM-serving ways, or just in ways that are completely unrealistic, violate their descriptions, etc. In terms of things making 'logical sense', I don't think that happens much. So I'm not sure I see consistency as some sort of great virtue.

Nor do I see ease of play for the GM as a really great virtue. Obviously if I made up something last night before play, then its pretty fresh in my mind, and maybe it could be easier to lay it out. However, in my campaign I have 6 large notebooks, MANY loose maps and things, as well as a LARGE harddrive folder and a very extensive Wiki that are all full of stuff. Just to research an existing topic related to things that I KNOW have come up before and have canonical answers in my game is not always a small task!

 

[pemerton]

In a D&D story set in the Forgotten Realms, if the party encounters a mounted armored warrior at the crossroads, with a shield displaying heraldic insignia which includes the Lord's Alliance symbol, that's a factor in the "Identify: Friend or Foe" process. Which in turn could be a factor in whether there's a surprise round.

I can see that. As I said in the post to which you responded, I'm sure heraldry can be made important in all sorts of ways - I just don't myself have a good sense of what those are.

One of the interesting things about RPGing is the range of fictional elements that can be given significance by the players. My Burning Wheel PC has cooking skill, and an Instinct to always have a fire while camping. I'm not sure yet how those will come into play, but my GM is obliged (by the conventions of BW) to make them matter. In the rulebook, one example Instinct is to always have a hidden knife on my person, which I think a lot of RPGers could relate to. Another is to always have the ingredients for noodle soup ready to hand. I don't know what that game looked like, but clearly particuar dishes, and their ingredients, were more important than I can ever remember them having been in a game I played or GMed!

 

[pemerton]

Does the Cuthbertian estimate of how many angels, agree with the Tritherionist answer?

Returning to this - I at first took it to be a humorous aside, but on the chance that it's a genuine question, here's a straightfaced answer:

The typical Cuthbertian, I think, regards the question as nonsense: similar to the refutation of Berkely's idealism by kicking a stone.

For Tritherion it's trickier. The answer is, in effect, whatever the Kantian answer is to the same question, but I don't know what Kant's account of angels is. I'll try and do something from first principles: angels are spiritual beings, not of the phenomenal realm; so they are not "constructed" by the operation of mortal cognitive architecture; so the relation of on-ness (being a relation between material things located in time and space) doesn't pertain to them; so the question turns out to involve a category error. (When an angel manifests in phenomenal form so that mortals can deal with it, then the answer is "none" because the angel is bigger than the head of the pin.)

So it turns out that in an odd way the answer is the same, but arrived at via different methodologies. (Which is also one reason why Kant is my least favourite of the "great philosophers" - it seems a very complicated way of getting to a slightly banal common sense!)

 

[Hussar]

Honestly, a lot of folks who do a lot of extensive worldbuilding in RPGs (when not paid to do so) would be better served by writing and publishing their epic fantasy novels instead. It'd be far less frustrating and far more likely to be engaged by the audience in a meaningful way.

That's largely how I look at it. Take the old Dragon Magazine articles "Ecology of..". Now, these were a ton of fun to read. I really enjoyed them. But, from a practical standpoint, they were about as useful as a rubber hammer. The articles ran about 3000 words - about four to six pages or so by and large. Now, imagine, for a second that the "Ecology of" articles were written by me.

The articles would have a couple of paragraphs talking about what the critter in question is. Fair enough, you need something to frame the game with. You have to define what a Throat Warbler Mangrove is before you can use it in the game. But, my version would then have three to four encounters set up. Maybe a single encounter with the critter, a lair, and then the critter with allies. One page each, with a small map and whatnot. Four page article, one page of information, and three pages of encounters.

Now, if you're like me and you subscribed to Dragon, at the end of the year, you had 12 Ecology of articles that had lots of flavor, true, but, really didn't do much of anything to help you at the table. In my version, you'd have 12 monster descriptions and about 30-40 encounters that you could plug and play in your game. Far, far more useful IMO.

Can you show me a recent thread where the premise starts off with "choosing not to world build makes you a bad DM"? Right now there are 2 threads on the first page and they are based on the premise that worldbuilding is bad or that worldbuilding needs to be justified. I'm open to admiting it may be a bias on my part but I can't find a thread whose premise is that a DM is bad because he doesn't worldbuild, I only see that as a reaction to these types of threads...

This thread is predicated on the presumption that world building is good. It's a reaction to the common wisdom that if you are a DM, you MUST world build and anyone who doesn't do it is running a bad game. A game that lacks consistency, a game that lacks depth, etc. You can find all sorts of quotes for those points all through this thread. The whole REASON for having threads like this is because there is a basic presumption that if you DM, you will world build. Heck, the Dungeon Master Guides presume it. How much ink is spilled in any editions DMG detailing how you should build your game world? Pages upon pages upon pages. 2ed was replete with world building stuff, to the point where the 2e Monster Manual was written with one monster per page (or sometimes more). Compared to 1e where you'd get up to four monsters on a single page.

I mean, good grief, look at the reactions from the first page of this thread:

Utter crap.


RC

This is very relevant advice for a sci-fi writer.

This is terrible advice for most DMs.

This is somewhat appropriate advice for a small number of DMs with a very particular kind of style.

He's quite right - if you want the players to move through the world without really being in it.

Personally, I like to know that there is more to a gameworld than a series of dungeons, a list of maidens to be rescued/deflowered (depending upon alignment), etc. Games I've played in which had no depth seemed little more than multiplayer Fighting Fantasy books.

It would be interesting to have a poll on this subject.

QFT. Although some of my favorite sci-fi and fantasy authors defy that advice--Edgar Rice Burroughs, for instance. J. R. R. Tolkien. But I can see his point for an author. It's not really relevent for GMs. Running a game takes place in something closer to "realtime" than writing a story, so you need to have some details already in place when your players encounter them, becuase if you have to stop to think about them when they get there, that makes for a really boring game. It works for writing a story, but not playing a game.

The world builders took over the hobby years ago. What's being challenged now is the unspoken presumption that this was a good thing.

 

[gamerprinter]

Honestly, a lot of folks who do a lot of extensive worldbuilding in RPGs (when not paid to do so) would be better served by writing and publishing their epic fantasy novels instead. It'd be far less frustrating and far more likely to be engaged by the audience in a meaningful way.

No offense, but though I'm not "paid to do it", the exercise of world building I don't see as even slightly frustrating - it's the thing about being a GM I love most of all. Of course I love game prep too, another activity that many seem to find frustrating, but I thoroughly enjoy it. It's stage setting, creating maps, working out puzzles like matching challenges by CR to the party's level and the way the players run their characters. I would do it, and have done it, without a group that might even play it, though playing it is always more fun and engaging that not doing it.

While it's true I publish adventures, optional rules supplements, settings and even maps professionally and as my own small publisher now. You could say a lifetime of GMing and playing games lead me to eventually becoming a TTRPG publisher (mostly as 3PP for published game editions), but there was no guarantee I'd actually try - though I'm glad I did. And though I may write some kind of fiction like a short story or something, someday. I don't do world-building to write novels - an activity I really have no interest in. Funny, although I never really wanted to be an author, rather I pursued being a professional freelance cartographer, yet in work I've done for Paizo, Rite Publishing and other publishers, I found myself in the situation of... "nice map, now you need to write this gazetteer"... which I've done. I know so many wannabe authors trying to find the opportunity to get their written work published, and I haven't even tried, but am a published author.

My point is, I enjoying publishing the kind of games I play, but never want to be George R. R. Martin. World-building settings for games is what drew me into wanting to be a DM/GM in the first place - how can it be frustrating?

 

[Afrodyte]

No offense, but though I'm not "paid to do it", the exercise of world building I don't see as even slightly frustrating - it's the thing about being a GM I love most of all. Of course I love game prep too, another activity that many seem to find frustrating, but I thoroughly enjoy it. It's stage setting, creating maps, working out puzzles like matching challenges by CR to the party's level and the way the players run their characters. I would do it, and have done it, without a group that might even play it, though playing it is always more fun and engaging that not doing it.

While it's true I publish adventures, optional rules supplements, settings and even maps professionally and as my own small publisher now. You could say a lifetime of GMing and playing games lead me to eventually becoming a TTRPG publisher (mostly as 3PP for published game editions), but there was no guarantee I'd actually try - though I'm glad I did. And though I may write some kind of fiction like a short story or something, someday. I don't do world-building to write novels - an activity I really have no interest in. Funny, although I never really wanted to be an author, rather I pursued being a professional freelance cartographer, yet in work I've done for Paizo, Rite Publishing and other publishers, I found myself in the situation of... "nice map, now you need to write this gazetteer"... which I've done. I know so many wannabe authors trying to find the opportunity to get their written work published, and I haven't even tried, but am a published author.

My point is, I enjoying publishing the kind of games I play, but never want to be George R. R. Martin. World-building settings for games is what drew me into wanting to be a DM/GM in the first place - how can it be frustrating?

Novel is just one art form, but whatever form it takes that includes getting it in front of an audience that is not a game table, that's what I mean. Beyond the basics of genre, tone, atmosphere, theme, and aesthetic, most worldbuilding material is often of interest only to the GM. However, a lot of GMs do get a bit testy if players lack interest in the lovingly crafted worlds they created for the game.

If writing and mapmaking and creating languages for secondary worlds in your spare time is fun for you, go ahead and get your Tolkien on. But please do not toss hundreds of pages at me and expect me to be conversant with it in order to meaningfully participate in the game.

 

[gamerprinter]

Novel is just one art form, but whatever form it takes that includes getting it in front of an audience that is not a game table, that's what I mean. Beyond the basics of genre, tone, atmosphere, theme, and aesthetic, most worldbuilding material is often of interest only to the GM. However, a lot of GMs do get a bit testy if players lack interest in the lovingly crafted worlds they created for the game.

If writing and mapmaking and creating languages for secondary worlds in your spare time is fun for you, go ahead and get your Tolkien on. But please do not toss hundreds of pages at me and expect me to be conversant with it in order to meaningfully participate in the game.

Well I published the Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG) as an imprint under Rite Publishing, 15 books in all from between 2010 and 2017, though only the GM's Guide had hundreds of pages (about 210). And now I'm creating a larger setting and a specific region within that larger setting and giving it nuance - in fact I am just upgrading my Kaidan setting to MegaCorps, Starships and Cyberpunk. And while it is Japanese, I use Japanese naming conventions. I used lots of nuance and authenticity in the original Kaidan, which I am carrying forward to my sci-fi version, but it's really new territory, so more difficult to be authentic beyond culture and myth.

I never said anything about creating languages, though - yech, something I do not even slightly care to do. If I did nothing else, though, it would be maps, my true skill and talent. The publishing is just to create and release, my second most fun activity, and a place to do maps.

Really though, in my non-published world building exercises, I don't expect my players to know hundreds of pages of anything. They get an overview - even a lie with the truth kept hidden until they are forced to engage one particular aspect or another. It's just the flesh behind the game I'm running. I've given out a 15 page hand-out to players to serve as a player setting guide, even though I had a 100 or more pages for myself. If I ran a game with you, you'd never see more than 15 pages, if that. The world-building is for me the GM, not the player, at least not all at once. By the time a campaign is run within it, then players might learn 3/4ths of what I detailed. I just like to have a good idea regarding any questions or concerns during play and to be consistent with my answers to players. They'll never see the hundreds of pages I prepared - unless I publish it, and they choose to read it, learn it and run it. They are free to only use what works for their table - I don't need anyone to depend on the canon I create for anything, it's just there if you want it.

But language design... no thanks, I don't want or need that.