Why Worldbuilding is Bad
Ry
Explorer
Kamikaze Midget said:
Personally, I argue against setting prep for the exact reasons you describe. But if you're looking for simulationist play, where the players are supposed to explore and interact with an immersive world, you need to do at least a little worldbuilding. Again, not my style, but it's not an invalid choice.
Desdichado
Hero
Wow, that's a helpful post.Kafkonia said:
There's a lot to be said for simply ignoring threads that don't interest you rather than purposefully pissing in them.
For the record, I don't even know who M. John Harrison is, but I care more about what he says about things than I do about what Kafkonia says about things.
Emirikol
Adventurer
DM's would do well to heed this advice. I've been in campaigns where DM's sit around and design places where PC's will never go and never interact with meanwhile ignoring the most important thing: THE ADVENTURE. It's like designing a dungeon with a bunch of rooms that arent' accessable not related to any plot or interesting exploration whatsoever. It's like starting a campaign at first level and starting your levelled dungeon design at the 30th level of the underdark. If it's not part of the plot, don't waste your time. Time is precious.
That said, a DM must consider that he needs to present enough information for players to feel that they are "somewhere else." Those things would include: MAP, list of countries, short bio on any countries that the PC's may know something about, and LOCAL rumors that the PC's might know something about.
I've seen it done in Living Greyhawk. Triads neglecting scenario quality for nonsense things like pointless metaorgs and "behind the scenes" plot design.
If the players are never going to see it. DON'T BOTHER.
Ever read a scenario where the background is 52 pages long, but the scenario is only 8 pages and it's all about NPC motivations for the otyough and green slime and their symbiotic relationship with each other (or other such useless nonsense)?
The DM needs to balance his time carefully.
jh
P.s. (all caps for emphasis..not shouting) I'VE WASTED HUNDREDS OF HOURS ON WORLD DESIGN AND TOTALLY AGREE THAT IT'S NOTHING COMPARED TO THE ADVENTURE..FOR WHICH WORLD DESIGN HAS LITTLE EFFECT UPON THE QUALITY OF THE ADVENTURE.
..
That said, a DM must consider that he needs to present enough information for players to feel that they are "somewhere else." Those things would include: MAP, list of countries, short bio on any countries that the PC's may know something about, and LOCAL rumors that the PC's might know something about.
I've seen it done in Living Greyhawk. Triads neglecting scenario quality for nonsense things like pointless metaorgs and "behind the scenes" plot design.
If the players are never going to see it. DON'T BOTHER.
Ever read a scenario where the background is 52 pages long, but the scenario is only 8 pages and it's all about NPC motivations for the otyough and green slime and their symbiotic relationship with each other (or other such useless nonsense)?
The DM needs to balance his time carefully.
jh
P.s. (all caps for emphasis..not shouting) I'VE WASTED HUNDREDS OF HOURS ON WORLD DESIGN AND TOTALLY AGREE THAT IT'S NOTHING COMPARED TO THE ADVENTURE..FOR WHICH WORLD DESIGN HAS LITTLE EFFECT UPON THE QUALITY OF THE ADVENTURE.
..
Kamikaze Midget said:
No, it does not. The author-reader relationship is remarkably different from the DM-player relationship. No DM worth his salt thinks he or she "has to do everything around here". Instead, he thinks in terms of giving the players the information they need to decide what their characters should do.
As if all DMs fit a single "psychological type"? I don't think the characterization of all DMs as a single type is accurate in the slightest. No, I don't think many, or even most, DMs think in the manner you describe at all.
Kunimatyu
First Post
I'm going to go against the grain here, and say that this is great advice.
Design what your players will see, and don't design too far in advance - you want those blank spaces for when you get a cool idea, you don't want to go ahead and fill them just because they're empty.
Also, I've found that most players do not remember(or care!) about worldbuilding details, especially minor ones that don't serve a purpose in-game. If your players don't interact with these things, detailed worldbuilding is just intellectual masturbation that limits creativity later on.
Design what your players will see, and don't design too far in advance - you want those blank spaces for when you get a cool idea, you don't want to go ahead and fill them just because they're empty.
Also, I've found that most players do not remember(or care!) about worldbuilding details, especially minor ones that don't serve a purpose in-game. If your players don't interact with these things, detailed worldbuilding is just intellectual masturbation that limits creativity later on.
PhantomNarrator
First Post
RPG's are not fiction
It's true that worldbuilders can sometimes get caught up in minutiae that players will never exploit or appreciate, but a certain level of detail is essential to drawing people into the gaming experience.
Role-playing poses very different challenges than writing fiction does. Since any "plot" in a rpg should be totally dependent on the actions of the players rather than on characters under the author's control, long term campaigns need a level of worldbuilding and adventure design that fiction doesn't. People have to be able to interact with the environment, and you can never predict what players will ultimately do. This forces the GM to consider things fiction authors can usually safely ignore or get by on bluff.
It's true that worldbuilders can sometimes get caught up in minutiae that players will never exploit or appreciate, but a certain level of detail is essential to drawing people into the gaming experience.
Role-playing poses very different challenges than writing fiction does. Since any "plot" in a rpg should be totally dependent on the actions of the players rather than on characters under the author's control, long term campaigns need a level of worldbuilding and adventure design that fiction doesn't. People have to be able to interact with the environment, and you can never predict what players will ultimately do. This forces the GM to consider things fiction authors can usually safely ignore or get by on bluff.
Cam Banks
Adventurer
I think he's hit the nail on something, however.
There's a significant proportion of any fan base that desires everything to be laid out, explained, catalogued, referenced, indexed, and explored. From my experience writing Dragonlance game material and fiction, I've come face to face with this from some of the folks who I work with. Fans come from reading the books and want it all to be explained in some Holy Grail of a game sourcebook. They want all the stats, they want all the population figures, commerce, mundane information, motives, relationships, adventure hooks, charts, and so forth.
I wrote a short story for the most recent Dragonlance anthology, and I didn't name the town it took place in, or the names of three of the characters, because it was from the point of view of a half-ogre afflicted with feeblemind and it was all he could do just to focus on what was happening around him. No sooner had some of the regular message board folks read it, they wanted to know all of those details. I didn't have them, and I didn't really see a need to give them.
So are we on two sides of a divide, here? Do we all need the statistics, charts, solved mysteries, and so forth? Or is that just a thing some of us want?
Cheers,
Cam
There's a significant proportion of any fan base that desires everything to be laid out, explained, catalogued, referenced, indexed, and explored. From my experience writing Dragonlance game material and fiction, I've come face to face with this from some of the folks who I work with. Fans come from reading the books and want it all to be explained in some Holy Grail of a game sourcebook. They want all the stats, they want all the population figures, commerce, mundane information, motives, relationships, adventure hooks, charts, and so forth.
I wrote a short story for the most recent Dragonlance anthology, and I didn't name the town it took place in, or the names of three of the characters, because it was from the point of view of a half-ogre afflicted with feeblemind and it was all he could do just to focus on what was happening around him. No sooner had some of the regular message board folks read it, they wanted to know all of those details. I didn't have them, and I didn't really see a need to give them.
So are we on two sides of a divide, here? Do we all need the statistics, charts, solved mysteries, and so forth? Or is that just a thing some of us want?
Cheers,
Cam
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