Why Worldbuilding is Bad

Infernal Teddy · Apr 17, 2007

Who?

Sorry, but as a GM, part of the fun - for me - is world building, and watching the enjoyment the players show at my creation.

Celebrim · Apr 17, 2007

Kamikaze Midget said:
To be fair, that's 100% a valid criticism.

Because 100 million readers world wide just have to be wrong...

Lots of people are fans of Tolkien, but Steve Jackson cut out huge swaths of the books to make things flow faster and to tell a more dramatic story.

That is a matter of opinion. After, Peter Jackson's klunker of a movie in 'King Kong', its increasingly being floated around Hollywood that maybe Peter Jackson isn't so much a great director as someone that had such good material that it would have been hard to be even the slightest bit faithful to it and manage not to be extraordinarily successful. Again, 100 million readers and all. For one thing, its not at all clear that anything PJ did to the story made it any more accessible, so much visualizing a story and trimming it down ALWAYS makes it more accessible to the wider public. For my money, the real secret to the movies success was neither the questionable script nor the often plodding direction, but Lee and Howe's visuals.

And the people who are the most intense fans of Tolkien...tend to be boring nerds.

Ahhh, yes. The ad hominem attack in place of actual argument. I don't suppose that it ever occurred to you that people who tend to be intense fans of books of any sort, tend to be 'boring nerds'. The argument is therefore circular. People are made nerds by definition of 'liking to read'. It doesn't necessarily follow that this sterotype is valid in any fashion.

The idea that Tolkien isn't that great of a writer is hardly a revolutionary idea.

No, but it is one that increasingly calls into question the taste of those holding the idea.

ShinHakkaider · Apr 17, 2007

Cam Banks said:
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

It's a thing that some of us want. The few times I do end up playing my GM tends to give us a general idea of what's around but doesnt flesh anything out outside of where we are until it's pretty clear that we're getting ready to go there. As longtime DM I started out with the superdetailed model then eventually came to my senses and went on the build as you go model.

Superdetailed settings are kind of a turnoff for me only because as DM becoming familiar with these settings seems more like homework than fun work. I own several settings that I strip mine materials from for my own games. Material like Wilderlands of High Fantasy work fine for me so much material to use, and no one really needs to know where it originally came from.

the Jester · Apr 17, 2007

Kamikaze Midget said:
Sci-fi writer M John Harrison tells you why you don't need to spend hours crafting your campaign setting... Discuss.

Sci-fi novels are NOT roleplaying games. For a sci-fi novel, he may be right. For an rpg, he is completely wrong.

Doug McCrae · Apr 17, 2007

Vanuslux said:
Sooooooo...by this logic Tolkien is a boring nerd?

All nerds are boring, and Tolkien is the king of the nerds.

Charwoman Gene · Apr 17, 2007

Kamikaze Midget said:
Check out the Wikipedia page. He's not just some hack.

Did you even READ the first line of the Wikipedia entry??????

M. John Harrison
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=M._John_Harrison&oldid=123555420

Celebrim · Apr 17, 2007

Kamikaze Midget said:
But this isn't about the messenger, it's about what he's saying. He's got at least enough cred to validly offer advise to other creators.

Does he? If what he's saying doesn't make sense, which it doesn't, and is offered without support for the position, which it is, and doesn't correspond to the observed nature of the world - namely that lots of skillful writers do engage in world building, then it is fair to ask what sort of person is offering the position. And the answer is, the writer is famous for writing high brow narratives that deconstruct the role of myth making in the telling of fiction. In other words, he writes stories about writing stories, and seems to be solely famous for that - not surprisingly mostly within the literary community itself, since these are the ones that would care.

So basically what we have here is someone elevating his opinion to the level of fact, and then broadly and preemptively insulting anyone that might disagree with him.

I'm A Banana · Apr 17, 2007

No, but it is one that increasingly calls into question the taste of those holding the idea.

Celebrim, take a deep breath. I was just pointing out that invoking Tolkien doesn't defend the idea that worldbuilding is somehow essential to D&D nearly enough, because for all the worldbuilding he did, his books can still come across as clunky, plodding, and more fascinated with their own detail than with telling a gripping story. Tolkien is praised for a lot of things, but never his efficiency.

Invoking Tolkien isn't the way to prove the point that D&D needs extensive worldbuilding, and that the advise to not bother with much worldbuilding still stands because a lot of Tolkien's worldbuilding *was* wasted effort as far as LotR was concerned.

TerraDave · Apr 17, 2007

Vanuslux said:
Sooooooo...by this logic Tolkien is a boring nerd?

Well exactly. As far as I can tell, "world building" has been a central part of many successful fantasy and sci fi, er, worlds.

And think of other media. Watch the "making of" part of any decent fantasy movie or something from a related genre. Lots of sometimes almost litteral "world building". Or practically any successfull fantasy computer/video/online game. All about the world(s).

I am actually curious to know what the counter example is?

Raven Crowking · Apr 17, 2007

Peni Griffin said:
Actually, it's not particularly good advice even for writers. It's advice to "do things my way, not your way," based on a weakness which the author lacks, but to which not all worldbuilders fall prey; i.e., building the world at the expense of the story. He'd spend his time better giving advice about how to approach his own strengths and avoid his own weaknesses - the only topics any of us can truly give useful advice on.

Tolkien would never have written the Hobbit or LOTR if he hadn't had his language- and world-building hobby. Diana Wynne Jones makes worlds the way other people make sandwiches - vivid, realistic, self-consistent worlds and series of worlds about which the reader learns just the right amount. I don't know how much work she puts into the process of creating them, and I don't need to know. The result counts. How you get there doesn't.

There are nine and sixty ways of creating tribal lays, and every single one of them is right. Some people have to have the worldbuilding and some people get bogged down in them and some people can't make them at all, and make a virtue of it. There's no point in making hard-and-fast rules about any of it. Personally, I have to overprepare for every session I DM, every public talk I give, everything I do that involves prolonged speaking. Other people can do satisfactory games at five minutes notice.

More power to everybody. Do it the way that works for you, not the way that works for somebody else.

Excellent post, Peni Griffin.

There is a world of difference (pun intended) between becoming mired in something and using something as a tool. As it is impossible to actually build a complete world, the goal is (or should be) always to create those things that you need to in order to create the illusion of a complete world.

RC