Why Worldbuilding is Bad

My players do have an input, as a matter of fact 50% of all of the world building that has been done in the setting was done by them outside of the gaming session. It is MY world however, and I keep a strict direction of what goes into it, and what sticks around. If I did not do that the world would have little coesion and thus would seem like a ball of chaos which did not have realistic laws and orders. As the DM I am in effect the Laws of Nature for the world. Simply because a player wants something to be added for the benefit of his upcoming character doesn't mean that I have to open up the world to that new thing. Consistancy is the key issue when coming up with new additions to a world. I listen to my players wants, and I decide which I am going to allow and which I am not. The game is not a democracy as far as the world goes, its a Tyrany, and one that the players (at least mine appreciate). Sometimes we butt heads but 90% of the time they listen to my answer and respect it as the DM's final say.

Warforged for instance would never be allowed in my world, and neither would 65% of Eberron's source material. I simply have a world that functions differently than Eberron and adding the material would be a determent to my world rather than a healthy and enjoyable addition.

Not to mention as a DM, and primarly only a DM I have no creative leanings outside of NPC's world details, and the occasional area map. The world is my child, and the players are just characters who interact with it, and perhaps influence it with their actions. That doesn't help the world go around any faster.

And like I said I will allow something if a player spends the requisite amount of time it takes to process his reason why something should be added. I should not have to pander to a person who is not willing to spend the time it takes to get approval for a world changing request, its not fair to me, or to the world that I have spent so much time working on.

What does end up happening is that I do Revisions of the world and during that process its a free for all open season for my players to request anything that they want. Only a few trickle in when this occurs, and for the most part they simply leave it to me to understand what they want vs. what they need to continue being happy players.

The World (My World) is a key part in the story elements of the adventures my players go through, many have played in this same world from their first session to now, and have immersed themselves in the world, many know the layout of the land, and have favorite places whether its Elustre, or the Jhansari Stretch. Players remember characters from previous games, and feel a familiarity with cities in which previous characters have lived. One player has even played through several generations of the same family. The world is a key feature in my DMing repertoire, and as such I keep a creative hold on what my players pump into it. As such I might put off some people, and for that I do not appologize, I don't feel the need to.

Hussar said:

This pretty much gets right to the heart of my point. I am not going to change my world. IOW, the DM's world and NOT the player's world. How realistic is it to expect players to engage in a role play setting in which they have no input?

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I don't know about you, but I tend to use the same world repeatedly with different groups of players, and different groups of characters with the same players. Changing the world affects more than the people sitting at the table at one time.

Others have replied to some of what you wrote earlier, so I won't both much, except to say that, if you agree that the DM can place mechanical restrictions because wood and metal don't exist, but don't agree that the DM can place mechanical restrictions because plate mail doesn't exist, I have a very hard time with seeing a consistency to your viewpoint.

Moreover, on many threads related to player entitlement, I am fairly certain that you have argued that the DM has the right to restrict the ruleset in play, including the core ruleset. Correct me if I am wrong. Suddenly, the DM doesn't have that right. Would it be fair of me to disregard your previous posts on this issue, and believe that you agree player entitlement is a factor in the game as it exists today?

At the end of the day, though, you are right when you say that it is "my" world. I own it. I have all the files and printouts. The amount to which it is the players world is based on their investment and in-game decisions.....which is, IMHO, as it should be.


RC

Or, even more basically, which shows are more interesting; shows like Lost and Babylon 5, which have an unfolding plot in a detailed setting, or serialized shows like Seinfeld and most of Star Trek, in which episodes could essentially be viewed in any order and there is little to no plot development throughout the series?

It's entirely a matter of taste which kind you like, but I vastly prefer the shows with a rich background and unfolding plot; the same way I vastly prefer games that integrate with their setting and have a rich an detailed backstory.

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I think the thing is that liking one doesn't mean you can't like the other. And it also means you can dislike one or the other.

I like the X-files *both* for it's Monster-of-the-Week episodes, and for it's conspiracy theory metaplot. I like Seinfeld well enough, but sometimes the wordplay just gets obnoxious. I like Lost pretty well, too, but am liking it less and less as it reaches ridiculous heights of absurdity.

In my D&D campaigns, the worlds are generally consistent for a season, but disposable after that season. A really good season might have a sequel or a repeat, but focus on a slightly different element.

Hussar said:

This pretty much gets right to the heart of my point. I am not going to change my world. IOW, the DM's world and NOT the player's world. How realistic is it to expect players to engage in a role play setting in which they have no input?

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I'd say it depends on the player. Until two members of our group moved cross country, our group had four rotating dms out of six members. Each of us had our own world in the sense that we individualy designed the setting-well two actually ran "canned" worlds. I ran the type of setting that you are arguing against. I predetermined the culture, available races, deities, etc.- no exceptions like warforged ninja or planetouched or were-whatever. Yet, I'd gather the game that I ran was the most popular as, whenever, somebody else was running the other players were asking me when I would be running again. Even, recently when I took a year off to spend with my ill father, I still have players mentioning that they can't wait for my campaign to resume.

What seemed to make the difference?

1. They liked was that the characters were built around the setting's cultures rather than the other way around. They liked that when they narrowed their character's home region to a specific area, I could answer questions about the culture, classes, important npcs, organizations, current events, etc.- elements that they could use in developing their character including areas where and why their character might have deviated from the cultural norm. Based off of the information provided, the found thier own hooks to make them care and built them into the character background.

2. The setting might limit certain character choices/options during character generation, but in play its about the characters.
a. Periodically, there are sessions that are all or mostly all about RP and individual character is brought to the to the foreground. The Knight returning home to find his fiancee engaged to his rival and moves being made against his holdings (his border party was found dead and nobody had heard from him in over a year), the druid returning home and being considered for improved rank in the order. The Paladin getting a lead to finding his missing sister.

b. The players know that their characters have a lot of freedom within the setting and the choices they make determines the direction that the campaign takes. I might have a metaplot in mind, but the players are not requried to follow it. After every session, they are asked where they are going next. This decision impacts what I prepare next and, even then, they sometimes make a last minute change in which case the game becomes more of an improv session. For example, the time that the group decided to try and get the sexually repressed druid "laid".

World-building is a pretty solipsistic activity. Most authors, and for that matter most DMs, are not really world-builders--not the kind that this guy is talking about. World-building is not just fleshing out a setting; that's a standard part of any kind of story-telling. World-building is what happens when the activity of defining the world overrides telling stories within that world. It's what Tolkien did; to Tolkien, writing novels was simply an outgrowth of having this world that he spent nearly his entire life building.

World-building might be an enjoyable act to some, like Tolkien, and there is nothing wrong with that; however, it is not particularly useful or helpful for others. It's counterproductive to storytelling and to gaming--no one should have to redefine the rules of the game just to play. It's why pre-existing settings are out there; to provide context for the players. If one is trying to create a good game or a good story, then the setting has to be subordinate to the needs of those ends.

Dead Scribe said:

It's what Tolkien did; to Tolkien, writing novels was simply an outgrowth of having this world that he spent nearly his entire life building.

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This is a common belief, but the reality is quite a bit more complicated than that. LotR began due to his publisher's demand for a sequel to The Hobbit. The plot needs of the story forced him to revise the earlier work. He actually started a sequel to the LotR, taking place in the 4th Age, because his publisher demanded more. Eventually, this got scrapped (because he thought it hurt the LotR to have the Shadow re-emerge), and work got underway to publish his notes on Middle Earth.

Unfortunately, Tolkein didn't live long enough to rework this material into something truly great.

The order of events would be:

(1) The Hobbit.
(2) Request from publisher/fans for "More concerning Hobbits".
(3) A failed attempt to write another Bilbo story.
(4) The basic idea for the LotR plot.
(5) Beginning of the creation of a world background for Middle Earth.
(6) LotR...a long writing process that, judging from what the man wrote about it, demonstrates that he suffered the same doubts and problems as any other writer of a major work. Doing this required revision of the background material frequently to fit the setting to the needs of the plot.
(7) Publisher wants another Hobbit book.
(8) Tolkein starts the Return of the Shadow, then abandons it.
(9) Tolkein starts to work up The Silmarilion.
(10) Tolkein dies, leaving it for others to publish without sufficient polish.


RC


EDIT: People talk about Tolkein as a worldbuilder, but his genius for plotting was at least the equal of his genius for worldbuilding. The plot of LotR is dense, and many "inconsequential" details actually have plot relevance. Every time I read it I find plot connections that I missed previously.

Yes yes, that is a more or less accurate timeline, but it leaves off an important detail--that Tolkien was creating the linguistic and mythological background that would someday be turned into the Silmarillion many years before the Hobbit was ever published.

It's these linguistic and mythological experiments that were Tolkien's lifelong passion; not storytelling. It was a curious obsession that he worked on for his own reasons, rather than to create something for other people. And that was my point.

Most people have neither the brilliance, nor the compulsion, nor the time to really create worlds. And that's probably a good thing.

Dead Scribe said:

It's these linguistic and mythological experiments that were Tolkien's lifelong passion; not storytelling. It was a curious obsession that he worked on for his own reasons, rather than to create something for other people. And that was my point.

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Well, both I think.

Not everything he wrote was about Middle Earth, and his interest in language did not exist in isolation.

D&D has a proscribed setting. It's anything goes, build as you go. The best argument I can think of for build-as-you-go is the creation methods used for many settings already in print. Forgotten Realms started with the Cormyr crescent. Increased to the Moonsea Crescent. And just kept accreting more and more. The players roamed and the setting grew. IMO, that's a homebrew. All those Monster Manual creatures running about in a cultural mishmash? It isn't the inexplicable, kitchen-sink setting more than that the creators played their PCs all across pop mythology. Practically everything in D&D has no right to be in the same setting. Mythological Greek creatures next to vampires next to fairies next to Baba Yaga is an incoherent setting. At least by traditional standards.

To me, D&D is supposed to be a mishmash. It's supposed to be a constant accretion of "What do you think would be cool now?" setting creation. Rationales are created organically. Leaving space and not filling in every white area on the globe, in history, on the Gods list, and "what is magic?" allows this too. Just look at the original Blackmoor map. It's thick in some areas, thin in others.

The absolutism of setting is a restriction. It can be enabling, but, as I've said before, it works best as a known setting, a licensed setting. Playing an unalterable, unknown homebrew requires a list of options instead of the imagination challenging "What do you want to be?"

With all that, I still do agree players can "Carebear a setting". It is a friendly game in the end after all.

Priest_Sidran said:

I learned this very early when I made the mistake of allowing a character to play a half dragon pc in a world that originally had little to no dragons. The actions of the character, and the party as a whole influenced the world around them in a way that was harmful to my world concept. Since then I have limited players away from things that are restricted, or limited in my Setting, so that they will not influence the world in such a dramatic way in the future. This includes the removal of the Half-orc as a player race (replaced by Giant from Arcana Unearthed), the lack of characters to learn Draconic (secret language), and the limitation of players seeking to play as dwarves (who are a dying race in my world)

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See, to me, this is one of the points of being in a setting. To "influence the world in a dramatic way". I understand it was inimicable to your conception of the setting and I'd rather not have my own homebrews "Carebeared" by players. I guess it's where you draw the line. How open is a DM to originality from PC proposals? A closed setting cannot, by definition, handle all things.

EDIT: People talk about Tolkein as a worldbuilder, but his genius for plotting was at least the equal of his genius for worldbuilding. The plot of LotR is dense, and many "inconsequential" details actually have plot relevance. Every time I read it I find plot connections that I missed previously.

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Aye, but that's just his strength as a storyteller showing through. I could say the same thing about Fooly Cooly, and I can watch the whole thing in the time it would take me to read the first half of FotR.

Most of the time, his storytelling triumphed his worldbuilding, but there's plenty of time when that's not true and the story plods along or stops in mid-adventure for him to introduce some inconsequential side-gibberish. His storytelling pulled it out eventually, but he'd still spend time playing around with Tom Bombadil (for instance) instead of getting on with it.

The first time through LotR, I skipped everything that wasn't about Frodo and Sam. I figured, "This doesn't really matter. They're running interference. I don't care about any of these characters. They're not the ones saving the world."

I missed some interesting stuff, but I wouldn't say I missed anything of key importance for the plot.