Forked from "An Epiphany" thread: Is World Building "Necessary"?

[Barastrondo]

Overall, I simply have to disagree with anyone who argues that detailed worldbuilding before the start of a campaign actually makes the campaign better, or saves them any work when the campaign actually starts. I don't even agree that it makes any single session more flexible. It is certainly a strategy that works, but it is far from being the only one, and is certainly not the one true best way.

Well, think of it this way: World-building can be, for some GMs, a matter of rehearsal and inspiration. By detailing the information ahead of time, you're running through it in your head. By thinking about this sort of thing in the shower, you're preparing to answer questions. It can also be a form of blocking, where you're sort of anticipating where the actors will stand during the performance.

Now, that doesn't mean that every detail you devise in a given world-building session will come into play, or even that the majority will. But it's part of the creative process. Have you ever known someone who does their best creative work on a specific pad and pen, or at the laptop, or with a favorite CD or DVD on in the background? World-building can be like that. You may find you write better adventures if you put in some brainstorming about the local village first, or think about the ecology of the area. "Hmm, what if the apex predator here is owlbears?", you think, and you decide that'll be fun flavor. But then it winds up coloring other aspects of your adventure, as you decide that there must be fey nearby who have a fondness for the beasts, and then that leads to inspiring a fey-based adventure. A lot of GMs create a lot of great adventures that way, because the setting inspires them to keep pouring creative effort into the game. It's part of their process.

By no means is it the one true best way, at least for everyone. But I think it can make the difference between a pretty good GM and a fantastic GM if that's what inspires them. To go back to the thread title, for some it is absolutely "necessary." And me, I really like playing with GMs who get into the world-building, all other things being equal.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Honestly, I think talking about "level of detail" misses the main point of this discussion.

What Hussar has been arguing for (which seems to be my way of doing things, since he agrees with me so much) has nothing to do with level of detail. It is simply the timing of the creation of detail, and the factors that govern which details you include.

You can create a highly detailed setting before ever starting the campaign, or you can create one in the process of playing the campaign. There is no inherent difference in the amount of detail the players encounter in one strategy or another. You do not necessarily get more relevant detail if you build the world first, and you do not have to lose relevant detail by starting the campaign first. Similarly, you do not necessarily get more verisimilitude with the former method.

Overall, I simply have to disagree with anyone who argues that detailed worldbuilding before the start of a campaign actually makes the campaign better, or saves them any work when the campaign actually starts. I don't even agree that it makes any single session more flexible. It is certainly a strategy that works, but it is far from being the only one, and is certainly not the one true best way.

I didn't mention anything about having to have all kinds of work done before play begins. Actually I'm all for the idea of the DM working out the level of detail desired with the players before doing any work at all. Having the DM and player expectations for the game be in the same ballpark is the one true best way for me.

 

[Greg K]

Overall, I simply have to disagree with anyone who argues that detailed worldbuilding before the start of a campaign actually makes the campaign better,

better for everyone? No. Better for certain styles, yes.

or saves them any work when the campaign actually starts.

Did you miss the part about Hussar's players, the thief's guild and them having to wait a week? In contrast, I was able to accomodate my players, who wanted to go to an entirely different kingdom at the last minute based on an epiphany they had, that very same evening- I simply had pull out some notes and take a minute to claify some background info from one of the players. No need to postpone for a week.
Not having to take a week to prepare, because I had info prepared prior to the the campaign starting, sure sounds like saving me work once the campaign starts.

 

[Ourph]

To give an example from my current campaign. I have the Isle of Dread. There is a colony on the island called Farshore. Very soon there will be an election to select the mayor of Farshore. Whichever candidate wins will have a serious impact on how things play out later in the campaign.

But, the plots that are ongoing on the Island certainly aren't going to stop while they head to another island.

I think this is a great example of where you seem to be miscommunicating with people. I think, to most people, the act of a DM saying "OK, this is what happens in Farshore if the PCs aren't around" IS world-building. You have said several times that setting building involves detailing the things the PCs will interact with in the current context of the campaign, while world building involves detailing the things PCs aren't likely to interact with. It seems to me that, once the PCs leave Farshore, if you are figuring out what happens in their absence, you're worldbuilding, not setting building. Of course, if the PCs happen to come back to Farshore later, any work you do (or did) on Farshore is now setting building, not worldbuilding.

That's a pretty confusing and minor distinction, right? That's my point. What you call worldbuilding can easily be setting building given a slight change in context. There are obviously things that would tend to fall under the heading of setting wankery (the blueberry bushes in my campaign aren't called blueberry bushes, they're Iraram bushes), but I don't see anyone using those extreme examples of worldbuilding as things they do for their own campaigns. I think the difference between detailing a Thieves Guild in a town that the PCs will likely interact with at some point during the campaign, and detailing a Thieves Guild that the PCs indicate they will want to interact with next session is being blown way out of proportion. There's not that much difference between those two things.

 

[Storminator]

better for everyone? No. Better for certain styles, yes.

I would say better for certain people, not styles.

Did you miss the part about Hussar's players, the thief's guild and them having to wait a week? In contrast, I was able to accomodate my players, who wanted to go to an entirely different kingdom at the last minute based on an epiphany they had, that very same evening- I simply had pull out some notes and take a minute to claify some background info from one of the players. No need to postpone for a week.
Not having to take a week to prepare, because I had info prepared prior to the the campaign starting, sure sounds like saving me work once the campaign starts.

I found your example a bit unsatisfying. It seemed to me that the PCs were already in the midst of the plague adventure, and solved the mystery and addressed it. It's not that they went off on something completely unrelated. Did I read that wrong?

On a tangent, I played in an epic 3e game. I made it a rule that we could NOT go on tangents at the start of a session. It was too much work for the DM to build quality encounters for such a game. I promised him that we would decide what we wanted at the end of a session, and after he planned it and statted it up, we would play it. Sudden changes of direction were only allowed at the end of the night.

PS

 

[Storminator]

I think this is a great example of where you seem to be miscommunicating with people. I think, to most people, the act of a DM saying "OK, this is what happens in Farshore if the PCs aren't around" IS world-building. You have said several times that setting building involves detailing the things the PCs will interact with in the current context of the campaign, while world building involves detailing the things PCs aren't likely to interact with. It seems to me that, once the PCs leave Farshore, if you are figuring out what happens in their absence, you're worldbuilding, not setting building. Of course, if the PCs happen to come back to Farshore later, any work you do (or did) on Farshore is now setting building, not worldbuilding.

That's a pretty confusing and minor distinction, right? That's my point. What you call worldbuilding can easily be setting building given a slight change in context. There are obviously things that would tend to fall under the heading of setting wankery (the blueberry bushes in my campaign aren't called blueberry bushes, they're Iraram bushes), but I don't see anyone using those extreme examples of worldbuilding as things they do for their own campaigns. I think the difference between detailing a Thieves Guild in a town that the PCs will likely interact with at some point during the campaign, and detailing a Thieves Guild that the PCs indicate they will want to interact with next session is being blown way out of proportion. There's not that much difference between those two things.

I think Hussar's point is that once the game is in swing, you detail the surroundings. It WOULD be setting wankery to detail Farshore, and track the changes there, before the PCs even leave Sasserine for the Isle of Dread. Once they arrive in town, it's not.

PS

 

[Ourph]

I think Hussar's point is that once the game is in swing, you detail the surroundings. It WOULD be setting wankery to detail Farshore, and track the changes there, before the PCs even leave Sasserine for the Isle of Dread. Once they arrive in town, it's not.

I think that statement requires some major qualifications to be true. If the DM is introducing plot hooks in Sasserine that might lead the players to the Isle of Dread, is it "wankery"? I agree, that there is a distinct difference between tracking the political climate in a remote village the PCs will likely never encounter and tracking the political climate once they have encountered it. No argument there. But what about the middle ground, where the village is something that there is a distinct chance the PCs will interact with later in the campaign?

Is anyone in this thread even claiming they do what you are suggesting? I haven't seen anyone saying that their setting is detailed down to the individual mayoral elections in every village and town in their entire fantasy world no matter how irrelevant such events might be to the campaign. I think the distinctions we're talking about are a lot smaller than the ones you and Hussar keep using as examples.

 

[Stormtalon]

I think this is a great example of where you seem to be miscommunicating with people. I think, to most people, the act of a DM saying "OK, this is what happens in Farshore if the PCs aren't around" IS world-building. You have said several times that setting building involves detailing the things the PCs will interact with in the current context of the campaign, while world building involves detailing the things PCs aren't likely to interact with. It seems to me that, once the PCs leave Farshore, if you are figuring out what happens in their absence, you're worldbuilding, not setting building. Of course, if the PCs happen to come back to Farshore later, any work you do (or did) on Farshore is now setting building, not worldbuilding.

The distinction here, I believe, is that worldbuilding involves detailing things that the characters might at some point in the distant future, interact with outside of the main thrust of the campaign, via going off on tangents, losing interest in the current plot or what have you -- but they haven't yet done so.

Keeping track of goings on in an area where the PCs have a vested interest and that they're extremely likely to return to is simple campaign maintenance. The idea is that areas/groups/etc that the party hasn't visited or interacted with don't exist until contact is initiated -- but once they DO exist, any story-important threads and activities keep going in the absence of the party. Conversely, if contact is only incidental and non-story impacting then things can be allowed to sit in virtual stasis until the next time the party encounters that group/area -- unless of course, there's spillover from one of the major tracked events.

For instance, a thieves' guild that doesn't have any real plot impact besides providing occasional info for a party rogue doesn't need to have its activities tracked constantly and can remain somewhat static. Of course, if the city it resides in just got razed by orcs, the guild goes away along with everything else in the city.

 

[Ariosto]

On stories, and the abandoning thereof:

Before a princess can be rescued from a dragon, there must be at minimum a princess and a dragon (and a rescuer, perhaps the princess herself). There are likewise prerequisites for other stories. So, if the players, via role-playing, are going to choose their "stories," then the ingredients need to be in place for more than one story.

Moreover, in the traditional RPG campaign these are not regarded as tales effectively to be twice-told (once in the GM's mind, and again at the table). They are regarded rather as events taking place in the milieu. THE STORY is whatever comes of the players' choices.

Taking into account both the fact that this is a game, and the importance of suspension of disbelief in a fantastic fiction, scenarios in which "only the PCs can do it" may be unsuited to the purpose. "Only the PCs can save the world from destruction" seems best suited to a case in which one wishes to see the world destroyed, which is probably uncommon when one has just begun to explore it.

Perhaps the players will not even attempt to rescue the princess. It need not follow that she is never rescued. Each different possibility has different consequences.

Again, how are the players to choose if there are no options brought to the table? "You can try to rescue the princess, or not play the game." That can be a fine way to play, but it is not the only one. It is not what traditionally a "D&D campaign" has meant, being more akin to a succession of tournament games.

"You shall rescue the princess; we're making moves and rolling dice just to see what path the story takes to that conclusion," is an extremely rigid railroad.

The traditional D&D dungeon is a traditional D&D campaign in a nutshell. The DM sets up an environment, and the players interact with it as they choose. Wilderness and town are extensions of the same basic principle.

How much the DM has created, and to what level of detail, can vary greatly. As I observed earlier, setting the bar too high can be a great excuse for procrastination: "I can't run a game yet, because the campaign world is not finished."

Ideally, it is never finished. That does not mean that one should start with a meager range of options for the players -- much less continue to offer such a constrained environment.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

"You shall rescue the princess; we're making moves and rolling dice just to see what path the story takes to that conclusion," is an extremely rigid railroad.

That is an extremely narrow view of what D&D is then. All our games are exactly like you've listed. None of the players in our game would say we are being railroaded.

If we can decide to save the princess by sneaking in the back door or the front door and it is possible to sneak past the dragon while he's sleeping or wait until he leaves his lair and rescue the princess then we aren't being railroaded. Of COURSE we are going to rescue the princess, that's what the game is about. There's never really a thought given to other options.

I've seen way too many comments on these boards that insinuate that anyone who doesn't play a sandbox game is doing it wrong.