Is it important that the GM do it for the players to have this sense?
What is the purpose of this question?
Is it important that the GM do it for the players to have this sense?
To learn your answer to it.What is the purpose of this question?
To learn your answer to it.
Because, in your post, you said that the players get a certain sense - I would describe it as a certain sort of character depth, though I don't think that's a word you actually used - you characterised it by contrast to a PC sheet as a set of numbers, which I take to be a certain sort of shallowness, and referred to connection and investment, which seem to me like elements of depth, or - if you prefer - richness.I already answered it. Why are you asking it again?
Another player gave me a background where his character befriended a goddess (despite being told the gods had been distant and remote for centuries) and became her favored follower, gained a unique mithral sword with stats better than the PHB version and defeated a dragon. All before his 3rd level character started play. I explained that his character was prone to hallucinations and had recently escaped from a local madhouse before joining the party.
(Btw way, I don't know of any RPG that works by way of the players (via their PCs) "searching each room in turn until the DM's "is the map hidden here?" roll hits a high enough total" - do you have an example in mind?)
Establishing general setting information in advance of (or during) play is worldbuilding regardless of who does it. If you use an established setting, or a contemporary setting, or a real-world historical setting, then you are using a setting in which a great deal of the worldbuilding has already been done for you - but it's still worldbuilding.Well, in the OP and a few posts that followed it, I tried to make clear what I mean by worldbuilding - namely, establishing setting information in advance of play.
Telling the players "Imagine an 18th century salon" doesn't, on its face, sound like an instance of that. It sounds like it's happening in the course of actual play, and is inviting them to draw upon some commonly understood tropes and references. It's not that different fromm saying "The NPC is wearing a long-sleeved dress and carrying a cutlass."
Well, obviously you can mean by "worldbuilding" whatever you want (within the parameters of meaningful conversation in Enlgish), but in the OP and subsequent posts I tried to explain what I had in mind.
I don't think so. It depends on other things, like (i) rules about retries (many systems don't permit retries - there are plenty of examples in AD&D, for instance), and (ii) how the failure is narrated (eg to give one possible example - "As you look into the cache and see the map in there, a sudden gust carries a spark from your torch, and the map ignites!").I was working from your example, of rolling the dice to determine whether the map is, in fact, in the location the PC is searching, rather than establishing that fact in advance. If you do that, then all they need to do in order to find the map is to keep visiting locations and declaring a search until your "is the map here?" check comes up with a success.
I hadn't intended to berate. But I'm trying to ask about a technique - not simply "Why do we have setting in our RPGs?" but "What is a certain way of establishing that setting - ie where the GM authors significant elements of it in advance - for?"Establishing general setting information in advance of (or during) play is worldbuilding regardless of who does it. If you use an established setting, or a contemporary setting, or a real-world historical setting, then you are using a setting in which a great deal of the worldbuilding has already been done for you - but it's still worldbuilding.
If your question is "what is the purpose of the DM doing pre-game prep work?" that's fine, you can ask that question - but stop berating people for using the term worldbuilding in its actual meaning rather than what you think it means.
Going the other way, in a game that has a take-20 mechanic all they need to do is search every room using take-20 and they'll find the map right where the DM put it.I don't think so. It depends on other things, like (i) rules about retries (many systems don't permit retries - there are plenty of examples in AD&D, for instance),
That's not a failure, in my view. It's a success (they were trying to find the map, they found the map, therefore success) with a DM-forced complication.and (ii) how the failure is narrated (eg to give one possible example - "As you look into the cache and see the map in there, a sudden gust carries a spark from your torch, and the map ignites!").
No, I'm providing it (the original point) for them to read...or not, as they choose.They're not real, they're imaginary.
What's real is the text. But you're not inviting your players to take your text and edit it or rewrite it or write a sequel to it.
I'm not quite sure what you're on about here, but if nothing is true about the hero until it is written then by extension nothing is true about my game world until it is written...but guess what? It's written. In more or less very broad strokes, to be sure, but it's still written.When you talk about the history, culture etc as elements of play, you're clearly referring to the fiction that they express. That that is so is illustrated by the following from your post:
Let's put to one side that you're assuming, here (i) that the players have unlimited retries (even in AD&D there are all sorts of limits on retries - for many thief abilities, for trying to open magically locked doors, for bending bars, for listening at doors), and (ii) that the consequence of failure will permit a retry (as opposed to be, say, that they search and it's not there to be found).
The whole idea of "there being nothing there to find", of the GM "knowing" this in advance, and of it being "unrealistic" for it to be otherwise, is again metaphor at best, nonsense at worst. Consider, for instance, an author who stages a competition to determine some feature of the sequel - the readers get to vote on whether the first novel's protagonist will live or die. The idea that this is "unreaslistic", because either the hero dies or s/he doesn't, is obviously absurd - nothing is true about the hero until it is written.
Dickens didn't have several players breathing down his neck wanting him to keep his story consistent and still run his game on Saturday.I've already mentioned the example of Great Expectations, where Dickens rewrote the ending on the advice of his editor/publisher - that's an instance of the same phenomenon.