Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Riley37]

Lets say the DM has done a ton of worldbuilding. He has created the entire pantheon of gods, and their respective religions. But he has also gone beyond that, and also written in depth about the various theologies of these religious groups, and what rites they perform.

Now lets say a player wants to play a priest of one of these faiths. But for his priest he wants to have some say (or 'input' if you will) regarding how his priest exercises his faith. The question of input is thus, can he do that?

If the DM has decided that the priests in his campaign worship all the commonly accepted gods, can an exception be made by the DM for a player who wants to dedicate his priest to one specific god?

If the answer is 'no', then I think we've reached an edge case where the world building gets in the way of a possible shared fiction. If the answer is 'yes', then I feel the player does have some 'input' in regards to the world building.

Let's test this against a particular scenario which I have constructed specifically for the purpose of getting the answers I want.

As the initial seed for the campaign, I asked each player to come up with a person who would be on a boat which ran scenic tours. They came up with various concepts. The skipper of the boat; passengers such as a Science! inventor-professor, a beautiful movie star, a millionaire and his wife, etc.; I was kinda disappointed that no one chose to play a stowaway. Oh well. Anyways, what starts as a three-hour tour becomes a shipwreck, and the story explores their survival on a remote island.

After a while, one of the regulars wants to bring a friend into the group. I agree that one more castaway could end up on the island. The friend wants to play a priest. We discuss the priest's religion.

He wants to play a Protestant priest, and he wants one of the rites to be... uh... something that Protestants don't do, nor Catholics, nor Orthodox, nor Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. I tell him, no, sorry, the rites of *all* those variations are already established, and there is no available design space in that area. He can invent a new religion, and give it whatever rites he wants, but then it won't be a religion that any of the other PCs have ever heard of. Heck, even if he imports Bokononism from "Cat's Cradle", some specifics of that have been nailed down as canon.

So if we play any game with in which the setting starts with the real world, plus the specifics of the PCs and the parts of the world immediately involved in their adventures - cloak and dagger, Westerns, etc. - then have we "reached an edge case where the world building gets in the way of a possible shared fiction"? Because of how thoroughly the real world has already been documented? I mean, look at Wookipedia, or Candlekeep for Forgotten Realms, or Memory Alpha for Star Trek, and all three of those combined don't nail down as many details as Wikipedia.

 

[Imaculata]

So if we play any game with in which the setting starts with the real world, plus the specifics of the PCs and the parts of the world immediately involved in their adventures - cloak and dagger, Westerns, etc. - then have we "reached an edge case where the world building gets in the way of a possible shared fiction"? Because of how thoroughly the real world has already been documented? I mean, look at Wookipedia, or Candlekeep for Forgotten Realms, or Memory Alpha for Star Trek, and all three of those combined don't nail down as many details as Wikipedia.

Obviously if you set your campaign in the real world, you're not doing much world building. The setting is predefined by reality to a large extent. The rules regarding how religions work in this setting are not built by you, they already exist. So this is a terribly flawed example.

 

[Afrodyte]

Like was said earlier, to me, it's a red flag. I've almost never enjoyed a game where the DM has this extensive setting, whether homebrew or published. It's too restrictive for me. I don't enjoy it. I'd much rather the players have far more input into the game world and I wish my players would be more pro-active about it.

Honestly, a lot of folks who do a lot of extensive worldbuilding in RPGs (when not paid to do so) would be better served by writing and publishing their epic fantasy novels instead. It'd be far less frustrating and far more likely to be engaged by the audience in a meaningful way.

 

[Imaro]

And that's fair enough.

But, unlike @Imaro, I think that whenever this sort of thing comes up, I see the exact opposite of what he does- the basic advice is always world building first. If you're a good DM, you're going to world build and anyone who doesn't spend the time doing it is, by implication anyway, a bad DM.

Can you show me a recent thread where the premise starts off with "choosing not to world build makes you a bad DM"? Right now there are 2 threads on the first page and they are based on the premise that worldbuilding is bad or that worldbuilding needs to be justified. I'm open to admiting it may be a bias on my part but I can't find a thread whose premise is that a DM is bad because he doesn't worldbuild, I only see that as a reaction to these types of threads...

 

[Imaro]

I don't really like to take this kind of position, because it feels to me like its saying effectively "you can't criticize this technique because there's this perfect version of it somewhere that avoids this problem." If its a problem, repeatedly, in real games in the real world, then IMHO its a problem with the technique! You may well avoid that problem by dint of expert play, but MANY campaigns have sunk upon that rock!

I mean, any absolutist pronouncements, like the initial premise of this thread, are always fraught. To say 'nobody should world build' is of course idiotic. I mean, I recommend against it and then I do it myself! I don't actually feel a need to be self-consistent or act in the 'best' way possible. I just do what I like to do, particularly when it comes to pastimes. So I wouldn't actually condone dismissing world building, but that isn't the same thing as saying its beyond criticism because people like it or it produces good results sometimes. IME No Myth play actually has fewer problems.

Yes but then it has to swing both ways. For example if I say... hey consistency can be a major issue when one is creating the world in play as opposed to having some of it pre-authored and your reply is... well my group doesn't have issues with consistency when we play this way it's the same thing. I think an issue arises in discussion when you then in turn cite these example of bad play from the style you don't prefer and the same answer isn't deemed sufficient to answer said criticisms... so again it's either that we are discussing potential issues with both or we are discussing the perfect version of both whats disingenuous is to assume the perfect version for the style you prefer while extolling the failures of the flawed version of the style you do not.

 

[billd91]

What I'm saying is, is it is fostered by world building. There's all this 'stuff' that the GM has imagined and planned on, and then the PCs go and invalidate 90% of it (which is EXACTLY what PCs, especially high level ones, will do every time). This is classic, almost expected even. So, you can say its a 'railroading problem', and that's technically correct, but its not really getting to the root of the thing.

I utterly disagree that worldbuilding is the root of the problem. At most, it's another avenue for the problem of the GM's inability to let go of what he wants to manifest itself. The problem is full on a railroading problem.

 

[pemerton]

Yes but then it has to swing both ways. For example if I say... hey consistency can be a major issue when one is creating the world in play as opposed to having some of it pre-authored and your reply is... well my group doesn't have issues with consistency when we play this way it's the same thing.

Here's a diffrence between the two cases you cite: it seems to me that most of the posters who are expressing these concerns about consistency as a major issue are not basing that on actual experience, but rather on conjecture. Whereas [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] is attributing his claim to actual experience.

 

[Imaro]

Here's a diffrence between the two cases you cite: it seems to me that most of the posters who are expressing these concerns about consistency as a major issue are not basing that on actual experience, but rather on conjecture. Whereas [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] is attributing his claim to actual experience.

Honestly I think this is irrelevant. I'm not sure why the anecdotal evidence of a single poster (or even a few posters), especially on a board that's not representative of most people who actually play the game, is considered any stronger than theoretical problems which can easily be extrapolated? Now for the record I've experienced this in play, with the other DM of my group who tends to resort to this method when pressed for time but I'm not sure why me stating that makes it more valid?

And since we are going with experiences with the "no-worldbuilding playstyle" ... I've also experienced when the players don't want to improvise world details (I often see this with either casual gamers or those new to rpg's) and it's forced on them by a DM who thinks this is the best way to run a game (or hasn't pre-authored things)... It's as painful to watch as pulling teeth, usually brings the game to a halt and IMO isn't enhancing play for that particular person at this point.

 

[Imaro]

I utterly disagree that worldbuilding is the root of the problem. At most, it's another avenue for the problem of the GM's inability to let go of what he wants to manifest itself. The problem is full on a railroading problem.

I'd go even further and contend that eschewing pre-authored content doesn't safeguard a game form the GM directing play towards what he wants... he can do it in either playstyle.

 

[pemerton]

Honestly I think this is irrelevant. I'm not sure why the anecdotal evidence of a single poster (or even a few posters), especially on a board that's not representative of most people who actually play the game, is considered any stronger than theoretical problems which can easily be extrapolated?

I'm fairly sceptical of conjecture about how a RPG will play made by players who have never even read its rules, or the rules for a similar game, let alone had experience of playing it or seeing how it plays.