Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[hawkeyefan]

Ok, let's lob the ball back here.

Do you see a distinction between the activity being done in creating the setting of something like Keep on the Borderlands and the Village of Hommlet?

Now, if you do see a distinction, which obviously I do, how would you define the distinction? A little world building and a lot of world building? I dunno. I don't know how to define what I see as pretty clearly two very different approaches to adventure and game world design.

Isle of Dread, for example, strongly follows the Keep on the Borderlands model. You have a lost island, with natives that are barely defined, pirates that are given zero background, and a lost temple that has virtually no actual description of its history or its inhabitants.

So, fair enough, you don't want me to make a distinction between setting and world building, so, how would you define it and I'll use your definitions so I can get to the freaking point instead of wasting time on this semantic drivel.

Take it easy, man! We're 155 pages in.....allow for some side conversations.

I understand perfectly well the complaint you are making. I get your complaint overall. I think you apply it in strange ways, but I get it.

The clarification about the term worldbuilding is because during the discussion there is obviously confusion about what the term means. So when you use it as a definition for the specific aspect of worldbuilding to which you are applying it, others may think your criticism is being directed at all worldbuilding.

I think you've made yourself clear about what you are specifically complaining about, but at times it becomes unclear because of the use of the term for ease of reference.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Well that's true, but the GM could truncate it a whole lot and I still wouldn't be that keen!

I wasn't meaning to contradict you, but rather to use your post as a launching-pad: while some of the participants in this thread see the worldbuilding "problem" in terms of quantity, others (eg me, to an extent @AbdulAlhazred) see it in terms of method/process.

B2 has been mentioned a bit. I've used B2 on multiple occasions in "story now"-type games, but normally just the Keep, plus bits of the cultist cave adapted to other fictional contexts. On both occasions the focus has (unsurprisingly, I think) ended up being on the chaotic priest in the Keep. A deceptive evil priest is a very useful element of framing for a wide variety of fantasy protagonists!

The distinction I see is this: a town full of people is a setting. An evil priest pretending to be good, and trying to befriend the protagonists so he can betray, them, is a situation.

Settings are something of a dime-a-dozen, and I don't need much more than some genre and maybe a few names to get a game going; but I can always use a good situation! (Not that I'm entirely uncreative myself, but I'm not any sort of unsung story writer.)

What's interesting to me is that you would use predetermined elements like that. Aren't those just GM backstory in another way? Isn't it just a case of Gygax having done the "worldbuilding" beforehand instead of the GM? Do you repurpose the chaotic priest to suit the characters' goals and interests?

Don't get me wrong....I mine published material for all kinds of elements to drop into my campaign. But I have no aversion to using GM backstory (although I agree with you about some of the perils of using it, I like to think I mostly avoid them). So I've taken locations, NPCs, and entire scenarios whole cloth and plopped them down in my game.

But your willingness to accept a few details...."somne genre and a few names"....to get the game going implies to me that it is indeed a question or quantity. You prefer few details to be determined ahead of time. Others prefer more.

But the reason for those details is the same, no?

As for the distinction between T1 and B2, I don't see the distinction that you guys are making. Or at least, I don't think it's that relevant. Each module provides a location to serve as a home base, and then a nearby adventure site. Yes, in the case of Hommlett, I think much more about the village is provided than is necessary. But the two modules largely function the same.

I do agree with you that a town is a setting and the presence of a nearby evil priest is a situation....but I see that applying to both modules. So again, it seems a matter of quantity.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Fair enough. And, yes, you ARE going to have to develop the setting in order to run a campaign. Of course you are. Whether you do that purely through the DM beforehand, or by the players during play or some combination of both, by the end of the campaign, you're going to have a considerable amount of setting.

Which is fine and dandy. It's in the service to the game. There's a dragon turtle hanging around one of the bays, cool, great. That's, as @pemerton calls it, a situation to be dealt with.

But, and this is where the but comes as you probably knew it would, if I go out and detail the history of that dragon turtle, and that history has little or nothing to do with the campaign at hand, THAT'S what I'm calling world building. It's not necessary, probably won't come up in game, and is largely self indulgent. I use this example, because that's precisely what Paizo did when it remade the Isle of Dread for 3e with the Savage Tide AP. In "The Lightless Depths", Dungeon 144, there's a four PAGE writeup of background notes, 8 point, three column, before you even get to the encounter with Emraag. We're talking about somewhere in the neighbourhood of two THOUSAND words detailing background that will most likely take about ten seconds to talk about at the table.

For example, the Adventure Background (for an adventure that mostly revolves around bribing a Dragon Turtle to allow ships to pass), starts with:



It goes on this way for about three quarters of the page, at an estimate, about 500 words long. All completely superfluous information that the players will almost certainly never learn and most likely never give the slightest toss about.

THAT'S what I'm talking about when I say world building is a self indulgent waste of time.

While I agree that a lot of that is excessive and likely unnecessary, can it not also lead to inspiration? Sure, for you, that article is a waste (likely for me, too) but for someone else, maybe it sparks some idea. Maybe they want to explore some ideas about the ancient cultures of the region. Or maybe they find Aremag to be an interesting creature, and decide to increase his presence and role in their story.

This is part of why I don't entirely understand the criticism.....so much of the backstory that we're talking about won't impact play in any way. For those who don't like it, I can't see how it will even come up. Not unless the DM is so married to the material that he forces it to the forefront of the campaign....but then, I see that as more of a DM issue.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

They found that lots of people buy them simply to read them. Sometimes it's just for fun, /snip.

Yup. Isn't this, pretty much by definition, self indulgent? The DM's going to read this information, probably never share it with the players and most likely it will never make it into the game.

That people like it has never been in dispute [MENTION=44640]bill[/MENTION]91. I KNOW people like it. The great nerd boots range strong. The same sort of people that want to know the backstory of every single Star Wars character will want endless world building.

The original X1 module that lots of people ran quite successfully, is 32 pages long. Between Dungeon and Dragon, Paizo banged out about 24 pages of history and backstory of the Isle of Dread. When your backstory and world building is just about as long as the entire adventure, I'm going to call that self indulgent and largely unnecessary.

To be fair, it was Savage Tide that convinced me that I wanted nothing to do with Pathfinder and Golarian. The endless setting wank serves virtually no purpose. It's meant to be read, not played. I don't see the point of game books that are meant to be read, not played.

 

[Hussar]

While I agree that a lot of that is excessive and likely unnecessary, can it not also lead to inspiration? Sure, for you, that article is a waste (likely for me, too) but for someone else, maybe it sparks some idea. Maybe they want to explore some ideas about the ancient cultures of the region. Or maybe they find Aremag to be an interesting creature, and decide to increase his presence and role in their story.

This is part of why I don't entirely understand the criticism.....so much of the backstory that we're talking about won't impact play in any way. For those who don't like it, I can't see how it will even come up. Not unless the DM is so married to the material that he forces it to the forefront of the campaign....but then, I see that as more of a DM issue.

Wouldn't you rather have 24 more pages of adventure material that's directly related to the adventures at hand rather than detailing history of hundreds or thousands of years ago? I know I would. I'd much rather have an entire extra module, rather than slog through 20000 words of history that almost certainly will never see the light of day.

Remember, the backstory history in these articles have nothing to do with the actual adventure at hand nor even the larger plot of the Adventure Path (which is to stop Demogorgon).

 

[Hussar]

So now you're admitting that worldbuilding involves things much smaller in scope, like say a country or city. Awesome!

Hey, whatever supports your fantasies. Keep right on rolling dude.

 

[Caliban]

Wouldn't you rather have 24 more pages of adventure material that's directly related to the adventures at hand rather than detailing history of hundreds or thousands of years ago?

Not always. I'm coming at it from the point of view of someone who prefers to run their own campaign world instead of using pre-written material, but I think the general principle holds - I like knowing the lore because it helps me do things differently than the pre-written encounters. And as a player, I like knowing the lore because it helps me come up with backgrounds and motivations for my characters that are tied to the setting.

Personally, I hate writing up the specifics of encounters that the PC's may or may not have ahead of time. (It's like herding cats, I swear. "We are definitely doing this thing next session." Great, I prepare for that thing. Next session. "We decided to do something completely different at the last moment.")

I prefer to spend my time writing up specific NPC's, monsters and magic items rather than encounters. Then use them as pieces in encounters I create on the fly (with the occasional "set piece" encounter for big stuff). Or spend that time creating setting lore that allows me to more easily improvise encounters on the fly based on the decisions and actions of the players.

I know I would. I'd much rather have an entire extra module, rather than slog through 20000 words of history that almost certainly will never see the light of day.

Weird. It's almost like we are all different people with different styles, goals, and preferences instead of being part of a monolithic D&D hive mind. Crazy how that works.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The endless setting wank serves virtually no purpose. It's meant to be read, not played. I don't see the point of game books that are meant to be read, not played.

They sell. WWGS had sold a million books like that by 1996 (or so the boxed set of Kindred: the Embraced proudly proclaimed).

Wouldn't you rather have 24 more pages of adventure material that's directly related to the adventures at hand rather than detailing history of hundreds or thousands of years ago? I know I would. I'd much rather have an entire extra module, rather than slog through 20000 words of history that almost certainly will never see the light of day.

Remember, the backstory history in these articles have nothing to do with the actual adventure at hand nor even the larger plot of the Adventure Path (which is to stop Demogorgon).

IDK. I don't make heavy use of modules, but if I were using the setting, maybe it'd spark a few ideas, or be worth the read. That's how I ultimately ended up feeling about most of the M:tA & W:tA books I ended up owning, they were worth the read, but I didn't actually use them, directly, when running, though they informed the setting, some.
FWIW.

 

[Hussar]

They sell. WWGS had sold a million books like that by 1996 (or so the boxed set of Kindred: the Embraced proudly proclaimed).

IDK. I don't make heavy use of modules, but if I were using the setting, maybe it'd spark a few ideas, or be worth the read. That's how I ultimately ended up feeling about most of the M:tA & W:tA books I ended up owning, they were worth the read, but I didn't actually use them, directly, when running, though they informed the setting, some.
FWIW.

Kinda damning with faint praise no?

See, I get the point though. Yup they sell. And they sell very well. Which would be great if that didn't mean that people like me, who aren't interested, were catered to as well.

But, I'm not. If I want to buy a module, I have to accept that I'm going to have to skip the first five or six pages because it's of virtually no value to me. I have to accept that any monster book I buy now will be largely useless as written because of endless world building that the book is filled with. Volo's Guide? Mordenkainen's? I wouldn't even consider buying them. SCAG? Yup, that's a hard pass thanks.

Like I said, the world builders won this argument years ago. The market is totally dominated by the folks that eat this stuff up with a spoon. To the point where actually asking for something different is seen as an attack. Where any and all criticism of world building must be immediately defended and world building accepted as the baseline of RPG's.

 

[Caliban]

Yup. Isn't this, pretty much by definition, self indulgent? The DM's going to read this information, probably never share it with the players and most likely it will never make it into the game.

To be honest, isn't the entire hobby, pretty much by definition, self indulgent? Both for the players and DM's?

I mean, we could be doing something productive instead of spending our time and money pretending to be people who never exist outside of our imaginations and the imaginations of our friends.

We just choose to indulge ourselves on different aspects of the hobby. Some people spend more money and time on miniatures and terrain, others choose to focus on rulebooks and game mechanics, and still others on setting lore and stories that may never come up in the game itself - but it looms large in their imagination.

The gaming companies will cater to those who spend the most money on their preferred indulgence.