What is *worldbuilding* for?

[Maxperson]

I think it was @Aldarc who said that stuff, not me, but I'm generally in agreement. I think @Maxperson's "100% agency" argument is silly and seems designed to stifle analysis by positing a sameness for all systems/games with regard to agency, which he seems to define as whatever that particular game lets the player do. I mean, sure, in a game of chess I have "100% agency" to move my knight according to the rules of chess. That really doesn't tell us anything of value about chess relative to Monopoly, for example.

This just shows that you don't really understand what agency is. The game of chess is all about limiting your opponents agency. You win the game when you are threatening the opposing king and you have removed all agency from the player regarding that king. You can force the player to move pieces by threatening the king in such a way that the player has to block with a piece. When I do those things, I remove his agency. If I put one of my pieces in front of a pawn that my opponent wants to move, I have removed his agency.

 

[Maxperson]

The argument over agency is getting odd. The detractors of Story Now gaming have claimed that their players wouldn't want to have input into the fiction. The players want to inhabit their characters as if they are there. It's the GM's job to create and describe the world. Fair enough. Why then, are there arguments that Classical players have just as much, if not more agency than Story Now gamers? It seems pretty obvious that not having input over the actual fiction, other than character decisions, is less agency. And since it is not desirable for the players to be declaring actions which shape the world, what's the problem? Aren't Classical games aiming for high character agency and low player agency? If you are letting players have some control over the fiction than you are at least dabbling in Story Now, and so, I would assume, not be too opposed to Story Now advocates.

The argument that Story Now gamers actually have less agency is even stranger. It seems to come from the idea that players are being flung from one crisis to another, with no choice or room to breathe. I'm sure that if the players desired some time to explore a bazaar or share a "family" meal aboard their spaceship, it would happen. I'm sure Story Now GMs aren't anymore tyrannical than regular ones.

The other objection is the idea that multiple players having multiple goals is going to cause less agency for the players who don't get their own way. How is this any different from every other rpg out there? Players compromise and GMs assure no one player dominates the table.

Although, some of these posts are getting a little heated, I think we need to also remember that good debators ask challenging questions. It's not necessarily personal attacks, or "one true wayism."

So much wrong with this post. Let's see...

Your very first statement is wrong. First wrong thing about the first statement. We aren't detractors of Story Now, the reverse is actually true with the Story Now people continually presenting their way as superior. We just say that it's not for us. Second wrong thing with the first statement. Our players do have input into the fiction. They just have a different method of input into the fiction.

Second, you don't get to re-define agency and then tell us we have less of it. If you re-define it, that definition only applies to YOU. Our agency remains at 100%, as does yours presumably. That makes the agencies equal in the ONLY way to compare them. You can't say one style more or less, because we don't have numbers for each aspect of either type of agency.

Third, you can let players have control over the fiction without getting into Story Now at all. If my players suddenly tell me that they are going to head north and set one of their number up as the chief of the northern barbarians, the players are dictating the fiction, but in a manner consistent with the traditional style of play. They have chosen the direction and content of the fiction, but without using player powers to create things in the game via Story Now techniques. They did it entirely within the fiction of the game.

Fourth, we aren't arguing that Story Now has less agency. It's at an equal 100%.

You should stop listening to the Story Now people, and start listening to what we are actually saying. The Story Now people have continuously misrepresented our arguments and playstyle.

 

[Maxperson]

You are certainly welcome to disagree. I will take your word for it regarding "many of the games/adventures/campaigns/etc. of the 90's" since my RP days began with the release of 3rd edition D&D.

Then it's very well possible that you don't know what is. If you are unable to communicate your ideas clearly or they are routinely understood as communicating something else, then maybe there is something wrong with how you are communicating your message. But accusing me of bad faith in this case only poisons the conversational well.

It's happened in 3e, 4e and 5e as well. Every instance of railroading is a part of playing the game, but curtails agency to some degree.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The 90s were not a great decade for TTRPGs, I suppose. CCGs were introduced in '93 and cut into the typical new-RPGer demographic heavily, they (it, really: M:tG) dominated conventions for years, by the end of the 90s, young (under 30) TTRPG players were somewhat uncommon, and often had come to the hobby via LARPing. WWGS was the head-space leader in the industry, and TSR imploded.

In the 90s, 'story' was actually a big deal (nothing like 'Story Now,' it'd be more like "Story First," the GM, or even the writers of setting material, write a story/'meta-plot' and the GM pulls the players through it, more or less consensually/participationally), FWIW. It was also the era of UseNet and the infamous Roll v Role debate - which led to Threefold Theory, which led to all this crazy Forge lingo we use so inconsistently today. The most popular games of the decade were, IIRC, AD&D 2e (natch), Storyteller (WoD), and, though not really an RPG, Battletech (it was crazy popular, including crossover with a lot of RPGers at least at the cons I went to, and it had a crap RPG attached to it). Towards the end of the decade, the conventional wisdom was that those three won out because of the depth/wealth of their settings, which included novels and/or 'meta-plots' woven through the setting which, if your GM wanted to keep using the next book that came out (and one likely came out each month), constrained the kinds of stories your 'troupe' could tell.

So I guess we weren't just getting limited player agency, but limited GM agency, in a sense...

It is a whole other conversation really, but I would say it wasn't all as bad as people remember it sometimes. The way storytelling got used a lot, could get railroady, but you also had lots of really cool settings for 2E being released at that time, as well as the historical campaign books and the blue line (which had some good ones). The Van Richten books completely changed how I handled monster hunts and investigations (and proved highly gameable over many years for me). Things were kind of all over the map for AD&D. Even within the same line you'd have big differences (just compare/contrast Feast of Goblyns, Castles Forlorn and the Created for example). And if you played 2E, much of the 1E material was still available, played and compatible. We also had a small boom that I remember because of white wolf (and it seemed we had more women coming into the hobby as well with the WW stuff). And you had all kinds of interesting games being put out from TORG to Feng Shui. I think the big thing that worked then though was the settings. The meta plot got crazy. But even there, the idea of advancing the world isn't a bad one (it should just probably be done in an easier to manage, less profit-driven way--like optional timeline announcements so you can have significant events going on in the world the game is set). I think it was mainly the way they would use meta plot as an excuse to release a new boxed set or something. Sometimes meta plot improved things (in Ravenloft moving around some of the domains was good). Sometimes it didn't (also in Ravenloft, the Requiem stuff messing up Darkon wasn't something I enjoyed all that much).

 

[Arilyn]

This is well put, and sums it all up quite reasonably. But, a few notes: (I've taken the liberty of inserting some numbers into the quote to connect to my responses below, as I wanted to leave your message otherwise intact)
1. It's not just a question of "more" or "less" agency, it's also been a comparison of different types of agency with some saying one is better than another.

2. The underlying risk here is that if these two agencies are taken too far (and defining "too far" in this case might on its own be a lengthy debate!) you could end up with players authoring both the problem via agency over the fiction and the solution via agency over their characters. I'm willing to go out on a limb and say even the hardest-core story now proponents don't want this, never mind the rest of us.

So there still have to be limits somewhere.

3. Here's where quantifying agency gently runs aground. The agency given by story now isn't directly additive to the agency of exploration-as-seen-fit, in that with story now (as we've been told a few hundred times and counting ) there's nothing to explore. As a direct result there's much less agency of exploration, but as this is more or less replaced by agency that's granted over the fiction the end result is about a steady state.

The agency of free-will action declaration - i.e. a player has the agency to play her character as seen fit - seems roughly the same in either style.

4. Oddly enough, coming from me, I'd probably find a story-now-like game quite engaging in the short term; assuming reasonably decent players and GM and a rules-light system. However, short term isn't what I look for in a campaign; and particularly if I'm expected to learn a new rule set or system for it I expect a campaign to have the capability to sustain itself for many years. Story-now, from what I've seen, doesn't seem all that able to do this - you play through the story arcs you and the other players defined up front and that's it.

Tangentially, but still relevant: story now seems to very much focus on the individual character story arcs rather than the story arc of the party as a whole. I'd rather focus on the story arc of the party, and let individual characters come and go during that span. Focusing on the party story gives all the players equal reason to be engaged all the time, where jumping the focus back and forth between individual character's stories mean each player's reason for engagement waxes (when it's their story in focus) and wanes (when it's someone else's in which maybe they've less interest).

5. Agency maybe isn't a direct measure of quality but I think everyone here sees a well-managed application of their definition of agency as a significant contributor to quality.

Lan-"if the fourth is with you too much today will you be pleading the fifth tomorrow?"-efan

Hey, thanks for the numbering.

1. Yes, I agree mostly, but having players with agency over the fiction is still more agency. Whether that's desirable is subjective.

2.Yes, can't argue with that! I think Story Now could be harder to run properly, although maybe kids would have less trouble with it, as its more or less how they play. Minus the squabbling, of course.

3. Maybe? I think there can be exploration in both styles, just one is pre-built, and the other unfolds during play.

4. It is fun. Don't know about long term campaigns. Have to ask pemerton about that, or maybe he's already said. These threads are getting really long. I think it might be important in Story Now gaming to weave the player plots together as much as possible without getting silly. And if player B's story is exciting, there is no reason for player A to get detached. Another question for pemerton, but doesn't all the player goals kind of merge together, anyway? Kind of like watching Avengers or Leverage. It's happening in our current campaign. We have different drives and long term goals, but we form a cohesive unit against the baddies, and are more than willing to help each other further their individual arcs. Sometimes this causes some inter-character strife, but that's cool.

5. Oh definitely. I didn't mean to imply agency isn't important or meaningful. I was just trying to point out that having the most isn't some kind of "I win!" badge. I have been in some tightly focussed GM driven stories that were awesome, and have played in wide open sandboxes that were excruciatingly dull. I get a little tired of hearing about sandboxes actually, but that's off topic.

Anyway, hello to a fellow British Columbian.

 

[Tony Vargas]

We also had a small boom that I remember because of white wolf (and it seemed we had more women coming into the hobby as well with the WW stuff)

Yep, that's when we started getting more women into the hobby, V:tM & LARPs in general had a much less male-dominated fanbase, and, I suspect, there was more crossover from LARP to TTRPGs than from M:tG to TT, at the time. (Now, I'm not so sure: it seems like there's a lot of MtG to D&D crossover.)

The meta plot got crazy. But even there, the idea of advancing the world isn't a bad one (it should just probably be done in an easier to manage, less profit-driven way--like optional timeline announcements so you can have significant events going on in the world the game is set). I think it was mainly the way they would use meta plot as an excuse to release a new boxed set or something.

I'm not saying meta-plot is innately good or bad, just that if you want to keep your campaign aligned with it, it narrows your options. That and agreeing that the storytelling trend could have sold some GMs on limiting what would now be called player agency in the name of story (which we'd now call 'Story First' I guess).

Personally, I'm not entirely convinced by the conventional wisdom of the late 90s, that it really was setting, let alone meta-plot, that was driving sales of the more popular games. Rather, I think the relative lack of new players, and the time in life many of us found ourselves then, cut down on opportunities to play, so game supplements that were good reads (WWGS was the master at that) became more appealing than games & supplements that were mechanically sound.

(If the come-back is sustained and we still have millions of new gamers 10 years from now, I wonder if system will start mattering?
...yeah, yeah, stick me in the 'purist for system' box, and ignore me...)

 

[Maxperson]

Hey, thanks for the numbering.

1. Yes, I agree mostly, but having players with agency over the fiction is still more agency. Whether that's desirable is subjective.

I look forward to you proving this statement of fact with hard numbers.

 

[pemerton]

I will try again, trying to build on what [MENTION=6816042]Arilyn[/MENTION] posted.

If the thing that a person enjoys in RPGing is a sense of being in the GM's world, then why would you explain that in terms of agency? The notion of audience membership seems like a more fruitful starting point.

I enjoy going to movies, and I enjoy listening to music, but I don't explain that pleasure in terms of my agency.

If the purposes of worldbuilding include establishing material for the GM to present to the players, is anyone interested in explaining why that is worthwhile?

If the purpose of worldbuilding is - in metaphorical terms - to give the players stuff to interact with via their PCs, which means - in literal terms - to establish frameworks for declaring actions which then affect the way the GM narrates his/her setting - is anyone interested in explaining why that is worthwhile?

 

[Maxperson]

If the thing that a person enjoys in RPGing is a sense of being in the GM's world, then why would you explain that in terms of agency? The notion of audience membership seems like a more fruitful starting point.

You aren't in the DM's world. He may have created the part of it that the game is set in, but the world belongs to both the DM and players once play starts, and the resulting story that comes from the DM/Player interactions is a collaboration. Players aren't there to be an audience of any kind.

I enjoy going to movies, and I enjoy listening to music, but I don't explain that pleasure in terms of my agency.

Me, too. I also don't go to movies or concerts to take part in them, affecting them with my actions. That gets me arrested.

If the purposes of worldbuilding include establishing material for the GM to present to the players, is anyone interested in explaining why that is worthwhile?

The purpose is to establish a setting for the players to play in. It's that simple. You worldbuild. I worldbuild. We all do it. You just worldbuild to a much smaller extent. You've told us how when you ran a game in Greyhawk you used the city names and basic things like that, but built the details as you went along. Even the simple use of the names and map of Greyhawk is worldbuilding.

Having a setting to play in is very worthwhile in my opinion. It saves a lot of time and hassle. I'd really dislike playing in a game where the DM and I(and the other players) have to collaboratively build the cosmos, the planet, the continents, countries, cities, etc. as we went along.

If the purpose of worldbuilding is - in metaphorical terms - to give the players stuff to interact with via their PCs, which means - in literal terms - to establish frameworks for declaring actions which then affect the way the GM narrates his/her setting - is anyone interested in explaining why that is worthwhile?

That's not the purpose of worldbuilding. The purpose is just to create a setting. What you do after that isn't worldbuilding, it's playing the game with whatever methods you use.

 

[Arilyn]

In Classical play, world building, whether homebrew or published gives the players a place to adventure in. The GM creates stories, or develops adventure areas and the players explore or work through the story. It's advantages are there is a less likely chance for the session to fizzle, because the GM comes prepared. The adventure in a skilled GM's hands will feel satisfying as it will hit narrative beats resulting in a climax. For many players, they will feel that there is an actual world outside their own little sphere.

The disadvantages are that players might not really care about this week's story about the missing duke. If it is more sandbox, there could be a sense that there is no story, just a string of events. The players could very well have agency to pursue whatever goals they wish, but it is still the GM's world.

In Story Now, there is no or very little in the way of world building. It gets created through play as a collaboration between GM and players. There are no pre-set notions whatsoever on the direction the story will take. It is driven by player drives and goals. Having the history of the Elven people written down ahead of time is immaterial. The history of the elves will only come up if it's tied to a particular player or goal of the group. It avoids the pitfalls of GM preference. I have a soft spot for running ghost stories, for example, but maybe my players are beginning to roll their eyes when I introduce yet another phantom...Story Now games also have a real sense of immediacy and drama. I like that. There is a thrill when it all comes together and nobody had any plans when you started.

On the other hand, Story Now games have a greater risk of ending in a chaotic mess. Participants have to be on their toes. There is no coasting tonight, cause I'm tired, so I'll just show up and hit things. As a GM it's a little intimidating because you are operating without a safety net. It's trickier and more demanding. The world is more centred around the pcs, and drama trumps world solidity. For a lot of players, this is not what they are looking for in a rpg.

Personally, I enjoy both. I think as a GM, I feel more comfortable with a more traditional style, but
encourage player Input. "You are approaching the Swamp of Dread. Has anyone been here before? Yes? Fill us in please." I roughly sketch out the world, and let it get filled in through player choices and input. If I'm doing a historical setting, however, I'll do lots of research to get it as accurate as possible.

My table enjoys different styles and games, thus our dip into Story Now. I haven't been GMing it, however, because I was a little chicken. Maybe next time.