Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Lanefan]

But starting Isle of Dread with "You're sailing from X to Y and then a storm blows up, and beaches you on this lonely island . . ." isn't worldbuilding. (Hussar's post indicates that this isn't the canonical way of starting X1. But it is a possible way, which is enough for my point.)

Which is [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s point. The Phantom of the Opera happens in Paris, but we don't actually need to build Paris; we just allude to it. The GM can narrate that the PCs are sailing from X to Y without anyone actually having to build X or Y. They are just names in a bit of introductory framing.

If you're playing/running Isle of Dread as a one-off adventure then sure, what you say is absolutely true.

But I'm assuming in all cases here that these adventures are embedded in an ongoing campaign...which in this case means the PCs were in X for a reason (even if only to get on the ship to sail to Y) and are...were...intent on going to Y for a reason. That they were in X means I've had to narrate at least a bit of description about the place; and whatever Y is would have to have had some sort of narration or description or clues because otherwise why would they be going there?

Here's the "game world at large" for B1 (it's p 6 of my PDF version):

area, Rogahn the Fearless (a fighter of renown) and Zelligar the Unknown (a magic-user of mystery and power) pooled their resources and expertise to construct a home and stronghold for the two of them to use as a base of operations. The location of this hidden complex was chosen with care, since both men disliked visitors and intruders. Far from the nearest settlement, away from traveled routes, and high upon a craggy hill, the new construction took shape. Carved out of the rock protrusion which crested the heavily forested hill, this mystical hideaway was well hidden, and its rumored existence was never common knowledge. Even less well known was its name, the Caverns of Quasqueton.​

The fact that there is a largely unknown (in terms of existence and name) stronghold constructed in an isolated, craggy, heavily-forested hill, is not worldbuilding. That's the barest of flavour. The only actual bit of the world that's been "built" for this adventure is the caverns.

We're also told that it's far from the nearest settlement and away from travelled routes, strongly implying that the PCs will not be easily able to go back to town and resupply and-or recruit new characters to replace their dead. Because of this, and because low-level D&D play tends toward resource management, a DM is going to want to know how many days it takes to travel from town to the adventure site so as to monitor the PCs' food supply...which makes positioning both the dungeon and the "nearest settlement" on a map a rather useful thing to do. Noting any intervening terrain features that may help or hinder travel would also be useful. It's also trivially easy to do these things; then later as the campaign goes on they can be expanded upon until soon enough you've the genesis of a game world.

Me, I just prefer to move that work from within the campaign to before it starts. That way I can think through the in-play implications of what I've designed* and tweak it to suit.

* - a process I manage to mess up at every opportunity, but hey - live and learn...

Lanefan

 

[Bedrockgames]

And this is part of the problem. You don't see it as a problem in your games does not mean that the problem does not exist in many other games as experienced by Hussar and others.
!

But what is the result he wants to see from making this observation? And any time Hussar has weighed in, he seems to be saying more and more this is a problem that needs some kind of addressing. I think it is fair when someone says X is a problem, that others can weigh in and say if they think it is a problem or not. Particularly if people are debating for what should be considered 'best practices' in the hobby/industry (and my impression of Hussar's position---and I'll gladly take Hussar's correction if this is wrong---is he thinks this is a best practices issue). If he isn't saying that, people have said, over and over again, they have no problem with his position.

I'm not going to respond to your points anymore if all you are going to do is get meta about the debate. Let's just put this into more concrete ground, since as someone has already pointed out, we are debating what is being argued, and that is pretty useless and confusing for all involved.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Holy Gaslighting, Batman!

This is both very melodramatic and a serious mischaracterization of my posts.

 

[hawkeyefan]

There is so much straw in this thread now I’m concerned about fire safety. We’re now down to quite long arguments about what is being argued about.

The debate probably should have been framed better in the first few posts - instead we’ve got the apples lot saying the oranges aren’t crunchy enough.

That depends on how you define crunch...

 

[Bedrockgames]

That depends on how you define crunch...

Stop projecting your mushy center on us all

 

[Lanefan]

Another reason in favour of up-front world-building, or at least an aspect of current game design that will tend to force some world-building by default, just occurred to me: the increasing importance of and emphasis on character backgrounds.

In 0e-1e days - the era of the various classic adventures we're referencing - character background wasn't really much of a thing. You banged out a PC and only once it survived a few adventures did you bother giving it any history or background or whatever.

Fast-forward to 5e, where character background and history are much more formally a part of the game and need to be determined up front. Why does this matter for this discussion?

Because one of the first questions to arise in any sort of character history or background is going to be "where am I from?"; and the second is likely to be a variant on "how did I get to <where the campaign starts>?"; and answering these questions - likely for a variety of races and classes within your starting party - is by default going to force a surprising amount of world-building. Also note that the answers to some of these questions can be provided by the player, but will still impact the design of the game world.

Let's take a relatively basic starting party:

1. Human Wizard
2. Elf Ranger
3. Dwarf Fighter
4. Hobbit Rogue
5. Gnome Cleric

Each of these characters represent some background questions, answering which will either require or achieve - in sum total - a lot of world-building:

1. Where did I get my wizard training? Was it from a formal guild (thus implying wizards have guilds as a thing), or informal tutoring, or self-taught; and if self-taught whose equipment was I using? Can <campaign start location = CSL> support this or did I do it elsewhere? Am I from the same Human culture as CSL or a different one, and if different where does that culture tend to live as that's most likely where my family is and-or my ancestry hails from?

2. Where do Elves tend to live? Is that where I'm from, and if not where is my home? Where have I travelled during my Elvenly-long life, other than from my home to CSL? How familiar am I with other races (in other words, what else lives near the Elves that I could reasonably expect to have encountered)?

3. Where do Dwarves tend to live? Is that where I'm from, and if not where is my home? Where have I travelled during my life, other than from my home to CSL? How familiar am I with other races (in other words, what else lives near the Dwarves that I could reasonably expect to have encountered) or are the Dwarves isolationist?

4. Where do Hobbits tend to live? Is that where I was born? Where is my home now? Where did I learn my Rogue skills - on the streets (where?), or from a guild (where?; and this makes Rogues' guilds a thing), or self-taught? Are there any towns or places I shouldn't return to, and if yes what are they and what did I do there? If guilds exist, which one(s) am I a member of?

5. Where do Gnomes tend to live? Who's my deity? If Gnomes are not monotheistic, who are the rest of the deities in my pantheon? Is my faith represented in CSL with a temple? If not, where's my nearest temple or other contact with those of my faith? Is that where I studied to become a Cleric?

So, unless a DM wants to end up with something of a hodge-podge game world it would probably make sense to know ahead of time - at least in vague terms - what lives where and in relative proximity to what else. It could be as simple as "campaign starts here, lots of Elves to the west, Dwarves in mountains to the south, Hobbits kind of scattered everywhere, Gnomes only to the far south so any Gnome's background is going to include significant travel; Humans here are kind of Greek-based, Celts to the north, Vikings to the far north, Egyptians in deserts to the east, ... (etc.)". Then throw this all onto a rough map to give proximities and vague distances...and about now it's probably also a good idea to figure out if there's any major wars or conflicts going on as that could really impact play at the table - if there's a long-standing war between the Dwarves and the Celts, for example, then no matter what you do it's inevitable someone will roll up a Dwarf PC and someone else a Celt PC.

Having the pantheons somewhat nailed down ahead of time is also useful - it's nearly guaranteed someone's going to play a Cleric at some point and will ask about his/her deity and pantheon; and even beyond that, knowing what sort of deities are worshipped wherever the party might go is handy info to have.

Lanefan

 

[Maxperson]

I think your splitting hairs.

I don't think so. A good analogy for this would be if [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] said, "I don't like vehicles, because they're too big. Cars, trucks, semis, and airplanes are just too much. That's why I ride a motorcycle. That's not a vehicle." Pointing out that a motorcycle IS a vehicle, just a smaller one that he does like is not splitting hairs. It's similarly not splitting hairs to point out the fact that he does worldbuild, even if on a smaller scale.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

The reason people react so strongly to "world building is bad" is it is the advice that is only going to work for certain GMs and certain conditions. Too many people see value from world building at the table to just go along with that kind of conclusion. And this is being expressed as an absolute, objective, Hussar has the answer for everyone.

I'd posit that the reason that people react so strongly to "world building is bad" is that they likely fall pretty heavily somewhere on the list I gave a few pages back and they can't handle the idea that their DMing isn't the perfect approach to gaming.

 

[Maxperson]

That depends on how you define crunch...

This does it for me!

https://youtu.be/O6rHeD5x2tI

 

[Hussar]

/snip

There's no reason it needs to be simply narrating a daily log of what the PCs see mixed with random encounter rolls on the ocean chart.

Since most of us are going to play adventure after adventure after adventure....why not connect them a bit more? Sure, maybe you don't prefer that, and want a more episodic feel. But that doesn't have to be the case.

Because, typically, a narrated daily log with random encounters is pretty much all that connective bits amounts to. If it was actually important, you'd take the time to actually make an adventure about it (see, for example, the Paizo remake of Isle of Dread where they actually spend three complete adventures just getting to the village on the island).

But, for the most part, it's utterly forgettable cruft that just wastes everyone's time at the table.