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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5454491" data-attributes="member: 42582">Well, it's nice to know that when I read the system I reach the same conclusions as it's designers!In case this was amiguous or incomplete - of course "just in time" play will deliver a rich setting at the end of play. It's just that the richness results from play. It's not an input into play.A fairly trivial example from my game yesterday: The PCs have been opposing the minions of a yellow-robed wizard for some levels now. They have known him as "Golthar". In yesterday's session they learned from some witches of a yellow-robed wizard named "Paldemar". Those same witches told them that "Golthar" sounds like a Goblin name.One of the PCs speaks Goblin and Common, and has a strong History skill. The player of that PC asked me whether the roots of "Golthar" in Goblin are the same as the roors of "Paldemar" in Common. I hadn't though about this before, but answered "yes" - thus, in effect, confirming the players' hypothesis that the two yellow-robed wizards are one-and-the-same person.I made this decision because I felt, at this stage of the campaign, there was little to be achieved by keeping the players in the dark. I had introduced the dual identity into my background notes thinking that it might produce some interesting play. For various reasons, however, it has never come up until now, and at this point the PCs have access to divination magic that would make a question of dual identity nothing more than a bit of a gp sink for them (component costs) and a bit of a time sink at the table (as we lose play time solving a problem whose solution is foregone). Hence my decision to make the call that I did, and in the process to add a minor detail to the linguistic facts of my gameworld.Over the course of multiple sessions, decisions like this produce a rich gameworld. But they are the result of play. They are not a prelude to it. This is what I think 4e is best suited to.4e inspires me to design scenarios and situations - more, probably, than my party will get to, though the levelling-up rules help keep some of my designs viable for future use. But more and more these days I play with only some broad background ideas, filling in the details as I play (in the way described above).Can you say more about how you approach your world design, and how it relates to your actual play?</blockquote>

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