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<blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 318164" data-attributes="member: 1106">Heh, I think even the &quot;make a world, not a story&quot; soundbite is flawed.I understand the underlying sentiment of &quot;don't build a story&quot; because people tend to build stories for RPGs as if they were for a novel rather than a roleplaying game, and end up with stories which railroad, create plot bottlenecks, and assume too much about player actions.&nbsp; But the same goes for worldbuilding.&nbsp; For instance, many DMs spend time on worldbuilding elements that the PCs will never interact with, the players will probably never care about, or will never enter play at all - as if they were doing it for some novel.&nbsp; Nice for verisimilitude, but not really very good use of time.Instead of a world or a story, I suggest focusing on building a campaign, where &quot;campaign&quot; is defined as &quot;a framework for running a game&quot;, whatever that means for you. That can involve both worldbuilding, story arcs, NPCs, encounter details, adventure creation - whatever.&nbsp; Whether that is done through preparation or on the fly is personal preference.&nbsp; The balance of these elements which works best, and the flexibility with which players can interact with them or change them is also up to the DM.It's not a sexy little soundbite like &quot;build a world, not a story&quot;, but it makes more sense to me.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="rounser, post: 318164, member: 1106"] Heh, I think even the "make a world, not a story" soundbite is flawed. I understand the underlying sentiment of "don't build a story" because people tend to build stories for RPGs as if they were for a novel rather than a roleplaying game, and end up with stories which railroad, create plot bottlenecks, and assume too much about player actions. But the same goes for worldbuilding. For instance, many DMs spend time on worldbuilding elements that the PCs will never interact with, the players will probably never care about, or will never enter play at all - as if they were doing it for some novel. Nice for verisimilitude, but not really very good use of time. Instead of a world or a story, I suggest focusing on building a [i]campaign[/i], where "campaign" is defined as "a framework for running a game", whatever that means for you. That can involve both worldbuilding, story arcs, NPCs, encounter details, adventure creation - whatever. Whether that is done through preparation or on the fly is personal preference. The balance of these elements which works best, and the flexibility with which players can interact with them or change them is also up to the DM. It's not a sexy little soundbite like "build a world, not a story", but it makes more sense to me. [/QUOTE]

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