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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 9502036" data-attributes="member: 87792">Are we talking improvising or worldbuilding here?And I would say that the Dungeon Master's Guide should be written from the perspective that this is not the case. It should be written with the goal that a group of kids have only heard of D&D decide to try to use it, the PHB, and possibly the MM to play a game of D&D entirely bereft of a teacher. And even those learning secondary hand could do with a refresher.Matt Mercer is the (main) DM of Critical Role. At this point he is possibly the most famous and certainly the most emulated DM on the planet, not excluding E. Gary Gygax. (For that matter, streaming audiences being what they are even a comparatively niche streamer like Deborah Ann Woll probably has more imitators of her puzzle centric gameplay than Gygax has direct imitators).There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with Mercer - heaven knows that I don't always agree with the way he does things. But if you disagree with the way he does things you are disagreeing with mainstream D&D play in the 2020s. And as such although catering to you might be nice you can't expect your way to be the default option.This is covered in Chapter 1: differing expectations. Yours differ from the mainstreamYMMV. My experience is the absolute opposite; worlds that are the rigid product of a single mind are the ones lacking in both versimilitude and depth - and ones that have the characters basically Isikai'd in because the DM wants to rigidly control the world rather than having the players set up parts of the setting to come from are the equivalent of blatantly obvious green screen acting.World building is inessential.This doesn't make it undesirable. But I've played in a very fun one shot where the entirety of the worldbuilding was "you are all teleported from your homeworlds to the start of the Dungeon Of The Mad God with bomb collars locked round your necks on a countdown. The only way to survive is complete it". But it was a good group and an enthusiastic, charismatic, and interesting DM so it was a good game.Does this make at least some worldbuilding undesirable? You can run a kitchen without garlic but I don't recommend it. But not even every savoury recipe requires garlic. The longer a kitchen stays running and the larger the menu the more likely you'll be to notice the lack.</blockquote>

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