Forked from "An Epiphany" thread: Is World Building "Necessary"?

[Mallus]

You might like hearing about a sword +1, +2 vs papparazzi.

Apropos of nothing, I love this idea and will probably steal it. Thanks!

 

[Kask]

No Kask, that is not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that if my join date is five years ago, then perhaps, just maybe, I've been gaming for AT LEAST five years.

So? Why would I care if you'd been gaming for 5 years?

 

[Mallus]

I would even submit that your definitions aren't mutually exclusive and that plenty of decisions a DM might make will fit into both or may shift from one classification to the other based on what the PCs actually do when interacting with the world.

Put me down as DM who doesn't really get the distinction being made. Roughly half of our 4e homebrew setting document is a list of NPC's. They're as much a part of the environment as a dangerous alley, a storied mountain, or the setting's peculiar afterlife is.

Let me give you an example from our setting.

• Ingenué Santos is an explorer and airship captain. (NPC)

• Her airship is carried beneath a lighter-than-air Astral Starfish, which is buoyant because it's full of the void and infinitely-remote stars. They can also be persuaded to shoot bolts of purest void. (setting fluff)

• It's well known that Ingenué is planning an expedition to the mythical land called the Interior. (future plot hook)

In writing up Ingenué I was creating the setting, because good settings are made of people, creating a potential campaign arc, and indulging in pure worldbuilding porn, in the details about the Astral Starfish.

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

Hussar is responding to the implication in an earlier post of yours Kask that basically stated that only people who have been gaming for a short time could like playing the way that he does. The other side of the coin of your implication is that people who have been playing for a long time would obviously find your playstyle to be superior. He was trying to establish his gameing credentials a little, and attempting to set you straight after maligning his gaming sensibilities.

You are completely wrong about longer experience leading people to play one, obviously superior, way. I have been playing for 23 years. Not as long as some, but probably much longer than most. I do not hold what you consider to be "true" to be anything like you state it. Experience gaming =/= coming to the same conclusion as you.

Can we get to some productive conversation now and quit with the ad hominem attacks?

 

[Kask]

Hussar is responding to the implication in an earlier post of yours Kask that basically stated that only people who have been gaming for a short time could like playing the way that he does.

I didn't say or imply that. Don't EVER put words in my mouth again.

This is not how you talk to people at EN World. Lose the attitude, please. You can correct someone and still be polite about it. ~ Piratecat

 

[Fallen Seraph]

This is somewhat similar to PrecociousApprentice's Setting Creation post. But is slightly different too more dealing with the actual process and less the end-effect.

I would definitely call myself a story-based DM. There is a main-plot, side-plots, character-plots, etc. As such I like to keep my setting loose to allow the plot and where the PCs take it to have "room" to deliver the narrative that is appropriate.

As such I don't create wholesale, mapped out settings I do; Drag and Drop, essentially:

Drag and Drop: The DM after consultation with his Players on what the campaign should be like; the themes, atmosphere, style of gameplay, races, etc, etc. The DM develops the plot, he does so separate of any "world" elements besides what had been already decided in consultation (exception of this being if one element is say a focus on a particular city for instance, though this would have been brought up).

After this comes a brainstorming stage. Where essentially the DM comes up with a whole library of places, events, people, etc. These would fit with the themes, atmosphere, as pre-determined. However none of this actually exists "in-game". They are simply drag and drop elements determined not by the world but the plot and the players. The plot dictates that a mine should be there, a mine is there. The players state they wish to visit a wise-man in the desert from their past, this wise-man is now in this newly formed desert.

Essentially, while there is prep-work that goes into it and in a way is "world-building", it is really the plotline and what the players choose to go/exist in the world that actually builds the world. Without the progression of the plot and players none of the world would be defined.

This idea probably has been brought up before. But I figured it is another model to through out there into the debate.

 

[Ourph]

Like I said, it falls to pieces rapidly.

You can say it all you want, it doesn't make it true.

Playing in little predefined boxes (you can't use high level spells unless you give advanced notice to DM) isn't a good campaign style.

Who said anything about not using high level spells without advance notice? That's never been a requirement in any game that I've ever run. I'm talking about players jettisoning from the current campaign context and going off to pursue goals that are completely tangential to the adventure at hand. Using teleport to go visit a sage in a distant city to find clues about something in the current campaign context would never be a problem, because that falls under the heading of "adventure prep" (i.e. clues related to the current adventure are related to the current adventure, obviously).

 

[Rel]

How about everybody stop arguing with each other and start discussing with each other or I'm closing the thread.

 

[Scribble]

If you were going to get cornered at a cocktail party by a guy in a gamer shirt, who would you pick? The guy who wants to tell you about his flaming spork? Or the guy who tells you about a tribe of troglodytes that worshiped a flaming spork as their sole source of light and heat?

Either one will probably have me cringing.

 

[Ourph]

Either one will probably have me cringing.

Yeah, the whole "wearing a gamer t-shirt at a cocktail party" bit pretty much sets the tone.