Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 3025888" data-attributes="member: 1106">Irrelevant or too much backstory tops the list of &quot;don'ts&quot; in Wolfgang Baur's list of things not to do when writing an adventure.&nbsp; It's the gamer equivalent of exposition - difficult to relay without slowing play and interrupting the real story (the game in progress), and self-indulgent on the part of the writer or DM.Then why is it so often such a hard sell to make players care about the campaign setting, as this thread implies?&nbsp; I know that as a player, I'd prefer a rich campaign arc and exciting adventure any day over setting details that are irrelevant to actual play, which seems to be a large degree of what worldbuilding entails by necessity, and DMs have only finite time and focus.I would argue that there are far more important things to attend to than a mere subtlety.They come from the adventure, not the setting!&nbsp; There is a confusion, I think, among DMs that if they create a good enough setting, then great gameplay will follow.&nbsp; The campaign arc and it's adventures are the game, the setting little more than stage props which are largely interchangeable.&nbsp; The fact that many or most DMs have this exactly backwards is quite bewildering.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="rounser, post: 3025888, member: 1106"] Irrelevant or too much backstory tops the list of "don'ts" in Wolfgang Baur's list of things not to do when writing an adventure. It's the gamer equivalent of exposition - difficult to relay without slowing play and interrupting the real story (the game in progress), and self-indulgent on the part of the writer or DM. Then why is it so often such a hard sell to make players care about the campaign setting, as this thread implies? I know that as a player, I'd prefer a rich campaign arc and exciting adventure any day over setting details that are irrelevant to actual play, which seems to be a large degree of what worldbuilding entails by necessity, and DMs have only finite time and focus. I would argue that there are far more important things to attend to than a mere subtlety. They come from [i]the adventure[/i], not the setting! There is a confusion, I think, among DMs that if they create a good enough setting, then great gameplay will follow. The campaign arc and it's adventures are [i]the game[/i], the setting little more than stage props which are largely interchangeable. The fact that many or most DMs have this exactly backwards is quite bewildering. [/QUOTE]

Verification