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<blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 3025990" data-attributes="member: 1106">The players judge it.&nbsp; DMs and designers have a lot of trouble reigning themselves in and tend to indulge in a lot of &quot;worldbuilding for worldbuilding's sake&quot;, under the auspices of maintaining verisimilitude and atmosphere.&nbsp; These are worthy goals, but in the greater scheme of things there are far more important matters to attend to that seem to get ignored in favour of these things, simply because worldbuilding is fun.&nbsp; If this is the case, I think DMs should at least admit that they're not primarily interested in supporting a game of D&amp;D, but rather maintaining a worldbuilding hobby under the auspices of maintaining a game of D&amp;D perhaps as a secondary priority.You mean, macro-level indulgence rather than micro-level sweatboxing?&nbsp; Yeah, I think every DM gets to indulge themselves in this way occasionally, but asking the players to care about such indulgence is the arguably unrealistic part.&nbsp; Players care about stuff that affects their PCs as the number one priority, which translates to the adventures/campaign arc, because what's not in there or a result thereof is generally something they can't affect; atmosphere and attention to detail is a nice bonus, but not the main event in terms of what is needed to support a D&amp;D game, IMO.Although I understand what you're alluding to, I think that the difficulty of pinning down that vibe offers a clue to it's importance relative to other considerations, such as what adventure is on offer, right now at this point in the campaign, and is that adventure fun.Verisimilitude is a nice bonus, perhaps even not optional, but by itself does not a good game make.&nbsp; Neither does atmosphere.&nbsp; What I mean is, there seems to be far too much focus on the sizzle, and much too little focus on the steak.I think that most DMs treat them as discrete entities, or hold the importance of the setting as more fundamental than the nature of the adventures and campaign arc (e.g. throwing out perfectly good adventure ideas because they don't fit already established homebrew material or published setting &quot;canon&quot;), otherwise we wouldn't see &quot;what setting?&quot; as one of the most commonly asked questions from DMs beginning a campaign.&nbsp; This speaks volumes about the way in which a setting is viewed with regard to how much it matters to the campaign.&nbsp; This is the very assumption which I think needs to undergo scrutiny.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="rounser, post: 3025990, member: 1106"] The players judge it. DMs and designers have a lot of trouble reigning themselves in and tend to indulge in a lot of "worldbuilding for worldbuilding's sake", under the auspices of maintaining verisimilitude and atmosphere. These are worthy goals, but in the greater scheme of things there are far more important matters to attend to that seem to get ignored in favour of these things, simply because worldbuilding is fun. If this is the case, I think DMs should at least admit that they're not primarily interested in supporting a game of D&D, but rather maintaining a worldbuilding hobby under the auspices of maintaining a game of D&D perhaps as a secondary priority. You mean, macro-level indulgence rather than micro-level sweatboxing? Yeah, I think every DM gets to indulge themselves in this way occasionally, but asking the players to care about such indulgence is the arguably unrealistic part. Players care about stuff that affects their PCs as the number one priority, which translates to the adventures/campaign arc, because what's not in there or a result thereof is generally something they can't affect; atmosphere and attention to detail is a nice bonus, but not the main event in terms of what is needed to support a D&D game, IMO. Although I understand what you're alluding to, I think that the difficulty of pinning down that vibe offers a clue to it's importance relative to other considerations, such as what adventure is on offer, right now at this point in the campaign, and is that adventure fun. Verisimilitude is a nice bonus, perhaps even not optional, but by itself does not a good game make. Neither does atmosphere. What I mean is, there seems to be far too much focus on the sizzle, and much too little focus on the steak. I think that most DMs treat them as discrete entities, or hold the importance of the setting as more fundamental than the nature of the adventures and campaign arc (e.g. throwing out perfectly good adventure ideas because they don't fit already established homebrew material or published setting "canon"), otherwise we wouldn't see "what setting?" as one of the most commonly asked questions from DMs beginning a campaign. This speaks volumes about the way in which a setting is viewed with regard to how much it matters to the campaign. This is the very assumption which I think needs to undergo scrutiny. [/QUOTE]

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