How much has world-creation been important to you?

[Elf Witch]

I love making worlds it is my absolute favorite part of DMing.

As a player I often prefer to play in a published setting because I have found a lot of DMs really lack the skill to make a compelling world.

 

[rounser]

Worldbuilding is D&D's meta-hobby, just as painting and modeling is to Warhammer games. I'm not sure this has registered with the 4E/5E designers, as Mearls is looking for the "heart of D&D" in dry mechanics.

 

[Mark CMG]

Setting creation is one of the early cornerstones of tabletop RPGing. I doubt they'd appeal to as many tabletop RPGers if they don't make worldbuilding a cornerstone of 5E. I think they are looking to recapture that audience and not making it front and center in the new game will likely have many players/GMs not even giving 5E a chance, even if they try to follow up quickly with some supplements. The problem being that if this doesn't work right out of the gate, 5E isn't likely to gain enough traction for WotC to feel it has been as successful as they hoped, which in turn means 6E will come all the sooner. Everyone interested in a successful 5E should probably get on board quickly with worldbuilding being a cornerstone and the OGL being supported if they want a longer edition cycle this time around.

 

[Rune]

My favourite part of DnD - I ticked Extremely - though I still love published settings and steal from them shamelessly.

Probably THE most inspiring book I have is the World Builder's Guide (from 2e times).

It inspired me to go and create my own versions where I have documents for creating Realms of any size. I love randomness and I have crammed in everything I can from as many sourcebooks as possible. What better way to make use of them than when something on one of my random creation charts directs me to them.

Anyway, a lot of advice on this would be great in 5E.

LOVED that book! Man, I really need to hunt down another copy...

I prefer homebrew just because it's a lot more fun but it's also damn hard...

You may find this thread to be of use. The lessons therein are designed to help the DM streamline things at the world-building, game-prep, and actual-play stages.

 

[OnlineDM]

I'm apparently a total oddity. World building isn't all that important to me. Even when I've written my own adventures, the world has been left pretty much undefined beyond "these particular NPCs and monsters and locations exist in it".

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I love making worlds it is my absolute favorite part of DMing.

As a player I often prefer to play in a published setting because I have found a lot of DMs really lack the skill to make a compelling world.

Aye and aye.

Last year I was hired to do a bit of world building for a friend in the Army. (I was paid with his just finished computer - he decided that it was too danged large to haul around when he was reassigned. Gotta love the barter system.)

I know exactly what and when the genesis was - I mentioned a song whose title I could not remember on the discussion area of the webcomic 'Narbonic'. One of the readers recognized the song, which led to this. The Boatman's Cure.

The penultimate verse led to the idea of just how scary the French & Indian War might be in a fantasy setting - with Orcs & Elves replacing the French & Indians:
I fought all through this wilderness in ’59;
I still fancy I see shadows movin’ time after time,
Fancy I see shadows movin’ time after time....
If it doesn’t lift your spirits, well, it leaves you numb,
Best cure for shadows is a bottle of rum,
Only cure for shadows is a bottle of rum.

Orc barbarians and elf rangers, firing from the darkness that is as day to them. A human soldier that saw a shadow moving might never live to see the light of day. (Some of the earliest recorded instances of what is now called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder came from the French & Indian War.)

The setting changed in several ways as the writing progressed - among other things I realized that Witches from the APG made sense as the default spellcasters in the setting, with hedge witch becoming the most common.

Ultimate Combat added official rules for guns, the basic weapon of the setting. (Guns everywhere was the choice.)

One change from history was the dwarfs replacing Hessians - and the dwarfs still wore the back & breast armor, since dwarfs do not suffer the downside of being armored.

The orcs began taking scalps - the elves paying bounty on the scalps taken.

The elves bought slaves from orcish raids into the human colonies. (Yes, the French really did that during the war, there is even a musical titled Hold On Molly - based on a true incident of the taking of one woman and her rescue.)

After it was finished I sent some revisions - my favorite being a region between the two warring groups of colonies called Arcadia, an area largely populated by half-elves. Over time, beyond the general scope of the setting, these half elves developed their own culture, distinct from either parent.

Also over time they moved from the timber country of the north into the swamps of the south, and their name softened and shifted - going from Arcadian to Acadian, and from there to 'Cajun'.

Also beyond the scope was the eventual rebellion of thirteen of those colonies, with general officers that began their careers in that war between the humans and the elves with their orc allies.

So, yeah, I like having the tools to customize my own worlds.

The Auld Grump

 

[Pour]

World creation is one of the best parts of the D&D experience. I've always DMed in homebrew worlds, even one-shots and delves have been set more or less in my own settings.

My ongoing campaign world is entirely original (well, entirely self-generated) and I'm constantly expanding it in-game, behind the screen, in my free time, inspired by players, books, TV, internet, other campaigns, on and on.

A friend of mine is now running his campaign in the setting, taking a lower-level Heroic group through events congruent, but removed, from my high Paragon party. It's flattering and fun to see both another DM interpreting and exploring the world, and seeing another party find its way through my creative efforts (though I'm not positive it's quite 'cannon' yet). I can only imagine what Gygax felt, or Greenwood feels, having seen what others have wrought from their brainchildren.

 

[Aenghus]

I used to be concerned with detailed world building, it can be a fun subgame.

However, I learned over time that most players aren't interested in deepliy delving into a setting. Fuirther, a very detailed system can be inflexible and exclude playing styles and character concepts that some players want.

I get more engagement from being willing to tailor some details of the setting to fit to the players and PCs involved. This is less work and more likely to be relevant than worldbuilding for its own sake.

 

[Lanefan]

I build the world (or if using a pre-gen, modify it beyond recognition) to allow me to then build its history.
I build the histories to allow me to then mine those histories for stories.
I build the stories to allow me to then run a game.

It's very simple, really.

Lan-''it's also way easier to know what the designer had in mind when incorporating elements x y and z when I am the designer''-efan

 

[Vegepygmy]

I answered "Extremely. I always run campaigns in a custom world," even though most of my campaigns are set in "the World of Greyhawk," because it's my World of Greyhawk, altered to suit my needs and preferences. And that's always the case for me, regardless of whether I'm using a published setting or not: I take what I want from it, discard the rest, and fill in as desired. I want rules that assist me in doing that, which basically means I want everything I would need to do it myself from scratch.