How much worldbuilding should novice GMs do? (forked thread)

[Umbran]

Any number of GMs get their start just running a series of published modules, with little reference to the larger world, and their players have lots of fun.

Do not allow perfect to become the enemy of good - there's no need to kill yourself trying to build the best of all possible games before you try to run one. My best advice for new GMs is to just run games first. Learn how the game plays, learn table management, pacing, and such. World details can come later.

 

[Scribble]

So my question is would any of you seriously suggest to the novice GM that he do no world building before running his first game?

When I first started playing I was the DM for my group. I didn't have a detailed world. I had the rules cyclopedia giving me some snippets of the "known world" that I used mostly for the map. My world wasn't "detailed" in any sense of the word. Most of the details that happened came up at the table durring the game; very little was detailed out of game. As the campaign went on sometimes I would buy new gazeters and pick and choose what I thought was cool from them and add it in. (Which meant that sometimes parts of the map my players hadn't encountered yet changed behind the scenes.)

This is still pretty much how I run my games today with perhaps "slightly" more preplanned detail. I can't handle a ton of detail. I end up forgetting most of it anyway, or spend too much time looking for an answer.

I would advise a new DM that if he wants to detail a world he can or if he wants to just go with the flow that's also a valid option.

Whichever he feels more comfortable with.

I'd also tell the new DM that if he and his players enjoy just playing adventures, and don't care much about the world or interacting with it (outside of the bare minimum) that's also an equaly valid playstyle.

 

[Ourph]

So my question is would any of you seriously suggest to the novice GM that he do no world building before running his first game?

For a novice DM, I would suggest getting a good starting adventure (like Keep on the Borderlands or Sunless Citadel), reading it thoroughly a couple of times, imagining what the players might do in certain situations and sort of playing through the module in their head and possibly adding side adventures or interesting quirks to the adventure to make it their own.

I would suggest having a good working knowledge of the immediate area around the adventure site (like the Keep or Oakhurst) so the budding DM has a solid foundation from which to improvise if necessary.

I would suggest coming up with a few adventure hooks to sprinkle into the first session that may lead to the PCs next set of adventures.

I would not suggest "worldbuilding" in the sense that the DM needs to know what the legal system looks like for the kingdom on the other side of the continent from the adventure site. I would not suggest the DM spend significant time developing details about any items outside the immediate area of the current campaign.

I would also not suggest the worldbuilding + sandbox method where the DM provides no guidance to the PCs at all and tries to come up with a world description detailed enough that he can use it to run any adventure, anywhere, whenever the PCs wander into that particular area of the world.

Finally, I would not suggest that the DM do no thinking about the world and try to run a gaming session using 100% improvisation to create an adventure on the fly for the players, with no background information to use as a foundation whatsoever.

:edit to add:

One of the things that I find confusing is that people are drawing a dichotomy between worlbuilding = prepared and no world building = improvisation. I find the relationship between those two things to be exactly opposite. If I'm doing a lot of worldbuilding, it's usually because I'm expecting to do a lot of improv at the table and I feel I need a larger base to build that spontaneity on. If I'm, instead, preparing specifically for an adventure locale and ignoring the larger world, I usually end up having to do a lot less improvising.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Weither you world build or improv, the best advice I can give is: Take notes on what you've done in game so far. Write down town names and small descriptions for the players that don't remember the names. Same with NPCs - you can have some awesomely memorable NPCs that are created on the fly. One thing I've seen done is a Big Book of NPC Descriptions - find some of the best or most unique loooking characters you've either made or come across, keep them in note form, and throw them out randomly. You can fluff them up after the party decides they're interested in said NPC.

To give an example, in a game I'm playing, one character has made a habit of almost collecting NPCs for our party. We come across a group of bandits in the forest, and said bandits have an enchantress. What does he do? Brow-beat her into joining our group to learn how to be a good and moral person. This was not the time he did it. And it's a blast! The DM is loving it, because he's getting more mileage out of NPCs then he would've thought. We love it because, well, hell, PCs - myself included - love this kinda stuff. Give a PC a +1 sword, they'll sell it as soon as something better comes up. Give them a castle/ship/vauge headquarters and some NPC followers, and they'll defend them to the death.

It doesn't matter if you world build or make it up as you go - the fluff matters if you make it matter. The more you describe something, the more the PCs care about it, because it looks like you care about it. Granted, there's a point where you go too far, and the players no longer give a damn about the elf's flowing locks of hair. But avoid that, and you're gold.

 

[avin]

I think the best advice for a new DM is to bgin with no much background, using a world "in construction". As the game flows the new DM will start world building naturally.

Unless, of course, you are starting a planar game where you travel from world to world, creating anything you want as the game flows.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Worldbuilding is the one task asked of DMs that requires the most experience to really pull off. In order to make a truly good campaign world, you need to know what makes a good adventure, how to turn setting elements into said adventures, how players may react to said elements and adventures, and countless other things that all require a lot of familiarity with both the game and your players. Detailed worldbuilding is hard, and I should know because I failed at it so much. My biggest mistake as a novice DM was trying to create a detailed setting before ever starting a campaign. The results were horrible, and several campaigns burned out and bit the dust quickly.

On the other hand, individual adventure design isn't that hard in my opinion, so I would recommend any starting DM to just start with an adventure and let the campaign flow from there.

Honestly, I may need to take more of that advice myself. Even now I seem to be repeating old worldbuilding mistakes...