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Message: <blockquote data-quote="J_D" data-source="post: 1901815" data-attributes="member: 20956">This is like saying that Star Trek is over because Captain Kirk is no longer in command of the Enterprise!  I know there are some people who will indeed say that, but I think such an attitude is patent nonsense.  The universe that holds the Federation, Klingong, etc., etc., is bigger than Captain Kirk and the NCC-1701 or NCC-1701A.  Similarly, although the elves, the rings of power, and the Maiar are all leaving Middle Earth, there's still lots of people there to have stories.  I don't think that the absence of those things would necessarily wipe out Middle Earth as a setting.I don't think that the chemistry analogy works here.  Any really good world is going to be more than just A and B together producing C.  It will include that, of course, but should also include more.  I think Middle Earth does this.  I think it has more - a lot more - than just ingredients A and B.  A better chemistry analogy would be a flask containing a veritable soup of reactants reacting simultaneously, much like the primordial soup that gave rise to life.  You can take a few chemicals out and still have lots of activity in the mix.It is true that Tolkien's intent was to create Middle Earth as the backdrop for his story, but in judging Middle Earth as a world in its own right his intent is completely irrelevant.  To reduce all of Middle Earth to just the story of the War of the Ring and claiming that the world itself is over once the story is does the world-setting itself an incredible disservice and, indeed, disrespect.I expect so, since we seem to be talking past each other, or using different definitions for our terms.Then we're in agreement on that point!I agree, and I made that very point in my last post that Tolkien's intent was irrelevant to the point I was making.  I never said that Tolkien intended to write more stories, so you're contesting something I never said.And my point, once again, is that the intent behind the development of the setting is irrelevant.This thread started with the general premise that "the world is done."  There's two ways you can take that, and it seems that some of us are using different definitions for at least one of those two ways.  Let me state what my definitions are.From a worldbuilding perspective, "the world is done" means the world is fully complete and there's no new detail to add.  Everything's already detailed so that every last part of the world has enough information to be playable.  While the threshold of "playable" is debatable, since I'm a details-oriented kind of person my threshold is probably at a more fine-grained level than most people.  My threshold, in part, is the point where every street in every city is named, every building and its inhabitants are identified.  No matter where in the world the PC's go, the DM can just look up what's there from previously existing notes and doesn't have to create anything new.  With that threshold, I don't think it's possible for any world to ever be "done".From a story perspective, "the world is done" means that every interesting story has already been told and that there's nothing interesting or exciting left to do in the world.  If there are still interesting or exciting stories to tell in the world, still interesting or exciting things for characters in the world to do, then the world is not done.  Based on what fusangite said in his original post, I interpreted his words to mean he prefers a world like this, a world that is "done" once his story is told.  He might have merely meant that he didn't want to tell another story in that world and wanted to move on to another world for the next campaign and I would not have disputed that, but that is not what "the world is done" means to me.  I took him at the meaning and context of his comment, and I was objecting to that meaning.  I was trying to say then, and I still maintain now, that a world-setting that is "done" after just one story is a lame and shallow world.  Now, I've clarified exactly what I meant, although I thought it was perfectly clear before.  If you think that a world that is "done" (by my meaning of that word in the story perspective) after only one story doesn't necessarily indicate a lame and shallow world, then we're just going to have to agree to disagree.Then in a succeeding post you said:Agreed that the motive, the "why", is entirely irrelevant. I said that last post.  Even if you decide you never want to run another Barsoom campaign again after yuor current one ends, that says nothing about whether Barsoom as a setting is "done" by my definitions.  By my definition and what you've described of your world, Barsoom is not done even if you never run another campaign in it.  The only fact relevant to "done" in the story context is that there are still stories you could tell therefore it's not done.</blockquote>

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