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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snoweel" data-source="post: 4502536" data-attributes="member: 4453">This is only tangentially related to my point.I was talking about people who are world-builders first and DMs second. The assumption is that every DM is a world-builder in some way. My beef is with the people who seem to only DM in order to showcase the setting they've built.To be honest, I'm not sure I would want Greenwood to DM me in the Realms, as funny as that might sound, though Irda Ranger's comment about Greenwood not knowing everything about the Realms means it might not be so bad.I think the settings sell well for two reasons:1. They are generic enough and roomy enough for people to be able to pick them up quickly, bringing their assumptions with them.2. Once they are in circulation, they become like a shared cultural experience for gamers - ie. they feed off their own success.And obviously they are internally consistent and well-writen. I don't deny that they are quality products. I'm not a fan of the Realms but don't think I haven't plagiarised the **** out of it for my own homebrews.But I have seen much better (in my opinion) settings - such as Dark Sun - that haven't sold as well, and I don't expect them to, because they are too different from Middle Earth (and therefore from vanilla D&D).And to answer your question, the fact that the men you've mentioned are such great world-builders has little to do with whether or not they are any good as Dungeon Masters. I think it's impossible to say.Since I'm not a hero, and don't try to be one, I only find it slightly frustrating - it's a matter of expectations.So while I'm achieving my goals IRL, it's happening far too slowly for my liking. How much moreso if I was playing at being a hero in a tabletop RPG where there's a DM sitting opposite me with only a handful of people to satisfy?When I sit down to play I don't want to have to chase leads and sift through red herrings for half a session; I want to look for the biggest adventure in town and I want to find it straight away.Fair enough. But does this style of play need a fancy title, like "sandbox"? This is the generic D&D campaign experience. This is how 90% of us play, including the author of the article in question.This is how I roll.No part of the setting is immutable - if something better comes up (and by that I mean the PC's misconceptions look they'd be cooler than what I've got planned) then I adjust on the fly where I can and rewrite between sessions to make up the difference.I think it was Elmore Leonard who said that when his story is getting bogged down, the way to get it back on track is for two men with guns to burst into the room.</blockquote>

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