I'm not conflating these things--though I'd argue that building out a part of the setting for which you have no session or campaign ideas is not likely to be useful and definitely doesn't seem necessary.
The Art and Science of Worldbuilding For Gameplay [+]
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
payn
Glory to Marik
I think the phrase "world building for gameplay" is still throwing people off. Since you want to avoid adventure prep discussion, what do you mean by "for gameplay" in the OP?
Note my initial response to this topic; I believe he's speaking to world design thats geared towards reinforcing the gameplay loops of the game.
In a broad sense, this means designing a game world and its lore around the idea that, in say DND, there is an actual, logical reason for adventurers to exist and be able to act as they tend to do.
But you can get as nitty gritty with it as you like, which I related to how Nintendo designed the two open-world Zelda games for this purpose, from broad geography on down to how individual things are placed, all of which are deliberately done so as to support and reinforce the core gameplay loops of exploration and discovery.
And as noted, the Zeldas are fully "gamey" in their world design; they aren't realistically designed in any way shape or form. But, that doesn't mean you can't blend more realism with game needs, it just takes a lot of thought from both ends to reach a good equilibrium.
Ultimately, while theres a lot of crossover, typical worldbuilding methods for books and the like aren't always the best for building gameworlds, and I think OP is trying to get at gameworld building and how thats accomplished, versus just worldbuilding or prepping a fixed adventure.
This in turn tends to mean building up sandboxes and open worlds (which aren't actually the same thing, as unintuitive as that may seem), as these are the kinds of gameworlds that can exist as their own systemic component of a game, independent of any specific adventure or story that might happen in it, rather than just as an over-elaborate set dressing for such things
The following does a pretty good job of explaining it:
Essentially, the world building takes into account not "the next adventure" but "adventure" in a broad sense.
WolpertingerFL
Villager
Player buy-in is important. Before I use a particular setting or genre, I want my players to both articulate and agree on their goals and the types of characters they wish to play. Do they want to be rebels fighting an evil king, dungeon delvers seeking fame and riches, or pirates on the high seas? Then I focus on the parts of the setting I'll need to run those adventures. I don't need to know much about the aristocracy for explorers, nor exploration areas for rebels. My limited time is best spent building the parts of the world the players interact with. Everything else is just window dressing for my own enjoyment.
Always a good practice.
This implied that you do a lot of world building simultaneously with game prep, which isn't really what I was asking about (but it appears lots of people do). It is definitely a good idea to use your limited time in service of the actual game being played.
That said, building a word in which "rebels fighting an evil king, dungeon delvers seeking fame and riches, or pirates on the high seas" are all viable options is, IMO, an important part of world building toward playability. Presuming a well detailed world, players expressing those interests means you know where to place those campaigns at least initially. You have a place for each, and other types of campaigns besdies, and so you can focus your prep on the actual adventure/campaign rather than the world.
gamerprinter
Mapper/Publisher
Well having designed and published the Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG), I kind of use how I designed and filled in the details with some nuance in how I design any new setting, but don't overly design everything. I imagine most DMs and players have some background and exposure to Japanese culture, so there is no need to 'hold their hands' with everything. I create a history, just so participants understand events happened before that has led the setting to where it is today - to understand their place in that history going forward. I create governments, and relationships between governments whether they are allied, indifferent or hostile, so there is some level of politics going on. Players can participate in that, or avoid it, their presence provides a background. I sometimes create natural events including disasters - storms, storm surges, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, but usually only one such major event in a given year. This just creates uncontrolled events that may impact the player's intended stories. Often player participation advances development of a given setting, enhancing those aspects players bring to the table. I like to focus on a given region, rather that full "world" and I like to focus on a few species or specific cultures, rather than develop hundreds of cultures, which doing so, prevents any kind of nuance in a setting.
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The-Magic-Sword
Small Ball Archmage
I tend to write the setting around the game myself, it gives me a lot of great fodder to use when I twist the lore to suit the world presented by the rules. For instance, I have this really elaborate society of Fantastical Ninja Goblins that came entirely out of trying to reconcile Paizo's signature chaos mascot goblins and their crazy physiological abilities with a setting that isn't Golarion-- I realized that it reminded me of the elaborate techniques of Ninja in anime, especially the Body Horror Ninjas in Ninja Scroll, while many of the spell and fighting traditions elsewhere in the game are reminiscent of the high fantasy Ninjas of Naruto, so it gives me this really wide toolset to work with that has nothing to do with the very Paizo-IP-centric Goblins.
That is a good one for playability: incorporate the intended game system into the world building, if one has been chosen.
The-Magic-Sword
Small Ball Archmage
Exactly
