What is *worldbuilding* for?

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's because they're the people of England, for whom the myths are being written!

Well, they are certainly 'regular folks'. There ARE a few other brief points when Tolkien touches on the lives of normal people. He makes a few comments about them at Minas Tirith, describing a few of the more mundane aspects of the city for a couple of paragraphs at very point where Grond hammers down the city gate and then the Nazgul hear the dying cry of their king, and the Army of Sauron hesitates. There are a few more paragraphs in this vein later when Aragorn enters the city and heals some people, but its pretty thin. There are a few other minor points, a few mundane things happen at Helm's Deep, etc. I actually thought those were the high points of the story, in a literary sense. Tolkien contrasted them nicely with some of the epic action going on in the foreground, but it seemed like there should have been more. OTOH every such scene risks turning ME into a real living place and breaking the 'spell'.

 

[Maxperson]

No. Resolving an action declaration is not authoring backstory. A secret door whose existence is discovered in the course of play, by way of action declaration, is not an element of backstory.

I find your contention that the secret door popped out of thin air and never existed prior to the player discovering it to be absurd. Finding that secret door caused it to always have existed in that scene, making it backstory.

I also find your contention that action resolution is limited in effect to only the resolution of the action to also be absurd. Actions can have effects beyond the simple resolution of the action. All you have to do is look at combat to see that. Declaring an attack is resolved with a hit or a miss. Damage is not a part of the action resolution. It's a further effect of the declaration of the attack.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It seems controversial to me because I really don't believe that creators need to create every part in order to be "doing fiction properly". If a group chooses to set their play in the universe of Frank Herbert's Dune, then there will be parts that they relinquish agency over. They do that in order to be inspired. Their fiction-making efforts, or more accurately the fiction arising as a side-effect of their play, is just as genuine and complete. I feel like this is an important point of divergence between us. If I play in Dickensian London, I relinquish agency about some things in that setting, while retaining agency about everything I care about (my character's motives, choices, acts etc). How is it that drawing on ideas like knights and orders is not surrendering agency, while drawing on say warforged would be? Is it that it is only agency if it comes out of the player's own knowledge and creativity, no matter what would be gained by furbishing them with other sources of inspiration?

A group can move away from GM authority, but for me that is moot. (At least in respect of one of your core concerns.) MOLAD was intensively focused on character journey, and that is an important reason why the game was successful for our group. I ran that game in the 80s and 90s. But the question was never whether or not authority was equal at the table, but whether interest, time and tolerance was given for players to explore character concerns within their game, other than if they can spot a pit trap before stepping on it, etc!

There is a separate line of argument that needs to be unpacked, which is that of resolution. What is different about acquiescing to Luke Crane's stipulated obstacle levels, from acquiescing to some other person's nominated obstacle level?

Well, I think that your commentary here MIGHT be pretty relevant to the original question of the thread, but it isn't terribly relevant to the question that was at hand, which was about player agency over the fiction. The normal GM-centric D&D-type division of responsibilities puts ALL of that agency in the hands of the GM (minus whatever the players might have asserted before play actually started, or whatever the GM might yield to players informally as he wishes). This has been [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s point with [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] (mostly, some other posters as well). If the GM gets to describe the fiction, and its basically not constrained by player agenda/interest/agreed theme or focus, then, regardless of how detailed or non-detailed it is, or if its Glorantha or Erithnoi (my own homebrew world) its the GM's show.

I don't know how MOLAD worked, but IME the way you focus on 'character journey' (by which I assume you mean character development) is by having someone author interactions between the setting and its NPCs and the PC in question. Now, all of that COULD be dictated strictly by the GM, his terms, his choice of what questions to address and how, but that seems VERY peculiar to me! It is VERY natural that this responsibility lie on the player of the character in question. Almost to the point where it becomes hard to imagine another technique working.

 

[Maxperson]

The normal GM-centric D&D-type division of responsibilities puts ALL of that agency in the hands of the GM (minus whatever the players might have asserted before play actually started, or whatever the GM might yield to players informally as he wishes). This has been @pemerton's point with @Lanefan and @Maxperson (mostly, some other posters as well). If the GM gets to describe the fiction, and its basically not constrained by player agenda/interest/agreed theme or focus, then, regardless of how detailed or non-detailed it is, or if its Glorantha or Erithnoi (my own homebrew world) its the GM's show.

I have already proven this to be false. The only way the above happens is if the DM is violating the social contract. Otherwise, he is forced to go along with player agendas that are possible. See my northern barbarians example. A DM who violates the social contract this way and keeps all of the agency is no different from the Story Now DM who constantly blocks players. It's simply not done by a DM running the style properly.

Players may have more agency(if you re-define agency like [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has) in Story Now, but my style of play doesn't allow for the DM to have all of the agency.

 

[clearstream]

To me, your analysis doesn't seem to distinguish between shared storytelling and RPGing. (Or, at least, it seems not to be sensitive to some significant differences between them.)

I don't tackle shared storytelling because the OP says this...

n classic D&D, the dungeon was a type of puzzle. The players had to...

...But most contemporary D&D isn't played in the spirit of classic D&D: But in most contemporary play, character motivations (and alignment etc) aren't treated purely instrumentally in that way as puzzle components and parameters. I'm expected to develop my character, and to care about his/her motivations, for their own sake. This is part of the standard picture of what it is to be a good RPGer.

So, given these difference between typical contemporary play and "classic" play, what is world building for?

That is squarely pointed at RPGing. It doesn't mention shared storytelling. Therefore I have been addressing the question of the value of world-building in terms of RPGing. If shared story-telling is your focus that is also fine, of course, but I should not be upbraided for addressing the question laid out in the OP.

Furthermore, when action declarations in a RPG are resolved, fictional positioning is a factor. And again, in most mainsream RPGs, the GM has a special responsibility to keep track of, and articulate, and ultimately (if there are disagreements) to adjudicate the fictional positioning.

This is where the OP sees the significance of worldbuilding. In classic D&D play (ie dungeon exploration) it is absolutely crucial that fictional positioning includes elements which (i) the GM has established in advance of the action declaration (typically by drawing and keying up a dungeon in advance of play), and (ii) the GM does not reveal to the players until they delcare actions for their PCs which oblige the GM to narrate it to them.

I know what you mean by classic versus contemporary D&D, but for me play has for a long time blended across multiple dimensions of interest. Some sessions of some games lean more to tactics, some lean more to character portrayal, some lean more to plot development, and some lean more to world portrayal, etc. It is true that work has been done to reveal and explore all the dimensions, and there are now pick-up-and-play systems that break out and support some that weren't broken out or supported in commercial publications or the group-think previously.

The OP contends that this approach to worldbuiling, and its use as an element of fictional positioning used to resolve action declarations by way of "hidden" or "secret" GM-preauthored backstory/fictional elements, makes sense in classic play because a big part of the point of classic play is to learn this stuff. It's a puzzle-solving, maze-solving exercise, where the principal reward for learning the stuff that begins as unrevealed is gp which translate into XP.

The OP also contends that most contemporary RPGing is not this sort of puzzle/maze-solving play; that it's more focused on "stories" about interesting characters doing narratively interesting stuff. (A further but to some extent secondary contention is that, once you start playing in non-dungeonesque "living, breathing worlds", the puzzle/maze-solving approach to play becomes rather impractical, as there are too many parameters potentially unknown to the players to prevent them drawing the sorts of inferences that classic play depends upon.)

The OP then asks, in this contemporary style of RPGing, what is the point of worldbuilding of the classic sort? - ie of the GM establishing fictional elements that serve as unrevealed fictional positionioning which therefore (i) constrain success in action declaration, and (ii) produce a dynamic of play where a significant amount of the play experience is declaring actions which will oblige the GM to reveal some of this hitherto-unrevealed stuff (many RPGers describe this using in-fiction rather than at-the-table language like "exploration", "gathering information", "scouting", etc).

The OP doesn't mention shared storytelling, and most contemporary RPG is not shared storytelling in any ideal sense. We have hours of video of D&D and other game sessions available to base that on, supplementing our own experiences and observations. Most contemporary RPG can benefit from world-building. If you want to argue that shared storytelling can't, we can tackle that; but shared story-telling doesn't hold a consensus position as representing contemporary RPG.

It's a particular style of worldbuilding, based on "hidden" backstory that serves as unrevealed fictional positioning, and which was crucial to the play of classic D&D, that the OP is asking about.

That narrows the question to the point of meaninglessness. It becomes - Is the sort of world-building that supports tactical play right for story-focused play? No, probably not. But world-building, like play, is more varied than that.

 

[clearstream]

The normal GM-centric D&D-type division of responsibilities puts ALL of that agency in the hands of the GM (minus whatever the players might have asserted before play actually started, or whatever the GM might yield to players informally as he wishes). If the GM gets to describe the fiction, and its basically not constrained by player agenda/interest/agreed theme or focus, then, regardless of how detailed or non-detailed it is, or if its Glorantha or Erithnoi (my own homebrew world) its the GM's show.

This takes a very narrow view of agency, and fiction. As I said, if characters live in say authentic ancient Rome, the world is set - ancient Italy - but they can still have complete agency over all the fiction that matters. A DM could have full agency over the world, leaving still such vast agency for the players that they will never run short of it.

I don't know how MOLAD worked, but IME the way you focus on 'character journey' (by which I assume you mean character development) is by having someone author interactions between the setting and its NPCs and the PC in question. Now, all of that COULD be dictated strictly by the GM, his terms, his choice of what questions to address and how, but that seems VERY peculiar to me! It is VERY natural that this responsibility lie on the player of the character in question. Almost to the point where it becomes hard to imagine another technique working.

I think it was more that the players focused on their character, their curiousity, their aspirations and fears. That led to the world unfolding in directions that were of interest to the characters. It flowed extremely naturally. In shared stories, consistent framings are valuable. As the new country is explored, elements fold back into the canonical, making for living world-building.

This idea of world-building being a static thing, done and dusted at the outset, is completely unnecessary. Contributions can be and usually are unequal, without harm to the living fiction.

 

[pemerton]

Well, they are certainly 'regular folks'.

I was being literal in my post. The Hobbits are the English, as JRRT idealises them.

The ordinary folk of Rohan and Gondor are barely realised at all. (And how could they be. In a world with no economy or society, what would one say about ordinary people?)

 

[clearstream]

and this is not a problem unless the players at that table feel they have some sort of right or entitlement to know everything about anything that affects their PCs including things their PCs have no in-game way of knowing - at which point those players can find another table, 'cause they ain't playing at mine.

I generally agreed with your thoughts. Here I think we can nuance by adding that participants might simply desire to know such things, and find that enjoyable. So it's not always about rights or entitlements. It can be about choice.

 

[Maxperson]

I was being literal in my post. The Hobbits are the English, as JRRT idealises them.

The ordinary folk of Rohan and Gondor are barely realised at all. (And how could they be. In a world with no economy or society, what would one say about ordinary people?)

Quite a bit is said. There is more to Middle Earth than the Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion.

http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Rohan

 

[Thomas Bowman]

I was being literal in my post. The Hobbits are the English, as JRRT idealises them.

The ordinary folk of Rohan and Gondor are barely realised at all. (And how could they be. In a world with no economy or society, what would one say about ordinary people?)

No Economy and society? Where did you get that? It does seem to be a bit underpopulated though, the numbers cited in the various armies seem small!

Can a population as small as that build something like this?

I've never seen castles like that anywhere in Europe, have you?