What is *worldbuilding* for?

[Lanefan]

I have to agree with this, too. Gaming Theory rightly wants to create classifications of techniques & agendas &c used in RPGs, whether by designers, GMs, or players. Where it goes pear-shaped is when we start putting whole systems, or individual players or DMs or their campaigns in exactly one of those classifications like each is a box and mutually exclusive.

You mean like alignments; only for DMs and players instead of PCs?

CG stands for Chaotic Gamist; LN = Lawful Narrativist; something like that?

Then, to get it to go really, tragically, wrong, we start judging 'em for it.

Every alignment must have its Paladins...

Lan-"chaotic as both player and DM"-efan

 

[Tony Vargas]

You mean like alignments; only for DMs and players instead of PCs?

CG stands for Chaotic Gamist; LN = Lawful Narrativist; something like that?

Every alignment must have its Paladins...

Lan-"chaotic as both player and DM"-efan

That deserves laugh, and XP and a cookie.

 

[Emerikol]

Of course, I don't normally run that sort of thing, in the sense that everyone is DOOMED to fail, it was very much a one off. Still, if you want to overthrow the King and you think you're just going to succeed or that it isn't JUST as dramatic and interesting when you get caught and find out that you're going to get your head chopped off in the AM. Never had a problem with it, and never had a problem making a situation a test of skill. That is not mutually exclusive with Story Now, at all. You do have to willing to be hard though. Saying "oh, its written that way" is a crutch, I don't get that crutch!

The most I can liken my style to is a very focused limited character viewpoint. Players "see" the world through their characters eyes only. They "know" what their characters know. The DM provides the sensory input. Since it is a game in our heads to some degree we of course ask questions about what we see etc... The game would be perfect if the DM could just project his thoughts into the other players heads but we aren't there yet ;-). The DM though is tasked with representing the constructed world and not whatever he feels like at any given moment. He should know his world very well.

 

[Emerikol]

[MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] is here as well and I think much more active closer to when the D&D boards imploded. In fact, he posted here in this thread once or twice when I mentioned him. And the reason I've mentioned him is that as [MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION] said, he was a big champion of this style and I think it fair to mention him when I reference something I remember him saying, so he can agree or disagree with my memory if he chooses.

Iserith and I have debated this subject for many years. I've decided we are just enjoyers of two different games. We thought we both were playing game A when instead we were playing two different games, game B and game C.

It's a game so if he likes his approach whose to argue. I like mine so I play mine.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think you might be overanalyzing things. World Building is for lots of different things. One of those things is exploration adventure but that isn't the only reason to world build. You can world build to create a strong sense of place. You can world build to create something that informs the groups and NPCs in a situational type campaign. You can world world build so that your dungeons simply fit into a larger context.

I would suggest checking out stuff coming out of the OSR. Worldbuilding is pretty big in the OSR and different people will give you different reasons for why it is useful, as well as different approaches to world building.

What I know is worldbuilding works. It is tried and true. When I don't invest in my world building, my games suffer. When I invest the time into world building, there is simply more for my players to interact with and explore. But I would be hesitant to give it some ultimate purpose I have to commit to. It seems to work for a variety of reasons. But I think overanalyzing these things can lead us to some strange conclusions are more a product of the language being used in the discussion than anything to do with world building itself.

 

[pemerton]

I don’t subscribe to the general approach that many adventure designers go about their business. I often disagree with their approach to placement of secret doors for the same logical reason I’m questioning the ability of a Story Now approach to take into account. Many adventures, etc. are designed from a “game” approach, where the nature of what the designer might be cool takes precedence over what might logically apply. As I’ve stated before, I prefer to approach it from a more objective, world-building approach asking why a secret door would be someplace. Who built it and why, basically, not just because I think it would fit, or I want to make the dungeon less linear, or that it would work well here for the story of the PCs rather than the story of whoever built the place.

My own view is that "logically" designed worlds tend to have less verisimiltude - and far more symmetry and order - than the real world. Just confining this point to architecture and urban design - I've seen cities (eg Fez) that are as "illogical" as antyhing that the play of an RPG is going to throw up; and there is a public building not far from where I live that has enough "staircases to nowhere" (as a result of renovation and refitting over the years) that I would't be surprised if one of them did have a secret door at the top of it!

you state that you don’t insist, but then immediately respond with two paragraphs that say exactly what I’m saying you seem to insist.

You said that I insist that there can't be changes. But I don't insist that. I simply asssert that the GM having the power to rewrite his/her notes on the fly, or to make up new stuff which has the same status, for play purposes, as if it had been in his/her notes, doesn't change the distribution of agency that is my principal concern.

This seems similar to what you describe regarding the bowl in the room, in that instead of declaring there was a bowl in the room, they asked if there was one and relied on you, the GM, to make that decision, whether by pre-authored material, random determination, or adding it on the fly, with none of those being exclusive.

That is not how that particular episode of play was resolved. The player asked "Is there a bowl in the room." I could have said "yes", but didn't - because the stakes here were meaningful for the PC, and a basic principle of "say 'yes' or roll the dice" is that when the stakes are meaningful then a check is called for. So I asked the player, "Are you declaring as Assess action?" (the particular nature of the action declared has implicaitons for action economy in that system). He answered yes, and then when it came time for the action to be resolved he rolled a Perception check against the difficulty I had set (pretty low, on the grounds that a bowl or were would be a likely thing to be in a room where an badly injured person is recovering).

The player succeeded on the check, and hence saw a bowl. I, the GM, did not make the decision about that.

pre-authored vs improv, the process is not really relevant.

I take it that you mean it's not relevant to you. It's relevant to me, for mcuh the same reason that the difference between a conversation and a script is relevant.

as the GM I start from a place of impartial observer and prefer to let the drama take care of itself, driven by the players and their characters and their interactions, which will include interactions with the world around them. Where you seem to eschew the less dramatic, more mundane things, the in-between things, with the focus of the GM on ensuring that more drama happens. That is, if drama isn’t happening, then it’s the job of the GM to find the drama and make it happen.

I'm not sure what you mean by "drama: here.

A PC I am currently playing has Cooking skill and an Instinct to always keep a fire alight while camping. I would expect the GM to frame scenes that speak to those elements of the character. Such scenes may not be "dramatic" in the sense of "exciting" or "action filled". But they would still be "going where the action is" ie speaking to the dramatic needs of the PC, and engaging with the thematic framework I have put forward for my PC.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

My own view is that "logically" designed worlds tend to have less verisimiltude - and far more symmetry and order - than the real world. Just confining this point to architecture and urban design - I've seen cities (eg Fez) that are as "illogical" as antyhing that the play of an RPG is going to throw up; and there is a public building not far from where I live that has enough "staircases to nowhere" (as a result of renovation and refitting over the years) that I would't be surprised if one of them did have a secret door at the top of it!

And I believe that to logically design a world, you have to account for such things. Regardless of how random many things seem, the staircases to nowhere were built for a reason. Logical doesn't mean ordered. But one of my pet peeves in books, movies, TV shows, etc. are the things that are done for convenience regardless of whether it makes sense at all. In some cases it's the entire premise, in other cases it's a lack of knowledge, or just not caring.

I'm not going to pretend that my world is better designed than anybody else's. But it's a world that largely makes sense to me, which makes it easier to sell it to the group. More importantly, that consideration and time spent does help with consistency which is very helpful in a game where everything happens in our imaginations, with each person's imagination being different.

You said that I insist that there can't be changes. But I don't insist that. I simply asssert that the GM having the power to rewrite his/her notes on the fly, or to make up new stuff which has the same status, for play purposes, as if it had been in his/her notes, doesn't change the distribution of agency that is my principal concern.

No, I said it seems like you are insisting. So you can say it seems like your asserting. Since they are, in fact, synonyms I'm happy to go with whichever you prefer.

That is not how that particular episode of play was resolved. The player asked "Is there a bowl in the room." I could have said "yes", but didn't - because the stakes here were meaningful for the PC, and a basic principle of "say 'yes' or roll the dice" is that when the stakes are meaningful then a check is called for. So I asked the player, "Are you declaring as Assess action?" (the particular nature of the action declared has implicaitons for action economy in that system). He answered yes, and then when it came time for the action to be resolved he rolled a Perception check against the difficulty I had set (pretty low, on the grounds that a bowl or were would be a likely thing to be in a room where an badly injured person is recovering).

Of course you did. You decided that the situation warranted the possibility, and set a DC for it. It's not a question of whether you said yes, no, or yes...but. You still made the decision that there was in fact a possibility, and what the probability was. You let the dice make the final decision, but without you giving the go ahead, it wouldn't have happened. And you could have set the DC much higher, but again it wouldn't have happened.


That's no different than what I'm talking about. If I had placed a bowl in the room ahead of time, I could just say yes. If I didn't think about placing one, I could do exactly what you did.

The player succeeded on the check, and hence saw a bowl. I, the GM, did not make the decision about that.

I take it that you mean it's not relevant to you. It's relevant to me, for mcuh the same reason that the difference between a conversation and a script is relevant.

Yes, but also that where it's most relevant - the experience of the players at the table - that the end result, the "product" is more important than the process to deliver that product. To you, the process seems to hold equal value. Which ultimately means that we'll have to agree to disagree here.

I'm not sure what you mean by "drama: here.

A PC I am currently playing has Cooking skill and an Instinct to always keep a fire alight while camping. I would expect the GM to frame scenes that speak to those elements of the character. Such scenes may not be "dramatic" in the sense of "exciting" or "action filled". But they would still be "going where the action is" ie speaking to the dramatic needs of the PC, and engaging with the thematic framework I have put forward for my PC.

Drama is the story. The sum of the decisions, actions, events, reactions, and things that happen to and around the characters.

You've mentioned your cooking and campfire story before. To me it seems like something that doesn't really need to be addressed in the structure of the rules of the game. In the content of the fiction, yes, but again, I would put a lot of the onus on the player here. For example, a character in our campaign who loves cooking is trying new recipes on many of the monsters they kill. Setting out to gather whatever local ingredients they can forage, etc. That doesn't require a lot of input from me. Where I tend to come in is when NPCs are engaged in activities related to that, and recognizing that there is an interest in that. If they have a fetish about keeping the fire going, they'd make sure that not only is it well tended when they are awake, but that the others have supplies and proper instructions to keep the fire going. Such things would be clear in the actions that the PC is taking, and at times it would work its way into the campaign organically.

So yes, I'd engage, but because I'm reacting to the actions of the PC, not because a piece of paper in front of them says so. If they have a thing for cooking and fires listed on their character sheet, but it never comes up in their actions and interaction within the setting, then it's not something I'm going to press or focus on. Clearly it's not as important to them as their note states. An exception would be for a new player, who we're teaching to engage with their character. But I'd expect a character with those particular likes to, well, act like it. And when they're in town, they'll be talking with people that either share that, or provide ingredients, etc. And the party would comment on how they'd rather stay in the wilderness because they eat better than the lousy inn they've stopped at. It's just part of the flow of the game, it doesn't need to be tied to the rules, nor does it need to provide instructions to me about how to address it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So to answer the first part of your question:

Notes can serve as many different things. The most basic is something like a "typical orc patrol" with stats, etc. that are ready to drop in whenever needed.

This I do. I suspect this is not really something avoided by people who espouse story now play in general. I mean, it could be or not be used. It doesn't necessarily imply any particular situation, etc. OTOH I don't generate these things way ahead of time, like before I get a game rolling. I might not even have anyone interested in running into orcs, nor a reason to threaten something with them, or whatever. Still, if I'm running something like 4e I probably already have dozens, maybe 100's, of these sorts of things available, so they are definitely there and useful.

This could be something like a map of a tomb, perhaps with some traps and areas of interests detailed, and even could include some history regarding the interred. In the moment, a tomb is needed, pull out one or another, and use as is if it works, or modify on the fly for whatever's appropriate.

Yeah, maybe. I mean, with the advent of the Internet this stuff is now so ubiquitous its hard to say we don't ALL have a pretty extensive library of these, albeit they may need some tweaking for a specific game. Mostly though I try to stick to 'no myth' situations, or else have DW-esque "lots of holes in it" stuff. I find it clears my thinking. If I have a map, then I'm trying to wedge what the players want into some sort of route on that map instead of thinking about it dramatic terms.

Others can be NPCs with a few notes about their personality and motivations, etc. Really, just about any bit of content can be recorded as thought about.

More than any other single factor, the non-existence of a distinction between 'monster' and 'npc' in 4e sold me on that game.

As far as the standard narrative mode, we're not playing a game with that general style. I think that as I examine our games, we certainly use a lot of those techniques. But to start with, we don't start with such declarations or motivations such as "I'm going to collect the seven swords of the seven heroes." Most of the characters are just people. We have farmers, coopers, a bouncer, lots of normal people. As part of their responsibility in the town, everybody serves in the town guard a certain number of weeks of the year. So things might happen. In addition, they live in a secluded village, which leads to more possibilities due to dangers in the wilderness. There's a political situation going on, regarding a larger town that is over a week's ride away, (re)establishing a trade route through the village. Wealthy individuals like to come to the village during the summer to hunt monsters, and are looking to hire local guides.

Sure, I don't think the sorts of motives PCs have need to be, or maybe in most games even SHOULD be, big flashy specific things like 'Collect the Seven Swords', it was a bit of an extreme (but valid) example. MANY times a character may just say "I love my village and I will die for it" or just "I love my village" (and what will you do about that is the story). "Over the Wall" is, if I understand it correctly, an OSR-like game that has that focus. This brings another point, the focus doesn't HAVE to be brought individually by the players, DitV, or OTW, for example come with 'built in' agendas, though I'm sure characters and individual games can have variations and additional material.

Sometimes the people choose to do something adventurous, other times characters have "opportunities" thrust upon them. They do have goals and motivations, but they tend to be the mundane type, hoping to gain their own farm, raise a family, etc. It's a classic ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances type of campaign.

Sure, and I think Story Now is also a good way to do those. It is less a perfect fit for true exploration/puzzle type games, some other things maybe where the players demand heavy back story and loads of different highly detailed scenes perhaps? Anyway, it is good for any story where motivations and beliefs are a big part, like 'hometown hero' type stories.

We work hard to provide lots of depth to the characters, including their bigger motivations, but the general thrust of everything is exploration. Exploring the setting. Exploring the characters. Exploring the politics, the dangers, dungeons, and such. Learning what makes these characters tick. Dramatic conflict is a part of what we do, but only part of it. Not every moment, or every scene, or even every session, has to be a DRAMATIC moment. Many times they are smaller dramatic moments. A great many of the dramatic moments are between the characters. There are often major dramatic moments that can be "life-changing" moments for a character or characters. But it's the smaller moments that develop the character, help define them in a way that makes those more dramatic moments even more so. It's not just about the big moments, but of a great many of moments that help define the character.

Yeah, and I think in all the furor over how this or that can't be done this or that or the other way the point has been kinda lost here too. Just because a game is 'Story Now' doesn't mean its 'Climax Now!' It can be a long drawn-out process of playing through little things if you wish it. The little things that will get focus will just be the ones that DO elicit some level of characterization, as a rule.

I also see a flip side to this. When you play through the vast bulk of every character's life, there's a sort of pressure to make things happen at a faster in-game pace. Sure, you are 'not hurrying', but STILL there's only so many game sessions, even in a LONG campaign! If I'm focusing more on specific 'weighty' moments (in character terms) then I can afford to pace things out in terms of the character's story. I can skip 5 years if that makes more sense. I mean, you could too, but it seems opposed to the general philosophy of 'get all the choices and make them all' that you guys seem to want (like skipping past all the boring side corridors in Moria).

I don't see my job as being here to help set up the circumstances that allow the characters to accomplish their motivations. That's up to them. If one of the characters declares that they intend to become a famous dragonslayer, then they need to go do it. Not rely on me to set that up for them. They have to acquire the skills they think they'll need. Assemble the party that will help them do so, research the weaknesses, possible locations, etc. They'll track down spells or magic items that they think will help, and drive toward that goal. It might be years (real time) before they track down and make their first assault on an adult dragon, and it may initially end in failure. In the meantime, there will be many challenges, close calls, potential tough decisions, and sacrifices on the way. But they'll get there (assuming they do) through their actions and decisions, not because they said "I want to accomplish this" and I frame things in a way for them to reach that accomplishment.

This relates to the discussion regarding railroading as well. In my mind, the campaign is as far from a railroad as possible. There certainly may be things that I introduce that make their life more difficult. A rival group attempting to slay the dragon first, and using unsavory approaches, including sabotaging their attempts. Political interference, whatever. We do what we can do ground them in the world as much as possible (another aspect of worldbuilding), and those can interfere with their plans. Romantic entanglements, perhaps the loss of a loved one, etc. Success is often not just about the process of achieving it, but overcoming all of the unrelated aspects of life that often prevent people from reaching their goals. Perhaps they've discovered and retrieved the dragonslayer. A legendary sword that can kill a dragon with a single blow. That is recovered by a rival just as they discover its resting place. Leaving them to decide if the sword is really needed or not, and if so, how to get it back.

OK, I just don't feel like spending years of real life on that one project! Its a game, lets get on with it. There's nothing wrong with moving on to the key parts. I can still assemble parties and do this and that and the other to prepare before I slay dragons. I can play that out for 3 months, I think that's more than enough time. I think you might find a LOT of players secretly feel the same way.

For us, it's about layers and layers of plots. Many of them directly tied to an individual's motivations, some speaking to several of them, others that apply to all of them (usually on a more temporary basis), and some that aren't directly related to any of these things, but are important or compelling at a given point in time for whatever reason. Such as serving guard duty for a week.

Despite loads of notes, the use of published materials, and all of the rest of that, it's about as far as a "choose your own adventure," "setting tourism," or "playing to learn what's in the GM's notes" as it can be. It's all about exploring the characters and their place in the world, and everything I do is to support that. I just choose not to discard many of the tools that Story Now games seem to eschew. I happily embrace many of the Story Now specific techniques and tools, often unconsciously.

Part of the problem that I think I continue to have in discussing any of these tools and techniques is that they are not exclusive of each other. My use of all of them is very fluid, hopefully finding the best process and content for the moment, from moment to moment, so at the end of the night everybody goes home with the same assessment, "that was a great session." When we try to discuss them here, we have the tendency to idealize them, and discuss them in isolation. To me they aren't necessarily separate, nor does one approach preclude the use of another, even in the course of a few minutes.

I just feel like I'd be bored to death. I'm not that into RPing guard duty, and given that its a game, I'm not interested in the idea of "doing what needs to be done to get the reward". I want to play where I get to do cool fantastic stuff that isn't possible in real life. If I want guard duty I can join the army!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Of course they do, which is why @pemerton's players declare actions in order to get him to say stuff. Every time he argues that they don't declare actions to get him to say stuff, he's arguing that they control everything, including scene framing, when and what checks are required, and all consequences. It's a ridiculous argument that he's making, followed by a ridiculous counter in order to keep from being the victim of his own propaganda about playstyles other than his own. He can't fess up to his players declaring actions to get him to say stuff, because that's the negative characterization he's tossing at my playstyle. If he does it, too, then his position falls out from under him. That forces him make statements that can only be true if the players control everything


The bolded portion = "in order to get the DM to say stuff." I get that the motivations are different, but the result is still that the player declares an action and the DM says stuff in response.

I gotta say, Max, I think you're being more extreme than anyone else! There's a fundamental difference in the give and take in the two techniques of play. You may not LIKE the exact phraseology that Pemerton uses, but I don't think its because its 'wrong', I think its because you want to minimize the effective difference and claim he's doing basically what your doing! That certainly is how it comes across, rightly or wrongly.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Whether the story or drama or whatever is player-created or DM-created or a combination; in all these cases conflict and oppositon and challenges - the things that makes the game "fundamentally oppositional", to use your term - have to come from somewhere.

Yeah, but story type games, like Dungeon World, literally "just don't work that way"

Be a fan of the characters
Think of the players’ characters as protagonists in a story you
might see on TV. Cheer for their victories and lament their defeats.
You’re not here to push them in any particular direction, merely to
participate in fiction that features them and their action.

There's no 'us and them' in DW, and I don't have it that way in my games either (which are closer to Pemerton's model than DW is, note the last sentence in that quote, which he wouldn't agree with IMHO is part of his style of play).

If the players author these themselves and then also author the means to overcome them you've just said hello to Czege; so that can't work.

Now it could, I suppose, turn out that players are authoring challenges and conflicts for other players; but given the general anti-PvP stance around here I somehow don't see this happening very often.

Which leaves the DM to author them. She authors the challenges and conflicts (whether this is done by pre-authorship or by story-now action failure narration is for this point irrelevant) and the players try to author solutions through the actions of their PCs. Thus, unless you're doing full-on shared storytelling (which none here are, from what I can see) the game is always going to be somewhat oppositional between the players and the DM.

Yeah, I don't agree about the 'oppositional' part of that statement. The GM can be a fan of the characters, it works quite well in DW! It works for me! Now, do I HAVE to be easy on them? No!

And on an even more meta scale, it's the DM's job to set and enforce limits via one or more of the game system rules, house rules, and spot rulings; all of which have in theory been agreed to by the players. It's up to the players to test and push those limits, should they so desire; which not all do. But for those that do, this testing and enforcing of limits - regardless of game system in use - adds another oppositional factor between players and DM.

The "it's too easy" objection comes from a sense that maybe the limits in some systems are a bit too lax and-or the DM's ability to set or enforce limits has been reduced or neutered; that it's up to the players to in effect police themselves.

The "they will just find secret doors everywhere" objection comes - at least in my case - from a far-too-often-proven-correct assumption that players will not police themselves: that wherever they think they need one they'll look for secret doors, and even if the dice-roll odds only give them success a third of the time that's still going to leave you with a world in which an awful lot of walls have secret doors in them.

Yeah, I understand where it comes from, it still falls under my rubrik of (pardon the expression) '2 dimensional thinking'.

I think I touched on this in another post, maybe one that I made after you made this one.

No matter what the players do, they're going to face another scene and another challenge. Their choices may make the challenges more interesting to them, and give them a better chance of success (or not) but authoring a 'secret door' to 'get out of' a bad situation is not going to put you in a GOOD situation automatically! The next actual meaningful scene is going to put pressure on the PCs AGAIN. This is likely to be 'whatever is on the other side of that door'. The only thing they play for is to do COOL STUFF, and learn about their characters. They literally have NO reason to make moves which don't lead to that. Its utterly pointless.

Is it possible a player is going to want to make a move which everyone else (and maybe even he) objectively believes isn't dramatically interesting or fun? Maybe simply because of an idle desire to accomplish some mechanical game reward (IE treasure perhaps). Maybe, but this kind of thing turns out to be pretty much self-extinguishing too. As I say, another challenge and another dramatic situation is going to rise up immediately to replace any that are tossed away by the players. VERY quickly they learn this and the focus of play changes from 'get the gold' to 'do something cool' or 'my character sticks to his guns even if it costs his life!' or 'I die defending the door!'.

In fact, my story now 'D&D' games are the most deadly of all. Turns out players are perfectly willing to trade a boring character sheet for a noble death story!

Except "cool stories" need conflict. See above for where that has to come from, and for why the oppositional model remains well inside the window.

And the goal of having fun playing the game has always been there; it didn't just magically spring to life with the story-now concept.

Sure, but the root of all conflict is in the beliefs and core values of the characters. That is the point of 'go to the story'. Grab the character by the metaphorical hair and toss him to the story wolves! It doesn't require conflict between the GM and the players, only between PCs and 'other stuff' (NPCs, their own beliefs, the world, fate, etc.).

Was that a quote from one of the Story Now guys? I ask because someone (Ilbranteloth, maybe?) posted a very similar theory in one of these threads, and I thought the words were his own.

Well, I don't want to misappropriate anyone's words... I thought it was [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] quoting something that Ron Edwards said about the design of Sorcerer.