What is *worldbuilding* for?

[Lanefan]

As for the example, I don't know if I entirely agree with your assessment. I understand it, and I can see why you may not like it, but the choice of words you choose to describe it seems off to me. In that scenario, the PC searching the study has not failed. He has successfully searched the study and determined that the map is not there. I don't see this as the Gm preventing the player's success in the way that you seem to.

Yep.

As a GM I'm far more interested in a player contributing to the shared fiction through character actions and relationships and desires, and how all those things can impact worldbulding, rather than in a player trying to author a solution to a problem they are facing.

Agreed except for the bolded bit, on which I only partly agree.

Major worldbuilding e.g. where are the continents, how many moons are there, the pantheons, etc. should be left to the DM.
Minor worldbuilding, such as your example of the Fighter's mercenary company below, can be cool when done by a player provided a) that the DM retains veto rights and b) that it doesn't veer into probem-solving
Problem-solving worldbuilding, where a player tries to generate a solution to an in-game challenge by authoring or re-authoring some aspect of the game world, is just another form of either metagaming or cheating depending how/why its done and with what degree of malice.

So here you mean things like the GM deciding this is going to be a court intrigue based game in a D&D style setting meaning that the player who wanted to be a barbarian is kind of SOL, right? I pretty much agree....I think that any such constraints are probably best established by the group beforehand. Or at the very least, the GM can share his intentions with the players and get their buy in.

I don't know - a berserker in a court-intrigue game could provide all kinds of entertainment and amusement.

But yes, if something's likely not going to work it's best to say so up front. That way players can either steer away from it or find a creative way to force it to work.

Sure, it is common. I've played in games like it quite a bit. Most of the games I've played in have had at least some element of it. My current game that I DM certainly does. The difference is that I don't think I as the GM wield my secret knowledge like a club to bash the players with. I establish elements of the games that I think will be compelling. I don't do it simply to thwart my players and any ideas that they may have.

Exactly. These elements are in many cases established before I even fully know who the players and-or PCs will be at the time they're encountered. And because of this there'll be times when something comes off as easier or harder than it otherwise might, simply because of who is trying to deal with it. For example I might put together an underground adventure with a lot of undead in it...and then the players run a party of Druids (who do better outdoors) and Illusionists (undead are generally immune to illusions) into it. Conversely, they might take in a group of nothing but high-charisma Clerics who can turn or destroy undead on a relative whim and sail through.

For instance, one player came up with an idea for a Fighter character. This was our first delve into 5E, so he kept the character simple. As we played, he slowly began to develop a history for the character. He had been in a mercenary company prior to joining the party. He'd left because the mercenary company had started to take on contracts that he found to be loathsome. He had befriended one of the other PCs with a military background when they had fought on the same side of a conflict.

So, totally separate of my pre-conceived GM backstory, the player introduced the idea of this mercenary company.

This sort of thing, as I said above, can be all kinds of cool as long as the DM retains the right of veto (though in this particular example it's hard to think of any reason to veto it).

I ran with that and it's become a major part of our campaign. I altered many of my ideas to fit with the idea of this mercenary company.

Now this would be something I may or may not do, depending on circumstances. Maybe the mercenary company eventually become part of the story's villainy - the party have to go through them to get to whoever's sending them out on these "loathsome contracts", for example. But the mercenaries - either some individuals or together as a company - would probably rear their ugly heads at some point.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

This is just loose metaphor.

I can (perhaps) look at things through your eyes (literally) if some complex bio/electronic rig was attached to your optic nerves and my brain. That would be weird, but if it's not possible that's only because the rig hasn't been invented yet.

But I can't (in any literal sense) look at anything through the eyes of an imaginary person. That's metaphysically impossible. And all that such talk means is that I imagine what that person is seeing.

Yes, you imagine what that person is seeing: an alternate (imaginary) reality. What's so hard about that?

And this is absolutely crucial to any sensible discussion about RPGing.

Yes, but in the opposite way to that which you intend, I think.

The process, in the real world,

...and in the game world...

whereby it turns out that I will or won't find a map in a study, is a terrificially complex causal one - assuming it's a map drawn on paper with ink, it depends upon (i) causal processes that generate plants and minerals; (ii) causal processes whereby humans turn those into paper and ink and a building with a study; (iii) causal processes whereby someone is socialised and educated into some grasp of what cartography is; (iv) causal processes whereby someone is socialised and educatedinto some grasp of what a stuy is; (v) causal proceses whereby a human draws a map; (vi) causal processes whereby a human builds a building with a study in it; (vi) causal processes whereby I come into being and end up in that study; (vii) causal processes (which could involve people, pigeons, the wind, errant letters falling out of a courier's basket, or any other vast range of things) whereby that map ends up in that study for some temporal period that overlaps with my presence there.

Exactly the same as what happens in the game world, as seen/known/experienced by the PCs there.

The process, in the real world - which is where RPGing takes place - whereby it turns out that my PC will or won't find a map in a study, is overall more simple (though still complex): (i) social processes that bring a group of people together to engage in the collective activity of RPGing; (ii) those processes mentioned in (i) further leading to a consensus among the group that my PC is in a (collectively imagined) study; (iii) my forming the desire to delcare as an action that my PC searches the study; (iv) a continuation of the aformentioned social processes leading to a new concsensus that my PC is in the collectively imagined study having just found a (collectively imagined) map.

This describes what goes on for the people at the table but does not at all describe what goes on for the PCs in the game world, which is the basis for what I've been trying to say.

And as far as this bit of this thread is concerned, all the action is in (iv): what is the social process whereby we form a consensus that my PC has found a map in the study; or, conversely, form a consensus that s/he is mapless despite have turned the study upside down in her search?

After session 0 this social process gets subsumed into the rules and conventions of the game, where said rules detail how the imaginary game-world reality is brought to life. And for my part the rules and conventions of the game say the map is wherever the DM says it is, and it's up to the PCs to find it. The DM presents the game world, and the players-as-PCs interact with it as they like. They could search for the map, they could stop for lunch, they could burn the place down...up to them. Unless an NPC picks it up and moves it (unlikely, as the PCs have already cleared the place out) the map ain't going anywhere - it is where it is.

If we reach agreement because the GM decides, that's an actual process for establishing consensus. If we reach agreement because the player decides, that's a different process for establishing consensus (and I personally think can make for boring RPGing: the so-called Czege Principle; some people think this is overstated).

If we reach agreement because we agree that, if the coin lands heads the player decides, and if it lands tails the GM decides, and then we toss the coin and stick to our agreement - well, that's a different process again. Replace the coin-toss with a more nuanced way of setting odds for a dice roll, and you have the process I prefer.

The problem with the coin-flip model is that it means nothing can be done ahead of time. You can't foreshadow the map being in the breadbox by having the PCs catch a strange whiff of the smell of baking three days prior if the map's location isn't determined until the search is already underway. You can't draw out a map of the castle on Friday for your game on Sunday to allow you to better describe it; nor can you plan out the occupants ahead of time.

JRRT made up Lord of the Rings. He didn't receive it handed down on a tablet.

Do you call it "Schroedinger's story"? I assume not. All fiction has a point in time before which it had not yet been authored, and after which it had been authored. Authoring it earlier in time, or later in time, relative to when you share it with someone else, doesn't make it more or less "real".

In the case of a novel it sure does; in that if you haven't authored it yet you don't have anything to share with anyone. That said, LotR really does play out very much like a mid-length D&D campaign; and I bet JRRT had flowcharts and diagrams for who went where and met up with who before he sat down and filled in the details.

Well, here are two risks of the GM making up some fiction in advance.

(1) It's not interesting when eventually the GM tells it to the players.

(2) The players were really hoping the fiction would be X, but the GM tells them Y.​

((2) may lead to (1), but can also be its own thing; and (1) can happen even if (2) isn't true.)

(1) is always a risk no matter who's doing the authoring or when. (2) - yes, this happens all the time in all types of fiction, not just RPGs; and the reader/player just has to deal with it and move on. Not everybody likes that Frodo didn't drop the ring into the lava himself, and that he turned at the very last minute. Not everybody liked that Ned Stark lost his head at the end of book 1 of SoIaF. And not everybody likes that the BBEG they thought their PCs had just killed was later seen slinking off into the night, very much alive.

If I punch you today, you might throw a rock at me tomorrow. Many overt consequences occur separated in time. And space.

Eg in my BW game, in the first session the PCs made a fool of a servitor called Athog. Many sessions later, when one of the PCs had a misfortune to run into a mugger in an alley, it was Athog. That's an overt consequence.

OK, fair enough.

But by the same token, if you punch me today I might hire someone else to work you over tomorrow; and if the someone else is halfway discreet, though you might suspect the connection between yesterday's punch and today's beating you'll never know for sure. Hell, for all you know it might have come about because of something you did last week, or last year.

(I've bolded the covert knock-on effect here: that I've involved someone else)

Part of being a good GM in a player driven game is keeping track of the pressure points that the players have generated for their PCs, and then bringing them to bear in subsequent framing or subsequent failure narration. That's what is meant when "indie"-type RPGers refer to "going where the action is". This is also how you avoid risks (1) and (2) that I identified.

I play RPGs to get away from pressure, not add to it.

This is something I'm finding in the game I play in right now: we've as a party/company been operating at other people's beck and call (e.g. being heroes, solving large-scale problems, preventing disasters, etc.) for so long we've almost forgotten what it means to work for ourselves. I'm really REALLY looking forward to a time (which at this point appears to be distressingly far in the future) when we can tell the rest of the world to bugger off, and adventure on our own terms for our own purposes and-or gain...or not adventure at all for a while.

OK. That's a fact about you. I can tell you that it doesn't generalise.

Besides quirks of individual memory, there are techniques that can be used to avoid what you describe here. For instance, by focusing the fiction on stuff that the players are committed to - by going where the action is - you increase the likelihood that details that get established will be salient to all involved. (Eg if it matters to the players how high the structure and ceiling are - let's say they know the map is in a room with a 25' ceiling - then they'll remember that the room didn't have a ceiling that high, and so you'll never get to the point of narrating your 25' ceiling and stiarcase.)

True; if they know they're looking for a 25' high room they can largely ignore anything with a lower ceiling (though if they don't search those lower rooms for loot they're missing out!).

A technique that 4e uses is to use a tier system for escalation of the fiction, which means that the likelihood of replaying the same place is fairly low, for any given place. (It's almost the opposite of 4e in that respect.)

I think there's a typo here, as you're saying that 4e is the opposite of 4e. ?

Of course a tried-and-true method that is independent of game systems is to write stuff down.

Yes. Ahead of time.

Or to get the players to do so.

The problem with that is writing stuff down in any quantity plays hell with immersion and-or keeping up with what's going on. My own note-taking during most sessions is minimal at best and nearly non-existent much of the rest of the time - I'm too busy trying to a) run what's already in front of me and b) deal with whatever unexpected stuff the players / PCs are throwing my way.

(1) People don't always notice every smell that in principle they might, so the players' claim about his/her PC is not actually true. (Now if it's his/her PC's schtick to have a high Smell/Taste Perception bonus, that's a different story - in one of my RM games one of the players built such a PC, so that he would be able to notice poisons or drugs in his food; and I think we may have had another PC who had a high bonus in this skill to help with cooking. But part of being a good GM is adapting your narration to the salient abilities of the PCs.)

All true, though had the rotten-room been defined ahead of time a roll to notice the smell would have been in order, hm?

(2) This could happen just as easily if the GM had already written that down in her notes. Writing it down in advance doesn't create some guarantee that you'll (i) remember it before you read it out, nor (ii) that you'll think of all the implications of what you've written down.

True; nobody's perfect. But having it written in advance certainly increases the odds of it being remembered when relevant.

(3) There might be some reason why it couldn't be smelled (eg maybe it's a visual illusion).

Which again would have to have been pre-planned.

(4) Retcons happen all the time. I've had GMs tell me that the room is X by Y feet, then realise they've miscounted the squares and correct it. I've had GMs not mention something that should have been obvious, and therefore let us take back action declarations which make no sense in light of the thing that wasn't mentioned at the start. Etc. So you're going to have to tell me more about why this retcon is not acceptable.

With only the rarest of exceptions, no retcon is acceptable. It's not just this one.

The two examples you give just point to poor DMing.

That's completely orthongal. It's also contentious.

Why is it orthongal? An imaginary reality in which my PC finds a map in the study mirrors reality relatively plausibly (studies are good places to find maps, if there are any to be found in the neighbourhood). It doesn't become more plausible because we agreed on that shared fiction because the GM said so, rather than agreeing on it because of the outcome of a dice roll.

Why is it contentious? D&D does not mirror reality in many places. It has different biology (eg dragons can fly and breathe fire; there are giant arthropods). It has different physics (eg conservation laws don't apply; there are other "planes" of existence). It has different sociology (eg societies are primarily pre-modern in technology yet very often modern in some of their basic attitudes and behavious). It has different economics and ecology (eg large numbers of being that are essentially humans are able to live without, it seems, hunting, gathering, rearing animals or growing crops). Etc.

Yet in the very many ways where it can mirror reality, it should; if only to enhance immersion and give a common easy-to-understand foundation.

If the GM wants to force the player to commit, because that's what the game expects - why are you looking behind that door? what are you hoping for? - then your player who won't commit is simply refusing to play the game.

Not at all. They're refusing to help you with your worldbuilding, but in no way refusing to play the game.

For instance, a player who won't commit simply can't play Burning Wheel as it is written. And is going to have trouble with Cortex+ Heroic also. And will probably come unstuck in 4e skill challenges.

Part of exercising your agency over the fiction, as a player, is to commit. A player can't wait to find out whether or not a blow will be a killing one before rolling an attack die. There's no in principle reason why looking through a door should be different.

Sure there is. Exploration works differently than combat, both in a rules sense and in a thematic sense; and to try and conflate the two is a mistake.

With very few exceptions, combat involves acting and reacting with someone or something that is in turn acting and reacting with you and whose actions can't necessarily be predicted. Exploration, on the other hand, involves acting with and reacting to something that is usually much more static: the game world. If I open the door now for the first time I'm in theory going to see exactly the same scene behind it as if I'd first opened it yesterday or if I wait till tomorrow to open it, barring the actions of living creatures or effects of the passage of time. It's predictable and stable and consistent, from a meta-view: it's a part of the game world.

Thus, it's not my place as a player to author what's behind the door any more than it is my place to author the actions of the orc I'm fighting. It's my place to open the door and look (i.e. explore) and the DM's place to tell me what I see there. Otherwise we're into collaborative storytelling, which - while fine in its place - ain't D&D or anything close.

Lan-"once upon a time"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

I also think there is a metaphor-induced illusion at work here. In the real world, if I do something, and then later on learn of some suprising consequence it had, there can be a satisfaction in observing my causal power at work.

But in the RPG case that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] describes, the players aren't seeing their causal power at work.

No, but the PCs are seeing their causal powers at work.

Again - and how many times do I have to repeat this - look at these events through the eyes and perception of the PC rather than through the eyes and perception of the player.

And yes of course the DM has to generate - and then maybe narrate - the fiction that comes between cause A and result B, just like she narrates anything else that happens to or around or in reaction to the PCs.

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

You mean you thwarted player agency by having secret information in the form of pre-generated worlds that would trigger GM narration when the players traveled there - instead of letting the players impose their will on the fiction by declaring what kind of worlds they wanted to find.

The players didn't express any such preference (ie there was no player agency at work there). If they had, the process might have been different. See the discussion upthread, in response to [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION], of the difference between players looking for more fiction and players wanting a particular content to be part of the fiction.

 

[pemerton]

No, but the PCs are seeing their causal powers at work.

Again - and how many times do I have to repeat this - look at these events through the eyes and perception of the PC rather than through the eyes and perception of the player.

This makes no sense. When I play a game I'm not asking if some imaginary person is having a good time. I'm asking if I'm having a good time.

The GM can sit there and tell me how cheerful and satisfied my PC feels because of ABC in the fiction - my PC did this, and it had consequences XYZ. That's not going to make me cheerful or satisfied!

 

[Caliban]

This makes no sense. When I play a game I'm not asking if some imaginary person is having a good time. I'm asking if I'm having a good time.

The GM can sit there and tell me how cheerful and satisfied my PC feels because of ABC in the fiction - my PC did this, and it had consequences XYZ. That's not going to make me cheerful or satisfied!

Yeah, now I'm pretty sure you are just trolling people. No one is this dense.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, now I'm pretty sure you are just trolling people. No one is this dense.

Do not call people names, please.

 

[pemerton]

Doesn't your GM-introduced fiction of the young mage becoming a Vecna-worshipping necro and then an archlich have the same risk of (1) and (2) in your points above?

In the sense that mistakes are possible, yes.

But which is more likely to produce a successful conversation between friends: you writing a script in advance that you stick to over coffee? Or you saying stuff to your friend that actually respond to what s/he is saying, you sense of his/her mood and interest, etc?

It's the same principle in this case.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think this is a case of the rules of classic D&D getting in the way of playing classic D&D.

The ranger's 'never get lost' ability was described in a very early article in SR back in 1975 IIRC, definitely in the days of OD&D. In the context of exploratory hexcrawl play governed by the AH: Survival game this was a reasonable ability. It negated the regular 'getting lost' checks which were a significant random hazard of this procedure, and only within a single type of terrain. Gygax imported this class almost verbatim into 1e, but at the same time dropped the use of Survival as a mechanic (and references to any other external rules, like Chainmail). There was a process for getting lost also in 1e, so IN THEORY nothing changed.

In reality most groups, by the 1e era (say DMG release, so 1979) had started to leave behind the procedural exploration puzzle Gygaxian player skill game paradigm behind. In view of the reality of a lot of play at that time, semi-directed plots with a mixture of GM fiat/fudging, fixed maps/encounters, and some of the original random hazard generation, you are correct. When the story revolves around 'the GM wants to get you lost in the Woods' then the ranger with Woods as a favored terrain is pretty much the sound of the choo choo running out of tracks...

Now, in a game like what I run, said absolute ability would be OK. It would let the player advance the fiction in the direction he's interested in by not getting lost. Truthfully in my own personal game design how it would work is he'd have a class boon, orienteer, and that would let him expend his inspiration point to declare that he is definitely not getting lost right now. He could also simply roll and hope not to get lost, but then he's not really declaring anything, the player is saying in that case "lost, not lost, all good with me, I'll take it how it comes" which is fine. Orienteering can also be used to, say, sub in a Nature check instead of an Endurance check "hey, I use my orienteering to find a way around the nasty cliff so we don't have to climb it".

If in his background the ranger has "Home turf is the Forest of Grinn" then I'd let him leverage that and say "I guide the party unfailingly to a cave entrance at the bottom of the cliff which I know from experience leads up into the caverns we want to explore higher on the mountain." Now he's authoring fiction and relating the new narrative directly to character resources, this is why he built this character the way he did, he wants to be able to do this. Since the GM and players are 'Playing to see what happens' any argument that a 'challenge has been bypassed' is moot, it just isn't part of the agenda. If the players WANT a mechanically and tactically challenging encounter, then that is bound to be provided, assuming I as the DM am doing my job.

I don't think we materially disagree on anything here. My complaint was primarily that the ability as presented means that I have to make getting lost a threat for it to have value. As you note, I'd much rather have an ability that's more broad, even if fiat-y, so that there are more things for it to apply to.

Strangely, I'm much less concerned about background abilities like you list, because those are negotiated with the players and point at things the player wants to care about. Negotiated as in the player and the DM collaborate to make sure the elements referenced are germaine to the setting and focus of play. If it's a court intrigue game, it doesn't really fit well as it will see limited use, for example. I obviously don't agree with [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] that you cannot limit the setting prior to play and thereby constraint player character creation choices, but I do think it's bad form to dictate such without player buy-in. For me, the process is mostly "here's a concept I'd like to run" and they buy-in or propose something else.

 

[Sebastrd]

This is the GM reading/telling the players stuff. Now, I have preferences that this not be done from pre-authored notes. That relates to the third of the consequences of GM-preauthored worldbuilding that I mentioned in my reply to [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] not far upthread; and is also described clearly in Eero Tuovinen's account of the "standard narrativistic model" that I linked to somewhere upthread: I prefer a game which is focused on stuff that the players bring to it (via PC build, evinced thematic/trope/"wouldn't it be cool if . . ." desires, etc). Whereas GM pre-authorship (which eg [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] advocates should be done without knowing anything about what preferences and PCs the players might bring to the game) tends to make the focus one that speaks to the GM.

Why can't it be both? Honestly, I think that both you and Lanefan, by virtue of adhering to one specific style of worldbuilding, are unnecessarily constraining yourselves.

My method is to start with a premise, likely an overarching theme and an antagonist, and "pre-author" the general situation and starting area as is appropriate to my homebrew setting. I'll then summarize all of that in a handout I give to my players to assist in character generation; it gives them context for backstory and some ideas for NPC connections. The key here, though, is that the players are not necessarily constrained by it. They are free to add to it and generate new content.

When play begins, I'll have some mapped locations, timeline of events, and the antagonist's resources all "pre-authored". During play the PCs will interact with those places, disrupt the timeline, and erode those resources. However, we are not constrained by any of it. I can, and often do, alter it during play in response to the PCs actions, player suggestions, and players' use of Inspiration Points. I always have veto power, but I only exercise it to keep things believable and consistent in the context of the setting. (For example, I wouldn't allow a player to decide there was a lightsaber in the ogre's backpack.)

"Pre-authored", secret backstory does not have to be a straight-jacket that limits the GM or the players. It's simply a tool in the toolbox that is useful in some situations - like for GMs that have difficulty generating believable, cohesive setting information on the fly.



As an aside: My players have as much agency as they are willing to exercise. I will occasionally ask them to generate content, especially in response to their request for that specific content, and many players will balk at that. You have to keep in mind that the vast majority of players are weaned on D&D, and D&D does not train players to generate content. It has no action resolution mechanics that specifically ask players to create. D&D players, by and large, expect content generation to fall under the purview of the DM.

One possible, and maybe even likely, answer to your OP is, "Because in D&D that's the way it has always been, and most tables don't know any different."