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Message: <blockquote data-quote="redrick" data-source="post: 7322051" data-attributes="member: 6777696">I'm not sure that I agree with this definition of "world building." World building is about the broader canvas. It's the backdrop behind your in-game action. The items in world building aren't necessarily expected to be interacted with, at least not directly, but they bridge and surround the material that players (and their characters) do interact with.Classic dungeon design isn't world building. It's set design. When I pull out my graph paper and my room key, almost everything I put down is something the PCs could interact with in some way. I'm laying out the elements PCs will run into so that I have "a plan" and am ready for them when they do. When I fill in the names of towns on my Kingdom map, not so much. That's more to provide a greater sense of consistency for the places my NPCs come from, the broader events happening in the world.Classic dungeons have world building too, because there are artifacts and altars to gods and references to places and things beyond the immediate scope of the adventure. They're just nice in that they allow the DM to limit that world-building, because dungeons are a closed set. The PCs can only go in the direction the map allows. The only thing in the dungeon is what the PCs can haul in and what the DM put there.Thinking about this brought me to the Village of Hommlet. The Village of Hommlet is realized with a level of detail beyond any other town I've ever used. Every character has a home with a floorplan and a place they store their valuables. Is this Gygax's pedantic approach to worldbuilding? The village should feel alive, so let's plot out every detail so the DM can evoke a broader, living setting? Or was it just another form of set design? Gygax expected his players to explore the houses and look under the floorboards for treasure. What role does that kind of set design have in modern play? I've never played Hommlet, but reading the adventure, my instinct is to "use" all those damn houses and villagers. I feel like there are as many pages dedicated to them as there are to the moat-house.</blockquote>

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