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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aenghus" data-source="post: 7323362" data-attributes="member: 2656">I see world-building in a variety of contexts, including a bunch of non-RPG contexts. Model villages, towns, cities by themselves or as part of a diorama. Fictional places where the peoples, cultures, politics, architecture etc may be explored in a variety of detail levels. One element of fantasy and science fiction stories is the world-building. Then there's the world -building in RPGs, both deliberately written setting material and the snowball effect of successful products for a setting that seize the customers interest, that may influence and change future products in that setting.After all, there's more than one method of world-building. From an abstract point of view, we have top down development, where the overarching themes and conflicts within the world are detailed, countries and peoples, and then the creator fills in details - cities, towns, villages etc, while ideally being consistent with the established background and major plots.But there's also the bottom-up method, where you start small, with one dungeon, or settlement and detail that, probably with the agreement or understanding that the players will keep their PCs in that small setting at the start. The idea is that slowly the detailed world expands, in a relatively organic way.I suspect many people use a hybrid approach, where they have some idea of the overall world, but prioritise detailing the elements relevant to the current game. It's definitely normal to have some sort of world map and synopsis history at a minimum.The detail level and and degree of zoom in can vary a lot. Few people would expect every single peasant in a setting to be detailed, for instance, but some would expect details on the heads of major factions in a setting, while still others might expect the names of a number of npcs at the top of each faction and some notes on internal politics. Consistency is another spectrum, IMO I've seen DMs care about this a lot more than players on average, and not always in a rational way. I've seen more than one referee tantrum when players don't appreciate the setting, logical fallacies are exposed in their world-building, or the players actively try to vandalise the setting.Abstract world-building can be a goal unto itself, and may not need players. When there are players the referee need to balance the jollies they get from world-building and the needs of the players, who on average will be less invested in that world-building, sometimes a lot less.IMO in prepared, high detail worlds, the players ideally will enjoy exploration of the intricacies of the setting, and the high detail helps ensure that there are discoveries to make and information to impart.Some players feel claustrophobic about high-detail settings, whether it's because they have their own plans which the setting details can invalidate or make implausible, or just because they get in the way of their game style eg roleplay-heavy, beer & pretzels, hack and slack etc etc.</blockquote>

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