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What is *worldbuilding* for?
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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7331084" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>Exactly.</p><p></p><p>With the possible exception of a few years in the mid-90's when 2e was dying with no obvious replacement on the horizon, D&D (including PF) has always been the 800 lb. gorilla in the RPG world and has - despite some vainglorious attempts by various designers over the years - relegated anything and everything else to niche status at best.</p><p></p><p>Look at it another way: go down to your local FLGS and say you're starting a D&D campaign and are looking for players. You'll almost certainly get interest, followed by questions relating to edition or version, campaign specifics, houserules, and the like. But go down to your local FLGS and say you're starting a Burning Wheel campaign and are looking for players and the only question you'll hear is "Burning Wheel? Wtf is that?".</p><p></p><p>B2 is something of an outlier in module design, in that its dungeon bits can legitimately be approached piecemeal in a weekend-warrior kind of way. You take out the Kobold cave, then go back to town. Next trip you go after the Goblin cave, then go back. Next trip you take on the Hobgoblins, lather rinse repeat until you've bit by bit taken out all the caves and can then start putting the pieces together.</p><p></p><p>Most modules - for better or worse - aren't like this. Take G2, from the same era - it's a single-site dungeon far away from civilization and even though it can be taken on a bit at a time the party doesn't (usually) have the option to return to town and heal up-restock-recruit new PCs between each sortie. But they can keep trying until they finish, and in that trying are going to be presented with a much more intricate dungeon layout than the simple straight line of rooms/encounters so common in bad early 3rd-party d20 offerings and in official WotC 4e offerings.</p><p></p><p>Of course she did, and that's just my point - the DM has to follow the dominoes (if there are any; obviously there aren't always) in order to see if any of them are likely to impact the PCs later. In the example I gave the dominoes are certainly going to lead to the PCs hearing about the attempt on the Duke's life and possibly going to lead to complications for one or more PCs should the harlot place blame on them or (mistakenly) associate them with the conspirators.</p><p></p><p>This domino-following is one of the aspects of city adventuring that makes it harder to DM, or at least DM well, than contained-dungeon adventuring. Not all DMs are good at it; I know I'm often not.</p><p></p><p>Lanefan</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7331084, member: 29398"] Exactly. With the possible exception of a few years in the mid-90's when 2e was dying with no obvious replacement on the horizon, D&D (including PF) has always been the 800 lb. gorilla in the RPG world and has - despite some vainglorious attempts by various designers over the years - relegated anything and everything else to niche status at best. Look at it another way: go down to your local FLGS and say you're starting a D&D campaign and are looking for players. You'll almost certainly get interest, followed by questions relating to edition or version, campaign specifics, houserules, and the like. But go down to your local FLGS and say you're starting a Burning Wheel campaign and are looking for players and the only question you'll hear is "Burning Wheel? Wtf is that?". B2 is something of an outlier in module design, in that its dungeon bits can legitimately be approached piecemeal in a weekend-warrior kind of way. You take out the Kobold cave, then go back to town. Next trip you go after the Goblin cave, then go back. Next trip you take on the Hobgoblins, lather rinse repeat until you've bit by bit taken out all the caves and can then start putting the pieces together. Most modules - for better or worse - aren't like this. Take G2, from the same era - it's a single-site dungeon far away from civilization and even though it can be taken on a bit at a time the party doesn't (usually) have the option to return to town and heal up-restock-recruit new PCs between each sortie. But they can keep trying until they finish, and in that trying are going to be presented with a much more intricate dungeon layout than the simple straight line of rooms/encounters so common in bad early 3rd-party d20 offerings and in official WotC 4e offerings. Of course she did, and that's just my point - the DM has to follow the dominoes (if there are any; obviously there aren't always) in order to see if any of them are likely to impact the PCs later. In the example I gave the dominoes are certainly going to lead to the PCs hearing about the attempt on the Duke's life and possibly going to lead to complications for one or more PCs should the harlot place blame on them or (mistakenly) associate them with the conspirators. This domino-following is one of the aspects of city adventuring that makes it harder to DM, or at least DM well, than contained-dungeon adventuring. Not all DMs are good at it; I know I'm often not. Lanefan [/QUOTE]
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