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What is *worldbuilding* for?
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7333812" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Here are two examples of play in which nobody at the table did anything akin to worldbuilding, but I want to see if you have some other ideas in terms of what that entails:</p><p></p><p>1) A group of people sit down to play 1e AD&D. The DM declares, after character generation, that the PCs find themselves in a stone chamber, presumably underground. He proceeds to generate the room using the Appendix in the DMG for random dungeon generation. Play proceeds from there with no content or assumptions having been established beforehand.</p><p></p><p>2) A group of people sit down to play classic Traveller. Again they generate characters and the GM generates a subsector map and some planetary systems using the tables in the LBBs. Play proceeds entirely by the use of these tables (which provide for generating planetary systems, creatures, NPCs, governments, random ship encounters, the ability to find ships, cargo, and patrons, buy equipment, etc. </p><p></p><p>Now, I think that 2 COULD be said to rely on the conceptual framework of an Interstellar Empire, etc inherent in Traveller's implicit setting. Of course this is probably no more worldbuilding than the implicit milieu implied by the available races, classes, and monsters which will appear in the random dungeon, though it has a wider geographical scope. Anyway, I wouldn't exactly call either one 'worldbuilding', yet there's definitely some RPG happening there. Admittedly the players are going to be a little pressed to relate their actions to any larger agenda that a more realized setting would probably facilitate, but depending on how free they are to extrapolate that might not be an impediment at all, it might even be an advantage for some types of player.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7333812, member: 82106"] Here are two examples of play in which nobody at the table did anything akin to worldbuilding, but I want to see if you have some other ideas in terms of what that entails: 1) A group of people sit down to play 1e AD&D. The DM declares, after character generation, that the PCs find themselves in a stone chamber, presumably underground. He proceeds to generate the room using the Appendix in the DMG for random dungeon generation. Play proceeds from there with no content or assumptions having been established beforehand. 2) A group of people sit down to play classic Traveller. Again they generate characters and the GM generates a subsector map and some planetary systems using the tables in the LBBs. Play proceeds entirely by the use of these tables (which provide for generating planetary systems, creatures, NPCs, governments, random ship encounters, the ability to find ships, cargo, and patrons, buy equipment, etc. Now, I think that 2 COULD be said to rely on the conceptual framework of an Interstellar Empire, etc inherent in Traveller's implicit setting. Of course this is probably no more worldbuilding than the implicit milieu implied by the available races, classes, and monsters which will appear in the random dungeon, though it has a wider geographical scope. Anyway, I wouldn't exactly call either one 'worldbuilding', yet there's definitely some RPG happening there. Admittedly the players are going to be a little pressed to relate their actions to any larger agenda that a more realized setting would probably facilitate, but depending on how free they are to extrapolate that might not be an impediment at all, it might even be an advantage for some types of player. [/QUOTE]
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