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What is *worldbuilding* for?
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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7355181" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>OK, now I'm a bit confused.</p><p></p><p>Up to this point you've been pretty steady in stating your view that, if I may sum up, comes down to player agency largely being defined by player contribution to the shared fiction. And note there's only two ways in which a player can contribute to shared fiction: by altering something that's already present in the fiction (e.g. successfully searching for a secret door puts one in a wall already known to be part of the fictional scene; or by blowing up the room with a fireball), or by introducing something new (e.g. adding a weakness for gambling to the guard's background via successful use of player-side mechanics).</p><p></p><p>And to me, successful use of player-side mechanics to add something to the fiction is <em>when looked at in hindsight</em> just the same as telling the DM that new fiction. The only difference at the time is that the player's addition to the fiction doesn't take hold until confirmed by the dice and is denied or altered if the dice don't co-operate.</p><p></p><p>So I'm confused when you say this doesn't have to be there for the players to still have agency, when all along you've steadfastly held that it does.</p><p></p><p>I looked deeper at that Eero stuff last night and found something that surprised me: bluntly put, in his view the DM has control over backstory.</p><p></p><p>Given this, and given that backstory comes out of worldbuilding, there's your answer for what worldbuilding is for: to provide backstory.</p><p></p><p>Also given the above, and given that it only makes sense that not all of the game world's backstory is going to be known by the PCs at any particular time, the DM basing outcomes on backstory that remains yet unknown to the players/PCs is also implicitly endorsed.</p><p></p><p>Lanefan</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7355181, member: 29398"] OK, now I'm a bit confused. Up to this point you've been pretty steady in stating your view that, if I may sum up, comes down to player agency largely being defined by player contribution to the shared fiction. And note there's only two ways in which a player can contribute to shared fiction: by altering something that's already present in the fiction (e.g. successfully searching for a secret door puts one in a wall already known to be part of the fictional scene; or by blowing up the room with a fireball), or by introducing something new (e.g. adding a weakness for gambling to the guard's background via successful use of player-side mechanics). And to me, successful use of player-side mechanics to add something to the fiction is [I]when looked at in hindsight[/I] just the same as telling the DM that new fiction. The only difference at the time is that the player's addition to the fiction doesn't take hold until confirmed by the dice and is denied or altered if the dice don't co-operate. So I'm confused when you say this doesn't have to be there for the players to still have agency, when all along you've steadfastly held that it does. I looked deeper at that Eero stuff last night and found something that surprised me: bluntly put, in his view the DM has control over backstory. Given this, and given that backstory comes out of worldbuilding, there's your answer for what worldbuilding is for: to provide backstory. Also given the above, and given that it only makes sense that not all of the game world's backstory is going to be known by the PCs at any particular time, the DM basing outcomes on backstory that remains yet unknown to the players/PCs is also implicitly endorsed. Lanefan [/QUOTE]
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