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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 9046348" data-attributes="member: 85555">Sure but my point is that is just one thing that comes up in a campaign among many things. My experience has been whether you are doing tons of prep and world building, or very little (both of which are perfectly workable options), once the campaign gets going the real work is tracking everything that comes up (for example you need to be able to quickly recall what arrangements were made with that mercahnt's guild months ago, or what happened to this or that NPC after a given adventure....it just all adds up to a lot of note keeping). Again I would never say you are wrong to not be into the world building side, or that you wrong that it isn't worth the effort for you. But I think there is a lot of subjectivity here that comes down to how people think, what inspires them, what sorts of information they feel is helpful before hand. For a lot of GMs world building is fun, but it is also important in that it really does lay the foundations for them to help make decisions later on, to extrapolate, etc. That isn't for everyone, I just think if we are giving this a value in terms of the results it yields for some it will be a 2 but for others it will be a 10. As with anything if it isn't yielding results, I think not doing it is the way to go. I just don't think this is a universal experience. On LOTR. I am not a massive fan. And I get there is a debate over how much Tolkien planned in advance or developed over time, and what the exact blend of that was. But one thing I appreciate about Lord of the Rings when I read it is the sense of depth the world has. And Tolkien isn't the only one. There is a long tradition of world building in science fiction and fantasy. Even Howard put thought into the Hyborean Age (he was also making up a ton as he went a long but he had some interesting reasons for setting it in prehistory and the world he presents feels very alive). But these are people writing short stories and books so they are going to have more opportunity and more reason to revise, to see two things that actually go together in a meaningful way that they didn't originally intend add that in after the fact. A good science fiction writer knows how to do both. Even outside fantasy world building is pretty standard. Most writers aren't simply making it up as they go, they have a plan and they have thought about their characters, their character's histories, etc. Some do it more than others. But it isn't as if all screen play writing or all fiction writing doesn't rely on some amount of world building and planning. Fair enough. I am not into the Simlarillion so I can't really say in this particular case. But I think a lot of readers and a lot of players in this thread are making the assertion that you can often tell when something like that has a solid foundation and there is more beneath the surface. That can be important not just in science fiction, fantasy, RPGs but in good writing in general. It isn't required in every genre. But I find those kind of details are useful.</blockquote>

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