Why the World Exists

[TwinBahamut]

Wow, this thread is exploding in size so quickly that I can hardly keep up... Anyways, may as well respond to this regardless.

Two crimes were committed here. First, and the less egregious one, is that you said "Middle-earth exists solely to tell the stories of [hobbits]". Ack! I hear J.R.R. Tolkien muttering in his tomb. Actually, The Hobbit was a serial bed-time story that Tolkien told his kids that happened to be set in Middle-earth, the world of a much larger epic he had been working on for decades; the LotR started as a sequel to The Hobbit, requested by the publisher, but became something much larger, "more serious and dark," as JRRT said. But the core of Tolkien's work was not The Hobbit or LotR but The Silmarillion, which focuses on the history of the elves and, to a lesser degree, humans. In other words, Tolkien did NOT create Middle-earth as a setting to write The Hobbit and LotR in; those stories grew out of it. I think this is one of the main reasons that the setting is so...alive. There is never the feeling of the "cardboard set" that you get in a lot of novels and RPG worlds: As if all that exists is what is needed to portray the scene at hand. The Hobbit and LotR have a sense of deep history, of myth and legend--because Tolkien had spent decades detailing that world's myth and history and languages.

Honestly, you are putting Tolkien's setting too much on a pedestal. The world itself isn't really all that unique or fleshed out in the greater scheme of things.

Besides, the real focus of my point was that, in a sense, Middle-Earth really isn't a static setting that is identical between all of its different incarnations. I think it can be argued that Middle-Earth itself is portrayed very differently between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In a sense, The Lord of the Rings ret-cons many aspects of the setting in order to better tell its own story. More importantly, it is quite clear that Tolkien created the characters and core story and events of his stories first, and created the specific details of the setting to match his story afterwards. Which do you think existed first: Bilbo and the Thirteen Dwarves or the den of giant spiders they are attacked by? Was Thurin created first or was Orcrist? It is not like Tolkien created the entirety of Middle-Earth down to the last detail first and then decided to tell a story using a few bits and pieces he created. This is even clearer in the story of the Silmarillion, really.

The second crime, you wonder? It is the worst: You mention Middle-earth and World of Warcraft in the same breath! Alas, alas! May the Great Eagles carry me away to distant Valinor, where only her golden woods may heal my blighted soul!

Both are settings for MMORPGs, so they can't be that different.

Besides, I said Azeroth, the setting for the Warcraft series, not World of Warcraft. There is a slight difference, which gets to the heart of the whole "setting is reinvisioned for each new version" thing I mentioned above.

 

[Reynard]

Then you've done basically the same thing as the guy who didn't put the wyrm there in the first place due to a desire not to screw over low level PCs who can't fight the wyrm.

Both of you are designing the game world such that the PCs will encounter level appropriate fights. You're just including the risk of a level inappropriate fight if the PCs so choose, and then telling the PCs not to so choose. Both worlds are equally engineered and the outcome is the same.

I disagree entirely. They aren't the same thing at all. The fact that it is there, that it exists in the world, that its presence has an impact on the context of the PCs choices, matters. By merely *being* it enhances the setting and play.

 

[Wicht]

There is a fine line here: a world that solely exists for the entertainment of the DM (and not necessarily the PCs enjoyment) can create some of the biggest hobgoblins in our hobby; railroading (my plot must not be disturbed), God-NPCs (lucky My NPC protagonist was here to save the day), PC dis-empowerment (The bartender does 57 points of damage to the thief; did I mention he's a retired 15th level fighter?) and DM "self-pleasuring" (It doesn't matter if my PCs are having fun, as long as I am. Now save vs. death).

While not always true, there is a slippery slope between putting the DMs fun before (and not equal to) the other players and becoming a DM Tyrant whose game topples over the Chasm of Badwrongfun.

However, there is nothing wrong with creating a world for the enjoyment of others and receiving enjoyment at the process (and results) of it. That is the joy of DMing.

Assuming the world exists for the enjoyment of the DM is not the same as saying that the purpose of the game is to stroke the DM's ego.

But the fact is, the PCs never experience the world. They experience only parts of it. The DM is the one who gets to know the whole of the world. Campaign supplements are seldom marketable to players but many DMs buy them for the sheer joy of reading them. The same is true of adventures. How many of us DMs have bought adventures we will never run simply to read them.

Ergo, the world exists for the DM.

PCs exist for the sake of adventuring and in some ways the adventure exists for the PCs. However the question posed was, "why does the world exist," not, "why do we write adventures?" It has been my experience, in 26 years of DMing, adventures seldom encompass all of the world I envision.

Edit: More on topic, let me add, that as the world exists for me the DM, the reason I place things within the world is because it seems right to me to do so. As I write adventures, I will keep in mind the level and goals of the PCs but in the end, the adventure must conform to the world that I envision first and foremost.

 

[Remathilis]

Assuming the world exists for the enjoyment of the DM is not the same as saying that the purpose of the game is to stroke the DM's ego.

Hence the term, "fine-line". As I said, a world created for the enjoyment of the DM is fine. A world created SOLELY for the enjoyment of the DM is dangerous.

 

[Cadfan]

I disagree entirely. They aren't the same thing at all. The fact that it is there, that it exists in the world, that its presence has an impact on the context of the PCs choices, matters. By merely *being* it enhances the setting and play.

You've done nothing different in the context of the specific conversation and this thread.

Obviously its different, there's either a dragon or there isn't. But for you to sit back and self congratulatorily toss out the obligatory video game references regarding people who don't put level inappropriate fights near low level PCs while also not putting low level fights near low level PCs is ridiculous. You, also, do not put level inappropriate fights near low level PCs. You just avoid it in a slightly different way. Both of you have engineered your game world to fit the players, you just pretend you didn't.

 

[Remathilis]

You've done nothing different in the context of the specific conversation and this thread.

Obviously its different, there's either a dragon or there isn't. But for you to sit back and self congratulatorily toss out the obligatory video game references regarding people who don't put level inappropriate fights near low level PCs while also not putting low level fights near low level PCs is ridiculous. You, also, do not put level inappropriate fights near low level PCs. You just avoid it in a slightly different way. Both of you have engineered your game world to fit the players, you just pretend you didn't.

In essence, its just a justified form of "gotcha." If the PCs make a bad choice (ignore a warning, wander down too many levels) then the DM can throw a high level foe at the PCs and whack them, arguing "You ignored the warnings".

 

[I'm A Banana]

You just avoid it in a slightly different way. Both of you have engineered your game world to fit the players, you just pretend you didn't.

Here's the thing:

Creating a world to fit the characters [because a PC is a dragonborn, dragonborn are important to the world]

Creating a world to fit the players [because one player likes dragonborn, dragonborn are important to the world, even if none of the characters are.]

Creating a game to fit the characters [because one PC is a dragonborn, the dragonborn are central in the sessions you have]

Creating a game to fit the players [because one player likes dragonborn, the dragonborn in the sessions you have, even if none of the PC's are dragonborn]

Replace "dragonborn" with any game element.

Generally, creating a game to fit the players is a positive thing: because your sessions mostly involve things that your players are interested in.

Creating a world to fit the players breaks the suspension of disbelief a little harder. It doesn't matter if dragonborn are important in the world, really -- just if they're important to the game.

Creating a game to fit the characters is what 3e relied on. It means that if your characters have skills, you challenge those skills with what they face.

Creating a world to fit the characters is narm-worthy often. Because your characters are level X, all challenges are level X? Really?

They didn't engineer their world to fit the players.

They engineered the game to fit the characters.

Just like players are not characters, your game is not your world, and just as players and characters have different needs at the table, so do worlds and games.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Just like players are not characters, your game is not your world, and just as players and characters have different needs at the table, so do worlds and games.

Well said. I've given out too much XP today, but this post is XP-worthy.


RC

 

[subrosas]

Mixes up two different ideas

I think its useful to separate two ideas:

How realistic a setting is as a sandbox

Who's fun comes first? Player or game master

They are really completely independent from one another, and both are continuums. Bad or pathological game experiences can emerge from sandboxes as easily as from railroads. Groups where players have no fun, or where the game master can't have fun - probably won't play together for very long.

Some people hate customized treasure ("hey look! ANOTHER magical military pick! and our fighter is specialized in military picks! What are the chances?"), and some hate finding useless treasure ("Hey! After I found that magic military pick six levels ago I spent four feats specializing in it, but all we ever find are magical spears. What the hell am I supposed to do with a magical spear?").

Probably a happy answer is somewhere in the middle ("hey! when we were in town the retired knight we were helping out saw that I used a military pick, and told me that way back when the Burning Lord also wielded a magical military pick, and that it was buried with him in the Ash Crypt. Mind if we make a side-trek out to the Ash Crypt and see if we can find it next week? It'd be perfect for my fighter.").

Versimilitude doesn't have to suck, and saying yes to the players doesn't make it Christmas.

 

[Lanefan]

Here's the thing:

Creating a world to fit the characters [because a PC is a dragonborn, dragonborn are important to the world]

Creating a world to fit the players [because one player likes dragonborn, dragonborn are important to the world, even if none of the characters are.]

Creating a game to fit the characters [because one PC is a dragonborn, the dragonborn are central in the sessions you have]

Creating a game to fit the players [because one player likes dragonborn, the dragonborn in the sessions you have, even if none of the PC's are dragonborn]

Replace "dragonborn" with any game element.

This makes a huge and (in my case) erroneous assumption: that any of these are known during the design phase.

I designed my current world - at least in broad-brush ways - long, long before I invited anyone to play in it, and longer still before I knew any of said invitations would be accepted, or by who. I created a world to fit - well, itself, really - and to give me something I could mine for stories.

As for ongoing game design, while that's a bit more malleable for the DM to tweak to player preference, it's also in large part up to the players. For example, Hobbits are quite rare in the area where my current game has been set thus far, but if the players really like Hobbits and want to see some they know full well the Hobbit lands are far to the north, right where they've always been...

Lanefan