Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Raven Crowking]

Worldbuilding isn't an essential ingredient for a good D&D game

Disagree. Of course, that really depends upon what you call "worldbuilding".

Worldbuilding can be fun

FIFY.

People should do as much worldbuilding as they want, as much as is fun for them

Agree.

Doing more worldbuilding doesn't make your setting any better than a setting that does little or no worldbuilding.

Exactly as adding more ketchup to your hamburger doesn't make it more ketchupy.

If the worldbuilding elements you add to your setting improve the setting (i.e., are "good" worldbuilding elements), then by necessity they improve the setting. It's a tautological argument. Any work of any type that you do which contributes to the game contributes to the game and therefore makes it better.

Too much worldbuilding can be a very bad thing, resulting in powerless players and DMs who are more interested in their campaign setting than in running a D&D game

Disagree.

The amount of worldbuilding done has little or nothing to do with the problem that you describe.

 

[Hussar]

something my poll shows is quite consistent (certainly more than 2/3rds of DMs set multiple campaigns in the same setting).

I've already shown how your poll is skewed. I show up as running multiple campaigns in the same setting despite running the majority of my campaigns in multiple settings.

You are guilty of the same mistake that I made - simply creating a binary poll for behaviour that is anything but binary. All you've shown is that people are likely to use a given setting more than once. I'll buy that. In 10 years of playing 2e, I'd say the vast majority of people reused a setting at least once.

But, my point is, it becomes self fufiliing. You spend the time and/or money developing a setting, you want to get your money's worth and justify the effort. So, you reuse the setting. Thus you spend more time in a setting, spending more money and/or effort to expand that setting, thus creating an even larger need to justify the time and expense.

Just to clarify btw, I never said "play once and dump". That was your interpretation, not mine. I said that multiyear campaigns in a single setting were a minority. I also said that I thought that people do move from setting to setting fairly often. That's a far cry from "play once and dump". The fact that a third of people thought they'd move to a different setting does show that setting gypsies are hardly a tiny minority. I am a bit surprised though, I would have thought it was higher.

I've shown (thankfully I think people were able to read past my butchering of the language) that about a third of people intend to jump to a new setting in their next campaign. Sure, they might come back in the campaign after that, but, that's not my point.

My point is, if you don't spend all that time and/or money on the setting, then there is no need to come back. If you instead spend all that time/money on adventures and then just hang them together with the barest threads of setting, you can run campaign after campaign, drastically changing setting, without doing any more work.

As I said, you only need about 8 adventures to run a 20 level campaign. Heck, 8 adventures could easily run a "sweet spot" campaign of 3rd-12th.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I've already shown how your poll is skewed. I show up as running multiple campaigns in the same setting despite running the majority of my campaigns in multiple settings.

How about a simple Yes/No poll then:

In your experience, is play enhanced by a well-developed setting?

EDIT: And here it is: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=197852

 

[Hussar]

How about a simple Yes/No poll then:

In your experience, is play enhanced by a well-developed setting?

EDIT: And here it is: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=197852

My prediction is an overwhelming Yes vote. 80-90%. Because, as I've said repeatedly, we've been beaten over the head to accept the idea that "THOU SHALT WORLDBUILD". Grandaddy Tolkien did it, thus IT SHALL BE DONE. But, we shall see.

 

[Imaro]

My prediction is an overwhelming Yes vote. 80-90%. Because, as I've said repeatedly, we've been beaten over the head to accept the idea that "THOU SHALT WORLDBUILD". Grandaddy Tolkien did it, thus IT SHALL BE DONE. But, we shall see.

This so smacks of "You don't know any better, but I can show you the TRUE way to play."

It's almost like you're claiming gamers are kids and don't really know what they enjoy in a game. Just find this comment baffling and a little elitist

 

[Old Gumphrey]

You're baffled that gamers can be elitist? Do you know any gamers? It's like 3 in 4 gamers are elitist.

 

[Imaro]

You're baffled that gamers can be elitist? Do you know any gamers? It's like 3 in 4 gamers are elitist.

Lol

 

[Raven Crowking]

My prediction is an overwhelming Yes vote. 80-90%. Because, as I've said repeatedly, we've been beaten over the head to accept the idea that "THOU SHALT WORLDBUILD". Grandaddy Tolkien did it, thus IT SHALL BE DONE. But, we shall see.

My prediction is an overwhelming Yes vote as well. Because, in the experience of 80-90% of the people voting, play is enhanced by a well-developed setting.

 

[Raven Crowking]

My point is, if you don't spend all that time and/or money on the setting, then there is no need to come back.

There, we agree. But I would add, if you instead spend all that time/money on adventures and then just hang them together with the barest threads of setting, then there is no need to come back...to the table.

 

[Hussar]

Sorry Imaro. I didn't mean to come off as being elitist. My point is that we've been conditioned for years to think that setting MUST BE DONE. The DMG talks about it, umpteen pages in Dungeon and Dragon talks about it. Thousands of pages of Forgotten Realms material shows it. Popular fantasy does it.

It's not really surprising that everyone buys into this.

What's funny is comments like RC's where doing only the barest amount of setting is A BAD THING. That if you were to focus on adventures and ignore most of the setting stuff, there would be no point in gaming at all.

Heck, RC, didn't you take me to task a few pages back for saying that posters were saying EXACTLY what you just said? Refresh my memory, but I believe that several people told me that NO ONE said that putting setting on the back burner makes for a bad game.

Yet, that's precisely what you just said.

So who's being elitist? Me for suggesting that most of the setting work that gets done is superfluous or RC for suggesting that if you don't do a "well developed setting" that it just isn't worth playing?

Of course, the problem now is, what is a "well developed setting"? Is the GDQ series a well developed setting? If I were to play through them as written, would it be a bad experience because of a decided lack of world background?

Do I need to know the entire history of Greyhawk in order to run Savage Tide? How much can I ignore? Do I even have to set it in Greyhawk to make it a good experience?

Does the Isle of Dread become a worse experience if you ignore the first couple of pages?

If I took whiteout to the map in White Plume Mountain and crossed off Dragotha and replaced it with "Here Be Dragyns", would that make for a less satisfying experience?