Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Tony Vargas]

Kinda damning with faint praise no?

Oh, you noticed.

See, I get the point though. Yup they sell. And they sell very well. Which would be great if that didn't mean that people like me, who aren't interested, were catered to as well.
But, I'm not. If I want to buy a module, I have to accept that I'm going to have to skip the first five or six pages because it's of virtually no value to me. I have to accept that any monster book I buy now will be largely useless as written because of endless world building that the book is filled with. Volo's Guide? Mordenkainen's?

Correct. Any given book is probably going to have only a minority of the content of interest to any given purchaser.

SCAG?

I bought SCAG. I essentially paid $10/page for the content I was interested in, and didn't end up liking even those bits. If WotC were asking me to buy a book a month like that, I'd give up, but 1/year? I'll bite.

Like I said, the world builders won this argument years ago. The market is totally dominated by the folks that eat this stuff up with a spoon. To the point where actually asking for something different is seen as an attack. Where any and all criticism of world building must be immediately defended and world building accepted as the baseline of RPG's.

It seemed, for a year or two in the previous decade, it was going to tip the other way, but I guess not.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Wouldn't you rather have 24 more pages of adventure material that's directly related to the adventures at hand rather than detailing history of hundreds or thousands of years ago? I know I would. I'd much rather have an entire extra module, rather than slog through 20000 words of history that almost certainly will never see the light of day.

Remember, the backstory history in these articles have nothing to do with the actual adventure at hand nor even the larger plot of the Adventure Path (which is to stop Demogorgon).

Possibly?

I hate to give a vague answer, but it would entirely depend on what else they included in place of the content in question. I get ideas and inspiration from all manner of material, so I like a little of everything. A history like that may evoke some ideas or it may lend context to some game element.

On the other hand, a couple of pages of drop in encounters or monster/NPC stat blocks would also be welcome. I can understand the appeal of crunchier bits like that. I personally find just as much use for the fluff material as I do the crunch material.

 

[Darth Solo]

Funny.

The OP uses a writer to try and diagnose rpgs. They are not the same, unless you're a Storygamer.

That "advice" is laughable for GMs, at nearly every avenue. Why?

Writers control EVERYTHING in their work. Gamemasters only control everything outside the PCs. It's like a writer with zero control of the protagonists. The OP's point actually defies rpgs.

Nice.

Worldbuilding is crucial when dealing with a game that allows players to pursue ANY direction. GMs have to have something ready for them.

Writers do not have to deal with UNPREDICTABILITY. Ever.

GMs have to deal with it EVERY SESSION.

This thread is nonsense.
How is this productive and useful to rpg gamers? How does non-relevant info make us better gamers?

 

[Maxperson]

Like I said, the world builders won this argument years ago. The market is totally dominated by the folks that eat this stuff up with a spoon. To the point where actually asking for something different is seen as an attack. Where any and all criticism of world building must be immediately defended and world building accepted as the baseline of RPG's.

That's probably because you can't have an adventure without a setting, and you can't have a setting without worldbuilding. I don't see that changing any time soon.

 

[Campbell]

Here's what I really want to talk about: Playing and Designing with Purpose. The reason I make the distinction between setting design and world building is entirely focused on what the driving force or motivating energy is behind the design. What I really want to discuss is designing to enable active play versus designing to share content for others to appreciate after the fact. When I run a game I my primary responsibility is to frame situations that allow the other players to make consequential decisions that impact the fiction through their characters. The role that setting plays in my games is to provide context for what's happening in the fiction right now. The situation is primary. Setting is secondary and should remain so for my play priorities.

When I speak about active play I am really talking about collaborative play, but not in the conch passing or Fate point sense. I am talking about the sort of play environment where we all bring something to the table - characters, setting, prep, whatever. Stuff that we are not all that precious about. Through play of these characters/setting/prep/whatever we get to mess with each others stuff and something that no one could ever plan or would plan comes out simply through skilled play where we advocate for our characters.

Aside: I do not personally have the same issues with being true to your unrevealed prep that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] does. I think it can enhance play if utilized in a principled manner. What is important to me is that players can reliably discover it and utilize it for their own ends based on their skill at playing the game. I do not want it used as a means to control and shape the narrative, or to purposefully frustrate players, or to carefully choose when and where players allowed to have an impact on the fiction through their characters.

 

[pemerton]

So now you're admitting that worldbuilding involves things much smaller in scope, like say a country or city. Awesome!

I hear that [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] has also stopped beating his family members.

 

[pemerton]

Worldbuilding is crucial when dealing with a game that allows players to pursue ANY direction. GMs have to have something ready for them.

There are fairly well-established ways of handling this sort of RPGing without worldbuilding.

 

[pemerton]

I do not personally have the same issues with being true to your unrevealed prep that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] does. I think it can enhance play if utilized in a principled manner. What is important to me is that players can reliably discover it and utilize it for their own ends based on their skill at playing the game. I do not want it used as a means to control and shape the narrative, or to purposefully frustrate players, or to carefully choose when and where players allowed to have an impact on the fiction through their characters.

In the other thread, I suggested that unrevealed information in the context of a framed situation is not the sort of burden on agency that I'm concerned with if (i) it is knowable, (ii) it is salient, and (iii) failing to discover it isn't a total hosing of the players (and their PCs). An invisible opponent in a D&D-style combat encounter is an obvious example, but there could be others (eg certain ways to defeat a trap).

That's not identical to your principled approach, but I think there is some overlap. My (i) is an asepct of your principles. My (ii) is really a complement to my (i), as salience is a big part of knowability. This is also probably my biggest departure from the principles of "classic D&D", which doesn't prioritise salience in the same way (or, alternatively, relies on a dungeon-tropes sense of salience rather than dramatic or genre-salience).

My (iii) sits in something like the same functional space as your "not used as a means to control and shape the narrative, or to purposefully frustrate players", but works differently in that space and probably is more contraining. I would see my approach as broadly consistent with you "the situation is primary; setting is secondary" - but other approches can also be consistent with that yet inconsistent with my own preferences!

 

[Lanefan]

I don't see the point of game books that are meant to be read, not played.

Given as I'll never have the time to play through all the modules etc. I own, any that are also a halfway-decent read provide at least some small consolation.

 

[Maxperson]

I hear that [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] has also stopped beating his family members.

Great news!