Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Hussar]

It's interesting that people have brought up Star Trek as an example of World Building done right. And specifically Klingon's were brought out. For a lot of people, Klingon's have become a complete caricature of the original concept. As time went on, they become more and more bestial looking, the whole animalistic thing going, plus, the concept of honor was pretty much chucked out the window by every Klingon character.

I would point to the development of the Klingon as a perfect example of World Building gone wrong. Detailing the society to the point where it became completely meaningless, choked under masses of often contradictory elements.

As far as defining world building, then, I agree with Celebrim, that if you define world building as any creative act which adds detail to a setting, then sure, it's not a bad thing. I disagree that that is what the article is talking about, but, yes, if we accept the idea that any setting creation is world building then of course it isn't bad.

However, again, I'll repeat what I said, I think that the difference between settign and world building is one of scale. Granted, there's no cut off line where one becomes the other, but, at the far end of creating a setting, you have world building.

Like I said before, it's the difference between the Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.

And, from a DM's perspective, I can see the difference as well. It's all well and good to create a setting for your campaign. It's another thing entirely to expect other people to care about the entire thing. If you bludgeon your players over the head with the setting points you've created simply to justify the effort you've put into creating them, that's a bad thing.

 

[danzig138]

Worldbuilding is macrocosmic. Whether or not you've detailed some kingdom 2000 miles from where the players are is really not going to affect things if they go off on a tangent.

Guess that really depends on the tangent on which they go off on, doesn't it?

As for the OP. . . eh. Whatever. I'm not sure what he was trying to say - I found the passage unpleasant to read.

As for the thread. . . I'm all for whatever works for you and yours. However, there are too many people saying what other people need and don't need. Too much One True Wayism for me.

Personally, I like having extra detail. It might never come up directly in play, but it can still have an effect on the things that do come up, even if the extra detail is in a kingdom 2000 miles away. I like good (but not super involved) details in my game books about the setting.

And I find, for me, some improv skills are a must. But it's easier for me to ad-hoc things if I have more setting information than if I don't.

Standard disclaimers apply.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Sci-fi writer M John Harrison tells you why you don't need to spend hours crafting your campaign setting

Does he? It sounds to me like he's telling WRITERS they don't need to spend hours crafting a STORY setting. RPG's are NOT written fiction. They have similarities, elements in common. But they are not subject to ALL the same rules, requirements, and accepted idiosyncracies.

 

[Set]

I would point to the development of the Klingon as a perfect example of World Building gone wrong. Detailing the society to the point where it became completely meaningless, choked under masses of often contradictory elements.

If by that you mean 'transformed over time from a one-dimensional cold war-era stereotype into something almost like a living species, as complex and contradictory and hard to pin a label on as human beings,' then yes, the development of Klingons has certainly gone off the rails.

Ironically, had everyone who has written for Star Trek after their introduction stuck to some sort of worldbuilding story bible as to what Klingons were like, and not bothered to flesh them out beyond the 'dirty reds' cliche, *that* would, IMO, be an example of world-building as a straightjacket limiting creativity.

Half the fun of drawing lines is then finding ways to cross them. Elves are nice, except for this one, he's nasty piece of work. 1/2 Orcs are brutish, violent thugs, except for my Paladin / Monk / whatever. Without lines, without definition, without someone coming along and saying, "Dark Elves are evil, run by a spider-worshipping matriarchy and live underground," someone else couldn't come along and say, "But *this* Dark Elf has run away from that society, and that conflict between his nature and his nurture is what drives him, and will end up turning him into the most insanely popular, intensely reviled and over-exposed property since Wolverine..."

Without the 'world-building' that goes into creating Menzoberranzan, Drizz't is just some dark-skinned elf who whines a lot about how his mommy used to beat him. By showing us the world he grew up in, his entire character suddenly gains meaning.

Absent the world he grew up in, the history that informs him, he'd just be a weirdo who likes to complain for apparently no reason at all. He's got a reason. And by showing us that world that formed him, those events that drove him away from his homeland, we understand the man himself.

Ultimately, it's a matter of taste. I respect an author who cares enough about what he's writing to think about the histories that inform the characters, and the worlds they've grown up in. If the author himself doesn't give a rat's butt about what he's writing, it's unlikely that he's going to be able to inspire me with the setting or characters that failed to inspire him...

 

[Hussar]

As to whether this applies to D&D or not, well, I think it does.

I find myself buying less and less these days and I've often wondered why. I think this article hits it quite well for me. I'm very tired of buying material and then using maybe 1% of it and then it sits on my shelf gathering dust. I have three Creature Collections on my shelf and the chances that I'll buy yet another monster book have dropped to zero as I realize I've barely scratched the SRD monsters, let alone another thousand or so that I already have.

Or, take another example. Most city sourcebooks are roughly the same. Start with a map. Define about a hundred or so keyed locations, give a history and background. This or that city book might vary on the theme a bit, but, by and large, that's it. Now, take something like MEG's Urban Blight book which gives you 20 adventure locations to be slotted into any city.

I compare world building to the standard city book. I might use 10% of it and that's it. Urban Blight, because it was geared towards the idea that every location should be used, I used 15 of the 20 locations. Three quarters of the book! Urban Blight ties the setting to the plot and becomes very usable. Most city books you'd be lucky to use a small fraction of the locations.

IMO, supplements should be tied to the idea of their utility in an adventure, not simply exist because it adds color.

 

[S'mon]

I think Trek is actually a good example of how accretive or bottom-up word building can go wrong, at least when you have multiple authors. Elements that made sense when introduced, like Worf's obsession with archaic Klingon blade weapons, rapidly ceased to make sense when universalised, with archaic blade weapons becoming the standard-issue weaponry of the klingon warrior (and apparently superior to phasers). Likewise the fake exploding consoles in the Kobayashi Maru simulation, used to simulate damage to the ship, becoming in STTNG+ actual ship consoles actually exploding and killing bridge officers. This is just the kind of thing that top-down world building can avoid. Compare Babylon-5, a heavily top-down setting; B5's setting problems are very different from ST's. I still think the bottom-up approach is superior for RPGs, giving a lot more freedom for improvisation, but Klingons are a counter example. This kind of thing happens in D&D too, eg the development of the drow from hints in the 1e MM through Vault of the Drow, to Forgotten Realms over-exposure and (arguable) cheesiness.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Margaret Atwood, for all her faults, had a good point when she commented that people who want to write stories so that they can build up fictional histories or ethnographies or the like should just go ahead and do it - there's absolutely nothing wrong or less creative about producing such a work as opposed to a novel or series of short stories or whatever.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Vincent Baker gives a great example on his blog about how a GM he knew was able to create amazing detail and verisimilitude, on the fly, without lots of pre-game work.

World-building is an activity that can, as I said earlier, take place before, during, or after the narrative...in this case, before, during, or after the adventure. Of course, if every time the players ask what kind of trees grow in these parts, the answer is "oaks and a few scrub pines" you should be doing some additional prep.

 

[Desdichado]

Without the 'world-building' that goes into creating Menzoberranzan, Drizz't is just some dark-skinned elf who whines a lot about how his mommy used to beat him. By showing us the world he grew up in, his entire character suddenly gains meaning.

Absent the world he grew up in, the history that informs him, he'd just be a weirdo who likes to complain for apparently no reason at all. He's got a reason. And by showing us that world that formed him, those events that drove him away from his homeland, we understand the man himself.

Yeah--and that second paragraph kinda describes Driz'zt pretty well until the books were actually set in Menzoberranzan, IIRC. The development of drow culture wasn't extraneous; it was crucial to the plot of several of the novels.

 

[Kestrel]

If everything in the world is predetermined before the characters are even created, then the likelihood of them affecting the world is next to none. There is no sense of wonder in exploring or discovering whats over the next hill when its already written down for you to read.

Look at Forgotten Realms today, where the main complaint Ive heard about the setting is that the PCs don't matter in a world where superpowered npcs exist. That every area of Faerun is so intricately detailed that a player only has to read a sourcebook to know everything about a society. There's nothing for a gm to describe and if he changes it from what is written, a player can accuse him of getting it wrong.

No wonder, no excitement, just reams and reams of boxed text. No attachment for the players, because they never had a chance to have any effect on it. They are just going through the amusement park, looking at the pretty set pieces, but never actually getting to create anything.

Usual disclaimers of course.