Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[The Shaman]

Most hard sci-fi especially early stuff was simply a plot about "what ifs". . .

I was referring specifcally to a roleplaying game setting - my bad for not making that clear, h&w99.

If you are telling a story, then the most important part of that story is the plot. However, if you are playing a game, pretty much any RPG, than plotlines have no place at all. No one can plot out a game of poker, chess, basketball, or D&D. That's railroading and is antithetical to the actual definition of a game. IMO, this seems to be the disconnect as Rounser and Harrison are telling stories, while everyone else is running games.

Some people enjoy carefully assembled plots as part of their adventures - that's not my personal preference, though, as either a player or referee, so in general I agree with the sentiment here.

I disagree with the idea that constrained settings are good for creating adventures. A well-defined locale gives a GM fodder to play it as the Players explore, but completely defined worlds must necessarily restrict options. To create something means to not create something else.

To read this and other posts like it, it seems that some believe that gamers are infinitely creative if they're just given a blank slate.

My experience tells me that most players fall back on pretty routine schticks, often based on rules system constraints. For all the talk of how 3e gives characters nearly unlimited options, what I see in actual play is that most players, with a few exceptions, tend to create characters to the system, gaming the game as it were. They may be "creatively" combining elements, but they are still working within constraints.

With respect to referees, my experience is that some of the most "creative" referees I've encountered were also the ones with whom I enjoyed playing least. Creativity without consistency or some identifiable internal logic is brutal for players who need to make some sense of the world in order to make reasonable, meaningful choices for their characters. Referees who know what's beyond the horizon tend to make life much easier for players than those who are just making stuff up as they go, even if the latter refs write it down and expand on it later - in my experience the prepared referee who's spent some time on setting prep beyond what's in front of the adventurers' noses are better able to adapt to players exercising their creativity by going in an unanticipated direction.

The "infinitely creative referee" who can adapt to whatever the players do on-the-fly, who can make up a bill of fare full of exotic dishes and the styles of dress of traders from foreign lands at the drop of a hat and keep it all straight a month later, is a myth, a strawman, exceptional beyond reasonable measure. Most refs in my experience tend to fall back on familiar schticks as well when faced with the unexpected from their players, leading to a pretty homogenous (and, for me, dull) environment pretty quickly.

Most GMs I know leave spaces open in the world where other elements can be added. You only need the world to exist to the edge of the PC's perceivable horizon. The blank space beyond that could conceivably be anything the DM desires or the Players suggest (a few days before the session preferably).

(Emphasis added.)

Leaving aside that contradiction, as a player I don't want to "suggest" what our characters will encounter - that takes me out of the game very quickly. Some players enjoy that - I'm not one of them. When I want to indulge in world-building, I put on the daddy-pants and sit behind the screen instead.

The idea that in order for the referee to run an exciting game there must be blank spots on the map just doesn't hold up. As I noted earlier, by planning for a variety of encounters (my personal preference to plot-heavy adventures) during world-building, I don't need a blank space in which to insert a "desert" in the middle of the game - I've got a desert, probably more than one actually, and the players can go explore it at their leisure.

 

[maddman75]

I have to agree with Rounser and Harrison. If you are telling a story, then the most important part of that story is the plot. However, if you are playing a game, pretty much any RPG, than plotlines have no place at all. No one can plot out a game of poker, chess, basketball, or D&D. That's railroading and is antithetical to the actual definition of a game. IMO, this seems to be the disconnect as Rounser and Harrison are telling stories, while everyone else is running games.

Disagree. The idea that a game with a plot is railroading is fallacious. All 'plot' means is 'what happens'. Any game where something happens has a plot. The difference in a railroaded or freeform game is whether the plot is determined in advance or dynamically at the table. RPGs are not chess or basketball, what makes them different is that the result of the game is a narrative.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Disagree. The idea that a game with a plot is railroading is fallacious. All 'plot' means is 'what happens'. Any game where something happens has a plot. The difference in a railroaded or freeform game is whether the plot is determined in advance or dynamically at the table. RPGs are not chess or basketball, what makes them different is that the result of the game is a narrative.

While I agree with you in principle, I don't think that the distinction you are drawing here actually answers the point. H&w99's post suggests (to me, at least) that there is a clear difference between having a wide setting that PCs interact with, where the plot is created through those interactions, and one in which the predetermined plot limits what interactions are possible.

Most DM's, IMHO & IME, fall somewhere between those two extremes....as, apparently, will Pathfinder.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Another reason for a strong setting occurs in this thread: http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3473742&postcount=11

On a side note, we ran some test groups and prototype roleplaying classes in our store, and found that the main difference between a group that was hack and slay style of play and roleplaying style of play was whether or not the characters had backgrounds, motives and goals. When a character is disconnected from the setting and its only goal is power and wealth, then you get kill the monster, take his treasure etc. When you tell the player that as they return to their village it is burning, many of the villagers are dead and they find their father' dead ran through with a spear. Searching through bodies, many are missing, with their younger sister is among them. You notice the warbanner of the evil empire to the east amongst the bloodshed and ruin. What are you going to do? This sort of set up and giving personal goals to a character is key to providing a framework to build heroic storytelling upon. D&D does not build this in or teach this to their DMs.

 

[howandwhy99]

To read this and other posts like it, it seems that some believe that gamers are infinitely creative if they're just given a blank slate.

I'm talking about DMs here who are the ones who create the worlds. I don't think they are constrained by empty space. And with the amount of material in existence to borrow from, their is no lack of inspiration.

My experience tells me that most players fall back on pretty routine schticks, often based on rules system constraints. For all the talk of how 3e gives characters nearly unlimited options, what I see in actual play is that most players, with a few exceptions, tend to create characters to the system, gaming the game as it were. They may be "creatively" combining elements, but they are still working within constraints.

That's more a game problem than a player one. It's become more and more prevalent as editions have changed for money making businesses.

With respect to referees, my experience is that some of the most "creative" referees I've encountered were also the ones with whom I enjoyed playing least. Creativity without consistency or some identifiable internal logic is brutal for players who need to make some sense of the world in order to make reasonable, meaningful choices for their characters. Referees who know what's beyond the horizon tend to make life much easier for players than those who are just making stuff up as they go, even if the latter refs write it down and expand on it later - in my experience the prepared referee who's spent some time on setting prep beyond what's in front of the adventurers' noses are better able to adapt to players exercising their creativity by going in an unanticipated direction.

The "infinitely creative referee" who can adapt to whatever the players do on-the-fly, who can make up a bill of fare full of exotic dishes and the styles of dress of traders from foreign lands at the drop of a hat and keep it all straight a month later, is a myth, a strawman, exceptional beyond reasonable measure. Most refs in my experience tend to fall back on familiar schticks as well when faced with the unexpected from their players, leading to a pretty homogenous (and, for me, dull) environment pretty quickly.(Emphasis added.)

I gotta agree with you. Exploration IS trying to make sense of the world. There's little point otherwise except to be astonished. When I said "the edge of perceivable horizon", I meant what you are expressing here. Complete histories and cultures are not necessarily needed, but sketches of them certainly are. They can then be filled in without contradictions if and when the PCs go there. There is no going "off-track" nor on-the-fly play. I believe this is possible without overbuilding the world.

Leaving aside that contradiction, as a player I don't want to "suggest" what our characters will encounter - that takes me out of the game very quickly. Some players enjoy that - I'm not one of them. When I want to indulge in world-building, I put on the daddy-pants and sit behind the screen instead.

The idea that in order for the referee to run an exciting game there must be blank spots on the map just doesn't hold up. As I noted earlier, by planning for a variety of encounters (my personal preference to plot-heavy adventures) during world-building, I don't need a blank space in which to insert a "desert" in the middle of the game - I've got a desert, probably more than one actually, and the players can go explore it at their leisure.

I don't think we are at odds here. Do you create Forgotten Realms levels of preparation prior to beginning a game? I doubt it. Is every continent fully described? Every alternate dimension? Every existent plane? There are bounds to what needs to be created before sessions begin. I don't think leaving open areas in your setting is a bad because it allows constant creation.

The player suggestions are really just a house rule option for greater flexibility. If a player suggests "can we have I3-I5?" I know I can place them in the world. Then it is only left up to them to search for it. It isn't meant to be overly permissive. Only responsive to the players' desires. And then only to a minor extent. I do agree it could get out of hand, but it's the DMs call on what is in that world in any event, right?

 

[howandwhy99]

Disagree. The idea that a game with a plot is railroading is fallacious. All 'plot' means is 'what happens'. Any game where something happens has a plot. The difference in a railroaded or freeform game is whether the plot is determined in advance or dynamically at the table. RPGs are not chess or basketball, what makes them different is that the result of the game is a narrative.

I disagree too. The result of every kind of game is a narrative. Chess or basketball. You can find them in the sports columns. To me, it sounds like Rounser is predetermining a plot here and I'm saying "if you DM like that, than you are right. Setting is secondary". I'm not disagreeing with him.

I do understand that there are story-games where the point of the game is to create a narrative to tell afterward. If that's what people want, cool. I just don't understand how approaching it like a game is necessary to them. It seems the actual living-in-the-world is ignored over being able to have a good story to tell later. If I wanted to jointly create a story, my group would sit down and write one out. There's a lot of money to be made in this actually. And we wouldn't be constrained by arbitrary rules like temporal linearity, randomness, and other things normally only used for simulation. YMMV.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Could you cite an actual published example, not a hypothetical, of a setting that dictates plot?

I guess every setting does to a certain extent. I can't tell a gothic political thriller about vampires in Dark Sun, and a tale of intrigue aboard intercontinental magical mass transit would be slightly out of place in Greyhawk. I'd have trouble talking about Caribbean pirates in Planescape, and a story of a pop star and her entourage facing cutthroat record labels wouldn't work too well coming out of Hyperborea.

 

[rounser]

I mean, we are talking adventure paths, right? The term itself is almost a definition of the world "railroad".

I'm not promoting the adventure path format as an ideal model of campaign play. I'd suggest that if you jettison a lot of the time usually squandered on worldbuilding, you could come up with a less railroaded campaign arc.

The adventure path does serve to show the massive amount of work inherent in just doing a totally railroaded campaign from 1-20, let alone a matrix format where the PCs have some meaningful player choice. And still DMs fiddle while Rome burns, spending time on ephemera like elven migrations of a thousand years ago, rather than an abandoned elven home which the PCs can explore in the here and now.

 

[Ourph]

I'd suggest that if you jettison a lot of the time usually squandered on worldbuilding, you could come up with a less railroaded campaign arc.

It seems to me that the less railroaded the campaign is, the more important pre-game development of the setting (i.e. - worldbuilding) becomes. If the PCs decide to go to spot X and the DM doesn't know anything about spot X other than the name, he's still engaged in worldbuilding, but he's doing it on the fly, during the game, from the ground up, without the benefit of forethought and editing. Whereas if he's put in some work on developing spot X before the game he may still be improvising, but it's likely he has at least given himself some tools to work with to make his task easier during the hectic pace of the game. I fail to see the downside of that.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Unsurprisingly, I concur with Ourph.