Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Raven Crowking]

Harrison just wants writers to eat their main course and treat dessert as dessert.

Somehow I doubt that you have extraordinary qualifications to determine what Harrison wants or does not want, apart from attempting to parse the words he wrote. And, from what I read, that is not at all what Harrison said.

And I note that you have backed off significantly from the claim that worldbuilding is bad.

It's false to assume that games like this lack verisimilitude and depth (not that you are saying that, just that it's a common assumption to make about more improvised games).

I don't think it is false at all. You would have to pass a sort of "Turing test" to make me think otherwise -- you'd have to convince me that you weren't just pulling the game out of your...head...as we played. And, in my 28 years of gaming, I have never, ever encountered any DM who was capable of even coming close to passing that test.

If you're having fun, that's all well and good. More power to you. But the claim that such a game has the same "verisimilitude and depth" as even a casually planned game is, IMHO and IME, completely unsupported.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Somehow I doubt that you have extraordinary qualifications to determine what Harrison wants or does not want, apart from attempting to parse the words he wrote. And, from what I read, that is not at all what Harrison said.

"Storytelling must always triumph over worldbuilding."

If worldbuilding is the dessert and storytelling is the dinner, you must always have dinner *first*, and never make a meal of your ice cream.

It's not that complex of an analogy.

And I note that you have backed off significantly from the claim that worldbuilding is bad.

Check out that first post again. I say that Harrison tells you why you don't need to spend hours crafting your campaign setting and ask people to discuss. The title of the thread suggests that woldbuilding can be bad. Why is worldbuilding bad? Because it can get in the way of having fun. Several posts concur with this hypothesis.

Now, whether that means that you should get rid of all worldbuilding as a DM has been part of the discussion. I don't believe any D&D player should give up what makes D&D fun for them, so if that includes spending hours on your setting, go for it.

However, it is not, by any stretch of the imagination, required for a deep, rich setting.

Worldbuilding is bad because of reasons X, Y, Z. That hardly means that worldbuilding should be wholly abandoned, merely that X, Y, and Z should be watched for when worldbuilding.

I don't think it is false at all. You would have to pass a sort of "Turing test" to make me think otherwise -- you'd have to convince me that you weren't just pulling the game out of your...head...as we played. And, in my 28 years of gaming, I have never, ever encountered any DM who was capable of even coming close to passing that test.

#1 is that your anecdotal evidence isn't evidence. "Absence of evidence isn't the evidence of absence," right?

#2 is that any DM who tries seems thwarted by your preconceived notion that the game shouldn't just be pulled out of someone's head as they played. You are apparently biased against such a DM. It's no wonder you have never found a DM able to meet your demands of absolute deceptive perfection. It's going to be obvious he's pulling it out of his head, because he is. You just have a problem with that.

Which is cool, but you really can't blame the hippopotamus for not wanting to jump through flaming hoops like a trick poodle. They're different beasts.

If you're having fun, that's all well and good. More power to you. But the claim that such a game has the same "verisimilitude and depth" as even a casually planned game is, IMHO and IME, completely unsupported.

And, IME, it's supported every week. If you believe I'm not lying to you, that's support that it happens. All you have to do is trust my opinion as a demanding gamer. And if you don't, well, that's certainly no reason for me to believe that all my experiences have been totally wrong and I've been shallow and vague all these times and none of my players were discerning enough to notice and let me know.

 

[Imaro]

I think you missed the point, namely: you can improv an adventure. And a dungeon. And monsters and treasures. 3e makes this ridiculously simple, actually. And I do. All the time. If I throw a wanted poster at the PC's, I haven't probably developed anything past the fact that the town guard wants a guy enough to hire mercenaries to chase after him. Depending on my feelings at the moment and the archetype of the campaign, he might just be a guilty guy they're looking for (for a party that's a bunch of "sell-swords"), or a victim of political machinations (for a campaign that likes a bit of intrigue), or the agent of the Necromancer King (for one of those epic slay-the-deep-evil campaigns), or any one of a hundred different ideas knocking around my head.

I didn't create the adventure for the wanted guy any more than I created the adventure for the thieves' guild.

So in answer to your question, why can't I? The answer is I can. I do. It's not really that hard, and it's a lot of fun for me.

Do your players ever loose, do they ever die? Because if you killed my PC with a "character" totally created in the five seconds before battle started, with no real concrete factors except your guesstimation, then I'm through. Your telling a story and tricking the PC's into believing their choices have actual meaning...when in fact the results and consequences of their actions are based upon your whims. IMHO this smacks of writing a novel with the PC's along for the ride

Archetypes don't have a background or context, though. The Necromancer King is an archetype: some sort of royalty with a lot of undead guards. I don't need any background or context to imagine what a Necromancer King looks or acts like. He's in a throne room surrounded by ghouls and he wears a crown made of human hands and platinum. The castle is ruined.

From there, I can build whatever relevant world information I need. The Necromancer King is the king of an ancient empire who never died. Call it "The Empire of Varlerin." He's a lich. He's a True Necromancer from Heroes of Horror. His main weapon is an endless army of zombies, and his more effective weapons are ghouls and wraiths. He's making motions to invade the PC's city.

You don't need to limit character types because all character types are archetypes. Paladins are "Knights in Shining Armor." Druids are "Friends of Nature." Fighters are "Guys who stick the pointy end into the squishy guy." Swashbucklers are "Wannabe Errol Flynns." All those archetypes have a host of world suggestions that come along with them, that can depict how the world is.

Again, the idea comes from my experience with improv. Again, it hardly requires any work outside of the game itself. I've gotta have a general idea of the archetypes and think of interesting ways for them to interact or be questioned, and it's really not hard. What if the Fighter is set upon by mind-controlled innocents? What if the Paladin has to oust corruption from his own church? What if the Druid becomes an agent of assassination for the Defenders of Nature, a shadowy organization with close ties to the Worgs (and thus the local goblins)?

With the simple archetype of "Necromancer King" you've establisehed that both feudalism, undead, a way to become undead, magic concerning the dead, there are "greater" and "lesser" forms of undead, certain undead have intelligence, others are slaves to stronger undead, etc. all exist in this campaign world...that's background and context right there.

Another note is that with D&D 3.x's options for variations through multiclassing, numerous base classes, prestige classes, etc. There really aren't "archetypes per say. You can require your players conform to some "archetype by describing what it is they are through these combinations...but again that's background and context.

The crux of our argument is irrelevant because the conciet that you need to do a lot of work before an adventure for the adventure is false. You only need to do what you want to do.



:shrug:

You're welcome to not enjoy the playstype, but it's perfectly valid, perfectly delightful, and perfectly realized. I don't need a page of notes to help me be creative at the table. Not everyone has that talent, but it makes the game a lot more fun for me to not know what's going to happen before it does.

It's false to assume that games like this lack verisimilitude and depth (not that you are saying that, just that it's a common assumption to make about more improvised games). My necromancer king has an empire, a motif, a motive, and I just spent all the time writing this post thinking that up.

First why do you think I don't enjoy more free-form rpg's...I've played quite a few from indie press revolution, so it's wrong to think I don't enjoy that style of play.

That's not verisimilitude...Just a few questions my players would ask to shatter that real quick.

where is this kingdom of undead we've never heard of, and why haven't we heard about a whole kingdom of undead before??

Where do these "endless" bodies come from?

I could go on with the utter lack of belief just creating this on the fly would cause in my players, but I think the point is made.

 

[LostSoul]

I don't think it is false at all. You would have to pass a sort of "Turing test" to make me think otherwise -- you'd have to convince me that you weren't just pulling the game out of your...head...as we played. And, in my 28 years of gaming, I have never, ever encountered any DM who was capable of even coming close to passing that test.

Where else does the world come from if it is not pulled from the DM's head (or the group's, if ya do it that way)?

 

[LostSoul]

Just a few questions my players would ask to shatter that real quick.

where is this kingdom of undead we've never heard of, and why haven't we heard about a whole kingdom of undead before??

Where do these "endless" bodies come from?

I could go on with the utter lack of belief just creating this on the fly would cause in my players, but I think the point is made.

If the players are not the sort to ask those questions, there is no problem. If all they want is to fight an Necromancer King/hordes of undead, and your world cannot support that, your worldbuilding has made the game less fun.

 

[Raven Crowking]

"Storytelling must always triumph over worldbuilding."

"Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unneccessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done.

Above all, worldbuilding is not technically neccessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn’t there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with a place that is there. It isn’t possible, & if it was the results wouldn’t be readable: they would constitute not a book but the biggest library ever built, a hallowed place of dedication & lifelong study. This gives us a clue to the psychological type of the worldbuilder & the worldbuilder’s victim, & makes us very afraid."

Nobody describes dessert as "dull".

It's not that complex of an analogy. It's just not what Harrison was saying.

The title of the thread suggests that woldbuilding can be bad. Why is worldbuilding bad? Because it can get in the way of having fun. Several posts concur with this hypothesis.

"Why worldbuilding can be bad" =/= "why worldbuilding is bad".

Perhaps you thought it did?

Similarly, if "worldbuilding is bad because of reasons X, Y, Z", then reasons X, Y, and Z are inherent to worldbuilding, and watching out for them will not help. If, instead, X, Y, and Z can be problems, then problems X, Y, and Z are not inherent to worldbuilding, may crop up in other things than worldbuilding, and should be watched out for whether worldbuilding or not.

Consequently, while this thread has shown no evidence that worldbuilding is bad because of reasons X, Y, and Z, it certainly gives examples of items X, Y, and Z that some people associate with worldbuilding and that most people agree cause problems.

However, it is not, by any stretch of the imagination, required for a deep, rich setting.

Since worldbuilding is, by definition, the creation of a deep, rich setting, I would say that it is.

And, sorry, while I champion your right to play whatever type of game you want, I don't accept your say-so as evidence to the contrary.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Where else does the world come from if it is not pulled from the DM's head (or the group's, if ya do it that way)?

Point to LostSoul.

However, there is a real difference between something planned and adjusted to meet the needs of planning, and something you are pulling out of your nether regions at the game table. Every game has stuff pulled out the nether regions, but planning ahead of time gives that stuff context and meaning. It isn't created in a vaccuum.

This is similar, in many ways, to the difference between a rough draft pounded out at breakneck speed and the completed, editted work that one hopefully sends to the printers. One may be chock full of good ideas, but it isn't deep and rich. It is a half-formed Quasimodo begging the readers/players for the sanctuary of not noticing the glaring plot holes and inconsistencies.

Again, all games are like this to some degree, but I believe that games that are Quasimodos to a lesser degree are inherently superior to games that are Quasimodos to a greater degree. I hold the same contention about books and movies.

YMMV.

 

[Odhanan]

I don't think it is false at all. You would have to pass a sort of "Turing test" to make me think otherwise -- you'd have to convince me that you weren't just pulling the game out of your...head...as we played. And, in my 28 years of gaming, I have never, ever encountered any DM who was capable of even coming close to passing that test.

If you're having fun, that's all well and good. More power to you. But the claim that such a game has the same "verisimilitude and depth" as even a casually planned game is, IMHO and IME, completely unsupported.

I gotta say, running a game that I haven't planned at all and make it feel like its believable and consistant, I can do.

Sounds pretentious I know, but after years and years of playing with friends who make a specialty of coming up with wacky plans and side-treks all the time, not even speaking of dozens and dozens of sessions winging these treks as we go, I feel I'm comfortable with the whole running "as we go" paradigm.

Now, to be able to do that, you need to have run a LOT of games, I think. It really comes with experience spent running the game and engaging endlessly into acts of world-building that make you "get" how it works from a player's point of view, in-game. So, strictly speaking, you still need world-building to get there. Which is why I agree with your side of the discussion, RC and Co.

 

[Ourph]

I gotta say, running a game that I haven't planned at all and make it feel like its believable and consistant, I can do.

Sounds pretentious I know, but after years and years of playing with friends who make a specialty of coming up with wacky plans and side-treks all the time, not even speaking of dozens and dozens of sessions winging these treks as we go, I feel I'm comfortable with the whole running "as we go" paradigm.

Under these circumstances the point that there is a trade-off between time spent worldbuilding and time spent adventure-building seems moot. If a DM is running a game that's as "off the cuff" as you and Kamikaze Midget are describing it appears that he wouldn't be spending much time at either activity.

 

[Odhanan]

Under these circumstances the point that there is a trade-off between time spent worldbuilding and time spent adventure-building seems moot. If a DM is running a game that's as "off the cuff" as you and Kamikaze Midget are describing it appears that he wouldn't be spending much time at either activity.

I do think the point is moot to start with, absolutely, precisely because I don't think one can do the other without having spent some time and energy into both activities. Sure, some DMs can run games on the spot and make them feel like they are consistant and believable with all the details that go with them, but it takes some world-building experience to be able to improvise it later on.

And there... I'm not even speaking of winging game after game on-the-go and still make them feel believable and consistent. It is feasible, but I would count the activity of remembering what was played X sessions ago and make what you make up on the fly feel consistent with these past events a process of world-building of its own. Ergo, you cannot have consistency without world-building.