Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Raven Crowking]

Ah, I misspoke. You did say my position is unsupported by actual evidence (like bigfoot), and that you won't believe it without proof. So rather than saying it's totally false, you simply dismissed me as some guy with a fuzzy video, irrelevant to your world.

Now we understand each other.

Regardless, the thrust of that statement is that dismissing my position, reducing it to a level of speculation and bigfoot sightings, is pretty much based on, as far as I can tell, you judging me to not be as good a judge of my own games as I assume every other DM is, simply because it is alien to your experience.

Now we don't.

Anyone who makes any claim that follows rationally from my experience and expectations ("There's a bird on the porch") gets a free pass. This doesn't mean that what they say is true; merely that it isn't likely enough to be false (unless there is good reason to believe otherwise) to argue about or worry about. I will simply assume that it is true unless I have reason not to.

Anyone who makes any claim that does not follow rationally from my experience and expectations ("There is a lion on the porch", "I have a real photo of Bigfoot", "I can create as much depth, consistency, and detail on the fly as you can spending hours to perform prep work", "My rough draft doesn't need edittiing and revision") doesn't get a free pass. This doesn't mean that what they say is false; merely that it isn't likely enough to be true (unless there is good reason to believe otherwise) to argue or worry about.

Here's another way to look at it: How consistent has your position been in this thread?

 

[LostSoul]

LostSoul, is there any objection if we start a more productive conversation using these examples?

No problem at all!

Let's start a new thread. Called "WOrldbuildng = teh suxxorz".

 

[Hussar]

The action happens in the Dungeon of Doom. The action happens in the City of Dread (built over the Dungeon of Doom). The action happens in the Kingdom of Catastrophe (whose capital city is the City of Dread). The action happens on the World of Woe (whose major country is the Kingdom of Catastrophe).

Where do you draw the line? Facts about all of those levels of the world could easily have an impact on the action. It seems to me the problem isn't conflating setting and worldbuilding. The problem is that some people are trying to draw an artificial distinction between the two in order to support the assertion that all worldbuilding is wasteful by simply taking all of the non-wasteful stuff and calling it something else.

The point is, I don't. I've repeatedly said that there is no line. That "something else" is called setting. That's the term that's used pretty commonly when discussing literature. When I talk about where the action is happening, I don't use the word "world building" I use setting. Maybe there has been a drastic shift in English since I last went to uni, but, I don't think so.

Well if the difference is so indistinct, is there any use in trying to trying to use the two terms to mean different things? Doesn't it make more sense to use "setting" and "worldbuilding" as interchangeable and then say that if setting/worldbuilding gets in the way of everyone's fun at the table it has gone too far?

For exactly the same reason that we have two terms like art and porn. No one can state empiracally where art becomes porn, but, we certainly can use the terms when discussing a picture.

If all of the players enjoy "setting porn" and you are trying to force them to enjoy adventures, aren't *you* guilty of telling them that they are playing the game wrong?

I could easily be wrong, but, I think it's far and away more likely that you'll get DM's who are in love with setting porn than a group of players who insist on it. But, yes, you would be right. If the DM is insisting that he run great adventures while the players are insisting that they want more Elven Tea Ceremonies, then, yes, the DM is forcing his playstyle on the players.

I'm afraid I don't see that as a problem. As far as I'm concerned, an encounter should be made with your group of PCs in mind. Someone creating an encounter in detail and posting it up is little use to me. Someone coming up with a cool concept/location etc for an encounter is useful, and I have seen threads on those before.

If that was universally true, then Dungeon magazine would have gone out of business long ago. And Goodman Games. Necromancer games. And TSR once upon a time.

This actually sounds like a great beginning to planning a campaign to me, and a method I've been planning on trying out for my next campaign. However, I will also be doing so in conjunction with a published setting (Kalamar) so I can bring the level of detail and setting-interaction I and my players need. Personally, I can't just get by playing a generic fighter anymore; I need to be a person from somewhere. I enjoy playing my character in the adventure, reacting to people and situations how I think he would; to do so I need some setting information on where he's from and what the places he's going to are like. To do that we need to do a little worldbuilding IMO. I could probably play a more generic game if the adventure is fun, but my long-term enjoyment would suffer I think. YMMV naturally.

Again, you conflate setting with world building. Something I don't think is true. Saying that your fighter comes from town X is part of setting. Although, to be fair, most of the character background I see are pure world building in that the players write them and then never refer to them ever again after first level. However, if the information you create is actually used, then it's setting. It's not an indulgence, it's actually necessary for the character you want to play.

I'm reminded of the many discussions James Jacobs had with Takasi about the inclusion of Eberron adventures in Dungeon. James' point was essentially that simply dropping a proper noun is not enough to make something an Eberron encounter. It's not enough to say that the action happens in Breland, but, you also need to include setting specific elements such as Quori or lightning rails in order to make it an Eberron adventure.

I take a similar view of world building. It's not enough to drop a proper noun. Writing Dragotha on the top of a players map is not world building. It's no different than writing "here be monsters". It adds atmosphere and the word itself connotes all sorts of bad things like Golgotha and dragons. That's simply part of setting. You are adding to the atmosphere.

RC wants to say that world building is pretty much synonomous with setting. I strongly disagree with this. But, I also appreciate that it appears that most people see them as almost exactly the same thing. I think this is a misuse of the language. We have a perfectly good word in setting. I also admit freely that there is no exact cutoff where setting becomes world building and that's fine. We can generally agree on the far ends, it's just the bits in the middle that are causing difficulties.

I would point to wiki here and say that world building is certainly not used synonomously with setting as RC suggests. World building is the process of developing an entire world. To be fair though, following the link to Holly Lisle, she does pretty much agree with Celebrim. However, I think that RC takes a far too broad of a view of world building. It's more than just some proper nouns and a map. There's a number of steps listed in world building that goes beyond simple setting.

 

[Darth Shoju]

For exactly the same reason that we have two terms like art and porn. No one can state empiracally where art becomes porn, but, we certainly can use the terms when discussing a picture.

We can use those terms, but different people will call it different things. We could argue all day whether it is one or the other, or we could just agree that porn is a form of art, thus what we are looking at is art, whether or not we both like it or not. Same with setting and world building; to me, you are just arguing semantics and functionally they are the same term (at least in the context of this discussion; really, "setting" is a noun that refers to where a story/adventure/etc is set, while worldbuilding refers to the process of creating that setting in a formalized fashion to ensure consistency and bring added depth). The issue comes when the people involved in the game feel that the worldbuilding/setting is either too limiting or not developed enough. Setting/worldbuilding isn't bad in any form; what is bad is if the people who have gathered together for the evening not enjoying themselves for whatever reason.

If that was universally true, then Dungeon magazine would have gone out of business long ago. And Goodman Games. Necromancer games. And TSR once upon a time.

Well to clarify I was speaking in the context of Enworld as a response to something Rounser said. Naturally I expect a published adventure to have detailed encounters (I'd be rather peeved if they didn't!) and I expect to have to make minor modifications to them to suit my group. What I was speaking of was the suggestion that there should be more threads that develop detailed encounters out of the context of an adventure. While I'm not saying a thread like that wouldn't be useful, I just don't see how the lack of them is a big problem.

Again, you conflate setting with world building. Something I don't think is true. Saying that your fighter comes from town X is part of setting. Although, to be fair, most of the character background I see are pure world building in that the players write them and then never refer to them ever again after first level. However, if the information you create is actually used, then it's setting. It's not an indulgence, it's actually necessary for the character you want to play.

Well we've established that we have differing opinions on the setting/worldbuilding dichotomy. But even still I'm confused; since my group plays in Greyhawk, was the information I used (in the Greyhawk Gazeteer) useless "worldbuilding" until I decided to use it to create my character? Did it become useful "setting" as soon as I did? By using it did I validate its existence? As a DM, how do I figure out what information is going to be used (either by my players or myself) before I create it to ensure I'm not wasting my time ? If we restrict ourselves to only creating information beforehand that pertains to the adventure we are about to do, then I (as a player) would have never had any information to make my character's background. Now certainly I could have made something up from scratch, but I allready spend plenty of time doing that; I appreciated having an established setting to get ideas for characters from.

Is a book like the Greyhawk Gazeteer useless worldbuilding? Does potential in and of itself not have merit?

 

[Hussar]

Is a book like the Greyhawk Gazeteer useless worldbuilding? Does potential in and of itself not have merit?

Honestly? Probably 90% of it is never used. I know that in my Scarred Lands collection, despite running campaigns there for a few years, most of my books sat gathering dust on my shelves. And I know that I'm not alone in that. Setting books are perfect example of what I'm talking about with indulgence. We don't need them. A two page setting background would probably suffice for most campaigns out there.

Books like setting gazateers, players guides, etc. are just fluffy extras. Ask yourself this, of the setting guides that you own, what percentage of them has seen the light of day in your campaigns? Most people haven't even used more than a third of the Monster Manual if polling on En World is to be believed. And this should be one of the most used books in the game after the PHB.

If I may, can I answer your question with a question? You asked, "was the information I used (in the Greyhawk Gazeteer) useless "worldbuilding" until I decided to use it to create my character?" Could you have created a believable character without using that information?

See, I've seen far too many character sheets cross my table with backgrounds of varying lengths. After the background is created, it's never referred to again. It sits like a dead leech at the back of the player's character folder and slowly yellows with age.

Again, I doubt I'm alone in this.

Personally, I would much prefer a brief synopsis of the character's personality. Background is what you have when you're about 7th level. Background is what you do for the first six levels of your character. That pretty bit of prose in the back of your character folder is nice and all, but, how much does it really inform your gameplay at the table? How often do you refer to the fact that you are from Town X in Country Y?

In other words, I find nearly all character backgrounds to be needless indulgences. It's gotten to the point where I don't even ask for them from my players. If they want to bring them up at the table, bloody fantastic. Otherwise, I'm not going to waste my time reading something that really doesn't matter.

 

[Hussar]

(at least in the context of this discussion; really, "setting" is a noun that refers to where a story/adventure/etc is set, while worldbuilding refers to the process of creating that setting in a formalized fashion to ensure consistency and bring added depth).

I would point out that the wiki definition would not agree with what you just wrote. There is a lot to world building beyond simply creating a consistent setting. You need to create a history, flora, fauna, maps, etc to be world building.

 

[Baron Opal]

Books like setting gazateers, players guides, etc. are just fluffy extras. Ask yourself this, of the setting guides that you own, what percentage of them has seen the light of day in your campaigns?

Fairly small. However, taking the Greyhawk Gazeteer as an example, the 5% that you used is probably different than the 5% that I used, the 5% Crowking used and so forth. Which is probably the main difference between published and homebrew settings. A majority of the setting is likely to be used but over the population of purchasing gamers.

 

[Hussar]

Fairly small. However, taking the Greyhawk Gazeteer as an example, the 5% that you used is probably different than the 5% that I used, the 5% Crowking used and so forth. Which is probably the main difference between published and homebrew settings. A majority of the setting is likely to be used but over the population of purchasing gamers.

I agree 100%.

But, I'm also being told that in order to have a campaign with depth, I need to do a complete gazateer, even for the 95% of stuff that I'm not going to use.

I'd rather simply call the 5% that I do use setting, and everything else is world building. Optional goodies that feed my geek joneses, but, at the end of the day, nothing more than that. I've stated multiple times that I agree that you need a setting. And, I, unlike KM, think that it helps the DM to be prepped before the game. The question is, what prep is needed?

Me, I'll stick to the adventure at hand thanks. Detailing out Fargoth is a wonderful project and, again, I'm in awe of the work that went into it. But, at the end of the day, I would never want to think that I need to do a fraction of that work in order to run a campaign.

 

[Darth Shoju]

Books like setting gazateers, players guides, etc. are just fluffy extras. Ask yourself this, of the setting guides that you own, what percentage of them has seen the light of day in your campaigns?

Actually I'm fairly cheap so I tend to use the living crap out of any material I own. Still, not all of it has been used (yet).

Most people haven't even used more than a third of the Monster Manual if polling on En World is to be believed. And this should be one of the most used books in the game after the PHB.

So are MMs useless? Is it a waste of time and resources to publish them?

If I may, can I answer your question with a question? You asked, "was the information I used (in the Greyhawk Gazeteer) useless "worldbuilding" until I decided to use it to create my character?" Could you have created a believable character without using that information?

Believable? Of course. Would I have as much fun with the character without it? Not unless I put the time in to develop the information that was lacking (which I may or may not do depending on how much time I had).

See, I've seen far too many character sheets cross my table with backgrounds of varying lengths. After the background is created, it's never referred to again. It sits like a dead leech at the back of the player's character folder and slowly yellows with age.

Again, I doubt I'm alone in this.

Personally, I would much prefer a brief synopsis of the character's personality. Background is what you have when you're about 7th level. Background is what you do for the first six levels of your character. That pretty bit of prose in the back of your character folder is nice and all, but, how much does it really inform your gameplay at the table? How often do you refer to the fact that you are from Town X in Country Y?

No you're probably not alone. However I use my character's background every session. It informs nearly every action and reaction he makes. The little details I tossed in based on his culture have come up repeatedly and I (and the other players and the DM) have enjoyed them quite a bit. But if I had just created what I needed to play in the adventure (which would involve almost no character info beyond stats really) then none of that would have existed.

Really, we're talking about people enjoying a game here. Focusing on the basic necessities of what you are doing for the evening is great for a start, and you *can* run a game that way certainly, but that only gets you to having something to do that night. The necessity of everyone having fun (rather than just something to do) sometimes requires work beyond the basic functionality of the adventure. If everyone at the table enjoys having a lot of setting/worldbuilding to play with, then that is necessary for their enjoyment. If they all want to play out an adventure and don't need that extra character/world detail then it isn't necessary. Naturally in a group you'll rarely get everyone wanting the same things in the same amounts, but that is where compromise comes in.

 

[DonTadow]

Utter crap.


RC

agreed, in his article he seems to say that writers need a "way out" and painting yourself in a corner doesn't give you those ways.

Books by famed scifi arthurs nancy kress and oscar scott scard praise the importance of building a believable world for any scifi book.