Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Desdichado]

I can think of very few books for which the opposite is true (actually, off the top of my head, zero; but there might be some book out there I haven't thought of).

I wouldn't mind with Erikson and Glen Cook. Both use prose styles that are a bit too minimalist for my taste; I feel lost until I can get at least a little bit of a grip around the setting, and they so assiduously avoid describing it that reading them is frustrating for a significant portion of each book until it finally starts to come together a bit.

 

[Reynard]

Worldbuilding in fantasy is more or less the equivalent of the "info-dump" in science fiction. The author has done a lot of research into a subject (or in the case of worldbuilding, a lot of work putting the background together) and, when writing, doesn't want that to go to "waste". So he dumps it on the reader, even if that draws the story to a halt and ins't really needed (or is even somewhat counterproductive). The key is not to have the worldbuilding (or infor-dump), but to give out just enough to support the story, without getting in the way of the story.

This actually has ****-all to do with worldbuilding versus not worldbuilding and applies equally to fiction and gaming: that which doesn't deduct from the enjoyment of the reader/player is not bad. This isn't the same thing as saying that which improves the enjoyment of the reader/player is good.

If I, as a writer or setting designer, create a document regarding the ecology of the swamp muffler that is 25,000 words long and goes into extreme detail on the swamp muffler's eating, breeding and defecating habits, and then mention swamp mufflers exactly once in one paragraph while the main characters/PCs travel through a swamp, I haven't stolen anything from them or somehow hurt them. Whether or not I improved their enjoyment is irrelevent. And, I didn't infodump on them. I made a mention. it was significant only in that it made sense with everything else I have designed, all my other worldbuilding.

The difference is that in the novel, it was probably extraneous work that only provided me with a sense of pleasure and satisfaction (until my no talent hack of a kid repackages and publishes the Ecology of the Swamp Muffler after my death anyway). As a GM though, I have added to my world in a way that may or may not matter, dependent upon the players. i mean, players do some funny stuff. If I describe the swamp muffler's mating song, one might well go hunting it down. All that work I did -- which was originally for my own enjoyment -- now provides me with the tools to entertain the player who, for whatever reason, wants to catch a swamp muffler.

 

[Imaro]

But that's just setting. The OP isn't talking about that and neither is the article. It's pretty obvious that every story (or campaign) needs a setting. Of course it does. What it doesn't need is for the setting to be made more important than the plot.

Please define where "setting" ends and worldbuilding begins because I'm starting not to follow you. Who said anything about making the world more important than the characters, plots, etc.

Read the original article again. He's not saying that you don't need a setting. That would be stupid. He's saying that you don't need any more setting than what the story calls for. Setting should take the back seat to plot.

And that is easy to do with a book(if one is so inclined) because you control the protagonist's actions.

Having a detailed setting is not world building IMO. A detailed setting is just that - lots of setting details. World Building is when you start trying to create an entirely functional world. Nothing in Star Wars really suggests how Tatooine works. We have no idea of how their economy functions or their govenernment or much of anything besides nice tidbits that give the appearance of a functioning setting.

The difference between a rich detailed setting and world building is the difference between The Lord of the Rings and the The Silmarillion. While you can make arguements for LOTR being a tad dry and boring in places, The Silmarillion reads like a geneology report.

So detailing a distant kingdom is...creating setting, even if it has no bearing on what is immediately happening in the game? Color me confused.

 

[Imaro]

But that's just setting. The OP isn't talking about that and neither is the article. It's pretty obvious that every story (or campaign) needs a setting. Of course it does. What it doesn't need is for the setting to be made more important than the plot.

Please define where "setting" ends and worldbuilding begins because I'm starting not to follow you. Who said anything about making the world more important than the characters, plots, etc.

Read the original article again. He's not saying that you don't need a setting. That would be stupid. He's saying that you don't need any more setting than what the story calls for. Setting should take the back seat to plot.

And that is easy to do with a book(if one is so inclined) because you control the protagonist's actions.

Having a detailed setting is not world building IMO. A detailed setting is just that - lots of setting details. World Building is when you start trying to create an entirely functional world. Nothing in Star Wars really suggests how Tatooine works. We have no idea of how their economy functions or their govenernment or much of anything besides nice tidbits that give the appearance of a functioning setting.

The difference between a rich detailed setting and world building is the difference between The Lord of the Rings and the The Silmarillion. While you can make arguements for LOTR being a tad dry and boring in places, The Silmarillion reads like a geneology report.

So detailing a distant kingdom is...creating setting, even if it has no bearing on what is immediately happening in the game? Color me confused.

 

[Storm Raven]

This actually has ****-all to do with worldbuilding versus not worldbuilding and applies equally to fiction and gaming: that which doesn't deduct from the enjoyment of the reader/player is not bad. This isn't the same thing as saying that which improves the enjoyment of the reader/player is good.

Actually, it has a lot to do with worldbuilding verses no worldbuilding, insofar as Harrison's point is concerned. He didn't say "don't do worldbuilding". He said "don't let worldbuilding interfere with the story".

If I, as a writer or setting designer, create a document regarding the ecology of the swamp muffler that is 25,000 words long and goes into extreme detail on the swamp muffler's eating, breeding and defecating habits, and then mention swamp mufflers exactly once in one paragraph while the main characters/PCs travel through a swamp, I haven't stolen anything from them or somehow hurt them.

And, in doing so, you have, to a large extent, followed Harrison's advice. The story triumphed over worldbuilding. What would be counter to his advice would be if, instead of mentioning the swamp muffler once, you introduced a character named "Mike the Swamp Dude" who spent an entire chapter talking to the main character's about the swamp muffler, and none of that information was useful to the story in any way. That's an info-dump, and it is fairly common in mediocre science fiction and fantasy. The author has some cool background detail that he really, really wants to use, so he contrives a circumstance to tell you about it.

Whether or not I improved their enjoyment is irrelevent. And, I didn't infodump on them. I made a mention. it was significant only in that it made sense with everything else I have designed, all my other worldbuilding.

And that isn't what Harrison is criticizing. Go back and read his quote again. He's saying story should triumph over worldbuilding. I don't think you are disagreeing with him.

The difference is that in the novel, it was probably extraneous work that only provided me with a sense of pleasure and satisfaction (until my no talent hack of a kid repackages and publishes the Ecology of the Swamp Muffler after my death anyway). As a GM though, I have added to my world in a way that may or may not matter, dependent upon the players. i mean, players do some funny stuff. If I describe the swamp muffler's mating song, one might well go hunting it down. All that work I did -- which was originally for my own enjoyment -- now provides me with the tools to entertain the player who, for whatever reason, wants to catch a swamp muffler.

I will caveat this with the notion that time is not infinite. You, as a DM or a writer, do not have an infinite amount of time to prepare a campaign. Therefore, setting details that consume lots of time, but don't impact the campaign (or story) in any meaningful way may hurt the PCs (or reader) in the sense that the time spent writing the 25,000 words about the swamp muffler (who only rated a throwaway mention once) might have been spent making something that did matter.

 

[Odhanan]

Therefore, setting details that consume lots of time, but don't impact the campaign in any meaningful way may hurt the PCs

Or it may not, which I think you agree with, given you've italicized your use of "may" ?

 

[Desdichado]

Who said anything about making the world more important than the characters, plots, etc.

[size=-2]Psst! Hey, Imaro! It's in the original post--it's exactly what the last six pages have been talking about.[/size]

 

[Pbartender]

We know that there's a new model of landspeeder that just came out. We know about banthas, and we know that Krayt Dragons (sp?) prowl the sands, although we've never seen one (we have, perhaps, seen one's skeletal remains, and we know what they sound like). We know that Jawas and droids are both generally ill regarded. We know that the locals "farm" moisture, and that they use evaporators to do so. We know that they use droids to "talk" to the machinery, and we are given some insight into the fact that the 'vaporators sometimes need repair, and that there is a harvest. We know that the local crime lord is named Jabba the Hutt, and that he is mad at Han for dropping a shipment, and that he employs bounty hunters. We know that Luke has a flyer not unlike the A-Wing, which he's used to shoot womp rats in Beggar's Canyon. We know that Mos Eisley is a space port, and that a large number of alien types can be found there. We know that the Academy has been recruiting on Tatooine, and that Luke's friend has gone to join the Rebellion....Moreover, we later see him, and we know his name (Biggs) even though he isn't a main character. Just as we know the names of characters like Jabba the Hutt, Greedo, etc., even though some of these don't even appear in the movie. It's simply wrong to say that "We don't know the names or background of any character other than the main ones".

That's about it. There's no world building going on there.

Right, but that's all world-building with a purpose, because it's where the action is taking place. Now, take for example Corellia, which doesn't feature in the movie as a setting. What do we know about Corellia by the end of the movie?

We know that Corellia makes ships for the Empire, and that the Corellian ships are generally considered superior to the "local bulk-cruisers". That's it. And that's fine, because we don't need to know anything else. It's just part of a throw-away line meant only to emphasize Han's competence and the Falcon's speed in comparison to the competition they're up against.

We don't need to know about Corellian Whiskey, or Corellian Pirates, or even the fact that Han Solo is from Corellia, or that the Millenium Falcon was built there. We don't need to know about Corellia's culture, or the population, or the climate, or its politics. It can certainly be interesting to know those things, but they're also irrelevant to the adventure taking place.

 

[Storm Raven]

Or it may not, which I think you agree with, given you've italicized your use of "may" ?

Yes, I do agree. However, I think that, in my experience, it usually does. DMs who spend enormous amounts of time worrying about the color of Queen Griselda's eyes and whether or not the eye color of her ancestors could produce such a combination tend to be DMs who are not focused on things that the PCs actually care about.

As time has gone on, it seems that fantasy writers have been suffering more and more from this tendency to include piles of extra information in their books - Goodkind's Soul of the Fire is a whopping 800 pages long. Moorock managed to bring in The Weird of the White Wolf at 160 pages. I must say, I prefer Moorock's way of presenting material.

 

[GVDammerung]

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

Originally Posted by M John Harrison
Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing 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.


From here. Discuss.

Twaddle.

For example, Moby Dick by Herman Melville is as much a monograph on 19th Century whaling as the story of a guy and an albino cetatian. It is also accounted one of the (if not the) greatest American novels.

Lord of the Rings, as others have noted, is as much history as action and is both hugely popular and critically claimed, and successful, and influential.

Howard's Hyborian Age follows suit. Perhaps better than any other example, Howard's fame for action amply demonstrates how such yarns can benefit from world building and how the two can productively coexist. Indeed, without Howard's worldlbuilding in the form of the Hyborian Age, Conan might as well be just some guy.

In the science fiction field, Larry Niven and his Ringworld/Known Universe stories build some of the most unique worlds to be encountered. On the small screen, the Star Trek franchise has made a fetish out of worldbuilding to great acclaim. No better example may be had than that of the Klingons, whose government, politics, religion, philosophy, military, sports, mating rituals, pets etc. have been explored for dramatic effect.

The examples contrary to the quoted author within the realm of literature are legion. The quoted author appears to offer solace to merely adequite or neophyte authors (to say nothing of the hacks) unable to move much beyond who is doing what to whom, right now. Put another way, in the spirit of the author's loaded vernacular - twaddle.

This said, tastes vary and there is certainly a place for the penny dreadful, potboiler, Harlequin Romance and simple tale of daring do. The is also a place for Melville, Tolkien, Howard etc. The latter are justifiably remembered, while the former are just creatures of the moment.

Taking the quoted material out of its literary context and applying it to gaming, something the author did not obviously intend, much the same might be said, in my opinion.

There is a group of players, fewer DM's I'll imagine, who revel in straightahead monster slaying against mono- or two dimensional backdrops. Kill that monster! Take that treasure! Gain that level! "Are we having fun yet?" Sure! Because the action is the thing and a minimal backdrop will suffice to set up the all important action. I can't say whether this group of players and DMs are in a majority or minority. I can say this. I will not DM for such players nor will I long play with such a DM. If you like the straightahead, no frills style, good for you, but I want nothing to do with you as a player or DM. Nothing personal. Just gaming.

I roleplay for the immersive experience of imagining myself in a fantastic setting of one sort or another and immersion is vastly fascilitated by setting detail that I find can only come about by worldbuilding. Action is part of this, but without sufficient context, action alone is unsatisfying to me. It is for this reason, for example, that I find nothing to appeal to me in playing D&D minitures as a skirmish game unconnected to any greater setting with attendant plots, storylines and most importantly histories. I'll use the minis to fascilitate the D&D roleplaying game but as a game by themselves, all the undiluted action of minis sans world or setting holds no allure for me.

IMO. YMMV.