Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[I'm A Banana]

I'm sorry but it doesn't take a keen eyed critic to notice flaws in logic, especially when they have effects on the character he/she is playing. You're really over generalizing here.
If what your "improv'ing" results in bad results for my character and I see a chink, I'm gonna call you on it. Why shouldn't I?

Because you wouldn't be targeting the problem? If your character has bad results, you complain about the bad results and let the DM fix them their own way. I wouldn't tell any of my DMs that they should have me make a Climb roll with my Dex modifier instead of my Strength modifier or that my Jump check of 25 really did beat his jumping cliff face when he says it didn't. I wouldn't tell my DM that they have to allow my warforged ninja in their 7th Sea game if he says it's not allowed. I wouldn't tell my DM they're playing the game wrong just because they're not DMing the way that I would DM.

I will tell them if my character has bad results: "My jump check of 25 didn't cross the 5-foot wide gap?! Uhm...I attempt to disbelieve the illusion?" But it's not my prerogative as a player to tell them how to DM. My players give me much the same respect.

So you started this thread because...?

I wanted to spur a discussion on how applicable a writer's advice for writing a good story was in regards to doing a good game of D&D, and to see what kind of defenses were offered against his position. It seems that more than 10 pages later, we're still discussing the OP and the various ramifications of the position, so I'd call it a resounding success. It has been especially interesting to me to see some of the passionate defenses of worldbuilding, which seem to echo a lot of Harrison's statements.

I've got no major issues with people having fun treating their world as a hallowed place of dedication and lifelong study, showcasing their great clomping nerdism, and loving their setting porn. If it's fun, do it. Sweet Zombie Jesus knows there's a lot of great clomping nerds who play this game because certain fictional worlds have been worthy of their dedication and study.

Where I take issue is when people insist that it must be this way for it to be rich, detailed, believable, and lively -- that you need prep work to have a world worthy of dedication and lifelong study. Whether you do the thinking alone in a room and write it down and do extensive research, or whether you do the thinking in a room full of people and use archetypes and twists and mental names in a hat to formulate whatever background you require, you can create a setting that lives and breathes with all the lungwork one needs.

Now, they will be distinctly different in many ways. They will show how they have been crafted. The spontaneous world may have a lot of areas that are "unknown" or vaguely defined, to be filled in only later as need be. The prepared world may have 50 pages on the politics of a nation-state the PC's maybe have a 1-in-20 chance of visiting, if they insist upon in. But it doesn't matter if the region is unknown or simply irrelevant -- the world lives and breathes around the characters just fine.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Your mother tells you to use your right foot for both pedals.
Your father tells you to use your right foot for both pedals.
Your sister tells you to use your right foot for both pedals.
Your brother tells you to use your right foot for both pedals.
Your driving instructor tells you to use your right foot for both pedals.
Some guy you don't actually know tells you to use your right foot the break and your left for the gas.

I'm not saying that you should use your right foot for the break and your left for the gas, though. It'd just be nice if you accept that I do and it works just fine. I've never been in any accidents, get to where I'm going on time, been in a few drag races out at Dead Man's curve, done as well as anyone else. I'd like acceptance of my experience that it certainly works, even if it's not what you'd want to do. I do it, my family does it, my instructors do it, and we all drive fine. Accept my own experiences as legitimate.

By telling me that I can't possibly have the verisimilitude and depth and richness of a heavily pre-prepped setting, you're telling me that I'm driving wrong and just don't realize it because I've been lucky enough not to ever drive past a police car like that, but if I were, oh yes, I'd be arrested for driving the wrong way, because it can't *possibly* be as good as the way your family and instructors drive.

I'm in a nation where we drive on the right-hand side of the road. I don't believe that it's any inherently better than driving on the left-hand side of the road like most other nations do, though, just because everyone I know does it.

 

[Imaro]

Because you wouldn't be targeting the problem? If your character has bad results, you complain about the bad results and let the DM fix them their own way. I wouldn't tell any of my DMs that they should have me make a Climb roll with my Dex modifier instead of my Strength modifier or that my Jump check of 25 really did beat his jumping cliff face when he says it didn't. I wouldn't tell my DM that they have to allow my warforged ninja in their 7th Sea game if he says it's not allowed. I wouldn't tell my DM they're playing the game wrong just because they're not DMing the way that I would DM.

I will tell them if my character has bad results: "My jump check of 25 didn't cross the 5-foot wide gap?! Uhm...I attempt to disbelieve the illusion?" But it's not my prerogative as a player to tell them how to DM. My players give me much the same respect.

Your talking rules...I'm talking Improv. We go to hunt down that bandit and he kills my character with some feat he isn't powerful enough to have or because he has way more hit points...or whatever, I as a participant in the game don't have a right to say something? Wow when did D&D become a tyranny?


I wanted to spur a discussion on how applicable a writer's advice for writing a good story was in regards to doing a good game of D&D, and to see what kind of defenses were offered against his position. It seems that more than 10 pages later, we're still discussing the OP and the various ramifications of the position, so I'd call it a resounding success. It has been especially interesting to me to see some of the passionate defenses of worldbuilding claim that extensive pre-prep is the One True Way and that they can't possibly envision other ways to reach the pinnacle of quality they have achieved. This seems to echo Harrison's rather unkind sentiment about those who adore worldbuilding: the sort of passionate myopia that regards their built world as "a hallowed place of dedication & lifelong study" that reveals "the psychological type of the worldbuilder & the worldbuilder’s victim, & makes us very afraid," namely.
[/QUOTE]

Wow, we have totally different views on how this thread has gone. What I've seen is a "one true way" about worldbuilding being a "waste of time". Then I've seen those who've found it enhances their game in ways defend against steady attacks against their "method" and it's advantages. Haven't really seen anyone state you have to do worldbuilding, only why they do worldbuilding and why it isn't a waste for them.

 

[Raven Crowking]

However, I would hardly say that a blank canvas=a finished painting despite the fact that they are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Or, simply look at color spectrum. At what point does red become orange?

OK, let's examine those two. A blank canvas isn't a finished painting. However, what appears to be a finished painting isn't a finished painting either if the artist goes back and adds something. The term "finished" is like Celebrim's quantum indeterminancy; it doesn't have any "real" status until all possibility of the artist returning to the painting is gone.

Now, the difference between red and orange is a measurable wavelength of light. From that standpoint, one can quite easily say that something is, or is not, orange on the basis of actual measurement.

But that is neither here nor there; I understand your point.

But, then, let me ask you this: if something meets the standard definition of red, is it orange because you say it isn't red? Because, so far as I know, your definition of worldbuilding is unique to you (and possibly KM, but it's hard to tell at this point).

We define things with terms like Red and Orange so that we can have meaningful discussions. It doesn't matter exactly what we define as Orange, if all involved in the discussion can agree and use the term for mutual understanding. The alternative is to be like Humpty Dumpty in Alice In Wonderland, and claim that words mean exactly what you want them to mean, regardless of the way others use them or the context they are used in. If you persist in doing that, you shouldn't be surprised that people claim either that your definition is wishy-washy, or that it changes to suit your needs.

Because I believe that there is a definitive point where you can say setting construction becomes world building -- as soon as you move from anything general to anything specific.

 

[Raven Crowking]

It'd just be nice if you accept that I do and it works just fine.

I believe that it does work just fine, relative to you and your group. I just don't believe that it produces comprable results (in terms of depth, detail, or consistency) relative to anyone actually doing prep work.

EDIT: And really, my belief doesn't affect how your game works one way or another. If you believe that improv isn't improved by prep work, why should you care that I say it is?

 

[Hussar]

Because I believe that there is a definitive point where you can say setting construction becomes world building -- as soon as you move from anything general to anything specific.

Don't you think that's overly broad? If I name anything, it becomes world building. Except for a very, very small subset of fiction, pretty much anything written becomes world building in this definition. It would be fairly difficult to find any examples of fiction that weren't world building by this definition.

So, we're basically back to the idea that setting=world building.

For me, the cut off point is more utility. If an element can be excised from the text without having a dramatic impact on the text, then it's gone beyond setting and into world building. One can cut out most of the Khepri life cycle information from Perdito Street Station and not have much of an impact on the text. One could strip out a couple of the songs from Lord of the Rings and still tell a good story. Heck, you can strip out Tom Bombadil and not even miss a beat.

However, it would be difficult to strip out Cimmeria from Conan. It would be difficult to remove Rivendell from LOTR. It would be damn difficult to remove Perdito Street Station from that novel. If the element is integral to the story, whether tied intimately to plot or character, it's setting. If the element is extraneous, then it's world building.

/edit - sorry, just had to comment on the irony that as I clicked submit and went back to the main forum page, the top thread was a collaborative setting featuring faeries.

 

[Ourph]

Because you are conflating setting with world building. <> Setting and world building are not synonymous. Conflating the two is what is causing all the problems. If something is where the action happens, then it's setting. If it moves beyond where the action happens, then it's world building.

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.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Don't you think that's overly broad? If I name anything, it becomes world building. Except for a very, very small subset of fiction, pretty much anything written becomes world building in this definition. It would be fairly difficult to find any examples of fiction that weren't world building by this definition.

So, we're basically back to the idea that setting=world building.

Not surprisingly, because that is the general definition used by writers the world over.

Just as, in D&D, making NPCs is character-building whether or not you are going to use those NPCs in your current adventure.

 

[Darth Shoju]

I wouldn't tell my DM that they have to allow my warforged ninja in their 7th Sea game if he says it's not allowed. I wouldn't tell my DM they're playing the game wrong just because they're not DMing the way that I would DM.

But wouldn't that be worldbuilding winning over adventure/player choice? Isn't that bad? Shouldn't you tell your DM that he is being a great clomping nerd and a loutish egotist?

 

[Darth Shoju]

Just like there is no definitive point where you can say setting construction becomes world building. Or art becomes pornographic. Or any other process of becoming.

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?