Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Raven Crowking]

You say that I am to believe that your game has the same depth and verisimilitude as a game with prep work. Here are some more reasons that I doubt this:

A good liar, much like a good writer, knows when to be vague and let someone else fill in the details and figure out the inconsistencies.

Which, perhaps, you are hoping that we will do with this thread?

More preparation doesn't necessarily make your world deeper and richer than mine. It has no inherent advantages. Improv doesn't have any inherent advantages, either.

I would disagree. Both have inherent advantages and inherent disadvantages. Their advantages just happen to cancel out thier disadvantages, so that using both creates a superior game to using just either. IMHO, of course.

A good DM builds confidence and trust and a living, breathing world.

Part of confidence and trust for myself, and IME a vast majority of players (over 99% of those I have gamed with) includes confidence and trust that the world isn't changing simply to counter/facilitate thier plans.

My players delight in the feeling of being able to revolutionize an entire setting based on their actions, that the world moves in response to them, interested in what they're doing, who they are. The context for them is largely relevant to them.

If the context is largely irrelevant to your players, your experience with those players cannot be evidence as to the depth (context) of your games.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

You don't need worldbuilding for consistency, that's a baseless assumption about the "bottom up" approach. You do need worldbuilding if you intend to straitjacket your adventures into an artificial and arbitrary mold, with the adventures as an afterthought which have to somehow fit in with what has needlessly gone before, however.

By Crom's Hoary Beard, man, "bottom up" is a method of worldbuilding.

(Also, I can easily prove that I can straightjacket an adventure into an artificial and arbitrary mold, with or without worldbuilding.)

 

[rounser]

the "board" changes.

And as has been mentioned earlier in this thread as a big problem with worldbuilding, 9 times out of 10 the reason why you can never influence "the board" is because it's the product of worldbuilding, and therefore set in stone because it's the DM's oh-so-precious creation, and they don't want to see it "mucked up" by the PCs in any way they don't intend long beforehand.

A focus on the campaign arc rather than pointless worldbuilding is the cure to this - instead of being obsessed with a world of NPCs, the DM becomes focused on what the PCs are going to do and are doing. The setting can react to that because it's just a sideshow, it's not the main event, and the DM's ego isn't tied to it. If the DM's ego is tied to the world he's built on the other hand, look out - nothing's going to change much that he or she doesn't like, because they're too emotionally tied to their precious world.

 

[rounser]

By Crom's Hoary Beard, man, "bottom up" is a method of worldbuilding.

I knew you'd jump on that. You guys love the semantics, because it's the only way you can defend your position, simply because it's unjustifiable. You say that it aids all this stuff, but there's no reason to make it more important than the adventures, and building adventures is indeed building from the bottom up. It's the antithesis of your bloatworlds, because the "bottom up" approach concerns itself with no more than is needed to run the campaign, and thus constitutes the bare bones of setting needed to run a campaign. If you keep going it will indeed become redundant timewasting worldbuilding, but that's a case of knowing when to stop.

(Also, I can easily prove that I can straightjacket an adventure into an artificial and arbitrary mold, with or without worldbuilding.)

Which is irrelevant. If you design your adventures first, and straitjacket the setting instead of the very meat of the campaign (the adventures), that would make sense. Instead, you're adding yet another straitjacket to the adventures to the ones you're referring to above (whatever they are) for no reason whatsoever, except that you've tied your ego to the world and have your priorities back-to-front.

 

[Raven Crowking]

A focus on the campaign arc rather than pointless worldbuilding is the cure to this - instead of being obsessed with a world of NPCs, the DM becomes focused on what the PCs are going to do and are doing. The setting can react to that because it's just a sideshow, it's not the main event, and the DM's ego isn't tied to it. If the DM's ego is tied to the world he's built on the other hand, look out - nothing's going to change much that he or she doesn't like, because they're too emotionally tied to their precious world.

And as has been mentioned earlier in this thread as a big problem with focusing on the campaign arc, 9 times out of 10 the reason why you can never influence "the plot" is because it's the product of campaign arc building, and therefore set in stone because it's the DM's oh-so-precious creation, and they don't want to see it "mucked up" by the PCs in any way they don't intend long beforehand.

 

[rounser]

And as has been mentioned earlier in this thread as a big problem with focusing on the campaign arc, 9 times out of 10 the reason why you can never influence "the plot" is because it's the product of campaign arc building, and therefore set in stone because it's the DM's oh-so-precious creation, and they don't want to see it "mucked up" by the PCs in any way they don't intend long beforehand.

Only a campaign arc isn't a metaplot; that's part of a "worldbulding first" approach that usually stars NPCs (surprise surprise). A campaign arc is a series of adventures, and that can be a matrix, or a railroad, or whatever. At least if your attention is focused on the actual game (the campaign arc), you have some chance of being reactive. If your attention is focused on the world, what the PCs do in the adventures isn't going to matter because you won't be paying attention to that; you'll be too busy showing off your precious world.

Unlike your post, that's not rhetoric; that's what actually tends to happen.

 

[Imaro]

Only a campaign arc isn't a metaplot; that's part of a "worldbulding first" approach that usually stars NPCs (surprise surprise). A campaign arc is a series of adventures, and that can be a matrix, or a railroad, or whatever. At least if your attention is focused on the actual game (the campaign arc), you have some chance of being reactive. If your attention is focused on the world, what the PCs do in the adventures isn't going to matter because you won't be paying attention to that; you'll be too busy showing off your precious world.

Unlike your post, that's not rhetoric; that's what actually tends to happen.

In your experience? Right?

 

[Matt Black]

Only a campaign arc isn't a metaplot; that's part of a "worldbulding first" approach that usually stars NPCs (surprise surprise). A campaign arc is a series of adventures, and that can be a matrix, or a railroad, or whatever. At least if your attention is focused on the actual game (the campaign arc), you have some chance of being reactive. If your attention is focused on the world, what the PCs do in the adventures isn't going to matter because you won't be paying attention to that; you'll be too busy showing off your precious world.

Unlike your post, that's not rhetoric; that's what actually tends to happen.

It really sounds like Rounser has had a terrible experience with a bad GM. Presumably an obsessive worldbuilder. Perhaps a few of them?

I'm sure worldbuilding can be done badly, but when it's done well - damn, the immersiveness of a well-crafted world combined with a decent GM. That's why I play.

 

[rounser]

In your experience? Right?

Even if it is in my experience, and you disagree, and you attempt to prove that my experience isn't reality, then you're trapped: If you're not going to show off your world in-game, then all that worldbuilding work which is so important to you is wasted, and not contributing to the game. Checkmate.

 

[Imaro]

Even if it is in my experience, and you disagree, and that isn't reality, then you're trapped: If you're not going to show off your world, then all that worldbuilding work which is so important to you is wasted, and not contributing to the game. Checkmate.

Far from checkmate...I build my world for the PC's to interact in and discover while influencing it in logical ways. I mean are you building your adventures to "show off" to the PC's? Your whole argument is based on an assumption/fallacy. You invoke a situation where any worldbuiding DM, must want to preserve his creation at all costs...however this inherently is not true for all DM's and is not an actual part of worldbuilding. It is a "playstyle" of the particular DM and if you would admit that then tou might also be able to see how worldbuilding could be beneficial when used in conjunction with adventure design, you need the whole of both for a fullfilling game IMHO.