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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Reynard" data-source="post: 3459080" data-attributes="member: 467">Um... No.Just, no.  That you would even suggest such a thing is, to me, astounding.  Dizzying, even.  let's see if I can explain it in a way that makes sense in the context of running a D&D campaign.Everything that occurred within the pages of the Lord of the Rings was informed by the world building that Tolkien did, because the story itself grew out of the worldbuilding -- not the other way around.  To suggest that Tolkien's worldbuilding was "wasted effort" for the LotR displays either a great disdain for the work and the man, or an absolute lack of understanding of the work or the man.As it relates to D&D: worldbuilding creates camapigns.  What's where, what happened when and to whom, who's who -- these all inform the adventures and the characters and their particular "story".  Even if the PCs never encounter an element doesn't mean it doesn't have an impact on them.  I have never been to Washington DC, nor have I ever met George W. Bush, but I am pretty sure he has an impact on my "day to day" adventures - -and would have a whole lot more if I was still in the US Army.Part of the problem, I think, is people who see world building as wasted effort don't care about versimilitude, they don't care about details, and they aren't interested in building something that exists beyond the character they are currently playing.  This is a perfectly viable way to play, but it seems atithetical to the idea of the RPG to me.  Why would you play throwaway characters in a throwaway setting?  You have these tools at your disposal to create a whole world -- not just as the Dm, but as a player, too.  Don't people play subsequent campaigns in the same worlds anymore?  Don't people play their characters' children and children's children?  Is it just me?  Is the idea of making legends and legacies that live on a dead one?I engage in worldbuilding because the results, at the table, are far superior to the alternative, and the stories we tell of those results, we tell for decades after they happen.  Because there is context, for everyone.  If the world in which the adventure occurs in which the characters exist doesn't matter, how can the adventure or the characters matter?</blockquote>

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