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<blockquote data-quote="Storm Raven" data-source="post: 3461186" data-attributes="member: 307">Actually, it has a lot to do with worldbuilding verses no worldbuilding, insofar as Harrison's point is concerned. He didn't say &quot;don't do worldbuilding&quot;. He said &quot;don't let worldbuilding interfere with the story&quot;.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 &quot;Mike the Swamp Dude&quot; 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.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.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.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Storm Raven, post: 3461186, member: 307"] 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". 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 [i]really, really[/i] wants to use, so he contrives a circumstance to tell you about it. 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. 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 [i]may[/i] 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 [i]did[/i] matter. [/QUOTE]

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