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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GVDammerung" data-source="post: 3461260" data-attributes="member: 33060">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.</blockquote>

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