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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GVDammerung" data-source="post: 3463187" data-attributes="member: 33060">Agreed.  The strongest point of commonality, IMO, is that of the frame or context.  The action occupies (most often) the foreground in that it is the engine the moves the plot or game.  However, the action takes place within a frame or context that is worldbuilding.  This worldbuilding can be very detailed or very sparse, its utility (most often) being how it serves the action in the foreground of the story or game that is moving the plot or game.Tastes will vary.  I think that a story or game is a richer, more fulfilling and a more emersive expereince if the frame or context, the worldbuilding, is given at least as much attention as the main, motive actions.  Where the background or worldbuilding is sparse, the experince, book or game, to me comes across as by various degrees shallow or hollow, certainly only rarely memorable.In the science fiction realm of which Harrison speaks, Larry Niven's Ringworld is a personal favorite that showcases worldbuilding.  Ringworld itself is one gigantic exercise in worldbuilding without which the story would otherwise be nothing.  Ringworld had to have its physics, cultures etc. set out in detail for the basic story of Louis Wu etc. to work.The Dune books are another great example.  The history of the Dune universe from CHOAM to the Spacing Guild to the Landsrat to the Freememn to the Beni-Gesertae (sp) to the Mentats etc. are all essential acts of comprehensive world building without which Paul Atredies etc. story would mean little.  There are many more.Harrison's opinion comes acropper almost immeditately after he annunciates it.  A short list of sciencefiction that has stood some test of time proves Harrison wrong, at least in the strict, aggressively declarative manner in which he phrases his opinion.Made into a teleplay, much the same is true.  Like it or disllike it, the Star Trek universe is replete with worldbuilding, from the trials of Star Fleet Academy to the ship design facility on Sirius Planitia (sp), to the Mars defensive perimeter, to the Jovan run, to the United Federation of Planets and its internal politics and its relationship with Star Fleet Command to the intricacies of the starships and their various subsystems to the various aliens, most notably the Klingons, to the Gamma Quadrant etc.  Like it or dislike it, the Star Trek francise is replete with worldbuilding and is vastly popular and successful, transcending its medium to become part of popular culture, in a way even the immensely popular Star Wars has failed to equal.  Babylon 5 is even more world building centric, with the focus on Babylon 5 as a living place -virtually a character (at least in Seasons 1-3, less so in Seasons 4 and 5).  Much the same is true of Deep Space Nine, the Star Trek doppleganger.Moving to gaming, Traveller (Classic Version) could not exist without substantial, sustained and constant worldbuilding.  The PCs are usually travelling from one world to another and if each is not to be a gray, lighter or darker, version of every other, each must be built - the more so if the adventure goes much beyond the local starport.  Recognizing this, the line of classic traveller products includes any number of worldbuilding, literally, accessories, as do subsequent incarnations of the game.Cyberpunk (R. Talsorian) is even more dependent on worldbuilding to drive adventures, despite being derivative of cyberpunk fiction.  Each Megacorp needs to be detailed if it is not to be just another faceless business.  The Corporate Reports look to provide precise detail for the most prominent Megacorps in the game (Arasaka, Militech etc.)  So too, the cultural peculiarities of the setting must be explored in more than casual fashion - Nomads, Solos, Medias etc.  Then, there is the Net, memorably described by Rache Bartmoss.  And of course Nightcity, the main stage for play, to say nothing of the Chrome, which is more than just equipment lists as the equipment detail reinforces the themes of the game as cyberpunk.Moving just a bit further afield, I think much the same is true.  As much as I dislike the specifics of the detail in the Forgotten Realms, I believe the setting would not be as successful and as long lived as it has been without all of the detail - the worldbuilding.  Greyhawk has correspondingly suffered, IMO, for want of more worldbuilding - finding its details scattered or just almost nonexistant and certainly constrained and confined to the Flanaess for the most part.Gaming much more than in fiction, I believe, requires worldbuilding because the DM and players are not simply passively reading, they are actively interacting with the fictional environment.  Unless the game is beer and pretzels, worldbuilding IMO distinguishes the good games from the merely adequite or worse.  YMMV</blockquote>

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