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Why Worldbuilding is Bad
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<blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 3481882" data-attributes="member: 3192"><p>D&D has a proscribed setting. It's anything goes, build as you go. The best argument I can think of for build-as-you-go is the creation methods used for many settings already in print. Forgotten Realms started with the Cormyr crescent. Increased to the Moonsea Crescent. And just kept accreting more and more. The players roamed and the setting grew. IMO, that's a homebrew. All those Monster Manual creatures running about in a cultural mishmash? It isn't the inexplicable, kitchen-sink setting more than that the creators played their PCs all across pop mythology. Practically everything in D&D has no right to be in the same setting. Mythological Greek creatures next to vampires next to fairies next to Baba Yaga is an incoherent setting. At least by traditional standards. </p><p></p><p>To me, D&D is supposed to be a mishmash. It's supposed to be a constant accretion of "What do you think would be cool now?" setting creation. Rationales are created organically. Leaving space and not filling in every white area on the globe, in history, on the Gods list, and "what is magic?" allows this too. Just look at the original Blackmoor map. It's thick in some areas, thin in others. </p><p></p><p>The absolutism of setting is a restriction. It can be enabling, but, as I've said before, it works best as a known setting, a licensed setting. Playing an unalterable, unknown homebrew requires a list of options instead of the imagination challenging "What do you want to be?"</p><p></p><p>With all that, I still do agree players can "Carebear a setting". It is a friendly game in the end after all.</p><p></p><p>See, to me, this is one of the points of being in a setting. To "influence the world in a dramatic way". I understand it was inimicable to your conception of the setting and I'd rather not have my own homebrews "Carebeared" by players. I guess it's where you draw the line. How open is a DM to originality from PC proposals? A closed setting cannot, by definition, handle all things.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="howandwhy99, post: 3481882, member: 3192"] D&D has a proscribed setting. It's anything goes, build as you go. The best argument I can think of for build-as-you-go is the creation methods used for many settings already in print. Forgotten Realms started with the Cormyr crescent. Increased to the Moonsea Crescent. And just kept accreting more and more. The players roamed and the setting grew. IMO, that's a homebrew. All those Monster Manual creatures running about in a cultural mishmash? It isn't the inexplicable, kitchen-sink setting more than that the creators played their PCs all across pop mythology. Practically everything in D&D has no right to be in the same setting. Mythological Greek creatures next to vampires next to fairies next to Baba Yaga is an incoherent setting. At least by traditional standards. To me, D&D is supposed to be a mishmash. It's supposed to be a constant accretion of "What do you think would be cool now?" setting creation. Rationales are created organically. Leaving space and not filling in every white area on the globe, in history, on the Gods list, and "what is magic?" allows this too. Just look at the original Blackmoor map. It's thick in some areas, thin in others. The absolutism of setting is a restriction. It can be enabling, but, as I've said before, it works best as a known setting, a licensed setting. Playing an unalterable, unknown homebrew requires a list of options instead of the imagination challenging "What do you want to be?" With all that, I still do agree players can "Carebear a setting". It is a friendly game in the end after all. See, to me, this is one of the points of being in a setting. To "influence the world in a dramatic way". I understand it was inimicable to your conception of the setting and I'd rather not have my own homebrews "Carebeared" by players. I guess it's where you draw the line. How open is a DM to originality from PC proposals? A closed setting cannot, by definition, handle all things. [/QUOTE]
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