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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 3510669" data-attributes="member: 2067">As someone who runs a lot of adventures that are a light touch on the worldbuilding, I can only say that Archetypes Are Your Friend. You don't need to read characters mind's or run a railroad, you just have to think about "what *would* happen if..." slightly more than the players do.Mistake #1: He said "no." I come from an acting background, I'm very familiar with improv, and one of the core rules of making up a shared something as you go along is "don't contradict what someone else says." You take it and run with it. It's easy to say no. Saying no is lazy. Say yes. So the DM might be more like:DM: Okay, give me a Gather Information check as you go throughout the town asking about this guild. Describe it a bit to me.Just because you don't have the thieves guild lovingly precrafted doesn't mean you can't create a thieves' guild on the fly that is believable and detailed. But that's not true. Harrison never said "avoid all worldbuilding." He said that the story must always triumph over worldbuilding. Worldbuilding can be positive, but it must be moderated by the actual need to tell a story. In Harrison's advice to writers, worldbuilding for the sake of worldbuilding is pointless and narcissistic nerding out. In D&D, I feel that this remains fairly true, but that pointless and narcissistic nerding out isn't really a problem in a lot of situations, and that to ensure the story flows smoothly, many DMs who lack significant improv skills will need to build their worlds more. A little worldbuilding can be a good thing, like puffer fish -- it makes your lips tingle and your heart race. It gives your dish some flavor. But the poison can't be the point. It's still expected to be eaten. Worldbuilding can easily poison an adventure, if you stop working on what you need for that adventure to actually be played.Ronseur's point that worldbuilding is the "dessert" of adventure design is accurate. Fortunately, in D&D, we're allowed to eat mostly dessert if that's what everyone wants. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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