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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 3512730" data-attributes="member: 22779">And you talk about me misquoting.Where setting leaves off and world building starts is when you move from elements which are required by the plot and those that are extraneous.  They are, of course, linked, but, saying that they are completely divorced is not what I've been saying.No.  Again, you are the one creating straw men.If I build a setting element that has a reasonable chance of seeing use, that's creating setting.  If I create a setting element that does not have a reasonable chance of seeing use, that's world building.  That's been my point all the way along, although, to be fair, I've been sloppy in saying so.So, detailing the thieves guild of Sasserine makes perfect sense since that's the starting point of the first of the adventures of the Savage Tide.  Now, in the modules, it does mention that there were other thieves guilds, but, none of them are detailed.  Why not? Because the other thieves guilds are entirely superfluous.  You don't need another thieves guild in Sasserine in order to run the adventure, despite the fact that it is highly likely that other thieves guilds exist (the fact that the module says that they do is a pretty big hint).All stories need a setting.  All stories will have a setting, even if it is only skeletal.  However,  not all stories have world building.  No one, by any stretch, would say that Waiting for Godot has world building.  Romeo and Juliet, despite being placed originally in Verona, can be and have been, set in just about any setting you choose without changing a single line of the play.World building therefore is not the same as setting creation.  All stories must create some setting.  Not all stories must world build.  So, where does setting creation stop and world building start?  IMO, the cut off line is when you move from elements that are required by the plot to elements which are entirely extraneous.Of course elements you create for gaming are not always going to be used.  That's a given.  The cut off in RPG's is a reasonable level of possibility that it could be used.  There is absolutely no way that the Five Shires will have any impact on the Isle of Dread as written.  You could cut out the first two or three pages of the Isle of Dread without changing the module at all.That's the difference between setting building and world building.  Setting building means that you will have a reasonable chance of using the material.  Granted, it might be that using X precludes using Y, but, before the choice is made, you still have to create X and Y.  That doesn't make one bad and the other good, just that the vagaries of gaming means that you will likely do more work than is absolutely required.However, when you go beyond a reasonable chance of use into areas where you have to make dramatic changes to the adventure in order to use the information, then you enter into the realm of world building.  As written, the leaders of Sasserine will not come into play in the adventures.   You can change the modules so that they will come into play and that's fine, but, then, you are simply making extraneous information not extraneous.  I hope that makes it clear enough.  Yes, I define world building as a bad thing.  There are many words that are, by definition, bad things.  Since we already have a perfectly good neutral world for creating where the action happens - setting - we don't need to define world building as a synonym for setting.  In fact, we cannot since, despite the fact that all stories require setting, not all stories require world building.</blockquote>

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