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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 3524302" data-attributes="member: 22779">I would point out that the quotes I posted are all from before Rounser or I got involved in this thread.  Thus, the backlash was up long before I even got going.  <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=":)" />Why does a lack of world building equate with improv DMing though?  That's only true if you assume that all setting creation is world building.  Also, my point is that DM's don't require notes, thought experiments etc.  What has happened is that we, as DM's have been trained to think this way.Originally, there was very, very little world building going on in published material.  Modules were vignettes, as Rounser points out, with little, if anything of the world around them being covered.  It wasn't until TSR and later WOTC figured out that they can have a sweet little cash cow going by feeding reams of mostly irrelavent material to gamers.  TSR probably went too far in that direction by whacking out setting after setting and not paying any attention to things like modules and the like.On a smaller scale, look at Sword and Sorcery Press and Scarred Lands.  Book after book of setting material.  I've got most of them.  Yet, for all of that, three modules.  And what happened?  The setting died.  Why?  Because it got to the point where, if you wanted to run a SL campaign, you had to wade through several hundred pages of crap to find that one nugget that might stand out and make an impression on your players.Compare that to Freeport.  Three modules, also from a d20 publisher.  Later, the setting bible came, after the interest was there, mostly, again, to feed the clodding nerds who feel the need to know exactly how many widgets there are.  While Freeport may not be a runaway success, the fact that it survived the move to 3.5 and is still seeing material produced for it does show that you don't need world building to have a great setting.I admit that I've changed my tune.  I'm not saying that world building is bad.  I believe I was wrong there.  It's not bad.  But, I do believe that it's an indulgence.  It's not necessary.  Or, rather, it's not as necessary as some are making it out to be.  We don't need Monster Ecology articles in Dragon to tell us how to run an Ythrak.  We don't need to know the breeding habits of manticores.And don't tell me that that isn't world building, because it damn well is.  Celebrim, you bring up the idea of MMORPG's.  But, again, why do people play them?  Or, rather, what is the main draw?  Is the main draw to look at the pretty pictures?  To explore the history of the setting?  Or to kill stuff, gain levels, and kill more stuff?  Sure, you need the setting.  Of course, and we all agree on that.  We need some sort of context, because that's needed for the action.  But, how many people stopped reading the backgrounds in those books you found in Baldur's Gate after the second or third one?  How much did that add to the game?  What do you remember about Baldur's Gate or its follow ups?  The stories in those books, or beating the living crap out of Saravok?  See, everyone keeps saying that if you don't world build, then your settings are contradictory and flat, lacking in depth.  But, that's simply isn't true.  No one would say that Freeport is lacking in depth.  Or Shackled City.  Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil may be repetitive in places, but, it's not exactly a boring ride.  City of the Spider Queen is bloody great fun.  I know this is coming out as a one true way sort of thing.  And I really don't mean it to.  However, there really is a point here.  If setting bibles were the greatest thing to gaming, that would be one thing, but they aren't.  Campaigns can function perfectly well without them.  We've been conditioned over the past couple of decades that we must have reams of setting material in order to have a decent setting.  After all, why would there be enough Forgotten Realms material to fill a small library if it was completely unnecessary?  Could it possibly be, is there not the slightest possibility that we've been doing things a bit back assward for years?  That instead of bottom up or top down setting creation, we should focus on campaign creation and then let whatever setting come out of the necessities of that?</blockquote>

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