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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 3528146" data-attributes="member: 22779">LOL.OTOH, if there was another perfectly good word for breathing, then you might have a point.See, there is a perfectly good word for talking about where the action occurs in a story - it's called setting.  When you building the place where teh action occurs, you are building setting.  But, apparently, that bit of simple English isn't highbrow enough.  So, we need a totally new word.  World building.  Wow, that sounds just so much more impressive than setting building.  We're not just crafting a well thought out setting, we're making A WHOLE WORLD.See how the straw man you guys build falls apart when you actually have real English words to work with?  If World Building=Setting Construction, then of course it's not a bad thing.  I've said all the way along that you need setting.  Basically, you've just flipped my argument around.  I say world building is indulgent because it is by definition.  World building=extraneous creation that doesn't add to the plot.  If it adds to the plot, then it's setting building.  You're just saying that world building=setting creation, therefore it's a good thing.  Me, I say that definition is meaningless since we already have a perfectly good word for where the action happens:  setting. Back a while Darth Shoju asked if I thought you didn't need any monster manuals.  No, I think that you need a monster manual.  It helps to keep the workload way down to have stock monsters already statted.  Heck, I'll buy that you might even need two monster manuals.  But, and here comes the indulgent part, do we really need: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">4, soon to be 5, Monster Manuals</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">3 Creature Collections</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">2 Tome of Horrors</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Denizens of Avadnu</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Fiend Folio</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Probably half a dozen or more monster books</li> </ul>At what point can we say, hey, y'know what?  That's a bit much.  Twenty THOUSAND pages of setting material is slightly overkill.  Five or six THOUSAND statted monsters is slightly on the high side.  Several hundred races is probably just a tad more than necessary.  A couple of thousand PrC's is just a smidgeon unnecessary.I never, ever said that you don't need setting.  You all are the ones saying that putting bunnies on a hill is world building.  That placing trees in a forest is world building.  That dropping propper nouns is world building.  You're the one claiming all setting building is world building, not me.  Me, I'll stick to buildilng settings thank you very much.  I'll leave articles on the color of rooftops in Forgotten Realms to those who truly appreciate the value of world building.On a side note, I finally understand completely why RC and I disagree so much on how much work needs to be done on the World's Largest Dungeon.  Me, if I reran it, I would take about two or three hours to patch the problems that I spotted when I ran it.  Mostly some consistency stuff in the maps (big monsters in small rooms, things like that) and some tweaks because I don't like the idea of nerfing broad ranges of spells for no reason (personally, I think the spell nerfs had a lot more to do with jim pinto than any playtest issues.).  OTOH, RC claims that it would take him a very long time to create a complete setting in which to run the WLD.  That the WLD, as is, needs massive rewriting in order to add "depth" and "history".  I'm not saying he's wrong.  He's right, for him.  For me, that would be a complete waste of time and rather boring to boot.  But, this thread does illustrate quite nicely the differences in approach.IMNSHO, gamer culture has been bombarded with so many of these "world building" books that we take it for granted that IT MUST BE DONE.  After all, Papa Tolkien did it, so we must have to too.  We all want to be like the Professor, thus, we must do reams of world building in order to have "depth" and whatnot.  If this thread has done one thing for me it's show me how ingrained that idea is.  That people would simply brush off the idea of putting adventure first as shallow and immature gaming surprises the heck out of me.  But, it also does show me why RPG publishers crank out setting books as fast as they can to feed the great clomping nerds in all of us.</blockquote>

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