Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 3558747" data-attributes="member: 2067">I think that we can all pretty much agree on the DMG's definition as the current running definition for the game. Hussar has made a very cogent point time and again that worldbuilding is stuff done for setting beyond what is needed in next game session. Under that definition, with the recognition that no setting stuff is needed in the next game session (because you can make it up as you go), you can run a D&D game without any worldbuilding, yet still benefit from the aspects of depth and verisimilitude that worldbuilding enables you to gain.I'm willing to cede I think about more at the session than gets used at the session, so I guess, under that definition, I do world build. I just don't spend time outside of the game session doing it. Perhaps that is an acceptable way to phrase it?Intense curiosity about otherwise pointless minutiae is one of the defining mental characteristics of the modern American Nerd. The details of nonexistent worlds are pretty exemplary of pointless minutiae. Worldbuilding, as Harrison points out, is concerned with details of nonexistent worlds. Presto-chango, those interested in the details of nonexistent worlds are defining examples of modern American Nerds.Unless we're going to argue semantics on *that*, too. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Of course, I suppose arguing semantics on what a "nerd" is is exemplary of intense curiosity about otherwise pointless minutiae...Dork if you do, dork if you don't, it seems.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> Wrong.Exactly as adding more ketchup to your hamburger doesn't make it a BETTER hamburger.But worldbuilding doesn't always contribute to a game. There are scads of examples in this thread alone about worldbuilding that was pointless, useless, or actively hindering the game. A world built so that it couldn't accommodate swashbuckling warforged ninjas contributes nothing to a game whose players want swashbuckling warforged ninjas (to add another one to the heap). Adding more ketchup doesn't make the burger better unless you REALLY like ketchup. I believe a lot of D&D players *really* like world building (and are spectacular nerds because of it). There's nothing wrong in it, but don't suggest that my burger is worse if I don't have any ketchup on it, and don't tell me that I need ketchup to have a real hamburger, and don't presume that unless I can cook you a delicious hamburger without ketchup that my position is somehow illogical.That is the subtle arrogance of many who are big fans of worldbuilding. Like overzealous ketchup addicts, they claim that any burger without it can't possibly be as good as a burger with it, without realizing that tastes, as it were, are completely subjective.Ketchupy is not better, it's just more ketchup. More worldbuilding detail isn't deeper, it's just more detail. Depth does not flow from the amount of off-hand comments about elven tea ceremonies you can rifle off. Once again, you assume that others can't speak for their own games. This makes it impossible to hold a cogent debate because whenever someone demonstrates evidence, one who feels that others can't speak for their own games questions whether or not it is really evidence, which leads to all sorts of wonderful thread-padding semantics discussions but does very, very little to actually address the heart of the point, which is that many DMs have been more interested in their own world than in a D&D game, thus hurting the game.</blockquote>

Verification