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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 3560105" data-attributes="member: 22779">How about we don't assume the DM is a slack jawed moron and actually is a reasonable person?  Might make things a bit more realistic.  Instead of our knuckle dragger, let me show you how it could go in this "worst case scenario".Reasonable assumptions.  Note, that you can have a great deal of setting detail without world building.  You have allowed the DM to detail the setting for the adventure, so we'll work with that.As an aside, has anyone ever asked you this as a DM?  I can't think of a single time I've ever had a player ask me this.  Heck, it's usually an uphill battle to get the players to remember the name of the world we are playing in.Let me rephrase that in the context of someone who is putting adventure first:Me:  Ok what nations are there? Where can my character be from?DM:  Well, I'm trying something a little different in this campaign.  What do you have in mind?Me:Well, can I be from one that is kind of like ancient China?DM:  Hrm, sounds interesting.  What kind of class are you thinking of?Me:  Cleric.DM:  So, like a Shujenja?Me:  Naw, I want to stick with straight cleric, but, I'm thinking more of a Buddhist sort of approach.DM:  Ok, that sounds fine.  You don't really need a god with that, so, we'll just use a force.  We'll have to hammer out a couple of domains, but that shouldn't be a problem.  Really, I hadn't intended for any sort of Asian stuff in here, but, not a problem.  We can simply say you are a fish out of water, from far away.  Take a free language in something no one speaks.  You'll be responsible for coming up with the religious trappings you feel comfortable with.  You are a cleric, so, you should have some clerical duties, but, I trust you, so I'll leave that in your hands.DM:  Umm, I gotta ask, why?Me:  Well I want to get into my character.DM:  No, I mean, why are you messing about with this NPC?  He's not important, and you're never likely to see him again.  Why are you wasting the entire table's time with this?  What do you want to get out of it?ME:  Ummm....There's a problem with this?  You, a complete stranger, walk up to a person in a town and ask if there are any problems.  And you expect people to just pony up and drop plot hooks?  Because you both happen to be clerics?  At least gimme a gather information check, something, anything.  Because, reading this, it looks perfectly reasonable to me.Again, we have the assumption that without detailed world building we are automatically railroading.  Sorry, that's not true.  World building and rail roading have nothing to do with eachother.  Heck, my world built map could actually have this information on it and be precisely the same railroad.Now, since we're going adventure first, a better solution would be something like this:DM:  Is there anything you need to do in town besides supplies shopping?Players:  Nope, we're good.  Just gotta buy that hard tack and oats for the horses.DM:  You stand in awe in front of the entrance of X.  Vast stone columns lie broken like toys in front of a massive cave...Players:  Huh?  What's going on?DM:  Look, when you watched Raiders of the Lost Arc, how much time did Indie spend in a shop getting food and stuff.Players:  Can't really remember.DM:  Right.  Told you this was going to be different.  You're in front of X.Players:  You mean we don't have to ponce about for three hours haggling with horse merchants like in Bob's campaign?Bob:  Hey!DM:  That's right.  Straight to the action.  Just like a Conan novel.  Just like Star Trek.  Players:  Hrmm...Again, let's not assume complete incompetence on the part of the DM.  If the DM is a blathering idiot, no amount of world building is going to help him either.  <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=":)" />Hang on, you said that the DM prepped the setting presented within the adventure.  I would consider major plot hooks to be part of that.  Quick change on this:DM: Well, it's a journal so it doesn't really say.  It's not like there's an entry - Day 37 Decided to leave my journal behind.Again, we have the assumption that without world building you force railroads, AND, now we have the assumption that the setting cannot possibly be consistent, that the setting is completely dependent on the whim of the DM at the time.  Sorry, doesn't follow.  Because wasting the entire table's time on insignificant setting trivia is a good thing?  Let me ask this, how many players, without meta game knowledge, would ask if there were any marriageable daughters around Sasserine?  Part of prepping the adventure would be anticipating reasonable questions.  Or, he could have realized that splitting up the party so that one player could hog lots of air time was pointless and since the scenes in the town were pretty much all exposition, he wanted to get to the action before Ted went to sleep.Of course, this assumes that there was anything in the forest.  How is this different than RC's assertion that good adventure design should kow tow to the players?  If the players expect to find adventure around every hill, why bother making more than three hills?I'll agree with that.  And, given that he would have all eight of his adventures lined up, along with half a dozen side treks, BEFORE the campaign started, I would think that it isn't a large assumption that he would have set some better hooks.Well, no.  It did illustrate your assumptions rather well though.Can world building add depth?  Of course it can.  I would be an idiot to say that Forgotten Realms doesn't have depth.  Good grief, it has so much depth it has its own gravity well.  But, at the end of the day, who cares?  Most of it is irrelevant.  Square windows and all that.</blockquote>

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