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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Riley37" data-source="post: 7394355" data-attributes="member: 6786839">(1) If that process was helpful to you in your real-world academic progress, and/or your development of your personal principles......and that process also made your D&D game less fun for any players who hold the position of "I won't play at the tables of DMs who worldbuild"...then *that process was worthwhile*. IMNSHO your development as a gentleperson and a scholar, weighs more utiles-per-point than your entertainment value to a few other people, for a few of the hours you've spent playing D&D.(2) if I came along, joined your table, and wanted to play a cleric of Cuthbert, and all I (as a player) knew about Cuthbert was that he's good and there's a Cuthbert artifact mace, and you then offered me a multi-page explanation of the theology my character had been taught, I would have read it. I might have decided that my character was a loyal member of the Cuthbertian church but secretly thought that the Tritherionist teachings made more sense on certain specific topics. Maybe, at some point, this would have emerged in my character's dialogue with NPCs or with fellow PCs. So does *some* of that time at your carrel, *become* worldbuilding, as one element or another reaches the table? In that case, each page is *potential* worldbuilding, and IMO that increases its value.Does the Cuthbertian estimate of how many angels, agree with the Tritherionist answer? Enquiring minds want to know! But I don't care what Pholtus says, because f*** those shadow-in-a-cave posers. They can sit in a circle, in their ivory tower, and... sorry, I digress.I played a cleric of Cuthbert, in the late 80s, and I feel bad now, for not knowing how many angels can dance on the head of the pin. Around the same time, one of the best GMs I've ever known, had a very personal relationship with his worldbuilding. He once mentioned that he'd been pondering his setting, during a lecture, and emerged with few notes on the lecture but several pages on elvish heraldry. He didn't *expect* any human to *ever* see them. So when he started a new campaign, the following semester, I asked to play an Elvish scholar. The DM smiled, and handed me a copy of the document. It included some common symbols, illustrations of the heraldic devices of various Elven noble houses and religious orders, and explanations of how each particular combination of the symbols represented the ideals of that group. At the first session, maybe a week later, I showed the other players a sketch of my character's shield. I dunno whether any of them realized that they could have learned something from her shield if they'd only known how to read it. Another player was running an Elven warrior princess, but was not inclined to such subtleties.I am confident that no other player at the table had *less* fun, in that campaign, as a result of that shield. From then on, its only role at the table was its numerical bonus to my character's defenses in combat.There is a difference between "herbal tea is bad" and "forcing herbal tea down your player's throats, when they're clearly not enjoying the process, and expecting them to praise your tea-brewing skills, is bad". I agree with the latter, not with the former. Same with worldbuilding.</blockquote>

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