Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7394398" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'll agree that each page is potential worldbuilding - in that, in advance of what actually happens, it remains an open possibility that it might get picked up in play.With one qualification, which is also related to the question of whether that increases its value: if you like that sort of thing in play, then its value is increased by its potential to be picked up in play; whereas if you incline to my preferences, then the risk (which is what we call negative potentials) that it gets picked up perhaps reduces its value!I should add that, back then, I was less clear as a GM on the connection between technqiues used and desirable outcomes attained (I broadly knew what sorts of outcomes I wanted, but was still a bit muddled about technique due to having read the wrong advice manuals). So the risk may have been real! But now I think I'd be able to distinguish between my own imaginings and what might unfold in the back-and-forth of actual play.Your Elven heraldry story is fun. I've never run a game in which heraldry mattered except as the barest colour, and can't imagine that ever changing, so to me that seems about the lightest possible touch of worldbuilding. (The working out of the ideals of the noble houses, implicit in sketching the devices, is a bit less light touch.) I put it in the same category as giving names to towns, lands and peoples.Of course not everyone may share my perception of these things as light touch! (Eg if you're playing a hexcrawl-type game, then the GH map isn't just light-touch colour; it's the laying out of the basic mechanical parameters of play. I can't think at the moment what the analogue of that for heraldry would be, but there must be one. And in my reply just upthread of this one I give an example of non-light touch theology.)Well, it was amusing at least, and probably not a waste of time for thinking about that stuff! And I don't actually think it had any adverse effects on play - so win/win!</blockquote>

Verification