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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4339976" data-attributes="member: 40961">I don't like worldbuilding.   When I am the DM, I would rather build only those parts of the world with which the PCs interact.   I prefer those portions of the world to be consistent and coherent, and I even have a few DMing tricks that are basically world building tricks designed to avoid a lot of the major pitfalls into which worldbuilders fall while still accomplishing worldbuilding.  But overall, my goal tends to be simplicity over complexity.When I am the player, I HATE when the DM starts to indicate that he's a big worldbuilder.  Because invariably that means that there's this scintillating world that exists entirely in his mind, which he is going to clumsily attempt to convey to us while we try to stab goblins.  And we'll be quizzed on it, of course- things will happen that will require us to remember (or for really bad DMs, intuit) details of his campaign world in order to progress the story.  Which we won't, because they weren't important to us because they weren't related to stabbing goblins or why we were stabbing goblins or anything about goblins or stabbing at all.Worst case scenario, he gives us a multi page handout, and expects us to read and memorize it.  It details all kinds of cultures and peoples and religions, perhaps two of which will ever come up in game.  Some of us will try to humor him, and create characters that fit into one of his cultures.  He will tell us that we are doing it wrong.Worser case scenario, the DM has decided that anything and everything he doesn't personally find "cool" is "not part of [his] campaign world."  This provides him with a pseudo-objective (but really subjective) reason that you aren't allowed to play a tiefling or whatever.So I'm a huge fan of the points of light shortcut.  Create as much of the campaign world as is immediately relevant.  Allude to things beyond the realm of immediate relevance, and elaborate upon them when you get there.  Allow players to play whatever they like on initial character creation, and just work it into the setting.If your first 20 sessions are going to focus on the war between Humania and Hobgoblinica, write up those countries and don't try to tell me about the five drow demon gods that I won't encounter until I'm epic level, assuming the game runs that long.</blockquote>

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