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View Full Version : My World How detailed is your setting? Do you consider detailed worldbuilding a waste?



MonkeySage
2016-03-04, 12:33 PM
I'm a history buff who tends to obsess over details more than most people. I'm the kind of guy who will dig up as much lore as I can on fictional settings, just for the fun of it. And I have a fascination with historical politics and economics. All of these things have lead to me trying to develop a highly detailed setting with an equally detailed history, as well as a detailed political and economic structure.

And I've encountered two very different ideas about worldbuilding; there are some who will engage the topic when I bring it up- they'll bounce ideas with me about the history of my setting, the world map I drew for it, and even the different political systems that exist within it. Conversations with these people tend to be very stimulating to me.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who ask me why I care about putting that level of detail into a pathfinder setting. They'll ask why any of it matters, and they'll inform me that putting that kind of detail into a pathfinder setting is a waste of time.

Some things that I've focused on:
The Hierarchical structure of a semi-feudal empire spanning half a continent. Inspiration for this one is drawn from Persia, Byzantium, and the Holy Roman Empire.
Detailed history of how the empire came to be, complete with a history of the imperial family.
The politics of distant lands within my setting; for instance, a bureaucratic empire on the other side of the map, loosely inspired by Chinese history.
Current events; whose loyalty goes where, what all has happened in that city in the past few months.
The mythos; I've developed a detailed mythos for my setting, which includes major events that happened 30,000 years ago(such as the Demon Wars).

Now, it isn't like this is a setting I'm going to use only once and then forget about it; continuity is very important to me, and developing a timeline for my setting might allow me to run all sorts of different campaigns in the same world. Do I want this particular campaign to involve time travel? Does it take place during the bronze age or the industrial revolution? Where will the campaign be focused? And the actions of my players from one campaign will affect the overall setting for future campaigns.

VoxRationis
2016-03-04, 08:27 PM
Worldbuilding, particularly for a multi-use setting, is not a waste. By writing details in advance, you can come up with an exact, well-thought-out, consistent answer for a question you thought your players would never ask. You can come up with NPC motivations and conflicts that give their actions realistic complexity, even if the PCs never find those motivations out. You can allow your players to embrace their own personal goals and methods, because your world is fleshed out enough to allow them to wander wherever they want.

Yanagi
2016-03-05, 01:07 AM
The important thing is that it's not a waste to you. Half the fun of world-building is the task of imagining it to your specifications. It's only an issue if you're not having fun, or are tired, of adding details.

Detail is also functional: more history, more culture, more personalities means more hooks to hang plots arcs on. It also means a smoother interface between the DM description and the player engagement.

The caveat to that general statement is if you're running a setting and your attention to world-building details is constraining the fun of your players. If you create a fictive culture, it's coherent and accessible to you because you're the compiler. It is, in turn, your obligation as DM to understand the player is not as fluent in the details and will not get all the details right as they interface their PC with your settings.

DreamingGod05
2016-03-05, 01:33 AM
I tend to have very well thought out settings, starting with a rough political map, the influences, fictional, realistic, and IU or OoU, that they have. Then I get to work on my favorite part; metaphysics. How does magic work? What is the universe like? The planes, and the gods. Where do races come from? How do they interbreed (if they can)? How diverse are each races cultures? ect, ect.

I generally have a stream of thought style document I keep my thoughts in, with pictures and reading material.

Magic is my favorite though. I've made a lot of my time studying occult practices from around the world, so I try and make a consistent, deep and believable system by looking at real world practices. Since Syncretism is practiced by real world relgions and occult traditions it makes it easy to fit thigns into a frame work.

Tvtyrant
2016-03-05, 02:00 AM
My settings tend to have a lot of details which are designed to convey the tone of it, but have only a few fully formed places. I usually have 1-2 cities where every NPC is named and there are lots of subplots going on, and other regions have a theme which I will work into something when the players get there. What I do have lots of is history, because it makes it easier to link the plot together.

Some region might be themed "Ancient Egypt + Frog Ghost Worship" and then a quick sketch of how frog ghost worship works, and that the place was settled by individuals fleeing crisis #49, which is also the reason why themed region "Pirates + Winged Monkey Warlords" came into existence.

Yora
2016-03-05, 05:31 AM
The main purpose and end goal of a setting is to be a stage for events that are playing out on it. My approach is always to think of the play first and then build a stage for it. Detail is good, as long as it has some kind of relevance to what will actually be happening in the setting. The "Standard D&D setting" type of setting is build to do "everything you can imagine". Which I think is a poor approach. When you try to make everyone happy, you're not going to be really excelent in any single field. I think a good setting needs a clear focus. And within that focus a lot of detail is great.

My setting has only a stretch of coast and there isn't really anything beyond the edges of the map. There is no real history, and there isn't any universal mythology. It's a setting for adventures that are local in scale and personal in scope. Dead kings and past battles are of no relevance. If I ever need one, I can just come up with one and there isn't any need nor benefit to have everything been linked together into a big coherent and complete whole. Sure, there might be people living in the setting that care about these things a lot, but those people won't be the heroes of the adventures.
A lot of the detail I have are inner workings that are almost completely invisible. I've put a lot of effort into the distribution and evolution of manufacturing technologies. The end result is that certain weapons, armors, building types, forms of clothing, tools and so on are found in different regions. You only see what's there now in the present. You don't see why it's there and how it got there, and you don't see all the technologies that are completely absent. I've put similar detail into the social role of warriors and the kinds of battles that are taking place in the setting. The end result is that you only see what is actually there now, but there's a huge amount of work and research behind it that is mostly invisible. The absence of mail armor and crossbows is a very important setting detail to me.

I consider it a setting that has a lot of detail on a very small number of things. Many other settings I see seem more like very roughly cut pieces in very large numbers.

sktarq
2016-03-07, 11:37 PM
Two totally opposite trends are why I devote major time to world building.

First is when I when I go into a lot of detail in the build I tend to create more adventure/plot hooks and those can build together to create interesting and fun adventures and memorable sights as it is often the little details that stick and drive player enjoyment.

Second is I have no idea what my players will do. When they decide to get the dragon treats or go north for four days for whatever reason a detailed world build will give me something to work with. Having power centres detailed over a narrative plan means my players get to fly however they want and they like that. With proper prep I can react so much faster and have responses that generate interesting and logically consistent feedback that makes the game fun.

Gwaednerth
2016-03-08, 04:35 PM
I agree that generally more information is good. I like large-scale machinations in my plots, and I find that those machinations are far more credible if there are detils to back them up. Why is the ork king of ug so easy to manipulate into attacking the kingdom of hureussia? Well, obviously because three generations ago (fill in story about ancient slights and rivalries). When my players ask me questions to clarify what's going on, I have a detailed answer. It's also always nice to know who's who in a setting. When they ask the innkeeper if there's a blacksmith in town, it's nicer to be able to say, "Oh yes, old Sampson two-fingers has his shop just down the block on the corner of cobble street and johnson way" rather than "Um... yes. There's a blacksmith. Nearby. Somewhere." Detail makes the world immersive and helps build a sense of internal logic. Also, it's just fun to write worlds with details. I had a great time just recently writing the history of a dynasty that started out as pirates and grew into a maritime colonial empire. It will almost certainly never come up in campaign, but I liked writing it.

BootStrapTommy
2016-03-08, 08:10 PM
The only details you need are the ones players care about. If players wouldn't care, don't include it.

Bohandas
2016-03-09, 12:22 AM
Worldbuilding is it's own reward

unglitteringold
2016-03-09, 12:31 AM
I just finished typing up a 4 page essay on the art history of one of my kingdoms.
I certainly fall on the side of detail, but mostly because it makes running games easier. While most of the stuff I come with will never come into game play, it allows me to go any direction. If my characters want to drop the main quest line and become smugglers, I can do that, because I know the three competing smuggling organizations and who is smuggling what where.
If the characters decide to bumble around a town for a while because they dropped the plot hooks, I can just throw anything at them from the surrounding area to draw them back towards the story (after a delightful detour).
World-building allows for a level of flexibility in running that I find invaluable. Because I have dedicated energy in thinking, I have to spend less energy in coming up with stuff on the fly.

Luch Ri
2016-03-10, 10:16 PM
I am having trouble getting my setting as a whole on paper, but I could go over centuries worth of history for any number of races or kingdoms, the history and culture of magic, of technology, the formation of various guilds... hell I can give you a recipe for at least half a dozen different dishes from across it that you could make yourself... if you are an alton brown fanatic like me.

It is your world, it is your creation, it is your treasure. It deserves the time and effort to make it special.

That's my view anyways. I'm very Tolkien-esque in my philosophy of writing though.

Xalyz
2016-03-11, 01:26 AM
I get very bored at work so I use world building to pass the time. I methodically expand each culture and explore and how they would interact with each other. If that means delving into their past then so be it. But usually I try keeping it in the recent past if I can.