Why Hire Adventurers?

[hamishspence]

Not just the “bits we nominally control but don’t have the resources to manage” borders between countries were a significant problem for policing.

"Nominally control it but don't have the resources to manage it adequately" is a fair description of the area close to the border, in this context. Not just on the other side, but on their own side.

[DigoDragon]

Clearly the lord needs to be a retired high level adventurer themselves. They might choose to farm out contracts to up and coming adventurers for smaller threats while they deal with bigger ones plus running their domain of course.

One time I had the lord be the big bad of the campaign, and being a genre savvy sort, hired the PCs to go on a long errand far away to the corners of the kingdom and away from him so that he's not bothered when he dissolves the council and installs loyalists to the ranks of general in the kingdom army.

[Pauly]

"Nominally control it but don't have the resources to manage it adequately" is a fair description of the area close to the border, in this context. Not just on the other side, but on their own side.

The anglo-scottish border, the example I’m most familiar with, was an absolute viper’s nest.
- The king can’t station too many troops near the border, because that’s a threat of war.
- Because of all the border hopping clans/extended families had territories that extended to both sides of the border.
- The local clans were more loyal to themselves than to their nominal lords.
- Due to the sensitivity of the borders the military forces were under the control of the king’s appointees, not the local lords.
- The local lords were not disposed to help out beyond the limits of their lands since they were liable to suffer attacks at any time.

[Mechalich]

Any 'frontier' region, which includes unstable border regions, is a good spot for adventurers, because such areas represent a position of inherent state weakness - they're at the edge of the zone where the state is able to exert control, whether over a rival state, stateless entities, or just raw wilderness (this last one is rather rare, especially in a fantasy world, where someone can live almost anywhere, even in blasted waterless deserts or giant ice sheets).

The point I was making about 'unclaimed' territories is that there may be regions that are effectively frontiers, in terms of the ability of the state to exert power over them, that are well within the borders of the state. Historically mountain ranges have served this role and there are a very large number of ethnic groups that are derived from people who sheltered in high mountain valleys out of reach of the control of the lowland empire that surrounded them (this pattern is very visible if you compare ethnolinguistic and topographic maps side by side).

In many ways this boundary is going to be logistical. The local authorities in a region should have access to forces more powerful than that of a small party of adventurers - if they don't that's a world-building problem, note that in D&D this problem is omnipresent and its one of the major reasons why D&D settings break - but they may not be able to deploy those forces effectively in problem areas due to lack of roads, insufficient potable water, or other constraints - abundant magic to get around these problems for army-sized units is another world-building problem D&D settings possess.

[Tvtyrant]

I think it works a lot like Elephants. Elephants could be domesticated, but the cost to raise an elephant is so high its cheaper to just grab them as young adults and use them. If you raise an elite soldier you have to feed and home their families, pay them in the off season, and they contribute nothing monetary except during combat.

Hence why mercenaries are so popular. Their families can die for all you care, you can hire them as veterans without having to train youths, pay for trainers, or pay their pensions. Yes they endanger your realm and will work for your enemies, but as long as everyone is doing it they are just so much cheaper then house troops.

[sithlordnergal]

Its gonna depend on the party level, but for low level stuff its because of two big reasons:

1) They're inexpensive

2) They're a perfect scouting group

You're not sending that party of four with the expectation that they'll solve all your problems. That's just a side bonus. You're sending that team of 4 to scout and get information. If they manage to kill all those so called goblins, great, now you don't need to do anything. If they come back, they'll probably tell you how large of a force you can expect to deal with, giving you an accurate estimation of how many soldiers you need. And if they never return, you can assume that whatever they're fighting is pretty strong, and you can plan accordingly.

As for the inexpensive bit, consider how much it costs to arm and pay even a single guard. Assuming you're paying for the gear and paying them a Modest Lifestyle, you're investing 73 gold per year, per guard. And that's not counting the money and time spent to train a Commoner up to become a Guard. If you send 4 guards out to find out what's going on, and all 4 die, you've just lost 292 gold, and now have to spent the money to retrain 4 more.

Compare that to paying low level adventurers. Usually they'd get paid about 100 gold, maybe a bit more if the tale they tell you is particularly harrowing and dangerous. Not only that, but the money is paid after they complete their task, not before. You basically paid these adventurers less than what you'd have to ante up if you sent two guards in their place, and you only have to pay them when they successfully complete their task. There's no loss for you as a ruler by hiring them. If they succeed, they're cheaper than your guards, if they fail then you gained valuable information and don't have to pay a single copper.

--

On the other hand, if they're a high level party, then they're probably dealing with something that your regular army can't deal with. It could be something like an Ancient Red Dragon that can burn through your army and can escape pretty easily, or a powerful demon that is immune to your army's weapons, or some powerful undead that just kills things by standing within 30ft of them.

[Jophiel]

As for the costs again, adventurers don't tend to be particularly cheap. And the goblins likely won't have any treasure considering that what they stole from the villages is probably foodstuff and animals. And the adventuers will know that.

At the lower end of the experience scale, you can often hire an adventuring party to go out into the unknown for less than the cost of replacing the weapons and armor on your men, should they die ("50 Gold?! Oh, boy!"). The higher up the experience scale you go, the less likely you have similarly experienced men at the ready. Plus, at that point, your reward is more frosting on the adventure loot cake.

[Satinavian]

At the lower end of the experience scale, you can often hire an adventuring party to go out into the unknown for less than the cost of replacing the weapons and armor on your men, should they die ("50 Gold?! Oh, boy!"). The higher up the experience scale you go, the less likely you have similarly experienced men at the ready. Plus, at that point, your reward is more frosting on the adventure loot cake.

First : You don't use a strategy where you expect to lose several of your men.
Second : In Feudalism your men pay for their own gear, same as adventurers.

Generally, look at which historcial nations did use lots of mercenaries and which neighbours/contemporaries didn't. Which one were the wealthy ones ?
Feudal armies are cheap, mercenaries are far more expensive. Yes, it is generally better not to lose your men and your subjects don't like losses either. But in the end, you have to pay a premium for that.


If in your settings adventurers are so cheap, why don't people even have costly regular troops instead of using the far more efficient adventurers for everything ?

[Anonymouswizard]

Just dug out my copy of All For One: Regime Diabolique, and honestly I'm not convinced that the solution is 'make the PCs elite soldiers'. When the country isn't at war the zpCs can either cause trouble in the city or be dispatched to the countryside to help deal with things like this. Of course most of the time they're in the region they're doing boring grunt work. But we skip that, and go to 'the local lord has come to you because of reported goblin attacks and yes this is your job so you'd better do it or face reprimands'.

Of course All For One is set in the 1600s, where I believe societal changes had made standing armies more viable. But honestly I believe few D&D settings are strictly feudal anyway...

[Jophiel]

If in your settings adventurers are so cheap, why don't people even have costly regular troops instead of using the far more efficient adventurers for everything ?

Because adventurers are typically pretty rare on a per capita basis since most people don't have a great excuse to leave their farm, family, job, whatever and go out risking mortality by poking owlbears with sharp sticks. You need someone whose family was mysteriously murdered and is on a quest for vengeance but also is willing to take time out to poke owlbears with sticks for fifty bucks. This is the fantasy RPG way.

Besides, having a number of troops has its own separate benefits (which is part of why you don't necessarily want them traipsing around looking for goblins) and, while hiring a group of adventurer/mercenaries might be a good short term investment, that doesn't mean you want to rely on it exclusively. Specialists are often better handled on an as-needed basis than to incur the expense of keeping them in constant service. While 50-100gp for a dangerous day's work is a deal versus risking your "real" men, that doesn't translate to paying 36,500gp a year for a 4-man party to loiter around waiting for goblins to show up.

[Pauly]

Just dug out my copy of All For One: Regime Diabolique, and honestly I'm not convinced that the solution is 'make the PCs elite soldiers'. When the country isn't at war the zpCs can either cause trouble in the city or be dispatched to the countryside to help deal with things like this. Of course most of the time they're in the region they're doing boring grunt work. But we skip that, and go to 'the local lord has come to you because of reported goblin attacks and yes this is your job so you'd better do it or face reprimands'.

Of course All For One is set in the 1600s, where I believe societal changes had made standing armies more viable. But honestly I believe few D&D settings are strictly feudal anyway...

Well in the 1600s through 1800s officers were sat on half pay, or even unpaid furloughs between campaigns. I am assuming PCs will be drawn from the officer pool, not regular soldiers, who were confined to barracks and guard duty and thus unavailable to go adventuring when not in war. The difference in social status will also prevent the local lord contacting a group of under employed soldiers. Underemployed officers on the other hand are eminently suitable for being sought out to deal with a problem.

So in a situation where the PCs are military officers not on active duty the local lord coming to you to deal with goblins is more along the lines of social obligation, relieve the boredom, or earn a few coins. It would not be an expected part of a PC’s military duty.

[Fiery Diamond]

While history is a great place to get inspiration for settings, it's also worth noting that the typical RPG world (whether in game or in literature) has vast, vast departures from even the most basic of historical assumptions. This is part of why there can be so many different, equally valid, answers to the question "why hire adventurers?" Depending on what assumptions you make about the setting, the logical trains can be quite different while still holding up to scrutiny.

Take the idea that your medievalish world's kingdoms are actually using Feudalism, for example. That's simply not the case in a lot of settings... in fact, if we include "not actually feudalism because the author/GM doesn't know enough about how feudalism works" (which is super common), it's probably more common to not have true feudalism than to have it!

Or the concept of adventurers. If we wanted to keep things as close to historical assumptions as possible, "adventurers" probably are mercenaries. Someone in thread mentioned that adventurer isn't a profession/social class. That's not always true across all settings. In some, "itinerant problem solver using magic and fighting skills" is an actual profession, if usually a fairly rare one. Or look at Japanese Isekai stories and their tendency to have "Adventurers' Guilds." While that one's not particularly common in D&D, to my knowledge, there's nothing stopping someone from making a game that uses that assumption.

As for my take, my answer is "it depends." For the specific scenario laid out in the initial post, I'm going to go with "probably cheaper in the long run and definitely more expendable, and also it's a bad idea to let loose cannons get bored in your territory."

[Vahnavoi]

Just because other authors were lazy about setting building and what words mean, does not mean you ought to. The only real reason "adventurer" is a profession-slash-social-class in any setting is because once upon a time a gamebook used it as catch-all term for player characters and some people extrapolated a "profession for doing what player characters do in that game do" from it. You might as well have "hero" or "player character" as a profession - and yes, there probably is a Japanese light novel or a nifty webcomic where that is exactly the case, but those tend towards being works of parody, purposefully leaning on the fourth wall and recycling tropes and cliches in the most blatant manner.

Meanwhile, the sample scenario is given clearly in context of feudalism and can be answered in terms of feudalism. If you want a general reply for settings that don't have feudalism, the real correct answer is: "You do not hire adventurers because "adventurer" is not a profession. You hire the player characters to do jobs based on their actual profession, based on services required." And once you are thinking in terms of actual professions, the answers tend to border on self-evident. Why would you hire a bodyguard? A border guard? A covert operative? An assassin? State-backed explorer? Ranger? So on and so forth. Even in a fantasy game, your character typically has an actual profession as part of their class, background or skillset, above and beyond being an "adventurer".

[Tanarii]

If in your settings adventurers are so cheap, why don't people even have costly regular troops instead of using the far more efficient adventurers for everything ?

1) They do. This seems to be the assumed case in most published settings and even core rules books too. Adventurers are used for many things and there is always work for them.

2) An D&D typical starting adventurers kit is about 100gp. A spear, leather, and a shield is maybe 25gp. Let's say a starting adventurer costs 25gp for a mission (100gp reward for the party). A basic guard makes a couple of gp per month, twice that for hazard pay.

If a mission is important enough and going to be resolved with a single investment, you can either shell out for equipment and stand up four guards and send them. Or you can send in some well equipped (at their own cost), better trained, and with more natural talent adventurers.

If a mission would have to be broken into multiple parts or take a long time, and has little chance of plunder ... that's what guards and line warriors are willing to work for, and adventurers turn up their noses at. Barracks duty and wars. Both magnitudes safer but lower return.

So from an employers perspective, it's 100 gp per few days work to clear out goblins nest, or 100 gp + 4gp/month to fight a goblin army in an extended campaign in the field. The latter wouldn't be affordable with adventurers, but the former has a higher chance of success using adventurers instead of "army", so it's worth it for the single mission at the exact same cost.

[Mechalich]

Just because other authors were lazy about setting building and what words mean, does not mean you ought to. The only real reason "adventurer" is a profession-slash-social-class in any setting is because once upon a time a gamebook used it as catch-all term for player characters and some people extrapolated a "profession for doing what player characters do in that game do" from it. You might as well have "hero" or "player character" as a profession - and yes, there probably is a Japanese light novel or a nifty webcomic where that is exactly the case, but those tend towards being works of parody, purposefully leaning on the fourth wall and recycling tropes and cliches in the most blatant manner.

Traditionally 'adventurer' is synonymous with 'soldier of fortune' and most commonly describes soldiers and/or mercenaries who are unable to secure regular employment. Significantly, the reason for this was often demilitarization, as some state was unable or unwilling to pay all its soldiers and forced them to try and find work to provide for themselves. For example, many of the famous heroes of the Three Kingdoms Era of Chinese history found their start as soldiers against the Yellow Turban Rebellion, but were then left tramping about China because the collapsing Han Dynasty could not find the means to employ them all. Likewise the Western genre, which shares many commonalities with D&D settings especially in its use of frontiers, included a great many American Civil War veterans.

From this perspective it is notable that many adventurers are actually quite eager to give up adventuring and be hired as regular soldiers or long-term mercenaries and will readily glom on to new authority sources should they arise.

[Tanarii]

Both a soldier of fortune and a seeker of dangerous experiences for money fit the original roots of the RPG scene pretty well.

Hero definitely has different connotations. You might hire adventurers, but you appeal to the conscience of a hero. And hope you get them on the cheap as a result.

[Bohandas]

In a world of clerics and psions the citizenry may demand for the leader who offers them thoughts and prayers in times of disaster to put his money where his mouth is

[Fiery Diamond]

Just because other authors were lazy about setting building and what words mean, does not mean you ought to. The only real reason "adventurer" is a profession-slash-social-class in any setting is because once upon a time a gamebook used it as catch-all term for player characters and some people extrapolated a "profession for doing what player characters do in that game do" from it. You might as well have "hero" or "player character" as a profession - and yes, there probably is a Japanese light novel or a nifty webcomic where that is exactly the case, but those tend towards being works of parody, purposefully leaning on the fourth wall and recycling tropes and cliches in the most blatant manner.

Meanwhile, the sample scenario is given clearly in context of feudalism and can be answered in terms of feudalism. If you want a general reply for settings that don't have feudalism, the real correct answer is: "You do not hire adventurers because "adventurer" is not a profession. You hire the player characters to do jobs based on their actual profession, based on services required." And once you are thinking in terms of actual professions, the answers tend to border on self-evident. Why would you hire a bodyguard? A border guard? A covert operative? An assassin? State-backed explorer? Ranger? So on and so forth. Even in a fantasy game, your character typically has an actual profession as part of their class, background or skillset, above and beyond being an "adventurer".

Hostile much?

Is there a significant difference between "Feudalism, but inaccurate because they didn't do the research" and "Not feudalism, but superficially resembles it because tropes?" What about "Feudalism, but inaccurate..." and "Actually feudalism?" Which of those pairings do you think are equivalent, if either? Personally, I think the first pairing is much more equivalent than the second, and respond to anything in the "Feudalism but inaccurate" the same way I would "Not feudalism" rather than going "um, actually, in feudalism such and such would be the case" when presented "Feudalism but inaccurate."

And I definitely don't think "Not feudalism, but superficially resembles it because tropes" should be lumped in with "Actually feudalism" under any circumstances. "Correcting" or "filling in the blanks" of the former with assumptions based on the latter is... well, it can be well received, but it's a baseless thing to do and can just as often be annoying as helpful.

Personally, I find it intensely irritating when someone says "history good, tropes bad," which is exactly what you seem to be saying. History as inspiration is fine. History as some sort of standard of good quality to compare things too... not so much. As I mentioned in the "music that's cool to dislike" thread, I am anti-artistic-criticism. You can judge technical competency, whether it achieves what it set out to do, or whether you liked it, but any other criticism (except, perhaps, moral criticism) of art is elitist, arrogant, and just generally unpleasant. If pop literature offends you, you quite frankly need to get over yourself. Building a setting based on tropes rather than in-depth realistic examination of every point is not a bad thing, so just writing it off as "lazy writing" that should be dismissed and never emulated is snobbish.

[Mechalich]

Is there a significant difference between "Feudalism, but inaccurate because they didn't do the research" and "Not feudalism, but superficially resembles it because tropes?" What about "Feudalism, but inaccurate..." and "Actually feudalism?" Which of those pairings do you think are equivalent, if either? Personally, I think the first pairing is much more equivalent than the second, and respond to anything in the "Feudalism but inaccurate" the same way I would "Not feudalism" rather than going "um, actually, in feudalism such and such would be the case" when presented "Feudalism but inaccurate."

And I definitely don't think "Not feudalism, but superficially resembles it because tropes" should be lumped in with "Actually feudalism" under any circumstances. "Correcting" or "filling in the blanks" of the former with assumptions based on the latter is... well, it can be well received, but it's a baseless thing to do and can just as often be annoying as helpful.

Personally, I find it intensely irritating when someone says "history good, tropes bad," which is exactly what you seem to be saying. History as inspiration is fine. History as some sort of standard of good quality to compare things too... not so much. As I mentioned in the "music that's cool to dislike" thread, I am anti-artistic-criticism. You can judge technical competency, whether it achieves what it set out to do, or whether you liked it, but any other criticism (except, perhaps, moral criticism) of art is elitist, arrogant, and just generally unpleasant. If pop literature offends you, you quite frankly need to get over yourself. Building a setting based on tropes rather than in-depth realistic examination of every point is not a bad thing, so just writing it off as "lazy writing" that should be dismissed and never emulated is snobbish.

It all depends on the objective, as is the case with basically all world-building questions. The fundamental question in world-building is the relationship between the setting and the story. The setting needs to facilitate the story being told. This means that the setting should operate in such a fashion that it is capable of producing the plots the story utilizes, exploring the themes the story carries, and operates at an appropriate level of verisimilitude. Now it is often assumed, implicitly, that only reasonably logical plots, serious themes, and high levels of verisimilitude are worth talking about with regard to world-building and this is very much not true. Many stories are humorously ridiculous, blatantly satirical, and ludicrously contradictory, including some great literary classics.

That said, the very nature of the question: 'Why hire adventurers?' carries implications. It implies that economics, at least, matters, which imposes a floor on verisimilitude. It also posits that adventurers, as a recognizable thing, exist in the fictional society. And, because it's a question, it also implies that there would be circumstances were one would not wish to hire adventures for at least economic reasons. Also, because the term 'adventurer' in TTRPGs is highly associated with D&D, and there are implicit constraints on the type of worlds D&D tries to present (which are not actually what you get if you extrapolate from the mechanics, but that's a different issue), most people responding are working within that context.

Compare to a Japanese or Korean isekai-style world where the answer to 'why hire adventurers?' is: because the world is functionally a game and operates according to MMORPG style mechanics. That's a fine answer, if your story works within a world that is functionally a game, but it's very much a problem if the world isn't built that way.

[Tanarii]

The fundamental question in world-building is the relationship between the setting and the story. The setting needs to facilitate the story being told.

Wow. I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that world-building has anything to do with "story" before. That's a new one in the quest to try and ram "story" down the throat of roleplaying games.

World-building is all about setting, a place for things to happen. If adventures are going to be based on a planned "story" instead of giving players interesting situations and events they can have an opportunity to interact with as they see fit, so be it. But I can't see how "story" has to do with a role playing games world-building itself.

[Mechalich]

Wow. I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that world-building has anything to do with "story" before. That's a new one in the quest to try and ram "story" down the throat of roleplaying games.

World-building is all about setting, a place for things to happen. If adventures are going to be based on a planned "story" instead of giving players interesting situations and events they can have an opportunity to interact with as they see fit, so be it. But I can't see how "story" has to do with a role playing games world-building itself.

You are interpreting 'story' in an unreasonably narrow way. In a tabletop RPG, everything that happens in-universe is the story, and yes the setting absolutely needs to be suited to those events.

[Fiery Diamond]

It all depends on the objective, as is the case with basically all world-building questions. The fundamental question in world-building is the relationship between the setting and the story. The setting needs to facilitate the story being told. This means that the setting should operate in such a fashion that it is capable of producing the plots the story utilizes, exploring the themes the story carries, and operates at an appropriate level of verisimilitude. Now it is often assumed, implicitly, that only reasonably logical plots, serious themes, and high levels of verisimilitude are worth talking about with regard to world-building and this is very much not true. Many stories are humorously ridiculous, blatantly satirical, and ludicrously contradictory, including some great literary classics.

Very well put. It bothers me (to an unreasonable degree, probably) when people assume certain values (of verisimilitude, historical realism, seriousness, logical consistency, etc.) are more important than "does the setting have appropriate levels of these things for what kind of story it's trying to tell," blatantly claiming that if it doesn't meet their preferred level in whatever category that it's bad/lazy/whatever, regardless of whether it's actually trying to meet that level or not.

[Satinavian]

As most of the settings i know or use are not even made with any particular stories in mind, i disagree.

Versimilitude and logical consistency are of value for their own sake. And if they are missing from the world it will hurt any stories people will later set there unless they simply don't use the offending elements.


Sure people can say "it is not actually a mistake, but a deliberate decision. I just don't care about this stuff". But that can be said about any other design desicion as well and does not make the result more appealing or useful for people who want to put stories in.

[Jophiel]

Versimilitude and logical consistency are of value for their own sake.

For varying degrees of "value". Tables I've played at value game play and adventure over worrying about the intricacies of historical feudalism. Verisimilitude at the game table really means enough plausibility to keep a fantasy adventure story moving.

NPC: Our farms are being raided by creatures in the night. The bodies show signs of weapons, not the attacks of beasts, but the few survivors insist these were no human bandits.
PC-A: Why not send your own men?
NPC: Most of my men are assigned to protecting the remaining farms. I have sent word to the High Keep but it could be a week or longer before they respond. Your arrival presents an opportunity to end these attacks at the source before more villagers are killed.
PC-A: Well, we can not risk ourselves for no reward but I'm sure we can find a suitable agreement to help you and your people.
PC-B: Well, so, actually, in a REAL feudal system, the decision to conscript men wou---
PC-A: Can we roll d20s at monsters now?

And if they are missing from the world it will hurt any stories people will later set there unless they simply don't use the offending elements.

Ain't no one using my game worlds but me.

Obviously, your table's mileage may vary. If your players feel the game experience is hurt by not adhering strictly to a historical system, then have at it. This hasn't been my experience in my time playing but there's millions of tables I haven't played at.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Obviously, your table's mileage may vary. If your players feel the game experience is hurt by not adhering strictly to a historical system, then have at it. This hasn't been my experience in my time playing but there's millions of tables I haven't played at.

Personally, I find my verisimilitude more hurt by slavishly obeying the historical progression of culture, technology, warfighting, and politics in a fantasy world. The "arc of history" and those forms are path dependent, and a world with wizards and magic and magical beasts and absolutely non-human creatures (and with a bunch of other differences) darn well better have significant differences in their paths. And as long as there's a meaningful progression that takes into account the local conditions (so an area plagued by monsters and an area that's been without monsters or threats for centuries should look different, as should a maritime kingdom and a landlocked desert kingdom), there's a huge range of possibilities. Tightly demanding a match to earth history, to me, is a sign that you're not taking the fantastic nature of the world seriously.

For technology and combat techniques, having a very different set of physical laws (are there even atoms? Molecules? How does metallurgy work with magic? These are all questions to be answered) and very different threat profiles (when your enemies can literally arise from dead bodies and ignore wounds or natively fly or swallow people whole, that's quite a bit different from your "normal" beasts or armies of people basically identical to your troops other than equipment and training) mean that there must be differences to maintain internal consistency. But the dials are pretty tunable, so almost any form will work, if explained and justified.

[Tanarii]

You are interpreting 'story' in an unreasonably narrow way. In a tabletop RPG, everything that happens in-universe is the story, and yes the setting absolutely needs to be suited to those events.

No.

You may choose to interpret your games that way, but I assure you when I and my players are playing a tabletop RPG, nothing that happens in universe has to do with "story". At all.

At most, the players tell a story after the fact, when they recount the in-universe events to someone else at a later time.

So, clearly what we've got here is that world-building doesn't actually have to have anything to do with "story", and you've just convinced yourself it does because of your personal decision that your tabletop RPG experience must include "story", so in your case world-building also includes "story". But that doesn't make it general for everyone or tabletop RPGs.

Versimilitude and logical consistency are of value for their own sake.

I'd say Suspension of Disbelief is what is important. Some players are able to do so with a low amount of real-world verisimilitude and logical consistency, while others require it in certain things and not others.

[Fiery Diamond]

No.

You may choose to interpret your games that way, but I assure you when I and my players are playing a tabletop RPG, nothing that happens in universe has to do with "story". At all.

At most, the players tell a story after the fact, when they recount the in-universe events to someone else at a later time.

So, clearly what we've got here is that world-building doesn't actually have to have anything to do with "story", and you've just convinced yourself it does because of your personal decision that your tabletop RPG experience must include "story", so in your case world-building also includes "story". But that doesn't make it general for everyone or tabletop RPGs.

This is an eternal debate on these forums, where people refuse to agree that different people have different definitions of "story" and each side insists that the other is wrong and obstinate. Your side insists "story" refers to a telling, with a plot (which may be derived post-hoc or predetermined) and things like rising action and climax and whatnot. The other side uses a much looser definition, where "story" is simply "fictional sequence of events with thematic elements," and doesn't need to have a structured plot of any kind or adhere to any other structure other than, "After A, then B" where events simply flow organically. And unless you're doing world-building for it's own sake, rather than as a place for a certain kind of game to take place in (which admittedly, is absolutely a thing), then yes worldbuilding is subservient to that second definition of story. Regardless of whether you acknowledge that the word "story" is the appropriate term to use, that is a true statement regarding the concept people are using "story" to refer to.

I'd say Suspension of Disbelief is what is important. Some players are able to do so with a low amount of real-world verisimilitude and logical consistency, while others require it in certain things and not others.

One hundred percent agreed.

[Tanarii]

The other side uses a much looser definition, where "story" is simply "fictional sequence of events with thematic elements," and doesn't need to have a structured plot of any kind or adhere to any other structure other than, "After A, then B" where events simply flow organically.

This is wrong and I'm going to be obstinate about it.

This is a definition of events happening. It's no more a story than living life is.

For it to be a story, there either needs to be a intentional narrative thread tying it together, or it needs to be an accounting of events after the fact.

If your world-building requires narrative threads to be woven in to the world so they will be part of the events that can happen during play, more power to you. If it describes places, people and situations that players can use their agency to make decisions on how to interact with and face the consequences of, that's my kind of world building.

The first is usually called "meta-plot", and there are plenty of examples of it in both TTRPGs, CRPGs, and MMOs. But there are also lots of examples of world building in TTRPGs without it.

But if your definition of "story" is a series of events we're playing through in-universe, but it's game events instead of real events therefore "story" ... well, your definition is so broad as to be useless.

[Satinavian]

I'd say Suspension of Disbelief is what is important. Some players are able to do so with a low amount of real-world verisimilitude and logical consistency, while others require it in certain things and not others.

Oh, i didn't say "real world". It can totally be purely fictional as long as it is consistent and believable.

Of course, importing real word societies is a shortcut because we already know that it works and how. One has to do less design work. But if one does import real world societies, they better not be ridiculous carricatures. Those have only a place in a comedy game.

[Fiery Diamond]

This is wrong and I'm going to be obstinate about it.

This is a definition of events happening. It's no more a story than living life is.

For it to be a story, there either needs to be a intentional narrative thread tying it together, or it needs to be an accounting of events after the fact.

If your world-building requires narrative threads to be woven in to the world so they will be part of the events that can happen during play, more power to you. If it describes places, people and situations that players can use their agency to make decisions on how to interact with and face the consequences of, that's my kind of world building.

The first is usually called "meta-plot", and there are plenty of examples of it in both TTRPGs, CRPGs, and MMOs. But there are also lots of examples of world building in TTRPGs without it.

But if your definition of "story" is a series of events we're playing through in-universe, but it's game events instead of real events therefore "story" ... well, your definition is so broad as to be useless.

No, it's not so broad as to be useless. It's a perfectly valid thing to want to have a word to describe. You disagree over the use of the word "story" as that word, but do not dismiss the concept as a useful one. Do you have a substitute word? If you don't, you're simply going to have to live with people using "story," which they have been for years. I'm largely a descriptivist when it comes to language, rather than a prescriptivist, and if enough people consistently use a word to mean something over a long enough period of time, it becomes a valid meaning of the word, regardless of whether official dictionaries list it. If you want to call it a "slang" meaning of the word, fine, but you need to acknowledge that other people do use it that way, whether you like it or not, and meet their arguments based on their meaning rather than arguing against things they aren't actually saying just because you're using a different definition than they are.

From my perspective, there isn't a categorical difference between a series of game events being played out and an author making up a series of events as he's going along without any regard for plot structure or preplanning. Treating one as "not a story" because it's not being told, just occurring, and the other as "yes a story" because it's getting transcribed from the author's head is, in my opinion, a useless distinction. The only real difference is that one is collectively controlled and the other comes from only one person... oh, and that you use dice in the game, if it's not freeform. That's it. Whether it's being "told" or not is of no consequence to the distinctions I consider to actually matter.

But sure, if you have substitute word we can use to avoid confusion, suggest away.