whiskykuts
Commoner
Posts: 14 
Favorite D&D Class: Fighter
Favorite D&D Race: Orc
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Post by whiskykuts on Feb 18, 2021 18:59:24 GMT
There seems to be a consensus amongst forever DMs across the internet that any game prep beyond what'll fit on a napkin and takes more than 10 minutes is terrible and will kill you.
I realise that is somewhat pedantic, but I've seen mutiple blogs/vlogs/posts where a new DM is asking about how to go about starting their homebrew world, and the general responses seem to be that if you're doing anything more than having a name for the town then you're doing waaay too much. I appreciate that there has been a shift towards improv style playing, and there is a massive need for that during games and the fluidity it brings, but I can't help but feel that worldbuilding and lore is fairly chastised these days.
Now, I am bias as I really love world building, even if I'm not actually sure if I do it well. However, I am also wanting to be the best DM I can be, and from everything I read, I feel like all the hours I pour into this world are not just a waste of my time, but detrimental to the game itself. My defence has been that I am not going to cry if the Players only visit 10% of my world, because I built the world for me (and future games too). But I fail to see how my planning out could be bad, as if anything, it allows me to be involved completely with the game as it plays, answering the Players queries with answers they can follow up on and not worrying about pulling random names, places and encounters out of a hat. But, I am only a DM of a few years, and thereby, a rookie. Am I unintentionally digging my own (DM) grave?
Also, as clarification, I am all about sandbox worlds and enjoy weaving (and having players weave) their own stories into that, and the ripple effects this has. I appreciate that the smaller a scope, the more it can be improv'd.
Disclaimer: I appreciate that worldbuilding to the point of stress is crazy and does nobody any good, especially for new DMs, and that if a Party feels railroaded by an entire world then that is also nonsense.
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daxredhammer
Adventurer
Posts: 73
Favorite D&D Class: Tinkerer
Favorite D&D Race: Minotaur
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Post by daxredhammer on Feb 19, 2021 12:20:00 GMT
I definitely feel your angst. I admire those DMs that can pull an entire session out of their butts, but I am pretty sure that most of them can do that because they have already built their worlds over the years.
Although I am not a new DM, having played or DMd for over 30 years, I just recently started building my own world and I am spending a lot of time trying to flesh it all out and I enjoy it. I also do this so that I have do have as much detail as possible prior to playing, regardless if the players discover it or not. Some day they will, or maybe other players will, but it is definitely not time wasted.
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Koldik Steelskin
Adventurer
Made a podcast!
Posts: 57
Favorite D&D Class: I Suppose I Should say Sorcerer, but truly i like any full caster
Favorite D&D Race: Dwarfs Rule!
Gender: Male
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Post by Koldik Steelskin on Mar 6, 2021 1:35:50 GMT
If you enjoy it biuld a world otherwise don't
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drfantasy
Commoner
Fantasy scholar, map afficionado, and worldbuilding fan
Posts: 7
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Post by drfantasy on Apr 3, 2021 9:19:29 GMT
I would say that it's a question of "instead of" -- if you spend your time worldbuilding instead of planning out the campaign/story/session/encounters for your players, then you're worldbuilding too much. But even after 30+ years of DMing, I fail to see a major difference between worldbuilding and "planning". Maybe that's because when I build the world, I build it to include story hooks of various scales. My players then pick up one of these or another, and that determines the direction of the campaign (I rarely plan the campaign more than vaguely ahead). And the reason I don't feel the need to build the entire world is that I want to be able to build according to what the players do and seem to enjoy. So I usually only start with some basic ideas.
My current campaign (since 2012) has mainly taken place in a single (large) city set in a world that was very much like the basic world of 4e -- not much civilization -- and so I basically started with some fairly broad rules (what races lived in the city, a map of the different geographical features, an idea of the legal system, what gods are worshipped and where their various temples where located, stuff like that ... mostly things you could find on a map) and some ideas about what a new group of adventurers would need to do once they arrived in a strange city: how to get food, money, a place to live. For me, that was enough -- it took me through the first two sessions, and then I started to add bits. But once I realised that the story veered towards the powerful people of the city, I spend a couple of days developing the families that ruled the city, including some internal conflicts and possible enemies and allies, including more story hooks. And so on.
By now, I even know about a few locations outside of the city :-)
So I tend towards the "less is more" school of worldbuilding, but even the "less" that I starts with is certainly more than the "ten words on a napkin" I have heard being advocated.
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Post by dmslythytoves on Apr 5, 2021 17:40:17 GMT
Perhaps I’m only reiterating, but I think most of the jokes about DMs world building had to do with the trope of ‘putting hours and hours into planning and mapping and the players just “nope” their way off on a tangent.'
As far as I’m concerned, world building, which most of us here love, is fun, therapeutic, and ABSOLUTELY WORTHWHILE...particularly if you keep in mind that your players will constantly surprise you. I’m running a homebrew world, and my players have gone in completely different directions, for which I have already mapped out, thankfully. And it goes both directions: I’ve added towns and cities based on the geography I have created, and later used those places as plot hooks. I’ve also improvised places during RP and added them to the map as we went.
I think the point I’m making is that my players are molding the world now with me. Not as much as I have done, but the world is much different than I had first imagined and I absolutely love it.
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