Re: Worldbuilding and Infodumps

[the_narration]

In response to a discussion on worldbuilding and exposition in tsubaki_ny 's journal, because I got longwinded and it wouldn't fit in a comment box.

Some thoughts on the subject from an avid reader and consumer of a myriad forms of fictional entertainment:

It's important to not allow exposition to turn into an infodump, of course, because it causes the story

Comments

[drenkrelar]

You have some very interesting thoughts on the subject.

I'll agree with you about Tolkien. He'll spend so many pages describing something that by the time you get back to actual plot-relevant stuff you forgot what was even going on.

Star Wars is a great example of just the right amount of world building. You give the audience just enough to be able to follow the plot and fill in all the world-building blanks in supplementary material. For example, all we needed to know about the Bothans in ROTJ is that may of them died to steal the Death Star plans. We can then move along to the heroes using that information to plan the Battle of Endor. Only in the expanded universe do we find out what happened on that ill-fated mission.

As for RPGs, the world-building is all up to the GM, so the more information you can provide him the better. Tell him the names of the nations and where they are. Tell him who rules them, and which nobles plot against them. Tell him as much as you can so he can build his own stories set in that universe.

[the_narration]

After taking a look at the epic poem "Beowulf", I definitely think that's the sort of thing Tolkien was inspired by. The only problem is that "Beowulf" is damned boring, constantly stopping the story dead to give the complete history of everything and I'm not kidding about the 28-line mid-battle speech, either.

Too many writers follow that same path and don't realize that writing a fantasy story doesn't excuse you from the basic rules of pacing and drama. A story needs to value narrative flow over cramming in every possible detail about the setting.

The original Star Wars trilogy had a good grasp of how to work worldbuilding details in unobtrusively. When you get right down to it, ROTJ needn't have mentioned the Bothans at all, and Mon Mothma could have just said that their spies had obtained some new information. But telling us that they're Bothan spies adds flavor, and that "many Bothans died to bring us this information" helps establish how high the stakes are, all without interfering in the flow of the narrative

[drenkrelar]

I haven't really had a chance to read through the rule book enough to get a feel for the system yet, but I suspect that is because I don't have a group playing it at the moment.

It seems like it would be a fun game, but since I started off on a non-D20 RPG, I am having a little bit of trouble wrapping my head around some ideas that are probably second nature to many people who did start off with D20 based games.

I might get a chance to participate in a one-shot game of it pretty soon, but the chances at joining a long term campaign are pretty slim since my gaming club currently has a couple different D&D games, Pathfinder games, World of Darkness games, and the Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader games all going on already.

There was some talk a few months back about a guy wanting to start either a Shadowrun or Star Wars Saga campaign, but nothing came from either of those ideas.

[the_narration]

Yeah, there's kind of two main camps when it comes to RPG design: the class-and-level-based systems, like the D20 RPGs, and the skill-based system like... well, most everything else.

Skill-based systems are probably more realistic (depending on your definition of "realistic"). They're usually highly customizable, because you can usually use your starting points to buy up whatever skills and abilities and powers you think your character should have, and while it might fall into the category of a certain character type, you're not limited by that archetype. You can different skills at different levels, depending on what's most important to you, and combat ability usually falls under the realm of skills, with different degrees of training in different sorts of weapons. Also, while you'll increase your various stats as you gain experience, you can decide what you'll increase and how much... but how much damage you can withstand usually stays about the same, making ordinary weapons still threatening even for experienced characters

[intrepid01]

I understand your complaint, and agree with it, but not completely, you left out the 'context' of why those stories were written the way that they were

[the_narration]

While those are all valid points, the question I was trying to answer was "How much worldbuilding is too much for a modern novel?" rather than a discussion of why epic poems of the ancient world were written the way they were.

While it may well be true that the audiences of epic recitations in ancient times enjoyed long digressions, that doesn't mean that the modern novel reader does. What worked then does not work now, which is why I put forth that those epics were not the best examples to follow. Perhaps ancient audiences didn't mind a 28 line speech mid-fight because they were enjoying the performance, but modern audiences have a much lower tolerence for the idea that Talking Is A Free Action. And even if a modern reader really does care about the backstory of a sword, a basic understanding of drama would indicate that the best time to cover that sort of thing is during a lull in the action, not by bringing the fight scene to a grinding halt

[intrepid01]

I suppose it all depends on the individual as to what's acceptable world building or pointless fluff.

A “modern” audience might not appreciate excessive information when it slows down the story, which I agree, is all important, and interrupting an action scene is a definite faux-par.

But most of today's “modern” audience also has the attention span of gnat, as a measuring stick they fall well below for what's considered good critics.

Personally I prefer a book with a lot of world building because I like the idea that someone has put some thought into their created world and how it works, and because I read very fast, this extra detail doesn't slow me down at all, actually, if a book is less than 500 pages I consider it a short story!

Maybe I'm being a bit of a old fart, but I weep that the 'modern audience' of today, thinks Twilight is such a great book, when it's clear form reviews that the author has only a rudimentary understanding of the English language.