On World-Building

In an upcoming talk (I'm on the GDC circuit, y'all!) and an upcoming interview (link here), I talk about how I want less world-building in games. I'd like to expand on what I meant to clear up any confusion. 

I don't want designers to do less world-building, if that's what brings them joy. I just want less visible world-building in the box. How I probably should phrase that is I want fewer and shorter "lore dumps." Lore dumps are defined by Matt Coville as the parts of a book that people usually skip. 

I've been using the term world-building rather sloppily to mean the work put into creating your world and also the lore that players see (because that is how other people use the term). But I think we can do better. From now on, I will try to say what I mean. And what I mean is: lore dumps are almost always bad in board games; please stop putting them in the rulebook/box. 

Research, creativity, and knowing how your world works are all pretty good things to spend design time on. You can over do it, but as long as your game is fun I don't care what you spend time on. Do what makes you happy. You don't need to write a novel before you design a game, but if that's what you really want to do then go for it. I'm not against the act of world-building. 

There's a big caveat here, though. Don't put that novel in your game box. I don't buy games for their short story anthologies. Reading, when not a part of how the game is played, is a solitary experience. I, personally, play games as a form of structured social interaction. Yes, Asmodee has novelizations of their games. Sold separately. Only give players what they think they are buying. 

Lore dumps are distracting from the core experience of your game. As much as possible, I would prefer any lore fluff to be concise and used in a way that allows players to "opt in" to the lore. I'll be posting more about opt-in lore later. Longer lore dumps are better served with separate products, kickstarter updates, or fan pages. I'm not against the existence of lore dumps; I simply don't want them in the box. 

Within a game box, I prefer a "show; don't tell" approach. Any important truth about your world should be evident within gameplay or art assets/components. If it's not evident/emergent then it's not really important in the context of your game. And if it's not really important, then why is it in the box? 

For a deeper dive into other ways to think about world-building (as opposed to lore dumps) I encourage you to watch this panel from d4 in which professional world-builders talk about the craft.