4e What happened to the rest of the world?

[unipus]

Originally Posted by Heffe

Of course! I bought your book btw, it's great.

Like I said in the other worldbuilding thread, I get that maybe everyone just wants to do their own thing, and that's all fine. But I do worry that with so many content creators just making products, eventually there's going to be just a ton of discrete modules, none of which work together, and IMO that's going to hurt the game in the long run.

Any Ref that's looking to run more than one module with their group is going to be running the risk of those modules not working together, in which case they'll have to houserule, potentially extensively, in order to make it work for their players. In my mind, it makes more sense to at least try to flesh out the world a little more, at a really high level, just to help center the game around a default timeline. For example, knowing which countries are fighting which, and why, etc. Hell, even knowing which countries are still in existence (Yugoslavia anyone?).

As an example, say we have multiple modules be released for the US by various content creators over the next few years. One may have Russia and Mexico/Cuba invading as in the original games. Another may not, or may have some other group invading. Others may have no one invading the US, but perhaps New America has taken a bigger chunk of the country.

Each of those options is fine, and those Refs are free to determine their own games as they see fit. But it might help them if there was something to build off of *as an option*. And if a default timeline helps to ensure that there are multiple modules made inside the same cohesive "world", then all the better.

Hey, thanks!

I just don't see there as being one perfect way of doing things. Too much detail and people crucify you for what you get wrong. Not enough and people complain on that. A heavy canonical approach ends up with unpleasant interactions like the one going on over in the Romania thread. The opposite leaves you with potential chaos.

One anecdotal example of my own is that someone bought my book, noticed I had omitted the canonical position of the 1st Cav, and wondered what was up. I think he believed my book was an official module, which is kinda nice but also indicates the problem you're pointing out. But, I explained my rationale/mistake, gave some ideas of how to resolve it, and we went on our merry ways without any unpleasantness. I will probably update the PDF at some point to fix this.

But fundamentally chasing perfection is a problematic goal, especially with how strongly some people end up feeling about the weirdest things.