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I am unable to articulate the difference between these tags. Looking at the questions did not help. Should they be merged or setup as synonyms? If so, which one should we keep?

Questions tagged campaign-development
Questions tagged world-building

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I think there's room for both. World building is all the usual "making the geography" thing. Developing a campaign has more to do with the specific plotline etc at hand - the "adventure." Now having said that some of the things tagged CD should have been tagged WB...

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World building is probably somewhat larger in scope, in theory: you could develop a campaign within an existing world. In practice I don't think there's a ton of difference. I would say campaign-development is the right parent tag; it focuses on the activity of roleplaying rather than being a term that's used as often in writing fiction. Me am purist. Grunt.

Edit: as per mxy's comment, I don't think there's a need for quick action here -- there could be a difference, and if one develops or is encouraged that'd be nice.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I agree. World building is a fictional activity. Campaign development is what we do for rpgs. Though I could see questions with both that are specific about developing world stuff that fits for rpgs or is derived from assumptions that only make sense for rpgs. \$\endgroup\$
    – anon186
    Aug 28, 2010 at 10:36
  • \$\begingroup\$ There are campaign-development activities that have nothing to do with world-building, but all world-building (in the R-pG context) necessarily contributes to the development of at least one (possibly hypothetical) campaign. I agree that campaign-development is the parent. \$\endgroup\$
    – kodi
    Aug 28, 2010 at 13:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'd disagree: I'd say they're independent, or at best world-building is the parent. One world can house many campaigns (Faerûn!), and though one campaign rarely houses many worlds, when you're talking sci-fi or multi-dimensional games one campaign will involve a lot of world-building. \$\endgroup\$ Sep 10, 2010 at 6:01
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For me, campaign development often suggests a smaller-scoped activity of adapting an existing setting for a specific group of players.

World building, on the other hand, suggests creating a setting that can be used for many "campaigns."

Specifically talking about D&D games, campaign development often entails using the default setting or a boxed setting (Points of Light, Forgotten Realms, Planescape, etc.). World building always means creating a new setting.

I think they're very different activities and would like to see the tags kept separate.

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