- In computing, some programming languages have their code built (or compiled) before the execution of the program. This is known as “ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation.”
- Alternatively, they may use “just-in-time (JIT) compilation”, where the code for the program is compiled at run time.
- There are other compilation strategies but I’ll focus on these two for now.
- I propose that GMs may benefit from doing their worldbuilding using an analogy of this approach.
When worldbuilding, I often find it tempting to go down rabbit holes as far as they will take me. The problem with chasing rabbits, however, is you never know how far they’ll take you from where you started. I may start with the noble intention of fleshing out a noble house but then get an idea that the patriarch of the house is secretly funding a rebellion so now I need to write some stuff about the rebellion and it’s charismatic leader who has a dog that’s gone missing in the Forest of Dreams where a group of Fey refugees have fled from the Feywild due to a war with the demonic entities that the Cult of Mahoon are trying to summon to the Material Plane and…
You get the point. Suddenly I’m no longer building out the noble house of Skie, I’m writing about cults and demons that are only tangentially related to them. This is fine if I am just generating seeds of ideas - there are probably five adventures contained within the short tangent above - but what if my players are about to attend a ball at Skie mansion? My time would probably be better spent actually focused on the bits I need for the next session.
I asked a friend and experienced game master what his approach to worldbuilding is, I think his answer was insightful:
If you believe my current campaign it is “do not think of anything until the region becomes important”
But I had to start that one much sooner than expected to so I did not really have time to plan much and that has carried me forever since.
This is a prime example of the JIT worldbuilding system/process/philosophy that I’ll expand upon below.
Too Big, Too Complex
As world creators we have to reconcile our efforts with the fact that an entire world is just too big for us to think about. The real world has so much complexity that it may as well be infinite, so we must focus our efforts on the “important” aspects of the world. JIT worldbuilding is simply a philosophy for honing in on what “important” means.