Re: World building
I appreciate a lot of the questions, however, I'd say that often their relevance or style depends heavily on the medium your working in.
For example, it makes sense when creating a game to say "what kind of world is this, traditional fantasy, steampunk, cyberpunk etc.
However, I can think of a lot of books where the very unique nature of the world defies classification.
For example, final fantasy 7 takes place in a world with approximately modern day technology, cars, trucks etc, but with some science fictional elements such as lasers and robots.
Yet, it also has a strong fantasy theme and a tinge of religious mysticism, with people's souls being reborn and returned to the planet.
So it is not clear exactly whether one would classify such a world under a single genre heading, or indeed whether it would even be wise to try.
similarly, if your writing a story which is set primarily in one city, you don't have to go into too much detail about the rest of the world.
If the king is going to eat roast beef for dinner, most of the time you can just say the king eat's roast beef for dinner without explaining the entire agriculture of the kingdom. Of course, if it becomes thematically or logically important to explain where the king gets his roast beef, E.G if the beef is actually a delicacy of a neighboring kingdom whose ambassador the King is trying to impress, or if the greedy king gets roast beef while his people starve. However, in most cases its more a matter of trying to determine what information is necessary for your story and giving it, than answering each and every question.
for example, in the original Starwars films, nobody ever talked about gravety on the spaceships or how light sabres worked, since it wasn't necessary for the audience to understand these things. On the other hand, it was of critical importance that people got that there was a galactic empire which was so evil it had dissolved the democratically elected government, and needed a giant planet destroying battle station to keep everyone in line.
As well as thinking about the function of information in the work your giving, another critical question is how long the work is and what it is meant to accomplish.
Path of adventure doesn't tell you about where its set. You have a path to walk, there are monsters, there are dungeons and ruins to visit, there are treasure chests to loot and an evil boss to slay.
the boss gets some background, and there is a bit of story going on, but in terms of what world the path comes from, or why (other than just general reasons of fame and fortune), your character starts down this path doesn't matter.
On the other hand, Path of aventure does a brilliant job introducing all its elements. Each monster is described, there are magical treasures and even something of a progressive story,thus, while the world outside the path remains largely unknown, what is on the path is defined very exactly both in terms of mechanics, and in terms of description.
The most extreme example of this was the 1988 game bad dood vs the dragon ninjas which started with a single screen of text:
"president ronny has been captured by the ninjas, are you a bad enough dood to rescue ronny?"
You then played as some guy in genes and a shirt, walking along punching and kicking various enemy ninjas and jumping platforms.
Detailed world building? no. But for a fairly simple fun little arcade game involving ninja clobbering, absolutely perfect! .
In the end it all comes down to are you creating starwars or dune.
When George Lucus wrote the original Starwars, he was writing an adventure film. An adventure film with a backstory certainly, but fundamentally something intended as good fun for a couple of hours without as much by way of depth in many of its elements.
of course, depth has been added in god knows how many suplementary books etc, but those only came long after the fact.
On the other hand, we have frank Herbert's dune, which has a complete timeline stretching from the present day onwards, technological, philosophical and religious underpinnings going for several thousand years, and significances to every element yu encounter in the story, even as far as cups of coffee or details of costume or dining etiquette.
So, while I don't disagree that having more information is better than having less, it also heavily depends upon what your creating, and what sort of experience your giving to your players/readers/listeners/viewers.
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