This is from the Game Wish page:
How coherent do you expect a game world to be? Is a game world merely a stage for the characters, or does it have a life of its own? How deep does it need to be to satisfy you? How do you contribute as a player or GM to making the game world more coherent, if you do?
I remember an episode of the Twilight Zone (not the old ones, but not the latest new ones) where there were these blue men that assembled the world. The protagontist in the skit "fell out" of time, and noticed these men. I feel this show episode is a good analogy for my thoughts regarding game world construction.
Basically, the world was assembled in entirety for each minute of time throughout eternity. People passed from one minute to the next like stepping from one train car to the next. Each car identical except for the small differences made by time. This was used to explain how, for example, keys are easily misplaced - the blue men forgot to put them on the coffee table for that minute's time.
At one point in the story the central character turns down an alley to escape some pursuers to find that the alley hasn't been built at all. There is nothing but white nothingness.
Likewise in my games, I think it's best to emphasize the world for the players. If they never head down some random unnamed alley, I don't bother to constrcut it.
In a larger sense there is a story I usually try to get the players to interact with. The details that the players need to work in that story are more fleshy. Distant ideas are by definition less hashed out.
Even in worlds where I've bothered to lay out detailed locations and NPCs, events don't change the world outside how the players affect it except but between sessions. Even in those cases, one could say that the changes were affected by player inaction.
That's not to say that things don't happen outside of the realm of the players. I have come to note that concentrating explicitly on the story I intend to lay out is very not good. For instance, if we play Werewolf, I will make it a point to know the strength of the gauntlet everywhere the players might end up, along with what's in the spirit world on the other side.
Also, it's nice to have a few story seeds even if they're never used. A few hints at things that even I haven't fleshed out can lead to whole adventures in future sessions.
