Gary Gygax’s World Builder (WB) has certainly spawned a variety of opinions. My honest opinion is that those who are unhappy with the book either bought it without understanding what it is or are people who dislike Gary’s style (though to this second group I say, why the heck did you buy it then?). The first group has a more legitimate beef – I honestly think this book is badly titled. And therein lies the root of much unhappiness. Up front, let me say that I like the book. I like it for what it is, not what the title suggests it might be. For me, the contents are useful, inspirational, and worthwhile.

WB is most definitely not a guide to RPG world building. It is not, say, a rehash of the old TSR World Builders Guidebook which takes the reader by the hand and leads him through the process of designing, building, and populating a fantasy world.

The book would more accurately be title Gary Gygax’s World Building Resource book, for that is essentially what it is. It is 170+ pages of info that would be useful for bringing colour and life to a world building effort. It won’t help you decide where the continental ridges lie on your world, but it will help you decide how to describe the terrain through which your campaign will run, or to paint a vivid picture of the weather on a particular day.

The book consists of three sections, the first dealing with lists, drawings and descriptions of thousands of various items (from armour to types of furs). The second deals with geographic information, like types of weather, rocks, the strength of ropes and so forth. The third section deals with lists of things associated with buildings – materials, types of constructions and so forth. The lists themselves are far too detailed to go into specifics (pick it up at your FLGS and flip through it if you’re interested) but suffice to say that there are a multitude of armours, weapons, helms, shields, types of clothing, food items, beverages, gemstones and on and on and on.

Many of the lists contain pictures of the item in question and/or descriptions. Some of them are simply lists (breeds of dogs for example). Throughout the book, in appropriate places, there are D20 and Lejendary Adventure stats for many of the items. The lists are for the most part centered in human history, so you won’t find Dwarven axes or gnome thunderboxes or anything like that. There are also a bunch of appendices containing random charts and information, much like the OAD&D DMs Guide.

So, should you buy this book? I like it a lot, but it has a specific function and specific audience. If you don’t really care about small details in your world then it probably would sit on your shelf. If you would prefer not to have fighters running around with generic axes but rather wielding bronze Egyptian axes (with stats different than the good old woodsman’s axe) then you will find it useful. I intend to use it to introduce exotic weapons that are unusual outside of certain cultures. I recommend it without hesitation to anyone who understands what it offers.

I find reading through the lists to be inspiring. Perhaps you could base an adventure around an odd gemstone, or a terrain feature. Maybe you could design societies in which different styles of clothing denote differing castes, with harsh punishments for anyone daring to “impersonate” a higher caste by wearing the wrong clothes (“the good news is, it’s a fedora of wizardry. The bad news is, only nobles can wear fedoras…”). This book will not, however, do anything for you without your doing some work. You can’t pick it up and drop it into your campaign like a generic dungeon. You’ll have to read through it, refer to it when designing worlds, campaigns and adventures, and decide what to use and when.

I give WB a 4 for substance, simply because it is chock full of more information than anyone could ever use. I’ll give it a 3 for style, more because people seem to expect pretty pictures in their books. I’m quite happy with the basic illustrations in the book, but based on the reviews I read here, people seem to want more.