How to get my players to worldbuild?

[Bathman]

I must admit, I'm not the best at creating a world. I'm fantastic at running a fight, but I really lack the ability to guide my players in a world that I've built.

I've set my game in the Avatar world, long before the creation of the four nations. The players are part of a large group of people that have been sent to the east (Fire Nation) to discover new lands.

The players have a small settlement of all kinds of benders and non-benders, and I have done everything in my power to get them to want to protect it. I've sent animals after them, had someone steal away people for a secret malitia, had spirits attack, and most recently, had a bloodbender murder a few people. I've done all of this, yet none of my players has tried to build a malitia, a protective wall, become any kind of government official... nothing they could be doing to protect their town.

My question is this... How can I get them to want to put more effort into worldbuilding?

[CrystalSeas]

You don't like worldbuilding; they don't like worldbuilding.

Sounds like you've got a gaming group that doesn't like worldbuilding. So find a way to game that doesn't require worldbuilding.

On the other hand, 'protecting their town' does not fit into what I would call 'worldbuilding'. Maybe they're just a band of hobos and they don't want to settle down and be confined to a single village.

StandardGM advice applies: Talk with your players. Find out what they want from playing this game. Adjust how you run the game so that you and they have the most fun

[Rub-Eta]

Have you given them the idea? I mean, do they even know it's a possibility?

[Brother Fen]

It sounds like they aren't interested in world building or kingdom building. As GM, do your own world building and have a NPC mission giver that gives your players something to pursue instead of economics and politics.

[the David]

It might help if you give your players stuff like the kingdom building rules so that they have an idea of what's possible. Then again, it might not.