What is your process of worldbuilding? Specially with a group of people. any tips?
Mine is typically impossible to predict. Typically I have one small idea, and then it spirals into a whole nation, race, or God.
>>43731591
I work pretty much exclusively by myself, sometimes discuss stuff with the missus, but she's better at characters than worlds.
What I do is I build around a central concept.
For instance, a setting where magic works exclusively around bargaining and binding of millions of demons that live invisibly around us. This quickly evolved into a stone age setting where these demons exist in place of gods, and humanity flourishes in a strange world of giant creatures.
Or a setting in which magic is wholly dependent upon colossal crystals that can't be even chipped at or moved, and a wizard needs to be touching the crystal in order to cast magic. Suddenly a setting pops up around it, cities are centred about these vast crystals and wizards live as astrally projected spirits while bound to the crystals. A thriving exploratory economy that seeks to find new crystals, boom towns around crystals deposits.
Honestly, just find a concept that seems neat and go for it. I generally tie it into magic and cosmology because I'm a huge wizard faggot, but you can work it around reincarnation or lines of noble succession.
>>43731591
Our group created a world by playing First Light last summer. I'm hoping to run a campaign in it after the holiday season.
First light is a game created by a fa/tg/uy where the players rp Gods. It's pretty fun in itself, but can also generate some cool settings.
Normally when I do a group of people I first look at the culture that surrounds them. Some details one should know about every culture is the following:
Broad Details:
>Religion
>Political Structure
>Economic Structure (coinage)
>Resource Situation (where they get food from, etc.)
>Environmental Situation
>Regional Neighbors
>Media (books, music, plays, etc.)
Specific Details:
>Sexuality
>Gender Concepts
>What is Luxury
>Social Hierarchy
>Gift Giving
>Honor
>Sense of Nationalism
>etc. (the importance of these depends on the culture, I see what I put above as the most common)
Then you take your group of people. You see how they interact with them. I recently made a guild of iron mongers for a game of mine. They actually fit snuggly.
I just looked at all of the categories and saw how their interacted. For example, on religion, unlike most organizations they don't pay an amount to the capital church, this puts the feelings between them and the religiously conservative on edge.
I like approaching worldbuilding collaboratively. I'll start with a vague, broad strokes idea of the setting and maybe a few more specific ideas as examples, and then I'll talk to my players. Based on their ideas and the concepts they want to play, I'll build aspects of the world around them, creating implicit hooks to keep their characters intimately involved with the world and the story. It tends to work really well, with each setting being a collaboration and dialogue between myself and my players, creating a unique experience for all of us.
>>43731591
Write a load of myths and legends. Hard facts are for losers who would rather write a book than a world to play in. There's no reason to plan more than a session's worth of "world" ahead of time because you have no idea what your players will do or where they will go.
Understand scale. You can cram a shitload of interesting things and landmarks in a space the size of England. Writing up fuckhuge continents that span the globe makes everything generic because your using broad strokes to cover huge swaths of land. Unless your players enjoy travelling for 50% of the game your just going to fast travel them everywhere at which point you've effectively shrunk your world.
>>43732888
>Write a load of myths and legends. Hard facts are for losers who would rather write a book than a world to play in. There's no reason to plan more than a session's worth of "world" ahead of time because you have no idea what your players will do or where they will go.
That's shit, you're shit. Kill yourself casual skum. I always have an entire world so I can know the ripples of what a play does at any given time.
I bet you haven't even researched proper currency systems.
>Solo
>Put a bunch of shit I find neat together
>Group
>Put a bunch of shit we find neat together.
Pretty much it. Sometimes we play Dawn of Worlds for worldbuilding too.
I start with a concept I like, usually a kingdom or a culture, or even just a certain race or monster. Then I try and figure out how to work everything I like in there.
With a group, you just have to try and get a sense of what everyone wants if you can take the opportunity to do so. Don't go making it fantasy China if one of your players would rather have Africa. Try to sprinkle in a little of everything.
1. Everyone writes what they want on an index card.
2. We shuffle the cards.
3. We go through the cards and discuss it as a group.
Sometimes ideas are completely incompatible and we scrap them. Other times, ideas are so bizarre mashed together that they make for an interesting world.
>Start with a few neat ideas
>Add interesting characters
Worlds are shaped by people. Rome would've been completely different without Caesar, America would've been completely different without Washington, etc.
I have a large cast of characters I reuse a lot, and sometimes it's interesting just to think. "What if Erazem ended up in a position of power during the formation of the nation of Shoshkepal?"
If you put characters that you know and understand in positions of power in your world's history, you can follow through with what they would do as leaders. It creates a much more dynamic and believable world.
>Come up with your neat twist, idea, or atmosphere you wish to convey.
>Imagine what changes would have to be made to the real world to accommodate such a thing.
>those accommodations become the basic rules to your setting
>take those rules to their logical conclusions in order to discover how people, cities, and history might form.
>>43732937
Dawn of Worlds is definitely my favorite
>>43731591
I almost always start by having a brainstorming session with the group I've put together.
Not to build the world, but to talk freely about what kind of concepts and ideas that they are interested in and what sort of situations excite them at the moment.
No point building a high-fantasy, 12 kinds of elves and pissing magic everywhere if they all just want to be down to earth people in a tumultuous gritty world, or go all Robinson Crusoe.
A lot of GM's get a cool idea, and then they get total tunnel vision and build a whole world around that idea, but there's no guarantee that the role-playing will end up revolving around it or even featuring it.
The players and characters are the focus, not the world. If you're just hosting sessions to show off your not-egypt fantasy reskin or whatever, write a sourcebook instead.
Okay, to prevent this thread from dying off, again, let's get us a topic.
>What was the last war fought in your current setting?
>Who was it between? How did they stack up?
>What is the single most memorable moment of the war? Its D-Day/Stalingrad/Agincourt/Sekigehara?
>Bonus points:Was it worth it?
>>43731591
I usually start off with a Bang, but then everything cools off pretty quickly before falling into place.
>>43733794
>What was the last war fought in your current setting?
The Fireborn Imperium is currently waging a war with Queliko, which has collapsed into bitter and vicious trench warfare.
>Who was it between? How did they stack up?
The Fireborn Imperium is essentially fundamentalists who worship Loki. Queliko is an expanding republic that's slowly being forced to compromise its own principles to defend itself, especially with instituting conscription.
>What is the single most memorable moment of the war? Its D-Day/Stalingrad/Agincourt/Sekigehara?
Queliko's navy had sailed to the Gulf of Shial, planning to launch a naval assault on the Fireborn Imperium's shores there to open a northern front in the war. The Fireborn Imperium responded with a squadron of Skyships, annihilating the Navy's forward elements with Teleforce Beams(the particle beams tesla was working on) which was basically the first use of air power on the continent.
>Bonus points: Was it worth it?
So far? Hard to tell.
>>43733794
The great conquering empire vs a druidic cult society.
It was the longest battle of its kind and was only stopped by an intervening mercenary force.In the end, they burnt the forest down
>>43733330
>>43732751
I like these games but what If i wanna go less fantasy, or rather more grounded in reality.
>>43733794
>What was the last war fought in your current setting?
The Mourning War, took place roughly 20 years ago.
>Who was it between? How did they stack up?
The Elmaouri Empire and The Orlynthian Republic. The Orlynthians were severly outmatched, and it showed.
>What is the single most memorable moment of the war? Its D-Day/Stalingrad/Agincourt/Sekigehara?
The Burning of the Vel Wood. In the setting elves are not born, but come full formed by cutting out a second of a tree sprouted from a previously dead elf. The Vel Wood was an ancient grove of these from another battle on the same place over a thousand years ago. The halflings burned it to the ground to prove a point and deny the elves replacement troops.
>Bonus points: Was it worth it?
Yes, the Halflings got tons of territory from the elves, and the elves realized that things were far worse than they thought.
>>43732751
Does First Light have a book somewhere? I've never heard of it before.
I've really enjoyed playing around with Microscope; that's another good one.
>>43734201
Oh whoops - I'm an idiot, nevermind.
>>43734201
how long does microscope take to play?
>>43734351
Well, there's no fixed length because you can decide you're finished with the history whenever you like. It depends on the group, how much time you spend discussing things, etc.
You basically set a big picture idea for the history, decide what elements are in or out (e.g. no aliens), and set initial and final time periods and a couple other features in the first pass round.
After that you take turns deciding what aspect of the history you'll focus on for the round and add time periods, important events, and roleplay important scenes within these periods and events. You continue as long as you want - it's very open-ended.
>>43734429
Sounds good, I remember playing a DoW game and we were so sick and tired of it by the evening when we were finishing things up.
>>43734474
It's far more abstract than DoW, I think. If you have the right group you can create a living history, but a DM would still have a lot of work to do to adapt it as a RPG campaign, for example. But it's a really interesting experience, especially when things suddenly go in a strange new direction that you weren't expecting.
After an initial joint worldbuilding\character creation session I worldbuild as I go, making shit up mid-session or asking the players. I figure a player who's character is a priest would know about mythology, so ask them.
I worldbuild a bit for whatever's relevant to the plot\theme and major NPCs and use it as flavour whenever possible, but that's never that in-depth.
Means less work for me, more player investment.
>>43731591
>Specially with a group of people.
In general I prefer to work alone. I might spitball concepts to my players to guage what interests them but I'm not going to turn the thing into a committee. I'm writing a game idea, not drafting a government constitution.
I guess my process of worldbuilding usually comes down first to genre, then overall mood of the game. It's at this point where I take the most inspiration from outside sources. Maybe I want to run a game thematically similar to Halo. The X-Files is one of my favorite TV shows, maybe I should write up something kind of like that. I don't worry too much about being derivative, because I know once my ideas have been put through the creative crucible they usually come out being pretty original.
After that I figure out basic premises. The who what where why and how. I can't really get that much more specific because every setting I create is pretty individual. I know some people like to do things like make every game take place in the same setting but during different periods seperated by massive time shifts and cataclysmic events, but that's not really my style. Plus, that leads to creative bloat.
Overall, the thing I actively try to avoid is overthinking things, and to only worldbuild when there's a specific idea I want to work on. I've known people who just wind up spending years creating these massive files of worldbuilding notes detailing everything from the religion of one dead civilization to the different dialects spoken by dozens of different tribes of the same people. You know, trivial things that really won't show up in anything that's not a novel (and even then wouldn't really need to be in one anyways).
Avoiding too many made-up words is also a good idea, in my opinion.
Oh, I also don't like to include non-humans. The exceptions are androids/robots/AIs and thoroughly inhuman-looking aliens.
I write as a hobby. Just following a character through a fictional world forces you to come up with a lot of ideas.
>>43731591
>What is your process of worldbuilding? Specially with a group of people. any tips?
Start with an idea of the setting you want to make. General outline of what the world IS, and the base cosmology. From there, think of small elements to pitch your players to choose rather than control it yourself. Bonus points if you make it central to their character concept. For example, ask the player playing the most religious character what the largest religion in the setting is, and what god they worship. Ask the wizard what the cause of magic is in the setting.
Once that's done, we go to the next step: separating wheat from chaff. People come up with bad ideas, and a playgroup brand new to pitching ideas for the setting are going to... well... suck at it. But don't let that stop you! Instead, ask further questions to make them elaborate a shitty idea to a better one. I know it sounds like it wouldn't work, but the more people hear their idea out loud, the more they realize the stupid parts and start thinking about new ideas, especially if you point it out with questions.
>>43731591
I grab the waifu and play a game. Making a character entails creating at least one culture and race. Naming deepens the culture with language. Equipping them serves to create surroundings and material culture. The starting location creates a, well, location and some surrounding geography. Then they walk out the door and it really starts going.
I have an easier time using worldbuilding as a way to explain characters and events then building a world and populating it with personalities later.
I think one of the reasons a lot of scifi and fantasy novels aren't often thought of as any good is that they often have elaborately designed worlds and settings filled with extremely boring people who aren't interesting to read about even if the world they inhabit is.
