What steps should one take when worldbuilding?
>>47735710
Step one: Google worldbuilding
>>47735710
Do as little as possible. Your players will generally either ignore it or outright WRECK IT, and you'll feel pretty bad about all that hard work going down the toilet.
Worse, too much worldbuilding means you can't roll with the punches and insert stuff on the fly, because there's no room to cram it in.
Generally if you have to stop the game all the time and look shit up in your documents because you can't keep all that stuff you made up straight, that's the point at which you've probably built too much. Looking things up once in a while is fine, but start doing it regularly and you're slowing the game down to lecture your players about the intricate details of your setting and they're gonna start yawning.
Start with a broad outline of important history, then fill in the smaller details from there until you've got a rough outline of a world that pushes the buttons you want, and then run with it.
Make a town name, make a quest, let your players help you.
>>47735710
Work off your player's backstories.
>>47735710
Develop information relevant to the players and their characters. Especially if it helps them make said characters.
Verisimilitude is important. Don't worry about whether your setting is realistic--just be "realistic". If you have a mountain that reaches above the clouds, consider the implications of such a thing. Stuff like that.
Ask questions, both to yourself and to your players. Considering things critically will give you a better handle on what can/can't work, and your players are ultimately what you're catering towards (and they can hammer out things you may not notice otherwise).
Try to avoid a direct, linear plot from the outset. The more agency players get early, the more "alive" your world becomes.
Ensure you're enthusiastic about what you're making. If you're just going through the motions, that apathy trickles down to the players. Excitement from the storyteller is the gift that keeps on giving, and can make a 'typical' story or setting memorable in its own right.
>>47735710
Depends on the setting
>>47735710
Learn about our world. The more you know, the more you can extrapolate from information you have of your world, making more and more detailed works.
>>47735710
I want to____that dragon.
>>47739432slay
>>47735710
Do it in collaboration with your players. Helps make them invested in the setting AND gets round the whole "My character was raised in this society but I know nothing about it" syndrome. Just be sure to let them now you'll be adding some spin to whatever you all as a group come up with to keep them guessing. You don;t even have to make any secret changes for this to be effective, your players will still second guess themselves if they /think/ things aren't as they thought them to be.
>>47736687
Best post.
>>47735710
>>47735710
First step is to ask my favorite question, "To what end?"
Why are you creating a world?
Because every other step and decision are going to inform and be informed by that purpose.
>>47735710
Introduce some pseudo-religion shit nobody hear about. Like gnosticism, zoroastrianism or manichaeism.
Start with one to three things you want to have in a setting. Then justify their existence and consider what effects they would have on a world. Let things flow from there.
>>47735710
Step1 : take the things you like
Step2: paste them togheter in your setting
Step3: change the names and shapes
Step4: ????
Profit
>>47739739
But ot pull it off like Anno, you have to understand the bullshit you're using of effect really well.
>>47735710
Read.
Write.
Edit.
Repeat.
/tg/ doesn't count.
>>47739882
This 100 times.
I would highly reccommend digging up some OSR blogs (Goblin Punch, 10' Foot Polemic, Hereticwerks, ect) and just stealing shit you like wholesale.
Outside of that all I can say is decide on an aesthetic. Its alright to take other stuff and file off the serial numbers, but if it clashes the versimilitude mentioned by >>47736664 will start to fall apart.
Internal consistency is more important than realism. Ensure your world follows its own rules.
>>47739765 is correct, but I'm assuming your end is "tabletop roleplaying".
>>47735735
You fucked up. The only thing you get by googling worldbuilding is a whole sewer of shit. It shows you exactly what not to do, I suppose.
>>47736182
Nigger what are you on. The whole point is for them to wreck it, among other things.
Building should be limited to making a world for your players, however. No one needs to know that your weather system is super realistic -- YOU need to know what plothooks you can pull out, there.
>>47736664
>If you have a mountain that reaches above the clouds, consider the implications of such a thing.
This doesn't have to be in any way geographic, however.
>Try to avoid a direct, linear plot from the outset
The best thing to do is build your world like warhammer -- full of tonnes of stuff going on, but nothing being finished.
What to actually do: think of a cool thing, throw it in. Think of another cool thing, throw it in. And so on. All while thinking about what cool things these cool things could do to each other, and *all* in the name of giving hooks for your players to use.
>>47743756
>Try to avoid a direct, linear plot from the outset.
> ...full of tonnes of stuff going on, but nothing being finished
Just having everything sitting around, waiting for the players to arrive at 'just the right time' is actually pretty poor. It bends versimilitude to breaking point and creates a world that feels like an MMO, where everyone stands on street corners with ! marks over there head.
Of course, having a plot layed out to occur that the players just sit and watch/do what was planned in is equally bad, if not worse.
I find that the best thing to do is, for places where interesting stuff is going on, scribble down a quick flowchart of what will occur when, ASSUMING the players don't intervene. For example, say a ruler was assasinated, keep notes for
-In 4 days, Baron (x) takes over
-In 7 days revolts break out in towns (y) and (z)
Ect ect.
By doing this you make your world feel like a living place. The news they hear in taverns won't be flavour text, its going on and could affect them. Like random encounter tables, the results of interactions between these, mixed with the players rolling through the center doing player things, will generate more involved and interesting plothooks than sitting around brainstorming for days.
>>47739882
Is it wrong that I do that? My friend like tries hard to come up with things and stuff.
He never makes something truly unique but I never tell him anything about it as I know he tries hard.
But when I'm the one making stuff up. I just do what you said. Is that the wrong type of world building?
>>47745466
>Is it wrong that I do that?
Nope. You do you, man.
>>47735710
Don't. You're wasting time doing shit that doesn't matter instead of doing shit that does.
>>47745466
Are you sure he's not actually doing the same with things you're not familiar with?
>>47745909
This.
My players think I am original.
The fools.
Seriously, most work is derivative in some fashion but if you keep a project for long enough it evolves to stand on its own.
>>47745559
Heh. pretty true
players that put the game genre or how interesting a setting seems on paper before what actually happens playing are fucking trash and should be flushed from the group
>>47735710
Build around narrative Concepts,
first determine which conflicts and stories you want to follow.
second flesh out these conflicts and the relevant participant parties.
third flesh out the relationship of these parties to each other beyound the immediate conflict, or the relationship of parties which are involved in different and unrelated conflicts to each other.
fourth try to determine how and why these conflicts exist next to each other.
fifth go from there and build a worldmap according to your needs.
>>47745909
Well he cancelled last session because he said he ran out of ideas, on a plot hook he gave us in a silver plate, 2 sessions ago.
So I don't think so. Plus he doesn't read books, play videogames, or watch as much film as I do. And the highest advantage of knowledge I have over him is...I have /tg/, all he has is facebook. He doesn't even know what Warhammer is.
>>47745973
Only a dm understands a dm dude.
>>47746002
Well, in my opinion those aren't negative things per se. overexposition kills the fun, you know. ignorance have its virtues too
>>47746031
Yeah I don't think its a negative thing either. He gets really happy when he present us his new character or scenario. I just let him be and play along.
>>47746002
>he doesn't read books, play videogames, or watch as much film as I do. And the highest advantage of knowledge I have over him is...I have /tg/, all he has is facebook.
What the fuck does he spend his time doing? I can't imagine a young man spending as much time on Facebook as the average anon spends on this damn site.
>>47743756
>This doesn't have to be in any way geographic, however
Shit, I forgot to mention that. Thanks, anon. Crazy shit like that is totally workable so long as the setting/story/characters treats it like what it is. It doesn't have to be 'real, just 'believable'.
>>47744289
>Just having everything sitting around...is actually pretty poor
Well, I meant to imply something to the effect of the 'Two-Stag Campaign' mentioned in pic related. By having tools ready to use at your leisure, your story feels more organic since you're always ready to respond to the player, and you can get them invested in a clear-cut story arc over time. Not to downplay the background plotting and flowcharts and stuff (I use them as well).
>>47747115
I thought that doing like pic related was the norm
>>47735710
Trying to write a good story over worldbuild.
>>47747415
That's not how it works little shit.
>>47735710
Have a good knowledge of different fantasy novels such as Lord of the Rings, The Witcher and Discworld
>>47745466
There are some shitty ways to worldbuild, but I would hesitate to call any of them "wrong."
I'm not even implying the way you do it is shitty, just that, as long as you are having fun and you enjoy building the world and (if it is for RP purposes) the players have fun being in that world, then however you did it was the "right way for you."
That sounds sappy, but I think it's true
http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-to-build-a-fictional-world-kate-messner#review
>>47735710
Focus only on what will matter to the players and don't go overboard writing tons of stuff that will never come up during the actual game.
>>47748862
I personally think that a person that asks if there are right and wrong ways to create a completely empirical fantasy aimed at entertain your friends for an evening doesn't really deserve an answer
>>47748955
I like to believe that perhaps this anon is inexperienced or uncertain at this time, but could grow and become greater with guidance, even the little which can be offered from fa/tg/uys like me
I like to see the hobby grow, and ensuring those GMs which continue the legacy into the future are decent helps ensure the hobby doesn't get any worse than it can already be, maybe even help it improve
>>47741046
Spend time considering outcomes of a rule being true, too.
If you're analytical, you can poke holes in your own setting and create more content through plugging them.
>>47735710
You need to start all worldbuilding with a good core, otherwise the entire thing will just seem hollow.
>>47749021
You're a fucking newfag too, aren't you?
The important thing is the general aesthetic of something and a few basic dynamics of the world, facts and figures are only important for world building for it's own sake (which is great anyway)
If you want a formula, just think of 3 to 5 words to describe x at any level of detail, and you'll have enough to work with if you're gming.
This is a desert, metaless, shithole.
You're in a town ruled by a magic dragon cunt.
Welcome to Dark sun.
>>47735710
build a big stupid geographical map and obsess over its shape for hours on end
then realize that it looks basically identical to all the other maps on /tg/ and what actually matters is what you put on the map
>>47754131
You wish m8
