RPG World Building

Share your latest adventures with anything tabletop: RPGs, boardgames, miniatures, etc.
User avatar
Preacher
Posts: 502
Joined: 12 Apr 2011, 00:56
First Video: The Job
Location: Melborune, Australia
Contact:

RPG World Building

Postby Preacher » 30 Oct 2013, 01:36

So for the last few months I've been GM'ing two different campaigns. One a 40k Dark Heresy Campaign, and the other, a 3.5 D&D Campaign. Its gotten to the point where I really need to start fleshing out the world more, as I don't really have access/nor expansive knowledge about the major D&D settings, so far its just been set in a town and its surrounding area but the group is quickly coming to an end of the quest they need to do there.

As I have nothing but spare time I've pretty much just sat down for a week and made maps, racial back stories, weaved in quest hooks and plot points, but I'm pretty much at the end of my RPG knowledge, i.e I have run out of shows and settings to loot ideas wholesale from. I've bastardized things from the various D&D settings, Planescape, Ebberon, Dragonlance etc that I think are cool, like the test of High Sorcery and things from mostly sci-fi TV shows I though would be funny , for example Dopplegangers are now pretty much insane Vorlons suffering from a permanent case of identity crisis. But theres a little voice in the back of my head telling me I'm cheating here with this and that I've screwed this up. So I have two questions:

1) In a specific sense, Is there a better way to build a campaign setting, apart from use an actual setting created settings, or is this pretty much how its done and I'm overthinking this and worrying too much about it?

2) In a more general sense, what worlds/campaigns/settings have you built for any game and are willing to share. I promise I won't steal ideas wholesale much
Do you guys mind. I'm trying to write an essay

Its probably not a good thing I feel the need to put a disclaimer after everything I say

This is a thing my and my friend run.
User avatar
Drecon
Posts: 1234
Joined: 11 Feb 2013, 09:45
First Video: Ransom
Location: John Malkovich

Re: RPG World Building

Postby Drecon » 30 Oct 2013, 09:00

Wow, that's a big question.

First of all, I'm convinced there aren't any right or wrong ways to build a setting. It's just about what works for you, both from a time as from a style perspective.

Nevertheless I'd say there are two ways to go about this.

1: Start from what you want the main 'problem' of your players to be and flesh out the world from there. In this kind of setting everything is subject to what you think your players will encounter. Doesn't make for a very deep setting but works very well if you just want a background for the adventures.
In this kind of setting don't dig too deep into any aspect of your world until it becomes relevant.
Mostly go for this route if you're strapped for time or ideas, or if you don't want to invest energy into stuff that your players probably won't encounter.

2: Start from the beginning. Who are the gods, (how) did they create the world, what kind of world is this world, how old is it? Those are the very basic questions and you can gradually build from that point on. What races are in the world, where do they live, are there larger empires in the world, are there separate continents?
Move on from ancient history on to recent history. What influential wars were there, were there empires that were destroyed, important ruins, races that might have been exterminated, stuff like that.
Try to paint with broad strokes in the beginning and become more specific as you get closer to the age where you want your adventure to happen.
By this time you should have an idea of what countries are there, where all the races reside and what alliances are there. Then finally try to design some influential persons to populate the world.
That should pretty much give you a baseline for any setting. You can fill in more specifics like organizations and city layout as they become important to your players.

In any case, that's pretty much the way I approach the subject. It seems you're doing fine with your world though, going with generic fantasy/sci-fi and inserting some references and plots into it willy-nilly can work wonders. You're never going to have that complete world feeling but the adventures and stories are going to be epic nonetheless.

In response to your second question:
I have made a world once that was basically a giant patchwork planet that harbored an imprisoned god in its core. The god was slowly pulling chunks from other worlds onto this one and arranging all events in a way that should break him free from his prison. The players and their entire village were thrown down in this world where all kind of creatures from many worlds were thrown together to fend for themselves.
I only mapped out the local area and had some fun high-level stuff in reserve, but the overall story of the world was firmly in place. (not the story of the players though, there were lots of options for them to end up, depending on what goals they went with in the end).

Sadly we only got a few sessions into it before the group disbanded but making the world in itself was pretty awesome.

And feel free to steal any or all of my ideas, I'm currently not using any of them.
"if it ain't shiny, rub it on your hiney"
User avatar
PlasmaCow
Posts: 956
Joined: 19 Dec 2010, 05:10
First Video: Desert Bus 4 / The Job
Location: Glasgow-ish, Scotland
Contact:

Re: RPG World Building

Postby PlasmaCow » 24 Nov 2013, 07:02

I find the best way to gain ideas and concepts that you can twist to your own ends is to read books, watch shows and play games with twisting plot lines of both grand and small scales - even if it's just reading the summary in a wikipedia article, you can gain a lot of ideas for how to tie things together.
The recent BBC drama The White Queen, telling the story of the war of the roses, was a big influence on elements of the world structure of my current DH campaign.

I found that writing up a full campaign player pack to introduce and explain the world's history, fauna, politics, technology level, etc. to the players really helped me work through and adjust my ideas and the plot threads that I wanted to establish.
A brief setting outline is that Levongard is a feudal society with early steam technology that's been picked by the Administratum to have it's technology advanced to turn it into a fully operational agri-world to plug a resource deficit in the sub-sector. Relations between the planetary Governor and the feudal kings are rarely smooth as it is, so several Inquisitors have sent teams to aid in settling any issues that may arise. In addition, an extremely dangerous trader in alien artefacts has recently been tracked to the planet, his elimination is the players first objective.

You can have a look for yourself at the player pack.

I've created a couple fantasy worlds for the sake of it as well, just playing around with ideas and creating histories, gods and settings for my own enjoyment rather than putting them to any use.
Image
User avatar
jiawen
Posts: 39
Joined: 24 Nov 2012, 11:57
First Video: Don't remember; maybe co-op with Yahtzee
Contact:

Re: RPG World Building

Postby jiawen » 01 Dec 2013, 21:17

There are generally two schools of thought in RPG setting construction: "start big" or "start small". When you start small, you might only have what the PCs are currently exploring -- everything else gets developed as you go. Maybe you prepare for the next session's travels a week in advance, maybe you prepare a small region around the PCs, maybe you don't prepare anything at all. (That last one is generally recommended only if you a) are pretty good at improvising, b) have a lot of trust with your players and c) have a pretty creative group.)

When you start big, you might begin by sketching out the entire planet, setting out millenia of history, deciding on patterns for climate, linguistics, agriculture, etc. This can lead to having a really good sense of what's out there, and allows players to ask questions like "Why don't people from Dremul like people from Khorbassos?" and get a definite, consistent answer. And it gives you a good sense of what conflicts and adventurous things there are to do before you start.

Both ways of doing it have their problems, of course. Starting small means you don't have a good sense of the overall picture, and it's easy for things to become a jumbled mess if you don't exercise strict editorial control. Starting big can mean events feel pre-scripted, or that you never actually finish planning. (A bad thing if you want to use the world in a game. Not a problem if you just enjoy worldbuilding for its own sake.)

In reality, I think most people end up doing some mix of the two. You might decide to lay out the general countryside, and know that there are trolls in the north and dragons in the south, while creating a bunch of detail for the immediate area. Starting with some aspects of the world that match existing tropes is a very legitimate way to do it; I've heard it called Ikea Worldbuilding, and like the furniture, there's a reason it's so successful.

Personally, I always try to start with a strong sense of the principles underlying the world. How does magic world? How does it interact with physics? To what extent do religious powers have influence in the world? Most importantly, what kind of feel am I going for (individualist, gonzo, consistent, mysterious, adventurous, grimdark, realistic, etc.)? I try to make sure my other decisions guide that.

I have a bunch of other posts on my blog about worldbuilding. You might want to check them out.

Return to “Tabletop and D&D”



Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests