5 Worldbuilding Links
- Image via Wikipedia
The first two links were brought to my attention at Stargazer’s World. First, he links to the complete Dungeoncraft Series by Ray Winninger as published in Dragon Magazine from 1997 to 1999. Anyone who hasn’t read these, needs to. They are absolutely classic and better than anything I’ve ever seen written on the subject since.
Of particular interest right now is essay #2, “Starting the World“. In this, Mr. Winninger gives the best advice most beginning world builders will ever see “Spending lots of time on extraneous details now only slows you down, perhaps to the point where you lose interest in the game before it starts.” He then goes on to discuss the basics of starting your own setting.
The second thing Stargazer brings to our attention is a dairy of sorts using the advice from the Dungeoncraft Series. A very practical guide to how one person used the information presented in the first link to create a living, breathing setting.
And starting small as Ray Winninger suggest can really pay off. Shent Lodge from the World of Alidor talks about how simple world building can really be if you start small. He began with 3 places – a village, a city and a 14 room dungeon. Nine years later, his players are still interested in that world and we can all learn from that.
Any world builder will run into problems along the way. Concepts held dear will need to be rethought and redesigned as you go. Chgowiz recently ran into this problem as he creates a setting based on the old Ultima I computer game. “I have to rewrite not only the world, but my expectations of how the world and the villains evolved. Thus I’ve got to completely reboot the whole shebang.” It’s an interesting read to see how one GM rethinks his base assumptions to create what he really wanted from the beginning.
Finally, Uncle Bear is working on a Worldbuilding 101 book. This man is a genius with many years of experience and all I can say is I hope to see it sooner rather than later! It’s certain to be a great resource for all of us.
Though I yearn to lend my voice, not being a Gamer I always feel self-conscious commenting here. I have nothing of substance to contribute to the shared experience of RPGs, while my obvious masculinity must certainly breed resentment among the rank and file. But, I press on.
Here’s my question: how similar is creating a world for your game to creating a world for a novel (or series of novels)? Do you create a new world each time out, or do you create one world and then tweak it each time for a fresh experience?
Also, while I have you here, what does RPG stand for? It cannot possibly mean what I think it means….
Campaign creation and novel writing are very similar except in writing a novel, you script everything. For gaming, it’s a collaborative effort. Mostly, the game master sets up some plot points but the players decide how they’re going to deal with them. Imagine writing a novel where your main characters have free will.
I do both, create new worlds and tweak old ones.
RPG = Role Playing Games