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World-building for games - a thought exercise
Rankenphile
Passersby were amazedby the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderator mod
Passersby were amazedby the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderator mod
edit: link to wiki
So I've been considering making this thread for quite a while now, and have had some inspiration recently that I think would add to it.
Essentially, what I'm proposing is a collaborative process wherein a handful of talented folks share ideas and together build a world for PnP RPGs and such, with as much detail and fantasy-based realism as possible.
What I'm looking for right now are a few volunteers. Essentially, we need people with good writing skills, collaborative ability and some experience working on this sort of project. None of what we build will be owned by any of us and all of it will be published here to be used by any GMs as they see fit, so this isn't like a "ahahaha rank is gunna milk you suckers and make a million!" or anything.
The sorts of things we'll need:
Cartographers - a couple folks to draw out the maps themselves and then add to them and draw more detailed maps by contintent, by region and even by city/village/etc.
Creature designers - preferably folks with a good background of creature design and basic rpg knowledge. The better understanding you have of how life actually works, how ecosystems evolve and how creatures become adapted to their environments, the better. We don't need "okay so this is just like a regular dragon, but it shoots acid diamonds." We need "okay, this is the sort of goat-like creature that the plains people here would herd, which look sort of like this because they had been bred with these things for this trait and these things for this trait and were bred to provide milk and hides, since the plains folk are nomadic, and..."
Landscape Designers - these are the folks that would work most closely with the cartographers in creating the full geography of the world. Preferably folks with a good understanding of geology and how time and nature shapes a world. Why a forest would be here. Why the rivers would form a particularly rich delta, which would tend to attract these sorts of creatures. Things like that.
City Planners - THere will naturally be a good number of large cities and smaller villages throughout the world. We'll need someone who can come up with the layout, history, regional culture and history of these cities. Who lives here, and why? How many different races or cultures intermingle here, and how do they mix to create their own particularly unique blend of music/trade/history/architecture in this city? What resources does this city have, and what does it trade for? Who would it trade to? What makes this city come alive? What makes it interesting? How are the streets laid out, the houses, the surrounding villages?
Cultural Designers - Hand in hand with the city planners and the landscape designers and the creature designers comes the Culture Design. How does a particular race or geography survive, what would its creation myths be, what would their houses look like, their farming practices, their architecture, their songs and their stories and their social class systems? What is their history? Are they of a single race, or are they a mixed society? Are they tribal, and if so, how many tribes, how are the tribes formed, how do they interact and how do they look upon other surrounding cultures? What is their trade like, what is their mating like, what is their idea of magic, their idea of religion, their idea of family in contrast to others in the world?
Obviously, all of these jobs are collaborative, and all of them require working together to come up with a cohesive vision. We'll need artists, writers and good teamwork to make this into anything remotely worth doing.
I'll provide a rough background of the world and an overall vision for the original inspiration, and will work in at least a few of the above roles while acting as sort of an overseer to help steer things. Since I'm the one proposing this, I'll act as arbiter and final judge for ideas and things, just so that we have someone to slam the gavel when arguments pop up or different ideas start to clash, but I don't want this to be seen as some kind of job by any means - this is just an exercise in creative thinking, in building a world for a game and working together to create something that is hopefully greater than the sum of its parts.
So.
Anyone interested?
So I've been considering making this thread for quite a while now, and have had some inspiration recently that I think would add to it.
Essentially, what I'm proposing is a collaborative process wherein a handful of talented folks share ideas and together build a world for PnP RPGs and such, with as much detail and fantasy-based realism as possible.
What I'm looking for right now are a few volunteers. Essentially, we need people with good writing skills, collaborative ability and some experience working on this sort of project. None of what we build will be owned by any of us and all of it will be published here to be used by any GMs as they see fit, so this isn't like a "ahahaha rank is gunna milk you suckers and make a million!" or anything.
The sorts of things we'll need:
Cartographers - a couple folks to draw out the maps themselves and then add to them and draw more detailed maps by contintent, by region and even by city/village/etc.
Creature designers - preferably folks with a good background of creature design and basic rpg knowledge. The better understanding you have of how life actually works, how ecosystems evolve and how creatures become adapted to their environments, the better. We don't need "okay so this is just like a regular dragon, but it shoots acid diamonds." We need "okay, this is the sort of goat-like creature that the plains people here would herd, which look sort of like this because they had been bred with these things for this trait and these things for this trait and were bred to provide milk and hides, since the plains folk are nomadic, and..."
Landscape Designers - these are the folks that would work most closely with the cartographers in creating the full geography of the world. Preferably folks with a good understanding of geology and how time and nature shapes a world. Why a forest would be here. Why the rivers would form a particularly rich delta, which would tend to attract these sorts of creatures. Things like that.
City Planners - THere will naturally be a good number of large cities and smaller villages throughout the world. We'll need someone who can come up with the layout, history, regional culture and history of these cities. Who lives here, and why? How many different races or cultures intermingle here, and how do they mix to create their own particularly unique blend of music/trade/history/architecture in this city? What resources does this city have, and what does it trade for? Who would it trade to? What makes this city come alive? What makes it interesting? How are the streets laid out, the houses, the surrounding villages?
Cultural Designers - Hand in hand with the city planners and the landscape designers and the creature designers comes the Culture Design. How does a particular race or geography survive, what would its creation myths be, what would their houses look like, their farming practices, their architecture, their songs and their stories and their social class systems? What is their history? Are they of a single race, or are they a mixed society? Are they tribal, and if so, how many tribes, how are the tribes formed, how do they interact and how do they look upon other surrounding cultures? What is their trade like, what is their mating like, what is their idea of magic, their idea of religion, their idea of family in contrast to others in the world?
Obviously, all of these jobs are collaborative, and all of them require working together to come up with a cohesive vision. We'll need artists, writers and good teamwork to make this into anything remotely worth doing.
I'll provide a rough background of the world and an overall vision for the original inspiration, and will work in at least a few of the above roles while acting as sort of an overseer to help steer things. Since I'm the one proposing this, I'll act as arbiter and final judge for ideas and things, just so that we have someone to slam the gavel when arguments pop up or different ideas start to clash, but I don't want this to be seen as some kind of job by any means - this is just an exercise in creative thinking, in building a world for a game and working together to create something that is hopefully greater than the sum of its parts.
So.
Anyone interested?
Rankenphile on
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It's a good read, and pretty interesting, if you haven't read it already.
interesting
yeah, something similar to that, definitely. I've got a few rather solid ideas on what I think an interesting sort of scenario for world-building might be, basically clashing two extremely opposed existing worlds together to give us a starting point and a method of coming up with believable inhabitants and cultures of the world.
Thanks for the link.
Of course, I don't have any idea which design realm I'd be good at, so I don't know.
So put my down for culture/city/creature
Hugs, cyanide, high explosives, take your pick!
The blue region, believe it or not, is water. Green is regular land, grey is mountain ranges. The area in the middle, I'd like to see turned into a rather bare grassland area, like the plains of the Midwest or the eastern european steppe. Other than that, feel free to toss out ideas. I purposefully left lots of large peninsula areas, as those would - in my opinion, make for a logical way to separate different kingdoms or cultural areas.
As far as criteria for the world, here is what i have in mind. None of these criteria are set in stone, so if you have ideas as to why one fact or another shouldn't be, say so and why.
Known facts:
If you're interested in building the geography or mapping the cartography, volunteer here with specifics - do you want to flesh out the starting continental map, or work on a specific region?
The rest of you, let's hear some ideas, either for individual cultures or creatures or whatever you want, or an overall vision of how the world might work. This is the brainstorming phase, how do we want this all to work? Personally, I'd prefer to see more unique creatures than populating it with the standard RPG fare, but I'm open to all ideas.
The inhabitants could be like nomadic bandits. Other communities consider them a nuisance because they intrude upon everyone's territory for at least a few weeks each year, stealing odd supplies and killing animals, although our plain dwellers are merely continuing the lifestyle that they've lived for centuries.
The nomads (let's call them the Plentairie for now) are led by a male and female couple. These leaders were chosen for the role by the previous leaders, who at their birth recognised that they possessed the ability to be 'in tune' with nature; they have no words to explain it in greater depth than that, or at least none that they're willing to share with outsiders.
What is known about the Plentairie is that staying 'in tune' with nature is vital for their continued existence. Every few years some of them rebel at the current system, and leave to set up exile communities. Without fail, these Plentairie are never heard from again by anyone.
Good start, or no?
Proposal: Magic is more subtle, less flashy, and less prominent than D&D magic, but also available in some form to most people, often taking on superstitious forms (here's where I should know some of those classic things like throwing blood on your door so that the angel of death bypasses you or what-not.) Out-right spellcasters are therefore an abnormality and rarity without making magic in all of its forms nonexistant (but still downplayed; where's the line between magic and superstition?)
/ramble
Let's say players are allowed to be mages, too.
It's just that if they use flashy magic in public (as opposed to practising minor superstitions), everyone around them is going to be fearful or nervous about it. Some communities might even try to arrest them. Maybe even one or two communities that are fanatically dedicated to wiping out true mages - the setting's version of witch-hunters. Forcing mages to metaphorically hide in the shadows, perhaps.
Honestly, I envision the plains-dwellers to be a lot more like the ancient inhabitants of the eastern european steppe - along the lines of the mongols, the huns and all those sorts of folks. That was kind of what inspired this whole exercise, and if you all don't mind, I'll sort of take a guiding hand in shaping that particular mix of culture.
I like a lot of what you've got up there, but I'm going to take that and add bits of it to what I've already got envisioned for them. Primarily, I see the plains-dwellers not as a single race or culture but as a network of tribes, most of which are unaffiliated with each other except for a number of themes which run throughout them - they are unparalleled riders and archers, they are nomadic herders by nature, they share some trade with the outlying "civilized" cultures but are largely viewed as subhuman, they have their own magics and religions, and that very little of them is known to the outside world.
The center of the plains tends to act as sort of a "womb of nations" of sorts - it is a veritable black hole for information, little to nothing is known as to what happens there, but every decade or so a new strong tribe emerges and forces the smaller tribes outward in a ripple effect as they fight for their territories, forcing the most outlying (and usually the oldest) tribes into conflict with the outside cultures as they are marginalized and lose hold on their land.
Common themes throughout their cultures include worship of the natural powers that exist in such a landscape - lightning, thunder and wind. Their resources would be almost always organic - furs and skins and woven textiles as well as stone and bone for sharper tools. All gems, metal and other "artificial" materials would be traded for and thus more rare, but are not uncommon. Longer blades and a number of other mundane items would necessarily be made of metal, and richer merchants would often have gemstones or precious metals interwoven in their garments.
I've got a lot more about these guys I can post, but I'm fucking starving and I need to toss a pizza in the oven.
We should likely get a wiki started for a lot of these materials, once we get some static ideas down. Anyone want to volunteer to maintain it?
I definitely think magic should be much less flashy and "practical" and mundane as it is in D&D. I, at least right now, envision it as more along the lines of how it is in LotR - wielded by only a few very powerful folks. Perhaps it tends to be more shamanistic or granted to the holy, although it could certainly vary from culture to culture, as well. That could add an interesting dynamic to the different "nations" and cultures - one is a religious-based culture with more prominance for certian kinds of magic reserved among the holy men, one is more in love with the idea of arcane research and "demonism", another more into logic and technology, another more into shamanism and drawing its power through nature (the plains-dwellers would certainly fit in this regard).
Also, you see that tiny island in the top right? Not the crescent shaped one. The one to the top right of that, and even smaller.
That right there is the island of Devwar. The only thing on it is a small religious community, and a collection of whatever generic farm-animal we finally decide upon for the region.
The monks and nuns that populate Devwar venerate the marine goddess of Lethyssa, and their church building is named after her primary saint, Lian of Devwar. Lethyssa, according to those who worship her, is in charge of almost everything water-related in the world - from the seas, to rain keeping plants alive, to water-based magic.
They keep themselves to themselves, apart from the odd missionary that will come to the mainland every few months to request a counsel with whatever high-ranking politician or noble is willing to lend an ear.
What none of the Order of Lethyssa realise is that their high priest is secretly a Piskfang, a shapeshifting aquatic vampire (for want of a better description). Those missionaries? Thralls, brainwashed into his service.
Runoff from the moutains might create some marshes or some other wetland complexes here or there... but for the most part I'd think that the central area is going to be more like Nevada than Nebraska.
What geographic changes would you see made to change that?
Is there an approx. size of that map? Depending on the scale, that could be the size of Manhattan or tiny island to the North East--not that that's a huge problem, but it certainly changes the scale of above mentioned religious organization.
Also though it's kind of assumed to be DnD, it hasn't been explicitly stated: What system is this setting designed around? While one would think that wouldn't make a difference, there's several relevent pieces of information: level one wizards will be able to cast magic missile. Diseases can be healed, and the dead can return to life. How does this modify the setting? Though people can be arrested for obvious signs of magic use, this just kicks the issue under the rug, and any player's "subtle-magic" illusion for anybody but non magic-users (aka Rogue, Barbarian, and Fighter). I only say these things so that they can be thought about and considered. I know the scope of this thread is setting not system but it will help define a player's role. For example, if magic is subtle and generally charms and non obvious magic, then most magic using player characters would actually be accomplished magicians at level 1.
Edit: And more importantly: blue dot :P
Well if you wanted to keep those mountains they'd have to be low in elevation... meaning less like the Cascades and more like the Catskills... one thing you'll note about the great plains of North America... or any other continent... is how goddamn flat they are stretching out for thousands of miles.
I'd say as it stands it could be pretty cool, though different from your original idea.
That central area could be the large caldera that is the last sign of the continent's very explosive origin. Within it would be likely be fouind a great diversity of geologic formations, and a great richness of minerals that more advanced civilizations might crave. However tempting the gold and other metals of this area may be, its harsh climate is more than enough to deter many an entrepreneurial prospector... and its native inhabitants, thriving with a new influx of outside technology and tools, might be very formidable on their home turf or elsewhere.
Think Death Valley. Harsh, unforgiving landscape. Extreme temperatures. Mines everywhere.
Nomadic people of this region, instead of migrating large distances like the indigenous peoples of the American and Asian steppes, might instead migrate in terms of elevation. Spring happens first at the bottom of the mountains, and progresses up toward the top as the season moves into summer. So too would the tribes of the area, following the advance of plants as well as the movement of herds. They would likely have spiritual beliefs strongly founded upon this change of seasons as well that have strict observances dealing with the timing and intensity of plant and animal harvest.
Humans might be of generally low population (in terms of density) and due to the difficulty of their daily existence, would probably be "behind the times" in terms of technology. But that mineral richness (and possibility the richness of endemic flora and fauna that such an isolated area might boast) would eventually attract the attention of coastal civilizations. And when the natives of the Caldera discover these newcomers digging up their landscape and capturing their plants and animals, they might not like it very much at all. Then of course, they obtain some of the very useful items that the outside world brings in... things like horses and forged metal. Suddenly a new class emerges in this culture: Raiders.
Now, of course the people of this region would be pretty damn tough. They live in an extremely difficult environment, one where human life is won by survival. However, the various bands that populate the Caldera would likely have worked out a rough territorial scheme. However, like anyone else they look over the fence and wonder why the hell their neighbors deserve to have something nicer than they do... and this coupled with the great influence that weather has on their population and prosperity sets the stage for tribal warfare being a fact of life... and some of the tribes might actually specialize in it... most likely these tribes would be like predators, their home range being mostly that of the floor of the Caldera. Life is pretty tough down there... but it's going to snow. You're going to have to go down there eventually. These "low" tribes would probably welcome the prospect of raiding outsiders, and take to it very quickly.
These raiders of the caldera could make your mongol hordes shit their pants in fear. Combine the fiercer tribes of the Great Basin (like the Modocs for example) with the Fremen of Arrakis. Appearing from nowhere, striking swiftly without fear or mercy.
And some of them will have gotten the idea that people who have purposefully stayed out of their homelands are much, much easier targets than those have the guts to venture within.
I think that we can arrive at a similar culture to what you had envisioned without departing too much from the geography... just taking a page from human history and imagining it happening in a different way.
They have continually raided the outlying foothill lands for centuries, to the point that their existence has elevated into legend and myth. Their humanity has relentlessly been stripped away until now only the basest of human beings are left. The regimental order has become akin to a religion now, with heavily stratified groups within the each subset. Truly it is the only civilized thing left in this human abattoir. But because of this order, it makes the raiding bands absolutely devastating and many other races simply up and run when the raids overtake them, allowing the band to plunder and burn their entire existence. This mountain race has been responsible for the extermination of several other races already. And so on....
Anyway, just a really random stream of thoughts, but hey ideas are ideas right.
However, I would also add that the central region is either going to be substantially lower or higher than the surrounding regions depending on which continental plates are being sucked under to make those mountain ranges, so what might help is some kind of map of the underlying tectonic plates.
It would also be helpful to know just how big that continent is so we could figure out how bad the rain shadow on the other side of those mountains is.
Yes, I was kind of thinking lower.
I think making the only spell users super-powerful or demigods does a lot to lean in favor of DND-style flashy magic.
Making it so subtle that there's no way to tell if it's superstition or magic does a lot to make it less flashy but still maintain some sense mundanity, which I think is more or less present in all real cultures; animal sacrifice to appease the spirits, hanging garlic on your door to ward off evil, wearing rabbits paws for good luck -- they're all tiny things that could be innately magical, but are never flashy or obvious enough to actually be declared out and out magic.
Then I guess you can also have rare mages who can cast Meteor Swarm, if that's what you're looking for.
edit - Oh yeah, in addition to the question of scale, is there a sense of where this continent (if it is indeed of that size) is in relation to the equator / poles? Does it span several climate zones from north to south, or is it all primarily temperate / tropical / whatever? Gotta dig up a copy of Guns, Germs, and Steel again...