A good source for world building advice?

[BiggusGeekus]

A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe and A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture in particular are well worth looking at.

These books are awesome.

 

[Psion]

Thanks guys. Wonderful replies.

On another note, what would you recomend for overland/continant map drawing software? I'm looking at Campaign Cartographer 2.

If you are starting from scratch, and have the cash, I recommend getting CC2 and Fractal Terrains, depending on how much automations you want. You can draw continents in CC2, and it will do fractalized coastlines. FT is a stand alone package that will generate whole worlds at the touch of a button and can export them to CC2, as well as jpg, html, etc., complete with things like terrain contours, climate, rainfall, and temperature. Just import into CC2, add political divisions, pretty it up with terrain icons, what have you.

Here's some sample worlds that are done by CC2/FT:
http://www.jhendor.de/geo/index.html#Maps
http://www.breminor.com/maps.htm

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

GURPS Fantasy has lots of fantasy-related worldbuilding advice.

 

[XCorvis]

Dungeoncraft articles, archived on John H. Kim's incredible site. http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/dnd/dungeoncraft/

(I won't pretend to know about the legality of reposting the articles, but it's been up there a long time and it's not exactly a secret.)

Also check the rest of his site for other goodies.
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/index.html

 

[Greg K]

Campaign Law/Character Law for pre-RMSS Rolemaster is another good one. I can't recall if the RMSS version of the material is in the core book or GM Law (if the latter, it would be a worthwhile buy).

 

[Andor]

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

 

[sirkillian]

If you want to build worlds/countries/regions/towns...

My suggestions world building the material part: general geography books etc. But also Aria World (those that have got past the jargon suggest it as very valuable tool). Also Good book read is HARN world boxed set. and HARN palyer guide

A bit smaller area (countries ect.): Rolemaster Castles and Ruins (out of print but PDF available), RuneQuest Fantasy cites (I have it in Finnish so I don't know english name), Again Aria Wold, HARN kingdom books.

Yet smaller area: HARN Manor. Castles and Ruins, RQ fantasy towns and Aria World.

There are also very good web sites and my faw is :
http://users.tkk.fi/~vesanto/roleplay.html

corrected link

The Aria World book is a great source for building a new campaign.

 

[DMH]

I recently got two Troll Lord books- Living Fantasy and Nation Builder. I have to say that I consider NB to be one of the best products on worldbuilding I have read and LF is simply a set of charts with more text than usual. Since there is some overlap, I strongly suggest Nation Builder for your shelf.

As for MS:Ecology and Culture, the best parts of the ecology section are also in Beast Builder.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Thanks guys. Wonderful replies.

On another note, what would you recomend for overland/continant map drawing software? I'm looking at Campaign Cartographer 2.

Campaign Cartographer 3 is in the works, and looks awesome! I intend to purchase it as soon as I possibly can, and as a Fractal Mapper user I will be getting a discount.

The Auld Grump

 

[reason]

...

Good campaigns are all about new ideas and inspiration; the whole game thing is pretty secondary. The best inspiration is to get out there and read some fiction you wouldn't have picked up yourself. State some genre constraints and have a friend give you book recommendations - then read them. Works really well.

Reason
Principia Infecta