Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Let's Talk About RPG Worldbuilding
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 8325305" data-attributes="member: 177"><p>I'm going to work this largely from (2) that pemerton lists, above. </p><p></p><p>From this standpoint, worldbuilding is an activity to make things for the PCs to interact with. And from that we can see very quickly that as a GM with a particular table, my worldbuilding ought to look rather different from that of a published work.</p><p></p><p>When I do worldbuilding, I build only what I need. If I don't expect players to interact with it, I don't build it. If I don't expect it to impact play <em>soon</em>, I don't really need to build it. Huge swaths of the world can be left blank, because they are not relevant for my upcoming sessions. </p><p></p><p>This is different from published works - I have some good idea of what I'll need for my campaign and upcoming sessions. The guy who wrote the setting book years ago had no idea what I'd need. So the published work has tons more stuff in it than I need, ad I pick and choose what I want. But most of the work actually ends up falling into pemerton's (3), not ever going to impact play.</p><p></p><p>My favorite exmples of worldbuilding have been Classic Deadlands and the old Alternity Dark*Matter settings. Both of them amount to <em>gigantic piles</em> of adventure seeds.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 8325305, member: 177"] I'm going to work this largely from (2) that pemerton lists, above. From this standpoint, worldbuilding is an activity to make things for the PCs to interact with. And from that we can see very quickly that as a GM with a particular table, my worldbuilding ought to look rather different from that of a published work. When I do worldbuilding, I build only what I need. If I don't expect players to interact with it, I don't build it. If I don't expect it to impact play [I]soon[/I], I don't really need to build it. Huge swaths of the world can be left blank, because they are not relevant for my upcoming sessions. This is different from published works - I have some good idea of what I'll need for my campaign and upcoming sessions. The guy who wrote the setting book years ago had no idea what I'd need. So the published work has tons more stuff in it than I need, ad I pick and choose what I want. But most of the work actually ends up falling into pemerton's (3), not ever going to impact play. My favorite exmples of worldbuilding have been Classic Deadlands and the old Alternity Dark*Matter settings. Both of them amount to [I]gigantic piles[/I] of adventure seeds. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Let's Talk About RPG Worldbuilding
Top