World Building Resources

[Nytmare]

It might be too close to an in-depth scientific approach, but I suggest reading "Guns Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond.

(if you want to cheat, there's a TV show)

 

[Greatwyrm]

There's a lot of good stuff above and I don't really want to duplicate on that.

I liked the Gygax World Building series, published by Troll Lord Games, IIRC. I wasn't that big on Canting Crew, but the rest of the series is pretty handy. What I really liked is there are lists of practically everything. Small town names. Types of trees. Types of gems. What a day in the life of a typical <occupation> would be like.

The Savage Worlds Fantasy World Guide is a nice book. However, it's not much that you haven't seen elsewhere. If you're running a SW game, about a third of it is specific to SW, which is handy. Otherwise, it may not be what you're looking for.

 

[Dathalas]

Tewligan: Thanks for the info on The World Builder's Guidebook! It sounds like it might be a great fit for me.

Ainatan: Thanks for the great links. The Domesday Book link will really help. I'll check out The Cartographer's Guild website as soon as I have time.

Nytmare: Guns, Germs, and Steel looks like an interesting read, but it's a little academic for my purposes. I'll keep an eye out for the TV version of it.

Greatwyrm: Thanks for the recommendations. I'll take a look at the Gygax World Building series and steer clear of the Savage Worlds book. I like Savage Worlds, but I'm just not going to be running it any time in the near future.

Thanks to everyone for your help and recommendations. If anyone else knows of any good world building resources, please post them. Thanks again!

Dath

 

[TerraDave]

TerraDave...Thanks for recommending A Magical Medieval Society. What do you like what about it? What's in it that would help me?...

Its a great resource for community building.

And now there is a 2nd Edition:

http://www.xrpshop.citymax.com

 

[loseth]

You might find a series of posts I did on PoL worlds to be useful:

The darkness surrounding the points of light

'Points of light' is not just for post-apocalyptic fantasy

Points of light against the bandits and raiders

 

[Asmor]

I don't think it's exactly what you're looking for, but Gygax put out a really cool book... I think it was called World Builder. Basically just pages and pages and pages of lists of titles, plants, jobs, explanations of geographical features, tables of gems, etc, etc. I'm pretty sure it's available in print (hardcover) or PDF.

 

[Dathalas]

loseth: Thanks for the links. Those look like really interesting posts and I'll definitely check them out this weekend.

Asmor: Thanks for the recommendation. It's not quite what I'm looking for right now, but I'll keep it in mind.

 

[The Little Raven]

http://neitherworldstories.blogspot.com/2007/02/culture-making-checklist.html

This always helps me when putting together new cultures and such.

 

[ferratus]

Third for Magical Medieval Society. Dem fine book.

Threads on EN World.

Magical Medieval Society gets a lot of things wrong when it comes to real life history though.

Examples include their description of Indulgences, which were described in the book as being "prepaid pardons for sins not yet committed". This is completely wrong. An indulgence, in Roman Catholic theology, is the (full or partial) remission of temporal punishment due for sins which have already been forgiven. A simple perusal of wikipedia or the even better source of the catholic encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07783a.htm) would correct this. The chapter on "those who pray" has numerous problems when it tries to say something about theology and workings of the Medieval Church.

Other things they get wrong are the access the peasantry have to the courts and the rate of literacy that the peasantry had in order to have access to those courts. In England for instance, the peasants were especially fond of suing each other which is a tendency that inheritors of English legal system continue to this day.

It would have also been nice to give medieval women their due in the social roles in the early and high middle ages, who owned businesses, ruled territory, and managed finances. There are also plenty of examples of women who fought for a living.

Another major sin is that it treats the middle ages as a monolithic culture. We are talking about an entire continent, over 1000 years, inhabited by millions of people. Some places life was very good, so much so that I'd rather live there than certain parts of certain cities in the modern day. Other parts were very bad, and I'd rather live in Basra, Iraq.

It is passable on the rules mechanics side for generating manors and cities, and the ideas they have for integrating magic into a medieval society are good ones. However, don't take it as an authoritative guide to middle ages. Of course, pop medieval history is so bad that I wouldn't trust any history books in your local bookstore. My advice for those who want to learn more about the medieval period is to go to your local university, peruse the recommended textbooks for various courses on medieval history, and buy those.

I tell this to everyone I meet who is interested in Medieval history, because the idea that those frauds who sell books through the major bookstores should get one more thin dime personally galls me.

 

[Dathalas]

Mourn: Thanks for the link to the checklist. It looks pretty useful.

Ferratus: Thanks for the info on A Magical Medieval Society.

And thanks to everyone else who has participated in this thread. I really appreciate the help.

Dath