Worldbuilding - One of the joys of GM/DMing?

[Treebore]

Snoweel, I'm not even going to quote the last response you gave me. It was filled with low level hostility. You are quite the charmer...from indignation at my explanation of a term I thought I could have clarified more, to projecting that chip you have on your shoulder onto my responses, to calling me "princess," for finding your endless pissiness annoying.

Personally I find your lack of tact and aggregious flouncing of the rules of civil discourse rather invigorating but we are not the only folks reading this thread. It is for them that I ask that you find a way to vent your bile outside this thread, thereby preventing it from becoming distracted from its main purpose.*

*...which is of course to allow me to expound my wisdom while at the same time subtly and thoroughly invalidating all opinions different from my own thereby demonstrating my native and complete superiority as a gamemaster...shhhhh...don't tell anyone.


Wyrmshadows

When you find a certain poster annoys you its simple. Skip over their posts. You can even go so far as put them on your ignore list. I don't go that far myself, because everyone says something interesting at one time or another.

If he has really gone "over the line" you can use that little icon in the lower left of his post next to his online/offline indicator, and ask a moderator to take a look at the situation.

I don't know. I started skipping his posts a while ago.

 

[SavageRobby]

One of the best things that happened in my Diamond Throne campaign was that one of the players decide he wanted to play a Giant "Commissar". Such a thing doesn't exist per RAW/setting book. His idea was having a character that worked in a more or less official capacity to investigate threats and crimes in the Diamond Throne. It was a perfect plot hook, and I used it several times in my campaign to motivate the players actions and to flesh out details.

If every player provides me with just one such hook, a hook that ties strongly into the game world, I am sure things could be awesome.

Maybe for my next homebrew, I will try to use such ideas more...

Thats awesome.


I've found when one player does it and gets something kinda special baked into the campaign for them, the others want to do it, too. In our Evernight game, I had each person pick a different region they came from, and tell me about the region. We got really cool stuff out of it. One area was a city known for its Gladiators, and the character from there was, of course, a famous Gladiator. One character came from "End of the World" Endin, the backwater city of the kingdom. One was the hereditary elven Warlord of legend, born only at a time when the war was imminent, and would have to take over from the King and Queen (who ruled in peacetime) during the war. All of these were spun by the players, not me - but I got GREAT material to work with. That was all really started by one player, and then other players said, "Hey, can I do that, too?"

Our Pathfinder Rise of the Runelords game (run with Savage Worlds) has a Shoanti character who envisioned them somewhat akin to the Aiel crossed with the Mongols. So thats how they became in our version of the world. One player wanted his character to be the son of a high ranking noble from Magnimar - and the Lord Mayor seemed like a good candidate (and great tie-in to the world and plot). Another wanted a dwarven clericy-type that has had dreams that are coming true (and if you're familiar with the Pathfinder world - well, right now thats a big deal).

As a DM a decade ago, in all those cases I'd have said, "No way, messes with the world and canon." As a DM today, I go "hell yeah, thats a really cool story element". And we'll all have a better game for it.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

As a DM a decade ago, in all those cases I'd have said, "No way, messes with the world and canon." As a DM today, I go "hell yeah, thats a really cool story element". And we'll all have a better game for it.

Yes, but unless you don't mind being just a referee for the players rather than being a participant you'd probably want to set limits. (I'm not saying there's anything wrong with playing referee instead.)

Take an example I've thought about: It's a space opera setting, and one player wants to play the last surviving member of a race who's planet was blown up by an evil overlord. Now so far that might not be too bad. But if that player decides they want the overlord to still be around and still have the capacity to blow up planets I'd say no. I don't like word-destroying threats hanging over a setting. But I'd try to let them know ahead of time that that idea would get rejected, and we might still be able to work something out.

 

[el-remmen]

I'm a world-builder. I'm the kind of person that likes all the little setting details in something like Tolkien and was first enthralled by the idea of world-building from the original Ed Greenwood articles about Forgotten Realms that appeared in Dungeon long before the Realms was ever released as an "official setting". That was the kind of thing I tried to emulate. And you can see the link to the Aquerra wiki in my sig.

I do believe that the limitations inherent to a setting are what define that - and I prefer the creativity required to build something withing those limits.

On the other hand, as much as I love the details and building cultures and customs and history, I handwave most of the economic stuff and the more banal details of some hierarchy of nobles. . . that is until it matters for a specific adventure or campaign.

For me the player characters are the lens through which all this creation happens, and once it does happen it becomes enshrined into the cannon of the setting and exists for me to use for some future adventure or campaign and have that part or aspect of the setting have that much more life each time it is visited by virtue of those previous visits.

So essentially my homebrew is kind of a ghostly skeleton of basic tropes for regions, with smaller sections fleshed out in much more detail because games have occured there - PCs have visited there.

But that doesn't mean I am going allow someone to play a tiefling or a dragonborn because the assumptions of the setting (even if such things existed) is based on a very humanocentric world - the effort and energy to play up the fear, hatred, scorn, misunderstanding of such a choice might be more than I as a DM want to deal with, or more than the player bargained for - but anything less than that would be dissatisfying to me.

Those who have read my "Out of the Frying Pan" story hour know that the character of Ratchis (a half-orc) had to deal with a lot of prejudice and persecution despite being "a good guy" - to the degree that some readers commented on it and wondered if the player could possible enjoy that (the answer was 'yes') - but at the same time the majority of that campaign occured out in the wilderness and remote places - the negative attention he would have gotten in a more "civilized" area might have been even worse.

 

[jdrakeh]

I dunno. I really enjoyed world building when I wasn't running or playing games. It was kind of a filler for free time but now, frankly, I have other things that I would rather be doing with my free time.

 

[Greg K]

I like word building both as a DM and as a player. Assuming the DM is not running a world based upon our own, I, as a player, want to explore a setting. if the DM isn't running a "canned' setting and has not put any work into designing a world, I have no interest in playing (I'll also refuse to play if the focus is heavily upon dungeon crawling). What I want to see from the DM are:

1. A hook that gives me an idea of the setting (without giving away secrets).
ex. A harsh, dying desert world dominated by the sorceror kings, whom rule individual city states. Arcane magic is outlawed and divine power is granted either by the elemental planes, nature, or the sorcerer kings themselves.
ex. A world of gothic horror in which denizens are pulled in from other worlds by a mysterious mist.
ex., A prehistoric world in which the gods walk the land as dinosaurs.
ex. a Renaissance era like world beset upon by horrors from the Far-Realm.
ex. a mythical world of adventure inspired by various Asian countries and their individual mythologies with each country having its own setting counterpart


2. The deities of the setting and their domains (if the setting has deities)

3. The available PC Races for the setting and how they differ, if any, from the standard version(s).

4. Nations: What are the different nations of the world from which the PC's can start?

5. Cultures: What distinguishes one culture from another? Have a few paragraphs to provide me some insight into the setting's cultures and help me to make meaningful choices during character creation that immerse my character into the setting, provide me ideas for background and rp hooks. Things I like to see include are notes on:

- Subsistance Patterns (e.g. hunter/gatherer, horticulture, pastoralism, agriculture)

- social/political organization (e.g., band, tribe, chiefdom, state) and, if applicable what type of government (e.g., matriarchy, theocracy, mageocracy, feudal, etc.))

- social stratification (e.g., egalitarian or social classes)

- kinship and descent (bilateral or unilineal (i.e, matrilineal or patrilineal))

- major type of econcomic exchange ( e.g., general reciprocity (sharing), balanced reciprocity, negative reciprocity (barter), redistribution, monetary exchange).

- views on property ownership (e.g., communal, personal ownersihp)

- notes about views on law and punishment (e.g, the practicing of banishment or shunning, cutting off limbs or removing eyes, death penalty, slavery)

- religious practices (e.g., animism, shamanism, priesthood)

- physical appearance (range of hair and eye color, average heights and build of men and women)

- dress

- body adornment practices (e.g., tatoos, piercings, jewerly)

- naming conventions for the culture.


- noteable NPCs of whom PCs in the culture might know or heard of from being a member of a given culture or from organizational ties.

- other notes that may be of interest: Gladitorial events, acceptance of slavery practices (and, socially accepted means, if any, to escape)

5. Available starting classes and/or class variants found within the given culture. Environment (e.g., rural or urban) or religious practices may limit the availability of certain classes or alter certain class features.

6. noteable organizations (e.g., priesthoods, magical academies, thieves guild, bard colleges, noble houses, societies). These organizations may or may not be cultural specific. If applicable, the DM should include any noteable features like dress or body adornement, symbols, etc. which visually distinguish members of an organization, as well as tenets, organizational allies and enemies, etc.

7. A few bits of specific knowledge/currrent events that are culturally and, if applicable, organizational based- knowledge that someone without my character's culture and/or background/affiliations would not have. This can be knowing a particular monster lives in the nearby forests or mountains, knowing of a particular order or secret society found only among my character's people, the druids whom act as scholars, diplomats and religous leaders of my character's people were attacked my foreign wizards.

8. Be knowledgable enough about the setting to sit with me and ensure the character's background actually works with the setting and, if need be, to tweak the background.

If the DM goes into extras like architecture, the shape and surface impressions of coins, etc. that is fine, but not a necessity.

 

[Snoweel]

When you find a certain poster annoys you its simple. Skip over their posts. You can even go so far as put them on your ignore list. I don't go that far myself, because everyone says something interesting at one time or another.

Damn straight you don't put me on your ignore list - I'm the funniest, most interesting poster on these boards.

It would be your loss if you did.

If he has really gone "over the line" you can use that little icon in the lower left of his post next to his online/offline indicator, and ask a moderator to take a look at the situation.

Mate, I never go "over the line" unless my intelligence has been insulted. You should be thankful I don't hit the Report Post button on your passive aggressive drivel.

I don't know. I started skipping his posts a while ago.

Sure you did.

We all know you read every word. Every. Single. Word.

 

[Rel]

Could somebody tell me what Snoweel said?

 

[Snoweel]

lol

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Seriously, snoweel, get with the program! Wrymshadows made the thread, so if you disagree with him and he spends like half a page refuting you, the right thing to do is obviously say "I'm sorry you're right" and do a little bow, not to be mean and respond, just 'cause he responded to you in length.

That's how internet forums operate, man!

Seriously, though, if you make a thread, and you only want people to respond with "Oh yeah I agree", just put that in the first post so people don't get confused.