Worldbuilding Talk Thread

[Master_Moridin]

I always try to make sure that there's no 'purely evil' race in the worlds I make. One thing I do with goblins is I ramp up their rate of reproduction. They have litters of children in a few mere months. They're sentient K-strategists. Their rapid reproduction and maturation allows them to spread aggressively and rapidly. The problems only arise when their expansion is checked by some force, such as human communities or environmental factors. In these situations, the villages rapidly overpopulate. The villages struggle to feed all of them, the populations grow rapidly, unable to move out, and it gets grim fast. Soon they live in extreme poverty, having to raid other groups to get the food and goods they need to survive. It adds a layer of depth to goblin raider problems when that goblin is raiding to feed a family of 20 starving children.

That's a really interesting way of going about things. I might use that for why goblinoid groups were hostile to each other in the beginning. The main issue I tend to run into has to do with the goblinoids being the dominant force on the continent the setting is placed. They are the oldest race next to dwarfs and elves, and are also the only ones to have 'naturally evolved' (leads to a bunch of Humans Are Weird). Trying to set them up as a believable 'stable' civilization while keeping them recognizable as goblinoids is so difficult it makes me want to shake a fist of the MM writers and at myself for not being able to figure it out. It's easy to refluff them, but the fluff there is is so thin (savage militant conquerors for the hobgoblins) there's nothing left to distinguish them.

EDIT: I think a much better question I should have asked then is, what to yall makes a goblinoid a goblinoid, and not, say, really freaky and furry elves? (or really freaky and furry humans?)

[Frozen_Feet]

I was wondering what other people's thoughts were on goblinoids (particularly hobgoblins) as characters.

I like them. Mostly because as a DM, they are what I end up playing a lot of the time.

I don't usually pour a huge deal of effort into fabricating goblinoid societies. I keep them as fairly basic and animalistic. All it really takes to give them more depth is to make the adventurers meet the women and children first.

I will never tire of asking "are you proud of yourself now?" from a player character who brutally murdered a defenseless goblin trying its best to flee from him. Later you can then rub it on their face that the only reason the goblins inflict bloody murder on them is because they did it first.

I think a much better question I should have asked then is, what to yall makes a goblinoid a goblinoid, and not, say, really freaky and furry elves?

In the folklore of my people, there really wasn't all that much a difference. In practice it really boils down to two questions: "Are they ugly?" and "Do we like them?"

When answer to both is yes, you're dealing with a goblin. Otherwise, elf.

[sktarq]

That's a really interesting way of going about things. I might use that for why goblinoid groups were hostile to each other in the beginning. The main issue I tend to run into has to do with the goblinoids being the dominant force on the continent the setting is placed. They are the oldest race next to dwarfs and elves, and are also the only ones to have 'naturally evolved' (leads to a bunch of Humans Are Weird). Trying to set them up as a believable 'stable' civilization while keeping them recognizable as goblinoids is so difficult it makes me want to shake a fist of the MM writers and at myself for not being able to figure it out. It's easy to refluff them, but the fluff there is is so thin (savage militant conquerors for the hobgoblins) there's nothing left to distinguish them.

One take you could do would be to take certain elements of say ancient Summerian or Persian/Parthian culture. Where a large nation is built on a overking having the loyalty of various vassal kings who each have their own cities or provinces to attend to. The Overking's power is only nominally more than the vassals except for the loyalty he has. For these overkings to keep their vassals loyal he needs either to show success in raids on other nations (including other hobgoblins nations) or to have kept the others in line through fear. Combined with a big focus on bloodline succession any empires would only need a single week member to fall into its constituent parts which would fight and raid in hopes of attracting other kings to the leaders banner. Once a new overking rises a couple of large raids or short wars with neighboring peoples would establish leadership of each new king and the rest of their rule would be of the peaceful building times. So the culture would be stable but the overall leadership would not be.

[Tzi]

I always try to make sure that there's no 'purely evil' race in the worlds I make. One thing I do with goblins is I ramp up their rate of reproduction. They have litters of children in a few mere months. They're sentient K-strategists. Their rapid reproduction and maturation allows them to spread aggressively and rapidly. The problems only arise when their expansion is checked by some force, such as human communities or environmental factors. In these situations, the villages rapidly overpopulate. The villages struggle to feed all of them, the populations grow rapidly, unable to move out, and it gets grim fast. Soon they live in extreme poverty, having to raid other groups to get the food and goods they need to survive. It adds a layer of depth to goblin raider problems when that goblin is raiding to feed a family of 20 starving children.

Evil is what you make of it. One race I've made are basically Dhampir's created from an incredibly ancient human army that moved through portal's across many worlds. These humans were turned into blood drinkers and living vampires to be more effective and aggressive warriors. They basically are a stellar swarm of locusts since the fall of the great army of mankind. They find a world and invade but in a sense they act purely for their own survival. If they ceased they would die, and they can't biologically survive as vegetarians, so they must be predators. Though some have adopted a new way of life of carefully controlling their numbers and treating worlds teaming with life as places to carefully manage and harvest as needed. Essentially becoming a race of druidic ranchers. So evil a predatory race of blood drinking hunters from the void can have a good side.

[Yora]

I was wondering what other people's thoughts were on goblinoids (particularly hobgoblins) as characters.

As much as I disliked the first Hobbit movie (the second one was quite decent though), I really liked what they did with the villains. Not quite sure if they are supposed to be some breed of goblin or orc (which in Middle-Earth isn't a clear cut distinction anyway), but they do feel a lot like hobgoblins.
They are evil, but not portrayed as a bunch of burning and pillaging idiots, but instead quite professional. While still having rather low-tech equipment.

[Master_Moridin]

As much as I disliked the first Hobbit movie (the second one was quite decent though), I really liked what they did with the villains. Not quite sure if they are supposed to be some breed of goblin or orc (which in Middle-Earth isn't a clear cut distinction anyway), but they do feel a lot like hobgoblins.
They are evil, but not portrayed as a bunch of burning and pillaging idiots, but instead quite professional. While still having rather low-tech equipment.

Well, in regards to the Tolkien mythos, orc and goblin are exchangeable terms, with the ones appearing in The Hobbit being the ones of the Misty Mountains. (In the book the word goblin is the one primarily used) The book makes explicit reference to "large goblins, great Orcs of the mountains", signifying that the goblins of the Misty Mountains are in general better (for lack of a better term) than your average goblin at this particular point in time. Funnily enough in regards to hobgoblins, Tolkien originally used the term to refer to large goblins before realizing that hob- is actually a signifier for small things.

But this is ridiculous amounts of tangential.

[Eldan]

As much as I disliked the first Hobbit movie (the second one was quite decent though), I really liked what they did with the villains. Not quite sure if they are supposed to be some breed of goblin or orc (which in Middle-Earth isn't a clear cut distinction anyway), but they do feel a lot like hobgoblins.
They are evil, but not portrayed as a bunch of burning and pillaging idiots, but instead quite professional. While still having rather low-tech equipment.

Interestingly enough, Tolkien mentions explicitely in the Hobbit that Goblins have pretty much the highest tech level around. Clever, destructive devices, he calls it, I Think.

[Tzi]

On Orc's and Hobgoblins....

I've ran with at least keeping Orc's as a race in the world. I am still debating on having them in place of humans or along with humans.

My originally conception is that neither Orc nor Human is native to the world of the campaign. Orc's are from a different world orbiting a different star, but are in fact human or of human origin. The whole of the Orc race is merely Humans whom have mutated after their world suffered a cruel twist of fate. Too close for comfort a star entered it's death throws. In a universe of magic this can be even more cataclysmic if your close by. Magical storms as well as deadly cosmic rays burst fourth from the dying stellar body bathing the once vibrant human world in radiation and magical storms and effects that twisted the world. Fearing the immanent destruction of their already barren world, the people whom survived (Though mutated and changed) seek sanctuary on the nearest world they can find. Which happens to be the world of the Elves.

Part of me wants to have a city of humans already on the campaign world from this same now doomed world, explaining how they know of it and can build a portal to it. The Orc's are less evil and more determined survivalists. They will survive and carry on. This pits them in some form of conflict with the native elves whom are torn between their need for allies against cosmic forces and threats that exist on the world itself, and a general xenophobia about alien races. The main question is to have original humans in the campaign world and if so why they came and what they would think of the Elves and the Orc's.

[Tzi]

When it comes to Gods and Goddesses do the rest of you for example create pantheons similar to say the standard D&D divinities, Ancient Greek divinities, Hindu?

I had the idea that with the Elves there exists an ancient core pantheon based on Star's, Planets, Moon's ect that exist in a sort of celestial order.

First the Primordial, Primordial's being nearly unfathomable star gods. Associated with the cosmic bodies such as Star's, Nebula, constellations, elemental forces. So the Sun would be the Primordial ancestor of a second class being the Titan's. Typical domains for a Primordial would be like Darkness, Fire, Chaos, Law, Destruction, Evil, Magic, Sun, and Void.

The Titan's consist of the planets and their moon's and other stellar bodies in the solar system. Domains would be like Earth, Travel.

Then there are God's and Goddesses, associated with the natural forces and conventional domains of the world of the campaign. Domains would be like Nobility, Nature, Animal, Weather, Water, Air, Artifice, Knowledge, Magic, ect.

But this would be only one races "Divine Order of Things," I'd probably have to create a separate one for Humans, Orc's ect.

[Everyl]

When it comes to Gods and Goddesses do the rest of you for example create pantheons similar to say the standard D&D divinities, Ancient Greek divinities, Hindu?

I had the idea that with the Elves there exists an ancient core pantheon based on Star's, Planets, Moon's ect that exist in a sort of celestial order.

First the Primordial, Primordial's being nearly unfathomable star gods. Associated with the cosmic bodies such as Star's, Nebula, constellations, elemental forces. So the Sun would be the Primordial ancestor of a second class being the Titan's. Typical domains for a Primordial would be like Darkness, Fire, Chaos, Law, Destruction, Evil, Magic, Sun, and Void.

The Titan's consist of the planets and their moon's and other stellar bodies in the solar system. Domains would be like Earth, Travel.

Then there are God's and Goddesses, associated with the natural forces and conventional domains of the world of the campaign. Domains would be like Nobility, Nature, Animal, Weather, Water, Air, Artifice, Knowledge, Magic, ect.

But this would be only one races "Divine Order of Things," I'd probably have to create a separate one for Humans, Orc's ect.

I use different approaches for different settings. In one of my settings, I went with a very D&D-style pantheon - there is one group of no more than a few dozen gods, who can be killed in world-changing conflicts, usually to be replaced by ascended mortals. For that one, I decided to keep the total number of Gods down to about 15-30, depending on the exact point in history, so as to keep the setting's religion simple enough to be summarized for new players in a page or three of text. Further complications are added when different races and cultures worship the same gods in radically different ways, but that's easier to deal with in my opinion than having numerous separate pantheons. It's worth noting that, in the cosmology of this setting, the original 15 Gods had a direct hand in the creation of the world(s), so there's not a lot of room for competing cosmologies in different religions.

My other setting, on the other hand, is basically agnostic. It's a humans-only E6 world, and while every culture and people has a religion of some sort, there's no way to be sure who is right or wrong. There are most certainly entities that are more than happy to be called gods by humans, but considering the E6-ness of the setting, nearly any Outsider of middling or higher CR could probably pass themselves off as a god. Some humans accept those claims, others don't. For this setting, I wanted the religions to feel somewhat like real-world religions, so where humans come from, how humans (and the world itself) were created, and similar questions are intentionally left unknown by characters and players alike. Also, the setting is psionics-only, with no arcane or divine spellcasters; this is for a variety of reasons, but the one that's relevant to this conversation is that it lets me have all the cultures use the same mechanics for their supernatural arts and crafts, while each culture has radically different beliefs about the nature of those powers. Some think of them as gifts from their gods, some think of them as the natural result of attaining personal spiritual enlightenment, some think of them as an academic field of study that has nothing to do with their religious beliefs.

So I guess what's important to me is that the pantheons fit the setting tone. In your example, you have one pantheon that reflects the structure of the cosmos; if other races have completely different pantheons, they would need to either fit into that cosmology, or the cosmology would need to be ambiguous enough from the perspective of a mortal humanoid that more than one system could be interpreted from the same starting information.

[Tzi]

I use different approaches for different settings. In one of my settings, I went with a very D&D-style pantheon - there is one group of no more than a few dozen gods, who can be killed in world-changing conflicts, usually to be replaced by ascended mortals. For that one, I decided to keep the total number of Gods down to about 15-30, depending on the exact point in history, so as to keep the setting's religion simple enough to be summarized for new players in a page or three of text. Further complications are added when different races and cultures worship the same gods in radically different ways, but that's easier to deal with in my opinion than having numerous separate pantheons. It's worth noting that, in the cosmology of this setting, the original 15 Gods had a direct hand in the creation of the world(s), so there's not a lot of room for competing cosmologies in different religions.

My other setting, on the other hand, is basically agnostic. It's a humans-only E6 world, and while every culture and people has a religion of some sort, there's no way to be sure who is right or wrong. There are most certainly entities that are more than happy to be called gods by humans, but considering the E6-ness of the setting, nearly any Outsider of middling or higher CR could probably pass themselves off as a god. Some humans accept those claims, others don't. For this setting, I wanted the religions to feel somewhat like real-world religions, so where humans come from, how humans (and the world itself) were created, and similar questions are intentionally left unknown by characters and players alike. Also, the setting is psionics-only, with no arcane or divine spellcasters; this is for a variety of reasons, but the one that's relevant to this conversation is that it lets me have all the cultures use the same mechanics for their supernatural arts and crafts, while each culture has radically different beliefs about the nature of those powers. Some think of them as gifts from their gods, some think of them as the natural result of attaining personal spiritual enlightenment, some think of them as an academic field of study that has nothing to do with their religious beliefs.

So I guess what's important to me is that the pantheons fit the setting tone. In your example, you have one pantheon that reflects the structure of the cosmos; if other races have completely different pantheons, they would need to either fit into that cosmology, or the cosmology would need to be ambiguous enough from the perspective of a mortal humanoid that more than one system could be interpreted from the same starting information.

Well like, what I described is one cultures understanding of God's or the Divine. In truth it is all purposely vague in the game world. Really a God or Goddess could be any number of things people worship. Like one race actually worships a handful of members of another race who just happen to be very high level druids and wizards. They perform miracles and have the ability to harness great power. Their worshipers however are somewhat ignorant and see them as Gods.

There is no set "Divine realm" but a believed realm that may exist because in theory anything is possible. Other races would come with a different mythology and might clash with one another since really none can definitively say "I am correct."

[Tzi]

Tieflings? How do the rest of you handle them? Or just "Plane Touched" creatures in general?

I'm somewhat at a crossroads with them, 1) being they don't exist 2) being they do mainly because they can be interesting.

On the "They exist" channel of thought I have to contend with the fact that I've made Demons/Angels/Devils/ect... purposely vague creatures. Beings of the "Other plane," Cosmic beings with a strange magical nature that is hard to understand and often with unknowable purposes as Alien as beings from truly distant worlds.

Version one of "How to make a Tiefling,"

Spoiler

Show

A sort of World of Warcraft method, One consumes the magical energies and essence of Demons and thus changes themselves and their future descendants into some new mutated race. Changes would depend obviously on the source and concentration of magical energy. Perhaps a tribe takes the blood of Succubi and Incubi or some equivalent creature to create a nation of beautiful and powerful sorcerers and rogues and warriors? Perhaps a nation does this to gain an advantage in a war? Ect....

Version two of "How two make a Tiefling,"

Spoiler

Show

Means of Survival method. Individuals and others consume demon essence and blood as a means of survival. Perhaps personal because they are frail and or lacking, or trapped in other planes it is a means of surviving hostile environments.

In principle either method could work. The main issue is.... are they too cliche?

[Morph Bark]

So there used to be this thread in Role-Playing Games, and it reached its 50th page. Is there currently a newer iteration of that thread somewhere, or is someone going to make one?

[Yora]

I think another one got started, but went forgotten after two pages. Just start a new one.

[TSGames]

I've been thinking a lot about creating good names for characters and places in my worlds. I've been thinking about it so much that I decided to write up an article on it.

I wanted to know your thoughts: are there any techniques you use to create good sounding names for your characters and worlds?

[Yora]

I looked up some websites with personal names and wrote down lists of all entries that I think sound good, and sorted them by culture. Then I grouped them together to make lists for the races and ethnicities of my setting. Scandinavian names for wood elves, Japanese names for dark elves, Baltic names for gnomes, southeast asian names for lizardfolk, and so on. Even with 50 names for each race, you run out very quickly, but it's a good reference to use to get some consitency for letters, sylables, and length for the names of a given culture when you make up your own.
Just making up words with no context usually gets you strange or silly results.

[Everyl]

Real name lists work well, like Yora said. I use them all the time in modern-day settings, and slightly less often in fantasy ones. I also use random name generators to seed the list - this page was really handy the last time I ran a D&D game, about 10 years ago now. It has generators intended to make names from a variety of real and fantasy languages. It's quite likely that there are better name generatiors out there nowadays, it looks like that site hasn't been updated since I last used it, but the idea is still sound - language-specific name generators let you seed name pools for many different races or cultures, and if you game with your laptop/tablet on hand, they're great for coming up with a name quickly if you're caught by surprise.

[TSGames]

Just making up words with no context usually gets you strange or silly results.

I whole heatedly agree. But you're jumping the gun a little bit: naming consistency isn't until part 3 =P

The wonderful thing about creating your own world is that you can bestow the context. If you choose poor names, you may craft an impression of people/places/things that you did not intend. The name creates the initial starting point for context in the mind of the audience; a bad name will guarantee a silly, unintended, or outright nonsensical reaction.

The most important thing about context is that once you bestow it upon your world, you need to be consistent with it or you risk leaving your audience/players frustrated and confused. It's always something to be considered, but no context exists unless you create it, until then you've got to start somewhere. Creating a good name is a great place to start: it's usually the first point where your audience begins understanding your world. Once you start creating good names, using consistent methods is important to preserve and strengthen your intended context.

[Tzi]

I've wondered, does anyone re-use or re-cast D&D standard characters? Like say for example in my own setting I'm considering rewriting Lolth, Eilistraee, ect of the Drow pantheon. Basically keeping the names, but rewriting them substantially into this new world.

As an example "Lolth," is a title given to a High Elven noble woman when she abandons her courtly life, her soon to be husband and begins life as a wandering mystic/spiritualist in a new land. She becomes a kind of Muhammad/Aliastor Crowley to what would become my worlds "Drow." In this world she would be someone looked up too, whose words are reflected upon. Godlike in the sense that Buddha is sometimes looked at as Godlike and venerated.

Eilistraee would be a similar figure, following after her. Perhaps expanding on her message. Focusing on the Fey Gods, Nature worship, and Community.

Kiaransalee a famed necromancer, exorcist, and spirit dominator.

Vhaeraun a princely descendant of Lolth,

ect ect. Part of me likes the idea of re-using and re-casting some of these just because they are familiar.

[Yora]

Personally not a fan of it. A slightly different take on something existing is one thing. But completely replacing it but keeping the name feels in some way "disrespectful" to the source. If you are going to create something new, then make it clear that it's something new. I don't see why one would have to tag the name of something else on it.
I was quite annoyed when the new fairy-elves of D&D were called Eladrin and the intelligent elementals called Archons. That has a certain feel of taking something away and claiming the right to change it for everyone.

[Tzi]

Personally not a fan of it. A slightly different take on something existing is one thing. But completely replacing it but keeping the name feels in some way "disrespectful" to the source. If you are going to create something new, then make it clear that it's something new. I don't see why one would have to tag the name of something else on it.
I was quite annoyed when the new fairy-elves of D&D were called Eladrin and the intelligent elementals called Archons. That has a certain feel of taking something away and claiming the right to change it for everyone.

Ah, I see your point.

I was inspired somewhat by a meme I saw (Which I cannot find) the gist of it being "Lolth decided not to stay with someone she didn't love, pursue her own path, and thought herself equal to her husband... and for that she was cursed to be a spiderlike demon.... who took her godhood back on her own. I'm rewriting her as chaotic good." to paraphrase it somewhat. I found that story somewhat compelling and looked up Lolth story. I then read an interesting Article, which I know is kinda digging too deep about a game Deity, but it got my wheels turning.

This is a fairly abridged version of my "Lolth," whom I still might change the name,

Lolth begins life as an elf, a noble woman with a different name. Set to marry a fellow noble. But dissatisfied with her society. Knowing whatever power she might have would only be that her new husband would give her. Kind of running from what I've read in that article an elsewhere I made it that she wanted her own power, her own recognition. Not an allowance given to her by someone else. Her rebellion leads her to be cast out of the noble order and branded with the title "Lolth," which roughly means "whore," or "despoiled."

She finds a new community, Elves far away from the aristocracy she knew. Living under the thick canopies of twisting oaks and incredible pine trees, and in deep dark caves. By now she had somewhat adopted her new persona, called herself Lolth, and became a cleric/priestess whom knew the art of war, and various magic including demonology. Her message of pursuing your own passions, liberation, and her knowledge of the "other world," spread and she becomes a sort of folk hero attracting many followers.

The former aristocratic court she once hailed of, learned of this mystic and of her name. And grew fearful that her teachings were both dangerous (Demonology being both a blessing and a curse) and that the small hinterland fiefdoms might soon be a threat. But Lolth knew of their tactics, their magic, their strategy and thus ready her new found people.

As the war rages and the carnage intensifies, Lolth, from an Arc-Fey, she learns of a place called the Demonweb, were a powerful Demonic spirit lurks. The beast Arachus. She gathers a small force and ventures deep into the underground and faces Arachus. Her great power allowing her to bind the demon and drain it of its essence. She brought the essence to the camps and villages and shared it with all. It empowered them, and gave them their characteristic look that the nations now called "Drow," all share. Their grey/blue/purple/onyx skin, their unearthly eye colors and the commonness of white hair. It also fueled their Mages and their armies to drive the High Elves back north... far from the glades and caves of the Drow.

[TSGames]

Names In Fiction – Consistency and Theme, the third and final part in the name creation series.

Although it seems that people like to use names generators, I've never actually used one for a setting, myself. So, just out of curiosity: Why do you use name generators? Is it for the convenience? Have you had particularly good experiences with name generators?

[Everyl]

Names In Fiction – Consistency and Theme, the third and final part in the name creation series.

Although it seems that people like to use names generators, I've never actually used one for a setting, myself. So, just out of curiosity: Why do you use name generators? Is it for the convenience? Have you had particularly good experiences with name generators?

Your link is broken.

Personally, I use name generators because I'm not very good at coming up with a variety of different name styles for different cultures and peoples. I can do okay on the small scale, creating my own PC for someone else's game, but if I'm building a fantasy world, it makes things much easier to have a way to generate names that sound like they're from particular languages.

[TSGames]

Your link is broken.

So it is. Thank you! It's fixed now and a good link is here.


But I think I understand what you mean about generating names for an entire setting. Depending on how "big" the setting is or how in depth you go, it can get rather time consuming to generate good, consistent names.

Personally, I try to mitigate the time investment by taking a story first approach to campaigns. Practically speaking, this means I look at it like this: the PCs are not going to interact with the whole world and will realistically express interest in only a small portion of the setting; by focusing on that small part and preparing only a little outside it, I can focus on the central plot and what is interesting to the PCs and not spend time generating names/cultures/politics/etc for the parts that they are not interested in.

The only trouble with this approach is when the PCs suddenly shift focus to something outside their previous interest. This is where it's handy to keep just a few names and notes on hand for a given culture/place/clan and to fill it in as you go. I've always been pretty good at "winging it" so this has worked very well for me. By efficiently spending my time on the parts of the setting that the PCs are interested in, and preparing only a little extra, it creates stories that encourage PC involvement and stop me from spending hours statting out The Land of Not Appearing in This Adventure.

[Yora]

I saw this article on Function and Purpose of a game world.

It's only a relatively brief excerp from an upcoming book, but it's an interesting idea I havn't been really thinking about.
I am very much in line with "a map is not a world". Pretty much all hexcrawl worlds I've seen looked just terrible to me. And last year I made the realization that a good setting is not about locations, characters, and history, but about factions and their interrelationships. My favorite settings from a design point of view are Star Wars and Mass Effect, which don't have any planet maps, city maps, or famous dungeons.
But this idea of function goes even beyond that. I know some elements I want to be included in my setting, but until now I never have really been thinking about defining what purpose these elements would serve.
It probably isn't a "neccessary" step to make a good setting. I would assume most popular settings never went through such a phase (though maybe with the exception of Star Wars, where everything is supposed to be recognizable as archetypes of ancient myth but disguised by a futuristic visual style). But I think those were just the lucky ones. For every setting that makes a big breaktrough, there are hundreds that are discarded as boring and irrelevant. And when you start to work on your own setting, you don't want to rely on luck, you want to maximize the odds in your favor. And I think giving some thought on the purpose of your setting could increase your odds quite substentially.

I see in this article that this is something important, but I'm not quite sure yet what the full implications of it are, and how that would translate directly to my own work.
Well played, Mr. Smolensk. Now I feel that I have to buy your book when it's out.

--

I've written a three part series on my interpretation on that article, and how I apply it to my Ancient Lands setting. I'd love to hear what you think about it.

http://spriggans-den.com/?p=218
http://spriggans-den.com/?p=220
http://spriggans-den.com/?p=226

[Eldan]

Sure, factions are the most important thing in a setting, on that I agree.

But I think that geography also informs factions and their goals. If you have a tribe living in the steppes and one tribe living in the mountains, they will have different resources and environments and from there lifestyles, traditions and morals. And then, from those differences, conflicts.

So, personally, I really like creating from the geography up. Sure, I'll start with a basic idea (Steampunk-ish colonialism, Age of Sail in magical outer space, mortals trying to grasp the last sparks of the divinity of dying gods, something like that), but then I drawn an outline of the geography next, then put in resources and populations and only then factions and their goals and needs.

[Everyl]

I saw this article on Function and Purpose of a game world.

...

I've written a three part series on my interpretation on that article, and how I apply it to my Ancient Lands setting. I'd love to hear what you think about it.
...

I read the article, and your responses to it.

My take-away is that what, exactly, is important to detail in a setting depends heavily on what you want to do with it. For example, the first game setting I made had roughly zero work put into factions, because I wasn't planning to run a game heavy on social/political intrigues, and my players were more interested in dungeon crawling at that point, anyway. The setting I made - a sparsely-settled frontier region where people are only recently re-colonizing the territory of an ancient empire that was basically exterminated - was perfect for that. Monsters wander the unsettled wilds between towns, ancient ruins lie in wait of enterprising scavengers who are willing to battle whatever creatures have moved in, and there are few strong authority figures around to tell the PCs, "No, you can't do that." Later settings I made, including other regions of the same world, were made with more expectation of social situations being a part of the game, because running the same game all the time is boring and my group's interests changed as we aged (I should probably mention that my first game was in AD&D 2nd edition when I was about 16 or 17 years old). Those other settings had much more detailed political and social environments, including factions, to varying degrees.

In the case of Setting 1, the function of the setting was "facilitate sword-and-sorcery adventures," and even as a neophyte GM, I managed to pull that function off. I think that every setting I've ever detailed to the point of usability had some function in mind, while the ones that I scrapped without completing lacked a coherent function. These functions, however, were never as detailed as those that you talk about in your response posts. I tend to respond a lot to player actions and expectations when it comes to actually running a game and telling a story, and that often means taking cues from the players about questions like whether to trust authority figures.

If I was making a setting intended for someone else to use, however, I'd probably put a lot more work into planning the function of various setting features. If nothing else, you want the setting to convey the appropriate feeling and tone. For example, pretty much everything about Dark Sun serves to remind players that their characters live in a horribly broken, likely-doomed world full of nearly every social ill imaginable, and the only authority figures around are a big part of the problem. The setting wouldn't work as a bleak, post-apocalyptic fantasy if there were easy ways to fix the problems, or if safe haven could be found in other territories, or any number of other things.

[Tzi]

I maintain a "geography is destiny," mentality. OR at least I can't seem to envision factions until I mentally picture where they are.

So a backlogged setting I've off and on worked on, a world that has recovered from a great cataclysm (Conjunction of them) were new ecology and settlement is taking place as people emerge from either their respective pocket dimensions, bunkers ect.... I need a map of whom is where and why they are there to understand what they want.

I suppose I could invent factions and then draw the world after that but for some reason my mind just can't do it.

[Yora]

A descision needs to be made, and I just can't decide:

Harpies with wings in addition to arms, or wings that are replacing arms?

Both are really cool in their own way, but unfortunately they can have only one.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

A descision needs to be made, and I just can't decide:

Harpies with wings in addition to arms, or wings that are replacing arms?

Both are really cool in their own way, but unfortunately they can have only one.

Wings as arms, with pteradactl talons at the top of the wing for gripping.