Heck, I have a hard enough time packing my setting into anything resembling a binder. But I would love to be a player in it… if only I knew where to find a GM who’d treat it right.
Make the setting a place you’d want to live in. Make it fun, make it fantastic. But most importantly, make it yours. Drawing on the ideas of others is ultimately impossible to avoid, but try not to make your setting seem like a copy of another person’s.
Practical advice: Don’t be afraid to ask questions of others who pursue the hobby. The more you can learn about it and broaden your understanding, the better. (And seriously, take what you hear with a grain of salt. Everybody’s got their own styles and opinions about what works well, but they may not work well *for you*.)
Probably the most important piece of advice, however, is to remember that every piece of information you record has the potential to be up-to-four-dimensional, and at minimum, two-dimensional:
There’s what the players are allowed and need to know, in order to make their characters (e.g., Character Generation, Advancement, and Plot Hooks);
There’s what the GM has to know to run a campaign, and information that ONLY the GM knows until/unless they deign to reveal it (Privileged Information);
Then there’s information that’s pertinent to the world in general (Lore or Fluff);
And there’s information that’s pertinent to the gameplay (the System).
Not every bit of information the players receive has corresponding Privileged Information associated with it. For example, System data is typically common knowledge to all parties at the table, out-of-character, since everyone needs to understand the System in order to play. On the other hand, if you have a Bestiary, that might be considered Privileged Information, but players probably don’t get access to it unless they have a good reason in-game (like being a professional monster hunter).
Likewise, not every piece of Lore has anything at all to do with the System – a good example is that a character’s hide or fur or whatever may be relevant to a defense roll, OR it might help them be better prepared to ambush someone. Or none of the above; that’s kind of up to how you personally want things to flow. It’s a judgement call.
While you’re thinking about this, perhaps figure out how your setting works with the system you’re developing it to use. You probably don’t want the gameplay to slow things down, but don’t want the System to gloss over details of the action you’re interested in seeing, either. Ideally, you’ll strike a balance between those two extremes, and make Setting and System mesh well.
–
About worldbuilding specifically: if I were you I’d get *really* good at organizing your ideas into lists and categories, but also practice summarizing the nature of your world. Even if you’re planning on being the only one to ever GM a campaign in your setting, it’ll help later on when you’re neck-deep in page upon page of information, if your ideas are written in a way that makes them easy to remember, rather than scattered all over the place and too vague and mysterious to recognize where you were taking a given idea. (On the other hand: if you feel like being vague and mysterious, I’d encourage keeping that kind of stuff on hand, so you can play with it later. A good rule of thumb is to never throw anything away, but don’t be afraid to revise it if you don’t like where it’s going.)
And it’s probably helpful, for keeping your world-building materials organized, if you come up with a mock-up table of contents delineating what all is important.
–
I could probably offer more advice, but I’d recommend taking all of the above for a trial run first.
This is actually one of the areas that I’m having trouble figuring out: lists and categories. I have a wealth of information floating around in my skull, but I’m not sure the best ways to organize it.
I’m gonna emphasize again that rule of thumb I gave you: never throw anything away, but don’t be afraid to revise it if you don’t like where it’s going.
Having said that: how do *you* like to organize information, when it comes to being a student?
In the process of creating a setting book, one of the things you’re probably going to *attempt* to do is become a scholar of your own world – being able to recite segments of its Lore from memory is – although probably difficult, especially during early setting development stages – extremely useful both as a GM and as a writer, and therefore a relative necessity if your setting is very detailed.
By no means have I got everything about *my* setting memorized (ten years of work = ten years of information to misplace), but my advice to you is to become generally obsessive about recording information – first, without organizing it (stream of consciousness writing techniques can help you here), and then by going back over it and making new lists and classifications based on your observations about what you wrote. That’s honestly how most hierarchies, whether in reality or in fiction writing, are constructed; they start out as jumbled information, and are then pieced together by an observer into data types and sets.
It *can* take a lot of time, but if you go that route, you may want to study how Anthropologists, Biologists, and scholars of history and languages think – they’re very hierarchy-focused, whether you’re talking about grammar in different languages, or theories of evolution, or the study of civilizations and their remnants in general. A Creative Writing class might help, too. (Honestly, college classes are a pretty good resource for learning how systems of structure operate in general, although you’re likely to spend a lot of time distracted by their actual content while you’re trying to research *how* they organize information.)
Just keep in mind the purpose of recording setting information: it’s primarily so that you and your players and/or other GMs will have access to consistent information about your setting. You probably don’t have to record what can be easily implied, but probably want to go out of your way to record what isn’t already intuitive and familiar about it.
This means that some types of data are redundant to record, and others are wholly irrelevant to documenting your setting.
—
A word of caution: like anything done obsessively, knowing when to stop recording information at random can be difficult, and the habit can be distracting. If you find yourself struggling with time management, I suggest writing only while a timer is active, and stopping when it goes off.
I would like to add that, when I started GMing, I decided to run my campaign almost completely ad-hoc: I didn’t really have anything nailed down, and only started to define specifics in the setting’s history as I went. This is a great way to avoid having to document anything, at least when you first start out, but limits the players’ options regarding control over the campaign’s direction – they go where you go, but also don’t necessarily have any idea where you’re going, and may blunder off the rails. And if you don’t work well under pressure when you’re under-prepared, that can lead *you* to writer’s block.
So an ad-hoc system of setting design works right up until you need a consistent record of certain information that gets referenced later in your campaign. The longer it runs, the more records you’ll likely want, the more documentation you’ll want to do.
Just remember: you don’t have to write a bible to write a story.
dont be afraid to put in things your players will think they recognize, the old “bait and switch” is a fun way to get that look of betrayal that every GM so desperately craves.
Other than that, the best advice I can offer is to not get hung up on having all your details down on paper or having everything completely fleshed out before starting your game. Understanding what details need to be established ahead of time and what can be sorted out as you come to it is an essential skill for creating a setting without overwhelming yourself. Unfortunately, it is a skill most often learned through trial and error.
She could take the binder…or she could do what all DM’s would do in this situation and start fresh. think about it. Sam has a good chunk of that memorized. if we are going to take a break from Sam being a DM, then we need something fresh and new to get his mind of the campaign entirely. Something new to get the whole party energized. Plus all that spare time Jeanie has I doubt she didn’t use any of it to work on something or experiment.
like any good setting, karthun has its share of terra incognita. all jeanie has to do is set an adventure in one of those areas, and maybe throw in a god’s curse or aftereffects of a magical war or weird gas coming from volcanic cracks or whatever to change up the way things work there a bit if she feels the need.
That’s a fair point. People like my DM sometimes tend to use the same geographical landmasses for more than one occasion. The adventure could take place in a different area in which the current story, or it could be a prequel campaign that happens a few centuries before or perhaps later in the future. There’s a lot of potential there that one can do with another person’s material. However, my problem with it is, That’s Sam’s baby in another DM’s hands. Campaigns come and go, but when you trust someone else with your hard work and planing and you plan on being apart of it…it is difficult to break away from that position of being in control. Granted, it is a good friend and he trusts Jeanie with the book, but judging by how he has been acting these last few strips, somewhere inside Sam I still see uncertainty. He’s never seen her DM before and whether or not Jeaine will use what he made how he wanted to use it could cause unnecessary drama that could get personal. Would I like to see how Sam fairs in his own world? To see if he is capable of handling the monsters and creatures he made? yes I think it would be awesome, but I think it would be smarter to take a few concepts or ideas from Karthun and use it to build something brand new as a fair compromise. We’ve seen Sam behind the table in Call of Cuthulu, but never at the table on the other side of the Screen for D&D. I’d like to think that the best way to ease him back in would be not to tempt him to have his character use in game knowledge for his return among his fellow players and friends.
Course this is just from my standpoint on things. Either way, I think we can all agree that this is going to be awesome seeing what all could potentially happen when they all sit down and play.
I believe Jeanie was in charge of those CoC games yes, but I like to believe that she is a whole different person when it comes to D&D. Same with Sam when he’s not behind “The screen.”
She did, huh? I’ve never been able to get those straight. The stories were certainly cool, but given that we jumped in with no real introduction, and didn’t come out again until the stories were over (as opposed to switching freely between in and out-of-game with D&D) the only one I’ve been able to recognise is Sam’s character.
I want to see her take on the same setting. Not everyone wants to create their own universe but can run good games inside a setting someone else creates. It’ll be cool to see how her unique touch affects the world.
As a GM, I MADE the world I want to PLAY in. I want to be shown the wonders that are in my head. Showing them to other players is great, but that experience will never match the one I want to have. If there were someone who would give my setting the same love that I do…well, that would really be something.
/>
HOVER-TEXT: Sam’s binder is based on my original Karthun setting binder.
That’s…that’s a LOT of writing.
“My god, it’s full of stars…”
That’s a tough moment for any GM
Heck, I have a hard enough time packing my setting into anything resembling a binder. But I would love to be a player in it… if only I knew where to find a GM who’d treat it right.
Any advice for a first-time setting-smith?
Make the setting a place you’d want to live in. Make it fun, make it fantastic. But most importantly, make it yours. Drawing on the ideas of others is ultimately impossible to avoid, but try not to make your setting seem like a copy of another person’s.
Practical advice: Don’t be afraid to ask questions of others who pursue the hobby. The more you can learn about it and broaden your understanding, the better. (And seriously, take what you hear with a grain of salt. Everybody’s got their own styles and opinions about what works well, but they may not work well *for you*.)
Probably the most important piece of advice, however, is to remember that every piece of information you record has the potential to be up-to-four-dimensional, and at minimum, two-dimensional:
There’s what the players are allowed and need to know, in order to make their characters (e.g., Character Generation, Advancement, and Plot Hooks);
There’s what the GM has to know to run a campaign, and information that ONLY the GM knows until/unless they deign to reveal it (Privileged Information);
Then there’s information that’s pertinent to the world in general (Lore or Fluff);
And there’s information that’s pertinent to the gameplay (the System).
Not every bit of information the players receive has corresponding Privileged Information associated with it. For example, System data is typically common knowledge to all parties at the table, out-of-character, since everyone needs to understand the System in order to play. On the other hand, if you have a Bestiary, that might be considered Privileged Information, but players probably don’t get access to it unless they have a good reason in-game (like being a professional monster hunter).
Likewise, not every piece of Lore has anything at all to do with the System – a good example is that a character’s hide or fur or whatever may be relevant to a defense roll, OR it might help them be better prepared to ambush someone. Or none of the above; that’s kind of up to how you personally want things to flow. It’s a judgement call.
While you’re thinking about this, perhaps figure out how your setting works with the system you’re developing it to use. You probably don’t want the gameplay to slow things down, but don’t want the System to gloss over details of the action you’re interested in seeing, either. Ideally, you’ll strike a balance between those two extremes, and make Setting and System mesh well.
–
About worldbuilding specifically: if I were you I’d get *really* good at organizing your ideas into lists and categories, but also practice summarizing the nature of your world. Even if you’re planning on being the only one to ever GM a campaign in your setting, it’ll help later on when you’re neck-deep in page upon page of information, if your ideas are written in a way that makes them easy to remember, rather than scattered all over the place and too vague and mysterious to recognize where you were taking a given idea. (On the other hand: if you feel like being vague and mysterious, I’d encourage keeping that kind of stuff on hand, so you can play with it later. A good rule of thumb is to never throw anything away, but don’t be afraid to revise it if you don’t like where it’s going.)
And it’s probably helpful, for keeping your world-building materials organized, if you come up with a mock-up table of contents delineating what all is important.
–
I could probably offer more advice, but I’d recommend taking all of the above for a trial run first.
This is actually one of the areas that I’m having trouble figuring out: lists and categories. I have a wealth of information floating around in my skull, but I’m not sure the best ways to organize it.
I’m gonna emphasize again that rule of thumb I gave you: never throw anything away, but don’t be afraid to revise it if you don’t like where it’s going.
Having said that: how do *you* like to organize information, when it comes to being a student?
In the process of creating a setting book, one of the things you’re probably going to *attempt* to do is become a scholar of your own world – being able to recite segments of its Lore from memory is – although probably difficult, especially during early setting development stages – extremely useful both as a GM and as a writer, and therefore a relative necessity if your setting is very detailed.
By no means have I got everything about *my* setting memorized (ten years of work = ten years of information to misplace), but my advice to you is to become generally obsessive about recording information – first, without organizing it (stream of consciousness writing techniques can help you here), and then by going back over it and making new lists and classifications based on your observations about what you wrote. That’s honestly how most hierarchies, whether in reality or in fiction writing, are constructed; they start out as jumbled information, and are then pieced together by an observer into data types and sets.
It *can* take a lot of time, but if you go that route, you may want to study how Anthropologists, Biologists, and scholars of history and languages think – they’re very hierarchy-focused, whether you’re talking about grammar in different languages, or theories of evolution, or the study of civilizations and their remnants in general. A Creative Writing class might help, too. (Honestly, college classes are a pretty good resource for learning how systems of structure operate in general, although you’re likely to spend a lot of time distracted by their actual content while you’re trying to research *how* they organize information.)
Just keep in mind the purpose of recording setting information: it’s primarily so that you and your players and/or other GMs will have access to consistent information about your setting. You probably don’t have to record what can be easily implied, but probably want to go out of your way to record what isn’t already intuitive and familiar about it.
This means that some types of data are redundant to record, and others are wholly irrelevant to documenting your setting.
—
A word of caution: like anything done obsessively, knowing when to stop recording information at random can be difficult, and the habit can be distracting. If you find yourself struggling with time management, I suggest writing only while a timer is active, and stopping when it goes off.
I would like to add that, when I started GMing, I decided to run my campaign almost completely ad-hoc: I didn’t really have anything nailed down, and only started to define specifics in the setting’s history as I went. This is a great way to avoid having to document anything, at least when you first start out, but limits the players’ options regarding control over the campaign’s direction – they go where you go, but also don’t necessarily have any idea where you’re going, and may blunder off the rails. And if you don’t work well under pressure when you’re under-prepared, that can lead *you* to writer’s block.
So an ad-hoc system of setting design works right up until you need a consistent record of certain information that gets referenced later in your campaign. The longer it runs, the more records you’ll likely want, the more documentation you’ll want to do.
Just remember: you don’t have to write a bible to write a story.
dont be afraid to put in things your players will think they recognize, the old “bait and switch” is a fun way to get that look of betrayal that every GM so desperately craves.
Here are a couple of resources I have found useful in my own efforts:
Alexander Macris has written some helpful articles in “The Escapist”‘s “Check for Traps” column: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/checkfortraps
I would particularly recommend the articles “Tops and Bottoms”, “Go, Go Gazette”, and “Worlds in Motion” as his trifecta of setting design.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/tabletop/checkfortraps/7797-Tops-and-Bottoms
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/tabletop/checkfortraps/7864-Go-Go-Gazette
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/tabletop/checkfortraps/7928-Worlds-in-Motion
The “Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding” has also given me a lot of good ideas and insights to the process, and I have found it to be well worth the price:
http://www.amazon.com/Kobold-Guide-Worldbuilding-Wolfgang-Baur/dp/1936781115
Other than that, the best advice I can offer is to not get hung up on having all your details down on paper or having everything completely fleshed out before starting your game. Understanding what details need to be established ahead of time and what can be sorted out as you come to it is an essential skill for creating a setting without overwhelming yourself. Unfortunately, it is a skill most often learned through trial and error.
Good luck!
Nice post, Blackbird!
The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding is AMAZING. Highly recommended.
I haven’t checked out that guide to worldbuilding you listed last, but if Brian also recommends it, it must be useful. Thanks for the link!
Glad to be of service!
One of the most powerful moments in gaming ever. Also one of the most heartbreaking sometimes too.
Its a sad passing of the torch. Needed, but no less saddening.
Yeah and for Sam he is giving control over his world, his creation. I have done that before and it seems even harder than normal.
“Just keep in mind that when I’m a player, I already know every single thing about this world. Also… don’t write in my book.”
How do gamers deal with that in real life? How often does a GM end up on the other side of the table with a game he or she invented?
Some people can keep that sort of thing separate. Others know they can’t and find ways around it. For the remainder, it doesn’t go well.
Just as powerful as when Date passed the torch to Ippo.
this be deep man, very deep
Only one? Hmmmm… Bullcheese.
Now we need a variant of that last panel where the inside is glowing, casting a beam of light across Jeanie.
Kind of like Ralph Hinkley’s Instruction Book?
Except for the losing it part.
Twice.
😀
She could take the binder…or she could do what all DM’s would do in this situation and start fresh. think about it. Sam has a good chunk of that memorized. if we are going to take a break from Sam being a DM, then we need something fresh and new to get his mind of the campaign entirely. Something new to get the whole party energized. Plus all that spare time Jeanie has I doubt she didn’t use any of it to work on something or experiment.
i dont know i really like the karhun world i would like to see what a call of cuthulu gm would do with it but i also see what you talking about.
like any good setting, karthun has its share of terra incognita. all jeanie has to do is set an adventure in one of those areas, and maybe throw in a god’s curse or aftereffects of a magical war or weird gas coming from volcanic cracks or whatever to change up the way things work there a bit if she feels the need.
That’s a fair point. People like my DM sometimes tend to use the same geographical landmasses for more than one occasion. The adventure could take place in a different area in which the current story, or it could be a prequel campaign that happens a few centuries before or perhaps later in the future. There’s a lot of potential there that one can do with another person’s material. However, my problem with it is, That’s Sam’s baby in another DM’s hands. Campaigns come and go, but when you trust someone else with your hard work and planing and you plan on being apart of it…it is difficult to break away from that position of being in control. Granted, it is a good friend and he trusts Jeanie with the book, but judging by how he has been acting these last few strips, somewhere inside Sam I still see uncertainty. He’s never seen her DM before and whether or not Jeaine will use what he made how he wanted to use it could cause unnecessary drama that could get personal. Would I like to see how Sam fairs in his own world? To see if he is capable of handling the monsters and creatures he made? yes I think it would be awesome, but I think it would be smarter to take a few concepts or ideas from Karthun and use it to build something brand new as a fair compromise. We’ve seen Sam behind the table in Call of Cuthulu, but never at the table on the other side of the Screen for D&D. I’d like to think that the best way to ease him back in would be not to tempt him to have his character use in game knowledge for his return among his fellow players and friends.
Course this is just from my standpoint on things. Either way, I think we can all agree that this is going to be awesome seeing what all could potentially happen when they all sit down and play.
Didn’t Sam play in a CoC game with Mel and Amy that Jeanie DM’d? or was she just another player at the time?
I believe Jeanie was in charge of those CoC games yes, but I like to believe that she is a whole different person when it comes to D&D. Same with Sam when he’s not behind “The screen.”
He did indeed (still does, we’ll get back to the IGS). Jeanie is now the GM for both groups.
She did, huh? I’ve never been able to get those straight. The stories were certainly cool, but given that we jumped in with no real introduction, and didn’t come out again until the stories were over (as opposed to switching freely between in and out-of-game with D&D) the only one I’ve been able to recognise is Sam’s character.
I want to see her take on the same setting. Not everyone wants to create their own universe but can run good games inside a setting someone else creates. It’ll be cool to see how her unique touch affects the world.
I have never had to do this before, the day it happens I fear it
As a GM, I MADE the world I want to PLAY in. I want to be shown the wonders that are in my head. Showing them to other players is great, but that experience will never match the one I want to have. If there were someone who would give my setting the same love that I do…well, that would really be something.
Heavy. I was kind of expecting her to bring her own material.