World Building How Do You Build Your Empires and Worlds?

[BunnyBoiVeena]

Whenever I think of building an empire or world, I think of building a 4X game like Sid Meier's Civilizations. I think of where I would place minerals and resources and determine what kind of empire would be at that location and how they would use those resources.

I'd put my shoes in a monarchial leader and think how would I explore, exploit, expand, and exterminate my way through the land and build up this empire. I would decide how an empire who sits on riches of metals but no food would get their supply of food. How would they exploit their metals? Would they use it for war or for a defensive strategy? Lastly, how would I exterminate the enemies around this empire? Do I crush them or forge an alliance with them? Maybe even assimilate them?

Then I'd think about socioeconomics and culture. Where are they located? Are they in prime locations of trade or are they too isolated? As a result of their upbringing, what kind of people should I expect to see here? What would their culture be like? Talking about the same empire as before, are they located in mountainous regions or deep underground? Have they mined through the ground or mined through the mountains? Are the mountains a natural wall between other people? Have they been raised to hunt whatever they could get their hands on? Or are do they get their food and necessities from pillaging others? How did their actions affect the behavior and outlook of other empires?

What do you guys do when building up your world?

 

[Windsock]

If you want to think of it accurately, you can't just think of the development of cultures in 4x terms. Additionally, the rise and fall of empires is important, but what's more important is the rise and fall of cultures and modes of thought that govern those empires.

I don't have anything else to say.

 

[BunnyBoiVeena]

I do that as well. Very few empires resist the sands of time. Especially considering the rise of new empires, rebellions, change in research and technology.

 

[Sunbather]

It really depends on the roleplay I'm trying to run. For some, where I expect a more involved playerbase, that truly likes the pitch and immerses themselves fully, I'll usually create long timelines from scratch, and then create a map. I'll have cities and kingdoms fall and crumble, and new one rise. I'll introduce social etiquette and beliefs, and slang, and culture.

And then if I'm looking for people who partake in worldbuilding, I'll give general guidelines, and a list of important events and how many years ago they happened, and let people go wild.

 

[Saccharine Cyanide]

I go large to small. Break things up into categories.

First, look at the world on a global scale. What does it look like? How many countries are there? What races of people or animals inhabit the world? Is there a global conflict? How has history shaped the world?

Then, zoom in. Which country is the focus (if any)? Who lives there? How are they ruled? What kind of biomes are there? What is their main source of income? How prosperous are they? Is there a conflict between groups or between the government and the governed? What is their history?

And zoom in. What does the average day-to-day life look like for a citizen? What sort of jobs do they have? How do they entertain themselves? What sort of stories do they tell each other? What sort of gods do they worship? What sorts of things does an average citizen struggle with?

And you can develop the world at the global, state, and individual levels in a balanced way, or you can focus more on one area depending on which best suits your story.

 

[Bealocwealm]

NGL. I never intended to build an empire. I was building a character.

Which turned into building the characters in his backstory.

Which turned into building their backstories... and in some cases, the chars in those backstories...

And when some of these chars were royals...

... well. I accidentally built a kingdom with lore going back hundreds of years.
And to a less detailed extent, three other kingdoms bordering it because I wanted the possibility of bringing larger geopolitics into an RP idea I had once.

 

[Imperator_tenebrae]

Whenever I think of building an empire or world, I think of building a 4X game like Sid Meier's Civilizations.

This is where many people fuck up at, especially when nation roleplaying.

World building and empire building are two different things, number one. Building a world full of lore with rich details from the fauna, flora and the cultures of the many denizens that inhabit it is of a scale that is meta to the empire's macro. You cannot have the empires unless you have the world that the empire inhabits.

But to put yourself in the shoes of the ruler it goes from a macro to micro scale of roleplay and this is where things get tricky. Are you actually roleplaying the individual rulers or perhaps the empire itself is a character? Not exactly a personification of the empire like that one godawful anime that shall not be named, however a level of personality can be projected in different ways if you can think what can best represent certain personality traits.

Under normal circumstances world building is very much like a jigsaw puzzle. Start on the outside and work your way in and always go with the basics first before getting more intricate. For me the basics if world is fantasy, modern or sci-fiction based. The more intricate or more "organic" parts of the world is the creatures, elements and the topography then you can get into pure "lore" territory once the foundation has been established. The world can't be personal, it has to be more neutral to accommodate a story or theme.

Empire building is something more personal versus a world because this empire can be anything you wish to have in a state. Everyone would love to run their state because it is good to be the king, right? Aside from the administrative headaches, political shenanigans and possible assassination attempts...but let's not get bogged down with that.

The 4X game format is good for a video game but not for a roleplay because it devolves into elaborate dick-measuring contests on who's army is better and what not. I mean you may as well play a video game, right? Roleplaying is story telling and the 4X format is not really suited to collaborative history writing because it's more than just simple eXploring, eXpanding, eXploiting and eXterminating. The 4X format leaves too much out to make the Roleplaying compelling and immersive.

The reason I'm saying it this way because this was the grave mistake I done with my own Roleplays in the past (besides making them convoluted as fuck with enough details to give J.R.R. Tolkien a complex)

 

[Tove]

I start with my characters first build them up then get to the world I want them in how I want the world to be and so forth.

 

[adrian_]

When it comes to nation building I follow a sort of checklist which is:

Full name/abbreviations
Major exports/imports
Military
Economy
Government
Current politics
Any extra shiz I need

When it comes to world building... I don't know, I just make something and build off of it.