World Building Original World Building Help

[RIPSaidCone]

Heya! So if you hadn't already guessed by the title of the thread and its prefix. This is basically a call from me to all of those fellow detailed Worldbuilding enthusiasts that lurk the site. I really want to start a discussion and get some help and feedback on a mostly original world/setting that I have had for a few years now. I want some other people to help me along with it as well and really I just wanna give myself something to do for a while and worldbuilding has always been the perfect way to spend my time when I'm incredibly bored.

So if anyone out there has some time to spare and an interest in detailed worldbuilding, I'd be more than happy to take a PM or a response to this thread. Dankeshen!​

 

[Beckoncall]

Give us a backdrop and lets get a ball rolling!

Genre? Scale? any other details you had in mind?

 

[RIPSaidCone]

Spoiler: Map of the World

Beckoncall
Well it's in a world with technology a good few decades more advanced than our world's. It's set on the planet Earth though with radically different nations and cultures, histories etc. (I'll admit the main reason for that is because I couldn't get an original map done) And the year as of now is 2023.

For scale, the population of the world's most heavily populated nation is 2.1 billion, meanwhile the population of the world's most powerful nation is 397 million. The most powerful nation in the world, the Federal Heimark Republic has set up a small moon colony primarily housing military and science operatives and the Kingdom of Taerach, the world's second most powerful nation and a direct rival to the FHR has set up a larger colony on Mars. The militaries of the nations of the world are vastly larger and more powerful than the ones in our world due to a state of near constant tension and rivalry.​

 

[Beckoncall]

You can find a LOT of cool random map generators -- if you'd like I can find you some links to some...

So... what kind of RP would take place in this world? It would help me think of antagonists and issues to deal with.

 

[RIPSaidCone]

Beckoncall
If you wouldn't mind I'd like that.

Well most of the RP's I've done involving this world have been what RpN would consider modern/realistic with some futuristic ones. The only one I've done on RpN was a superhero one, since mutants with some powers have existed in this world before. Aliens also do exist though have rarely visited Earth.​

 

[Beckoncall]

Before? As in they are no longer around? what happened to them?

Is it one type of alien or could there potentially be more? Why did they visit?

One thing that jumps out at me immediately is why the aliens would visit, but only occasionally -- maybe the reason for "abductions" or "experiments" or more subtle manipulations of our species was to protect us (mask our psychic signature, or perhaps even ENHANCE it) so that another predatious species of aliens would find us in the endless cosmos.

In this case the antagonist is a battleship-sized invasion platform with a semi-sleeping brain -- it's an infant of it's species -- the largest of these could be planet sized in their own right... but it's arrived to make humanity it's first meal... capable or generating robots and DNA amalgams of everything it's previously eaten (so far it's only consumed some sparse alien life but will quiickly add humans to it's diet to splice with them)

That's an interesting antagonist -- but you might not go for the alien invasion angle at all.

Another situation you might entertain is a kind of "countdown to doomsday" -- the two major factions, terach and FHR have had their offworld colonies for a while now because they know the other shoe is going to drop on global warming, global cooling, or some other disaster. There is plenty of action as these factions clash over the final untapped stores of resources in alaska, siberia, and Africa, but also a growing concern among the populace that everything of value is just being loaded onto giant mass-drivers and being shot into the upper atmosphere to be retrieved (or fought over) by the ultra-rich.

Geniuses among the elite (and crowdfunding) has allowed private citizens to enter the race for surviving the upcoming holocaust. What does your donation buy? An interest in the tiny PUBLICLY OWNED space station hidden in the solar-system's asteroid belt (which may be growing rapidly due to finding large quantities of ice and valuable minerals laundered through the elite) as well as to choose (or choose to be) part of the forces that will fight to sabotage and claimjump the last fruits of the earth before zero day. Everything is fine and normal on the surface... the sheep are asleep, as they say, but secretly there is an escalating conflict as everyone forgets their manners.

just a couple of ideas.

 

[Beckoncall]

let me see some map generators.. didn't see your question...

 

[Idea]

I can try to give some aid, since I am very passionate about worldbuilding and always take a painfully long amount of time to assure the setting is at a proper level before starting up a roleplay.

However, if I had to make it short, I´d say the most important thing in worldbuilding is consistency. Consistency in the sense that, whatever rules are established must be taken to their last consequences and whatever you seek to establish in the world must come from somewhere. Good worldbuilding boils down to cause and effect links that have to be articulated in such a way that it draws the reader in and creates potential for the story. And while one´s first impression might be that the "story potential" and "reader drawing in" are the real key parts, a sloppy cause and effect is the source of something that can easily critically destroy those two things, something called "plot holes".