Other World Building Advice: Not the "What" but the "Why"

[Disco]

World building is one of the most important aspects of an RP. And often, for novice GMs, one of the most neglected part of the RP. Many forgo a well made world to focus on characters in the world. However, there is a core problem with this. A shallow world inadvertently leads to shallow characters.

Now one may try to build a world through the RP. As the characters travel, they may discover fantastical things around them. But we still need some base rules. A core understanding. Most, including myself in some cases, find it rather complacent to have a generic "fantasy" label on the world because building a complex lore and universe is, well, time consuming.

It can be incredibly difficult to actually build a world. You have to think about A LOT of history, rules and reasoning, shifts in power, etc. For example, most fantasy worlds use magic frequently. Part of world building is establishing rules and regulations for magic. Outside of "don't make a character OP", what rules IN UNIVERSE exist for magic? What barriers in the world prevent the impossible from happening? Hint, if you want to stop OP characters that use magic, the more limitations in the world you build, the harder it is to excuse an OP character.

A common ground rule that could be established: Magic takes a small bit of "energy" to cast, and this energy is represented in charges. The charges indicate how many times one can cast a certain spell. Dark Souls 1 and 2 use this rule. From there, you can establish what happens when charges are depleted. Does it physically harm the user? Or is it simply impossible to cast past the charges? Are there other effects? This is up to you.

Regardless of your choice, it comes down to one question: "Why?"

Think of a small village in a fantasy world. We imagine many wood/straw houses. Children playing, mothers doing chores and fathers working. We think of a lot of "what" in this village. But we ask the core question, why? Why are these people settled HERE and not elsewhere? Why is it so peaceful in this village? Why are they able to remain in these lands?

Why are they settled here? Well, there's plenty of hunting game and rich soil to tender farms. Why is it so peaceful? The [badguys] presence is in the far south, while this village is in the far north! Why are they able to remain? Well, they work lumber and trade away the material to the local lord whom gives them protection in turn. This is a very basic way to put it but I hope it makes my point.

We often want to put things that seem cool or fun in our worlds because our players may also find them cool or fun. But the best worlds go beyond that. To make a world truly immersive, the locations, buildings, people and so on have to have reason to be how they are. This separates generic fantasy from something that stands out.

Hope this helps anyone who takes the time to read it.

- Disco

 

[Idea]

Let me just say, I loved to read this. Worldbuilding, good worldbuilding, and magic systems in particular are often so underrated it´s quite frustrating!

 

[Silver Wolf]

Let me just say, I loved to read this. Worldbuilding, good worldbuilding, and magic systems in particular are often so underrated it´s quite frustrating!

As well as being very long at times. Probably the biggest thing I get praise for is world building ability, but on an RP site like this I hold back. Why? Who wants to read crap tons of information on the world and be expected to remember it? Honestly, some of my favorite RPs had a well established world with a well established system, but not enough people usually joined or pulled through.

But yeah, I do see poorly built worlds regularly. That's really a big problem too, because then people don't know how to continue. I think the biggest offender though is lack of ability to pull through or lazyness. Laziness to read, laziness to write, laziness/worry to post, or laziness to ask questions. I have only like 2 active PM rps out of seven or so ones that didn't get off the ground very far or at all. I am guilty too, but that was when I had a bad habit of leaving areas of the internet like skype, xbox live, RPN, or facebook without warning for long periods of time. I am still guilty with this at times, but for RPN it's better.

My point is that in a fantasy world, man oh man do you need a well-built world, but the second problem comes in when you get people who are too lazy to do...something and they drag the RP down with them. I'm even seeing this now. If you don't have time to commit to an RP or worldbuilding, you need to ask for help. I can often run an RP due to extensive amounts of freetime, but when I don't no one tries to continue without me, no one uses the failsafes I made for that problem, and NO one tries to become the helper.

Though it is a good point, and I agree: we need better worldbuilding. Due to my skills in world building, I am happy to help someone.

 

[Idea]

I will refrain from replying moreso than to say that my confidence in your worldbuilding skills died the second you thought you had to praise yourself for them

 

[AtlannianSpy]

I love worldbuilding myself and my own rps tend to have a fair bit. But it's not necessary for every RP and it's totally possible to have a compelling story or or characters without delving into the nitty gritty of wheat product distribution chains or whatever.

It's a style of Rping that can be very effective but it's not inherenty superior, it depends on the goals of tue rp in question.

 

[Bone2pick]

If characters are the heart of the narrative then the setting (world building) is its flesh and blood. Batman needs Gotham. Alice needs Wonderland. Bilbo needs Middle Earth.

Only rich worlds are worthy of rich characters.

 

[Bacon is fluffy]

It can be incredibly difficult to actually build a world. You have to think about A LOT of history, rules and reasoning, shifts in power, etc. For example, most fantasy worlds use magic frequently. Part of world building is establishing rules and regulations for magic. Outside of "don't make a character OP", what rules IN UNIVERSE exist for magic? What barriers in the world prevent the impossible from happening? Hint, if you want to stop OP characters that use magic, the more limitations in the world you build, the harder it is to excuse an OP character.

If you put too much limitations on magic, then you might as well not have it. I've seen an rp on rpnation where the dude basically made it to where its more effective to be a meat head in a suit of armor because if you're a caster, you're likely to die before finishing your spell. In this sense there's really no point to the fantasy aspect of the rp unless its centered around mages that are becoming irrelevant,but are fighting to stay in the loop.

unfortunately that wasn't the case. So yea, more doesn't mean better. What you want to advocate for is quality systems that are smarter, rather than excessive. Avatar did this well with the use of martial arts. Naruto in part 1 did this well by using the excuse of natural limiters in the body holding back your full chakra power(hence the need for the hidden lotus).