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Critters are the worst fandom ive been in and I was an oldschool SuperWhoLock 😂

FAQ/Guidelines

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Hi, could i ask for advice on world building? Im trying to make a homebrew campaing

Sorry it took me a bit to answer this - it’s been a busy week and weekend!

I’ll preface this all by saying that I don’t claim to be an expert on anything, and there are lots and lots of other resources out there, which I’ll link to at the end of this post.

SO YOU WANNA BUILD A FANTASY (OR OTHER GENRE) WORLD

You’ll need to ask yourself some questions first.

Do I want the game to be sandbox-y or more directly driven?

A sandbox game in which your players don’t have a lot of rhyme or reason beyond just exploring can be a lot of fun. But there’s different ways to run sandbox. On the one hand, you can let your player backstories and their suggestions, what they want to see, influence the world they’re discovering. On the other, you can come up with a really detailed world setting that they’ll uncover as they go. Both require a lot of work, but in different ways. In the first, you’ll need to be ready to improv your descriptions of places. In the second, you’ll need to come up with a lot of stuff ahead of time but be ready to be flexible.

Now, in a more directly driven campaign, you probably want to have most of your world stuff at least marginally laid out, that way you’re prepared for wherever the players want to go.

Where do I start?

This one is harder. There’s no one way to world build! Some people like to start with the map (check out this online map maker and this cool way to randomize your map), while others prefer to flesh out what they want the theme/mystery/problem-goal of the campaign to be first. Both are great!

To use my own campaign as an example, I knew from the start that I wanted there to be a central mystery for the PCs - in this case, a magical disease that turns people into animals within a year of contracting it, and all afflicted are sent across a massive chasm into a place known only as “The Wilds”. It was a premise inspired by the books Graceling and Fire by Kristin Cashore.

Side note: Draw from the sorts of stories that you enjoy! If you want it to be an epic quest, look at Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, King Arthur, Night Angel, etc etc etc. If you want it to be more of a stealthy heist type thing, or a diplomatic campaign, check out Antman, Montmorency, Crown Duel, Dangerous Liasons, etc etc etc. Whatever story hook you want to go with, finding inspiration in existing media is a great way to start. You can also check out plot generators such as this one.

I’ve got my story hook. Now what?

Why are your players here in this campaign? This is the fun part. You get to think about how the problem/mystery that exists came to exist. How does it affect the world and the people in that world? What other problems exist? What’s the racial makeup of the world, if that is important? What’s the political climate?

Again using my Tenara campaign as an example, we can answer these questions.

1. How did the Beast Curse come to exist?

Legend says it was delivered by one of the gods who are now long-forgotten, but others are of the belief that it’s a mutated form of magic.

2. How does it affect the world and the people in it?

Cursed folks are reviled to the point that most families will turn in their own kin. They are quarantined in special prisons until the monthly caravan takes them to the Gate at the chasm to send them into the Wilds. Each country provides a guard for the Gate and it’s a lifetime job. There are people who DO have sympathy for the cursed, so they’ve formed a sort of protest resistance group. Etc etc etc.

3. What other problems exist?

Partly because of the curse and partly for other reasons, the whole peninsula that holds these five countries is quickly becoming overpopulated. People aren’t leaving, so they build to the sky and deep in the earth and tensions are high is such a crowded place. There’s a country locked in a perpetual civil war. There’s a country whose queen is 12 because her mother was deposed for trying to build an army of the Cursed, and no one really knows what happened to her or the army. A cult of one of the forgotten gods has arisen with a twisted take on the god’s message.

4. What’s the racial makeup of the world?Fairly diverse, but humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings are more prominent in certain areas than others, and nearly all extra-planar or unusual races come from the Southern Isles.

5. What’s the political climate?The countries keep to the themselves and aren’t currently experiencing a lot of conflict outside of their own borders, but with the population increasing everywhere, things are primed for change.

As you can see, just having that campaign hook really helped me flesh out the setting of my world.

A side note: when I say ‘world’, I mean the setting for the campaign, which could be a single country or city, or group of provinces. You don’t have to flesh out a whole globe in order to world build your setting. Only flesh out what you need to start, and add to it as you go.

That’s great, but what about what the world is really like?

Now that you’ve got a good idea of what you want the hook of the campaign to be, you can flesh out aesthetically what a lot of the world is like. Ask yourself questions about these topics for each distinct area of your world.

- environment. What is the land like? Is it fertile? Barren? A desert, swamp, forest, mountain, volcano, plains, cave system, sea, etc etc etc? What is the climate like? Humid, arid, cold, hot, temperate, etc?

- culture. What languages are spoken? What’s the architecture like? How do people dress? Is it wealthy or poor, urban or rural? What type of art is common here? What professions? How do they treat outsiders?

- religion. Does it factor in at all? How many gods are there? What do they represent? What are their worshippers like? 

- government. Who rules, and do they rule well? Is it an oligarchy, theocracy, monarchy, democracy, etc? How are problems handled? Is there a law for everything, or do the people enforce natural law? Where is the law written and complaints addressed?

- military. How well is each country defended? Is there a military draft? Who leads the military? Why does each country have a military or town guard?

- magic. How common is it? Are magic schools open to anyone? Is there any discrimination between the types of magic users, for instance wizards and sorcerers or an arcane caster and a divine caster? How much do the people rely on magic?

- creatures. What sorts of animals or magical creatures exist? Is the place close to the fey realms? Is it close to the underdark? Does Hell or Heaven or the Abyss take a particular interest in it? If so, why?

- political and social climate. How do different countries/races/classes interact? How do they treat foreigners vs. natives?

- any other details. If there’s anything additional you want to add that didn’t fit neatly in any of these categories, go ahead and add it!

There are tons of other little details you can ask yourself about, and plenty of resources to help you with fleshing them all out. The biggest piece of advice I can give you is to ask why. Why is the world the way it is? Why is that ruler corrupt? Why is that pantheon of gods so invested in a particular sea town? Why is the climate suddenly changing from dry to monsoon? Why is that wizard school trying to take power? Why are the countries at war? Why do the people/NPCs care, and why will the party care?

I really hope this helps, and please do keep in mind that there’s no one way to world build. If you have an aesthetic idea for a society of elves that live on the coastline and are seafarers and that’s you’re jumping off point, that is totally fine! You can always come back to the bullet list of why.

So, to recap:

remember that world doesn’t have to mean the whole globe

ask yourself what type of game you’d like to run

ask yourself what the plot hook to kick off the campaign will be

ask yourself about the aesthetic details: environment, culture, religion, government, military, magic, creatures, political and social climate, any other details.

keep asking why until you’ve fleshed out the details you need to run the first couple sessions

keep adding to the world as time goes on

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask! Happy worldbuilding!

#writing #world building

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Sharing TTRPG Design Lists

So here's a quick thumbnail selection from my spreadsheet of games I've worked on and how I organize them. Thanks to https://temporalhiccup.tumblr.com/ for motivating me to post. Most of my games are not suited for late-stage capitalism profit for a number of reasons. However, some may rise close to that at some point. I'm slowly adding things to my "store" at https://aquavertigo.itch.io/

My main point in sharing is that creators tend to make a lot of things and not all of it is done. For me, most of these games will never be done, but they are companions in my ttrpg design journey.

#ttrpg #indie ttrpg

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#orphan black #tv show #jordan gavaris #hot people

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A BEAR ATE MY BEST HUMMINGBIRD FEEDER.

Rude.

#animal #moose #bear #elephant #crocodile #alligator #mountain lion #funny

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She has the color of autumn leaves 🥰

(120)

#cat #animal

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My heart and love of my life, Karlach

#art #karlach #video game #hot art

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why did no one tell me quantum computers looked like that

#science #quantum computers #cool shit #technology

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Art by Fernando Correa

#art #sci-fi #fernando correa

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Trail cam catching a deer fawn with the zoomies

#deer #animal #cute

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#funny #video

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#star trek #ds9 #tv show #funny

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Sadly relevant.

#wonder woman #tv show #dc #nazi punks fuck off #politics

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#cat #animal

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Part 1 | Part 2

Please enjoy this cute sapphic comic about accidentally adopting a werewolf from the pound based on this post. (Except I made it gay.) Meet Sabine and Jazz as they fall in loooove.

If you enjoyed please consider donating to my Kofi! Comics are a labor of love and tips really really help me out while I'm in school!

#cute #art #comic

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THE WHEEL OF TIME | 2x07

#Wheel of time #Natasha O'Keefe #hot people #omg this scene what the fuck #yes plz #tv show

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When I run The Quest For Frozen Flame, this is how you take the Ashen Tower.*

* The PCs are inside taking care of the dungeon and Turkek, while the Broken Tusk hold their armies at bay. I was gonna run this myself before game (I've done mass combat before, at others players at request but it ended up to sloggy for them, so i decided to only handle this as people want) But one of the players said it has honestly been faer dream to lead an army that faer druid raised since the 80s, so faer is showing up before game tommorrow and we're gonna run this and see how it goes for the Broken Tusk.

#mine #pathfinder 2e #pf2e #my campaigns #the quest for the frozen flame #ttrpg