Weekender XLBS: Worldbuilding & Storytelling In Role-Playing Games
November 4, 2018 by lancorz
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Happy Sunday
Happy sunday
Happy Sunday!
There are some interesting socio-cultural models that are useful in world building; encouraging you to consider multiple aspects. One I’m familiar with is Johnson & Scholes Cultural Web where you consider how an organisation’s culture involves formal structures and systems to carry out a long term strategy; this is underpinned by rituals,routines, stories and symbols that matter to those within the organisation. OK – this is business management but adaptable to RPG. Situations are created when events and forces (internal or external) disrupt this model – even small change can create problems. A KS a few years ago that plays… Read more »
Senile sorcery looks like good fun
It is great fun 🙂 Looking forward to @lancorz pushing forward with the project and getting more games in!
Glad you think so, we’ve had some epic battles in the studio over lunch breaks.
Happy Sunday … FIFTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah Baby!!!
@brennon how could you do that intro without one of the chosen t-shirts on? Glad to see you finally have your mug though!
Alas I didn’t pack any of them and it was very cold this week so jumpers were much needed!
Happy Sunday! I struggle to get excited by RPGs but it’s very refreshing to hear Ben be able to finish sentences!! ?
Ben finishing a sentence without interruption is pretty rare in these episodes ?
@dracs so jealous that you have received your Carnevale kickstarter as I am still waiting for my Prince of Thieves pledge to arrive.
Damn you @brennon just had to go all in again on B&B, I already have too many 😀
Haha yeah I backed it this morning too – looking forward to the freebies 🙂
Happy Sunday 🙂
I think it is a shame that a lot of the time while the world persists many of it’s intricacies are lost. I used to use a writers program that was designed to world build. During a game as a DM I would make notes of key moments. My pre game design process would be co-ordinated with this and the lore it held. I found that we could then advance the timeline through bloodlines and it gave me as a DM more freedom to kill the players when they made poor or unlucky decisions. Yhrough the family tree of the… Read more »
I loved the books by Salvatore, read all the Drizzt books up to a point I am sure more have been written since.
Look forward to running game @lancorz with the family soon
Some Tales? ?
Happy Sunday..brilliant show ladies and gentlemen will be listening to it again later have enjoyed this immensely i have been pottering into a story of my own and world creating is obviously part of it so was good to listen to you talk about it.
Awesome stuff. Hopefully you share some of your thoughts on it too with us in the forums and the like 🙂
Glad you enjoyed it, we all had a blast with this episode.
The owlbear was designed from a Japanese monster toy.
Hah I didn’t know that – very cool indeed 🙂
I’m not even surprised.
Happy sunday all!
Happy Sunday. A really interesting episode, especially as I am just delving back into RPGs after many years of not playing. The main reason is my 9yo son wanted to play some DnD. We are working on a world at the moment that will mainly be inhabited by Gnomes and Goblins, which should hopefully lead to some humourous times.
Have a look at Goblin Quest, it’s a wacky small RPG where everyone plays as goblins trying to do menial tasks. It would be fun inspiration for your D&D world.
I already own it 🙂
So finally good to see you to release your game Lantz. I liked when board was movable build from hexes that you could change. is that changed permanently?
I think the finished game will have a random hex set up to make the game more replayable which is cool.
Yep I’ll keep the hexes so that you can make your own landscapes. For now a single page is just easier for quick play.
You missed a good joke at the start – when @brennon said about don’t say his name or he might disapear you should have had him disappear and then Cass, Lance and Sam frantically saying his name to bring him back. ? @dracs – I’d have thought you’d have wanted you Patricians lead by Vetinari. ? Cass doesn’t remember what she’s backed – quick everyone send her random board/card games to confuse her! ? Sam will correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the ‘energy’ symbol in Lance’s game Gandalf’s monogram? 😉 Also, at this point I’ve just noticed when… Read more »
First Law books: if you have an audible account I highly recommend getting the audiobooks of these as they’re excellent and the narrator is great. One kids books series that you should avoid for an RPG idea – Thomas the Tank Engine, because no players like being put on rails. ? @brennon – would you need to adapt B&B to D&D? From what I recall of the rules I think B&B would make for a good starting point for its own RPG. 😉 Sam’s a writer for hire? Hmm, I really want to write a novel but I’m just constantly… Read more »
The First Law is amazing. Love Joe Abercrombie’s work and it was what got me back into properly reading books again as a hobby.
Also…maybe there’s something else in the works for B&B 😉
I think the best First Law book is ‘The Heroes’, a nice look into a protracted battle.
I don’t have the time to do much RPG’ing these days, but I used to love world building and, even though I don’t expect to be able to use stuff in games any more, I still like to dream and make notes. I also use RPG world building as a way to see and appreciate the world. When I visit new places I often ask myself the question ‘would this make a good location to set a scene in a game?’ It’s a fun way to experience new places as it encourages me to think twice about things. I think… Read more »
I have only watched an hour as I have to head off to work. Will finish later. However lanz mentioned any book series that would lend itself as a world to play in. I thought of an old anthology series Thieves World. Very open to playing in and wide range of character types and adventures possible there. I will finish the video tonight and see what I missed or messed up.
Happy Sunday!
Great show as ever 🙂
@Brennon As a fellow DM for years I thought you would think it was cool what I have been doing with my group. We started with new characters playing through the New Curse of Strand 5 Edition module. At the end of the module the characters defeat Strand and get teleported out of his realm. What I did instead of teleporting them back to their homes is that I took them to my new world. I started by using the old 80’s module “Test of Warlords”. Since the characters are all higher levels now, they became Barons in my new… Read more »
The way I do world building is depending on the time I have I will do the following. 1. Bullet point out the first arc of the game usually I try for about 3 to for sessionc of bullet points. * what is the first arc about? * where the group starts: town name, size, surrounding area (within a days walk in game), some NPC`s (town leader, inn or tavern owner, stable or store owner’s the players may visit) * 2 or 3 nearby towns usually within 2 or 3 days walk of starting town along with a description of… Read more »
Going down the route of sci fi world building take a look at Hal Clement and James P. Hogan. They both write “hard” or science based writing. They literally start with building a world by definition it’s diameter, gravity, distance from a sun, type of sun and so on. Once the world is built they then try to figure out what the inhabitants would have to look like in order to survive on that world. Their books are older but well worth a read just for the world building aspects.
@brennon on Darker Days Radio we have a few episodes that cover the ideas of Chronicle Design for WoD and CofD games, but the principles are what I apply to any game.
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-itewf-28f414
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-itewf-29defd
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-itewf-2c107a
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-itewf-366e70