Some tips for all the aspiring worldbuilders out there...

[Soarel]

1. Your world is (or should be) THE world.

Multiple planets in the material plane make the PCs' actions feel insignificant. If this planet is destroyed or conquered, who cares? There's billions of others out there. Avoid this trap unless your campaign spans multiple planets.

2. Pulled from the ass dimension.

Don't pull stuff from dimensions not specified in your cosmology. That's what demiplanes are for. Look at the DC universe continuity, and you'll see where screwing with alternate realities gets ya.

3. The roles for each race don't have to be the same every time.

Make halflings a large political force with their own empire. Have elves be technologically advanced mass murderers. Give orcs a role alongside the civilized races and leave Dwarves as savages. Get creative with existing PC races.

4. If it doesn't need to be there, it shouldn't be there. Period.

As mentioned above with the first tip, if the region or plane you are designing plays no role in the backstory, cosmology, or campaign, and just sits there for no reason, then it's best not to include it at all.

5. The highway to hell?

NEVER make it possible to physically travel between afterlives. You shouldn't let folks just walk from heaven to hell.

6. Names rule

Easily recognizable races or monsters shouldn't need euphemistic names (looking at you Birthright). If it's clearly just a rabbit, no need to call it a smeerp.

7. Gods should be gods.

If creatures exist that are older and more powerful than the gods of your setting, that makes THEM the gods, not the gods of your setting. Gods are supreme beings, not just powerful divine creatures.

[HolyCouncilMagi]

1. Your world is (or should be) THE world.

Multiple planets in the material plane make the PCs' actions feel insignificant. If this planet is destroyed or conquered, who cares? There's billions of others out there. Avoid this trap unless your campaign spans multiple planets.

Well, yeah, if all the planets are the same. On the other hand, treating each planet as a separate and unique world can be highly useful and story-driving.


2. Pulled from the ass dimension.

Don't pull stuff from dimensions not specified in your cosmology. That's what demiplanes are for. Look at the DC universe continuity, and you'll see where screwing with alternate realities gets ya.

Not sure what you're trying to say here.


3. The roles for each race don't have to be the same every time.

Make halflings a large political force with their own empire. Have elves be technologically advanced mass murderers. Give orcs a role alongside the civilized races and leave Dwarves as savages. Get creative with existing PC races.

Now this? This I totally agree with. In fact, I've actually made the whole Halfling Empire shtick. They were literally the number one force on the planet, in fact. Not xenophobes, though, just sort of contained. They also controlled one and a half of the setting's two continents, so uh, have fun not siding with them.


4. If it doesn't need to be there, it shouldn't be there. Period.

As mentioned above with the first tip, if the region or plane you are designing plays no role in the backstory, cosmology, or campaign, and just sits there for no reason, then it's best not to include it at all.

I disagree. Each plane should have a part in the cosmology, but just because you yourself don't particularly expect the players to make use of something doesn't mean it shouldn't be there as an option. There are always parts of your world the players won't see if they only partake in one campaign there; it'd be a really boring setting otherwise, or at least very tiny.


5. The highway to hell?

NEVER make it possible to physically travel between afterlives. You shouldn't let folks just walk from heaven to hell.

Why is this, exactly? Ignoring that the places serving as afterlives also serve many more functions than just being afterlives, the only people who can travel between planes are high-level anyway; why is going to a particular plane a bad thing? At most, there's be like, gate guardians at the gates of the "afterlife section" of the plane saying "no, you can't go visit your family, move along or I eat you." Going to the Abyss as Celestia are both valid, and I'm confused as to why you think otherwise. I mean, it's not something people can do willy-nilly anyway.


6. Names rule

Easily recognizable races or monsters shouldn't need euphemistic names (looking at you Birthright). If it's clearly just a rabbit, no need to call it a smeerp.

But smeerps are SO CUTE! Oh, fine. I generally agree with this tip, but it's not for everyone.


7. Gods should be gods.

If creatures exist that are older and more powerful than the gods of your setting, that makes THEM the gods, not the gods of your setting. Gods are supreme beings, not just powerful divine creatures.

I'm sorry, from whom did you learn about mythology? Nearly every polytheistic religion has something predating their gods. The Greeks (and obviously by extension the Romans), the Egyptians, the pagans... They all had "pre-gods". That doesn't make the gods any less supreme; after all, the fact that they're here means that somehow or another they overcame those greater deities of the past. The reason those past things aren't the deities is simple: The deity is the one being worshipped. Oh, and uh, those pre-gods are also usually inert/dead, but well, that's secondary.

Hope you don't mind my critique, just trying to offer alternative perspectives.

[Afgncaap5]

I'm a big fan of point 3. Though I've pulled it enough that I think my players are a bit tired of it by now and just want some regular dwarves and elves again.

[NichG]

While the rest are okay, I disagree pretty strongly with all of the following:


1. Your world is (or should be) THE world.

Multiple planets in the material plane make the PCs' actions feel insignificant. If this planet is destroyed or conquered, who cares? There's billions of others out there. Avoid this trap unless your campaign spans multiple planets.


This is a matter of 'don't rub their faces in it' - don't have the story focus on things where the PCs actions don't matter, but instead focus on the ways in which their decisions do in fact make a difference.

The existence of a frontier, of mystery, and the unknown doesn't have to make the clear and present meaningless. What it means is that there's something to aspire to. What causes problems is if you haven't made any effort to make the PCs care about their particular home. This is less about 'don't put other things in the setting' and more about 'make sure you make it personal and not abstract'. Have there be random NPCs who just pal around with the PCs during their offtime, who come to them for advice, who ask the PCs to officiate at their weddings, etc. Make a habit of naming one or two particular streets in the PC's home town, associate them with particular local flavor, and make them into metonyms (where a certain class of thing becomes associated with a particular place): instead of 'the poor side of town' its 'The Dregs'; instead of the PCs encountering a beggar, they encounter 'a dregger', etc.

Then when they encounter the places far out and away, they'll have a particular reason to care about their home above all of those other worlds.



4. If it doesn't need to be there, it shouldn't be there. Period.

As mentioned above with the first tip, if the region or plane you are designing plays no role in the backstory, cosmology, or campaign, and just sits there for no reason, then it's best not to include it at all.


These sorts of things make for useful Schroedinger's Adventures. Campaign stalling out and you have no idea what could happen next? Have one of those obscure places come into focus and become relevant, now there are new things to explore and learn. It can be neat when its something the players remember hearing you mention and go 'hey, yeah, I remember that place!' - it makes it feel like you planned things out more in advance than you really did.

It also helps the feeling of mystery if there are things that are not obvious how they connect. The important thing is, this is salt, not the main meal - don't overdo it.



5. The highway to hell?

NEVER make it possible to physically travel between afterlives. You shouldn't let folks just walk from heaven to hell.

7. Gods should be gods.

If creatures exist that are older and more powerful than the gods of your setting, that makes THEM the gods, not the gods of your setting. Gods are supreme beings, not just powerful divine creatures.

This is completely a matter of taste. Planescape is one of my favorite settings as DM and player, and the entire point of it is to violate your #5. #7 presumes a very 'flat' cosmology, where the people of the PC's world have fairly complete knowledge of how the universe is, which is fine but not to the exclusion of other possibilities.

[Jeff the Green]

A) This may fit better in homebrew > world building. B) I strenuously disagree with most of these.


1. Your world is (or should be) THE world.


Why? I can think of at least two stories where the entire universe with multiple planets is saved by heroes entirely ignorant of anything beyond their planet (The Belgariad/Mallorean and The Elenium/Tamuli, both by David Eddings). Also, just because you're not saving all of reality doesn't mean saving the planet where everyone you know and love live is small potatoes.



2. Pulled from the ass dimension.

I'm not entirely sure what this means, but I think you mean you should be consistent. Sure, that's a good idea. However, I see nothing inherently wrong with alternate realities or entities from an unknown realm.


4. If it doesn't need to be there, it shouldn't be there. Period..

This is exactly the opposite of true. If everything in the world has a place in your world's history, it feels strained and violates verisimilitude. There should be little Podunk towns and even the occasional city that haven't played a significant role in history. Also, it allows you to accommodate players' back stories a bit better. So they want to be a gladiator but nowhere you've detailed has something like that? Well, this city you never fleshed out now has an arena.


5. The highway to hell?

NEVER make it possible to physically travel between afterlives. You shouldn't let folks just walk from heaven to hell.

What? Are you kidding? What about Aeneas visiting his dad in the Elysian Fields? Hercules going to Hades (in both the original myths and Disney's "adaptation")? Several of the early Holy Grail stories? Dante's Inferno? These are valid epic adventures. If you want to make the afterlife inaccessible or unknown that's fine (I did in my homebrew world), but it's not anything close to a rule.


6. Names rule

Easily recognizable races or monsters shouldn't need euphemistic names (looking at you Birthright). If it's clearly just a rabbit, no need to call it a smeerp..

Eh. It's probably not a bad thing to avoid (your players will end up calling them bunnies anyway), but it's not a cardinal sin.


7. Gods should be gods.

If creatures exist that are older and more powerful than the gods of your setting, that makes THEM the gods, not the gods of your setting. Gods are supreme beings, not just powerful divine creatures.

Aside from the Fomorians, absent creator deities, and the various celestial hierarchies where people worship both minor deities and their masters (or even devote themselves primarily to the minor ones), there's Manichaeism (not the specific religion but the idea of one Big Good and one Big Bad, frequently with Bad winning) and hagiolatry (where the gods are too busy running things to worry about you so you pray to saints). Specific fantasy examples include Bhelliom/the Elder Gods in the Tamuli/Elenium, UL in the Belgariad/Mallorean, Ao, the Lady of Pain, and the Valar and Maiar.

Seriously, these may be your preferences for worlds, but they're very much not rules.

[TuggyNE]

This seems to be a listing of tropes that can have bad effects. Reasonable enough, as far as it goes, but Tropes Are Not Bad (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropesAreNotBad). (And I disagree that these particular tropes are even usually bad, never mind always.)

[Shining Wrath]

Oh, my.


Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist

Picasso

Some of these are better than others - which is to say, more generally true - but I can quibble with all of them. For example, #3 and #6. If they live in cities, wield shotguns, and are lawful evil - why are you calling them elves? If it's clearly completely unlike what most people call elves, why not call them smeens, and have the elves living in the forest with their bows?

Good discussion starter, but none of these is absolutely true.

As for #7, the varieties of human religion suggest that this may be false more often than true. Cronus? Demiurge? Certain Hindu variants where everything is all part of one underlying reality, including the various apparent gods?

For example, I'm creating a setting where the gods were created shortly before the creation of the world, and were quite surprised when it popped into view next to them. The creator of gods & world is called "The Silence", because it has NEVER communicated with anyone, at all, and so nothing is known about he / she / it / them. Which does not stop speculation, of course.

[Soarel]

Thanks for the feedback and opinions guys. I would like to address the "if it doesn't need to be there" rule:

If the area is eventually used in an adventure, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about areas that exist for no reason and the PCs will never visit them. IE Hogen Land in the Earthsea books (though I am running am Earthsea campaign soon).

The first and third rules are just pet peeves of mine. I understand tropes are not bad (pretty big troper myself) but I'm tired of this. The last rule about gods is just a problem of mine. I don't see weak interlopers as worthy of worship when the true deity exists at all.

[Shining Wrath]

Thanks for the feedback and opinions guys. I would like to address the "if it doesn't need to be there" rule:

If the area is eventually used in an adventure, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about areas that exist for no reason and the PCs will never visit them. IE Hogen Land in the Earthsea books (though I am running am Earthsea campaign soon).

The first and third rules are just pet peeves of mine. I understand tropes are not bad (pretty big troper myself) but I'm tired of this. The last rule about gods is just a problem of mine. I don't see weak interlopers as worthy of worship when the true deity exists at all.

Consider the possibility that "You can't handle the truth", and the true deity is so beyond mortal comprehension that it permits / desires that mortals worship the lesser interlopers as the only way they can experience the divine? "Not as I think Thou art, but as Thou knowest Thyself to be" may not work for some worlds.

The setting I'm working on, the adventure area is "on the frontier", and it is unlikely that the PCs will visit the older lands until they get teleport capability. Nonetheless, the older lands are there as a matter of history and "the other end" of trade routes.

[NichG]

Thanks for the feedback and opinions guys. I would like to address the "if it doesn't need to be there" rule:

If the area is eventually used in an adventure, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about areas that exist for no reason and the PCs will never visit them. IE Hogen Land in the Earthsea books (though I am running am Earthsea campaign soon).


My point was that by having a number of things that are vaguely suggested in the narration or as places of origin for NPCs or whatever, that gives you a set of places/things that you can later decide to use in an adventure. I think its sort of silly to assume that when you're doing the worldbuilding phase you can tell exactly where the campaign is going to end up or where the PCs will be interested in going. This is of course especially true in a sandbox game, but even in a more traditional form its hard to know what ideas you as DM would have a year down the line, which might benefit from having some or other place to explore that wasn't in your initial plans.

Even if you never use them, these extra places can provide 'consistent adjectives' to build the world from, which basically helps the PCs make decisions or come to realizations later on. Consider something like Africa in Victoriana-style fiction. Its a mysterious place where aught might happen and is rarely actually the subject of the plotlines or the setting for the story - instead, its mysteriousness is used to paint characters who are from there or who have journeyed there in a certain light, which in a tabletop game the players could be aware of and pick up on as an in-character clue for this or that. 'Oh, he spent ten years in Africa, that means he's the adventuresome sort' for example.

[Soarel]

Consider the possibility that "You can't handle the truth", and the true deity is so beyond mortal comprehension that it permits / desires that mortals worship the lesser interlopers as the only way they can experience the divine? "Not as I think Thou art, but as Thou knowest Thyself to be" may not work for some worlds.

The setting I'm working on, the adventure area is "on the frontier", and it is unlikely that the PCs will visit the older lands until they get teleport capability. Nonetheless, the older lands are there as a matter of history and "the other end" of trade routes.

I like that idea. I was really talking about stuff like the Qlippoths' backstory in Pathfinder and such. IE monsters that are older than but not as powerful as the gods. I also like the idea of having previous pantheons in the setting, like greek mythology and the Titans.