Mistakes
  • Interra: I tried to put too many different things in and the whole world ended up a fantasy kitchen sink with no real distinctive flavor to it and the relationship between societies had no real meat to it. I was like 13 at the time.
  • Chikyuu: The world made no sense. It was made on the fly (I did not know I was DMing the night I made it so I just grabbed a map I was using to study Japanese). The world design felt schizoid and like it didn't even relate to itself.
  • My last game: I actually tried to focus on the world, but I just didn't have the time between other things to really make it work. The PCs were gods in the making and I set it up as a three way confrontation and while some things came off well I had trouble getting people to pay attention to the meat of how being a god in the setting worked.


Those are the three big mistakes I can think of.

Successes:
  • The Three Worlds: Three parallel primes which actually had meaningful trade and social connections. Campaign lasted 2 years so I'd say it's a success. Did make a lot of fluff no one will ever look at but I like world-building for its own sake.
  • Chikyuu: Despite being something I was disatisfied with I had someone else try and run a game in it which is to me a big success on a setting. It was completely and resolutely not planned ahead of time but did manage to grow into something resembling a world as the game went on albeit with early instalment weirdness.