LeonaFirewater
Ex-Soldier
World Building 101
(A1) What is "World Building"
(B1) How detailed should I be in my world
(B2) The General Geography and Physics
(B3) History
(B4) The People
(B5) Threats and Reward
(C1) Levels of Magic and Technology
(C2) Levels of Magic
(C3) Levels of Technology
(C3.1) Hunter-Gatherer Clan or Early Agrarian
(C3.2) Classical
(C3.3) Feudal
(C3.4) Early Modern/Renaissance
(C3.5) Steam
(C3.6) Modern
(C3.7) Contemporary
(C3.8) Future/Far Future
(C4) Mix and Match
(C5) High/Low Fantasy/Scifi
(D1) Supplemental Material
(E1) Creating
(F1) Conclusion
(A1) What is "World Building"
World building refers to the art of creating an imaginary world. Although called "world" building, the scale of creation can vary greatly. At times it can be as small as a town, or as large as a universe. The world that is made typically depends on the scale of the story and how willing one is to explore it. A self-contained tale of a young boy growing into man hood, or other slice off life tales, can be contained within a small rural town, but tales involving conflicts between nations, require national scale, at a minimum.
(B1) How detailed should I be in my world
As detailed as the story requires! In open ended RP's or stories you might need to decide on the daily comings and goings of the shop keeper on the edge of town, or the life of soldiers before the war, and so on. In small scale and self-contained stories or RP's, you might only needs one house and two people fully developed. the world should be built to accommodate the story.
It's best to break down your world into four parts;
(B2) The General Geography and Physics: Deciding on the shape and physics of your world is the first part, this will completely influence all other parts of your story. Does your world have magic? If so what's its system? Does your world have people who can perform heroic feats, lifting boulders as casually as we lift crumpled balls of cardboard? It's best to take our world as a template and do tweaks here and there rather than figuring out the mathematical formulas of gravity for your new world. You can figure out the geography in two ways; Going from small to large, starting with your immediate setting and expanding out as necessary, or going from large to small, creating worlds, then continents, then nations, and then the towns villages and roads in which the players participate.
Other things to consider are; Different geographical zones, is the world going to be in one climate in one season, or will the players travel through deserts, tundra and swamps in all seasons. If they will be traveling through different climates and time, then you need to develop the way time travels through your world. Is it similar to our Gregorian calendar or will it be completely different?
Cosmology can also be important depending on the setting. Final Fantasy for example makes use of stories that deal with moons, astrological signs, and other planes. The general geography, physics, cosmology, and scale are good frame works for dealing with the second broadest topic in world building; History.
(B3) History: The history of your world is the second broadest section of your construction. Once again the scale of your setting is paramount to the way you will handle history. One shot battles don't need to worry about the history of the area you fight in, unless you wish to do something with destructible environments or hidden traps or monsters or such.
For story based sessions the history can be very important. The history of your world doesn't always need a beginning, and rarely need an end, although these can help. For most stories the immediate history is the most important aspect. History will guide the current happenings, and typically the immediate history is the reason behind the current plot. Perhaps a major battle has happened in the previous weeks, or a king has raised the taxes causing a rebellion, or the moon has disappeared, causing gods to appear in the skies as constellations. A common misconception is that the more recent the immediate history of the story is, the greater plot impact players will have. This is simply not true. While having a war start two days before the start of your story can make it so your players can have a large effect on the first days of the war, having the war start 2 years previously will still allow your players and characters to have plot impact. Sure they might not be able to have the first major victory of the war, but they can still turn the tides of battle, reclaim a city under occupation, or other feats of bravery.
Having a deeper history in fact can be preferential. Giving the players several months or years to work with can allow them to have a character with a greater tie to the story, including more details in your world allows characters to have more details in their own history. Ancient history can also be important. Perhaps there was an ancient prophesy yet unfulfilled? A race of advanced aliens are the cause for your worlds magic and magical items? Using the far distant past, one that your characters can have nearly no relation to, can be important to the setting and story. Creation myths can also be important to the cosmology, physics and magic of your world. Your history will dictate the creation of countries, religion, economies, cultures, society, geography, and physics. Today is the result of yesterday, and tomorrow is the result of today.
Deciding on the future is tricky when world building. Although it can be useful when creating a story to have one to several predetermined events, they should in some way tie into your past or present, and not come out of nowhere. This doesn't mean that all the information on what will happen has to be laid out in the open for your players, although leaving subtle clues or hints can be rewarding to players who figure out what is going to happen. Predetermined does not mean unstoppable, if the players figure out a 100% fool-proof way to stop the oncoming event, you should roll with it, although more often players will simply mitigate the effects of the event rather than stop it completely. Common future events include: Natural disasters, the coming of an important mysterious figure, a prophesy fulfilled, and the death of certain characters.
(B4) The People: The people are a product of their times, when creating actors/NPCs to fill your world you should consider how they are influenced by the world you've made and how they influence it. For smaller scale stories you might not need any actors, but for larger ones you will almost certainly need them. The people range in their diversity, from highly complex individuals, to sweeping, general mobs. You should always have some actors outside of your players to help steer the events of the RP session. This will ensure that a story of your devising can be told, and can nudge along more interesting interactions that the players may have not considered.0
In smaller sessions you won’t have to worry about culture or society as a whole and can instead focus on individuals, but in larger settings it helps to have a larger cultural background that can be applied to several actors. Larger cultural backgrounds are useful as a template, with a basic set up you can create actors that fit the mold of their world, or break free from it, allowing greater character driven conflict and interactions. Of course, who you decide to create varies, typically you should have a basic idea of who will and will not be interacting with the players in your story, whether it be quest givers, the king that must be dethroned, or a captured princess. All actors that interact with the players should have a small history, personality, appearance, and goals.
Common actors to create are people in positions of authority. This authority can be authority over a piece of land, a group of people, a shop, or the plot its self. Above all, your actors should feel natural, not everyone should be a special and unique snowflake that will change the flow of history, but everyone should be able to hold up a conversation, and it's hard for actors with no personality history or other defining attributes to do so.
(B5) Threats and Rewards: Now that you have the basic frame work for your world set up, it's time to really consider the players. Threats and rewards are used to spur action and engage the players to continue with your and their story.
Threats can be immediate or immanent. Immediate threats are useful for getting characters to first engage in your story, perhaps a monster has stolen the sister of one of your characters, or the ongoing war and it's resulting loss of like moves a player to action. Immediate threats are conflict driven plot points currently ongoing. A threat set up before the start of an RP allows players to create characters that have a motivation and clear goal related to solving a problem, or the problem as affected their history and personality in some way.
Immanent threats are good for keeping players engaged. If you wish your RP to be more open ended, have a secondary threat built up alongside the already ongoing threat, this insures that once the first threat is dealt with, players can continue with their characters into a new story line. Although the secondary threat does not have to be directly related to the first, it's best if they start up during the ongoing story, so that players can flow naturally into the new story. This is of course unless you wish to include some sort of time-skip, in which case secondary threats happening completely disconnect from the first story are completely fine.
Personal threats are also important to include, threats that only intimately involve one player, or two at the most, allows for deep character development on an individual scale, disconnect from the other players. This personal threat is where character rich actors can come in handy, allowing the player to work off them to develop in a way that they might have been unable to with the other players characters personalities.
All threats should conclude with some form of reward. World building scale rewards vary wildly, but should in some way involve the larger world you've created. Players willing to poke around the world you've built in interesting ways should be rewarded in interesting fashions. Rewards are not just material rewards, they can be conclusions to a characters arc, an introduction of a new story, or anything else that can help engage players really.
Players willing to explore should be rewarded in some way, either with a legendary item, a deeper connection to an actor, a new character arc, or a conclusion to some part of their character arc. As a world builder you should also consider your players personality and history. Include threats and rewards tailor made for them, if they have specific weaknesses exploit those, or if they have a specific talent include a challenge they can over some. If a player has a hobby or skill for their character include some way they can use it in the world, even if it's just an actor with similar interests they can discuss it with.
(C1)Levels of Magic and Technology
In the world you create you should consider what level of magic and technology you should have. The levels of both can have a very distinct effect on the tone of your story, and can change what kind of stories that can be formed.
(C2)Levels of Magic
High Magic: Magic is through out the entire world, mages and magical artifacts are common. Although there can be a reverence for magic users they are typically not treated as an anomaly. High magic settings allow magic to be incorporated into the geography, politics, and culture of your world. In High Magic settings institutions based around magic can be formed easily.
Low Magic: Magic is rare in your setting, mages are oddities and of note, magic artifacts are rare and powerful. There are little or no institutions of magic, except those against it.
(C3)Levels of Technology
When considering technology it's best to draw inspiration from different time periods, as well as different cultures. Each level of technology is usually paired with larger settlements and population. Bellow are suggested levels of technology.
(C3.1)Hunter-Gatherer Clan or Early Agrarian type levels will not have industry, and must rely on the natural resources of your world in a very hand to mouth fashion. This level of technology should have bands(~20 people) within a larger tribe(~200 people), with clans(familial ties) apart of the tribe. So there can be "nations" of "people" but no "government." People at this level of technology weren't always nomadic, and if they were they would have several sites they return to during the year. Large wondrous monuments were rare, and when they were made they were very well known or coveted. Magic would have a greater importance in these societies, where the is no technological equivalent of what magic can do.
(C3.2)Classical technology sees the prominence of secondary products and the beginnings of dedicated professions and class. The arts, sciences, and politics take leaps and bounds, entire artistic or scientific communities begin. Empires and advanced writing and mathematical systems begin. More advanced metal working has been developed, roads are built, and light siege weapons are made.
(C3.3)Feudal technology is based around people having more specialized roles, and the introduction of classes. Metal working, and individual industry has begun. agriculture and large scale mining are now common. Large monuments are now more prominent due to organized class based division of labour. A dedicated military has either begun to form or is fully formed. Spies are hired either by the state or people. Larger siege weapons, more advanced medicine, weapons, and raw material processing is around.
(C3.4)Early Modern/Renaissance technology see's the presence of guns, larger exploration either by land or sea, greater advances in the sciences, medicine, and generally because of the advancements a movement away from mythology. Coal use is more prominent, and in fantasy style worlds clockwork machinery and non-plane flying machinery is common. This is the age of pirates, monopolies, espionage and revolutions.
(C3.5)Steam technology get's its own section because of the sheer prominence of "steampunk." This level of technology replaces most fossil-fuel based technology with steam-based. Trains, airships/zeppelins, steam powered boats are all prominent. Tesla-styled electronics, tanks and airplanes are also prominent. At this point full democracies, communist states, and all forms government are around.
(C3.6)Modern technology is the technology used around the 1920's-60's. As you can tell this is a bit broader. Satellites, corporations, pop-art, multi-culturalism, major medical advances, spy agencies, nuclear power, greater fossil-fuel use, light wind and light solar power are all around. Stories around this time usually incorporate pulp influences; Cowboys, noire, retro-scifi, superheros, horror, mobs, robber barons, spy agencies, and Indiana Jones type adventure stories.
(C3.7)Contemporary technology is the technology of today. Although semi-futuristic subjects and items are incorporated at times, such as virtual reality or light cloning. We have very advanced medicine, globalization, corporations, the internet, and, well, just look around you. This time frame goes really well with "slice of life" style stories, as people don't feel bogged down by the setting too much.
(C3.8)Future/Far Future technology is the technology of TOMORROW! Space exploration/colonization, hyper advanced medicine, cloning, trans-humanism, and seemingly magical levels of technology. The future can be portrayed in a very pop style, almost kitschy, or dead serious. Technology can have outpaced cultural development, where our morals haven't caught up to our level of technology. Or our technology has allowed us to transcend war, poverty, and all sorts of societal issues.
(C4)Mix and Match: Obviously feel free to mix and match levels of technology, either by creating anachronisms or having different societies have different levels of technology. Maybe the ancient people had technology of a seemingly magical level. Magic and Technology together can be dealt with in several ways, in some settings they mesh with each other, in others they oppose each other. In the future, the distinction between magic and technology can be non-existent, where magic is initiated by technology.
(C5)High/Low Fantasy/Scifi: For brevity let's have a setting combine fantasy and scifi, or Science Fantasy as it's called. High Science Fantasy is the entire world is saturated with themes of magic and/or science, everyone is aware and science/magic is accessible to all. Fantastic things can be explained because "magic" or "science". Low Science Fantasy refers to any magical or seemingly far to advanced science being out of place, because the setting is bereft of these things typically, the occurrences are odd, or ignored/glossed over because the people can't handle it.
(D1)Supplemental Material
Having supplemental material for your constructed world can assist players in their engagement. Drawn maps, wanted posters, flyers, and other tangible objects for your players to use all assist in the "realness" of the setting, and can help engross players.
(E1)Creating
As I said, you can work from largest to smallest, as I have in my instructions, or smallest to largest. Doing largest to smallest allows for easier multiple stories or playthrough of your world, as you have a more developed and diverse landscape players can explore. Smallest to largest allows for more intimate playthrough with very player specific situations. Doing both at once, while difficult and more time consuming, ensures a rich world.
(F1)Conclusion
The most important part of your world will be how natural it feels. Players should be able to be fully involved in the story in which your world takes place. The more detail you put into your world, the more natural it will feel. Not all information has to be made available to your players from the get go, allowing them to discover details as they go along can help keep them engaged. The world you make will influence your players and the stories that can be told. Your stories, actors, threats and rewards should in some way relate to the larger world you have built, although having alien and out of place influences can be interesting, things should feel as cohesive and natural as possible.
These are of course guidelines and you can deviate as much from them as possible.
(A1) What is "World Building"
(B1) How detailed should I be in my world
(B2) The General Geography and Physics
(B3) History
(B4) The People
(B5) Threats and Reward
(C1) Levels of Magic and Technology
(C2) Levels of Magic
(C3) Levels of Technology
(C3.1) Hunter-Gatherer Clan or Early Agrarian
(C3.2) Classical
(C3.3) Feudal
(C3.4) Early Modern/Renaissance
(C3.5) Steam
(C3.6) Modern
(C3.7) Contemporary
(C3.8) Future/Far Future
(C4) Mix and Match
(C5) High/Low Fantasy/Scifi
(D1) Supplemental Material
(E1) Creating
(F1) Conclusion
(A1) What is "World Building"
World building refers to the art of creating an imaginary world. Although called "world" building, the scale of creation can vary greatly. At times it can be as small as a town, or as large as a universe. The world that is made typically depends on the scale of the story and how willing one is to explore it. A self-contained tale of a young boy growing into man hood, or other slice off life tales, can be contained within a small rural town, but tales involving conflicts between nations, require national scale, at a minimum.
(B1) How detailed should I be in my world
As detailed as the story requires! In open ended RP's or stories you might need to decide on the daily comings and goings of the shop keeper on the edge of town, or the life of soldiers before the war, and so on. In small scale and self-contained stories or RP's, you might only needs one house and two people fully developed. the world should be built to accommodate the story.
It's best to break down your world into four parts;
(B2) The General Geography and Physics: Deciding on the shape and physics of your world is the first part, this will completely influence all other parts of your story. Does your world have magic? If so what's its system? Does your world have people who can perform heroic feats, lifting boulders as casually as we lift crumpled balls of cardboard? It's best to take our world as a template and do tweaks here and there rather than figuring out the mathematical formulas of gravity for your new world. You can figure out the geography in two ways; Going from small to large, starting with your immediate setting and expanding out as necessary, or going from large to small, creating worlds, then continents, then nations, and then the towns villages and roads in which the players participate.
Other things to consider are; Different geographical zones, is the world going to be in one climate in one season, or will the players travel through deserts, tundra and swamps in all seasons. If they will be traveling through different climates and time, then you need to develop the way time travels through your world. Is it similar to our Gregorian calendar or will it be completely different?
Cosmology can also be important depending on the setting. Final Fantasy for example makes use of stories that deal with moons, astrological signs, and other planes. The general geography, physics, cosmology, and scale are good frame works for dealing with the second broadest topic in world building; History.
(B3) History: The history of your world is the second broadest section of your construction. Once again the scale of your setting is paramount to the way you will handle history. One shot battles don't need to worry about the history of the area you fight in, unless you wish to do something with destructible environments or hidden traps or monsters or such.
For story based sessions the history can be very important. The history of your world doesn't always need a beginning, and rarely need an end, although these can help. For most stories the immediate history is the most important aspect. History will guide the current happenings, and typically the immediate history is the reason behind the current plot. Perhaps a major battle has happened in the previous weeks, or a king has raised the taxes causing a rebellion, or the moon has disappeared, causing gods to appear in the skies as constellations. A common misconception is that the more recent the immediate history of the story is, the greater plot impact players will have. This is simply not true. While having a war start two days before the start of your story can make it so your players can have a large effect on the first days of the war, having the war start 2 years previously will still allow your players and characters to have plot impact. Sure they might not be able to have the first major victory of the war, but they can still turn the tides of battle, reclaim a city under occupation, or other feats of bravery.
Having a deeper history in fact can be preferential. Giving the players several months or years to work with can allow them to have a character with a greater tie to the story, including more details in your world allows characters to have more details in their own history. Ancient history can also be important. Perhaps there was an ancient prophesy yet unfulfilled? A race of advanced aliens are the cause for your worlds magic and magical items? Using the far distant past, one that your characters can have nearly no relation to, can be important to the setting and story. Creation myths can also be important to the cosmology, physics and magic of your world. Your history will dictate the creation of countries, religion, economies, cultures, society, geography, and physics. Today is the result of yesterday, and tomorrow is the result of today.
Deciding on the future is tricky when world building. Although it can be useful when creating a story to have one to several predetermined events, they should in some way tie into your past or present, and not come out of nowhere. This doesn't mean that all the information on what will happen has to be laid out in the open for your players, although leaving subtle clues or hints can be rewarding to players who figure out what is going to happen. Predetermined does not mean unstoppable, if the players figure out a 100% fool-proof way to stop the oncoming event, you should roll with it, although more often players will simply mitigate the effects of the event rather than stop it completely. Common future events include: Natural disasters, the coming of an important mysterious figure, a prophesy fulfilled, and the death of certain characters.
(B4) The People: The people are a product of their times, when creating actors/NPCs to fill your world you should consider how they are influenced by the world you've made and how they influence it. For smaller scale stories you might not need any actors, but for larger ones you will almost certainly need them. The people range in their diversity, from highly complex individuals, to sweeping, general mobs. You should always have some actors outside of your players to help steer the events of the RP session. This will ensure that a story of your devising can be told, and can nudge along more interesting interactions that the players may have not considered.0
In smaller sessions you won’t have to worry about culture or society as a whole and can instead focus on individuals, but in larger settings it helps to have a larger cultural background that can be applied to several actors. Larger cultural backgrounds are useful as a template, with a basic set up you can create actors that fit the mold of their world, or break free from it, allowing greater character driven conflict and interactions. Of course, who you decide to create varies, typically you should have a basic idea of who will and will not be interacting with the players in your story, whether it be quest givers, the king that must be dethroned, or a captured princess. All actors that interact with the players should have a small history, personality, appearance, and goals.
Common actors to create are people in positions of authority. This authority can be authority over a piece of land, a group of people, a shop, or the plot its self. Above all, your actors should feel natural, not everyone should be a special and unique snowflake that will change the flow of history, but everyone should be able to hold up a conversation, and it's hard for actors with no personality history or other defining attributes to do so.
(B5) Threats and Rewards: Now that you have the basic frame work for your world set up, it's time to really consider the players. Threats and rewards are used to spur action and engage the players to continue with your and their story.
Threats can be immediate or immanent. Immediate threats are useful for getting characters to first engage in your story, perhaps a monster has stolen the sister of one of your characters, or the ongoing war and it's resulting loss of like moves a player to action. Immediate threats are conflict driven plot points currently ongoing. A threat set up before the start of an RP allows players to create characters that have a motivation and clear goal related to solving a problem, or the problem as affected their history and personality in some way.
Immanent threats are good for keeping players engaged. If you wish your RP to be more open ended, have a secondary threat built up alongside the already ongoing threat, this insures that once the first threat is dealt with, players can continue with their characters into a new story line. Although the secondary threat does not have to be directly related to the first, it's best if they start up during the ongoing story, so that players can flow naturally into the new story. This is of course unless you wish to include some sort of time-skip, in which case secondary threats happening completely disconnect from the first story are completely fine.
Personal threats are also important to include, threats that only intimately involve one player, or two at the most, allows for deep character development on an individual scale, disconnect from the other players. This personal threat is where character rich actors can come in handy, allowing the player to work off them to develop in a way that they might have been unable to with the other players characters personalities.
All threats should conclude with some form of reward. World building scale rewards vary wildly, but should in some way involve the larger world you've created. Players willing to poke around the world you've built in interesting ways should be rewarded in interesting fashions. Rewards are not just material rewards, they can be conclusions to a characters arc, an introduction of a new story, or anything else that can help engage players really.
Players willing to explore should be rewarded in some way, either with a legendary item, a deeper connection to an actor, a new character arc, or a conclusion to some part of their character arc. As a world builder you should also consider your players personality and history. Include threats and rewards tailor made for them, if they have specific weaknesses exploit those, or if they have a specific talent include a challenge they can over some. If a player has a hobby or skill for their character include some way they can use it in the world, even if it's just an actor with similar interests they can discuss it with.
(C1)Levels of Magic and Technology
In the world you create you should consider what level of magic and technology you should have. The levels of both can have a very distinct effect on the tone of your story, and can change what kind of stories that can be formed.
(C2)Levels of Magic
High Magic: Magic is through out the entire world, mages and magical artifacts are common. Although there can be a reverence for magic users they are typically not treated as an anomaly. High magic settings allow magic to be incorporated into the geography, politics, and culture of your world. In High Magic settings institutions based around magic can be formed easily.
Low Magic: Magic is rare in your setting, mages are oddities and of note, magic artifacts are rare and powerful. There are little or no institutions of magic, except those against it.
(C3)Levels of Technology
When considering technology it's best to draw inspiration from different time periods, as well as different cultures. Each level of technology is usually paired with larger settlements and population. Bellow are suggested levels of technology.
(C3.1)Hunter-Gatherer Clan or Early Agrarian type levels will not have industry, and must rely on the natural resources of your world in a very hand to mouth fashion. This level of technology should have bands(~20 people) within a larger tribe(~200 people), with clans(familial ties) apart of the tribe. So there can be "nations" of "people" but no "government." People at this level of technology weren't always nomadic, and if they were they would have several sites they return to during the year. Large wondrous monuments were rare, and when they were made they were very well known or coveted. Magic would have a greater importance in these societies, where the is no technological equivalent of what magic can do.
(C3.2)Classical technology sees the prominence of secondary products and the beginnings of dedicated professions and class. The arts, sciences, and politics take leaps and bounds, entire artistic or scientific communities begin. Empires and advanced writing and mathematical systems begin. More advanced metal working has been developed, roads are built, and light siege weapons are made.
(C3.3)Feudal technology is based around people having more specialized roles, and the introduction of classes. Metal working, and individual industry has begun. agriculture and large scale mining are now common. Large monuments are now more prominent due to organized class based division of labour. A dedicated military has either begun to form or is fully formed. Spies are hired either by the state or people. Larger siege weapons, more advanced medicine, weapons, and raw material processing is around.
(C3.4)Early Modern/Renaissance technology see's the presence of guns, larger exploration either by land or sea, greater advances in the sciences, medicine, and generally because of the advancements a movement away from mythology. Coal use is more prominent, and in fantasy style worlds clockwork machinery and non-plane flying machinery is common. This is the age of pirates, monopolies, espionage and revolutions.
(C3.5)Steam technology get's its own section because of the sheer prominence of "steampunk." This level of technology replaces most fossil-fuel based technology with steam-based. Trains, airships/zeppelins, steam powered boats are all prominent. Tesla-styled electronics, tanks and airplanes are also prominent. At this point full democracies, communist states, and all forms government are around.
(C3.6)Modern technology is the technology used around the 1920's-60's. As you can tell this is a bit broader. Satellites, corporations, pop-art, multi-culturalism, major medical advances, spy agencies, nuclear power, greater fossil-fuel use, light wind and light solar power are all around. Stories around this time usually incorporate pulp influences; Cowboys, noire, retro-scifi, superheros, horror, mobs, robber barons, spy agencies, and Indiana Jones type adventure stories.
(C3.7)Contemporary technology is the technology of today. Although semi-futuristic subjects and items are incorporated at times, such as virtual reality or light cloning. We have very advanced medicine, globalization, corporations, the internet, and, well, just look around you. This time frame goes really well with "slice of life" style stories, as people don't feel bogged down by the setting too much.
(C3.8)Future/Far Future technology is the technology of TOMORROW! Space exploration/colonization, hyper advanced medicine, cloning, trans-humanism, and seemingly magical levels of technology. The future can be portrayed in a very pop style, almost kitschy, or dead serious. Technology can have outpaced cultural development, where our morals haven't caught up to our level of technology. Or our technology has allowed us to transcend war, poverty, and all sorts of societal issues.
(C4)Mix and Match: Obviously feel free to mix and match levels of technology, either by creating anachronisms or having different societies have different levels of technology. Maybe the ancient people had technology of a seemingly magical level. Magic and Technology together can be dealt with in several ways, in some settings they mesh with each other, in others they oppose each other. In the future, the distinction between magic and technology can be non-existent, where magic is initiated by technology.
(C5)High/Low Fantasy/Scifi: For brevity let's have a setting combine fantasy and scifi, or Science Fantasy as it's called. High Science Fantasy is the entire world is saturated with themes of magic and/or science, everyone is aware and science/magic is accessible to all. Fantastic things can be explained because "magic" or "science". Low Science Fantasy refers to any magical or seemingly far to advanced science being out of place, because the setting is bereft of these things typically, the occurrences are odd, or ignored/glossed over because the people can't handle it.
(D1)Supplemental Material
Having supplemental material for your constructed world can assist players in their engagement. Drawn maps, wanted posters, flyers, and other tangible objects for your players to use all assist in the "realness" of the setting, and can help engross players.
(E1)Creating
As I said, you can work from largest to smallest, as I have in my instructions, or smallest to largest. Doing largest to smallest allows for easier multiple stories or playthrough of your world, as you have a more developed and diverse landscape players can explore. Smallest to largest allows for more intimate playthrough with very player specific situations. Doing both at once, while difficult and more time consuming, ensures a rich world.
(F1)Conclusion
The most important part of your world will be how natural it feels. Players should be able to be fully involved in the story in which your world takes place. The more detail you put into your world, the more natural it will feel. Not all information has to be made available to your players from the get go, allowing them to discover details as they go along can help keep them engaged. The world you make will influence your players and the stories that can be told. Your stories, actors, threats and rewards should in some way relate to the larger world you have built, although having alien and out of place influences can be interesting, things should feel as cohesive and natural as possible.
These are of course guidelines and you can deviate as much from them as possible.
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