There's a quote that I think gets at the heart of tip 5: "plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." In other words, you can't make a plan that will successfully address every actual complication; what you can do is develop, through careful thought and exploration, a list of things that likely could happen and the ways and means you have at hand to address something unexpected happening, as it surely will.
Over the years I've found it's useful to parse this as planing and preparation. Planing is deciding what's going to happen, preparation is knowing your setting and what/who is in it. Don't plan. Prepare.
Yeah, I tend to plan what I call modules -- moments and key parts that need to happen/drive the story -- but I leave out the connecting bits. That way, my players can explore organically and I can plug the modules in as opportunities become available.
@@phatpat63 I think a combination of the two is necessary, for instance in Monster of The Week it is suggested that for each hunt the keeper prepared a list of things that will happen if the hunters do not thwart the plans of the monster, and that this list should be advanced when the story lulls or when certain premade triggers occur. It's a kind of plan that isn't set in stone but it's still a plan, keeping things that should happen barring intervention is just as important as preparing for intervention to occur, because otherwise nothing will ever happen without the players causing it
Correct My DM (and subsequently, me adopting it), have this trick up his sleeve. In every session he runs, he knows exactly how the session's gonna start (because it's, the start lol), and how it's gonna end. For the in-betweens, he plans several routes that the players might take, but ultimately, it is out of his hands. From that routes also, he develops on how to get to the end of the session. There are multiple pathways that he jots down, but ultimately, does not plan a whole lot of. Most of it are built in with the players as they traverse and do their current objectives. It's been working quite great, I can tell you that, I no longer have to bullcrap my way out of a session because the players derail it a little bit too much, because I have a fixed end to it.
The players may skip some stuff, toss it in the recycling bin! No not in the trash, the bin where you grab it later when it would make sense and make a few adjustments to update it.
I've always loved the idea of having an entire campaign in a single city. Puts a fantasy world under a microscope, and to me that can be even more immersive and magical :)
I'm working on a mini-campaign like that right now - a single village, actually!! I'm enjoying it a LOT more than I enjoyed trying to create an entire continent. I feel like I can really dig into the specifics of how this village operates and who lives there, and give a lot more depth to everything that's happening there. It's nice to feel like I'm figuring out the type of worldbuilding that I really like doing!
I have a single town campaign where the party does a cop-comedy as the Town Watch. It's extremely amusing so far watching the Minotaur fighter smash into every building while the bard rips on the criminals' fashion senses.
This approach is a large part of what makes the game Disco Elysium so magical, I think. A 50-hour story with 1 million possible words of dialogue all set in a backwater district of the city of Revachol. You can tell the greater world is extremely well thought out through what you learn of it as you play, but the intimacy of the game's immediate setting keeps the narrative experience deeply personal and character-driven.
The Dungeon Dudes have an adventure and campaign setting book coming out soon that is exactly this (Dungeons of Drakkenheim). Also, Waterdeep: Dragon Heist takes place entirely within the city of Waterdeep. Personally, I wanted to do this with the city of Sharn from Eberron, but my players don't seem that interested so I've moved on from the idea.
Ginny your world building advice is pure gold. Start out small. Picture a movie or a book that you have read and start writing. Describe the setting, visuals etc. create a conflict that the player party is on either side of. Describe the economy. What is worth coin. Describe taboo subjects perhaps half breeds. Engage in thought regarding military; what are they protecting? What about the races? Are they common or not. Who is the big bad evil guy? Who are his minions? Is the crime scene huge or non-existent. Is it run by humans or is it gnome mafia. What is the caste system who’s on top? Wizards? Thieves? Assassins? Clerics? Who does the grunt work who are the aristocrats? Are dwarves the minority who do the dirty jobs for drow? Is it the humans who have tamed dragons? Is the an ogre tribunal counsel? Each question you decided will give you plenty of idea fodder then you can start making npcs. Those that are important to steer the campaign, those who are pivotal story characters but hollow in every other aspect? Describe the shops, services, guilds, and religion/temple buildings. What about the seedy nightlife? Is the local tavern/brothel the best place to find jobs? Who are famous peoples from the area? What did they do? What about legends and tall tales. Look for motivation in the backstories of your party? Let your players help mold the background. Don’t be afraid to drop some huge magical item into the hands of an idiot or a player, just to see what they do with it or how it juxtaposes itself into an errand or quest. Have a single campaign in mind when you start but not a direct path, or chapter work. Be prepared for it to go off rails or by the book, both can be frustrating and brilliant at the same time. And lastly have fun. It’s a game not a job. Have fun and play your own game.
Me: "I'm an experienced DM with almost 10 years' experience who's built multiple homebrew worlds from scratch. I'm usually pretty confident, but there's definitely room for improvement so maybe this video will be useful to get some more advanced tips..." Ginny Di: "Tip 1: Read the DM Guide." Me: "...Oh yeah fuck I should probably do that at some point."
having a good base understanding of your world also makes it MUCH EASIER to improvise, because youre prepared for it. You know how the world is going to react to the stuff your players decide to do, even when its not what you expected. Dont overprepare by coming up with every possibility, but prepare by really getting to know the part of your world that your planning. Kinda like how you shouldnt write out dialogue trees for your npcs, just to be prepared for what a pc might say. However you should prepare so you know them well enough to respond on the spot in a way that feels true to who that npc is
As an aspiring DM slowly building his world, I've noticed one crucial thing about all worldbuilding styles, and that's building "out" vs building "in", and where that boundary may lay. In simple terms, it's your starting point when approaching a worldbuilding scenario. For example, when building your pantheon, do you have a few or even one key God in mind and build out from there, or do you start with a scaffolding of the major domains of your pantheon and build inwards, fleshing each God out as you go? Or for physical map making, do you start in a town and build outwards to form a continent, or start with your landmasses and build inwards to form your towns? Identifying where you intend to start can help ground your building and make it so you're not lost in a sea of floating facts, features, and fun locations on a word document.
About the under/over planning issue, I recall my big anime setting. I did a lot of planning, built several important NPCs to populate the school so players would have people to interact with. Naturally, not a single one got used. In fact, the biggest NPC ended up being a character who started as a foot note on a separate npc's sheet. When you plan stuff and develop people and places, even if the PCs don't interact with them, it still helps by fleshing out the background and makes it easier to populate where they DO go.
I'm just blown away that you just dropped "Dragons eat magic" as an off-the-cuff idea that more or less instantly unfolded into an entire multi-book/film/campaign world.. :O .. Just awesome! :)
This is the beauty of improvising on world-building. We - the audiance - just don't know wether Ginny came up with it on the spot, or had it planed out for the recording all along. I guess it's the letter.
I mean, all of my videos are pre-scripted! But when I described "a few minutes of spitballing" I wasn't lying, I drafted that portion of the script in a few minutes. I don't make a habit of lying in my videos lol
I discovered my love for world building is actually more than my love for playing when it comes to d&d, this addiction has however given me the ability to tell you any given npc's favourite dish at the drop of a hat
I am in 100% agreement with the tip of starting with big ideas and then narrowing your focus. Big ideas are super important to making a setting more interesting because they can change fundamental aspects of your world, and by starting with those ideas in mind, you can more easily create interesting places for your players to explore and interesting problems for them to solve.
For Number 5, I've learned that sometimes learning how to motivate your characters to go the way you want (and therefore, the way you have planned) is a huge help. But the information here definitely checks out: There are no substitutes for planning ahead and being prepared to improvise.
World building is the part of running the game I'm best at, my process is this: 1: General tone and concept of the setting. 2: Reference any setting history I've already shown to the players. 3: Begin npc design, make fleshed out characters in a vacuum, then think about that characters personality 4: Finish npc design by thinking about what a person who has the personality I've fleshed out would want in the setting I've created and how they go about working towards that goal. 5: Well thought out characters with defined goals working with or against each other in a setting I understand the basics of should naturally give rise to local plot hooks. 6: Add major plot extensions based on player interest and larger scale story events.
FINALLY! An ORIGINAL video about worldbuilding tips! Worldbuilding advice is always just the same thing over and over: "start with a town first", "don't overprep", "don't write the campaign until you know the characters" ... These tips may be helpful for people really short on time. But for people who actually want to get started, I hate that all the advice for people wanting to start working is just tips for working as little as possible. Cheers Ginny!
Whatever system works for you is fine! I draw my maps on the pages of a “reverse colouring book” (it has pages with nondescript watercolour shapes but no lines) and keep track of everything else in keynote.
My world building strat: Main mood - e.g Is it a dark/dingy dungeon crawl? Or sunny exploration island paradise? Main theme or question - e.g How controlling is too controlling? Create main plot or several major plots - Factions at war with each other, they are trying to get allies and resources from nearby nations that are in an archipelago. There is also a mysterious cult working in the background. Create world building things that fit the mood, and main theme. Flesh out the Faction's culture, location, technology etc... Hence I'm making a faction intrigue, pirate island hoping adventure campaign.
The other great benefit of planning is that even if your players skip one of your ideas, you still have it prepared and waiting. With a little bit of tweaking, you can circle back around to it later or even use it in a different campaign. Ideas never go in the trash, just back in the box.
Ive done a few small sessions that I need to tie together. This is giving me a good idea of doing a small island/country and having all my events within in. Thank you for your help!
I been DMing my own Homebrew world for the better part of 22 years and Ginny Di is right 100% here. The guy i learn to play D&D from been DMing sense the 70's the best advice he gave me was start small make note as the player progress from that starting point and build as you need to. And when feel the need to "produce" your own world info do the lay out in such a way that you are only swapping out the game mechanics part and updates from what the players have done from the last campaigns.
As a DM who is often heavily utilizing improv, the biggest thing i would say for other DMs who struggle with spoons around that stuff sometimes is, the setting and location is important, if you know a city then you can create a fleshed out character on the spot easily, but if you dont know what the city is at its core then you will have a lot more that is needing to be developed at the same time.
If you can find a copy with a reasonable price, also pick up a 1e Dungeon Master's Guide. Even if you avoid the edition specific parts, there's large sections for world building, economics, etc.
As a world builder do not be afraid to say that your world mimics a standard fantasy world. The current world I am building copies a lot from Pathfinder's world. I am copying wholesale their new starter city (Otari). I am dropping that city into my world. I am keeping the Pathfinder deities. Just different countries and geography and history. But, there is enough similar to Pathfinder that the players feel more comfortable with my setting. When you mentioned you live in Colorado it made me reminisce about our vacation we took to Colorado earlier this year. We stayed in a small town in the mountains (Dillon) and it was magnificent. We loved every minute and cannot wait to take another trip there. :-)
My RPG isn't D&D, but everyone who plays it inevitably mentions D&D, which brings me here. I made my own worldbuilding tool, specifically for just "making things up as I go". With the push of a button I can roll up new worlds, maps, characters and plotlines. They take a few minutes to parse though, so as always, DM discretion is important. The cool thing is that I can drop my players into a world with no planning at all and just hit the ground running. Or alternatively, we can get together on session zero and build the world together as they build characters to fit into it, and I can have the world built right alongside with their characters. I live in a place where almost no one plays RPGs, so I'm definitely looking for people who want to try online games through Zoom, Discord, or other voice-chat servers.
One of the funnest most memorable moments in our d&d campaign in the 90's was when the party tried to teleport somewhere and the teleport failed. Instead of putting us in a generic swamp or standard dark forest (as usual) we ended up in the 1300's China helping the ancient Asians rescue a dragon of luck. The wizards there used magical paints and wands, blew our minds. Yes. World building can be magical!
Number one tip for dms. Everything they side step can be put I front of them again later on with minor changes, there’s no such thing as wasted work, so let them sidestep it and reward them for doing so, and put it in front of them later with a way to stop them from sidestepping it the same way they did last time.
Skipping a whole city? My players have a new record, skipping a plane and with that a whole arc ment to last 2 months. I love them for their scemes and i did kinda have fun one by one throwing out all the paper i did my prep on after the session XD we just laughed and went on to the next arc
I'm starting to build my world that me and my group are planning to use for the rest of our games for a while. I started with the like creation myth of the world which helped me build a map, but after I got the map I zoomed in to just my starting village and the environment all around that. My players are even starting as kids and expanding out that way. It's super fun so far haha
That “dragons eat spell casters” idea, that is a movie I’d watch or book I’d read in an instant. But would make life hell on spell caster PCs, LoL. Sounds fun.
To go off of the planning thing, someone took a Churchill quote and rephased it to this: "DMs that don't plan before a session have no brain. DMs that don't improvise during the game have no hearts."
@@theramendutchman no battle plan will survive the first few minutes of battle. A good GM will take the attitudes and needs of their players into account, be considerate, have a heart.
@@theramendutchman I think 'improvising' in this context just means reacting to your player's actions and adapting to them, I don't think it means comming up with everything at the table
For tip #2 If you use discord. Make personal servers that you do not invite anyone into but yourself and favorite music bot. You can have a near endless number of text channels because you can always make another server. This, without "nitro", restricts your text space, which is actually a good thing because then you can copy and paste things to your players and they will be no longer than 2000 characters. Some examples i already use are: Lantern Rings Homebrew Spells Homebrew items Classes Subclasses Songs I have parody'd Poems I have written. From Frenkle (which is a god in a game I actually get to play in) Etc. This is excellent for those who use their phones for data keeping but forget to transfer things over when you get a new phone (or device).
I love worldbuilding, but I don't always have the time to come up with something for every place. Which is why even though the whole world of my campaign exists and I do have snippets here and there, the campaign (or at least this first part) takes place on one island
Another thing about tip 5 - there are no wasted ideas. Write everything down, and whatever you don't use now, know you may use it later, or even in a completely other campaign. Hell, over time, these ideas can even become a 'signature' on your particular style of DMing.
When it comes to improv vs. plan, my approach is 'It's better to have a plan you don't need than to not have one you do'. If my players never encounter one of my plans, they've probably encountered another. If they somehow sidestep everything I plan, then they've surprised me, and I can make new plans based on that surprise between games. I know I have more time on my hands than your average person, though, so as with most ideas, this isn't for everyone.
What I've been doing for the world I'm building now, is that I'm occasionally asking my future players "What's something you're interested in knowing about?" And I've answered questions about marriage, sports, economies, lifestyles, deities, and so on. It's been a great experience because I know exactly what my players are interested in expansion on. I've contradicted myself once (Spoke about slaves fighting in gladiatorial arena and then suggested the city abhors blood sports because they're in constant war and warriors should die on the battlefield. But upon being confronted with that contradiction, I was able to come up with a solution that respected both points.)
5:45 Couldn't agree more. Most folks, (myself included), want to start off with something like an ancient magical kingdom or enormous city-state full of unique races and cultures, but then it's hard to scale it back to something smaller. Take the Pufferfish Approach, as I like to call it; start small and expand. Maybe begin with a tiny farming village on the borders of a forbidden forest and grow your surroundings from there. This way, you're always building up to something bigger and better.
Great ideas as usual! I love the spitballing off the dragons smelling magic idea. I'm a firm believer in having a few very strong key concepts to define a setting, rather than trying to include every fantasy concept you can think of and seeing what sticks.
It's why I liked Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, they have so many prompts for how dragons function in your world and how everyone else interacts with them that you can build so much off of it! I try to think through at least a couple of effects of the presence of very powerful or intelligent creatures.
As far as world building goes I love how One Piece in other words how Oda the creator of that series does it and the world I'm running my campaigns in was based on a similar model. It's fun building a huge history and hinting at it cultures and politics of things.
A sidestepped city is not wasted. It can be used at a later date with the bonus that it's already done so you don't have to work on it as much. Nothing should be lost in world building. The key is to use the same world over and over again adding to its history, geography and culture.
I love how Ginny comes up with this awesome worldbuilding concept as "just spitballing". It's those big overarching ideas I have trouble coming up with. Characters, places, local histories/events are easy, but the "big idea" I struggle with.
I may be a year late but that last point is pretty good because, say your players skip a really cool quest you had planned that had this really cool NPC you wanted to share… Well the players don’t actually know about that NPC yet so why can’t they come back later? Almost anything you make that’s unused can come back later if you’re creative enough. Also I’ve had players skip things on accident but by doing so they changed how certain NPC’s where supposed to interact. Making it fun for me too
I would say for the over planning/ under planning problem the solution is in knowing the npcs. Don't script anything for them, know WHO they are and how they are going to REACT to the party. The party is likely going to start something, you have to know how the world reacts to them. Then it doesn't matter what they do, your npcs will just act like themselves to continue the story.
great tips in this vid!. I have been doing a different approach as of late and its been really alot of fun and especially because i dont have alot of time to plan and build worlds anymore in my life. I kinda of just start with one scene, spend all the time i have available on the one scene or little area. I then just let the players build the world as it happens, by what they do and how the improv plays out they sort of build the world for me really. I just take little notes of key things as it moves along, and its almost like my world started in one area and the fog of war dissapears as they walk to a new spot and it gets procedurally generated in real time from our minds as a group!
Scale a small world up. I think that is the best way to go for new DMs worldbuilding. One of my best and earliest campaign world building was way back with the basic set, Started it running a module, which you can then add your own stuff to, and expand on. I let the cleric create their own Deity, and then when any other gods were asked about or if I needed one to reference, I made it up and soon that just expanded into a whole pantheon. When they wanted to know something like what was outside of this small town, like where they could perhaps buy more advanced magic items than were available, I made up the name of a larger City, and could then build that as need be. Rather than work outside inward, by building an entire world and then fill it in with all the cities and such, you can easily build inside outward from one small city or even town and a single dungeon adventure and build outwards as you go. But yes, you should have the solid idea of how things work to avoid inconsistencies.
I think one of the biggest mistakes is starting from scratch; D&D has so many great settings already covering a pretty big range of possibilities. While you might want to create something entirely new, there's nothing wrong with using parts that already exist. The forgotten realms setting is such classic high fantasy that you can easily adapt parts of it to whatever you want; need a city, why build one when you can just rename an existing one and make some changes? Want something more steampunk? Give Eberron a look. Need a magic school? Why not use parts of Strixhaven? You can see this in Critical Role as Matt Mercer builds some original locations clearly inspired by others, but with a load of his own twists on the top. In season 2 of Critical Role the party visits the crashed ruins of a flying city of an ancient empire, which is pretty similar to the Netherese city crashed in the north of Icewind Dale. He has also integrated some names like the Dessarin valley. But always with his own twists and original additions on top or replacing parts. Plus most of your players won't have played in all of the official settings anyway; you won't necessarily impress your players any more with an original setting, when all they really want is something *new*, so you want anything original to be necessary and important to the story you want to tell.
While you were talking about organizing your setting, I kept thinking “oh shit, did she get a worldanvil sponsor?” And then you kept going, made a passing mention to digital options and I thought “shit if they aren’t sponsoring her, they should” Then the skit started and I was like “YES.”
So uhhhhhh I needed to hear the: read the DMG guide. I followed everything else pretty well... But yeah, Ginni D you're right. I definitely needed to read that.
I feel an important aspect of world building is to be able to differentiate the creation of lore and stories. Personally I m way better at creating lore, so I concentrate my preparation on that to have a good foundation and let my players characters decide what the story should look like by their interaction with the world. Most stories then are simply improvised out of the connections they find within the world. This method can easily be reversed, but i feel a good DM should always think ahead and determine what parts of his preparation are interchangeable with good and fun improvisation
My way is starting with the idea of the World. I set the general info that all the denizens of that world would know. Then from that point I go down to the continent, where the adventures will be and decide what information the peoples who are from that continent will know. Then I do the countries on that continent and the country specific knowledge. Then the local areas and what specific info they would have, even if it is different from another local area in the same country. At this point I am ready to start working on the adventure(s) that take place there.
Hard agree on being over prepared. Even if the players zag instead of zigging, something -like an npc-from that untouched location or thing can appear en route or at the players’ destination. That too is world building (with a side order of “are you sure you don’t wanna do this thing too? It’s cool!)
I'm a first time DM, and the biggest issue I've had with worldbuilding is that I create something I believe is original, and I'm really excited about it, only to come to the realization mid campaign that it's highkey similar to a piece of media I've seen before. My underground dwarven city is similar to one a friend created on his own campaign. Two of my NPCs highkey resemble NPCs from critical role. The Republic that has a raven as the national bird also happens to have blue and silver color scheme.. damnit. And the worst is that it's not on purpose! I genuinely believe I've come up with something, only to realize AFTER figuring out the details that it's 100% something I've seen before.
one problem I've seen is too many predators, not enough prey. if every mountain peak has a dragon. those dragons gotta eat. it's not something that will be obvious to the regular player but something will be off..if the wandering monster table is 90% predators, eventually "you run into another pack of wolves" but you never run into any deer, and the wolves are always well fed and healthy,gets old. and weird.
I built a new world for hosting a game from r/LFG, and I built the world based on a random map from Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator. It generates the map, kingdoms, provinces, cities, cultures, religions, rivers, roads, and even coats of arms.
Funny enough, I use D&D for writing my novels. I treat my main characters as my "party" and create character sheets for them so I can reference important information for them quickly. Whenever my characters have to fight in a battle and I don't know what to do next, I will straight up roll dice for them. I've found watching D&D videos super useful when designing my book universe in a way that feels more real. To any fellow writers out there, I reccomend at least trying it out!
Having been crafting a homebrew setting for the last few years, this gave me some fresh perspective to revaluate some bigger parts of my setting. Thanks!
My planning consists of 2 or 3 hours of thinking and writing out about a page and a half of ideas and a general idea of what I think is going to happen. Plus always asking the party at the end of the session, what they plan on doing next. That gives me enough of a structure to follow during a session but still keeping that improve muscle strong and ready to go. You never know when someone has a crazy idea that just turns the entire session into improve. You can move encounters down the road. Save them for next time sometimes. But sometimes they just do things you never thought would happen. Or maybe that guy who was supposed to screw with the party and then get away. Just flat out gets his head cut off and suddenly your key npc is gone. Or they just outwitted your trap or decided they want to switch sides in whatever conflict they are involved in. Or a character got killed and you got to get a new one in. Maybe the dead guy was the key to getting safe passage or some other problem they were going to solve.
so its fine to do a campaign that uses alot of biology and evolution, that makes me feel a little more confident on what im doing, even thought im still stressed
I find your underplanning point interesting. I consider the amount of planning to be kind of a stylistic and/or system choice. Especially if you're open to systems beyond D&D, then there are games out there which can support play with very little upfront planning. And there are systems which really push for substantial preplanning. There are even systems which explicitly tell you not to preplan in certain ways at all. D&D definitely is typically fairly far on the planning side of the spectrum. You can improv it, but other systems give you way more support if that's what you want to do. So, to be clear, I don't disagree with your underplanning advice. Underplanning can make it hard to make D&D shine. But for people looking for a different experience, just be aware they're out there.
Thank you! I've been floundering a bit with certain aspects of world building, and this was both informative and reassuring. Granted I'm only writing for my two best friends, so in a way no pressure...but also PRESSURE BECAUSE I LOVE THEM AND NEED THEM TO LOVE MY WORLD 😂 So thanks.
Also in terms of the overplanning problem of players skipping something important, if it's really that important to you, you'll figure out a way to bring them back to it! Wait until they get a natural twenty analyzing something irrelevant and say "with that Nat 20 you're absolutely sure that this random dude on the street corner knows nothing about the murder, but something he said suddenly sparks a memory that the baker claimed the blood-colored stains on his apron were just remnants of that day's red velvet cupcakes, but that day's batch had actually been blueberry!" Or whatever you need to do.
Start small is definetly a good advice for creating an adventure. But for creating a whole world starting with big is often better. I personally give all my worlds a basic high concept. No Sun, just Mist or An industrial revolution in a world of magic as example. I even used the snowflake method to create the basis for my world, starting with one sentence and going from there.
Thanks ginny. Hope the next one is just as helpful as this. Also, how is it possible that 45% of people who view your channel are not subscribed? INCONCEIVABLE I SAY!
I have never DM'd anything, but I will dm a game pretty soon. I am also an aspirant writer, and someone who played a couple of roleplay videogames with multiple options but a one story and plotline. So i.e *You have this key npc that is very important to the plot *Your players skip them *You make the rest of the enviroment gently lead the players back to that npc trough the physical world or other ncps.
Gonna be hated for this one, but as a DM I improvise at least 80% of everything. Before session 0 I write a couple pages of common knowledge lore (All of my worlds are from scratch) and I come up with a basic plan for the plot as well as the BBEG. Afterwards I come up with how everybody will meet and then we begin the improvisation. Every once in a while I'll have a basic plan for the session but it's usually come up with an hour beforehand and never written down. I usually have to improvise beyond my basic plan for each session. I ask my players how each session was afterwards and for anything they disliked. I have yet to change my ways because everybody seems to love it. I take underplanning to a whole new level. lmao
On the point of underplanning, literally last session I had one of my PC’s long lost father was in the city that they had just arrived at, and had a memory spell on him. A 9th level spell (lvl 6 party) had the session pretty mapped out and I wanted them to have to work to break this spell. I thought it would take them at least two sessions.y player walks up to him, sees that it’s his father, notices he doesn’t remember him, casts dispel magic, I rolled a Nat 1 on the check. Spell was broken in the first 15 minutes of the session. And I was like “well good thing I have literally every hot spot of this entire city mapped out.”
I think a major mistake many DMs make is creating a world for no reason. If you want a generic fantasy world, playing Forgotten Realms is already an option. Never go through the effort of creating an entire world unless you know exactly what it's going to have that no other world does. That thing can be as simple as basing it off a certain real world culture's mythology, making the whole thing an arctic planet or even just setting it in a different technological period. If your world doesn't have themes, if it doesn't have unique mechanics and if it isn't trying to change anything about how the game is played, you're better off not making it at all. I think we've all played in listless worlds, things made by DMs out of a sense of vague obligation, rather than a core good idea. They're boring as hell, to the DM and the players.
I highly recommend obsidian vaults for world building, you can link different notes together in a super easy to follow way that allows you to follow a previous thread of consciousness to what you're looking for. I love it so much
There's a quote that I think gets at the heart of tip 5: "plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." In other words, you can't make a plan that will successfully address every actual complication; what you can do is develop, through careful thought and exploration, a list of things that likely could happen and the ways and means you have at hand to address something unexpected happening, as it surely will.
Over the years I've found it's useful to parse this as planing and preparation. Planing is deciding what's going to happen, preparation is knowing your setting and what/who is in it. Don't plan. Prepare.
Yeah, I tend to plan what I call modules -- moments and key parts that need to happen/drive the story -- but I leave out the connecting bits. That way, my players can explore organically and I can plug the modules in as opportunities become available.
@@phatpat63 I think a combination of the two is necessary, for instance in Monster of The Week it is suggested that for each hunt the keeper prepared a list of things that will happen if the hunters do not thwart the plans of the monster, and that this list should be advanced when the story lulls or when certain premade triggers occur. It's a kind of plan that isn't set in stone but it's still a plan, keeping things that should happen barring intervention is just as important as preparing for intervention to occur, because otherwise nothing will ever happen without the players causing it
You can also re-use things that don't come up that session. They don't have to die forever.
Correct
My DM (and subsequently, me adopting it), have this trick up his sleeve. In every session he runs, he knows exactly how the session's gonna start (because it's, the start lol), and how it's gonna end. For the in-betweens, he plans several routes that the players might take, but ultimately, it is out of his hands. From that routes also, he develops on how to get to the end of the session. There are multiple pathways that he jots down, but ultimately, does not plan a whole lot of. Most of it are built in with the players as they traverse and do their current objectives. It's been working quite great, I can tell you that, I no longer have to bullcrap my way out of a session because the players derail it a little bit too much, because I have a fixed end to it.
The players may skip some stuff, toss it in the recycling bin!
No not in the trash, the bin where you grab it later when it would make sense and make a few adjustments to update it.
I've always loved the idea of having an entire campaign in a single city. Puts a fantasy world under a microscope, and to me that can be even more immersive and magical :)
I'm working on a mini-campaign like that right now - a single village, actually!! I'm enjoying it a LOT more than I enjoyed trying to create an entire continent. I feel like I can really dig into the specifics of how this village operates and who lives there, and give a lot more depth to everything that's happening there. It's nice to feel like I'm figuring out the type of worldbuilding that I really like doing!
I have a single town campaign where the party does a cop-comedy as the Town Watch. It's extremely amusing so far watching the Minotaur fighter smash into every building while the bard rips on the criminals' fashion senses.
This approach is a large part of what makes the game Disco Elysium so magical, I think. A 50-hour story with 1 million possible words of dialogue all set in a backwater district of the city of Revachol. You can tell the greater world is extremely well thought out through what you learn of it as you play, but the intimacy of the game's immediate setting keeps the narrative experience deeply personal and character-driven.
Or a single, small island! then they have some surrounding nature, but cant go too far (dont give them a boat!)
The Dungeon Dudes have an adventure and campaign setting book coming out soon that is exactly this (Dungeons of Drakkenheim). Also, Waterdeep: Dragon Heist takes place entirely within the city of Waterdeep.
Personally, I wanted to do this with the city of Sharn from Eberron, but my players don't seem that interested so I've moved on from the idea.
Ginny your world building advice is pure gold. Start out small. Picture a movie or a book that you have read and start writing. Describe the setting, visuals etc. create a conflict that the player party is on either side of. Describe the economy. What is worth coin. Describe taboo subjects perhaps half breeds. Engage in thought regarding military; what are they protecting? What about the races? Are they common or not. Who is the big bad evil guy? Who are his minions? Is the crime scene huge or non-existent. Is it run by humans or is it gnome mafia. What is the caste system who’s on top? Wizards? Thieves? Assassins? Clerics? Who does the grunt work who are the aristocrats? Are dwarves the minority who do the dirty jobs for drow? Is it the humans who have tamed dragons? Is the an ogre tribunal counsel? Each question you decided will give you plenty of idea fodder then you can start making npcs. Those that are important to steer the campaign, those who are pivotal story characters but hollow in every other aspect? Describe the shops, services, guilds, and religion/temple buildings. What about the seedy nightlife? Is the local tavern/brothel the best place to find jobs? Who are famous peoples from the area? What did they do? What about legends and tall tales. Look for motivation in the backstories of your party? Let your players help mold the background. Don’t be afraid to drop some huge magical item into the hands of an idiot or a player, just to see what they do with it or how it juxtaposes itself into an errand or quest. Have a single campaign in mind when you start but not a direct path, or chapter work. Be prepared for it to go off rails or by the book, both can be frustrating and brilliant at the same time. And lastly have fun. It’s a game not a job. Have fun and play your own game.
Me: "I'm an experienced DM with almost 10 years' experience who's built multiple homebrew worlds from scratch. I'm usually pretty confident, but there's definitely room for improvement so maybe this video will be useful to get some more advanced tips..."
Ginny Di: "Tip 1: Read the DM Guide."
Me: "...Oh yeah fuck I should probably do that at some point."
Wait, the DMG isn't just a catalogue for magic items?!
This made me laugh so much, thank you! XD
Like honestly, I was scared about not having books then I didn’t use them once
@@diamondbowgamer3812 i have probably 10-12 of the books and barely open them
Yep same here, though only 4 years of experience rather than 10.
having a good base understanding of your world also makes it MUCH EASIER to improvise, because youre prepared for it. You know how the world is going to react to the stuff your players decide to do, even when its not what you expected. Dont overprepare by coming up with every possibility, but prepare by really getting to know the part of your world that your planning.
Kinda like how you shouldnt write out dialogue trees for your npcs, just to be prepared for what a pc might say. However you should prepare so you know them well enough to respond on the spot in a way that feels true to who that npc is
As an aspiring DM slowly building his world, I've noticed one crucial thing about all worldbuilding styles, and that's building "out" vs building "in", and where that boundary may lay. In simple terms, it's your starting point when approaching a worldbuilding scenario. For example, when building your pantheon, do you have a few or even one key God in mind and build out from there, or do you start with a scaffolding of the major domains of your pantheon and build inwards, fleshing each God out as you go? Or for physical map making, do you start in a town and build outwards to form a continent, or start with your landmasses and build inwards to form your towns? Identifying where you intend to start can help ground your building and make it so you're not lost in a sea of floating facts, features, and fun locations on a word document.
About the under/over planning issue, I recall my big anime setting. I did a lot of planning, built several important NPCs to populate the school so players would have people to interact with. Naturally, not a single one got used. In fact, the biggest NPC ended up being a character who started as a foot note on a separate npc's sheet.
When you plan stuff and develop people and places, even if the PCs don't interact with them, it still helps by fleshing out the background and makes it easier to populate where they DO go.
I'm just blown away that you just dropped "Dragons eat magic" as an off-the-cuff idea that more or less instantly unfolded into an entire multi-book/film/campaign world.. :O .. Just awesome! :)
Even with the disclaimer of "just a few minutes of spitballing"!
This is the beauty of improvising on world-building. We - the audiance - just don't know wether Ginny came up with it on the spot, or had it planed out for the recording all along. I guess it's the letter.
I mean, all of my videos are pre-scripted! But when I described "a few minutes of spitballing" I wasn't lying, I drafted that portion of the script in a few minutes. I don't make a habit of lying in my videos lol
Good ideas get invented repeatedly, that includes this one. The game Guild Wars 2 had the idea ten years ago but there are lots of others too.
I discovered my love for world building is actually more than my love for playing when it comes to d&d, this addiction has however given me the ability to tell you any given npc's favourite dish at the drop of a hat
I am in 100% agreement with the tip of starting with big ideas and then narrowing your focus.
Big ideas are super important to making a setting more interesting because they can change fundamental aspects of your world, and by starting with those ideas in mind, you can more easily create interesting places for your players to explore and interesting problems for them to solve.
For Number 5, I've learned that sometimes learning how to motivate your characters to go the way you want (and therefore, the way you have planned) is a huge help. But the information here definitely checks out: There are no substitutes for planning ahead and being prepared to improvise.
This is by far my favourite World Anvil ad, I knew it was coming, but it still kept me waiting if it actually was going to be.
World building is the part of running the game I'm best at, my process is this:
1: General tone and concept of the setting.
2: Reference any setting history I've already shown to the players.
3: Begin npc design, make fleshed out characters in a vacuum, then think about that characters personality
4: Finish npc design by thinking about what a person who has the personality I've fleshed out would want in the setting I've created and how they go about working towards that goal.
5: Well thought out characters with defined goals working with or against each other in a setting I understand the basics of should naturally give rise to local plot hooks.
6: Add major plot extensions based on player interest and larger scale story events.
FINALLY! An ORIGINAL video about worldbuilding tips! Worldbuilding advice is always just the same thing over and over: "start with a town first", "don't overprep", "don't write the campaign until you know the characters" ... These tips may be helpful for people really short on time. But for people who actually want to get started, I hate that all the advice for people wanting to start working is just tips for working as little as possible.
Cheers Ginny!
I am the type who usually skips sponsor segments.
but yours are just far to wonderful to miss.
The Tip "start small" got me laughing, as i am building my first campaign in a homebrew Waterdeep Setting with a to be very fleshed out metropolis xD
I'm about to start my third campaign as a DM and my first using a homebrew system and this helped SO MUCH THANKYOU
Whatever system works for you is fine! I draw my maps on the pages of a “reverse colouring book” (it has pages with nondescript watercolour shapes but no lines) and keep track of everything else in keynote.
My world building strat:
Main mood - e.g Is it a dark/dingy dungeon crawl? Or sunny exploration island paradise?
Main theme or question - e.g How controlling is too controlling?
Create main plot or several major plots - Factions at war with each other, they are trying to get allies and resources from nearby nations that are in an archipelago. There is also a mysterious cult working in the background.
Create world building things that fit the mood, and main theme. Flesh out the Faction's culture, location, technology etc...
Hence I'm making a faction intrigue, pirate island hoping adventure campaign.
The other great benefit of planning is that even if your players skip one of your ideas, you still have it prepared and waiting. With a little bit of tweaking, you can circle back around to it later or even use it in a different campaign. Ideas never go in the trash, just back in the box.
The way I have never skipped an ad of yours is a credit on your end
Thanks
Ive done a few small sessions that I need to tie together. This is giving me a good idea of doing a small island/country and having all my events within in. Thank you for your help!
I won't be happy until as much worldbuilding as they have in ESV. The lore you read about in books in that game make my head swim, in a good way.
The dragon's that can smell magic and feed off the spellcasters is such a great idea!
I been DMing my own Homebrew world for the better part of 22 years and Ginny Di is right 100% here. The guy i learn to play D&D from been DMing sense the 70's the best advice he gave me was start small make note as the player progress from that starting point and build as you need to. And when feel the need to "produce" your own world info do the lay out in such a way that you are only swapping out the game mechanics part and updates from what the players have done from the last campaigns.
As a DM who is often heavily utilizing improv, the biggest thing i would say for other DMs who struggle with spoons around that stuff sometimes is, the setting and location is important, if you know a city then you can create a fleshed out character on the spot easily, but if you dont know what the city is at its core then you will have a lot more that is needing to be developed at the same time.
If you can find a copy with a reasonable price, also pick up a 1e Dungeon Master's Guide. Even if you avoid the edition specific parts, there's large sections for world building, economics, etc.
The Halfling cosplay is great. You really sell the difference in scale between the sneaky little con-merchant and the Variant Human Nerd.
As a world builder do not be afraid to say that your world mimics a standard fantasy world. The current world I am building copies a lot from Pathfinder's world. I am copying wholesale their new starter city (Otari). I am dropping that city into my world. I am keeping the Pathfinder deities. Just different countries and geography and history. But, there is enough similar to Pathfinder that the players feel more comfortable with my setting.
When you mentioned you live in Colorado it made me reminisce about our vacation we took to Colorado earlier this year. We stayed in a small town in the mountains (Dillon) and it was magnificent. We loved every minute and cannot wait to take another trip there. :-)
#4 is so important and I think one of the most common.
My RPG isn't D&D, but everyone who plays it inevitably mentions D&D, which brings me here. I made my own worldbuilding tool, specifically for just "making things up as I go". With the push of a button I can roll up new worlds, maps, characters and plotlines. They take a few minutes to parse though, so as always, DM discretion is important.
The cool thing is that I can drop my players into a world with no planning at all and just hit the ground running. Or alternatively, we can get together on session zero and build the world together as they build characters to fit into it, and I can have the world built right alongside with their characters.
I live in a place where almost no one plays RPGs, so I'm definitely looking for people who want to try online games through Zoom, Discord, or other voice-chat servers.
I love your very first key point is “FUCKING READ” a lot of people overlook the dmg
One of the funnest most memorable moments in our d&d campaign in the 90's was when the party tried to teleport somewhere and the teleport failed. Instead of putting us in a generic swamp or standard dark forest (as usual) we ended up in the 1300's China helping the ancient Asians rescue a dragon of luck. The wizards there used magical paints and wands, blew our minds. Yes. World building can be magical!
Number one tip for dms. Everything they side step can be put I front of them again later on with minor changes, there’s no such thing as wasted work, so let them sidestep it and reward them for doing so, and put it in front of them later with a way to stop them from sidestepping it the same way they did last time.
Skipping a whole city? My players have a new record, skipping a plane and with that a whole arc ment to last 2 months. I love them for their scemes and i did kinda have fun one by one throwing out all the paper i did my prep on after the session XD we just laughed and went on to the next arc
I'm starting to build my world that me and my group are planning to use for the rest of our games for a while. I started with the like creation myth of the world which helped me build a map, but after I got the map I zoomed in to just my starting village and the environment all around that. My players are even starting as kids and expanding out that way. It's super fun so far haha
That “dragons eat spell casters” idea, that is a movie I’d watch or book I’d read in an instant. But would make life hell on spell caster PCs, LoL. Sounds fun.
To go off of the planning thing, someone took a Churchill quote and rephased it to this:
"DMs that don't plan before a session have no brain. DMs that don't improvise during the game have no hearts."
That's a really beautiful quote but... What does that mean? "Not improvising = not having a heart"?
@@theramendutchman no battle plan will survive the first few minutes of battle. A good GM will take the attitudes and needs of their players into account, be considerate, have a heart.
@@theramendutchman basically I’d you don’t improvise the only other thing is railroading and that means you don’t have a hwaet
@@theramendutchman I think 'improvising' in this context just means reacting to your player's actions and adapting to them, I don't think it means comming up with everything at the table
My DM style must be "no thoughts - head empty" then, but I guess I have a very big heart ^^
For tip #2
If you use discord. Make personal servers that you do not invite anyone into but yourself and favorite music bot.
You can have a near endless number of text channels because you can always make another server.
This, without "nitro", restricts your text space, which is actually a good thing because then you can copy and paste things to your players and they will be no longer than 2000 characters.
Some examples i already use are:
Lantern Rings
Homebrew Spells
Homebrew items
Classes
Subclasses
Songs I have parody'd
Poems I have written.
From Frenkle (which is a god in a game I actually get to play in)
Etc.
This is excellent for those who use their phones for data keeping but forget to transfer things over when you get a new phone (or device).
I've been a DM for a long time (27 years) but I believe you can always improve. I am guilty of #1 for sure. And.... #2.
That thing about always improving... that's an excellent attitude to have. So wise Yoda might have said it.
Oh dang it's been a while since I've watched a video on this channel. Glad I made the decision to watch this one, because it was a pretty good watch!
Welcome back!
I love worldbuilding, but I don't always have the time to come up with something for every place. Which is why even though the whole world of my campaign exists and I do have snippets here and there, the campaign (or at least this first part) takes place on one island
Been binging your videos all day. Thank you so much, you're awesome!
"I would marry Google drive if it were legal" MOOD
Another thing about tip 5 - there are no wasted ideas. Write everything down, and whatever you don't use now, know you may use it later, or even in a completely other campaign. Hell, over time, these ideas can even become a 'signature' on your particular style of DMing.
When it comes to improv vs. plan, my approach is 'It's better to have a plan you don't need than to not have one you do'. If my players never encounter one of my plans, they've probably encountered another. If they somehow sidestep everything I plan, then they've surprised me, and I can make new plans based on that surprise between games. I know I have more time on my hands than your average person, though, so as with most ideas, this isn't for everyone.
What I've been doing for the world I'm building now, is that I'm occasionally asking my future players "What's something you're interested in knowing about?" And I've answered questions about marriage, sports, economies, lifestyles, deities, and so on. It's been a great experience because I know exactly what my players are interested in expansion on. I've contradicted myself once (Spoke about slaves fighting in gladiatorial arena and then suggested the city abhors blood sports because they're in constant war and warriors should die on the battlefield. But upon being confronted with that contradiction, I was able to come up with a solution that respected both points.)
I am currently binging ginny di videos
I really want to become a DM and I'm so glad I found this channel
Inspiration is a good way to create your own ideas. A good example is using Dune to create a desert world or continent
5:45 Couldn't agree more. Most folks, (myself included), want to start off with something like an ancient magical kingdom or enormous city-state full of unique races and cultures, but then it's hard to scale it back to something smaller. Take the Pufferfish Approach, as I like to call it; start small and expand. Maybe begin with a tiny farming village on the borders of a forbidden forest and grow your surroundings from there. This way, you're always building up to something bigger and better.
4:30 I cant remember her name but the detail of her speaking in rhyme like in her intro is great
Great ideas as usual! I love the spitballing off the dragons smelling magic idea. I'm a firm believer in having a few very strong key concepts to define a setting, rather than trying to include every fantasy concept you can think of and seeing what sticks.
It's why I liked Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, they have so many prompts for how dragons function in your world and how everyone else interacts with them that you can build so much off of it! I try to think through at least a couple of effects of the presence of very powerful or intelligent creatures.
As far as world building goes I love how One Piece in other words how Oda the creator of that series does it and the world I'm running my campaigns in was based on a similar model. It's fun building a huge history and hinting at it cultures and politics of things.
A sidestepped city is not wasted. It can be used at a later date with the bonus that it's already done so you don't have to work on it as much. Nothing should be lost in world building. The key is to use the same world over and over again adding to its history, geography and culture.
I love that idea of starting big!
Me, "OK I have a rough sketch of what's happening I should start world-building."
Me next session,
I love how Ginny comes up with this awesome worldbuilding concept as "just spitballing". It's those big overarching ideas I have trouble coming up with. Characters, places, local histories/events are easy, but the "big idea" I struggle with.
I may be a year late but that last point is pretty good because, say your players skip a really cool quest you had planned that had this really cool NPC you wanted to share…
Well the players don’t actually know about that NPC yet so why can’t they come back later?
Almost anything you make that’s unused can come back later if you’re creative enough.
Also I’ve had players skip things on accident but by doing so they changed how certain NPC’s where supposed to interact. Making it fun for me too
I would say for the over planning/ under planning problem the solution is in knowing the npcs. Don't script anything for them, know WHO they are and how they are going to REACT to the party. The party is likely going to start something, you have to know how the world reacts to them. Then it doesn't matter what they do, your npcs will just act like themselves to continue the story.
great tips in this vid!. I have been doing a different approach as of late and its been really alot of fun and especially because i dont have alot of time to plan and build worlds anymore in my life. I kinda of just start with one scene, spend all the time i have available on the one scene or little area. I then just let the players build the world as it happens, by what they do and how the improv plays out they sort of build the world for me really. I just take little notes of key things as it moves along, and its almost like my world started in one area and the fog of war dissapears as they walk to a new spot and it gets procedurally generated in real time from our minds as a group!
Scale a small world up. I think that is the best way to go for new DMs worldbuilding. One of my best and earliest campaign world building was way back with the basic set, Started it running a module, which you can then add your own stuff to, and expand on. I let the cleric create their own Deity, and then when any other gods were asked about or if I needed one to reference, I made it up and soon that just expanded into a whole pantheon. When they wanted to know something like what was outside of this small town, like where they could perhaps buy more advanced magic items than were available, I made up the name of a larger City, and could then build that as need be. Rather than work outside inward, by building an entire world and then fill it in with all the cities and such, you can easily build inside outward from one small city or even town and a single dungeon adventure and build outwards as you go.
But yes, you should have the solid idea of how things work to avoid inconsistencies.
I think one of the biggest mistakes is starting from scratch; D&D has so many great settings already covering a pretty big range of possibilities. While you might want to create something entirely new, there's nothing wrong with using parts that already exist. The forgotten realms setting is such classic high fantasy that you can easily adapt parts of it to whatever you want; need a city, why build one when you can just rename an existing one and make some changes? Want something more steampunk? Give Eberron a look. Need a magic school? Why not use parts of Strixhaven?
You can see this in Critical Role as Matt Mercer builds some original locations clearly inspired by others, but with a load of his own twists on the top. In season 2 of Critical Role the party visits the crashed ruins of a flying city of an ancient empire, which is pretty similar to the Netherese city crashed in the north of Icewind Dale. He has also integrated some names like the Dessarin valley. But always with his own twists and original additions on top or replacing parts.
Plus most of your players won't have played in all of the official settings anyway; you won't necessarily impress your players any more with an original setting, when all they really want is something *new*, so you want anything original to be necessary and important to the story you want to tell.
While you were talking about organizing your setting, I kept thinking “oh shit, did she get a worldanvil sponsor?” And then you kept going, made a passing mention to digital options and I thought “shit if they aren’t sponsoring her, they should”
Then the skit started and I was like “YES.”
So uhhhhhh I needed to hear the: read the DMG guide. I followed everything else pretty well... But yeah, Ginni D you're right. I definitely needed to read that.
Pretty killer add, can’t lie.
I feel an important aspect of world building is to be able to differentiate the creation of lore and stories.
Personally I m way better at creating lore, so I concentrate my preparation on that to have a good foundation and let my players characters decide what the story should look like by their interaction with the world. Most stories then are simply improvised out of the connections they find within the world.
This method can easily be reversed, but i feel a good DM should always think ahead and determine what parts of his preparation are interchangeable with good and fun improvisation
My way is starting with the idea of the World. I set the general info that all the denizens of that world would know. Then from that point I go down to the continent, where the adventures will be and decide what information the peoples who are from that continent will know. Then I do the countries on that continent and the country specific knowledge. Then the local areas and what specific info they would have, even if it is different from another local area in the same country. At this point I am ready to start working on the adventure(s) that take place there.
Hard agree on being over prepared. Even if the players zag instead of zigging, something -like an npc-from that untouched location or thing can appear en route or at the players’ destination. That too is world building (with a side order of “are you sure you don’t wanna do this thing too? It’s cool!)
I'm a first time DM, and the biggest issue I've had with worldbuilding is that I create something I believe is original, and I'm really excited about it, only to come to the realization mid campaign that it's highkey similar to a piece of media I've seen before.
My underground dwarven city is similar to one a friend created on his own campaign. Two of my NPCs highkey resemble NPCs from critical role. The Republic that has a raven as the national bird also happens to have blue and silver color scheme.. damnit.
And the worst is that it's not on purpose! I genuinely believe I've come up with something, only to realize AFTER figuring out the details that it's 100% something I've seen before.
Yes, Ginny, we've been there quite a while.
one problem I've seen is too many predators, not enough prey. if every mountain peak has a dragon. those dragons gotta eat. it's not something that will be obvious to the regular player but something will be off..if the wandering monster table is 90% predators, eventually "you run into another pack of wolves" but you never run into any deer, and the wolves are always well fed and healthy,gets old. and weird.
I built a new world for hosting a game from r/LFG, and I built the world based on a random map from Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator. It generates the map, kingdoms, provinces, cities, cultures, religions, rivers, roads, and even coats of arms.
My players tried to leave the city, but there was a snorlax in their way, so they gave up.
Absolutely loved these tips, they make the whole worldbuilding process far less daunting.
You’re my favourite person thank you for all this joy xx bless your heart
Funny enough, I use D&D for writing my novels. I treat my main characters as my "party" and create character sheets for them so I can reference important information for them quickly. Whenever my characters have to fight in a battle and I don't know what to do next, I will straight up roll dice for them. I've found watching D&D videos super useful when designing my book universe in a way that feels more real. To any fellow writers out there, I reccomend at least trying it out!
Love those tips, they add nuance onto knowledge we already acquired and it really makes them stand out
Having been crafting a homebrew setting for the last few years, this gave me some fresh perspective to revaluate some bigger parts of my setting. Thanks!
Nice one Ginny.
World building is what I do. For games and for stories and your advice is very solid. Looking forward to part 2.
My planning consists of 2 or 3 hours of thinking and writing out about a page and a half of ideas and a general idea of what I think is going to happen. Plus always asking the party at the end of the session, what they plan on doing next. That gives me enough of a structure to follow during a session but still keeping that improve muscle strong and ready to go. You never know when someone has a crazy idea that just turns the entire session into improve. You can move encounters down the road. Save them for next time sometimes. But sometimes they just do things you never thought would happen. Or maybe that guy who was supposed to screw with the party and then get away. Just flat out gets his head cut off and suddenly your key npc is gone. Or they just outwitted your trap or decided they want to switch sides in whatever conflict they are involved in. Or a character got killed and you got to get a new one in. Maybe the dead guy was the key to getting safe passage or some other problem they were going to solve.
11:44 TH-cam doesn't understand what I like so I can not just surf the homepage.
so its fine to do a campaign that uses alot of biology and evolution, that makes me feel a little more confident on what im doing, even thought im still stressed
I just came here to say I love your shirt!
I find your underplanning point interesting. I consider the amount of planning to be kind of a stylistic and/or system choice. Especially if you're open to systems beyond D&D, then there are games out there which can support play with very little upfront planning. And there are systems which really push for substantial preplanning. There are even systems which explicitly tell you not to preplan in certain ways at all.
D&D definitely is typically fairly far on the planning side of the spectrum. You can improv it, but other systems give you way more support if that's what you want to do.
So, to be clear, I don't disagree with your underplanning advice. Underplanning can make it hard to make D&D shine. But for people looking for a different experience, just be aware they're out there.
Thank you! I've been floundering a bit with certain aspects of world building, and this was both informative and reassuring. Granted I'm only writing for my two best friends, so in a way no pressure...but also PRESSURE BECAUSE I LOVE THEM AND NEED THEM TO LOVE MY WORLD 😂
So thanks.
Also in terms of the overplanning problem of players skipping something important, if it's really that important to you, you'll figure out a way to bring them back to it!
Wait until they get a natural twenty analyzing something irrelevant and say "with that Nat 20 you're absolutely sure that this random dude on the street corner knows nothing about the murder, but something he said suddenly sparks a memory that the baker claimed the blood-colored stains on his apron were just remnants of that day's red velvet cupcakes, but that day's batch had actually been blueberry!" Or whatever you need to do.
Love your videos. I’m so sad TH-cam didn’t push your content to me when I was first starting to play DND a couple years ago.
Start small is definetly a good advice for creating an adventure. But for creating a whole world starting with big is often better.
I personally give all my worlds a basic high concept. No Sun, just Mist or An industrial revolution in a world of magic as example.
I even used the snowflake method to create the basis for my world, starting with one sentence and going from there.
Shout out for Colorado! That's where I am.
Thanks ginny. Hope the next one is just as helpful as this. Also, how is it possible that 45% of people who view your channel are not subscribed? INCONCEIVABLE I SAY!
Cool! I like hearing you run over the dos and donts of DMing. Very informative!
I have never DM'd anything, but I will dm a game pretty soon. I am also an aspirant writer, and someone who played a couple of roleplay videogames with multiple options but a one story and plotline. So i.e
*You have this key npc that is very important to the plot
*Your players skip them
*You make the rest of the enviroment gently lead the players back to that npc trough the physical world or other ncps.
Gonna be hated for this one, but as a DM I improvise at least 80% of everything. Before session 0 I write a couple pages of common knowledge lore (All of my worlds are from scratch) and I come up with a basic plan for the plot as well as the BBEG. Afterwards I come up with how everybody will meet and then we begin the improvisation. Every once in a while I'll have a basic plan for the session but it's usually come up with an hour beforehand and never written down. I usually have to improvise beyond my basic plan for each session. I ask my players how each session was afterwards and for anything they disliked. I have yet to change my ways because everybody seems to love it. I take underplanning to a whole new level. lmao
On the point of underplanning, literally last session I had one of my PC’s long lost father was in the city that they had just arrived at, and had a memory spell on him. A 9th level spell (lvl 6 party) had the session pretty mapped out and I wanted them to have to work to break this spell. I thought it would take them at least two sessions.y player walks up to him, sees that it’s his father, notices he doesn’t remember him, casts dispel magic, I rolled a Nat 1 on the check. Spell was broken in the first 15 minutes of the session. And I was like “well good thing I have literally every hot spot of this entire city mapped out.”
I think a major mistake many DMs make is creating a world for no reason. If you want a generic fantasy world, playing Forgotten Realms is already an option. Never go through the effort of creating an entire world unless you know exactly what it's going to have that no other world does.
That thing can be as simple as basing it off a certain real world culture's mythology, making the whole thing an arctic planet or even just setting it in a different technological period.
If your world doesn't have themes, if it doesn't have unique mechanics and if it isn't trying to change anything about how the game is played, you're better off not making it at all.
I think we've all played in listless worlds, things made by DMs out of a sense of vague obligation, rather than a core good idea. They're boring as hell, to the DM and the players.
number 2 is calling me out so hard
Thanks for the advice, and that was an awesome shirt :)
I highly recommend obsidian vaults for world building, you can link different notes together in a super easy to follow way that allows you to follow a previous thread of consciousness to what you're looking for. I love it so much