When a Screenwriter Collabs with a Dungeon Master: Worldbuilding, Lore & More (feat. Jay)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 พ.ค. 2024
- The first 1,000 people to use this link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare skl.sh/local06231
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CONTENTS:
00:00 - huh?
00:51 - worldbuilding vs. lore
2:44 - why-chaining
7:07 - the campaign
9:58 - fictional history lesson
16:29 - SkillShare (sponsored segment)
17:41 - Rydwen III
19:00 - once-removing
22:00 - the plot plot
23:02 - on gameplay
28:59 - on goblins
30:26 - on graduations
32:17 - conclusion
33:39 - ew why does his hair look like that - บันเทิง
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We making it out of the Ojabog with this one 😈
Is this the first comment Local pinned that wasn’t a hate comment?
@@ihavespoken9871Sean didn’t make an appearance this time
@localscriptman he’s too afraid to diss now
🤯
youve got a good start, mr.'s Big and Little. please dont go down the preachy route. remember the choose your own adventure format .
As a person who has made lore for his minecraft world once,i can definitely relate to this video and will proceed to thank you for creating such masterpiece
Making Minecraft lore is next level
My minecraft worlds always have lore. What else could be the reason for a new city to be built than a deep history and religion that motivates.
@@JonasBuechnerArt fr fr
sometimes i even like to give my villagers story or friends lmao
This is actually dope as fuck and I'm amazed I've never done this.
@@Mayo-ow5lb I used to do that with my lego builds as a kid and kinda just kept going when I got Minecraft
Distinguishing worldbuilding from lore is so important and I never thought about it, oh my god
Isn’t that common sense ?
@@mrjong-pildasong1468 no, you arrogant jerk. this man just had the discovery of his life and your just like "ur dum i new dat alredi"
I'm happy for you @autumnmarilyn5216 and am glad you found something to get excited about learning
@@mrjong-pildasong1468it appears not
Inspirational Speakers when there is a sudden lack of extended words
@@mrjong-pildasong1468While it's definitely a clear cut distinction as this video defines it, I'm an active member of worldbuilding communities where the focus is typically more on creating a world for its own sake rather than creating one for a story to live in. In those groups the terms "worldbuilding" and "lore" are interchangeable and encompass both the systems and the reasoning and history behind them. If someone starts out as a "pure worldbuilder" and then decides they actually do want to tell stories in their world it would be easy to not understand the jargon as described here at first.
The "once removed" principle is so cool, I've IMMEDIATELY started generating ideas for my main antagonist - he used to be a fairly standard "powerhungry jealous God" but now I've made him essentially the younger/twin brother of a very powerful, skilled and vain Goddess who embodies much more of the "tyrant god ruler" archetype. By being the twin, this means that he now competes with her, using his subordinates in creative ways to skirt her control and create his own power (he becomes the God of Innovation & kick-starts the industrial revolution), instead of fighting over the same amount of power (based on landmass, followers and worship) that the other Gods use.
That’s super cool!
1:50 I have, on several occasions, forgotten to name a character in my D&D game until I was literally in the middle of introducing them to the PCs during the session. Please imagine for a moment that you're playing D&D, and you meet this powerful local religious leader, and the first thing he says to you is, "Hello! My name is... oh fuck I forgot to name him! I've just been calling him 'the Abbot' for three months!" I actually did that. That's real. And it's not the only time it's happened.
It's not like he didn't have personality, or backstory, or connections to other characters/the plot; he was the father-figure of the NPC I was inserting into the party to eventually betray them! He had all of that. He just also didn't have a name.
Nowadays I have a spreadsheet of all the major NPCs, which obviously has a name column, so it's pretty hard to not notice until game day now. But without something like that, I'm really bad about it.
Ha yeah and I wanna stress that I was coming at that from a psychological angle, but I don’t think characters having names makes the story fundamentally better or anything. Just helps me with writing them
I do something very similar. I could write an endless series about a character, knowing every relationship, every piece of backstory, and every inch of personality, but they won't have a name. D&D is particularly annoying because there is always a random NPC that the party fixates on and I have to create a name and deeper characterization for.
One bit of advice I’ve heard is to generate a list of maybe a dozen random names. When you’re on the spot, just pick one from the list, maybe tweak it however feels right, and you’re good to go. Just don’t forget to track which names you’ve used!
@@nw42 I've heard that advice before, and it does not work for me at all. For a lot of reasons, but one that no one ever seems to think about is races.
This is D&D; this random NPC could be a human, or a dwarf, or an elf, or even a beholder! And then there's the male/female/neutral variations. There is not set of twelve names that works as well for a human milk-maid as it does for the leader of the male orcish raiding party, or the dragon that lives in the next mountain over that uses polymorph enough that they gave up on gender two centuries ago.
And I, personally, am just as likely to forget to name the dragon as the milk-maid.
I find I'm better off just taking 15 seconds to open up a random name generator.
well in my experience no player remembers any NPC names ever anyways
I think a story based around Aegon would work, but with him as almost a force of nature that everyone has to contend with. Like this mf is barrelling his way across Westeros and he WILL get to you and your lands eventually. How do you react to that? How do you stop him? Do you even try to stop him? Who do you align with out of desperation in the face of this absolute ligma male rocking up in your garden and charging at your front door?
Oohhh yeah I think that's the right way to handle him. He's sort of like the Terminator
In that story the "main family" would probably be the Martell from Dorne then. They gave Aegon a run for his money.
@localscriptman the difference being the terminator CAN and WILL BE stopped, though at great cost, risk, and no small amount of luck. Aegon HAS to and WILL win, else the whole story doesn't work.
I'm an editor, but watching your videos has helped me communicate better with directors who write their own scripts. In a way, editing is its own form of rewriting a screenplay, and being able to speak in writers' terms has been immensely helpful! Thanks for all you do!
Thanks for your support! I will say that directors can be oddballs when it comes to writing, especially when they're writing for themselves
I think it's crazy how you only have 14 videos and your content is just so good
Video take long time 👽 but thank you, I appreciate your support!
I think it’s crazy that you are so young and your content so comprehensively and sarcastically wise. Keep up the good work.
@@whatisrealknowtheformula6137 Thank you! Yeah I’m gonna be 22 in August
@@localscriptmanhey man I’d pay money to talk to you, you should make a discord connected to your Patreon if that lines up your interests.
@@Elija503 There is a discord connected to my patreon
I wanted to say thank you, I’m a very young person who wants to be a screenwriter and you’ve really inspired me when it comes to my writing
Thanks for commenting! I’m glad I could be of service
I’m studying creative writing for my Masters and this has basically been my school. Thank you for existing ❤
Thank you for watching, glad I could be of service
I’m glad I’m not the only one getting to this stuff later on and getting a lot out of it. Best of luck with your studies 🫡
You been scammed my dude
@@tedarcher9120 S c a m m e d ?
@@localscriptman creative writing masters is pretty much a scam unless your prof is Sanderson lol
Lore?! Lore!! I honestly enjoy fictional history. Its more story...but from the back.
I often tell people that the four paragraphs they sent me about why the magical school uniform is green were really great, very illuminating, however, we're going to rewrite them now with proper nouns and action verbs.
The adjective is the emotional crutch of the writing world. Like, if they were writing about the lead up to WW1, they would describe how angry the Sebrians were, they would describe the AH Empire, and they would describe nameless, facelsss "rebels" from right of a character sheet and squad tropes. But it would take gentle prodding to get them to simply say "The Austrian-Hungarian Empire annexed and occupied Serbian country. The Black Hand were an independence rebellion group in Sebria and they believed in unity or death. They assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Funny story about how..."
I have started with a preexisting world before because I have a bunch of ideas I really like to keep around for a particular story. However, I use the preexisting world as a template, not a mold-it’s a jumping off point that can bring with it some pretty cool ideas, but it’s malleable, because it has to be.
Yeah that seems like a good way to do it
Yeah, the story I'm writing right now wouldn't even have been conceptualized if I hadn't first thought of a world where supervillains were rising and giving problems to the goverment, to the point the government decides to make a military program of Iron Man like soldiers
I just create an outline of the world with geography, chacracters and history, and just place those together until story.
Bingo, this is how I'm building my world and characters. This channel helped me adjust everything towards themes a the world started creating itself 😂
Okay so I've been struggling to write a couple of episodes for my cartoon project. I tried using your suggestion of asking why to everything and I've fixed a crucial episode in like half an hour. I cannot thank you enough.
Glad I could be of service, good luck with your thing 👽
What is the show? Where can I watch it?
As someone who is working on a stupidly big fantasy story and world that is always one step away from spiralling into an uncontrollable mess of plot lines and lore, I appreciate this.
I think the joy of interactive media like DnD is the fact that it leaves room for problem solving. But I think without the dice, the highs and lows would make things fall flat.
I think of playing pretend as a kid, and acting out Pokémon battles, and how you’d end up with someone shouting “I use Claw!” “But I dodge you!” “No you don’t, I hit you!!” And the whole thing falls apart.
The dice prevent that issue, because chance decides to what degree you are successful, combined with your stats. Usually it’s up to the DM to decide the circumstances of your success/failure.
But as I said the great thing is the space given for problem solving. In a different campaign, I came up with a cool move wherein my half drow would shadow step and stab the orc Chieftess we were fighting- but I failed and she caught my wrist. So I was put into problem solving space again. I ended up being able to negotiate with the chieftess and find out her motives. We were only there in the first place, because on a random side adventure we killed a bull mammoth sacred to a group of centaurs. The centaurs were going to kill one of our party members in its place, but was willing to let him live if we got rid of the orc camp that they had a rivalry with. During the course of the fight we realized that all the orcs were female. After talking to the chieftess we discovered the centaurs had taken all their men folk captive. We ended up siding with the orcs and brokering a truce between the orcs and centaurs.
This was in no way part of the main plot our DM had planned for the day.
But our choices and failures pushed us into problem solving mode and therefore into meaningful gameplay.
Another DnD story I want to share:
Someone’s paladin died during a side quest, and everyone was really bummed out. The DM had an idea to circumvent it, but said the player had to accept it without knowing what it was.
So my friend’s human paladin was resurrected as a teifling.
Which opened up all kinds of fun character angst for later.
You give, hands down, the most helpful writing advice ever. This vid is especially helpful as I’m a dungeon master myself.
Happy to help 👽
At 18:33 you can just hear in his voice, this is not just a collection of characters he's pushing through an epic backstory... these are nuanced, complex, friends.
The "on gameplay" section says everything about, with out actually saying, the players are the antagonist of the story. The story is set to move in a direction, and with out player involvement it will land at that destination. The players actions get in the way of the story's progression and it then needs to take a new path to completion.
Recently I’ve found it very useful to represent every group/organisation with a character who acts as the “face” of that group. Even opinions on events can be encapsulated by a character. E.g instead of “the doctors refused to operate because it’s too dangerous” it could be “doctor Connor refused” from which you can go into his character and personality to see why he felt that way.
This video brought to mind something i heard from an rpg showrunner "Characters are all like stained glass. The shapes, colors, and translucense are all different, but the light shining through is always you."
And i would also like to add in that actors no matter how close they stick to a script are injecting their own personality, and I've heard that the best directors collaborate with their actors rather than just dictating what they need to do.
Just two tidbits i figured could be interesting to think about moving forward, considering what you mentioned in this video
You know I actually listen to your posts when I'm working on my DnD world. Your videos really help me out a lot!
I’m happy to hear it!
Didn’t expect D&D stuff from this channel but as a huge nerd I am pleasantly surprised
🤓🤓🤓
@@localscriptman 26:12 🥸🥸🥸
I made a world long ago full of characters and lore and what not. Eventually I hit a dead end, my characters had no depth no background or story and this stopped me from progressing further. Now that I know my mistakes I think I'm going to revisit it and try to improve it, maybe even start a new one in the same universe. Thank you for the help Local.
so, here's the thing: i am in fact a writer who starts out with a premade world where the lore is already codified to an extent. i'm a writer, editor, and teacher in the beyond skyrim-arcane university projects and honestly, i love being able to just jump in and fill in those "hows" and "whys," and then build off that lore to fill in the gaps. we have unofficially designated loremasters who we can pester and who are usually happy to either infodump or find us resources. the thing with starting off with a pre-defined lore set is that you get to touch on pretty much every aspect of the world. compare the father teaching his two young children how to hunt to why a tree looks the way it does to a god pulling the strings behind a massive tragedy. one of the things that i (try to) teach my students is that you have to follow not just an internal logic in your story but the external mechanical and technological constraints of your game engine - you'd be surprised how many times i've read something that just would or could not happen. knowing your limits and where (and why!) you can or can't twist, pull, change, or push them is one of the most important skills a writer of any discipline can learn. dialogue is especially tricky given the interactive nature of a video game and it has unforgiving limits, which is why we have students work on it so much. what's that? an ellipses? oops, that's a crash to desktop, game engine can't handle that. i've learned so much from my time in video game writing that i can apply to my fiction writing to the point where seeing the overlap between writing disciplines is really fascinating for me, which is why i like your videos on screen writing so much. and i will be stealing that "fire up the darling killer 3000" for future lectures, so thank you for that lol.
Why chaining is really interesting to me because I subconsciously did it for a while and almost always I found that the real story that mattered to me was found in that backstory. Turns out, the king being a huge authoritarian because he lost his daughter long ago is way less interesting to me than actually writing about the daughter going into the great big world and getting captured. She has to make connections with other captives and grow strong to escape, all the while while her father tries to track her down. Finally seeing that she has indeed grown up when he catches up to a daughter who freed herself.
It's wild how often it happens to me, to the point where sometimes I'll create a scenario I know I'll never use just to construct a backstory that would be a more interesting front story.
I am a beginner writer. I don't have a writer's education. And I am so grateful for your content. You make some things so clear and *usablee*! I don't just learn something new, the gears in my head start spinning immediately, whether it's because I already have a story where I can apply it or (what's even more cool) because I start imagining something brand new just to try out these new tools. It's educational, functional and therefore (for me) inspiring.
Thanks, man!
This has become my favourite writing channel so quickly. I’ve gotten so much further with the screenwriting projects I’ve been working on since I started watching. Thanks for keeping this amazing content coming!
Thanks for tuning in!
couldnt have been timed better, decided to finally take the plunge and make my own campaign last night. another flawless w for the Local fandom
👽
Only 4 minutes in, and I’m already so thankful for writing advice like this. It educates where some lack and it affirms what others have been doing right all along.
An example of the "once-removed" effect is, as it would happen, in Zelda.
Hylia is the perfect iteration of the wise-queen archetype and is a literal goddess, the Zelda of _Skyward Sword_ and basically all the other mainline Princess Zeldas are these "wise-beyond-their-years" kind of messiah figures who just kind of know everything and always tell Link what has to be done next whenever they show up, and then finally the Zelda of BOTW is a nerd who, even though it wasn't actually her fault, is made to feel like a screw-up and is afflicted by guilt and self doubt.
There isn't even any particular in-context reason that the archetype "decayed" and became more complex other than the 10,000 years of complacency purchased by the Shekiah's plan to defeat the first Calamity being so successful. She still has those messianic moments, but they always seem to come upon her like some kind of possession or deeper personality like the Nameless Pharaoh form _YuGiOh_ and there more sense that she's a person with limitations and desires.
Man, getting TTRPG content from a writing channel like yours is blending my two favorite things. And shout-out to Jay! This setting rocks!
You not playing games gives a lot of insight into the really functional way you view characters. Deep local lore
*Hello Future Me* has a fantastic video on Worldbuilding & exploring 2 methods; Hard Worldbuilding and Soft Worldbuilding.
Someone in the comment section of that video aptly described each by saying:
Hard worldbuilding creates a story for the world.
Soft Worldbuilding creates a world for the story.
I go goofy with inspired giddiness when I refer to that video and now with this one (even tho I've not finished it, I still know this will be insightful/inspring cuz Lucas LocalScriptman is no less than a prolific writing prophet bestowed upon us by the Sacred Elders of Storytelling)
Whoa high praise. Yeah I’m familiar with his stuff, he’s pretty good
As someone who primarily watches your videos to become a better GM, this is a gift, thank you
As I'm revisiting a world I created about 2 years ago, but never made a story for, this video has been invaluable. Thank you!
The sponsorship transition is next level.
First time seeing your channel (I'm from the D&D world), and this blew me away. I'm getting into short story writing as well, and both the common ground and differences of the media fascinate me. I subbed before we even hit the 10 minute mark. Cheers!
Thanks for your support!
I just realized I've been unwittingly doing the once-removed trick myself in writing my D&D campaign villians. As a big fan of Lost and Marvel, though, I think for me at least this trick might just be a generalization of the "daddy issues" school of character writing.
For example... who is the uberdark, conflicted, multi-dimensional recurring villain with the oh so compelling backstory? Well first of all, he's NOT the famous and powerful bad guy who already did the bad thing in the past, no. He's the SON of that bad guy. The young man who grew up with a combination of admiration and fear in the shadow of such an influential person. He aspires to the same status, but perhaps he doubts his competence and this compels him to take on some desperate Faustian bargain, or perhaps he is torn between competing influences but his father's legacy compels him to avoid moderation and make decisive sacrifices. His potential for villainy is believable because he was raised by one, but his reputation is still to be determined. Oh, and he has some rivalry or frenemy type connection to the party.
Now his "backstory" is compelling because it is happening right now, and inextricably linked to the party's own choices. If they defeat him early on, perhaps the shame makes him more desperate. If they make friends, perhaps it's not his goals but his methods that the party finds themselves at odds with. And of course, what happens to his dad and how does that influence his thoughts about his own legacy?
I often think it's impossible to define a character independent of their relationships to other characters, but that chain can't go on forever. So if you are going to end it with an archetype, put that archetype in the past.
Everytime you upload, I am filled with the glad. Your content 100% deserves the attention it's getting and way more.
Why the hell the only dude who's family is blessed with divine knowledge of recurring apocaliptic event, who spend his whole life preparing for said event and ensuring people are protected during it, would chose to remain childless and leave future generations with no further protectors? If anything, these three generations of elf dudes should have been raising as many chidren as possible, turning their one man worldsaving operation into a prosperous dynasty.
you're the only channel where I don't skip ad reads out of sheer respect for the segue lol. thank you! for the bit about once-removing, it tied together and brightened up quite a few things in my worldbuilding. looking forward to the next!
that face reveal was the biggest jump scare of the week for me. the number of disembodied TH-camrs dwindles once more and the wheel of time keeps turning.
Haha I’ve used my face before, I just haven’t for the last few videos . I agree it’s weird though
This was EXACTLY what I needed right now and if my work ever gets published I WILL credit you for “why I am so darn good at writing” 😂 Also I’m basing characters of Lucas and Jay because *incoherent excited writer noises I can’t describe in words*
Major win, so glad we could help
I like your method of working with archetypes. Personally, in my novel writing, I like to play archetypes in full and explore them to their greatest potential. I also love creating backstories for characters who personify an obvious archetype. The making of a legend is more interesting than the legend itself.
Along with my screenplay projects I’ve also been writing a novel series and creating lore and world building is so fun
Whoa, I'm mad early and I don't even have notifications on
4 minutes in and all the problems i was having with my storytelling and Worldbuilding suddenly got so much clearer.
I'm a songwriter and you've given some advice that has opened up a whole other world of possibilities for me. You've really given me some insight on a different storytelling process that has helped me crank out a good handful of bangers in the last few months.
glue
(Translation: Yippee! another video from the local script man now I get to watch it at 1 am and think about how to apply its information to my story and then maybe do that in like 5 months :D. But seriously, you give us some of the best writing tips on TH-cam for FREE!? Absolutely Foolish. 10/10)
Glue
Not saying anything others haven’t said a bunch already, but thank you for this channel. As an older person who struggles with not ideas or concepts for characters and worlds, but struggles with how to structure these things into a cohesive way to turn it into a narrative on paper, seriously just the basic structure on getting these things down on paper in the way you’ve explained in your previous videos. It’s truly invaluable youve helped me tremendously
I had a whole essay talking about this very topic. People who just world build, and people who just write stories are equally feckless.
World building IS writing, and must be treated as such.
Oh I have feck. I have so much feck
@@localscriptman Oh come on ScriptMan! You know, I Feck, You Feck, He she me Feck, Feck, Fecking, We'll have thee Feck, Feckorama, Feckology, The study of Feck!? It's first grade ScriptMan!
This is so well timed because I’m making my first dnd campaign so I wanted to watch one of your videos to help and there was a lore video waiting for me 🙏
literally already in love with this channel from the thumbnails alone. i'm in the process of writing out a script for my webcomic idea and i need all the pointers i can get. subscribed.
You had me for the long run when you said, "I've personally found most of the conversation around world building has been superficial and foundational." I thought I was the only one. Thank you thank you thank you for digging in.
You inspired me to write! I love the way you do your videos, it makes me feel like writing is actually something attainable, and not just for a certain "elite" persons, thank you for everything random internet guy!
Thanks for tuning in
God, i love these videos. Honestly, i wish i could have played the game without knowing my graduation would get interrupted with a dragon
20:00 Yeah you also have the benefit of making the idea of the archetype more of a concrete thing in the story, y'know? Like if you just have a wise old mentor, thats just a dude who happens to check all the right boxes. If its some kind of successor you're dealing with, in a way that makes the character genre savvy because they too know what the perfect fantasy mentor looks like and are trying to emulate it
Thank you so much for making content and putting words to these concepts. I am getting more into writing because of you, and your video about dialogue has helped tremendously. Currently, I am drafting an SCP article, and it would not happen without your great advice.
Side note, when I played DnD in high school, I developed my campaigns directly from my friends PCs’ backstories. In this way, I outsourced what my stories were by coaxing creativity out of my friends, and the way I did this was the Socratic Method of asking “why is this?” Hearing you go on about the “why chain” near the start of the video is very similar to what I did, and hearing it was so nice.
"most of the conversation about worldbuilding is very superficial" Got my subscribe. I am a writer, primarily flexing my muscles on running DnD games for the last 15 years. I knew everything you said, in a way, but what you said still helped because its useful to have new perspectives on old information.
describing it with that ball simile was great
Such a great thing to come home to after a 12-hour shift, time to sit back, relax, and not so patiently wait for the next upload.
D&D permeates every aspect of my life, so, this is awesome. Very cool seeing into the process and expansion of this setting and story!
I like working within a pre-existing world because the limitations that come with that force more deeply working through the issues I want in the story, how they intersect etc.
It's HARDER but I find it ends up with a more interesting/deeper story
I think what has helped me the most with writing a world is to not view it as a story that you are writing, but rather to tell the story of a world that did exist. Whether that be a world that once was that is now lost, or is still an existing world is up to how you write it. It take away the disconnect from the writer to the world, where you will write more like a distant omnipotent being, rather than a bard or storyteller, retelling the stories of yore.
I love starting with a pre-existing world. For one, it helps be come up with details that make the story feel more lively and less generic (as giving details based on a big picture idea tends to give more generic results). For another, the limits on what I can do are half the fun. If I have a plot point I want to do but the worldbuilding details go against it, I now get to problem solve my way into a situation where the plot point can still happen without changing the worldbuilding too much (which tends to create interesting complexity hat wouldn't have happened otherwise).
I get the worldbuilding v lore now, and I guess environmental storytelling is the bridge between both.
Been waiting all week for this video! great insight and the delivery is hilarious as always! 💯💯
Thank you, I’m really proud of this one since it took so long
Im so happy that you are going into the gaming direction with this video. Since i started watching your videos i really like your opinion and thoughts you shine on media i seen before but could now see in a different way. I whom is really really into game development and for that word building/story writing will try to learn from stuff like this. Thanks
That sounds like an awesome world! I've been working on a world of my own and I feel like it's gotten stretched thin. This video will really help give me some ideas on how to clean up the history and lore, so thanks!
You're elevating the way people think about storytelling, Mr ScriptMan. Kudos to you
I'm not big into DnD but Ive done plenty of text based rp games in the past. I think what you mentioned near the end about the dice changing the experience is something I need to think about when it comes to text rp. It seems like all games are either just the DM stringing the players along in their own story like a group of people locked into a theme park ride with no real agency, or the rp is an aimless sandbox that never gives anyone a reason to care. I really do like rping so I hope I can figure out a good way to go about it in the future.
Anyways, great video, thanks for the content bubba
I didn’t use to have issues with writing, or at least I don’t have issues with jotting down my ideas but I always struggle with specifics. Dialogue and “tales” or “legends” beyond just general descriptions was difficult. I found this channel yesterday through one of the dialogue videos, and was genuinely not expecting there to be this tie in between world building and writing tips. One of the reasons I found this channel is because I was looking for videos exactly like this.
Unlike... everyone else here it seems, I'm not a writer. I'm not involved with creative arts in any capacity, actually, but I still appreciate the lessons and information your videos have to offer. I'm like, never gonna use it, but it's still entertaining and interesting.
23:02 I think the problem you might find with world-building in games - specially RPGs is the player's need to interact only *mildly* and to create the character that inhabits the world - So it's kind of a conundrum where the player needs to learn certain information about the character they are about to put into their world before their character is created.
You don't want your players to create a dwarf miner that they want to role-play as only to find out dwarves are actually all a warrior-race in this world
or for them to create their Elf nobleman only to find out all elves have been enslaved for eons.
Oh god, about writing stories in existing worlds, I can't agree more.
My notes!
- Worldbuilding is the horizontal scope of the fictional universe. Lore is the story of how the different parts of the world came to be.
- Steps in putting stories in your worlds:
1. Name Everything
- A difficult part of storytelling is distilling concepts into characters.
- A good practice is to make a representative character of each faction.
2. Why-Chaining (Ask why incessantly)
- Keep asking why until you create a backstory for your characters.
- Why-chaining can reveal contained stories in the past.
3. Unresolved Situations
- The more past you create, the more future you create.
- Loose ends in the past gives characters something to do and something to talk about.
- For worldbuilders: no matter how intricate the world, it is still a fixed image of the world.
- This is a more foundational approach to worldbuilding. The world emerges naturally in this way and will snowball into more details.
- Thesis: worldbuilding is not separate from writing. Focus on individual characters, then story, and not on the minutiae of the world.
- The “Once-removed” Principle: Start with an archetype, put it in their past, see how it decays/erodes/marinates/festers. “Everybody is once removed or twice removed or 50 times removed from the supposed ideal.”
- On gaming: the choice to give up player autonomy (for a more complex character) is something to contend with when writing for games.
- His initial point is that “the victories and defeats in an action narrative should hinge on character choices and not random fancy action moves”.
- Discussion with game master Alexander Bonohan: “I told Alexander that the randomness of the dice irked me a bit, and he said: “The dice are what turn a DND game from a group storytelling session to a shared experience. All must serve the dice, even the DM.” See, I've been thinking of the DM as a god, I mean writer, but in actuality, the DM is like a referee who occasionally throws an extra ball in as a twist.”
Thanks for these they'll be useful when I come back here in the future 🙏
oh my god, a longer localscriptman video
tomorrow will be such an amazing day
*John* The *Bleeg* is most definitely going to be a special guest at some point in one of my VN's
Local's videos are so great for me personally, because he presents concepts in this "rational, it all makes sense" type of way.
Like a math, in a good way
Thank you, I really appreciate that. Definitely what I’m going for
Love to see your exploration into magic systems & worldbuilding. Look forward to your personality stuff!
Thanks so much for making videos! Your explanations are really concrete and make me feel like I can really tackle the storytelling problems I’m having and make progress 😄
I love your videos because they help me both with my screen writing and with my traditional creative writing. This video is especially helpful, as I've been writing a fantasy novel for about 5 years, and the actual writing hasn't started yet since I've spent so much time on working on worldbuilding
Thanks for kick-starting my prep for tomorrow's game! I really appreciate your content. Thank you
Something I decided early on when I started worldbuilding for one of my stories was to make every bit of lore function as a story in and of itself. Rather than setdressing for this story, the “boring” stuff that’s a thousand miles wide but only one inch deep emotionally, it’s all story. Is there a temple somewhere? Rather than just talking about the factions, or even the named “characters,” use that as a springboard: “I’m going to tell a story about a guy who built a temple.” Bam! Now that needs worldbuilding, and the original story that spawned it can be supported and tie in in interesting ways, or (since this “lore” may not be entirely relevant) it can add meaningful depth to the world.
Basically it follows the rubric of “any of these stories should be worthwhile, no matter which one gets published first. If you consider it a ‘side story’ then you’re not giving it the attention it deserves. Let it take center stage, obsess your mind, and become an end in itself.”
I now have about thirty stories in various stages of development all interconnected and it’s getting very complicated please send help.
Anyway, all that to say, it’s really interesting hearing your take on the matter be so similar, despite some nuanced shifts in focus. Another great video!
The ball analogy is such a simple, beautiful way to put it. Great video!
Love the video and I wanted to thank you because your channel has been so very helpful for me, as an aspiring game developer. I have had almost the oppossite problem as I inherently understand how to create complex, deep, spontaneous narratives between groups (sometimes large groups) of people, but I don't have any idea how to write a story myself...let alone create a lore, that will help people create stories.
What I can tell you about ttrpg's or table top games in general, is that DnD occupies a very unique experience and handles narrative construction unique to itself. It is only really able to do that because of both age and storytelling traditions that have grown around it over several decades. In other games what motivates the player to behave in a way that is coherent with the story, are incentive mechanics. Every game has different ways of doing this, and there are many different perspectives on agency of the player, and adherence to the story. There are too many different takes to recount here and I can try to give an example if you want.
The purpose of these mechanics is to both provide a character ability or mechanics consequence that the player has bought into. this is tied to a narrative element the GM (game master) incorporates or ties into the world's lore. The trick is that the player has already bought into that story because they have chosen that option, and GM can use that to motivate the character in accordance with the story as they have just unknowingly agreed to.
This type of content is fucking FASCINATING and helps me so much with my own stories. Thanks for taking the time to make these videos :)))
Man you just sparked the next idea for my campaign. Love your videos dude, helped me alot with my writing and storytelling.
Dont forget us when you become famous 🙏🏾
Thanks for watching, I will not 👽
2:40 John the bleg is now my favorite bleg in all of fiction xD.
Thanks for all the videos. They are very helpfull for my writing.
Love your content bro, when I heard you were gonna do a DnD video I was ecstatic and you did not disappoint. I'm excited for whatever else you got in store for us.
Loved the change in perspective here. Cool little deviation. Keep doing what you do, man!
man every video is a new fave video of yours, good stuff!
Exactly what I need! Musing about my first story where I don’t start from an ancient mythological plot and give it a twist, but instead this one’s gonna be about 30y in the future - and I got a whole lot of variables with their whys to track through time.
I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your content. I’m an amateur writer attempting to make my first serious project after years of not writing with purpose, and your videos have been genuinely helpful and enjoyable. Thanks a lot!
Loving this channel, very on point, useful and interesting. Keep up the good work!
Thank you!
I finished a Solarpunk feature recently where I started with the world. I knew I wanted a story about people, like a “When Harry Met Sally” vibe. That’s my A story, two childhood friends reconnecting. Starting with the world informed the B story, the lore, and made the story more unique. The world informed the character’s occupations, which gave them something to do. The world could also act as a plot catalyst. For example, a wildfire is my act 2 break, a story beat that was informed by the climate-changed world. You can extract plot, secondary characters, backstory, and these small details just from the world itself.
Epic, so good to see this applied to DnD, since discovering your videos I have been using the filter for my character dialogue with players and it's made even simple Npc interactions fresh, real, and sometimes throughly entertaining.
Hardest thing I've ever worked on was magic. Main problem is that while I want it to do fantastical things, I also want it to have a logic to it.
Dang you FMAB!
I need to schedule time in the weekend to watch your videos so that I can pay close attention. You're kinda helping me out of my writing block.
Your videos have vastly improved my homoerotic fanfiction. Thank you
That’s what it’s all for at the end of the day