Build Your World like GYGAX | The 1975 Method
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 มิ.ย. 2024
- Gary Gygax co-created Dungeons & Dragons, and back in 1975 he published his 5-step world building process! Let's check it out! ▶️ More below! ⏬
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00:00 uncovering gygax's world building tips
02:00 the "secret" first step of dnd world building
05:02 writing your campaign world pitch
06:06 inspiring sponsor!
06:59 the BIG difference of gygax world building
10:01 randomizing your world?
11:01 gygax dungeon building basics
11:57 how gygax built dnd towns
14:24 building "the world" and GM prep...
#dnd #worldbuilding #osr - เกม
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I love that you kept that childhood map from your first game ☺💜
Somewhere I still have some crazy maps I drew as a teenager, I loooooved maps, such a fun part of world building!
@@queenvagabond8787 lol it's from when my friends and I were like 21 🤣
@@BobWorldBuilder Haha, sorry, didn't mean to cast aspersions on your artistic abilities! Its still a cool map 😅
This information is not lost Bob. I own 1000+ D&D pdfs from the last 50 years. Anyone can find these online for free.
I remember thinking long ago that your channel would be perfect if it were a bit more system agnostic or multisystem. Welp, now is perfect.
I really appreciate the support for system-neutral!!
I would like to echo said support… ENTHUSIASTICALLY!
System neutral rpg content ftw!
Second this - love this type of video
I third the RPG Neutral theme transition! Getting more inspiration this way.
My heart goes out to all you veterans of the OGL Wars!
Yeah I'm glad it's pretty much over 😅
o7
@@BobWorldBuilder Thank you for your service 🎖
We won a battle; I don’t believe the war is over.
@@BobWorldBuilder "The Corporate People are easily startled, but they'll be back, and in greater numbers." -Old Ben Kenobi, probably
It's been quite a while since I've been exposed to anything written in High Gygaxian. Thank you for that :-)
Always good to look back on where we started haha
Gygax probably would have kept the map secret. Mainly, not to deceive the players but because there was always one designated mapmaker in any player group back in the olden days. It was expected that this player (in this meta-role) would draw all the maps as they travel to new locales, explore unmapped dungeons, and the like. Which, of course, made buying maps in-character a much bigger deal and made those maps a treasure in and of themselves... IF they were accurate, and inaccurate maps (especially the maps that some NPC intentionally made inaccurate to lure adventurers to their doom) were opportunities for new and unexpected adventures.
That last note you put in parentheses is something I want to try now lol
You could of course give the map freely to players but have the occasional inconsistency because after all the map is not the territory for example they may head to a village or town and it is abandoned or now a city..obviously IF you had too many insconstencies players would get frustrated
This exactly. That Hex-Map you make is your "Run the Wilderness Travel" Tool. You are meant to keep that as accurate as possible so you can properly adjucate distances and time needed to move from town to village to dungeon. And to know how far the party might be from the edge of a forest they get lost in. Players would, at most, have a typical rough "around here is this" map, as usual from medival times.
Treasure maps were a treasure themselves. Literally, they were part of the random treasure tables in ODnD
@@BobWorldBuilder One of the treasures available in S1 Tomb of Horrors was a treasure map pointing to a location 1d6x100 miles away that was utterly fake.
For my own world I take a lot from Conan the Barbarian, Arthurian legends, Ursula le Guin, Fritz Lieber, and Bronze age History.
Have you tried Runequest/Mythras... I think with that library of influence you would like that system a LOT!
That sounds like a fun world!!
The bronze age ooze inspiration, from the Mesopotamians to Mycenean/minoans or the chinese bronze age is full of cool stuff.
Why have I not thought of Ursula K. LeGuin before?
@@BobWorldBuilder If I ever finish the game attached to it I'll send you a copy. Been working on it since 2019 and it's currently in the 3rd bout of play tests.
"All a RPG town really needs is an Inn where characters can sleep with an Inn keeper who..." *computer error noise* "...AND an Innkeeper who can proved them with quest hooks."
¿Por Que no los dos?
Ah, my favorite type of Bob World Builder video: a video about world building with Bob.
They are few and far between haha
Your Gygax impersonations had my dying 🤣
Haha thank you!
Bob Gygax is a mood and is too powerful to go undefeated.
The most impressive part of this video was that you were able to get Gary Gygax himself in for the video-- props to Grace for the talented necromancy!
I'm so glad you shared this. My players just overcame their first plot arc, and I wasn't sure what to do next. This really sparks my imagination on building their path, not their destination, to see where the story goes.
Sounds like you have the right mindset! Have fun with it! :)
I was inspired by the mappi mundi (the known medieval world map from around the 14th century) in how they would draw land features and then the kinds of creatures you'd find there. So some good advice is just like gygax says about drawing the locations to draw the eye of the players, and include a picture of what creatures or types of humans are there (only one or two, these would just be the most common in the area) but also be sure to leave lots of negative space between these locations so the eyes don't get overwhelmed.
Yeah! Very well said!
For me it was the Zeno Map
Good one Bob!
Nothing says going off on a tangent quite like using parenthesizes inside parenthesizes. 🤣🤣🤣
Gygax breaking boundaries yet again!
The Otis pitch is really stripped down, with just one species and two classes. Still, the idea that iron and magic are opposed like Order and Chaos, is interesting. Maybe “Mageborn & Ironsworn”?
A Gygax method that actually aged well and not antiquated? No way!
The exist!
I think the biggest factors here are twofold:
1. D&D has gone mainstream, which means it's watered down. That isn't necessarily a bad thing (the dose makes the poison after all), but it is a thing that happens to everything that was niche that ends up becoming a completely normal thing that ordinary people like. This can be seen in things like how early D&D had the DM in a far more adversarial role compared with modern D&D which is far more "we're telling a story together 8D" oriented.
2. D&D has gone mainstream culturally and mechanically. Huge portions of the modern world, and certainly gaming, are derivative of D&D, and especially newer D&D, which makes much of modern D&D feel "familiar" and "obvious" whereas the systems when D&D were new were far more trail-blazing, and while they were contextualized in previous games, such as war gaming, the modern person into D&D has little understanding of that.
The Gygax 75 challenge interests me far more than the Dungeon23 one. Bravo!
Also it doesn't take all year! haha
@@BobWorldBuilder no kidding! I spent a few hours on it and came up with most of the initial setting info for an Anime 5E setting I call The Bandit Kingdom. Making up a small local dungeon is the most annoying piece of it. Anyway, since I'm not going to be running it any time soon I dropped it for more practical prep tasks.
Doing real good Bob 👌
Thank you!
Your pitch for DCC was very good, I bought it last week and it arrived Sunday. I am so very excited!
Excellent! I'll be making more videos about it once my campaign really gets off the ground!
Let me just say that freaking random encounter matrix you set up brought some memories back to me of the hours of work I spent for projects that similarly, may never see the light of day. Its so hilarious because we dont realize how ridiculous it is until we step back and look at it.
Yeah, I like to think that as long as making it was fun, it wasn't a total waste of time lol
The Warhammer Old World is my favourite setting; grim, dark, and deeply silly.
any skaven shennanigans included?
That sounds fun!!
@@BobWorldBuilder oh it is, but it also requires a relatively good understanding of the setting in the first place to work well... either way im all for 5 ft tall rat people(the skaven) shenanigans being included...
Mine too but not a fan of the rules of the setting. Too fix this I use other systems b/x, ICRPG, Becmi and deathbringer to run this world.
@@brentnorton1602 I completely agree on the rules. GW seems to have a bit of an issue in that department. "Warlock!" is another alternative set of rules for this seeting.
I always love seeing everyone's weird encounter table matrixes, so I'd be up for that video.
Hey Bob. Thanks for being such a positive guy. I appreciate it :)
I love Gygax's approach to world-building and how it boils months of work down to a few easy to digest concepts. This really helped me understand why so many of my previous attempts at creating my own campaign settings have stalled out when I inevitably get bogged down in the details and end up feeling overwhelmed or moving on to a different idea altogether. I would love to see a series of videos putting these concepts into practice (and maybe the end of the series could culminate in a new official Bob World Builder campaign setting (I would buy the hell out of this, extra parentheses here for emphasis))!
I really appreciate that! My goal is for this to be a long term work in-progress, so I can build on it over the years. But maybe once I get it to a strong foundation it would be worth publishing, or at least making a video or two about. We'll see!
I'm thrilled that you covered the Gygax75. Ray Otis is the man. And pairing this method with GFC D&D's TH-cam video on hexcrawling is the most approachable way of making a setting I know of.
My weird jungle science-fantasy exploration campaign was built with a similar method and my friends and I have had a blast. Just last weekend they found a band of hateful geese over a cauldron of gold and split it with a group of robots. Good chaotic fun.
The Gygax cuts are priceless!
Glad you enjoyed it haha
I’d love to see some random encounter discussion. They’re one of my least favorite parts of DMing so some suggestions or even some complete tables would be really nice.
Yep a bunch of people seem to feel the same way, so I'll probably be turning that into a video of its own!
This video was great and had a lot of useful information!
Thanks! It's inspired by a great PDF!
Can we talk about the embroidery floss moustache for a moment? 10/10
Thank you! Gotta go with what works lol
Looking forward to the DCC updates!
This is a great video. I love your reading Gygax. He didn't really sound that way IRL ( I met him) but he definitely WROTE like he sounded that way. Bravo!
I haven't done much dming yet but you, professor dungeon master and Matt Colvil have been inspiring me. The world I'm thinking of is inspired by 1500s Europe (been playing Europa Universalis 4) particularly with colonialism into a continent inspired by the Zendikar setting from Magic with living land. A part in the silmarillion where it describes the course of the river Sirion running made me picture water spirits that chart courses for rivers and lakes amongst the ever changing landscape. Finally there's a piece of art from Magic that I always loved. Strionic Resonator. Idk how it will be incorporated, but it may be a being that guides the formation of the land.
Very cool! Write down those sources of inspiration and get started!
a really useful resource, many thanks for sharing!
My pleasure! Have fun using it!
Have been working on a home brew adventure set in exandria to lead into Call of the Netherdeep and had been getting stuck, this video i think is gonna help a ton
Happy to hear it! :)
When I taught myself to play D&D in 1985 I was 10 and learned naturally that an unfinished map/world is a great way to start a game. Waiting for me to finish a map and / or world before we start would mean we never start. Great Gygax btw 😄
"done" > perfect! Gotta start somewhere :)
One of the players I DMed in 1981 gave me a map I made for my original campaign last year, it's a couple of roads, a coastline, some mountains, and a handful of locations, lol.
I really liked building it bit-by-bit as more was needed, made it easier and more flexible to adapt.
Sounds like a great world building strategy to me!
Building and then unveiling parts of my world to my players is my favorite thing about TTRPGs. When they find a mile wide cylindrical hole in the ground surrounded by a moat and they split the party to find out what's at the bottom....thats the juice.
I totally agree!!
"today there are countless books and videos about world building" - Build Your World vid by Bob World Builder.
The meta is strong with this one.
Great stuff, thanks. And I like the coverage of original works. Dnd history, esp TSR's [bit later than his 75 article], is interesting; and doesn't repeat, but boy sure does rhyme.
Haha yeah, I'm finally making some world building videos! I agree that we have a lot to learn from the history of the hobby
@10:12 - Yes, please! I would love to see a video of you detailing your process of creating an elaborate set of random encounter tables.
I must have been too delayed in replying to your response because I don’t see it any longer. I’d still be really interested in seeing what you have for random encounters.
I've been running my DCC campaign for almost five months now. My favorite thing, hands down, is the approach to world-building the book suggests. Making the world smaller and encouraging custom monsters has made GMing more enjoyable and the players seem more excited for game night than before.
Thanks for letting me know this Gygax essay exists, great videro!
100%! I raelly like how the book talks about travel and communication being limited, monsters being "the" troll, and other aspects of the regional-scale campaign style
This was a brilliant video Bob. I really like how you took the work done by Gygax and Ray Otis and complemented it with your own game sensibility and wisdom. Great work. 🚀
I know why I enjoy your content so much now. It's because we have the same basis (i feel) for where we draw from fantasy, err well at least what you're drawing from for this 🌍 you're building
That's awesome to hear! You have great taste then! haha :)
Hey! Love the video, this is an awesome document that I needed to see. I have just been thinking about how to start building in Pathfinder, and this couldn't have come out a better time. I also think that your encounter generator video ideas are both good, and I think you should do both!
Glad it was helpful! :)
I’ve been reading Worlds Without Number the past couple weeks. Has a ton of DM tools for world building. It has a free pdf version. I recommend picking it up. It’s like the advice from Gygax in this video but so much more and tons of tables for rolling or inspiration.
Hmm I'll have to check that out!
It’s so good!
As I want to do more West Marches campaigns, and I do struggle with charts the same way you did (spending way too much time on it for a minimal use) I'm interested with a full video about it !
Based on the comments, this seems like a common problem! I'll probably be turning that into a video of its own
One of your best videos yet. Tons of great information.
It's based on a fantastic PDF!
Love the content I recently got the Old School Essentials set of books and I am in the process of building a world to play in thanks
Nice! This should be right up your alley
Awesome 👌
Thank you!
Brilliant video! I love your interpretation of Gary. I think he would have laughed. Good on you for promoting Gygax '75... that's the way it should be done!
Haha thank you! Glad you enjoyed it
This is the brewing of a fantastic series; I'd like to see more focused videos on this process
Thank you very much!
I dig you new coworker. Has a nice vibe :D . I've read Odis PDF (and praise be to him) but thanks for the overview and I'm interested what you are going to do with it :) Keep on building
Thank you for the support! :)
What I think I take from more than ANYTHING is Shin Megami Tensei games, and ATLUS games in general. The techno-magic aesthetic that it has is very much in the style of everything I love running! Along with that rougelikes give a fount of possible magic items and lore for me to insert and inspire into my world!
That sounds fun! I'm not really familiar with those games, but I agree that techno-magic can totally work alongside standard fantasy. And magic items are a great way to get inspired :)
I loved your Gygax portrayal, that was really funny.
Also good video, I really like the 5-step program.
Glad you liked it! xD
One thing to keep in mind, and the reason Gygax 75 is so great: Gygax was great referee, not so much a great GM.
If your read anything he wrote, from the OG DMG to this article or the infamous Tomb of Horrors you get what I'm saying.
He was absurdly antagonistic with his players, in that wargaming way. So even when he has some great advice, you still find that "GM vs Players" philosophy.
Gygax 75 does a great job in bringing said advice to a more modern DnD approach.
Great points!
My favorite way to design "random" encounters is by planning it ahead of time - randomly. My current travel system relies on each party member taking a role and then rolling a skill check based on what role they take. This is lifted right out of the "Adventures in Middle Earth" setting books by the way. There is a DC for their travels and the number of successes and failures they get will determine what kind of encounters they get. So, they will always get a random encounter while traveling, but sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, or sometimes it's neutral.
But the key is, I have a few different random encounters at the ready, whether it be good, bad, or neutral. In my session prep I roll on the random encounter tables from Xanathar's Guide (based on terrain) until I find something that makes sense for my setting, and that will be what happens. So even though I "plan" the encounters, I still prepare them randomly.
I used to do something similar, but that sounds like a much more focused approach! Thanks for sharing!
*sees your random encounter spreadsheet*
God bless your soul, Bob.
Oooooooooh! I was looking forward to this video!
Enjoy! :)
@@BobWorldBuilder oh, I did! Downloaded the pdf, too. And I checked my email and saw that my BWB dice set shipped yesterday, so I'm now extra excited
I love this kind of video. Amazing work. Glad to see you continuing down this path.
More to come!
Encounter design is so overwhelming, I would love to hear your advice
You know, I think that's why I'm not sure I want to make the video lol, I'll probably make it work though :P
when you start your path in OSR its common sence to just create your own stuff and mix with whatever you feel like, great video!
I'm not sure how you got Mr. Gygax himself to agree to make an appearance in this video, but I really hope he plans to return in future videos!
Maybe, he was pretty tough to work with tbh
I will say, I'd love a video talking about ways to build a random encounters table.
Awesome! I think this could make a good video
Some of the inspirations are Wheel of Time, Dresden (particularly the Fae), Obsidian Mountain trilogy, even older stuff like Dragonriders of Pern.
Never heard of the Obsidian Mountain trilogy. Sounds like a cool mix of sources!
I absolutely adore this channel. Well done Bob!
Thank you!
I absolutely love your style. Not only do you get the information across, I laugh out loud at your clever and subtle humor. Keep up the amazing content and work! You are an inspiration to Game Masters everywhere!
That's very kind! Thank you! :)
This is quite useful advice!
Glad you think so!
Whenever I start out world building, I'm drawn to 80s style cartoons. Mysterious Cities of Gold, Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea, Song of Fire and Ice, basically post apocalyptic worlds where advanced civilizations where lost to hubris and greed, where the technology has outlived their creators and haunt a new world that where magic and myth have returned.
Excellent bases for fantasy adventures!
2:26 I believe Gygax is referencing something akin to CS Lewis' "The Magicians Nephew", where the player is discovering a world from fresh/a-new For example: a group of players discover a large mirror and a note from a common friend, who has mentioned they have entered a world passing through the magic mirror... the players enter the world and discover what lies beyond...
The book by CS Lewis was my childhood favorite and prompted myself into DM'ing my own 1AD&D world back in 79
This made me think of playing the pcsv like they have just entered jumanji (the modern one) and are inhabiting avatars within the world. Would explain their lack of knowledge of the world nicely too.
Thank you so much for this video. I’m finally planning my own world, and having this as a starting point is invaluable!
Awesome! Glad it was helpful!
I've always wanted to build a campaign that use selections of Lord Dunsany's "Gods of Pegana" and "Time and the Gods" and even Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet" as (entirely optional) in-game texts. I've seen a few independently published games that say they're "inspired" by Dunsany's work, but they're usually just generic fantasy games with some Dunsany quotes dropped here and there and maybe a place name. No, while neither Dunsany nor Gibran were doing conscious world-building, Dunsany mentioned multiple place names and close reading hints at possible relations each of these places have (for example, Aradec seems to occupy a role comparable to Rome or Baghdad at their heights and certainly has trade with the city of Bodrahan).
Yeah the earlier one reads into the fantasy genre, it gets clearer and clearer to see how it developed from a mix of classic folklore and real-world "exotic" places from the period
Your Gygax is very funny! You should have him pop up every now and then in videos, if it fits the subject
Thanks! Yeah maybe when we get to Gygax dungeon building haha
Favorite Video of the last few months!
Thank you very much! :)
Thank you for this video! I'm currently fleshing out the town/city for a homebrew setting (osr/ose). I'm have it been built in and around the ruins of a previous city. Creating a huge dungeon that can be fleshed out a little at a time along with the surrounding area. Inspired by some anime I have watched along with countless books.
That sounds awesome!!
@Bob World Builder one of the ways I wanted to help form parties or do a session one is to introduce them into the world as hirelings for one of the various adventuring companies going into the ruins. This way they can form a history with each other and then form a party of their own with the blessing/tutelage of their employers or create conflict and become rivals. There will be other companies as well and being divided between charted and free or uncharted. And of course add outside influences along with Where that orc horde come from!!!
Incredible information for a new DM like myself. Been so wrecked over making a world this has been awe inspiring. Thank you so much Bob! :D
That's really awesome to hear! Glad you got some inspiration from this video! :)
Nothing triggers OCD and obsession with details mania like worldbuilding - catnip for the imaginative. Important to employ the 'perfect is the enemy of good' rule, and to know (as Matthew Mercer and so many others say' - a lot of what you make won't be used, so don't overdesign (unless you want to railroad campaigns): leave blank spaces and ways to adapt to player choices, rather than design everything
It's good to get actionable content for your players down relatively early. Else it's far too easy to keep building and building and building, but never getting one part of the map actually playable. When I create a campaign map I think I'd start a few levels higher, on the continent level, and get the biomes and winds patterns down. Then zoom in on one part and increase the detail on those, then zoom in on a part of *that* and start with the advice here.
That's how I did my first couple worlds! Yeah go with whatever feels fun
Love these ideas! Thanks for pumping out amazing things, Bob!
My pleasure!
NEVER CLICKED ON A VIDEO SO FAST IN MY 31 YEARS OF LIFE
I really appreciate that! :)
Thanks Bob. Enjoyed this and looking forward to the next instalment.
I was there. In the beginning, there was no world to explore, no modules to use, no books to explain. Three of us were confronted with the realization that we would have to create our own world, our own adventures, even our own rules. We decided to each take a section of the world to develop. We started with a city, Rivazend that was a port city with a river that came from the east. I developed the part of the town on the north, Marty developed the less developed part on the southern shore, and Marybeth developed the island in the middle of the river. we drew a general outline of the coastline to the north and south and a separate land across the sea to the west. We developed adventures and our lands in the designated areas and agreed that the world would be based on a Tolkien type world with somewhat low magic. After all, there wasn't much D&D material after third level. Regrettably, as time passed and lives changed in the real world, I was left by my fellow world builders and have continued to flesh out the rest of the world and run adventures there for all the years since that auspicious beginning. D&D rules changes over the years have changed aspects of my world at times, but at least we have left Thac0 behind.
That's really awesome to have such a history with the game! Kudos to sticking with it :)
@@BobWorldBuilder Good to see youngblood making it better.
I believe you have a spammer trying to get me to claim my package
Even some of the old-school box sets were SO in-depth (even in ogD&D and AD&D) even those "modules" were so well thought out that the entire box can be considered on par if not more in-depth than some video RPG games today.
I kind of miss the old box set "modules" with all their maps and creature layouts and detailed added magic items.
AN incredible DM back then could take those Box sets and make for some extremely long and wonderful stories.
Addendum, not sure if they still put that much work into creating modules (last I played D&D their "modules" could be and were all created on one card/pamphlet like you find at a gift shop on the POIs in vacation spots, and quite pathetic) LOOKS like the "aftermarket" has kept the massive game modules going.
10:10 IS what keeps D&D going, the passion of the community to create.
Sorry to add But getting the feeling like WotC trying to squash that creativity and bring everything into a micro-transaction subscription service sickened me.
Love this video. Thanks Bob
Glad you enjoyed it!
I think I like your video even better than my guide. :) Thanks for the love.
Glad you enjoyed it!! Huge thanks for finding, transcribing, and generally reviving that article :)
Because I really enjoy wargaming and all that, I'm making a campaign that will have a few wargame-y aspects to it every now and then. While the setting is a dramatized historical fiction, I like to borrow general ideas from Yasuhisa Hara's manga "Kingdom", where generals of superhuman might and strategists of computer-levels intellect can really make or break an army and decide their kingdom's fate, and want my players to experience a similar fantasy if they wind up enjoying the more wargame-y aspects of it.
I also style my world similar to Sword Art Online's Aincrad, solely because it lets me partition the story into individual regions without worrying too much about figuring out how each region will "logically connect", and lets me get away with more blatantly game-ified places, things, and events when I'm hitting a rut trying to think about how to advance the story.
That sounds like an awesome mix of sources!
I would love to see how you set up a random encounter table
I truly appreciate your content, good Sir! I have been world building for a long time, and I still take away knowledge and insight on your channel. Furthermore, I appreciated the link to the PDF! Gygax started me on the path long ago, and there has definitely been a desire to go back to some of the basics in the wake of the OGL Wars...thank you for your work in the community!
As someone who’s been seeing a lot of really cool OSR games with roll-tables (especially the character generation ones) a video covering the topic in more detail would be great, especially since I couldn’t find one on TH-cam
Good to know! I'll put more thought into it :)
Veteran of the OGL Wars
You see me now, a veteran
Of the Open Gaming wars
I've been living on the edge so long
Where the voices of fandom roar
And I'm young enough to look at
And far too old to see
All the scars are on the inside
I'm not sure if there's anything left of me
Don't let these shakes go on
It's time we had a break from it
It's time we had some leave
We've been living in the flames
We've been eating up our brains
Oh, please, don't let these shakes go on
You ask me why I'm weary
Why I can't speak to you
You blame me for my silence
Say it's time I changed and grew
But the war's still going on, dear
And there's no end that I know
And I can't say I'm forever
I can't say if we're ever gonna be free
Don't let these shakes go on
It's time we had a break from it
It's time we had some leave
We've been living in the flames
We've been eating up our brains
Oh, please, don't let these shakes go on
You see me now a veteran
Of a Open Gaming wars
My energy's spent at last
All my goodwill is destroyed
I have used up all my weapons
And I'm helpless and bereaved
Wounds are all I'm made of
Did I hear you say that this is victory?
Don't let these shakes go on
It's time we had a break from it
Send me to the rear
Where the tides of madness swell
And been sliding into Hell
Oh, please, don't let these shakes go on
Don't let these shakes go on
Don't let these shakes go on
🙌
"like any proper game master project, it will probably never see the light of day" had me laughing. Yes I would be interested in that video.
Then it won't have been a complete waste of time! haha
Definitely interested in a dungeon-building video in the future. It is consistently a thing that troubles me, and while I have improved, I still haven't found something that 'clicks' for making them every time.
I think what gygax meant with not letting them know that secrets won't be secrets and it will be all less exciting. Imagine how less cool the eclipse scene from berserk would be if every player would already know about the eclipse is and what it does etc
Yeah to be fair I think he meant like, if you are literally playing out Lovecraft story, don't let them read how it ends or where the twists are.
Bob would you consider sharing the encounter sheet you have as a Google sheet as you work on it? That interests me!!!
Really appreciate your review!!!
I did consider it, and I might make a video about it after all. But in general I don't like to "publish" works in progress for the same reason that it will slow me down during the creation process--wanting it all to be "perfect" and presentable all along the way instead of just drafting and editing later
@Bob World Builder If you made it a view only spreadsheet you could still work on it.
@@BobWorldBuilder Did you get hacked? I received a message about a package.... I'm confused.
Definitely would love an encounter builder video
Awesome!
I'm getting a huge kick out of your delving into old school thought.
Me too!
I find world building inspiration from Universal monster and Hammer horror movies.
Not familiar with Hammer horror movies, but they sure do sound inspiring for horror!
I didn't get a chance to say it before, but Embroidery floss for a mustache is amazing.
Haha thank you! :)
As far as the random tables for encounters go , I actually think this is the most valuable tool in Xanathars guide to Everything. The CR system is trash of course but I simply add 1-2 extra dice to the quantity of the monsters or I'll double their hit points and add a d6 to their DMG rolls. (If the players are at a level where I feel that's needed. Those tables could also be used as an outline for your Skyrim tables? Might be able to just change the name of the monsters and bingo, table done.
Yep, the tables in Xanathars are probably one of my most-referenced 5e materials besides the PHB and MM
Bob I love to see this, I’ve always thought you’d enjoy some of the creativity and principles of old-school gaming. Keep it coming, we’re here for it!
When it comes to a setting I’m inspired by, I love Wildemount by Critical Role. It’s inspiring to see how a world from a home game can grow and change and turn into a big complicated setting that’s vanilla fantasy enough to be accessible for new players but has some fun and unique twists when you dig in the details.
Thanks! And great point about Wildemount :)
Step one : My main campaign setting is fairly heavily inspired by my favourite fantasy novel death gate cycle I’m not going to elaborate to much in this since I don’t know if any of my players will see this and there some stuff about that inspiration I’m keeping from them for plot reasons
Step : 2 I’m working on a pirate camping where my plan is to have a map that every time the party finds a new island I add that island too it
Step:4 The above pirate campaign actually as a fairly interesting in my obviously biased opinion main town, a neutral outpost that was built around an ancient tavern that was dug up
Step: 5In my current main campaign while I had a concept for the world as a whole it was actually the input and actions of my players that really pushed a lot of the details into reality
Really love the idea of the pirate campaign where the party builds their own map by discovering islands!
I started work on my homebrew setting in the early 90s, as a result there's a lot of varied influence in it. From popular media, history, and other games.
I have established a sort of duality of concept where I blend science fiction and fantasy into the various cultures. Dwarves for example are a bit of a blend of the Ferengi and the Giants of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, with some other details taken directly from Terry Pratchett. It makes for a decidedly alien species that has some of the hallmarks of the classic Fantasy Dwarf, but definitely not what one might expect. I think most people associate Klingons with Dwarfs, so going Ferengi definitely throws people.
Dragonborn are essentially Cardassians, and so on. I have a bit of a homebrew bible I've built up over the years with the shorthand available if I need to refresh myself on a part of the map I haven't dealt with in a while.
That's awesome! Exactly the kind of thing I really want to start building and use as a long term world for various campaigns in years to come
@@BobWorldBuilder I would look at character bibles for script writing as a good starting point, the star trek character bibles for DS9, etc were my starting point. And it definitely helps for NPCs, etc. And yeah, having that shorthand available makes it a LOT easier to go back to some random NPC you haven't brought out for five years.