1. Ignoring Diversity 2. Environmental Impacts 3. Oversimplifying Conflict 4. Everyday Life 5. Glossing Over History 6. Underdeveloped Geography 7. Stereotyping Races and Species 8. No Consequences to History 9. Impact of magic on the world 10. Cultural Interactions 11. Thinking too much about History This is why I dislike many Anime, because "the system" that governs the world is written in English (or Japanese) in a large blue box in front of everyone, and the humans NEVER specialize, try new things, etc. and are ALL Balanced builds or DPS nuts! Why are there video game like classes? Why do they assume this class is a failure just cause it didin't level up with the rest of the normal players? Why the newest blacksmith one is kinda nice, blacksmith would have been useless in a cave man like world, but is super good in a medieval one 1K years later.
"What impact are these events having on the environment?" also works for "what impact are these events having on the local economy?" Yes, I've watched Spice and Wolf. How did you know?
I DM for a dnd campaign and looking at this I actually looking at this I have noticed that I have a lot of these things covered and fixed except for #6 and #11
Daniel greene said one thing he did when world building his magic system for his book was just thinking constantly throughout his day to day life how having magic would affect each chore or waiting for traffic it’s a really cool way to make sure your magic feels real
I just made magic pretty difficult to use, i think of magic users like monks, can someone become far more mentally and physically powerful than the vast majority of people? Yes, but like, most people just don't, it's a way of life and it is usually not one most wish to choose
@@wooblydooblygod3857 Exactly, anyone can learn a musical instrument and yet not everyone is a world famous musician. Also our modern technology is pretty much magical compared to what we had 30 years ago, yet we can often have issues and malfunctions and when the power is out we are so screwed.
Most people, especially in a pre-industrial world, would know a lot about their home town, a good bit about the nearest city they sometimes go to, a little about the VIPs and politics of the realm, and vague rumors about lands beyond. You need maybe two major historical events that shaped your realm (conquests and migrations and their ruins and cultural debris), a couple of big enemies (evil overlord, foreign sovereign) and maybe three or four factions (religious cult, major order of knighthood, shadowy cabal, etc.). You can easily build a long campaign on that. At mid-levels, get the heroes involved with about three VIPs (a bishop, a baron, an archmage, a royal official) and let them decide which one to side with. That NPC can direct their efforts and reward them with information about the whereabouts of magic items. But let them be independent if they want to be. When the big war or apocalypse or whatever comes, the heroes will be called upon to find the Sulmonstone or assassinate the Death Prince or whatever to save the kingdom. All you have to do is have the VIPs give them stuff and be nice to them and then eventually talk about how they need help. Have someone they hate turn into an ally. Have someone they like turn traitor. Also, make sure they fight a dragon, a vampire, a beholder, and something they choose. Schedule those adventures. Plant rumors about them. Make it personal. That dragon ate their dad. That vampire kidnapped their sister. That beholder killed their favorite NPC.
The impact of magic on the world is a big one for me. I've read so many stories/seen so many sessions where low level PCs run circles around the game world due to their creative use of magic. If a first level party can mystify the masses and break the system, the game world would look *very* different from English Middle Ages for sure.
3.5 D&D GM here...with lots of house rules. I run a slightly reduced magic world, where full casting progression is not allowed, magic has been weakened by some cataclysm in the past that ended "The Golden Age of Magic" and made magic harder to master. There's an impact of a historical event for you! Mechanically, a character's caster level in any given spellcasting class is at most 2/3 of their character level, so typically a character must multiclass in order to gain enough life experience to be able to master magic. A simple example, an 8th level character couldn't be an 8th level cleric. 2/3 of 8 rounds down to 5 so they might be a 5th level cleric with 3 levels in one or more other classes. A cleric of a LG deity might be a paladin 3/cleric 5, a cleric of a LN deity of knowledge and mysticism might be a monk 3/cleric 5, in either case at 9th level they can progress to cleric 6 but at 10 must take something besides cleric. An impact of that is that magic items and spellcasting services are also more costly because fewer people can make or supply them respectively - and an added incentive to adventure is that magic items made during the Golden Age are out there in ancient ruins etc, some more powerful than anyone currently alive can make, such as ancient scrolls of 8th and 9th level spells... Yet, at the same time, lower level magic is still fairly common especially in towns and cities. The alleys of the wealthy parts of town are seldom in shadows, as continual flame spells which last nearly forever can be cast on the tops of lampposts and the cornerstones of public buildings and the like...
@ernesthakey3396 oh you just gave me the answer to what I was trying to figure out. My world everyone is born able to use magic, however I was trying to figure how to make it work without completely destroying the environment like you see in stories like Dragon Ball series or Fairy Tail series or World of Warcraft series.
@@ernesthakey3396 Why not just reduce full casting progressions in the classes by 1 step then add something to make up for it, if needed for a given class, such as Wizard?
One of the more important points also to consider when worldbuilding is to not overdo it. Ideally, you would want to IMPLY a deep history and IMPLY a greater world with vast cultures and those experiencing your world (dnd/book/whatever) you end up creating the illusion that you've done some insane world building - like a giant ice berg that is hollow inside
@freman007 Which is also another thing to keep in mind. One of my favorite stories is One Piece, where Oda usually implies enough to satisfy the reader but gives him enough freedom to write whatever he wants with that implication.
Diversity has become such a strange issue these days. True diversity is as you say, a variety of cultures and peoples. Then we have Netflix idea of diversity, where every fantasy society looks like modern LA with the trappings of medieval England. Netflix diversity paradoxically makes every country look the same.
Diversity also depends on whether it is just a small area (a smaller regional scale) or the whole fantasy world (a larger world scale). The larger the area, the more diversity occurs. Or a single village is more often monotypic, while there is more diversity between several villages. And mixed diversity depends on how much mobility and isolation there is between different settlement groups and societies and whether we are focuses on the interactionist border area between two societies or only in the core inland of a certain society. Moreover, it is also more common for imperialist and colonialist societies to have more mixed deversity than passive or subjugated societies. Forced mixed diversity, on the other hand, means that mixed diversity is not given any explanation and history, but it exists soullessly just only for the sake of mixed diversity itself and is as bad a mistake as ignoring diversity on a larger world scale. If I had to give an example where I think this subject of diversity has been handled well and exemplary, it would be Avatar The Last Airbender and Avatar Legend Of Korah. Each settlement has its own unique culture, the mixed diversity has a history tied to the Fire Nation's wars and colonial expansion, and in the post-war world, when the mobility of people increased, the settlements were no longer so mmonobendersthan before but the price was the loss of traditions, cultural heritage and roots in a changing industrial world.
@@danielmalinen6337 you touched on a point I wanted to mention; cultural diversity ends up occuring due to waves of isolation and reconnection. As the modern world allows for more and more connection both in terms of media and travel, the connected worlds cultures slowly become more homogenious. This could be an interesting idea to expore, but if you have a world of magic portals, holograms, and instantaneous magical communication, expect there to be less and less cultural diversity the longer those things are available to everyone.
@@klosnj11 not even remotely true. It’s all about leadership and the overall dominant culture. If leadership allows for tourism but the populace likes their culture then the culture will remain homogenous. Examples: Morocco and Dubai. Meanwhile even if leadership doesn’t promote it but people take a liking to it, you’ll see more homogeneity (to world culture) no matter what: Florida and Texas have a more homogeneous vibe than what the leadership would like. No criticism, just pointing out how it depends on mostly the people.
As a 'forever DM' for 47+ years, I can see the value of this advice... for more experienced DMs; helping them griw their game. But new DMs. Would flounder quickly trying to follow all of this advice. The best advice is always "start small" and build out from there... as necessary.
The biggest thing for me is remembering all these tips also scale, especially at small scales. The thing most people should always remember is that worlds feel alive through plausibility. A city block where you apply these principles to it in a focused effort will feel more real and part of something greater than the bones of your massive world ever will when detail is spread so thin. There is no point creating a unique pantheon of gods, a revamped magic system and 1000s of years of warfare and curses and whatever if the end result is being in fantasy hamlet that is basically just Phandelin, with no implications beyond “help peasants and a minor lord out”. Make locations to show off your world and make situations that force players into engaging with it
This is great advice , they definitely scale and applying most tips or resources in the right way or across the board can realllly help make your worlds better. It’s all part of being a better dm
Notes, alot of notes and step by step world building. Savor the joy of making the world, dont rush and burn yourself out. Dosent matter if you have mess of notes, you can structure them point by point and refine it later. Just get your ideas and visions down on the paper or pad! 👍
These are really great tips especially for story writing, and I'll keep this video as a reminder. A few other tips I would give is to remember scarcity and our own world is pretty dang weird. All resources in the world are limited/scarce and impact everything from culture to conflict. Vikings invaded surrounding areas to claim more territory for farms, since their population was constantly growing. When making worlds, it's important to never forget that our world is weird and it's okay to look to it for inspiration. There is a perpetual storm called the Catatumbo lightning, and the locals freaked out when it stopped for a few months. There are sea slugs that live like plants. There is a planet in our galaxy where it rains raw rubies and sapphires from the sky. The sandbox tree is probably the most aggressive of all trees. Dog suns are a really cool optical phenomenon. The universe is plenty weird and magical without any mana.
Wow, awesome video! As a history major I definitely spend too much time on my lore, but it’s fun so no one’s gonna stop me lol. I’m a huge history nerd so just wanted to let you know that when you talked about the explorers of the “14th, 15th, and 16th centuries” I think you meant the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries (1400s, 1500s, 1600s). Also the “Dark Ages” is kind of a misnomer. We actually know a ton about that era, it’s just that Renaissance thinkers looked down on the period as more “un -enlightened” and then give it that name in a sort of pejorative way, which stuck up until we started reevaluating what we know about the medieval period in the last century or so. Don’t mind my “um, actually” nitpicks though, it’s still a super helpful video!
The original Diablo game is a masterclass in worldbuilding. The whole thing takes place in the catacombs under Tristram Cathedral. As you go, you resolve multiple independendant questlines, learn more and more about the various NPCs in town, discover the history of a secret war and the true purpose of the Cathedral as you delve deeper and deeper searching for a missing Prince.
9) is always interesting. In a world with magic, at least start with the lowest level/tier of magic that exists and assume that even the smallest town/village/hamlet will know those spells exist and have access to them. So in a D&D 5e world, start with Cantrips and Level 1 spells. Every door would have an 11 lb bar on their door (to counter mage hand, that's just how doors would be built in this world even if people didn't know why), there'd be someone in town who could ritually cast spells like Alarm, Detect Magic, Identify and Unseen Servant, even the lowliest lord/baronet would have Arcane Lock and other similar spells used in their manor, people would understand what certain spells do, etc. More often than not GMs/DMs play small towns like the people are so isolated and naive that players can get away with anything.
Depends on setting, always agree with things a normal person can do like the 11 pound bar, things being just past some ranges like a tavern having the bottles 35 feet away from the stools so you can't easily access them with a spell or something, but Identify requires a 100gp pearl, and DnD has most people earn a few copper a day, a level 1 adventurer doesn't mean guy who had basic training, it's like seal team 6.
The Mage Hand thing doesn't really follow. If the bar is on the other side of the door, the wizard can't see it to use his spell on it. If he can see it through a window, well you don't have to be a wizard to just break the window and get in.
@@kenle2 there are gaps between doors and walls, doors in castles aren't like the doors in a modern house. Even a mirror under neither the door would do, or spying it through a window if you don't want to make the noice of breaking the glass, etc., etc.
The number of videos by you I have watched and only just now noticed your subscriber count is wild. I always thought you had 100K+ subscribers with how in depth and well put together these videos are. Happy to say you gained another subscriber today and I’m looking forward to more. 🎉
Adding an example of a *tiny* thing that had *HUGE* impact. The highways built by ancient Rome were built to a very specific width. The width needed to comfortably accommodate 2 horses yoked together to a wagon or chariot. This width became the standard width for rails in both North America and Europe. Fast forward to the 1960s. The early space program in the United States. The launch point for US spacecraft is Cape Canaveral Florida. The spaceships have components built all over the country and they have to deliver everything, including huge fuel tanks, booster rockets, engines, etcetra from as far away as California, literally across the continent of North America. This means that, whatever Roman engineer came up with the size of Roman highways to accommodate 2 horses, had a *direct* impact on how the design of spaceships as we know them today because those vehicles and their various modules and components *had* to be designed to be able to be transported on a vehicle whose wheels were no wider than a Chariot.
This is not entirely true. For one, railroads were not standardized right away. They actually had issues trying to put cars on different tracks before they learned to standardize them. The roads of Rome were also not all the same width. This keeps getting spread around, but it isn't true. They generally are of similar size, but not the same. And then you have lots of equipment that is driven everywhere on regular roads across the country, and they often take up more than one lane. They are called Oversized Loads, and they only require a police escort and some planning to transport them from city to city. And while it is interesting that an engineer or city planner from ancient Rome may have had an impact on today, the truth of the matter is that even without an alleged standardization, roads would all look more or less the same to us if invented now. Think of cars: it only makes sense to have a driver on one side and a passenger on the other. And whether car, carriage, or chariot, two humans sitting side by side take up the same amount of room back then as they do now.
One good way to think about worldbuilding is developing your world as it relates to your adventure. For example, like you listed under point 11, focusing on events that happened forever ago and have limited current impact is a waste of time and energy, but focusing on the history of the noble house that hired the party to cleanse the nearby forest of the evil spiders would be relevant and could potentially help make this fairly basic quest more interesting. Why does the noble house want the forest cleansed? Do they care about the commoners in the village nearby? If so, why? What makes them different from the stereotypical neglectful feudal overlord? Don't try to develop a massive, realistic, complete history for your world (like you said, recorded human history is incomplete); instead, try to figure out answers to the questions your players will have about your adventure.
In fairness, if you're a feudal lord without the ability to grow food yourself you need your peasants. The peasants provide the food, the lord and his soldiers protect the peasants.
@@freman007yeah, the idea of feudal lords just leaving their peasants to the mercies of bandits and wild animals isn't really accurate. It's not like modern capitalism where you can just hire new workers for minimum wage, your current peasant workforce is all you've got to work with to produce anything from your lands. If they're all starving or dead then you're screwed too.
I feel like a key here is: make sure your world building impacts the decisions the players make. Imagine a world in D&D where the different schools of magic (illusion, evocation, etc...) are from different magical traditions and cultures. Maybe illusion is practiced by the forest people, evocation is the plains people, and both cultures, while fine with magic, are distrustful of one another. Your wizards aren't obligated to restrict their spell lists, but they'd be wise to remember what spells they are casting around each culture!
About mistake #3 A thing it really bothers me is that many writers seems to be able to choose either making oversimplified conflict with clear cut heroes and villains or being relativists and going down the "there is no such black and white, it's all grey" route. It wouldn't be cool if writing characters that, as the story progresses, reveal themselves more heroic or villainous as the narrative evolves, was a thing?
One could also go about it in a similar way as the ultimate conflict in Persona 3. [SPOILERS BELOW] Basically, the _conflict itself_ is rather black-and-white (in that it's clear which side _must_ win), but the same isn't necessarily true of the _morality_ of the conflict (it's not "good vs evil", but rather "the will to live vs the reality of death", and the final enemy isn't even malicious, it's just acting upon its assumed purpose).
You can also definitely have shades of grey while still having a clear villain. The Allies in WW2 did some pretty horrendous stuff at times, but the other side was literally the Nazis.
This recently happened to me in a campaign (as in a week ago). The group I play with all went to the same university with the same core curriculum that included philosophical ethics classes, so we are all familiar with trolley problems and moral dilemmas. I ended up killing the one thing protecting a whole segment of land from unnatural death because the cost of it was the ritual sacrifice of a young child every year. My character believes he cannot harm innocent life, and he works as an exacter for the neutral god of death, so he believed what he was doing was good. He then goes and sacrifices himself to stop a madman artificer genociding gnomes. His god, rather than being pleased he saved innocents, is angry for causing his kingdom to slow its expanse (for his kingdom grows with every death, good or bad). My character does not believe that death is neither good nor bad, but that one should be able to die when it is proper and ordained by whatever higher power there is, or else die as punishment for persecuting the innocent. I now have to choose between whether I want to serve a god who is truly neutral on the subject or if I was to die again because I won't serve him (I'm a Revenant in this game, and he reincarnated me as a dwarf that had died a few hours prior to my resurrection).
I LOVE tip #1, I literally began building my world when i said "there needs to be a fantasy world with Minnesota, southern, and new england accents. lol. and thats how it all began. and i have listed all the cultures i wanna add. polynesian, greco-roman, so many more. The main story is going to take place in a colonial inspired world. but lots of other cultures and eras involved
When I started a new campaign with my players at level 1 the first combat encounter my players faced was a wild Griffin. After arriving in the first village they met a Ranger that was able to turn the Griffin hide into no magical armor that increased the wearer’s speed slightly.
4:50 Yeah, one thing that happens often in fantasy worlds that, I don't necessarily hate but, deeply annoys me sometimes is when the history/Backstory of the world goes like: "For thousands of years nothing has changed, for 10 thousand years everyone lived in sh!t houses, everyone lived in a big castle made out of doodoo and no one invented cars for 10 thousand years, sure we have dragons but no one figured out anything past pulleys, we have simple machines, we can make a fulcrum like nobody's business but holly f*ck we can not figure out anything past that, magic though, we have like 3 people who knows magic, everyone else's toilet is also their beds"
Yes, it annoys me too. One of the things I don't like about the Song of Fire and Ice series (Game of Thrones), is that the technology has been stagnant for thousands of years. Why hasn't some other culture or race reached the level of technology the Valaryans had before the volcanoes around them erupted? Why have the Maesters (sp) not advanced beyond what we see with all the knowledge they have? Seriously, the Maesters have thousands of years of knowledge, but don't improve upon on it, in any way? Other that they are stuck in their ways and horde knowledge, instead of building upon on it and sharing it, there should be some culture out there that is trying to advance. GRR Martin's world is a low magic dark fantasy setting, but to me is a stagnant world, where no one wants to move beyond the norm. Maybe it has something to do with the climate, with the erratic and long summers and winters, that can last for years on end, or the fall of Old Valarya caused a winter longer than normal, but the timelines just seem way too long with no advancement in society or technology.
Don't get me started on the Dr Stone anime. After 3800 years since the cataclysm, despite living a few days walk from the reservoirs of knowledge that are modern libraries, despite the fact nuclear power plants can run for years unattended, somehow the human population is a few hundred still eking out a living fishing and foraging. Hell no. Even reduced to a handful of people, after 3800 years (the length of time between us and the building of the Pyramids) the human race would have a population in the millions, at least, and have retained most of our civilization.
In addition, read the background for the Sword Coast in the D&D books. 5000 years ago the Elves fought the Drow, since then nothing has changed. Gnomes are technologically obsessed, and live for centuries. Can you imagine what an Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein could have achieved if they'd lived for 400 years? They'd rule the D&D world.
What if one wants to keep the theme like medieval or renaissance or both? To make it mainly like that it would have to stagnate technology or is said writer obligated to develop modern cars and the like after years that have passed? Genuinely asking here as a beginner
with point 3, while i agree with the point of not oversimplifying conflict i also don't necessarily think that having a clear cut good and bad side necessarily erodes shades of complexity. The best example of this is lord of the rings, where the forces aligned with sauron are numerous and diverse, just as there are many shades to the goodness of the forces aligned with the fellowship
Agreed! I just think it's easier to relate when there are very few people in our world who are just 100% evil. Most people who are "evil" have their reasons for doing what they do. I think they make much more complex and nuanced villains than the "some men just want to watch the world burn"
One thing I've noticed with medieval fantasy settings is that everyone kinda just follows Tolkien. I would highly recommend researching Baltic/Eastern European culture and history if you want a European-inspired setting. Even better if you reach out and incorporate stuff from different continents.
One of my current favorite settings is Gubat Banwa's setting. Everything is set in a fantastical SEAsian world. Everything works so much more differently than how it would in say, your standard medieval fantasy setting. Also since I'm Viet myself, I find it rad as hell
@@TheFantasyForgeto some clearence, 16-18 ages at easter europe is kinda landlock dynamic of 3 powers. While for wester european it have Caribbean sea and pirates and power struggle between Spain, England and France. Same are happen at eastern steppes where powerstruggle between Commonwealth, Ottomans and Russia over "wildfield" born age of cossacks 😊
Ths is what i try to keep in mind. Diversity of cultures and even subcultures can make a world so much bigger even if you never leave a town. I tried incorperating that with some Dwarves in my setting. 3 different familys celebrating the same holiday 3 different (but over laping) ways. Its hard but I think its definatly worth it. I try to add everything you mention to some degree but LORD is it hard.
One thing I never do is come up with a "creation story" for my world. I see so many other settings start with that, and to me it simply doesn't matter how the world began. The gods and their interaction with the world matter, but the truth of how it all occurred is simply not important to my players. In fact, I often allow them to come up with their own characters' beliefs about the mythology of creation and whatnot, since their beliefs are what matter, not what actually happened.
I love the list! Fun thing to add to the history part, is to think about the impact of the cultures on how they learn and what they learn about the history. For example if there was a war between two countries in the past, both countries could tel a completely different story about what happend even years after the war happend. This happens in our world aswell and is a great way to start conflict and have depth in your story.
Just look at the conflict between Japan and Korea. Japan still has problems acknowledging the harm they did (literal harm, not mean words) to the people of Korea and China, despite the 80 year gap. History is written by whoever is telling the story, and the degree to which it lines up with actual history depends ultimately on how closely the retelling can make the teller look like the "good guys". Whatever standard of good that culture might have. Romans might explain with pride that they slaughtered ten thousand, then crucified five thousand survivors.
What an excellent video! I'm a long time DM that was used to expanding existing settings rather than creating them whole-cloth. Years later, I'm working on my own BIG FANTASY EPIC comic strip with a story & setting from the ground up and it *terrified* me. I've been binging creative writing videos (and the occasional D&D ones) on fantasy world-building to see what pitfalls to avoid. Yours has been the most concise and informative I've seen so far. I applaud your efforts on TH-cam.
@@TheFantasyForgeWhat's been working for me so far (now that I've posted 11 pages online) is to have a separate, public repository for lore that's also done in comic page format for people who want more background. This avoids the dreaded info-dump derailing the actual story. So I add little bits to that lore library as things grow but those pages aren't mandatory reading to understand what happens in the story pages.
@@TheFantasyForgeI have a webcomic called BIG FANTASY EPIC that's done entirely with miniature photography. It's basically about an apprentice scribe in a bustling city-state and all the craziness she encounters. If you google the name (or just search for it on Comic Fury) you'll get a look. It's far from perfect, but it's a work-in-progress that I'm really enjoying making. Plus my readers seem to like it.
@@TheFantasyForgeI have a web comic called BIG FANTASY EPIC. I'd say more, but the last time I tried, TH-cam deleted my comment. I didn't even have a URL in it!
I agree with all that is said in the video. When I am working on my world, I too focus on cultural differences and the impact of magic. I even create my own languages, but at the same time, I don't mind other types of world-building. Not every setting needs a deep history, spanning thousands of years, or a complex magic system.
I'm kinda tinkering with my own craptacular fantasy world just for my o2n amusement, and everything you said i agree with. I still have the stereotypical elves, orcs, and dwarves. But otherwise we're on the same wave. Especially about history, i try not to over explain everything to leave some mystery, but i found having history/lore actually gives you a lot of breathing room, if that makes sense.
This is great stuff. I'm going to keep this in mind going forward. Personally, I think the reason that these mistakes happen is because the writer didn't want to do a deep dive into something that might or might not be relevant to the story they wanted to tell. Not laziness, but a desire to streamline.
I get that this seems to mainly target dungeon masters in DND, however, all of this can also be implemented into Authors trying to make fantasy novels or book series as well. While watching the video, I couldn’t help but think “Holy Moly, I knew how to do all of this without even realizing it.” Mainly due to the fact that I’m trying to write (and hopefully one day finish/publish) my own fantasy novel. For those trying to do the same, this info is very much applicable. Not only that, it can become especially interesting if you’re doing all of this through the lenses of the main character in your novel (If it does have a main character).
I'm a writer myself so I think that's probably why I even tackled this for a DND game. But I am definitely going to be talking more about writing and storytelling in general. Thanks for the comment! I appreciate it :D
Many good points here. I'm not a D&D person but more of a hobbyist writer. It's nice that DMing for D&D and writing as essentially the same thing so I can use these points that's meant for one thing and use it for another.
Yeah! It's actualyl because of that same thing that I'm slowly transitioning the channel to being about just storytelling in general. Video game stories, writing, D&D, all of it.
@@TheFantasyForge That's nice to hear. I'm trying to get as much out of all these writing advice channels as I can , but I certainly enjoy the occasional casual video here and there, like lists and recounting of real-life experiences. I think CritCrab have some funny stories in the latter category.
Real nice list! Subbed! Two additional mistakes from me. 1: Dont overlook that if you struggle with creating a fabtasy world, turn the place/ region you live in into a fantasy version using maps and make changes! 2: Make sure yo get geography, topography and how rivers run through the land 😅 I will have the standard races but their roles? Out of whack! Blue dwarfs living in cloud mountains enslaving humans, elves struggling to create new life and vegetation in a grand desert as punishment. Gnomes, Halflings and Nisser ( non evil redcaps ) co-operating with a council of 30 different dragons to keep the world in balance etc. Im waiting for a flame tree pocket journal that Im gonna take with me into the nearest forest with a hiking road by it. Theres a small area called the " Coffee nook/ Kaffekroken " where I will sit and write a homebrew fantasy version of the municipality of where I live 😆
EXACTLY... many fantasy stories are mostly "dont think, just watch" or "turn off you brain and read the damn book" type of stories.. still, i get where they are coming, i tried creating my own story too and i've revise it for who knows how many times already just because i was trying to make sense of the world, which i failed multiple times
I'm happy to say I do all of these things today, some more and some less efficient, but I would have needed this video a few years ago. Thanks for making it.
3:09 Tbf, I feel like this has become something we over play. Conflict can be black & white & somewhere along the way we lost that vision. Everything is grey. A character not being perfect is one thing. But righteous characters can work & have worked. Just look at Steve Rogers, Aragorn, Legolas, Frodo & countless others
No! I LOVED calamity. It's funny because as I was editing it I even thought to myself "hmmm this seems weird...nah it'll be fine" so now I know to trust my gut haha. Nah, I love Brennan as a DM. Imo he's the best
While this video is definitely geared toward DMs and the TTRPG setting, these tips have proven invaluable to me in writing novels as well. Many thanks!
Good video. I've usually dealt with the history issue by starting campaigns in settings the PCs don't know much about, a frontier or a foreign land. That way the players learn at the same time as the PCs. But it's not a perfect solution by any means. But NO INFO DUMPS!
I think a big thing that summarises these mistakes is they are often simplifications which is fair trying to come up with multiple nuanced cultures and histories and think about so many things is daunting and a lot to keep track of not to say there aren’t ways to make it easier or that it’s impossible it’s just a bit more work and for some myself included world building complex and full worlds is fun but also I understand why a lot people decide to just simplify these things which you already pointed out when you brought up black and white morality
It's... not called the Dark Ages because we don't know much about it lol. It was due to the perceived "darkness" left by the fall of the Western Roman Empire and supposed (at the time the term was coined) decline of culture, intellectualism, and economy. The term in general has fallen out of popular use with academics anyway because we've actually learned QUITE A LOT about the era and now know that just because the hegemony of the Western Roman Empire ended does not mean culture or even the standard of living for most people declined, it just wasn't Roman. It's also exclusive to Europe because the Islamic world was in what many call it's Golden Age. But point taken.
LOL 🤣trust me, I'm sure I've made lots of mistakes in the last 100 videos I've made. Just try to see the point I'm making with what I'm saying ABOUT the topic, not focus on the error of a misinterpretation😅Appreciate the history lesson tho, *the more you know*
Amazing video! I'm not using this for D&D but just to make my own fantasy world and this definitely helped! Luckily I already thought about this like how magic impacted my world but I never thought about how different cultures would interact
I'm definitely starting with a thorough geographical build and researching how climates work. Once that's established, it will be easier to figure out where borders, major cities and other important locations would logically be.
Wow, I really enjoyed watching this, extremely informative and I agree with everything I was relieved when I finished watching and confirmed I have made none of these mistakes in a long term project of mine, not dnd related but similar enough, I guess watching movie criticism excessively has helped me understand how to make a good story. My project is based on some preexisting media which is extremely flawed, I was so frustrated with the writers not developing their characters and world properly that I just went "FINE, I'LL DO IT MYSELF."
I loved this video. My world actually started with a lot of changes like this in mind. A king that wanted to restore his kingdom to its former glory before its magic dwindled by stealing power from the plane of Mechanus and rewinding time. Conflict within oppressed people, racial discrimination, language barriers, philosophical disputes, you hit all the good stuff. I know I'm going in the right direction. I'll gladly subscribe.
aw shucks thanks for the comment, appreciate the kind words. Mechanus is a cool realm to pull from. It's one of the ones I know the least about, so as a player I'd be like "ohhh hell yeah" just from excitement and ignorance haha
@@TheFantasyForge It's also one of the most dangerous planes for PC's. Modrons may look cute, but their powers, ability to communicate over large distances effortlessly, and irrefutable precepts could easily lead to an army on your doorstep if you cross them. The plane will have a presence but an actual visit will have to wait for higher level characters, lol.
@@TheFantasyForge 'Cause they're basically the dnd steampunk version of Mike Wazowski and Rotom from pokemon. Some people love them. My own special someone called them absolutely adorable.
I’m trying to write a novel, and I’m currently making a world for that novel before I really start writing it, I’ve written some drafts, but I haven’t really began writing yet. It won’t all get used, but that’s the point, the story should be created in the world, the world shouldn’t be created in the story. I feel like I have a pretty good and living world, but it’s not nearly finished yet. You earned a sub from me for this video, you’re very underrated
Silly bonus rule but I really believe it matters, how does a commoner meet their needs? I'm talking the basics of each settlement of any size needs a source of any nutrients the species involved need be it just space to move so joints don't lock up in warforged, to food water and the air quality for humans and similar species, how do they deal with trash and bodily waste? are they at risk of or constantly facing plagues as a result? if they have things that need power where does it come from? so often I see a village and little to no farmland or other sources of food, not all places need more complex supplies, but at bare minimum, if you played as these guys could you survive in the place according to the logic and rules of survival needs?
@@TheFantasyForge Exactly, depending on set up implying is enough, but I so often get immersion ruined because there's clearly no watersource for this village, nor a common low level magic that could solve it.
@@AdrianVoidwalker Just by creating you are doing more than millions of others who always say "I will start tomorrow". Don't beat yourself up, but I'm glad I helped even if it's just a little bit
@@TheFantasyForge One thing that i actually love to see when it happens is when stories take place during A Dark Age of sorts, where nobody knows how things really work like not sure what rules should be placed and or don't or haven't agreed upon what rules should even be set. And maybe some places have agreed upon what rules should be set but those rules only exist within those places. Especially when this is in a world with magic, because you can go the route of nobody knows how magic works, so the people sit there and play around with magic until they figure out something that they didn't even know they could do with magic. Which personally i think is one of or if not, the easiest way to show the impact of magic. The only lore story i can think/remember doing exactly this is Destiny 2's Lore on The Collapse which causes the Dark Age to happen, where many lightbearers would live out as warlords fighting over control for territory and basic supplies of food, water, shelter etc. Those who were lightbearers would play around with their light (destiny's version of magic power) and create their own ways of using said light. And some lightbearers would hide in camps with other people who were just normal people and hide the fact that they are lightbearers from others and just try to live peacefully. As they did this because some if not a lot or maybe almost all of the normal people would fear lightbearers, since a lot of lightbearers became tyrannical warlords during this time.
A big one for the history is that it is hard to balance something 500 years ago as a distant event when you get a middle aged elf say "Yeah, I remember that. I was there", and the dwarf chimes in with "He was young but my father told me stories of that happening".
True, but you can also limit the interactions players or readers have with those characters, or do any number of other things to get the history to feel like the history you want it to be. This probably wasn’t the best suggestion or explanation but, there’s always a creative way to work around whatever problem you have in storytelling, you just gotta think around the idea a bit! Like maybe that old elf was never one for paying attention to politics, or maybe many of the dwarves in that ancient kingdom were overworked to death and in turn not many had stories of what went on there, etc etc
@@Exoskeleton2921 My point was that it's hard to create a realistic "scale" of history when you have races that can live for centuries. It feels as though you have to make it significantly longer to keep "scale" and therefore have more time to fill in. Rather than making a 100 years of history (which is a lot) you try and make 1,000 years which ridiculous to try and do with every kingdom in a world. A battle 500 years ago would only be known in our world because of historic texts and archaeological remains. In a fantasy world, an elf or even dwarf could have taken part in that battle. It removes that sense of it being that much older because there are those who can still remember it happening.
I think it's a perspective thing, the elves can feel older but that might affect how they talk and interact. Lame choice, but the centaurs in Harry Potter are a great example. They don't meddle simply because they know things. I think you can have the weird races that live hundreds of years but still keep it from the perspective of a mortal race. Having players play those races is a whole other thing and comes down to roleplaying choices I think. But you're right! It's definitely something to consider.
The not stereotyping races one, I'm surprised I didn't fall into that mistake, instead of a bird-like race, it's a human-like race that has a passive ability of wings that are made of wind, which don't have the weakness against cold but instead head, because it'll make the wind wings rise up and stuff causing the person to uncontrollably fly around in the air
Very nicely done video. Hopefully I can use your tips to “upgrade” the world I created 40 years ago to be a more “believable “ world for future players.
Around the time of WWI a group of people were supposedly discovered in some isolated region of Eastern Europe/Russia, that were still using medieval armor and weapons, having apparently been so isolated for so long that they had not culturally and technologically evolved since the Middle Ages.
Something i struggle a lot is history. Like what is too much? Why do inmense amounts of it if a good chunk will never be seen by players? It kinda frustrates me
You know, what helped me was making a "what would characters know" document. And then I tried to relate it to what we know about our own world. So I know what happened 50-100 years ago in my country. What about 200 years? Mmmm...well kind of... 300? Much less... 500? Oh boy... 1000? 10,000? It becomes more and more vague until it becomes "I have no idea". Start there, and then build the "rest" of history around that. That way you are building on things your players don't know, but you'll have an answer when they inevitably ask a question about the lore in your world
very nice piece I think a good angle on world building is when it isn't a natural world - i.e. a deliberately created place, not a planet in heliocentric solar system, etc There are a ways to communicate that the setting has reliability/predictability (i.e. that it isn't all ad-hoc) despite there being a deliberate "intelligent designer(s)" and not natural stellar dust accrual that made the planet. DMs shouldn't be afraid to tackle this - especially if, for example, you don't want gunpowder to be a thing that can be invented, or that the biological model of disease and infection is a thing and it really is the result of curse magic and evil spirits. There are ways to telegraph the ideas without an exposition dump and without just handwaving that "no one ever discovered that" which sometimes leads players to not treating the setting seriously.
I know Isekai is cringe and usually sucks at world building, but I like that in an isekai setting with a friend there's a reason for guns not to work that also makes fireballs and such more cinematically cool with explosions being generally bigger and mostly hotter, so you couldn't really propell a bullet without also breaking the weapon. this is to say you can give the world physics whilst stopping a thing, like change the properties of silicon so you can't create lenses precise enough to see things smaller than insects or to stop some total nerd inventing computers, heck make it that unbound electrons become lightning magic and travel towards a living target so circuits can't happen, or allow some clever stuff if it's balanced like longer burning candles.
I love the idea of using different regions. There are so many rich cultures in our world to draw from. Im working on a story that starts in a fictional Egypt incorporaring their gods and customs
It definitely started that way, but I'm also a writer so I'll probably start transitioning this channel to be a bit more of just general "story" tips too :) Glad it helped!
Oh... 11:33 I studied History, Ethnology, Archeology, my Hobbies are Geology and Genealogy.... Now I know why I got 'Lost in Lore' and have 20 FamilyTrees that go over 3000 years, lots of characters that are like me and talk to others excitedly about what they just found out from an old book or an old rock, or some old bone, girdlehook or coin they found on a river-curve.
Great stuff to come across right when Im diving full into world building for a new upcoming campaign. I know I've seen a video or two of yours before and surprised I wasn't subbed!
I would add to the ignoring of diversity of don't let your story be shackled to the lack of technological diversity. All games or stories in fantasy (And one of my big issues with most of it even though I write it) is that its always medieval or ancient. Great those are good time periods, but there are other periods. Other tech, and Magitech can be a thing. Diversity of tech levels for any game is a good thing. And number 11 I can keep stuff to myself, but I can never not develop pages of lore. Why what started as game world is now into a book writing project.
yes, and divergent tech, like it's sometimes a joke in sci fi that some species discover something big before fire but the general idea is good, they might not have figured out getting good quality alloys because of how fire magic works, but have time keeping as accurate as the modern day using a weak spell of some kind that links the movement of a clocks hour hand with the sun regardless of if it's underground or cloudy. or due to adamantite and dragon scales many goals of meta materials are achieved that we don't even have yet, but with the time spent fighting monsters or it being unsafe no one has invented alcohol really yet.
1. Important part "if you make a big world" 3 and 7. Something that I will disagree, some stories could be simple, and simple stories have their taste too. Even at Song of Fire and Ice, there are echo of simple conflict of humanity vs winter 4 and 8. This is the moment of layers. Group of adventurers who fight monsters could have big professional mental deformation and not see undersurface gearwork of consequences. But yes epilogue or interlude of story could bring some light to this 10 and11. Yes, yes and yes. Just yes
"Every player loves lore" LOL In' my experience, most players don't. They don't ask questions, they don't react to the world building. World history and lore is the DM equivalent of a player coming to you with a 10 page background. The DM is 15x more interested in their world than the entire table combined. It's great that your group really cares about your world, but that is not the typical. Of the players that are really plugged in, they are focused on their character, not the world.
it just depends on the table lol. One of my players has a google doc that they update each session when new stuff comes up that all the other players add to. They call it the "Legend" for my campaign
Regarding the 4th point it’s important to have those moments also have consequences. -A peasant asked the party for some coin to buy a horse to help him till his fields cause the last one died of old age? If the party refuses make them come back there at some point to find the farm now belongs to the local Baron and the farmer starved to death. Or did they help the farmer? In that case make the farmer recognize them when they come back. He can now offer shelter to them. He is now living a good life cause the horse helped him get some work done before the frost started setting in so he had crops to sell. -Is there a mother in town looking for her lost child? Again does the party help? if yes then again the woman would be happy to help them later on offering them shelter or maybe she knows the local apothecary that has been overcharging the party on HP potions but now she can talk to him so that he now sells to them at a discount. Or maybe they don’t help and then the party finds out the kid had been hanging out with the wrong people and is now a street thug working for the local thieves guild There are so many options to make the world feel like it’s been lived in and that your players have control over and you can show that to them. Good thing is that all this can be added retroactively. Just remember any NPC interaction they had in the past and make a logical consequence to that to show the party their actions have consequences
I loved this video and I'm definitely going to check out your other vids. All of your points work well for games but also books. I just started world building for a story. So, vids like yours are going to be watched many times. My idea will be made in parts kind of like a DnD campaign with the readers being a god who guides a tribe of the voted species. The tribe will act on its own but the readers can influence how the tribe grows throughout the ages along with some divine interventions at times. So, my world will be young in terms of history at the start. But, this will increase the readers' impact on the world, the characters and so on as the story goes.
On the note of veering from stereotypes. In my homebrew world where I host many campaigns one of my players said to an NPC "An Orc's word is stronger than the Chief." And in a few campaigns and one shots that take place in the future, that became a common saying because I always wanted Orcs to be a strength based society, and more so a Loyalty based society. In the workd where all the Kings, Sultans and Shoguns are trying to backhand each other, no threat is more terrifying than an orc saying they will kill you. Because they always keep their word.
I would say that yes many of these work! Just have to apply them. So for example, you probably don’t have elves in your sci-fi setting (if you do , hell yes) but just think about what you see all the time in sci fi and find ways to do it differently. What if the aliens are not technologically superior but are still a threat? What if humans are the invaders? Etc…
When I first started DMing, I would usually just pick 1 or 2 things, and that would be my whole world. For my most recent campaign (that I'm still starting up), I set it in France, and the bbeg is lich because I wanted to use the catacombs for an undead army in the late game. And as I was doing research, I found out that catacombs were dug for building materials. And, that afterwards people were like, "Well we have this big hole in the ground, what if we put our dead there?" And the fact parts of the city are literally built from the stone of catacombs, made me realize I was focusing on the catacombs too hard. I had handwaved a lot the texture of the world just thinking things like, "Well it's France, It looks like France." Instead of, "It's fantasy France, where magic is real, what does look like?" And I'm really happy I started thinking this way, because it's lead to a lot of crunchy world building.
Coming more from a writer's perspective than that of a Game Master, I want to add a few things. - When designing villains there are many rules and guidelines. One of them that I found helpful: Good villains think they are right. Great villains are right. - Cultural representation of old battles is often taken out of context. Medieval people read about the battle at Har Megiddo. There are artistic representations of that. And guess what: Those are exactly depicted as how medieval people fought battles. I take slight offense to the statement "that you don't even know you are making." I've been creating worlds as a hobby and for writing for about thirty (forty if you count my early childish advances into worldbuilding) now. I am pretty sure that statement is wrong for a good part of your audience.
Appreciate the comment! I don’t see anything wrong with looking back at one’s own work and realizing you are pulling too much from tropes (if that’s the case). No offense meant, I’m right there with you on decades of writing, but if you want to stand out as a writer, these are just some tips I recommend to create something unique. That’s all I meant :)
That last one hit me in the gut. I'm cooking up a nifty homebrew world, and was only focusing on a single chunk of a single continent, which made a lot of things nice and simple... But then I started going into Deep Lore Ancient History about what made the world the way it was and oooof my head was hurting trying to keep all of it straight. By the time I got to the important recent-ish history, I felt lost and confused. And it's a relatively straightforward history! XD
LOL that was me too! Theres sooo much to remember. It got difficult for me too. It helps to break it down into bullets or into a timeline rather than paragraphs
The timelone point is so important! I really don't get why would someone in the World of Ice and Fire care about the return of the Orhers. Would you care if someone started saying that the Greek Titans were coming back from one of the supposed entrances of Hell? What if someone said that the Giants are coming back to Scandinavia? Both these legendary events are said to have happened IRL earlier than the Long night on that reality.
I'm working on a Renaissance inspired Homebrew for DnD 5e that I want to run and one of the Ground rules I set for myself at the start was "Deep, not Wide". So I'm gonna be putting a lot effort into detailing the region the Party will start in and create basic outlines for the rest of the World that I can then flesh out as time goes on.
@@TheFantasyForge there's no need to have entire books of lore for regions the Party will probably never visit. A basic outline is fine, at least until they decide they want to visit some of the other places.
Im not a dm, but this video is helpful for writing novels. The only thing I would say is diversity is not necessarily needed depending on where the story takes place. I think on large scale it is a good thing, but for a short story not so much.
For my homebrew campaign gnomes and halflings are arboreal island dwellers that never had to grow due to the lack of major predators within the environment. They built tree civilizations because their small stature allowed agility amongst the branches and leaves.
As a story writer i am glad that i tik most of the boxes and im on the right track. I also starting to acknowledge the writer of One Piece, Oda, as a master world builder
So, there’s three distinct human kingdoms in my world that most of the stories take place. One off to the west far north, is like Viking/medieval Europe mixed, another is like Roman/medieval Europe mixed, and another is medieval/fantasy mixed in. (All are fantasy.) but once cultural loves magic, knowledge, another is we must love the royal family, another is, strong bonds and hard work. That’s what I like about world building. I can take things I like about other cultures and mix and blend them! It’s amazing:
Ah, tip 11. I am world building entire history of not a person, not a group, not a tribe, village, town, city, culture, nation, country, but an entire planet. Earth but my world. There will many times I forgot something I wrote down ages ago and recount it wrong. Well like you said people are flawed, they can’t remember everything. so yes James told the Battle for Grelvnia wrong. Because he probably heard it or remembered it wrong.
Love this. Turn the mistakes into part of the story. "But I heard X...", "Well...they were wrong because the historians wrote it incorrectly". Good for you for building a whole world. I'm doing it too and it's ROUGH lol
Great list, but I think 1 is a tad off. If anything, I thinka lot of DMs try to add TOO much diversity. It's true that often fantasy falls into the category for medieval England, but most story lines only have you traveling a land about the Size of Britton anyways. They will put Asian inspired Drow and Norse dwarfs and Native American Orcs and steampunk gnome in wildly different geographies and wildly different cultures within less than a days walking distance from each other. It makes the world feel small and overwritten. If you're not traveling an area any bigger than an averages euro nation, you don't need to toss in too much flavor.
A great way to add diversity in a small setting like that could be to have one or two foreigners in the area. Not much because in history people tended to stay with their own on average, but a couple. And think about what kind of life a foreigner would have. Maybe they were kidnapped by an ass hole royal, and your players could go on a side quest of getting the person’s freedom (be it with money, favors, blackmail or even just killing the royal) and then find them a ship or some transportation back home, ending the side quest. Or the person could be a skilled craftsman who came from a far away land in search of work. Why did he leave? Was his land in turmoil or did he have a dark secret. How do the townspeople feel about him? He’s undoubtedly a skilled craftsman but at the same time he’s not from here, he dresses different and doesn’t “act right”. Have rumors be spread about him but have people willing to accept him to, or at minimum the service he provides. Another great idea could be a follow up campaign that’s based off that kidnapped character from earlier. Now you could have your party travel to that distant land, and suddenly your party from culture A is now surrounded by culture B, and they’ll need their friend they rescued back home as a guide to talk to locals and whatnot, and this could be a great lens to view this new culture from, and a way to continue the story after the original big bad is defeated in an unexpected way without making the ending of the first campaign meaningless.
@@nyalan8385 I like it, have a Morgan-freedman-from-robin-hood style character (or David Chappelle from Men in tights 😂). I like your second idea too. It's basically how Buldars Gate 2 handles the transition. Your character wakes up and has been kidnapped to Amn.
I’m a pretty new DM, but In the current world I’m working on and simultaneously DMing in, I love imagining wether the citizens would even have an understanding of the history of the world. Most don’t, because there’s no internet and no access to easy information, unless an NPC is a bookworm I don’t think it would make much sense for NPC’s to have much knowledge about the world aside from their little slice of it
Love that! I do the same. I always try to think about how magic would change that too. What if the town has a mage with sending? Would they get info faster than others? Would the mage be more powerful politically in the town because of it? Would the country they live in make sure every town HAS a mage for that reason? Always fascinating to think about
With you 3 tip. you said a good story is not Black and white there is a problem with that logic. you can fall into what i call "Too grey" if every character your players encounter is "Morally grey" the players will start to question everyone they encounter like "What are you hiding?" or "He is so hiding something" this is why i believe you just need an evil son of a b***h every now and then or a truly good person. this is something Books, Movies, Shows, even games suffer from they think a complex character is "Morally Grey" When that is not the case what so ever. In life we meet people who are good and do the right thing just because its right if a story is truly "Realistic" not everyone will be looking to stab you in back or only care for themselves, some people will want to help just because its right.
Great advice, this actually happened in my last party. One person betrayed them and they never trusted anyone again lol. I had to put in some good clerics and such to help them heal… Who hurt them?! Oh…it was me…
exactly, Cesar from Fallout New Vegas is very well written but he's still clearly full evil, he's a fascist who proudly contradicts himself and gets Hegal wrong. morals aren't the only form of complexity a character can have, IRL even all the most powerful and rich people are bigots that hoard wealth that could end the suffering and deaths of millions each year. sure Alex the farmer or Kai the local healer for the church can and will be morally complex, but those at the top are very simple in their evil and some people are genuinely good, you can come across someone who heals people for free because they can and who fights to end hierarchy.
I think an often better way to look at things is when things are black and white morally it is the solution that should be mixed with consequences. How one defeats the evil villain or force. Also one needs to keep in mind how the players and others see the morality of the villain or issue is and how they see the morality of their choice to deal with it. So adding layers of consequences to defeating evil to me actually adds more depth then making a villain or situation "grey". To me as a world builder I like to see then how characters chose how to deal with the situation and it's future impact. I had players who all wanted to defeat the evil and do good have an enjoyable roleplaying experience dealing with the implications of other characters choices. Good having issues with good over how to do the right thing in defeating evil.
The impact of magic is what I dislike about fantasy world where magic is common and an everyday thing. I like history, sociology, demography and all that kind of stuff a lot, and there's something you learn eventually about human evolution. First humans were nomadic hunter gatherers, then the Agricultural Revolution radically changed how human societies worked and all human polities after that were agricultural societies based on settled agriculture where the vast majority of the population worked in the fields, and this changed again with the Industrial Revolution that ended agricultural states and started the Industrial Age. The switch from agricultural societies to industrial ones is massive. It massively increased the pace of social development, technology and political change, as agricultural societies were slow by nature and tied to the seasons, it caused the massive population boom that saw humanity go from a stable population in the hundreds of millions to billions within a single century, it dramatically changed everyday life as most people were no longer needed to work for long hours in the fields and could now have free time to be educated and become literate in various fields, no longer a privilege for few burghers and nobles. Now, in fantasy societies are usually medieval or ancient, in any case they're supposed to be agricultural societies. If magic is very common. and it's an everyday occurrence, in my opinion there's no way that society would still be agricultural with magic as an everyday thing. Commonplace magic would have ignited its own form of magical revolution where the majority of the population would no longer be needed for manual labour in the fields, the fields themselves would be automated and more productive, and child mortality would be lowered enormously triggering the same exact population boom we had in real life due to industrialization. Very common magic and agrarian societies are incompatible in my opinion. That's why magic systems should make sure to put severe limitations on magic, or magic needs to be something truly rare and mysterious that society can't control. In LotR all the high magic is in the past history of the setting that it's basically mythology with gods and demi-gods involved, but the present-day is pretty low magic and thus explains its medieval conditions. In most DnD settings I've seen however, or let's say the Elder Scrolls setting for video games, you have magic available seemingly in stores and yet society is still medieval, and this doesn't make any sense to me, although obviously it's because they wanted to have the traditional medieval aesthetic and also the cool magical power everywhere at the same time. It's a shame because I feel that a fantasy setting that actually explores a magical revolution as a parallel to the industrial revolution would be pretty interesting.
I was thinking about this concerning the races and species part you brought up. Originally I was going to craft a world of just Human races. However I ended up decided on adding other races you find in LoTR or WoW etc. With that being said with the introduction of dwarves I questioned whether I should do similar with them being mountain dwellers like we see in everything that includes dwarves or change them enough to be different. Example was instead of mountains maybe cave dwellers. I haven't quite worked out their origin yet but I was exploring something slightly different than the typical LotR/WoW dwarf that we see in everything.
Yeah but my thought process was for the average viewer will they like the twist on the dwarven race or be so use to the way we see dwarves now that they won't like the change. Which leads to me well you cant please everyone all the time and its my story anyways, I'll just write what I want and not worry about it. Haha
On Diversity of culture, the given example of England included 3 major cultures during the Dark Age: Britons, Anglo-Saxons, and Scots. So careful not to overdo it unless the campaign involves long distance travel. Getting the party to "get on the ship" is a in game trope. They don't want to face a Kraken, no matter the DM's plan doesn't involve any such thing.
Yes but also remember that's an island and so of course it will have less diversity. At the same time, only a few hundred miles south, you had Visigoths, Byzantines, Berbers, Moors, Iberians, Jews, and even Vikings sailing the same area barely 100 miles apart from each other.
4:45 It is called the "Dark Ages" because Saracen pirates made trade in the Mediterranean nearly impossible. The "Dark Ages" existed because of 500 years of unopposed Saracen aggression and expansion into Europe. They ended because of the Crusades. We know a surprising amount of history of that time. It's not because of a lack of knowledge of what was happening (Muslim historians and Catholic historians of the time kept exceptionally good records of everything happening that remain intact to this day). Ok, rant over. Great video!
Welll, I know simplified the dark ages in this video but thats only cuz I wasn't trying to make a history video. It's called the Dark Ages because of a supposed decline in science and culture...etc...the crusades didn't end the Dark Ages, a shift in thinking did (the renaissance, the scientific revolution...etc). The Saracens didn't cause the Dark Ages, they just lived in it and in a time where the Church was very much trying to conquer their lands. And while Catholic historians kept "records" they were also very prejudiced, and also burned or hid a lot of anything that was contrary to what they believed. So I would take all of that with a grain of salt lol. I'm actually a big history person.
@@TheFantasyForge I appreciate the response, but a number of the claims you make here are not quite accurate. From 600-1050 AD, European Catholics did not have a theory of just war, and the Saracens began to persecute and kill pilgrims to the Holy Land and began to encroach on Europe without any pushback because Christians didn't believe they could morally fight back (the former being something no government or army had done for a very long time and was seen as especially cruel and uniquely Saracen). The First Crusade, which was a roaring success, was the first response to 500 years of uncontested murder of European and Middle Eastern Christians and Jews. And while the Saracens were not the only cause of the Dark Ages, they certainly were the biggest contributor to it by conquering the Mediterranean. There's a reason why the age of Muslim enlightenment and prosperity came at the cost of peace and prosperity in Europe (and the Catholic Church in this time was largely responsible for being the haven of the arts and sciences, charity, medicine, and education). The Dark Ages, depending on historic definition, are contested to have ended between 1100-1500 (though the English Renaissance was not what would have ended them, but rather the Italian Renaissance in the early part of the 14th century, and this was the doing of, again, the Catholic Church). Additionally, while there were scattered cases of book burnings in Catholicism (which had long been condemned by the Church Fathers in the earliest parts of the first through third centuries AD, the largest collections of book burnings took place under Protestant rulers during the English Renaissance and Post-Renaissance (where most especially Henry VIII of England stole billions of dollars in modern currency in land and goods from the Catholic Church, simultaneously killing 17,000 of his own people for not converting to the CoE). Compare this to the 300 years of Spanish Inquisition, where less than 3,000 people were estimated to have been executed not by the Church, but by the Spanish Government for treason or perjury, not for heresy. In other words, modern retellings of events during the so-called "Dark Ages" and immediately after tend to be fraught with postmodern bias against religion, rather than looked at from an objective, agnostic, historical lens, as they should be. I don't like to make arguments from authority, as they are a logical fallacy, but if it means anything, I will note that I have spent over 12 years studying the history of medieval Europe and the Middle East (being from the Middle East myself). I recommend books like "The History of Medieval Spain" by Joseph O'Callaghan (probably the best book on the subject), Warren Carroll's books on Christendom (extremely entertaining and informative, especially in highlighting the historic consequences of the wars in the later parts of the Dark Ages), "Misconceptions about the Middle Ages" by Harris and Grigsby, "Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages" by Frassetto, and "The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance" by MacEvitt, probably the most objective and unemotional recounting of the Crusades I have read, and the aftermath. Now I don't want to take up all your comment section on this video (which I otherwise entirely agree with) with talk about a topic only mentioned in passing. I hope you take some interest in the above books, but I understand if you can't be bothered. I subscribed to your channel, and will probably end up doing a watch of all your worldbuilding videos on my day off this week, as I am very enthusiastic about the topic. Cheers, mate.
@@timetrnr7380 Totally! I appreciate the comment too. And I hope that the response doesn't come off as me trying to a dick lmao. I think the wonderful thing about history is that there's so much to talk about. There's a lot of history there before all of that too and we could go back and forth on that lol. And also on why it was called the dark ages and why people THINK it was called that and so on. I love conversations like this so honestly thank you for taking the time to chat about it. And thanks for the love!
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1. Ignoring Diversity
2. Environmental Impacts
3. Oversimplifying Conflict
4. Everyday Life
5. Glossing Over History
6. Underdeveloped Geography
7. Stereotyping Races and Species
8. No Consequences to History
9. Impact of magic on the world
10. Cultural Interactions
11. Thinking too much about History
This is why I dislike many Anime, because "the system" that governs the world is written in English (or Japanese) in a large blue box in front of everyone, and the humans NEVER specialize, try new things, etc. and are ALL Balanced builds or DPS nuts! Why are there video game like classes? Why do they assume this class is a failure just cause it didin't level up with the rest of the normal players? Why the newest blacksmith one is kinda nice, blacksmith would have been useless in a cave man like world, but is super good in a medieval one 1K years later.
I have the same issues honestly. But I'm also really picky and love realism haha
@@TheFantasyForge why I subscribed, also I'm a D&D fan.
"What impact are these events having on the environment?" also works for "what impact are these events having on the local economy?"
Yes, I've watched Spice and Wolf. How did you know?
I DM for a dnd campaign and looking at this I actually looking at this I have noticed that I have a lot of these things covered and fixed except for #6 and #11
@@VoicelessVoid456 Glad it helped even if a little! I'd love to hear about the game!
Daniel greene said one thing he did when world building his magic system for his book was just thinking constantly throughout his day to day life how having magic would affect each chore or waiting for traffic it’s a really cool way to make sure your magic feels real
That's honestly a great tip! Thanks for that
I just made magic pretty difficult to use, i think of magic users like monks, can someone become far more mentally and physically powerful than the vast majority of people? Yes, but like, most people just don't, it's a way of life and it is usually not one most wish to choose
@@wooblydooblygod3857 Exactly, anyone can learn a musical instrument and yet not everyone is a world famous musician. Also our modern technology is pretty much magical compared to what we had 30 years ago, yet we can often have issues and malfunctions and when the power is out we are so screwed.
Most people, especially in a pre-industrial world, would know a lot about their home town, a good bit about the nearest city they sometimes go to, a little about the VIPs and politics of the realm, and vague rumors about lands beyond. You need maybe two major historical events that shaped your realm (conquests and migrations and their ruins and cultural debris), a couple of big enemies (evil overlord, foreign sovereign) and maybe three or four factions (religious cult, major order of knighthood, shadowy cabal, etc.). You can easily build a long campaign on that.
At mid-levels, get the heroes involved with about three VIPs (a bishop, a baron, an archmage, a royal official) and let them decide which one to side with. That NPC can direct their efforts and reward them with information about the whereabouts of magic items. But let them be independent if they want to be. When the big war or apocalypse or whatever comes, the heroes will be called upon to find the Sulmonstone or assassinate the Death Prince or whatever to save the kingdom. All you have to do is have the VIPs give them stuff and be nice to them and then eventually talk about how they need help.
Have someone they hate turn into an ally. Have someone they like turn traitor. Also, make sure they fight a dragon, a vampire, a beholder, and something they choose. Schedule those adventures. Plant rumors about them. Make it personal. That dragon ate their dad. That vampire kidnapped their sister. That beholder killed their favorite NPC.
This is GREAT advice. You should make a video haha
This is the way -cit
@@Diamondarrel this is the way.
@justvibing4796 glad it helped!
Goodness, I'm saving this one. This is great advice!
The impact of magic on the world is a big one for me. I've read so many stories/seen so many sessions where low level PCs run circles around the game world due to their creative use of magic. If a first level party can mystify the masses and break the system, the game world would look *very* different from English Middle Ages for sure.
Exactly! Magic would change so much in the same way that technology did for us. People are inventive 😆
3.5 D&D GM here...with lots of house rules. I run a slightly reduced magic world, where full casting progression is not allowed, magic has been weakened by some cataclysm in the past that ended "The Golden Age of Magic" and made magic harder to master. There's an impact of a historical event for you!
Mechanically, a character's caster level in any given spellcasting class is at most 2/3 of their character level, so typically a character must multiclass in order to gain enough life experience to be able to master magic. A simple example, an 8th level character couldn't be an 8th level cleric. 2/3 of 8 rounds down to 5 so they might be a 5th level cleric with 3 levels in one or more other classes. A cleric of a LG deity might be a paladin 3/cleric 5, a cleric of a LN deity of knowledge and mysticism might be a monk 3/cleric 5, in either case at 9th level they can progress to cleric 6 but at 10 must take something besides cleric.
An impact of that is that magic items and spellcasting services are also more costly because fewer people can make or supply them respectively - and an added incentive to adventure is that magic items made during the Golden Age are out there in ancient ruins etc, some more powerful than anyone currently alive can make, such as ancient scrolls of 8th and 9th level spells...
Yet, at the same time, lower level magic is still fairly common especially in towns and cities. The alleys of the wealthy parts of town are seldom in shadows, as continual flame spells which last nearly forever can be cast on the tops of lampposts and the cornerstones of public buildings and the like...
@@ernesthakey3396 This is my vibe for sure. I just think it makes it more easy to relate to and play in without turning the players into gods
@ernesthakey3396 oh you just gave me the answer to what I was trying to figure out.
My world everyone is born able to use magic, however I was trying to figure how to make it work without completely destroying the environment like you see in stories like Dragon Ball series or Fairy Tail series or World of Warcraft series.
@@ernesthakey3396 Why not just reduce full casting progressions in the classes by 1 step then add something to make up for it, if needed for a given class, such as Wizard?
One of the more important points also to consider when worldbuilding is to not overdo it. Ideally, you would want to IMPLY a deep history and IMPLY a greater world with vast cultures and those experiencing your world (dnd/book/whatever) you end up creating the illusion that you've done some insane world building - like a giant ice berg that is hollow inside
YES! That’s a great way to put it, definitely don’t want to regurgitate all your lore. Imply 😎🤘 thanks for the love
no :3
Like George Lucas with the original Star Wars.
But then he had to go flesh out his implied history with the Prequels...
@freman007 Which is also another thing to keep in mind. One of my favorite stories is One Piece, where Oda usually implies enough to satisfy the reader but gives him enough freedom to write whatever he wants with that implication.
One Piece is good but you gotta admit it has terrible worldbuilding, thematically fluctuous and full of inconcitencies (emm... Snail telephones?)
Diversity has become such a strange issue these days. True diversity is as you say, a variety of cultures and peoples. Then we have Netflix idea of diversity, where every fantasy society looks like modern LA with the trappings of medieval England. Netflix diversity paradoxically makes every country look the same.
Watch the series ER from the 90s if you haven't. Things were WAY less tense regarding your topic and I miss it. Good thought.
Diversity also depends on whether it is just a small area (a smaller regional scale) or the whole fantasy world (a larger world scale). The larger the area, the more diversity occurs. Or a single village is more often monotypic, while there is more diversity between several villages. And mixed diversity depends on how much mobility and isolation there is between different settlement groups and societies and whether we are focuses on the interactionist border area between two societies or only in the core inland of a certain society. Moreover, it is also more common for imperialist and colonialist societies to have more mixed deversity than passive or subjugated societies. Forced mixed diversity, on the other hand, means that mixed diversity is not given any explanation and history, but it exists soullessly just only for the sake of mixed diversity itself and is as bad a mistake as ignoring diversity on a larger world scale. If I had to give an example where I think this subject of diversity has been handled well and exemplary, it would be Avatar The Last Airbender and Avatar Legend Of Korah. Each settlement has its own unique culture, the mixed diversity has a history tied to the Fire Nation's wars and colonial expansion, and in the post-war world, when the mobility of people increased, the settlements were no longer so mmonobendersthan before but the price was the loss of traditions, cultural heritage and roots in a changing industrial world.
@@danielmalinen6337 you touched on a point I wanted to mention; cultural diversity ends up occuring due to waves of isolation and reconnection. As the modern world allows for more and more connection both in terms of media and travel, the connected worlds cultures slowly become more homogenious.
This could be an interesting idea to expore, but if you have a world of magic portals, holograms, and instantaneous magical communication, expect there to be less and less cultural diversity the longer those things are available to everyone.
@@klosnj11 not even remotely true. It’s all about leadership and the overall dominant culture. If leadership allows for tourism but the populace likes their culture then the culture will remain homogenous.
Examples: Morocco and Dubai.
Meanwhile even if leadership doesn’t promote it but people take a liking to it, you’ll see more homogeneity (to world culture) no matter what: Florida and Texas have a more homogeneous vibe than what the leadership would like.
No criticism, just pointing out how it depends on mostly the people.
@@MerlinTheCommenter not sure if I misunderstand your argument, but your examples of texas and florida seems to refute your primary argument.
As a 'forever DM' for 47+ years, I can see the value of this advice... for more experienced DMs; helping them griw their game. But new DMs. Would flounder quickly trying to follow all of this advice. The best advice is always "start small" and build out from there... as necessary.
Totally agree! Sometimes it's better to start improving with baby steps haha
The biggest thing for me is remembering all these tips also scale, especially at small scales.
The thing most people should always remember is that worlds feel alive through plausibility. A city block where you apply these principles to it in a focused effort will feel more real and part of something greater than the bones of your massive world ever will when detail is spread so thin.
There is no point creating a unique pantheon of gods, a revamped magic system and 1000s of years of warfare and curses and whatever if the end result is being in fantasy hamlet that is basically just Phandelin, with no implications beyond “help peasants and a minor lord out”. Make locations to show off your world and make situations that force players into engaging with it
This is great advice , they definitely scale and applying most tips or resources in the right way or across the board can realllly help make your worlds better. It’s all part of being a better dm
Notes, alot of notes and step by step world building. Savor the joy of making the world, dont rush and burn yourself out. Dosent matter if you have mess of notes, you can structure them point by point and refine it later. Just get your ideas and visions down on the paper or pad! 👍
@@odinulveson9101 I have so many notes sometimes it's overwhelming (in a good way)
@@TheFantasyForge yeah for sure. I imagine picking the ones that fit the situation/ campaign etc. Like apples from a tree or cotton from clouds!
These are really great tips especially for story writing, and I'll keep this video as a reminder.
A few other tips I would give is to remember scarcity and our own world is pretty dang weird.
All resources in the world are limited/scarce and impact everything from culture to conflict. Vikings invaded surrounding areas to claim more territory for farms, since their population was constantly growing.
When making worlds, it's important to never forget that our world is weird and it's okay to look to it for inspiration. There is a perpetual storm called the Catatumbo lightning, and the locals freaked out when it stopped for a few months. There are sea slugs that live like plants. There is a planet in our galaxy where it rains raw rubies and sapphires from the sky. The sandbox tree is probably the most aggressive of all trees. Dog suns are a really cool optical phenomenon. The universe is plenty weird and magical without any mana.
EXACTLY, there's so much weird stuff to take inspiration from in our own "backyard"
"There is a planet in our galaxy where it rains raw rubies and sapphires from the sky." I've always wondered how anyone can actually know that.
@@BKPrice And stars that are a giant diamond lmao.
Wow, awesome video! As a history major I definitely spend too much time on my lore, but it’s fun so no one’s gonna stop me lol. I’m a huge history nerd so just wanted to let you know that when you talked about the explorers of the “14th, 15th, and 16th centuries” I think you meant the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries (1400s, 1500s, 1600s). Also the “Dark Ages” is kind of a misnomer. We actually know a ton about that era, it’s just that Renaissance thinkers looked down on the period as more “un -enlightened” and then give it that name in a sort of pejorative way, which stuck up until we started reevaluating what we know about the medieval period in the last century or so. Don’t mind my “um, actually” nitpicks though, it’s still a super helpful video!
Lol of course! I'm glad it helped. I'm NOT a history major, so I'm sure I made lots of mistakes haha. I just happen to love history
still sounds cool so we should keep it imo.
The Early Medieval Period.
Wasn't the "Dark Ages" the period from the fall of Rome (Western) to Charlemagne? Then came the High Middle Ages (my favorite time period).
The original Diablo game is a masterclass in worldbuilding.
The whole thing takes place in the catacombs under Tristram Cathedral.
As you go, you resolve multiple independendant questlines, learn more and more about the various NPCs in town, discover the history of a secret war and the true purpose of the Cathedral as you delve deeper and deeper searching for a missing Prince.
I poured soooo many hours of my youth into Diablo and Diablo 2 lol. I'd do it all again.
Yesss One of My favorite pieces of worldbuilding
9) is always interesting. In a world with magic, at least start with the lowest level/tier of magic that exists and assume that even the smallest town/village/hamlet will know those spells exist and have access to them. So in a D&D 5e world, start with Cantrips and Level 1 spells. Every door would have an 11 lb bar on their door (to counter mage hand, that's just how doors would be built in this world even if people didn't know why), there'd be someone in town who could ritually cast spells like Alarm, Detect Magic, Identify and Unseen Servant, even the lowliest lord/baronet would have Arcane Lock and other similar spells used in their manor, people would understand what certain spells do, etc.
More often than not GMs/DMs play small towns like the people are so isolated and naive that players can get away with anything.
Oooo I like the 11lb bar, because you're right, people would learn to regulate it.
Depends on setting, always agree with things a normal person can do like the 11 pound bar, things being just past some ranges like a tavern having the bottles 35 feet away from the stools so you can't easily access them with a spell or something, but Identify requires a 100gp pearl, and DnD has most people earn a few copper a day, a level 1 adventurer doesn't mean guy who had basic training, it's like seal team 6.
The Mage Hand thing doesn't really follow.
If the bar is on the other side of the door, the wizard can't see it to use his spell on it.
If he can see it through a window, well you don't have to be a wizard to just break the window and get in.
@@kenle2 there are gaps between doors and walls, doors in castles aren't like the doors in a modern house. Even a mirror under neither the door would do, or spying it through a window if you don't want to make the noice of breaking the glass, etc., etc.
The number of videos by you I have watched and only just now noticed your subscriber count is wild.
I always thought you had 100K+ subscribers with how in depth and well put together these videos are.
Happy to say you gained another subscriber today and I’m looking forward to more. 🎉
Lol thank you! I appreciate that so much
for real though.. but I feel it just needs one video to pop off and then the subs are gonna come in
Adding an example of a *tiny* thing that had *HUGE* impact.
The highways built by ancient Rome were built to a very specific width. The width needed to comfortably accommodate 2 horses yoked together to a wagon or chariot.
This width became the standard width for rails in both North America and Europe.
Fast forward to the 1960s. The early space program in the United States. The launch point for US spacecraft is Cape Canaveral Florida. The spaceships have components built all over the country and they have to deliver everything, including huge fuel tanks, booster rockets, engines, etcetra from as far away as California, literally across the continent of North America.
This means that, whatever Roman engineer came up with the size of Roman highways to accommodate 2 horses, had a *direct* impact on how the design of spaceships as we know them today because those vehicles and their various modules and components *had* to be designed to be able to be transported on a vehicle whose wheels were no wider than a Chariot.
This is not entirely true.
For one, railroads were not standardized right away. They actually had issues trying to put cars on different tracks before they learned to standardize them.
The roads of Rome were also not all the same width. This keeps getting spread around, but it isn't true. They generally are of similar size, but not the same.
And then you have lots of equipment that is driven everywhere on regular roads across the country, and they often take up more than one lane. They are called Oversized Loads, and they only require a police escort and some planning to transport them from city to city.
And while it is interesting that an engineer or city planner from ancient Rome may have had an impact on today, the truth of the matter is that even without an alleged standardization, roads would all look more or less the same to us if invented now.
Think of cars: it only makes sense to have a driver on one side and a passenger on the other. And whether car, carriage, or chariot, two humans sitting side by side take up the same amount of room back then as they do now.
One good way to think about worldbuilding is developing your world as it relates to your adventure. For example, like you listed under point 11, focusing on events that happened forever ago and have limited current impact is a waste of time and energy, but focusing on the history of the noble house that hired the party to cleanse the nearby forest of the evil spiders would be relevant and could potentially help make this fairly basic quest more interesting. Why does the noble house want the forest cleansed? Do they care about the commoners in the village nearby? If so, why? What makes them different from the stereotypical neglectful feudal overlord? Don't try to develop a massive, realistic, complete history for your world (like you said, recorded human history is incomplete); instead, try to figure out answers to the questions your players will have about your adventure.
BEAUTIFULLY said, this. Why put in 100 hours into your world if your players or readers will only see a fraction of that world?
In fairness, if you're a feudal lord without the ability to grow food yourself you need your peasants. The peasants provide the food, the lord and his soldiers protect the peasants.
@@freman007yeah, the idea of feudal lords just leaving their peasants to the mercies of bandits and wild animals isn't really accurate. It's not like modern capitalism where you can just hire new workers for minimum wage, your current peasant workforce is all you've got to work with to produce anything from your lands. If they're all starving or dead then you're screwed too.
I feel like a key here is: make sure your world building impacts the decisions the players make.
Imagine a world in D&D where the different schools of magic (illusion, evocation, etc...) are from different magical traditions and cultures.
Maybe illusion is practiced by the forest people, evocation is the plains people, and both cultures, while fine with magic, are distrustful of one another. Your wizards aren't obligated to restrict their spell lists, but they'd be wise to remember what spells they are casting around each culture!
I love that your videos just start. It's so rare to find a video where the narrator speaks on the subject within the first 15 seconds.
appreciate the love! I just try to think about how I watch videos too, and I just want the info
About mistake #3
A thing it really bothers me is that many writers seems to be able to choose either making oversimplified conflict with clear cut heroes and villains or being relativists and going down the "there is no such black and white, it's all grey" route.
It wouldn't be cool if writing characters that, as the story progresses, reveal themselves more heroic or villainous as the narrative evolves, was a thing?
Yes! Characters should feel three dimensional, not like they only existed to serve X plot or Y person
One could also go about it in a similar way as the ultimate conflict in Persona 3.
[SPOILERS BELOW]
Basically, the _conflict itself_ is rather black-and-white (in that it's clear which side _must_ win), but the same isn't necessarily true of the _morality_ of the conflict (it's not "good vs evil", but rather "the will to live vs the reality of death", and the final enemy isn't even malicious, it's just acting upon its assumed purpose).
You can also definitely have shades of grey while still having a clear villain. The Allies in WW2 did some pretty horrendous stuff at times, but the other side was literally the Nazis.
@@Candlemancer definitely! I have a whole other video on making a villain, but I should probably make an updated one 🤔
This recently happened to me in a campaign (as in a week ago). The group I play with all went to the same university with the same core curriculum that included philosophical ethics classes, so we are all familiar with trolley problems and moral dilemmas. I ended up killing the one thing protecting a whole segment of land from unnatural death because the cost of it was the ritual sacrifice of a young child every year. My character believes he cannot harm innocent life, and he works as an exacter for the neutral god of death, so he believed what he was doing was good.
He then goes and sacrifices himself to stop a madman artificer genociding gnomes. His god, rather than being pleased he saved innocents, is angry for causing his kingdom to slow its expanse (for his kingdom grows with every death, good or bad). My character does not believe that death is neither good nor bad, but that one should be able to die when it is proper and ordained by whatever higher power there is, or else die as punishment for persecuting the innocent. I now have to choose between whether I want to serve a god who is truly neutral on the subject or if I was to die again because I won't serve him (I'm a Revenant in this game, and he reincarnated me as a dwarf that had died a few hours prior to my resurrection).
I LOVE tip #1, I literally began building my world when i said "there needs to be a fantasy world with Minnesota, southern, and new england accents. lol. and thats how it all began. and i have listed all the cultures i wanna add. polynesian, greco-roman, so many more. The main story is going to take place in a colonial inspired world. but lots of other cultures and eras involved
Love this! All it takes is a budding idea
When I started a new campaign with my players at level 1 the first combat encounter my players faced was a wild Griffin. After arriving in the first village they met a Ranger that was able to turn the Griffin hide into no magical armor that increased the wearer’s speed slightly.
RIP to the griffin. I hope they had chicken legs that night
4:50 Yeah, one thing that happens often in fantasy worlds that, I don't necessarily hate but, deeply annoys me sometimes is when the history/Backstory of the world goes like: "For thousands of years nothing has changed, for 10 thousand years everyone lived in sh!t houses, everyone lived in a big castle made out of doodoo and no one invented cars for 10 thousand years, sure we have dragons but no one figured out anything past pulleys, we have simple machines, we can make a fulcrum like nobody's business but holly f*ck we can not figure out anything past that, magic though, we have like 3 people who knows magic, everyone else's toilet is also their beds"
LMAO I enjoyed reading this. I agree with you 100% and honestly that exact mentality is where that came from for me
Yes, it annoys me too. One of the things I don't like about the Song of Fire and Ice series (Game of Thrones), is that the technology has been stagnant for thousands of years. Why hasn't some other culture or race reached the level of technology the Valaryans had before the volcanoes around them erupted? Why have the Maesters (sp) not advanced beyond what we see with all the knowledge they have? Seriously, the Maesters have thousands of years of knowledge, but don't improve upon on it, in any way? Other that they are stuck in their ways and horde knowledge, instead of building upon on it and sharing it, there should be some culture out there that is trying to advance. GRR Martin's world is a low magic dark fantasy setting, but to me is a stagnant world, where no one wants to move beyond the norm. Maybe it has something to do with the climate, with the erratic and long summers and winters, that can last for years on end, or the fall of Old Valarya caused a winter longer than normal, but the timelines just seem way too long with no advancement in society or technology.
Don't get me started on the Dr Stone anime.
After 3800 years since the cataclysm, despite living a few days walk from the reservoirs of knowledge that are modern libraries, despite the fact nuclear power plants can run for years unattended, somehow the human population is a few hundred still eking out a living fishing and foraging.
Hell no. Even reduced to a handful of people, after 3800 years (the length of time between us and the building of the Pyramids) the human race would have a population in the millions, at least, and have retained most of our civilization.
In addition, read the background for the Sword Coast in the D&D books. 5000 years ago the Elves fought the Drow, since then nothing has changed.
Gnomes are technologically obsessed, and live for centuries. Can you imagine what an Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein could have achieved if they'd lived for 400 years? They'd rule the D&D world.
What if one wants to keep the theme like medieval or renaissance or both? To make it mainly like that it would have to stagnate technology or is said writer obligated to develop modern cars and the like after years that have passed?
Genuinely asking here as a beginner
with point 3, while i agree with the point of not oversimplifying conflict i also don't necessarily think that having a clear cut good and bad side necessarily erodes shades of complexity. The best example of this is lord of the rings, where the forces aligned with sauron are numerous and diverse, just as there are many shades to the goodness of the forces aligned with the fellowship
Agreed! I just think it's easier to relate when there are very few people in our world who are just 100% evil. Most people who are "evil" have their reasons for doing what they do. I think they make much more complex and nuanced villains than the "some men just want to watch the world burn"
Underrated Channel
aw thanks! I appreciate the kind words
Agreed!!
One thing I've noticed with medieval fantasy settings is that everyone kinda just follows Tolkien. I would highly recommend researching Baltic/Eastern European culture and history if you want a European-inspired setting. Even better if you reach out and incorporate stuff from different continents.
One of my current favorite settings is Gubat Banwa's setting. Everything is set in a fantastical SEAsian world. Everything works so much more differently than how it would in say, your standard medieval fantasy setting.
Also since I'm Viet myself, I find it rad as hell
Yeah definitely! I'm a huge Tolkien fan, but I want something NEW. Norse lore is pretty amazing too
@@TheFantasyForgeto some clearence, 16-18 ages at easter europe is kinda landlock dynamic of 3 powers. While for wester european it have Caribbean sea and pirates and power struggle between Spain, England and France. Same are happen at eastern steppes where powerstruggle between Commonwealth, Ottomans and Russia over "wildfield" born age of cossacks 😊
In my current world I'm building a prehistory to for me to make things make sense for my to main characters which both Kings hate each
Original thought 😒
Ths is what i try to keep in mind. Diversity of cultures and even subcultures can make a world so much bigger even if you never leave a town.
I tried incorperating that with some Dwarves in my setting. 3 different familys celebrating the same holiday 3 different (but over laping) ways. Its hard but I think its definatly worth it.
I try to add everything you mention to some degree but LORD is it hard.
I love this so much. Love the idea of a holiday being spread out like that. Super cool
@@TheFantasyForge ye! :D idk if I should share details or not but doing that and implementing your stuff is so crazy fun!
One thing I never do is come up with a "creation story" for my world. I see so many other settings start with that, and to me it simply doesn't matter how the world began. The gods and their interaction with the world matter, but the truth of how it all occurred is simply not important to my players. In fact, I often allow them to come up with their own characters' beliefs about the mythology of creation and whatnot, since their beliefs are what matter, not what actually happened.
I love the list! Fun thing to add to the history part, is to think about the impact of the cultures on how they learn and what they learn about the history. For example if there was a war between two countries in the past, both countries could tel a completely different story about what happend even years after the war happend. This happens in our world aswell and is a great way to start conflict and have depth in your story.
Definitely! History is written by the victors.
Just look at the conflict between Japan and Korea.
Japan still has problems acknowledging the harm they did (literal harm, not mean words) to the people of Korea and China, despite the 80 year gap.
History is written by whoever is telling the story, and the degree to which it lines up with actual history depends ultimately on how closely the retelling can make the teller look like the "good guys". Whatever standard of good that culture might have.
Romans might explain with pride that they slaughtered ten thousand, then crucified five thousand survivors.
@@freman007 well said!
What an excellent video! I'm a long time DM that was used to expanding existing settings rather than creating them whole-cloth. Years later, I'm working on my own BIG FANTASY EPIC comic strip with a story & setting from the ground up and it *terrified* me. I've been binging creative writing videos (and the occasional D&D ones) on fantasy world-building to see what pitfalls to avoid. Yours has been the most concise and informative I've seen so far. I applaud your efforts on TH-cam.
Thanks for the love! Yeah worldbuilding is intimidating, but if you turn it into excitement and just keep working on it, it can go a long way.
@@TheFantasyForgeWhat's been working for me so far (now that I've posted 11 pages online) is to have a separate, public repository for lore that's also done in comic page format for people who want more background.
This avoids the dreaded info-dump derailing the actual story. So I add little bits to that lore library as things grow but those pages aren't mandatory reading to understand what happens in the story pages.
Woaaah wait please explain that more, that sounds interesting@@kidcthulhufortney1320
@@TheFantasyForgeI have a webcomic called BIG FANTASY EPIC that's done entirely with miniature photography. It's basically about an apprentice scribe in a bustling city-state and all the craziness she encounters.
If you google the name (or just search for it on Comic Fury) you'll get a look. It's far from perfect, but it's a work-in-progress that I'm really enjoying making. Plus my readers seem to like it.
@@TheFantasyForgeI have a web comic called BIG FANTASY EPIC. I'd say more, but the last time I tried, TH-cam deleted my comment. I didn't even have a URL in it!
I agree with all that is said in the video. When I am working on my world, I too focus on cultural differences and the impact of magic. I even create my own languages, but at the same time, I don't mind other types of world-building. Not every setting needs a deep history, spanning thousands of years, or a complex magic system.
Hundred percent! I'm just a masochist
I'm kinda tinkering with my own craptacular fantasy world just for my o2n amusement, and everything you said i agree with. I still have the stereotypical elves, orcs, and dwarves. But otherwise we're on the same wave. Especially about history, i try not to over explain everything to leave some mystery, but i found having history/lore actually gives you a lot of breathing room, if that makes sense.
Totally! The more you understand the world, the more prepped you feel for those plotholes and little questions that come up.
This is great stuff. I'm going to keep this in mind going forward.
Personally, I think the reason that these mistakes happen is because the writer didn't want to do a deep dive into something that might or might not be relevant to the story they wanted to tell. Not laziness, but a desire to streamline.
I get that this seems to mainly target dungeon masters in DND, however, all of this can also be implemented into Authors trying to make fantasy novels or book series as well. While watching the video, I couldn’t help but think “Holy Moly, I knew how to do all of this without even realizing it.” Mainly due to the fact that I’m trying to write (and hopefully one day finish/publish) my own fantasy novel. For those trying to do the same, this info is very much applicable. Not only that, it can become especially interesting if you’re doing all of this through the lenses of the main character in your novel (If it does have a main character).
I'm a writer myself so I think that's probably why I even tackled this for a DND game. But I am definitely going to be talking more about writing and storytelling in general. Thanks for the comment! I appreciate it :D
Many good points here. I'm not a D&D person but more of a hobbyist writer. It's nice that DMing for D&D and writing as essentially the same thing so I can use these points that's meant for one thing and use it for another.
Yeah! It's actualyl because of that same thing that I'm slowly transitioning the channel to being about just storytelling in general. Video game stories, writing, D&D, all of it.
@@TheFantasyForge That's nice to hear. I'm trying to get as much out of all these writing advice channels as I can , but I certainly enjoy the occasional casual video here and there, like lists and recounting of real-life experiences. I think CritCrab have some funny stories in the latter category.
@@TheREALSimagination I'll have to check them out!
Real nice list! Subbed! Two additional mistakes from me. 1: Dont overlook that if you struggle with creating a fabtasy world, turn the place/ region you live in into a fantasy version using maps and make changes! 2: Make sure yo get geography, topography and how rivers run through the land 😅 I will have the standard races but their roles? Out of whack! Blue dwarfs living in cloud mountains enslaving humans, elves struggling to create new life and vegetation in a grand desert as punishment. Gnomes, Halflings and Nisser ( non evil redcaps ) co-operating with a council of 30 different dragons to keep the world in balance etc. Im waiting for a flame tree pocket journal that Im gonna take with me into the nearest forest with a hiking road by it. Theres a small area called the " Coffee nook/ Kaffekroken " where I will sit and write a homebrew fantasy version of the municipality of where I live 😆
The idea of turning your own area into a fantasy world is amazing. I bet it makes it more nostalgic too.
EXACTLY... many fantasy stories are mostly "dont think, just watch" or "turn off you brain and read the damn book" type of stories.. still, i get where they are coming, i tried creating my own story too and i've revise it for who knows how many times already just because i was trying to make sense of the world, which i failed multiple times
I'm right there with you lol. Writing is hard
I'm happy to say I do all of these things today, some more and some less efficient, but I would have needed this video a few years ago. Thanks for making it.
3:09 Tbf, I feel like this has become something we over play. Conflict can be black & white & somewhere along the way we lost that vision. Everything is grey. A character not being perfect is one thing. But righteous characters can work & have worked. Just look at Steve Rogers, Aragorn, Legolas, Frodo & countless others
Steve Rogers is a great example
In the last tip you showed a clip of Calamity, but i hope it was not to criticize it on excessive history setup, cause it really was awesome.
No! I LOVED calamity. It's funny because as I was editing it I even thought to myself "hmmm this seems weird...nah it'll be fine" so now I know to trust my gut haha. Nah, I love Brennan as a DM. Imo he's the best
@@TheFantasyForge Hands down the best! Worlds beyond number anyone?
@@Diamondarrel UGH so good
While this video is definitely geared toward DMs and the TTRPG setting, these tips have proven invaluable to me in writing novels as well. Many thanks!
I'm writing novels too so I'm glad! It all comes from my writing experience haha
Good video. I've usually dealt with the history issue by starting campaigns in settings the PCs don't know much about, a frontier or a foreign land. That way the players learn at the same time as the PCs. But it's not a perfect solution by any means. But NO INFO DUMPS!
I think a big thing that summarises these mistakes is they are often simplifications which is fair trying to come up with multiple nuanced cultures and histories and think about so many things is daunting and a lot to keep track of not to say there aren’t ways to make it easier or that it’s impossible it’s just a bit more work and for some myself included world building complex and full worlds is fun but also I understand why a lot people decide to just simplify these things which you already pointed out when you brought up black and white morality
I think it just comes down to whether you want an immersive game every week, or a beer and pretzels dungeon crawl
It's... not called the Dark Ages because we don't know much about it lol. It was due to the perceived "darkness" left by the fall of the Western Roman Empire and supposed (at the time the term was coined) decline of culture, intellectualism, and economy. The term in general has fallen out of popular use with academics anyway because we've actually learned QUITE A LOT about the era and now know that just because the hegemony of the Western Roman Empire ended does not mean culture or even the standard of living for most people declined, it just wasn't Roman. It's also exclusive to Europe because the Islamic world was in what many call it's Golden Age. But point taken.
LOL 🤣trust me, I'm sure I've made lots of mistakes in the last 100 videos I've made. Just try to see the point I'm making with what I'm saying ABOUT the topic, not focus on the error of a misinterpretation😅Appreciate the history lesson tho, *the more you know*
never seen your channel before this video, but this is very good content and the editing is on point. you deserve way more views!
aw thanks :D appreciate the love
Everyone: *watching so they can be a better DM*
Me: *watching because I want to be a fantasy writer*
Amazing video! I'm not using this for D&D but just to make my own fantasy world and this definitely helped! Luckily I already thought about this like how magic impacted my world but I never thought about how different cultures would interact
Glad you liked it! I'm super happy that these videos help non-D&D people as well
I'm definitely starting with a thorough geographical build and researching how climates work. Once that's established, it will be easier to figure out where borders, major cities and other important locations would logically be.
Love it! No need to kill yourself over it though! even starting with a solid foundation for a country is enough if you DM it right
I'm a writer, I have no interest in DMing. You just get stuck as the forever DM.@@TheFantasyForge
Wow, I really enjoyed watching this, extremely informative and I agree with everything
I was relieved when I finished watching and confirmed I have made none of these mistakes in a long term project of mine, not dnd related but similar enough, I guess watching movie criticism excessively has helped me understand how to make a good story.
My project is based on some preexisting media which is extremely flawed, I was so frustrated with the writers not developing their characters and world properly that I just went "FINE, I'LL DO IT MYSELF."
Watch movies, read books, all of that will help with storytelling :) Glad it helped and thanks for the love!
I loved this video. My world actually started with a lot of changes like this in mind. A king that wanted to restore his kingdom to its former glory before its magic dwindled by stealing power from the plane of Mechanus and rewinding time. Conflict within oppressed people, racial discrimination, language barriers, philosophical disputes, you hit all the good stuff. I know I'm going in the right direction. I'll gladly subscribe.
aw shucks thanks for the comment, appreciate the kind words. Mechanus is a cool realm to pull from. It's one of the ones I know the least about, so as a player I'd be like "ohhh hell yeah" just from excitement and ignorance haha
@@TheFantasyForge It's also one of the most dangerous planes for PC's. Modrons may look cute, but their powers, ability to communicate over large distances effortlessly, and irrefutable precepts could easily lead to an army on your doorstep if you cross them. The plane will have a presence but an actual visit will have to wait for higher level characters, lol.
@@chastaylor7372 all I could think about was "cute shape guys?"
@@TheFantasyForge 'Cause they're basically the dnd steampunk version of Mike Wazowski and Rotom from pokemon. Some people love them. My own special someone called them absolutely adorable.
@@chastaylor7372 LOL Mike Wazowski ☠
Thank you for your advice, i am starting my book. I have basic lore in my head, but i search for a good start.
I’m trying to write a novel, and I’m currently making a world for that novel before I really start writing it, I’ve written some drafts, but I haven’t really began writing yet. It won’t all get used, but that’s the point, the story should be created in the world, the world shouldn’t be created in the story. I feel like I have a pretty good and living world, but it’s not nearly finished yet. You earned a sub from me for this video, you’re very underrated
thank you! I'm writing one too, kind of what kick-started this whole channel haha. Good luck! I'd love to read it one day
@@TheFantasyForge Wow, you answered fast, hope your novel goes well too
This is such a good video because as a beginner DM this really helps me think about how i should start and keep the world going thank you ❤
Thank you. Im writing a Fantasy and while I'm already doing a lot right this goves me more to think about.
Thanks for the love! Just write what works for you :)
Silly bonus rule but I really believe it matters, how does a commoner meet their needs? I'm talking the basics of each settlement of any size needs a source of any nutrients the species involved need be it just space to move so joints don't lock up in warforged, to food water and the air quality for humans and similar species, how do they deal with trash and bodily waste? are they at risk of or constantly facing plagues as a result? if they have things that need power where does it come from? so often I see a village and little to no farmland or other sources of food, not all places need more complex supplies, but at bare minimum, if you played as these guys could you survive in the place according to the logic and rules of survival needs?
Yes! This is big, the every day stuff 100% matters
@@TheFantasyForge Exactly, depending on set up implying is enough, but I so often get immersion ruined because there's clearly no watersource for this village, nor a common low level magic that could solve it.
Thanks for pointing these mistakes out, It made me realize how much i am not doing when making my worlds, universes and such.
Remember to also focus on what you're doing right!
@@TheFantasyForge Though it's hard to focus on what you're doing right when you don't know what you are doing is right.
@@AdrianVoidwalker Just by creating you are doing more than millions of others who always say "I will start tomorrow". Don't beat yourself up, but I'm glad I helped even if it's just a little bit
@@TheFantasyForge One thing that i actually love to see when it happens is when stories take place during A Dark Age of sorts, where nobody knows how things really work like not sure what rules should be placed and or don't or haven't agreed upon what rules should even be set. And maybe some places have agreed upon what rules should be set but those rules only exist within those places.
Especially when this is in a world with magic, because you can go the route of nobody knows how magic works, so the people sit there and play around with magic until they figure out something that they didn't even know they could do with magic.
Which personally i think is one of or if not, the easiest way to show the impact of magic.
The only lore story i can think/remember doing exactly this is Destiny 2's Lore on The Collapse which causes the Dark Age to happen, where many lightbearers would live out as warlords fighting over control for territory and basic supplies of food, water, shelter etc.
Those who were lightbearers would play around with their light (destiny's version of magic power) and create their own ways of using said light.
And some lightbearers would hide in camps with other people who were just normal people and hide the fact that they are lightbearers from others and just try to live peacefully. As they did this because some if not a lot or maybe almost all of the normal people would fear lightbearers, since a lot of lightbearers became tyrannical warlords during this time.
@@AdrianVoidwalker I agree with you there! I love me the darker stories. Like seeing a Game of Thrones during the first Winter or stuff like that
A big one for the history is that it is hard to balance something 500 years ago as a distant event when you get a middle aged elf say "Yeah, I remember that. I was there", and the dwarf chimes in with "He was young but my father told me stories of that happening".
True, but you can also limit the interactions players or readers have with those characters, or do any number of other things to get the history to feel like the history you want it to be. This probably wasn’t the best suggestion or explanation but, there’s always a creative way to work around whatever problem you have in storytelling, you just gotta think around the idea a bit! Like maybe that old elf was never one for paying attention to politics, or maybe many of the dwarves in that ancient kingdom were overworked to death and in turn not many had stories of what went on there, etc etc
@@Exoskeleton2921 My point was that it's hard to create a realistic "scale" of history when you have races that can live for centuries. It feels as though you have to make it significantly longer to keep "scale" and therefore have more time to fill in. Rather than making a 100 years of history (which is a lot) you try and make 1,000 years which ridiculous to try and do with every kingdom in a world.
A battle 500 years ago would only be known in our world because of historic texts and archaeological remains. In a fantasy world, an elf or even dwarf could have taken part in that battle. It removes that sense of it being that much older because there are those who can still remember it happening.
I think it's a perspective thing, the elves can feel older but that might affect how they talk and interact. Lame choice, but the centaurs in Harry Potter are a great example. They don't meddle simply because they know things.
I think you can have the weird races that live hundreds of years but still keep it from the perspective of a mortal race. Having players play those races is a whole other thing and comes down to roleplaying choices I think.
But you're right! It's definitely something to consider.
The not stereotyping races one, I'm surprised I didn't fall into that mistake, instead of a bird-like race, it's a human-like race that has a passive ability of wings that are made of wind, which don't have the weakness against cold but instead head, because it'll make the wind wings rise up and stuff causing the person to uncontrollably fly around in the air
Lol imagine being one of them and accidentally getting turned into a tornado
Very nicely done video. Hopefully I can use your tips to “upgrade” the world I created 40 years ago to be a more “believable “ world for future players.
Appreciate the love! Definitely a badge of honor to say you have played for that long
Around the time of WWI a group of people were supposedly discovered in some isolated region of Eastern Europe/Russia, that were still using medieval armor and weapons, having apparently been so isolated for so long that they had not culturally and technologically evolved since the Middle Ages.
There are still tribes in South America that have had little to no contact with the world beyond. They still live a hunter/gatherer lifestyle
Something i struggle a lot is history. Like what is too much? Why do inmense amounts of it if a good chunk will never be seen by players? It kinda frustrates me
You know, what helped me was making a "what would characters know" document. And then I tried to relate it to what we know about our own world.
So I know what happened 50-100 years ago in my country. What about 200 years? Mmmm...well kind of...
300? Much less...
500? Oh boy...
1000? 10,000? It becomes more and more vague until it becomes "I have no idea".
Start there, and then build the "rest" of history around that. That way you are building on things your players don't know, but you'll have an answer when they inevitably ask a question about the lore in your world
@@TheFantasyForge thanks man, this brought me many ideas. Also i think its dope youre actually answering the comments questions!
@@its_sisha_not_chair505 I'm trying! Haha. Its definitely getting harder but I promised myself I would do it for as long as I could
very nice piece
I think a good angle on world building is when it isn't a natural world - i.e. a deliberately created place, not a planet in heliocentric solar system, etc
There are a ways to communicate that the setting has reliability/predictability (i.e. that it isn't all ad-hoc) despite there being a deliberate "intelligent designer(s)" and not natural stellar dust accrual that made the planet. DMs shouldn't be afraid to tackle this - especially if, for example, you don't want gunpowder to be a thing that can be invented, or that the biological model of disease and infection is a thing and it really is the result of curse magic and evil spirits. There are ways to telegraph the ideas without an exposition dump and without just handwaving that "no one ever discovered that" which sometimes leads players to not treating the setting seriously.
beautifully said!
I know Isekai is cringe and usually sucks at world building, but I like that in an isekai setting with a friend there's a reason for guns not to work that also makes fireballs and such more cinematically cool with explosions being generally bigger and mostly hotter, so you couldn't really propell a bullet without also breaking the weapon.
this is to say you can give the world physics whilst stopping a thing, like change the properties of silicon so you can't create lenses precise enough to see things smaller than insects or to stop some total nerd inventing computers, heck make it that unbound electrons become lightning magic and travel towards a living target so circuits can't happen, or allow some clever stuff if it's balanced like longer burning candles.
I love the idea of using different regions. There are so many rich cultures in our world to draw from. Im working on a story that starts in a fictional Egypt incorporaring their gods and customs
That's such a fascinating culture to draw from
I know this video is for D&D but its really helpful for my story-writing too, thank you
It definitely started that way, but I'm also a writer so I'll probably start transitioning this channel to be a bit more of just general "story" tips too :) Glad it helped!
Great videos and tips! Very interresting.
Oh... 11:33 I studied History, Ethnology, Archeology, my Hobbies are Geology and Genealogy.... Now I know why I got 'Lost in Lore' and have 20 FamilyTrees that go over 3000 years, lots of characters that are like me and talk to others excitedly about what they just found out from an old book or an old rock, or some old bone, girdlehook or coin they found on a river-curve.
Im a big history person as well, so I feel that 😅😁
I'm surprised that this isn't very popular, this actually is great advice
Great stuff to come across right when Im diving full into world building for a new upcoming campaign. I know I've seen a video or two of yours before and surprised I wasn't subbed!
thats usually how it goes haha, glad I could earn your sub
Oh this is about dnd i was thinking this was about making your own video game 😊
LOL I guess I should be clear about that, but worldbuilding is worldbuilding!
I would add to the ignoring of diversity of don't let your story be shackled to the lack of technological diversity. All games or stories in fantasy (And one of my big issues with most of it even though I write it) is that its always medieval or ancient. Great those are good time periods, but there are other periods. Other tech, and Magitech can be a thing. Diversity of tech levels for any game is a good thing.
And number 11 I can keep stuff to myself, but I can never not develop pages of lore. Why what started as game world is now into a book writing project.
My world also started as a game world and now I'm working on it as an intertextual body of work! I'm glad I'm not the only crazy one haha
yes, and divergent tech, like it's sometimes a joke in sci fi that some species discover something big before fire but the general idea is good, they might not have figured out getting good quality alloys because of how fire magic works, but have time keeping as accurate as the modern day using a weak spell of some kind that links the movement of a clocks hour hand with the sun regardless of if it's underground or cloudy. or due to adamantite and dragon scales many goals of meta materials are achieved that we don't even have yet, but with the time spent fighting monsters or it being unsafe no one has invented alcohol really yet.
1. Important part "if you make a big world"
3 and 7. Something that I will disagree, some stories could be simple, and simple stories have their taste too. Even at Song of Fire and Ice, there are echo of simple conflict of humanity vs winter
4 and 8. This is the moment of layers. Group of adventurers who fight monsters could have big professional mental deformation and not see undersurface gearwork of consequences. But yes epilogue or interlude of story could bring some light to this
10 and11. Yes, yes and yes. Just yes
Definitely only need to do what works for you and your story. Appreciate the comment!
"Every player loves lore" LOL
In' my experience, most players don't. They don't ask questions, they don't react to the world building. World history and lore is the DM equivalent of a player coming to you with a 10 page background. The DM is 15x more interested in their world than the entire table combined. It's great that your group really cares about your world, but that is not the typical. Of the players that are really plugged in, they are focused on their character, not the world.
it just depends on the table lol. One of my players has a google doc that they update each session when new stuff comes up that all the other players add to. They call it the "Legend" for my campaign
Regarding the 4th point it’s important to have those moments also have consequences.
-A peasant asked the party for some coin to buy a horse to help him till his fields cause the last one died of old age? If the party refuses make them come back there at some point to find the farm now belongs to the local Baron and the farmer starved to death. Or did they help the farmer? In that case make the farmer recognize them when they come back. He can now offer shelter to them. He is now living a good life cause the horse helped him get some work done before the frost started setting in so he had crops to sell.
-Is there a mother in town looking for her lost child? Again does the party help? if yes then again the woman would be happy to help them later on offering them shelter or maybe she knows the local apothecary that has been overcharging the party on HP potions but now she can talk to him so that he now sells to them at a discount. Or maybe they don’t help and then the party finds out the kid had been hanging out with the wrong people and is now a street thug working for the local thieves guild
There are so many options to make the world feel like it’s been lived in and that your players have control over and you can show that to them.
Good thing is that all this can be added retroactively. Just remember any NPC interaction they had in the past and make a logical consequence to that to show the party their actions have consequences
I loved this video and I'm definitely going to check out your other vids. All of your points work well for games but also books.
I just started world building for a story. So, vids like yours are going to be watched many times.
My idea will be made in parts kind of like a DnD campaign with the readers being a god who guides a tribe of the voted species. The tribe will act on its own but the readers can influence how the tribe grows throughout the ages along with some divine interventions at times. So, my world will be young in terms of history at the start. But, this will increase the readers' impact on the world, the characters and so on as the story goes.
I'm glad the video helped! I'll be making more storytelling and writing style stuff in the future too :D
On the note of veering from stereotypes.
In my homebrew world where I host many campaigns one of my players said to an NPC "An Orc's word is stronger than the Chief." And in a few campaigns and one shots that take place in the future, that became a common saying because I always wanted Orcs to be a strength based society, and more so a Loyalty based society. In the workd where all the Kings, Sultans and Shoguns are trying to backhand each other, no threat is more terrifying than an orc saying they will kill you. Because they always keep their word.
That's EPIC. I love that. I love that you incorporated that into your world too, way to give the character some history and lasting power
Could this apply to a sci-fi setting as well?
I would say that yes many of these work! Just have to apply them. So for example, you probably don’t have elves in your sci-fi setting (if you do , hell yes) but just think about what you see all the time in sci fi and find ways to do it differently. What if the aliens are not technologically superior but are still a threat? What if humans are the invaders? Etc…
When I first started DMing, I would usually just pick 1 or 2 things, and that would be my whole world. For my most recent campaign (that I'm still starting up), I set it in France, and the bbeg is lich because I wanted to use the catacombs for an undead army in the late game. And as I was doing research, I found out that catacombs were dug for building materials. And, that afterwards people were like, "Well we have this big hole in the ground, what if we put our dead there?" And the fact parts of the city are literally built from the stone of catacombs, made me realize I was focusing on the catacombs too hard. I had handwaved a lot the texture of the world just thinking things like, "Well it's France, It looks like France." Instead of, "It's fantasy France, where magic is real, what does look like?"
And I'm really happy I started thinking this way, because it's lead to a lot of crunchy world building.
hopefully in the sudden Boom of DnD and BG3 fanatics your channel isnt glossed over, content is awesome keep it up
omg thank you 🥺🤗
Coming more from a writer's perspective than that of a Game Master, I want to add a few things.
- When designing villains there are many rules and guidelines. One of them that I found helpful: Good villains think they are right. Great villains are right.
- Cultural representation of old battles is often taken out of context. Medieval people read about the battle at Har Megiddo. There are artistic representations of that. And guess what: Those are exactly depicted as how medieval people fought battles.
I take slight offense to the statement "that you don't even know you are making." I've been creating worlds as a hobby and for writing for about thirty (forty if you count my early childish advances into worldbuilding) now. I am pretty sure that statement is wrong for a good part of your audience.
Appreciate the comment! I don’t see anything wrong with looking back at one’s own work and realizing you are pulling too much from tropes (if that’s the case).
No offense meant, I’m right there with you on decades of writing, but if you want to stand out as a writer, these are just some tips I recommend to create something unique. That’s all I meant :)
4:57 It’s called the Dark Age because the Renaissance folks believed themselves to be more enlightened than the thinkers of the Middle Ages.
Oooo, you know what I remember hearing that back in my history classes. Brownie points to you
You can't force diversity. Separation of cultures allows for the natural merging of those cultures in shared spaces.
Definitely want to make it a natural part of the process
That last one hit me in the gut. I'm cooking up a nifty homebrew world, and was only focusing on a single chunk of a single continent, which made a lot of things nice and simple...
But then I started going into Deep Lore Ancient History about what made the world the way it was and oooof my head was hurting trying to keep all of it straight. By the time I got to the important recent-ish history, I felt lost and confused. And it's a relatively straightforward history! XD
LOL that was me too! Theres sooo much to remember. It got difficult for me too. It helps to break it down into bullets or into a timeline rather than paragraphs
Do you do any Grimdark tip videos? Although these vids can be applied to any system or setting with a few changes here & there
I can certainly give it a shot!
The timelone point is so important! I really don't get why would someone in the World of Ice and Fire care about the return of the Orhers. Would you care if someone started saying that the Greek Titans were coming back from one of the supposed entrances of Hell? What if someone said that the Giants are coming back to Scandinavia? Both these legendary events are said to have happened IRL earlier than the Long night on that reality.
Great point! If I heard giants were invading I'd be like "yeah yeah, okay Gerald..."
I'm working on a Renaissance inspired Homebrew for DnD 5e that I want to run and one of the Ground rules I set for myself at the start was "Deep, not Wide". So I'm gonna be putting a lot effort into detailing the region the Party will start in and create basic outlines for the rest of the World that I can then flesh out as time goes on.
That's a great idea! It's how I did my first ever game!
@@TheFantasyForge there's no need to have entire books of lore for regions the Party will probably never visit. A basic outline is fine, at least until they decide they want to visit some of the other places.
Im not a dm, but this video is helpful for writing novels. The only thing I would say is diversity is not necessarily needed depending on where the story takes place. I think on large scale it is a good thing, but for a short story not so much.
Glad it helped! Definitely not meant to be a catch all, just some tips here and there that may or may not work for you :)
For my homebrew campaign gnomes and halflings are arboreal island dwellers that never had to grow due to the lack of major predators within the environment. They built tree civilizations because their small stature allowed agility amongst the branches and leaves.
give me Wicket vibes, I love it
As a story writer i am glad that i tik most of the boxes and im on the right track. I also starting to acknowledge the writer of One Piece, Oda, as a master world builder
So, there’s three distinct human kingdoms in my world that most of the stories take place. One off to the west far north, is like Viking/medieval Europe mixed, another is like Roman/medieval Europe mixed, and another is medieval/fantasy mixed in. (All are fantasy.) but once cultural loves magic, knowledge, another is we must love the royal family, another is, strong bonds and hard work. That’s what I like about world building. I can take things I like about other cultures and mix and blend them! It’s amazing:
Ah, tip 11. I am world building entire history of not a person, not a group, not a tribe, village, town, city, culture, nation, country, but an entire planet. Earth but my world.
There will many times I forgot something I wrote down ages ago and recount it wrong. Well like you said people are flawed, they can’t remember everything. so yes James told the Battle for Grelvnia wrong. Because he probably heard it or remembered it wrong.
Love this. Turn the mistakes into part of the story. "But I heard X...", "Well...they were wrong because the historians wrote it incorrectly". Good for you for building a whole world. I'm doing it too and it's ROUGH lol
Great list, but I think 1 is a tad off. If anything, I thinka lot of DMs try to add TOO much diversity. It's true that often fantasy falls into the category for medieval England, but most story lines only have you traveling a land about the Size of Britton anyways. They will put Asian inspired Drow and Norse dwarfs and Native American Orcs and steampunk gnome in wildly different geographies and wildly different cultures within less than a days walking distance from each other. It makes the world feel small and overwritten. If you're not traveling an area any bigger than an averages euro nation, you don't need to toss in too much flavor.
I don't know what DM's you're playing with but that sounds wild haha
A great way to add diversity in a small setting like that could be to have one or two foreigners in the area. Not much because in history people tended to stay with their own on average, but a couple. And think about what kind of life a foreigner would have. Maybe they were kidnapped by an ass hole royal, and your players could go on a side quest of getting the person’s freedom (be it with money, favors, blackmail or even just killing the royal) and then find them a ship or some transportation back home, ending the side quest. Or the person could be a skilled craftsman who came from a far away land in search of work. Why did he leave? Was his land in turmoil or did he have a dark secret. How do the townspeople feel about him? He’s undoubtedly a skilled craftsman but at the same time he’s not from here, he dresses different and doesn’t “act right”. Have rumors be spread about him but have people willing to accept him to, or at minimum the service he provides.
Another great idea could be a follow up campaign that’s based off that kidnapped character from earlier. Now you could have your party travel to that distant land, and suddenly your party from culture A is now surrounded by culture B, and they’ll need their friend they rescued back home as a guide to talk to locals and whatnot, and this could be a great lens to view this new culture from, and a way to continue the story after the original big bad is defeated in an unexpected way without making the ending of the first campaign meaningless.
@@TheFantasyForge Rifts is a helluva system 😂
@@nyalan8385 I like it, have a Morgan-freedman-from-robin-hood style character (or David Chappelle from Men in tights 😂).
I like your second idea too. It's basically how Buldars Gate 2 handles the transition. Your character wakes up and has been kidnapped to Amn.
@@nyalan8385 I love this idea. It's how I run my world because humans are the vast majority
I’m a pretty new DM, but In the current world I’m working on and simultaneously DMing in, I love imagining wether the citizens would even have an understanding of the history of the world. Most don’t, because there’s no internet and no access to easy information, unless an NPC is a bookworm I don’t think it would make much sense for NPC’s to have much knowledge about the world aside from their little slice of it
Love that! I do the same. I always try to think about how magic would change that too. What if the town has a mage with sending? Would they get info faster than others? Would the mage be more powerful politically in the town because of it? Would the country they live in make sure every town HAS a mage for that reason? Always fascinating to think about
With you 3 tip. you said a good story is not Black and white there is a problem with that logic. you can fall into what i call "Too grey" if every character your players encounter is "Morally grey" the players will start to question everyone they encounter like "What are you hiding?" or "He is so hiding something" this is why i believe you just need an evil son of a b***h every now and then or a truly good person. this is something Books, Movies, Shows, even games suffer from they think a complex character is "Morally Grey" When that is not the case what so ever. In life we meet people who are good and do the right thing just because its right if a story is truly "Realistic" not everyone will be looking to stab you in back or only care for themselves, some people will want to help just because its right.
Great advice, this actually happened in my last party. One person betrayed them and they never trusted anyone again lol. I had to put in some good clerics and such to help them heal…
Who hurt them?!
Oh…it was me…
This is the problem game of thrones had. When no one is the good guy you just stop caring about any of them and become very cynical
@@patrickbateman3146 agreed, it turns into more of watching a gladitorial game or something because it's just entertaining.
exactly, Cesar from Fallout New Vegas is very well written but he's still clearly full evil, he's a fascist who proudly contradicts himself and gets Hegal wrong.
morals aren't the only form of complexity a character can have, IRL even all the most powerful and rich people are bigots that hoard wealth that could end the suffering and deaths of millions each year. sure Alex the farmer or Kai the local healer for the church can and will be morally complex, but those at the top are very simple in their evil and some people are genuinely good, you can come across someone who heals people for free because they can and who fights to end hierarchy.
I think an often better way to look at things is when things are black and white morally it is the solution that should be mixed with consequences. How one defeats the evil villain or force. Also one needs to keep in mind how the players and others see the morality of the villain or issue is and how they see the morality of their choice to deal with it. So adding layers of consequences to defeating evil to me actually adds more depth then making a villain or situation "grey". To me as a world builder I like to see then how characters chose how to deal with the situation and it's future impact. I had players who all wanted to defeat the evil and do good have an enjoyable roleplaying experience dealing with the implications of other characters choices. Good having issues with good over how to do the right thing in defeating evil.
The impact of magic is what I dislike about fantasy world where magic is common and an everyday thing.
I like history, sociology, demography and all that kind of stuff a lot, and there's something you learn eventually about human evolution. First humans were nomadic hunter gatherers, then the Agricultural Revolution radically changed how human societies worked and all human polities after that were agricultural societies based on settled agriculture where the vast majority of the population worked in the fields, and this changed again with the Industrial Revolution that ended agricultural states and started the Industrial Age.
The switch from agricultural societies to industrial ones is massive. It massively increased the pace of social development, technology and political change, as agricultural societies were slow by nature and tied to the seasons, it caused the massive population boom that saw humanity go from a stable population in the hundreds of millions to billions within a single century, it dramatically changed everyday life as most people were no longer needed to work for long hours in the fields and could now have free time to be educated and become literate in various fields, no longer a privilege for few burghers and nobles.
Now, in fantasy societies are usually medieval or ancient, in any case they're supposed to be agricultural societies. If magic is very common. and it's an everyday occurrence, in my opinion there's no way that society would still be agricultural with magic as an everyday thing. Commonplace magic would have ignited its own form of magical revolution where the majority of the population would no longer be needed for manual labour in the fields, the fields themselves would be automated and more productive, and child mortality would be lowered enormously triggering the same exact population boom we had in real life due to industrialization. Very common magic and agrarian societies are incompatible in my opinion.
That's why magic systems should make sure to put severe limitations on magic, or magic needs to be something truly rare and mysterious that society can't control. In LotR all the high magic is in the past history of the setting that it's basically mythology with gods and demi-gods involved, but the present-day is pretty low magic and thus explains its medieval conditions. In most DnD settings I've seen however, or let's say the Elder Scrolls setting for video games, you have magic available seemingly in stores and yet society is still medieval, and this doesn't make any sense to me, although obviously it's because they wanted to have the traditional medieval aesthetic and also the cool magical power everywhere at the same time.
It's a shame because I feel that a fantasy setting that actually explores a magical revolution as a parallel to the industrial revolution would be pretty interesting.
I agree with you! Same issues on my end as a player. Humans especially would find a way to use magic efficiently
Very helpful! Thank you🙏❤
Glad it helped!
I was thinking about this concerning the races and species part you brought up. Originally I was going to craft a world of just Human races. However I ended up decided on adding other races you find in LoTR or WoW etc.
With that being said with the introduction of dwarves I questioned whether I should do similar with them being mountain dwellers like we see in everything that includes dwarves or change them enough to be different. Example was instead of mountains maybe cave dwellers. I haven't quite worked out their origin yet but I was exploring something slightly different than the typical LotR/WoW dwarf that we see in everything.
It's just fun to do something unique :D
Yeah but my thought process was for the average viewer will they like the twist on the dwarven race or be so use to the way we see dwarves now that they won't like the change. Which leads to me well you cant please everyone all the time and its my story anyways, I'll just write what I want and not worry about it. Haha
Very helpful!! Thank you, headless lore man
LOL that name better not stick
Thanks for the tips.
Happy to help! Thanks for the love
On Diversity of culture, the given example of England included 3 major cultures during the Dark Age: Britons, Anglo-Saxons, and Scots. So careful not to overdo it unless the campaign involves long distance travel. Getting the party to "get on the ship" is a in game trope. They don't want to face a Kraken, no matter the DM's plan doesn't involve any such thing.
Yes but also remember that's an island and so of course it will have less diversity. At the same time, only a few hundred miles south, you had Visigoths, Byzantines, Berbers, Moors, Iberians, Jews, and even Vikings sailing the same area barely 100 miles apart from each other.
Amazing! Great video, wonderful advice .
I make lots of games- this is the kind of stuff I think about.
thank you for the love! I appreciate it :D
2:05 What are these clips with the flying women from?
It’s from Disney’s Maleficent!
4:45 It is called the "Dark Ages" because Saracen pirates made trade in the Mediterranean nearly impossible. The "Dark Ages" existed because of 500 years of unopposed Saracen aggression and expansion into Europe. They ended because of the Crusades. We know a surprising amount of history of that time. It's not because of a lack of knowledge of what was happening (Muslim historians and Catholic historians of the time kept exceptionally good records of everything happening that remain intact to this day).
Ok, rant over. Great video!
Welll, I know simplified the dark ages in this video but thats only cuz I wasn't trying to make a history video.
It's called the Dark Ages because of a supposed decline in science and culture...etc...the crusades didn't end the Dark Ages, a shift in thinking did (the renaissance, the scientific revolution...etc).
The Saracens didn't cause the Dark Ages, they just lived in it and in a time where the Church was very much trying to conquer their lands.
And while Catholic historians kept "records" they were also very prejudiced, and also burned or hid a lot of anything that was contrary to what they believed. So I would take all of that with a grain of salt lol. I'm actually a big history person.
@@TheFantasyForge I appreciate the response, but a number of the claims you make here are not quite accurate. From 600-1050 AD, European Catholics did not have a theory of just war, and the Saracens began to persecute and kill pilgrims to the Holy Land and began to encroach on Europe without any pushback because Christians didn't believe they could morally fight back (the former being something no government or army had done for a very long time and was seen as especially cruel and uniquely Saracen). The First Crusade, which was a roaring success, was the first response to 500 years of uncontested murder of European and Middle Eastern Christians and Jews. And while the Saracens were not the only cause of the Dark Ages, they certainly were the biggest contributor to it by conquering the Mediterranean. There's a reason why the age of Muslim enlightenment and prosperity came at the cost of peace and prosperity in Europe (and the Catholic Church in this time was largely responsible for being the haven of the arts and sciences, charity, medicine, and education). The Dark Ages, depending on historic definition, are contested to have ended between 1100-1500 (though the English Renaissance was not what would have ended them, but rather the Italian Renaissance in the early part of the 14th century, and this was the doing of, again, the Catholic Church).
Additionally, while there were scattered cases of book burnings in Catholicism (which had long been condemned by the Church Fathers in the earliest parts of the first through third centuries AD, the largest collections of book burnings took place under Protestant rulers during the English Renaissance and Post-Renaissance (where most especially Henry VIII of England stole billions of dollars in modern currency in land and goods from the Catholic Church, simultaneously killing 17,000 of his own people for not converting to the CoE). Compare this to the 300 years of Spanish Inquisition, where less than 3,000 people were estimated to have been executed not by the Church, but by the Spanish Government for treason or perjury, not for heresy. In other words, modern retellings of events during the so-called "Dark Ages" and immediately after tend to be fraught with postmodern bias against religion, rather than looked at from an objective, agnostic, historical lens, as they should be.
I don't like to make arguments from authority, as they are a logical fallacy, but if it means anything, I will note that I have spent over 12 years studying the history of medieval Europe and the Middle East (being from the Middle East myself). I recommend books like "The History of Medieval Spain" by Joseph O'Callaghan (probably the best book on the subject), Warren Carroll's books on Christendom (extremely entertaining and informative, especially in highlighting the historic consequences of the wars in the later parts of the Dark Ages), "Misconceptions about the Middle Ages" by Harris and Grigsby, "Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages" by Frassetto, and "The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance" by MacEvitt, probably the most objective and unemotional recounting of the Crusades I have read, and the aftermath.
Now I don't want to take up all your comment section on this video (which I otherwise entirely agree with) with talk about a topic only mentioned in passing. I hope you take some interest in the above books, but I understand if you can't be bothered. I subscribed to your channel, and will probably end up doing a watch of all your worldbuilding videos on my day off this week, as I am very enthusiastic about the topic.
Cheers, mate.
@@timetrnr7380 Totally! I appreciate the comment too. And I hope that the response doesn't come off as me trying to a dick lmao.
I think the wonderful thing about history is that there's so much to talk about. There's a lot of history there before all of that too and we could go back and forth on that lol. And also on why it was called the dark ages and why people THINK it was called that and so on.
I love conversations like this so honestly thank you for taking the time to chat about it. And thanks for the love!