I have a similar trick for quests that I call "The Why Club". You use it to more easily get in the headspace for quest creation and to scan for plot holes. It can even be used to turn basic quests into deeper ones. The principle is you take the synopsis, like "Bob wants you to go to a cave and kill some zombies" and beat it with the Why Club. Just ask why about everything. Why does he want you to? Why does he know they are there? Why are they there? Then beat all your answers with the club. If the zombies are there because a necromancer found a wand there why was he there to begin with? Why is the wand there? etc. Keep on clubbing. I find this method helps compartmentalize things and make the flow of ideas easier to invoke.
This is very well thought out. Something like defence in general doesn't usually get a whole lot of detail in terms of why defenses are where they are or for what reason they were commissioned. A lot of times a world will just have cities with walls in a default layout without considering the dangers that required those walls to be made in the first place. Same thing with economy. Most settings will have at least thought about the economy and what are the notable trade goods and currency etc. but something like dynamic economies where wealth in an area fluctuates based on local events/political change/resource demand doesn't get shown a whole lot and I think that kind of stuff really helps to immerse the player/viewer.
First Thing I would chanfe is the Order of Items. This will destroy the wonderful accronym but working through them in a diffrent Order will likely stream line the process Order: 1) People 2) Religion 3) Occultism 4) Geography 5) Assets 6) Nemesis 7) Economics 8) Politics 9) LAW 10) Executive 11) Goals Reason is the higher up ones will likely influence the lower ones. The next thing I would actually do is add in the optional 5.5) in of Factions (this only applies to higher Level Entiteies like Cities, States, Countries and so on). Here you define the Factions and what they are like. And now comes the clue. If we leave out Geography but maybe also consider factions you can run this Method again for each faction. At infinite (or until you no longer need more details let´s face it describing the sub faction of a sub sub sub sub sub sub sub sub sub sub faction is probably extensive. Maybe limit yourself to a 5 Level iteration for MAJOR factions. As in For the City the entire campaign is going to run in. 2 Iterations for Big Entities that are going to be important but not the entire campaign wraps around. and maybe just have the top level iteration (e.g. fill the sheet) for side factions). And it is this iterative from top down to bottom and back up that is the reason I will speak of an enteis from now on. Cause quiet frankly if you omit the right things and would want to go into so much depth) you could define faction within every human in a nation. After all we all are complicated individuals and we tend to Believe things that are, at times, even contradicting to each other. Even if we might not realize it as such. With the factions filled in however we can now change some of the points. Because let´s face it the Nemesis, Politics the law the executive and Goals are really more defined in terms of the factions controlling the Entity. So for Nemesis define the entities (eg. The factions / group of factions) that are considered the Nemesis by the current leader of this entity. These factions can be internal (a hatred class of people thing the ns regime / soviet union) or external and might even be nations. But they could also be a specific (sub)-faction of another nation that this nation just can´t deal with. (consider The EU who Generaly consider the US there ally but really dislike trumps Republicans) The Politics are Healey influenced by the factions in this entity and especially the bigger factions. So based on the views of the factions inside the entity define the entities laws. The Factions, Nemesis, Economy, Politics and Executive do influence the law of the entity. After all consider that there has been a history in this country and even in a kingdom not all kings ever will have sided with the same factions. Each of them will have left an inprint on the laws of this entity. The Executive is more likely are group of factions ruling the entity. It is rather unusual that just one Faction will rule any Entity. Or even a Nation. Even if said Nation is a kingdom that king will have to deal with other factions inside his kingdom. And he won´t be able to just surpresse all of them either. That might work for the Borgs maybe or the Geth (although it does not even work for the geth see Mass Effect 2) So Really for the executive write down a hand full of Factions that Control the country. This will be controlled by your Politics part. A Kingdom is more likely to only have 2 or maybe 3 Factions ruling it. A Parlamentärin Democracy with a Two Round system or god forbid even a Party-List-Proportional Representational System (say that 3 times fast after another) might even have 5 or even more ruling factions. The goals of an entity will now be influenced by the Executive Factions goals. In some countries the goals might even but into a formal agreement of the factions. Sometimes called a coalition agreement.
This is interesting do you thinkyou can use the system to apply to different created worlds? Like say Harry Potter, One Piece, Dragon Ball, Perry Jackson, etc...
Absolutely no reason why this approach shouldn't work for any setting or IP. It's all about building up connected context of how does X affect Y, and now i know that, what does that mean for Z?
Should nemesis be nemeses (that's the plural)? There's a few missing question marks and you've written and said "world" instead of "region" in a few bits which is a little confusing as I don't know if this is specifically for worlds or regions and some of these questions only work for one or the other, or some require them both and it's a bit baffling. But otherwise this is genuinely very helpful! I'm making my own country in Golarion and I'll be asking these questions to expand on it, so thank you!
There's only two world specific questions, relating to the cosmology and and world-ending level threats. Everything else will apply to regions or settlements of pretty much any size.
I have a similar trick for quests that I call "The Why Club". You use it to more easily get in the headspace for quest creation and to scan for plot holes. It can even be used to turn basic quests into deeper ones. The principle is you take the synopsis, like "Bob wants you to go to a cave and kill some zombies" and beat it with the Why Club. Just ask why about everything. Why does he want you to? Why does he know they are there? Why are they there? Then beat all your answers with the club. If the zombies are there because a necromancer found a wand there why was he there to begin with? Why is the wand there? etc. Keep on clubbing. I find this method helps compartmentalize things and make the flow of ideas easier to invoke.
This is a basic concept but also amazing. It makes it easy to take a simple statement and blossom it into a web of fine detail. Good comment.
I like the '3 layers of why' (as I feel like more layers often go unused)
Rename the Why club to the George Carlin "Question Everything"
Just for later reference
2:11 Defense (army, natural borders)
4:17 Occultism (magic, spellcasters)
7:11 Peoples (races, classes)
8:03 Politics (political system)
9:04 Economics (currency, popular goods)
11:44 Law (...laws, crime)
13:14 Geography (mountains, rivers, climate, etc)
13:58 Assets (resources, contests)
14:45 Nemesis (enemies, how conflict is handled)
15:23 Goals (short, medium, long)
16:14 Executive (leader, ruler)
17:31 Religion (gods, real or maybe not)
Added to my DnD playlist! Thanks for the video, very neat way to world build and to keep track of things.
This is very well thought out. Something like defence in general doesn't usually get a whole lot of detail in terms of why defenses are where they are or for what reason they were commissioned. A lot of times a world will just have cities with walls in a default layout without considering the dangers that required those walls to be made in the first place.
Same thing with economy. Most settings will have at least thought about the economy and what are the notable trade goods and currency etc. but something like dynamic economies where wealth in an area fluctuates based on local events/political change/resource demand doesn't get shown a whole lot and I think that kind of stuff really helps to immerse the player/viewer.
Great video. The stream was a lot of fun too! Very informative.
I'm definitely giving this a try. Thanks!
This still feels like drinking from a firehose pointed straight in your face.
First Thing I would chanfe is the Order of Items. This will destroy the wonderful accronym but working through them in a diffrent Order will likely stream line the process
Order:
1) People
2) Religion
3) Occultism
4) Geography
5) Assets
6) Nemesis
7) Economics
8) Politics
9) LAW
10) Executive
11) Goals
Reason is the higher up ones will likely influence the lower ones.
The next thing I would actually do is add in the optional 5.5) in of Factions (this only applies to higher Level Entiteies like Cities, States, Countries and so on).
Here you define the Factions and what they are like. And now comes the clue. If we leave out Geography but maybe also consider factions you can run this Method again for each faction. At infinite (or until you no longer need more details let´s face it describing the sub faction of a sub sub sub sub sub sub sub sub sub sub faction is probably extensive. Maybe limit yourself to a 5 Level iteration for MAJOR factions. As in For the City the entire campaign is going to run in. 2 Iterations for Big Entities that are going to be important but not the entire campaign wraps around. and maybe just have the top level iteration (e.g. fill the sheet) for side factions).
And it is this iterative from top down to bottom and back up that is the reason I will speak of an enteis from now on. Cause quiet frankly if you omit the right things and would want to go into so much depth) you could define faction within every human in a nation. After all we all are complicated individuals and we tend to Believe things that are, at times, even contradicting to each other. Even if we might not realize it as such.
With the factions filled in however we can now change some of the points. Because let´s face it the Nemesis, Politics the law the executive and Goals are really more defined in terms of the factions controlling the Entity.
So for Nemesis define the entities (eg. The factions / group of factions) that are considered the Nemesis by the current leader of this entity. These factions can be internal (a hatred class of people thing the ns regime / soviet union) or external and might even be nations. But they could also be a specific (sub)-faction of another nation that this nation just can´t deal with. (consider The EU who Generaly consider the US there ally but really dislike trumps Republicans)
The Politics are Healey influenced by the factions in this entity and especially the bigger factions. So based on the views of the factions inside the entity define the entities laws.
The Factions, Nemesis, Economy, Politics and Executive do influence the law of the entity. After all consider that there has been a history in this country and even in a kingdom not all kings ever will have sided with the same factions. Each of them will have left an inprint on the laws of this entity.
The Executive is more likely are group of factions ruling the entity. It is rather unusual that just one Faction will rule any Entity. Or even a Nation. Even if said Nation is a kingdom that king will have to deal with other factions inside his kingdom. And he won´t be able to just surpresse all of them either. That might work for the Borgs maybe or the Geth (although it does not even work for the geth see Mass Effect 2)
So Really for the executive write down a hand full of Factions that Control the country. This will be controlled by your Politics part. A Kingdom is more likely to only have 2 or maybe 3 Factions ruling it. A Parlamentärin Democracy with a Two Round system or god forbid even a Party-List-Proportional Representational System (say that 3 times fast after another) might even have 5 or even more ruling factions.
The goals of an entity will now be influenced by the Executive Factions goals. In some countries the goals might even but into a formal agreement of the factions. Sometimes called a coalition agreement.
P.R.O.G.A.N.E.P.L.E.G.!
This is interesting do you thinkyou can use the system to apply to different created worlds? Like say Harry Potter, One Piece, Dragon Ball, Perry Jackson, etc...
Absolutely no reason why this approach shouldn't work for any setting or IP. It's all about building up connected context of how does X affect Y, and now i know that, what does that mean for Z?
More great content from the master himself🎉
This is great! I’m inadvertently doing this now…I love Sperm for settlements, but Doppleganger is better for a broader world.
This actually is helpful, thanks!
Glad it helped!
Should nemesis be nemeses (that's the plural)? There's a few missing question marks and you've written and said "world" instead of "region" in a few bits which is a little confusing as I don't know if this is specifically for worlds or regions and some of these questions only work for one or the other, or some require them both and it's a bit baffling. But otherwise this is genuinely very helpful!
I'm making my own country in Golarion and I'll be asking these questions to expand on it, so thank you!
There's only two world specific questions, relating to the cosmology and and world-ending level threats. Everything else will apply to regions or settlements of pretty much any size.