- Joined
- Nov 14, 2012
- Messages
- 154
When creating maps I've seen a lot of beginners get a nice idea for a map and immediately begin to build it which can be a mistake. If you rush in and try building the map as soon as the idea hits you, there could be mistakes and the chances of forgetting something important rises. Here is a few tips/help on building a world from the ground up.
In this post we’ll talk about what New York Times bestselling novelist Brent Weeks has to say about world building and see if we can’t dig up a few examples from his books to help us understand his process. And to conclude, let’s try practicing his methods ourselves. A writing prompt will follow. So to begin, principle number one is this:
Principle 1: Introduce the setting early and on a need-to-know basis
The bulk of world building must be done on paper with clear intentions, Is it an RPG/ORGP, who is the enemy, what is the object of the game and to keep players interested it must be done very well. Brent, in a quote from his own site, had these words of wisdom to share:
You want to see some of the world building early so it can pay off later, and you want to fill in enough of the details about the world so it doesn’t seem like your characters are wandering through a fog, disembodied, confused and in total disarray with each other.
So to keep our players from this disembodied fog, we’ve got to introduce as much as we can of the setting as quickly as possible – preferably in the first couple minutes of the map in my opinion.
Principle 2: Don’t use info dumps
This is really a variation of the “show, don’t tell” principle, but “info dumps” may be the RPG/ORPG creator's worst nightmare when it comes to description, especially so when the map author has written several pages of backstory and setting before even starting to incorporate it into their map. With so much material, it can become tempting to just shove as much information out upon the player in the fastest way possible. However, this is awful and should be avoided. I have no examples of this from Brent Weeks, but let me show you an example of it in action, drawn from my own boundless, drivel spewing imagination.
[INTRO: Fades in black, letters in white.]
"The planet of Thog was home to the Thogians, a humble desert dwelling race of humanoids who delighted in bloodshed and mayhem. On their borders lay the civilization of Tarta, a race made up of scaly lizard-like creatures whose only desire was to eat flies, and bask in the sun."
Do you see the problem? First off, this isn’t even a story. It’s an encyclopedia entry! And what’s worse, its boring. Really boring! You can communicate the same thing through action and carefully selected detail. Although this oftentimes will take up more words than the info dump, its far more enjoyable to read. Here’s my attempt:
[INTRO: Fade in black, camera shaking. Hordes of lizard-like creatures are in engaged in a bloody battle with a small band of humanoid warriors.]
In ten seconds I've made the map much better. Without ever saying anything! You're wondering why the two races are fighting, where the planet is, how can I be one of the lizard creatures or humanoids. It has you asking questions whereas the previous description had me falling asleep.
The less is more principal is a very great tool when designing the story and dialogue, however, this doesn't mean you leave out the entire story. Slowly unraveling the plot as your hero/character progresses is crucial, also, the antagonist/main enemy has to be revealed in a short time of playing. If I have to play for two hours, level my character up fifteen times and complete thirty quests before discovering the evil. That's bad. Let's take 'Star Wars' The first part of the movie the door blows apart and in walks Darth Vader, you can immediately tell he's evil.
So conclusion: don’t use info dumps. Should you find yourself using them, immediately subtract two gold stars from your gold star account. And remember the overarching principle: Show, don’t tell!
Principle 3: Give the reader a basic frame of reference
The first step to good world building is cluing the reader into the culture, period or place in history that your world is basically modeled after. In other words, a frame of reference.
Here’s an example of Dark Savant's "Dark Savant's ORPG" and how he “clues in” in the player to the setting using "quest tabs". While you read, ask yourself, “what basic type of world immediately comes to mind while I’m reading this?” Hint: It may involve castles and knights.
Most taverns in the city had dirt floors, but this part of Lowside had been built over marshland . . . so the tavern had been raised several inches on stilts and floored with stout bamboo poles.
Even though there are taverns in the world around us, if the reader is at all familiar with the castles and knights setting the dirt floors and "lowside, reference to being poor" are words that clue us into the setting without a large amount of exposition. True, the setting isn’t definite at this point, but in absence of other details that hint at an exotic location, this will be the reader’s first assumption. Let’s keep going. Continuing to read beyond the selection, we soon meet a reference to gold coins, the world’s monetary unit. For most RPG/ORPG plyers, this is a dead giveaway to a castle & knights, D&D type world. Our confidence increases. In the paragraphs following this selection, we soon encounter other words like assassin and sword, all but cementing the reader’s hypothesis that this story is taking place in a castle and knights type of world we’re all so familiar with.
Principle 4: Introduce unique additions to the world once the frame of reference is established
Contemporary players won’t stand for a completely generic castle and knights type setting. They’ve played that sort of map a hundred times. So the next step is to introduce your own unique additions to the world, which we can see in the following selection also from "Dark Savant's ORPG". Once again, while reading, ask yourself what your first assumptions are about the setting and character.
If he were braver, he would have stolen goods from the the bodies in the tavern, but Kain couldn't believe Burrich was dead. Maybe he was a shade, like the other novice's said.
Let’s dissect the quote a little bit. First, it shows the youth, inexperience, and naivete of our hero Kain. He’s unsure of himself, not very brave, and relying on secondhand information from unreliable sources. Secondly, it firmly alludes to the idea that there are actually demons and alien cratures in this world. And then, finally, it creates a very powerful aura of danger and supernatural power around the Burrich character. All of that in two sentences. Kind of impressive.
So that’s the process. To summarize, as soon as possible clue the player onto the map's socio-historical frame of reference and unique additions to that world through careful use of sparsely added details.
I hope this was helpful. Thanks!
-Silver_Physics
In this post we’ll talk about what New York Times bestselling novelist Brent Weeks has to say about world building and see if we can’t dig up a few examples from his books to help us understand his process. And to conclude, let’s try practicing his methods ourselves. A writing prompt will follow. So to begin, principle number one is this:
Principle 1: Introduce the setting early and on a need-to-know basis
The bulk of world building must be done on paper with clear intentions, Is it an RPG/ORGP, who is the enemy, what is the object of the game and to keep players interested it must be done very well. Brent, in a quote from his own site, had these words of wisdom to share:
You want to see some of the world building early so it can pay off later, and you want to fill in enough of the details about the world so it doesn’t seem like your characters are wandering through a fog, disembodied, confused and in total disarray with each other.
So to keep our players from this disembodied fog, we’ve got to introduce as much as we can of the setting as quickly as possible – preferably in the first couple minutes of the map in my opinion.
Principle 2: Don’t use info dumps
This is really a variation of the “show, don’t tell” principle, but “info dumps” may be the RPG/ORPG creator's worst nightmare when it comes to description, especially so when the map author has written several pages of backstory and setting before even starting to incorporate it into their map. With so much material, it can become tempting to just shove as much information out upon the player in the fastest way possible. However, this is awful and should be avoided. I have no examples of this from Brent Weeks, but let me show you an example of it in action, drawn from my own boundless, drivel spewing imagination.
[INTRO: Fades in black, letters in white.]
"The planet of Thog was home to the Thogians, a humble desert dwelling race of humanoids who delighted in bloodshed and mayhem. On their borders lay the civilization of Tarta, a race made up of scaly lizard-like creatures whose only desire was to eat flies, and bask in the sun."
Do you see the problem? First off, this isn’t even a story. It’s an encyclopedia entry! And what’s worse, its boring. Really boring! You can communicate the same thing through action and carefully selected detail. Although this oftentimes will take up more words than the info dump, its far more enjoyable to read. Here’s my attempt:
[INTRO: Fade in black, camera shaking. Hordes of lizard-like creatures are in engaged in a bloody battle with a small band of humanoid warriors.]
In ten seconds I've made the map much better. Without ever saying anything! You're wondering why the two races are fighting, where the planet is, how can I be one of the lizard creatures or humanoids. It has you asking questions whereas the previous description had me falling asleep.
The less is more principal is a very great tool when designing the story and dialogue, however, this doesn't mean you leave out the entire story. Slowly unraveling the plot as your hero/character progresses is crucial, also, the antagonist/main enemy has to be revealed in a short time of playing. If I have to play for two hours, level my character up fifteen times and complete thirty quests before discovering the evil. That's bad. Let's take 'Star Wars' The first part of the movie the door blows apart and in walks Darth Vader, you can immediately tell he's evil.
So conclusion: don’t use info dumps. Should you find yourself using them, immediately subtract two gold stars from your gold star account. And remember the overarching principle: Show, don’t tell!
Principle 3: Give the reader a basic frame of reference
The first step to good world building is cluing the reader into the culture, period or place in history that your world is basically modeled after. In other words, a frame of reference.
Here’s an example of Dark Savant's "Dark Savant's ORPG" and how he “clues in” in the player to the setting using "quest tabs". While you read, ask yourself, “what basic type of world immediately comes to mind while I’m reading this?” Hint: It may involve castles and knights.
Most taverns in the city had dirt floors, but this part of Lowside had been built over marshland . . . so the tavern had been raised several inches on stilts and floored with stout bamboo poles.
Even though there are taverns in the world around us, if the reader is at all familiar with the castles and knights setting the dirt floors and "lowside, reference to being poor" are words that clue us into the setting without a large amount of exposition. True, the setting isn’t definite at this point, but in absence of other details that hint at an exotic location, this will be the reader’s first assumption. Let’s keep going. Continuing to read beyond the selection, we soon meet a reference to gold coins, the world’s monetary unit. For most RPG/ORPG plyers, this is a dead giveaway to a castle & knights, D&D type world. Our confidence increases. In the paragraphs following this selection, we soon encounter other words like assassin and sword, all but cementing the reader’s hypothesis that this story is taking place in a castle and knights type of world we’re all so familiar with.
Principle 4: Introduce unique additions to the world once the frame of reference is established
Contemporary players won’t stand for a completely generic castle and knights type setting. They’ve played that sort of map a hundred times. So the next step is to introduce your own unique additions to the world, which we can see in the following selection also from "Dark Savant's ORPG". Once again, while reading, ask yourself what your first assumptions are about the setting and character.
If he were braver, he would have stolen goods from the the bodies in the tavern, but Kain couldn't believe Burrich was dead. Maybe he was a shade, like the other novice's said.
Let’s dissect the quote a little bit. First, it shows the youth, inexperience, and naivete of our hero Kain. He’s unsure of himself, not very brave, and relying on secondhand information from unreliable sources. Secondly, it firmly alludes to the idea that there are actually demons and alien cratures in this world. And then, finally, it creates a very powerful aura of danger and supernatural power around the Burrich character. All of that in two sentences. Kind of impressive.
So that’s the process. To summarize, as soon as possible clue the player onto the map's socio-historical frame of reference and unique additions to that world through careful use of sparsely added details.
I hope this was helpful. Thanks!
-Silver_Physics
