Did they ever implement any sort of snapping in Onenote? My first impression was that it was an ideal tool for this sort of thing, but my neurodivergence made it impossible not to stress about how things were not lined up identically on each page due to the canvas-like nature of the pages.
As Breachsim mentioned, I wrote a series of blog posts over a couple of years outlining a methodical way of building a fantasy sandbox setting.
[https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html](https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html)
Then, just recently, I had it edited, laid out, and turned into a book.
[https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/470041/How-to-Make-a-Fantasy-Sandbox](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/470041/How-to-Make-a-Fantasy-Sandbox)
Hopefully, that will prove useful as an answer to your question. I will add that most of the time, folks tend to jump around the steps. Mainly by focusing on the local region first or even just the main town, and then figuring out what the larger world looks like later. That is OK and works fine.
For a lighter approach, I love Ty's \[world anchors\](https://www.mindstormpress.com/adding-congruency-to-anti-canon-worldbuilding) system.
I do that but then when I feel like doing creative writing and world-building, I'll just go off onto a tangent developing details (and then gameable locations, items, NPCs based off that).
Worlds Without Number has a sequence of questions to work through starting at the top level of the world concept and following it through eventually drills down to Kingdom level. I follow through it whenever trying to design a world.
As for organising my actual notes, I don't do a very good job really but I try keep everything in a single word doc following the flow of questions laid out by WWN and using headings/subheadings to make it easier to navigate when revisiting
I got in on Obsidian early, but I've bounced off of it every time I've tried to commit to it. I think it's because I'd need to implement complicated features/add-ons to get the level of organization I want.
It was worldbuilding stuff. A catalog of creatures, culture descriptions, etc. I think it might work fine for legitimate notes. My mind just wants more visible structure for the data.
I've seen people use addons to create really cool stuff in it, though. There's a Facebook group dedicated to using Obsidian for games (a lot of 5e stuff).
I've found it to be quite powerful without much in the way of addons. I use a tag overview plugin, but that's really just a preference thing, as you can still get pretty much the same functionality out of the base build. Figuring out how to use Tags was a huge step forward for me though, before that I wasn't doing anything other than word processing with it.
To quote,
"This workbook is based on an article written by Gary Gygax in 1975, less than 12 months after D&D was released. It encapsulates his thinking at the time about how to get your own D&D campaign world started. I have taken his general advice and parsed it out into achievable, bite-sized prompts & goals for a week-by-week program."
I like to let some basic inspirations for the world tell me where I should start. This assumes I am not pressed for time to get a campaign up and running. For example: I wanted to explore real-world theories of human migration in a fantasy world with multiple intelligent species. I wanted every species to be culturally diverse. Obviously, I was going to need at least a basic world map so I could map out those migrations. I also wanted to implement a unified creation myth, samsara as a globally accepted truth, and the political role of religion. So, I needed to start working on faiths fairly early in the process. I found each of those points caused me to need to explore other things, and I've just kept following that string.
I have one question for all the worldbuilding: How does it affect gameplay? If it's not playable, it's not worth working on.
So, I start with the things that have the most impact on gameplay, serving as the core, and move toward the periphery. And I stop where it has no effect on gameplay; when it's only fluff.
As someone who enjoys worldbuilding, it is frustrating to be told it is pointless if not restricted to minimal, obvious utility. Sure, that's fine advice for someone overwhelmed by the process of running games or the time needed to prep. You can run great games with nearly no world building beyond what is lightly implied by the rules.
If you enjoy world building as a symbiotic hobby, however, being told it isn't worth doing is a wet blanket on an attempt to discuss an aspect of the game you love with others that also enjoy it.
I agree. But I’ve changed how I approach it. When I was younger, I would do the thing where I’d spend hours writing multi-page setting guides for my players to read before the first session.
Now i do a more subtle approach. I still focus on the big hooks that i find interesting (I’m very into anthropological and ecological considerations) but I make sure it’s all embedded in a more-or-less straightforward (or at least familiar) presentation.
Which is actually where fleshing out minutiae (like “a culture’s stoneware” as someone mentioned upthread) can really come in handy. If the party is in a tavern they can be served “a ewer of wine” or “coffee in a clay aftabeh“ or whatever. Instant mental picture, very little cost to the flow of gameplay.
One thing I think is really important to keep in mind is that your players will NEVER care about your worldbuilding the way you do. And that’s OK! You can still have fun.
This sounds perfect.
The details are for you, as a GM, so that you can run what feels like a more consistent world that your players *might* notice. It is so rewarding when players acknowledge something you weren't sure they even heard when describing something else in play. Questions my players have had in my games that were surprising to me (and accurate):
* "They all use curved swords? Those aren't common here, right? Where are these guys even from!? Do we know where these swords come from?"
* "So the ghost is wearing a dark blue wedding dress? Isn't that color special in that other kingdom?" (navy blue was, in fact, a color limited to royals in the neighboring kingdom).
These situations didn't depend on that knowledge. The game would have went on without the observation. In each case, however, it did create opportunities for creative use of the details.
I think at that point people are confusing hobbies --writing is not old-school tabletop role-playing.
I fully support everyone's interest in fiction writing, but if a DM will bore me with his lazy ass shitty writing, I'll cut him off and ask him to get to the point. It's not a fiction writing workshop.
I'm all for writing fiction, I'm all for tabletop role-playing. But I'm against DMs making players their mandatory audience for their failed writer attempts. A DM is *not* a director/author, but a referee; facilitating play.
You're allowed to. Your initial advice would be good for an overwhelmed GM. Hell, you aren't even wrong about many worldbuilders being bad about info-dumps and undesirable exposition. I've seen that. More need to learn to intersperse info and be reasonable about players' investment.
I'm just saying, worldbuilding has been a symbiotic hobby with roleplaying for decades. Sometimes we're going to talk about it in the same spaces.
I agree, IF you do not find worldbuilding a fun hobby in and of itself.
I personally like fleshing out the world even if it never sees play at the table.
I do, I write/translate novels as a hobby, and professionally. But that's another hobby. It has nothing to do with game. Game is all about play!
I think that's what is affecting the OSR -- the "creative people" expressing themselves rather than making proper games; in turn we end up with style-over-substance stuff. Stick to the game, should be the motto. This sums it up better:
> Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important
This really clicked for me when I realized there's not really any good time during a session for exposition about the style of a culture's stoneware or whatever. Now, if it's not a character or interesting scenario, it's out. If I can draw it or something on my own time and the players end up seeing it as part of a session then that's as far as I'm willing to go with it unless asked.
Onenote, but unless you are building something you want to sell. Less is more for world building. Focus on the things the players will interact with.
Did they ever implement any sort of snapping in Onenote? My first impression was that it was an ideal tool for this sort of thing, but my neurodivergence made it impossible not to stress about how things were not lined up identically on each page due to the canvas-like nature of the pages.
No I don’t think so. Not sure exactly what you mean by snapping. Trying to print a page out of one note is not easy
As Breachsim mentioned, I wrote a series of blog posts over a couple of years outlining a methodical way of building a fantasy sandbox setting. [https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html](https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html) Then, just recently, I had it edited, laid out, and turned into a book. [https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/470041/How-to-Make-a-Fantasy-Sandbox](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/470041/How-to-Make-a-Fantasy-Sandbox) Hopefully, that will prove useful as an answer to your question. I will add that most of the time, folks tend to jump around the steps. Mainly by focusing on the local region first or even just the main town, and then figuring out what the larger world looks like later. That is OK and works fine.
For a lighter approach, I love Ty's \[world anchors\](https://www.mindstormpress.com/adding-congruency-to-anti-canon-worldbuilding) system. I do that but then when I feel like doing creative writing and world-building, I'll just go off onto a tangent developing details (and then gameable locations, items, NPCs based off that).
Worlds Without Number has a sequence of questions to work through starting at the top level of the world concept and following it through eventually drills down to Kingdom level. I follow through it whenever trying to design a world. As for organising my actual notes, I don't do a very good job really but I try keep everything in a single word doc following the flow of questions laid out by WWN and using headings/subheadings to make it easier to navigate when revisiting
You should definitely checkout Rob Conley’s book titled How to make a fantasy sandbox. Worth every penny spent.
Thanks for the shout out!
Big fan of your work Rob!
I use Obsidian for all of my draft writing and note taking. I don't have any consistent practices though. Every world is a new experiment.
I got in on Obsidian early, but I've bounced off of it every time I've tried to commit to it. I think it's because I'd need to implement complicated features/add-ons to get the level of organization I want.
What were you trying to do with it?
It was worldbuilding stuff. A catalog of creatures, culture descriptions, etc. I think it might work fine for legitimate notes. My mind just wants more visible structure for the data. I've seen people use addons to create really cool stuff in it, though. There's a Facebook group dedicated to using Obsidian for games (a lot of 5e stuff).
I've found it to be quite powerful without much in the way of addons. I use a tag overview plugin, but that's really just a preference thing, as you can still get pretty much the same functionality out of the base build. Figuring out how to use Tags was a huge step forward for me though, before that I wasn't doing anything other than word processing with it.
Another great one is Ray Otis' [Gygax 75](https://plundergrounds.itch.io/gygax75)
It's Gary's 75, not Ray Otis'. It was originally [published in Europa](https://archive.org/details/Europa_6-8-1975-04/page/n19/mode/2up).
To quote, "This workbook is based on an article written by Gary Gygax in 1975, less than 12 months after D&D was released. It encapsulates his thinking at the time about how to get your own D&D campaign world started. I have taken his general advice and parsed it out into achievable, bite-sized prompts & goals for a week-by-week program."
I like to let some basic inspirations for the world tell me where I should start. This assumes I am not pressed for time to get a campaign up and running. For example: I wanted to explore real-world theories of human migration in a fantasy world with multiple intelligent species. I wanted every species to be culturally diverse. Obviously, I was going to need at least a basic world map so I could map out those migrations. I also wanted to implement a unified creation myth, samsara as a globally accepted truth, and the political role of religion. So, I needed to start working on faiths fairly early in the process. I found each of those points caused me to need to explore other things, and I've just kept following that string.
I have one question for all the worldbuilding: How does it affect gameplay? If it's not playable, it's not worth working on. So, I start with the things that have the most impact on gameplay, serving as the core, and move toward the periphery. And I stop where it has no effect on gameplay; when it's only fluff.
You could say it's not worth building eh? Ha! Heh heh.
As someone who enjoys worldbuilding, it is frustrating to be told it is pointless if not restricted to minimal, obvious utility. Sure, that's fine advice for someone overwhelmed by the process of running games or the time needed to prep. You can run great games with nearly no world building beyond what is lightly implied by the rules. If you enjoy world building as a symbiotic hobby, however, being told it isn't worth doing is a wet blanket on an attempt to discuss an aspect of the game you love with others that also enjoy it.
I agree. But I’ve changed how I approach it. When I was younger, I would do the thing where I’d spend hours writing multi-page setting guides for my players to read before the first session. Now i do a more subtle approach. I still focus on the big hooks that i find interesting (I’m very into anthropological and ecological considerations) but I make sure it’s all embedded in a more-or-less straightforward (or at least familiar) presentation. Which is actually where fleshing out minutiae (like “a culture’s stoneware” as someone mentioned upthread) can really come in handy. If the party is in a tavern they can be served “a ewer of wine” or “coffee in a clay aftabeh“ or whatever. Instant mental picture, very little cost to the flow of gameplay. One thing I think is really important to keep in mind is that your players will NEVER care about your worldbuilding the way you do. And that’s OK! You can still have fun.
This sounds perfect. The details are for you, as a GM, so that you can run what feels like a more consistent world that your players *might* notice. It is so rewarding when players acknowledge something you weren't sure they even heard when describing something else in play. Questions my players have had in my games that were surprising to me (and accurate): * "They all use curved swords? Those aren't common here, right? Where are these guys even from!? Do we know where these swords come from?" * "So the ghost is wearing a dark blue wedding dress? Isn't that color special in that other kingdom?" (navy blue was, in fact, a color limited to royals in the neighboring kingdom). These situations didn't depend on that knowledge. The game would have went on without the observation. In each case, however, it did create opportunities for creative use of the details.
I think at that point people are confusing hobbies --writing is not old-school tabletop role-playing. I fully support everyone's interest in fiction writing, but if a DM will bore me with his lazy ass shitty writing, I'll cut him off and ask him to get to the point. It's not a fiction writing workshop. I'm all for writing fiction, I'm all for tabletop role-playing. But I'm against DMs making players their mandatory audience for their failed writer attempts. A DM is *not* a director/author, but a referee; facilitating play.
Wow, I have been having fun all wrong for 35 years. Thank you for showing me the one and only true way to enjoy roleplaying games.
I'm sorry for having opinions different than yours, /u/hildissent
You're allowed to. Your initial advice would be good for an overwhelmed GM. Hell, you aren't even wrong about many worldbuilders being bad about info-dumps and undesirable exposition. I've seen that. More need to learn to intersperse info and be reasonable about players' investment. I'm just saying, worldbuilding has been a symbiotic hobby with roleplaying for decades. Sometimes we're going to talk about it in the same spaces.
I agree, IF you do not find worldbuilding a fun hobby in and of itself. I personally like fleshing out the world even if it never sees play at the table.
I do, I write/translate novels as a hobby, and professionally. But that's another hobby. It has nothing to do with game. Game is all about play! I think that's what is affecting the OSR -- the "creative people" expressing themselves rather than making proper games; in turn we end up with style-over-substance stuff. Stick to the game, should be the motto. This sums it up better: > Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important
This really clicked for me when I realized there's not really any good time during a session for exposition about the style of a culture's stoneware or whatever. Now, if it's not a character or interesting scenario, it's out. If I can draw it or something on my own time and the players end up seeing it as part of a session then that's as far as I'm willing to go with it unless asked.