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THE GUIDE TO WORLDBUILDINGWORLDBUILDING WITH ESSAYS BY KEITH BAKER WOLFGANG BAUR DAVID “ZEB” COOK MONTE COOK JEFFJEFF GRUBBGRUBB SCOTT HUNGERFORD CHRIS PRAMAS JONATHANJONATHAN ROBERTSROBERTS JANNAJANNA SILVERSTEINSILVERSTEIN MICHAEL A. STACKPOLE STEVE WINTER EDITED BY JANNA SILVERSTEIN INTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTION BYBY KEN SCHOLES,, AUTHORAUTHOR OFOF THETHE PSALMSPSALMS OFOF ISAAKISAAK Praise for Complete KOBOLD Guide to Game Design “A must-have book for both those looking to get into this industry, and those who merely want to play.” –NerdTrek.com “Highly recommended for gaming nerds everywhere.” –citybookreview.com Winner, 2012 Gold ENnie Award for Best RPG-Related Accessory KOBOLD Guide to Board Game Design “I wish I had a book like this twenty years ago.” –Bruno Faidutti, designer of Citadels “ I would recommend ‘The Kobold Guide to Board Game Design’ as the best choice for those considering collectible game design or design for the mass market.” –Joe Huber, Opinionated Gamers “This book should definitely be on any game designer’s bookshelf, but it will most likely offer some insights into some of today’s favorite designers for players as well!” –Game Knight Reviews Other Books by Kobold Press Complete Kobold Guide to Game Design Kobold Guide to Board Game Design Midgard Campaign Setting The KOBOLD Guide to Worldbuilding The KOBOLD Guide to Worldbuilding Introduction by Ken Scholes With essays by Keith Baker, Wolfgang Baur, David “Zeb” Cook, Monte Cook, Jeff Grubb, Scott Hungerford, Chris Pramas, Jonathan Roberts, Janna Silverstein, Michael A. Stackpole, Steve Winter Edited by Janna Silverstein TM The KOBOLD Guide to Worldbuilding © 2012 Open Design LLC Editor Janna Silverstein Cover art Malcolm McClinton Publisher Wolfgang Baur General Manager Shelly Baur Graphic Design Marc Radle “It’s a Mystery! How to Design a Mystery Cult” by David “Zeb” Cook originally appeared in Kobold Quarterly #21 “Different Kinds of Worldbuilding” by Monte Cook originally appeared in Kobold Quarterly #23 All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of this book in any manner without express permission from the publisher is prohibited. OPEN DESIGN LLC P.O. Box 2811 Kirkland, WA 98083 WWW.KOBOLDQUARTERLY.COM Most product names are trademarks owned by the companies that publish those products. Use of the name of any product without mention of trademark status should not be construed as a challenge to such status. Open Design, Kobold Quarterly, and the KQ logo are trademarks of Open Design LLC. First Edition The KOBOLD Guide to Worldbuilding Table of Contents Introduction: Foster Worlds to Hide and Seek In Ken Scholes 6 What is Setting Design? Wolfgang Baur 8 Different Kinds of Worldbuilding Monte Cook 13 Worldbuilding Inside Out and Outside In Chris Pramas 17 How Real is Your World? On History and Setting Wolfgang Baur 21 Bringing History to Life Keith Baker 31 Apocalypso: Gaming After the Fall Jeff Grubb 35 Here Be Dragons: On Mapmaking Jonathan Roberts 40 How to Design a City State, Tribe, or Nation Wolfgang Baur 48 They Do What, Now? On Creating Societies and Cultures 54 Michael A. Stackpole How to Make a High-Magic World Keith Baker 58 Worlds and Technology Wolfgang Baur 63 Why No Monotheism? Steve Winter 70 Designing a Pantheon Wolfgang Baur 74 It’s a Mystery! Designing Mystery Cults David “Zeb” Cook 80 How to Design a Guild Wolfgang Baur 89 How to Write a World Bible Scott Hungerford 96 Playing Someone Else’s Backyard Janna Silverstein 101 The Limits of Design: Kitchen Sink Design Wolfgang Baur 107 Author bios 112 The KOBOLD Guide to Worldbuilding The KOBOLD Guide to Worldbuilding Introduction Foster Worlds to Hide and Seek In Ken Scholes ike many of you, I’ve been visiting new worlds with an eye toward buying real L estate for a long time now. My passport has more stamps in it than I can count. I’ve been to Barsoom with John and Dejah, then tracked down Carson on Amptor. I took a nice, long walk through Middle-earth with Bilbo, Frodo, and Company before dropping by Arrakis to see how Paul’s spice mining was going. I visited Almuric on my way to Hyborea to spend time with Esau and Conan (respectively). And then eventually, I found myself in hot water in Greyhawk’s village of Hommlet (I lost two fingers to a giant frog there!) and spent many hours wandering the quarters of Baldur’s Gate in the Forgotten Realms. I am a traveler of many worlds. I needed to be because this one just wasn’t good enough for me. So these others became foster worlds, if you will, where I could play hide and seek with myself through books and with my friends through gaming. And I know I’m not alone. I remember Tim Powers telling my Writers of the Future Workshop that we wouldn’t write what we write if we were at home in this world. It resonated with me and I suspect some others. And somewhere along the way, it wasn’t good enough for me to play hide and seek in the worlds of others—I was compelled to join the pantheon of gods who make worlds of their own. I started, like many of us, with my Dungeons & Dragons boxed set, a pad of graph paper, and a brain filled with all of the worlds I’d already visited by that time. It didn’t hurt at all that somewhere along the way, TSR provided a list of all the other worlds out there that one could turn to for inspiration in 6 The KOBOLD Guide to Worldbuilding creating their adventures. That opened up a door for me to the work of even more world-builders—all of which fueled my fire to create. And after a bit, it just wasn’t enough anymore. I turned to writing where, eventually, I created the world of the Named Lands in my series, The Psalms of Isaak, my first foray into the wacky world of epic fantasy. And I’m wishing I had the book you’re now holding right now—The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding—when I started that great and wild ride. Of course, the good news is, thanks to Janna’s kind invitation to write this introduction, I’ll have my contributor copy handy for the next world I design. It’s going to come in handy. This volume brings together a fine set of tools, whether you’re a game master or an author. In Jonathan Roberts’ brilliantly succinct essay, “Here Be Dragons,” you’ll learn how to very simply, very practically build the map of your world and outline much of its details. Wolfgang Baur will equally amaze in “Designing a Pantheon” and “What is Setting?” with his thoughts on creating gods and religions and settings that create potential for conflict and drive players (or readers) deeper into the story without hampering the game master (or author) with so much detail that there’s no room for collaboration. I’m already taking notes for the world I’ll build after I finish with the one I’m visiting now. That makes this a pretty easy book to introduce to you. Whatever worlds you’re building, you’ll want this one along for the trip. The essays here, from masters of their craft, form a toolbox with all you need “to create a place that feels real enough to develop an emotional connection to it,” to quote Monte Cook’s essay, “Different Kinds of Worldbuilding.” “After all,” he continues, “who wants to save a world that no one cares about?” So take these tools. Go build more foster worlds we can play hide and seek in. Build them well and take us there. Stamp our passports and make us want to stay forever. The KOBOLD Guide to Worldbuilding 7 What is Setting Design? Wolfgang Baur ong ago, I did my first bit of paid design for my friend Jim, who wanted to run L a Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) game for everyone but didn’t want to design a setting and didn’t want to pay for a boxed set. He gave me $2 or so, and I did my best with it. I was 12 at the time. I wish I still had the materials I turned over for my first paid roleplaying game (RPG) design assignment. I remember Jim especially liked the map of the barony or duchy I created using colored pencil, with its castles, forest, lakes, and so forth. He was less enthusiastic about the text; most areas were described with a single sentence, possibly two, which seemed like plenty to me, for I had written them out longhand. The whole must have been maybe 10 or 20 notebook pages. Jim was a little disappointed, but I showed him that I had created a random monster table for the region, and so all was well. Was it a successful campaign setting? Only Jim could say for sure, but I like to think that most of the ingredients were there, even if they were fairly crude: location, character, and conflict. A lot of years have passed since then, and I’ve given a lot more thought to more recent worldbuilding exercises, both complete and partial, from Dark*Matter to Golarion to the Midgard campaign setting. If you ask me today, I’d say that the goal of setting design is to create a background or setting for fantasy gaming, one that provides a rich but not unlimited range of choices to both players and game masters (GMs). In addition, the successful design must establish sources of conflict and motivation for heroes and villains who act in the setting to entertain the players.