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Or maybe the actual problem is that I am bad at worldbuilding.

>This is just a mishmash of x nonwhite culture and y nonwhite culture

>it seems a bit like an "anti-setting" if that makes sense? like the theme of the setting just seems to be "hey its not europe!"

>this is really boring to read and includes a lot of stuff that frankly just dont matter

>its very much you just jammed random cultures together and called it good

>also this feels more anime mishmash then like you know actual non eurocentric
>it very much comes off that you just mashed together cultures without regard for how they would blend and interact

>Combining cultures is a very hard thing to do, and requires intimate knowledge of either.

>its bad

From this, I can safely say that I am just not a good worldbuilder, and the project was doomed from the start. I should just stick to premade settings, or if I absolutely have to create a custom world, make it flatly Western European and use only English names (as opposed to a highly awkward slamming-together of different languages).

sounds dumb

>>94406697
Why would you want to deemphasize the only fantasy aesthetic that matters?

>>94406697
>This experience has shown me why I prefer to run premade settings. It has also highlighted just how much players enjoy the familiarity of Western European aesthetics, and how, if there must be places themed after other cultures, players would prefer monocultural theme parks: fantasy China, fantasy Japan, fantasy Egypt, and so on.

Not horrible take-aways.

Sorry told thing didn't work. That's the price of playing with other human beings.

Ok, I know that you are 2hufag and I hate you, but this is a topic I think can be used as a lesson.

Players broadly speaking need to understand some of a setting before they buy in to it. This is why a game that immediately sells you on the story and/or setting with a good easy to grasp hook will do better than a game that has slown burn intrigue without any kind of hook not that slow burn intrigue is bad, but you need to hook people to make them care

A tabletop RPG involves a lot of mental abstraction. You're imagining things. When the GM describes a small village, a lot of things are glossed over unless the GM is literally a tolkein tier description autist. Having a set of stereotypes to fall back on is not necessarily bad, because it allows people to be on roughly the same page when things are not described in detail.

By taking things out of a setting that the players would be familiar with AND by creating a cultural melange, you are removing
>the ability for players to easily picture the setting
>the ability for players to immeidately grasp certain cultural traits of the setting

It is entirely possible to create settings that are a cultural melange, but doing it well requires more thought in how you describe things, more consideration of the setting and the implications of details, etc. If you are combining things in a novel way, you need to illustrate some of the novelty of the setting to the audience. It is easier to do this in every other medium, because players in tabletop RPGs are not here for a worldbuilding prologue type cutscene that shows the legal system of china transplanted onto rome.

And because I know who started this thread, I think it is important to also say that no, the answer is not >"autistically describe every little detail and loredump on the players".
You'd do that, and then you'd wonder why players bailed on your game. The answer is, indeed, to be a better worldbuilder and a better writer/gm/describer of things.

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>>94406894

It was an experiment. Some experiments just do not work out.

>>94406902

>the ability for players to easily picture the setting
>the ability for players to immeidately grasp certain cultural traits of the setting

Yes, these are key. For example, if players are told that there is a fantasy Japan place, they can easily picture that it has samurai, ninjas, katanas, and the like.

>>94406938
>Yes, these are key. For example, if players are told that there is a fantasy Japan place, they can easily picture that it has samurai, ninjas, katanas, and the like.
way more than that.
architecture and buildings, landscape, economy, legal system, poor and rich clothing, jobs, religion.
EVEN IF THEY ARE WRONG ABOUT IT and using a set of basic stereotypes, they at least have a coherent picture.
And then if you start riffing on mythological and historical characters, that's also going to be confused. That's also a problem if you're drawing from mythology or history where people don't have a good grasp of it.
eg, three kingdoms china, or the vedic myths in the ramayana. I could write a good story that uses either, but players won't have the same easy grasp of character archetypes because the average westerner knows "uhh... shiva's got arms? hanuman's a monkey... and ganesh has the elephant."
they don't know who parvati is, nor do they know the majority of ganesh's purview, or the moral ideas involved.

Trying to base a game without a frame of reference that your players know is difficult. Trying to do it when you are - and I'm being frank about OP here - autistic enough that you straight up don't get how normal people think?
that's a tall fucking order, and you should stick to what you know you can do.

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You're running into the Total War problem. Total War is a (semi)-historical game, but most Total War players don't care about history. They want to self-insert as their ancestors and "fix history to how it should have been," experiencing vicarious success and forget their own failures through the game. Most players are European, and thus they want to self-insert as European, and non-European elements are worthless to them. They do not care about things in a non-European focus. If you do not give your players the views and aesthetics they want, they will leave and find someone who WILL accommodate their desires. Rule Zero may be the GM is always right, but Rule Negative One is the GM has no game if he has no players.

>>94406709
Players need something to relate to
It's hard to relate to something you don't know much about

Try biting off a little bit less next time. You attempted a lot without a lot of experience to go with it. Take small steps from your comfort zone instead of plunging right into the deep end.

>>94407017
>the average westerner knows "uhh... shiva's got arms? hanuman's a monkey... and ganesh has the elephant."
>they don't know who parvati is, nor do they know the majority of ganesh's purview, or the moral ideas involved.
I've played Fate/Grand Order. Parvati's the goddess of being a good wife, right? Basically Hera if Zeus didn't cheat on her every five minutes

>>94407107
>Players need something to relate to
MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE need something to relate to

>>94406697
If a particular method of designing your games isn't having the results you want, try a different method.

>>94407858
This. It's why the most popular media is completely divorced from what the audience recognizes.

>>94406697
Why? Do you think any of this will make the game more fun for your players?

>>94406697
that reads like tryhard autism
if you want to move away from western european, start small.
Make some games in something like 1 fictionalized version of a single ancient culture, add weird fantasy elements as you go, either because they fall naturally in place, or because they simplify history in a way that happens to be very convenient.

Don't just dump a bunch of names and minutiae all at once (whether they're locations, characters, traditions or anything else).

>>94406697
This thread was generated by an AI engine
None of this is a record of real, actual situation

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If ever I do another homebrew setting, which is unlikely, by this point (because I might as well just stick to premade settings), I will try to abide by certain principles:

• All names are in English, with no obvious loan words like "samurai," "katana," "qipao," or "rajah." All names, from place names to people names. This is to be strictly enforced, even for PCs.

• No nations, organizations, or polities whatsoever are specifically themed after a certain real-world culture. One NPC might be in a flouncy, Victorian-esque dress, the NPC next to them may be in a "silken robe" that just so happens to look like a kimono or a hanfu, they might be siblings born and raised in the exact same city, and there is absolutely nothing unusual about what either is wearing: all while both are eating chicken tagine in a Mughal-style palace.

Is this a workable idea?

>>94407970
What does any of this have to do with exploring dungeons and acquiring treasure to turn into magic items?

>>94406709
Your theming is probably just vague.

I ran a post-apocalyptic (quest) in a wuxia setting and had absolutely zero trouble because everyone participating knew exactly what to expect.

I wouldn't discount most of these criticisms. Try to find a theme, aesthetic and naming sense if you want people to buy in. If it's culturally alien to them, provide naming conventions, norms etc prior to getting them to make any creative decisions.

>Major Setting Inspirations
>• Genshin Impact
>• Honkai: Star Rail
>• Ex Astris
>• Anime-adjacent fantasy in general
>• Paizo’s Pathfinder and Starfinder
>• MCDM’s timescape, down to the very concepts of the timescape and UNISOL
why would your players need to know this? what do they even get from this? Even through the game you keep referencing your inspirations as if there was any value to it.
It just breaks the immersion and makes you look like a hack.

>>94406697
This (>>94406902) guy is correct.

People need a firm base to stand on to picture and understand the world, and some guy across a table describing a place is probably one of the worst ways to establish such a base. The art is in comparisons to what is familiar to them, though vomiting a pile of similes at your players will make you look like an 11 year old.

Rather, your descriptions should highlight the things familiar to the players, along with the familiar to the characters. The former for the purposes of igniting some neurons in the heads of your players, the later for getting them into the headspace of someone who lives in an unfamiliar world. A barrage of foreign ideas will get most people to tune you out quickly.

Personally, I would recommend starting your players out in the boonies, and keep the descriptions of what life is like light (as far as a setting primer is concerned). That way their bumbling around in a foreign world is somewhat in character, as wanderers drawn in from some backwater with little culture to speak of. It also grants an in-character excuse for NPCs to provide supplementary details about the world, to keep players in the game and up to speed.

>>94407981
Nothing, OP is a faggot trying to shoehorn some faggy political shit

>>94407988
Genshin is a terrible inspiration because it's already a big pile of puke from someone swallowing every aesthetic and design philosophy of the most successful 10 MMOs of the last decade

>>94407413
>I've played Fate/Grand Order.
lol

>>94408016
dude, OP also listed
>• Anime-adjacent fantasy in general
your inspirations can't get shittier than that

>>94408025
To be honest I only half-read his post, it's probably best for him I didn't put in the effort or I'd have more to say about his dogshit setting

>>94408016
OP crossposts all his threads to reddit because he craves enrichment, and among his posts on reddit is literally "I want to copy this storyline from genshin into my ongoing tabletop game because it made me feel feelings".
OP's colossal faggotry is an outlier the likes of which should be put in a lab and studied.

>>94406697
So, did you actually talk to your players to get their buy-in? Or did you just dump your dumb weeb shit on them session 1 and get mad that they didn't know all about the game world immediately?

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>>94406697
By your own admission you just mishmashed things together, perhaps with little thought to how your players might actually engage with it. Ultimately its your players that need to be into the setting, not just you. Incidentally, if you aren't even a fan of the setting there's no way your players will be engaged. So assuming that you are a fan of the setting you made, what was it that you thought would be super cool about it?

Players ultimately don't care about how clever or intriguing a setting is. Character driven narrative is always king, both in the form of cool NPCs, but this also manifests for players with how easily they can come up with cool ideas for PCs. A setting is especially good if they can easily come up with character ideas which are either not possible in other settings or harder to come up with.


>>94406709
>maybe the actual problem is that I am bad at worldbuilding
Probably, but few people on /tg/ are. Nonetheless just because you aren't good at something now doesn't mean you should never try and get better with time.

Clearly there's a reason you wanted to depart from 'standard Western European fantasy', so think about why that is and focus on other ways you can achieve the same thing. Rather than give up on the idea in entirety, make the players who are ultimately meant to play in that world part of the whole worldbuilding process. Let them know what you are thinking about and let them give you their thoughts on it. If they're not fans of something, then de-emphasize it. If they are fans of minor details then emphasize those more. Not everyone is going to like everything, so you ultimately are going to have to referee ideas between players just as a GM does at a table anyway.

>>94408108
you think few people on tg are bad at world building?

>>94408108
lmao that pic

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>>94408106

Yes, spent nearly two weeks talking to the players before the game started proper.

>>94408108

>So assuming that you are a fan of the setting you made, what was it that you thought would be super cool about it?
I had been running premade settings all this while, and I decided to give a homebrewed setting a try. I am a great fan of Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, and I wanted to combine Genshin Impact's showcasing of non-Western-European cultures with Star Rail's space fantasy.

>make the players who are ultimately meant to play in that world part of the whole worldbuilding process.
I have attempted collaborative worldbuilding several times in the past. It has fallen flat each time, because some players are simply not as invested in it as others (and indeed, some players practically want to sit it out).

>>94408182
Have you tried purging your brain of gacha garbage? I'll take that back. A kancolle or FGO campaign might even be fun.

>>94408182
Why would that be a problem? There's no reason that every player must participate in world building.

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>>94408137
Few are good. Surely even (You) are capable of comprehending that from context.

>>94408182
>two weeks
Time isn't really indicative of how well you were talking to the players, though two weeks is rather brief time regardless. It sounds like you rushed into the campaign. Assuming weekly games, you can only just fit in a session 0 between session 1 and whatever you played before then. I somewhat doubt you did.

>some players are not as invested as others
That's always going to be the case. I didn't suggest to do a collaborative worldbuilding project, that requires a particular kind of group, but just to consult the players. It's about making sure that they are interested in the game, not about them making a portion of the world.

>wanted to combine X Y
It sounds like you knew what you wanted it to look like, but didn't really have a reason for why you wanted it, why it was a good idea, or why your players should care. Do your players like Genshin? Do your players like Star Rail? If not it just sounds like you were just forcing a world they didn't care about on them. Figure out where the fun is at and focus on that.

>>94408182
Why was this deleted?

>>94408339
No. If he said "I'm not good at world building", then that's what the sentence would have meant. Proofread your posts.

>>94408426
Which sentence? Sorry your post is too vague and I'm afraid you'll have to spell out the context. I am too stupid, my english too poor, and I suffer of little literature. Please help me to correct my ways O wise one. Your help in alleviating my affliction is so desired. Truly I am counted among the blessed that you have deemed to correct my ways.

holy shit stfu you autistic faggot why do you give a fuck did your primary school teacher hurt you

>>94408426
>Proofread your posts.
Lmao imagine being such an autistic retarded faggot lmao.
Yeah the guy you quotes made a mistake, we all still understood and don't give a fuck because we're not as pathetic as (you)

>>94408470
Sure, no problem.
The sentence you quoted was "maybe the actual problem is that I am bad at worldbuilding".
Your reply was "Probably, but few people on /tg/ are."
In English, this construction has an implied clause (it's not a complete sentence on its own) : "Probably, but few people on /tg/ are [bad at worldbuilding]."
The rule for this construction is that it appends a clause from a previous sentence onto its end. If someone says, "Maybe I'm X", the construction follows : "Probably, but few people are X".
This construction is normally only used when X is preceded by not, and the implied clause replaces the "not" with "are", as it doesn't make much sense otherwise.
In this example, your sentence would make sense if he had said "maybe the actual problem is that I'm not good at world building". Then, your sentence would have the form "Probably, but few people on /tg/ are [good at worldbuilding]."

You will read and understand this correction, and you will apply it to all of your writing in the future. You will not argue.

>>94406697
>>94406709
OP I'm going to give you a tip for building up your worldbuilding skills.
Make a fantasy version of Prauge after studying the region and then run 1 game in it.

The reason for this being, Prauge and Czechia around it sit smack dab in the middle of multiple European nations east and west and so has a lot of cultural blend within it.
This combination of cultures also makes it so the setting is not to far you of the context your typical player would be used to.
Also by doing this process it allows for a more focused scope and if you want to add in a ethnic quarter for a group your interested in you can do so.
By the end of it you should of improved your skills in these matters in a productive way.

>>94408563
Do this but specifically do a weird alchemical Prague in the Holy Roman Empire

>>94407107
This is an incredibly bad cope my guy, no one ever needed to relate to Goku.

>>94408539
A thousand thanks, master. I will cherish this lesson in the same respect that I cherish your mother for birthing one as esteemed as yourself.

>>94408539
Nta but you will stop posting.
...
Seriously I keep seeing your posts with these shitty commands "you will", always ruining threads with your idiocy and autism.

>>94408589
You're permitted to live, this time.

>>94408595
Oof, close one. I'll let it slide.

>>94406697
The trouble as i see it is that you've created a setting thats interesting as a thought experiment of "what if i crossed X and Y, but doesnt have any through line to anchor its disparate elements.

Heres an example. Theres mixed eastern and western clothes right? Which time period of east, and which of west? Are we talking modern more subdued stuff? Tunics? Doublets? Silk gowns? Steamed felt hats? Conical straw hats? More importantly its modern so they have access to synthetic fibers. Why did they go the directions they did at all?

Theres no core or logic to build an understanding from, just a pile of bits so whenever a new bit shows up i have to just dumbly sit and wait for you to tell me what it is and how im supposed to interact with it

In contrast dwarves have a very well defined core of their culture. Eastern, western, polynesian, doesnt matter. If i see a dwarf i can compliment their craft and beard, buy them a drink and venerate their ancestor gods. The rest is superficial, who cares if their collumns are dorian or corinthian?

I have received enough criticism from players and impartial observers that I think it is best for me to undertake a vast, sweeping project to extirpate all of the setting's foreign names and drastically simplify the cultural inspirations, making each place more generic, straightforward, easily digestible, and easily imaginable. I should still, most likely, completely discard the setting after I finish running this one game with it, but at least this way, I can run something that will be considered more understandable and respectable in the eyes of players and impartial observers.

>>94406788
probably because he's a contrarian shit-heel

>>94406697
Your player characters need to come from a cultural norm they are familiar with. Everything interesting about the exoticism of other cultural fantasies dies when you stop having it be the external exoticism of a foreign culture.

>>94410339
Okay no games.

>>94406697
>How have you tackled this issue?
I haven't because I've never had this issue.

/tg/ should unironically be deleted

As other have said, TTRPGs are derivative by nature as that's the easiest way to make sure everyone's on the same page in terms of what is expected in-game. Novelty is a hard sell because it's unique.

>>94406697
>How have you tackled this issue?
By playing games.

>>94406697
Downloaded the file, will do a better reading later but already on page one you're making a lot of hurdles for people to even bother getting into.
>Chakra Desiderata
Doesn't roll well or stick as a name. If the setting name doesn't stick well its never going to work. If its just some foreign words with too many syllables jammed together it doesn't work. You can take a foreign word and add a recognizable word and it will catch more.
>Desiderata
is a gay poem about living a peaceful life. Not exactly catchy even in concept.
Generally, if a potential player has to sit and figure out how to even pronounce the setting name, its not going to work.
Try
>Chakra Wars
or something less lame.
>8 pages no paragraphing, no pictures, just walls of text and links
>no table of contents
>no elevator pitch or blurb of in universe description to tilt conflict
If you're going to assign homework to play your game make it exciting at least.
Just name dropping acronyms and a timeline like its suppose to mean anything is not a good start either.

>>94411366

I am currently working on a revision to the document for readability. That said, concerning these two points:

>no table of contents
>no elevator pitch or blurb of in universe description to tilt conflict
There is a table of contents in the Google Documents bar to the left, and an introductory pitch near the top. The opening mission is described in the page for the specific campaign, such as this one: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14dZNvVM1k_XAo00ujCLtE5_SdIAhenyq6n48N-c48Ec/edit

>>94411672
>google documents bar to the left
Already an issue.
If my eyes glazed over at
>ACRNYM IN THE AGE OF BLAHBLAH
before any of that, honestly at the anime references but that's a personal bias, then minimum your formatting is bad. Its more than the formatting but you've already shot yourself in the dick.

>>94411672
You never explain what AFU is or how it is reckoned, so the calendar years mentioned communicate no meaning to the player.

>>94406697
You mention a system being inhabited by "aeons or memonek", but don't explain what these are, so these words communicate no meaning. The player is left to wonder if they're intelligent beings, animals, plants, or something else. And why "or"? This doesn't make any sense. Do they take turns living there? Has the author not decided which one lives there? Does the author know what the word "or" means? It doesn't inspire confidence.

>>94410339

Here is the result of my effort to English-ify the setting's foreign names (resulting in some rather whimsical-sounding names, but I am perfectly fine with that) and significantly simplify the cultural inspirations. Hopefully, the setting should be more generic, straightforward, easily digestible, and imaginable.

Again, I should still, most likely, completely discard the setting after I finish running this one game with it, but at least this way, I can run something that will be considered more understandable and respectable in the eyes of players and impartial observers.

It is very important to me that I run a setting that players and impartial observers can consider respectable, and not slop.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yOz4XGneNs-Eb-W8CbCFHAzFBvuZApxuBq9J8pl51-M/edit

>>94411920

>ACRNYM IN THE AGE OF BLAHBLAH
I do not know what you are referring to here. I have no such headers along the lines of "in the age of X." In fact, the phrase "the age of" does not even appear in the document.

>>94411955

It is right there in the introduction:
>100th AFU, anniversary of the founding of UNISOL
Maybe I should bold the acronym.

>>94411988

This part is trickier, and something I could stand to rectify for clarity's sake. The aeons of Axis are the Path/Starfinder 2e conception of robot-themed cosmic guardians of law; the memonek of Axiom are Draw Steel!'s conception of robot-themed cosmic guardians of law. They fulfill very similar thematic niches.

I was planning on using this setting for Path/Starfinder 2e or Draw Steel! at a later point, so I was futureproofing here.

>>94412038
See those words you just typed, explaining what those words mean? Why aren't these in the document whose purpose is to explain things to the player?

>>94406697
Nobody wants to read a 50-page masturbation document to play a game that will fall apart in a few sessions, especially the adventures are as uninspired as the usual game. Nothing you've posted suggests how this will matter in the context of actually sitting down and playing a game.

I tackled it in my own game by focusing on a city with factions and adventure hooks (along the Not!Silk Road) so PCs can be implicitly be fish out of water, and learn about the setting as they interact with factions and adventures.

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>>94412008
You're not going to address any of the criticism. This is pointless.

>>94412073
No wonder they all but told OP to fuck off.

OP, have you ever considered that there might be a reason that virtually none of the stories written by humans start out with twenty pages explaining the dumb shit setting?

>>94412087
"Concerning Hobbits" is 21 pages.

>>94412114
Yes, Tolkien is quite poor at communicating information in a concise manner.

>>94412057

I have already integrated reference links to aeons and memoneks in the document, for what it is worth.

>>94412065

>50-page
8 pages originally, 7 pages truncated.

>>94412073
>>94412087

Your screen capture is of an older version of the document. This is the updated version:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yOz4XGneNs-Eb-W8CbCFHAzFBvuZApxuBq9J8pl51-M/edit

>>94412120
And you still haven't learned anything. Incredible.

>>94412120
Would it kill you to put in two columns?

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

>>94412127

I am taking suggestions. The game has already started, and the PCs have already been through a fair bit, so I am not sure how much simply truncating the document is going to accomplish. After all, the PCs have already been created, they are already midway into their first mission, they have already met a variety of NPCs, and so on and so forth.

>>94412147

It has been put into two columns. The page count has dropped to 6.

>>94412203
If the game has already started, what's the point of editing a document the players have already read?

As a player, I would find any of these "eastern" aka weebshit trying too hard to be unique type settings to be pure sleep fuel. Sorry OP but thats the truth.

Did you check in with your players to find out what sort of setting they would like, and what sorts of adventures they want to go on?

OP disappears as soon as you stop encouraging his graphomania lol

>>94412213

Trying to give the setting greater respectability in the eyes of the players and impartial observers, mostly.

>>94412278

No. I presented the setting, and asked if they would like to play a game in it. They willingly signed up.

Presumably, I should have spent those two weeks thoroughly interrogating the players on whether or not they really liked the setting, or if they just wanted to play in any game.

>>94406697
It sounds like you're really far up your own ass.

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>>94412087

I have added this:
>The Bare Minimum You Need to Know
>Your PCs are elite agents of the Twenty Officials of the Thunderbolt. Your main hub city is called the First Seahome Tower, an arcology rising from the shore of the imperial inland sea. Very high-ranking figures of the World Guardian Authority, such as Lotus Empress All-Refined Gold and Cloudborn Astrologer Thorny Waterthorn, ask you to go on a variety of missions, from investigating bizarre occurrences to hunting down dangerous figures and monsters. In theory, you are expected to act professionally, but most people are willing to overlook eccentricities as long as the system stays safe. That is all you need to know; if you are curious about anything else, such as other worlds, just ask the GM.

As >>94406902 said, doing things different is troublesome, but it can be worth it.
Emphasis on "can". What does your melange add at the cost of alienation?

>>94413126

At this point, nothing, hence why I have significantly simplified the cultural inspirations and made things decidedly more generic and easily imaginable.

>>94406697
>They have also found the cultural inspirations dissonant, and have had trouble grasping, for example, how the "home area" has Chinese architecture yet South Asian and West Asian music.
Sounds like they are looking for reasons to nitpick. Common D&D shit is a retarded synthesis of a few dozen European cultures, traditions, and eras spanning over several thousand years and have no reason to be overlapping at all, and I bet you'd be hard pressed to get this sort of pretentious nitpicking when they enter a generic "farming village" that has a tavern, a blacksmith who deals in fullplate armor and weapons that are one-size-fits-all, and everyone has indoor plumbing and showers more than once a month.

>>94413163
A mishmash of European culture is inherently more approachable to players of a European cultural background. You're comparing apples to oranges.

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>>94408182
>Yes, spent nearly two weeks talking to the players before the game started proper
I've had job applications shorter than that.
>>94408233
>kancolle
Reminder that GURPS has an official not!Kancolle character.

>>94412118
>t. retard

>>94412535
it's not just the content, it's the way you format things.
you format things in a way that clearly makes total sense to you, and your turbo autism makes you unable to grasp why this doesn't work for other people, same as your turbo autism makes you unable to grasp that not everyone likes their games to play out the same way you like it.

honestly mate, clone yourself five times and run games for your clones, or stop troubling us with You problems, because these are very much You Problems.

>>94413168
Everyone familiar with anime more or less knows how a home area for a japanese house is.

>>94412120
>Your PCs are elite agents of the Twenty Officials of the Thunderbolt.
Who the hell are they.
Am I an elite cop? An elite soldier? An elite explorer?
>Your main hub city is called the First Seahome Tower
Who the hell names their city like that?
>an arcology rising from the shore of the imperial inland sea.
Alright.
>Very high-ranking figures of the World Guardian Authority
The who? Fantasy UN?
>such as Lotus Empress All-Refined Gold and Cloudborn Astrologer Thorny Waterthorn
Alright, we're doing those weird chink names.
>ask you to go on a variety of missions, from investigating bizarre occurrences to hunting down dangerous figures and monsters.
Ah, we are the henchmen of some rich fucks.
>In theory, you are expected to act professionally, but most people are willing to overlook eccentricities as long as the system stays safe.
The system? Do you mean as long as you get the job done without embarassing your employer?
>That is all you need to know; if you are curious about anything else, such as other worlds, just ask the GM.
But you didn't explain shit.

>>94413203
No, I'm correct.

>>94413160
Then you're just wasting everybody's time.
If players are just going to do classic fantasy stuff, there's no reason they should bother reading your attempt at translating chinese poetry.
Everything else being equal, a bunch of adventurers meeting in a tavern will be better than petals of heavenly thunderbolts on a mission for the aetherial authority or whatever.

Why is there a "main hub city"? Video game trash

>>94413276

In theory, that is what the rest of the document, or asking the GM, is for.

The game has already started, though, so I do not know what a summary like this is even supposed to accomplish.

>>94413407
he's right dumbfuck

>>94412120
Its literally from the one you initially linked.
I'm not even going to bother looking at the new one, everyone else bashing their heads against the wall trying to talk you into being less retarded was evidence enough.
If you assume the players already memorized the document after playing a few times you're never going to get the point of a quick reference or just in general being less inane.

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>file deleted
>file deleted
>file deleted
Was the Genshin/Hololive/Touhou spammer dumping porn?

>>94414333
Just garden variety anime style art.
Go check 4plebs.
Weird if it even got reported, so likely the new janitor having a field day about a timing they dislike.

>>94407018
This rustles my jimmies because it totally snows in Istanbul.

Also, what does he mean by "rambard"? I assume "rampart" but that doesn't make sense in context. Crenellations, maybe?

Trying to ape chink gacha """settings""" is not going to yield you success because you don't have lust inducing pictures or 3D models to mask the subpar writing.

>>94406697
I haven't read much into the doc. It's ordered and formatted in a very obtuse way. A bit of clarity might be to try ordering it -and I mean like taking the chapters and moving them around, not in a changing content way (yet)- by importance, not importance for someone to dorf fortress reconstruct the founding and advancement of society, but in importance of a player and character. Links to a dictionary are imposing, musical choices are only helpful for the person running the jukebox (you), I used to know what 'sartorially' means but cannot remember at the time of writing.
What has happened during game time so far? Has it been playing the game, or sightseeing your original the setting? Are you expecting players to behave/recognize/speak/act/remember the entire setting document in order to proceed through the game?

>>94407970
No, making your shit all retarded for no good reason is not a workable idea.

>>94414361
>it's another "obviously unfit for the job" janny noob arc
It's all so exhausting. I'm surprised they haven't turned off images completely.

>>94406697
You are extremely dumb op.

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>>94415241

Yes, I have already attempted a renovation of the document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yOz4XGneNs-Eb-W8CbCFHAzFBvuZApxuBq9J8pl51-M/edit

>What has happened during game time so far?
We have been playing out the adventure whose hook is described here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14dZNvVM1k_XAo00ujCLtE5_SdIAhenyq6n48N-c48Ec/edit

The characters have made good progress so far, and are perhaps halfway through.

>Are you expecting players to behave/recognize/speak/act/remember the entire setting document in order to proceed through the game?
Some of the setting document, at least. Since this is a space fantasy setting with an interconnected society with internet access, I often reference other worlds and their people.

>>94407897
are you being sarcastic or what media are you talking about?

>>94418061
Anime, but he's being deliberately obtuse about oral vs visual media

Why the fuck are the posts defending OP getting deleted but the posts attacking him and saying to stop worldbuilding get left intact? And why are all his anime images getting deleted despite anime not breaking any fucking rule and being on-topic? Fucking janny retard thinks we're forced to play corporate shit like DnD.

>>94406697
İs this what totally creatively bankrupt worldbuilding looks like when done by the kind of autism that engineers (and people who still play 4e in 2024) have?

>>94406697
Tolkien's conlangfaggotry is the worst thing to happen to worldbuilders. Even he renamed Bilba Labingi to Bilbo Baggins for his English readers. Twenty Officials of the Thunderbolt sounds foreign enough. Non-English names should be short and easy to remember. Palanam > Lokapalanam. Desiderata > Chakra Desiderata. Etc.

Also very bad organization in presentation, desu. Was going okay until Setting Quick Reference, when you're immediately drowned in so many proper nouns. I stopped reading quickly. Setting (For Players) is also pretty rotten with this.

It's fine to have these in notes, bad for players. For players, should be:
- Where does the campaign start? What are major social/structural features that they'll be interacting with in the first adventure?
- What are things that will immediately impact the players' backstories? e.g. it's a society where polygamy is widespread, where half the population are slaves, where changelings are a created race decanted by warmonger AIs.

Only write these things down. Use as few proper nouns as possible. Shorten names or use English equivalents. Providing more info is fine, but only on request or when immediately relevant (e.g. describing megastructures when they come into view/you're on a mission to them). Every impulse in you is to sperg out about everything in your world; do exactly the opposite, include less info than the players want and provide it when asked.

>>94418614
>>94417881
I spent way too long cross-referencing across the document to put this together:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQTr8eUnQTFEDBh86O16h9edfsyCnM8uwCA-w6whnSMBia5aqTehq0adtbvicGK_v0yDXFIbWUZkT1h/pub

It's not perfect but it's a lot more player-facing and play-oriented. Couldn't really fill out much details for a lot of spots, since there isn't meaningful details on what this or that planet/country is actually like relative to the other ones. Try thinking of elements that could inspire interesting characters, and link them to the various constituent countries of the WGA. I used a mix of plain English, shortened names, and the actual names, using the criteria of "whatever sounded best to my ear."

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>>94418614

The campaign's starting mission was described here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14dZNvVM1k_XAo00ujCLtE5_SdIAhenyq6n48N-c48Ec/edit

>>94419116

Thank you very much for this. I will show it to the players of the game and see what they think. I do not know how much it will turn around their negative opinion of the setting, but maybe the reprised presentation will sway them.

I am inclined to favor the fully Anglicized names, with a small handful of exceptions.

The original documents' sections on dragons and VTubers actually turned out to be some of the most important, simply because one player created a dragon for a PC, while another player made a VTuber from the document-described agency and generation.

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>>94419116

Also, I appreciate your efforts enough that I would like to hire and pay you for future editing, if ever the need arises.

If people you've vetted are balking at this setting, I think you might be trying too hard with some of the superficial elements. For example, is there cloth armor in your setting? Do you go out of your way to stop players from referring to such armor as a "gambeson?"

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>>94419245

It is a space fantasy setting where (almost) all armor is force fields, so no. There are probably some exceptions like experimental power armor suits, but these are effectively magic items, not starting gear.

>>94413168
Anyone cognizant enough of the setting to ask "why would these things be in the same place if they're from different cultures?" should have that double standard just because something is vaguely European. Suspend your disbelief or fuck off instead of trying to be pseudo-intellectual.

>>94418061
>are you being sarcastic
Yes, clearly, because popular media presents a very low bar for admission. Game of Thrones is popular because people understand things like kings, swords, and sex. People don't want to hear about the different types of flax that can be worked.

>>94407970
>your response to your players not liking your vague slop setting is to double down on the vague, ephemeral slop aspects of any future settings rather than just locking down on a specific idea
based contrarian retard

>>94419116
Based contributor and EFFORTchad.

>>94406697
>>94421662
Having read through the thread and skimmed through your design docs, I am stupefied by the sheer amount of baffling design choices. From the mishmash of aesthetic choices, thrown together without any real thought, to one of the most boring space fantasy settings I've ever seen.

1- I'm not the largest weeaboo, but Anime fantasy CAN work for a ttrpg, it just requires buy-in from all the players, and the setting itself to account for the inspirations and aesthetic. Gacha fantasy is literally the most low effort garbage in this subgenre- consider games like Chuubo's, BESM, the newer edition of Sword World, etc. Hell- even hacks of an already existing system, like CATastrophe can work with anime inspiration. You simply chose the worst version of anime fantasy to be inspired by. Gacha, 99% of the time, has the opposite of inspirational world design, in favor of focusing all in on character design, to sell PNGs.
(Cont.)

>>94421996
2- You can absolutely throw in cool shit that you think is badass into your setting, like the virginvschad_worldbuilding.jpg meme that gets reposted in image threads on this board. However, it all needs to be placed with even the faintest consideration of the greater setting. How, exactly, did the setting evolve to have the specific eclectic fusions of culture, ethnicity, and aesthetics? There is literally no throughline between any society presented and how they ended up in the present day. I'm all for humanity coming from somewhere other than earth, or even just renaming Earth, but there is no explanation, even just an offhand one, for WHERE all these cultures evolved. It's impossibly improbable that they popped up after an intersolar society seeded the world, if that is what happened, especially within such a small time period. So where did these Chinese Akkadians pop up from? Are they an inexplicably indigenous strain of humanity that evolved concurrently with thousands of other worlds at the same time? Were they seeded there as some kind of wacky social experiment? A LARP by the owner of the portal/colony ship? (Or did they actually evolve entirely concurrently within different timestreams, and the 'Timescape' references something like GURPS Infinite Worlds' worldlines?)

I realize that the number 1 worldbuilding tip is "don't put anything in your setting that doesn't matter to the players" but this is a flat out lie. YOU, THE GM, need all this so-called extraneous bullshit fluff behind the scenes, to add to the verisimilitude of your setting.
(Cont.)

>>94422001
3- You unironically picked both the most boring and restrictive period of the history you gloss over, as well as chose the single most boring faction to have your players obey. I realize that most gacha games exist in a "comfy" fantasy world, but it's antithetical to most accepted facts of game design to have your players start off:
-Working for the World Government (Who works for the Space Government) in the most peaceful era yet.
-Acting as the big dick enforcers for the Space CCP/Ming. (But they're actually wholesome chungus state paramilitary, I promise!)
-Existing RIGHT AFTER THE MAIN CONFLICT OF THE SETTING CAME TO A CLOSE.

If you want to run a comfy game, you don't need to make the world overly safe and boring with all the conveniences of the modern age with barely any of the problems, you simply need to master the vibes of your setting. (I use this word entirely unironically- take inspiration from something like Over the Garden Wall, which has a sometimes-dangerous setting, but is comfy through and through.)
(Cont.)

>>94422006
4- You focus on every worldbuilder's first trap- the nounsnounsnouns phenomena. The concepts presented by the world are not either:
-given a stereotypic base for players to work off (eg: space japan, space america, etc)
-given a proper in-universe knowledge base to work off

So many places, things, and people are tossed into the setting, with no actual context. For example:
>YOU ARE HERE: Second Founding Member, the Second Most Powerful, and the Most Populous: The Coveted Wheel, inhabited primarily by humans and elves, whose system-wide superpower is the World Guardian Authority, ruled by Lotus Empress All-Refined Gold (image here), advised by Cloudborn Astrologer Thorny Waterthorn (image: Huohuo from Star Rail).

>Primary Export: The alchemical potions and pills necessary for augmentations in utero.
>Capital World: The Beakfish Ball, also known as the Languid Turtle.
>Primary Export: Plaustrite (image here), a gravity-manipulating mineral.

>Imperial Heartland Supercontinent: The Earthborn Lotus, in the southern hemisphere, consisting of multifarious arcologies (image #1, image #2, image #3, image #4; image #5, image #6, image #7, image #8). It has no king or queen; its archdukes and archduchesses, such as the biotechnologist and cryomancer Shining Springtime (image here), archduchess of the imperial inland sea, answer directly to the Lotus Empress and the Cloudborn Astrologer.
>Capital Arcology: The First Seahome Tower.

>Other Supercontinent: The Red Continent, in the septentrion, ruled by King Merry Great Work, whose Careful Kingdom has been vassalized.
>Capital City: Stubborn Serenity (image of its plaustrite deposition district #1, image of the same district #2).

>>94422012
None of these nouns are given proper context, save a few. Why does the unobtanium even matter in the broader setting, enough for it to warrant a spot in the civilization profile? You have a lot to say about the tech of the setting, and the governance of the Space CCP/Great Ming, but most of it is just namesnamesnames that only SUGGESTS at having a proper world. A world like Golarion can only pull this off on occasion because it has literal decades of worldbuilding, Adventure Paths, and setting gazetteers. You are quite literally just starting out with this world. You need more directed, focused effort, and to know what to keep, edit, or cut, to pull the setting together before you can even bother trying.

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>>94419284
Unironically write a book. Players are simply not going to appreciate what you've built unless they're a group you've carefully assembled and groomed for years. Your players are not here to wonder at the massive Soninke-inspired mud-parlors that are filled with sarong-wearing dusky beauties who each know a single syllable of the secret name of God, sipping at fingers of trakal while plotting the death of empires. They do not know nor care what any of those words mean.

They are here, first and foremost, to play a game. Everything else is set dressing FOR that game. The more 'unique' your setting is, the more mental effort it takes for your players to place themselves within it. If I ask you to imagine a wide fortress made of sturdy grey stone, you can picture it intuitively. If I ask you to picture a Ureng song-structure formed from flowing wind solidified into something almost solid, each angle echoing with the hymn-souls of the singers who died to bring it into being... you're going to ask me what the fuck I'm talking about. If I go on a ten minute tangent about how the Ureng have unnaturally strong souls which they can manifest into blah blah blah blah you're going to start tuning me out. You don't care about any of this, you just want to play!

Your players are extending you a courtesy by existing within your setting. You extend them the same courtesy by starting them off with something familiar and lowering them into the muck bit by bit. As their buy-in and their suspension of disbelief increase you can start introducing more fantastical and less stereotypical aspects of your story.

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>>94422006

I have not set out to run a "comfy" game. I have, however, set out to run a game wherein the home planetary system starts off peaceful but then gets beset by all sorts of weird disturbances from within and without.

I like the PCs being in an official position, because I find it more verisimilitude-preserving than PCs being pseudo-vigilantes.

>>94422017

Are you saying that I should more thoroughly expound on the ideas presented here? Others were saying that the document were too long, and were kind enough to truncate the setting as per here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQTr8eUnQTFEDBh86O16h9edfsyCnM8uwCA-w6whnSMBia5aqTehq0adtbvicGK_v0yDXFIbWUZkT1h/pub

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>>94422072

I did specifically set out to significantly simplify the cultural inspirations in the 1.5 version of the setting.

Most likely, I should just stick to premade settings. I am fairly well-versed with a number of them, especially Eberron, which I can run instinctively.

If ever I do try my hand at another homebrew setting, though, I am considering either the method here >>94407970 or the method here >>94417854.

>>94422102
>I have not set out to run a "comfy" game.
I apologize, but the setting reads that you were writing it way. Even if it wasn't intended.
>I have... without.
It's better, in that case, to start small and end big. Have the players end up as 40k Inquisitors, rather than start as them. This isn't a Rogue Trader or Only War game, your setting isn't really aligned with starting as the not-Gestapo.
>I like...official position
There are better ways to do this. In a 'standard' fantasy game, you would have the players join the town guard or some kind of irregular militia. In a 'standard' sci-fi game, you would similarly keep their focus small to start with. Science fantasy, especially something that draws from planetary romance, always needs to consider that planets are fucking gigantic, and the administration of world-spanning governments are similar.
>>94422102
>Are you saying... ideas presented here?
Not necessarily for the players, but for yourself. There aren't enough logical throughlines for you to properly explain the world to the players, or edit the less appealing parts of your setting, and know what to present to the players in the final player document. Like I said, it's the nounsnounsnouns issue, where you have your own ideas but don't properly explain them.

There is a reason that Pathfinder APs have the actual path books, and then the player's guide. Or Gazetteers and then player handouts for the reason. You need to do the building of the world to truncate it for presentation. This world feels half-finished.
>>94422167
>Most likely... premade settings.
Don't give up. I'm picking apart everything, but because I've been where you were a few times, as a fellow GM who's run a few flops.
>If...method here
I highly recommend against it. Again- the problem wasn't "it wasn't Euroid" enough, the problem is that you gave the players barely anything to read into, because it seems like you barely have anything to read into yourself.

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>>94422222

>the setting reads that you were writing it way.
I can see why. Perhaps I should have written with a different tone.

I did say that the setting was on the slightly dystopian side.

>It's better, in that case, to start small and end big. Have the players end up as 40k Inquisitors, rather than start as them.
The game is not supposed to be that long. I do not have the time to stretch out the game into a zero-to-hero narrative. It is a mini-campaign.

>Not necessarily for the players, but for yourself.
Part of the issue, which I do not quite know how to solve, is that large swaths of it are borrowed from other settings. For example, it is called the "timescape" because that is what it is called in the Draw Steel! RPG. The aeons/memonek are patterned directly after those of Pathfinder 2e and the Draw Steel! RPG. These references make sense to me, because I know these other RPG settings, but not necessarily to a reader of the document.

>Don't give up. I'm picking apart everything, but because I've been where you were a few times, as a fellow GM who's run a few flops.
I personally do not see anything wrong with premade settings. I have run and played games in them, and found them very fulfilling. If I can get players on board with a premade setting, why not just do that instead of resorting to the far more hit-or-miss method of a homebrew world?

>>94422304
>Slightly dystopian
But the nation is both too good for it to really even be seen as properly dystopian, and has a lack of any other real options in favor of the NWO bringing order and peace to the system.
>Game length
This is entirely my opinion, then, but I feel that you came at it from the wrong angle for a mini-campaign. A mini-campaign in the world would be focused on any one of the worlds, or even the supercontinents, with barely any mention of others except as flavor for a player who wants to play someone from elsewhere. Instead, they all get the same amount of focus, except when it comes to the Genshin Archon clones.
>Drawn from other settings
Entirely irrelevant. Good artists borrow, great artists steal, and all that, but you still need to have an internal logic for including said things. For example, in one of my home table settings, I have what are essentially Dracula and his Brides as rulers of a blighted, desolate land of eternal night. However, I didn't just say "look at this, it's a Dracula reference" and let that stand on its own. I included Dracula in the lore, and how having a vampire overlord ruling a vast swathe of land changes things. Everything changes everything else by its inclusion, and you need to put that into consideration, even when making a mini-campaign.
>Premade settings
Nothing is wrong with premade settings. I'm also running the ROTR AP (3.5efinder) and have run Ravenloft (3e) and Curse of Strahd (5e) games. It's just that making worlds for home games is fun, and I'd hate to see someone give up after one flop.

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>>94406697
I think the problem here is you're trying to sell your setting on external aesthetics alone. I have made some light settings for basically one-shots and while they were not Euro-Western inspired, my players were particularly fond of them. Settings should contain certain premises that are attractive to players, for example:

>I want to be a retainer for a noble who executs his orders, from patrolling the countryside for raiders, investigating corruption among my lord's appointments, representing him at the King's court.
This can be placed in your typical Euro-Western setting but can be easily transferred in most other places.

>I want to explore a "new world" that's highly diverse and unpredictable because nations from across the known world have come to extract its resources, it is thus still a lawless land filled with ancient treasures for the taking.
This mostly reminds people of the Colonial Era, but this can range from space to even the bronze age, such as being Mycenaeans exploring the Black Sea or even the Chinese exploring Southern China.

>I want to be exist during a time of Imperial collapse with no centralized control, the world is still chaotic, violent, and filled with many opportunities.
You can put this during the Late Roman Empire or any time when China wasn't united, maybe even during most periods of India. It also seems like the typical adventure party scenario to me.

I typically build my settings around these specific premises, I even built one on this board with this principle with a bunch of anons, except the premise was for making factions rather than characters to play in.

Admittedley, this >>94418614 was my approach to naming things, the map might be filled with proper names but those are usually other anons' additions. I think OP's players have problems adjusting to plain English names for non European things is because they're too mentally rigid due to not being exposed to enough neat things.

>>94406697
You do not need to frontload your players so thoroughly on the inspirations. If you've built a setting that makes practical sense, you can always discuss some of the buts they take interest in later. The mistake you made there was trying to convey all this information where it doesn't matter in what players need to wrap their heads around.

You also didn't vet your players well enough, apparently. Everyone is going you want different things, but you should have been up front that this world was going to more generally be eastern-influenced, and provided a few examples of countries that would be good to borrow names from.

Also though, your insistence on mixing linguistics has no proper use for the players. That's an overreach. If the script has a style, you don't have to say shit. MAYBE just show them an example of the language's style once, when it appears the first time, if no character knows it or its origin is a plot point.

>>94413276
>>ask you to go on a variety of missions, from investigating bizarre occurrences to hunting down dangerous figures and monsters.
>Ah, we are the henchmen of some rich fucks.
>>In theory, you are expected to act professionally, but most people are willing to overlook eccentricities as long as the system stays safe.
>The system? Do you mean as long as you get the job done without embarassing your employer?
>>That is all you need to know; if you are curious about anything else, such as other worlds, just ask the GM.
>But you didn't explain shit.
The same boring shit you do in most campaigns without a strong focus on exploration or mystery. It's a bunch of infodumping for what's ultimately milquetoast RPG shit that could have been in Waterdeep with way less friction.

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>>94422428

>A mini-campaign in the world would be focused on any one of the worlds
I wanted it to be a world-hopping mini-campaign.

>I included Dracula in the lore
I am including them in the lore, though. The aeons/memonek play a significant worldbuilding role and get in-game mentions. I just cannot figure out how to convey what they are in the setting document.

>It's just that making worlds for home games is fun, and I'd hate to see someone give up after one flop.
I have not found it all that "fun," and this was a significant flop. If I can get the same amount of payoff from simply using a setting that I am already familiar with, like Eberron or Planescape, why not just do that?

>>94422563

>You also didn't vet your players well enough, apparently.
This was also another issue, I think. I should have more thoroughly asked something like "Are you actually satisfied with the setting you will be playing in?"

>>94424020
>you don't find it fun
Then give up, I guess, it's not like recreation is mandatory.

>>94407988
Gygax recommended creating a list of inspirations for your "pitch" to the players

>>94412114
It was also written in a flowery way that was nice to read, it wasn't a series of bullet points with hyper-linked cross references.

>>94412535
I might be a different kind of autist but :
>Your PCs are elite agents of the Twenty Officials of the Thunderbolt.
What means thunderbolt in this context?
>Your main hub city is called the First Seahome Tower, an arcology rising from the shore of the imperial inland sea.
Ok. I guess there are several of those arcologies.
>Very high-ranking figures of the World Guardian Authority, such as Lotus Empress All-Refined Gold
What's a Lotus Empress? What does that mean she is All-Refined Gold?
>and Cloudborn Astrologer Thorny Waterthorn,
What's a Cloudborn?
>ask you to go on a variety of missions, from investigating bizarre occurrences to hunting down dangerous figures and monsters. In theory, you are expected to act professionally, but most people are willing to overlook eccentricities as long as the system stays safe. That is all you need to know; if you are curious about anything else, such as other worlds, just ask the GM.
Too much questions already.

>>94426183
This, basically.
End of thread.

>>94406697
>for example, the "home area" would be linguistically Latin and Sanskrit, architecturally Chinese, sartorially a blend of Chinese and 19th- to 21st-century western, and musically South Asian and West Asian
You are actually too autistic to play the game. Your players don't know whatever the fuck this means (and neither do you or I) so they default to classic fantasy in roleplay and character building. This is the same as every other kitchen sink setting with a thousand bizzare monster races that are all played like humans because simulating something foreign is highly difficult without at least a stereotype to go off from. And even then 90% of players couldn't roleplay an elf to save their life. Save your effort and think about what setting elements mean for the individual, which is the only relevant metre of judgement in this field.
I have skimmed through your updated setting document and I still can't find shit that would move me to adventure of any sort. It's all city name, year number, description of power plants. No faction is motivated to do jack shit, everyone has immortality and space communism so they can NEET it up and chill and the imperium doesn't really want to do anything within the list of the few things there are left to do in bugman utopia.
If you want to actually run a game in this setting run a tyranid hive fleet and a nuclear war through it and maybe afterwards there will be some conflict to be interested in.

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>>94431163

It is a mini-campaign, not a sandbox. I have the starting adventure in mind: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14dZNvVM1k_XAo00ujCLtE5_SdIAhenyq6n48N-c48Ec/edit

And I have the follow-ups in mind as well. There does not, strictly speaking, need to be a built-in, looming threat.

I am definitely going to dumpster this setting afterwards, though.

>>94432049
Wtf is this, there's a huge dump of proper nouns explaining some irrelevant shit and then a dumb hook that no one should care about.
When designing in the future, consider the following:
Make an interesting story with stakes. PCs should be doing something exciting and important.
Other random people they're not going to interact with shouldn't be a focus of half the pitch.
No one cares about what your proper nouns are, they care about what they convey. The meaning behind a word is far more important than the word itself. Communicate the meaning behind the words effectively. Like this part:
>Seahome coursing sighthounds, Stubborn Serenity yodeling dogs, Guarded hairless dogs, Sky Clime butterfly-eared dogs
is totally unnecessary and exist purely to jerk yourself off

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>>94432239

In our world, we sometimes name dog breeds in the format of [place] + [rough description of dog]. For example, "Yorkshire Terrier" or "Himalayan Mastiff."

I wanted to list a few examples of dog breeds for flavor's sake, so I took some of the Anglicized place names mentioned in the 1.5 document (the First Seahome Tower, Stubborn Serenity, the Guarded, the Sky Clime) and attached them to rough types of dogs (coursing sighthounds, yodeling dogs like the real-world Basenji, hairless dogs, butterfly-eared dogs like the real-world Papillon).

I thought it was reasonably flavorful and harmless, insomuch as dogs are a central theme of the opening adventure.

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This is one hell of a form of autism. OP is based for this, not going to lie. While I do laude the effort to create a unique setting and really adhere to it, I think the execution would immediately turn me off as a player. Firstly, I’m assuming this is using Pathfinder 2e for the rule set, and if that’s the case or if OP is using D&D he will consistently struggle to integrate his setting into a rule set that itself is based in Western European fantasy. One would need to use a rules agnostic system like GURPS to really squeeze the juice out of a setting like this.
Secondly, I am also an amateur world builder and have dealt with players not buying into things I thought would be a hit. As a DM you need to remove your bias and read your work out loud and think to yourself “does this sound easy to understand, does it sound stupid, is it too esoteric.” If the answer is at all yes to any of those than it has to be simplified. TTRPGs operate broadly on tropes and need to be digestible.
Thirdly, OP is on at least three levels of abstraction. Fantasy already abstracts from Western European folklore, and when using Anime fantasy resurgence as a base you’re taking Nippon abstraction of abstracted folklore and further diluting it. This doesn’t even touch your own abstractions. As a player if if was looking at this melange of terms and phrases I would immediately check out.

Absolutely incredible showing OP!

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>>94432049
>the two elite superhuman warrior squads are sent respectively to fetch appetizers for a party and to extinguish dogs on fire
Not only this proves my point but it's unintentionally hilarious. Thanks for the laffs OP

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>>94433260

Right now, at this very moment, the PCs' own mission has escalated into containing multiple portals spewing forth fire elemental monsters.

The PCs opened up a video call with the squad assigned to a similarly innocuous mission (precisely because it seemed like something low-priority, as you yourself point out), only to learn that the other squad is busy fighting off a horde of god-corpse-eating beasts.

I am a fan of these "starts off innocuous, escalates into something major" contrivances.

>>94407018
>tfw your country is so irrelevant that it almost never gets to appear in strategy games
>and when it does the voice acting is so bad that it makes playing as your country impossible without muting unit sounds

>>94406697
>Posting on a dead board

how is the setting doing OP?

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>>94439077

I will almost certainly be dumping it after this adventure. I will go back to premade settings, most likely.

>>94406697
Anon I don't want to disparage your efforts, but what you've done in this context is traded cultural stereotypes that audiences understand with a blender of ideas that prevent players from understanding them even on the basic historically acquainted levels.

The reason western medieval europe-ish is the default setting cultural context for DND, for example, is because it can be easily understood by players in context. A feudal system with nobility under kings, with knights and levied troops defending hamlets and villages with centralized towns and ports for trading won't astound players with their elaborate nature, but will also not confuse them or detract from their ability to go into dungeons, kill monsters, take loot and buy ale at a public house... I mean a tavern.

Other cultures off this default become important because of their difference and their distinction makes information easier to convey to your player-audience. You'll say some stupid shit like "He's a swordsman from the east" and the players will go "So he's a Samurai" and you'll nod-- the base context is suddenly and rapidly understood because the difference and distinction is developed from a popular-culture historical perspective.

About the furthest you can go with this is creating cultural fusions that are homogeneous. I'll use an example out of LANCER: There's a culture of people known as the Sparri; which are a tribal people on an ice planet. Their cultural zeitgeist is something of a polynesian-innuit blender, so they're tatted up brown men and women in big fur coats that have war-dances and hunting space mammoths like it's 430,000 BC. Players can still get that, they're fit together like legos; their names and place names all match.

Anyhow, in the future you might want to dial back to creating a smooth blend of two, maybe three cultures tops, veneered by picking a dominant naming convention.

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>>94406697
>Genshin Impact Natlan
Despite that boycott over character's skin colors resulting into nothing. Do you think it would've not hurt if the Natlan cast had more accurate skin tones fitting to the region and culture they're and not them just being white like they're Europeans?

What would your answer be over the whole "inaccurate skin color" debacle that Genshin's Natlan had and wa a forgotten a few months ago?

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>>94406697
>>94406788
Western fantasy is the kinoest kino to ever kino and everyone knows it. Some are just filled with envy and contempt at this fact.

>>94406697
Aside from being a crappy setting, crappy adventures are a very real possibility. Players need a lot of fucking time to catch up on all this shit you're dumping on them, and it requires very specific adventure writing.

>Dissonant cultural inspirations.
Well, yes. Isn't that the entire fucking design?