Ever been called out for your shitty worldbuilding?
No.
>>97791782No, because worldbuilding is a masturbatory exercise for me. I love wasting the time of other Anonymous users who give me feedback on my highly inspired worldbuilding such as having an elements based on the period table. I love focusing on meaningless details in my setting like the cats barking instead of meowing. I love saying that I'm developing a magic system, but never actually post any rules on how you're supposed to use said system. Even better if I say something along the lines of 'magic in my setting requires a high amount of focus and years of training, mages cast spells by inscribing the words on the air with a wand, call upon the appropriate star god to validate the spell, then cast it with a final invoking gesture', a pile of vague nonsense that isn't attached to anything meaningful whatsoever.My setting only exists in my head and will never be used in a real game or serve any purpose beyond my own immediate gratification, so I never have to fear people calling my work shitty. This board is an endless open mic night for my worthless trivia and all of you are my captive audience.
>>97791970I salute you.
>>97791782Yes, and know what? I don't care. Yes there are some weird oddities and implications, and how some things should be completely extinct or dominating, and...Anyway the point is that fiction will often handwave or overlook things for the sake of the story.
>>97791782nope i let my players world build for me. >woah what if this place was built because of a war we don't know aboutmake a history checkyeah your characters know about the war of gargant 3>what the fuck there were 3 of them? and so on and so on
>>97791970This but unironically.
Back in early 2024, I made this setting and ran a brief game (of Badass Kung Fu Demigods) in it. Encounters included a battle with a dragon mage inside a submarine filled with 1989-style supercomputers.https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cKI4l1V3CwTVA28qw_498Xp6-iRt0miSwKLwSEWlha8/editUnfortunately, the setting was very poorly received by the players (who apparently wanted something grittier, more grounded, more realistic, low fantasy, and so on), and the game went nowhere.I am thinking of taking this setting document, polishing it up with more player-useful information (e.g. what PCs could possibly be, clearer campaign hooks) and some brief overviews for the other big empires of the world. This way, I could run it for a different group of players.Should I bother doing so?
>>97791782No. Have you? How many times?
>>97792365This art is literally repulsive.
>>97792365>Should I bother doing so?No.
>>97792365Since I care primarily about the metaphysics/religions of settings I'll give my spitball take>No gods, afterlives, or alternate planes of existence have ever been empirically proven to existTwo problems:0. Caveat, I understand that things are left open to settle the setting details later to react to players contributions/actions/rool of cool in the moment1. Seems contradicted by lore, including the dream islands, rimefire being ruled openly by demons, angels also existing openly, and such. Though I lack details about them.2. All "empirically proven to exist" *really* means is whether there is a culture in which most people take for granted that such things exist, and believe the second hand accounts of people who claim to have personally experienced such things, due to a cultural expectation of such.There would be no shortage of beings who claim to have experienced the above, but the mere fact that they would be a minority does nothing to disprove their actual existence.Obviously the different factions would have different interpretations/narratives of what really exists or what each of their experiences/empirical reports *actually* mean, and then of course muddy that with demonic lies, and tight-lipped angels who don't correct mortal mistakes because of inscrutable reasons that Not-God won't reveal.cont.
>>97792365>>977926663. The >99% irreligiosity of "The Rimefire Dominion, the Eldscale Regency, and the Lunarescent Oneiropelago" doesn't seem even slightly plausible to me, due to both the practical daily existence of low dnd magic, meaning that IRL trends such as ~manifestation~ and other new age stuff would just get turboboosted with superstition and idiosyncratic religious beliefs. The Rimefire Dominion especially seems rife for all sorts of cult leaders due to being openly ruled by demons. >Importantly, it is wholly impossible to discern someone’s nationality based on their bodily and facial appearance and accent alone.For play practicality? Useful because it means you don't have to write more stuff.For versimilitude? You lost me on accent, since even when pidgins and creoles emerge in highly smushed multicultural places, dialects necessarily emerge which separate out where people are from even based on what state/region someone is from, let alone nation.This is not even mentioning body language, customs, facial expression. For example, I saw an ethnically Japanese youtuber who talked about not being recognised as Japanese when he went to Japan, and part of that was because he didn't hold his face in a typical Japanese way. It was significantly more relaxed, less tight, a bit more slack, whereas the typical Japanese way to hold your face.is significantly less relaxed, more tight, and ready to respond in the typical acculturated ways. Food for thought, things like people's grunts for exerting effort also have an enculturated, accented element. The way an old man grunts when taking effort to standing up sounds completely different in Japan compared to any Western country.It's basically impossible for cultures to not be held over from the past, *or* for new cultures to emerge, *or* for regional dialects and accents to develop in a unique way even within a handful of decades.However, the above isn't necessarily a problem. Cont.
>>97792365>>97792682if I wanted to yes-and this glaring sociological violation of verisimilitude, I could just say that there were sinister forces at play that are enforcing at a higher level of planar abstraction, the specific, unchanging, and stagnant multi-cultures that make up the nations of the setting. So there is an unchanging cultural force of the Rimefire, an unchanging cultural force of Eldscale, etc, which are headed by their own sinister principality of some kind for some reason.Then, at the borders of reality in the setting, you could have actual new cultures emerge and develop outside of the confines of this weird sinister forced-eternal-multicultural conspiracy. Then do whatever you want with those new emerging cultures that actually go into a new direction from combining the remembered elements of the multicultures.
>>97791782no, because that would require my players to remember any of it.
>>97791782Once I had a player quit the table because in dungeon involving a riddle, he failed the riddle which reduced his character to 0 HP and held him in a suspended magical orb that needed to be dispelled. He said it was "unfair".
>>97792365I will also ask, what is the primary goal or vibe of your setting? like what is the primary thing you think you're trying to narratively explore or make sense of that's driving the creation and arrangement of the elements?
>>97792666>>97792682>>97792695These are all good points. Thank you. I will look into revising them if I return to the setting.>>97792728The key points I wanted were:• Fantasy with a 1989 or 1998 level of technology.• A focus on ships and islands.• The action being contained to the physical planet, as opposed to alternate planes of existence. (I am willing to give a pass to dreams, however.)• Religion (or, more specifically, ideas about creator gods, afterlives, and the like) being unconfirmable. Just because there are angels and demons around does not mean there are creator gods, afterlives, and the like.• The very start of a world war between four enormous empires.Over a decade ago, one of my players (whom I still GM for today, and in fact, GMed for just several hours ago) told me something that really lingered in my mind. They told me that they greatly preferred settings wherein it was mostly impossible to tell someone's faction membership just by looking at or listening to them, dress codes and uniforms aside; supposedly, it makes intrigue and "team switching" more interesting.Maybe this is a decent ideal to aspire to in a setting wherein the factions are not outright nations and empires, though.
>>97791970This but ironically.
>>97791782
>>97792347Lurk more.
>>97793064Been here longer than you, chud.
>>97791782Never, I would commit seppuku
>>97793280Then you should know that /tg/ isn't just for traditional games.
>>97791970This unironically, but
>>97791782/tg/ whined about it, but as usually if 4chan hates something it's good and if they like something it's shit, and considering everyone else I've shown it to really likes what I've got going on for the system, it's not shitty worldbuilding, it's great, because I made it to be something I enjoy.
>>97791782-Elves-Eugenic Aristocracy-Hermetic Magic-Girls I want to fuck and oblique references to Polish historical films from the 1960s.I've never been called out before because my way is the Gigachad way.
>>97791970This but post-meta-ironically.
>>97791970This, without a hint of irony.
>>97791782No, but I can tell they're think it's shitty. Not gonna change if they don't have the guts to tell me though.
>>97792365I like what you made!
>>97795836Thank you.
>>97791970This, but iron-clad
>>97792586Why?It's just a girl playing on a computer.
>>97791782>Worldbuilding
>>97791782Nobody even cares enough to call it shitty.But it has all the features I want.The year is not important; calendars have come and gone.Man found himself alone among the stars, and proliferated across the void of space, outwardly always changing, but his essential nature ever the same.Man is a creature of habit.And his principle habit is ambition.Here, on the edges of known space, there is a little grey world, erratically orbiting the second star of a binary system, marginally habitable, partially terraformed.This world is a prison.A stellar civilization flourished across the span of the galaxy, to this darkling sphere it exiled those whom it would not kill, but could not allow to be free.Those who's ambitions threatened The Imperial Peace were consigned to toil in obscurity at the edge of the galaxy.Watchers were set above the clouds in great cities; a race of star-people, to be their jailors.This world was named "Bia".For untold millennia the star-people oversaw the surface from unreachable orbital facilities; entire populations were shipped out to this barren rock, and worked to their deaths mining rare elements.Eventually, the star-people became too comfortable, and withdrew to politick among themselves, leaving Trustees behind to act essentially as autocrats.Eventually, contact from the outside galaxy began to peter out.There were wars, and rumours of wars.One day, the shipping orders ceased, and a great silence began to blossom in the heart of the Empire.The star-people began to fight among themselves about what to do in the face of this impending disaster, and their orbital cities exchanged fire, crippling each-other, and unintentionally, ruining their own ability to exert control over the surface.Down on the planet itself, is where most of our action takes place.Currently, the star-people have been warring for about a century, but it's mostly petered out, but for the odd nuke or salvo of laser fire being exchanged in orbit.
>>97791970This but also OP’s gigachad
>>97791782My worldbuilding autism is extensive, but so far it's all been kept in private. I do have some (non-RPG) plans for it in the future, so time will tell what people think of it, but ultimately I just do it because I enjoy it.
>>97797668>Making your own system>You actually want your players' characters to feel like they fit in the game instead of them bringing bugs bunny, doomslayer, Goku, and a xenomorph to your low fantasy gameWorldbuilding is an important part of running a game. The only reason you wouldn't is if you're a lazy little faggot who runs premade settings, and in that case you shouldn't be a GM.
>>97798743The surface of Bia is a chaotic mess of micro-polities springing up and absorbing one another.Up until recently, the city-state networks that were established under Trustee rule were the uncontested powers of the surface; these supplied raw materials to the Star People in orbit, in exchange for privileges such as being allowed to essentially enslave less cooperative populations, and for their surface complexes to be tolerated to grow in sophistication.The other sort of "civilization" evident on Bia is that of the Hill people, "Highlanders" or "Clans".These are, for want of a better term, permanent insurgent populations, heavily entrenched in the wildest parts of the world.These people practice subsistence agriculture, have thriving traditions of raiding, and sophisticated "cottage industry", and have been shaped by the paucity of resources and constant threat of eradication, into disciplined, ferocious and inventive survivors; they spend a lot of time warring amongst themselves, and the soldiers of the Overseers frequently have them on the backfoot, but their population is greater than many suspect, and they have hidden fortresses and centers of manufacturing and learning deep in the mountains, where they are ruled over by kings who claim they have "star-blood." and are purported to possess the powers of The Star-People.Besides that, there are also cultists, who are star-people obsessed religious zealots who live secretly inside City-states or in their own hidden wilderness strongholds.And there are also Rievers, who are like the Clans, but more nomadic and mad-max-oriented.Setting also has "magical powers" that are actually the manipulation of ambient nanomachines - only star-people and their descendants have the genetic code that nanomachines respond to; Star-people are orbitally adapted humans, who tend to die quickly under planetary gravity, but sometimes they live long enough to sire children, or have their genetic "put to use".
>>97791782Last time I posted mine it didn't exactly go over well
>>97798814Truth nuke.
>>97791782Most people who have commented on my autistic worldbuilding project have been pretty positive about it thouhg it no doubt has tons of room for criticism.
>>97791782good worldbuilding is just autistic nonsense the writer cares about and a wizard did everything else.bad worldbuilding is autistic nonsense the writer doesn't care about but some cunt on reddit said was needed for good worldbuilding or the guy clearly didn't jerk off before writing and is piss foresting his way through this.
>>97799880This looks very cool, if maye a bit too crowded with locations, I wouldn't mind reading a bit about it
>>97791782No, if my players hated my world so much they can gm or bring up specific point.How argent and doushey does a player have to be to complain about a gm's world. If you arent magical relm pervy self inserting constantly they get what the get or they can run something better
>Ever been called out for your shitty worldbuilding?For games no. Standards of world building for the people I typically play with are low and I tend to just focus on the main motivators of conflict and stuff relating to tone for the adventure when I am running games. I tend not to go deep for original works, and my players usually deeply enjoy worlds inspired by IP they watched as kids/teens so I am usually just adding or subtracting elements to make it work for the game. HOWEVER, I mainly world-build more seriously my other hobby of writing. I mainly write sword and sorcery stuff but in the past tried very hard (and failed at) writing epic fantasy. What little I have shown on /lit/ was universally hated. I also generally know for a fact the vast majority of my work is shit, like really really shit, but feel compelled to keep trying anyway, if nothing else then to get some of the clutter in my head from daydreaming all the time out. My main problem is that I write almost totally plot driven stories and generally don't flesh out characters, and pacing is also a issue. Writing pulp/shorter stories forces me to work on and fix my problem with pacing, but has made my character work worse. Progress is also quite slow. I usually only get around 1000 to 2000 words down a week, with almost all of that being done on my days off from work. So major revisions are agonizing since it means cutting or modifying weeks or even months worth of effort. Yeah, in general I am a ultra shit writer all around, and I often question why I even bother.
>>97801068it is so fucking ass to talk about your stuff online because some fuckwit not giving a shit about theme will go "but uhh dont you know FTL is impossible and that form of life isn't in the science book?"Fuck me for wanting to do some Charles Stross type posthuman space opera craziness I guess
>>97801204Online critique is terrible as 90% of the time it is someone trying to control you and make you do what they want you to do. I realized this because their sense of realism suddenly goes away when something they fetishize gets involved. How convenient.
>>97798814>>You actually want your players' characters to feel like they fit in the game instead of them bringing bugs bunny, doomslayer, Goku, and a xenomorph to your low fantasy gameI would probably punch someone who tried to shoehorn a furry hegemonic fandom species into any of my stuff.
>>97801222It's worse. A lot of times it's just someone who hates the whole category of thing and is shitting on your stuff not because of anything in particular to your work but because they hate the whole genera and anyone who makes it.
>>97801276its worse than that. A lot of times the person shitting on your stuff is just a retard.
>>97798814>You actually want your players' characters to feel like they fit in the game instead of them bringing bugs bunny, doomslayer, Goku, and a xenomorph to your low fantasy gameyou say this like its a bad thing, but my last game had someone pull up in a ford ranger and we still had a good time
