World Building Part 1: Basics

[@Leto85]

Barely one minute in and I already can congratulate you with this excellent introduction of yours; advicing people to look further than your videos because (and these are not the words you used) the world is bigger than your account alone makes me like to stick around just because it says a lot about you as a teacher and the way you are going to teach us. Between you and me, I was waiting for someone to come with an introduction like that so well done. ;)

[@valentinaamarento2523]

Absoluty love how you introduce this! It makes me really feel at ease with you. Also, (might sound weird) you sound good. It's nice to listen to you

[@cunningwolf4516]

This helps with writing too, im stuck between making my idea s book or a game, you and one other guy is the only people who describe things so i can easily figure things out

[@casimiriii5941]

cunning wolf you could try both ☺

[@ginge641]

You can write a book with just a computer and writing software. So do that. You can always just use the same world for both anyway.

[@gabrielolsen175]

So one thing that occurred to me when you mentioned a world going from Flood season to Drought season is that humans, elves, dwarves etc. probably would not evolve at all on a world like that. In fact I have trouble imagining mammals at all. So a world fitting what you described would likely be incredibly hot during the drought season due to the lack of any water and just based on the fact that the oceans are literally drying up which could only happen in incredible heat and then during the wet season it would be so humid it may as well be just as hot. Essentially only cold blooded creatures would likely survive. In other words I picture it as a world effectively inhabited by reptiles/ amphibians. Also any fish or fish type creatures would either have to be amphibious or there eggs would all dry out and sit unhatched all through the dry season only to hatch in the wet season. This to me makes for some incredible imagery. Idk this just gave me a lot of really interesting ideas that pop in my mind and I greatly appreciate the idea and really hope you do not mind if I steal it. Thanks for the interesting ideas and for the video.

[@hankrearden20]

Gabriel Olsen Areas in Asia have seasons like this. Monsoon weather gives you a dry/wet seasonal alternates.

[@Suo_kongque]

@@hankrearden20 I was about to say... This sounds like Monsoon region of Asia

[@casimiriii5941]

So a few things about your world: 1) I could definitely see people living in house boats. Possibly nomadic (maybe following schools of fish) 2) When you said swash buckling I immediately thought of Native Americans too! 3) New Orleans could could have a heavy influence on culture. Possibly a good influence for your swashbuckling dragonkind.

[@hankrearden20]

David Craft Or a Polynesian like culture, which had a maritime aspect. Others, which have been done before, would be a Mediterranean like society.

[@macrocosmcat6920]

Reminds me of Mexico, there is this place in Mexico near a mountain. Between this mountain you have a forest, next to it there is a desert and finally there is a swamp next to it that leads to a big ass thermal waters, the catch? The thermal waters is a underground volcano and a big one. Mexico has a big bio diversity, you can use it for fantasy, also north from this place, maybe 2-3 hours drive there is a snow mountain.

[@NamasteBbooktube]

Superb.

[@Fallout3131]

Thanks, subscribed!! I just started DMing alot and my players asked me to make an entire world so ive been looking around :)

[@Samwise7RPG]

I like the painting analogy. :)

[@Samwise7RPG]

Your moon of extreme drought/flood seasons sounds neat.

[@theyellowninjadude]

You touched on some subjects that interested me. As my current campaign is set in an Oriental inspired setting of islands, ruled by a Dragoonborn Empire. The flooding and dry seasons idea sounds interesting. I'm still doing research on Oriental ships and piracy. Any suggestions on where to look?

[@ChrisWillhelm]

theyellowninjadude Wokou is the common name for oriental pirates. Which interestingly enough is a combination of Wō (dwarf, but really a derivative term for Japanese) and kòu (bandit). I haven't done anything with that just yet but if you include them I had the idea to make my "Wokou" be literally Dwarf Pirates with strong influences from the real world version. The Wikipedia page is actually very good place to start, then I would read the section on Asia in the Piracy page since they talk about piracy though out. As far as the boats are concerned, they were mainly retrofitted fish barges and and a few larger sloop style ship. The kind with multiple sails you see in a lot of pictures coming in and out of cities. as far as Piracy in the golden age of piracy that is easier to find if you are going with that model the best book I have on that is "Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates" by David Cordingly. It talks about the myths and realities of pirates during that time. I would also recommend not romanticizing them, make them dirty and filthy give them a reason for the life of piracy, what pushed them to it? Depending on how the Dragonborn treat the problem it might be easier to just be a fisherman so why are they choosing this life. If the players investigate it will give you some interesting NPCs to show a different side of the Empire. Kind of long reply, but I love pirates in general, lol. Thank for watching.

[@ChrisWillhelm]

theyellowninjadude Also because I totally left out game books from the stuff, if you can get your hands on 7th Sea books, The Pirate Nation is great. Legend of the Five Rings also has a little bit but not too expansive, the wiki sums it up pretty well. Pirates by New Dimension Games is a great reference as well (European focused, but has a lot of information about classes of ships, repair and cost which you can convert and some minor information about Orient style piracy thought the books). And lastly a pretty solid go to anytime is the GURPS settings for generals, like GURPS China or Japan.

[@theyellowninjadude]

Wow, that is great! Gives me somewhere to start. So, far the major pirates are actually military ships from the rival Khan Empire (inspired by Mongols, Ghengis Khan and the Huns in Mulan) except they are on ships! Most of them are Orcs and Tieflings with Oni or demon worshipping. They use piracy to attack towns and villages of the Empire. I was also planning on an exiled samurai turned into a bandit/pirate leader, and now captains a ship of outlaws. There is an area of islands now ruled by the Dragonborn Empire where a lot of criminal rings have grown. As you can see, I already have a lot of ideas, but I'll do more research to make the pirates more historically Oriental. Thanks.

[@wishwaswhere]

XD Flood season and Dry season. My friend that is where I live. In the Philippines.

[@ChrisWillhelm]

yup that's pretty much my inspiration on how the world work.

[@hankrearden20]

I thought the Earth was already "egg" shaped. And the tides do play apart in our lives, even if not obviously. Ursula K LeGuin wrote a story called Dispossed, where a moon capable of supporting life became the refuge of colony of exiles. I don't know if you can have a world without salt water oceans. Their are areas in Asia that have seasonal flooding without the need of dispelling salt water from the world.

[@ChrisWillhelm]

James Estrada Earth is but the more egg shaped the more spiratic weather can be when compared. Life would be different than it would have evolved on earth without salt in the oceans, salt would be rarer in general and the water would be slightly alkaline. Digestive systems would evolve to fit. But the choice to go without salt oceans just provides a unique point for the planet, to speculate exactly how the world would look with that kind of change is near impossible, so I go with the easy answer of "fantasy"

[@GabrielRodriguez-dc8vq]

I like the idea of your idea for alternating the wet and dry seasons on your fictional moon. But, how would the people survive when the flood seasons appear. Wouldn´t they drown.

[@ChrisWillhelm]

Seasonal migration to higher ground, the lowlands would be used mostly for farming. Not migrating when you are supposed to move would get you killed more than likely.

[@lightaimss]

great keep it up

[@ThatZommy]

Stumbled upon this because I'm getting ready to start a big 'ol worldbuilding project, and I'm genuinely surprised you only have 500-ish subs. Sorry if that sounds rude. But in any case, you've earned another subscription. Great video.

[@ChrisWillhelm]

hey thanks, yeah it's a small channel, mainly because I don't understand reddit, lol that's how most of the channels get big. I appreciate the sub and feedback. we did our first game in this world actually about two weeks ago, if you want to see it completed.

[@ThatZommy]

Drop Dice Awesome. I'll check that out as soon as I get through the playlist. And I'll let ya know that the Pantheon for my project is progressing smoothly and Greek-like. Thanks for putting out advice on worldbuilding, I suspect it'll help me a lot.

[@pawewiernik7269]

Great :D

[@Optimustron7125]

So ive been in desperate need of helping all my ideas to funnel into a solid concept

[@ChrisWillhelm]

I have a some more videos in the series and on the channel Performance Check they started a new series on world building as well if you want to get more ideas.

[@kevinschaaps9041]

Thanks for making this series! But I do have a question: why is it important to take the roleplaying game system into consideration? Wouldn't a world work regardless of system, wether it is DnD, Warhammer FRP, Fudge, Gurps, etc?

[@ChrisWillhelm]

+Kevin Schaaps Some systems do things better than others, or have a greater emphasis on a style of play, for example D&D is about killing stuff and collecting loot while not being to threatened as a player. Where as for the most part Savage Worlds is a bit more high action in design, Warhammer FRP is more gritty. Its good to keep in mind the system because you can play to its strengths and emphasis it game mechanics to reinforce elements in your world. It also lets you know what you can add change or homebrew to make it fit better.

[@kevinschaaps9041]

Thank you for the quick response. Reading your response, I would think you would advocate system specific worlds over system agnostic ones, correct?

[@ChrisWillhelm]

+Kevin Schaaps Yeah I do, system agnostic feels kind of generic to me. plus sometimes they don't fit the themes of a game system well.

[@Optimustron7125]

I've been looking for someone to really work with me on this