I recently came across "30 Days of Worldbuilding," a step-by-step guide to top-down world design. Obviously this guide won't give you a deep, vivid world unless you put the effort forth to create one, but it will help you in not missing major details and keeping everything consistent.I know /tg/ enjoys collaborative efforts, but I thought rather than making a collaborative world, we could have one thread each day for the next thirty days, in which elegan/tg/entlemen could share resources relating to the topic at hand, and work on their own on the actual details of their worlds. In other words, we could work on our own worlds, but hang out and toss ideas around. For instance, if fantasy races are being discussed, someone might post articles on fantasy races, links to folklore and lesser known mythological beings, etc.The first day relates to climate and variety, and the link can be found here: http://www.web-writer.net/fantasy/days/days/01.htmlThe exercise is in the next post. Resources will be in the post after that.
>Today's exercise:>Get out a map or go to an international website like National Geographic. Look everywhere. Antarctica. Saudi Arabia. The rainforests of Brazil. The rainforests of Central California. Look at how the different climates behave and appear.>The first fifteen minute exercise is to write down all the different climates you can think of-- if you need to just say a city name, do it. Sometimes "Seattle" is more evocative than "northern damp temperate climate." Write these names down in a list.>Then, go through that list and write one or two words that describe how that climate, either the word itself or the way the place itself may have made you feel, if you've been there before. Try to stick to abstract adjectives; emotional words, if you can, but nouns are also okay.>Put this list in your notebook. Tomorrow, you'll really need it, so keep it handy.
>World Climateshttp://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/climate.htm>Climates of the World - Climate-Zone.comhttp://www.climate-zone.com/>20 Amazing and Unusual Weather Phenomenahttp://listverse.com/2008/04/19/20-amazing-and-unusual-weather-phenomena/(Yes, I know the difference between weather and climate, but these things could be more common or more prominent in some places in your setting than they are in reality, or inspire unusual clients that don't really exist.)>Oregon's Unique Climatehttp://www.oregonphotos.com/pagetwentyone-Q.htmlOregon is weird.
today is my prep day, I have been working on my setting for 2 years now, and I have to say, this seems like a really useful and good idea for new DMs or GMs what ever you want to go by.
>>19302153Thanks!
I approve of this thread.
>Sailing Stones of Death Valleyhttp://planetoddity.com/the-mysterious-sailing-stones-of-death-valley/>Libyan Desert Glasshttp://www.temehu.com/libyan-desert-glass.htm>White Deserthttp://planetoddity.com/white-desert-beautiful-and-still-undiscovered-nature-reserve-in-egypt/>Salar de Uyini - The World's Largest Salt Flathttp://planetoddity.com/salar-de-uyuni-the-worlds-largest-salt-flat/
>17 of the world's strangest natural wondershttp://www.gadling.com/2010/04/09/17-of-the-worlds-strangest-natural-wonders/>Top 5 weirdest natural formationshttp://news.yahoo.com/blogs/wanderlust/top-5-weirdest-natural-formations-002914292.html>13 of the Biggest, Stranges, and Most Devastating Sinkholes on Earthhttp://webecoist.momtastic.com/2008/08/26/incredible-strange-amazing-sinkholes/
>Biomes of the World (READ THIS, IT EXPLAINS WHAT CAUSED CLIMATES TO BE WHERE, AND WILL MAKE SURE YOU DON'T HAVE A DESERT NEXT TO AN OCEAN FOR NO APPARENT REASON AMONG LESS OBVIOIUS CLIMATE-RELATED PROBLEMS)http://www.thewildclassroom.com/biomes/index.html>Climate Controls (SAVE THIS FUCKER. IT IS YOUR BIBLE WHEN IT COMES TO CLIMATE.)http://rhsweb.org/slovelady/AssignmentsIntSci1-2/Climate/ClimateControls.pdf
So, is anyone actually working on this now?
>>19302386I am!
>>19302377 here.I know it says to start with climates and figure out a map later. I actually agree. Thinking about climate now will allow you to create a map conducive to all the climates you want to exist in your world.
>>19302386I will do it tomorrow as it is still the 30th here. I'd like to do this within a month exactly.
>>19302422Okay, but don't you think it'll be more fun to do it along with /tg/?
Less specifically related to one day, and more related to the project as a whole:http://www.ljcohen.net/resources-wiki.htmlTiddlyWikiWrite, an expansion on TiddlyWiki, is a private wiki you can keep on your computer. It's useful for the organizational aspect of worldbuilding and such things.
>>19302078shitchyess.
awesome idea, will monitor future threads, please keep the same thread title in future threads.And now for a question, how would a large meteor affect nature?I want to have a dried out ocean ( now immense desert ) and I want a plausible explanation other that lolmagic.
I'll dump some pictures of nature for purposes of inspiration.
out of the wayhere. let me get to work. I've been saving pics for years. We'll start with coasts
>>19302622I dunno about a meteor but that happens on Earth anyway.The Badlands in America are thought to be a dried up sea.[spoiler]At least that's what it said in the Jurassic Park novel.[/spoiler]
I love you /tg/.
>Hypothetical types of biochemistryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistryThis is most directly useful for fantasy races and such, but could also be beneficial for purposes of the world and its climates, since if you want to have some kind of arsenic-based goblinoid you need to have a part of the world where it originated.
Since we got a world thread up, anyone have those pics that tell you how to make decent looking maps in photoshop? IIRC it involved using the render clouds and gradient map tools a lot
>>19302622Plate tectonics are how it happens in real life. The plate under the ocean gets lifted above sea-level over the course of millions of years. Once the ocean floor is above sea-level, it will dry out quite rapidly, within a couple of centuries.
Being an ameteur geographer makes this buckets of fun.
I approve
>>19303084Awh damn, I wanted a fuckhuge explosion to dry up the ocean.Guess I could make it a fuckhuge lake instead.
Anything for those of us who favor the Bottom-Up approach?
>>19303037Google "Cartographers' Guild" and register for the forums there, then scroll down and you should be able to find some tutorials. The one you're looking for is probably there.
>>19303340This thread isn't really about that. And I'd say the bottom up approach really works better for books than RPGs, since you're designing the world around a specific narrative or character or whatever. I'd link you to some information or tips, but I don't really have any, and my google-fu is failing me.
>>19303406I thought the 30 Days of Worldbuilding was for writing some kind of novel...
>>19303579It can be. It's for worldbuilding in general. The top-down approach is good for RPGs AND novels, and this is /tg/. I didn't want to just talk about worldbuilding for books, but also for RPGs.I feel like in an RPG setting you need more "wiggle room" for the players.
bump
>>19303406yeah I'm building it around the player's actions and built-up mythology from previous games. This will be useful when I need to set up a skeletal frame for the world at large, but I'm looking for resources on more local and urban environments. Cities, towns, city-states, nations, cultures, etc. Personally I tend to use the exalted rule of 3 earth cultures minimum for building fantasy cultures.
This entire series of 30 threads ought to get archived.
>>19302377i'm seeing plenty of desert next to ocean on the world map.
>>19305223That's because of ocean currents. And sometimes because of mountains.
>>19305223I think you missed the >for no apparent reason part
This thread is good and you should feel good.
1. Bump2. How do I get this archived?3. Should I make a worldbuilding entry on the Wiki and put the sources from these threads as we go, so that in 30 days there'll be a complete worldbuilding article with hundreds of useful resources?
>>193083751. Okay.2. http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/requestinterface.html3. YES
>>19308375Can't do that third one. The wiki seems to be down.
>>19308502Weird it's down for me too. I love worldbuilding, I'd love to have a 1d4chan page about it.
>>19309035bump
>>19302078I'm trying to visit your link but the site won't load at all. Anyone else having this problem?
>>19312117Yep. Really hoping it comes back, I've been having setting issues lately and this sounds really good.
>>19312200Wait, literally just came up for me. Cool.
OP here. Do we want to start the second day in this thread?
>>19313923Sure. Autosage is still a long way away, so we might as well.
>>19313923yes
>What role do you anticipate weather playing in your story? Do you have a lot of travel that you want to complicate with bad storms? Are you going to snow in your mighty heroes? Will there be a mighty battle, determined by sudden flooding? You actually don't need to know right now. Your exerise for today is to jot down ten plot devices that relate to weather, and what you think they do to the story (for example: a snow-in can turn the mood very claustrophobic... or very intimate).
>>19313958>Moody Weaitherhttp://ralfast.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/moody-weather/>Pathetic fallacyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathetic_fallacyHilariously enough, this is the actual name of things like using the weather to represent someone's emotions.
>>19313980>pathetic fallacywat
>>19313980When I was taught this I always thought it was meant to be "prophetic fallacy", which made more sense to me.The origin of the term is funny though. Kind of like how "gothic" design isn't now a term of condemnation. I don't see anything wrong with the feature, personally.
>art guide links in /ic/>this thread for worldbuilding>drawing exercise thread in /a/>no summer classes for collegeGood thing I bought a load of new notebooks because it looks like I'm going to be doing a lot of writing and drawing
