Відео

Less food dont necessary imply that people will not procreate. In fact, it can be the very opposite since the chance of the children survival is less, more children increase the number of the surviving ones

Facts very fleshed out

nice video. pretty original stuff learned a bunch of stuff even tho new vegas has been analyzed to death. I never realized how much the ncr was dealing with its cool how connected everything is

To add to the point you make around 26:00-27:00 is that sometimes the internal division can be as small as one person and end up not leading to change within the faction. New Vegas has this with Veronica and the Brotherhood of Steel. She sees a lot of issues in how the BoS does things and wants to change things, she wants the Brotherhood to stop being so isolationist and confrontative and is seeking for a way to convince the elder to see things her way. But the thing is that Veronica fails at this. No matter what evidence Veronica presents the elder, either McNamara or Hardin, her proposal is shut down, and then the questline becomes a question of whether Veronica stays in a faction she doesn't agree with, but is the only family she's ever known, or leaves. It not only makes for a beautiful and tragic character arc, but also further fleshes out the Brotherhood as a faction, they're so dogmatic they're willing to face their almost certain dissapearance so they can stay true to their Codex. Mixing character arcs to the core of the factions in your world is an excellent way to make them seem organic, to show that, behind the cool armors, the colors or any other signifiers, the faction is still just a collection of individual characters, whose personalities are going to interact in different ways to the principles of said faction. Amazing video. The algorithm really came in clutch for me today.

Excellent video! Was surprised after I watched to see only 2k subs and 100 views. You're gonna blow up if you keep this quality up 😁

very good video!! this was a super interesting watch i even took notes lol

With Caesar's Legion, I believe that Obsidian initially wanted to flesh them out more to make them seem less overtly evil, but they didn't have the time due to the very short development of the game. It truly is the only game I can remember in which a whole region feels fleshed out. Even places you can't go to feel real because it feels like people live there, like the NCR controlled California west of Vegas, and you hear of factions that don't even exist anymore such as the many tribes that Caesar assimilated into the Legion, like the Hangdogs or Twisted Hairs.

The USSR was one hell of a faction.

13:16 i think you mean criminal organizations can be used BY an intelligence agency

amazing video!!! im obsessed with internal divisions/subfactions in factions because they are a natural source of conflict and easily lead to a lot of meaningful events like splits, rebellions, purges, civil wars, power struggles, etc

Also it would be nice to have an undead faction that doesn't hate living beings and actually protects living people let's day from a greater threat in a fictional setting.*

agreed, where are the undead republics in fiction?? you always see more undead Monarchies but never undead republics for some reason......anyways, good video.

Sorry, went to sleep and woken up almost two months later. That's how time passes when you are a skeleton who need to wear felshsuits to pose in front of a camera in this bigoted necro-phobic world. Truly, the undead are the biggest victim of all! Anyway, since undeath and post-apocalypse are so closly tied together and we see one of the vitimized groups of undead (the ghouls) in this story i decided to play it, because i guess people like New Vegas. In a day or two i'll post a update video on my second channel so if you care about this stuff you can check it out: ua-cam.com/video/LtHXwjDqnYA/v-deo.html

I like that you’re giving ideas that can be explored in our worldbuilding process.. thanks, learned a lot!

hamza ahh intro lmao

Lord tea is my world building sensei... 🫡

I'm doing a militar fantasy novel were humanity faces superhuman crystal monsters and the aesthetics, devices and equippments are based around that. For example, instead of swords, the militia used against the crystal monsters are armed with hammers, that, although don't break the monster, they use it to toss it off since the monsters are almost weightless. Or, in matter of Shields, they use a common design made to connect between them to form barricades and are recovered in brea against the monsters lava spits.

About basing your fantasy culture on a real culture (copy/paste): to some degree it can't be helped. Your desert culture is going to bear some resemblance to real-world desert cultures because if it doesn't, it probably doesn't make sense. If you decide from the start "this culture isn't going to be anything like the Egyptians, the Arabs, or the Anasazi," then it's probably a culture which would never survive in the desert, because they aren't doing the reasonable things which the Egyptians, Arabs, and Anasazi did. That doesn't mean you have to duplicate things right down to a sphynx, bowing towards a holy city, or growing maize. But there are going to be some similarities, and that's OK. Maybe instead of living along the world's longest river, they live in oasis which are scattered across the desert and often occur in chains. They are somewhat like the islands of Polynesia, only separated by sandy desert instead of salty ocean. You'd still have some similarities with Earthly desert culture, but now you also have necklaces of flowers, and since no there's no ocean to pull tons of fish out of, maybe there are huge flocks of migratory birds. I don't think a double-hulled canoe is going to get very far sailing across sand, so maybe you do have caravans of some desert animal, but these would be Arabic or even Mongol flavorings of your alternate Polynesian culture. Or they live in the Arctic and sail ice boats, and the culture is modified for this new environment (what if the Hawaiians had sailed north and colonized Siberia or Alaska?). This culture, based on Hawaiians, is going to inevitably have some Inuit or Saami flavor (otherwise they would all die), but it's sure going to be different from any other Arctic culture I think I've ever seen portrayed. BTW, that's what I'm doing: Ice Sailors.

An example on how (and why) place names change over the centuries: There was once a slavic settlement called "Kosericz". In the process of the Ostdiedelung of the teutonic order it got germanized into "Köseritz". Later holy roman settlers (mostly german) founded a sister settlement called "Eichenhauhe". As the germanic settlement outgrew its sibling it was given the right to hold a market, thus changing its name to "Markt-Eichenhauhe". Later, after right of holding market days was no longer needed, the Markt part was dropped from "Eichenhau", as it was called back then. During the german empire (and its writing refom) Köseritz and "Eichenau" (yet another name change) grew together. Thanks to the allied bombings, the city was destroyed but later, under the soviet occupation, rebuild as the city of "Eichau" (a name change thanks to the soviets) as we know it nowerdays. Today, the district "Neu-Kösitsch", is a district of the city of "Eichau" and a reminder of the humble beginins as a slavic settlement.

Fuji doesn't mean fire tho.

Funnily enough, I feel like you could make an entire campaign for beginners out of the stuff you discuss here.

Have anyone told you that you look like Robert Pasut

I like your videos about worldbuilding and this one is honest and useful as usual. In an old D&D supplement (Martial 3.5) it is said that the more magic there is the more modern warfare is. And it is true - magic in war is just tech. But this leaves 3 important questions - how the wielders become wielders : such a power turns its wielders crazy and undisiciplined if they are not socially hold tight, like magicians in Warhammer Fantasy’s Empire. See skaven magic, see even Saruman - how the soldiers cope with highly murderous wars : it needs a lot of (hope of) prosperity, ideology and patriotism to make a WWI soldier. Bet the bannerman of a little baron runs away quite quickly in front of a Nazgul fell beast-like. To make them fight a dragon, you would need magic pervitin or captagon. And don’t ask what they’ll do when the fight is over huh. They did not need that to make fuss in the beginning… - how the environment will cope. Magic is usually like power under the form of a hidden web or currents. When you use it, it can destroy or alter environment. Past a certain display of power, it will have nuclear consequences. Sure their wielders won’t get popular in the area !

I am working my way through these videos: they are a great reference. Thank you.

Very insightful video, but PLEASE do something about that hair. I promise you it does not look as good as you think it does.

The Brotherhood Without Banners imo is a great example of bandits done right. They have a good backstory, motivation and logical methods with how they operate. It’s funny too because in the world they exist, you would expect them to not actually be protecting the weak and innocent they claim to and just to be using that as an moral excuse to rob people, yet we actually see them protect the weak and innocent, even at the cost of their own people and be loved by the ones residing in the region they operate.

Awesome breakdown of this first episode!

One way i have heard to handle bandit culture is to look at the Norse in the Migration period and think 'the difference between a raider and a trader is how well defended the folk they encounter are'. When you treat bandits as mercenaries without investiture, they can bounce between helpful and sympathetic and ruthless and self serving. Often depending on who pays better or how desperate they are.

Mt. Doom

Glad I found your channel. You have great insights.

D&D Idea: The bandits "spawn" & attack. After the battle, there's no bodies. Investigation discovers they're an undead group who's trapped there until some players release them from their curse.

This is so useful for me right now. My DND players are having different shadowy Dwarven factions rapidly pull them into their problems, because the party arrived and questioned a lot of political realities that the Dwarven people had accepted as simply being true.

I made a group of bandits all dressed like 1920s gangsters. The are in a gang called The Baddies on the alignment chart I made them just Evil.

Great video! Really enjoy that kinda deep dive

A lot of semi-nomadic tribal societies have a kind of permanent low key state of war with their neighbours. They might hire out as mercenaries or caravan guards, or run trade caravans of their own, but they’re also opportunists who’ll rob anything that looks rich and poorly defended. This is a Conan trope, but it’s actually quite realistic. Other bandits are leftovers from previous wars. A lot of bandits in the Wild West were former soldiers from the Confederate side. Unemployed mercenaries, soldiers trying to get home from a war, Japanese ronin and so on might also end up doing some spontaneous banditry to make ends meet. Even a completely lost cause can give rise to an ongoing guerilla movement, which turns into bandits/terrorists over time. In feudal settings that doesn’t work as intended, you also get bandits. Might be peasants who’re driven from their farms as punishment for paying insufficient taxes, run away from press gangs, or they might be the official militia of the local ruler who take up “road tolls” because they’re not getting any actual salary. Finally, in fantasy settings as in the real world, some outlaw societies might operate as cults, recruiting from the local population with some mix of ideology, religion and brainwashing. Or just kidnapping. Early Chinese communists, present day Daesh or Hell’s Angels are rw examples, but imagine what could be done if you’re a sorcerer or demon or nature spirit with magical conversion therapy! So my advice is to use bandits as storytelling devices, revealing how your world works and its recent history. Cheers

I always find "bandits" a bit weird in games, as historically it was mostly upper class dudes. There was a big problem in europe with sons of lords, who had been trained in the arts of swordfighting etc. That they would travel out of their family's province, and then basically extort/rob/whatever have you, to the people of other towns. Who was to stop someone who is good with a sword, it wasn't an uneven playing field when it came to these kind of things. This is also one of the big reasons "chivalry" was pushed so hard as a costum that these boys should strive to become. So the reason fantasy games made bandits be poor and desperate people, or sometimes just seen as pure evil, is a bit weird in my mind. Like they're not really human anymore. But that said, it could definetly be that the bandits stopped bigger roads, cause these are trained knights/boys who can take on anything, and back in the day, there was A LOT of feuds. People didn't see the town over as family/more interconnected, but gossip and hatred was very prevalent back in the day. (Like Romeo and Juliet have families that hate each other.) Of course people took kindly to pilgrims/people they shared their social class with, but the world in and of itself did function a lot more differently, and you could certainly get away with a lot more. It was the lord's responsibility to patrol their roads, so as long as that lord wasn't your father, then it didn't really matter. Or well, there's a lot of different rules for different places. My point being: Bandits historically were not poor, and people who don't have any experience performing combat, will not seek to attempt it either unless they're forced. Letting it be mecenaries can be smart, as it grounds it more, but then it's important to also keep in mind that mecenaries live on their reputation, so if they were to perform banditry it would most likely be done against their prior employer, as angering citizens or killing them would not really be very smart. (Who are they to trade with then for food? unless you plan on them moving a lot in the region). If you were to make it more historical, then think of it like small gangs, but of boys who don't stand to inherit anything, but have been thought by very experienced mentors how to fight, and now feel like they can go and do whatever they want. Edit: Also this is not pirates. Pirates were kinda the opposite, and much later.

One bandit faction idea I love is a coalition between humans and "monsters" (goblins, minotaurs, gnolls, lizardfolk) who work together because the humans are pariahs and the monsters just want to exist and not have their land taken or their people killed. I like keeping my monsters sympathetic for the most part, if they are thinking and sentient I treat them like people. My goblins for example, hate humans yes they absolutely do but for justifiable reasons as humans essentially enslaved and colonized them but the goblins at the end of the day have families, loved ones, hopes and dreams, they are not too different from humans aside from being short and green.

I've always thought of Adventurer's Guilds as more or less just being a Mercenary Guild by another more fantastical name. Like you say they fulfill more or less the same role, so it doesnt make sense to have both of them operating in the same place in the same manner. However I don't think that means Adventure's Guilds are necessarily a bad idea, its just good to be mindful when using them that they're pretty much just a reskin of something like a mercenary company or bounty hunter association with a more high fantasy aesthetic.

I just discovered their content and it's really great. I want to take a look at their other content when I have time. There are probably creative people who produce something on your discord server, I'd like to come to discord but the link doesn't work or is it closed now?

Very thought provoking. Makes me really think about ways to breath life and verisimilitude into an encounter type this often taken for granted.