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DM 101 - Episode 4: Worldbuilding Part One (D&D Help/Advice)
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2018
- Want more D&D videos? Come see my BRAND NEW CHANNEL: / sherlockhulmesdm
TIMESTAMPS:
3:52 - Initial Ideas
9:20 - Key Features
17:35 - World Events
25:28 - Creation Myth
NOTICE: Hey folks, I am so sorry this took so long to get out. If you don't follow my Twitter, I've had some major PC issues for the last week which prevented me from rendering any videos at all. :(
Luckily I now have a new PC at both Yogtowers and at home and this means I am back on track for videos!
WAY OF THE ELEMENTS MONK: A lot of people asked about this in the past, here's the final release of the revised Way of the Elements Monk I made for Jiutou on HighRollers:
www.dmsguild.co...
BRANDON SANDERSON: Here's a link to a playlist of Brandon Sanderson's creative writing lectures. Highly recommended reading for anyone creating a fantasy world.
• Brandon Sanderson - 318R
As always this is just MY way of doing things and I may very well have missed out some cool tips/hints. Please do feel free to share your thoughts and your own approaches here in the comments but please remember to be respectful. :)
Thanks so much for all your recent support everyone!
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Music provided by the awesome Epidemic Sound!
An idea I like is, don't 'railroad' the players, but *do* railroad the game world.
The events / story of the game world *will happen* _unless_ the players act to change them.
And, importantly, if the players do not interact with the main or sub plots of the story, then those events *happen to* the PCs and significantly change their opportunities and experiences.
Players ignoring the big bad cult to help the halfling that wants to become a wizard?
Well, since that cult went unchecked, they just destroyed the school that the halfling wanted to go to.
@Brixton Jaime Shut up, bots.
I realize it is kinda off topic but do anyone know a good site to stream new tv shows online ?
@Maximilian Julian Flixportal xD
@Kade Kyson Thank you, signed up and it seems to work :D Appreciate it !!
When you have been researching world building all week and your favorite DM makes a video about it...there is a God!
...and his name is Asmodeus?
Or there are gods
and his name is mark
Pray to the Car god
Mark, of the Dungeon Master pantheon [CG]
Hopfully I'm not alone with this. But i would benefit from you building a world with us. I wanna see the process in action and see how you overcome problems or stay motivated when your 'stuck'.
Love this series redoing my layout. Your style of notes flows alot better than mine
Actually, having a world where magic is scarce, but there's a kingdom selling magic items for cheap, that might sounds like a contradiction but it would make for a hell of a campaign, you could have them actually be abusing some magical creature and you have to set it free, or maybe they've made a deal with an evil god and he's about to destroy the world, or maybe they're the reason magic is scarce, they keep it for themselves and you have to destroy whatever contraption they're using to stop everyone else from having magic.
I will be stealing the first half of this
When you use the whiteboard, you become a genuine school/drama teacher, I love it!
Yep! The life that could have been! ;)
I tried starting with the "initial idea" of having a world that just barely exists for a year...
So... No Angels, Demons, Devils, Ancient creatures, big cities, Thieflings, half-elves, etc. cause they don't exist (yet).
Literally reading the Monster Manual right now to see what kind of creaters I can use/throw at my players XD
It's gonna be hard, but... I think they'll like it. (the idea for "end game" is that they literally become the first Gods)
Talk to your players about this thing, ask them what their thoughts on this are (are they okay with it, or do they hate this idea?), and let this idea also influence their character creation.
It's very important to have the session zero, where the GM explains the rough setting idea, players sit down to create their characters, inspire each other with their own ideas, and the GM also getting vibes of what the players are interested in (which is what their characters are about in the end - if a players plays a paladin or a cleric they obviously want some god-stuff to interact with. If they're playing a rogue they want forests to traverse, etc.).
I already talked to them, right at the start when I got the idea was at a pre-game meeting and we were just coming up with stuff. At this point, I'm waiting for the players to give feedback to a file I created a while ago on Google Docs, but they seem to have forgotten.
I'm also waiting for us to have played at least a first game of D&D before continuing the process of making the "zero hour" campaign. I also asked them what they wanted most out of their D&D experience, and most of the things came down to wanting a "heroic, exploratory, empire building campaign", which in my eyes looks a bit... hard to say the least.
If they become the first gods, that begs the question where did the world come from in the first place? Big bang? Did all the creatures suddenly appear fully formed one year ago with no creator? What of your characters? Are they only a year old, but are full adults, again with no creator? Is the "creator" more abstract but not necessarily a god... like the ether or the force? It's a really cool idea, just hope to spur you on to some more ideas.
Jasper Van Dijck in a game I am currently playing our DMs setting is chaos and evil are taking the world and the old gods of law and benevolence are being forgotten our party has been called to go through he gods labyrinth to spark a world seed to create a universe parallel to the one we’re on and govern it as the new gods but we must survive the labyrinth and prove ourselves worthy to rule the new universe
so how did the campaing go?
The way I do it is I first start drawing a continent map, since I actually really enjoy drawing maps, and as the map takes shape I start to piece things together, imagine what could be going on on the world, what has happened and led to that point, politics within the kingdoms, who inhabbits the lands, and from there I extrapolate to more continents if necessary, creation of the world, what separates the "old era" from the current era, etc
That's a nice looking white board there, Mark.
But really, thanks for the series. It's always great walking through another person's thought process and creative process. It's great for inspiring ideas.
Another good author and also a DM who runs a show like this is Matt Covile who has just started his Kickstarter for a 5e suppliment about strongholds and followers
Recommended Matt in the very first episode of the show! Great dude.
This really helps narrow down the idea of “what” to think about when it comes to a world. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed with ideas but the way you explained it made it seem really simple to take an idea and start expanding and weaving it with other ideas.
I still like how the "Dungeon Mastering 101" is on the piss
Even as someone who does not play dnd and doesn't plan to this series is great! It's really interesting to see the thought process between DMing
Yep. Being a dungeon master is a art form. I tried to write a novel once, it was shit. But how many best selling authors would be shit dungeon masters. It's all story telling but a crazy different set of tools. For the dungeon master it's our story. For the author it's my story. Still both sides of the fence could learn a lot from each other. That said I would love to play a game at a table with a dungeon master who had mastered both sides of the coin.
I have had an idea buzzing around my head for a month or two and these videos are really helping me.
The base idea is it stems from is, what if you had a fantasy world where out of the blue, a magical disaster of apocalyptic proportions occurs. Specifically, what if Kaiju level monsters show up all over the world. Either slumbering underground or portals open up, etc. These creatures are varied, in intelligence, motives, personality, form, etc.
This event causes monumental damage to the world. In one major city, 4 Tarrasque bulls and a single female Tarrasque appear. The resultant fight between the bulls over the female levels the city, with precious few survivors to tell the tale. Near a major port city, a gargantuan turtle, each foot a quarter of a city block, appears. Seeing the water, the turtle decides to go there. The path it takes however is straight through the city. The force of each footfall is enough to vaporize people standing nearby, the shockwaves alone killing people outright. The turtle is just a turtle. But just gigantic. It isn’t evil, it just does turtle things.
Here is an idea for a custom world based on the information given in Episode 3. Feel free to use it!
The world is a barren tundra, very few trees, and completely infertile soil. It has several mountain ranges that reach farther up than any normal mountain range. A blue shaded mist brushes against the Earth, moving as if alive, but never harming the party when at their feet. At times, random whispers and voices can be heard, and at other times, the mist becomes an incredibly dense fog that nearly disables the party's sight. During the immense amount of fog, the DM can choose to see if the players go insane, and attempt to feed themselves to the undead around them. The exact layout of these things are up to the DM in general, and these mist events are for when the team seems to be getting bored/if it's too easy.
There are no factions in the world, as everyone is dead, including the gods. Though the gods and goddesses have not turned into the undead, every living creature has either fully died, or become the undead, and they are still many in numbers. At times, corpses of adventurers that look a lot like the players can be found, lying on the ground and completely mutilated; they can carry their gear, or they can carry other items, that''s up to the DM. Rain is black, and if players stand in the rain for 5+ hours, they begin to take poison damage. If the DM wants to be really nasty, every hour, they can have a chance to catch whatever zombification diseases are in the game. Lakes are pure posion, and the party must *ONLY* rely on their brought water items; boiling water from any source will not work; if the DM chooses, it can make the water combust, and make rain puddles/those in the rain more flamable and take fire damage. The creatures of the world get what a normal undead gets, such as an infectious bite that can inflict the disease upon them. Literally nothing is left living on the planet, and the undead can be seen decaying sometimes.
It is found through documents that a wizard who had been working on an enhanced death spell magic, changed it in the wrong way with the wrong ingredients, and it rose to the atmosphere of the Earth to rain down upon the world. Multiple 'notes of passing' (the kind that people leave when they know they're going to die) can be found, if the DM so wishes, of people during the undead crisis. It appears many fled to forests, caves, and pretty much anywhere far away from the city. However, the mist came two years into the 'death of the planet', and snuck it's way into these caves, and through the tree tops where they couldn't be gotten before. These people caught in the fog, fed themselves to the undead, undoing their defenses, and eventually joining them. Eventually, the gods began to attempt to save the world. However, this power was unlike anything they had seen before, something so strong that not even the strongest of the gods who created the world could survive such a thing. Instead of letting the gods turn into horrible monsters, the strongest of the gods used all of his and his allies/enemies might to destroy themselves. With the death of all gods, the world was left to rot, and soon, the fog designed the world into a cold, barren place.
All races and gods the DM/players use are available to the story, though you'll have to tweak it if you don't want to use any of the Gods.
The important locations, besides the 'enhanced death spell' wizard's tower, are an exact replica of the regular material world the players/DM usually use. By default, this world is an exact copy of their world, only things had gone horribly, horribly wrong, resulting in the death of all life on the planet, and all supernatural life. I imagine one can get there via portal, but if you wish to use another way, be my guest.
Again, I know it might suck, but it's just a free idea for anyone to use. You don't have to ask to use it, you don't have to do anything, just feel free to use/tweak/demolish it to your liking. Have a great day!
@@scubasteve8953 Use it as you please my dude! Enjoy!
subbing just on the basis of that voice, rich but not overstated, soothing yet not sleep inducing. its almost like listening to a posh yet humble university professor.
Hahah thanks! What a compliment!
you are quite welcome, good sir.
I DMed 2 games of D&D this week. One was a mini oneshot I had written for my friends to get an appreciation of the basics, and the other was TLMoP. It was my first D&D experience, my first time DMing and for 5 of my friends, it was their first ever taste of D&D. They all loved it, as did I! it's all thanks to you and your advice Mark. You're doing a huge service to us new guys, I look forward to future uploads and everything this channel has to offer!
Worldbuilding is one of my favorite parts about D&D, simply because the options are limitless. The world I'm building right now has a tower that soars miles and miles into the sky, a destroyed city that is forever encompassed by a swirling cloud of ash, and a giant crater that contains the ruins of what used to be the home of a powerful mage (No guesses for what this is referencing.). Each of these areas have a reason for why they are like this, which I intend on the adventurers to discover if they go through them.
Another way to approach Key Features is through the observance of what Matt Colville calls the "Central Tension". A Theme that pervades the setting, and which provides an engine for creating conflicts. It is, after all, a Central _Tension_ , a thing that causes unrest and action. This could have a specific event or feature that affects everything - like portals that open up to the Feywild, or a crystal comet that explodes and rains down on the world - or it could be more thematic, rising up independently in multiple ways that follow a pattern.
Matt Colville often uses "Order Vs. Chaos" as the Central Tension in his campaign worlds. Cities versus wilderness, the rule of law versus banditry, civilization versus barbarism, etc. That's his shtick, and it works quite well for him.
The Central Tension for a setting I've been considering for a while now is "The Past Persists". That is, present activity is informed by past events. The Past is not dead, but merely waits to assert itself again. Old scars - and old threats - have a habit of asserting themselves in various ways. I have a number of ways this could play out:
-The Kingdoms of Anglia and Bordeau have just ended a decades-long, multi-generational war, bringing peace at last. But the new peace does not instantly solve all the problems that arose from the war, and the peace itself is fragile. The economic and social impact remains, and the scars run deep. Many who marched to war did not return, leaving many communities bereft of two whole generations of able-bodied men and women (justifying why the countryside needs Adventurers now more than ever). Not everyone who died rests easy; undead, corporeal or incorporeal, make nuisances of themselves. Many of those who survived cannot just return to normal life; the wilderness is populated by bandits and wandering mercenaries, and the towns are full of the broken, both physically and mentally. Most importantly, _many_ people harbor resentment over the conflict, not willing to let go of the past; terrorism or even infernalism may result from once good men and women who cannot let go of the war.
-Old empires populated the continent, and their presence is still felt. Ruins of the Vetrice Empire dot the land, harboring ancient treasures...and threats. Moreover, Remnant States coming off of Vetrice persisted long after it, like the Iron Empire (itself now broken into the many Metallic Principalities). Vetrice and similar empires of old was said to dabble in great magic...including both magic items and the creation of monsters.
-Speaking of empires and monsters, even older forces lie buried and forgotten in the earth. Ancient cities devoted to two eldritch factions from before recorded history: the primordial Aboleths, and the starborn Mind Flayers. The land above was once their battleground, and they, too, have remnants that persist to this day. Further round this out with the Archfey and the druids who once followed them. Many stone circles and barrow mounds dot the landscape, monuments (and perhaps gateways) to the Feywild. The Archfey remember well the power they once had, and would like to possess again.
-Centuries ago, the continent fell to calamity, first by a bloody plague called the Red Death, then by the plague's victims, risen as undead because of improper burials, and finally by an undead warlord who gathered and marshaled these undead into a terrible army. His ties to the Red Death gave him the popular name of the Crimson King, but the more learned know the name he himself went by: The No Life King. The mainland was devastated by his campaign against the living, and even the Tritons in the ocean were scattered when he marched his forces across the seabed, into Anglia. Triton cities in the Anglian Strait lie abandoned on the seafloor, empty save for scattered undead remnants, and hundreds of Tritons continue to live in Anglia's rivers and lakes.
-Even with the No Life King's demise, his legacy lives on. Intelligent undead everywhere know of his campaign, and covet the power he wielded. The No Life King became an aspirational figure, and to this day many intelligent undead are his would-be heirs. They would amass power of their own - including the King's scattered magical items - in the hopes of making war on the living and becoming the next No Life King.
Simply put, the setting is wracked by conflicts that arise specifically in continuity with earlier powers. History is not dead, but rather a record of dominoes that haven't stopped falling.
My man! Brandon Sanderson is a freaking genius! His lectures on writing explain exactly what I enjoy the most in a story. His fantasy universe is on the next level. If you could make a good campaign based roughly in one of his worlds like from Mistborn or The SLA or any of the other worlds in the Cosmere, it could be amazing :)
Helpful stuff mate. I suddenly find myself thrust into a DM role after a few of my friends wanted to try out dnd the first time which was AWESOME yet terrifying because they wanted to try it but i also dont want to ruin it. Threw together a session 1 in about an hour and am now constantly creating my world between weekly sessions.
I don't even DM, but I am really loving this series. Really appreciate you sharing your process and breaking things down, helpful for any kind of storytelling or writing. I run a creative writing group for 11-13 year olds, lots of ideas about getting them to create worlds of their own. :)
I have been working on my world for 20+ years. Set in the Realms where Bane and Mask among others have been banished (which bummed me out as they were 2 of my favorite). So I decided that the church of Cyric fractured and the former Banites and Mask followers were trying to bring their god back. They ended up opening many portals to other dimensions (dark sun, dragonlance etc) and new races, monsters and even gods were showing up. One such portal just happened to be near the Dale lands were the party had settled. Was fun to see party try to figure out Muls, feral Halflings, insufferable kinder and Lloth Tiamat and Iuz used these portals to strengthen themselves. Party ended up going all over Toril searching for portals, even ended up in a really really hot desert and a creepy place full of mist
Sir you are an inspiration and your voice and accent are a delight to listen to!
Amazing arc in the high rollers campaign by the way, just watched the VOD! Had me cheering and in suspense the whole time!
Glad you are making these videos. I have been GM'ing for a while and almost always do homebrew. Although i have a prety good grasp on it, it is always useful to get tips and tricks from others. Great videos.
For sure, same reason I still watch Mercer/Colville/Perkins stuff. Can always learn more!
i'm currently working on my first home brew campaign (steampunk style world with magic and science mixing as one) and these videos are really helpful. thank you again
This one was great for me! reminding me of always asking myself questions about different things going on in my world and to question things in parts and places coming up in my campaign setting. Can't wait to see what you say in the other parts these are soooo good!
I had an idea in which the world creation ties in to a main event in the campaign. some wizards are creating a scrying orb for the purpose to learn about the past and be able to scry on every event in every time period from the start of the world, something goes wrong and the scrying orb malfunctions (sabotage) draging in 2 high wizards . what the orb did is transport them to the beginning (before the world was created) and one of the mages becomes the creator of the world while the other one becomes a chaotic infuence (later in the history trapped in a commet) bent on disrupting the world and claiming it as his own . the passing of the commet every few decenia causes choas in the world making monsters more abundant and agressive and making planar travel easier. the scry orb itself after the malfunction actually creates permanent portals to the elemental plains in certain locations.
Just started my campaign almost a month ago now, and I have a pretty good idea of what all was going on in the world, but after watching this video, I've put a lot more effort in to the history as the timeline idea really resonated with me. Now I have a new holiday and an idea of how old my world is and the history that shaped it. Love this series, thank you Mark! (and happy birthday!)
That mew doll is so flipping adorable
Love this. Used to play as a kid and got the wild hair to play with my wife and kids. This is great for knocking the rust off and getting ready to get back into it.
Nice to have another one of these Mark! Once me and my players manage to get the PC:s ready I will be starting my very first game in my homebrew world, so every little bit of info helps :D
Best of luck!
Thanks, I'll need it xD
The kernel for the setting I've been working on on and off for years is "the world is enveloped by a giant anti-magic field" and everything is sort of built off of that.
I had a small idea of a scene where the adventurers are in a market selling illegal goods. (Funnily named the black market) A vendor walks up to them and offers some illegal plants and weapons. While no one is looking another vendor drags of one of the adventurers, essentially kidnapping them. They have to hop from stall to stall in the market try to find information to where they were dragged of to. The vendors offer information if you buy something from their stall. After 7 stalls they get enough information to find the other player.
First-world problem: Whenever I see someone giving an interview or doing a talking-head segment in front of a crowded bookshelf, I always get terribly distracted by the spines of the books. It turns out shelves full of boxed games cause the same issue. For instance, just now I spent a good 30 seconds hopelessly not paying attention because I was trying to think where I had seen the font on _Space Cadet_ before. (Answer: _City of Heroes,_ except they didn't slant it back like that. :)
Gad to know I'm not the only one
You and The DM lair are the channels I trust the most with my D&D needs
Very nice episode Mark, thank you very much ^o^ !!! Still need to watch the previous one but, I know its gonna be very helpful already :D
Dungeon Professor Mark is going to be the boss in one of my next campaigns X)
A campaign around the inner workings of the USPS could be epic :D
Hey Mark, just wanted to let you know that I️ specifically subscribed to your channel in hopes that you would make a series like this. I’m really enjoying it and loving everything you’re doing! Keep up the good work!!
Right now, I'm trying to come up with a campaign based on one word said in a video I was watching, which was "way finding" or something.
From that, I thought, "hey, what if in a world there's a guild or an organisation prevalent in every major city called the Wayfinders who allow to-be adventurers and heroes the chance to get a flavour of adventure?"
Thanks to my friends making characters to support my world building, I know what the common cause for all of the characters meeting is, which is a gang of people sabotaging a revered family's trade route.
Zero dislikes! Great episode Mark, and I love that B-roll of the DM's guide, sexy!
haha this uploaded as i was buying dice for my new group! perfect timing as ever
I love the white board Mark, Because of the amount of detail you put into your videos it can be hard to remember specifics of what you said and so I find myself rewatching bits and pieces days later, with the whiteboard i can just skip ahead and read what you have written instead of having to listen through the video to find what im looking for
Money well spent I reckon
All the episodes are helping me, but this and the next few are gonna really help me the most =)
As always, thank you Mark for helping all of us budding DMs
Have you ever considered writing a book like Matt Mercer's Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting but for Arak?
Yes, but it wouldn't work for Arrak. The world isn't detailed or unique enough. I'm aiming to do it for the next big stream campaign though.
So glad I found this video! I have been so stuck in my head but this gave me more inspiration and helped me focus again. Thank you so much!! 😭
10/10 because the whiteboard is included
Mark and Matt make a world.
I knew you were going to say Brandon Sanderson!
Awesome advice's. Recently I came up with an idea of an ancient race that all but died out tens of thousands of years ago leaving their knowledge in ruins for the new evolved races to discover. They misinterpreted the ancient texts believing that they were gods and many types of religions were formed. Through time and belief, divine creatures were manifested according to their religion and in time with worship, were powerful to grant divine power therefore Clerics rose up.
What they didn't know that the texts weren't gods yet the ancient races were actually talking about were patrons. Otherworldly patrons whom these young races were believing to be gods introduce themselves and made pacts which start the Warlock classes.
So the current world believes in nine Cleric gods which were also actually nine Warlock patrons which later infused with magic created nine Sorcery bloodlines. All from the same nine sources.
Brandon Sanderson is a beast.
That first idea was dark sun my friend...my campaign world have selling points such as, elves were slaveres/ elven gods got killed by the God they thought they killed. Another epic wars, invasions from other planes, last but not least..magic Renaissance popped up, pretty much my campaign world history had a tragic one...in the end their technology advanced magic wise...if you role play a elf, tiefling or a half breed genie you will be killed on the spot.
Thank You Mark. I was trying to find help on worldbuilding, then you publish one as I start looking for a video! What a coincidence! Anyways, keep up the great series.
Thank you for making this the next section, this is the stuff I find the most difficult, this might seriously help
Hey mark thanks so much for the series! I’m a brand new DM, jumped straight behind the screen so this is always so helpful. Also did you get a haircut since your last video? It looks great!
First off I love that Star Wars Tee
I just hit a wall with my world building and home brew campaign. This really helped. Thanks!
Hey Mark, just wanna say I love your content and the highrollers crew. you inspired me start my own game of dnd with a good group of friends, most of whom said it was something which had always intrigued them. Great! We're half way through the 5e starter campaign, I allowed the players to create their own characters and backstories, weaving them into the existing content. It's a lot of fun and everyone is always keen for the next session, which is fantastic. The only bump in the road so far is one of the players is metagaming a little. They're a halforc/dragonborn, with poison resistance because of the ancestry choice. I realise all the campaign info can be easily found on the internet. Any advice on how to deal with this and any metagaming in general would be welcome!
Good advice on world building. I do mine in two ways. One I will think about periods of history and or events I like. French revoulotion, the massacre of the Roman legions in the Tutenburg forest etc. Then once I have a list I will mash them together with a ad&d skin. Or I just draw out a regionally map. Stare at it and let a story come to me.
Oh yea the sanderson lectures are gold
So I have been watching High Rollers for a while and I wondered if you would ever give out the details of the Lightfall campaign?
Any way I loved this video please do more.
It's on my big list of "stuff to do" but it would be such a big project I am not sure i have the time to do it well enough. The notes aren't publishable in their current state.
No homework?
Not this week. The homework was waiting for me to fix various PC issues. ;)
Fantastic episode Mark! What’s with the sweat band? Don’t know why but it’s randomness bothered me more then it should!
Great series, I’ve been creating my world for the last few months and this video helped clear a few things up, cheers mate
my idea was just
guns of Icarus-"I made this"
me-"... I made this"
literally just pirates in a home brew plane that just has sky, floating island, sky whales and dragons a planty
What do you mean you made it,.... I made it......
Ok that makes sense still me and probably other people would like to know what stats you came up with. Also there are two other things I’m curious about the fiery explosion that crownrend used on cam and the time that jiuto tried to run away and she couldn’t was that just conflict or something else. The reason I ask all this is In a d&d world in which me and my friends have a few games in and one of the things about it is that certain characters from other d&d shows such as high rollers are ascended mortals pretty much gods probably more on the level of a demonlord/archfey though and with them came certain weapons and items crownrend included and as such having the full stats would be awesome. Wow this is a long comment thanks again and keep up the amazing work.
Watching these gave me a really good idea for my new campagin. One of the characters can talk to a god in her sleep an later on, she finds out that she's a demigod
LOVE Brandon Sanderson!
I wrote 40 pages of history for my campaign world including all major wars, major colonization periods, major kings, history for the major kingdoms and more for the last 1300 years.
aww yeah, the transitions into random parts of the house. unless i'm mistaken, we've not seen these in a while.
Help. I'm lying in bed hoping this big spider doesn't hurt me
My issue is, i have a general world idea set out, with nations, homebrew races, a general creation myth, ect...but i need a map, really, really bad, to finalise things so I'm not changing it constantly. Any advice?
There's a really good article on Giant in The Playground on making Geography as an idea. You can get a quick map on paper before you fiddle with the many map generators out there to get a good one.
Been waiting for this video!
7 outta 10, no Tweed or cardigan.
Just joking of course, another great video Mark, even though I think I have a good grasp on the topic, it's nice to hear about other styles and see it on a white board.
I have been forging a story based on a huge skeleton army and a continent full of war with multiple campaigns. The only problem I really have is getting the players focused enough to listen to the narratives even when it is in their own benefit.
BTW your videos have been helping me since the beginning of my D&D passion
looking slick mark
Heres a look at my creation myth, I had the universe create 'God' who i call "order' who created other gods to govern each aspect of the Universe. e.g Space, Time, Abyss, Void,...... (the universe itself was created by a future god, who was sent back in time before the universe existed and may have caused its creation)(sort of a play on the grandfather paradox)
The next set of gods, I played around with idea of making them planets(celestial bodies of solar system: including sun and pluto) inspired by the notion of the Roman Gods naming conventions, and that i had already made a god represented by a white Sun. 10 of the greatest among them represented the Classical Elements including secondary Elements, such as ice and metal.
-Known as the forgotten gods/worshipless gods, even most lesser gods don't know they even exist, and they seldom get involve with mortals, unless it concerns their darker brethren or one of their own .
All 10 gods used their powers to bring Earth, our world into creation. then they went around making some planets in the same manner (Inspired by Drakes Equation)
All other pantheons from dnd/fantasies, or rl are either descendants, amnesic avatars(god walking around with mortals), or clerics(god getting it's power from its archgod) of these 10 gods, explaining why there are multiple gods of Thunder, or fire across the world.
initial ideas - immortality trickled down from the heavens(ignoring crude imitations(like undead), races that are known for their immortality are descendants from the divine. Elves got it from being an offshoot race from a race of angels(Annulium, Annuli-es('Halo-less') that had permanently become corporeal. Some of their children were effected by fey and other chaotic magic that propagated a young primordial Earth, causing the children to lose their wings and have the ears elongate.
- if u didnt see, i sort of like to twist or play on concepts for world building. I also like to borrow from other works, and try to re-imagine it, or incorporate from several works and try and explain why each exist and if they are related in anyway. Like having DC and Marvel Heros in one universe.
I was wondering about others creation myths that you guys have come up with
WOO cant wait to watch this episode youre so cool Mark!!
Episode 2?!? Where is it!!
Love your expressions.
I'm not much of a fantasy fan, but I am working on a setting for roleplay: A mix of superheroes, cyberpunk and postapocalypse, where a time travel accident introduced futuristic technologies and the means to create superhumans to the world in the 1960's, and various governments went more than a little mad with this newfound power. 30 years and a 3rd World War later, the world hasn't come to an end, but become quite a mess.
RokuroCarisu so alternative fallout?
Gabe Merritt Not really. The southern USA and western Russia are wastelands (ironically not due to eachothers nukes), while the rest of the world is still normal with varying degrees of sci-fi and/or dystopia.
It's actually a reversed take on Freedom Force, where aliens wanted to give superpowers to humans in hope that they would destroy the world, but ended up creating heroes that protect it. In my scenario, the world is being ruined rather than saved due to the existence of superhumans, although not necessarily by those themselves. It also takes inspiration from "Iron Age" comics like Youngblood and WildC.A.T.s, where superhumans don't act outside of society, but are integrated to work for governments, corporations and crime syndicates (who tend to blend into eachother at this point). It is the men behind the supermen who determine the fate of this world - for now.
this is ridiculously useful thank you
I had a campaign where magic was banned across the world, and any mage or wizard was persecuted or banished to a small island. Magic users remained throughout the world but in secret. Magic users were essentially a cult and they could identify each other by glowing runic symbols that were only visible to those affected by a special mage initiate spell.
Awesome work, keep it up.
Got a question how to give backstory or history and make it not sound like an info dump.
Just don't tell the players. They're not in school.
If they're not interested in it, tell them the very basics of it necessary for play (key features), and keep the rest in mind, in case it comes up.
Establish your history for yourself, and introduce fragments of it to the players as needed. Really, in most games, only the most immediately relevant details or broad strokes about a history or backstory will be required. In those cases, just tell the players what they need to know.
If the city the party is visiting happens to be in bad economic shape, and the players want to know why, give them a simple answer. "They're struggling because of the massive war debt and reparations incurred by the war with this rival country." The players don't need to know why the two countries were at war. It suffices to just let them know there was a war, and let the players fill in the blanks in their own minds.
If the players DO want to know more, they are free to ask around for other NPCs. Those NPCs will have info, but it will inevitably be colored by the character's personal context and views. The players could also make Intelligence (History) checks, to see if their characters know anything more. In that case, the above advice still applies. What the PCs know will be determined by their background, Ideals, class, etc. A Wizard academic, whose knowledge of local history comes from old books, will have a markedly different view of that local history than a Bard entertainer who spends a lot of time among the working people.
To avoid raw info dumps, turn the mass of setting details into a collection of facts, beliefs, and stories, that each imply something about the larger lore of the world. Treat them like pieces to a huge puzzle, that the players then get the chance to fit together. It worked for Dark Souls.
Look up the writers rule of "Show don't Tell".
i'm creating a world where its all a big fun experiment/game made by highly advanced aliens just because they were bored and decided to but of course the players won't know that. I have an idea of making the gods and devils just AI programs but i'm not entirely sure yet and plan to expand on it.
Is it possible to use the same world and NPCs and history but change the problems, add items and new characters even and just have the story be ⏃ prolonged adventure in the same town with multiple different problems that the players have to solve?
Thank you this was very very helpful.
Hurray~! Who doesnt love tips and tricks~!
Could the D&D books (specifically the DM guide and Monster Manual) be beneficial for someone who wants to write epic fantasy?
We built this campaign setting on ROCK'N ROLL!!! XD Lols.
When you just bought Candlekeep Mysteries, and look up Mark’s advice on DMing and find the video where he says he’s not a published author.
Was he a guest in critical role ? , He sounds familiar
What happened to the channel?? You're videos have basically held my hand through my campaign creation :(
Just FYI, I had a problem trying to find part one here. Don't know why it wasn't showing up on your page. Most likely I just missed it but perhaps you need to update a playlist?
Hey Mark can you link to any of us newbies a way to build a map .
Gonna cover maps probably next week! :D
just assume the real maps had a change
campaign I'm in we assumed that the bearing land bridge never sunk
thus letting the Americans modernize faster
Thu being able to beat back the British
The idea for the world I've been running for about 10 weeks now was "What if there was a world where the material plane and feywilds overlapped a lot, and the feywilds went to war with the material plane and lost" and the whole thing built from there. After the war people were so distrustful and afraid of anything fey that the elves were nearly completely wiped out, under the largest city in the world there are thousands of miles of catacombs containing the fallen soldiers of a century of war, hidden away are isolated groups of fey, soldiers trapped in the material plane once the planes were sealed from one another. The big scary endgame is the daughters of the queen of air and darkness, who was captured during the war along with the other court rulers, leaving them trapped as children in the feywilds, now powerful enough to reopen the gates and wreak their vengeance. Once you have a solid core idea the whole world starts building itself out from there.
Mark is my favorite teacher xD
I've decided to base aspects of my world off of Kamen Rider, for example I've based the Creation myth off of Agito and Blade's Battle Fight.
You can’t do this for a quick D&D campaign, but for me it takes years to fully develop a world