How To: Create a Fantasy World

One of the hardest things for any GM or group to do is create the world in which your game will occur. It is for this reason so many people simply use the generic worlds given to them in campaign books. There is nothing wrong with that, but after a while they all tend to become very similar and style and theme, creating your own world will prevent this.

Now, I believe the creating your own world is the best way to truly engross yourself in the fantasy adventure and will massively improve the game as a whole. I also understand that, for those who haven’t designed a world before, it can be a daunting task.

Not to fear, this post will give you all the basic tools you need to start building a world of your own. I will also add in some links to really useful sites that will help you flesh out your world quickly and easily.

Step One: Name Your World
This is probably one of the easier steps but none the less should have some time spent on it. The name of the world is the first thing your players will hear and it will keep popping up all the time, calling it Bob’s World Version One is probably going to ruin the feel of the game! One of my favourite ways of name a world is to think of a few words to describe the world and type them into an online translator such as Inter Tran. Then try translating the words into several different languages, you’re looking for a really cool looking and sounding word the meaning and context really don’t matter. Alternatively you can always just pluck some cool sounding word out of your mind, this works just as well!

Step Two: Create the Landscape

This is probably one of the most vital steps of the whole process. Decide on what kind of landscapes cover your world, deserts, forests, cities etc. At this point I tend to start scribbling ideas on paper as a round sketch. Once the geography is sorted, mark out the boundaries of countries and start thinking about what they are like as places to live, governments etc.

Step Three: Create Your World's Wildlife
With the geography done, start thinking and listing what lives where. I advise using a written bestiary for this to start with and then add in your own creations later on. Start with the noral animals, horses, rodents wild dogs etc then move on to the stranger things. This will not only allow you to pit characters in your world against them, but it will also give your characters a feel for the area, and even something to eat! On that note, think about the food chain of each area, seems an odd thing to spend time on, but can really help add a degree of realism to the area.

Step Four: Create The Populace
Now its time to go back and populate each country with its inhabitants. These can be whoever you want, be that human or newt. Yes i really have had a country inhabited with bipedal newts, quite a cool place actually. Think about each social class of people, who likes and dislikes who (in terms of groups not individuals). Work out what people do for a living, what services they provide in the town or city in which they live. The red dragon inn has a great town generator that gives you a complete break down of who lives their and what they do. Check it out: http://www.rdinn.com/town_generator.php.

Step Five: Creating The Faith

People generaly have a faith. It's not always the same as everyone else, and people rarely show their faith in a set uniform way. However, it is a good idea to know what faiths are dominant in each town, city, region and country. It's best to have several faiths as it alows for some variation in the character of the country. You can use either a pre made pantheon of Gods or make your own. A good resources for this is wikipedia, its has a lot of religious info that can be used to pick and choose from different cultures to create a varied and interesting world.

Step Six: Deciding Upon The Spoken and Writen Word
Work through each country and decide upon or create a language for each. This can be pre-determined by the majority race of the country but you shouldn't feel confined by this. A great resource can be found here. Creating your own language can be extremely difficult and to get it right, can take years! But if you can do it, then do, its great fun and also gives you a real sense of the world being yours.

Step Seven: Maping Bigger Picture
Now is the time to smarten up that map. Finalise country borders, mark in geographical features. I advise you use squared paper to create your map and use the squares to create a size scale. Create a political map using colours to mark countries and a geographical map using colours to denote the topography of the land. Mark on each countries capitol city, then cities and town working down in size. Finaly, add anything else you thikn should be on a map, historic ruins, important notes etc. I strongly advise you scan this map into your pc and use software such as photoshop to add some interesting character, making it look like an old scroll for example. You can also add text this way without having to wrote it free hand.

Step Eight: Creating The Past
A worlds history makes it what it is today. Write out the history of your world in as much detail as you can. Include wars, political landmark moments, births and eaths etc. The more you fill in the deeper your workd shall become. Once you have the worlds history, write a smaller piece on each country. After this, not only will the world be a more interesting and diverse place to live in, but you will also know more about the world you have create.

Step Nine: Create The Goverment
Now its time to heat things up. Create a governing body for each of your countries. This could be a royal family that rules in a feudal state or an elected house of the people who rule in a democratic state. The goverment can be anything you want, it can have whatever views you want and can be lead by who ever you want. A goverment decides upon the law and policy of the country so thikn about this very carefully.

Step Ten: Create Your Worlds Folklore
This is really an option phase, but I stand by it. Create the old wives tales and tall stories that are told in each country. These can be anything from frogs that cure illness to a monster that each children if their toe nails get too long. They add character to those who tell them and believe them and can lead to the formations of groups and religions. This can also include world spanning prophecy, a cool plot for characters!

Step Eleven: Tie It All Together
The best way to present your world to your players is in the form of a campaign pack. I will be making a posts on those later, but for now, a brief idea. Everything above should be either tped or scanned onto a pc as a word document. Then make sure you want your players to have all the info that is there, if not, rmove it and keep it in a GM only version. Once you have got it as you want it, export it as a PDF and print a copy for each of your players. You can also email it out to them so they have a digital copy.

So there we are, the basics of creating your very own fantasy world. This is by no means a cover all, you could add a lot more to a world or a lot less, but if you follow these steps you will create a fairly deep world with enough background to run several campaigns. Plus, as your players containue doing what they do best, the world will activly change so if there are things your players don't like, they can always change them through their actions.

Anyway, until next time, TTFN

How To: make a Character

Every system has it's own way of sorting out stats and abilities of the character you are going to play, but this is not making a character but converting a character into a playable format. This guide is about making a character that's interesting for both yourself and the other players within your group, and of course your games master.

Step One: Name



A name has to be interesting, Jim the dragon slayer is not inspiring and is just going to kill the mood, that said the name doesn't have to be original, playing a lord of the rings based campaign with a character named Aragorn, for example, can lead to some very interesting story lines, as your character tries to live up to their namesake, shake off someone else's bad reputation, or gets caught up in adventures through mistaken identity. If your name is borrowed think how your character feels about this, is it a name they have taken themselves to seem more intimidating or deserving of respect than they really are? is it a name they have chosen to honour their great hero? or to mock a nemesis? if the name was given, by parents or affiliation, why did they chose it? And does your character agree with their choices? Above all does your characters name inspire you to lead them to greatness? The legend of John Smith can end with "he saw a goblin once.", but the legend of Braxius Traxtin, lost prince of the Sunken Isles, deserves an epic clash of good against evil, the very earth shaking and dragons falling from the sky.



Step Two: Class (and often Race)




What does your character do, and far more importantly why? A lot of role plays have a selection of predetermined classes to choose from, but many simply list skills a character could posses and let you choose from there, either way the most important things to think about are where you character learned these skills and why? A sword master may have been born into a noble family the warrior elite, raised to know little other than swordsmanship, or they may have been a blacksmith's child, knowing nothing of the sword until barbarian raiders attacked their village and they had to fight their way back to civilisation, learning everything the hard way or maybe they were one of the barbarians not knowing there was any other path to follow. Race, if it's an option, often comes in at this point, as certain birthrights, accessibility of training, and lifestyle choices, lend themselves better to certain races, how has your characters race helped/hindered this training and life in their vocation? Ask these questions for each skill/ability/trait your character has, and soon their history will become full and lifelike.



Step Three: Stuff

Unless your character is beginning the role play utterly penniless, naked and devoid of any useful equipment, (a brave and potentially interesting choice) your character is going to have stuff, (if they don't, why not? is a question you're going to be asked very quickly) so where did it come from? is your sword a family heirloom? or something you bought from a market stall? or stole/looted from another warrior? your clothes, what do they say about you? do you only have one set of well worn, patched and re-patched travelers clothes, practical but far from stylish, or do you have trunks and trunks of tailored finery allowing you to fit in at any high society function. do you travel light or do you take everything you own with you? try to slip in a few personal items into your equipment list, sure you're an adventurer, have the rope and grappling hook "just in case" but also have a book of poetry, or a love letter, in your pocket, a signet ring of your fathers household on your finger. something that shows who your character is, something for them to do/think about in their spare time, preferably something they would hunt to the ends of the earth if it was lost.



Step Four: Why?

Perhaps the biggest question you need to ask is why your character is adventuring in the first place? and why they are still at it now? will they ever stop and settle down? do they have a grand plan or goal? it's all very well to say your character started by fighting their way through hordes of orcs attacking their home, but why didn't they stop when they got through? if you are out to find a great lost heirloom or treasure, what will you do if you find it? Here's a little secret, motivation can be the hardest thing for your Games Master to deal with, if they can lure you with the promise of a king's ransom once, then there is no guarantee they can do it again, indeed with your coin purse overflowing with gold the temptation of money is greatly reduced, a big thing to consider at this point is where your character's heart lies in terms of good and evil, there is nothing wrong with hunting down goblins just because you want them to suffer. Ask yourself why does your character get up in the morning and hunt dragons/run the shadows/defend their homeland?



Step Five: People



Your character probably hasn't spent their entire life in isolation, again if they have that's another story you need to tell, so who do they know? who are their friends? who are their enemies? what do their family think about what they are doing now? what favours do they owe/are owed? where are the people they have met in their life now? are they in love? how did they meet the other characters? how do they respond to new people? are they quick to make friends and trust new people or are they shy, suspicious, or downright unpleasant? do they respect authority? depending on the sort of game you are playing your character's past audiences may or may not come up, but if you discovered that the necromancer sending his undead legions to destroy the town was their childhood friend, how would their behaviour change?



Step Six: Finishing Touches




Sometimes known as the breath of life step, it gives a character a personality rather than just a history, a quick run through of the list of questions to ask at this stage, how old are they? what do the look like? how do they feel about their appearance? what are their hobbies? what are their habits? are they religious? if so how devout? do they stand out or blend into a crowd? do they like being the centre of attention? and a good one specifically for the fantasy genre, if someone was impersonating them how would you tell which was the original? the point is to make a character others can interact with, and try to role play these traits as much as possible within your sessions, so you can get a feel for your character as a living breathing person, and more easily think about what your character would do in any given situation.



These are examples, and by no means an exhaustive list of questions to ask and things to think about to turn a series of numbers on a character sheet into a character that is interesting and fun to play for both you and those you play with. this may seem a little daunting, but take it step by step, you'll find a lot of it overlaps, and the more you know about the history of your character the more things will just slot into place.

How To: Be a Great GM

     “To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.”

Being a GM is one of the most difficult parts of the roleplaying community. A player might spend say 1 hour before s session thinking about what they want their character to do and maybe spending some loot money, where as the GM will be spending anything from 4 hours and a whole day planning the next session.

Needless to say, being a GM is a skill that must be learned over time and with a lot of practise. However, this is not to say you have to make a complete hash of several campaigns before you reach the right stuff. These days there are more guides for GM's than players (or at least it feels like it sometimes) and while these are great, i always think they miss the important stuff. They provide you with NPC's, weather generators, name lists etc but always miss out the single most important thing, what separate a good or passable GM from a great GM?

As this rather cool looking diagram shows, the players rely on the GM just as the GM relies upon the players, his/her own notes and on the game itself. It is impossible to be a great GM without thinking about all three of these to start with.

1. GM Notes
These are your single most powerful tool. Your notes are your guide to the world you have created and the adventures within it. Now I'm not advocating writing a novel here just notes. Players will always wonder off the beaten track so don't write rigidly, allow for deviation and weird stuff. A map usually helps somewhere along the line, nothing to fancy just a basic idea of where things are in relation to other things (more on maps in a later post). Your notes should include NPC sheets, background and information on important people, places and items, an adventure outline, hooks, clues and anything else you as a GM find useful in keeping your mind in line with your created world.

2. The Game System
This sounds obvious, but seriously look at it, don't just read your chosen rules set and be done with it. Read it through a few times, make sure you are comfortable with the rulebook. Play a few games with the rules as a player to get a feel for it. Then, make sure the rules set fits with what your trying to do, if you have to re-write vast chapters of text, then this rules set isn't what you want for your game. Once you comfortable with it, see if there are any little things you think you want to change, change them and play again, has the game become more fun? If yes keep the change if no, scrap it. Make sure any changes you make you add to the campaign pack so your players know about it. last, ensure you have the rights dice and equipment for the system, sound obvious but I've been to enough sessions and people have brought D20's rather than D100's, not helpful!

3. The Players
The best thing about a roleplay game is that you get to be this amazing hero/villain in an amazing and exciting world. For many, this escapism is the reason hey play. However, as much as we want to be our characters, we will always put a bit of ourselves into them. So, pick your players carefully! I'm not saying ban someone from your group just because they play differently, but keep in mind that you have 3-6 people to keep happy and entertained, not just that one. A good example is the metagamer. He/she care about one thing, and that is creating the single most powerful character purely my utilising as many of the rules sets as possible. They care little for story line, back story or coolness. They will also make decisions based on their view rather than the characters! This is fine, and lots of fun for them, but what about everyone else? Again, I'm not saying don't let them play, just try and keep them tied in with the rest of the party as they may really enjoy playing as characterful as possible.

So, as you can see, a lot to think about. However, there is more! (Don't worry its not all that complicated really).

One massive thing to remember, NEVER BE AFRAID. As GM a massive amount of power resides in you over both the characters and the world they inhabit. You must no be afraid to use that power, even if your players don't want something to happen. Now, I'm not saying make their characters lives hell (unless that's the idea of the game in which case, go for it), but no one want to be ambushed and yet, maybe it's the start of a really cool adventure. The same is true of killing characters. As GM you are, for a lot of the time anyway, the players adversary. Your rampaging goblins want to kill, butcher, eat and rob your player's characters, not gently tickle them with their spar tips. Players should be prepare for this and shouldn't take it personally, neither should you. If a character dies, its not the end of the world, the player just writes a new one and starts again, no big deal.

Another important thing, accept this now before you go any further, you are going to slip up at some point!

Yes just like Merlin up there at some point you will slip up, forget a name, place or over estimate the party (or maybe under estimate it). Don't worry about it. Sure, the players will have a good laugh about it and probably make some fun, but laugh along, collect your thoughts and reap your revenge, I mean get the game back on track.

Being imaginative can be difficult at time, and sometimes you just don't have the energy or time in a week to plan the next session, this is where your notes save you. As you have a basic background and some hooks and adventures across your world, you can just fall back onto one of those. These can be anything from bandit Cobalts to signs of the party's nemasis being near. Ideas like this can easily fill a session or two when your aren't up to creating a new plot line but don't want to cancel.

So, those are the basics on being a great GM. I hope these tips help all those new to GM-ing and if you have anything to add, just drop in a comment.

This post is part of the "How To:" series and so will be available via the How To: page.