So thanks to the useful responses from others and very inspired by Oliver Lind here is my attempt at first session world building.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8CL5fqRJRz7M2lGWXQzMW1tZUE/view?usp=sharing
The idea is to answer what The World Is and what the World is about and go down the list. Obviously these can lead to even more questions, and especially the races you can have more then one. Also you can change some of the answers, for example I haven’t figured out a way to express in a sentence a world close to terry pratchett or monty python kind of fun and silly world.
I hope people find this useful and I’m going to try it in my next first session.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8CL5fqRJRz7M2lGWXQzMW1tZUE/view?usp=sharing
Thank you for sharing this. You’ve clearly put a lot of thought into it. Which makes it difficult to pipe in with advice you might not want, or might simply discard: don’t use this list.
Your list is clearly crafted to provide players with the opportunity to provide meaningful input into the world in which the story will take place, and that’s excellent. That’s a good goal for the table. But i think it can be counterproductive to force those decisions too early. And the specific categories you provide already inform and direct the narrative, before characters are established. Kind of reminds me of the tendency in the US of asking children to commit to life choices before they’re old enough to understand them.
Before you ask the players about gods, or magic, or the world at large, ask the players about their characters.
If a character is religious, ask about their god, and how that god relates to another god, perhaps. Ask for one story, belief, or attribute of the god. But don’t try to establish the full theology of the world (yet!).
if a character wields magic, ask how the casting is achieved, and what others might perceive. Ask where magic comes from, and one thing about magic that makes this fantasy world different from our own. but don’t write the metaphysics manual at the first session (yet!).
If no character is religious, or magical, or understands regional politics (or at least it isn’t brought up during creation), leave those questions unanswered until a Spout Lore or GM move makes answering them relevant.
Start your first session learning about the characters, and then build the world from that point outward. This will help you develop a story and setting that draws the characters forward, and ties the player choices to the fiction.
Take copious notes during play, and as you develop fronts, use your stakes to determine what interesting questions can be resolved about the world.
Now that I’ve said that, i’m going to offer a suggestion that strikes a good balance between a concrete “to do” list of pre-game world building vs. building from character exploration: provide a few images of various fantasy scenes that intrigue you, preferably some with stark differences, so that the group can make real distinctions (Not THIS but THAT). A dragon flying around a mountaintop. A vast desert under a brutal sun. A rocky shoreline beaten by relentless waves. An artic tundra where the winds and ice sap the warmth from you. Provide these to the group before character creation, and ask them to vote on one they want to explore; make it quick, no discussion needed yet. If they are really drawn to more than one, note the runners up for secondary elements or perhaps subsequent games with the same group.
Once the group settles on a picture, ask each player for one or two things that might be found in that setting. Keep the request open-ended and ask that the responses be limited to single words or short phrases – they may establish a person, place, thing, or concept with broad strokes. All you want are a few thematic elements to set the mood for character creation.
You and the other players should now be forming some ideas about the world the game will take place in – a few seeds in the fruitful void. Ask them to start character creation as a description of someone that would be in the kind of place that you have collaboratively described. And then start building the world based on the character choices, flavored by the themes discussed.
I think you make a good point but I feel a top down approach or a character wide approach is equally valid. Ive been in a few games where the people don’t really have that much of a view on magic or religion even if they are playing those kind of characters so I feel these are useful in us all being on the same page.
But thinking about it maybe this goes with character creation not before it. So you ask the msgic or the race question as soon as someone chooses that kind of class or race.
My general thought is to establish facts when the fiction calls for it.
Prior to character creation, i’d like some general agreement of themes to explore, but none-to-few facts established.
Character creation is ostensibly the first time the fiction starts calling for facts. The reason for this being that you want the story to revolve around the Characters – since they’re the heroes we want to learn about we keep the spotlight on them.
Once characters are created, you become a bit more free to establish facts. You may use a GM move. Alternatively, a Character may show specific interest in something, prompting the GM to either establish a fact, or work with them to answer a question, or call for a Spout Lore.
When a fact is established, make a note! The biggest challenge for me is trying to keep things consistent AND relevant.
In the end, the play’s the thing. Your initial proposal is not wrong. It’s merely different from what i’d do, for the reasons i shared. If you’re having fun, you’re doing good things!
Yeah and I think character outward is equally valid but it does mean i have to come up with at least the initial action which in some ways creates the world. Which is fine I just wanted to get a litgle closer to the way i have seen apocalypse world being run which is building the world as well as characters.
Adam’s start to Apocalypse World for the roll20 session was really, really inspiring. It was incredible, and led to such a cool place.
I don’t imagine he had a list of detailed questions, though. It seemed to me his list what “What is scarce?” and the rest of it pretty much streamed from there.
It still does undercut my idea of not establishing facts until the fiction calls for them, though! Maybe the creator of Dungeon World and GM/MC/SM-extraordinaire is on to something i’m not, and i ought to listen more and say less?
I’d concur with Andrew Fish cause he did his idea with games I’ve been part of and they were awesome. By all means bring ideas and craziness. Instead of multiple choice though, I’d do open ended questions, if you were doing questions.
Really though, I would do a really generic overview/theme…we are going to be in blank world…desert, forest, tribal, etc. Therefore everybody has an idea what’s happening and can be on same page for character development. Then focus on specifics.
Just my 2 cents.
I’ve done something similar this morning. We have a party of level 5 characters who have been playing together for a year, and a new player is joining the story mid-campaign. I have written four double-sided questions for the established characters to ask his character, in lieu of burdening him with too much backstory, and hopefully helping him catch up with the storyline in ways that ties him to events he missed in play.
Really think that’s awesome Matt Horam. I really think that group open ended world and character creation is awesome. The buy in is just immediate from everybody.
The reason i went for choices and not just open questions is because i feel that with something like world building you are more likely to get silence or people not knowing really. So the choices are kind of there for focus.
james day Just remind your players, or add to the bottom of each list:
“Or something else”
It helps remind you both that the sky is a soft limit, through which your imaginations may soar into space and discover new worlds of your own creation, unbound by the confines of this already awesome list.
Yeah totally Or Something Else should definitely be one of the choices.
Well I definitely feel even with choices thst there are many intriguing combinations that I feel this could soar our imagination.
You know your people, so i think you know whats best for your people! I think players will surprise you though.
Andrew did his version of world building and my 12 year old was playing. Even though he was shy, he still got around to putting his spin on the world.
Also, my one last bit on whatever you do, focus on starting playing field not world. The more blanks you leave the more interesting it’ll think your game gets.
If you try open ended world building, maybe ask everybody to bring visuals and a list of keywords for world. Like look find a picture online that you think needs to exist in this world. Its a good compromise and even if unused for building world, it lets you know things people might want to see later.
Have fun dude, playing and gming DW has been a blast!