How to Flesh out a Country or Region in Your Fantasy RPG World Edit Article Edited by Zach Haffey, Maluniu, Glutted, Nicole Willson and 5 others Hello game master/fantasy author. Ad Steps 1Short Introductory Summary - Give a one or two paragraph overview of the region or country, highlighting something unique or unusual about it and where it is geographically in your world.Ad 2Life, Society and Culture - This section should detail the culture(s) of the people who populate the region. Tips And for other topics, your providing these details will inspire ideas for larger, overarching plot-lines and the workings of still other regions of your land. Warnings Creating a detailed campaign world from the ground up, even a country let alone a continent, is quite an undertaking.It is important that you do the geography and their respective biomes first before embarking on the making of the country's people, their infrastructure and their culture if you're up to making your country believable.
RPGMapShare.com | Your source for gaming maps and mapping objects Maps Workshop — Developing the Fictional World through Mapping Most of the books I’ve written have started with a map. Not with an idea, or a character, or a theme. With a hand-drawn map, doodled out first while I was sitting and keeping someone else company, or while I was on break, or when I couldn’t think of what to write and had no ideas to speak of and knew that if I drew a map something would come to me. Some of the maps were fairly artistic from the start. If you want specific titles of books that began as maps, I give you Fire in the Mist, Bones of the Past and Mind of the Magic (the Arhel novels), Sympathy for the Devil, The Devil and Dan Cooley, and Hell on High (the DEVIL’S POINT novels), The Rose Sea, Glenraven and Glenraven: In the Shadow of the Rift, Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood, Curse of the Black Heron, and finally the trilogy I’m currently writing, Diplomacy of Wolves, Vengeance of Dragons, and Courage of Falcons (the SECRET TEXTS trilogy.) I have favorite tools for mapping. This first map is going to be your continent. Okay. Now…
www.aliciarasley.com/artset.htm Copyright 1999 by Alicia Rasley Here is a quick exercise to help you explore your protagonist's relationship with the setting. Just free-write on the questions. Look for conflict and character-building opportunities. 1. The plot requires a city exploding with growth, as real-estate development plays a role in the story. 2. Meggie is from the east, a working class town like Hartford. 3. A mover and shaker might have been born into a powerful family, or clawed the way up from the lower class. Meggie moved here when she married. 4. I think she's going to decide she has to invest herself in the place. 5. This is a pretty circumscribed place. 6. I think the old-money vs. new-money aspect would interest an outsider. 7. The basic family unit is either the two-income couple, maybe with kids, and the single mom. 8. No doubt about it- money matters in this town. 9. Meggie's overriding goal is to solve the murder. 10. Go to previous articles: Developing the Dark Moment The Promise of the Hot Premise
The 100 Most Important Things To Know About Your Character (revised) Quote from original Author(Beth):This list came about when, one day while struggling to develop a character for an upcoming Hunter game, my lovely roommate Nikki looked at me and said something like, "Wouldn't it be cool to have a list of questions you could go through and answer while you were making characters, so you'd make sure to consider all sorts of different elements in their personality?" I agreed, and that very evening we sat down over hot chocolate and ramen noodles to whip up a list of 100 appearance-, history-, and personality-related questions (which seemed like a nice even number) to answer as a relatively easy yet still in-depth character building exercise. Later on, we went through the list again, took out the questions that sucked (because there were a lot of them) and replaced them with better ones. In the more recent past, we've also found that answering those annoying online personality quizzes in-character can sometimes lead to interesting revelations. - Beth
Dave's Mapper Creating Fantasy and Science Fiction Worlds - Intro By Michael James Liljenberg Introduction Everybody says, 'My topic is the most important thing you can learn in order to write science fiction and fantasy,' when they write a tutorial for FARP. But I'm actually not exaggerating. The art of creating worlds is crucial to good Fantasy and Science Fiction. There are four basic parts of a story: plot, character, setting, and theme. But what sets Fantasy and Science Fiction apart from other genres is the setting. To be a good writer you need to know character, plot, and theme. Nor do you need to create a universe that is totally original or free of those dreaded Fantasy clichés. And that's the key for creating a realistic world for your story, creating the world as a whole. All this is not to say that your worlds have to be completely scientifically realistic. J.R.R. George Lucas's Star Wars universe was never very well developed, especially from a technology standpoint, but it still works. Chapter 1: In the Beginning God - Theology/Spirituality
Creating a Believable World By Sharon Caseburg One of the greatest difficulties Speculative Fiction authors experience when writing stories in this genre is in their ability to provide a believable environment for their readers. Any kind of speculative fiction, whether it be hard-core Science Fiction, Time Travel, Horror, or Fantasy requires readers to put aside the conventions they have become accustomed to in the “real world” for the world the author presents in the story. Basically, this translates to the more the author knows about the world he or she is creating, the more confidently the author can write about it. So how can the author successfully prepare for the creation of an alternative environment? The answer may sound easier than it really is: work out ALL the details of your story before submitting your final draft to a publisher. Although this point may seem obvious, it is more difficult to perform than it sounds. Here are a few things to consider about the world you are creating.
crooked staff productions roleplaying aids Please note that this site and its contents are Copyright © Kristian Richards 2002 - 2011 <p>Subscribe to RSS headline updates from: <a href=" />Powered by FeedBurner</p> Hello and welcome to the CSP home page! It is the aim of this web-site to provide a wide variety of roleplaying aids for both the GM/DM and player alike. Within these pages you will find a number of files and images (spread over a few differing sections) all of which are completely free* to download. In some instances (such as with the adventures section) the downloads are compatible with the Dungeons & Dragons (3rd edition) role-playing game - though in most cases they should prove to be equally suitable for most types of role-playing / board games with little or no modification. For all the latest CSP news, updates, and even more free downloads be sure to check out... *However, a number of products are now for sale via RPGNow, DriveThruRPG, and lulu.
Welcome to the Arcana Wiki! - The Arcana Wiki Creating the Perfect Setting - Part I It was a dark and stormy night... This is one of the most ridiculed openings, not because once upon a time it didn't work, but because too many people have written their own version of it. And yet setting, the weather, landscape, the opening scene, can often lay out the feel and tone of a book brilliantly, and create an instant context, often a time-stamp, a fixed point which helps the reader find the correct emotional stance to absorb the work. The first I heard of the beach was in Bangkok, on the Khao San Road. Khao San Road was backpacker land. Almost all the buildings had been converted into guest-houses, there were long-distance telephone booths with air-con, the cafes showed brand-new Hollywood films on video, and you couldn't walk ten feet without passing a bootleg-tape stall. Note here that we don't just get setting but also information, some explicit, but a lot implicit. But Charles Dickens could lay the description on thick and yet not bore us to sleep. Fog everywhere.
The Art of Description The Art of Description: Eight Tips to Help You Bring Your Settings to Life by Anne Marble Return to Setting & Description · Print/Mobile-Friendly Version Description is something that gets in the way of many authors. If you're not very accomplished at writing description, then sometimes you might want to avoid writing it. At the same time, some writers err in the other direction, including too much description. How bad is bad description? Avoid Huge Lumps of Description In the past, authors could get away with including long, detailed descriptions in their stories. Unless they're seeking out writers known for lyrical descriptive passages, today's readers wouldn't put up with that sort of thing. Of course there are authors who, even in today's marketplace, can get away with pages and pages of description. Make Description an Active Part of the Story To make your stories more interesting, you must find ways to blend the description into the story. How did I come up with that line? Anne M.
Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game is a survival horror board game that was first published in 2007. Players can play on the Hero team or as the Zombies. A modular board randomly determines the layout of the town at the start of each game and there are several different scenarios to play.[1] Seven supplements have been released. To achieve a horror movie feel, all of the art for the game is photographic and the game comes with a CD soundtrack of original music.[2] The game borrows from horror film stereotypes and zombie film plots. An example of Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game gameplay. Before playing, the board is set up. Players are split into two teams, the Zombies and the Heroes. A Scenario then needs to be chosen, randomly or by vote. Each team has their own deck of cards. Gameplay is split into two turns, the Zombie Turn and the Hero Turn. Any Zombie in the same square as a Hero must now fight them. Either team wins by completing their Scenario Objective. Hero Pack 1 (2010)
World Building 101 World Building 101 by Lee Masterson You are the ultimate creator of your fictional world. No matter where or when your story is set, regardless of what events unfold, and despite the characters you introduce to your readers, they are all products of your unique imagination. "But I write romance set in the present time," I hear you cry. It doesn't matter whether your story is set in 16th century Middle Europe, or the 28th century Altarian star-system, your story still belongs in a world created entirely by you. The good news is you still get your chance to put on your megalomaniac's hat and play God! Regardless of where (or when) your story is set, YOU have decided your characters' destinies for them. But there's a whole lot more to world-building than simply creating a nice backdrop for your characters to parade against. In short, the fictional world your characters live in must seem plausible to your readers. Ask yourself these things about your characters and your story: -