No.

>>97791782
No, because worldbuilding is a masturbatory exercise for me. I love wasting the time of other Anonymous users who give me feedback on my highly inspired worldbuilding such as having an elements based on the period table. I love focusing on meaningless details in my setting like the cats barking instead of meowing. I love saying that I'm developing a magic system, but never actually post any rules on how you're supposed to use said system. Even better if I say something along the lines of 'magic in my setting requires a high amount of focus and years of training, mages cast spells by inscribing the words on the air with a wand, call upon the appropriate star god to validate the spell, then cast it with a final invoking gesture', a pile of vague nonsense that isn't attached to anything meaningful whatsoever.

My setting only exists in my head and will never be used in a real game or serve any purpose beyond my own immediate gratification, so I never have to fear people calling my work shitty. This board is an endless open mic night for my worthless trivia and all of you are my captive audience.

>>97791970
I salute you.

>>97791782
Yes, and know what? I don't care. Yes there are some weird oddities and implications, and how some things should be completely extinct or dominating, and...

Anyway the point is that fiction will often handwave or overlook things for the sake of the story.

>>97791782
nope i let my players world build for me.
>woah what if this place was built because of a war we don't know about
make a history check
yeah your characters know about the war of gargant 3
>what the fuck there were 3 of them?
and so on and so on

>>97791970
This but unironically.

>>97791970
This but unironically.

File: 3b9516c95d7f39bd98d689835b5cf5a8.jpg (1.3 MB)

1.3 MB JPG

Back in early 2024, I made this setting and ran a brief game (of Badass Kung Fu Demigods) in it. Encounters included a battle with a dragon mage inside a submarine filled with 1989-style supercomputers.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cKI4l1V3CwTVA28qw_498Xp6-iRt0miSwKLwSEWlha8/edit

Unfortunately, the setting was very poorly received by the players (who apparently wanted something grittier, more grounded, more realistic, low fantasy, and so on), and the game went nowhere.

I am thinking of taking this setting document, polishing it up with more player-useful information (e.g. what PCs could possibly be, clearer campaign hooks) and some brief overviews for the other big empires of the world. This way, I could run it for a different group of players.

Should I bother doing so?

>>97791782
No. Have you? How many times?

>>97792365
This art is literally repulsive.

>>97792365
>Should I bother doing so?
No.

>>97792365

Since I care primarily about the metaphysics/religions of settings I'll give my spitball take

>No gods, afterlives, or alternate planes of existence have ever been empirically proven to exist

Two problems:

0. Caveat, I understand that things are left open to settle the setting details later to react to players contributions/actions/rool of cool in the moment

1. Seems contradicted by lore, including the dream islands, rimefire being ruled openly by demons, angels also existing openly, and such. Though I lack details about them.

2. All "empirically proven to exist" *really* means is whether there is a culture in which most people take for granted that such things exist, and believe the second hand accounts of people who claim to have personally experienced such things, due to a cultural expectation of such.

There would be no shortage of beings who claim to have experienced the above, but the mere fact that they would be a minority does nothing to disprove their actual existence.

Obviously the different factions would have different interpretations/narratives of what really exists or what each of their experiences/empirical reports *actually* mean, and then of course muddy that with demonic lies, and tight-lipped angels who don't correct mortal mistakes because of inscrutable reasons that Not-God won't reveal.

cont.

>>97792365

>>97792666

3. The >99% irreligiosity of "The Rimefire Dominion, the Eldscale Regency, and the Lunarescent Oneiropelago" doesn't seem even slightly plausible to me, due to both the practical daily existence of low dnd magic, meaning that IRL trends such as ~manifestation~ and other new age stuff would just get turboboosted with superstition and idiosyncratic religious beliefs. The Rimefire Dominion especially seems rife for all sorts of cult leaders due to being openly ruled by demons.

>Importantly, it is wholly impossible to discern someone’s nationality based on their bodily and facial appearance and accent alone.

For play practicality? Useful because it means you don't have to write more stuff.

For versimilitude? You lost me on accent, since even when pidgins and creoles emerge in highly smushed multicultural places, dialects necessarily emerge which separate out where people are from even based on what state/region someone is from, let alone nation.

This is not even mentioning body language, customs, facial expression. For example, I saw an ethnically Japanese youtuber who talked about not being recognised as Japanese when he went to Japan, and part of that was because he didn't hold his face in a typical Japanese way. It was significantly more relaxed, less tight, a bit more slack, whereas the typical Japanese way to hold your face.is significantly less relaxed, more tight, and ready to respond in the typical acculturated ways.

Food for thought, things like people's grunts for exerting effort also have an enculturated, accented element. The way an old man grunts when taking effort to standing up sounds completely different in Japan compared to any Western country.

It's basically impossible for cultures to not be held over from the past, *or* for new cultures to emerge, *or* for regional dialects and accents to develop in a unique way even within a handful of decades.

However, the above isn't necessarily a problem. Cont.

>>97792365

>>97792682

if I wanted to yes-and this glaring sociological violation of verisimilitude, I could just say that there were sinister forces at play that are enforcing at a higher level of planar abstraction, the specific, unchanging, and stagnant multi-cultures that make up the nations of the setting.

So there is an unchanging cultural force of the Rimefire, an unchanging cultural force of Eldscale, etc, which are headed by their own sinister principality of some kind for some reason.

Then, at the borders of reality in the setting, you could have actual new cultures emerge and develop outside of the confines of this weird sinister forced-eternal-multicultural conspiracy. Then do whatever you want with those new emerging cultures that actually go into a new direction from combining the remembered elements of the multicultures.

>>97791782
no, because that would require my players to remember any of it.

>>97791782
Once I had a player quit the table because in dungeon involving a riddle, he failed the riddle which reduced his character to 0 HP and held him in a suspended magical orb that needed to be dispelled. He said it was "unfair".

>>97792365

I will also ask, what is the primary goal or vibe of your setting? like what is the primary thing you think you're trying to narratively explore or make sense of that's driving the creation and arrangement of the elements?

File: 3a4fb3a7cb34c37d1a2fcb7d62d89b8c.jpg (6 MB)

6 MB JPG

>>97792666
>>97792682
>>97792695

These are all good points. Thank you. I will look into revising them if I return to the setting.

>>97792728

The key points I wanted were:
• Fantasy with a 1989 or 1998 level of technology.
• A focus on ships and islands.
• The action being contained to the physical planet, as opposed to alternate planes of existence. (I am willing to give a pass to dreams, however.)
• Religion (or, more specifically, ideas about creator gods, afterlives, and the like) being unconfirmable. Just because there are angels and demons around does not mean there are creator gods, afterlives, and the like.
• The very start of a world war between four enormous empires.

Over a decade ago, one of my players (whom I still GM for today, and in fact, GMed for just several hours ago) told me something that really lingered in my mind. They told me that they greatly preferred settings wherein it was mostly impossible to tell someone's faction membership just by looking at or listening to them, dress codes and uniforms aside; supposedly, it makes intrigue and "team switching" more interesting.

Maybe this is a decent ideal to aspire to in a setting wherein the factions are not outright nations and empires, though.

>>97791970
This but ironically.

File: tg fetish world building1.png (93.7 KB)

93.7 KB PNG

>>97791782

>>97792347
Lurk more.

>>97793064
Been here longer than you, chud.

>>97791782
Never, I would commit seppuku

>>97793280
Then you should know that /tg/ isn't just for traditional games.

>>97791970
This unironically, but

>>97791782
/tg/ whined about it, but as usually if 4chan hates something it's good and if they like something it's shit, and considering everyone else I've shown it to really likes what I've got going on for the system, it's not shitty worldbuilding, it's great, because I made it to be something I enjoy.

>>97791782
-Elves
-Eugenic Aristocracy
-Hermetic Magic
-Girls I want to fuck and oblique references to Polish historical films from the 1960s.

I've never been called out before because my way is the Gigachad way.

>>97791970
This but post-meta-ironically.

>>97791970
This, without a hint of irony.

>>97791782
No, but I can tell they're think it's shitty. Not gonna change if they don't have the guts to tell me though.

>>97792365
I like what you made!

File: 44322f2c9ea4283dbc1395f0b7eb47a9.jpg (6.9 MB)

6.9 MB JPG

>>97795836

Thank you.

>>97791970
This, but iron-clad

>>97792586
Why?It's just a girl playing on a computer.

File: vlcsnap-2025-20-01-23h08m36s671.png (771.2 KB)

771.2 KB PNG

>>97791782
>Worldbuilding

>>97791782
Nobody even cares enough to call it shitty.
But it has all the features I want.


The year is not important; calendars have come and gone.
Man found himself alone among the stars, and proliferated across the void of space, outwardly always changing, but his essential nature ever the same.
Man is a creature of habit.
And his principle habit is ambition.
Here, on the edges of known space, there is a little grey world, erratically orbiting the second star of a binary system, marginally habitable, partially terraformed.
This world is a prison.
A stellar civilization flourished across the span of the galaxy, to this darkling sphere it exiled those whom it would not kill, but could not allow to be free.
Those who's ambitions threatened The Imperial Peace were consigned to toil in obscurity at the edge of the galaxy.
Watchers were set above the clouds in great cities; a race of star-people, to be their jailors.
This world was named "Bia".
For untold millennia the star-people oversaw the surface from unreachable orbital facilities; entire populations were shipped out to this barren rock, and worked to their deaths mining rare elements.
Eventually, the star-people became too comfortable, and withdrew to politick among themselves, leaving Trustees behind to act essentially as autocrats.
Eventually, contact from the outside galaxy began to peter out.
There were wars, and rumours of wars.
One day, the shipping orders ceased, and a great silence began to blossom in the heart of the Empire.
The star-people began to fight among themselves about what to do in the face of this impending disaster, and their orbital cities exchanged fire, crippling each-other, and unintentionally, ruining their own ability to exert control over the surface.
Down on the planet itself, is where most of our action takes place.
Currently, the star-people have been warring for about a century, but it's mostly petered out, but for the odd nuke or salvo of laser fire being exchanged in orbit.

>>97791970
This but also OP’s gigachad

>>97791782
My worldbuilding autism is extensive, but so far it's all been kept in private. I do have some (non-RPG) plans for it in the future, so time will tell what people think of it, but ultimately I just do it because I enjoy it.

>>97797668
>Making your own system
>You actually want your players' characters to feel like they fit in the game instead of them bringing bugs bunny, doomslayer, Goku, and a xenomorph to your low fantasy game
Worldbuilding is an important part of running a game. The only reason you wouldn't is if you're a lazy little faggot who runs premade settings, and in that case you shouldn't be a GM.

>>97798743
The surface of Bia is a chaotic mess of micro-polities springing up and absorbing one another.
Up until recently, the city-state networks that were established under Trustee rule were the uncontested powers of the surface; these supplied raw materials to the Star People in orbit, in exchange for privileges such as being allowed to essentially enslave less cooperative populations, and for their surface complexes to be tolerated to grow in sophistication.

The other sort of "civilization" evident on Bia is that of the Hill people, "Highlanders" or "Clans".
These are, for want of a better term, permanent insurgent populations, heavily entrenched in the wildest parts of the world.
These people practice subsistence agriculture, have thriving traditions of raiding, and sophisticated "cottage industry", and have been shaped by the paucity of resources and constant threat of eradication, into disciplined, ferocious and inventive survivors; they spend a lot of time warring amongst themselves, and the soldiers of the Overseers frequently have them on the backfoot, but their population is greater than many suspect, and they have hidden fortresses and centers of manufacturing and learning deep in the mountains, where they are ruled over by kings who claim they have "star-blood." and are purported to possess the powers of The Star-People.

Besides that, there are also cultists, who are star-people obsessed religious zealots who live secretly inside City-states or in their own hidden wilderness strongholds.
And there are also Rievers, who are like the Clans, but more nomadic and mad-max-oriented.

Setting also has "magical powers" that are actually the manipulation of ambient nanomachines - only star-people and their descendants have the genetic code that nanomachines respond to; Star-people are orbitally adapted humans, who tend to die quickly under planetary gravity, but sometimes they live long enough to sire children, or have their genetic "put to use".

File: TheMostEvilImageOnMyComputer.png (438.6 KB)

438.6 KB PNG

>>97791782
Last time I posted mine it didn't exactly go over well

>>97798814
Truth nuke.

File: Mundus Carnis map v3 compressed.jpg (3.8 MB)

3.8 MB JPG

>>97791782
Most people who have commented on my autistic worldbuilding project have been pretty positive about it thouhg it no doubt has tons of room for criticism.

File: not_this_shit_again.jpg (68.8 KB)

68.8 KB JPG

>>97791782
good worldbuilding is just autistic nonsense the writer cares about and a wizard did everything else.
bad worldbuilding is autistic nonsense the writer doesn't care about but some cunt on reddit said was needed for good worldbuilding or the guy clearly didn't jerk off before writing and is piss foresting his way through this.

>>97799880
This looks very cool, if maye a bit too crowded with locations, I wouldn't mind reading a bit about it

>>97791782
No, if my players hated my world so much they can gm or bring up specific point.
How argent and doushey does a player have to be to complain about a gm's world. If you arent magical relm pervy self inserting constantly they get what the get or they can run something better

>Ever been called out for your shitty worldbuilding?
For games no. Standards of world building for the people I typically play with are low and I tend to just focus on the main motivators of conflict and stuff relating to tone for the adventure when I am running games. I tend not to go deep for original works, and my players usually deeply enjoy worlds inspired by IP they watched as kids/teens so I am usually just adding or subtracting elements to make it work for the game.

HOWEVER, I mainly world-build more seriously my other hobby of writing. I mainly write sword and sorcery stuff but in the past tried very hard (and failed at) writing epic fantasy. What little I have shown on /lit/ was universally hated. I also generally know for a fact the vast majority of my work is shit, like really really shit, but feel compelled to keep trying anyway, if nothing else then to get some of the clutter in my head from daydreaming all the time out.
My main problem is that I write almost totally plot driven stories and generally don't flesh out characters, and pacing is also a issue.
Writing pulp/shorter stories forces me to work on and fix my problem with pacing, but has made my character work worse.
Progress is also quite slow. I usually only get around 1000 to 2000 words down a week, with almost all of that being done on my days off from work. So major revisions are agonizing since it means cutting or modifying weeks or even months worth of effort.
Yeah, in general I am a ultra shit writer all around, and I often question why I even bother.

>>97801068
it is so fucking ass to talk about your stuff online because some fuckwit not giving a shit about theme will go "but uhh dont you know FTL is impossible and that form of life isn't in the science book?"
Fuck me for wanting to do some Charles Stross type posthuman space opera craziness I guess

>>97801204
Online critique is terrible as 90% of the time it is someone trying to control you and make you do what they want you to do. I realized this because their sense of realism suddenly goes away when something they fetishize gets involved. How convenient.

>>97798814
>>You actually want your players' characters to feel like they fit in the game instead of them bringing bugs bunny, doomslayer, Goku, and a xenomorph to your low fantasy game
I would probably punch someone who tried to shoehorn a furry hegemonic fandom species into any of my stuff.

>>97801222
It's worse.
A lot of times it's just someone who hates the whole category of thing and is shitting on your stuff not because of anything in particular to your work but because they hate the whole genera and anyone who makes it.

>>97801276
its worse than that. A lot of times the person shitting on your stuff is just a retard.

>>97798814
>You actually want your players' characters to feel like they fit in the game instead of them bringing bugs bunny, doomslayer, Goku, and a xenomorph to your low fantasy game
you say this like its a bad thing, but my last game had someone pull up in a ford ranger and we still had a good time

File: Dragoon exosuit info.png (2.1 MB)

2.1 MB PNG

>>97801084
Thanks. The map itself is in need of some updating, as I kind of want to obscure the fact that it is just east asia a bit more, as well as make it easier to read. The location icon spam issue is also something I want to fix.

You can find more of my worldbuilding autism on my deviant art gallery.
https://www.deviantart.com/screeble/gallery/62271545/mundus-carnis

My core "lore document" for the setting is a bit of a disorganized mess, a google document to which I've collected my autistic ramblings and musings about the setting. The more coherent form of the lore tends to be in these autismal infographics.

>>97791782
- Endosoma
- Symbiotic Cosmism
- Hyperspace travel and non-euclidian geometries
- An absurdly Indestructible cyborg who stumbles across the setting

I keep doing it either way. Someone tried to nitpick it before but they missed the point.

>>97792265
>I don't care about my game enough to even hav e answers for basic history checks.
lol, lmao do people really?

File: yelling.png (334 KB)

334 KB PNG

>>97801204
critisism is just one of those things that everybody thinks they can do but nobody does well.
fucking sucks but welcome to the internet

>>97791782
No because I use the methodology of the Gigachad

Some people just have a story telling gene. I've seen a DM try to make a unique story with little imagination and he always ends up looking like Star Wars for some fucking reason. My world evolves pretty naturally, the only thing I really need to prepare is a list of names and the rest is improv.

>>97791782
No.
But my settings are esoteric and require unironically 120IQ+ To even realize the amount of slop I'm doing as a Cervantesque shitpost.

>>97803270
Share with the class

>>97802115
Tabletop is a collaborative experience. The world building shouls be collaborative as well. You should let your players describe their hometown and draw details and plot beats from their backstories.

>>97803209
Critical feedback that is useful to the creator relies on understanding the intent to a degree or at least being able to notice technical flaws and consistency issues in a way that isn't simply "well science book said" or acting like metamaterial engineering never will advance past where we are now with it as if no one ever could make a better building material or a better computation paradigm for interfacing with neurons.
Some worldbuilding I dislike because I don't believe you can enforce tech bans across a setting via governments or such. Especially in a galaxy spanning setting like mass effect's (which is a pain pig for worldbuilding beatdowns but guess what, mass effect still is a hugely popular setting) where I never could buy that the Salarians would never as a species fuck around with AI even after the ban due to how short lived and technophilliac they are. But that in itself may be a product of there just not being a plotline of that nature being developed rather than simply an absence of such Salarians. It also is likely because of the Salarians being so tied to the genophage arc that the writers didn't want to have them also be involved in the Geth arc. Writing considerations of this nature sometimes occur, like in Babylon 5 they changed Sheridan to be someone tied to the shadows more (his wife, anyways) while not tied to the Minbari as much as the initial script did due to having to change the main character out at the end of the first season.
And this is before the whole "when does consistent worldbuilding hurt a story arc" issue that can emerge. A character just may not do an obvious solution due to reasons related to their own ego. The writing could make that clear to the audience in those situations, like the captain neglecting the iceberg despite being warned about it due to buying into mythology about the ship being unsinkable.

>>97805802
the issue is more rudimentary. most ppl seem to think that criticism is too look for something you can point at and say "this bad", good criticism is more complicated then that
this is also a problem with criticism aimed at ppl other then the creator

File: Griffith physique.png (1.7 MB)

1.7 MB PNG

>>97799575
Can you incorporate my fetish of small feminine twinks being dominated by busty amazons

I literally just finished work a doc that basically reads like a scientific paper about how each species in my system does or does not reproduce complete with a chart and new rules regarding sex, conception, pregnancy, and what happens if you're a deadbeat dad. Need to go back and add descriptions for all the mixed species options but that's 256 options and I've only got 64 of them done.

>>97805643
Yeah no, sorry, too many cooks spoils the pot. Conflating "My character is from [inconsequential location they made up" with "here's a location of a major historical event I'm too lazy to write lore for" is retarded lol.

>>97791782
I have 8-10 players in one campaign. (this detail is just me bragging).
They pretty consistently say that they like my setting, with the exceptions that they say:

>the currency makes no sense (it's shells of a scarab-like beetle, which people will hunt/forage sometimes both to eat the creature and collect its shell.)
>There's one non-human race that (like the Amazons and Gargareans) have males and females live in seperate societies. Imo this one makes plenty of sense, since the females are slightly stronger (but less mystically inclined) than the males, and since the don't die of old-age untill about 200 they don't have to reproduce as often.

There's also a few things about the setting that frequently get questions asked about them, which is both a good, bad, and unavoidable thing if your setting isn't firmly rooted in one genre I think.

>>97807854
Why haven't the bugs been hunted to extinction

>>97805643
No, in practice that turns into a shitshow REALLY fast.
Often destroying most games it's attempted before the first session even starts.

Everyone needs to be on the same page for shit to work, which is impossible if everyone is making shit up as they feel like it.

>>97807315
>>97808112
These takes are crazy to me
My group's current campaign is "Oops, All Druids!". Session 0 the DM presented a world map that only had continents on it (no biomes), and the players had to sprinkle druidic circles on it. "I think it'd be cool if there was a huge volcano here", "what if there was a circle in the middle of a swamp", etc.
Then we picked which circle each of our characters was from, worked on their backgrounds, and why they were in the starting town.

Between Session 0 and Session 1 the DM filled in the map based on our ideas, and it guaranteed that there were interesting locations tied to character backstories that we might get to explore later. For example, part of my character's backstory is idolizing a Robin Hood-esque group, so I wrote a bunch of short parables tied to different locations that the DM then placed in the world (or, modified to fit existing locations he had in mind).

When players ask questions like "Is there an X nearby?", the DM frequently goes "I dunno, if you think it makes sense then describe it to me". Or the DM will pick a player and ask them to describe some feature of the scene or area.

We're about a 9 months into the campaign and it's easily been our "best" thus far.

Maybe it only works if your group can be trusted not to fuck around; we've all DM'd before and have been playing together for like 10 years. But it's really sad that people are dismissing the idea of collaborative world-building outright.

>>97808167
Just like anything, you need to know your group for collaboration to work. Otherwise people don't have buy-in to make it work.

>>97791782
what's that?

>>97793623
It is, of course.

>>97798814
Sorry you hate fun, bitch

>>97803788
Why was he making a story instead of running a game?

>>97807315
No.

>>97808112
Have you never collaborated before? Or do you not know what the word means?

>>97808171
No, you just ask questions. No amount of buy in needed.

>>97808501
>>97808506
Your nonsense is getting really old.
You are just trolling and need to get a life.

I ran a Mutants & Masterminds game where the final villain was essentially a shapeshifting Saiyan who decided to assume the form of Chuck Norris due to misunderstanding all the memes.
Was it just an excuse to play out an Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny? Yes.
Was it worth? Yes.

>>97808552
So you don't know what it means?

why are people so mad about how other people play their games?

File: flame suit nigga.jpg (354.9 KB)

354.9 KB JPG

>>97808697
Because other people play wrong

>>97791782
No, because I exclusively play with other players who share my fetish, so my weird fetishistic worldbuilding is actually beloved

No,
Maybe I've said something that didn't make sense or clashed with previous information, but I don't recall any example because whenever someone notices it I just correct it. Everyone knows you're just making shit up, as long as it doesn't clash with gameplay no one cares if you edit for years or in real time.

Now, I understand that some people use it as a time to develop ideas. You write 10 pages on the church of the sunless sunday, and in the process you come up with a faction and a dungeon in an abandoned church and a long term plot about satisfying the 10 great popes to get their permision to use them as temporal teleportation markers. That's fine, it's your process, you get something from it and it's healthier than using your mental capacity to masturbate or imagine a plot while you play a Bethesta game. As long as you know that no one at the table cares about your lore you're gold, anyone telling you that you're cringe and should stop are projecting.

>>97808552
So you don't know what it means?

>>97808552
So you don't know what it means?

>>97808552
So you don't know what it means?

It's nice how the >>97808552 anon baited the troll into proving him right.

>>97808697
Because the people complaining don't play games at all, and they're jealous of those of us who do.

>>97811427
So you don't know what it means?

>>97808469
fuck you

mad and fat lol

>>97791782
I lowkenuinely fucking hate this kink to worldbuild retardation dude tspmo. legit just take a particular point in hsistory and shuffle it and you have a peak campaign
rn: early part of the Wars of the Roses (like just before 1st Saint Albans), but the tech is 13th century English and the Geography is like if the Faroes were way bigger and also there's a beastman invasion at some point. Use harnmaster or CORPS as your ruleset and let your players do what they want with careful time tracking and incoming pressure points
there u go on the Jordans this WILL be a great campaign

I just had one of my players ask to co-GM in the setting I semi-created (just a mass of things I like).

File: UnmaskingElvishSociety.jpg (399.8 KB)

399.8 KB JPG

>>97791782
No. I don't remember it ever happening.
When I was new, I used preexisting worlds. And then I learned to git gud.

>>97801204
>>97801222
>Online critique is terrible
>>97803209
>critisism is just one of those things that everybody thinks they can do but nobody does well.
>>97801276
>>97801513
>>97806335
>>97805802
Critiquing is a skill as is taking a critique. It must be learned and developed.
Most people simply talk about what they like or dislike, which is largely separate and independent of an actual critique.

A critique examines what something is and how well it achieves its intent.
For example, I agree with the positive critiques of A Clockwork Orange but I personally don't like it.

File: war.jpg (158 KB)

158 KB JPG

>>97819192
>Most people simply talk about what they like or dislike, which is largely separate and independent of an actual critique.
not on the internet it isn't, you better be ready with a twelve paragraph lecture on why you don't like the thing or you're just trolling and should be banned for such sacrilege.

>>97819614
I'm not exactly sure what your point is.
But even if the internet acts like a banana is a meat byproduct, that doesn't change the truth of it. And that it's a berry.

cabal trannies are ruining this board with kink positivity

>>97791782
I keep most of my kinks out of my DMing, but my players have commented at least once on how so many of my NPCs are androgynous to the point of indeterminate gender.
My players all like playing "chaotic" characters, so rather than a political power fantasy for myself, I set up various corrupt institutions for them to overthrow.
Magic is made via filtering Forma from the Hyperuranion through different methods, different filters, and different molds.
Characters are loosely inspired by figures from various myths and religions.

>>97808167
>>When players ask questions like "Is there an X nearby?", the DM frequently goes "I dunno, if you think it makes sense then describe it to me".
>Players can just spawn in whatever they want by talking good.
>Anon thinks this is a good game
holy shit zero preppers deserve the rope.

File: Screenshot 2026-04-01 212401.png (1.5 MB)

1.5 MB PNG

>>97820346
We're the antithesis of zero preppers, we share accounts for tools like Inkarnate and I can see the current GM spent hours working on a custom battle map for the upcoming session

It's just fun to have the players fill out the world map with POIs, I'm using the same technique in our Lancer campaign

File: 1636783124971.jpg (51.6 KB)

51.6 KB JPG

>>97791970
I kneel.

>We're the antithesis of zero preppers
>It's just fun to have the players fill out the world map with POIs
If the players are filling out the world with POIs, what is the GM doing? The player's aren't there to build the game, they are there to explore the world. If my GM is just saying "lol idk, you decide" to basic questions like "What's beyond the next town?" and "does this item have historical significance?" I'd rather just solo game. Players are there to explore the world, not create it.

Even if the GM hasn't written down the answers to those questions, he should have enough of a sense of his own game to answer them off the cuff. Not rely on the players to do his job.

>>97820393
>The player's aren't there to build the game
What the... is your character just a puppet for the DM? The players are building the game through their character's actions just as much as the DM is by setting up narratives or set-pieces. When a player creates a backstory with a narrative hook that the DM expands on, does that somehow lessen the game? What if the player decides some sessions in that "it'd be really cool if we could see more of X", and the DM chooses to make X more relevant in-world since the players are enjoying it?

Characterizing the DM involving players in worldbuilding as avoiding effort just seems so bizarre. It's not like they're relying on the players to do work for them, rather they're sharing the fun of worldbuilding with them.

>>97820424
>What the... is your character just a puppet for the DM?
No, my character is a part of the world, and I am trying to explore and engage with that world. If I ask questions like the ones mentioned just to get constantly told "idk, what do you think?" then I'm very quickly going to lose interest in the game. Because again, I could just play a solo game if I wanted to come up with everything in the world.

Player driven world-building should come from character action. My campaign has several player founded cities, regions where players did significant actions, etc.

>>97820534
So players adding a city to the setting via their character actions is good... but players working with the DM to create a city for them to explore together via their characters is bad? You're collaboratively developing the setting together in both scenarios. (Not to say they're equivalent narratively, just in that they both require the DM to react to something new existing in the world.)

Drawing an arbitrary line that says "player involvement in worldbuilding ends when Session 1 starts" prevents your players from helping expand on interesting ideas unless they can somehow bullshit it as in-character, which goes back to your original complaint of "players can just spawn in whatever they want by talking good". What if a player speaks with the DM out-of-character and asks if they could tweak an NPC's motivations to set up an interesting narrative device? Is that "talking good"?

I think it's fine to leave all the world-building to the DM - that's how we've run many of our campaigns so far - but I don't think it's a coincidence that the one that's been the most interesting for our group is the one that has us actively contributing to world-building. It's just an additional tool the DM is offering the players; if they don't want to turn over control of some aspect of the world to the player, they can just decide the answer themselves or offer to come back to it once they've had some time to think about it.

>>97808167
As a Player, I'd get incredibly bored if everything was just the GM going "Yeah sure you can have everything you want". I want to have surprises as a player. I don't want to know every fucking thing that happens. The best moments of every campaign I've been in as a player are when the GM reveals some secret he's been keeping for like 30 sessions. It would be dreadfully boring if what we encountered was just shit we made ourselves. At that point, why even bother with a GM anyway? They aren't doing anything. It's all the rest of us.

As a GM, I expect my players to create characters who feel like they've always lived in the setting. This means the setting needs to exist with a history that predates the game itself, with lore that exists for them to draw upon, with explanations for why each player-facing option exists, how it is viewed in the game world, etc. It also lets me limit content I don't want used. This doesn't preclude what you've described - players coming up with their own home town for example. It just provides greater context to those decisions and grounds them in the game world. For example, if you say "My character is from this small town" in their background, that gives no context. There is no point of comparison. If the GM gives you a list of countries and where certain races are from however, then now, everyone has context about your character based on what country they're from, what race they are, etc.

As I said, too many cooks spoils the pot. You wind up with a world of incoherent bullshit with no verisimilitude because the other 5 people all have totally different ideas of what they want to put in the game that openly conflict with one another.

>>97820582
>So players adding a city to the setting via their character actions is good... but players working with the DM to create a city for them to explore together via their characters is bad?
No, the players adding a city to the setting via their actions (unless they literally build it from the ground up) is bad.
>You're collaboratively developing the setting together in both scenarios
And that is too many cooks in the kitchen. The world becomes less coherent. It also offloads what should be the GM's job onto the players. There is no need for a GM if the players are doing all of the work the GM would normally do.
>What if a player speaks with the DM out-of-character and asks if they could tweak an NPC's motivations to set up an interesting narrative device?
I tell them to have their PC do it instead, because it's not their job to play NPCs, it's mine, and if they want to do that so bad they should GM instead. Also, pre-determined narratives in TTRPGs are a sign the GM is railroading. A GM needs to be reactive about that sort of thing, not proactive.

People forget the GM is a player at the table too. The GM has things only they can do, and that includes worldbuilding, playing NPCs, and setting up plot hooks. The more things the Players do, the less things the GM has to do to the point it e ventually becomes redundant to have a GM at all.

>>97820593
I think I would too, and I'm glad that's not how we've been playing. The DM has kept plenty of information about the world secret - like the calamity the characters are currently investigating - and us players have been theorizing how the puzzle pieces connect for months.

But when we're exploring an area, and a player character has backstory is tied to an area asks "DM, is there a shrine to a minor deity nearby?," why shouldn't the DM say "Sure, describe a minor deity you think is appropriate and where their shrine would be on the map"? It turns it into a discussion with the DM where they get to add to the world, and gives the characters something fun to deal with over the next few sessions.

I imagine you'd agree that expecting the DM to pre-prepare every single POI or NPC in advance, pre-plan every possible outcome of every social or battle encounter, etc. would just be extremely railroady. There's always going to be some level of improv, and we're just debating which way to push the line. If you trust your players not to maliciously fuck up your setting, why not let them participate? The DM can always say they don't like an idea because it conflicts with something else they're planning or doing.

>>97820593
I feel like an assumption is being made that the DM is shirking prep and expecting the players to make things up for them - you're using words like "everything", "constantly", etc. It's just another tool the DM can deploy when they feel it appropriate. I'm also getting vibes that either you've had problem players before, or your current group has disagreed with some of your worldbuilding choices. You seem very... antagonistic toward your players, if you're saying things like "and if they want to do that so bad they should GM instead".

>>97820582
>What if a player speaks with the DM out-of-character and asks if they could tweak an NPC's motivations to set up an interesting narrative device? Is that "talking good"?
This is retarded and any player who asks the DM to "tweak NPC motivations" isn't there to play a game.
>Drawing an arbitrary line that says "player involvement in worldbuilding ends when Session 1 starts"
Player involvement in world-building doesn't stop at session 1. It never happens in the first place. A GM instead says "I am running a game using X system in a [setting description] world. If the players aren't interested in that, I sure as shit don't want their """interesting""" ideas to fuck up the game for the players that are actually interested. Just as much as I wouldn't want a GM letting the other players fuck up a world I was enjoying playing in.

This incidentally, is why Ryutaama sucks so much to play. Every Ryutaama campaign I've ever been it starts out as an interesting fantasy setting, only for us to immediately travel to Dicksburg to mean count Fartstein because the GM let a player """worldbuild."""

>>97820654
>This is retarded and any player who asks the DM to "tweak NPC motivations" isn't there to play a game.
Dang, that's crazy, thanks for letting me know I'll make sure to tell my group

>Every Ryutaama campaign I've ever been it starts out as an interesting fantasy setting, only for us to immediately travel to Dicksburg to mean count Fartstein because the GM let a player """worldbuild."""
This just sounds like a difference in expectations between players. If the rest of the group is having fun, maybe you should reflect on why you're not? And if it's because you just really want to try exploring a more serious setting, find a group that better matches your vibe?

>>97820686
> If the rest of the group is having fun
They aren't. Every Ryutaama game I've been in has broken up after 2 or 3 sessions. Player led world building sucks for all the reasons aforementioned in this thread.

>And if it's because you just really want to try exploring a more serious setting, find a group that better matches your vibe?
If a game that is advertised was a serious setting, if should remain that way. Not cater to one retard who thinks fart jokes are funny at 40. I as a player am there to experience the GM's game, not the groups.

Look, if you think playing Exquisite corpse instead of an rpg is fun, you do you I don't care about how your group has fun. But pretending to be dense about why it's not a good way to actually run a game in general is silly.

>>97820733
"I couldn't make it work, therefore no-one can make it work"
Skill issue desu, I've never even heard of this game before but the fact other people are apparently playing it means this is a (You)-problem.

>I as a player am there to experience the GM's game, not the groups.
Literally untrue - you're not interested in roleplaying with the other player's characters? Maybe you should meet up with the other anon and solo-play together.

File: dumbass.png (182.5 KB)

182.5 KB PNG

>>97820752
>you're not interested in roleplaying with the other player's characters?
You are actually retarded if you think inter-party roleplay is the same as my DM saying "Uh, uuh I didn't actually prep any POIs for this regions so un just make it yourselves. Actual nogames confirmed.

>>97820764
"N...N-no games! He's a no-games, guys!"
whatever you say friend, guess I'll just enjoy the session this Friday :^) I'll come up with an extra silly POI that makes everyone smile, just for you

>>97816506
>legit just take a particular point in hsistory and shuffle it and you have a peak campaign
This post reads like a shitpost with zoomers talk, but this is uniornically my opinion and what a I consider the core of fantasy, more than people would like to admit. History being mishmashed together to create something unique but still almost familiar.
>Harnmaster
And Harn is definitely an example.

>>97820764
I don't know why you're jumping from "I let the players add their own details to the setting" to "I don't do anything at all and the players have to do all all the worldbuilding instead".

>>97791782
Using your fetishes for worldbuilding just makes sense, it's something you're passionate about and relatively unique to you which should hopefully come through in your writing.

>>97822242
Too bad my fetishes veer too much into magical realm territory to be utilized for worldbuilding

>>97822235
>When players ask questions like "Is there an X nearby?", the DM frequently goes "I dunno, if you think it makes sense then describe it to me". Or the DM will pick a player and ask them to describe some feature of the scene or area.
Gee, idk why anyone would jump to the conclusion that the DM is having the players do all the worldbuilding from this description of a DM doing exactly that.

>>97823739
>When players ask questions
There's an implicit presupposition here that the players ask questions when they want something to be expanded on; then, if the DM feels it appropriate, the player may participate in expanding on it. The fact the DM "frequently" does this implies the cadence is below whatever threshold they're mentally setting for "too much". The text doesn't support the assumption that the DM is entirely offloading worldbuilding to the players.

>>97824926
>There's an implicit presupposition here that the players ask questions when they want something to be expanded on
>when they want something to be expanded on
Yes retard, that's the point. The DM going "idk, you tell me" is not an answer to the question the player asked. It is in fact signaling to the player that there isn't an answer, and never was. Why on earth would anyone want to play in a world that the DM knows so poorly he can't even answer basic questions about things nearby the playing area.

>>97824926
>>97825110
For real let's do the reverse of this situation.
>DM: What's your AC?
>Player: idk, you tell me
Wouldn't that be retarded? Wouldn't you never want to play with someone who couldn't be bothered to do the bare minimum? Why do you think doing the bare minimum to run a game as a DM is any different?

>>97825150
What a braindead comparison. AC is an actual mechanic with concrete numbers behind it, not worldbuilding.

>>97825299
>Muh mechanic's
Basically every game explains in its rules that the GM should come up with the world. The good ones even give him tools to do it with.

But fine, here's another example:
>What's your character's name
>Idk you tell me
>What's his motivation
>Idk you tell me
Those aren't mechanically defined or even required to play the game. This must be your ideal player since your ideal DM does the same thing with his job.

>>97825458
>"DM, is there a blacksmith in this village?"
>Yea, sure, he moved out of the city to enjoy the quiet life after the accident. What was the accident?
>"What if... he was trying to forge a magic blade, and it blew up, accidentally killing his assistant? And him 'enjoying the quiet life' is actually him hiding from the Guild, who wants to bring him to justice?"
>That's sick, yea when you walk into the smithy you see a grizzled man pounding at an ingot with his left hand; his right hand is missing."

You're really gonna sit here and say "no, the DM should have pre-planned it all, and the player's fun idea for a plot hook is stupid"? Why not just have ChatGPT on text-to-speech and a robot roll your dice while your at it?

>>97825482
It's not that the idea is stupid, it's that it completely derails the rest of the group and puts in meta-game knowledge that the players shouldn't have. So yes, if the DM wanted this blacksmith to have a plot hook asociated with him, he should prep that. If he didn't want that, then why should a player get to add it?

Second, you have no idea if this idea is good or bad. The DM has NOTHING on this blacksmith. He just showed up out of nowhere.

Here's how an actual game would work:
>"Hey DM, is there a blacksmith here"
>"Yes there is, he's a grizzled man missing his right hand. In it's place is a set of prosthetic set of tongs. They are of very high quality and probably weren't forged here."
>"Hmm, interesting. I ask him where he got the tongs."
>"He seems uncomfortable with the question, but responds he got them in the city before hurriedly asking your order."
Now, the players know something is up, but not the specifics and they can decided to follow it up organically instead of feeling forced because clearly Jimmy really wants to track down this new blacksmith quest (that doesn't actually exist yet because the DM didn't make it).

Also if is actually rich hearing you suggest ChatGPT to generate a game when clearly you can't be asked to do it yourself and rely on your players to do your job.

>>97825684
>Here's how an actual game would work
oh shit there I go forgetting that I'm actually a nogames and the fact we're playing like this doesn't count

It's improv; the classic "yes, and..." rule. Why are they asking about a blacksmith? Is it because the party just found a McGuffin in the dungeon and are hoping an NPC could tell them what it is, or give them a lead to investigate it? Maybe the DM expected them to look for someone to cast Identify on it and was planning to introduce the College of Mages this session; and when the players take a more mundane route, they get to introduce a new character and new elements to the story.

Perhaps the blacksmith was forging the exploding-sword on behalf of a mage of the College - was he set up? Does the blacksmith recoil when they present the McGuffin, shouting "Get that Mage-wrought curse out of my shop!" and throw the half-worked molten ingot at them? The point isn't "holy shit this blacksmith is now the #1 most important NPC in the game"; they're just some irrelevant bozo that the DM could have made up on-the-fly, but instead decided to let the player contribute to the world. If the players latch onto this random NPC for whatever reason, the DM can always say "let's come back to this later once I've had a chance to work on him".

I'm not even the DM for the group right now, so attacking me personally isn't super convincing.

>>97791970
Sippy fucking bippy

>>97825771
>It's improv; the classic "yes, and..." rule.
Improv isn't gaming
> Maybe the DM expected them to look for someone to cast Identify on it and was planning to introduce the College of Mages this session; and when the players take a more mundane route, they get to introduce a new character and new elements to the story.
So just because the players did something the DM didn't expect, they now get to spawn in something that... introduces the thing the DM wanted to do anyway?? That's just railroading with extra steps. .

>>97822242
Fetishes fuck over other stuff when used too much as it stops being about anything else or contrived in. And it limits options as you can't do stuff with a subject that undermine the fetish like how a vorefag has an autistic freakout when the monster gets sliced apart in the throat because they tried to swallow someone with daggers. Or how someone being mutilated to a horrific monster is going being a body horror thing that wants put out of its misery too much for people into TF to fantasize have happening to them.

>>97791970
This but set to flamenco music.

>>97831321
>Or how someone being mutilated to a horrific monster is going being a body horror thing that wants put out of its misery too much for people into TF to fantasize have happening to them.
As a TF fag this has never been a problem for me. Not into the body horror stuff fetishistically but they can coexist and even complement each other perfectly, Made in Abyss is a great example. In fact a lot of great manga are just transparently based on the author's fetish.

Not being able to write "your fetish but bad sometimes" is just being a shit writer, doesn't mean fetish-based writing is bad.

>>97831850
Yeah it's like the mystery flesh pit or such where no one's going to expect you to find it hot it killed 200 people or get mad if you wish it got purged with nukes, at most question if that'd even make sense to do.

No, but I should have been.

>>97831850
>Made in Abyss
Ah, a pedofur!

>>97791782
Yes, AI calls me out for it constantly when I demand it to check my new setting

>>97791970
Ironically ^ This

>>97833622
Oh yeah what does it call you out on? Extremist views?

>>97791782
>tfw my kink is plate tectonic accurate fantasy worlds
It's almost as rare as dragons fucking cars.

File: critique.jpg (175.5 KB)

175.5 KB JPG

>>97833811
>Extremist views?
Why would any ai assistant care about it?
More often than not ai complains about lack descriptions of rape and race genocides when I ask for dark fantasy
>Oh yeah what does it call you out on?
Sometimes something actually good, sometimes on something retarded like "locations shouldn't have people of interest because gm would feel obligated to use them instead of coming up with something themselves"
It's harder to find materials that are structured and written decently enough to feed ai as references. I usually use acks player companion books

>>97791970
based.

>>97835894
>where is the vatican
>where are the elves 'n shieet
Did you instruct your AI to act autistic?

>>97791782
No.
In fact, I've been frequently complemented about it providing an interesting and gripping environment.

Only time I've ever been 'called out' is one time in a Wormverse ttrpg where the players had a hypersonic jet craft that was secretly a biomechanical creature with the personality of a golden retriever.
The player that jumped up and dubbed it the "vore plane, vore plane" also had slept with most of that table at one point, and was a profoundly manipulative, mentally unhealthy woman.

>>97839506
>vore plane!
Unless they're getting gooned out in the guts of it, they probably shouldn't be saying that

File: 1775174350250040.jpg (418.6 KB)

418.6 KB JPG

>>97791782
Okay let me try this, I've never done this. Literally just going off the cuff:

>Step 1: Your Kink
Psycho yandere loli elf demigod mages that go into heat like cats and have arranged incest marriages
>Step 2: Your Political Powerfantasy
Theocratic Turbofascist Magocracy
>Step 3: Esoteric Magic System
Willingly possessed by spectral eldritch monstrosities that they have to share their minds and bodies with allowing manifesting of powers at cost of going schizo, get stronger by eating each others eldritch things after defeating them, might suddenly lose control and mutate into giant monsters.
>Step 4: Characters (Optional)
Rip-offs of all of my favorite anime girls with names changed and outfits swapped. Add elf ears where necessary.

How did I do? Would you play my setting /tg/?

>>97791782
No, because I've never run a game in any of my settings because they're too undercooked and would require a lot of homebrew in most systems. I just use official campaign settings instead.

I will say I don't inject my fetishes into my setting too much, but that's mainly because I'm a footfag and it's hard to write that into a non-visual medium without it being insanely obvious, be that in worldbuilding or in rules (I could think of a few rules related to barefootedness but they'd be annoying and so niche to that including them would be more trouble than they're worth). I guess you could consider me including kemonomimi in my setting as "fetishistic" but while that was certainly a motivating factor, I also just needed more races to diversify and fill out the setting since I'm very picky about playable races and which I want to include in my setting.

I also try not to insert obvious political shit into my setting or games in general but the whole genre was originally built around ostensibly roughly medieval/renaissance/early modern societies that were, suffice it to say, far from friendly hugbox liberal democracies, and that suits me just fine.

>>97792365
Hmmm, she should have bigger tits

>>97797333

Anon is just showing his power level.
It's mostly purples, pinks and blues. Those are colours frequently found on Queer flags, so it triggers some people.
If you're not a snowflake it looks fine.

>>97791782
No

>>97791782
No, but that's because I haven't used my worldbuilding project in a single campaign yet. All of the games I GM have been either set in an official setting or a mishmash of whatever webcomic I'm reading at the moment with a kid's TV show (eg K6BD and He-Man, or Digger and MLP). My group isn't the most discerning, so they love those

File: 1567384032536.png (191.9 KB)

191.9 KB PNG

>>97791782
The worst that happened is my friends asking why I would even bother with making an Occultist Class or a Serial Killer class or why I'm fixated on making Homebrew races, that I should stop trying to make my world complex and get a game going already
The majority of my friends can't get their own personal projects off the ground so I never listen to them about mine

>>97849800
>No, but that's because I haven't used my worldbuilding project in a single campaign yet
we know bumpfag

>>97851152
Clearly not a bumpfag post, I don't think he's ever replied to a thread with any non-question longer than like 10 words (especially not without some barely-relevant image).

>>97791970
Based?

File: map of anima fabula.png (2.6 MB)

2.6 MB PNG

>>97791782
No but I'm in 2 different Fabula ultima games, and both times we used the rules in the book to collaboratively world build the setting as a group, and honestly I had so much fun with it the first time it inspired me to bring it over to my IRL friends to make a setting that I'm now GMing a campaign for, it really revitalized this wonderous child like feeling I had when I first discovered ttrpgs back in high school.
system is overall okay but there's just something about slap dashing a setting together with friends with the guidelines it has that I honestly would like to bring into other systems/campaigns I play

Worldbuilding is a trap for DMs. Instead of wasting time creating 10,000 years of lore you should see what kind of setting and plot points your players are interested in and go from there.

>>97857838
What if they admittedly don't know what they want? I can count the number of players I've had who were capable and willing to collaborate in setting up a campaign on one hand.

>>97857838
>Dont do lore, end up overly derivative
>Do lore, end up in worldbuilding cancer hell

>>97851152
Bumpfag would never give input or go into detail about his stuff ever, he responds by pretending to be dense and asking some banal question with an answer you know he doesn't give a shit about

File: 1768939969069319.gif (2 MB)

2 MB GIF

Can you guys make examples of esoteric magic systems?

>>97864895
Yes. Why?

Personally I've never felt the same fascination others seem to have with novel magic systems.
It's all too often just mediocre magic filtered through a lame gimmick.
Some justify it well with quality writing but very few.

>>97831708
https://litter.catbox.moe/9pzew76f9tckyy2e.wav