{"id":7069,"date":"2023-03-27T04:00:27","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T08:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/?p=7069"},"modified":"2023-03-08T20:51:12","modified_gmt":"2023-03-09T00:51:12","slug":"crashs-course-ep-09-worldbuilding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/2023\/03\/crashs-course-ep-09-worldbuilding\/","title":{"rendered":"Crash&#8217;s Course Ep 09: Worldbuilding"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_8734\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-7069-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/CrashsCourse_Ep_09_Worldbuilding.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/CrashsCourse_Ep_09_Worldbuilding.mp3\">https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/CrashsCourse_Ep_09_Worldbuilding.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/CrashsCourse_Ep_09_Worldbuilding.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/?powerpress_pinw=7069-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/CrashsCourse_Ep_09_Worldbuilding.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"CrashsCourse_Ep_09_Worldbuilding.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p><a href=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4404\" src=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-300x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse.png 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Hello and welcome to Crash\u2019s Course, a short form podcast where I share my thoughts and advice on playing and running tabletop role playing games in roughly about 5 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been on a worldbuilding kick lately, so I thought that would make a good topic. I mean, sure, there\u2019s lots of good campaign settings out there ready for you to use, but they\u2019re not <i>yours<\/i>, you know? Why not make something original, and as an extra bonus, have it be something where that one party member can\u2019t buy the same source book and as a result can metagame everything.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->(I\u2019m not saying every group has one, but \u2026 OK, a friend was running a Waterdeep campaign and because I read D&amp;D comics in the 80s I already knew who, more importantly what, the Xanathar was. I wasn\u2019t trying to find spoilers, I just remembered that one weird thing from 40 years ago. Once you know something, it\u2019s hard to <i>not<\/i> know something.)<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re serious about building your own campaign, I strongly suggest you read two books: <a href=\"https:\/\/shop.slyflourish.com\/collections\/the-lazy-dungeon-master-series\/products\/return-of-the-lazy-dungeon-master\">Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/koboldpress.com\/kpstore\/product\/kobold-guide-to-worldbuilding\/\">The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding<\/a>. Both books are system-agnostic enough to be worth it regardless of your TTRPG preferences. I won\u2019t be going over or even summing up the content of those books, there\u2019s too much, but I do intend to \u201cyes, and\u201d for the rest of this episode.<\/p>\n<p>You may be tempted to build out your whole campaign setting before your first session. If that\u2019s where you find your joy, go for it, but I don\u2019t recommend that path. Instead, flesh out maybe one or two towns, perhaps a smallish kingdom. Your party is going to grow and change in ways you don\u2019t expect, and having room to fill in will have future you remaining eternally grateful.<\/p>\n<p>When I started my campaign setting of Circulus, I gave the players a map of a giant continent with lots of boundary lines, but only one spot had a label \u2013 the area where they\u2019d be spending the winter. Even now, with lots of areas explored and tied in with different characters\u2019 backstories, the map\u2019s still mostly empty. We have room to grow.<\/p>\n<p>Of course it\u2019s still a good idea to have a big plot point or two to differentiate your setting from the others. What makes it special? This could be something you tell your players right away to get them interested, or perhaps, especially if it isn\u2019t common knowledge, you save that detail for a grand reveal down the line.<\/p>\n<p>With Circulus, I did a little of both. Players went into the game knowing it was a world where a continent-spanning empire ended, leaving the countries and city states that sprang up as a result more or less loosely confederated. It also, oddly enough for a D&amp;D setting, had no dragons at all. They had legends, they even had dragonborn, but no dragons, no kobolds, and hardly any monsters other than the undead and a handful of goblins who to be quite honest just wanted to be left alone.<\/p>\n<p>This was, of course, a lie. I had an ancient green dragon barnstorming the party when they hit level 3 and the reveal was glorious. It turns out that what I said had been the truth for a long time, but the boundaries between this world and others were breaking down, and all kinds of things were being pulled through.<\/p>\n<p>(Roughly half of the party had origin stories starting them off in other campaign settings before coming to this one. Really, they shouldn\u2019t have been too surprised.)<\/p>\n<p>Note that I didn\u2019t explain why there was any barrier set up preventing inter-world travel, or why it was breaking down. I had some rough ideas in my head about that, but I deliberately didn\u2019t write them all down. As the PCs gained in levels and the plot adjusted course in response to their decisions, I came up with a way better reason than my initial half-formed concept. If I\u2019d planned that out years before anyone would have been able to discover it, I might have felt stuck with a not-as-good concept that I\u2019d carved in stone.<\/p>\n<p>So to sum up, build a town, create one or two world-spanning \u201ctruths\u201d that make your world unique, share some facts, withhold others, and don\u2019t be afraid to lie to the party if the real truths aren\u2019t common knowledge.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s all for this episode, subscribe to just this podcast on Mastodon at <a href=\"https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@CrashsCourse\">is.aaronbsmith.com\/@crashscourse<\/a> or subscribe to all my TTRPG podcasts at <a href=\"https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@cogwheel\">is.aaronbsmith.com\/@cogwheel<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Music is <a href=\"http:\/\/modarchive.org\/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&amp;query=169788\">Deadly Windmills by JAM from modarchive.org<\/a>, used with permission, as it\u2019s public domain.<\/p>\n<p>This podcast is distributed under a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/\">CC-BY-NC-ND<\/a> license.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Follow this series on\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#x25b6; Patreon: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/cogwheelgaming\">https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/cogwheelgaming<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6; RSS: <a href=\"https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@CrashsCourse.rss\">https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@CrashsCourse.rss<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6; Google Podcasts: <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9hYXJvbmJzbWl0aC5jb20vY29nd2hlZWwvZmVlZC8\">https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9hYXJvbmJzbWl0aC5jb20vY29nd2hlZWwvZmVlZC8<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6; Apple Podcasts: <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/cogwheel-gaming\/id1291681389\">https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/cogwheel-gaming\/id1291681389<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6; Mastodon (Just this podcast): <a href=\"https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@CrashsCourse\">https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@CrashsCourse<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6; Mastodon (All podcasts): <a href=\"https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@cogwheel\">https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@cogwheel<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>MP3 Download: <a href=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/CrashsCourse_Ep_09_Worldbuilding.mp3\">Crash&#8217;s Course Ep 09: Worldbuilding<\/a><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/bePatron?u=6006674\">Keep us ad free by supporting us on Patreon!<\/a><br \/>\nThanks to our current Patreon Patrons (as of this upload&#8230;): Chris, Cindy<span class=\"sc-AxirZ bmNQcS\" data-tag=\"user-details-full-name\"> (Patron Emeritus)<\/span>, Ellie, Erik<span class=\"sc-AxirZ bmNQcS\" data-tag=\"user-details-full-name\">, ShanShen, and Walter!<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello and welcome to Crash\u2019s Course, a short form podcast where I share my thoughts and advice on playing and running tabletop role playing games in roughly about 5 minutes. I\u2019ve been on a worldbuilding kick lately, so I thought that would make a good topic. I mean, sure, there\u2019s lots of good campaign settings &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/2023\/03\/crashs-course-ep-09-worldbuilding\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Crash&#8217;s Course Ep 09: Worldbuilding&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[312,293],"tags":[362,318,295,327],"class_list":["post-7069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcast","category-ttrpg","tag-crashscourse","tag-dnd","tag-dungeons-and-dragons","tag-ttrpg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7071,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7069\/revisions\/7071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}