# World Building for RPGs vs. World Building for Novels



## Mask (Mar 18, 2013)

Something I've been wondering... Is building a narrative and setting for an RPG like DnD very different from building one for fantasy novels?

Novels do, notably, focus on characters. What works for a single epic tale won't necessarily work for a game which is meant to have countless possibilities for adventure. Similarly, a world that is always beset by darkness and adventure won't necessarily be appealing to a novel's narrative, where audiences like there to be results and changes from the characters' actions.
Of course, that is a simplification. There will be approaches which can avoid those problems for either work.


What are your thoughts on the matter? Would you approach world building very differently for a novel than you would for an RPG?


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## TheokinsJ (Mar 18, 2013)

Making worlds for RPGs is not that different to novels, with a few minor exceptions. I'm a lover of RPGs, Assassin's Creed and Skyrim are probably my two most favourite. To understand the difference between how the world of Skyrim, for example, is different to Tolkien's Middle Earth, think about the purpose and aim of the person who designed the world. The developers of skyrim made a work designed specifically for _The Player_, a compact world full of adventure and monsters with dungeons everywhere and where people are too scared to go outside the city walls because it's "The Wild", it's untamed and dangerous. RPG worlds are designed to be compact and fun for the player, not realistic like the world of Middle Earth, which is vast in comparison. Writers design their worlds to tell the story in, and for the character to travel through. Both come down to two main things. The player (in the case of a game), and the character (in the case of a book).

The player can go anywhere, and therefor the world must be made to be full of adventure and quests/dungeons/ruins/cities everywhere so that no matter where the player goes, there is something for him/her to do. With writing, it's similar except the character can not go anywhere, the character can only go where you want him/her to go, and so the world does not have to be as full of things. There's no point designing a hundred dungeons and caves and ruins in a novel if the character never travels anywhere near them! So the point is, the worlds are designed for different reasons, and therefor I'd say that I would approach world building differently for an RPG than a fantasy novel.


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## Ophiucha (Mar 18, 2013)

Since there is no single way to worldbuild for _either_, it's hard to say. In general, however, I would think you need to do a lot more work for an RPG than you would a novel. Many fantastic fantasy novelists just make it up as they go along in a novel - you don't really need to do much more. But for an RPG, you have to consider every possible thing the play may want to do. Particularly with tabletop RPGs, since there are no real boundaries. A player might want to be a chef or a seamstress and you, the creator of the game, have to have _something _in the setting for them to work with to build that character. You have to let them know if there are sheep or goats in the world for them to sheer. Writing a novel, though, if you have no seamstresses there is no reason but your own personal satisfaction and/or OCD to figure out the details of that business, you know?

But then on the other hand, you also may not need to have all of the specifics for an RPG. You can focus more on the big picture because you're not working with specific scenarios or characters. There are some D&D-style RPGs that don't even have pre-defined _kingdoms_ written into them. You detail the laws of the world (science/magic laws, specifically) and what inhabits it and what it looks like and then you leave the rest up to the DM and the player. With a novel, you'll need to know a lot more than just if goats exist in order to write a seamstress. You'll have to research how one goes about being a seamstress and you'll have to consider technology (do sewing machines exist? they're quite old, so they might), the nitty-gritty of fashion (what are shoulders like on dresses for women? puffy? lower on the arm? pointed?). It can get quite technical.

Soooo... it depends on the novel/rpg/person writing or creating said novel/rpg. For me, personally, from what I read and what I play, I would say RPGs take more work... but a lot of them are also written/developed by more than one person, so the workload isn't necessarily higher.


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## Steerpike (Mar 18, 2013)

I do a lot more for RPGs. You never know where the players will take things. For fiction, I do only what is necessary for the story.


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## mbartelsm (Mar 19, 2013)

Like TheokinsJ said, an RPG world needs to be much broader in scale, you must build every village in the area, every creature and every dungeon. For a novel you only need a vague idea of those concepts while you focus on the world your characters will be in touch with.


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## Nebuchadnezzar (Mar 19, 2013)

I'd say building for the typical RPG is likely to be quite different from a novel, in part for the reasons set out by others above.  The thing I've always been struck by though is the sheer number of sentient races a typical fantasy RPG has to accommodate versus a novel.  Looking at it somewhat objectively, this seems unrealistic and would be difficult to take seriously if it was anything other than an RPG setting.

Taking the typical D&D world, you have your basic player character races, then various sub-races, then the various goblinoids and orcs, then hundreds of sentient beings/monsters from the various monster manuals... it's ridiculous.  Compare this to the real world which has one sentient species and plenty of conflict and story-telling possibilities from that alone.

Unless I went the route of having my non-humans be humans in funny costumes, I think I'd be overwhelmed trying to write about a fantasy world that accommodates everything that the typical RPG rule book allows for.  Give me a novel where I can pick a few sentient races and a few monstrous adversaries  and call it a day.  Obviously all IMO and YMMV.


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## Steerpike (Mar 19, 2013)

Nebuchadnezzar said:


> Looking at it somewhat objectively, this seems unrealistic and would be difficult to take seriously if it was anything other than an RPG setting.



This is why I never set an RPG game in the Forgotten Realms. It's a ridiculous setting


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## wordwalker (Mar 19, 2013)

You know what D&D races --both civilized and monstrous-- remind me of? "Funny animals" like Bugs Bunny.

That is, they're just a way to make people look different, be called something different, and maybe set up a few expectations. Bugs is a "rabbit" in that he's got fur and ears, the name "bunny," and it gives him a bit of extra momentum when Elmer Fudd starts after him and he "Brer Rabbit"s his way out of trouble.

All just dressing up that he's a kind of *person.* Other stories (or characters in the same toons) could do the same with a child, a cowboy, or any other human starting point.

RPGs like to spit out dozens of these "races and creatures" just to get a lot of flashy options into the game quickly, including giving them combat bonuses "for being dwarves" and all. Novels don't need to be as busy, and they ought to take the time to explore what each culture means and whether it needs to be nonhuman or not.


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## Asura Levi (Mar 19, 2013)

Well, I do think that creating a world for a novel is actually harder than for the rpg for a very simple reason: on an rpg world you already have all the mechanics (unless you are creating the system as well) while in a world for fantasy novel you have to build all by yourself, magic rules, regional conflicts, fauna and flora, etc.

It is true that you just have to focus on where the character are, so you do not have to design every single dungeon, but you do need a solid guideline of how the environment looks like since, as far as the character usually goes where you want, sometimes it surprises you and take a different turn in a crossroad and instead of going into the mountains, it decides that want to explore the sea..

All that said, if you do have experience in building rpg worlds (for a existing system or one of your own), you will find a way easier to build a world for fantasy novel, just keep in mind you need a really solid consistence.


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## Lunaairis (Mar 19, 2013)

I host a little roleplaying game in the world of my main fantasy story idea. I actually find building the world in the rpg gives me more solid ideas on how some cities should look, or why something's don't work.  I also find it helps me with coming up for themes for cities/towns.  there is a downside, I have a lot more world building done for my fantasy world. Far more then i will actually use, but so much I want to use.


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## TWErvin2 (Mar 19, 2013)

I wrote an article for _*Mythic Scribes *_a short while back that touches upon this topic:

Link: The RPG Experience to Writing a Novel


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## Zero Angel (Mar 20, 2013)

Well, I killed a bunch of humans in the world (like, 20 billion or so), so I needed the other races to make up the difference...

Anyway, as someone that has world-built for D&D and my books, I'd say that world-building in my books is much more involved. I think knowing the preferences of the players is helpful for world-building, but it's not so much world-building as it is adventure-building. If you have players that are going off sideways without any inclination to participate in the adventure you designed then there are a few possibilities. The most likely is that you don't know anything about the players and didn't do a very good hook. If the players are deliberately doing it, then why are you playing with them anyway?

With world-building for WotA (and with Vengeance and to a lesser extent other stories in the pipes), there is a very real desire/need to have the world be authentic and feel good. I also strive to have many original races and monsters (along with the stock races/monsters expected in fantasy with WotA flavoring).

There's also much more history. 

But really, everyone's different


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## Asura Levi (Mar 20, 2013)

Zero Angel said:


> Well, I killed a bunch of humans in the world (like, 20 billion or so), so I needed the other races to make up the difference...



What the hell? You erased almost three times our current earth population and call it a _bunch_? It is a fairly hugely huge world then..

Maybe the worst problem with world building for a novel is that you are at risk of spending more time (like all your time) with world building and nothing with actual writing.


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## Zero Angel (Mar 20, 2013)

Asura Levi said:


> What the hell? You erased almost three times our current earth population and call it a _bunch_? It is a fairly hugely huge world then..
> 
> Maybe the worst problem with world building for a novel is that you are at risk of spending more time (like all your time) with world building and nothing with actual writing.



Well, that was like over the course of two major apocalypses and interplanetary war. 

It's definitely a worry to spend too much time world-building. It's not something I spend much time with anymore other than to jot down quick ideas or audio files when the ideas come. The main thing that I spent time on was getting the physics/magicks down and now everything else is just applying logic.


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## Devor (Mar 21, 2013)

The thing with novels is the need for a clear _throughline_.  Novels follow a straight bright path that just may not crisscross the world.  They're also very personal.

RPGs, on the other hand, often let people wander and journey on their own paths.  _Players_ have certain needs that they have to meet, and as there's usually a group of them, many RPG characters don't have a lot of private development.

So for instance, when it comes to the hometown, oftentimes a novel may not cover much more than the characters' homes.  Then it's off to adventure!  On the other hand, in an RPG the characters often don't even have homes, or a life outside the group, but you'll sure as heck name the tavern, the weapon shop, and the old guys giving out quests.


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