Gemstone Shards

Whether you're creating a map for a brand new game world or retooling one for an existing one, you've got important decisions to make on what it will include! On this episode, Gregory and Mike will talk about where to start your map and what it should include, from basic geographic features to fantastic elements, such as floating cities and planar gates. They'll also discuss the importance of empty spaces on your map, and why you might not want your map to "show your hand", especially in a campaign's early stages!

Map making has been an important part of world-building since the beginning of tabletop role-playing games. Even if your maps aren't artistic triumphs, they add depth and realism to your world, and can be vitally important in charting the course of your campaigns! Join Gregory and Mike as they discuss how to get started with map-making, whether to develop your maps comprehensively or concentrically, and what you need to know about your world before you start mapping!

Naming your world, its continents, and its cities, towns, and villages, is an important part of world-building! Well-chosen names create immersion and establish a sense of place for both you and your players. On this episode, Gregory and Mike discuss how to select place names, where "real world" place names come from, and how to use place names to build both your world's aesthetic and its history.

In our previous broadcast we examined the idea that game worlds have a rating, and looked at what happened when each rating was applied to Kamlann, a fictional fantasy city.  On this episode, Gregory and Mike discuss what factors affect the rating you select for your game world, how you find out which topics your players are comfortable seeing at your table, and address the question of what rating is best suited for introducing various "adult" topics.

Warning: While this episode does not include any graphic or explicit content, it does touch on sensitive subjects, such as violence, sexual activity, and drug and alcohol usage, so you may not want to listen to it with young children present.

Did you know that your game world has a rating, just like a movie, TV show, or video game? It does, and whether you've consciously chosen it or allowed it to evolve during the course of gameplay, that rating affects how your world is designed, and the events you allow to occur there. In this episode, Gregory and Mike visit the "entertainment district" of the port city of Kamlann, and examine what you'd expect to see (or not see) there at each of the five Motion Picture Association of America ratings (G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17).

Warning: While this episode does not include any explicit content, it does touch on sensitive subjects, such as sexual activity, violence, and substance use, so you may want to listen to it without young children present!

So, you've selected or identified your game world's aesthetic. Now what? On today's episode, Gregory and Mike discuss how to take that set of guiding design principles and apply them to your campaign setting. Starting with a basic Egyptian-themed region, your hosts apply three of the aesthetics they identified in Episode 007, producing three very different, yet equally intriguing, settings for a fantasy RPG campaign. They also examine whether there are times when you should deliberately play against your aesthetic, and what can happen when you do!

This episode will be easier to follow if you've listened to Episodes 006 ("Defining Your Aesthetic") and 007 ("Developing Your Aesthetic, Part One), as they lay the groundwork for and define the concepts discussed Episode 008.

Now that we've established what an aesthetic is and how it helps you build your game world, it's time to either identify your existing world's aesthetic, or create one for your newly established world! In this episode, Gregory and Mike identify some frequently-used game world aesthetics, and discuss how to develop an aesthetic from sources such as literature, popular culture, "real world" history, and even from a name, phrase, or tagline!

As Episode 007 builds on concepts introduced in our previous broadcast (Episode 006 - "Defining Your Aesthetic"), we'd recommend checking it out before listening to this one.

So, what exactly is an "aesthetic"? We're glad you asked! On this edition of Gemstone Shards, Gregory and Mike explain what they mean when they use the term "aesthetic", examine the differences between an aesthetic and a theme, and discuss how defining an aesthetic helps make future design choices easier. They also offer suggestions for how to deal with design elements that don't seem to fit with your game world's overall look and feel.

Your players are shaping your game world, even if they don't realize it! On this episode, Gregory and Mike discuss active vs. passive player participation in world-building, why you want your players involved in growing your world, and how active player participation benefits you, the game master. They'll also discuss situations where you might want to limit player involvement. While it's helpful to have listened to Episodes 003 and 004, it's not essential, so dive in!

In this episode, Gregory and Mike continue their discussion of comprehensive and concentric design, plus when and how to combine the two approaches. They also go into greater depth on which parts of your game world need to be designed from the top down, which elements should almost always be developed in response to what falls on the table in-game, and offer helpful suggestions on how to tell the difference.