OngoingWorlds blog

News & articles about play-by-post games, for roleplayers & writers

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Way With Worlds: Having A Vision

This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog, but has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles. -David

Supernova

A lot of what I write about worldbuilding is at least partially technical. It’s about breaking things into areas of analysis, questions, outlines, and more so you can make your world. Good worldbuilding is about thought and techniques and keeping track of things – well, half of it is. Read More

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Way With Worlds: Pyramids of Power

This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog, but has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles. -David

villain hierarchy

Have you ever read a story and things just seemed to work . . . wrong? Read More

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Way With Worlds: Where The Characters Are – And What

This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog, but has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles. -David

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You have built a world. You know it’s origins and its ecology, you know it’s people and their religion, you know technology or sorcery (or both) that they use. You have a world that is a living-breathing creation, all in your head, and your documents, and your stories.

It’s time to populate it with characters. Read More

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Way With Worlds: Character Creation

This is a segment of an article written by Steven Savage from his blog. Character creation is obviously important to us roleplayers, but obviously they should fit hand-in-hand with the setting of your game – the world that you’ve built. In this article Steven refers to a “character sheet” which is more of a tabletop roleplay concept, here on OngoingWorlds, you have a character bio. Same thing really, it’s somewhere to store & present important info about your character.

Michaelangelo

Characters are your setting come to visible, relatable life. Or at least should be.

The problem in discussing “how to create” characters is the process itself is also unpredictable, personal, and unique for everyone – just as characters are unique. So I can’t give you a system or even a list of questions that’ll “do it for you.” In fact, I shouldn’t because we all do this differently. Read More

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Way With Worlds: Magic And Technology

This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog, but has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles. -David

Magitech

We’ve all heard the saying that goes “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” made by the incomparable Sir Arthur C. Clarke.

I would ad a corollary, especially in the worlds of world building (and perhaps in an age of mind hacking and psychological techniques, our own).  “Any sufficiently organized magic is indistinguishable from technology.” Read More

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Way With Worlds: Intelligent Life

This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog, but has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles. -David

Portrait against starting a sandstorm Fantasy Author: mvn78

I’m going to start by assuming the setting of your story has intelligent life in it. If not, well that sounds like a challenging write, and feel free to skip this part until you need it.  Or don’t because hey, you never know. Read More

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Way With Worlds: Ecology and Ecologies

This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog, but has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles. -David

Futuristic city

So you’ve got the origin of your universe (or perhaps you used our universe as a template, which does save a lot of effort). So now that you know how it all began, it’s time to move things to the next level. Read More

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Way With Worlds: Origins. In The Beginning

This is a segment of an article written by Steven Savage from his blog. Worldbuilding is really important to us in roleplaying, and planning out your world’s history is a great way to make it feel authentic. Here’s Steven’s article about the origin of your world. 

An airplane flying inside a huge O'Neill Cylinder World, a self-contained fully sustainable environment

Image credit: Adam Benton

Where It All Begins

Worldbuilding starts with the beginning – sort of. We may not always spend time on the beginning when we start, we may be following a rush of creativity as inspirations form, but in the end good world building always comes back to the question “where did it all come from?” Read More

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Way With Worlds: Views, Lenses, and Your True Main Character

This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog, but has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles. -David

Fantasy World

Writing your world up is one thing. You can take notes, document everything, draw up timelines, and so forth. That’s a matter of technique, imagination and, frankly, your ability to write everything down. Getting yourself to use all those notes? That’s another challenge. Read More

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Way With Worlds: Culture And Civilization

This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog, but has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles. -David

Civilisation

Thanks to heavy worldbuilding you’ve got your setting, and in that setting you’ve got intelligent life (probably). Now that you’ve got sentient species in your universe,it’s time to work on their Culture and probably Civilization. Read More