This is close to how I've always approached my worldbuilding, with a difference in framing that I think is useful to deliver the most satisfying subversions for players or readers, depending on the medium. The first two steps are essentially the same, with the truth that everyone knows and the truth that some people know, but I like to make it explicit that the second truth is what "some people" know that disproves the truth that everyone knows. It's a complete subversion of the first, throwing everything on its head. Then my third truth is the REAL truth, the actual core truth that perhaps nobody knows - maybe only *I* know - that the world is built on. Importantly, this should in some way support BOTH of the initial truths, bridging the gap in a way that shows believers of either of them to have been partially right, but naïve or misguided in some way. This differs from the method you illustrate in that you have the second and third truths kind of moving in the same direction, getting further away from the truth that everyone knows, while my method paints the truth that some people know as being an over-correction in some way. In practice, the results will often be similar, as your example of the resurrected demon does somewhat support the belief in the godly-chosen king, but I make that connection central to my method, to maximize the conflict of beliefs in my world. If I were to use your same example, I would say that the truth everyone knows is that the king is chosen by the gods. The truth that some people know is that the king is chosen by a secret council and only PRESENTED to the people as being chosen by the gods (for manipulative purposes by the evil, and unity purposes by the good). The real truth is that the secret council is being manipulated by a demon who feeds off the loyalty of the masses. The benefit in my eyes to this framing is that once the players/readers learn the real truth, it becomes apparent where the first two truths came from, and why they were maintained. The first two truths create the "easy" dichotomy and conflict in the world, while the real truth lays in wait to be the late-second-act reveal that turns everything on its head for the third act. It allows for the killer story twist that we all crave, while ensuring that the subversion doesn't feel cheap or forced, because in hindsight it's clear why it was there all along without anybody knowing it. In the context of a TTRPG, another thing I like about my framing of this method is that once the real truth of the world is revealed, and BOTH sides realize they were somewhat wrong in their beliefs, it opens up the possibility for reconciliation between the two sides (the "everybodys" and the "some people), while at the same time allowing people from either side to pivot into being villains by reorienting themselves to this newly understood reality. That malleability allows you as the GM to organically move the pieces around to fit how your players respond to learning the real truth, so the final act can be as satisfying for them as possible. If the players dig in stronger with the allies they already had, you take the existing antagonistic forces and bring them in line with the revealed truth. If the players try to rally both allies and enemies alike to oppose the revealed truth, you can have them (mostly) succeed in those efforts while bringing in new antagonists to stand against this new alliance (and possibly have a defection or two due to old personal conflicts being too big to forgive, or an ally feeling betrayed by the party). If the players embrace the real truth and see it as a potential source for ending the conflicts they've been dealing with in the world, you can shuffle people from both sides into new camps that defend and oppose the status quo. Best of all, with all of these and more possible choices from your players, you can still have some NPCs in your world who will ally or oppose the party regardless; you just have them support/oppose whatever framing device the players employ with regards to the revealed truth. To close out by applying all of this to the earlier example, the players might respond to learning of the loyalty-eating demon-king by trying to rally both the people and the secret council to unite in ending this monarchy once and for all. They might take this knowledge to the secret council and work to overthrow the demon-king, installing a good king in their place. The might take the religious approach of showing the people that the king isn't godly but a demon, which leads to the secret council choosing to support the demon-king as a way to retain their privileged positions. I'm sure there would even be parties who decide that a demon-king isn't all that different from a god-chosen king, so the REAL villains are the secret council who have the audacity to think THEY get to choose who rules. All of these and more are doable when the world is built on two beliefs and the real truth beneath them both.
It might be interesting to see this in application to existing RPG settings. It's not simply world building - it's building the particular picture of the world that the players will interact with.
I have “tiers” of knowledge in my campaigns. Basically doing what is discussed in the video, I’ll write down a bunch of stuff and put “[n]” before it, with “n” being the tier of knowledge. My general tiers are: 1=common knowledge 2=educated knowledge 3=specialist knowledge 4=only the people involved and the gods know 5=nobody except the gods know 6 (special tier)=even the gods don’t know And then I’ll rewrite that bit of information but what it would look like from the perspective of each tier. 6 layers of every plot point in 5 minutes.
I love this. Can you do a video on plotting out encounters. I can 100% see how to impliment this in a 3 act structure, based off the arc video you did. But I'm curious how you build encounters that aren't combat? Also do you have a grab bag of go tos for easy secret/clue/truth reveals?
8:31 While I agree with the base analogy. A gardener needs to weed their garden. + When planting many crops with a lot of seeds thinning the bad/ row to allow space for the plants to grow to a larger size. When working with hedges or bushes or trees. Pruning branches and keeping down extraneous growth allows the tree to produce more fruit. + Clearing out dead wood is important for the health of trees and other plants. This isn't even going into the pests and diseases that crop up along the way. What I'm taking the long way to get at is. World building can be like gardening. But While you can toss out a lot of seeds. Many won't germinate. A few will need to be thinned to make way for better things. Others need care for / pruning to actually give you a good crop. Keeping the weed plants out of the good ideas is important and sometimes difficult to differentiate. Thus the biblical burning of the fields after the final harvest.
The biggest trouble I have with this tool is that my campaign setting is collaboratively built. My friends and I have been constructing and running games in this world for a long time.
Great vid, I always enjoy world building videos. Have you considered step by step building a world? Like building a world with the viewers, piece by piece. Just a thought.
Thanks for the kind words. Maybe, it might be good for a live stream or something like that. I fear that a video that would be likely 6+ hours would turn off most people. Perhaps I'm wrong though!
I gotta say ithese are very nice. Even outside of the context of dnd these work pretty well. Have you considered writing a book? About anything really if you're curious.
Thank you for the kind words! I have worked on books before in academic world and have even helped write a chapter or two. You can find my work in books like "The Godfather and Philosophy." I've done work under other pen names too but for right now, I have my hands full in other spaces. Maybe one day I can write a hit of my own lol.
So one variation of the third truth I've seen work amazingly well is one truth that only one person knows, but present that person as a villain. Xenogears did this with Graph who at the end of the prologue shows up and starts talking about killing god you refuse and then he knocks you out and you wake up and the village is destroyed and people are saying you did it. So the secret truth is about the nature of god, but spoiler alert a JRPG from 1998 ends with you killing god, and it turns out that while Graph was kinda nuts and definitely evil he was right and his evil was of a the ends justify the means variety.
I unconsciously did the first two truths in my world. The first truth that everyone knows is that their own god is the only true god; the gods worshiped by others are demonic impostors. Clerics of rival deities are in fact witches, casting spells granted to them by demons. The second truth, that a few people know, is that all the gods are real, and all had a hand in the creation of the world, but that they tell their followers that the other gods are false or demons because they need worshipers and are in competition for them. But what is the third truth, that nobody knows? I must ponder this.
so my world that will be crated by a god of chaos who ruled time and space and magic ,who died after making the world thus leaving it a mess, with many people from many time periods and different worlds placed there to live in a ever changing world. Are you saying I accidently did what you are talking about here.
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This is close to how I've always approached my worldbuilding, with a difference in framing that I think is useful to deliver the most satisfying subversions for players or readers, depending on the medium. The first two steps are essentially the same, with the truth that everyone knows and the truth that some people know, but I like to make it explicit that the second truth is what "some people" know that disproves the truth that everyone knows. It's a complete subversion of the first, throwing everything on its head. Then my third truth is the REAL truth, the actual core truth that perhaps nobody knows - maybe only *I* know - that the world is built on. Importantly, this should in some way support BOTH of the initial truths, bridging the gap in a way that shows believers of either of them to have been partially right, but naïve or misguided in some way.
This differs from the method you illustrate in that you have the second and third truths kind of moving in the same direction, getting further away from the truth that everyone knows, while my method paints the truth that some people know as being an over-correction in some way. In practice, the results will often be similar, as your example of the resurrected demon does somewhat support the belief in the godly-chosen king, but I make that connection central to my method, to maximize the conflict of beliefs in my world.
If I were to use your same example, I would say that the truth everyone knows is that the king is chosen by the gods. The truth that some people know is that the king is chosen by a secret council and only PRESENTED to the people as being chosen by the gods (for manipulative purposes by the evil, and unity purposes by the good). The real truth is that the secret council is being manipulated by a demon who feeds off the loyalty of the masses. The benefit in my eyes to this framing is that once the players/readers learn the real truth, it becomes apparent where the first two truths came from, and why they were maintained. The first two truths create the "easy" dichotomy and conflict in the world, while the real truth lays in wait to be the late-second-act reveal that turns everything on its head for the third act. It allows for the killer story twist that we all crave, while ensuring that the subversion doesn't feel cheap or forced, because in hindsight it's clear why it was there all along without anybody knowing it.
In the context of a TTRPG, another thing I like about my framing of this method is that once the real truth of the world is revealed, and BOTH sides realize they were somewhat wrong in their beliefs, it opens up the possibility for reconciliation between the two sides (the "everybodys" and the "some people), while at the same time allowing people from either side to pivot into being villains by reorienting themselves to this newly understood reality. That malleability allows you as the GM to organically move the pieces around to fit how your players respond to learning the real truth, so the final act can be as satisfying for them as possible. If the players dig in stronger with the allies they already had, you take the existing antagonistic forces and bring them in line with the revealed truth. If the players try to rally both allies and enemies alike to oppose the revealed truth, you can have them (mostly) succeed in those efforts while bringing in new antagonists to stand against this new alliance (and possibly have a defection or two due to old personal conflicts being too big to forgive, or an ally feeling betrayed by the party). If the players embrace the real truth and see it as a potential source for ending the conflicts they've been dealing with in the world, you can shuffle people from both sides into new camps that defend and oppose the status quo. Best of all, with all of these and more possible choices from your players, you can still have some NPCs in your world who will ally or oppose the party regardless; you just have them support/oppose whatever framing device the players employ with regards to the revealed truth.
To close out by applying all of this to the earlier example, the players might respond to learning of the loyalty-eating demon-king by trying to rally both the people and the secret council to unite in ending this monarchy once and for all. They might take this knowledge to the secret council and work to overthrow the demon-king, installing a good king in their place. The might take the religious approach of showing the people that the king isn't godly but a demon, which leads to the secret council choosing to support the demon-king as a way to retain their privileged positions. I'm sure there would even be parties who decide that a demon-king isn't all that different from a god-chosen king, so the REAL villains are the secret council who have the audacity to think THEY get to choose who rules. All of these and more are doable when the world is built on two beliefs and the real truth beneath them both.
It might be interesting to see this in application to existing RPG settings. It's not simply world building - it's building the particular picture of the world that the players will interact with.
I have “tiers” of knowledge in my campaigns. Basically doing what is discussed in the video, I’ll write down a bunch of stuff and put “[n]” before it, with “n” being the tier of knowledge. My general tiers are:
1=common knowledge
2=educated knowledge
3=specialist knowledge
4=only the people involved and the gods know
5=nobody except the gods know
6 (special tier)=even the gods don’t know
And then I’ll rewrite that bit of information but what it would look like from the perspective of each tier. 6 layers of every plot point in 5 minutes.
I love this. Can you do a video on plotting out encounters. I can 100% see how to impliment this in a 3 act structure, based off the arc video you did. But I'm curious how you build encounters that aren't combat?
Also do you have a grab bag of go tos for easy secret/clue/truth reveals?
8:31
While I agree with the base analogy.
A gardener needs to weed their garden.
+ When planting many crops with a lot of seeds thinning the bad/ row to allow space for the plants to grow to a larger size.
When working with hedges or bushes or trees.
Pruning branches and keeping down extraneous growth allows the tree to produce more fruit.
+
Clearing out dead wood is important for the health of trees and other plants.
This isn't even going into the pests and diseases that crop up along the way.
What I'm taking the long way to get at is.
World building can be like gardening.
But
While you can toss out a lot of seeds.
Many won't germinate.
A few will need to be thinned to make way for better things.
Others need care for / pruning to actually give you a good crop.
Keeping the weed plants out of the good ideas is important and sometimes difficult to differentiate.
Thus the biblical burning of the fields after the final harvest.
The biggest trouble I have with this tool is that my campaign setting is collaboratively built. My friends and I have been constructing and running games in this world for a long time.
Comments for the algorithm gods.
Keep the content rolling!
I enjoy all of Enter the Dungeon videos
Great vid, I always enjoy world building videos. Have you considered step by step building a world? Like building a world with the viewers, piece by piece. Just a thought.
Thanks for the kind words. Maybe, it might be good for a live stream or something like that. I fear that a video that would be likely 6+ hours would turn off most people. Perhaps I'm wrong though!
@@enterthedungeonMake it a series! Multiple 1 hour videos!
@@enterthedungeon Ahh, I was thinking a series. But you are right, That would be a long dang vid.
I gotta say ithese are very nice. Even outside of the context of dnd these work pretty well. Have you considered writing a book? About anything really if you're curious.
Thank you for the kind words! I have worked on books before in academic world and have even helped write a chapter or two. You can find my work in books like "The Godfather and Philosophy." I've done work under other pen names too but for right now, I have my hands full in other spaces. Maybe one day I can write a hit of my own lol.
So one variation of the third truth I've seen work amazingly well is one truth that only one person knows, but present that person as a villain.
Xenogears did this with Graph who at the end of the prologue shows up and starts talking about killing god you refuse and then he knocks you out and you wake up and the village is destroyed and people are saying you did it. So the secret truth is about the nature of god, but spoiler alert a JRPG from 1998 ends with you killing god, and it turns out that while Graph was kinda nuts and definitely evil he was right and his evil was of a the ends justify the means variety.
Could you please do the rogue phantom subclass.
Excellent content!
Cool layered storytelling tool.
Video and Sound kinda desynch later in the video.
I unconsciously did the first two truths in my world. The first truth that everyone knows is that their own god is the only true god; the gods worshiped by others are demonic impostors. Clerics of rival deities are in fact witches, casting spells granted to them by demons. The second truth, that a few people know, is that all the gods are real, and all had a hand in the creation of the world, but that they tell their followers that the other gods are false or demons because they need worshipers and are in competition for them. But what is the third truth, that nobody knows? I must ponder this.
so my world that will be crated by a god of chaos who ruled time and space and magic ,who died after making the world thus leaving it a mess, with many people from many time periods and different worlds placed there to live in a ever changing world. Are you saying I accidently did what you are talking about here.
Speaking of lies: you are talking about butchery but showing pictures of a dairy breed. I'll bet those girls have names.