I love that you kept that childhood map from your first game ☺💜 Somewhere I still have some crazy maps I drew as a teenager, I loooooved maps, such a fun part of world building!
Gygax probably would have kept the map secret. Mainly, not to deceive the players but because there was always one designated mapmaker in any player group back in the olden days. It was expected that this player (in this meta-role) would draw all the maps as they travel to new locales, explore unmapped dungeons, and the like. Which, of course, made buying maps in-character a much bigger deal and made those maps a treasure in and of themselves... IF they were accurate, and inaccurate maps (especially the maps that some NPC intentionally made inaccurate to lure adventurers to their doom) were opportunities for new and unexpected adventures.
You could of course give the map freely to players but have the occasional inconsistency because after all the map is not the territory for example they may head to a village or town and it is abandoned or now a city..obviously IF you had too many insconstencies players would get frustrated
This exactly. That Hex-Map you make is your "Run the Wilderness Travel" Tool. You are meant to keep that as accurate as possible so you can properly adjucate distances and time needed to move from town to village to dungeon. And to know how far the party might be from the edge of a forest they get lost in. Players would, at most, have a typical rough "around here is this" map, as usual from medival times.
@@BobWorldBuilder One of the treasures available in S1 Tomb of Horrors was a treasure map pointing to a location 1d6x100 miles away that was utterly fake.
"All a RPG town really needs is an Inn where characters can sleep with an Inn keeper who..." *computer error noise* "...AND an Innkeeper who can proved them with quest hooks." ¿Por Que no los dos?
@@BobWorldBuilder If I ever finish the game attached to it I'll send you a copy. Been working on it since 2019 and it's currently in the 3rd bout of play tests.
The Otis pitch is really stripped down, with just one species and two classes. Still, the idea that iron and magic are opposed like Order and Chaos, is interesting. Maybe “Mageborn & Ironsworn”?
Remember DM’s you still get to interpret the meaning of the roll. E.G. if your first or second is ‘the dragon’ that doesn’t need to mean combat with the dragon; it could simply mean “there is clear signs that the dragon has been this way” or “this way to the dragon’s resting place” and then the party can choose to go that way or not.
I think the biggest factors here are twofold: 1. D&D has gone mainstream, which means it's watered down. That isn't necessarily a bad thing (the dose makes the poison after all), but it is a thing that happens to everything that was niche that ends up becoming a completely normal thing that ordinary people like. This can be seen in things like how early D&D had the DM in a far more adversarial role compared with modern D&D which is far more "we're telling a story together 8D" oriented. 2. D&D has gone mainstream culturally and mechanically. Huge portions of the modern world, and certainly gaming, are derivative of D&D, and especially newer D&D, which makes much of modern D&D feel "familiar" and "obvious" whereas the systems when D&D were new were far more trail-blazing, and while they were contextualized in previous games, such as war gaming, the modern person into D&D has little understanding of that.
@@BobWorldBuilder no kidding! I spent a few hours on it and came up with most of the initial setting info for an Anime 5E setting I call The Bandit Kingdom. Making up a small local dungeon is the most annoying piece of it. Anyway, since I'm not going to be running it any time soon I dropped it for more practical prep tasks.
I'm so glad you shared this. My players just overcame their first plot arc, and I wasn't sure what to do next. This really sparks my imagination on building their path, not their destination, to see where the story goes.
@@BobWorldBuilder oh it is, but it also requires a relatively good understanding of the setting in the first place to work well... either way im all for 5 ft tall rat people(the skaven) shenanigans being included...
@@brentnorton1602 I completely agree on the rules. GW seems to have a bit of an issue in that department. "Warlock!" is another alternative set of rules for this seeting.
One thing to keep in mind, and the reason Gygax 75 is so great: Gygax was great referee, not so much a great GM. If your read anything he wrote, from the OG DMG to this article or the infamous Tomb of Horrors you get what I'm saying. He was absurdly antagonistic with his players, in that wargaming way. So even when he has some great advice, you still find that "GM vs Players" philosophy. Gygax 75 does a great job in bringing said advice to a more modern DnD approach.
I was inspired by the mappi mundi (the known medieval world map from around the 14th century) in how they would draw land features and then the kinds of creatures you'd find there. So some good advice is just like gygax says about drawing the locations to draw the eye of the players, and include a picture of what creatures or types of humans are there (only one or two, these would just be the most common in the area) but also be sure to leave lots of negative space between these locations so the eyes don't get overwhelmed.
One of the players I DMed in 1981 gave me a map I made for my original campaign last year, it's a couple of roads, a coastline, some mountains, and a handful of locations, lol. I really liked building it bit-by-bit as more was needed, made it easier and more flexible to adapt.
When I taught myself to play D&D in 1985 I was 10 and learned naturally that an unfinished map/world is a great way to start a game. Waiting for me to finish a map and / or world before we start would mean we never start. Great Gygax btw 😄
I love Gygax's approach to world-building and how it boils months of work down to a few easy to digest concepts. This really helped me understand why so many of my previous attempts at creating my own campaign settings have stalled out when I inevitably get bogged down in the details and end up feeling overwhelmed or moving on to a different idea altogether. I would love to see a series of videos putting these concepts into practice (and maybe the end of the series could culminate in a new official Bob World Builder campaign setting (I would buy the hell out of this, extra parentheses here for emphasis))!
I really appreciate that! My goal is for this to be a long term work in-progress, so I can build on it over the years. But maybe once I get it to a strong foundation it would be worth publishing, or at least making a video or two about. We'll see!
I'm thrilled that you covered the Gygax75. Ray Otis is the man. And pairing this method with GFC D&D's RUclips video on hexcrawling is the most approachable way of making a setting I know of. My weird jungle science-fantasy exploration campaign was built with a similar method and my friends and I have had a blast. Just last weekend they found a band of hateful geese over a cauldron of gold and split it with a group of robots. Good chaotic fun.
My favorite way to design "random" encounters is by planning it ahead of time - randomly. My current travel system relies on each party member taking a role and then rolling a skill check based on what role they take. This is lifted right out of the "Adventures in Middle Earth" setting books by the way. There is a DC for their travels and the number of successes and failures they get will determine what kind of encounters they get. So, they will always get a random encounter while traveling, but sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, or sometimes it's neutral. But the key is, I have a few different random encounters at the ready, whether it be good, bad, or neutral. In my session prep I roll on the random encounter tables from Xanathar's Guide (based on terrain) until I find something that makes sense for my setting, and that will be what happens. So even though I "plan" the encounters, I still prepare them randomly.
I know why I enjoy your content so much now. It's because we have the same basis (i feel) for where we draw from fantasy, err well at least what you're drawing from for this 🌍 you're building
I've been running my DCC campaign for almost five months now. My favorite thing, hands down, is the approach to world-building the book suggests. Making the world smaller and encouraging custom monsters has made GMing more enjoyable and the players seem more excited for game night than before. Thanks for letting me know this Gygax essay exists, great videro!
100%! I raelly like how the book talks about travel and communication being limited, monsters being "the" troll, and other aspects of the regional-scale campaign style
I must have been too delayed in replying to your response because I don’t see it any longer. I’d still be really interested in seeing what you have for random encounters.
I’d love to see some random encounter discussion. They’re one of my least favorite parts of DMing so some suggestions or even some complete tables would be really nice.
Have been working on a home brew adventure set in exandria to lead into Call of the Netherdeep and had been getting stuck, this video i think is gonna help a ton
This was a brilliant video Bob. I really like how you took the work done by Gygax and Ray Otis and complemented it with your own game sensibility and wisdom. Great work. 🚀
Brilliant video! I love your interpretation of Gary. I think he would have laughed. Good on you for promoting Gygax '75... that's the way it should be done!
Building and then unveiling parts of my world to my players is my favorite thing about TTRPGs. When they find a mile wide cylindrical hole in the ground surrounded by a moat and they split the party to find out what's at the bottom....thats the juice.
Gygax would not have shown the map to the players since hex crawling was such a big thing in early D&D. That is also why he has such specific scales, because logistics and navigating the wilderness while trying to discover potential targets of adventuring was a large part of the early campaign model.
I was there. In the beginning, there was no world to explore, no modules to use, no books to explain. Three of us were confronted with the realization that we would have to create our own world, our own adventures, even our own rules. We decided to each take a section of the world to develop. We started with a city, Rivazend that was a port city with a river that came from the east. I developed the part of the town on the north, Marty developed the less developed part on the southern shore, and Marybeth developed the island in the middle of the river. we drew a general outline of the coastline to the north and south and a separate land across the sea to the west. We developed adventures and our lands in the designated areas and agreed that the world would be based on a Tolkien type world with somewhat low magic. After all, there wasn't much D&D material after third level. Regrettably, as time passed and lives changed in the real world, I was left by my fellow world builders and have continued to flesh out the rest of the world and run adventures there for all the years since that auspicious beginning. D&D rules changes over the years have changed aspects of my world at times, but at least we have left Thac0 behind.
I haven't done much dming yet but you, professor dungeon master and Matt Colvil have been inspiring me. The world I'm thinking of is inspired by 1500s Europe (been playing Europa Universalis 4) particularly with colonialism into a continent inspired by the Zendikar setting from Magic with living land. A part in the silmarillion where it describes the course of the river Sirion running made me picture water spirits that chart courses for rivers and lakes amongst the ever changing landscape. Finally there's a piece of art from Magic that I always loved. Strionic Resonator. Idk how it will be incorporated, but it may be a being that guides the formation of the land.
I think the "secret" part of worldbuilding in Step 1 makes sense. In my experience, if I tell my players what influenced me, they tend to latch onto parts of that influence that I purposefully wanted to leave out. For instance, I may say, "I'm influenced by the American Wild West", so player decides to be a gunslinger... When in fact what I meant was, "The style of town, clothing, railroads, and general demeanor... While still using swords and shields."
This is a great video. I love your reading Gygax. He didn't really sound that way IRL ( I met him) but he definitely WROTE like he sounded that way. Bravo!
yes moar nerdy DM vids, I'm a lunatic for encounters n set pieces. I go hard before campaigns (and yes, alot of them never come up lol) but I'd like to know I'm not alone in my madness
I’ve been reading Worlds Without Number the past couple weeks. Has a ton of DM tools for world building. It has a free pdf version. I recommend picking it up. It’s like the advice from Gygax in this video but so much more and tons of tables for rolling or inspiration.
"today there are countless books and videos about world building" - Build Your World vid by Bob World Builder. The meta is strong with this one. Great stuff, thanks. And I like the coverage of original works. Dnd history, esp TSR's [bit later than his 75 article], is interesting; and doesn't repeat, but boy sure does rhyme.
I take the most inspiration from natural places on road trips. I visit Maligne Canyon and can’t help but imagine bandits who waylay caravans as they cross and the hidden cache they’ve put into the river at the bottom. There’s a glacier in Alaska that has melted down into a small ice cave: what if you could dive into the and enter tunnels of ice? What if the strange scratches the glacier left on the cliff walls were the arcane etchings of the wizard who hid his sanctum here? I get stopped a lot because I’m bad at drawing and a lot of what I love is in the terrain details :(
What I think I take from more than ANYTHING is Shin Megami Tensei games, and ATLUS games in general. The techno-magic aesthetic that it has is very much in the style of everything I love running! Along with that rougelikes give a fount of possible magic items and lore for me to insert and inspire into my world!
That sounds fun! I'm not really familiar with those games, but I agree that techno-magic can totally work alongside standard fantasy. And magic items are a great way to get inspired :)
I absolutely love your style. Not only do you get the information across, I laugh out loud at your clever and subtle humor. Keep up the amazing content and work! You are an inspiration to Game Masters everywhere!
For my homebrewverse, I've gone with inspiration from... Cyberpunk 2077, Shadowrun, the Eberron setting, Hades (Supergiant Games), Jason and the Argonauts, TFS at the Table (Season 1), Manhunt (Rockstar Games), Secret of Evermore (Squaresoft), Mighty Max, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (80's + 90's), Shovel Knight (Yacht Club Games), Contra 3 (Konami), Bloodrayne (Majesco), and several other retro and retro-style-homage videogames. I also want to figure out how to adapt certain Legend of Zelda dungeons for multiple players.
Sounds like an awesome mix of sources! Yes, adapting zelda dungeons feels like a big challenge. I think I've seen some videos about it. Perhaps Zipperon Disney's channel?
Hey! Love the video, this is an awesome document that I needed to see. I have just been thinking about how to start building in Pathfinder, and this couldn't have come out a better time. I also think that your encounter generator video ideas are both good, and I think you should do both!
I dig you new coworker. Has a nice vibe :D . I've read Odis PDF (and praise be to him) but thanks for the overview and I'm interested what you are going to do with it :) Keep on building
As I want to do more West Marches campaigns, and I do struggle with charts the same way you did (spending way too much time on it for a minimal use) I'm interested with a full video about it !
I truly appreciate your content, good Sir! I have been world building for a long time, and I still take away knowledge and insight on your channel. Furthermore, I appreciated the link to the PDF! Gygax started me on the path long ago, and there has definitely been a desire to go back to some of the basics in the wake of the OGL Wars...thank you for your work in the community!
Whenever I start out world building, I'm drawn to 80s style cartoons. Mysterious Cities of Gold, Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea, Song of Fire and Ice, basically post apocalyptic worlds where advanced civilizations where lost to hubris and greed, where the technology has outlived their creators and haunt a new world that where magic and myth have returned.
Nothing triggers OCD and obsession with details mania like worldbuilding - catnip for the imaginative. Important to employ the 'perfect is the enemy of good' rule, and to know (as Matthew Mercer and so many others say' - a lot of what you make won't be used, so don't overdesign (unless you want to railroad campaigns): leave blank spaces and ways to adapt to player choices, rather than design everything
It's good to get actionable content for your players down relatively early. Else it's far too easy to keep building and building and building, but never getting one part of the map actually playable. When I create a campaign map I think I'd start a few levels higher, on the continent level, and get the biomes and winds patterns down. Then zoom in on one part and increase the detail on those, then zoom in on a part of *that* and start with the advice here.
Thank you for this video! I'm currently fleshing out the town/city for a homebrew setting (osr/ose). I'm have it been built in and around the ruins of a previous city. Creating a huge dungeon that can be fleshed out a little at a time along with the surrounding area. Inspired by some anime I have watched along with countless books.
@Bob World Builder one of the ways I wanted to help form parties or do a session one is to introduce them into the world as hirelings for one of the various adventuring companies going into the ruins. This way they can form a history with each other and then form a party of their own with the blessing/tutelage of their employers or create conflict and become rivals. There will be other companies as well and being divided between charted and free or uncharted. And of course add outside influences along with Where that orc horde come from!!!
@Bob World Builder your videos have helped me keep my campaign grounded, with a more narrow focus when im creating but flexible in the freedom it gives my players. (Who are all 15 year old kids, friends of my son). So thanks for that. Very useful and helpful.
So on the question about the players seeing the map, back then mapping was an actual character skill as well as a player skill. DMs got the full maps, players had to make their own based only on what info they gleaned from roles and their skills to transcribe it. This method is not popular today for many reasons, however it can work for grittier, survivalist type settings. Note: you could also buy maps or map segments from some npcs with various accuracy and detail
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I love that you kept that childhood map from your first game ☺💜
Somewhere I still have some crazy maps I drew as a teenager, I loooooved maps, such a fun part of world building!
@@queenvagabond8787 lol it's from when my friends and I were like 21 🤣
@@BobWorldBuilder Haha, sorry, didn't mean to cast aspersions on your artistic abilities! Its still a cool map 😅
This information is not lost Bob. I own 1000+ D&D pdfs from the last 50 years. Anyone can find these online for free.
I remember thinking long ago that your channel would be perfect if it were a bit more system agnostic or multisystem. Welp, now is perfect.
I really appreciate the support for system-neutral!!
I would like to echo said support… ENTHUSIASTICALLY!
System neutral rpg content ftw!
Second this - love this type of video
I third the RPG Neutral theme transition! Getting more inspiration this way.
It's been quite a while since I've been exposed to anything written in High Gygaxian. Thank you for that :-)
Always good to look back on where we started haha
*sees your random encounter spreadsheet*
God bless your soul, Bob.
Gygax probably would have kept the map secret. Mainly, not to deceive the players but because there was always one designated mapmaker in any player group back in the olden days. It was expected that this player (in this meta-role) would draw all the maps as they travel to new locales, explore unmapped dungeons, and the like. Which, of course, made buying maps in-character a much bigger deal and made those maps a treasure in and of themselves... IF they were accurate, and inaccurate maps (especially the maps that some NPC intentionally made inaccurate to lure adventurers to their doom) were opportunities for new and unexpected adventures.
That last note you put in parentheses is something I want to try now lol
You could of course give the map freely to players but have the occasional inconsistency because after all the map is not the territory for example they may head to a village or town and it is abandoned or now a city..obviously IF you had too many insconstencies players would get frustrated
This exactly. That Hex-Map you make is your "Run the Wilderness Travel" Tool. You are meant to keep that as accurate as possible so you can properly adjucate distances and time needed to move from town to village to dungeon. And to know how far the party might be from the edge of a forest they get lost in. Players would, at most, have a typical rough "around here is this" map, as usual from medival times.
Treasure maps were a treasure themselves. Literally, they were part of the random treasure tables in ODnD
@@BobWorldBuilder One of the treasures available in S1 Tomb of Horrors was a treasure map pointing to a location 1d6x100 miles away that was utterly fake.
"All a RPG town really needs is an Inn where characters can sleep with an Inn keeper who..." *computer error noise* "...AND an Innkeeper who can proved them with quest hooks."
¿Por Que no los dos?
My heart goes out to all you veterans of the OGL Wars!
Yeah I'm glad it's pretty much over 😅
o7
@@BobWorldBuilder Thank you for your service 🎖
We won a battle; I don’t believe the war is over.
@@BobWorldBuilder "The Corporate People are easily startled, but they'll be back, and in greater numbers." -Old Ben Kenobi, probably
Ah, my favorite type of Bob World Builder video: a video about world building with Bob.
They are few and far between haha
For my own world I take a lot from Conan the Barbarian, Arthurian legends, Ursula le Guin, Fritz Lieber, and Bronze age History.
Have you tried Runequest/Mythras... I think with that library of influence you would like that system a LOT!
That sounds like a fun world!!
The bronze age ooze inspiration, from the Mesopotamians to Mycenean/minoans or the chinese bronze age is full of cool stuff.
Why have I not thought of Ursula K. LeGuin before?
@@BobWorldBuilder If I ever finish the game attached to it I'll send you a copy. Been working on it since 2019 and it's currently in the 3rd bout of play tests.
I think I like your video even better than my guide. :) Thanks for the love.
Glad you enjoyed it!! Huge thanks for finding, transcribing, and generally reviving that article :)
Favorite Video of the last few months!
Thank you very much! :)
The Otis pitch is really stripped down, with just one species and two classes. Still, the idea that iron and magic are opposed like Order and Chaos, is interesting. Maybe “Mageborn & Ironsworn”?
Remember DM’s you still get to interpret the meaning of the roll. E.G. if your first or second is ‘the dragon’ that doesn’t need to mean combat with the dragon; it could simply mean “there is clear signs that the dragon has been this way” or “this way to the dragon’s resting place” and then the party can choose to go that way or not.
Good one Bob!
Nothing says going off on a tangent quite like using parenthesizes inside parenthesizes. 🤣🤣🤣
Gygax breaking boundaries yet again!
Bob Gygax is a mood and is too powerful to go undefeated.
A Gygax method that actually aged well and not antiquated? No way!
The exist!
I think the biggest factors here are twofold:
1. D&D has gone mainstream, which means it's watered down. That isn't necessarily a bad thing (the dose makes the poison after all), but it is a thing that happens to everything that was niche that ends up becoming a completely normal thing that ordinary people like. This can be seen in things like how early D&D had the DM in a far more adversarial role compared with modern D&D which is far more "we're telling a story together 8D" oriented.
2. D&D has gone mainstream culturally and mechanically. Huge portions of the modern world, and certainly gaming, are derivative of D&D, and especially newer D&D, which makes much of modern D&D feel "familiar" and "obvious" whereas the systems when D&D were new were far more trail-blazing, and while they were contextualized in previous games, such as war gaming, the modern person into D&D has little understanding of that.
The most impressive part of this video was that you were able to get Gary Gygax himself in for the video-- props to Grace for the talented necromancy!
I'm most inspired by mythology and history, and of course sci-fi and fantasy media.
Love this video. Thanks Bob
Glad you enjoyed it!
The Gygax 75 challenge interests me far more than the Dungeon23 one. Bravo!
Also it doesn't take all year! haha
@@BobWorldBuilder no kidding! I spent a few hours on it and came up with most of the initial setting info for an Anime 5E setting I call The Bandit Kingdom. Making up a small local dungeon is the most annoying piece of it. Anyway, since I'm not going to be running it any time soon I dropped it for more practical prep tasks.
I didn't get a chance to say it before, but Embroidery floss for a mustache is amazing.
Haha thank you! :)
I'm so glad you shared this. My players just overcame their first plot arc, and I wasn't sure what to do next. This really sparks my imagination on building their path, not their destination, to see where the story goes.
Sounds like you have the right mindset! Have fun with it! :)
Your pitch for DCC was very good, I bought it last week and it arrived Sunday. I am so very excited!
Excellent! I'll be making more videos about it once my campaign really gets off the ground!
Hey Bob. Thanks for being such a positive guy. I appreciate it :)
The Warhammer Old World is my favourite setting; grim, dark, and deeply silly.
any skaven shennanigans included?
That sounds fun!!
@@BobWorldBuilder oh it is, but it also requires a relatively good understanding of the setting in the first place to work well... either way im all for 5 ft tall rat people(the skaven) shenanigans being included...
Mine too but not a fan of the rules of the setting. Too fix this I use other systems b/x, ICRPG, Becmi and deathbringer to run this world.
@@brentnorton1602 I completely agree on the rules. GW seems to have a bit of an issue in that department. "Warlock!" is another alternative set of rules for this seeting.
One thing to keep in mind, and the reason Gygax 75 is so great: Gygax was great referee, not so much a great GM.
If your read anything he wrote, from the OG DMG to this article or the infamous Tomb of Horrors you get what I'm saying.
He was absurdly antagonistic with his players, in that wargaming way. So even when he has some great advice, you still find that "GM vs Players" philosophy.
Gygax 75 does a great job in bringing said advice to a more modern DnD approach.
Great points!
I was inspired by the mappi mundi (the known medieval world map from around the 14th century) in how they would draw land features and then the kinds of creatures you'd find there. So some good advice is just like gygax says about drawing the locations to draw the eye of the players, and include a picture of what creatures or types of humans are there (only one or two, these would just be the most common in the area) but also be sure to leave lots of negative space between these locations so the eyes don't get overwhelmed.
Yeah! Very well said!
For me it was the Zeno Map
One of the players I DMed in 1981 gave me a map I made for my original campaign last year, it's a couple of roads, a coastline, some mountains, and a handful of locations, lol.
I really liked building it bit-by-bit as more was needed, made it easier and more flexible to adapt.
Sounds like a great world building strategy to me!
I'm getting a huge kick out of your delving into old school thought.
Me too!
Your Gygax impersonations had my dying 🤣
Haha thank you!
When I taught myself to play D&D in 1985 I was 10 and learned naturally that an unfinished map/world is a great way to start a game. Waiting for me to finish a map and / or world before we start would mean we never start. Great Gygax btw 😄
"done" > perfect! Gotta start somewhere :)
I love Gygax's approach to world-building and how it boils months of work down to a few easy to digest concepts. This really helped me understand why so many of my previous attempts at creating my own campaign settings have stalled out when I inevitably get bogged down in the details and end up feeling overwhelmed or moving on to a different idea altogether. I would love to see a series of videos putting these concepts into practice (and maybe the end of the series could culminate in a new official Bob World Builder campaign setting (I would buy the hell out of this, extra parentheses here for emphasis))!
I really appreciate that! My goal is for this to be a long term work in-progress, so I can build on it over the years. But maybe once I get it to a strong foundation it would be worth publishing, or at least making a video or two about. We'll see!
I always love seeing everyone's weird encounter table matrixes, so I'd be up for that video.
My world is a mix of Warhammer, Warcraft, Zelda, LotR, Elder Scrolls, and the classic D&D settings.
Awesome mix of sources!
I'm thrilled that you covered the Gygax75. Ray Otis is the man. And pairing this method with GFC D&D's RUclips video on hexcrawling is the most approachable way of making a setting I know of.
My weird jungle science-fantasy exploration campaign was built with a similar method and my friends and I have had a blast. Just last weekend they found a band of hateful geese over a cauldron of gold and split it with a group of robots. Good chaotic fun.
My favorite way to design "random" encounters is by planning it ahead of time - randomly. My current travel system relies on each party member taking a role and then rolling a skill check based on what role they take. This is lifted right out of the "Adventures in Middle Earth" setting books by the way. There is a DC for their travels and the number of successes and failures they get will determine what kind of encounters they get. So, they will always get a random encounter while traveling, but sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, or sometimes it's neutral.
But the key is, I have a few different random encounters at the ready, whether it be good, bad, or neutral. In my session prep I roll on the random encounter tables from Xanathar's Guide (based on terrain) until I find something that makes sense for my setting, and that will be what happens. So even though I "plan" the encounters, I still prepare them randomly.
I used to do something similar, but that sounds like a much more focused approach! Thanks for sharing!
Awesome!
Looking forward to the DCC updates!
I know why I enjoy your content so much now. It's because we have the same basis (i feel) for where we draw from fantasy, err well at least what you're drawing from for this 🌍 you're building
That's awesome to hear! You have great taste then! haha :)
a really useful resource, many thanks for sharing!
My pleasure! Have fun using it!
Thanks Bob. Enjoyed this and looking forward to the next instalment.
I've been running my DCC campaign for almost five months now. My favorite thing, hands down, is the approach to world-building the book suggests. Making the world smaller and encouraging custom monsters has made GMing more enjoyable and the players seem more excited for game night than before.
Thanks for letting me know this Gygax essay exists, great videro!
100%! I raelly like how the book talks about travel and communication being limited, monsters being "the" troll, and other aspects of the regional-scale campaign style
@10:12 - Yes, please! I would love to see a video of you detailing your process of creating an elaborate set of random encounter tables.
I must have been too delayed in replying to your response because I don’t see it any longer. I’d still be really interested in seeing what you have for random encounters.
Doing real good Bob 👌
Thank you!
I’d love to see some random encounter discussion. They’re one of my least favorite parts of DMing so some suggestions or even some complete tables would be really nice.
Yep a bunch of people seem to feel the same way, so I'll probably be turning that into a video of its own!
One of your best videos yet. Tons of great information.
It's based on a fantastic PDF!
Definitely would love an encounter builder video
Can we talk about the embroidery floss moustache for a moment? 10/10
Thank you! Gotta go with what works lol
Have been working on a home brew adventure set in exandria to lead into Call of the Netherdeep and had been getting stuck, this video i think is gonna help a ton
Happy to hear it! :)
love the embrodiery thread mustache
It works!! 🧔
This is the brewing of a fantastic series; I'd like to see more focused videos on this process
Thank you very much!
This was a brilliant video Bob. I really like how you took the work done by Gygax and Ray Otis and complemented it with your own game sensibility and wisdom. Great work. 🚀
Brilliant video! I love your interpretation of Gary. I think he would have laughed. Good on you for promoting Gygax '75... that's the way it should be done!
Haha thank you! Glad you enjoyed it
Building and then unveiling parts of my world to my players is my favorite thing about TTRPGs. When they find a mile wide cylindrical hole in the ground surrounded by a moat and they split the party to find out what's at the bottom....thats the juice.
I totally agree!!
Gygax would not have shown the map to the players since hex crawling was such a big thing in early D&D. That is also why he has such specific scales, because logistics and navigating the wilderness while trying to discover potential targets of adventuring was a large part of the early campaign model.
I was there. In the beginning, there was no world to explore, no modules to use, no books to explain. Three of us were confronted with the realization that we would have to create our own world, our own adventures, even our own rules. We decided to each take a section of the world to develop. We started with a city, Rivazend that was a port city with a river that came from the east. I developed the part of the town on the north, Marty developed the less developed part on the southern shore, and Marybeth developed the island in the middle of the river. we drew a general outline of the coastline to the north and south and a separate land across the sea to the west. We developed adventures and our lands in the designated areas and agreed that the world would be based on a Tolkien type world with somewhat low magic. After all, there wasn't much D&D material after third level. Regrettably, as time passed and lives changed in the real world, I was left by my fellow world builders and have continued to flesh out the rest of the world and run adventures there for all the years since that auspicious beginning. D&D rules changes over the years have changed aspects of my world at times, but at least we have left Thac0 behind.
That's really awesome to have such a history with the game! Kudos to sticking with it :)
@@BobWorldBuilder Good to see youngblood making it better.
I believe you have a spammer trying to get me to claim my package
I haven't done much dming yet but you, professor dungeon master and Matt Colvil have been inspiring me. The world I'm thinking of is inspired by 1500s Europe (been playing Europa Universalis 4) particularly with colonialism into a continent inspired by the Zendikar setting from Magic with living land. A part in the silmarillion where it describes the course of the river Sirion running made me picture water spirits that chart courses for rivers and lakes amongst the ever changing landscape. Finally there's a piece of art from Magic that I always loved. Strionic Resonator. Idk how it will be incorporated, but it may be a being that guides the formation of the land.
Very cool! Write down those sources of inspiration and get started!
I think the "secret" part of worldbuilding in Step 1 makes sense. In my experience, if I tell my players what influenced me, they tend to latch onto parts of that influence that I purposefully wanted to leave out. For instance, I may say, "I'm influenced by the American Wild West", so player decides to be a gunslinger... When in fact what I meant was, "The style of town, clothing, railroads, and general demeanor... While still using swords and shields."
I will say, I'd love a video talking about ways to build a random encounters table.
Awesome! I think this could make a good video
This video was great and had a lot of useful information!
Thanks! It's inspired by a great PDF!
This is a great video. I love your reading Gygax. He didn't really sound that way IRL ( I met him) but he definitely WROTE like he sounded that way. Bravo!
yes moar nerdy DM vids, I'm a lunatic for encounters n set pieces. I go hard before campaigns (and yes, alot of them never come up lol) but I'd like to know I'm not alone in my madness
You're certainly not alone!
I’ve been reading Worlds Without Number the past couple weeks. Has a ton of DM tools for world building. It has a free pdf version. I recommend picking it up. It’s like the advice from Gygax in this video but so much more and tons of tables for rolling or inspiration.
Hmm I'll have to check that out!
It’s so good!
"today there are countless books and videos about world building" - Build Your World vid by Bob World Builder.
The meta is strong with this one.
Great stuff, thanks. And I like the coverage of original works. Dnd history, esp TSR's [bit later than his 75 article], is interesting; and doesn't repeat, but boy sure does rhyme.
Haha yeah, I'm finally making some world building videos! I agree that we have a lot to learn from the history of the hobby
I take the most inspiration from natural places on road trips. I visit Maligne Canyon and can’t help but imagine bandits who waylay caravans as they cross and the hidden cache they’ve put into the river at the bottom. There’s a glacier in Alaska that has melted down into a small ice cave: what if you could dive into the and enter tunnels of ice? What if the strange scratches the glacier left on the cliff walls were the arcane etchings of the wizard who hid his sanctum here?
I get stopped a lot because I’m bad at drawing and a lot of what I love is in the terrain details :(
Thank you Bob, this is finally the kind of framework I need to finally get to building a world! Actionable checklists!!! Love the Gygax footage!😂
I'm very glad to hear it! Lists are my friend too, and I'm glad you liked seeing that rare footage of Gary Gygax himself 😁
What I think I take from more than ANYTHING is Shin Megami Tensei games, and ATLUS games in general. The techno-magic aesthetic that it has is very much in the style of everything I love running! Along with that rougelikes give a fount of possible magic items and lore for me to insert and inspire into my world!
That sounds fun! I'm not really familiar with those games, but I agree that techno-magic can totally work alongside standard fantasy. And magic items are a great way to get inspired :)
Great video and good advice!
Thanks! Glad you liked it!
I absolutely love your style. Not only do you get the information across, I laugh out loud at your clever and subtle humor. Keep up the amazing content and work! You are an inspiration to Game Masters everywhere!
That's very kind! Thank you! :)
Love the content I recently got the Old School Essentials set of books and I am in the process of building a world to play in thanks
Nice! This should be right up your alley
Awesome 👌
Thank you!
Some of the inspirations are Wheel of Time, Dresden (particularly the Fae), Obsidian Mountain trilogy, even older stuff like Dragonriders of Pern.
Never heard of the Obsidian Mountain trilogy. Sounds like a cool mix of sources!
I absolutely adore this channel. Well done Bob!
Thank you!
I love this kind of video. Amazing work. Glad to see you continuing down this path.
More to come!
Super cool 🫵
For my homebrewverse, I've gone with inspiration from... Cyberpunk 2077, Shadowrun, the Eberron setting, Hades (Supergiant Games), Jason and the Argonauts, TFS at the Table (Season 1), Manhunt (Rockstar Games), Secret of Evermore (Squaresoft), Mighty Max, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (80's + 90's), Shovel Knight (Yacht Club Games), Contra 3 (Konami), Bloodrayne (Majesco), and several other retro and retro-style-homage videogames.
I also want to figure out how to adapt certain Legend of Zelda dungeons for multiple players.
Sounds like an awesome mix of sources! Yes, adapting zelda dungeons feels like a big challenge. I think I've seen some videos about it. Perhaps Zipperon Disney's channel?
One thing i like to do is use any source material. Any material works fine. I use Sci-Fi as well and fantasy it.
The Gygax way!
The Gygax cuts are priceless!
Glad you enjoyed it haha
Hey! Love the video, this is an awesome document that I needed to see. I have just been thinking about how to start building in Pathfinder, and this couldn't have come out a better time. I also think that your encounter generator video ideas are both good, and I think you should do both!
Glad it was helpful! :)
when you start your path in OSR its common sence to just create your own stuff and mix with whatever you feel like, great video!
I dig you new coworker. Has a nice vibe :D . I've read Odis PDF (and praise be to him) but thanks for the overview and I'm interested what you are going to do with it :) Keep on building
Thank you for the support! :)
Solid.
your gygax voice gives me nick offerman vibes and i love it.
Haha if only I could pull off the Nick Offerman laugh xD
@@BobWorldBuilder practice practice practice. And ALL of the eggs that they have in the restaurant.
I'm not sure how you got Mr. Gygax himself to agree to make an appearance in this video, but I really hope he plans to return in future videos!
Maybe, he was pretty tough to work with tbh
As I want to do more West Marches campaigns, and I do struggle with charts the same way you did (spending way too much time on it for a minimal use) I'm interested with a full video about it !
Based on the comments, this seems like a common problem! I'll probably be turning that into a video of its own
I truly appreciate your content, good Sir! I have been world building for a long time, and I still take away knowledge and insight on your channel. Furthermore, I appreciated the link to the PDF! Gygax started me on the path long ago, and there has definitely been a desire to go back to some of the basics in the wake of the OGL Wars...thank you for your work in the community!
Thank you so much for this video. I’m finally planning my own world, and having this as a starting point is invaluable!
Awesome! Glad it was helpful!
Solid tips.
Glad you like them!
Whenever I start out world building, I'm drawn to 80s style cartoons. Mysterious Cities of Gold, Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea, Song of Fire and Ice, basically post apocalyptic worlds where advanced civilizations where lost to hubris and greed, where the technology has outlived their creators and haunt a new world that where magic and myth have returned.
Excellent bases for fantasy adventures!
Love these ideas! Thanks for pumping out amazing things, Bob!
My pleasure!
Incredible information for a new DM like myself. Been so wrecked over making a world this has been awe inspiring. Thank you so much Bob! :D
That's really awesome to hear! Glad you got some inspiration from this video! :)
Nothing triggers OCD and obsession with details mania like worldbuilding - catnip for the imaginative. Important to employ the 'perfect is the enemy of good' rule, and to know (as Matthew Mercer and so many others say' - a lot of what you make won't be used, so don't overdesign (unless you want to railroad campaigns): leave blank spaces and ways to adapt to player choices, rather than design everything
It's good to get actionable content for your players down relatively early. Else it's far too easy to keep building and building and building, but never getting one part of the map actually playable. When I create a campaign map I think I'd start a few levels higher, on the continent level, and get the biomes and winds patterns down. Then zoom in on one part and increase the detail on those, then zoom in on a part of *that* and start with the advice here.
That's how I did my first couple worlds! Yeah go with whatever feels fun
I love this video!
I love the enthusiasm! :)
Thank you for this video! I'm currently fleshing out the town/city for a homebrew setting (osr/ose). I'm have it been built in and around the ruins of a previous city. Creating a huge dungeon that can be fleshed out a little at a time along with the surrounding area. Inspired by some anime I have watched along with countless books.
That sounds awesome!!
@Bob World Builder one of the ways I wanted to help form parties or do a session one is to introduce them into the world as hirelings for one of the various adventuring companies going into the ruins. This way they can form a history with each other and then form a party of their own with the blessing/tutelage of their employers or create conflict and become rivals. There will be other companies as well and being divided between charted and free or uncharted. And of course add outside influences along with Where that orc horde come from!!!
Love this video. Spotty viewer here and there. But this one had me laughing. The grass roots bottom dollar skits are my jam.
Haha thanks very much! And thanks for commenting!
@Bob World Builder your videos have helped me keep my campaign grounded, with a more narrow focus when im creating but flexible in the freedom it gives my players. (Who are all 15 year old kids, friends of my son). So thanks for that. Very useful and helpful.
0:23 I have that book 😮
This is quite useful advice!
Glad you think so!
So on the question about the players seeing the map, back then mapping was an actual character skill as well as a player skill. DMs got the full maps, players had to make their own based only on what info they gleaned from roles and their skills to transcribe it. This method is not popular today for many reasons, however it can work for grittier, survivalist type settings.
Note: you could also buy maps or map segments from some npcs with various accuracy and detail
Another banger!
I like Bob speaking in High Gygaxian