Make Your World Feel Real | GM Tips for D&D & TTRPG Worldbuilding
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- Опубликовано: 30 июн 2024
- So many Dungeon Masters and GMs ask us how to make their worlds feel alive for their players. How do you add detail, but not so much that you affect player engagement? Here's how we do it! DMs who are homebrewing for the first time, this one is for you.
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That weather chart better be a Markov matrix!
More on weather charts: whatwouldconando.blogspot.com/2017/04/five-dimensional-weather.html?m=1
Great tid bits in here, even just for writing novellas or short stories! Thanks
Kiki o ok
I’m
Fun fact if you turn the volume down you can still hear them in your mind
it's true
@@WebDM ahh, there it is!
Very true. I turn on the Class RP series when I need something on in the background because I like Jim & Pruitt's chemistry and diction. It helps they have really good voices for podcasting.
I've done the research this is correct.
Joke's on you. I lost my mind years ago
Jim: "...and that's how you get the goddess of love, filth, sewers and war"
Pruitt: "Love is a battlefield"
My brain: "Love. Love never changes"
Alls fair in love, filth, sewers, and war.
Ok that intro is one of the best you guys have ever done
Agreed. The intro to the attributes episode was my favorite till this one.
@@VoodooNoob ability scores? Is that the one where Pruitt lays down the puns
Thank you!
Agreed. And FYI, I waited the entire ad. I didn't skip it. You're welcome. Don't spend it all in one place! ;)
I think the intro in the psionic video was better that this one.
Something I have found quite useful is something I picked up from Matt Colville, and that is to tie your world building into the narrative tension. It's not that people get bored with too much lore, it's when the lore is not relevant to what they are doing. The only person who thinks the historical significance of the kingdoms flag having a griffon on it is you, until it becomes relevant to the parties goals, then they will think its dope.
World build for your own context. Paint in big strokes. The better you know your own lore the better you can portray your world and wing the little details when you need to. However, you can't hold onto your lore with an iron fist, you have to be able to adapt it and respond to player feedback.
@@trequor "My nonsense becomes ironclad when my players engage with it." I love that!
Party worldbuilding, either up front in a session 0 or in pieces throughout the campaign, has worked best for me in keeping the players invested in the world itself :)
How do you go about getting your players to partake in that?
I've recently gotten REALLY interested in the idea of playing another game (toying with Microscope and Dialect right now) that builds the history before we are even playing D&D.
@@tannerlebel5167
player: I go up to the bartender
dm: okay, what do they look like?
Simple questions like that can go a long way, but be sure to tell your players what your goals/expectations are or they might just name everything with puns
@@BobWorldBuilder Sharing narrative control like that is pretty trendy nowadays (PbtA games pretty much codify it as "asking question", and give examples similar to yours), but I'm most surprised at how it wasn't part of the hobby from day one. I introduced my friends to RP-ing a decade ago and they immediately RP-ed like that, and have done ever since; to them it seemed like the most intuitive approach, and they chafed a bit under my traditional D&D DM-ing style at first. Thankfully, I realized just how much easier on my brain it is.
This video isn't real. Wake up. It's your turn on initiative and everyone is looking at you.
The same nightmare over and over.... Your naked on the table... Your d20 has 1's on all the faces
I .......I cast Fireball?
@@gonecoastal4 But you're a fighter!?
@@jeffbangle4710 Nooooo!!!
@@jeffbangle4710 Eldritch Knight.
When talking about pantheons I remembered my last character, a Paladin. His god was a revelrous god of performance, celebration, and poison. I had mentioned it several times, and it only ever came up in that my character was really good at identifying poisons for no discernable reason, but I had written a long rambly diatribe on all the modern interpretations on why he was a Good God of poison and celebration. I had also given the DM a page about the god's backstory, about how he was an Evil god of spies, victory, and poison. People stopped worshipping him and his texts were eventually mistranslated and the god just decided to roll with it because he went from small pockets of cult worshipers to an organized growing church.
That's hilarious! I figure the poison bit could eventually be rolled into things like alcohol and mind-altering drugs, kind of like Dionysus/Bacchus being both the god of wine and revelry and also the lord of madness in later Greco-Roman thought.
@@gibbcharron3469 That was how I looked at it. Everyone was "okay" with it, but I always got side-eyed whenever I identified poisons.
I find having the lore helps me understand and run a world as a DM and is nice to have to answer players questions and History (etc.) rolls. The more fleshed out and understood the world is to me the easier I can run on the fly and improv that world. If I know what potential treasures and troubles are in the area its much easier, etc. And I love when a player asks for more details and lore! Still i advise erring on the side of less is more with lore for revealing to players but now and then there is a lore bard or other player who LOVES the world lore and they need much more than most players to enjoy the game! Just as DM and worldbuilder be emotionally prepared for the players to care very little for the lore and don't get upset if they don't ask probing historical questions about the dungeons origins even if given a lore tome. USE the lore to help run it and be happy YOU know it rather than expecting everyone else to care as much as you do. Fun video thanks.
This might be the greatest intro yet. "I don't know is it real?"
Good lord these intros alone make life worth living lmao
I added a weather chart in my last campaign based on the Random Tables video, and it was a *huge* help. Thanks WebDM team!!!
I need to do that too! My players brought it up and I was "huh"
@@sebaseba6710 It's super useful, even if it's never more than window dressing. I just roll on it during the start of the day and let it ride. If I get rain, it might rain all day, or I might decide it's a downpour and then clear off. Either way, it adds a lot. My player used the mud from a serious downpour to hide from an enemy patrol.
Hey guys! I've been watching your videos for months to help me build my first campaign as a DM. Last night was our first game back after being quarantined. I just wanted to say thank you for what you do because my players truly loved the game and where it was going and I owe that in some way to you both. Thank you again for your great content that is helping newcomers get into the game and have fun while doing it.
Yes you need to talk with your players to know what they want.
With more players at the table or online it’s harder to get that immersions.
Good video
Thank you!
The 100% best way to make something believable is to improve your description and narration. If you can capture a feeling in how you describe a person or a place or a scene it doesn't matter how unrealistic it is. Everyone is going to be in there with you. Good, expressive storytelling told with conviction will always draw people in over any in depth mechanics or gigantic well thought out worlds.
So Pruitt,Your warlock patron finally came thru on his promise .
DM = Shaman taking their people on a vision quest. Excellent.
I see your point about the difference of how gods are developed in fantasy settings versus real history, but there's also a difference that mortals _usually_ didn't create the gods in fantasy worlds.
19:47 "...like right now, Symbaroum" (gasp) You have no idea how happy this makes me. I am LITERALLY worldbuilding my Symbaroum campaign right now, and everything is D&D this or Pathfinder that.
I see that I rolled the highest initiative.
Second
and I right below you
Finally, a not shitty first comment.
*slow clap*
I didn’t even manage hit hit within the magic d20... 😂(22nd or so...)
A) That intro was awesome. B) That intro must have been very difficult to time right and put together. Excellent job Web DM!
One of the things I find that helps keep players immersed is consistent pricing that might sound odd but when your level 5 characters are carrying around 300 gold and a stay at the in costs 3 gold that's a fuckton of money that's six days worth of work for a average guy that's the equivalent of a 450 dollar room for the night. Just making sure your players aren't stopping Even for a moment to think about how expensive a normal service is
This video was really helpful. I usually struggle describing rooms and places. Thank you guys!
One of the best pieces of advice along these lines I know of came from a writer. He starts off by telling a creative writing exercise. He gives one phrase that describes part of a house, then asks his students to fill in all the other details, based on that. After pointing out how different those houses are, and yet how they are similar, based on the themes in his original phrase, he makes the point that as a writer, _you use the reader's house_
Thank you Pruit for keeping a beard on the show.
That intro is genuinely brilliant
I recomend generally going with what is fun over what is realistic. Your players aren't likely to be doing a break down of how realistic your world is, and if they are, they will probably find faults (even our real world seems unrealistic at times). And if your players are smart enough, they will be able to poke holes in your world. Turns out, a world is the product of a lot of factors and requires understanding of a lot of disciplines that no one person could master. You will never get realistic, but you can get awesome.
People are poking holes in our reality. Doesn't mean they are right, just not knowing every single factor and coming to the wrong conclusion. Just watch political discussions. Something I realized over various fandoms is for example that whatever you were lead to belief the first time around, you will cling to. No matter a Junkie in the first Fallout tells the naive Vault Dweller he invented a certain drug, he must be right. When it turns out that it existed long before that guy even was born (Fallout 4) it is the creators fault for destroying the canon, no chance in hell that Junkie could have lied.
When it comes to weather specifically, I like having this idea that if you roll let's say a 6 the weather is so violent that seeking shelter is your only option.
Imagine the DM pretty much describing a tornado bearing down on you, while starting a timer and saying something like "your woken by the loud crack of thunder and howling winds, taking a look around you, you spot a tornado and it's coming right towards you you have but mere moments to find shelter or risk being swallowed by the wind".
Rewatching so many of the WebDM videos as I'm trying to put together a homebrewed solo game for a single-player. Great stuff.
My favourite way to make a setting feel real is to start with an almost blank slate, tell the players they can assume that nothing from other campaign worlds is true about this one, and then answer all questions in the style, "Well, people X believe fact Y". Connect it to the character's background where possible. For example, "The halflings of your village tell legends of two great kinds of dragons: those of coin that bring good luck and those of elements that foretell destruction." Or "The elves of the mystic wood where you grew up whisper of a time before the Age of Men, when the giants walked the lands."
What is real ? The beard is real. Wherever Jim's beard is, _that_ is reality.
I reaaalllly enjoyed this one. All the advice in this video is golden. Tips on how to make things immersive is always appreciated.
Jim Davis pretending to cry and have an existential crisis is a sight I could've happily gone my entire life without seeing. Now this is epic.
I like the idea of having rumors that the party can discover. They can investigate these to see if they are true (the more interest they show the more likely it is to be true. Some things might take a couple actions others might take a bunch.) This allows the players to control the course of the world in a way that they dont feel like it's unnatural. For example, someone mentioned that there is a cave in the woods one of the woodsman might know more about it. If they pursue this then you can prep a cave dungeon for a future session.
"you waited those excruciating 5 seconds to skip that ad"
*Laughs in Brave*
"The DM is like a Shamanic figure", "Its like your casting a spell together". Cue Satanic panic...
This is now one of my favorite episodes! Great episode!
24:54 you mention Factions moving and taking actions towards their goals based on dice roll, and the size of the die depending on their effect of their action. Is there any specific chart to action--die size, or do you just edumecate (educated guess) it?
Thank you! Your videos are extraordinarily helpful.
I'm sure it's guesstimate. There's no way to make an absolute power scale for actions.
Such a fun clever start, good job guys!
This intro and the "tidbits" one are probably my favorites *laughs*.
This has been your funniest episode intro yet, well done!
might just be my new favorite intro
I think you guys have way too much fun doing these intros and I LOVE it :D
I think the intros are getting better. *Wait -* they've always been this good. My God. What is real?
That intro is downright terrifying. Nice Job!
This intro is one of the best intros on the internet.
This may be the best intro of all time.
Vis-a-vis Jim's rule about Lore Being Optional, my personal rule of thumb is "screentime equals details". Dole out the minimum information needed for a given area or object when the players find it, then expand upon it when they interact with that thing more in the future, because if they choose to interact with the thing again after the first time then it means they presumably want to know more about it.
I’m working on my third episode of my most recent Campaign and this helped a ton 🙏
Awesome!
That intro was art!!!
I don’t know if this is real, but the past couple of opening are 🔥🔥🔥
Favorite intro so far, that was fantastic!!
Awesome intro as always guys!
Best part was "deep in the bush." Then the following descriptions. Killed me.
In one of the campaigns I’m in, our DM will give us room to make things up within our character’s background. So, when we hear about yak-people kidnapping children from mountain villages, the DM might tell the mountain dwarf that they had heard of these monsters but thought they were legends. Then our dwarf has room to make something up like “I thought Nana just made those up. She always said that if I didn’t eat my lichen that the yak men would come in the night to get me” or “they’re just made up by older kids to scare littles. We used to carve little yak figurines and hide them in the cookie jar to scare my sister”. Those little moments give flavour, flesh out our characters (we now now that the dwarf was raised by his Nan and has a little sister he liked to mess with), and are sometimes then built by the DM into the lore about that thing. It’s so cool to see a little detail improvised by a player end up being important (turns out that the yaks are weak to spells that use lichen spell components or something). It makes us all pay more attention to each other and engage with the world
Pretty interesting idea to let the players describe what their characters sense and feel! After DM'ing for a year, I only recently realised I'd been describing every scene just from a "sight and sound" perspective.... I completely forgot about the other senses like smell/taste or anything like the temperature of the room, if it's damp or dry, etc. But I guess you learn something after every session.
Looking to make a "realistic" fantasy world so this was a lot of help! Thank you! Might look into World Anvil as well! :)
the intro is great!
that was a great intro!
That's s great intro!
the opening bits just get better
Really good discussion points here.
At 24:30ish you mention dice oracles and that you have covered them before. In which video is this talked about/ where can i learn more?
Check out our Random Tables video, pretty sure it's there! ruclips.net/video/0z_vI05D4rk/видео.html
@@WebDM Awesome. Thanks!
@@WebDM I gave that video another watch through. There was a lot of good information, but nothing on dice oracles. Any idea where else it could be?
@@evancarr7411 @web DM I would also be curious about this
I once ran a horror one-shot. All my players got twitchy, and I had to tell them to calm down. Maybe I made it feel too real, or maybe it was real...
Excellent videos goes, keep it up!
Fun fact Pruit moonlights as a hypnotist
Extraordinary video. You understand the lure of that shared co-creative brainspace and how magical it is. It IS magic, making up a story with your friends. Still not gonna get World Anvil though (I use Roam! Free at the time. I don't think it's hit the creative scene yet, I only know about it due to a programmer friend. Highly recommend for organization of creative notes on big projects!)
when i run my own setting (damn you Corona, there is no longer any rythm of the gaming nights!) i choose what age to set it in (Old Antiquity, Young Antiquity, The Era of Darkness, The Era of Kings, The Era of New Empires, the Modern era, and the Era of Confusion (Present day), and while i have planned the setting up until fantasy meets space opera, ive yet to get to play there). This informs us about the game world, how magic is viewed, what gear is available, what classes and subclasses are allowed and so on. Then i, together with the players deide on what level of "realism" we are playing, where level 1 means cookie cutter fast and dirty DnD, and 5 means as much optional rules and homebrews i can fit in for the sake of realism (longer Rest periods, lingering damage, madness and currage stats, my own expanded Rest rules (Giving you actual benefits and problems with high and low living standards), spell points instead of Spell Slots (works well with the longer Rest periods) and so on. I here also include sexism, racism, slavery, genocide and other heavy and real subjects, something i will not have at all in a level 1 realism session, and then gradually add on.
When i have this knowledge, i decide where i want the adventure to take place, and then i make the adventure.
and its realy not that complicated to get into from the outside perspective. By starting with the question "When do you want to play?" you already gives the players a tonne of information about the world.
Ok, so you want to play a Bronze age campaign? Most players have at least a vague idea how and why that world differs from the High Medieval era (The Era of Kings)
The next question informs me how to approach the Players from this world. Realism 1 and they want mindless, consequence-free fun, realism 3 and moral questions starts to become a theme, realism 4 and they are the good guys in an otherwise grey world, in realism 5 there is no such thing as Good and Evil at all, everything and everyone are grey in some way. Even the most goodhearted person hides a personal darkness, and even the most stonehearted person cares deeply about something.
So now we know it will take place during the bronze age, realism 4. and while a player might know NOTHING of the world itself, it can still play comfortably in that world because they in general terms know what to expect from the world.
I Highly reccomend any homebrewer to at least figure out the basic historical progression for a gameworld. Few things when it comes to settings bother me more than what i call The Everlasting Green, where the world looks like it has always done, where heroes from thousands of years ago were dressed and wore the same equipment that heroes do today, and where nothing ever changes. Very few settings actually do anything with it, with exeptions of course (Looking at you Ravenloft, and your silly yet fully understandable and realized everlasting green... well... Dark green... Well... Green-tinted darkness...)
But im also a madman who tries to make a whole world with a somewhat detailed and realistic history and historical progression from 16.000BCE to 5000CE.
From Sweden with Love
- Kami
P.S
Question for all you aspiring and experienced worldmothers and skydaddies out there: Humans in a game setting. Yes/No?
Love that Pat Benetar shout out Pru
Id love a video that goes more into depth on some of the systems mentioned here, like the whether generator hex map or the faction die pool.
Love your Videos. BUT YOUR INTROS!!!, Todays was fantastic.
16:45 - Pat Benatar. I love that song.
I would make a funny comment but I really cant think of one. Just love this series.
Thanks TR!
Texas opened up so y'all can chill together huh? 👍 As much as I enjoy y'alls live streams I enjoy this more.
We filmed this in February. We all live in different places now, some in different states so get ready for more socially distant shows -- format will keep improving!
Damn. It was foolish to hope for a bit of normalcy I suppose. 😣
By the Nine, I love you guys' intros XD
never have i felt so intimidated
Also, I would say that it’s good to find out what your players are looking for in a game. Some players love a world they can travel and freely explore the most; some players love making meaningful decisions to the main story in every session while others enjoy building relationships with NPC’s :) find what your players enjoy most and emphasize that. If they are having fun then that’s what counts :)
I trick I like to use is to have the whole party make passive perception checks, then I describe hwo each character sees it, with an amount of detail equal to the roll, so: Alright you all walk into a dark room, to the dwarf it just looks a bunch of junk, the wizard notices the taoestries tell the tales of my awesoe epic campaign, the fighter can see that someone was here about two days ago...etc.
Best. Intro. Yet.
The Lore is OPTIONAL! Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
Best cold open yet!
Y'all are competing with Pewdiepie and The Quartering for the best, most entertaining intros on RUclips. Y'all have the crown.
Thank you!
I recommend Sly Flourish's Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master.
How do you make unique slang for your world without needing to explain the slang to your players? When a player said, "I would like to buy the long sword for 2 silver." I said, "I won't haggle with coin, but I am willing to jingle for some rice and wheat. Maybe some meat and meadwater." The players started dancing. It was funny; however, I wanted to make the word "jingle" mean barter, also known as trade, for items. Haha! It was pretty cool, though, and I just ran with it.
Can I get a copy of that weather chart? I don’t fully understand how they explained it and I would very much like to have a copy
Check out this post: whatwouldconando.blogspot.com/2017/04/five-dimensional-weather.html?m=1
Also check out the Hex Flower charts by goblinshenchman
Thank you so much @Web DM
@Tahu Nuva also thank you!
The coolest intro
I like to get a general idea of what kind of world I am running and then I have the players make their character. They have to have a location in there and some group they have a history with. I add that into my game so it makes it feel like they are part of the world. this also givesme some good plot hooks.
I wasn't high enough for that intro.
I think the idea of over-preparing is valid and I think its an interesting perspective when he mentions only coming to the table with a couple descriptive lines so the players have room to play, however and i would really like peoples opinions on this what do you do with inquisitive players that want to know more, what do you do during those Ummm... moments that break immersion for the player and are so awkward for the DM?
fkn solid intro lads
Anyone else notice the new feywild video was public for like a couple minutes???
Yeah, wtf. I'm watching it right now, but it's not on yt anymore, hahaha
I would believe they uploaded the wrong cut of the video, because there are a bunch of editing and production errors in the video I'm watching.
Ishik Kayabas
that’s fascinating. i didn’t actually get the opportunity to watch it before it was privatised
That darn fey time dialation...
Finding ways to carefully situate the characters in the world, whether that's by backstory, traits/bonds or goals can be really useful. It's impossible to disassociate Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser from Lankhmar; or Cugel from the Dying Earth, Vimes from Ankh Morpork. We experience even the best realised worlds through the characters. Similarly, the players need to be willing to adjust their concept. There's no point planning an epic mountain adventure if nobody can climb.
Jokes on your Pruitt I got an ad blocker on.
the the "Hoff" on the thumbnail
This introduction was stupidly endearing.
Is that the Hoff in the thumbnail?
Don't you dare say "this is a lot." Moar, I say. MOAR
10:10 players are there to play, to make meaningful choices. Without choices it's cutscenes/novel. What choice opportunities to present, besides combat and puzzles, traps, NPC dialogue.
My players know that every part of an area is prepared or at least an idea of whats there. They definitely use this against me sometimes but because of this they love my campaigns even if the they never follow the actual plot
How hard was that intro? Awesome