I have the same issues honestly. But I'm also really picky and love realism haha

@@TheFantasyForge why I subscribed, also I'm a D&D fan.

"What impact are these events having on the environment?" also works for "what impact are these events having on the local economy?" Yes, I've watched Spice and Wolf. How did you know?

I DM for a dnd campaign and looking at this I actually looking at this I have noticed that I have a lot of these things covered and fixed except for #6 and #11

​@@VoicelessVoid456 Glad it helped even if a little! I'd love to hear about the game!

That's honestly a great tip! Thanks for that

I just made magic pretty difficult to use, i think of magic users like monks, can someone become far more mentally and physically powerful than the vast majority of people? Yes, but like, most people just don't, it's a way of life and it is usually not one most wish to choose

@@wooblydooblygod3857 Exactly, anyone can learn a musical instrument and yet not everyone is a world famous musician. Also our modern technology is pretty much magical compared to what we had 30 years ago, yet we can often have issues and malfunctions and when the power is out we are so screwed.

This is GREAT advice. You should make a video haha

This is the way -cit

​@@Diamondarrel this is the way.

People would buy a whole book for this kind of advice, thank you

​@@nuh_uh210 glad it helped!

Exactly! Magic would change so much in the same way that technology did for us. People are inventive 😆

3.5 D&D GM here...with lots of house rules. I run a slightly reduced magic world, where full casting progression is not allowed, magic has been weakened by some cataclysm in the past that ended "The Golden Age of Magic" and made magic harder to master. There's an impact of a historical event for you! Mechanically, a character's caster level in any given spellcasting class is at most 2/3 of their character level, so typically a character must multiclass in order to gain enough life experience to be able to master magic. A simple example, an 8th level character couldn't be an 8th level cleric. 2/3 of 8 rounds down to 5 so they might be a 5th level cleric with 3 levels in one or more other classes. A cleric of a LG deity might be a paladin 3/cleric 5, a cleric of a LN deity of knowledge and mysticism might be a monk 3/cleric 5, in either case at 9th level they can progress to cleric 6 but at 10 must take something besides cleric. An impact of that is that magic items and spellcasting services are also more costly because fewer people can make or supply them respectively - and an added incentive to adventure is that magic items made during the Golden Age are out there in ancient ruins etc, some more powerful than anyone currently alive can make, such as ancient scrolls of 8th and 9th level spells... Yet, at the same time, lower level magic is still fairly common especially in towns and cities. The alleys of the wealthy parts of town are seldom in shadows, as continual flame spells which last nearly forever can be cast on the tops of lampposts and the cornerstones of public buildings and the like...

​@@ernesthakey3396 This is my vibe for sure. I just think it makes it more easy to relate to and play in without turning the players into gods

@ernesthakey3396 oh you just gave me the answer to what I was trying to figure out. My world everyone is born able to use magic, however I was trying to figure how to make it work without completely destroying the environment like you see in stories like Dragon Ball series or Fairy Tail series or World of Warcraft series.

@@ernesthakey3396 Why not just reduce full casting progressions in the classes by 1 step then add something to make up for it, if needed for a given class, such as Wizard?

YES! That’s a great way to put it, definitely don’t want to regurgitate all your lore. Imply 😎🤘 thanks for the love

no :3

Like George Lucas with the original Star Wars. But then he had to go flesh out his implied history with the Prequels...

@freman007 Which is also another thing to keep in mind. One of my favorite stories is One Piece, where Oda usually implies enough to satisfy the reader but gives him enough freedom to write whatever he wants with that implication.

One Piece is good but you gotta admit it has terrible worldbuilding, thematically fluctuous and full of inconcitencies (emm... Snail telephones?)

This is not entirely true. For one, railroads were not standardized right away. They actually had issues trying to put cars on different tracks before they learned to standardize them. The roads of Rome were also not all the same width. This keeps getting spread around, but it isn't true. They generally are of similar size, but not the same. And then you have lots of equipment that is driven everywhere on regular roads across the country, and they often take up more than one lane. They are called Oversized Loads, and they only require a police escort and some planning to transport them from city to city. And while it is interesting that an engineer or city planner from ancient Rome may have had an impact on today, the truth of the matter is that even without an alleged standardization, roads would all look more or less the same to us if invented now. Think of cars: it only makes sense to have a driver on one side and a passenger on the other. And whether car, carriage, or chariot, two humans sitting side by side take up the same amount of room back then as they do now.

Totally agree! Sometimes it's better to start improving with baby steps haha

Watch the series ER from the 90s if you haven't. Things were WAY less tense regarding your topic and I miss it. Good thought.

Diversity also depends on whether it is just a small area (a smaller regional scale) or the whole fantasy world (a larger world scale). The larger the area, the more diversity occurs. Or a single village is more often monotypic, while there is more diversity between several villages. And mixed diversity depends on how much mobility and isolation there is between different settlement groups and societies and whether we are focuses on the interactionist border area between two societies or only in the core inland of a certain society. Moreover, it is also more common for imperialist and colonialist societies to have more mixed deversity than passive or subjugated societies. Forced mixed diversity, on the other hand, means that mixed diversity is not given any explanation and history, but it exists soullessly just only for the sake of mixed diversity itself and is as bad a mistake as ignoring diversity on a larger world scale. If I had to give an example where I think this subject of diversity has been handled well and exemplary, it would be Avatar The Last Airbender and Avatar Legend Of Korah. Each settlement has its own unique culture, the mixed diversity has a history tied to the Fire Nation's wars and colonial expansion, and in the post-war world, when the mobility of people increased, the settlements were no longer so mmonobendersthan before but the price was the loss of traditions, cultural heritage and roots in a changing industrial world.

@@danielmalinen6337 you touched on a point I wanted to mention; cultural diversity ends up occuring due to waves of isolation and reconnection. As the modern world allows for more and more connection both in terms of media and travel, the connected worlds cultures slowly become more homogenious. This could be an interesting idea to expore, but if you have a world of magic portals, holograms, and instantaneous magical communication, expect there to be less and less cultural diversity the longer those things are available to everyone.

@@klosnj11 not even remotely true. It’s all about leadership and the overall dominant culture. If leadership allows for tourism but the populace likes their culture then the culture will remain homogenous. Examples: Morocco and Dubai. Meanwhile even if leadership doesn’t promote it but people take a liking to it, you’ll see more homogeneity (to world culture) no matter what: Florida and Texas have a more homogeneous vibe than what the leadership would like. No criticism, just pointing out how it depends on mostly the people.

@@MerlinTheCommenter not sure if I misunderstand your argument, but your examples of texas and florida seems to refute your primary argument.

Oooo I like the 11lb bar, because you're right, people would learn to regulate it.

Depends on setting, always agree with things a normal person can do like the 11 pound bar, things being just past some ranges like a tavern having the bottles 35 feet away from the stools so you can't easily access them with a spell or something, but Identify requires a 100gp pearl, and DnD has most people earn a few copper a day, a level 1 adventurer doesn't mean guy who had basic training, it's like seal team 6.

The Mage Hand thing doesn't really follow. If the bar is on the other side of the door, the wizard can't see it to use his spell on it. If he can see it through a window, well you don't have to be a wizard to just break the window and get in.

@@kenle2 there are gaps between doors and walls, doors in castles aren't like the doors in a modern house. Even a mirror under neither the door would do, or spying it through a window if you don't want to make the noice of breaking the glass, etc., etc.

This is great advice , they definitely scale and applying most tips or resources in the right way or across the board can realllly help make your worlds better. It’s all part of being a better dm

Notes, alot of notes and step by step world building. Savor the joy of making the world, dont rush and burn yourself out. Dosent matter if you have mess of notes, you can structure them point by point and refine it later. Just get your ideas and visions down on the paper or pad! 👍

@@odinulveson9101 I have so many notes sometimes it's overwhelming (in a good way)

@@TheFantasyForge yeah for sure. I imagine picking the ones that fit the situation/ campaign etc. Like apples from a tree or cotton from clouds!

EXACTLY, there's so much weird stuff to take inspiration from in our own "backyard"

"There is a planet in our galaxy where it rains raw rubies and sapphires from the sky." I've always wondered how anyone can actually know that.

​@@BKPrice And stars that are a giant diamond lmao.

Lol of course! I'm glad it helped. I'm NOT a history major, so I'm sure I made lots of mistakes haha. I just happen to love history

still sounds cool so we should keep it imo.

The Early Medieval Period.

Wasn't the "Dark Ages" the period from the fall of Rome (Western) to Charlemagne? Then came the High Middle Ages (my favorite time period).

Yes! Characters should feel three dimensional, not like they only existed to serve X plot or Y person

One could also go about it in a similar way as the ultimate conflict in Persona 3. [SPOILERS BELOW] Basically, the _conflict itself_ is rather black-and-white (in that it's clear which side _must_ win), but the same isn't necessarily true of the _morality_ of the conflict (it's not "good vs evil", but rather "the will to live vs the reality of death", and the final enemy isn't even malicious, it's just acting upon its assumed purpose).

You can also definitely have shades of grey while still having a clear villain. The Allies in WW2 did some pretty horrendous stuff at times, but the other side was literally the Nazis.

​@@Candlemancer definitely! I have a whole other video on making a villain, but I should probably make an updated one 🤔

This recently happened to me in a campaign (as in a week ago). The group I play with all went to the same university with the same core curriculum that included philosophical ethics classes, so we are all familiar with trolley problems and moral dilemmas. I ended up killing the one thing protecting a whole segment of land from unnatural death because the cost of it was the ritual sacrifice of a young child every year. My character believes he cannot harm innocent life, and he works as an exacter for the neutral god of death, so he believed what he was doing was good. He then goes and sacrifices himself to stop a madman artificer genociding gnomes. His god, rather than being pleased he saved innocents, is angry for causing his kingdom to slow its expanse (for his kingdom grows with every death, good or bad). My character does not believe that death is neither good nor bad, but that one should be able to die when it is proper and ordained by whatever higher power there is, or else die as punishment for persecuting the innocent. I now have to choose between whether I want to serve a god who is truly neutral on the subject or if I was to die again because I won't serve him (I'm a Revenant in this game, and he reincarnated me as a dwarf that had died a few hours prior to my resurrection).

I poured soooo many hours of my youth into Diablo and Diablo 2 lol. I'd do it all again.

Yesss One of My favorite pieces of worldbuilding

BEAUTIFULLY said, this. Why put in 100 hours into your world if your players or readers will only see a fraction of that world?

In fairness, if you're a feudal lord without the ability to grow food yourself you need your peasants. The peasants provide the food, the lord and his soldiers protect the peasants.

​@@freman007yeah, the idea of feudal lords just leaving their peasants to the mercies of bandits and wild animals isn't really accurate. It's not like modern capitalism where you can just hire new workers for minimum wage, your current peasant workforce is all you've got to work with to produce anything from your lands. If they're all starving or dead then you're screwed too.

LMAO I enjoyed reading this. I agree with you 100% and honestly that exact mentality is where that came from for me

Yes, it annoys me too. One of the things I don't like about the Song of Fire and Ice series (Game of Thrones), is that the technology has been stagnant for thousands of years. Why hasn't some other culture or race reached the level of technology the Valaryans had before the volcanoes around them erupted? Why have the Maesters (sp) not advanced beyond what we see with all the knowledge they have? Seriously, the Maesters have thousands of years of knowledge, but don't improve upon on it, in any way? Other that they are stuck in their ways and horde knowledge, instead of building upon on it and sharing it, there should be some culture out there that is trying to advance. GRR Martin's world is a low magic dark fantasy setting, but to me is a stagnant world, where no one wants to move beyond the norm. Maybe it has something to do with the climate, with the erratic and long summers and winters, that can last for years on end, or the fall of Old Valarya caused a winter longer than normal, but the timelines just seem way too long with no advancement in society or technology.

Don't get me started on the Dr Stone anime. After 3800 years since the cataclysm, despite living a few days walk from the reservoirs of knowledge that are modern libraries, despite the fact nuclear power plants can run for years unattended, somehow the human population is a few hundred still eking out a living fishing and foraging. Hell no. Even reduced to a handful of people, after 3800 years (the length of time between us and the building of the Pyramids) the human race would have a population in the millions, at least, and have retained most of our civilization.

In addition, read the background for the Sword Coast in the D&D books. 5000 years ago the Elves fought the Drow, since then nothing has changed. Gnomes are technologically obsessed, and live for centuries. Can you imagine what an Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein could have achieved if they'd lived for 400 years? They'd rule the D&D world.

What if one wants to keep the theme like medieval or renaissance or both? To make it mainly like that it would have to stagnate technology or is said writer obligated to develop modern cars and the like after years that have passed? Genuinely asking here as a beginner

Lol thank you! I appreciate that so much

for real though.. but I feel it just needs one video to pop off and then the subs are gonna come in

Love this! All it takes is a budding idea

One of my current favorite settings is Gubat Banwa's setting. Everything is set in a fantastical SEAsian world. Everything works so much more differently than how it would in say, your standard medieval fantasy setting. Also since I'm Viet myself, I find it rad as hell

Yeah definitely! I'm a huge Tolkien fan, but I want something NEW. Norse lore is pretty amazing too

​@@TheFantasyForgeto some clearence, 16-18 ages at easter europe is kinda landlock dynamic of 3 powers. While for wester european it have Caribbean sea and pirates and power struggle between Spain, England and France. Same are happen at eastern steppes where powerstruggle between Commonwealth, Ottomans and Russia over "wildfield" born age of cossacks 😊

In my current world I'm building a prehistory to for me to make things make sense for my to main characters which both Kings hate each

Original thought 😒

Agreed! I just think it's easier to relate when there are very few people in our world who are just 100% evil. Most people who are "evil" have their reasons for doing what they do. I think they make much more complex and nuanced villains than the "some men just want to watch the world burn"

RIP to the griffin. I hope they had chicken legs that night

I love this so much. Love the idea of a holiday being spread out like that. Super cool

@@TheFantasyForge ye! :D idk if I should share details or not but doing that and implementing your stuff is so crazy fun!

aw thanks! I appreciate the kind words

Agreed!!

I'm a writer myself so I think that's probably why I even tackled this for a DND game. But I am definitely going to be talking more about writing and storytelling in general. Thanks for the comment! I appreciate it :D

appreciate the love! I just try to think about how I watch videos too, and I just want the info

LOL 🤣trust me, I'm sure I've made lots of mistakes in the last 100 videos I've made. Just try to see the point I'm making with what I'm saying ABOUT the topic, not focus on the error of a misinterpretation😅Appreciate the history lesson tho, *the more you know*

Hundred percent! I'm just a masochist

Totally! The more you understand the world, the more prepped you feel for those plotholes and little questions that come up.

Definitely! History is written by the victors.

Just look at the conflict between Japan and Korea. Japan still has problems acknowledging the harm they did (literal harm, not mean words) to the people of Korea and China, despite the 80 year gap. History is written by whoever is telling the story, and the degree to which it lines up with actual history depends ultimately on how closely the retelling can make the teller look like the "good guys". Whatever standard of good that culture might have. Romans might explain with pride that they slaughtered ten thousand, then crucified five thousand survivors.

​@@freman007 well said!

Yes! This is big, the every day stuff 100% matters

@@TheFantasyForge Exactly, depending on set up implying is enough, but I so often get immersion ruined because there's clearly no watersource for this village, nor a common low level magic that could solve it.

Appreciate the comment! I don’t see anything wrong with looking back at one’s own work and realizing you are pulling too much from tropes (if that’s the case). No offense meant, I’m right there with you on decades of writing, but if you want to stand out as a writer, these are just some tips I recommend to create something unique. That’s all I meant :)

The idea of turning your own area into a fantasy world is amazing. I bet it makes it more nostalgic too.

There are still tribes in South America that have had little to no contact with the world beyond. They still live a hunter/gatherer lifestyle

thats usually how it goes haha, glad I could earn your sub

Glad you liked it! I'm super happy that these videos help non-D&D people as well

Steve Rogers is a great example

Thanks for the love! Yeah worldbuilding is intimidating, but if you turn it into excitement and just keep working on it, it can go a long way.

@@TheFantasyForgeWhat's been working for me so far (now that I've posted 11 pages online) is to have a separate, public repository for lore that's also done in comic page format for people who want more background. This avoids the dreaded info-dump derailing the actual story. So I add little bits to that lore library as things grow but those pages aren't mandatory reading to understand what happens in the story pages.

Woaaah wait please explain that more, that sounds interesting@@kidcthulhufortney1320

@@TheFantasyForgeI have a webcomic called BIG FANTASY EPIC that's done entirely with miniature photography. It's basically about an apprentice scribe in a bustling city-state and all the craziness she encounters. If you google the name (or just search for it on Comic Fury) you'll get a look. It's far from perfect, but it's a work-in-progress that I'm really enjoying making. Plus my readers seem to like it.

@@TheFantasyForgeI have a web comic called BIG FANTASY EPIC. I'd say more, but the last time I tried, KZfaq deleted my comment. I didn't even have a URL in it!

No! I LOVED calamity. It's funny because as I was editing it I even thought to myself "hmmm this seems weird...nah it'll be fine" so now I know to trust my gut haha. Nah, I love Brennan as a DM. Imo he's the best

@@TheFantasyForge Hands down the best! Worlds beyond number anyone?

​@@Diamondarrel UGH so good

Glad it helped!

I think it just comes down to whether you want an immersive game every week, or a beer and pretzels dungeon crawl

Yeah! It's actualyl because of that same thing that I'm slowly transitioning the channel to being about just storytelling in general. Video game stories, writing, D&D, all of it.

@@TheFantasyForge That's nice to hear. I'm trying to get as much out of all these writing advice channels as I can , but I certainly enjoy the occasional casual video here and there, like lists and recounting of real-life experiences. I think CritCrab have some funny stories in the latter category.

​@@TheREALSimagination I'll have to check them out!

aw thanks :D appreciate the love

My world also started as a game world and now I'm working on it as an intertextual body of work! I'm glad I'm not the only crazy one haha

yes, and divergent tech, like it's sometimes a joke in sci fi that some species discover something big before fire but the general idea is good, they might not have figured out getting good quality alloys because of how fire magic works, but have time keeping as accurate as the modern day using a weak spell of some kind that links the movement of a clocks hour hand with the sun regardless of if it's underground or cloudy. or due to adamantite and dragon scales many goals of meta materials are achieved that we don't even have yet, but with the time spent fighting monsters or it being unsafe no one has invented alcohol really yet.

You know, what helped me was making a "what would characters know" document. And then I tried to relate it to what we know about our own world. So I know what happened 50-100 years ago in my country. What about 200 years? Mmmm...well kind of... 300? Much less... 500? Oh boy... 1000? 10,000? It becomes more and more vague until it becomes "I have no idea". Start there, and then build the "rest" of history around that. That way you are building on things your players don't know, but you'll have an answer when they inevitably ask a question about the lore in your world

@@TheFantasyForge thanks man, this brought me many ideas. Also i think its dope youre actually answering the comments questions!

​@@its_sisha_not_chair505 I'm trying! Haha. Its definitely getting harder but I promised myself I would do it for as long as I could

Lol imagine being one of them and accidentally getting turned into a tornado

I'm glad the video helped! I'll be making more storytelling and writing style stuff in the future too :D

I'm writing novels too so I'm glad! It all comes from my writing experience haha

I'm right there with you lol. Writing is hard

beautifully said!

I know Isekai is cringe and usually sucks at world building, but I like that in an isekai setting with a friend there's a reason for guns not to work that also makes fireballs and such more cinematically cool with explosions being generally bigger and mostly hotter, so you couldn't really propell a bullet without also breaking the weapon. this is to say you can give the world physics whilst stopping a thing, like change the properties of silicon so you can't create lenses precise enough to see things smaller than insects or to stop some total nerd inventing computers, heck make it that unbound electrons become lightning magic and travel towards a living target so circuits can't happen, or allow some clever stuff if it's balanced like longer burning candles.

Definitely only need to do what works for you and your story. Appreciate the comment!

LOL this made my day

I actually disagree with this rule. I'm tired of games and settings that do everything they can to subvert and flip all preconceptions and stereotypes. It can easily go too far. Some familiarity is important for players. Also, if all the races or species are basically the same, then what's the point of having them? Having your elves not be similar to Tolkien's elves means they're just humans with pointy ears and longer life spans. Having dwarves not be insular, hostile towards outsiders, and somewhat obsessed with digging, building, etc just means they're shorter, stouter hirsute humans. Having orcs not being big angry, aggressive, and violent just means they're humans with green skin and larger incisors. If they're naturally better at violence because they're big, fast, strong, and aggressive, but they're actually peaceful or just misunderstood then what's the point of their creation or evolution in the game world? Are they actually a very very old species that changed over time? That's something to be explored. 40ks Orks are a good example. They were originally krorks, genetically engineered to *want* to be violent and resourceful and hard to kill. But over many millennia they degenerated into Orks. Or vampires in modern fantasy. Why are vampires always portrayed as incredibly smart, wise, secretive, seductive, and fantastically wealthy and powerful behind the scenes? Because after centuries of being alive they would have gained significant wisdom and knowledge, ability to manipulate people to get what they want, and they would have learned how to make lots and lots of money. This applies to players, as well. Most players play other species wrong, they simply just play them as humans but a little different. This is only natural as players are human. But part of the thing about role playing is that you have to try to put yourself, the player, into the mindset of someone or something else. What would living for a thousand years actually be like, what would a species who is for all intents and purposes never ending think of the world and how things work? Some fantasy literature does a very good job of this, Tolkien, Forgotten Realms books, Warhammer and 40k with their different types of elves.

@@patrickbateman3146 Great post! I still disagree (respectfully) because I argue that, vampires for example, you could argue they go mad from being alive too long. Or an orc can be more than just an angry brute. Orcs can have culture and society and still be more violent (like barbarians) without being the "Grahhhhh" like they are in Warhammer. But I do see what you mean, changing them for changing's sake is annoying and you're right, familiarity is important. I only mean if you want to stand out and be different, do different.

​@@patrickbateman3146 Counterpoint to violent carnivorous orcs is the rhynosorus, elephant etc. like they probably have tests of strength as part of flirting, but not outright killing or giving lifelong injuries, elves are more like forest animals, they're not elequant, they're more like foxes, taking stuff and getting hidden, Dwarfs, yes they're all androgynous miners, that's too fun to change. you can convergent evolution your way into considering other routes, or like how humans don't live based on our bodies as much, like sitting being central despite it killing us, you can go against the biology, like have your walking dolphin species trying all sorts of stuff to go further inland. It's ageist and flat out wrong that ageing makes you know more or think better. rich and quote smart quote vampires works great because they're able to act as an alagory for the capitalist class or colonialism. but this has been done differently in fun ways with changing them to be poor due to the low profile of secrecy they need and being aligorical for queer people, and both can just be fun regardless of what coding you do. I full agree about players, in focus on class/skills, more should treat their skills like Disco Elysium when thinking how to roleplay, someone with high constitution would enjoy the outdoors and runs a lot more than low con, having a language means you learnt it, and it shapes how you talk, and not just the way humans sprinkle in swears from other tongues but I mean how when you learn a language with different word order or things you focus on your view with words changes.

Happy to help! Thanks for the love

Great advice, this actually happened in my last party. One person betrayed them and they never trusted anyone again lol. I had to put in some good clerics and such to help them heal… Who hurt them?! Oh…it was me…

This is the problem game of thrones had. When no one is the good guy you just stop caring about any of them and become very cynical

@@patrickbateman3146 agreed, it turns into more of watching a gladitorial game or something because it's just entertaining.

exactly, Cesar from Fallout New Vegas is very well written but he's still clearly full evil, he's a fascist who proudly contradicts himself and gets Hegal wrong. morals aren't the only form of complexity a character can have, IRL even all the most powerful and rich people are bigots that hoard wealth that could end the suffering and deaths of millions each year. sure Alex the farmer or Kai the local healer for the church can and will be morally complex, but those at the top are very simple in their evil and some people are genuinely good, you can come across someone who heals people for free because they can and who fights to end hierarchy.

I think an often better way to look at things is when things are black and white morally it is the solution that should be mixed with consequences. How one defeats the evil villain or force. Also one needs to keep in mind how the players and others see the morality of the villain or issue is and how they see the morality of their choice to deal with it. So adding layers of consequences to defeating evil to me actually adds more depth then making a villain or situation "grey". To me as a world builder I like to see then how characters chose how to deal with the situation and it's future impact. I had players who all wanted to defeat the evil and do good have an enjoyable roleplaying experience dealing with the implications of other characters choices. Good having issues with good over how to do the right thing in defeating evil.

Watch movies, read books, all of that will help with storytelling :) Glad it helped and thanks for the love!

thank you for the love! I appreciate it :D

Appreciate the love! Definitely a badge of honor to say you have played for that long

Love it! No need to kill yourself over it though! even starting with a solid foundation for a country is enough if you DM it right

I'm a writer, I have no interest in DMing. You just get stuck as the forever DM.@@TheFantasyForge

thank you! I'm writing one too, kind of what kick-started this whole channel haha. Good luck! I'd love to read it one day

@@TheFantasyForge Wow, you answered fast, hope your novel goes well too

Thanks for the love! Just write what works for you :)

great breakdown! Thanks for the comment

GREAT word. I love that so much, thanks for the advice

I agree with you! Same issues on my end as a player. Humans especially would find a way to use magic efficiently

It's just fun to do something unique :D

Yeah but my thought process was for the average viewer will they like the twist on the dwarven race or be so use to the way we see dwarves now that they won't like the change. Which leads to me well you cant please everyone all the time and its my story anyways, I'll just write what I want and not worry about it. Haha

give me Wicket vibes, I love it

thank you so much! I appreciate the love

@@TheFantasyForge well deserved, mate! Since my early phases playing with RPGs I've been deeply occupying myself with these kind of considerations. And they add A LOT to pretty much all kind of games/campaigns! I see a huge gap in the thematisation of those topics in the RPG scene and unnecessary suffering/problems because of it. Even talking about these stuff has been hard, given how big the void on it is. It's been rather lonely at times.

this is a dope idea. Almost like the magic "picks" you.

That's a great idea! It's how I did my first ever game!

@@TheFantasyForge there's no need to have entire books of lore for regions the Party will probably never visit. A basic outline is fine, at least until they decide they want to visit some of the other places.

That's EPIC. I love that. I love that you incorporated that into your world too, way to give the character some history and lasting power

Love this. Turn the mistakes into part of the story. "But I heard X...", "Well...they were wrong because the historians wrote it incorrectly". Good for you for building a whole world. I'm doing it too and it's ROUGH lol

Love that! I do the same. I always try to think about how magic would change that too. What if the town has a mage with sending? Would they get info faster than others? Would the mage be more powerful politically in the town because of it? Would the country they live in make sure every town HAS a mage for that reason? Always fascinating to think about

aw shucks thanks for the comment, appreciate the kind words. Mechanus is a cool realm to pull from. It's one of the ones I know the least about, so as a player I'd be like "ohhh hell yeah" just from excitement and ignorance haha

@@TheFantasyForge It's also one of the most dangerous planes for PC's. Modrons may look cute, but their powers, ability to communicate over large distances effortlessly, and irrefutable precepts could easily lead to an army on your doorstep if you cross them. The plane will have a presence but an actual visit will have to wait for higher level characters, lol.

​@@chastaylor7372 all I could think about was "cute shape guys?"

@@TheFantasyForge 'Cause they're basically the dnd steampunk version of Mike Wazowski and Rotom from pokemon. Some people love them. My own special someone called them absolutely adorable.

​@@chastaylor7372 LOL Mike Wazowski ☠

Remember to also focus on what you're doing right!

@@TheFantasyForge Though it's hard to focus on what you're doing right when you don't know what you are doing is right.

​@@AdrianVoidwalker Just by creating you are doing more than millions of others who always say "I will start tomorrow". Don't beat yourself up, but I'm glad I helped even if it's just a little bit

@@TheFantasyForge One thing that i actually love to see when it happens is when stories take place during A Dark Age of sorts, where nobody knows how things really work like not sure what rules should be placed and or don't or haven't agreed upon what rules should even be set. And maybe some places have agreed upon what rules should be set but those rules only exist within those places. Especially when this is in a world with magic, because you can go the route of nobody knows how magic works, so the people sit there and play around with magic until they figure out something that they didn't even know they could do with magic. Which personally i think is one of or if not, the easiest way to show the impact of magic. The only lore story i can think/remember doing exactly this is Destiny 2's Lore on The Collapse which causes the Dark Age to happen, where many lightbearers would live out as warlords fighting over control for territory and basic supplies of food, water, shelter etc. Those who were lightbearers would play around with their light (destiny's version of magic power) and create their own ways of using said light. And some lightbearers would hide in camps with other people who were just normal people and hide the fact that they are lightbearers from others and just try to live peacefully. As they did this because some if not a lot or maybe almost all of the normal people would fear lightbearers, since a lot of lightbearers became tyrannical warlords during this time.

​@@AdrianVoidwalker I agree with you there! I love me the darker stories. Like seeing a Game of Thrones during the first Winter or stuff like that

It definitely started that way, but I'm also a writer so I'll probably start transitioning this channel to be a bit more of just general "story" tips too :) Glad it helped!

LOL that name better not stick

thanks for the comment!

@@TheFantasyForge My pleasure! Aside from that little nitpick, this was a very enjoyable and informative video.

LOL that was me too! Theres sooo much to remember. It got difficult for me too. It helps to break it down into bullets or into a timeline rather than paragraphs

That's such a fascinating culture to draw from

I love me some middle earth. Glad it helped! Thanks for the love :)

@@TheFantasyForge I have been trying to send you the link for the fantasy world that I am creating but I don't know if you are getting it which is worrying because I wish for your feedback.

check the website www.fantasyforgeuniverse.com and send it to me to the email at the bottom of the page!

Thanks for the comment! Sorry the video didn't work for you (but not really).

Great point! If I heard giants were invading I'd be like "yeah yeah, okay Gerald..."

100 agree with this and it's why magic is more rare in my world

@@TheFantasyForge Same in mine. Gunpowder and muskets are more common. Heavy focus on anti-magic. Similar to the way the mutants were treated.

Soooo true. How many different creation myths do we have here on earth? And we’re the same species!

well then the video 11 WORLD building mistakes doesn't apply to you ;) Like I said in the video, if that's what you want, go for it! But if you want a WORLD that feels more real, every culture is not going to be the same.

There's still diversity within culture people ignore, ideologically in terms of gender, sexuality and such, ability, both in disabilities from birth and those caused by living at tech level 3 with danger, such as missing a limb that had to be removed due to infection or injury, deaf soldiers who worked canons or rode dragons, and also just small bits of family history and personal beliefs.

oooo, good call, these are GREAT additions. I have a few NPC's with missing limbs and they are easily the most bad ass characters@@stm7810

@@TheFantasyForge thanks, even if I just do roleplay with friends I like to make sure to include disability, especially in fantasy settings. you can even have disabilities unique to your setting, like those of other species, caused by curses, magic use, or if stats are measurable in your world same as some things can be measured in ours having a pitiful strength might be its own thing very diferent to fibro mialgia or anything.

That's a great idea, it makes you think creatively too @@stm7810

Welll, I know simplified the dark ages in this video but thats only cuz I wasn't trying to make a history video. It's called the Dark Ages because of a supposed decline in science and culture...etc...the crusades didn't end the Dark Ages, a shift in thinking did (the renaissance, the scientific revolution...etc). The Saracens didn't cause the Dark Ages, they just lived in it and in a time where the Church was very much trying to conquer their lands. And while Catholic historians kept "records" they were also very prejudiced, and also burned or hid a lot of anything that was contrary to what they believed. So I would take all of that with a grain of salt lol. I'm actually a big history person.

@@TheFantasyForge I appreciate the response, but a number of the claims you make here are not quite accurate. From 600-1050 AD, European Catholics did not have a theory of just war, and the Saracens began to persecute and kill pilgrims to the Holy Land and began to encroach on Europe without any pushback because Christians didn't believe they could morally fight back (the former being something no government or army had done for a very long time and was seen as especially cruel and uniquely Saracen). The First Crusade, which was a roaring success, was the first response to 500 years of uncontested murder of European and Middle Eastern Christians and Jews. And while the Saracens were not the only cause of the Dark Ages, they certainly were the biggest contributor to it by conquering the Mediterranean. There's a reason why the age of Muslim enlightenment and prosperity came at the cost of peace and prosperity in Europe (and the Catholic Church in this time was largely responsible for being the haven of the arts and sciences, charity, medicine, and education). The Dark Ages, depending on historic definition, are contested to have ended between 1100-1500 (though the English Renaissance was not what would have ended them, but rather the Italian Renaissance in the early part of the 14th century, and this was the doing of, again, the Catholic Church). Additionally, while there were scattered cases of book burnings in Catholicism (which had long been condemned by the Church Fathers in the earliest parts of the first through third centuries AD, the largest collections of book burnings took place under Protestant rulers during the English Renaissance and Post-Renaissance (where most especially Henry VIII of England stole billions of dollars in modern currency in land and goods from the Catholic Church, simultaneously killing 17,000 of his own people for not converting to the CoE). Compare this to the 300 years of Spanish Inquisition, where less than 3,000 people were estimated to have been executed not by the Church, but by the Spanish Government for treason or perjury, not for heresy. In other words, modern retellings of events during the so-called "Dark Ages" and immediately after tend to be fraught with postmodern bias against religion, rather than looked at from an objective, agnostic, historical lens, as they should be. I don't like to make arguments from authority, as they are a logical fallacy, but if it means anything, I will note that I have spent over 12 years studying the history of medieval Europe and the Middle East (being from the Middle East myself). I recommend books like "The History of Medieval Spain" by Joseph O'Callaghan (probably the best book on the subject), Warren Carroll's books on Christendom (extremely entertaining and informative, especially in highlighting the historic consequences of the wars in the later parts of the Dark Ages), "Misconceptions about the Middle Ages" by Harris and Grigsby, "Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages" by Frassetto, and "The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance" by MacEvitt, probably the most objective and unemotional recounting of the Crusades I have read, and the aftermath. Now I don't want to take up all your comment section on this video (which I otherwise entirely agree with) with talk about a topic only mentioned in passing. I hope you take some interest in the above books, but I understand if you can't be bothered. I subscribed to your channel, and will probably end up doing a watch of all your worldbuilding videos on my day off this week, as I am very enthusiastic about the topic. Cheers, mate.

​@@timetrnr7380 Totally! I appreciate the comment too. And I hope that the response doesn't come off as me trying to a dick lmao. I think the wonderful thing about history is that there's so much to talk about. There's a lot of history there before all of that too and we could go back and forth on that lol. And also on why it was called the dark ages and why people THINK it was called that and so on. I love conversations like this so honestly thank you for taking the time to chat about it. And thanks for the love!

I write it all down too haha

Yes but also remember that's an island and so of course it will have less diversity. At the same time, only a few hundred miles south, you had Visigoths, Byzantines, Berbers, Moors, Iberians, Jews, and even Vikings sailing the same area barely 100 miles apart from each other.