/wbg/ - worldbuilding general

So opinions on mimics?

How do you like them to work? Abominations or jst adapted monsters?

Any stories?

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So I'm writing a sci-fi setting. I'm fairly happy with my explanation of FTL and how it does not let you travel in time and I'm fairly confident that my section on economics gives an adequately believable picture on how economics with fabricators, AI:s and von Neumann machines would look like. I already know what sort of factions I want in the system.

My big challenge though is deciding on a map. What sort of map would you prefer for a big sandboxy sci-fi adventure with a sort of Traveler feel? Should I map it all out in advance? Or should I turn it into a hexcrawl? Or should I just make shit up as I go based on the factions that exists?
>map it all up is a lot of work
>hexcrawl is very gamey
>making it up as I go might lead to the players feeling railroaded

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>>48986051
For me the classic shapeshifting mimic is to much of a D&D-ism. I prefer to limit this category of monster to natural camouflage with perhaps a very simple lure, like an anglerfish light or a carnivorous plant with an enticing fruit.

>>48985386
I have to make decisions on the macro scale of world configuration, that will have great consequences down the line.

I'm torn in between using a regular planet, a flat configuration, a toroid or a previous draft with an amphitheater shape.

Ideally I would like to use different celestial bodies beside one another but it is jarring to marry a flat world to neighboring sphere in the same system if the relationships aren't exactly right.

Particularly having a jovian planet is hardly compatible with an irregular world that would profit from orienting itself around an axle.

My question is: how strong can water currents on open seas (without any narrows created by islands) become? strong enough to make sailing against it at normal wind speeds useless? I want to create a continent that is relatively close to others but at the same time "veiled" from them and if theres a way to do it without magic it would be cool.

>>48986569
that sounds difficult indeed.
if its a fantasy setting id say maybe take the route of a mythological world (disc that the planets and the sun circle around) if youre comfortable with that.

If Sci-fi, a flat shape might be a gargantuan station with athmosphere/gravity provided by some kind of generator.

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>>48986919
It's fantasy.

I want to settle the mythological in the Moon system of a gas giant, which is why I want many interesting visual relationships in the system. I want to maximize the physical part where I can to keep it tactile in a way.

A flat world really demands to be the center point, but putting my giant in orbit really sets that system off balance. It's like an actual train circling your model diorama...

>>48986569
The first thing that came to mind was a Ringworld except instead of encircling a star you'd be encircling a planet instead, so the scale would be smaller without a doubt.

Why are you leaning towards this particular design? Is it just an artistic preference or do you have a particular plan/plot detail with it in mind?

As >>48986919 said it's much easier to facilitate this kind of thing in a fantasy setting - especially if you consider very few fantasy settings go beyond the planet. It's certainly not implausible in a sci-fi setting but if you're trying to reduce the suspension of disbelief to a minimum you'll need to do a fair bit of work in terms of figuring out the number of bodies, what the system contains, and so forth.

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>>48987643
I'm aiming for a fair bit of exoticism with a preserved sense of the mathematical beauty space has in the dance of bodies.

Artistic preference for sure, but there is more method to it. It serves as root for astrologic magic, myth and predictions of magic phenomena, as objects draw near. Influence of physical tides and magical tides. Some bodies might be literal god bodies. And magic has it's own gravitation (by that way you feel a powerful presence, you feel the minute gravitational tug in this setting).

>>48986524
personally i love exploring and mapping out myself as a player. If youre good at making stuff up id say go for it.

>>48987894
hmmm... maybe theres a way the ring of a gas giant could serve as a flat shape? But i definetly see why youre having a hard time with it.

>>48987894
>Some bodies might be literal god bodies. And magic has it's own gravitation
The combination of these two points could lend a solution by keeping things in the system "linked together", but it would introduce more specific questions that you'd have to find answers for.

It being fantasy there's no reason why you can't have stellar bodies naturally be flat - with the "exceptions" as spherical bodies. On a slightly more sci-fi approach, you could have precursor/alternate civilizations that have placed stellar bodies into range, though some people might see that as a bit of a cop out.

The general idea of "Moon system of a gas giant" is perfectly fine, it being a gas giant generally means there'll be more stellar bodies captured in orbit to work with. Having a flatworld orbit the gas giant might be a bit peculiar but it isn't entirely implausible - I'm seeing it as like a coin circling a ball, either you have a face towards the gas giant and a face away, or you end up with the edge facing the gas giant.

If you have "artificial gravity" in the form of magic I suppose having the Gas giant orbit the flat world isn't out of the question, but with all this focus on the gas giant, you'd have to also consider what you'd do in terms of a star.

>>48988047
I thought about it too, but that makes for a crazy huge area in an impractical shape. I hesitate to go ringworld and similar because I have no way of needing that muh space.

Beside I have the ring halfway pinned as home of the goods, the celestial reef. Vast majority of them are water gods.

>>48988171
Can't have the planet lock tidally, that let's the giant forever hang in the same place which nullifies the magical variance in that regard.
The coin rim has the same problem
of impractical stretched land layout as the ringworld has.

>>48988391
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tychonic_system

welp, this is the last idea i have in that regards anon. But the setting sounds really interesting!

>>48988391
Without knowing all of the variables in play, determining orbital mechanics for [case a) Discworld orbits gas giant] is a bit more challenging than a matter of presuming that the discworld will immediately lock into place.

S.J. Peale's Rotational Histories of the Natural Satellites is still one of the only sources I know as far as the mathematics of determining orbital mechanics and such goes, but that's because I don't have more astrophysics textbooks on hand. Part 3 itself starts to go into tides, and that's also where Peale starts to discussing Synch rates vs. rotational rates, which have to do with tidal locking.

The equation that Peale uses essentially agrees with the one you'd find on wikipedia if you were to search for it. This equation being a time related equation to determining the point when orbital synchronization (or locking) is established. From that equation though you can immediately gather a couple of factors that are still "unknowns" as far as your setting goes.

a) Number of extraneous bodies influencing tidal forces. b) Orbital eccentricity and orbital radius c) Orbital body's physical properties.

The orbital radius is particularly important in this case, because you probably don't have anything close to determining the Love number (k), and what you're essentially aiming for is a "solve variables for equation t = infinity". The initial spin rate as well as the semi major axis are both things that you could technically "set", as well as the radius - hence why these are basically the parameters you would play with. You'd have to presume a value for the dissipation function Q.

Since we don't know those parameters at the given time, all we can really conclude is that "tidal locking is possible in this scenario regardless, but may also not occur depending on the variables given in the scenario". However, this is also true in the reverse scenario (case b: Gas Giant orbiting disc)

>>48989379
>>48988391
If you're interested in reading up on Peale's stuff, his review can be googled actually, and it's not that long at only 70 pages, though having a good mathematics/physics background will definitely help make the content easier to digest.

In the previous mention regarding Peale's time dependent equation, you'll also note that the gravitational constant is present - this number could variably change if there is a "magic gravity", but for simplicity's sake it's probably better to leave it alone.

Personally, seeing as this is a fantasy world and the adherence to realism isn't a complete necessity, I'd say depending on how complex you envision your little cluster of stellar bodies to be, you might just want to ignore the hard science altogether. Having the scientific foundation for support is fine in making things more believable, but if it comes at the cost of destroying the fundamental basis of your setting then you should probably reconsider if it's worth it or not.

>>48986524
I've learned to love the Traveller style hex map.

Along with the UWP, it's a fun abstraction that feels like some kind of tactical display, while still being useful at the table.

3D star maps and the like are not much more useful. If you want, you can pretend that the hex map is just a proxy for a much more complicated in-game map, and somehow all the relative distances are displayed accurately on a 2D plane.

The other option I've seen is just artistic maps, which don't tell you much besides "blue-green planets are earthlike, and Tatooine is rather far from Coruscant".

>>48986524
You could perhaps draw up a simple map without filling in the lore on all locations to sort of get the sandbox skeleton in place, and then use an actual hexmap if it comes to setting a game? If you're strictly using this for a novel depending on the scale of the novel you might not really need too complex of a map at all. Just a map of relative locations.

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Oh hey a /wbg/, been looking for one for like 3 days because I didn't wanna make a new edition and fuck something up

How've you all been? How're your settings going?

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>>48989196
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tychonic_system
Basically this is shifting the point of reference. I'll keep this model in mind though.

>>48989379
I was only refering to >>48988171
that mentioned a tidal locked coin. I know it's not imperative.

>>48989449
My philosophy at the moment is to make it work thematically and visual/geometric/spacial while entertaining the possibility of it happening with some combination of values "hidden from view". Formula slinging is admittedly beyond me.

>>48989658
>>48986524
I like the Traveller map too.

>>48989873
Isn't there one up every day?

>>48988047
>>48989658
>>48989711
>>48989907

Seems like the Traveler style map is pretty popular. Good to know.

I'll probably end up doing that, do some random system generation, add some random names and then flesh shit out as players get there in person.

>>48989907
Well to recap, let's see if we're on the same page. You want the following elements included:
a) A gas giant, or similarly large stellar object.
b) Presence of multiple objects within orbital range to simulate stellar transit, perhaps magical in nature.
c) Preferably a discworld to be the "center stage", tuned in terms of landmass/water body ratio.
d) Something similar to the lunar phase dynamics in the Earth/Sol/Moon system, between c), a), and maybe b).
Anything else?

If number crunching isn't your thing, maybe ignore the shapes of the individual bodies for now, and move your attention to figuring out what you want the orbital relationships to look like first?

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>>48990237
It's not that I prefer the disk, I'm more indecisive. And the Shape of the main world is something I'd logically have to build around because of the gravity of the issue.

>Disc/mostly flat
+- works best with order around an axle
+ can be a god easily (dorsal or ventral side world)
+ would work thematically well with short distances between bodies
+ linear gravity works well with flying island (if I elect to chose them down the line)
+ simple mapping/no projection
+ globally affected by eclipse at exact same time
- works badly with regular tidal forces
- additional handwaving for athmosphere
- order works badly with objects larger than itself in the system
- what about the underside (depends on form)
- crossing to underside via surface aesthetically awkward (really bugs me)

>Toroid
+ lots of fun moving stuff through the middle, very evocative and alien
+ fits better in regular space than disc
+ visible to itself from surface on inner side
+- map easily loops, like old rpg
- still implies universal axle through middle
- will involuntarily evoke donut if optimized for land dimensions
- land distances will get very long if made into pleasing aesthetically bracelet
- outer side doesn't see ring form -> destined to be filled with boring ocean, placing continents can get awkward

>planet
+ works well with orbits
+ logical
+well researchable, could cause less problems down the line
- sacrifices unique flavor, boring
- will have timezones, can't be universally affected by jovian eclipse onset at same local time

>bend flat shape
+- shares many points with disc
+ can see itself possibly
+ can slide along orbit like a bend shell
- may be uncanny valley of shapes mixing direction of disc and circular movements unpleasantly

>completely irregular
+ can be very thematic
- mayor handwaving on all fronts

May have forgotten some points...

>>48990831
Well going through the pros and cons you've listed, maybe you can use something like a "shell planet", not unlike the hollow planet idea but having the space there would give you the freedom of placing an "axle" if you saw fit. Instead of a single flat disc, you could use it as a sphere divided into two halves - two bent discs so to speak. The overall shape would still appear spherical, so while the nitty gritty mathematics wouldn't be the same, it wouldn't be entirely alien (as it would for the disc).

The whole jovian eclipse thing would still be an issue mind you, and rings will have to be worked in somehow, but it might be slight compromise between a/c/d options.

>>48991730
The outer side of that would effectively be a regular planet and the inner would lack a sky, only seeing part of itself and the other half with maybe a little strip sky. That would only be combining downsides for no gain.

And with axle I just mean a symmetry axis. It is nothing I need to have, just an alternative system to order the bodies.

>>48992084
>the inner would lack a sky
Depending on the size of the thing, whether or not a sky is present is up in the air. There are several cases where both the inner face and outer face could have a sky, though the exact variables and necessary perquisites are different.


At the end of the day it's going to boil down to "screw the science, go with the shape you want" or "follow the science, stick to a planet". We still don't know the necessary details like orbital paths and surrounding objects, so honestly at this point from an outsider's perspective it's like you're basically stuck trying to figure out what "key planet" looks like to begin with. You can continue to debate over the shape and its pros and cons literally to no end.

Now this is just opinion, but honestly I'd say that the shape is at best a novelty, at worse a potential headache. If this is for personal writing and personal interest you know what you can tolerate and what you don't like. If you want to pitch this to a large audience, or even publish it to the world, honestly it'll most likely just be seen as a gimmick.

Any planet that isn't spherical is going to take a massive amount of handwaving, to the point where if you have a target audience, you'll probably want to know if they'll look at it and think "this is bullshit" or be willing to suspend disbelief for long enough for your actual story or plot to hook them.

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>>48992937
Sorry if I agitated you with my rejection of Ideas.
I'm just chasing perfection from an artistic standpoint, which for me contains a dash of verisimilitude to smooth out the handwaving on it's corners. Not chasing audiences or anything.

You can probably see me juggling to many floaty factors which all cross influence each other. Well, that's why I'm stuck in the first place after all.

>>48993386
If what you're grasping at is this nebulous, chances are you'll be hard pressed to find somebody else aligned enough to help you. With a set of criteria people could plausibly try and meet it, in your case, it's not all that clear what your criteria really is.

>>48993514
Just wanted to point this out and ask if anyone here has given much thought to how they would run what is essentially Exalted: Shadowrun Edition?

>>48994275
I can dig up the pdf /tg/ made for it, if anyone wants. It's the apocalypse system, I think.

>>48994311
That'd be cool, but any advice on MASSIVE urban settings would be helpful too.

>>48994347
Do you have something specific you're looking for? Managing players? City logistics? Handling pacing? Tech? Urban settings, regardless of size, have a lot of aspects to them, many of which you might not even touch in a standard game.

>>48994541
Mostly logistics. I'd like to have a city that gives the illusion of functioning to my players. The trouble with mega-cities is that the shear size makes running such a game a case of juggling chainsaws.

Related: Factions. Throne has a ton of colorful factions, and I have trouble imagining what they actually DO besides fight the protagonist.

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>>48994347

>>48994675
Well what are we working with? How much do you know about city planning in general? How large of a campaign do you intend this to be? Are you considering a city the size of 6Bill demons, or something beyond that (ecumenopolis class) or something smaller?

Generally when people talk about verisimilitude as far as citybuilding goes, you find the sort of folks who are looking at nitty gritty details like sewage, manpower, RCI distributions (to borrow from SC), and so forth. Then you'll also find the sort of folks that are looking for an immersive atmosphere, and can accept that you'll have large cultural clashes (not necessarily violent) within the city itself, which in turn leads to some very peculiar results in city design. So you might not necessarily have a massive city that ends up being uniform, and you might find that having a well developed culture is more important than numerical logistics.

Where do you stand in terms of that?

As far as factions goes, most organizations are established with an objective in mind. A church is developed to spread worship and faith, a business is developed to make profit and garner reputation, a NPO might have a goal that's a bit more vague. You don't necessarily need to have guilds like in traditional fantasy - even just a large group of NPOs or like minded individuals who chipped in to rent a place could be the start of a faction. If you work out their origins from the beginning, it becomes easier to figure out their later motivations as you go along.

>>48985386
>>whats the biggest problem bothering you about your worldbuilding/setting in this very moment?

Putting things into paragraphs instead of bullet points.

>is there something in your setting that you would like to have advice and/or opinions on?

How much detail is too much for a general setting guide? What aspects of a nation's culture would you say is important?

>>48994961
>Are you considering a city the size of 6Bill demons
I'm basically running K6BD without the PLOT being relevant.

I definitely think culture is the more pressing need at the moment. I want the setting to feel like there's 100,000 cultures mingling in the streets. If there's a basic logic structure to explain away how 800 million people shit together without everyone everywhere dying of cholera, I'll gladly take it. But making the city feel alive is more important to me.

>factions
Only trouble with that is that K6BD has factions (like the Polishers or the Wax Candle Confederacy) whose jobs appear to be the same as the assassins and thieves guilds or the mercenary guilds, but they still identify as candlemakers and bankers. There's just a disconnect that I worry I won't be able to imitate in play, which would be a blow against the verisimilitude I really, really want to get across. I really want this city to feel real, even if demon samurai are fighting gun-witches in it.

>>48995267
>I'm basically running K6BD without the PLOT being relevant
Just realized that sounded bad. I'm running K6BD, but I'm assuming Zoss is gone but Allison hasn't entered the picture (and might never due to not wanting the game to revolve around a DMPC).

>>48995119
>How much detail is too much for a general setting guide? What aspects of a nation's culture would you say is important?

This kind of changes from person to person. But why don't you consider it like this - if you were a foreigner looking for somewhere to go on vacation, what is it about a country that you'd want to know before you go there?

Details like "major historic events" or "public holidays", culturally distinctive points like food or mannerisms, things that would be socially taboo - would all be nice to know in my opinion.

What would you guys say are the coolest parts of Naruto? And don't just say 'the setting,' give me details.

What would you guys say are the coolest parts of Pokemon?

I'm dusting off a setting I came up with a while back that combined the two and tried to keep the best of both. Wanna get your guys' opinions on this before I work too much more on it.

>>48995267
If you're using the exact same universe, then it's all pretty easy to explain since you can basically handwave it the same way K6BD handwaves it - the demons have a functional society based on their own systems, so society doesn't just implode on itself.

K6BD gets away with it as long as there's action going on, so people don't necessarily question how demons, angels, and humans have lasted this long, they're basically hitched to the ride.

But let's say we put aside the K6BD foundation for example and just look at population logistics for a bit. In a standard city, waste is either diverted away from the city, or destroyed at a cost. Naturally for things like water and such there's details like filtration and recycling and settling ponds and so forth, but the idea of "what do we do with waste" remains the same - if you can't recycle it, remove it, if there's nowhere to remove it to, destroy it.

In a very dense city like Hong Kong for example, landfilling in the outer territories is a pretty standard go to. Having the sea nearby makes water wastes relatively easy to handle, provided the treatment facilities are functional and the factories don't just end up dumping waste into the sea again.

But there's eventually a threshold you hit where either your population produces waste at a rate that your facilities can't handle, or you run out of space to handle that waste - essentially a breaking point.

Sci-fi solutions generally tend to lean towards technological advancements to handle this, fantasy has magic to fall back on or just relatively small populations, it's plausible in K6BD that Throne simply diverts waste into somewhere else in the multiverse.

The "duality" of factions in K6BD is something that, since this is a setting with beings that aren't wholly human (and plenty of immortals), makes sense in setting. On the other hand, dual occupations aren't too uncommon either. In most cases it's a matter of mindset.

>>48995602
I'd say being 12 again.

>>48995602
This: >>48995788
Sounds like your setting would be great for kids, but awful for adults.

Unless you're making a universe with fundamental mechanics similar to both, then it could be cool. Something like "Nature spirits inhabit bizarre animals, and spirit tamers can capture and control them. Training as a spirit tamer starts in childhood, and most tame their first ninjamon by their 10th birthday"

>>48995824
Well, I mean, I'd be using the basic concept of each setting, not aiming for it to be for kids. Ninja magic and capturing/growing with spirit animals, that sort of thing. I didn't mean I was copying them literally, more like in spirit. Kinda like this but not really >>48995824. So, no 10th birthday stuff and no jinchuriki. Maybe child soldiers maybe not, haven't decided.

I kinda figured the whole spirit animal thing would be kinda like a religion than just 'go tame stuff'

>>48996012
You're much better off selling your setting than using two IPs where you drew surface level ideas from to contrast it, as that just sets up unnecessary comparisons. If you can't describe your setting without using the two IPs, it may be a sign that you want to flesh it out more. The moment you use the two IPs, people are going to attach their own biases onto your own setting as a result.

>>48996012
Yet another asian mysticism and yokai setting/system.

So entry level western audience will think this is so different the game?

>>48996125
It's not a fully fleshed out setting, that's just where I got the idea from. It seems really shallow when I put it like that, so I guess I just introduced it wrong. Was just trying to get some more ideas.

I was trying to use the two so people might understand where it was coming from, not that it'd be directly related to either. I'm not just mishmashing the settings together. Just picking and choosing what I thought would be cool together.

>>48996193
More like travelling monks or something, idk. And no, probably not. It isn't for the widespread audience anyway, probably will never see the light of day.

>>48996308
Very few settings are generally "fully fleshed" out when they're pitched. Consider it like posing an alpha draft of the setting. Even if you only introduce it as a fantasy based world where beast taming, beast training, and nature elemental magic form the three pillars of society, you're already somewhat distanced from people's perceptions of Naruto and Pokemon.

The problem isn't that those two IPs are inherently bad, it's just that people will look at them and consider them as immature and literary garbage, and perhaps come to a conclusion that your setting can't be much better. It sets up a dangerous preconception.

There are points that are well done with both IPs, but they both have a target audience in mind, and outside of that audience, it's hard to really relate or associate with the IPs, so asking people to draw something memorable or commendable out of it would be even harder. Keep in mind that this is with the IPs, and not with the underlying motifs.

>>48996308
What I'm trying to say is that unless you're going to drop your big twist/spin on this idea don't bother. As of yet you've described something in the most basic generic way possible.

It's only slightly less generic than taking inspiration from Tolkien but also with Cthulhu he's cool right? What are the best aspects from these things I can actually build an idea from? You're like one of those "game devs" that buys a unity asset pack and then immediately throws it up on green light.

You barely have a premise how the fuck are we supposed to give you ideas without building the setting for you?

>>48996561
I suppose it doesn't hurt to give him the benefit of the doubt, and just presume that he's looking for a sounding board on whether the motifs he's picked are plausible to merge. And frankly the motifs are fine, it's just that he hasn't done anything with them.

It's hardly a reason to tell somebody to stop worldbuilding altogether just because they can't think of something that no one else has come up with before.

>>48996488
I suppose you're right.

I was attempting to describe it in the quickest and easiest way possible, in a way that the largest amount of people would understand it.

From what I understand, no matter how original your setting may be, it will always resemble something else that is mote popular, so if people were to describe they would say '[blank] but with spaceships' or '[blank] crossed with [blank] with monkeys and instead of dragons' or what have you. I figured that it would be the most efficient way of describing the setting and make it relatable to something else at the same time. But I get your deal about the immature/literary garbage stuff and the perceptions people have of both settings.

Looking at the description now it does sound like a terrible fanfic, to be honest.

Thanks for the info there anon, you're a cool dude. I haven't slept in a long time so I'm slowly losing my ability to keep up an intelligent conversation, so I'm gonna get some sleep. Keep up the good work.

>>48996561
Sorry dude. I realize I wasn't being clear enough because of this anon >>48996488.

I've figured out a general map, the large poltical powers in the setting, and was playing around with the ninja magic before I shelved it for a while.

I didn't want to spout off a bunch of random facts about the setting because it wouldn't really be pertinent to what I was trying to ask. And, again, I know that what I was asking was stupid. Just look here >>48996692.

>>48996690
I'll give hgim the benefit of the doubt when he shows that he's actually thought about this idea in any meaningful way. Right now he is already asking for ideas while displaying practically none of his own.

How do you help someone when they haven't given you anything to grip into? I drew a stick man, what are the best aspects of *insert 2 recently relevant artists* work I can add to this?

>>48996692
Then fucking describe your god damn setting already. These threads literally exist for dumping info out into the world. Imagine for a moment you took all the time and words you've used thus far and actually used them to talk about your thing.

>>48996692
Well to be honest, it's a pretty small crowd in /wbg/, and as you can probably see, it's not like the pace here moves so quickly that we can't take the time to actually read something in detail. Plenty of folks (like >>48996828) are more receptive to more detail rather than less.

Generalizations might be efficient, but they also end up detracting from a setting or a concept. You might be "selling" your setting so to speak, but this isn't a business case where you have five minutes to show a powerpoint and your time is up.

I wouldn't worry particularly about terrible fanfic and whatnot. If this was for writing, I'd say that you can't get better without reading and writing excessively. Everything is going to start off being shit, and frankly, even if you become a "good writer", plenty of people will still think it's shit.

But for a game, I suppose it falls down to a 50/50 between the attitudes of your group, and your style as a player/DM. A bad group can render your worldbuilding efforts obsolete, a good group might hash together a story regardless of the world - of course the more negative possibilities also hold true...so generally you do more worldbuilding as a safety net, but it is what it is. So long as you and the group have fun with it, it's alright at the end of the day.

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rate my autism

>>48997130
Best i can give you is an ass out of burgers

>>48997130
8ch pretty much gave you all the critique you needed didn't they senpai?

>>48997118
>(like >>48996828 (You)) are more receptive to more detail rather than less.

No, no, no bud. I'm looking for literally any detail. All he's done thus far is say he totally has details but he must of left them in his other coat, so we should foot the bill.

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Might as well throw a question here.

If your setting contains multiple species, are they related in any way - as in by blood, common ancestors, same creator etc.

And what sort of relationships they have between if there are any?

>>48997200
But he didn't want critique, he wanted you to "rate his autism".

>>48997130
europe again/10

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>>48990831
Might I suggest even another alternative?

A systen with a star in a hollow sphere. Handwave the heatbuildup by GOD(S). Have a day/night system by having a smaller semi-spherical shell orbiting between the world surface and the sun. You could perhaps even have a few of these shells (right picture), and perhaps even have a few of those populated.

>>48999426
Sci-fi setting has a lot of humanoids. Most are related as the product of a sort of standoff forced evolution method of colonization. (Target undeveloped soup world with femtobots. Force evolutionary progress to generate humanoid species and ecology supportive of it.) Others are second-generation creations or experiments of the initial wave of 'colonists,' as the end results were spread far enough in part in time that a few waves of galactic society have already ebbed and flowed.

Think the more interesting biological relation is between them and the non-human, naturally evolved species. Who are kinda left with a sense of 'why does everyone else out here look the goddam same.' Perhaps coupled with the unnerving feeling some elder power has set up the galaxy for things other than them.

Are there any websites which offer a 100% private wiki, hosted online, for free, that I could use for worldbuilding?

>>49002334
It's called Google Docs

>>49002334
Are you looking for a wiki format document, or something that you can host online? Or both? There are personal wikis like tiddlywiki, wikipad, and such. Alternatively google docs and drive are good for quick upload and sharing between small groups, and can extend to larger groups with proper management.

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How do decide on a scale for your maps? I keep running into the issue where my regions are either too big or too small for what I want.

Like pic related. I originally intended this to be about the size of Spain, but my first scale was 68 pixels = 50 km, which left me with a region the size of western Europe.

>>48999426
Multiple "species", large majority of them are just genetic manipulations based off of the same human template. Humans make for good genetic experiment lab rats. Changes in genetic expression just make for strange quirks like hardened skin for some species, increased physical performance, limbs, and such. Most are modified for specific task purposes in mind, others are modified for vanity.

>>49002648
Autorealm allows to change the map scale later and it can be expanded to all sides indefinetly

thats one of the few good things about it

>>48999426
A lot of my species come from different evolutionary lines entirely, but some do. Mostly elves, who in this setting adapt and evolve far more quickly than pretty much anything else, so not only do you have the standard wood elves and deep elves (never liked the name dark elves, so that's what I'm calling them here) but you have other more diverse groups, like dryads and merfolk, who are also descended from elves.

Dinosaurs, drakes, wurms (think giant snakes), and dragons are also all related. The former exist mostly in the not!Americas, the latter three in not!Europe, with drakes and wurms having a common ancestor but split into two evolutionary lines (drakes got small and grew wings, wurms got big and lost limbs), whereas dragons are demonically-possessed mutations of wurms. Well, the western-style ones are. Still deciding on the eastern ones.

And of course goblins and orcs are related. Ogres, however, are not, and very different here.

As for relations, most don't care. Only orcs and goblins are commonly seen together.

>>48985386
>whats the biggest problem bothering you about your worldbuilding/setting in this very moment?
Names, mostly. I don't want to use real ones or names I just pull out of my ass. So my naming process is
>What people named this?
>What real-world equivalent language do these people use?
>What's a word or phrase I can take from this language to use as a name for this thing?
And I have a LOT of shit to name. Also, I'm really down on the "[noun] of [noun]" and "the [noun]" tropes. Destiny scared me away from both. That said, I usually alleviate this by coming up with formal, rarely-used names, and informal commonly-used names. That foreign guy probably has a more extravagant name than "The Green Khan" but the commoners won't know it, and even if they did, they probably wouldn't use it.

>>48985386
>whats the biggest problem bothering you about your worldbuilding/setting in this very moment?

Oddly, it's the blurb. When starting an intro to the documentation, I just have no idea how to formulate my lead-in/elevator pitch. It's killing me dead.

>is there something in your setting that you would like to have advice and/or opinions on?
Probably the above.

>>49004048
what kind of documentation exactly? First sentences are always hard, so dont get demotivated by this!

>>49003986
do you maybe have a language at hand that you can use the endings of/ create endings for geographical names? i find that pretty handy

>>49006221
A general, overarching setting book to kinda lay out the framework and describe what it does.

Gist is a sci-fi setting that hits plenty of B-movie tropes but tries to work them to logical conclusions. Background is more of a...I guess mass-effecty, modern galactic civilizations live amidst the ruins and long shadows of their forebears, sort of deal.

I suppose the purpose of the blurb would be to explain all of that in a concise and eloquent fashion "here's what this does and what to expect up front,' before I delve into specifics about places, species and technology.

>>49006221
No. Should I make up a fantasy language? Sounds hard. Right now, I'm just using real-world words. I'm starting to think it should be "Earth, but magic was here the whole time!" since pretty much everything I'm doing is a fantasy counterpart to a real-world thing. But Warhammer Fantasy does that too, right?

>>49006677
As long as there's internal consistency it's fine. If you start off with a mode of nomenclature for an area and then suddenly shift, you better have a reason for that in mind. A fantasy language isn't absolutely necessary, but sometimes it can help set a basis. It needs to be handled carefully, and remember that while the name makes a first impression, there's more to a character or place beyond the name.

In some cultures you find naming conventions where there are prefixes and suffixes, and that generally shifts over time as names "modernize" so to speak. We don't know much about your setting, such as genre (what kind of fantasy, what tone is it, what cultures influence it?) and timeframe and influences, so it's hard to give any specific comments that you might find useful.

>>49006677
not necessarily making up a whole language, rather like >>49006805 stated invent some catchy prefixes/suffixes

in one language in my setting, "-ytr" is the suffix for "land" or "landmass", so the country where that language is spoken is called Teytr, the adjacent one where the same language is used Gheytr and so on.

>>49006628
>B-movie tropes
sounds fun. I would actually say in that case it wouldnt even matter that much if the intro sounds somewhat cheesy.

>>49006957
>sounds fun. I would actually say in that case it wouldnt even matter that much if the intro sounds somewhat cheesy.

Well, the real objective as to play with them from a more serious perspective, at least, for the most part. Take things like humanoids everywhere, precursor races, requisite bug/fish aliens and 50-foot-whatevers and have it hang together as something more tonally serious.

Soomewhat cheesy though. Yeah, I can probably go for that. I had something but kinda tossed it out in a fit. Still there in fadetext though.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VHyKDxfJPk-8Q8N_3TJoPlQm9dhf0Y7WDcN5Ry4gZ38/edit#

Anybody got a link to the Worldbuilding Discord?

>>49007169

>https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VHyKDxfJPk-8Q8N_3TJoPlQm9dhf0Y7WDcN5Ry4gZ38/edit#

i actually think its okay and reads nicely, but i dont know for whom youre writing of course, and im not a native english speaker so i might not have a totally legit view.

>>49006805
Oh shit, got more work to do than I thought.

I've never been too good about the differences with the fantasy genres, but I guess it would be high fantasy. There are dragons, gods, wizards, demons, warlocks, every standard fantasy race as well as a few more. The tone is mostly serious, but not to a grimdark level, and there are bits of levity. As for cultures... lots. Like I said, pretty much every real-world thing has a fantasy equivalent. Mongol orcs, zombie germans, greek dwarves, etc.

To summarize: A group of magically-powered dickheads decide to absorb as much mana as possible to become gods. Which involves taking mana from the things that have it, namely people and other gods. So they build up a cult and an army mostly staffed by zombies and golems, as well as a few vampires as commanders, and wage war on... well, pretty much everyone. And with the amount of power they already have, they really fuck shit up. Plague and undeath runs rampant through Europe (not actually Europe, but the equivalent, I'll do this for other things), a giant hellgate is opened up in North America and smaller ones in other places, letting all manner of demons and devils run loose, and a tear in reality opens up a portal in the Middle East/Africa that's filled with the things Lovecraft probably saw in his nightmares. So these dickheads, the Warlocks, go on for a while, but are eventually repelled, and with their powers, armies, and supplies dwindling, they turn tail and run. This war lasts for about 5-6 years and completely alters the landscape and society of the world.

This was a few decades ago. Most of the setting is focusing on rebuilding and hunting down the last of the Warlocks. The--Oh fuck, I'm terrible at names--Silver Queen, pretty much the only known god left that wasn't killed or just ran away, is trying very hard to ease tensions and unify people.

There's gunpowder and firearms but very primitive, most people would prefer a crossbow. Or fireball spell.

>>49007304
That's reassuring. Honestly, it's entirely possible that I'm just overly critical of my own work, and vastly overthinking the entire thing.

>>49007338
If you're using culture to race analogues and you don't care about it being explicit or want the analogue to be explicit, then use the names to your advantage. Different cultures have different "equivalent" names, Jean vs John for example, Pyotr vs Peter, Junseob vs Joseph.

If you want to make it a bit more obscure, you can either stick to the notion of prefix/suffix additions, or you can use phoneme based name changing, but the former might be easier than the latter, or vice versa depending on how you see it.

In a world with more races than simply humans, you have the option to follow more "standard" alternate race nomenclature templates. Plenty of people borrow from Tolkien for this as far as elvish and dwarvish names go, whereas angels and demons have a very substantial source to draw from in Christian literature. Plenty of people won't even recognize the more obscure names, like Ananiel or Kushiel, or they might instinctively associate those with angels because of the -el ending. Whether you choose to do so is up to you, but as with all names, it's a matter of how the name contributes to the character that generally matters more.

Titles aren't bad - if you have a massive cast of named characters, having some with strictly titles make them stand out, but the titles generally need to have some sort of history. For example your Silver Queen - a god - but why is she called the Silver Queen, is "she" necessarily still a "she", why the Silver Queen and not the Argent Queen, and so forth. Slapping on titles willy nilly works alright when you know the character won't be of much significance so people won't question it. Otherwise, if you have a title, it's good to know what that title brings about.

I suppose lastly you can look at names registries, and trace back in terms of etymology. Using more archaic variants of modern names is an option as well to introduce some variety. Just remember to keep it relatively consistent.

>>49002334
Github has wikis available for repositories. And a repository doesn't have to be code. The whole repository can be set to private, and you can keep all your maps/etc in the repository.

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How's my map?

It works a lot better when as a piece of paper so you can rotate it.

>>49007912
Yeah, there will be a reason for the titles, which mostly only the real movers and shakers will have. Silver Queen is a bad example since she's an important character, but I made the name up on the spot. A better example I have is "The Thrice-Crowned King", though I probably won't make that his "standard" title due to the length. But he's called that for unifying three different, feuding kingdoms early in his reign.

Yeah, Silver Queen sucks. Probably the conic fan in me talking, taking a color and a noun and combining them.

>>49008780
Is this a skyworld?

>tfw make fantasy world
>replace dwarves and elves with humanoids that evolved from beard and avians
> friend asks me why I don't just replace all the races with furries

I have no face

>>49012919
>evolved from beard
So, dwarves?

>>49012955
I meant bears my finger slipped

>>48989873
Poorly as both my health and mental Heath are going to shit atm, I just feel like giving up on trying to write my novel/series. I just don't have the motivation anymore.

Mostly I struggle to get my story to flow and I suck at character development.

I'm sure I've done everything backwards by making the setting before the story

>>49012919
I'm with your friend on that one. And, I'm sorry, but this kinda stinks of being different for the sake of being different. All that does is choke creativity. If ypu really want your OC races, insert them alongside the others. If they're good, they will be used and remembered, forgotten and ignored if not. Either way you gain experience in making races.

>>49013028
Sounds like you need to kill a hobo, anon. It really brings a clarity to life like nothing else.

>>49013028
Maybe if you give us details we can help? Also, sorry to hear about your poor health. Hope you get better soon.

>>49013028
>>49013028
Maybe if you give us details we can help? Also, sorry to hear about your poor health. Hope you get better soon.

>>49013127
>>49013252
Oh, so I didn't go insane. Why did it take so long for my first response to show up? I'm only just now seeing it.

>>49012919
Why do they need to be humanoid? Just leave them as they are. I use bear species too, but giving them human bodies doesn't give them many advantages.

>>49009156
>Yeah, Silver Queen sucks. Probably the conic fan in me talking, taking a color and a noun and combining them
It's not really that bad. It's just a matter of understanding the weight of the name and the significance of the meaning behind the name. If you have a very small cast, typically every name you choose should be done carefully, but if you have a massive cast, with some of the less essential characters you can give them more forgettable names. Sometimes you even do this on purpose to contrast their role (such that a character that might have a "mundane" name isn't suspected to have a significant role).

Besides that, sometimes names give you an opportunity to be a little cheeky. I have a character called Salix Babylonica for instance, a case in which the name was literally given because that's what she/it is. But when referred to as just Salix in short, the name wouldn't necessarily suggest her/its form. That wasn't such a good example, but better writers have lots of neat little ways to use names and their meanings to further the characters.

>>49013126
What another one? At this rate there will be none left.. Then what's a guy to do?!

>>49013127
>>49013280

Thanks anon/s

What sorta details do you need?
Setting is 700 years in the future ( hard sci fi with softish elements )
we find out we aren't alone and there is a Galactic community run by a "security council" which is corrupt and will do anything to maintain it's control and the status quo.

There's more but word limits... But that the very basic version of it

donjon.bin.sh

so good its in the OP twice

>>49014803
>Setting is 700 years in the future ( hard sci fi with softish elements )
So, it's basically all realistic, except for one substance that serves to break from conventional science? What's the break exactly?

>we find out we aren't alone and there is a Galactic community run by a "security council" which is corrupt and will do anything to maintain it's control and the status quo.
Why are they so malicious and corrupt? And how has it lasted for any real length of time? I don't see people living under corrupt and malicious people very willingly. Wait, is this a "Fuck yeah, humanity!" type story?

>There's more but word limits... But that the very basic version of it
Put it in a PasteBin and provide a link then. Or use Docs or something.

>>49014803
>>49015064
Oh, whoops.

>What sorta details do you need?
Well, you said you were having trouble with story and character development, so how about your characters?

>Humanity gets to space
>finds aliens
>Learn that the galaxies golden age is long gone
>Milky way is full of nothing but rotting husks of empires ruled by despots and disparate savages who have lost their homes
>Humanity reaches it's pinnacle only to learn they got thrust into shit

How does it sound /tg/?

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>>49015273
Reminds me of Prophet. You have my approval. Though I hope that you'll include relics from the golden age, still used by some of the civilizations even though they view them more as magic now.

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>>49015273
>Humanity discovers FTL travel
>Healthy diet of Star Trek and other sci-fi makes them expect space utopia
>Reality is 40k meets Mad Max

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>>49015423
I remember someone giving a pitch for a story set in the Star Wars universe, but with some elements from Mad Max. It sounded fucking awesome.

>>49015379

Yeah I got something a little like that.

>Empire learns of a human research operation in a system
>Essentially archeology on an ancient city world
>Empire shows up with a ship that's an AU in size
>Unleash a weapon they think will wipe out the world and demonstrate to mankind to stay the fuck out
>...Not like a ship an AU in size doesnt do that
>Weapon instead instantly terraforms every planet in the system into a stable garden world

Haven't figured out how to rap it up but I like it as a stupid little funny. Thinking of some grizzled captain giving an order to annihilate a system only having it stabilize a star and make every world habitable.

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>>49015704
Well, I'd think they'd know what things did, but it was just a black box to them. Like pic related for example. It would be interesting to see if a rogue AI decided to fuck with them. Like, it doesn't like the captain, so it continually swaps the ventilation and sewage systems in his rooms.

>>49015828

Hmm so go for something a little more serious and not as over the top?

I like that anon.

>>49015213
Or rather, what is it about story and character development that's troubling you? Is it a matter of pacing? Role distribution? Characters feel too static? Trying to write a specific type of character? Your flow goes too quickly or too slowly?

>>49014476
I don't think the main cast will be very huge. There will be a lot of nobles, but only the heads of nations and maybe some diplomats will be important enough to name. And yeah, I do want some very blunt, dull names. Not everywhere though. Like, I imagine one of the main characters, the leader and a bit of a grizzled old man, despite being pretty well-known and the right hand of one of the world's most important rulers, has a simple name like Bill or Greg. Of course his actual name would be more complex, even from these you would have William and Gregory, but he insists people use the shortened version.

Also, I'm making this under the impressions that most of the commoners living in not!Europe won't have actual surnames. In order to refer exclusively to a person, the profession is used as an identifier as well. There's Robin the barber, there's Tom the blacksmith, there's Nina the innkeeper, etc. At least, that's how I understand how names worked before surnames were common for people. And the surnames that do exist are basically titles, referring to a profession, like previously, or to something that person did that was noteworthy.

>better writers have lots of neat little ways to use names and their meanings to further the characters.
Do you have any examples?

>>49015972
Yeah, basically. But that's just how I would do it, it's up to you in the end.

>>49016016
What? You're confusing me with the guy who's having trouble. I'm trying to get him to give me details on his characters so we can get answers to those questions.

>>49015064
> why are they corrupt and how come it's lasted ?
It's not that blatantly corrupt there's a lot of shit behind closed doors ( bribery and threats shit etc ) there's a certain amount of dependency on the council in maintaining peace and order.

Not a humanity fuck yeah story btw
>>49015213
That's just it I have no idea to create a decent 3d character

>>49016125
>That's just it I have no idea to create a decent 3d character
Well, what do you want the story to be about? We can fill in characters to fill roles.

>>49016042
If the cast isn't that big, it's generally easier to remember characters, so balancing it is somewhat easier, for me personally anyways.

I think there's a fair number of young adult literature authors that handle using more intricate names pretty well, J.K. Rowling used names and the connotations of them to a fair degree. Tolkien as mentioned elsewhere used "special" names very proficiently because he designed for it intentionally. There are a good number of sci-fi authors that use the "name evolution" concept for different names, but in the face of your setting being fantasy analogue it won't be of as much use.

Admittedly I read more Asian literature than English literature, so most of the authors that come to mind immediately are Chinese/Japanese. The whole notion of "meaning of the name to reflect the character" is a key concept in Asian literature, people like Jinyong, to name a name, regularly utilize it.

>>49016125
What are you looking for in terms of 3d? A character that the reader can see as believable? A character with demonstrated growth? A character that is multifaceted? If you can figure out the criteria of what you want, it'll be easier to figure out how to tackle the problem.

>>49008780
i really like it

somewhat reminds me of the Donjon comics from France

>>48999426
Heh, I thought the one on the left was called desu

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>>49002648

I did a grid of latitude and longitude, with each box's respective verticle or horizontal lines being X many miles. Since a latitude degree is 69 miles, it means a box is 690 miles long (Longitude seems to average 54 miles per degree, but since that's close-ish I'll just take it to be 690 miles tall or wide).

On the grid I went with multiples of 6 instead of factors of 10, so that 0" at the top was 60 degrees north and 100" at the bottom was equatorial.

Europe in the usual historical sense (excluding the far north of Norway or Sweden and excluding the meme-masters Finland entirely) is 60 degrees north to about 35 degrees south (So around 25 degrees x69 = 1725 miles tall) and 10 degrees west to 30 degrees east to reach the bosphorus and 40-50 degrees east to reach Moscow. So that's 54x40 is 2,160 'long'.

Then contextualize it further by figuring out how far people can march in a day - Roman legion estimated by Vegetius at 18-21 of our miles in five to seven hours. Which means without consideration of terrain, distance, downtime, weather, it'd take 120 days to march the width of Europe or 4 months.

So for instance crows-flight-wise on my map Addalom as a pseudo-levant is a 2 boxes and a half away from Arazala (pseudo-Rome/Byzantium yes I know they were romans but you get what I mean). That's about 1500 miles. Coincidentally Rome to Lebanon crow-flies is..1357 miles. Similarly Sanukhar are akin to Parthia or Central Asia culturally while Khasah is Kurdo-Arab, so if you make it amu darya to Erbil or Luristan it's about as far as Sanukhar to Khasah.

It's not always perfect but I am fairly happy with the sense of scale. I might have to tone it down a few miles but I wouldn't past 1 degree = 50 miles. My worry is that some of the states are already too big on this scale, but I don't want to have to CK2 the fuck out of the map even more than I am already.

Tell me about your diseases double you bee gee.
But most importantly I want you to tell me why your diseases?
What purpose do they serve in your worlds?
How do they interact with your novel's protags or their surroundings, or your game's players, or your therapist?

>>49018796
there is a big plague that lies way back.

while putting together the timeline for the setting i realized there was a phase of great stability that somehow needed to end swiftly, with entire regions fucked over to create an impulse for mass migration.

It is a nice way of saying "...and then everyone died and all turned to shit" without having to create a war with the whole buildup, political background etc.. A Plague happens and everyone loses, some just more than others.

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>>49012862
Yes. Loosely inspire by that one bluebird 20 page pdf, I forget what it was called exactly as I no longer have that file in m possession.

>>49012919
I understand that you meant to type "bear", but you could not have possibly made a better typo.

>>49019154
Bluebird?

>>49021248
Yeah, it was this weird indie ttrpg, very pretty and well-made, though. Blue something or other. Or maybe it was blackbird? Lady Blackbird?

>>49021952
Yeah, I think you got the name wrong. All I'm getting for "ttprg bluebird" on Google are random links to things with bluebird in the name, and links talking about bluebird NPCs from Super Mario RPG. Damn, now that's a game I need to play one day.

>>49007338
>greek dwarves

Sounds fucking rad.
No idea why but the idea of dwarves with greek esthetic and/or culture and style sounds awsome

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>>49022378
Lady Blackbird was it, subtitle is "Adventures in the Wild Blue Yonder" which is where I was getting the blue from. It looks quite good and I'd like to play it some time.

>>49022423
>>49007338
I do that too. It fits their tropes surprisingly well:
Mountain people
Beards
Little use of cavalry
Strong infantry formations
Hoplites work well for short but strong, well disciplined soldiers
City-states w/ common language but slightly different cultures
Excellent masonry

Real world Greeks had better navies than dwarves are usually thought of having, but it still works.

One of my dwarf city-states eventually developed into Roman Republic dwarfs. Dwarves are so perfect as legionaries it's almost as if they were designed to fight in that manner in the first place.
They're the right height, have great stamina, great discipline, and are strong, and are long-lived enough to serve long terms as professional soldiers, allowing for their armies to have powerful cores of veteran troops.

>>49023601
>Little use of cavalry
Many civilizations have had infantry as the core, but until the invention of machine guns cavalry were essential in every army. They're used for flanking, skirmishing, and most importantly, slaying the enemy when the opposing army is in rout, which is where most combat deaths occurred (this is not including #getrekt horse archers, which is a whole nother level). Likely, dwarves, because their typical place of residence precludes high-mobility cavalry movements, would use mercenary auxiliaries to fill in their cavalry gaps when fighting opposing forces aboveground. (Most armies in Classical Antiquity were 25-75% auxiliaries, in any case.)

>>49023779
Ancient Greeks didn't care much for cavalry. They acknowledged how useful they could be, but until Alexander came along service in the cavalry was looked down upon. Hoplite warfare was largely ritual in nature, based heavily on tradition and ideas of honor. A person wealthy enough to buy a horse could have instead purchased armour and shield and fought like a "real man" as a hoplite, so it was thought queer that they'd instead go to battle sitting down.

Also keep in mind that stirrups had not been invented yet, so cavalry wasn't the super-effective tactic it would later become. Cavalry could still do all the same things later horse warriors could, but would do so less effectively.
Hell, some of the earliest cavalry units had people fighting in pairs. One would ride his own horse and control a second person's while said second person would throw javelins and such.
That's why chariots got so popular in the Ancient Middle East.

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made a discord for /wbg/

code is vBDDE

>>49022423
>>49023601
Thanks, glad you like the idea. Wanted something more than "angry bear-soaked beards with legs" so I looked at what they did and tried to expand it. Mining didn't go very far, so I instead played took used their gift for artifice instead and expanded on that. Artifice lead to engineering lead to mathematics. This lead to me thinking of Greeks. So now I have robe-wearing Dwarves studying mathematics to make intricate devices and artifacts (think Antikythera Mechanism), and learning how they can apply the golden ratio to warp reality through thaumaturgy, their own special form of magic.

>>49023946
What's this?

>>49024507
Yeah, these threads seem very slow sometimes.

>>49022725
It does look really cool. Thanks.

>>49024845
>What's this?

Chat room access code. here's a more direct link (That'll explode in another 24 minutes.) https://discord.gg/JaZjv

>>49025094
I'm actually on >>49023946 link right now. Where does yours go?

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>>48999426
Here's a VERY rough layout I threw together in a few minutes. This is what humans might picture the evolutionary tree to be like, it's very inaccurate and vague but it has the general stream of how the races originated. Lots of additions, removals, and adjustments to be made as the setting won't be used for at least a year.

Most of the names are placeholders

>>49025216
Wow, Goblinoids sound almost nothing like how I would imagine Goblins. Slow maturation, really?

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>>49016752
How did you make this map? It's awesome. I finally finished some final details of my world in Inkarnate (I know I know, it's garbage), and I want to transfer it to something that looks better. I unfortunately have almost no artistic ability, which is why I had to start with Inkarnate.

Another question for you worldbuilders. How do you do governments and territories? I definitely have regions in my world, but I never really thought in terms of countries or nations and have thought mostly in terms of cities and city-states.

>>49025216
>>48999426
>And what sort of relationships they have between if there are any?
Giants are very closely affiliated with humans, most humans revere them and pay tribute to giant builders and guards. They allowed cities to be built much faster and bigger and coupled with the nuisance of vampires, changed the civil landscape to be much more urban than Earth was at this general technological era.

Hammak are the third most common race in human societies, I guess the best parallel would be Jews. Widespread minority that despite discrimination and low numbers finds itself high up in society. Their biology gives them distinct advantages amongst humans. Hammak make excellent alchemists, doctors, architects, merchants, librarians, etc.

Imps are very low in population and almost entirely enslaved as farm workers for humans, they are the preferred slave race due to their physical weakness.

Okul are impulsive and can snap out of having any empathy or morals due to hunger, fear, or pure random outbursts, and their societies generally rely on piracy, so humans hate them and keep them off of their land except to trade.

Urks do not integrate to human society, but they aren't incompatible. Urk kingdoms maintain relations with neighboring humans and commonly trade.

Darklings usually keep to themselves but are despised by humans because they contribute nothing and are a net drain on society. Most humans do not consider Darklings to be intelligent or deserving of basic rights. Hammak aren't edible, so darklings have little interest in killing them and the two can function together in the rare darkling settlements far from human eyes.

Goblins barely have societies of their own and the number living with other races could very well be zero. They steer clear of humans, living deep in the wilderness. Most goblins have connections only to their offspring and parents. Some goblins, such as trolls, are solitary and only meet to breed.

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>>49025315
They're the most animalistic of the race categories, actually on the same level of intelligence as most monsters. They wouldn't be considered races by the others so they're out of place by being on this image.

They become independent quite quickly, but they don't reach full maturity for a long time. Picture a human finishing puberty at age 10 but not reaching the body of age 25 until they are 50. As young they are raised by their mother in ponds or other wet dens while they grow, then they set out on their own once they can walk on land and find their own food.

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>>49025715
image is from spiderwick by the way, text isn't part of my setting

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>atmosphere heats up hardcore due to a supervolcanic eruption
>people quickly build a solar shell over as much of the planet as possible, to protect from UV radiation and heat
>generally stick to freshwater sources, areas high vegetation and plant growth and places with an already high population
>shell is not level -- large cities have it built over their buildings, while areas of less importance slope down lower, as low as a couple meters in areas that aren't expected to be lived in
>have a hard and slow time building over oceans due to size and lack of a platform to build support pillars from (image is just an example, obviously not the only ocean)
>generally leave deserts and other dry areas for last
I am not science, I have no idea how practical or sensible any of this is, I just like the idea of a constructed plate surrounding the world and removing natural light. Would a supervolcanic eruption even do that? How long before the oceans evaporate in this condition? How long would it take before the gaps in the shell affected the parts covered, if at all?

>>49025128
The same place. Discord uses a weird system of multiple self-destructing links to the same chatroom.

So I got two layouts for the countries in this setting, its intended to be on the scale of a single continent.

Layout one has 7 countries, one with a huge population, 2 with large populations, the rest with moderate to small populations. The larger the population the more influence they wield, I imagine this layout is more interesting for straight up war and less politics.

Layout 2 has 10 countries, I think this plays more towards politics with gaining favor, forming alliances, etc. or being the little guy sandwiched between two powers.

>>49025769
Building a literal shell seems insane. Probably better to use satellites with shields attached, and gave them orbit so they always face the sun. Now you only need to cover half the earth at most.

>>49025769
>people quickly build a solar shell over as much of the planet as possible, to protect from UV radiation and heat
What?

>shell is not level -- large cities have it built over their buildings, while areas of less importance slope down lower, as low as a couple meters in areas that aren't expected to be lived in
Even more so, what?

>Would a supervolcanic eruption even do that?
Do what? Remove natural light? Or construct a plate surrounding the world? The former depends on the scale of the eruption which in turn depends on volcanic activity and localized pressure, and while unlikely, isn't entirely impossible given the correct variables. The latter, just no.

If you're asking whether a single volcanic eruption can destroy a planet's atmosphere, you're better off just having the planet tear itself apart with tectonic activity. The scale of eruption necessary to remove a planet's atmosphere isn't anything that would "naturally". Even normal volcanic explosions only eat away at the atmosphere's ozone layer. If your atmosphere is held together with a majority of another compound (Venus's CO2 atmosphere comes to mind) it won't make a substantial difference.

>How long before the oceans evaporate in this condition?
Ok. Consider this. Water becomes vapor at boiling temperature under normal atmospheric conditions. The atmosphere in turn locks this vapor so that in time, it condensates and returns back into the ocean. A very simplified view of the water cycle - but with that in mind,

If you have no atmosphere, a shell won't help you. The planet would lose energy too quickly to the surrounding space, long before the shell can even be built. In that case, your oceans evaporating wouldn't be an issue anymore.

>How long would it take before the gaps in the shell affected the parts covered, if at all?

This depends on multiple factors. Stellar activity such as solar winds, the effects of neighboring satellites, space debris, and such There's no accurate timeframe.

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>>48999426
Here's a chart.
If you're wondering what "Uplifted" and "Chimera" mean, a wizard did it.

>>49026232
>>49026189
Figured as much, thanks guys. I think I'll just drop the idea. I wasn't focused so much on the eruption, it was just the best excuse I could come up with for the shell idea, I love poor undercity settings and I wanted a worldwide one. Suppose I use a magical reason (maybe the planet's "life force" is seeping out and the shell is the only way to keep it in) since then I can make up whatever BS, but I thought I'd try to be somewhat grounded. Too bad I'm pretty dumb.

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>>49025525

Appreciate it. Let me upload the two PDFs you'll need for it. The colored splotches for the regions/states/ethnic groups is just a layer with some tweaks, but lemme look up hwat I did for that. Important to note:

-SKIP the river guide in this PDF, follow the guide in the next PDF I link.

-SKIP the ocean stuff besides the base cloud and blue color (you see here) until you are 100% satisfied with the land setup. There's no reason to do the work there if you end up changing it as much as I did - I'll post what this map originally started as and the only recognizable part that is left is the Makhenai peninsulas.

>>49026189
A literal shell is impossible with the altitude and design philosophy that anon has put up for consideration. A shell that "slopes to adjust to large cities" is below what you'd consider even low altitude. The thickness of the shell that would be necessary in order to "simulate" the atmosphere isn't just a matter of deflecting UV radiation and heat, but also a problem of accounting for regular physical bombardment from external sources.

Too thin, you'll have holes in that thing, too thick, and depending on what material it's built out of either your supports will give or the structure itself will give. It is not high enough that gravity isn't a factor, and that's assuming that tectonic activity won't be an issue either.

If the plates happen to have "gaps" to allow for some give, ignoring the seal break, there's then the issue of plate wear, which just hints at another issue that hasn't been brought up - surveillance and maintenance.

>>49026598
You don't need a shell to create an undercity. The notion of cities building upwards and creating a naturally stratified system isn't as farfetched as constructing a shell. Sure it takes a fair bit of time to get it, and population is a major factor, but the notion of building vertically and different communities emerging as a result on different altitudes is still plausible.

You have fantasy examples in Dark Soul's Blighttown, you have real life examples in Kowloon's Walled City (now demolished), you have plenty of examples in sci-fi, particularly cases like Coruscant and other worlds with massive populations. Ecumenopoli are a thing in sci-fi particularly, which fits the worldwide idea to a t.

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>>49026649

Use this PDF's river guide, or my abridged synopsis of what you do for the rivers.

http://imgur.com/a/7mwR8

And for governments/territories I'm a big proponent of centrifugal decentralization as a historical reality (fantasy might be able to overcome it in some unique ways), how the modern notion of a nation-state was exceptionally rare to nonexistent in antiquity. Instead of "Persia" it was Persis, Elam, Media, Atropatene Media, Gilan/Mazandaran, Khorasan, Sakastan, ect.

I'm also going back to not painting in the tribal territories (Labakkari, Ishuna, various Hashaba black provinces) because I didn't like delineating such neat and tidy borders on tribals who would have a more amorphous sense of territory.

It does make a problem for when I have a large ethnic group (Harbanu or the Drythan) that have lots of sub-groups within them. But a possible solution is to color-code the names.

For color codes, you just make a blank layer with an opacity of 25 and a fill of 0.
-Fill it with black
-Stroke size 2, black
-Inner Glow - color of choice, opacity 100, size 16 or 25 or more, range 50 or 25.
-Color - normal, color of choice (usually I'd go with the same color but you could have purple fill with red outline)

If you want empty with colored edge (Raoxshan) omit the color, just keep inner glow.

>>49026778
>You have fantasy examples in Dark Soul's Blighttown, you have real life examples in Kowloon's Walled City (now demolished), you have plenty of examples in sci-fi, particularly cases like Coruscant and other worlds with massive populations.
It's funny you say that, I was thinking of Taris when I came up with it, and to a lesser extent Blighttown.

Why is this thread always close to dying?

>>49028230
Not that many people here. Not that much in terms of discussion topics that interest everybody. Worldbuilding generally isn't something that moves fast, so threads move faster than worldbuilders build and share worlds.

I'd like to know people's opinions on science fiction settings masquerading as fantasy?

>>49030682
It is what it is. The choice of genre blending is another tool in an author's employ, so whether it's effective and constructive depends largely on how effective the author is at using it.

It could be stated that genre blending is difficult to employ without either being an element that makes minimal contribution or looking peculiar, but really it just reflects more on the author rather than the setting in these cases. Genre blending can work very well, but like all other writing tools it needs to be used with a purpose in mind. If it's employed without a purpose, then it's just another random addition which doesn't actually contribute to the story, or worse, detracts from it.

>>49030682
What exactly do you mean by this? Magic that's studied like science, or science made to work like magic?

>>49032391

Maybe he means something like Dune? Where it's in the future but a lot of the material is more evocative of fantasy or attempts to try and downplay the role of sci-fi stuff (The whole prohibition of thinking machines, the shields causing swordplay to be more important than lasers, no real role of space-fighting that I can think of, noble houses and so on).

>>49030682
Something like the John Carter movie from a couple years ago?

Might be cool.

>>49032703
Is Dune any good? Everything I read about it makes it sound retarded. Say what you will about midichlorians, but I think that's a better explanation for fantastic powers than snorting magic space cocaine. And that weird guy that decided to cover himself in sand worms and go out and kill all the other sand worms to nake his stronger.

>>49032795
You realize John Carter is from a series as old as WWI, right?

>>49032956
The first three books are pretty great, desu senpai.

>>49032703
>>49032391
More like a fantasy setting that turns out to have scientific explanations for it's fantastic elements.

I'm working on one that has humans, metal golems, ape-men, and giant, intelligent wolves. I'm not sure if I'll ever reveal it in-setting, but the humans are descended from colonists from Earth, the golems are Asimov-style robots, and the Ape-men and Wolves are descended from apes and dogs genetically engineered to be more useful to the colonists.
The tricky bit is the magic. I'm basing it on Lovecraft, which as I understand it is actually tapping into powerful alien forces, rather than tradition "magic." I'm still working on it.

>>49032956
It's... interesting. I read it in high school and didn't like it, but I read it again last week (coincidentally).

It's a very influential work. Warhammer 40k steals a ton of its ideas, and Star Wars owes quite a bit to it as well. The silly ideas make a bit more sense when you actually read it. At least in book 1, I haven't read any of the sequels.

Honestly, my biggest problem with the book is the writing style. The ideas are, as I said, interesting, but the writing comes across as rather lazy and amateurish at times. He has a bad habit of telling, and telling, and telling. He also uses a near-universal third-person perspective, so we read what different people are thinking all the damn time. Some chapters will go into three or four different people's minds, often with jarring brevity.
It also makes a lot of use of prophecy, so if you're not into that it can be annoying.

It's almost worth reading just to see how much modern science fiction borrows from it, but then again it's almost 800 pages long.

Just don't watch the movie unless you're a fan of bad movies.

>>49033050
>for it's
>for it is
Agh!

>I'm not sure if I'll ever reveal it in-setting
It should at least be revealed to the audience, otherwise what's the point? Though I think giving the audience so much more information than the characters will become annoying after a while.

I think you should look at Destiny for inspiration. I think the characters should know what things are, more or less, but not know how they came to be or who made them.

>>49032956
Dune is pretty good. Herbert's writing style isn't the best, but he's still a good writer who demonstrates a fair ability to juggle characters and their aspirations around. The series as a whole has ups and downs, and people tend to frown upon the later installments since Herbert never wrote them personally, but all in all the story has a well formed structure to it.

The Spice isn't too farfetched as far as chemical reactions go, especially in the first books where the only supernatural powers demonstrated with it were induced hallucinations forced on by the Bene Gesserit. Its real worth was used in genetic experiments to permanently distort humans and turn them into eldritch abominations. The later books demonstrate that the Spice isn't so much magic as it is a terrifying eldritch relic, especially considering what continued intake does to the individual. With the author dead it's hard to tell what he originally intended to take the Spice concept, but the way that it did evolve isn't all too bizarre.

Paul Atreides was an eldritch being to begin with, so his actions weren't really made to human to begin with. His conclusion is arguably not even his, considering the Chapterhouse arc is really up in the air as far as clone ethics goes.

>>49032993
Maybe he never read the Mars series?

>>49032956

What >>49033044 said. The first three books are a trilogy of continuity and connection with characters from the first living into the 3rd on an average human life-span. It's fantastic and a true tour de force sci fi epic.

After the third it gets weird as fuck, very cerebral and gnostic and strange. You find a funny thing to complain about with spice - personally I think it's just as reasonalbe as midichlorians. Later on? Well let's see - you've got Duncan Idaho being cloned hundreds of times and being killed off like Yamcha hundreds of times. You have an aggressive matriarchal cult that literally wields sex like a martial art.

That's all the dune books there are. It ends with ChapterHouse Dune. There are no more dune books after Chapterhouse Dune. No prequels or sequels made to it. None. I promise you, Chapterhouse Dune is the last. Frank Herbert's son did not start writing new dune books - this I can assure you. Believe me, Chapterhouse Dune is the final dune book of all time.

>>49032956
>And that weird guy that decided to cover himself in sand worms and go out and kill all the other sand worms to nake his stronger
That didn't happen. The man was, essentially, so pumped full of spice by his captors that the larval version of sandworms, the sandtrout, attach to him to feed off his spice-laden blood. Eventually their biology winds up fusing, and he becomes a sort of superhuman with the properties of sandworms, like their diamond-tough carapace.

The sandworms dying out was due to terraforming. Their biology can't survive on a water-heavy world, and the sand world they're used to has more water and greenery every day. Eventually they're just wiped out over several centuries.

>>49033156

Do look up the Sci-Fi channel's children of dune soundtrack. It is mind numbingly good and I will upload it if someone really wants me to.

>>49033237
>the later installments since Herbert never wrote them personally

What later installments? The last book was Chapterhouse Dune. You're talking crazy anon. Don't be silly, next you'll tell me someone wrote prequels to dune that turned it into a standard slapdash shitty sci-fi experience and instead of the complexity of a Bulterian Jihad being a social luddite rejection of technology turned it into literally machine-gods ruling over man as slaves with transformer-like walking mech-bodies. Where it wasn't even a conflict of the dangers of technology allowing the few even greater power and control over the many but a quite literal jihad against actual militant thinking machines who ruled man like it was the matrix.

Don't be silly anon.

>>49033156
>He has a bad habit of telling, and telling, and telling
Herbert's third person omniscient style was a personal preference I believe, something that he absolutely needed due to the stupidly large array of characters he was trying to corral into the pit. The way I see it, it's not all too different from Yoshiki Tanaka's Legend of Galactic Heroes series. After a certain number of characters it almost feels like it's easier to just stick to a third person omniscient instead of hopping from first person through each key character.

Mind you, I'm not a native English speaker, and my English is pretty subpar compared to folks who speak it as their mother tongue, but I didn't really find his writing all that bad. Reminded me of Dostoevsky a bit really, granted Dostoevsky wrote much shorter books.

>>49033326
Say what you will but I found Erasmus pretty amusing. I just wasn't expecting they'd try to do the whole Terminator magic time leap with information satellites thing.

If you're wondering anon, most people that were diehard fans of Dune swore off the books that Herbert's son wrote because the tone, the theme and most of the core principles that were in the later books were vastly different in comparison to Herbert's original books. So to date, plenty of folks still see it as a cash grab and swear it doesn't exist.

>>49033368
Well, the way I see it he had three options:
1) Be in every necessary person's head whenever they are thinking something relevant. This is what he did.
2) Use a Game of Thrones style system of using a different POV character each chapter, which would have made the book at least twice as long to get the same amount of information.
3) Let the reader figure out stuff for themselves without spelling it out.

Take for example Yueh. If you take out his input during his conversations with Jessica and Paul it's not hard to figure out his motives and actions, especially since Jessica and Paul later explain it anyway. In fact, NOT having him think to himself "boy, it's a good thing Jessica is mistaking my unease at talking about my captured wife for my wife being dead or I'd get caught as a traitor" would allow that scene to retroactively be much, much more interesting and important once he is revealed to be a traitor to J&P. We don't need Yueh's thoughts. They slow down the pace and spoil what is about to happen. They also make the "who is the traitor?" moments, especially between Jessica and Thufir, completely pointless since we know for a fact who the traitor is. Herbert's style only seems to save time. In actual fact, it cuts out mystery and revelation. A quarter way into the novel and there are no more surprises since he telegraphs major events chapters in advance.
It was a stylistic choice, but one I maintain was a big mistake.

>>49033596
>It was a stylistic choice, but one I maintain was a big mistake.
Personally it seems like that sort of statement is something very easy to make in afterthought when considering novels of Dune's size, but if you can make that sort of statement with confidence then I'm sure you're the better author here, so I'll take your word for it.

I can't really say I agree with your example, but when I read Dune as a child I didn't really attach myself to any of the characters, and when I read Dune again later on, I just saw all the characters as tools to deliver a world through, so evidently my perspective on things never matched with yours to begin with.

>>49033501


Erasmus was actually pretty good, I just think it should have avoided the whole terminator machine-gods ruling man business. You can deal with the dangers and troubles of technology without going into that pulp sci-fi domain I feel like, and it cheapened the Bulterian Jihad to be that.

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>>48995119
>How much detail is too much for a general setting guide? What aspects of a nation's culture would you say is important?

I think it shouldn't feel like a lecture or geography class. The aspects may depend on the goal, for RPG is things like foods and drinks, weird customs that may create problems, local sayings, things that can be incorporated into the adventure and characters.

>>48995602
For what one author considered the best of pokemon, check Codex Alera. The basic premise was exactly "pokemon + romans".

>>48999426
There was a primordial ancestor called "lemurian". It rebelled against the God, and so it was disintegrated. The fragments which survived and formed races are humans, dwarfs, giants and halflings, each with its portion of what made the lemurians powerful and great. Elves came from humans impregnated with fey escaping from the Ents.

>>49033156
>>49033237
>>49033246
>>49033266
>>49033501
>>49033596

>genetic experiments to permanently distort humans and turn them into eldritch abominations. Spice isn't so much magic as it is a terrifying eldritch relic
What.

>Duncan Idaho being cloned hundreds of times and being killed off like Yamcha hundreds of times. You have an aggressive matriarchal cult that literally wields sex like a martial art.
This is getting weirder by the second. Oh god, I can already guess where this is going. Entertainment that is completely incomprehensible by all but the fans, all of whom are completely diehard in nature.

>attach to him to feed off his spice-laden blood. Eventually their biology winds up fusing, and he becomes a sort of superhuman with the properties of sandworms, like their diamond-tough carapace.
I can't even think of a proper response to this.

>What later installments?
This actually sounds interesting. Just how bad are they?

>Do look up the Sci-Fi channel's children of dune soundtrack.
Not him, but I'll give it a shot.

>Terminator magic time leap with information satellites thing.
Again, what.

>Take for example
I find it somewhat hilarious that you're putting up spoilers for a series this old.

Oh, and as for the guy's son, the fact that there are far more novels under his name than his dad's pretty much spells "Cashgrab."

So, let me get this straight. For Dune, we have

>Positives
>It's weird!
>A lot of far more popular series were inspired by it. (I'm not sure this even counts as a positive.)

>Negatives
>It's weird!
>The writing style isn't great.
>It's long.
>The prequels, sequels, and other adaptations are bad.

Yeah, you guys aren't selling me on this. Frankly, Dune's weird doesn't sound like the kind of weird I'm into. I like weird like China Mieville and Kill 6 Billion Demons. And it doesn't even sound like Herbert was being weird on purpose. It sounds like he was trying to be serious, which really just makes it worse.

>>49033963
Herbert is basically the image of the quintessential worldbuilder who didn't really care much for anything except to get the world he had dreamed up in his head out of his head and onto paper. Even ignoring the prequels and sequels, which basically everybody here agrees is completely bizarre by even Dune's standards, it takes a fair bit of dedication to push through Dune. By the end of it you're anywhere from either regretting the time you wasted on the book to a diehard fanatic.

But the way he writes makes it very easy to see the foundations of his worldbuilding, because he pretty much lays out everything. Instead of just writing a novel, he decided he might as well toss in the addendum in as well, just because.

If you're reading it for entertainment and you're expecting something easy to read, Dune is a terrible surprise, and it's little wonder that most people can't get past the first few chapters, especially nowadays when reading more than 500 words can make people "tired of reading".

There are no real recommendations on reading Dune, nor is there any real attempt to sell it, especially considering the man is dead. It's the same thing I'd say for Heinlein or Asimov's works, you have to actually want to read them to begin with, or you'll be hard pressed to find a reason to push through all of it. If you need someone to sell you on it like a marketing scheme, it probably isn't for you.

Personally, as it's probably pretty evident from the way I describe it, Dune is a pretty amazing world, because of the extent that it's been fleshed out. Some people find the characters memorable, some people find the politics intricate, but I just like the fact that this man basically mashed together a world, not unlike what people on this very board do, and decided:

"Well let's write a fucking novel series about it." and he actually did it.

>>49033963
>Duncan Idaho being cloned hundreds of times and being killed off like Yamcha hundreds of times.
That was because the God-Emperor of the Known Universe just thought this guy was the best for the job, that job being bodyguarding, so why not clone him over and over again? And it's also because, since genetic memory is a thing in the series, the clones recover from their initial amnesia and remember the many MANY attempts they made to murder the God-Emperor, and so with each incarnation their chances at successfully assassinating the guy higher. This is all part of a plan by the God-Emperor himself to ensure that humanity doesn't die out.

>>49033963
Alternatively in response to your questions:
>genetic experiments to permanently distort humans and turn them into eldritch abominations. Spice isn't so much magic as it is a terrifying eldritch relic
Spice transforms the physical shape of people, and flesh transforming is actually a pretty significant aspect in Dune, such that the Spice transformer of the Navigators isn't the actual horrific part. The son's novels make it worse by making it all too explicit.

>I can't even think of a proper response to this.
There pretty much is no proper response, considering the guy is literally a freak of nature that has a blue and orange sense of morality (at the time), is utterly fed up with how slow humans think in comparison to him (due to lack of foresight) and basically sees his upcoming task as the only way to accelerate human development. Maybe "Huh." is the correct response.

>What later installments? This actually sounds interesting. Just how bad are they?
There's an extreme amount of dissonance in terms of father and son, and while the son tries to tie up loose ends, his prequels and sequels don't actually mesh all that well with the main books. There are just as many questions as there are loose ends in the end.

Then the way the prequels and the sequels are tied together screams a cashgrab to some folks because instead of complementing the main books they use the main books to complement the prequel's plot - as in everything returns to the prequel.

>Terminator magic time leap with information satellites thing.
Long story short. Skynet was cornered on a planet, Skynet shot a satellite beam transmission into space, said transmission apparently contained two AIs that lasted through all of space and time until the Chapterhouse Dune era and afterwards.

>>49034521
It's the fucking ending of the son's last book that really gets to me in that regard, when you consider everything that Paul had done.

>>49034387
>If you need someone to sell you on it like a marketing scheme, it probably isn't for you.
Something I need to remember for the future. Thanks.

>Heinlein
Fuck that guy. All I've read of him is Starship Troopers, well, most of it, and it's been enough to swear me off him forever. I'm sorry, but I was expecting an action/adventure novel, not a fucking political thesis on why military dictatorships are a great idea and anyone who argues otherwise is an idiot. I can't even remember a time when they actually fought the stupid bugs. I have to say though, the countdown-bomb was hilarious. Also, I hope that man never owned a dog.

>reading more than 500 words can make people "tired of reading".
That is kinda sad. 500 words for me is light reading. I can easily finish that in two or three days, and that's just inbetween doing other stuff. Speaking of, I need to get back to one of the many different series I've started reading. Oh god, there's one I started, it's just so cheesy it's hilarious. The actual writing style is alright, but oh lord, THE NAMES! Phury, Rhage, Zsadist, Tohrment, etc. And these are all protagonists, so they show up all the time.

>>49034521
You're just making it worse.

>>49034532
>Long story short. Skynet was cornered on a planet, Skynet shot a satellite beam transmission into space, said transmission apparently contained two AIs that lasted through all of space and time until the Chapterhouse Dune era and afterwards.
HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!

>>49034566
Let me guess, rocks fall, humanity dies?

>>49034730
>Heinlein
His later adult novels are all about different themes he was interested in, to varying degrees of readability. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is about libertarianism, Stranger in a Strange Land has a lot of hippie themes, etc. His earlier work, the "Heinlein juveniles" are all about space adventures though. Try picking those up if you want.

And yeah, just about everybody agrees that the actual book Starship Troopers is fucking boring except for the descriptions of power armor.

>>49034730
Nope. "I have loved you for five thousand years" That was pretty much it. Lovely ending.

On the other hand though, I've known plenty of folks from my workplace who might be functionally literate, but literally can't stand to read anything longer than a powerpoint summary. It's just the way the workplace culture is slowly evolving and how it affects people. The more time spent reading is less time spent working/doing "productive" things.

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>>49034856
Maybe I'll look at his earlier stuff eventually. Probably going to take a while though.

Yeah, the power armor bit was interesting. Reminded me a lot of how power armor works in Fallout.

>>49034865
You're going to have to explain why that ending is so bad. Oh wait, is this like pic related or something?

And I can see the thing about doing "productive" things. I have a very hard time actually sitting down and watching a TV show or movie. Most of the time, I have something going on my cellphone while I'm doing something on the computer. Like right now.

>>49034856
>just about everybody agrees that the actual book Starship Troopers is fucking boring

They're boring if you're reading them for leisure in terms of engaging plot, characters, and such. If you're reading them for the ideas they're not that bad. You might not necessarily agree with the ideas, and some of the things he believes in might be baseless, but it's not entirely fruitless, if only to gain a bit of insight into how such a person could think, what his passions were, and so forth.

It's a bit of a change in terms of how literature has generally progressed in any case. You get a fair bit of old literature that were wholly focused on delivering a message, a moral statement, or something of the sort. Then as things progressed those messages became more politically charged, or were written as analogues to things that actually happened (like much Vietnam war fiction). Nowadays there's a fair portion of literature written wholly for escapism and entertainment, and less for conveying messages.

Though I suppose arguably most people would rather just watch Game of Thrones on netflix and forego the book entirely. Probably the same for any literature that can be made into a movie.

>>49034975
The thirty second summary would basically be: Eldritch God being capable of seeing into humanity's distant future planned elaborate pyramid scheme to uplift humanity so he could be with his desert waifu. The plot didn't go Sasuke, it didn't go Kaguya, it went into Ichigo, pulled him over to fight Kaguya, then had Sakura eat the resulting abomination.

I have two phones, a tablet, and a laptop active at the moment. I'm basically one step away from hooking myself permanently to a computer. It can feed on my body if it wants. Let any techno daemon come make a contract with me if they please.

>>49035007
Not him, but I didn't care for the ideas either. And not just because I think his ideas are shit, but also because he never actually engages in an actual discussion. All he does is build up straw arguments that he never backs up and blows them down to make his ideas look better. I think there's a part where he talks about the 20th century's primitive belief in psychology, but he doesn't actually address why psychology is wrong, he just says it is and expects us to take that at face value. An idea is only as strong as the weakest argument that can defeat it, and the fact that Heinlein won't even provide actual counterarguments that he would have to defeat intelligently makes me highly skeptical of the strength of his ideas.

And I have to say, yeah, I would easily pick the movie over a book most of the time. If it's a good adaptation, that is.

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>>49035112
Wow. That sounds far more retarded than I ever thought possible. That's a whole new level of shit writing.

Oh, I should also point out I know fuckall about Naruto, dropped out of that shit early. That image and this summarize everything I know about the plot, and the only thing I know about this one is how hilarious I find it. I have no idea who any of the characters are. Got these when I was in a thread when the manga ended and people were mocking it. And some fans getting ultra butthurt that Naruto didn't pick Sakura as his waifu, like that was ever going to happen.

What are you doing with all those devices? I have comp for this and phone for video/music. Though I guess you could use the tablet to play a game inbetween posting.

>>49035133
I think it really just comes down to a difference in perspective. I don't really care to judge an author for the ideas that he portrays, but it's the way they portray them and what they care to do with it that interests me.

To use Heinlein as an example, the ideas that he conveys don't interest me the same way they evidently interested him. The way he sets those up however, that process of propping up arguments and and knocking them down, that's the really interesting part. Like the flaw in him that makes him human.

People like that make for much better individuals to translate into characters/NPCs in worldbuilding. It makes for a more enjoyable process than simply attaching flaws like pinning up ribbons on a person. In this sense at least you get to try and step into his shoes and wonder just what it was that could put his mind into such a state, what memories and experiences he must have held on to in order to become who he was. To me at least, that process makes the characters/NPCs feel a little more human.

As for the validity of his ideas, I think time has more than sufficed to shown that the majority of his ideas aren't as accurate as he personally thought. It didn't help that he simplified his ideas quite a bit when he presented them (though it would have probably made his works all the more convoluted if he put in every last detail), but many of the social themes that he pushed heavily in his novels really don't matter as much as he would have imagined them to.

>If it's a good adaptation, that is.
It's kind of funny you say that, considering that plenty of folks who don't know the source books exist are often the ones who argue that the movies, regardless of adaptation quality, are wonderful. Like the Hobbit adaptations.

>>49034730
>not a fucking political thesis on why military dictatorships are a great idea and anyone who argues otherwise is an idiot.
Uh, actually, the book is a critique of fascist military dictatorships. It's a satire, not a celebration. And they do fight the bugs, in the last third of the book or so. But yeah, it's not a high space adventure, it's a true sci-fi, speculative fiction with a commentary on some contemporary issues, like most hard sci-fi tends to be.

>>49035218
I rotate to this tab every 5 - 10 minutes or so since Dune kicked off an actual discussion, otherwise I'm just trawling for directories, books, and such. Two phones for mobile games, tablet for another, music on laptop.

Naruto was somewhat amusing. I burned through 400 or so chapters in about two days or so. When it finished I cleared up the rest. It's not the greatest writing, not the greatest themes, but it's also not complete shit as some people would like to think. Though a fair number of people tend to get a bit too invested in it, which is very interesting behavior in itself, as evidenced by the waifu drama that resulted from the ending.

>>49035415
Personally, I don't care much about arguments and ideologies in my entertainment. I want to see an interesting story. If I want to change my worldview, I'll read academia.

>Like the Hobbit adaptations.
Ha. Stopped watching the first Hobbit movie after Jar-Jar the Brown showed up on his bunny-sled.

>>49035453
>Uh, actually, the book is a critique of fascist military dictatorships.
Really? From what I remember at least, the government was always portrayed as being a good thing, despite being fascistic in nature.

>it's a true sci-fi, speculative fiction with a commentary on some contemporary issues, like most hard sci-fi tends to be.
Which is exactly why I hate this book and most sci-fi. Fuck social commentary! Why do I want to be reminded of real-world problems in my escapist fiction? Again, if I want to read something serious, I'll go to academia. I don't want that in my fucking entertainment. Also, I hate being talked down to like I'm an idiot. Yeah, I get that treating robots/clones/aliens like they're not people is basically racism all over again dickhead, stop assuming I'm too stupid to realize that on my own! Not talking to you there, just angry and venting. I mean, I have yet to see a single author say something actually unique and meaningful instead of the same shit.

>>49035488
It was the padding that did it for me, which I'm starting to realize is the lifeblood for most anime and manga. It just didn't interest me much. I can't remember how far I got before I quit the anime, because I can never remember the order of things. I remember some sort of trial in a forest, where that woman dressed like a streaker wearing fishnets shows up, some fighting tournament where some weirdo reveals that the thing he was carrying on his back was actually him and the person we thought was him was a robot, the guy with the huge sword and the sidekick who was a boy that looked like a girl, and that dumb exam where they were encouraged to cheat off each other.

>>49035453
>the book is a critique of fascist military dictatorships. It's a satire, not a celebration.
No, it's actually a straight up message about how great militarism is. Hell, 3/4 of the way through the book, the protagonist sits down to a lecture on a fictional history about why militarism makes for a great society.

>And they do fight the bugs, in the last third of the book
The first part of the book is the battle against the Skinnies, and there is a brief moment where they fight on Klendathu about a third of the way through the book. Those are the only real combat sections.

>hard sci-fi
You got FTL and psychics. It's about as hard as Asimov's psychohistory. Heinlein was less interested in presenting a technically possible future than writing a lecture.

>>49035631
Wow, totally forgot about FTL and psychics. Still can't remember them actually fighting the bugs though. Oh yeah, weren't all the women bald for some reason? Probably because they were psychics or something. I actually kinda wish I had the book on me to see if I can tell how far I actually got into it before I stopped reading.

>>49035618
>I mean, I have yet to see a single author say something actually unique and meaningful instead of the same shit.
Maybe try Isaac Asimov? He was never interested in social commentary so much as presenting ideas, as in "Here are the Three Laws of Robotics, and now I'll write every story about subverting and finding the loopholes in the Three Laws", or "Here's an interesting scientific take on future predicting, now I'll write every book about it to show off every possible way this predicting formula could screw up". His writing ain't made to be escapist though, so steer clear if you're looking for exciting adventures.

>>49035618
Everybody reads for different purposes, so it's only normal that different people can stand different styles, authors, and such. I'm a very selfish person. I worldbuild to create a world where character derivatives I've drawn from external sources and elements can coexist together, honestly it's not much better than an artificial multiverse zoo. But in order to find more interesting characters and elements, I'll read anything available.

If it makes you feel any better I only watched the highlight scenes of the Hobbit movie series. The action sequences are flashy at least.

Ironically when I started through Naruto I was keen on seeing how Kishimoto would handle character growth of a medium sized cast moreso than anything - but in the end it was really his use of mythological inserts that ended up being more interesting.

Honestly a vast majority of anime and manga, while escapist in nature, just isn't very good for people looking for "new and unique" experiences so to speak. The fine details tend to differ, but for a good chunk of readers they'll feel that the story on the whole always seems to remain the same. So unless there's that appreciation for all elements of the story to begin with, it's hard to read a manga or watch an anime without feeling that sense of "well this was done before here..."

>>49035696
>"Here are the Three Laws of Robotics, and now I'll write every story about subverting and finding the loopholes in the Three Laws
Asimov is great.

God I hate the so-called I, Robot movie. The writers must have thought they were so damn clever to find a way around the Three Laws when that exact scenario is addressed in one of the stories. If a robot, or even a super computer bound by the Three Laws, "realizes" that it must hurt humans in order to save humans, it will simply shut down and do nothing. Fuck that movie.

>>49035781
If we're talking about manga/anime, I'd like to suggest Hunter x Hunter. It's a great read if you're already familiar with the tropes of shonen manga since the author plays with them all the damn time. I'd provide examples, but they're all spoilers.
The author (who wrote YuYu Hakusho back in the day) really seems like he's just having fun with it.

>>49035618
>Really? From what I remember at least, the government was always portrayed as being a good thing
Yeah. Seen through the perspective of a genuine retard, though. There is a reason why the main protagonist is a moron.

>Why do I want to be reminded of real-world problems in my escapist fiction?
Pick up a book that is actual escapist fiction then. It's not the authors fault that you chose a book of an entirely different genre and intention than what you are looking for. And don't be so god damn insecure. You should appreciate when people are trying to enrich you, even if you don't agree with the message. Also, it seems to me that you did not figure out the book is being a satire, which means that you should not complain about authors "talking down to you".

>>49035631
>Hell, 3/4 of the way through the book, the protagonist sits down to a lecture on a fictional history about why militarism makes for a great society.
Actually, those lectures are there to speak about how human perception of history can be warped. This is like complaining that Zamyatin's "Us" is actually a glorification of extreme form of totalitarianism just because the main protagonist celebrates the system through-out it's majority. Again, do not forget that the main protagonist is an idiot - quite literal one.

>>49035877
I've blown through most of the shounen series from back in the day, and given Hiatus x Hiatus's track record it'll probably be another five years until it finishes. It wasn't bad, it's just plagued by author issues.

Mind you I'm following about three dozen or so mangas right now spread throughout a couple genres, but with the "big three" coming to a close, most of these are all relatively recent.

Personally I kind of wish I either got a free plane ticket back home to pick up Yotsuba&! in native Japanese, considering my friend working there isn't inclined on getting it for me haha. The more recent SoL entries are all slightly more comedy/romance oriented than just pure SoL.

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>>49035781
I'm kinda curious as to what you've built. And yeah, I'll make derivatives of outside sources, though I don't tend to do it very often, and it's usually not very long before they change quite a bit.

Maybe I'll find a video on YouTube for those scenes. I did read about some elf guy's face getting fucked up during an argument, before going back to normal again, which actually opened up fan discussion that sounded kinda interesting. I'll definitely want to incorporate it somewhere for one of my characters.

...Did the characters actually grow and change? I remember there were a shitload of characters, but so many of them didn't have much going for them besides one fight gimmick. There's the bug guy, the weapon girl, the shadow guy, etc.

Oh, yeah. That applies to a lot of fiction, which is why I have a hard time finding stuff to read. Pretty much everything I read I think would be considered weird by most people. Like... Dorohedoro, which I wouldn't even know how to describe to people.

>>49035854
I never did get that. Even if it didn't turn itself off, wouldn't such a smart AI be able to accurately predict that following through on its actions would ultimately just lead to more death than it tried to prevent anyway?

>>49035877
>Hunter x Hunter
Sounds interesting. I'll have to look it up.

>>49035879
Well, I think I've spotted the Heinlein fanboy.

>Yeah. Seen through the perspective of a genuine retard, though. There is a reason why the main protagonist is a moron.
You're only assuming this. Where is this given in the actual book?

Oh, no, fuck this. Not going to actually respond to your specific arguments now, don't want to waste too much more of my time on you. However, I will point out that it is the movie, not the book, that is a satire, because the makers of the movie didn't actually like what the book was saying.

>>49035879
>This is like complaining that Zamyatin's "Us" is actually a glorification of extreme form of totalitarianism just because the main protagonist celebrates the system through-out it's majority
The problem there is that Starship Troopers doesn't have ANYBODY oppose the system in any way, and the Federation has no internal problems whatsoever. Everybody celebrates it, corporal punishment somehow means that juvenile crime is nonexistent, it is simultaneously libertarian and democratic while the military is the de facto power, living standards are high, the only form of dissent is that the majority don't want to serve in the military...

Fuck, it's just a utopia novel. All the lecture, none of the argument.

>those lectures are there to speak about how human perception of history can be warped
It's kind of hard to talk about warped history when the history presented is utterly fictional. I don't remember no war between a Russo-Anglo-American alliance against communist Asia that ended with great concessions to them while the western nations started collapsing into the first Mad Max film.

inb4 ad hominem

>>49035985
>I never did get that. Even if it didn't turn itself off, wouldn't such a smart AI be able to accurately predict that following through on its actions would ultimately just lead to more death than it tried to prevent anyway?
Nope. The first law states that a robot cannot harm a human or allow a human to be harmed. This is completely non-negotiable. There is no greater or lesser good in this equation.

Imagine a train. On the track ahead of it are twenty people unable to move. On a connected track is a single person. There is an immobile robot next to a lever capable of shifting the train from hitting the twenty people and instead hit the one person.
This is a common question in philosophy (though obviously with a person instead of the robot).

The robot would shut down in a paradox. The first law states it cannot allow the 20 people to be hurt, but the law also states it cannot allow the one person to be hurt. The number of people is irrelevant. It cannot do either act, and so will shut down and "die."

As far as the first law is concerned, numbers are irrelevant.
If there were a bomb capable of destroying all humanity and the only way to deactivate it was to punch a single human, not even fatally, the robot would hit the same paradox and die.

>>49036105
>the only form of dissent is that the majority don't want to serve in the military...
You forgot to point out how this means that this means they don't even get to vote, yet are totally fine with living in a country that they have no say in how it runs. And, for some reason, there is no draft, despite it being greatly in the military's interest to have one, and being in total control of the government means they can establish one without trouble.

>>49035985
I've built an absolute mess of a universe that can be summed up as basically Lovecraft's Old Ones on a multiverse road trip while being pit in some variant of Xenosaga 3's convoluted endgame scenario. A large majority of my character derivatives are tossed as stopgap measures against happy reality eating monsters while Old Ones keep running.

But yeah Galadriel and Thranduil both have the face shift, it's more complete in Galadriel's case and both are for different reasons. It was a neat touch, one of the details I can appreciate.

As far as Naruto goes the characters did grow and change to some degree, the catch was that not everybody had sensible/logical/understandable changes. Others arguably matured as well as they could have given the circumstances. The plot devices used to instigate their change and "maturation" were pretty clunky at times, so in comparison the support cast who didn't utilize the plot devices had a relatively "smoother" change over process.

As the tone of the manga shifted over time, the characters introduced also shifted slightly, but again the minor cast was generally a bit more coherent than the main cast, especially the antagonists. Part of this is arguably because the support cast had less glaring flaws and less stuff forced onto them.

>>49036182
Nice. Yeah, from what I read, Asimov did a lot of work talking about the positives and negatives of his rules, only for all the later writers to completely overlook them entirely. I liked the one I read about and should probably eventually read about how they wanted to turn off the function in some robots that has them automatically help people, because the harm to the person was a very small amount of nonlethal radiation that instantly destroyed the robot, meaning they had to be constantly replaced. And they talk about how the loophole in that could technically have a robot kill someone.

>>49035985
>I never did get that. Even if it didn't turn itself off, wouldn't such a smart AI be able to accurately predict that following through on its actions would ultimately just lead to more death than it tried to prevent anyway?

Imagine a chess computer. It a.) cannot move pieces in a way that they don't allow for, and b.) cannot move the king where it would get taken.

Imagine this chess computer comes into a situation where he has only pawns with pieces right in front and a king that, were he to move, would get checkmated.

This is the equivalent of a 3laws-robot having to sacrifice someone for the good of many.

>>49035985
>Well, I think I've spotted the Heinlein fanboy.
Not really, no. Understanding an author and actually liking him are two separate things. I don't particularly enjoy Heinlein. But I guess screaming "fanboy" is the only way to rationalize the thought that somebody may question your understanding of an author, so what ever you need to think...

>You're only assuming this.
Based on the fact that the guy was an aggressively individualist, member of the hippie community for a while, and repeatedly proclaimed himself an anarchist, yeah.

>However, I will point out that it is the movie, not the book, that is a satire,
The movie is - first and foremost - absolute and pure trash. All it does is take everything that he book had, and present it in a dumber, louder, more exaggerated fashion. It's a satire for idiots, who need the point being hammered down their throats.

>>49036185
Different anon here, but the "totally fine with living in a country that they have no say in how it runs" thing is addressed in the book.
There is dissent. Many people aren't happy with the way things are run, but, according to the book, the people aggressive enough to be willing to actively change it are those who serve, and in service they realize that change would be bad.
The no draft thing only works (though this is not stated in the book, just my interpretation) because of the technology level. One Mobile Infantry Trooper is worth a a battalion of elite tanks thanks to their power armour, weapons, and training.
Oh, and again, the people who don't serve apparently don't have the balls to rebel.

Also, one of the biggest arguments in the book, whether it is a satire or not, is how bad the draft is. They don't have a draft because they don't WANT a draft. To paraphrase a line from the book, "If I'm going into combat I want the man next to me to be here willingly, and to know that I am here willingly."
There's also a bit explaining that a soldier can quite at any time before combat. If a soldier decides 3 seconds before a combat drop to quite, he is allowed to with no legal repercussions at all, save never being allowed to vote.

Oh, and I'm not arguing for or against any of this. I'm just reporting on what's in the book.

>>49036185
>And, for some reason, there is no draft, despite it being greatly in the military's interest to have one, and being in total control of the government means they can establish one without trouble
Am this guy >>49036105
That part actually makes sense though.

See, one of the founding tenets of the Federation is that in order to have the right to have a say in government, you have to earn it. You have to prove you can make it through hellish training and willingly put your life on the line for the greater many, show that you're above those who don't have the courage or bravery to fight for what they believe in. Mass conscription just gives the vote to a whole lot of unwilling people who will come back disgruntled, and actually have a say in how the government works to prevent future shit like this happening.

I'm not saying the rest of the Federation makes more sense, but at least this part is internally consistent.

>>49036216
Ah. Yeah, I did the multiverse thing too. I already have plans for characters to start traversing worlds. Heck, one setting's based on the idea that the existence of the multiverse is common knowledge and travel to and from other universes is relatively easy.

Wow, the minor characters turn out better than the main? What a total waste. I mean, that kinda says something about the writer, where the more you spend time with a character the worse they become. Though I've seen this a few times already in comics, where a character is written poorly by its creator, but much better when written by someone else.

>>49036257
>I'm not a fanboy, I just like defending him and insulting the people who can't realize his brilliance.
Further response isn't worth your time, I'll just mock you again. And I'm pretty sure I'm getting far more enjoyment out of this than you are.

>>49036223
Yes, one set of robots did have a variation of the First Law. They were working on a FTL drive, if I remember correctly, and since activating the machine caused a type of radiation capable of destroying the robots' brains.
Just having them evacuate the facility (which they did) would not work since the robots were able to determine the FTL facility could ~potentially~ hurt the humans who had to remain at the facility. The first law would then force them to stop the test or die trying.

So, their version of the first law was changed to:
A robot may not harm a human.

This caused big problems, as you said.

>>49036293
>>49036300
Eh, I'll give it that. Though I do want to point out this
>There is dissent. Many people aren't happy with the way things are run, but, according to the book, the people aggressive enough to be willing to actively change it are those who serve, and in service they realize that change would be bad.
Is a very good example of how Mary Sue-ish the book's society is. Also, forgive me for the mistake, it's been quite a while since I read the book, and I've forgotten quite a bit.

>>49036353
>Is a very good example of how Mary Sue-ish the book's society is
Indeed. It's like Star Trek, but on the opposite end of the "perfect society" spectrum.

>>49036309
>I'm not a fanboy, I just like defending him and insulting the people who can't realize his brilliance.
And there you go, projecting like a mad man again.
PLEASE point me to the specific post where I claimed he is "brilliant" again?

>Further response isn't worth your time, I'll just mock you again.
I realize. It's because you are a complete drooling idiot, mocking me for something I did not actually say, instead of, I don't know, addressing my actual points. The sad part is that apparently you are aware of how fucking retarded you are being right now, but it does not seem to stop you.

>>49036385
>PLEASE point me to the specific post where I claimed he is "brilliant" again?
point me to the specific post where he claims you did.

>>49036293
Well you get odd parallels under slightly different circumstances to reality. Vocal dissent tends to vary in terms of severity, and it doesn't necessarily always lead to violence per se. Viewed from different perspectives, the current situation in the Philippines, and to a very small extent the States, is a case where there is slight social unrest, but realistically the "action" is still handled by the government rather than the populace at large.

It might be interesting to mention that there are plenty of folks who would give up their rights if it meant a perceived notion of security. This is particularly the case in some places in Asia, we used to joke that the nation owned you anyways, so what's the difference between having rights and not having rights? If they wanted you to die, they'll find a way to kill you and make it look pretty.

>>49036309
It's a bit tougher in manga, especially shounen series, where pacing is regularly an issue. Too much action generally leaves little room for character development, too many flashbacks tend to get readers complaining, but if there's no action then other readers complain as well, so it's a bit of a catch 22 because if it's just a chain of action -> training -> action then the room for proper character development can be a bit tight.

This seems to be especially prominent for somebody like Kishimoto, who very evidently likes to use downtime/flashbacks for development. The few downtime scenes that he employs aren't bad at all, and neither are the flashbacks, but later on because there's a war he's forced to pull off chain flashbacks...and then they rushed him for an ending. It's like watching a person build a tower off of a mud foundation basically. Sasuke suffered a lot for this unfortunately.

In stories where the downtime moments are routinely expected, the author has a lot more freedom to slip in details organically, rather than having to force a flashback like in Naruto.

>>49036374
Oh god. I started watching TNG, holy shit the Star Trek universe is weird. Like, there's an episode where these people come out of cryostasis or whatever, and one of them wants to watch TV. Picard says something about how they got rid of TV (or was it all entertainment?) because they realized how useless it was and now people just spend their free time making themselves better or some shit. It sounded like a fucking nightmare!

>>49036385
>And there you go, projecting like a mad man again.
But I don't even own a projector!
>PLEASE point me to the specific post where I claimed he is "brilliant" again?
Uh, everywhere? Your fanboyism seems to be rendering you blind to this.

>I realize.
COULDA FOOLED ME!
>It's because you are a complete drooling idiot
But you don't even know what I look like, fanboy!
>mocking me for something I did not actually say
You said it in so many words, in-between sucking Heinlein's cock.
>instead of, I don't know, addressing my actual points.
Going by your attitude previously, I seriously doubt you would accept any argument against your points I could possibly provide.
>The sad part is that apparently you are aware of how fucking retarded you are being right now, but it does not seem to stop you.
I could say the same to you.

>>49036479
When I was putting words into his mouth, I had him talk about "[Heinlein's] brilliance."

>>49036520
>Oh god. I started watching TNG, holy shit the Star Trek universe is weird. Like, there's an episode where these people come out of cryostasis or whatever, and one of them wants to watch TV. Picard says something about how they got rid of TV (or was it all entertainment?) because they realized how useless it was and now people just spend their free time making themselves better or some shit. It sounded like a fucking nightmare!
Yeah, the first 3 seasons of TNG are pretty bad. Some good episodes, but also a lot of stupid and a lot of snobbery about how awful the 20th century was and how great an absolutely socialist society like Star Trek's would be, even though that society is fucking nonsensical.

I remember a map thread from a couple years ago where one guy explained all the process of creating a world starting from tectonic plates all the way to city placement based on natural resources. Does someone have the screen cap?

>>49036550
Yes. Keep hearing about how the later seasons are really good. Stopped watching a while ago, maybe I'll pick it up again? I fucking hate the holodeck though. The only episode I really remember that I thought was good was the one with the bugs or whatever that were controlling people. Must've been a Halloween episode or something. Very tense, but very well done.

>>49036550
Yeah, that was during Roddenberry's "hey, my buddy Hubbard created a religion, maybe I should try designing a utopia!" phase. Which ended when he died.
During his time controlling TNG the writers weren't allowed to write the characters having conflicts with each other because humanity, by this point, had put aside such things.

It's sad that he had to die for his (arguably) best show to get really good.

>>49036613
I heard that too. Oh! Having the families live with the crewmembers. Never made sense to me.
>OK honey, I'm going off on a voyage for 5 years exploring uncharted space. Could be incredibly dangerous. Want to abandon almost everything and everyone you know to come with?
Oh, and he wanted the Ferengi to be a legit threat, even though they're just goblins with whips that look like those noodles people play with in pools.

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>>49036613
>During his time controlling TNG the writers weren't allowed to write the characters having conflicts with each other because humanity, by this point, had put aside such things.

>>49036653
Yes. Really.

>>49036479
>point me to the specific post where he claims you did.
The very same one you quoted, actually.
Please read:
>>49036385
>>49036385
>I'm not a fanboy, I just like defending him and insulting the people who can't realize his brilliance.
>I just like to insulting people who can't realize his brilliance.

>Uh, everywhere? Your fanboyism seems to be rendering you blind to this.
Stating his work is a satire does not mean claiming it's a brilliant one. In fact it does not in any way comment on the quality of the book to begin with. It merely states the INTENTION with the book was written and the message of it's story.

>Your fanboyism seems to be rendering you blind to this.
You don't even begin to realize the fucking irony in this statement.
I never actually stated even that the book is good. Not once in this entire thread. All of it, all of your "fanboy" accusations are a projection of your insecurity - an aggressive delusion that you need to create to somehow deal with the notion that somebody may have criticized your understanding of the book. Because in your view, anybody who criticizes you MUST be driven by some irrational motivation, such as fanboyism. No other possible explanation of somebody telling you that you might be wrong about something can be concieved.

And yet somehow, you have the INSANE audacity to call others blind.

>I seriously doubt you would accept any argument against your points I could possibly provide.
How many excuses for not actually acting like a human being will you pile up? Yes, whatever protects you from having to actually FACE THE ARGUMENT of your opponent.

You have done absolutely nothing but claim that I must love the guy. Newsflash, you fucking idiot:
I DON'T LIKE HEINLEIN. I know this is that it is literally impossible for you to comprehend without your entire ego falling apart like a house of cards but I DON'T LIKE THE GUY. Ironically enough mostly because I'm a conservative.

>>49036713
>>I'm not a fanboy, I just like defending him and insulting the people who can't realize his brilliance.
>>I just like to insulting people who can't realize his brilliance.

That claim is made as explicitly as you finding Heinlein brilliant - that is to say it's easily decernable from the wording but not outright stated.

>>49036737
>That claim is made as explicitly as you finding Heinlein brilliant
Again: POINT ME TO THE PARTICULAR POST AND LINE WHERE I STATED ANYTHING ABOUT HEINLEIN BEING BRILLIANT. OR EVEN FUCKING GOOD.

Again: and this is sad because I've already stated this explicitly three or four times: Telling you (or that other drooling mongoloid) that you misunderstood the book is not the same as saying that it's good.

I don't know how could I actually be more explicit about personally not liking Heinlein, really.

>>49036713
Wrong link, BTW.

>Stating his work is a satire does not mean claiming it's a brilliant one.
Yeah, but saying it is satire doesn't actually make it satire either.
>It merely states the INTENTION with the book was written and the message of it's story.
Except you're the only person who thinks the book was written as a satire.

>You don't even begin to blah, blah, blah
Christ, did you come from Tumblr? Seriously, why does it seem to be that the default response with people over there is to write as much as possible?

Oh jesus, then you try to psychoanalyze me. Seriously, did you come from Tumblr? I'm like 70% certain you did.

>And yet somehow, you have the INSANE audacity to call others blind.
I'm pretty sure I made it clear that I'm just trolling you for luls at this point. I mean, don't get me wrong, the salt from your tears is delicious, but I'm gonna feel kinda bad if you actually break a blood vessel over this.

>How many excuses for not actually acting like a human being will you pile up?
Again, trolling. Are you new to the internet or something? If so, here's a summary: People do what they want to do, and a lot of people are dicks. But yeah, I'm still pretty certain that your dead-set on your view of Heinlein and would ever refuse to budge. You've probably had an argument over Starship Troopers like this at least once before, I'm sure.

>>49036806
>Again: POINT ME TO THE PARTICULAR POST AND LINE WHERE I STATED ANYTHING ABOUT HEINLEIN BEING BRILLIANT. OR EVEN FUCKING GOOD.
Jesus, calm the fuck down. OK, so let's say I take back evertyhing I said, just like that. You'd still be stuck trying to prove that ST is a satire. Oh, and I love how you keep thinking other people are me.

But seriously, I think you should take a break from the computer for a bit and relax. Just remember that not everything has to be serious. And I'm going to take back everything I said and not respond anymore, OK?

>>49036869
>Yeah, but saying it is satire doesn't actually make it satire either.
It being written by an author who explicitly stated his actual political views are directly opposite, and having many aspects that quite clearly depict the model as actually negative does.

>Except you're the only person who thinks the book was written as a satire.
Most literally critics, including Knight, Walton, and the whole committee that awarded it the Hugo thought so.

>Seriously, why does it seem to be that the default response with people over there is to write as much as possible?
Another set of completely unrelated ramblings, accusations and bullshit that you use as an excuse to not actually address anything that I'm saying. Yes. First I HAVE to be a fanboy, now I have to be from Tumblr (despite allegedly liking a book that according to you celebrates fascism, this is really getting rather hillarious...).

>then you try to psychoanalyze me.
You act like an idiot. I point out how and why. Again, it's absolutely BAFFLING how deeply you are unable to deal with ANY criticism leveled at you.
Don't act like an insecure cretin if you don't want people pointing out to you that you are an insecure cretin.

>I'm pretty sure I made it clear that I'm just trolling you for luls at this point.
Third level of excuses you pathetic piece of shit. You literally cannot even fucking stand behind what you yourself are saying.

>People do what they want to do, and a lot of people are dicks.
And some are barely people. You are one of them. You are actually OK with that? Proud, even?

>>49028230
Its better that way than with all the giant question blocks, really. way more discussion and people who ask questions regarding problems with their specific settings get almost always an answer, although it might take a while.

The threads before were faster but not really better in terms of quality since it was a lot of textwalls answering to generic question blocks. I consider myself guilty of that as well, its really helpful but it doesnt contribute to the thread really. maybe we should make a giant list with these questions and upload them somewhere as a pdf

>>49037357
except for that utterly retarded and off-topic discussion right above me of course

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Humor me for a second, /wbg/.
I've been playing around with an experiment in sorta minimalist wordbuilding, inspired by the Souls games' item and class descriptions. I'm preparing to run a Ravenloft game for my group, so they'll be cut off from the outside world for the duration of the adventure but will be *from* the outside world, meaning there's no point in developing a world I won't end up using most of in great detail, but character hooks to set up the mood of the game are still a thing I want. Hence, I tried going with a short blurb for each common race and each (5e) PHB class, with an eye towards giving each one an identity that meshes well with the gothic fantasy vibe.

http://pastebin.com/VmqAb9Lf

Tell me what you think of the concept or the content, anon. Or don't, I'm not a cop.

>>49038470
The problem I have with this is that it's all so generic and so basic that it feels like it does not even have to be told. Everybody know has even fleeting experience with fantasy knows all this stuff. Perhaps with the exception of the mention the half-lings being allegedly "men who got cut in half", which still feels a bit out-of-place (everyone pretty much knows halflings are called halfling because they are roughly half of a adult human size...)
>with an eye towards giving each one an identity that meshes well with the gothic fantasy vibe.
I'm not getting that. I'm getting a completely perfectly standard Dn'D vibe.
This might be an inherent thing to the fact that it IS a Dn'D game. I can't fault you for that. But I'm really not getting any (even minimalistic) actual original world-building ideas.

Sadly, I can't offer more constructive help, because to be honest, I'd personally not know how to make anything unique if I'd confine myself with the Dn'D setup, ruleset and universe. I think you would really need to abandon the Dn'D races and sensibilities, and I'm not sure if that is something you are even looking for...

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What do you folks think of the map I've been working on? This is planned to be a quarter of the hexmap the players start with.

The campaign idea is "gonzo 1600's america" with all kinds of monsters in the forest, plantation dictators, pirates, religious fundamentalists, an invasion from another dimension going on in not!europe and a native tribe who may or may not be a lost tribe of Israel.
This part of the coast is a fairly normal low fantasy part of the setting since the idea is that the deeper the players go into unexplored wilderness, the more dangerous and bizarre things become.

>>49038916
the map looks pretty good, but im somewhat disturbed by the branching of the river deltas. just doesnt look right with all the splits, links etc.

I absolutely dig the idea of the setting. At least as far as im aware its a pretty unused period.
Any books or games you took as inspiration?

>>49038916
Your rivers branch more frequently than they join. You have one that somehow ends up feeding three entirely different gulfs.
Also, what is the story behind the "Barrier islands" because they don't look like a natural product.

>>49036977
Yeah, gonna respond.

What you said doesn't prove anything. What you've said is that many people say it's satire. Well, many people say God exists, but that doesn't make it true. Also, have you considered that sometimes people lie? If the book got a Hugo (which is fucking mind-blowing) because it was thought to be a satire, Heinlein would've been in a situation where it was very advantageous for him to say it is a satire, regardless of the truth. Just look at All-Star Batman, the author of that steaming pile has been trying to pass it of as satire for a while. It's even a trope, Satire All Along or something.

Is it really accusations and bullshit if it's true? Your responses are rather large. And I wasn't stating it for certain, jyst that it was likely. Also, I admitted I was trolling you for fun, let tge fanboy thing go, OK?

Yeah, I was acting like an idiot to get a rise out of you. That's trolling 101. None of your analyses are accurate because you are analyzing a facade.

I'm standing behind my trolling. Yeah, I was talking shit purely to annoy you, but I'm not now. Happy?

Look, man, we may disagree, we may even hate each other, but we're still people, all of us. Treating people like they're not actually people just leads to bad shit.

>>49039101
they can form naturally in some places, for example they could be shoals that grew so large that vegetation could settle and solidify the island

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrier_island#Formation_Theories

>>49039194
>Well, many people say God exists, but that doesn't make it true.
That is probably one of the dumbest fucking analogies I've ever seen on this board, ever. The question of existence of God is actually a question of DEFINING EXISTENCE itself.
Meanwhile, we are arguing about most reasonable literally interpretations. To say that is a slightly different matter, don't you fucking thing?

Your assumption is based on the notion that multiple people INTENTIONALLY LIE about an interpretation of the book. For some reason. Never-mind that context hints that the interpretation is right: NOTORIOUSLY freedom-of-individual-obsessed, self-proclaimed anarchist wrote a book IN BETWEEN HIS ANALYSIS OF FUTURE OF THE HIPPIE MOVEMENT THAT HE WAS PART OF suddenly an ultra-conservative book about a moron lacking critical thought being part of a military-driven fascist regime that EVEN CONTAINS REFERENCES TO DISTOPIAN NOVELS SUCH AS 1984.
But sure, it was sincere. And all the other critics that read it, and concluded it's a satire, and even awared it for being a satire were LYING. Not wrong, even. LYING. For some god-damn reason.

Do you even fucking listen to yourself? You will rather accuse multiple established criticis and even literally institution of conspiring and lying than admiting that maybe, you were wrong about understanding of the book?

And then claim it's the same matter as the question whenever God exists?
Who the fuck taught you people to argue?

>I'm standing behind my trolling.
I know you do. Because that makes you feel less guilty of acting in a manner no human being ever should. It's incredibly conveinent for you: you don't have to feel responsible for acting like a moron.
But it does not actually abstain you of any responsibility. It makes it just all worse because now you are being a cunt and a coward WILLINGLY AND INTENTIONALLY.
So if you still want to consider yourself a human, this is not the right way to go. Fix yourself.

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>>49039033
As far as books or games, not a whole lot. I've been mainly trying to get ideas from movies and google surfing history stuff. For example, a lot of the ideas I have about some of the hill natives comes from De Sotos interactions with the Mississippian civilization. One movie I liked as well was The Witch to get a loose idea of that time period in new england. I'm cobbling together things from a few other time periods and cultures as well. Things like one of the colonies I haven't mapped being loosely inspired by early virginia but it's really more a mix of reactionary nobility trying to re-establish feudalism and the plantation south.
Another inspiration for pirates has been Nassau.
The general process I've been doing is researching things in the time period and then amping certain things up to 11 and not worrying about being 1=1 historical.
>>49039101
With the branching, I was using research of the carolinas and mid-atlantic coast. The north one splits too much but the intense splitting and joining at the coast is typical of the lower-mid atlantics, especially near the great atlantic intracoastal waterway.
The barrier islands are a typical feature of the atlantic coast. These are closer to the coast like the ones in georgia or the carolinas are. These have a fairly smooth front because that's how they are on maps, for example the northern part of North Carolina has islands like that in front of a great bay.

>>49039376
Fuck though, that north river splits too much. I did it in ink so I can't really go back on it. Maybe if I add another feeder river to it, it'll look a little more natural?

>>49039326
>>49039326
No, the analogy holds. Your argument is one of popularity. You are saying something is true when many people say it is, then I gave you a counterexample.

No, I wasn't saying anyone was perhaos lying save for Heinlein, and I was just positing a theory, an idea. Honestly, this is why I was trolling you instead of arguing with you. I know fuckall about Heinlein, so I can't really construct an argument that actually involves knowing Heinlein's work, including the one work we're discussing.

Dude, stop. I was simply bringing up the idea that Heinlein could have lied. Can you not even entertain an idea without accepting it?

They are both arguments from popularity. It doesn't have to be God. I could also make an analogy between what you said and that people in the past believed that the Earth is flat.

No human being ever should...? What, is trolling now an immoral act or something? Yeah, I was acting like a moron. I'm not now though.

OK, your last thing really pissed me off. Look, even dickheads are still people. You're just mad that I was a dickhead to you. But dehumanizing me for that is absurd. A person mocking and trolling people is still a fucking person.

>>49040022
>No, the analogy holds. Your argument is one of popularity.
No, it really, really isn't. In neither cases, actually. Jesus fucking Christ you really are a moron. How the FUCK is God's existence a matter of popularity? And how is the assumption of most likely explicatory theory behind authorial intent about popularity?
I'm not saying that it's because many people say it is, I'm saying that the PEOPLE MOST QUALIFIED TO JUDGE IT, IN CONJUNCTION OF FACTUAL BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR, IN CONJUNCTION WITH TEXTUAL EVIDENCE IN THE MOTHERFUCKING TEXT ITSELF ALL TOGETHER point towards it being a fucking satire.

>No, I wasn't saying anyone was perhaos lying save for Heinlein, and I was just positing a theory, an idea.
Completely, absolutely fucking retarded idea that says nothing of value and speaks nothing of the subject matter itself you idiot.
Heinlein claiming that it's satire (which he never actually did, by the way, he neither confirmed it nor rejected it, though he did basically call everyone who took it at face value a complete idiot) being him intentionally lying is an absurd, deluded stretch that actually proves nothing in your favor except once again, that you literally can't argue your point for absolute shit.

>What, is trolling now an immoral act or something?
Acting consciously and willingly in a matter that would be ground for immediate severe beatings for the sole purpose of being a nuissance to other people? IMMORAL?! HOW COULD ANYONE EVER THINK THAT?!
Being a troll is one of the most pathetic and shitty things one can ever become. And if you are not acting like a moron now, then you are being one still. Though, this is the real problem with trolls: all trolls are exactly what they pretend to be when they are "trolling". Trolling is just an excuse they make to abstain themselves of guilt. And I don't see a reason why people who willingly abstain themselves of any dignity to be regarded as equals to those who do.

>>49040141
>In neither cases
Try in neither case. Or since you've already expressed negativity, in either case. The s is completely unnecessary.

Now both of you, Stop, ciese, desist, alto, etc, and let us get back to world building

given a normal medieval setting: how close can two countries be without having direct relations to each other (traders from each country will not travel to the other, no diplomatic contacts, the average joe might not know the other country exists besides a mass of myths and dubious fairy-tale-like reports from single travellers)?

what could be done to shorten that distance? I read the Sassanid Empire basically fucked over the complete Roman-Indian trade by just closing of its borders.

>>49042619
Natural geography can put two countries relatively close to one another but still make communication and trade too difficult to facilitate. It's difficult to place a kilometer range however, especially when you consider that normal medieval itself has a wide range of technology available in addition to a wide range of social developments (literacy, social classes, resources affecting development and such).

What does it take to have a large, organized country? My main continent is around the size of North America, and only has 7 formal nations. Technology level is early-Victorian.

>>49043819
Depends on what your criteria for such a country. Large and organized are vague terms that can be satisfied just be comparing one country against another. The tech only helps a little a this point, because sure, you have early-Victorian tech, but are your social systems at Victorian level? If so, are you considering large and organized in terms of Victorian societies like Britain and France?

If we looked at it in a simplified fashion, in order to form a country, you need a sustainable population, which means you need to address their needs for shelter, sustenance, and security. But before that you'd need to have a means of communication so that accord can be established, whether internally or externally, to secure those three factors. Generally if every nation has early-Victorian tech most people would presume that you've satisfied the conditions for those three key elements. You'd then need to drill down into specifics, like governance methodology, the official stance of the nation, the leaders' ideologies, growth rates, lifestyle quality, and so forth. Without an accurate picture it's tough to say what exactly each nation needs in order to meet your requirements of a "large, organized" country.

If we're considering humans, generally establishing some form of value based economy is a necessity. Presumably you have that, if you're at early-Victorian tech, but whether you have it enough to begin social stratification is unknown to us at this point. Class division is a very effective form of population control, and wealth manipulation is also very effective at ensuring that people fall in line with the nation out of greed or necessity, which in turn creates the necessary workforce. Population control isn't a necessity at first, but depending on geological/meteorological, economical, and political situations it can easily become a priority.

>>49043819
To have large country, you need either fast communication/transportation, or a decentralized power structure akin to feudalism.

Not a single reply on my thread so screw it, I'll ask here. Need some godly advice/inspiration.

Running 5e. Relatively low magic setting in the region the party starts at. I plan to kick it up a notch once they get a bit closer to the more magic oriented nations.
Should also be noted that while all the core races are represented, they do not entirely trust one another and therefore don't mingle much beyond the in the larger cities. Most communities will be at least 90% the ruling race for that region. Religions would serve to further distinguish culture from one population to the next, with each of the races having one True Faith held above all others, and maybe one or two accepted/tolerated minor faiths.

So I have a general framework for the social and political landscape, built on racial bias and religious preference...

I have this idea of using the deities individual agendas to advance the plot and keep the world developing in the background while the PCs are exploring and getting their Quest on.
As power shifts and tensions rise between the different races, the PCs take notice that someone or something is purposely trying to start an all out war. They set out looking for a cliche bad guy and end up face to face with a God. Perhaps several of them.

tl;dr?
Gimmie some Gods.
Tips on using Gods in my setting?
Critique welcome and appreciated.

I would really like to see:
>In depth books/guides on deities in popular DnD settings, as well as from other systems that make use of nifty gods and goddesses.
>Clever ideas for subtle ways that they meddle in mortal affairs

>>49044549
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_religion
Good trope-ish resource for creating your own pantheon. PIE religions often have meddling deities that sleep around and mess with mortals.

While brainstorming for settings months in the making, my train of thought went like usual, towards a complete unrelated topic.

This time towards a seafaring setting, with one civilisation being mongols who ride horse, pegasi, unicorn, thestrals and since it´s the sea... kelpies to wage war and conquer their neighboring islands.

Is that salvageable or stupid?

>>49045071
Look, if you're asking whether you should invest time into it, then you need to know beforehand what you expect out of the investment.

If you're trying to make something commercially viable, then you need to know if your target audience is receptive to the idea, which probably isn't /wbg/ unless you want to market it to us and have us buy into it.

An idea that's salvageable to one person is stupid to another. Some people would think that the notion of merging Mongols and Oceans is ridiculous, others might see it as being possibly interesting as a thought experiment. The important thing is whether you're motivated enough to go through with the idea, not whether other people think it's cool. It might have mattered if you were constantly posting updates on this world trying to get people behind the idea until you have a final product, but that doesn't happen on this general.

If you're just trying to make something that you enjoy, then you should be asking yourself the question and not the general. We shouldn't be here to tell you that your preferences are bad or not. Your preferences are yours, for better or for worse.

>>49045176
That´s understandable... I think it over by myself then. Anyway, thanks for the answer, anon.

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i am very bad at this map making thing

please point out things bad or good about it

>>49045529
It's literally a "map" with lines and patches of black on it. Is black the land? or is black the ocean? Are there supposed to be landmarks? Was this just randomly generated?

I'm working on a kind of space opera/high fantasy setting and I can't figure out what the insectoid hivemind race would want. Like, I really want them to not be trying to assimilate all the other races, but I can't think of what else they would be doing. Like, I have them at war with themselves on their planet because there isn't an overarching mind between hives, and a philosophy of near pacifism towards sapient minds (because they're so rare amongst themselves) but how and why are they interacting with other races? I really like the idea of a humanoid shaped autonomous form as a diplomat but I can't figure out why.

Any suggestions?

>>49045614
i dont know

i should probably give this up, not really good at this to begin with

the black is the land, im just very slow and lack the knowledge to make something aesthetically pleasing

>>48995602
Naruto got bogged down by the usual shonen pitfalls but before that happened it boasted an array of vibrant, well-realised characters. Not astoundingly deep individually, but numerous and thematically novel, creating a sense of depth such that a custom character could fit easily, given the overall aesthetic was adhered to. Much like being a mutant is to X-men comics, the narrative device of players potentially having a clan-based super power makes for more visceral combat as players are able to dictate that instead of casting a generic bolt of mana, they're shooting bees. All while retaining the essential combat skillset of a martial artist so they're not tied to that one thing. Short answer: convenient flavour.

>>49045640
Most species are concerned with survival. Even species that may be immortal may still be concerned with survival. Do you need them to be interacting with other races? Have they reached the point in which interaction is a necessity and not simply a choice? Are they so detached from the war as a whole that they can afford to branch out?

You've only told us that they have a fractured hivemind, there are other species, and they're at war. It isn't much to go on, but there's still plenty of other things they could be doing, technological trade, social improvements and adaptations, general knowledge expansion, and other stuff. Without knowing what this race is like, can't pin down any specifics.

>>49045660
Look at other maps and copy things from them that you think work. If you're trying to improve, you can't unless you actively try over and over again. It's no different from writing, you start off writing shit, and you keep writing and reading until you're less shit.

I just found this and thought it's nice so maybe you'll have some use for it:
>a good looking random map generator
http://mewo2.com/notes/terrain/

>>49045071
I have the same habit of finding inspiration in one form while working on something completely unrelated.

I am somewhat impressed with that idea, tho the horses and pegusi don't fit the theme of the image that pops into my mind quite as well as an aquatic mount of some kind. Perhaps a variation of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parexocoetus
The Mongolian horde... with flying mounts...
>Lets see the Chinese figure this one out.

>>49046482
They'll bring in Matt Damon, he's going to China to solve their dragon problem.

Of all our energy was supplied by nuclear power plants, and we decided to just launch all the resultant radioactive byproduct into orbit, would there be any long term repercussions?

My heart wants to believe that putting fuckloads of radioactive material in orbit would do something, but my brain is skeptical.

>>49046648
It varies based upon the size, quantity, and manner in which the debris is being placed into orbit. Issues with space debris already exist, with the majority of them not being radioactive. You won't have enough debris however to permanently destabilize the planet or something drastic. It's not unheard of for debris to actually make it back through the atmosphere, the odds being higher if the debris is a sufficient size. Whether it's in LEO or GEO generally doesn't make too much of a difference as far as impact damages are concerned, but this also depends on satellite orientations.

>>49045529
>>49045660

Its honestly not that bad imo.
Creating a map is usually the easiest part for me. the one thing that irks me is usually laying out convincing rivers so I would like to thank >>49026927
>>49026649
This kind Anon for the solid reference material.
even if it looks like crap to you now just go ahead and tough it out. once the main bulk of landmass is finished try and lay in some realistic mountain ranges in there, and slowly start fleshing out smaller details.

>>49045071
Seahorse mongols is something I've promised myself I'll go through with. Stay strong brother.

>>49046648

If it fell out of orbit, and wasn't properly sealed, and scattered across a wide area...it wouldn't be a huge deal. It would be much too dilute to have a big effect. I guess if it stayed in one big clump and impacted somewhere it would be a place you wouldn't want to go, like Chernobyl, but thats about it.

If it stayed in orbit, it wouldn't do anything. The Sun is constantly shitting radiation at us in much much higher quantities than any amount of radioactive waste we could produce.

>>49047090
>If it fell out of orbit, and wasn't properly sealed, and scattered across a wide area...it wouldn't be a huge deal.
I'm not going to claim to be a nuclear physicist but my gut tells me this is actually a huge deal.

>>49047302

I am going to claim to be a nuclear physicist and I can say that, when it comes to radioactive waste, dilution is the solution. Obviously, that's not literally the best thing to do, but that's the principle nuclear powered naval vessels operate under (they literally discharge waste overboard with no worry, unless within 12 miles of shore). If you have x mass of waste with y activity scattered over z thousands of square kilometers, it's pretty difficult to get any activity that's worryingly high. The problem with radiation and radioactive waste is that it's all piled in one place and that will kill you.

That said, the average person considers any activity worryingly high, even though quite literally the sun and the soil are spewing radiation at you all day every day. I just have a much lower fear of radiation than regular people.

And, mind you, I'm not saying it wouldn't do anything, but I figure you'd have a slightly higher chance of cancer in an area probably the size of Siberia, with probably a lot of it in the ocean.

Anybody have tips for coming up with naming conventions? I've got a world and story that are pretty fleshed out, but I have trouble coming up with names for all the places, people, and organizations

>>49047302
Depending on the spread and size of particulate, could be anything from no effect to having a lot of effect.

With very large spread, and very small particulate size, effect would be negligible.

>>49047584
If you're using a real world analogue society, then borrow naming conventions from the related cultures in reality.

If you're trying to make up "unique" naming conventions, decide what kind of style you're looking towards, and find applicable sources to derive from if you can't think of anything. Fantasy maps, sci fi maps, dossiers, and so forth.

If you're trying to make up something fantastically unique for whatever reason, go study up on how nomenclature has evolved, how it tends to occur, consider conlanging if you're into that sort of thing, and apply that.

Without knowing what your trouble with coming up with names is or what your world is like, can't really give you much more advice than that.

>>49047751
My PC's are getting sent from a fairly generic DnD fantasy setting to a weird, old, forgotten plane.
I want the names to be totally new to them and not recognizable as an old fantasy trope. I'm trying to use the names to make everything feel completely foreign to them.

>>49047932
If you're deliberately trying to emphasize age in a way that an English speaking audience can identify, then look up naming roots back into Old English, and manipulate that accordingly. Be prepared to do your homework first if you mind it looking ridiculous.

If you're trying to put forth something alien to fantasy, consider pulling names from a different genre, or use prefixes/suffixes accordingly to twist names around.

If you don't care about whether the audience can immediately pick up the nomenclature style, consider using nomenclature from a different language altogether. You can stick with Romance languages if you're unfamiliar and Latin is a go to for some people. Uralic languages are a little bit more distant from Germanic languages but aren't a bad choice altogether.

I can appreciate you trying to clarify details, but keep in mind that what "generic D&D" is still encompasses a relatively large variety of nomenclature styles. Dragons have different naming conventions to humans, elves to humans, and so forth.

>>49048062
Old English is a good idea. The place is basically the original material plane that the gods fucked up and abandoned. Now it's a shitty afterlife for people who don't worship any particular god. Now that I think about it, having it be vaguely familiar probably would be better than being totally alien.

>>49045660

Stop being defeatist. The only problems you've got are:

-The large long spans of coastline that are perfectly flat, and that is I am fairly sure just an area you haven't worked on yet.

-Follow the river tutorial the anon posted.

-Remove those spaghetti thin connections between your center to SE island chain. I would also move the SEmost islands (the one that looks narrow and like a benis :DDDD ejaculating if you really concentrate and see benises o fug :DDD everywhere). With the closest to the coast island and the one to the SE of it you can imagine them being parts of the land that have had rising waters remove or inhibit the connection.

-Maybe fatten up by a tiny bit (like x2 or x3 or x5 at the most) the little tiny sliver of land connecting that center island with the big fat island to the south of it. Have it basically be a crimea. Same deal with the tiny spit of land connecting that center island to the mainland. It could work a'la Corinth ithmus but it feels too tiny to me. Just enlarged a little bit like that tiny spit x5 would work.

-For rivers follow the guide and just paste them onto your map.

File: Enter the Gungeon.jpg (141KB, 600x999px) Image search: [Google]

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Has there been a setting that's done magitek guns well? I'm asking partially because I started thinking about Enter the Gungeon and how it was centered around guns but combined sci-fi and fantasy at the same time, and I've been intrigued for quite some time by the idea of basically a Wild West version of Bleach which I saw a thread of on /tg/ quite some time ago. I've just never been able to see in my head how the initial premise would expand into a well-developed world.

>>49050709
I put together some rules for magic guns in my setting. They require "energy cartridges" and have ammo. Inherent variety of magitech in-setting allows for gatling guns, bolters, and all manner of sci-fi weapons to be created.

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>>49050847
So this is a 40k style far future + magic sort of setting?

>They require "energy cartridges" and have ammo.
How does this work?

>>49050940
The cartridges are a separate magic item enchanted to store mana. Said mana is used to "fire" a spell out of the gun.
It's an early-Victorian era setting, but the God of Magic Craft is about to trigger a magitech Renaissance.

>>49051097
Wait, so they have two fire modes? Firing bullets and firing spells? Or is this like Elder Scrolls where the cartridge gives the bullets special effects? ...Now that I think about it, I'd actually like to see a magical enchantment on a gun that makes its bullets on fire or whatever use that gun to club someone, and that person gets set on fire.

>>49051155
Nope, no bullets. Closest analogue is a Blaster from Star Wars.
The mana in a cartridge fuels an emitted spell, usually in the form of a ray or arrow, which is "fired" by another mechanism. They're basically crossbows that use mana instead of bolts.

>>49051316
Should also mention, these magic rifles aren't nearly as cheap or easily available as firearms are in our world.
These are the kind of thing that would cost ~$80,000 in the gold crafting component alone.

>>49054208
So, what kind of people use them?

So I need some help at figuring out a kind of weapon for the space cops in my space opera setting.

Background:
>In the setting, close quarters weapons are used against foes in clothing that incorporates deflection fiber, which protects against directed energy weapons when exposed to an electric current. In particular, the space cops, the Sternwach, are extensively trained in melee combat to deal with well equipped pirates in the close quarters of starship corridors.

I want these guys to have a signature weapon, so that anyone who sees someone carrying it will think "oh snap it's the fuzz!" I'm currently oscillating between two ideas.

>Idea 1: Neo-Daishō
This invokes the idea that the Sternwach see themselves as kind of a samurai-class, as honor bound warriors in service of a greater cause. Of course many use this as basically an excuse to inflict cruelty, but it allows for the organization to be depicted either heroically or villanously depending on the player group. In this idea, Sternwach officers carry a matched set of weapons. One is a monomolecular edged long sword, and the other is basically a tonfa, used for protection and as a non-lethal deterrent. It's a common stance for a Sternwach officer to hold his sword in one hand and use the tonfa in the other for defense. I feel like this idea is thematically strong, but I'm a little hesitant to venture into "mah hanzo steel" territory, hence idea 2:

>Idea 2: Blitzhammer
This is basically the above idea, combined into one weapon. The Blitzhammer is a heavy baton that doubles as the sheath for a flexile saber-- a kind of adjustable length sword that can be shortened for fighting in very tight conditions. I like the technological sophistication of this, but for some reason it doesn't really grab me as much as the Neo-Daishō idea on a purely aesthetic level. Perhaps I truly am what I fear most...

>>49055934
Kindergartners

>>49056200
All these sharp pointy lethal swordy bits. Are these cops or of the mother fucking swat?

>>49056237
The idea is that it's mainly higher ranked officers and specialists who are more trained in these weapons. So basically either carrying them for prestige purposes or, yes, as the space equivalent of a SWAT force, sent in when lethal force is 100% certain.

Obviously in this setting strict realism gives ground to what is coolest to play.

>>49056200
>Perhaps I truly am what I fear most...
What, complete weeb trash?

>>49056283
You're trying to make the weapons that the elites use emblematic of the entire organization? Nobody hears "cop" and thinks "SWAT".

>>49056283
Oh ok carry on. Of the two examples pick the weeb or the not weeb one on personal preference, or include both so someone can play the transfer from another precinct.

Setting question, if expando swords are a thing. Are expando spears a thing? And why aren't the cops using god's greatest gift to spacemankind? I mean think about it electro expando spear. You have an electro staff for beating minorities with, and you can pop the point out if said minority is on space crack.

Hell a reach weapon with the ability to expand is in and of itself a glorious gift to martial arts bullshit extending lunges, letting you jump or climb easier. Really the electro spear is a multi tool beyond measure.

>>49056334
Extendo spears are most definitely a thing. There's an entire school of combat training called The Meteor Lance that is all about spear use, concocted by an alien civilization that never really figured out swords or bows and arrows in their antiquity and so got ridiculously good at making and using spears (they're also four-legged, which they believe gives the advantage of better leverage for spear strikes).

The Sternwach, I think, prefer to use their swords (whichever idea they end up going at) partly out of arrogance and partly out of a belief that running someone through with a spear, which perhaps the more effective route, is ultimately less effective at suppressing hostile forces than cleaving off limbs and heads. They're a militant bunch, especially when dealing with extremely well armed criminal elements on the outskirts of civilized space; their claim is that their power is tempered by their strict terms of engagement, but how well they stick to that is flexible based on the GM and group. They could indeed be the sole sources of peace and what passes for justice in chaotic volumes of space; on the other hand it's entirely within the scope of the game for the Players to BE pirates, in which case the Sternwach would be enemies.

>>49056457
These guys sound a lot more like space gangsters than space cops. If you just described what they did without implying or outright stating that they are cops, I would automatically assume that they were the bad guys by default.

>>49056509
Nah sounds a lot like cops. And that isn't even biting social commentary right there, you're just not thinking in the right mindset. These are outworld cops that's more 3rd world than Bolivia like way more.

What did you think japan becomes the base culture in space? Bah they have an insular culture and a language whose only reason to be learned by outsiders is for reading porn. Clearly this anan is focusing on the backwater hellhole of the universe where the japanese fled to go hate space china, but not in front of space china's face.

File: Map.jpg (6MB, 4000x3024px) Image search: [Google]

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For a homebrew D&D 3.5 campaign I'm running soon

Rate pls

File: Political Map.jpg (7MB, 4000x3024px) Image search: [Google]

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>>49056893
Political map

>>49056893
>>49056907

Yo ass need to add a white drop shadow behind and or around those letters, fucking expecting me to read black on non-contrasting colors. That atlus is straining my eyes you cunt.

>>49056907
>>49056893
All these lines are driving me crazy. I can't tell what's a river, what's a political boundary, and what's something else.

Also, aren't political boundaries generally formed around physical ones? Shouldn't they follow rivers or mountain ranges or something?

>>49056907
background on the letters would be nice, yeah.
id make the roads dotted, but apart from that i think its nice

>>49056712
Who knows maybe America successfully killed everyone that didn't test for pure Caucasian blood, and these are just survivors that America ejected into space to spread the word of America.

Weeb and antiweeb discussions are fucking hilarious.

>>49060009
It's only funny because I'm talking shit on japan while my newly imported zeonic flag rests in the background.

>>49060091
Look, as long as we continue to be oppressed by gravity humanity cannot evolve as a species.

>>49060107
I know right. I'm an environmentalist at heart.

I've got myself a plot with alien inflitration and genetic experiments disguised as clinical trial.

What illness could 12-14 years old girls be dying from in 1950s? There's always cancer, but I want something else.

>>49060643
Why do they have to be tween girls in the 1950's? Oh lord, please don't tell me I just stepped into your magical realm.

>>49060843
No, it's just how alien plan works. When they grow up, they'll subtly altered by aliens and have slightly alien children. And right about in the present their grandchildren will be full-blown trans-dimensional psychic aliens.

>>49060643
Polio, tetanus, flu.