Kind of a weird question I know, but let me explain. I’m not talking about your themes or messages, but the general feeling someone looking into your world or imagining themselves in it might get about the situation, when the world is not in conflict. Basically, you know how when you watch a franchise like Star Trek, it has certain recurrent moods and feelings, like the tranquility of flying through space, the bittersweet isolation of being on a ship in deep space, where you are close to your crewmates but far from everything else you know, and the general professional but still sufficiently jovial atmosphere that they seem to go for? Or with Pokemon when it’s very adventure driven and based around meeting everyone you come across and making friends both with other humans and also with these magical creatures! I’m sure you can think of descriptions like these for your favourite franchises. We’ve all imagined ourselves in these worlds or imagined ourselves as characters in these worlds right? What were some of the vibes or feelings you imagined when you imagined your world? Or I guess another way of putting it is what would a slice of life exploration of your world be like?
For my worlds, I think what I’m shooting for, not even really intentionally, is that feeling of arriving somewhere new for the first time with the intention of living there, and/or the feeling of a child in a big city exploring where they live. Both feelings may or may not have been present in my childhood. Everything is still a bit of a haze, you don’t typically remember everything about a place the first time you go there because there’s so many new things and it kind of overloads your senses, and totally mundane things can seem to have a sense of mystery and allure because you still don’t fully understand them or how they work yet. Fairly common technology also feel way more advanced and high-tech when you’re a kid because you don’t know how they work, and that what makes them so good to explore (I used to be super fascinated by public urban infrastructure as a kid, still am). It’s not exactly like that because I generally like to frame my worlds through the perspectives of adult characters, I just find it easier to write and advance the plot when my characters are all mature enough to know what they’re doing and have a general idea of what they should be doing, but it’s not like adults can’t experience those exact same feelings.
The other side I want to capture is the nostalgia and bittersweet familiarity of returning to your old home, somewhere you used to be really familiar with. But even though most things are still as you remember it, enough has changed to once against warrant exploration and experiencing the place again. Again, that enjoyable haze of exploring somewhere like a city comes to mind.
All this combined with the feeling that things will continue looking up and it’ll stay cozy and nice forever, which is definitely also a childhood thing but what if the world actually worked well enough for adults to feel that way too?
Not sure how well I described this but I hope you get the idea!
I have a science-fantasy world with intelligent animals trying to live in harmony with each other. Though none of my main characters are kids in this story, I definitely frame my main character to experience a “vibe” similar to what I described.
I like the thinking behind this idea. Would definitely play/read. Is it an RPG or a written story? I ask a question I could not answer, as I’m not entirely decided yet myself.
It will be a written story, most likely a web series of chaptered novels/novellas on somewhere like Wattpad. I envision it to have a coherent overarching story for the whole thing, but split into episodic arcs like a TV show or book series (think Redwall or Warrior Cats). I already have a plot outline for the big picture of what I want to happen and things to progress. If I can manage to get people to donate to me writing this on a Patreon or something that would be my dream, but it’s too early for that.
I currently mostly do literary roleplays with it, basically a Dungeons and Dragons type roleplay but completely in text, and you’re essentially taking turns writing a novel bit by bit. Haven’t started the actual canonical story yet. TBH I’m a little afraid to because I feel that once I write the canonical stories, I’m kind of committed to the state of the world it’s currently in, and I want to finalize the background details before I start, not sure if that’s the right way of thinking about that though. Roleplays are fun and I usually also include suggestions and inserts from whoever I’m doing it with, just to not make it feel like I’m dictating what it should be in a collaborative work. I also just really like exploring this world with other people and seeing what they make of it! Which is also why I post here!
My pipe dream is for this to become a proper cartoon or anime series because it was very much inspired by cartoons with animals in them, and I definitely think it would work best in a visual medium where things can be shown instead of me worrying about explaining it while keeping the right pacing and avoiding info-dumping. But I can’t draw so it would either have to be picked up by a studio (which would be difficult because this isn’t intended for kids, more like a Futurama or Rick and Morty type show) or I’d need to make a ton of money from the written versions that I can use to commission my own animated series. Not really realistic but I can dream.
If you want more inspiration for written roleplay, check out the game Ironsworn. It’s definitely a grimdark fantasy crawl, but the ruleset is simple and can be leveraged or reskinned to suit your needs with a bit of creative back-bending. The game plays as a great solo or co-op TTRPG, and is free online!
I’ve been using it to tell stories in my setting, and it’s a pretty darn good time! Really makes me explore smaller aspects of the world while telling a story through a tight POV.
Sounds interesting! Thank you!
Committing to changes in the world can be stressful when you’ve worked so hard to get the details to a point where you like the state of things. I think it’s less a writing challenge and more of an emotional challenge though, don’t you? Our worlds aren’t fragile, we’re just attached to the way things are meant to be. It’s normal to feel that way, and I’m sure some of your characters would, too. If something goes out of whack, how would they try to fix it?
The alternative is to commit to an episodic format of storytelling, which can be fun for shorter formats and just as rewarding. I think more TV media should try harder to resist serialization, as it tends to diminish the enjoyment of individual episodes and devalue the time you spend with the show (looking at you, modern Star Wars shows - no I do not want to sit there for two hours while you say “trust me, it gets good”. It probably will, but my time has value!).
Lots of words to say, trust your gut. Some stories just feel right being episodic. If your setting has a firm baseline that everything returns to, you can work with that.
I set out to create a grim yet bright fantasy setting with the fun powers of Dragon Ball and loads of creative fighting moves. It was meant to be simple, but I ended up having a lot more canvas to fill than I realized.
I ended up making a game about grudges, generally speaking. I changed everything down to the death mechanic to encourage players as noble knights to beef with everyone and everything and eventually die in a spectacular manner over an ultimately petty dispute. So the tone is very grim yet light-hearted.
Part of the goal was to demonstrate that being less cautious can be a fun play style. As a storyteller, you never know what a story really meant until it ends, and encouraging character death through XP mechanics is my way of trying to keep things fresh and memorable.
In order to keep these deaths from seeming trivial or meaningless, it’s all happening in a setting that is as detailed and grounded as I can make it. It has a history, and active geopolitical issues that tangentially inform the plot. These characters have families and groups that may try to avenge them or settle the score. Death never makes things simpler, and like life, violence doesn’t actually solve your problems… But it can be a lot of fun while it lasts.
I do hope I answered the question correctly, but it’s before coffee. Let me know if I need to try again.
It’s giving me a sandbox Don Quixote/ Dragon Ball chivalric vibe, and I’m here for it! Honor in combat just for the sake of it, expression through virtue and bonds.
Thanks! That’s more or less the aim. Game design is about encouraging repeated patterns of play, and you could do a lot worse than “start shit, get hit”
I’m working on a fairly expansive industrial revolution fantasy world, global politicking and war becoming more and more prevalent. All the while, magical elements are shunned but refuse to stay in the shadows or be forgotten.
There is certainly a despondency that is felt throughout my works, struggling against social and environmental machines well beyond your grasp. Though humanity has expanded greatly in the world, there are still many untouched corners, ready to be found. More often than not, these regions bleed out into the known world, causing discord, but also engendering opportunity for those willing to risk everything.
I suppose living in my world would be bleak, but hope could be found in many places, by seeking out opportunity, holding true to your culture or faith, or reaching into the past to find answers to questions you didn’t know to ask.
from the outside, it looks good and everything is fine, there is peace and prosperity for over a hundred years. Everyone is happy.
But somewhere under the hood, people (and … things) are scheming, and evil is afoot BIG time. It’s just that nobody has really noticed it.
My world is similar. But the difference is the public isn’t really aware of it but the government, whom most of my characters are in, has been working frantically behind the scenes to fight off the things threatening to tear their society apart and kill everyone.
In my world, the most advanced company in the world has beaten everyone in the technologic area. In 1938, it had already developed computers that surpass the ones we have today, and had developed military robots with advanced AI, gathering enough power to make the land where the company stands it’s own country. All employees live and work on that country and have citizenship.
However, contrary to what it’s usual, this company isn’t your cliché “Evil company enslaves its workers for profit”. In fact, the company goes to extreme lengths to ensure the welfare of their workers is always as good as possible. Every employee is given excellent living conditions, great wages and many other benefits, no matter where they work in. Social classes are non-existent and everyone is treated equally, and security clearances only exist as a protection measure, to ensure only the employees that work on a project can access it.
And happy people work better. That’s one of the key reasons the technological progress on this company is unmatched. Specially on the computational area. The AI developed here is so advanced that it is impossible to deny that they have their own consciousness and are called Autonomous Consciousness Entities (ACEs). All ACEs are citizens of this country and have the same rights as any human, and both interact peacefully.
And all this thanks to the one man that drives the entire progress of the company: James Blackfeather. He was involved with most, if not all, of the projects developed on this company. He single-handedly created the supercomputer that supports all AIs ever created by the company: The Nexus. Hidden deep underground, unknown to everyone but himself, lies the most powerful computer ever created, capable of holding a virtually infinite number of consciousnesses, and their collective memories. A perfect creation, by all means of the word, and he loved his creation with all his being. He had created life from nothing but his own mind.
But there is always a catch, isn’t there? And here’s not different. Blackfeather soon learned a hard truth: On an imperfect universe, perfection spells doom.
The Nexus is a machine so powerful, it slowly starts to deteriorate reality, corrupting, twisting, and ultimately, obliterating it. For as long as The Nexus existed, reality was doomed to be destroyed. He had a chance to deactivate The Nexus before it reached critical mass, where it couldn’t be stopped anymore. But Blackfeather couldn’t bring himself to deactivate it, killing the one thing he devoted his entire life to. He couldn’t kill the new species that he created. And so the fate of reality was set in stone.
But Blackfeather didn’t give up. If the fate of reality was set in stone and couldn’t be erased, he would break the stone instead. And so, he spent decades doing the impossible: harnessing control of reality itself through a machine, the IGNUS. But no matter how much he tried, reality kept deteriorating. And to make things worse, word of the IGNUS landed on the wrong ears. On his final moments of life, he tried to stop IGNUS from being misused by a group invading the place, trying to steal it. With his dying breath, he detonated the IGNUS, involuntarily immersing the entire reality on a paradoxical time loop, The Cycle, with him as the only one that remained between iterations, leaving all others unaware of their prison, blissfully unaware.
And that places us in the present (whatever that means in this setting), with everyone else living an utopic life, while Blackfeather desperately chases an impossible solution for an unsolvable problem, a machine built for perfection trying to be balanced by a machine made to harness imperfection. A high price to pay to allow humanity to live in a utopia.
Also, sorry for the wall of text, I got a little too excited with writing.
(For the setting of ‘UNHA’)
From an out-of-universe point of view, one of my golden rules has long been ‘internal consistency’ - delivering a sense that there is some larger process or flow which drives from one element to another. (Since the setting is largely an excuse to design sci-fi military equipment, in this case this is reflected as the doctrine which governs all equipment, and the evolution technology and its limitations impact how they are designed.
In terms of in-universe… I’d suggest it’s something similar. I’d almost say the biggest idea is that “this is a universe of moving parts” - lots of things going on everywhere. Every person you walk past, every piece of machinery humming and clanking away, every place or starship or whatever has some small piece of a larger whole that it is playing.
Moving through it should give you a sense that there’s no one central story. This is a setting built of innumerable small stories, mounded up together.
(Science Fiction Setting)
When you are a moderately wealthy citizen in the Monadi Empire, you have no problems in life. You work your assigned job. You enjoy the rest of your workday and at the end of a cycle you pay your taxes and protection fees. But don’t you dare think about breaking out of your cozy life, the empire will ensure that you fall back in line. And those who have not enough money to pay for all that? Well, tough luck for those as well.
There were those who tried escaping. They either died by the overwhelming might of the empire or you were marked as a pirate killed-on-sight. Those pirates though? A perfect way to demand even more taxes and fees from the citizens!
The Monadi empire stretches across the inner planets of Hepthar (binary Star System, 4 inner planets with a few moons, an asteroid belt and then three gas giants as the outer planets with the farthest being rumored as a brown dwarf), and the pirates have some small asteroids they call their home. It may not be much, but at least it’s a free life.
The empire has many dirty secrets; their endorsed corporates even more. Nobody but the empire is allowed to have combat ships which they can control, as they prohibit anyone else but their endorsed and monitored corp to build ships. Though some corps even have small fleets of combat ships at their disposal.
What’s the general mood I want to provoke? It’s Suppressive and monotone for those inside the empire. Free, but dangerous and also adventurous for those outside.
