Hey all, I am currently dumped with creating a history for my game. I am yet unsure about which end to start from. I have a vague idea about where the story starts, but for the history which end do I start from? Do I write the history from the beginning and then make a decision about which point that I can stick the story in (where it would fit), or do I write the history backwards, knowing what happens in the future and deciding what happens in the past to make that so? Thanx for your help... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft "The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" IOL (The list formerly known as NPCAI) - A GDNet production Our Doc - The future of RPGs Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche

here''s the way I did it :

PREPARATION
Read all you can, do some research on the www

A) Decide thew kind of world you want : epic ? "political" ? or something else ?

B) Based on A create a theology/world creation theory/magic system

C) Make a map

D) while doing A,B,C create the history in parts, changing stuff all the time

E) Write everything down !!!!!!!!!!!

F) Now it depends on how much detail you need...

hmm, I''ll post some more stuff on exactly how I created my world later..............

Runemaster
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Thanx runy, I am doing A B and C. And I need a lot of detail. But what is even more daunting is the prospect of attempting to create new languages (which I am nearly to the point of throwing out). I may just theive some of the celtic and norse language .

The map is going to be interesting though, because it is supposed to be unlimited and random. I can create a city, but I have no idea where it will lie on the map. I am close to ditching the random map gen idea too... Hmm, maybe I can use a living city idea instead... But that means that my land is limited (unless I can make it ''undiscovered'')..

Any more ideas?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft
"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy"
IOL (The list formerly known as NPCAI) - A GDNet production
Our Doc - The future of RPGs
Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche

Are you writing your game history or your game story ?

If it''s the history : look at history books and you''ll find anything you may need

It it''s about your story... well I think of ''scenes'' and I create a story around them.
I''ve an idea of the ''vilains'' and plot too.

gya must work..

-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-

New languages are rather simple, at least for me.I usually set some rules for each language like
Elvish has lots of l''s a''s e''s n''s and long words (of course, there aren''t any elves in my world but you get the point).
Creating laguages is simpler if you speak many (I speak English,Greek and German and little bit of French) cause you can use words from these languages and just change them (boat to bott, if you want a harsh language, or use a greek word that few people will understand).
Then it''s just writing down every word you think you might need (of course you''ll add to the list while designing) and the corresponding word from the "new" language.

Runemaster
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LMAO Agreed Runemaster. Creating words is not hard at all, jsut take some good dictionary, and do a bit of linguistic. It''s fascinating to see all the similarities between languages (jsut look at German and English for instance)
If you the best resource I ever found on the topic, go < a href="http://www.yourdictionary.com/">there !

As for creating a history, my method is quite similar to runemaster. I just have one tip : working backwards is nice.
Simply use the magic word : "Why".
The setting I have been working on for the last two years is based on some simple ideas/visions I had, and was epanded from there. I wanted a specie of Minotaur creatures living in peace and harmony in a Himalaya like chain of mountains, meeting a viking based race of humans, castaways arriving on a deserted island a la Groenland... for the rest, well, you''ll have to wait until it settle. All good things come in time (or something like that )

youpla :-P

uh, I probably explained my method badly then. My method would be slightly similar to the one you describe, except that I consider landscape features as part of the sotory in their own right
Basically, I have a bunch of characters that I wrote with their specific ideas, some scenery I wanna have, some types of population. I wrote a map with some of the different ideas, I wrote little bits here and there, legends, customs, dressing habits, activities. But in the end, I want my characters to be consistent with the world, so everything starts from them. Which is why I am rethinkig the magic system (the little text I did in Writing samples is a good example of the new version I am coming up with).
For instance I have a female minotaur Soulsinger pilgrim called Hoom Do, a male minotaur warrior Seeker called Ho Bo Doumbar, and some humans as well, the druids Ainvar Rindenstein, Hornost Hilfewald (not Helpwood, as I wrote in the text), the apprentice Axel UferFluss (axel waterside), the soldier Tarvos Trondheim bodyguard to Ainvar, the two female hunters Ingrid Frost and Maire Dorsen... they all have a nice little background, goals in life, and a fate I am still determining ...
with the cool ideas I get during the creation of their background stories, my world is suddendly populated by original locations, new creatures, etc.
It's a constant feedback process, one idea bouncing to create another, hence the time it takes
But overall, I am very much pleased with how it's becoming.

the problem with creating something and THEN putting your characters is that you will easily modify your characters so they fit in the mold, while on the other, you should focus on the characters, as they are central. Plus why bother creating a vast realistic consistent world if you only see a part of it. I prefer to start by giving some character to this world, constantly modifying it to keep the addition consistent. And if after all there is an inconsistency, I just invoke the lack of knowledge of the people in this world... after all, for how long did we believe that Earth was flat, that the Sun rotated around Earth, etc.

But anyway, there is no good method, only good results

did I mention how useful dictionaries and books on various topics can be (Botanic, Zoology, Anatomy, History, etc)

youpla :-P

Edited by - ahw on September 5, 2000 4:30:52 PM

Your method sounds strangely familiar
I ue the same but from time to time, I rewritte everything from the beginning..
And it never last long before I change so manythings that I need another rewrite
So I use rewrite as legends and make my world advance in time



-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-