Hiya so I might be kinda confused here since I'm just spitballing, not really thinking out what I'm going to write super well. But I was just thinking of making an LFRP post when, as I thought about it, I realized that I have too many unresolved issues with what I actually want to make any kind of proposal. Now theres mainly two categories of problems, which would be, incomplete worldbuilding and plot ideas. So I'll just kinda go over those one at a time. But before I do that I should just state my intentions, I think. Basically I'm just hoping someone out there will wanna help out and kinda flesh out my ideas. maybe even rp if we get along idk, this isnt an lfrp post though so obviously thats not the main point.
If you wanna help out I'd love to just talk about the ideas and share some of the ideas or setting elements, maybe have them questioned and critiqued. I'm not normally one to be super into taking critique but in this case I think I could use it.
Worldbuilding
First a (very brief) introduction of sorts to the setting so that theres some idea of what we're working with.
So my main fantasy setting is called Heartlands, and its mostly a generic fantasy setting with a few notable, specific elements to it.
1) All of the 'races' in it are to at least a very limited extent, unique. One of them is basically wood elves but none of them directly share a name with a real-life or fantasy race, and I try my best to have at least 'slightly' unique ideas for them all.
2) Magic is not inherent to anything except "Divine" entities which have a different nature. "divine" doesnt specifically refer to deities, as all sorts of spirits and sacred beasts are 'divine' (like unicorns, dragons, etc.), however all creatures have the same potential to learn magic. Magic cannot be taught, though, and must sort of be 'discovered' on your own, and while technically all creatures have the same ability to learn magic, in practice some learn it more because of environmental or cultural conditions.
3) Magic has something called a "Resonance" which determines what kind of magic it is, and all magic types can be plotted according to their Resonance. As a result different kinds of magic are closer to eachother and you can blend the Resonance's of multiple kinds of magic together.
4) The center of the main continent, the region known as the "Heartlands" (for which the setting is named) is a vast untamed magical wilderness, which is not settled mostly because its dangerous and some other reasons.
I'm not going to go too in depth in this first post because I dont want to scare everyone off, this is just going to be an overview.
So now the problems with worldbuilding... The main one is metaphysics. I'm really bad at figuring out how the whole like, universe works, as well as religion. Like, where'd the world come from, what religions are there, deities, etc. When I do come up with religions they end up not making any sense really.
The other problem is that huge swathes of the worlds cultures are just, not even slightly completed, and the ones that do exist sometimes make no sense. Like the moon worshipping people live underground! what kind of weird logic is that?!? But once I've already formed an idea, even roughly, its really hard for me to back up and try to think of somethign new cause its already ingrained in my consciousness. Also, the continent feels rather empty, for as large as it is there arent enough cultures and diversity!
Theres more problems than that though. Some of the 'cultures' are basically just 'fantasy china'/'fantasy vikings', and while theres nothing inherently wrong with that its not what I want. They're supposed to be unique, not reskinned versions of real life things. But again, once its in my consciousness its just kinda ingrained there and its hard for me to back up and rethink it.
And the final problem is kinda more specific, and kinda hard to explain in brief. But so, a civilization in my setting basically doesnt exist at the beginning and I want to use them, its kinda a complicated issue so, I'll go more into this if we actually discuss it. Dont want to write like, three paragraphs about it here.
Anyways, onto RP idea problems...
Plot
So I usually kinda write without a specific plot in mind, just sort of story threads. This usually works alright, and the last time I tried using an actual plot it felt super stale and boring.
But lately I've been kinda frustrated at my rp's inability to really... go anywhere. this might just be because nobody rp's with me for very long, I dunno, but generally I want to explore more of the setting and find more interesting things you know?
The other problem is character relationships. Usually my rp's fall into one of two categories, 1) cutie cuddles set in fantasy world or 2) complete strangers meet and I try to force them to stick together and its kinda a stretch. Now since I'm a big fan of siblings and i think they're really cute the first one usually involves siblign characters, the latter obviously doesnt. Now the problem is that while I want my character to have siblings, any solution to that seems flawed- if the other person plays the siblings then its not really the characters I had in my mind, but if I have all of my characters in the rp then it seems like that'd take up alot of the rp and detract from interacting with the other persons characters.
In the archaic past I had a sort of rp I did with a friend where, we werent really interacting with eachother all the time but each post was just a day of the rp or something and we discussed what we did during that day, frequently giving eachother events like a dungeon master. That was a neat rp style but it seems like you really need someone to understand the setting first so that their events fit it, and since I dont really have any RPing friends anymore setting up something that complex just. doesnt sound possible. Though I think as I write this that maybe I should try and adopt some of my older rp mannerisms in some way, since it is rather freeing to not need to focus on interactions between eachother all the time. Just a kinda stray thought I guess.
Anyways, thats the bulk of the overview of what I'm struggling with... I have alot more I could say but this post is already pretty long. anyways, I hope someone can help me out here, I've been struggling for quite a long time and just dont think I can work out all these little idiosyncracies on my own.
If you wanna help out I'd love to just talk about the ideas and share some of the ideas or setting elements, maybe have them questioned and critiqued. I'm not normally one to be super into taking critique but in this case I think I could use it.
Worldbuilding
First a (very brief) introduction of sorts to the setting so that theres some idea of what we're working with.
So my main fantasy setting is called Heartlands, and its mostly a generic fantasy setting with a few notable, specific elements to it.
1) All of the 'races' in it are to at least a very limited extent, unique. One of them is basically wood elves but none of them directly share a name with a real-life or fantasy race, and I try my best to have at least 'slightly' unique ideas for them all.
2) Magic is not inherent to anything except "Divine" entities which have a different nature. "divine" doesnt specifically refer to deities, as all sorts of spirits and sacred beasts are 'divine' (like unicorns, dragons, etc.), however all creatures have the same potential to learn magic. Magic cannot be taught, though, and must sort of be 'discovered' on your own, and while technically all creatures have the same ability to learn magic, in practice some learn it more because of environmental or cultural conditions.
3) Magic has something called a "Resonance" which determines what kind of magic it is, and all magic types can be plotted according to their Resonance. As a result different kinds of magic are closer to eachother and you can blend the Resonance's of multiple kinds of magic together.
4) The center of the main continent, the region known as the "Heartlands" (for which the setting is named) is a vast untamed magical wilderness, which is not settled mostly because its dangerous and some other reasons.
I'm not going to go too in depth in this first post because I dont want to scare everyone off, this is just going to be an overview.
So now the problems with worldbuilding... The main one is metaphysics. I'm really bad at figuring out how the whole like, universe works, as well as religion. Like, where'd the world come from, what religions are there, deities, etc. When I do come up with religions they end up not making any sense really.
The other problem is that huge swathes of the worlds cultures are just, not even slightly completed, and the ones that do exist sometimes make no sense. Like the moon worshipping people live underground! what kind of weird logic is that?!? But once I've already formed an idea, even roughly, its really hard for me to back up and try to think of somethign new cause its already ingrained in my consciousness. Also, the continent feels rather empty, for as large as it is there arent enough cultures and diversity!
Theres more problems than that though. Some of the 'cultures' are basically just 'fantasy china'/'fantasy vikings', and while theres nothing inherently wrong with that its not what I want. They're supposed to be unique, not reskinned versions of real life things. But again, once its in my consciousness its just kinda ingrained there and its hard for me to back up and rethink it.
And the final problem is kinda more specific, and kinda hard to explain in brief. But so, a civilization in my setting basically doesnt exist at the beginning and I want to use them, its kinda a complicated issue so, I'll go more into this if we actually discuss it. Dont want to write like, three paragraphs about it here.
Anyways, onto RP idea problems...
Plot
So I usually kinda write without a specific plot in mind, just sort of story threads. This usually works alright, and the last time I tried using an actual plot it felt super stale and boring.
But lately I've been kinda frustrated at my rp's inability to really... go anywhere. this might just be because nobody rp's with me for very long, I dunno, but generally I want to explore more of the setting and find more interesting things you know?
The other problem is character relationships. Usually my rp's fall into one of two categories, 1) cutie cuddles set in fantasy world or 2) complete strangers meet and I try to force them to stick together and its kinda a stretch. Now since I'm a big fan of siblings and i think they're really cute the first one usually involves siblign characters, the latter obviously doesnt. Now the problem is that while I want my character to have siblings, any solution to that seems flawed- if the other person plays the siblings then its not really the characters I had in my mind, but if I have all of my characters in the rp then it seems like that'd take up alot of the rp and detract from interacting with the other persons characters.
In the archaic past I had a sort of rp I did with a friend where, we werent really interacting with eachother all the time but each post was just a day of the rp or something and we discussed what we did during that day, frequently giving eachother events like a dungeon master. That was a neat rp style but it seems like you really need someone to understand the setting first so that their events fit it, and since I dont really have any RPing friends anymore setting up something that complex just. doesnt sound possible. Though I think as I write this that maybe I should try and adopt some of my older rp mannerisms in some way, since it is rather freeing to not need to focus on interactions between eachother all the time. Just a kinda stray thought I guess.
Anyways, thats the bulk of the overview of what I'm struggling with... I have alot more I could say but this post is already pretty long. anyways, I hope someone can help me out here, I've been struggling for quite a long time and just dont think I can work out all these little idiosyncracies on my own.
Sounds like you're still in the mulling stages of what you want to RP--that's okay! I think that's a good thing, honestly; you get more meat out of a deeper world. (I say that with the caveat that I am a total planner and not a 'pantser', that is to say, someone who flies by the seat of their pants.)
For your world-building:
-For the 'learning' aspect of magic, I might change the word you are using to help clarify what you want out of it. It sounds more like a trigger mechanism than a conscious learning. If you want to RP in this world, being clear what sorts of things can become triggers to acquiring more magic might help your RP partner build their character's background--or you, yours! I like the use of the word 'resonance' for magic; maybe instead of 'trigger' you might use something more like 'key'. To be 'keyed' to a specific resonance tone is to acquire access to a kind of magic, or to use that kind of magic?
-Metaphysics: Do you want to start 'top down' or 'bottom up'? If you have divine creatures, were they made? If so, by who? What other powers does this creator have? Similarly, what sentient species are in this world, and to what do they attribute divinity? (Passed on loved ones? Weather patterns? Deific law-makers intent on keeping a culture static and indoctrinated? etc?) Do you have multiple deities and do they work together? Do they have their own relationships with one another and the universe around them? Does the universe around your world have other aspects that might impact the Heartlands--like for a random example, how many moons, and do they have a certain resonance that can be learned/keyed/triggered in characters or creatures over time?
-I don't think that living underground and being a moon worshiper is a bad idea at all, it's just very unusual. For instance, if your underground folks live near an underground aquifer that is large enough, that aquifer would be subject to tidal forces: your folks would know roughly when the moon is overhead at any time because of this. You also then present your characters with the mecca of the surface to view the moon, maybe as a rite of passage. Maybe as a rite at the end of life, or maybe as something else. Once you have two very different ideas mashed together, it's fun to figure out how they could interact. What do you need to add or tweak to make them make sense? It's just problem solving at this point.
-Empty spaces are underrated, in my opinion. Having wild spaces, empty spaces, means a different culture for your characters; maybe they're better adapted towards natural environments? Nothing wrong with having small pockets of community centers and lots and lots of wild spaces between. If what you're talking about is that all of the cultures in your world feel samey-samey, why not shrink them into a smaller location? Or, if they are samey-samey, there could be a chance that they are a diaspora from one culture initially. The date at which that original culture splintered could make backstory for some cataclysmic event. It all depends on how your people got into the world (did they evolve there naturally or did they arrive from some portal or something?) and what natural, divine, and resonant forces have impact them over the generations. It might also be worth looking up how folks build cultures.
I was doing some quick browsing and one person started off with "what do they eat? What are their necessities?" When you know that, you can look up from there how folks on Earth have build their culture around those necessities. Be careful not to crib someone's culture whole-cloth (I disagree that it's fine to take fantasy china or fantasy vikings with only minor tweaks; if you're not from that culture it can be frustrating and harmful if you got it wrong and hurt someone who does come from that background, you know?) but looking at how their culture grew up to meet their basic needs--and maybe what time they had leftover and what resources they had available to meet psychological needs (oh gosh, what are those? Are they social people? Creative? Intellectual? Physically-minded?) can give you starting points to build on.
Keep in mind that you don't have to know everything about them, but a few good places to start give you and your RP partners a place to build from. I think you'll have some cool ideas, from what I've seen so far. Maybe focus on the characters' immediate families, and build out from there--are the families typical representations or unusual? If so, how?
For plotting:
It sounds almost like you need to make a group where you can stash lore on your world, give new players quick reference on what their characters would know, how to get started, etc. Alternately, if you want to allow RP with characters who aren't from your world (I find sometimes in 1x1 PM's that this is the case, and it can be jarring if the characters are from really different worlds) what are some quick facts you can lay down OOC that you and the other player can bounce off of one another?
Keeping in mind that moderating a group takes a long time, so you'd likely be handing over some of your joy of actually RPing a favourite character within your setting, for the joy of playing the events and NPC's that take place within the world for other people to bounce off of.
Maybe, if you don't want to plan everything out ahead of time, you could start a public forum IC thread in which a shard of your world is transported into a nexus--any character can pop in and explore and interact with your characters, but it's not 'canon' to your world as a whole?
You may also find that two versions of your world begin to develop: The one that you'd write a novel for if you were writing a book, and the one that's shared amongst RPers that has some of their flavour mixed in. That's kind of fun to see over time! Take and use ideas you like and allow the others to play out, safe knowing that it's not canon and you're the ultimate arbiter of your own story.
I don't know if any of this helps, but hopefully the spit-balling allows a little progress. Good luck!
For your world-building:
-For the 'learning' aspect of magic, I might change the word you are using to help clarify what you want out of it. It sounds more like a trigger mechanism than a conscious learning. If you want to RP in this world, being clear what sorts of things can become triggers to acquiring more magic might help your RP partner build their character's background--or you, yours! I like the use of the word 'resonance' for magic; maybe instead of 'trigger' you might use something more like 'key'. To be 'keyed' to a specific resonance tone is to acquire access to a kind of magic, or to use that kind of magic?
-Metaphysics: Do you want to start 'top down' or 'bottom up'? If you have divine creatures, were they made? If so, by who? What other powers does this creator have? Similarly, what sentient species are in this world, and to what do they attribute divinity? (Passed on loved ones? Weather patterns? Deific law-makers intent on keeping a culture static and indoctrinated? etc?) Do you have multiple deities and do they work together? Do they have their own relationships with one another and the universe around them? Does the universe around your world have other aspects that might impact the Heartlands--like for a random example, how many moons, and do they have a certain resonance that can be learned/keyed/triggered in characters or creatures over time?
-I don't think that living underground and being a moon worshiper is a bad idea at all, it's just very unusual. For instance, if your underground folks live near an underground aquifer that is large enough, that aquifer would be subject to tidal forces: your folks would know roughly when the moon is overhead at any time because of this. You also then present your characters with the mecca of the surface to view the moon, maybe as a rite of passage. Maybe as a rite at the end of life, or maybe as something else. Once you have two very different ideas mashed together, it's fun to figure out how they could interact. What do you need to add or tweak to make them make sense? It's just problem solving at this point.
-Empty spaces are underrated, in my opinion. Having wild spaces, empty spaces, means a different culture for your characters; maybe they're better adapted towards natural environments? Nothing wrong with having small pockets of community centers and lots and lots of wild spaces between. If what you're talking about is that all of the cultures in your world feel samey-samey, why not shrink them into a smaller location? Or, if they are samey-samey, there could be a chance that they are a diaspora from one culture initially. The date at which that original culture splintered could make backstory for some cataclysmic event. It all depends on how your people got into the world (did they evolve there naturally or did they arrive from some portal or something?) and what natural, divine, and resonant forces have impact them over the generations. It might also be worth looking up how folks build cultures.
I was doing some quick browsing and one person started off with "what do they eat? What are their necessities?" When you know that, you can look up from there how folks on Earth have build their culture around those necessities. Be careful not to crib someone's culture whole-cloth (I disagree that it's fine to take fantasy china or fantasy vikings with only minor tweaks; if you're not from that culture it can be frustrating and harmful if you got it wrong and hurt someone who does come from that background, you know?) but looking at how their culture grew up to meet their basic needs--and maybe what time they had leftover and what resources they had available to meet psychological needs (oh gosh, what are those? Are they social people? Creative? Intellectual? Physically-minded?) can give you starting points to build on.
Keep in mind that you don't have to know everything about them, but a few good places to start give you and your RP partners a place to build from. I think you'll have some cool ideas, from what I've seen so far. Maybe focus on the characters' immediate families, and build out from there--are the families typical representations or unusual? If so, how?
For plotting:
It sounds almost like you need to make a group where you can stash lore on your world, give new players quick reference on what their characters would know, how to get started, etc. Alternately, if you want to allow RP with characters who aren't from your world (I find sometimes in 1x1 PM's that this is the case, and it can be jarring if the characters are from really different worlds) what are some quick facts you can lay down OOC that you and the other player can bounce off of one another?
Keeping in mind that moderating a group takes a long time, so you'd likely be handing over some of your joy of actually RPing a favourite character within your setting, for the joy of playing the events and NPC's that take place within the world for other people to bounce off of.
Maybe, if you don't want to plan everything out ahead of time, you could start a public forum IC thread in which a shard of your world is transported into a nexus--any character can pop in and explore and interact with your characters, but it's not 'canon' to your world as a whole?
You may also find that two versions of your world begin to develop: The one that you'd write a novel for if you were writing a book, and the one that's shared amongst RPers that has some of their flavour mixed in. That's kind of fun to see over time! Take and use ideas you like and allow the others to play out, safe knowing that it's not canon and you're the ultimate arbiter of your own story.
I don't know if any of this helps, but hopefully the spit-balling allows a little progress. Good luck!
Heya, thanks for replying! I dunno if your following the thread or just made a one off reply but I'm gonna respond to each section in order like you did. and I'm gonna write responses as I read so sorry if I miss something later on in the post thats pertinent.
- Strictly speaking there is a term for what your calling "keyed", and its "Resonant Affinity". But its distinct from learning magic, the problem with using magic is more just that it doesnt come naturally, and trying to teach someone to use it is supposed to be like 'trying to teach a blind person to see'. I kinda internally refer to it as 'revelation-based learning' but never really had an opportunity to really say that to another actual person. But basically, you can learn magic normally, but the basic framework cant be taught. On the other hand, Resonant Affinity is affected by proximity to sources of magic and what type of magic someone might use, or rituals they may perform. So people with no magical ability may have a Resonant Affinity still. However all types of magic casting requires some Resonant Affinity.
- Well. You see. The problem with metaphysics is. I have no idea. The main thing is 1) I dont really like having deities (other than Divine entities like Dragons, Elementals, etc. may be worshipped), I dont really think it fits, but also 2) I think its important for a fantasy setting to have some religious diversity. But I find it kinda strange to have gods that arent actually real, in a setting where there "is" actual magic just, all over the place, so you would think it'd be easy to disprove their existance...
At any rate deities or not, I think its important to the setting to have some kind of understanding of where things come from, how they work, etc. and honestly I just. I dont even know. I have some extremely vague ideas that are sort of catalysts for potential plots, but whenever they come up I have to skirt around them cause I dont even know whats going on myself.
I could make a short list of things I 'do' know though. 1) Theres multiple dimensions, though I only know of two for certain theres supposed to be more. The second one is the "Worldheart", is supposed to be the origin of all life, is strongly tied to dragons, and is based on Ash Lake from dark souls. 2) Resonant affinity is a thing... uh. Maybe I'll just post the document on what I have for metaphysics to explain that... 3) ... no actually thats all I have. Metaphysics is *hard* man.
- strictly speaking they arent always underground they mostly have cities at the border between the underground and surface worlds.
- We already have the big central region for wilderness, while the outside is supposed to be fairly well developed. I purposefully made the setting large so I would have plenty of room to put every kind of thing in it, but I juts have an annoying tendency to look at a region (thats probably the size of like, europe) then just give it a single very niche culture and move on.
- Eheh.... to have a group there would first have to be like, literally anybody interested in it to join, I would think. It seems almost... arrogant to make a group for just myself in a setting nobody really cares about. At any rate, the whole point is that I wanna use my ideas and world, theres just. not much point in it if I'm just fusing stuff. I guess I kinda do have that going on with one person, but, while it might be fine as an rp, it wont really satisfy the itch to flesh out the setting and really do something with it.
- Strictly speaking there is a term for what your calling "keyed", and its "Resonant Affinity". But its distinct from learning magic, the problem with using magic is more just that it doesnt come naturally, and trying to teach someone to use it is supposed to be like 'trying to teach a blind person to see'. I kinda internally refer to it as 'revelation-based learning' but never really had an opportunity to really say that to another actual person. But basically, you can learn magic normally, but the basic framework cant be taught. On the other hand, Resonant Affinity is affected by proximity to sources of magic and what type of magic someone might use, or rituals they may perform. So people with no magical ability may have a Resonant Affinity still. However all types of magic casting requires some Resonant Affinity.
- Well. You see. The problem with metaphysics is. I have no idea. The main thing is 1) I dont really like having deities (other than Divine entities like Dragons, Elementals, etc. may be worshipped), I dont really think it fits, but also 2) I think its important for a fantasy setting to have some religious diversity. But I find it kinda strange to have gods that arent actually real, in a setting where there "is" actual magic just, all over the place, so you would think it'd be easy to disprove their existance...
At any rate deities or not, I think its important to the setting to have some kind of understanding of where things come from, how they work, etc. and honestly I just. I dont even know. I have some extremely vague ideas that are sort of catalysts for potential plots, but whenever they come up I have to skirt around them cause I dont even know whats going on myself.
I could make a short list of things I 'do' know though. 1) Theres multiple dimensions, though I only know of two for certain theres supposed to be more. The second one is the "Worldheart", is supposed to be the origin of all life, is strongly tied to dragons, and is based on Ash Lake from dark souls. 2) Resonant affinity is a thing... uh. Maybe I'll just post the document on what I have for metaphysics to explain that... 3) ... no actually thats all I have. Metaphysics is *hard* man.
- strictly speaking they arent always underground they mostly have cities at the border between the underground and surface worlds.
- We already have the big central region for wilderness, while the outside is supposed to be fairly well developed. I purposefully made the setting large so I would have plenty of room to put every kind of thing in it, but I juts have an annoying tendency to look at a region (thats probably the size of like, europe) then just give it a single very niche culture and move on.
- Eheh.... to have a group there would first have to be like, literally anybody interested in it to join, I would think. It seems almost... arrogant to make a group for just myself in a setting nobody really cares about. At any rate, the whole point is that I wanna use my ideas and world, theres just. not much point in it if I'm just fusing stuff. I guess I kinda do have that going on with one person, but, while it might be fine as an rp, it wont really satisfy the itch to flesh out the setting and really do something with it.
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