Well, who wants to build a world?

Hello my fabulous geeks and geekettes!

It has been an age since I last posted. I decided to take a back seat to the site and reviews for a while, so that I could focus on getting my degree in Geology and Palaeontology. Yes indeed, not only will I be DinoGirl on the site, but soon I’ll be qualified. Brilliant!

Uni continues, so of course it has to be something pretty special to bring me out of hiding and out from behind the text books. And special it most certainly is!

Now you are all WELL aware that my passions for games lies with RPGs. To me there is nothing greater than building a story, and setting off on an adventure, with nothing but a set of dice and your imagination. As a Games Master, one of the hardest things to do is to build the world that you want to explore. Most RPGs do this for you, with readymade maps, concepts, world descriptions and other helpful tools, even fully completed campaigns where everything is set ready for you to pick up and play. Brilliant!

But then again, if RPG is all about the imagination, how do you create a world from scratch, where your confines are whatever you want to make them? What if, like me, you’ve explored the lands of Eberron, walked the cyberpunk streets of Chicago 2054, dodged the insanity of monsters too terrible to speak of, and yet, you want to see what else is out there? This is when you go to build your own world.

Now, I’ll be honest here, this is something I have tried to do on three separate occasions, I’ve sat down, with every intention of writing a world, to then turn it into an RPG, Well, well, well, to say that it is difficult is an understatement. Where to begin? Where do you start with an idea? How do you know what will work? The first time I tried this with just my own imagination and a pen and paper (old school), but I’ve tried to use RPG builder online too. As brilliant as some of them are, they either require an account, or working knowledge of computers and graphics, and some can be great drag and drop for maps, but they still need your own brain to kickstart everything off, and you can, and do spend hours and hours just getting one part of your world built, which later becomes more about how it looks, than hat it’s all about. For those like me, you want to build and play.

Well someone decided to simplify things.That someone would be Steve from Tin Star Games. Now I am a massive fan of Tin Star Games; those who are regulars to the site will remember the Partners review we did, and we loved it, as well as The Score. Steve has the ability that I envy - to make building a game using simple tools but solid foundations. And world building is now no different.

I told you it’d be special to bring me out of retirement . . .

The World Well is a quick-fire, group-built RPG world-setting toolkit. You need a few friends (though you could do this on your own if you wanted) a deck of cards, some D20s and paper and pen – old school, I love it already . . .

You deal twenty cards, each card corresponds to a prompt for the cardholder to think of a concept to put into a central Well. Quick and simple thoughts work best.

• Hearts are based around ideas of spirituality, love, legends and soul searching.

• Diamonds are based on concepts of power, danger or shelter

• Clubs are groups, adventurers or people linked by oaths, history or laws

• Spades are places, natural wonders, exotic lands, ruined castles.

Examples given by Steve are things like “It is an undeniable fact that Ghosts exist and walk amongst us”, or my favourite from the list “Ponchos” – just . . . why? But wow, now my brain is thinking Ponchos -> it’s impossible to be unhappy in a poncho -> Noel Fielding -> Bake off -> CAKE! -> Diet -> SAD FACE-> a world where cake is outlawed and Robin Hood inspired characters go into the world to spread the joys of cake! (OK, I admit I am also writing this during my lunch break . . .)

The prompt of one person (in this case Steve’s team) brings others (in this case me) to create a whole new idea, from one prompt!Then imagine 20 of these. Twenty tiny little sparks of creativity that ignite the thoughts of the rest of the team, what starts off random and haphazard starts to take shape.

Once your Well is full of ideas it’s time to mix things up a bit.

A really good world isn’t all cake and biscuits, there’s sourness, fractures and areas of darkness to traverse. There are factions, things that must be cared for and protected, things that must be destroyed, things that hold power over people – maybe ponchos are the new form of armour, maybe they’re the symbol of the free world of cake and serve to identify our heroes as liberators of the cake oppressors.

Think of every story ever told, there is always an element of things going up, and things going down. Take High School The Musical (I make no apologies, it’s a great film to watch at 3 a.m. after a few pints), camaraderie is on the up and cliques are on a fall, high school social barriers are destroyed and spirits lifted. Obviously, your epic films and books like The Hobbit, Chronicles of Narnia and the great classics are encompassed by this rise and fall. Protect the shard, bring down the Skeksi’s rule, heal the crystal. Up and down, factions and fractures. Steve brings this world building magic in the most accessible of ways.

Oh, and did I mention . . .

Twenty pages.

You heard me – twenty gloriously simple and easy to follow pages. Just like the allure with Partners the whole world of possibilities fits right in your hand. There are no boundaries to follow except those you set yourself. Twenty pages and then there’s a world where Palaeontolgists are awarded research grants easily, and footballers fund the largest charity in the world to help prevent world hunger. Twenty pages to the land where mice are kings and cats are servants, where wolves are the immortal protectors of children and not the devourer of little old grandmas.

Just imagine it. Then BUILD it!

And so my fabulous geeks and geekettes I leave you with a link to the Kickstarter page , as I now return to a world where university assessment deadlines loom . . .

Hurry as the campaign closes on Wednesday 26th February 2025 at 8:00am UTC.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/stevedee/the-world-well-and-friends

DinoGirl