![]() This is a small section, but is surprising from an AD&D product. It even says that a traditionally "evil" race may not necessarily be that, but that orcs may be "just crass and ill-tempered" or even live together in some sort of cooperation. In a surprising move, the WBG talks on the nature of "good" versus "evil" races. It talks about the dominant political institutions of the era, the actual technology level, and even peaceful advances, such as agriculture. In only a page it describes the general flavor that is achieved by switching from a Middle Ages setting to a Bronze Age setting, or to a Stone Age one for that matter. There is a short section on the technology level of the society, which I found surprisingly good. From here on out, assume that if I mention something in the review, there is a table you can roll on to decide it for you. There are tables where you can roll what races inhabit your kingdoms, tables for modeling the societies after historical cultures, and tables for just about anything else you can imagine. The next section of the book zooms in on a region of your world so you can go about creating a society. It seems like there was little communication between the author and those who included the bundled maps. There is also a polar display, of which there are no examples and, to be frank, I'm not quite sure how to go about drawing on it. There is the standard polyhedral world display, which is used in all the examples in the book. To aid you in creating your world, the WBG includes map sheets. ![]() In case you couldn't tell, hardly a page goes by without a table or two. The disparity can give your players a great place to explore, and they will also begin to explore the reasons why the glacier is descending down the mountain into the desert, for example.įor those of you who feel uncomfortable about creating your world, fear not, the WBG includes enough tables that you hardly have to make any decisions! You can roll to find out what percentage of your world is water, how many mountains there are in the world, where the prevailing winds are coming from, and even the shape of your world: sphere (Earth), plane (Discworld), or other fantastic shapes such as a polyhedron (4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 20 sided). Time and again it makes the point that you are designing a fantastic world, so go ahead and put disparate terrain elements together. The WBG does not try to say that your fantasy world needs to be totally realistic, however. Of course, none of these topics are covered in great detail, but even a paragraph or two is enough to give an air of realism to your world. How rivers flow and what you need to get a lake versus an inland sea. What the various types of terrain even are and how you would expect them to transition from one type to the next. How air and water currents circulate and interact. Where to put plate boundaries and how they affect mountain and volcano development. The most useful sections on world building are those that refer to how the Earth actually works. There is a table to roll on, but I would consider the explanations of the entries to be far more interesting than the table itself. The book starts off on a very perspicuous note: you are encouraged to begin designing your world by thinking up a "hook" that makes your world different from the "standard" fantasy world. There is some interesting information within, but too often it is hidden within random tables and confused with instructions on how to randomly generate your world.Īlthough it claims that you can read the book from front to back, working from continents to cities, or starting small at cities and then expanding out to build continents, the book is written to start large then zoom in, and that's how this review will proceed. The WHB aims to help you create every aspect of your world, from initial conception through how to design a city. What I got was a slightly different product. I was hoping for such a resource when I purchased the World Builder's Guidebook ( WBG). They may want a resource to add the extra details or realism that their imagination can't supply. They know, for example, about a couple of cultures and a continent or two. ![]() Most people I know have a fairly good idea of what their world will be like before they actually start to "create" it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |