Worldbuilding

Let’s talk about creating worlds. Because, as megalomaniacal as it may sound, this is one of the things that we do as narrative designers.

We come up with the scenery the game is set in, its history, people who inhabit it, its inherent socioeconomic conflicts, its religion, art, geography, fauna, and flora – you name it. 

Moreover, we need to describe it in a way that is clear to other members of the team, so they can use it as input for their own creative work.

Good practices

Every one of us has their own narrative toolbox. When it comes to building worlds, I often find myself starting with the principles listed below.

The setting should be:

• Believable, not necessary in a naturalistic way. It doesn’t need to mimic our physics and politics, but the reality we invite the players into must be consistent, follow an internal logic, and sound true.
• Open, in the sense that it leaves room for expansion. Making games is a group effort, and for better results, we need other people’s points of view. If, as a writer, I describe every corner of the world and every second of its history, I smother other people’s creativity. Using negative space is a powerful design tool, and it leaves room for other creatives and, most importantly, for players.
• Tangible, in the sense that I should know how every aspect of the world manifests. Ideas are cool, but for the players to have fun, the ideas should be made flesh. Players do not interact directly with ideas, but with places, people, factions, and systems. How do these tangible elements talk about the core ideas for our world?
• Dynamic, because a process is always more interesting than a static state. What are the defining tensions of our world? What is the big change that is going on right now? How do we want to involve players in the conflicts that are born from the tensions and the reaction to the change?

But that is just one possible approach.

The Question of Time

In his talk Game Camp France 2024, Robert Kurvitz gives his advice on worldbuilding, based on his acclaimed work on Disco Elysium:

• Spend at least five years building the world before you use it in the game.
• Mine fresh cultural references for rad names to use in your world.
• Always have a lawyer present.

Watch the talk, it is as good, as it is gut-wrenching.

The Question of Teamwork

The first professional advice I heard about worldbuilding came from Ken Rolston’s talk at GDC 2008, Collaborative Writing and Vast Narratives. 

Based on his experience with Morrowind and Oblivion (and earlier, the pen and paper WFRP), he proposed a more world-as-an-amusement-park approach:

• A clear theme to bind the world and the game’s narrative together.
• A good map divided into unique biomes – a.k.a. “You only need one desert.” 
• A key conflict for each part of the world.
• Interesting factions representing the sides of said conflicts.
• And for each faction, a keystone character the player can relate to (or love to hate).
• A storyline that takes the player through all parts of the world, and works for all players, no matter their level of engagement (explorers, pilgrims, and tourists).

Here’s the audio https://gdcvault.com/play/345/Collaborative-Writing-and-Vast-Narratives and here are the slides https://gdcvault.com/play/212/Collaborative-Writing-and-Vast-Narratives.

But enough about the history of narrative design, let's talk about narratively designing a history. 

The Question of History

In his series of LinkedIn articles, Nick Jones, Narrative Designer and Transmedia Producer, describes his approach of using fictional history to create believable game worlds:

• Environmental Storytelling In Practice (Part One - World Building) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/environmental-storytelling-practice-part-one-world-building-jones-7776e
• Environmental Storytelling In Practice (Part Two - Narrative Stratigraphy 1)  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/environmental-storytelling-practice-part-two-narrative-nick-jones-c03ce
• Environmental Storytelling In Practice (Part Two - Narrative Stratigraphy 2) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/environmental-storytelling-practice-part-two-narrative-nick-jones-fltue

I like his workflow, where he focuses on how the history of a place is layered in the environment, now past conflicts feed the current ones, and how they manifest in game systems, at the same time creating an intricate mystery for the player to solve.

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PSA: Changes to this Publication

As it turns out, I’ve lately been too overwhelmed with other topics to maintain a regular newsletter, and it’s not likely to change in the foreseeable future. That is why I’ll be retiring the paid subscriptions soon. 

You will still be receiving occasional mail about narrative design, but I’ll no longer be charging money for the more technical content, as it will be less frequent and not very regular.

Till the next time.