We were just talking about marrying pets. How about we start with some nonsense like "In which ways would our society change if pets could suddenly talk telepathically with their owners?"
That would be too broad/opinion-based for the site, but maybe for a chat session good
So I'm writing a book perhaps a fantasy or sci-fi I could spend years obsessing over the differences between each cultures eating utensils creating a whole rich and vibrant history for them. The plot of my book is about some chosen teenager destined to save the world and along the way learn the power of friendship.
@sphennings Erm... When you're on your deathbed and urgently need to spend the remaining few minutes of your life writing down the world you've already built instead of expanding it?
If it's only tangential to your story you should probably not obsess over it. Focus on the situations in which your characters interacts with other races, people, etc.
The problem is that you might get lost in the details and lose track of what you were trying to focus on in the beginning.
Go with the agile programming approach: do what is necessary to ship a product that works and then try to expand it bit by bit
@DaaaahWhoosh I've read advice for making a DnD story somewhere: whenever you explain something to your audience you should ask yourself the most obvious question three times. That way you can answer the most important questions about anything and most people won't ask more
I like the idea of having a recursively called (fractal-like) world (a la functional programming) where you have all the ways (a function) of going about creating your world, then when you need a new part, just use the 'function' to hone in on the bit you need in more detail the more you need it, so you're not creating the new bit exactly as the details for the new bit are already there, just not calculated directly until required
the problem I have with my worldbuilding is that I have to be able to draw all of it, so there's a bunch of little stuff I have to worry about
so I basically have to overbuild, because otherwise once I figure out what everyone's supposed to be wearing I'll realize I'd been drawing it wrong the whole time
but then figuring out what everyone's wearing means I have to figure out where they're from, and what it's like there, and what its history is. I can't just say "there's a diverse crowd of people here"
@DaaaahWhoosh I think you should always overbuild a bit, so that you don't run into these problems if you want to make a second book for example. But you are never showing how some species is eating you shouldn't worry about it until you zoom into the details enough to care about the everyday life
The most extensive worldbuilding I've personally experienced was in a 20 year long larp with one event holder and an obsession for internal consistency. He didn't build the whole world in advance. He created what he needed and every time he added something he wrote down what he added.
@DaaaahWhoosh I suppose the difference between our two methods is that you're creating all the languages of the world that you'll ever need and iteratively improving them until it works, while I'd look at proto-languages, get something reasonable sorted out, then create a method that turns the proto-language into a modern one, which I can role out as and when required
@James my inner nerd is embraced and cherished. There's the occasional eyeroll when I say I got distracted by WB but otherwise, she's very accommodating.
@DaaaahWhoosh How about asking yourself: "Which country/planet are they from? How is the climate where they life? What was the most important event in the recent ~50 years?"
That would be a start without overthinking too much and should help with the basics for clothing. And if you want to talk about the event go on and ask yourself 3 questions again.
@DaaaahWhoosh I found that advice incredibly helpful because when I drift and go "But what was 100 years ago? 200?" it stops me because I have to ask myself "Will I be talking explicitly about that?"
The questions obviously vary depending on yourself and your intended audience, as well as the way you incorporate what you are doing into your "story so far"
If I didn't have such a way to stop myself my perfectionist self would take over and I wouldn't ever get anything done.
yeah, the first one is definitely important for visual storytelling. The second is less important, because I'm not going there any time soon. Same for the third one, unless they won't last through a conversation.
Or you just try to think what your character is thinking. So imagine the situation when they first hear about the race or meet one of them: what would they ask themselves?
@DaaaahWhoosh All you need is a map with an economy overlay showing the movement of major goods and services. It should only take like 5 years to figure it out.
@James And then you realize that the character needs a special thing you haven't thought of until now
@James Depends on the kind of alien race you are imagining. Maybe they don't need houses because their bodies are perfectly accustomed to the weather. Maybe they derive their energy from the sun like plants. What about asexual reproduction?
Economies are in the organized complexity middle ground where you can use some stats but there's also organization that prevents the easier stats methods from working.
