How do you improve your skills at worldbuilding, both story-wise and with the geography?

>glow in the dark by Kanye West
:3

Read a crap-ton and steal little pieces here and there. Just little pieces though, and make sure your reading is not just the same genre that you want to create. Also, read plenty of historical stuff, especially older things because people tend not to know as much about those so they won't notice that you totally just copied a historical event. Once you have done this, make tons of stuff. Make garbage settings, just churn them out. Now that you've gotten the crap out of your system, sit down and make something nice. You've seen the cliches, seen the pitfalls, seen some good stuff to emulate, now you're ready.

I'd also advise finding a group to work with. You can really get some good results by collaborating with other passionate people. I've made great friends with random idiots that I met online doing collaborations. We're about to start up our third season.

>Each episode following the boy wizard and his pals from Hogwarts Academy as they fight assorted villains has been indistinguishable from the others.

It's a book for children. It ain't meant to be nuanced literature.

Is it bad that I agree with the chad method?

Sometimes it just works. A lot of players don't care about detailed settings, they just want a quick concept of what's going on, some enemies to kill, NPCs that are fun, and treasure to gain while having a wild adventure. They don't care about geography and realism, they want brain-free fun. Sometimes you just have to give the players what they want.

By doing it over and over again. There are no shortcuts.

That kind of attitude is what breeds anti-intellectualism and low literacy.

Oh yeah, because Winnie the Pooh needs more convoluted lore

This is bait, in case anyone hasn't realized yet

>Wuthering Heights
>Shit-tier
I know this is Bait: The Bait, but come on!

>It's only good if it has vast lore
Not even him, but you've just proven his point

By stealing

You know how to get stupid people? You feed them with stupid shit as kids and never apply anything nuanced over them at all, because "those are just kids". Bonus points if you are putting them through corporate-made media, which are openly targetted and tailored for specific age group, thus literally sending them through propaganda.

And I really wish what I've just wrote down was an attempt at bait and not the sad truth.

Aside from the image, this is a more reasonable post than people give it credit for.

It raises the point that it's not just good enough to right more, draw more, or do more to get better at something. I could practice for my entire life doing a few types of kick and get my ass beat when I actually go to fight someone. You won't be getting better at world building if you build a hundred worlds with only superficial differences. You actually have to innovate each time and try new things to get better at it. Improving isn't just some matter of quantity of output.

On that matter I have a friend who always does world building by giving every race it's own little cozy nation on the continent and then changing a few things. He has not improved for all the times he's done this aside from that he found new resources to turn to which have spiced things up a bit.

but that user is correct and when you misuse a meme it stops being a funny joke

Look in the freezer and take a picture

Also, expanding on this. Have you read any of the "old" books "for kids" in your entire fucking life? And I'm not talking abot value dissonance or being full of "inappropriate" things, but what sort of work they've represent, how they were written and what was their content. The sheer fucking quality of them.
Meanwhile for past... dunno, three decades? Maybe a bit more, since like all awful trends in all media it can be tracked down to Reagan administration. Anyway, since early 80s the output of children and teen adressed books fucking tanked and then keep digging deeper once hitting rock bottom. Because the main ingredient was how well it is going to sell and how easy for brain it is. The blockbuster effect, only fucking applied to literature, since it was marketing department calling the shots.

Coffee strains master race!

The important bit is getting (negative) feedback, you can do creative stuff forever but if the only audience you have are friends or an online hugbox then it's extremely unlikely you'll ever get any better

Holy shit, you might be on to something

This, but you do have to part of a community. You can throw your work at Veeky Forums all you like, but most people here don't care to read all the lore in your setting. Find a friend who will rip things to shreds and ask them.

...

This is fine. Virgin side is what the typical user attempts, Chad side is an over-exaggerated ideal that borders on the ridiculous

This is an unsubtle flanderization of the original concept

Let me guess, bottom-left continent is Super Mordor: Grimdark Evil Edition.

Worldbuilding should serve the campaign. If it is not playable, you are wasting your time and will be inevitably disappointed.

That's because it's a recycled Harold Bloom piece, you ninny.

Worse, it is were the decaff savages live.

I'm half chad, half virgin, I have trouble with huge group (3-4 is the ideal for me but I often have to gm for 5) I don't bother with big description and sophisticated word and just go with the flow of the player of the player because I'm not a big worldbuilder.
Also do any of you stand up when you gm? I used to gm while sitting on a chair but for quite some time I tend to stand up for most of the game

I have no idea which one is which, but grab the final result.
I just made them. I don't know how the guy asking for it used it

mother of god

The entire point of a meme is that it changes.

Damn that was some good effort for the segway into the pasta.

How so?

Stop wuurldbuilding and start writing a story. No one gives a shit about your le whacky zanny purple sky filled with glass dragons

In your illiterate assumption that you need vast lore as the only way of making the book good.
Especially since Winnie the Pooh is the testimony how to write an absolutely GREAT book for kids while keeping it as simple as possible, but also not dumbing things down or doing anything "wrong". Maybe, just maybe because Milne wrote is for his own son, so he put an effort into it.

> Harold fucking Bloom
I particularly love how Bloom was asked to elucidate that review, and he explained that any work written without the intention of inspiring it's readers to something larger than themselves was inherently flawed. So books like his personally favorite, Homer's Iliad, were better literature by merit of being an epic that gave children _something towards which to aspire_. (He also takes issue with Rowling's style, but let's ignore that as the Iliad is a fucking translation of a spoken poem.)

The foremost literary critic in America believes that the most popular children's book of the last 50 years, a God-damned 7 part Bildungsroman where an orphan living under a stairwell becomes a high school senior who fights alongside his classmates against a magical dictatorship, wasn't setting the bar high enough. Oh, and then a few months later he wrote that Carroll's Alice was the finest piece of fantasy literature ever written. I love me some Lewis Carroll, but I don't require it being an epic, inspiring tale.

To keep this on topic, I guess I should make a virgin/chad meme about kid's books or something.

>To keep this on topic, I guess I should make a virgin/chad meme about kid's books or something.
I don't think you can make one. The Chad part of it is literally how kid's books are done for past 20 or so years.

Some reheated pasta.

>The foremost literary critic in America believes that the most popular children's book of the last 50 years, a God-damned 7 part Bildungsroman where an orphan living under a stairwell becomes a high school senior who fights alongside his classmates against a magical dictatorship, wasn't setting the bar high enough.
And as much as he went into the deep with it, he was right in few regards:
- writing style is just horrible; I still remember the disappointment of finally reading it in original English and realising how much effort the translator had to put into making those books... readable
- writing a lot =/= writing good (beffiting the argument/bait made by the original user)
- it's a world of magic that is devoid of anything awe-inspiring; it's a fucking British private school for (preferably) rich kids, only with magic and not counting initial scope on that part (weird quirks of the building itself for example), dropped later

I guess I'm just bitter myself with HP, which I've started reading when I was a bit too old for it and finished when I was WAAAAY too old for it, but most of that review was spot-on on all the issues, only then to focus on wrong elements and under-emphasising the true issues.

> old books for kids
Loved the Hobbit, Wind in the Willows, Jungle Book, Swiss Family Robinson, the Narnia books, and all the Grimm's stuff. My kids are going to get these growing up. But I think time has erased large swaths of terrible literature in the past while we get the full brunt of them.

I will have no issues pushing more moderately modern things like Harry Potter, Coraline/Ocean at the End of the Lane, Bridge to Teribitha, or Where the Red Fern Grows on my kids as well.

No you fucking dumb shithead my post implies the complete opposite. Also "convoluted lore" was just one the thing I mentioned, I know there are other shit people always say like "tridimensional characters", "real world critique" or "accurate real life depictions" and etc. Harry Potter is a fine book series for kids to teenagers

I'm not going to try and defend Rowling's writing style, because you'll eat me alive. I think you're right about age being appropriate here as well.

> a world of magic that is devoid of anything awe-inspiring
Paintings that move, pet familiars, letters that scream, all that stuff was right up my niece/nephews alley

> it's a fucking British private school
As someone who grep up in a rural town where reading outside of school was considered controversial (I'm not exaggerating here either), this sounded like heaven to a lot of my younger family

woah dude hella freakin epic post! upvoted my fellow reddditor xD

Disregard geography, acquire Yoshitaka Amano-tier vistas

Its pretty fucking dope. props.

You're actually the one who is wrong.

The virgin is supposed to be someone who in some ways is uncomfortably relateable, so it's a subtle insult and dig at the reader.

The Chad, meanwhile, is supposed to be the absolute polar opposite of everything the virgin relates.

In this way, OP's macro image is actually a great use of the Virgin/Chad dynamic.

HOLY SHIT IS THAT A QUENTIN POST

To have kids, you need to have a partner, user. Or a bit of semen and a doctor help if you're a girl.
I doubt you qualify for either.

>Paintings that move, pet familiars, letters that scream, all that stuff
And how much of this matter after 3rd book?
That's right. It doesn't. It literally just disappears and the series decided it needs to be 'serious' and 'darker'. It's a fucking wish-fullfilment story of a chosen one. Making such material edgy only makes things worse,
>As someone who grep up in a rural town
Just covered it - wish-fullfilment fantasy. That's why it hangs the bar so fucking low. It doesn't inspire to anything at all, since all you need to do is having rich parents/hefty inheritance and being "special". Have you ever noticed that Harry is always this "special boy"? Not his own actions and rarely circumstances, but the fact he's "special" dictate his entire life and course of books action. He could do literally nothing and the whole plot would still happen, only with him spending the year studying rather than wandering around in night. That's not just low hanging bar, but also shit-tier plot structure.

>And how much of this matter after 3rd book?

Fair point, bit middle schoolers weren't going to stick with it if there wasn't some gravity put in.

And I'll also agree that the chosen one schtick is just well tread territory. Fortunately, there were two other main characters who weren't chosen ones that a lot of teenagers enjoy as well.

>Not using the cumstain method

This particular meme needs to die.

>Fortunately, there were two other main characters who weren't chosen ones that a lot of teenagers enjoy as well.
And they still only matter due to the chosen one being their friend. Not to mention the way how the story treats them as literal groupies of said chosen one.

It's badly written (both the language and the style) chosen one wish-fullfilment book that got so popular precisely because it's badly written wish-fullfilment book. But the sheer popularity won't make it good, both as an "inspiring example" (since it inspires to nothing, other than waiting for being declared "special") and style itself (since Rowling is just bad writer, period).
But then again, compared with how CURRENT "young adult" books roll, HP looks like a fucking masterpiece. The amount of the "brave teen faces oppressive totalitarian regime in most brutal fashion imaginable in some sort of bad/dystopian future" shit is just staggering. Before that we had the interim period, when you had all sort of supernatural "special" heroes who's main stick was being special in non-special world.
All of this inspires to nothing. And as much as I would like to agree with the sentiment that "kids reading at all is better than kids not reading anything", it's not that simple. Reading a literal hatchet jobs is as stimulating as reading Harlequins - it only joggs your reading skills. Something you shouldn't even need to jog as a teen.

>Not how it works. You can write for years and still be absolutely terrible. If you don't believe me, just take a look at the dullest franchises in the history of movie franchises.
It is impossible to write for years and not improve when you work with an editor. (This is, on some level, the purpose of an editor.)

>The Harry Potter series might be anti-Christian (or not), but it’s certainly the anti-James Bond series in its refusal of wonder, beauty and excitement. No one wants to face that fact.
...yeah, see yourself out.

Potter is a lot of things, and well-written is one of them. Rowling is a lot of things, but a bad writer she is not.

You don't write stories nobody wants to read full of pretentious vocabulary and rigorously avoiding idioms. Nobody wants to read that shit.

You write in a way the reader can connect with, or you'll never be successful. You find a balance between too much and too little...dialogue, description, pace, progress, etc.

t. published author

I haven't read all the books but are you saying that death in a children tale is edgy? Because that's the darkest thing I know about Harry Potter. And what do you mean everything would sort itself If Harry didn't do anything? I don't remember him getting out of trouble because of his "Potter blood" or some shit, he used his wits and the help from his friends and parents from beyond the grave

I don't seem to have the hate boner against wish fufillment you do. John Carter of Mars was pretty big on that, but I enjoyed it too.

Did you ever read Hatchet? That seems like a more recent YA book you would probably approve of your kids reading.

We misunderstood. Harry could do nothing for the entire year (at least nothing plot-important) and would still end up dragged into the thick of it or went to the thick of it. Either way, nothing really happens in-between. You know, the famous joke about Voldemort always allowing Harry to finish the year, because he cares about his education.

John Carter was THE pulp novel. Well, novels, since the saga is pretty longhty. But that's the whole fucking difference - it was written as a pulp novel. They are by default a wish fullfilment fantasy.

And by "hatchet job" I meant the type of writing, not an author. If there is someone named Hatchet that dabbles in such style, then I never heard of that person, but it would be irony in its finest.

*lenghty

The Harry Potter series is vastly overrated, but the moving pictures and pet familiars retain some relevance throughout the series.

The main issue with the Harry Potter series, from a conceptual standpoint, is not that it lacks fantastical elements, because magic is all over those books (even the food is magic.) The main issue is that the entirety of the story plays out as a domestic drama, which serves to domesticate the fantastic, which in turn reduces its inherent majesty to everyday novelty. Things play out in familiar rooms or contained areas between small groups of people who all share entirely mundane interpersonal relationships that are the prime governors of both their actions and the story's plot.

Combine this with the fact that Rowling had a tendency to pull authorial fiat and just GIVE Harry the victory, and you've covered the major problems with the series. They win the House Cup just cause. Harry survives the basilisk just cause. Harry repels Voldemort's possession just cause. And all the losses that Harry suffers are mere misdirection so the readers don't see just how much everything's been handed to Harry on a platter.

cont.

> It's okay in a pulp novel
I think it's okay in Harry Potter as well, as long as we're not selling it as 'a very-important-work'.

And I meant the book, 'Hatchet'. A teenager's plane goes down in Alaska and he has to survive until help finds him a few months later. He does not have a good time of it.

And that's precisely why it's so dull with the elements, at least for me. There is zero awe in all of the things going, since they serve as less and less important backdrop for a story about a British boy going to a British school and growing up to be a respected British adult after turbulent school years. Even the whole "world saving" angle is comically downplayed if you think about it.

Heard about it, never read it thou. All I know he crash-lands and has the titular hatched with himself.
When I was a kid, I was reading Cruzoe and Wilmowski series (a Polish adventure-edutaiment book series about a young hunter travelling the world right before WW1), let's say that covered all possible "survival story" angles imaginable. Including saving your future wife from snake bite and even explaining why sucking poison out without a hospital around is an awful idea, all without slowing down the pace and making the story any less impactful or interesting

cont.

Dobby's death is the prime example. In a unique turn of events for the series, the trio find themselves in a compelling scenario! They are homeless, friendless, partially wandless, and despite a major success which required them to make the sacrifices that put them in this position, they are completely at a strategic and tactical dead end. Then Harry is a retard and, oops, we've been captured by the bad guys! Instead of this being an even further step down for them, before the day is done they end up with a new home, new wands, new support, and a plot lead so fucking convenient it might as well have come with a big bow and a 'Happy Berthday Harry!' card. Rowling tried to wallpaper over her hacksmanship the only way she knew how: kill a character to make readers feel bad. People die in wars, sure. But every last main character death comes with a plot boost so convenient that it completely sours the experience. Even Dumbledore's seemingly pointless death turns out to be all according to keikaku, and eventually culminates in the biggest disappointment of the series: the finale. Voldemort is killed DUE TO AN ARBITRARY TECHNICALITY! HE'S LITERALLY FINE-PRINTED TO DEATH BY THE AUTHOR! IT'S NOT EVEN ANYTHING THE CHARACTERS ARE AWARE OF OR HAD PLANNED UNTIL THE VERY LAST SECOND WHEN HARRY IS MIRACULOUSLY TRANSFORMED FROM A TOTAL NUMBSKULL INTO SHERLOCK HOLMES, JUST IN TIME TO GIVE OL TOM A GOOD SCOLDING RIGHT BEFORE HIS DEATH! It's totally ridiculous!

There were some good parts to the story, the ending of the third book taught a great lesson and set a compelling scene for future books. Sure, Harry is basically given the victory once again, but he doesn't win everything, and in the end the world is still fucked up and corrupt, and Harry has to accept that his small victory was actually highly valuable.

The books were a great part of my childhood, but they are weak storytelling.

But that's kind of the point, Harry still breathing is a disgrace for Voldemort because he survived his attack, killing Harry is on Vold's five steps plan of taking over the Magic World. Naturally he gets involved on his plans. The other point is good, but it's more of a "plot bones" issue, I'm more interested on the "meat". I have other problems with HP tho

When the last book rolled in, I was 22 and definitely too old to even bother picking it up. All I did was checking the final chapter in a book store. Wasn't surprised at all by such ending, didn't even made me sigh.

Also, you remember it's a worldbuilding thread, right?

I actually read a book about geography and basically, I think I'm becoming autistic.

But yeah nah read up on how things work. If you use it, great! If not, great! It just has to have a reasonable facade of realness to it. No player ever is going to look at your map and think "hey wait a minute, deserts only form on the poleward sides of hadley cells, and this one is on the equator. This game is literally unplayable."

Also rate my map pls senpai

>The great gatsby
>Not the most overhyped garbage ever

Get out.

>worldbuilding thread
Oops.

That's not just bait, it's bait pasta

To be fair, "British Boarding School" is an actual genre.
Admittedly, it's a basically dead one, but things like Tom Brown's School Days and St Trinians are fairly famous.

stolen :3

Without pointing out ocean currents and their temperature, it can't be judged in "autistic" fashion. And if you remove such angle from the judgement, then all that can be said is "yeah, it looks good".
Or it's not, since I have also no idea how big said world is, so it might or might not have continental effect for the climate.

So yeah, looks good, as long as you don't know too many details.

Not enough data to rate it

t. Bachelor of Geography

And my only contact with that genre was through HP. I know it exists. I just don't see the appeal it might have to anyone at all. All it creates is a backdrop for a soap opera-tier drama. Not exactly the thing I'd like to read about as a kid. Especially when it's badly written drama.
Then comes the fact I consider boarding schools one of the most retarded things Anglos ever came up, so it only enhances the "meh" feeling.

I always repeat the biggest creation I ever made was a hatched job based on works of few different people and me basically welding them together for commercial use, so anyone with other aspirations than money in world-building instantly gets a plus from me.

Hey OP, disregard geography nearly completely, and give me interesting people who actually inhabit your world.

I don't care about how much coast line exists outside your city setting. I do care that you have some asshole dedicated witch hunter who's coming for me because I won't shut up about the giant rats that tried to murder me down in the sewers.

The people will make or break the setting, not the map.

Forever GM that recently broke the curse and became a player again (after 14 fucking years!) and I agree to disagree.
People are important, but shit world made up with any thought put into it is just as dull and boring to play in as if it was perfect world geography-wise inhabited by one-dimensional NPCs.
I'm currently after a campaign that was set in Cliche: The World and that thing was fucking painful to everyone, including eventually the GM himself, who realised half-way through how much torture it is for us and then also went out of ideas for locations.

tl;dr you need both.
And from personal experience I'd say the best solution is to keep the action in small area. Something like pic related. You can have an entire campaign in a small valley and nobody will mind.

*without any

I wish my language supported naming convention like that without making each name into five-six words.

Why are only foreign memes allowed on Veeky Forums?
Why does any homegrown meme get janitored, but this import garbage is A-OK?

When you say "badly written" are you referring to the plotting or the general writing?
I'd argue one is fine, and one is pretty mediocre but does the job for a series aimed at children.

As for the genre, as a kid, boarding schools are "exciting", assuming you don't go to one.
There's far more capacity for antics, due to proximity every character's features get exaggerated (the EVIL teacher etc.), and the school and its environs can often become a character in themselves. Also there's often like half a "sports movie" stuck in there, and those are quite popular.

The other modern example of a boarding school book I can think of is Spud, which I recall both myself and friends liking (though crudity helped), which is actually set in Saarf Afrika.

Nah, nah, see

What you do is you take a few clumps of soft clay, throw them together on a baking sheet, enough that you've got a large portion of the sheet covered, and then pour water with blue or any dark food coloring in it. Keep adding until the silver of the sheet is covered, and then you've got your map. Even comes with an elevation guide/reference for plate tectonics if you so choose.

>You don't write stories nobody wants to read full of pretentious vocabulary and rigorously avoiding idioms. Nobody wants to read that shit.
I do as a reader and writer.

>You write in a way the reader can connect with, or you'll never be successful.
Connection occurs on different levels, and have different values. Writing a generic chosen one archetype, or that entertains through escapism, is not the same as writing a character that shows insight into humanity.

>You write in a way the reader can connect with, or you'll never be successful.
What is that way, what do you consider successful, and why should I share your opinion?

Step one
Steal mercilessly. Then make it your own.

Step two
Become interested in literally anything and everything. Almost all knowledge you can possibly gather can be applied to worldbuilding in some way.

Step three
Don't get caught up in your own brain. Don't put shit into mental boxes. Don't worry so much.

Step four
Ask yourself stupid questions and find the best solution possible.

Step five
Do what you find interesting. Not what you think other people will find interesting. Don't feel like you have to add a twist to some race if you don't want to. There's enough "dwarves except they like sailing instead of digging"

Step six
Don't fucking copy wholesale from real life jesus christ nobody cares about your fucking totally not mayan elves they're just mayans with pointy ears that make them harder to relate to or care about.
>But that directly contradicts step 5
Fuck off strawman brainlet.

Making maps the chad way is fucking fun. Good and bad be damned.

Make like the first author on low-tier and bake yourself, faggot.

There's only one definition of a successful author: one who doesn't need another job to sustain themselves (and their family).

...

Cuz our memes are shit. Outside memes are infinitely better and actually funny.

I'm not interested in a successful author, I'm interested in a successful book.

You can be good, excellent even, without being successful.

>collab with other passionate people

thats the ONE fucking thing i need right now. I love my setting so far but for some reason I dislike how its all coming from me when it is intended to be a collaborative world (at least when playing) and none of my friends like just shooting out ideas.

Ay m8, if you want any input I literally have no life and like worldbuilding. Shoot me some deets

>elf slav
IDI NAHUI, CYKA BLYAT!