So a few friends and I have been working on a game world.

We don't have a platform in mind, nor do we have a working engine yet.

What we do have are ideas. Story, characters, mechanics, history and setting.

Throughout this process I have learned a lot about the creation of a world. The task is an amazingly complex one, and the most important thing to remember is that you only need to show and explain what the player will actually encounter and interact with. So what does that mean? Well that means that when you are creating a world, you will want to flesh out every single detail and concept that has to do with the world. DON'T DO IT! All you will accomplish, is bogging down production by describing the attitude and common behaviors of the squirrels in your world. You will spend so much time worrying about the background to a specific scene instead of focusing on the overall theme and how it fits into the story.

Show someone else your work. If you cannot make the story fun and exciting to someone outside the development team, then you are failing in the primary purpose of a game which is to entertain the player.

You must be careful not to fall headfirst into the details of the world like a bottomless abyss, instead grab on to something solid and lean over the darkness below and come up with enough information to form the world.

Now having said all that, I must make a disclaimer.

I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL GAME DESIGNER!

I don't have any previous experience in game design, unless you count messing around with the Morrowind toolset.

Everything I present to you in the course of these posts about world building are things that I have discovered through the exploration of my imagination.

I will also include references and sites which I have looked at when developing my ideas.

Sometimes I will use an example from my own work in order to illustrate my point, but the ideas I express will be applicable to every universe and game setting you choose to work in.

Strap on your goggles and lets dive right in!
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Geography’s Impact on Societies

Geography plays the most important role in the development of civilizations and technology. Dryer, colder climates make it difficult to farm and hot moist forests often provide the best hunting and gathering. It is important to consider the geographic regions we are placing the different races in, because this will ultimately decide the type of culture they develop there and will influence the overall personality of the people. 

The ability to farm allows civilizations to grow past the hunter/gatherer stage of development. The type of crops which realistically could grow in a certain climate, determine how well fed the civilization is. (Refer back to the Hierarchy of Needs chart for more information on the development of a civilization’s culture.)

When farming reaches a level where the civilization is skilled enough to begin having a food surplus, more advanced skills can be developed, including animal husbandry (domestication of animals) as well as the opportunity for creating specialists within the society. Having a food surplus (using less than you produce) means that there is no longer a need for 100% of the population to be devoted to food acquisition and production, which means that some of the population is able to pursue more advanced skills such as metallurgy or engineering. 

Animal husbandry allows the civilization to advance at a much more rapid pace, but there are a certain set of rules as to which type of animals can be domesticated:

1. Animals should be herbivores because they will be easier to feed and less violent.

2. The animals should be social creatures, meaning that they will not fight if in a confined space. This means that these animals will also have an inner hierarchy such as an alpha male or leader of a herd, where the domesticators only need to control the leader to control the rest.

3. The environment plays a role in which animals can be domesticated. For instance, even though they are herbivores and travel in herds, zebras are too flighty from evolving in an environment where there are many large carnivorous predators. You must remember that to many animals, humans are distrusted at first because we are predators after all.

4. These animals should also have a quick turn-around. It does not make sense to domesticate an animal who must reach a maturity of 15 years (elephants) before they can breed when animals like goats can breed after only one year and have several at a time.

Once and animal is domesticated, there are many advantages they offer to the civilization. Here is a sample list of the things that animal husbandry can provide:

? Fertilizer can provides better crop production and the ability to grow more varieties of plants in more climates.

?Certain animals can provide leather for clothing, straps and protection from the elements and the cold.

?Milk adds more protein to the civilization’s diets which helps the people become healthier and stronger. 

?Domestic animals, especially those over 100 pounds, can providemuscle power such as pack animals, transportation, tilling of difficult soil and in some cases even construction such as elephants in Asia who are trained to move large stones or trees. 

?Dead animals can provide bones for tools and weapons and in some cases bowls and horns for communication over large distances.

?Domesticated animals can also provide recycling of unused plant parts as well as human refuse such as rotten food. This recycling helps keep the civilization more sanitary and therefore less plagued by diseases.

Once a society has mastered food production and it does not require 100% of the population to produce food, people are left to begin developing different skills and technologies. People begin to investigate the world around them and experiment with different ways to use different materials such as stone and metal ore. At first the people will use harder stone tools to shape and mine softer stone. Once the civilization discovers the effect of fire on metal ore, they will begin to use it to make better tools and weapons for hunting and farming. At this point the civilization will still be more interested in producing food and the technology developed will work towards this goal.

Once a civilization has mastered food production to a point where they have plenty, they will need to be able to store the excess which means granaries, storage buildings and/or pits. Soon, other civilizations, wild animals, nomads and thieves within their own civilization will seek to take the stored food for themselves by force. This unfortunate turn will require that the civilization protects it’s food surplus by creating a warrior culture. These people will protect the food surplus and the new civilization on a whole. With the more efficient food production and growing population, more and more people will be available to become warriors. This means more weapons, armor and housing. Each of these needs require better engineers, blacksmiths and masons.

A larger population requires more land to farm, and this can lead to territorial disputes and wars where the better equipped, more populated civilization will thrive and conquer the others. Again we see that the ability to farm and grow directly corresponds to the favorable geographical placement of these civilizations.

Agethar’s Racial Development

The aforementioned factors affect our player races in much the same way. One distinct difference is that many if not all of these races will already be familiar with the concept and practice of farming and animal husbandry as well as the value of mining resources and building shelters. We have to look at the placement of our races and decide what kind of resources they will have access to and whether or not they can feasibly build large civilizations or whether they might have to take a step or two back from their accustomed level of development because of geographical region. 

Because these races will need to immediately establish a way of life in unfamiliar territory without the advantages of knowing which animals can be domesticated and which plants are most valuable, we will need them to start off at a lower level of complexity than they are ultimately going to achieve.

Take for instance the plight of the trolls; we have thrown them into a cold, mostly barren environment not unlike Alaska. There will be some animals like elk and perhaps seals which they can hunt and maybe even domesticate at first, but there will be much less for them to eat and build out of. Now coming from a more advanced civilization back on Renere, to this climate, the trolls will want to move south in hopes of finding more hospitable lands to perhaps farm and cultivate. At first these trolls will build easy to move structures and they will revert to a nomadic type of culture as they move south. Hunting and gathering will be their sole source of food at first, and they will use spears and bone weapons to kill. Once the trolls reach more hospitable climates such as an environment like northern Europe and Russia, where more versatile crops like potatoes can grow, we will see them start to re-establish their pre-exodus culture where farming and animal husbandry were common. Now whether this takes a few years, or a few dozen years is open to discussion, but I would imagine that because of the more frigid climate they are now in, and the initial dependency on hunting, these trolls will utilize animal products as much as they can which can manifest in the form of furs, leather, bones and even survival tactics such as cave dwellings or burrowing in the snow, or perhaps building their shelters on the protected sides of large snow drifts.

Goblins on the other hand will live in a dry and hot environment where there are just as few animals and plants and perhaps just as many problems. Where keeping warm was a concern of the trolls, the goblins will wear very little because of the hot environment. Water becomes a scarce resource and large lizard like animals which can live in the heat,will likely be the main type of animal. Carrion feeders and scavengers such as vultures and coyotes will also be prevalent here, feeding off the dead bodies of lesser adapted animals. Perhaps the goblins could magically domesticate the large lizards and use them as their primary labor animal as well as hunting companions and transportation. Because there is little natural water, these goblins will use the blood of the animals they hunt and drink it. Perhaps a camel type animal lives in this area? Or cactus-like plants which produce their water? Much like the trolls, the goblins will use the resources available to them, and build their cities out of animal bones and lizard hides. I imagine this area as once having been a large tar pit where gigantic prehistoric creatures got stuck and died and now the area is covered in their bones. Imagine a goblin palace built out of the skull of a dragon, with lizard skin hung over the windows and doors and you are not far off from what I imagine.

Hierarchy Of Needs



The hierarchy of needs is a common tool used to describe the motivations of people both fictional and non-fictional. A person works their way from the bottom up in sequential order and cannot reach a level above without first meeting the needs of the ones below.

Survival: A starting civilization or person must first attend to their basic survival needs in order to exist. Food and water will be the focus, and all of their actions will be aimed at acquiring these things first. Farming, hunting, scavenging, theft and murder; these actions can all be motivated by hunger or thirst. When an advanced civilization loses its supply of food or water, you will see many of its’ citizens revert to the bottom level of the pyramid and they will do anything simply to survive.

Safety: Once they have found a suitable source of food and water, the next concern is for their safety. People will want to protect their source of food and also will seek shelter from the harsh elements. When there is an economy in play, people will want to be able to use their money to provide for their needs and thus the accumulation and security of that money also becomes paramount.

Love and Belonging: Once their basic survival and safety needs have been met, people will seek companionship and belonging within their society. The quest for romantic relationships and the benefits that arise from friendship will now supply the motivation for the person’s actions.

Esteem: This is the level which most civilizations and people never rise above. Esteem comes in the form of feeling accomplished, being confident, earning respect from others and establishing their place and class in the world. This desire for fame and recognition can lead a person to accomplish great things, or to commit great evil in the quest for fear and respect.

Self Actualization: Once all of their other needs are met, people begin to seek out the meaning in it all. They reach a level of spirituality and seek to throw off the burdens and ignorance of living. Examples of these people can be seen in Buddhist monks and other hyper spiritual and enlightened souls whose sole devotion is the pursuit of inner knowledge and understanding.