Experiences In your opinion, what's your greatest weakness in worldbuilding?

[GraySkyl]

I'm always trying to get better at worldbuilding, so I try to look at the things I'm worse at so I can work on those parts. I thought if I heard about the experiences of others, maybe I can avoid even more pitfalls.

My personal greatest weakness is probably making sure that the parts, I'm personally not interested in, are still engaging, and finding an angle that is interesting, instead of using same old cliches you can find in any other world.
I also tend to get attached to the way my worlds work and sometimes have difficulties allowing it to change during the course of a story/an adventure. A great adventure that changes nothing in the world isn't interesting or engaging (imo) and certainly not impactful.

What are your experiences with difficulties or weaknesses in worldbuilding?

 

[Jannah]

Coming up with names for things. I'm terrible with names. Like, I came up with an entire fictional religious order and their functions, yet I do not have a name for them or the religion. Hell, I don't even have a name for what they're worshipping (I'm not calling it a god because it's not really).

 

[GraySkyl]

Coming up with names for things. I'm terrible with names. Like, I came up with an entire fictional religious order and their functions, yet I do not have a name for them or the religion. Hell, I don't even have a name for what they're worshipping (I'm not calling it a god because it's not really).

I feel your pain! It can grind the whole building to a halt

 

[Jannah]

I feel your pain! It can grind the whole building to a halt

It really does, but fortunately it's not anything I need immediately. I do plenty of worldbuilding but then have zero plot, which also halts everything to a stop.

 

[Solivagante]

Ditto the name thing. Historically, I'd say my biggest weakness has been 'worldbuilder's disease', IE trying to generate too much lore/information, even when it's not important to the story. I'd like to think I've gotten better over time at identifying what sort of information is important to share with others, and what becomes just a giant wall of text for someone checking out a thread. The GM may need to know the history of the last several centuries in the setting, but unless characters are exceptionally long-lived or it directly shapes the starting plot, players probably don't - but they might need to know more about the biomes, religions, and economics to build their characters' personal histories.

...But I do still get distracted chasing causation through the setting, even in directions which don't mean anything for the actual plot.

 

[chaotic cat cutie]

The pitfall of worldbuilding for me is, even if I spent hours on my lore or setting, it will always conflict with someone's version of the story they want to see.
So when it comes to worldbuilding, I truly hardly do it at all, I'm easy on myself these days. I set it in either modern setting or a fantasy setting which has fluid boundaries. Meaning, like my players can have heavy input. If they give integrity to the story line and characters through their collaboration of sorts. My worlds are always heavily collaborated or based on an already made world.

That is for worldbuilding with roleplay.

With like my own personal writing. My pitfall is remaining organized with my thoughts. I'm a bit everywhere and my worldbuilding doesn't always have a linear creation to it if you know what I mean. It's all over the place.

 

[GodlyDnD]

I am creative and really like using that for building a world where characters fit. But it just works with my vision. If I work with any other or others on such for any of our writing for role-playing, I would not be able to have them go along with my contribution, it seems that it may appear constraining to them.

 

[zilkzong]

i wouldn't necessarily call this a weakness in the worldbuilding itself, but i never write anything down. it's all in my brain. and i'll forget whatever the name of a place or an object is and just make up something else. letting it all stew and cook and evaporate.

 

[GodlyDnD]

I had a lot in my brain in the past that I planned to use. Things kept going on that kept me from it. Not using it let much of it be forgotten, still trying to reconstruct from it all, yet I know now to rely heavily on what I do write, which I do a lot, more recently, and with this I see my creativity develop and become yet more useful.

 

[Pokeking]

I have two worlds that I've been worldbuilding.

The first features an alternate Earth that's set in the present. It's just like our Earth in every way, mostly, except werewolves exist. They operate under a masquerade system. I'm trying to think of how many werewolves there are in the world compared with humans. I'm big into numbers in that they come up often in my writings. Take the number 23 for example. It's in reference to when I started doing roleplaying. I read somewhere, TVTropes?, to be vague with numbers. Don't mention an exact number. I've also set up a government for them. I think've I've settled on a name. I also wanted to establish an international police force/masquerade enforcement for them, but I've kinda hit writer's block trying to think of a name. What is their new role if the masquerade gets broken which I've been wanting to roleplay. What would it be like if werewolves suddenly announced their existence to us. At least I've decided how that happen.

The second world I've been worldbuilding is actually the first which I discarded in favor of the first. This is my attempt to canon weld. I started with the country ruled by my King Jojin character who was my first OC and has been relegated to NPC status because he was a Gary Stu (I'd really like to revamp the character to create a variant suitable for roleplay). I then took various characters who were of the medieval fantasy scene and began retconning/yadda yadda to make them fit this kingdom. Yes, I'm struggling to think of place names for this fantasy land. However, I think I've been successful in coming up with a government type. It's a constitutional monarchy. I've also come up with a religion. Actually two. The first is the monotheistic religion of the humans of that land. All I've done is come up with the deity and his symbol. He's both benevolent and wrathful. The second was easier to establish because it is the ancestral worship type faith of the minotaurs who immigrated there.

Overall, I'm just thinking as I go and store everything on a word document so that if it comes up, I have something to refer to or make up to fill in the blank.

 

[imawritergurll]

I’d say I get distracted very easily and procrastinate and need to refresh my mind on what I initially built

 

[Bacon is fluffy]

Knowing that world building is my second favorite thing to do when hosting, but I constantly compare my work ethic to Tolkien who died world building.

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Ditto the name thing. Historically, I'd say my biggest weakness has been 'worldbuilder's disease', IE trying to generate too much lore/information, even when it's not important to the story.

If this were a real disease, I'd have a terminal case. I generally have to actively review what I've built to make sure there is enough content to create the atmosphere and mechanics I want, but not so much that it's a fully-defined world. If left to my own devices, I'd probably create a second Earth with another two hundred or so fictional countries. If we're calling this a weakness, it's my Achilles' Heel. I've tried quite distinctively to take measures to minimize this, but it still happens. Especially when I make custom magic or combat systems.

The pitfall of worldbuilding for me is, even if I spent hours on my lore or setting, it will always conflict with someone's version of the story they want to see.

This is another issue of I've faced and I decided to fall on the opposite side of the fence. I don't know if I would call it a weakness, but it certainly is a challenge. I think the level of collaboration for a game and how the GM handles it become some of the defining factors for the player experience, but I don't think that there is one true correct answer.