Advice/Help Preferred worldbuilding tools?

[MrMuffin]

I’ve been developing this universe and its lore, but all of it has been stored on a Notes application. I’ve been considering using tools like WorldAnvil and Kanka to store info there (since they offer more options and features), but I find using those programs daunting. Which ones do you like to use/recommend?

 

[AaronMk]

I just use Open Office and Photoshop

 

[Bacon is fluffy]

I’ve been developing this universe and its lore, but all of it has been stored on a Notes application. I’ve been considering using tools like WorldAnvil and Kanka to store info there (since they offer more options and features), but I find using those programs daunting. Which ones do you like to use/recommend?

I find the interactive map tool in world anvil more convenient than learning gimp or photoshop. In some ways it's real neat, but the main thing is whether your players want to use it. If they don't, its made purely for yourself and no one else.

 

[xuanan]

I've used Kanka and WorldAnvil but have found them to be somewhat inconvenient, even though I liked the linking features to other articles. It's a bit of a nuisance to set up information sometimes, and using those sites encouraged me to fill my world with some useless info because there were a lot of optional categories that I just couldn't skim past, lol. Now I just use Google Docs and use the "building blocks" function and use linking and bookmarking to collect the information. It's nice to ctrl+F to find info I'm looking for straight away too, in one doc, and I can just pull it up whenever I have an idea on my phone or my laptop.

 

[Idea]

I generally do my world building on google docs or whatever I have on hand at the time be it my phone, a notebook, a piece of paper… Just jotting down the random ideas. Google docs is generally what I use for my structured stuff unless I’m world building for something more specific to share quickly, in which case there’s a good chance that I’m making a channel on a discord server or using whatever space I was asked to if I’m in another person’s roleplay.

I did use worldanvil for a bit and I might go back to it sometime though I kinda watched it seemingly get more and more wrapped up in monetization and seemingly shifting features over to packages outside of the standard free package? I could be mistaken I’ve only briefly been there outside of that early period in which I used it.

Other tools are available but I suppose they depend on more specific needs. I seldom need to make a map, Inkarnate was my go to.

 

[MrMuffin]

Thank you all for your answers! I really appreciate them.

 

[StrixDesmodus]

LibreOffice is my go-to ever since the last time I had to replace a computer and couldn't afford Microsoft Office.

Mapgen4
This link has been a godsend for making the rudiments of geographically realistic maps, though I haven't used any on this site yet.

 

[sagenotrllyokay]

I’ve been developing this universe and its lore, but all of it has been stored on a Notes application. I’ve been considering using tools like WorldAnvil and Kanka to store info there (since they offer more options and features), but I find using those programs daunting. Which ones do you like to use/recommend?

Personally, I really enjoy using the free software Fantasia Archive. All the categories are premade, so you only have to do the job of brainstorming, which can be nice for lazy people like me. Also, when you type the name into some categories and press enter, it will automatically create a new page for whatever you made a name for if it doesn't already exist- meaning that you could add a whole load of new stuff into your world just by working on the lore for one character. I wouldn't recommend it to every worldbuilder since it can definitely be a bit limiting at times, but for someone who does it more casually I think it's great!

 

[davy]

I've been using the online version of Sweethome 3D Sweet Home 3D - Draw floor plans and arrange furniture freely to visualize where my characters live. Not sure if that sort if setting building counts as worldbuilding. It was a surfing themed bar, then a crime scene, and then our characters moved in and its quickly becoming a bit if a squat.

You still have to image the blood, knocked over furniture and beer stains (they haven't had time to properly clean it yet), but its cool having a visual of Kat's room + what the dining area would have looked like back when it was a bar.

I'm planning to make multiple versions of the file and update it as the characters rearrange it into more of a living space.

 

[MrMuffin]

Thank you also to those who have just given advice!

 

[Pokeking]

I've just been using Microsoft Word and doing something resembling an outline.

Thanks to my activity here on RPN, I've revisited my King Jojin character and done canon-welding to group related characters, tweaking some of them, so that they could all be residing in the same country. The reason is that if I feature a character from that place, they can refer to different things. It's like how Stephen King books refer to characters and places featured in other works.

 

[Reid]

I worldbuild for a novel I've been working on (not RP)
I use a combination of scrivener (for writing) and Obsidian to act as a wiki of sorts for like... info on people, places, rules on how magic works, cultural stuff, etc. Scrivener is 60$ (USD) software but Obsidian is free.