Worldbuilding

[clockwork]

For my first roleplay on this site, I plan on making something along the lines of a zombocolypse dice roleplay, which, I have done in the past, about three times, to be exact, on different sites, which had minor success. For this roleplay, I plan on making something which is in an alternate world that is extremely similar to 1992 Europe, where a large superpower just broke apart into god-knows-how-many-different nations, and everything is only just beginning to recover and get back into order, though the common person isn't the most happy camper at this point. For this roleplay, I also plan on having several countries intervening into the situation, a guns list based around the country it takes place in, factions, etc.. Now for my questions - Where do I start with the woldbuilding, and how much worldbuilding (for each aspect of the world) would be considered "enough", or even "too much"?

 

[Grey]

Conveniently, I wrote a tutorial on this topic which might help you out.


So the way I see it, you can't have too much, but you can show too much. You can definitely have too little, but it varies a bit by which element of the setting (we don't need to know all about a scandal in the police force from five years ago that has nothing to do with the game, but we might need some detail and historical background on a current international conflict).


You'd need to establish, for yourself at least, the catalyst for the collapse, events between that and the start of the game, and publicly available information about factions, history, etc. You'll also need to know anything the players might ask about and try to keep everything internally consistent.

 

[clockwork]

But there is, of course, a too much in many aspects. I could write 27 pages of rare military gear and post that somewhere, but never even dish out a single gat or plastic explosive because all the characters choose not to take the risk to enter the high-security military base in the corner of the city, and I can make a complete map of the world, but only have the characters play in one little city in a province of a country of a large union. Some things, like companies or at least notable people, might help for NPC dialogue and whatnot, but based on what you said, I should make what the characters are expected to know, along with about an extra paragraph or so on the important things in case they ask questions or I have to reference it later in the roleplay?

 

[Grey]

If you have a clear plot in mind, everything relevant to that plot should be worked out even if players won't see all of it. Anything after that is texture to make your world feel real and give options to your players. So yes, you'd probably be fine with that much.

 

[clockwork]

Alright, makes sense. But how should I go about artwork, maps, and picture assets or whatever? Should I have a picture for every single weapon ready on the list or could I just write up a paragraph or so to summarize it's history, features (ergonomics, sight zeroing, attachment possibilities), weight, and cartridge? Is that in itself too much, would just a caliber, sentence of description, and a feed system be enough? I really like it when there are actually options for every gun, but that might be overdoing it, where three or four guns of that category, being a "good", a "decent", and a "crap" version, would just do the trick (damn, that sidetracked quickly). Should I have pictures for uniforms of law enforcement? Should I have maps of countries to show were cities are in relation to each other? Another note is that I currently can't make anything too advanced art-wise anyway, because I'm not on my main computer (refer to signature) and don't even have a mouse to work with, much less anything aside from MS Paint.

 

[Grey]

Pictures are irrelevant except as dressing. If you can't do the job with text description, why are you even writing an RP? If the way things look are so important, maybe you need to re-evaluate what you're doing. Why is the precise look of a uniform important to the plot or characters? If it's a matter of identifying someone, using the line 'dressed in a Latverian Officer's uniform' does the job perfectly well.


Maps should be necessary, clear, and functional, first. If you think a map will be relevant to plot or player action, try to include it.


Artwork is only worth considering if it's a more efficient way to convey the look of an item or location.


How much detail you want to put into weapons depends on how important weapons are in this RP, and how in-depth the dice mechanics are going to be.

 

[clockwork]

Well, for starters, it's a zombie apocalypse roleplay in a somewhat modern setting, of course weapons, specifically firearms, are important. As of now, my mechanics list, based around a D20 or a D100, or in some cases (like weapon malfunctions) a D1000. My mechanics list has everything from maneuverability/ergonomics (which determines the minimum roll for a reaction, and is determined by weight and shape factors) to accuracy while shooting (based around sustained fire, bursts, how skilled your character would be with firearms in general, etc.). Long story short, it's pretty complicated.

 

[Grey]

Good look getting that to fly, on here. Most people are intimidated by systems: one that emphasizes guns to that degree might be a hard sell.

 

[clockwork]

Well, it's all gonna be in the background, after all. I'll just say that you'll have to use common sense and leave it at that, so they'll all be thinking about the factors to some degree, and understand that spraying your submachine gun for thirty seconds and actually trying to hit something won't do much but waste ammo after the first two or three seconds pretty quickly.