How to Create a Believable RPG (Role Playing Game) World
With the rise in popularity of role-playing games across multiple and very distinct genres, there are
significant challenges in creating a believable world for player characters to interact in. Time periods,
religions, history, and other minutiae may be different. Creating a world that is believable is very
important for players to get into the game!
Creating Your Own Role-Playing Game World
1. Start by deciding whether your world will share history with the real one. If it does share history,
decide where it will diverge and why. If it is a new world of your imagination, tell who lives there and
what the history is. Ex: Wars, drastic changes, deadly wildlife.
2. Map out your world. Geography doesn't seem important at first, but it tends to shape long periods
of history. It will define your world's boundaries and shape the psychologies of its people. Which cities
are seafaring? Which cities are landlocked? Which people were the first to receive foreigners?
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Provide distinguishing features in your world at the various locations. For instance, an abandoned
tower in one area and a bustling fish market in another.
3. Create a naming style for you world. Will everyone have names like Ulgar and Hemdall? Or will they
be named Smith and Thatcher?
4. Create a "Bible" of your world with all of the important historical characters and events. Who were
the big players when your world was created? A farmer who was martyred? An alien race that died out?
5. Decide who the characters that enter the world as players will be. Are they natives or travelers
to a distant land? Decide who the characters they meet are, and how those characters' actions are shaped
by their history and culture.
6. Decide on what the factions will be in your world. Decide why each faction exists, what they believe
in, and who the members are.
7. Create a flow of events. Decide what big events will intervene in your world and when. When will
the meteor strike Earth? At what time will Mt. Righteous finally unleash it fatal power?
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