>>5902163>>5901940>Pepe staring at elegiac sunset as a single autumnal leaf falls in mourning, before he leaps off the roof balcony of his concrete tower apartment with an enigmatic grinThank you for this uplifting and optimistic inspirational artwork anon, I particularly enjoyed the migrating murderous swarm of autonomous flying kill drones depicted in the image
>>5902163>>5902221>worldbuildingI think you have amassed considerable anthropological detail and entangled intricacy; perhaps an excessive amount. It is hard for a player experiencing this world to remember it all. Thinking back to the game design dramaturgy,
>>5882673what you really want is less detail that is more memorable or easier for the player to recall, only those touchpoints which can offer interaction. In general, people can only really remember a bare handful of details and things. I think you can still retain these as sort of private dungeonmaster type notes though.
I was reading a list of questions from a translated Italian ttrpg called Not The End recently. This is designed to be a collaborative game with almost no or minimal preparation. They recommend the following simple world building framework:
- what skills / resources are common?
- what skills / resources etc are rare, and a source of wonder?
- what skills, resources etc have been lost, or have never been developed?
- what skills resources etc. are viewed with suspicion, or forbidden?
The reason why you focus on the skills / resources etc as opposed to fascinating depths of construction regarding anthropological cultural practices etc is because these are interactive and support the players in surmounting OBSTACLES, CHALLENGES etc.
If you think about it, your entire world lore and game exists for the purpose of generating gameplay obstacles scenarios and challenges. If you include some detail which a player cannot remember or interact with through the game, it is somewhat superfluous. So I would reframe your lore in a manner that is oriented entirely towards generating gameplay scenarios rpg scenes situations and encounters etc, if you cannot imagine a choice interaction, maybe leave it out
Hope this criticism is not too harsh, I appreciate the detail and effort you have put into this lore paragraph! But I just think subtractive design is better; less is more, more memorable
One other suggestion I might offer is to consider the diegetics of the presentation of this lore. How might it be found within the world? Imagine if you had to convey this lore only through the faded hieroglyphic inscription of a forgotten artifact, or through the untrustworthy words of some hired underworld cut-throat or thief etc. How would the re-telling change? What would be omitted? I wager that a lot of the information would be lost / reduced or distorted etc.
